Volunteer Activity of Transcarpathian Youth During the 2022 Russo-Ukrainian War

Abstract

The Orange Revolution and the Euromaidan protests led to a significant increase in civic engagement among the Ukrainian population. After the turn of the millennium, civic participation among the Hungarian minority in Transcarpathia also expanded. During the Russo-Ukrainian war in 2022, young people from Transcarpathia played an important role as volunteers in helping refugees in Transcarpathia, on the Ukrainian–Hungarian border, and in Hungary. In our exploratory study, we conducted semi-structured interviews with young volunteers from Transcarpathia. In the thematic analysis, we explored the interviewees’ pre-war volunteer experience, their voluntary activities during the war, their motivations for volunteering, and finally, the potential returns to volunteering. The interviews were also used to carry out type analysis, delimiting three volunteer types based on motivations and frequency of volunteering. According to our most important result, despite the social tensions caused by the war, young volunteers in Transcarpathia show strong solidarity with Ukrainian refugees from central regions, and the activity has generally increased volunteers’ well-being. Another important implication could be that the group of interviewees who only started volunteering during the war may be open to helping others in the future, which could further spread the culture of volunteering in the region.