Pannonian Rusyns

Rusyns in Pannonia, or simply Rusyns or Ruthenians (Rusyn: Руснаци or Русини, Croatian: Rusini, Serbian: Русини), are a Slavic minority in Serbia and Croatia. They are officially considered a separate nationality in Serbia and Croatia.

They are also considered to be a part of the northern Rusyns (Ruthenians) who live mostly in Ukraine and in Slovakia, Poland, Romania, Czech Republic, and Hungary. The main difference between Rusyns in Pannonia and northern Rusyns is language: the language of the Rusyns in Pannonia has more Western Slavic features than the language of the northern Rusyns.

Demographics

Rusyns in Pannonia mostly live in the autonomous province of Vojvodina in Serbia. There are 14,246 declared ethnic Rusyns in Serbia (2011 census). The village of Ruski Krstur in the Kula municipality is the cultural centre of the Pannonian Rusyns. There is a considerable concentration of Rusyns in Novi Sad, where in 1820 the construction of St. Peter and Paul Greek Catholic parish church started and was subsequently completed in 1834/1837. Other villages with a Rusyn majority include Kucura in the Vrbas municipality, and Bikić Do in the Šid municipality. There are Pannonian Rusyn communities in Slavonia (Croatia), forming a majority in the village of Petrovci, Bogdanovci municipality, in Vukovar-Srijem county.

Rusyns

Rusyns, also known as Carpatho-Rusyns or Ruthenes (Rusyn: Русины Rusyny; also sometimes referred to as Carpatho-Russians or Rusnaks), are a primarily diasporic ethnic group who speak an East Slavic language, known as Rusyn. Carpatho-Rusyns descend from Ruthenians who did not adopt the use of the ethnonym "Ukrainian" in the early 20th century. The use of the term Rusyn was prohibited by some governments, as seen after 1945 in Soviet Transcarpathia, Poland, and Czechoslovakia.

Today, Slovakia, Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Serbia and Croatia officially recognize contemporary Rusyns (or Ruthenes) as an ethnic minority. In 2007, Carpatho-Rusyns were recognized as a separate ethnicity in Ukraine by the Zakarpattia Regional Council, and in 2012 the Rusyn language gained official regional status in certain areas of the province. Most contemporary self-identified ethnic Rusyns live outside of Ukraine.

Of the estimated 1.2 million people of Rusyn origin, only 98,900 have officially identified themselves politically or ethnically as such, according to contemporary censuses, due to among other reasons, the Ukrainian government's refusal to list Rusyn as an ethnic identity on any census forms. The ethnic classification of Rusyns as a separate East Slavic ethnicity distinct from Russians, Ukrainians, and Belarusians is, however, politically controversial. The majority of Ukrainian scholars consider Rusyns to be an ethnic subgroup of the Ukrainian people. This is disputed by some Lemko scholars. According to the 2001 Ukrainian Census about a third of Rusyns in Ukraine speak the Ukrainian language, while others stick to their native form.