Mukachevo better known as Munkacs by the Jewish community that once flourished there, is at the nexus of a region that has changed sovereignty five times within the past one hundred years. The changes are reflected in the various names by which this region, known as Subcarpathian Ruthenia in English, has been called: Carpaten, Podkarpatskaya Rus, Carpatho-Ukraine and Zakarpatskaya Oblast. The region’s administrative center has always been Uzhgorod/Ungvar and its commercial center had been Munkacs.

For most of its history the town was called by its Hungarian name, Munkacs. However, maps published at different times have displayed the name as Munkatsch (German) Munkacz (Polish), Mukacevo (Czech) and currently in its Russian now Ukrainian designation, Mukachevo. For a period of eighteen years, from 1920 until November 1938 Subcarpathian Ruthenia was a part of the newly created Czechoslovakia.