Mapping an (In)visible Borderland: Carpatho-Ukraine and its Shifting Borders, 1918–1922

Carpatho-Ukraine is notorious for the many border shifts it experienced during the inter-war period. However, in the first months after the First World War, Carpatho-Ukraine was an almost “invisible” territory. Early maps often refrained from drawing clear lines of division in this rural, mountainous region. This led to the assumption that this part of the former Kingdom of Hungary was uncontested and would remain a territory of Hungary. However, as the negotiations continued, Czechoslovak claims to the territory, although they were made rather reluctantly, swiftly gained ground. All of a sudden, this previously „invisible“ region on the European periphery became a corner stone in the scramble for territory that followed the collapse of the Habsburg Empire. Why did a rural region on the European periphery become an epicentre of territorial interests? How did this sudden transformation occur and what role did maps play in this process?