Carpatho-Rusyns

Andy Warhol • Nestor Kukolnik • Oleksandr Dukhnovych • Vladimir Fekula • Michael Strank
Regions with significant populations
Slovakia 33,482 [1]  Ukraine 10,100 [2]  Serbia 15,626 [3]  Hungary 10,000 [4]  Romania 7,000[citation needed]  Poland 5,800[citation needed]  Croatia 2,879 [5]  Czech Republic 1,109 [6]
Languages
Rusyn, Ukrainian, Slovak
Religion
Eastern Orthodox, Greek Catholic
Related ethnic groups
Belarusians, Russians, Slovaks, Ukrainians

Carpatho-Rusyns or Ruthenes (Rusyn: Русины, Rusyns, also sometimes referred to as Carpatho-Russians or Rusnaks) are a primarily diasporic ethnic group who speak an Eastern Slavic language, known as Rusyn. Carpatho-Rusyns descend from a minority of Ruthenians who did not adopt the use of the ethnonym "Ukrainian" in the early twentieth century. The use of the term Rusyn was prohibited by some governments, as seen after 1945 in Soviet Transcarpathia, Poland, and Czechoslovakia.^[7]

Today, Slovakia, Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Serbia and Croatia officially recognize contemporary Rusyns (or Ruthenes) as an ethnic minority.^[8] In 2007, Carpatho-Rusyns were recognized as a separate ethnicity in Ukraine by the Zakarpattia Regional Council. Rusyns within Ukraine have Ukrainian citizenship, and most have adopted a Ukrainian ethnic identity.^[2] Most contemporary self-identified ethnic Rusyns live outside of Ukraine.

Of the estimated 1.2 million people^[7] of Rusyn origin, only 55,000 have officially identified themselves politically or ethnically as such, according to contemporary censuses.^[who?] The ethnic classification of Rusyns as a separate East Slavic ethnicity distinct from Russians, Ukrainians, and Belarusians is, however, controversial.^[9][10][11] The majority of Ukrainian scholars, as well as some Rusyns when considering their self-identification, consider Rusyns to be an ethnic subgroup of the Ukrainian people.^[12][13] This is disputed by some Lemko scholars.^[14]

The terms Rusyn, Ruthenes, Rusniak, Lemak, Lyshak and Lemko are considered by some scholars to be historic, local, and synonymical names for Carpathian Ukrainians. Others hold that the terms Lemko or Rusnak are simply regional variations for Rusyn or Ruthene.^[7]

Location[link]

Until the middle of the 19th century, ethnic Ukrainians referred to themselves as Ruthenians ("Rusyns" in Ukrainian, "Ruthenes" in Hungary). This term continues to be used today and is found in Ukrainian folk songs. The ethnonym Ukrainian came into widespread use only in modern times for political reasons, replacing the ethnonym Ruthenian initially in Sloboda Ukraina, then on the banks of the Dnieper River, and spreading to western Ukraine in the beginning of 20th century. Today a minority group continues to use the ethnonym Rusyn for self-identification. These are primarily people living in the mountainous Transcarpathian region of western Ukraine and adjacent areas in Slovakia who use it to distinguish themselves from Ukrainians living in the central regions of Ukraine. Having eschewed the ethnonym Ukrainian, the Rusyns are asserting a local and separate Rusyn ethnic identity. Their distinctiveness as an ethnicity is, however, disputed.

Those Rusyns who self-identify today have traditionally come from or had ancestors who came from the Eastern Carpathian Mountain region. This region is often referred to as Carpathian Ruthenia. There are resettled Rusyn communities located in the Pannonian Plain, parts of present-day Serbia (particularly in Vojvodina – see also Ethnic groups of Vojvodina), as well as present-day Croatia (in the region of Slavonia). Rusyns also migrated and settled in Prnjavor, a town in the northern region of present-day Bosnia and Herzegovina. Analysis of population genetics shows statistical differences between Lemkos, Boykos, Hutzuls, and other Slavic or European populations.^[15]

Many Rusyns emigrated to the United States and Canada. With the advent of modern communications such as the Internet, they are able to reconnect as a community. Concerns are being voiced regarding the preservation of their unique ethnic and cultural legacy.

History[link]

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Rusyns formed two ephemeral states after World War I: the Lemko-Rusyn Republic and Komancza Republic. Prior to this time, some of the founders of the Lemko-Rusyn Republic were sentenced to death or imprisoned in Talerhof by the prosecuting attorney Kost Levytsky (Ukrainian: Кость Леви́цький), future president of the West Ukrainian National Republic.^[16] In the interwar period, the Rusyn diaspora in Czechoslovakia enjoyed liberal conditions to develop their culture (in comparison to Ukrainians in Poland or Romania).^[17] The Republic of Carpatho-Ukraine, which existed for one day on March 15, 1939, before it was occupied by Hungarian troops, is sometimes considered to have been a self-determining Rusyn state that had intentions to unite with Kiev.^{[citation needed]} The Republic's president, Avgustyn Voloshyn, was an advocate of writing in Rusyn.^{[citation needed]} Ukrainian insurgents from Galicia did attempt to bolster the defences of Carpatho-Ukraine but were unable to resist the Hungarian invaders, supported as the latter were by Nazi Germany.

The Rusyns have always been subject to larger neighbouring powers, such as Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Slovakia, Poland, the Soviet Union, Ukraine, and Russia. In contrast to the modern Ukrainian national movement that united Western Ukrainians with those in the rest of Ukraine, the Rusyn national movement took two forms: one considered Rusyns a separate East Slavic nation, while the other was based on the concept of fraternal unity with Russians.

Most of the predecessors of the Eastern Slavic inhabitants of present-day Western Ukraine, as well as of Western Belarus, referred to themselves as Ruthenians (Rusyns) (Ukrainian: Русини, translit. Rusyny) prior to the nineteenth century. Many of them became active participants in the creation of the Ukrainian nation and came to call themselves Ukrainians (Ukrainian: Українці, translit. Ukrayintsi). There were, however, ethnic Rusyn enclaves, which were not a part of this movement: those living on the border of the same territory or in more isolated regions, such as the people from Carpathian Ruthenia, Poleshuks, or the Rusyns of Podlaskie. With no reason to change their self-identifying monikers, these groups continue to refer to themselves as Rusyns.

According to a 2001 Ukrainian census,^[18] an overwhelming majority of Boykos, Lemkos, Hutsuls, Verkhovyntsi and Dolynians in Ukraine stated their nationality as Ukrainian. However, some of these ethnic groups consider themselves to be separate ethnicities, while others identify themselves as Rusyns. About 10,100 people, or 0.8%, of Ukraine's Zakarpattia Oblast (Province) identified themselves as Rusyns; by contrast, 1,010,000 considered themselves Ukrainians.^[2] Research conducted by the University of Cambridge during the height of political Rusynism in the mid-1990s that focused on five specific regions within the Zakarpattia Oblast having the strongest pro-Rusyn cultural and political activism, found that only nine percent of the population of these areas claimed Rusyn ethnicity.^[19][20] These numbers may change with the further acceptance of Rusyn identity and the Rusyn language in educational systems in the area; nevertheless in the present day, according to the Ukrainian census, most - over 99% - of the local inhabitants consider themselves to be Ukrainians.^[2]

Pannonian Rusyns in Vojvodina, Serbia (2002 census)

The Rusyn national movement is much stronger among those Rusyn groups that became geographically separated from present-day Ukrainian territories, for example the Rusyn emigrants in the United States and Canada, as well as the Rusyns living within the borders of Slovakia. The 2001 census in Slovakia showed that 24,000 people considered themselves ethnically Rusyn while 11,000 considered themselves to be ethnically Ukrainian.^[21] The Pannonian Rusyns in Serbia, who migrated there during the rule of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, also consider themselves to be Rusyns. In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, some Rusyns resettled in Vojvodina (in present day Serbia), as well as in Slavonia (in present-day Croatia). Still other Rusyns migrated to the northern regions of present Bosnia and Herzegovina. Until the 1971 Yugoslav census, both Ukrainians (Serbian: Украјинци, tr. Ukrajinci) and Rusyns (Serbian: Русини, tr. Rusini) in these areas were recorded collectively as "Ruthenes". Podkarpatskije Rusiny is considered the Rusyn "national anthem".^{[citation needed]}

In March 2007 the Zakarpattia Regional Council adopted a decision which recognized Rusyns as a separate national minority at the oblast level.^[8][22] By the same decision the Zakarpattia Regional Council petitioned the Ukrainian central authorities to recognize Rusyns as an ethnic minority at the state level.

Historically, the Polish and Hungarian states are considered to have contributed to the development of a Rusyn identity that is separate from that of traditional Ruthenians. Rusyns were recorded as a separate nationality by the censuses taken in pre-WWII Poland (see Cezary Chlebowski's Wachlarz), Czechoslovakia and Hungary.

Trans-Carpathian separatist movement[link]

In recent times considerable controversy has arisen regarding the Rusyn separatist movement led by the Orthodox priest Dmitri Sidor, his relationship with the Russian Orthodox Church or Moscow Patriarchate, and the funding for his activities.^[24][25] Russia has, as a result of the Russian census of 2002, recognized the Rusyns as a separate ethnic group in 2004, and has been accused of fueling ethnic tensions and separatism among Rusyns.^[26]

Religion[link]

In 1994 the historian Paul Robert Magocsi stated that there were approximately 690,000 Carpatho-Rusyn church members in the United States, with 320,000 belonging to the largest Byzantine Rite Catholic affiliations, 270,000 to the largest Orthodox affiliations, and 100,000 to various Protestant and other denominations.^[27]

Greek Catholics[link]

Most Rusyns are Byzantine rite Catholics, who since the Union of Brest in 1596 and the Union of Uzhhorod in 1646 have been in communion with the See of Rome. They have their own particular Church, the Ruthenian Catholic Church, distinct in some ways from the Latin-Rite Catholic Church. These retain the Byzantine Rite liturgy, sometimes including the Old Slavonic Church language, and the outward forms of Byzantine or Eastern Christianity.

The Rusyns of the former Yugoslavia are organized under the Eparchy of Križevci. Those in the diaspora in the United States established the Byzantine Catholic Metropolitan Church of Pittsburgh.

According to the artist Andy Warhol, a Byzantine Catholic from Pittsburgh born to Rusyn parents, the beginning of the film The Deer Hunter shows an authentic Rusyn wedding, although the movie was about Orthodox Rusyns.

Eastern Orthodox Church[link]

Although originally associated with the Orthodox Church of Constantinople, the affiliation of the Rusyn Orthodox Church was adversely affected by the Communist revolution in the Russian Empire and the subsequent Iron Curtain which split the Orthodox diaspora from the Orthodox believers living in the ancestral homelands. A number of émigré communities have claimed to continue the Orthodox tradition of the pre-revolution church while either denying or minimizing the validity of the church organization operating under Communist authority. For example, the Orthodox Church in America (OCA) was granted autocephalous (self-governing) status by the Moscow Patriarchate in 1970. Although approximately 25% of the OCA was Rusyn (referred to as "Ruthenian") in the early 1980s, an influx of Orthodox émigrés from other nations and new converts wanting to connect with the "early" church have lessened the impact of a particular Rusyn emphasis in favor of a new American Orthodoxy.

Another large segment of Rusyn-Americans belong to the American Carpatho-Russian Orthodox Diocese, which is headquartered in Johnstown, Pennsylvania. From its early days, this group was recognized by the Ecumenical Patriarchate as a self-governing diocese.

Ethnic subgroups[link]

• Subcarpathian Rusyns:
  • Dolynians:
    • Lemaks. Lemaks are Rusyns from Bereg and Ung. Lemaks pronounce the word "only" as "лем/lem".
    • Lyshaks. Lyshaks are Rusyns from Máramaros and Ugocsa. Lyshaks pronounce the word "only" as "лиш/lysh".
  • Verkhovynians. Verkhovynians are descendants of Boykos which moved in 17th and 18th centuries from Galicia to highland region of Subcarpathian Rus that is called as Verkhovyna. Verkhovynians currently inhabit the eastern part of Velykyy Bereznyi Raion, Volovets Raion, and the northern and western parts of Mizhhiria Raion.
• Prešov Rusyns:
  • Sotaks. Sotaks are Zemplín Rusyns which live in present-day Slovak districts: Humenné, Michalovce and Sobrance.
  • Tsopaks. Tsopaks are Spiš Rusyns, which use word "цо/tso" within the meaning of "what". Tsopaks got their name because of the frequent use of the phrase "Цо пак?/Tso pak?" that means "What then?".
  • Kraynyaks
• Galician Rusyns:
  • Lemkos
  • Boykos
• Bukovinian Rusyns

Gallery[link]

See also[link]

• Carpathian Wooden Churches
• Carpatho-Rusyn Society
• Red Ruthenia
• Rusyn Americans
• Ruthenians
• St. Nicholas Byzantine Catholic Church

Notes[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

• The Carpatho-Rusyn Society
• Carpatho Rusyn Knowledge Base
• American Carpatho-Russian Diocese

v t e Slavic ethnic groups East Slavs Belarusians • Russians • Ukrainians (Rusyns) West Slavs Czechs (Moravians) • Silesians • Poles (Kashubians) • Sorbs • Slovaks South Slavs Bosniaks • Bulgarians (Pomaks) • Croats (Bunjevci • Burgenland Croats • Janjevci • Krašovani • Molise Croats • Šokci) • Macedonians • Montenegrins • Serbs • Slovenes

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