Lemko-Rusyn People's Republic (Rusyn: Руска Народна Република Лемків, romanized: Ruska Narodna Respublika Lemkiv, lit.

A union with Russia proved impossible, so the Republic then attempted to join Subcarpathian Rus' as an autonomous province of Czechoslovakia.

[2] Its fate was sealed by the September 1919 Treaty of Saint-Germain, which gave Galicia west of the San to Poland[3] and by the Peace of Riga in March 1921 whereby the fait accompli was recognized by Moscow.

In the middle of the 19th century, the question of Rusyn population in Galicia turned into a power struggle between Austria, Russia and Poland.

The spread of pro-Russian sympathies proved successful as there already were cultural and social conflicts between the Poles and Rusyn peasants, resulting in an anti-Polish attitude.

[5] The Russophilia of Rusyn circles came to be combated by the Ukrainian nationalist movements, most importantly the Prosvita society, and by the dominant Polish element as well.

This pro-Russian attitude of National Democrats greatly emporered the Russophile Rusyns and weakened the Ukrainian movement in Lemko region.

In November 1918, an anti-Ukrainian rally was held in Świątkowa Wielka, where Rusyn activists spoke against joining the Ukrainian state.

This made the Lemkos develop a pro-Czechoslovak policy as to avoid integration into Poland, and the pro-Czech attitude was already widespread amongst the Rusyns of Slovakia and Carpathian Ruthenia.

A trial of the council members took place on 10 June 1921 in Nowy Sącz, but the Polish court was lenient towards the Lemko activists and acquitted every defendant.

[4] Following the annexation of the Lemko-Rusyn Republic and the lenient trial, the newly established Polish state ignored Lemkos and didn't interfere in the local political affairs.

[6] On 5 December 1918, the Republic's delegates issued the statement: "We, the Rusyn nation, living in a compact settlement in the southern parts of the Galician administrative units of Nowy Targ, Nowy Sącz, Grybów, Gorlice, Jasło, Krosno, and Sanok do not wish to be incorporated into the Polish state, and wish to share the fate of our Rusyn brothers [living] in Spiš, Šariš, and Zemplín counties as one indivisible geographic and ethnographic unit.