1867 – 1914 District seat, cholera and the boat to AmericaSídlo okresu, cholera a loď do Ameriky

From the middle of the nineteenth century Upper Svidník was the seat of a district — a real administrative town for a countryside of tiny Rusyn villages. That did not make it prosperous. Epidemics of plague and cholera went through, the fields on this flysch soil were thin, and from the 1880s the way out was the same as everywhere in north-eastern Hungary: a ship to America. At the same time the state pressed Magyarisation on the schools and the offices, and Svidník, like every village around it, was expected to become Hungarian in language if not in fact.Od polovice 19. storočia bol Vyšný Svidník sídlom okresu — skutočným úradným mestečkom pre kraj drobných rusínskych dedín. Bohatstvo to neprinieslo. Prešli tadiaľto epidémie moru a cholery, polia na flyšovej pôde boli chudobné a od osemdesiatych rokov viedla cesta von rovnako ako všade v severovýchodnom Uhorsku: loďou do Ameriky. Štát zároveň tlačil do škôl a úradov maďarizáciu a od Svidníka, tak ako od každej dediny naokolo, sa čakalo, že sa aspoň jazykom stane maďarským.