Ethno-historical background of Ust-Chorna, Ukraine

In the mid-1700s, Empress Maria Theresa of Austria devised a resettlement program to encourage lumberjacks from Oberösterreich (Upper Austria) to move to the easternmost outskirts of the Empire. They were supposed to ensure steady supply of timber for the rapidly growing salt mining operation in the area (in the vicinity of the town now called Solotvyno in Ukrainian). Among the insentives were: two cows and a lump sum of money from the government to each family willing to resettle; in addition, the lumberjacks were to receive pensions upon retirement (something unheard of at the time). Unfortunately, Maria Theresa's successors conveniently forgot about the Empress' promises. It is unclear whether it was meant to be temporary resettlement or not, but the 76 families that founded Königsfeld (now - Ust-Chorna, Ukraine) never got back to Austria. During World War II, many were resettled to Germany as volksdeutsche (ethnic Germans living outside Germany). After World War II, some returned to Ukraine (part of the USSR at the time) only to be sent to labor camps in Siberia by the Soviets. In the mid-1970ies, most of the German-speaking Königsfeldites emigrated to Germany. Currently, there are still some German-speaking families residing in Ust-Chorna, but most of them are also considering leaving.

The original settlers are believed to have been from around the town of Bad Ischl in the Salzkammergut region of Austria. There was also the second wave of German-speaking settlers in the mid-1800s some of whom might have been from other areas, possibly, from mining towns in the Zips (also known as Szepes or Spiš) region, which presently is a part of Slovakia. Today, the remaining German-speaking population of Ust-Chorna is in the center of attention of many linguists studying Upper Austrian dialect of the German language. They believe that in this town it has not changed much since the 18th century.

The photo of the road sign in Ukrainian and German is from Wikimedia Commons (see file and license information).

Sources:

The following video is from Podrobnosti.UA (in Russian and Ukrainian):

Unfortunately, they seem to be really low on bandwidth. You might want to read the script (in Russian and Ukrainian) or watch a slightly shorter version of the same video on YouTube instead (below):

Usť Čorná, Zakarpatská Ukrajina at KARPATY.net (in Czech)

Some variants of the geographic names used on this page (read more about these lists here):

• Ust-Chorna, Ust-Chernaya, Ust-Tschorna, Königsfeld, Ustchorne, Ustčorna
• Solotvyno, Solotvino, Solotvina, Solotvyna, Faluszlatina, Slatina, Szlátina, Aknaszlatina