Legal regulation of the solutions to refugees’ issues and population exchange in Ukraine of the xx century: historical retrospective and modern vision

Abstract

XX century was marked by large population migrations – in the world in general, in Europe, which survived two world wars, and in Ukraine in particular. Unfortunately, these migration processes were accompanied by a large number of refugees. Significant groups of the population have been leaving their usual places of residence semi-voluntarily, as a result of optation. It is obvious that in most cases these movements of thousands of masses of the population did not happen without the interference of state institutions with the appropriate regulatory and legal basis – both of international legal and domestic origin. The paper studies the migration processes in Ukraine, primarily during the two World Wars. Both international legal documents which regulated the choice of citizenship (Soviet-German agreements of 1939–1940, agreements with the post-war Polish and Czechoslovak governments, etc.), as well as legislative provisions which regulated migration at the «internal» level, were considered. The article notes that in certain cases migrations of the population were not regulated by relevant interstate agreements, which left large enclaves of Romanian (Hertsa district in Bukovyna) and Hungarian (Berehove district and other lands of Zakarpattia) within modern Ukraine. The latter circumstance in some way complicates relations between our state and Hungary, which is governed by the great-power government of Viktor Orban. The author expresses the view that the historical experience of the XX century is mechanically inapplicable to modern conditions, but certain aspects can be considered by domestic legislators when settling the consequences of the Russian aggression of 2014–202? against sovereign Ukraine.