Stepan Fentsyk (13 October 1892, Velyki Luchky village, Beregsky County, Austro-Hungarian Empire - 30 March 1946, Uzhhorod) was a Transcarpathian cultural and political figure of Muscovite and pro-Hungarian orientation, a priest, composer and conductor. Former minister of the Carpathian Autonomy as part of Czechoslovakia and a member of the Hungarian parliament. Founder of pro-fascist, Black Hundreds organisations in Transcarpathia.
Biography
Born in the family of Greek Catholic priest Andriy Fentsyk and Yuliana Legeza, nephew of Yevhen Fentsyk, a priest, poet, prose writer and publicist, and Irenei Legeza, a priest, writer and public figure.
He began to learn the basics of science at the parish school in Velyka Toronia (Slovakia), where he completed three grades, and the fourth grade at the public school in Šátoroljouhel, his parents sent him in 1902 to continue his studies at the Šárošpotok Reformed Gymnasium, from where, after the first year of study, he was transferred to the Uzhhorod Gymnasium, where he completed grades II-VI. Later he studied at Berehove Gymnasium and graduated in 1910. After completing his secondary education, he entered the Uzhhorod Theological Seminary, where the seminary administration sent him to study theology in Budapest. From 1910 to 1914 he studied at the Faculty of Theology of the Royal University of Budapest, in the summer of 1914 he took a course in French and law at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes Sociales of the Sorbonne University in Paris, and then from 1914 to 1915 he continued his theological studies at the University of Vienna, and in 1915-1917 he studied philosophy. Meanwhile, in 1915, with the permission of the minister, he took the 8th grade exams at the Budapest State Academy of Music.
On 20 February 1916, the newspaper "Görög Katolikus Szemle" announced the good news: "Fentsyk Stefan, son of the Greek Catholic priest-parson in the village of Zarychovo, dean of the deanery of Turya, Fentsyk Andriy, passed the last exam, i.e. the 4th theological exam, with honours on 11th of this month at the University of Vienna (cum laude), and with this the 23-year-old became a doctor of all theological sciences." On 21 April 1918, he received his doctorate in philosophy from the Budapest University of Science. Both diplomas were confirmed by Charles University in Prague in 1922.
On 26 May 1918, Bishop Anton Papp of the Mukachevo Greek Catholic Diocese ordained him a priest as a celibate (without marriage). He spoke 5 languages and taught at educational institutions in Uzhhorod. In 1923, Dr Stefan Fentsyk was one of the organisers of the Alexander Dukhnovych Russian Cultural and Educational Society, which continued the work of the St Basil the Great Society, of which his father, Fr Yevhen Fentsyk, was one of the founders and active members. From its foundation until 1944, he was the secretary, organiser, and leader of this society.
Archdeacon Yevhenii Sabov (1859-1934) was elected chairman of the Dukhnovych Society, and among those elected to the main council of the society were Dr Joseph Kaminskyi, Archpriest Petro Gebey (bishop since 1924), Canon Simeon Sabov, Fr. Emilian Mustianovych, school inspector Vasyl Antalovsky, Dr Mykola Beskyd, Dr Julius Hajega, the headmaster of the Mukachevo gymnasium Mykola Dragula, and the director of the teachers' seminary Yosyp Khromliak.
In 1931, after the death of Bishop Petro Hebei, the candidacy of Fr Stefan Fentsyk was considered among three, and possibly more, candidates, but the Apostolic See appointed Canon Oleksandr Stoyka (1932-1943) as bishop of the Mukachevo diocese on 3 May 1932.
During his stay in America, Bishop Oleksandr Stoyka of the Mukachevo Eparchy in 1934 suspended (defrocked) Fr Stefan Fentsyk "for the following reasons: 1. refusal of canonical obedience; 2. suspicion of schism; 3. a state of life unworthy of a priest." (Dushpastyr. - 1934. - p. 237).
However, in 1939 he was reinstated as a priest. This is how it was reported in the "Circular of the Diocese of Mukachevo" of 2 May: "Father Dr Stefan Fentsyk, the diocesan priest, having settled his disciplinary case with the diocesan government in accordance with the prescriptions of canon law, was dismissed by me (the bishop) for lack of salary and irregularity."
In 1918, the Uzhhorod Philharmonic Society of Music Lovers was organised in Uzhhorod, bringing together all lovers of musical art. The initiator and organiser of the society was Stefan Fentsyk. The Harmonia Choir and the Symphony Orchestra were formed at the society, with Fr Stefan as their conductor and director.
Since 1920, the society has significantly increased its membership and intensified its work, expanding it throughout the region, seeing the main task as the development of music and vocal education, organisation of orchestras and musical evenings. Thus, the first music school was opened at the Philharmonic, with 60 to 100 students. One of the school's violin teachers was Fentsyk. He composed exercises for the violin, which were approved by the Ministry of Schools and Public Education in Prague for use in schools.
At the same time, Fentsyk composed the melody of the anthem of Subcarpathian Rus to the words of Oleksandr Dukhnovych. The notes of the anthem were published in the newspaper "Karpatoruskyi Visnyk" on 2 July 1922. Stefan Fentsyk's concert and performance activities as a musician can also be traced back to the reviews in the press of the time, which characterised him as a very virtuoso violinist and an excellent conductor of choirs and orchestras.
In addition to his usual concert and propaganda work, S. Fentsyk composed a number of choral arrangements of folk songs, choral works based on poems by O. Dukhnovych ("The Sun", "Russian March", "Freedom", "Cantata in Honour of O. Dukhnovych"), and the symphonic poem "Russian Fantasy".
In 1921 and 1922, the Prague State Publishing House published two parts of Songs of Subcarpathian Rusyns composed by S. Fentsyk, containing 70 unison samples.
In 1935, he founded the Russian National Autonomous Party (RNAP). The party, led by S. Fentsyk, defended the idea of the "Russianness" of the population of Transcarpathia, i.e. its belonging to the Russian people, as well as the thesis of "one Russian people from Poprad to Kamchatka". One of the party's main programme directions was to achieve the autonomous status of Subcarpathian Rus within the Czechoslovak Republic, elections to the PR Soym, and the determination of the borders of the region, taking into account the accession of the lands of Spiš, Šaryš, and Zemplín (modern Eastern Slovakia), where the majority of the population was Ukrainian. The party published the newspapers Karpatoruskyi Holos (1932-1934) and Nash Shlyakh (1935-1938).
On 19 May 1935, the RNAP took part in the Czechoslovak parliamentary elections, gaining 29,926 votes (323,645 voters took part in the voting), which enabled Stefan Fentsyk to become a member of parliament. And on 26 May of the same year, elections to the zemstvo and district representation took place. As a result, the RNAP received 28,158 votes.
On 11 October 1938, Stefan Fentsyk was appointed minister without portfolio of the first autonomous government of Subcarpathian Rus, authorised to negotiate with the Slovak government on the issue of borders with Slovakia. However, on 26 October, the government was dissolved and Prime Minister Andriy Brodi was arrested. In November, after an international arbitration in Vienna, S. Fentsyk left for Budapest, where he was appointed a member of the Hungarian parliament.
In 1938, he created the pro-fascist Russian National Guard of the Blackshirts in Uzhhorod. The ranks of the organisation included former scouts of the Dukhnovych Society, who, among other things, confronted the soldiers of the Carpathian Sich with weapons. After the annexation of Transcarpathia to Hungary in 1939, he was appointed a deputy to the upper house of the Hungarian parliament, where he remained until 1944. Eventually losing influence, the RNAP was renamed the Ugro-Russian National Party, which eventually became one of the Hungarian political parties.
After the arrival of Soviet troops in Budapest in 1944, he worked as a translator at the Soviet headquarters. In March 1945, S. Fentsyk was arrested in Budapest by the Soviet military counterintelligence service SMERSH and transferred to Uzhhorod. The new authorities, having studied Father Fentsyk's previous activities and knowing about his extraordinary ambition and desire to play a leading role in the life of the region, wanted to use him in their plans to transfer the Mukachevo Greek Catholic diocese from unity with Rome to unity with Moscow. And for this, they needed a local candidate for Orthodox bishop. But he, although he knew what was in store for him, categorically refused the offer and said indignantly: "A Greek Catholic priest cannot stoop so low!". All subsequent torture and persuasion yielded nothing - Stefan Fentsyk was sentenced to death. The court sentence was carried out on 30 March 1946. His body was taken from prison under the cover of night to the cemetery on Peremohy (Kapushanska) Street in Uzhhorod. His mortal remains rest there in an unmarked grave, levelled to the ground.
On 24 February 1992, according to the decision of the Presidium of the Transcarpathian Regional Court, in accordance with Article 1 of the Law of the Ukrainian SSR "On the Rehabilitation of Victims of Political Repression in Ukraine", Fr Stefan Fentsyk was rehabilitated.
