The participation of Transcarpathian political and church elite in the process of proclamation, development, and defense of Carpathian Ukraine is studied in the paper. Based on the principles of historicism, as well as complexity and scientific objectivity, the author of the paper analyzes the specific historical preconditions for the formation of Transcarpathian political and church elite in the geopolitical processes of the early 20th century. The determining peculiar factors of political differentiation and social segmentation of Transcarpathian political elite of the studied period are outlined, on the basis of which the segmental composition and functional features of Transcarpathian political and church elite in the period between the two world wars are characterized. In the process of historical reconstruction and analytical interpretation, general and special research methods were used, including problem-chronological method, methods of historiographic analysis and synthesis, retrospective method, which generally made it possible to specify the cause-effect relations between the factors which had influenced the formation of political and the church elite, as well as the role and importance of the representatives of that elite in the state-building process during the preparation, proclamation, and defense of Carpatho-Ukrainian statehood in 1939. The political conditions in which the representatives of the political and church elite carried out their state-building activities are characterized in the paper. The social basis of the political and church elite is represented, and the transformation of the relations of the main social and political groups is shown. Functional analysis of the participation of individual representatives of the political and church elite in the proclamation of Carpathian Ukraine, the formation of public authorities, and the defense of the restored statehood is presented. The place and value of the international factor’s influence on the state-building process and the role of the local political and church elite in that process in Ukrainian Transcarpathia in the second half of the 1930s are characterized in detail. Particular attention is paid to the factors that led to the possibility of uniting various political groups around the state formation of Carpathian Ukraine, and the effectiveness of the political and spiritual factors consolidation in this process is proved.