by Paul Robert Magocsi

Paul Robert Magocsi, professor of history and political science at the
University of Toronto, wrote this five-part introductory survey for
Carpatho-Rusyn American between 1995 and 1996, updating a similar
series the magazine had run in its first issues back in 1978. Taken
together, the five parts form a compact primer on a people who live
without a state of their own along both slopes of the Carpathian
Mountains, spanning Ukraine, Slovakia, Poland, Hungary, Romania, and
their diaspora communities in Serbia, the Czech Republic, and North
America.

Part 1 covers geography, economy, and religion; Part 2 covers
language, national identity, and culture; Part 3 traces the earliest
history of the Carpatho-Rusyns from the fifth century through the
establishment of Habsburg rule; Part 4 continues from the era of
serfdom through the First World War; and Part 5 carries the story from
the interwar Czechoslovak period through the Communist era to the
national revival that followed the Revolution of 1989.

Part 1: Geography and Economy, Religion

THE CARPATHO-RUSYNS

*Copyright 1995 by Paul Robert Magocsi and Carpatho-Rusyn American

• Vol. XVIII, No. 2, Summer 1995 - all rights reserved *

This is the first part of a general introductory article an all aspects
of Carpatho-Rusyn life which we intend to run in the next several issues
of the Carpatho-Rusyn American. We ran a similar series in the very first
issues of our publication back in 1978. Considering the enormous changes
that have taken place in the European homeland during the past few years,
we feel it appropriate to provide our readers with new and updated information.
This first part will deal with geography, the economy, and religion. Subsequent
issues will cover language, identity, culture, and history.-Editor

Carpatho-Rusyns live in the very heart of Europe, along the northern
and southern slopes of the Carpathian Mountains. Their homeland, known
as Carpathian Rus', is situated at the crossroads where the borders of
Ukraine, Slovakia, and Poland meet. Aside from those countries, there are
smaller numbers of Carpatho-Rusyns in Romania, Hungary, Yugoslavia, and
the Czech Republic. In no country do Carpatho-Rusyns have an administratively
distinct territory.

Geography and economy

Three-quarters of the Carpatho-Rusyns in Europe are found within the
borders of Ukraine, specifically in the Transcarpathian region (historic
Subcarpathian Rus'). In Slovakia, Carpatho-Rusyns live in the northeastern
part of the country which is popularly known as the Presov Region. On the
northern slopes of the Carpathians, they had traditionally lived in southeastern
Poland, in an area known as the Lemko Region. After World War II, the Lemko
Rusyns were deported from their Carpathian homeland. Among those who remained
in Poland, a few thousand have managed to return to the Carpathians, although
most reside in scattered settlements in the western (Silesia) and northern
regions of the country. Finally, there are several Carpatho- Rusyn villages
just south of the Tisza River in the Maramures region of north central
Romania, and a few scattered settlements in northeastern Hungary.

Beyond the Carpathian homeland, Rusyns live as immigrants in neighboring
countries. The oldest immigrant community, dating back to the mid-eighteenth
century, is in the Vojvodina (historic Backa) and Srem regions of former
Yugoslavia, that is, present-day northern Serbia and far eastern Croatia.
In the Czech Republic, Carpatho-Rusyns reside primarily in northern Moravia
and the capital of Prague, where most immigrated just after World War II.
The largest community outside the homeland is in the United States, where
between the 1880s and 1914 about 225,000 Carpatho-Rusyns immigrated. They
settled primarily in the industrial regions of the northeastern and north-central
states where most of their descendants still live to this day. Smaller
numbers of Carpatho-Rusyns immigrated to Canada and Argentina in the 1920s
and to Australia in the 1970s and 1980s.

Carpatho-Rusyns do not have their own state. At best they function as
a legally recognized national minority in some-but not all-of the European
countries where they live. As has historically been the case with stateless
minority groups, Carpatho-Rusyns have been reluctant to identify themselves
as such or have simply not been recorded by the governments in the countries
where they have lived. Therefore, it is impossible to know precisely the
number of Carpatho-Rusyns in any country. A reasonable estimate would place
their number at 1.5 million persons worldwide.

Until 1945, the vast majority of Rusyns in the Carpathian homeland inhabited
about 1,000 small villages that averaged in size between 600 and 800 residents.
Aside from Carpatho-Rusyns, each village also had a small percentage (usually
5 percent to 15 percent) of people belonging to other national groups.
These generally included a few Jewish families (small shop and tavern keepers
as well as farmers); Roma/Gypsies who often lived on the outskirts of the
village; and a Magyar, Polish, Slovak, or Czech official (gendarme, notary,.
schoolteacher).

The Carpatho-Rusyns were mostly employed as farmers, livestock herders
(especially sheep), and in forest-related occupations. The mountainous
landscape that characterized Carpathian Rus' never allowed for extensive
agricultural production. As a result, Carpatho-Rusyns were usually poor
and were often forced to survive by working in neighboring countries or
by emigrating permanently abroad, most especially to the United States.

After World War II, industrial enterprises were established in or near
the Carpathian homeland, and many Rusyn villagers moved to nearby cities.
Those cities (Uzhorod, Mukacevo, Presov, Humenne, Kosice, Michalovce, Sanok,
Nowy Sacz, Gorlice, Novi Sad) were most often located outside Carpatho-Rusyn
ethnolinguistic territory. As a result, many Rusyns who migrated to cities
intermarried, attended schools using the state language, and eventually
gave up their identity as Carpatho-Rusyns.

**Religion **

Carpatho-Rusyn churches share elements from both the eastern (Slavia
Orthodoxa) and western (Slavia Romana) Christian worlds. Religion has remained
for Carpatho-Rusyns wherever they live the most important aspect of their
lives. This is so much the case that in the popular mind Carpatho-Rusyn
culture and identity have often been perceived as synonymous with one of
the traditional Carpatho-Rusyn Eastern Christian churches.

The earliest ancestors of the Carpatho-Rusyns believed, like other Slavs,
in several gods related to the forces of nature. The most powerful of these
pagan gods was Perun, whose name is still preserved in the Carpatho-Rusyn
language as a curse. Christianity first was brought to the Carpathians
during the second half of the ninth century. Popular legends supported
by scholarly writings suggest that Carpatho-Rusyns received Christianity
in the early 860s from the "Apostles to the Slavs," Cyril and
Methodius, two monks from the Byzantine Empire. As would be the case throughout
the Slavic world, several pagan customs practised by Rusyns were easily
adapted to the Christian holy days. Thus, the mid-winter festival of koljada
was merged with Christmas and Epiphany; the festival of spring with Easter;
and the harvest and summer solstice festival of Kupalo with the feast of
John the Baptist.

Cyril and Methodius as well as their disciples were from the Byzantine
Empire. Therefore, when the Christian church was divided after 1054, the
Carpatho-Rusyns remained within the Eastern Orthodox sphere nominally under
the authority of the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople. Religious
affiliation helped to distinguish Carpatho-Rusyns from their Slovak, Hungarian,
and Polish neighbors who were Roman Catholic or Protestant. As Eastern
Christians, the Carpatho-Rusyns used Church Slavonic instead of Latin as
the language in religious services; followed the liturgy of St. John Chrysostom;
received both species (leavened bread and wine) at Communion; had married
priests; and followed the old Julian calendar so that fixed feasts like
Christmas eventually fell two weeks later than the western Gregorian calendar,
on January 7. The Carpatho-Rusyns were distinguished as well from fellow
Eastern Christians (Ukrainians, Belarusans, Russians) by certain practices
and rituals borrowed from their Latin-rite neighbors, but in particular
by their liturgical music. That music, still in use today, consists primarily
of congregational and cantorial singing (no organ or other instrument is
permitted). Based on traditional East Slavonic chants and influenced by
local folk melodies, it is known as Carpathian plain chant (prostopinje).

In the wake of the Protestant Reformation (which affected neighboring
Magyars and Slovaks) and the Catholic Counter Reformation, the government
and local aristocracy began in the late sixteenth century to try to bring
the Orthodox Carpatho-Rusyns closer to the official Roman Catholic state
religion of the two countries in which they lived at the time- the Hungarian
Kingdom and Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The result was the creation
between 1596 and 1646 of a Uniate Church, that is an Eastern Christian
Church in union with Rome. The Uniates were allowed to retain their Eastern-rite
traditions, but they had to recognize the Pope in Rome, not the Ecumenical
Patriarch of Constantinople as the ultimate head of their church. Hence
from the seventeenth century, Carpatho-Rusyns were either Orthodox or Uniates.
In 1772, the Uniates were renamed Greek Catholics. Eventually, in the United
States they became known as Byzantine Catholics.

Although in practice there is not much difference between the Orthodox
and Greek Catholic religious service (Divine Liturgy), there has nonetheless
been constant friction between adherents of the two churches from the seventeenth
century to the present in both the European homeland and the United States.
The situation was made worse by the intervention of European secular authorities
who at certain times persecuted and even banned entirely either the Orthodox
or Greek Catholic Church.

Today, many Carpatho-Rusyn villages and cities have both a Greek Catholic
and Orthodox church. Also, in each country where Rusyns live there is at
least one Greek Catholic and one Orthodox bishop. In general, among Carpatho-Rusyns
worldwide, there are today equal numbers of Greek Catholic and Orthodox
adherents. In Ukraine's Transcarpathia, the region with the largest number
of Carpatho-Rusyns, the situation is more complex. Of the 1,210 parishes
registered in 1993, 38% are Orthodox and 17% Greek Catholic. The rest are
Roman Catholic (5%) and Reformed Calvinist (7.5%) - both primarily for
Magyars- as well as a growing number of Jehovah's Witnesses (17%), evangelical
sects (6.6%), and Baptists (4%), all of whom have become wide-spread among
Carpatho-Rusyns, most especially during the last decade.

With regard to church jurisdiction, the Greek Catholic eparchies of
Mukachevo (Ukraine), Presov (Slovakia), Hajdudorog (Hungary), and Krizevci
(former Yugoslavia), as well as the Archdiocese/Metropolitan Province of
Pittsburgh (United States) are each self-governing and under the direct
authority of the Vatican. The Orthodox eparchy of Mukacevo-Uzhorod is part
of the Ukrainian Orthodox (not Autocephalous) Church; the eparchy of Presov
is within the Czechoslovak Autocephalous Orthodox Church; and the eparchy
of Sanok-Przemysl is in the Polish Autocephalous Orthodox Church. In the
United States, the Orthodox are either within the self-governing (autocephalous)
Orthodox Church in America, or the American Carpatho-Russian Orthodox Greek
Catholic Church under the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople.

Part 2: Language, Identity, and Culture

THE CARPATHO-RUSYNS

(part 2)

*Copyright 1995 by Paul Robert Magocsi and Carpatho-Rusyn American

• Vol. XVIII, No. 3, Fall 1995 - all rights reserved *

This is the second part of a general introductory article on all
aspects of Carpatho-Rusyn life which we began in the last issue of the
Carpatho-Rusyn American (Vol XVIII, No. 2, Summer 1995) Considering the
enormous changes that have taken place in the European homeland during
the past few years, we feel it appropriate to provide our readers with
new and updated information.-Editor

Language, Identity, and Culture

Carpatho-Rusyns belong to the Slavic branch of Indo- European peoples.
Their dialects are classified as East Slavic and are closely related to
Ukrainian. Because they live in a borderland region, Carpatho-Rusyn dialects
are heavily influenced by Polish, Slovak, and Hungarian vocabulary. These
influences from both the east and west, together with numerous terms from
the Church Slavonic liturgical language and dialectal words unique to Carpatho-Rusyns,
are what distinguish their spoken language from other East Slavic languages
like Ukrainian.

In contrast to their West Slavic (Polish and Slovak), Magyar, and Romanian
neighbors, Carpatho-Rusyns use the Cyrillic alphabet. Their national name,
Rusyn (also spelled Rusin), connects them to the east, since *Rus'
*was the name of the inhabitants and territory of a large medieval state
centered in Kiev. The many names by which Carpatho-Rusyns have called themselves
or were called by others-Carpatho-Russian, Carpatho-Ukrainian, Rusnak,
Ruthene, Ruthenian, Uhro-Rusyn-all relate to their traditional association
with the East Slavic world of the Rus'.

Despite the seeming confusion about names, the most appropriate designation
is Carpatho-Rusyn, or simply Rusyn. This is the name the
nineteenth-century national awakener Aleksander Duchnovyc: used in poetic
lines in what became the national credo-"I was, am, and will remain
a Rusyn"-and it is the name he used in the first line of the national
anthem-"Subcarpathian Rusyns, Arise from Your Deep Slumber."
Carpatho-Rusynand Rusynare also the names used by most
of the new cultural organizations and publications established in the European
homeland since the Revolution of 1989. In Poland, Carpatho-Rusyns call
themselves Lemkos. This is a new name. Before the twentieth century Lemkos,
too, called themselves Rusyns or Rusnaks. Aware of their origins, recent
publications and organizations in Poland often use the term Lemko Rusyn
to describe their people.

Frontispiece from one of the earliest Rusyn literary almanacs, Pozdravlenie
Rusynov (1851), compiled by Aleksander Duchnovyc.

When, in the seventeenth century, Carpatho-Rusyns began to publish books,
they were written either in the vernacular Rusyn speech or in Church Slavonic,
a liturgical language (functionally similar to Latin) used by East Slavs
and South Slavs who were of an Eastem Christian religious orientation.
In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Carpatho-Rusyn writers continued
to use Rusyn vernacular and also began to use Russian and Ukrainian for
their literary language. The so-called "language question" was
always closely related to the problem of national identity.

Ever since the nineteenth century, Carpatho-Rusyn leaders have argued
about their national identity. Some have felt that Rusyns are a branch
of the Russians, others a branch of the Ukrainians, still others that they
form a distinct central European Carpatho-Rusyn nationality. Each orientation
has used language, whether Russian, Ukrainian, or Carpatho-Rusyn, as a
means to identify themselves. Today there are only two national orientations-the
Rusyn and Ukrainian. The Ukrainian orientation argues that Rusyns are a
branch of Ukrainians and that a distinct Carpatho-Rusyn nationality cannot
and should not exist.

Since the Revolution of 1989, there has been a Carpatho-Rusyn national
revival in all countries where they live, and efforts have been undertaken,
especially in Slovakia and Poland, to create a standard Carpatho-Rusyn
literary language for use in schools and publications. Rusyns in Yugoslavia's
Vojvodina have had a literary language that has been used uninterruptedly
in publications and schools ever since the first decades of the twentieth
century. Carpatho-Rusyns have a distinct literary tradition that dates
back to the seventeenth century. Regardless of what language writers may
have used-Rusyn, Church Slavonic, Russian, Ukrainian--their literary works
have embodied the essence of Rusyn life and the mentality of its people.
Among the most dominant themes have been a love for what is considered
the pristine beauty of the Carpathian mountains and a characterization
of Carpatho-Rusyns as a God-fearing and stoical people, seemingly destined
to be controlled by natural forces and foreign governments over which the
individual has little power or influence. Each Carpatho-Rusyn region has
had its own literary founding father: Aleksander Duchnovyc: (1803-1865)
and Aleksander Pavlovyc (1819-1900) for the Presov Region and Subcarpathian
Rus'; Volodymyr Chyljak (1843-1893) for the Lemko Region; and Gabor Kostel'nik
(1886-1948) for the Vojvodina.

Today there are Rusyn-language newspapers, journals, and books in virtually
every European country where Carpatho-Rusyns live. The works of playwrights
are performed by the professional Aleksander Duchnovyc: Theater in Presov,
Slovakia; the semi-professional Djadja Theater in Ruski Kerestur and Novi
Sad, Yugoslavia; and the amateur theater of the Lemko Association in Legnica,
Poland. The best known current Rusyn-language writers are: in Ukraine-Volodymyr
Fedynysynec', Dmytro Keselja, Ivan Petrovcij, and Vasyl' Petrovaj; in Slovakia-Anna
Halgasova, Mykolaj Ksenjak, Marija Mal'covska, and Stefan Suchyj; in Poland-Olena
Duc'-Fajfer, Volodymyr Graban, Stefanija Trochanovska, and Petro Trochanovskij;
in Yugo- slavia--Natalija Dudas, Irina Hardi-Kovacevic, and Djura Papharhaji;
and in Hungary-Gabriel Hattinger-Klebasko.

Aside from various forms of folk culture, such as embroidery, painted
Easter eggs, and folk music and dance performed by professional ensembles
in Presov and Uzhorod and by numerous amateur ensembles. Carpatho-Rusyns
are most noted for an outstanding form of native architecture in the form
of wooden churches perched on the top of hills, most of which were built
in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. During the first half
of the twentieth century. Carpatho-Rusyns also created a unique school
of painters, the so-called "Subcarpathian Barbizon," of whom
the leading figures were Josyf Boksaj, Adal'bert Erdeli, Fedir Manajlo,
and Emest Kondratovyc. About the same time, Rusyn life in the Lemko Region
was captured on canvas by the world renowned naive artist, Nykyfor Drovnjak.
In more recent times, painters like Anton Kassaj, Andrij Kocka and Volodymyr
Mykyta, and the sculptors Mychajlo Belen' and Ivan Brovdij in Transcarpathia,
as well as the painters Orest Dubaj, Stefan Hapak, Deziderij Millyj, and
the political satirist Fedir Vico in Slovakia have produced a body of creative
work that is dominated with themes depicting Carpatho-Rusyn life and its
environment.

Several museums exist with permanent exhibits of Carpatho-Rusyn folk
art, icons, and painting, The most important and wide-ranging collections
are in Svidnik and Uzhorod, with more specialized museums in Bardejov (icons),
Medzilaborce (modem art), Nowy Sacz (icons), and Zyndranowa (on Lemkos).
Open-air ethnographic museums (skanzeny) with traditional Carpatho-Rusyn
domestic architecture are found in Svidnik and Uzhorod. Others in Bardejov,
Humenne, and Sanok also include examples of Carpatho-Rusyn material culture.

Numerous scholars are engaged in studying the history, language, literature,
ethnography, art, and music of Carpatho-Rusyns. Many are connected with
scholarly institutions, such as the Institute of Carpathian Studies at
Uzhorod State University (Ukraine), the Institute of Rusyn Language and
Culture (Slovakia), the Department of Ukrainian and Rusyn Philology at
the Bessenyei Pedagogical Institute (Hungary), the Department of Rusyn
Language and Literature at the University of Novi Sad (Yugoslavia), the
Society for Rusyn Language and Literature (Yugoslavia), and the Carpatho-Rusyn
Research Center (United States). There are as well several scholars abroad
who specialize in Carpatho-Rusyn themes, including Aleksander Dulicenko
(Estonia), Sven Gustavsson (Sweden), Paul Robert Magocsi (Canada), and
Ivan Pop (Czech Republic).

Part 3: History

THE CARPATHO-RUSYNS

(part 3)

*Copyright 1995 by Paul Robert Magocsi and Carpatho-Rusyn American

• Vol. XVIII, No. 4, Winter 1995- all rights reserved *

This is the third part of a general introductory article onall aspects
of Carpatho-Rusyn life which we began in the Summer 1995 issue of the Carpatho-Rusyn
American (Vol. XVIII, No. 2). Considering the enormous changes that have
taken place in the Europearn homeland during the past few years, we feel
it appropriare to provide our readers with new und updated information.-Editor

History

The ancestors of the Carpatho-Rusyns can be traced to Slavic peoples
who began to appear in the valleys of the Carpathian Mountains in small
numbers during the fifth and sixth centuries. Their presence is related
to the question of the original homeland of the Slavs and the invasion
into east-central Europe by nomadic peoples from central Asia.

Today most scholars agree that the center of the original homeland for
all Slavic peoples was the region just north of the Carpathian Mountains
in what is today eastern Poland, southwestern Belarus, and northwestern
Ukraine. During the 440s, an Asiatic people known as the Huns crossed through
the Slavic homeland and burst into east-central Europe, bringing with them
Slavic peoples, some of whom settled in Carpathian Rus'. A century later,
one of the tribes living in the original Slavic homeland known as White
Croats had begun to settle in the valleys of the northern as well as southern
slopes of Carpathian Rus'.

In the course of the sixth and early seventh centuries, the White Croats
built fortified towns to protect their own people as well as the surrounding
countryside which still included some Slavic settlers who had settled there
earlier during the Hunnic invasions. During the seventh century, many of
the Slavic tribes began to move out in various directions from their original
homeland. Whereas some White Croats remained behind in Carpathian Rus',
most moved southward into the Balkan peninsula. Their descendants are the
modern Croats.

The first important event in the history of Carpathian Rus' occurred
during the second half of the ninth century. In the early 860s, two missionaries
from the Byzantine Empire, the brothers Cyril and Methodius, set out to
bring the Christian faith to the Moravian Empire, which at the time was
centered in what is today the eastern Czech Republic (Moravia) and western
Slovakia. To this day, Carpatho-Rusyns believe either: (1) that before
their mission to Moravia Cyril and Methodius brought Christianity to Carpathian
Rus' and even established a bishopric at the fortified center of Mukacevo,
or (2) that this was accomplished during the 880s by the disciples of the
Byzantine missionaries. Regardless of who actually did the conversion,
it does seem certain that there was some kind of Christian presence in
the Carpathians well before the end of the ninth century.

The very end of that same century brought another event that eventually
was to have a profound effect on Rusyn historical development. Sometime
between 896 and 898, a new Asiatic warrior people, the Magyars (ancestors
of the modern-day Hungarians), crossed the crests of the Carpathians and
settled in the region known as Pannonia, that is, the flat plain between
the middle Danube and lower Tisza Rivers. From their new home, the Magyars
eventually built a state called Hungary.

When the Magyars first crossed the Carpathians, they captured the White
Croat hill fortress of Hungvar (modern-day Uzhorod). There they defeated
the semi-legendary Prince Laborec', who was later to become one of the
first heroes of Rusyn history. Despite their military victory, the Magyars
were initially unable to take control of Carpathian Rus', which during
the tenth and for most of the eleventh century remained a borderland between
the kingdom of Hungary to the south and the Kievan Rus' principality of
Galicia to the north. In the absence of any outside political control.
Slavs from the north (Galicia) and east (who actually arrived from Podolia
via the mountain passes of Transylvania) continued to settle in small numbers
in various parts of the Carpathian borderland, which the Hungarians and
other medieval writers referred to as the Marchia Ruthenorum - the
Rus' March. These new immigrants, from the north and east, like the Slavs
already living in Carpathian Rus', had by the eleventh century come to
be known as the people of Rus', or Rusyns. The term Rusyn also meant someone
who was a Christian of the Eastern (Byzantine) rite.

Rusyn migration from the north and east, in particular from Galicia,
continued until the sixteenth century and even later. This was possible
because the mountains, especially in western Carpathian Rus' (the Lemko
Region), were not very high and were crossable through several passes.
The sixteenth century also witnessed another migration into Carpathian
Rus', this one by Vlach shepherds from the south. The Vlachs were originally
of Romanian origin, although they were quickly assimilated by the Rusyns.
The Vlachs moved throughout the entire range of the Carpathians as far
west as Moravia. Their name Vlach soon came to mean a profession (shepherd)
and legal status (tax-free person) rather than a nationality (Romanian).

Carpatho-Rusyn peasants working on church lands as depicted in a
seventeenth century line drawing.

The purpose of this somewhat extended discussion of early history is
to emphasize the complex origins of the Carpatho-Rusyns. They were not,
as is often asserted, exclusively associated with Kievan Rus', from which
it is said their name Rusynderives. Rather, the ancestors of the
present-day Carpatho-Rusyns are descendants of: (1) early Slavic peoples
who came to the Danubian Basin with the Huns; (2) the White Croats; (3)
the Rusyns of Galicia and Podolia; and (4) the Vlachs of Transylvania.
Moreover, because Carpatho-Rusyns received Christianity over a century
before Kievan Rus', it is likely that they used the name Rusynand
were called by others Rusyn (Latin: Rutheni) even before
the arrival of subsequent Rusyn migration from the north and east. On the
other hand, because their Eastern-rite Christian religion derived from
Orthodox Byzantium, Carpatho-Rusyns maintained cultural and religious ties
with the Kievan Rus' principality of Galicia to the north, with Moldavia/Transylvania
to the south, and other Orthodox lands (central Ukraine and later Russia)
farther east. Carpathian Rus' was not, however, under the political hegemony
of Kievan Rus' nor for that matter of any other East Slavic political entity
until the second half of the twentieth century! Instead, Carpathian Rus'
has historically been within political and cultural spheres that are firmly
part of central Europe.

By the second half of the eleventh century, Rusyn lands south of the
Carpathians came under the control of the kingdom of Hungary. Hungarian
rule remained firmly entrenched until 1526, after which most of the kingdom
was conquered by the Ottoman Turks. The small amount of land that still
constituted Hungary, including Rusyn-inhabited territory, was divided between
the Austrian Habsburg Empire and the semi-independent Hungarian principality
of Transylvania. The Ottoman presence lasted until the outset of the eighteenth
century, when the Habsburgs finally gained control of all of Hungary, including
Transylvania. Consequently, Habsburg Hungary was to rule Rusyn lands south
of the Carpathians until 1918.

North of the mountains, the Rusyn-inhabited Lemko Region that had been
within the nominal sphere of the medieval Rus' principality of Galicia
was, in the mid-fourteenth century, incorporated into the kingdom of Poland.
Polish rule lasted until 1772, when Galicia was annexed by the Habsburg
Empire and made into one of the provinces of Austria. Thus, from the late
eighteenth century to 1918, all Carpatho-Rusyns found themselves under
Habsburg rule, whether in the Hungarian kingdom or in the Austrian province
of Galicia.

Although since the early middle ages Carpatho-Rusyns never had any political
independence, they were recognized as a distinct group within the multinational
Hungarian and Polish kingdoms and later the Austro-Hungarian Empire. In
earlier times, when Carpathian Rus' was sparsely settled, Rusyn and Vlach
mountain dwellers were treated for many decades as a privileged group that
did not have to pay taxes. By the sixteenth century, however, most Carpatho-Rusyns
were reduced to the status of peasant serfs dependent on either Hungarian,
Polish, or later Austro-German landlords. Finally, during the last few
decades of the Habsburg Empire's existence, between the 1870s and 1918,
there was an attempt, especially in the Hungarian kingdom, to eliminate
the Carpatho-Rusyns as a group through a policy of state- supported national
assimilation.

Fedir Koriatovyc, Rus' prince of Podolia and lord of the Mukacevo
domain.

Carpatho-Rusyns were able to survive as a distinct people largely because
of their association with Orthodox Eastern Christian churches in the otherwise
Roman Catholic social and political environment of Hungary, Poland, and
later Habsburg Austria-Hungary. Among the most important symbols for Carpatho-Rusyns
of their Orthodox eastern-rite identity was the Monastery of St. Nicholas
on Monk's Hill (Cerneca Hora) near Mukacevo. This religious center, which
in the fifteenth century became the residence for bishops, was founded
in the 1390s by Prince Fedir Koriatovyc. Koriatovyc was a prince of Podolia
invited by the king of Hungary to administer the fortress of Mukacevo and
the surrounding lands that included several Rusyn villages. As lord of
Mukacevo, he is considered by Carpatho-Rusyns to be among their important
national leaders.

Part 4: History (continued)

THE CARPATHO-RUSYNS

(part 4)

*Copyright 1996 by Paul Robert Magocsi and Carpatho-Rusyn American,
Vol. XIX, No. 1. Spring 1996 - all rights reserved *

This is the fourth part of a general introductory article on aull
aspects of Carpatho-Rusyn life which we began in the Summer 1995 issue
of the Carpatho-Rusyn American (Vol. XVIII, No. 2). Considering the enormous
changes that have taken place in the European homeland during the past
few years, we feel it appropriute to provide our readers with new and updated
information. -Editor

History (continued)

The sixteenth century began a period of transformation in the socioeconomic
and religious life of Carpatho-Rusyns. North of the mountains, Polish landlords
expanded their estates into the Lemko Region where the local Rusyn peasant
population became enserfed. This meant that landlords steadily acquired
control over all aspects of a peasant's life, including the amount of work
a peasant family had to perform on the landlord's estate, the amount of
taxes a peasant household had to pay, even when and to whom peasants could
marry. In order to ensure that these duties were fulfilled, Rusyn peasants
were forbidden to leave their property, even temporarily, without the permission
of the landlord. In effect, the serf became legally tied to the land.

South of the mountains the Hungarian government also passed laws (1514)
that established serfdom in the countryside. Those laws were for some tirne
not enforceable, however. This is because Hungary was invaded by the Ottoman
Turks, who annihilated the Hungarian army in 1526, and who within a few
decades came to control nearly three-quarters of the country. For nearly
the next two centuries all that remained of Hungary was a small strip of
territory under Habsburg Austria (primarily what is today Slovakia and
part of Croatia) and the semi-independent principality of Transylvania
(present-day central Romania) in the east. The Catholic Habsburgs spent
as much time fighting their rivals for control of Hungary -the Protestant
princes of Transylvania- as they did the Ottoman Turks.

Tucked in between Transylvania and Habsburg-controlled Hungary was Carpathian
Rus', which for most of the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was
ravaged by the contlicts between the military forces of Catholic Austria
and Protestant Transylvania. Villages were frequently destroyed by marauding
troops and the size of the Rusyn population declined because of flight
or death by disease brought in the wake of foreign soldiers. Frustrated
with their fate, many Rusyns joined Hungary's independent Transylvanian
princes in their struggle against the Habsburgs. For instance, during the
last great anti-Habsburg rebellion, the armies of the Transylavanian Hungarian
Prince Ferenc II Rakoczi (who was raised in the farnily castle of Mukacevo)
was made up largely of Rusyn peasants. Even though Rakoczi was finally
defeated in 1711, a Hungarian legend arose about Rusyns and how they proved
to be a people most faithful (gens fidelissima) to "their"
prince and country. Another result of the defeat of Rakoczi was the full
implementation of Austrian Habsburg rule throughout all of Hungary.

Bishop Andrej Bacyns'kyj (1732-1809, consecrated 1773), the most
important Carpatho-Rusyn religious and cultural leader at the turn of the
nineteenth century.

For Carpathian Rus' this meant the influx of new Austro-Ger manic landlords,
like the Schonborn family, which during the eighteenth century came to
control large tracts of land and numerous Rusyn villages. The Carpatho-Rusyn
Orthodox church in Hungary was also caught up in the political rivalry
between Catholic Austria and Protestant Transylvania. At the same time,
Poland's Catholic rulers were becoming increasingly alarmed at the rapid
spread of Protestantism within their realm. Faced with such political and
religious rivalries, several Orthodox priests and a few bishops, first
in Poland and then in Hungary, decided to join the Catholic church and
to recognize the authority of the Pope. This was confirmed by agreements
reached at the Union of Brest (1595) and the Union of Uzhorod (1646), after
which the Uniate church came into being. In the course of the next century,
the Orthodox church was banned and all Carpatho-Rusyns became officially
Uniate or, as they came to be known after the 1770s, Greek Catholic.

Unlike the Orthodox, the Uniate/Greek Catholics were recognized as a
Habsburg state church, and in 1771 received their own independent Greek
Catholic eparchy (diocese) of Mukacevo. Financially supported by the Austrian
Habsburg authorities, the Greek Catholic church by the late eighteenth
century operated elementary schools and academies for seminarians in which
the Rusyn and Church Slavonic languages were taught. From these institutions
came Greek Catholic clerics (Ioanniky Bazylovyc, Mychal Luckaj), who during
the second half of the eighteenth and first half of the nineteenth centuries
wrote the first histories of the Carpatho-Rusyns.

*Adol'f Dobrjans'kyj, Carpatho-Rusyn political and cultural activist
during the second half of the nineteenth century. *

The rise of nationalism throughout Europe during the nineteenth century
also reached the Carpatho-Rusyns. They became particularly active as a
group following the revolution of 1848 and what turned out to be Hungary's
failed war of independence against Habsburg Austria. The short revolutionary
period of 1848-1849 did, however, produce three important results: the
abolition of serfdom; the arrival on the throne of a new Habsburg emperor,
Franz Joseph (who was to rule until 1916); and the beginnings of a Rusyn
national revival .

The Rusyn national revival was largely the work of two individuals.
One was the Greek Catholic priest Aleksander Duchnovyc (l803-1865), who
in the 1850s founded the first Rusyn cultural society (in Presov), published
the first literary almanacs and elementary schoolbooks, and wrote the lines
to what became the Rusyn national credo: Ja Rusyn byl, jesm i budu
(I was, am, and will remain a Rusyn) and the Rusyn national anthem: Podkarparski
rusyny, ostavte hlubokyj son (Subcarpathian Rusyns, Arise from Your
Deep Slumber). The other, Adol'f Dobrjans' kyj (1817 - 1902), was a member
of the Hungarian parliament and Austrian government official who between
1849 and 1865 attempted to create a distinct Rusyn territorial entity within
the Habsburg Empire.

Following political changes in the Habsburg Empire during the 1860s,
the last decades of the nineteenth century turned out to be a difficult
time for Carpatho-Rusyns. The empire was transformed into the Austro-Hungarian
Dual Monarchy, which in practice meant that the Hungarian authorities could
rule their "half' of the state without any intervention by the imperial
government in Vienna. By the 1870s, the Hungarian government set out on
a course to enhance the status of the Magyars and their language and culture.
As a result, the Carpatho-Rusyn national revival was stopped by the rise
of Hungarian chauvinism. At the same time, widespread poverty caused in
part by an increase in population and land shortages forced thousands of
young men and entire families to emigrate. A few thousand Carpatho-Rusyns
moved to the Backa region (Vojvodina) in the southern part of the Hungarian
Kingdom, where the first Rusyn colonists had arrived as early as 1745.
A much larger number, estimated between 175,000 and 200,000, left between
the 1880s and 1914 for the industrial regions of the northeast United States.

The mid-nineteenth century cultural revival led by Duchnovyc and Dobrjans'kyj
was able to preserve a sense of Carpatho-Rusyn national identity. It was
not successful, however, in the effort to obtain autonomy or a political
status specifically for Carpatho-Rusyns. All that was to change with the
outbreak of World War I in 1914. For the next four years, thousands of
Carpatho-Rusyns served loyally in the imperial Austro-Hungarian army where
many died or were wounded on the eastern front against Russia or in the
killing fields of northeastern Italy. The war years also brought another
kind of tragedy, especially for Rusyns in the Lemko Region. In 1914-1915,
when tsarist Russia occupied most of Galicia, Austrian officials suspected
Lemko Rusyns of treason and deported nearly 6,000 to concentration camps,
especially at Talerhof near the city of Graz in Austria.

When the war ended in late 1918, the Austro-Hungarian Empire ceased
to exist. Carpatho-Rusyn immigrants in the United States had already begun
to meet in the summer of 1918, and under their leader Gregory Zatkovych:
( 1886- 1967) they eventually supported the idea of a fully autonomous
"Rusyn state" within the new country of Czechoslovakia. The idea
of Carpatho-Rusyn autonomy or statehood was also accepted in the European
homeland. The postwar republic of Hungary responded by creating an autonomous
Rusyn Land (Rus'ka Krajina) in December 1918, at the same time while Carpatho-Rusyn
leaders were meeting between November 1918 and January 1919 in various
national councils that called for union with either Hungary, Russia, Ukraine,
or Czechoslovakia. Finally, in May 1919, Carpatho-Rusyns living south of
the mountains met in Uzhorod, where they decided that their homeland, Carpathian
Rus', should be united as a "third state"with the new republic
of Czechoslovakia.

The Lemko Rusyns north of the mountains expected to be part of Carpathian
Rus' as well, but were rejected by Czechoslovakia. Instead, they created
an independent Lemko Rusyn Republic based in the town of Glorlice. The
Lemko Republic lasted for nearly sixteen months until March 1920, when
its government headed by Jaroslav Kacmarcyk (l885-194?) was arrested and
its territory incorporated into Poland. Finally, the 10,000 or so Rusyns
living in the Vojvodina (Backa) region of southern Hungary joined a Serbian-dominated
national congress and voted in Novernber 1918 to be part of the new kingdom
of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes (later Yugoslavia).

Part 5: History (continued)

THE CARPATHO-RUSYNS

(part 5)

*Copyright 1996 by Paul Robert Magocsi and Carpatho-Rusyn American,
Vol. XIX, No. 2. Summer 1996 - all rights reserved *

This is the fifth and final part of a general introductory article
on all aspects of Carparto-Rusyn life which we began in the Summer 1995
issue of the Carpatho-Rusyn American (Vol. XVIII, No. 2). Considering the
enormous changes that have taken place in the European homeland during
the past few years, we feel it appropriate to provide our readers with
new and updated information. -Editor

History (continued)

During the interwar years, Carpatho-Rusyns in Czechoslovakia lived for
the most part in the province of Subcarpathian Rus' (Podkarpats'ka Rus').
They had their own governor, elected representatives in both houses of
the national parliament in Prague, Rusyn-language schools, and they were
considered one of the three "state peoples" of Czechoslovakia.
They did not, however, receive the political autonomy they were promised
in 1918-1919. Moreover, about 100,000 Carpatho-Rusyns in the Presov Region
were administratively separated from Subcarpathian Rus' and given only
the status of a national minority within Slovakia. Despite such political
problems compounded by existing difficult economic conditions made worse
during world economic crisis of the 1930s, the Carpatho-Rusyns did enjoy
an extensive national revival and marked improvement in their educational
and cultural status during Czechoslovak rule. In particular, they learned
how to live in a democratic society governed by the rule of law.

One result of the newly-found freedom was an increase in religious and
national tensions. Left basically to themselves within a democratic Czechoslovakia,
the Greek Catholic and Orthodox churches clashed with each other in competition
for new adherents and for control of church property, while supporters
of the Carpatho-Rusyn, Russian, and Ukrainian national orientations - each
with its own organizations, schools, and publications - tried to convince
the masses that they were either Rusyns, Russians, or Ukrainians.

In Poland, the Lemko Rusyns had no specific political status and no
hopes for any kind of autonomy. Nevertheless, the Polish government did
allow during the 1930s instruction in Lemko Rusyn in elementary schools
and the establishment of civic and cultural organizations. Also, in 1934,
the Greek Catholic church created a special administration for the Lemko
Region that was no longer under the direct control of the Ukrainian Greek
Catholic hierarchy.

On the eve of World War II, the status of Carpatho-Rusyns changed substantially.
As a result of the Munich Pact of September 30, 1938, Czechoslovakia became
a federal state. In early October, Subcarpathian Rus' finally received
its own long-awaited autonomous government headed by Andrej Brodij (1895-1945).
By November 1938, a second autonomous government headed by the local pro-Ukrainian
leaders, Avhustyn Volosyn(1874-1945) and Julijan Revaj (1899-1978), changed
the province's name to Carpatho-Ukraine. That same month, Hungary annexed
the whole southern region of Carpatho-Ukraine including its main cities,
Uzhorod and Mukacevo. Then, on March 15, 1939, when Hitler destroyed what
remained of Czechoslovakia, Carpatho-Ukraine declared its independence,
but was immediately annexed by Hnngary. For the rest of the war, Subcarpathian
Rus' (Carpatho-Ukraine) remained under Hungarian rule, while Carpatho-Rusyns
in the Presov Region remained in what became an independent Slovak state
closely allied to Nazi Germany.

Meanwhile, north of the mountains, the Lemko Rusyns found themselves
under Nazi German rule after Poland was destroyed in September 1939 and
the Lemko Region was annexed to Hitler's Third Reich. Finally, in the wake
of the German-led invasion of Yugoslavia in the spring of 1941, the Vojvodina
with its Carpatho-Rusyn inhabitants was annexed to Hungary. Thus, during
World War II, Carpatho-Rusyn lands were ruled by either Nazi Germany or
its allies. Hungary and Slovakia.

For most of the war years, the Carpatho-Rusyn homeland did not suffer
any military damage and the economic situation was relatively good. This
did not mean, however, that certain segments of the population were exempt
from the suffering caused by the new political conditions. In 1939-1940,
nearly 40,000 mostly young Carpatho-Rusyn males who were opposed to Hungary's
annexation of Subcarpathian Rus' fled across the mountains into eastern
Galicia, the former Polish region that after September 1939 was annexed
to the Soviet Union. The young refugees, who expected to be welcomed tojoin
in the fight against fascism, were instead arrested, accused of crossing
into Soviet territory illegally, and sent to concentration camps. Three
years later, those who survived were allowed to join the new Czechoslovak
Army Corps set up to fight alongside the Soviet Army against Hitler.

*Msgr. Avhustyn Volosyn, the leading Carpatho-Rusyn grammarian and
pedagogue and later head of the Ukrainian orientation in interwar Subcarpathian
Rus'. *

At home in Subcarpathian Rus', which was renamed Carpathia (Karpatalja)
by the Hungarians, Carpatho-Rusyns had a modicum of cultural freedom. The
"Uhro-Rusyn" language was taught in schools, and Rusyn publications
and cultural societies were permitted as long as they were pro-Hungarian.
Expressions of pro-Ukrainian sentiment were forbidden, however. The war
years were particularly harsh toward the over 100,000 Jews, who alone made
up nearly one-quarter of the population in Subcarpathian Rus'. In the spring
of 1944, the Hungarian authorities under pressure from Germany deported
virtually all of Subcarpathia's Jewish inhabitants to the Nazi death camps
where they perished. As a result, the Jewish presence, which for several
centuries had been an integral part of the Carpatho-Rusyn environment,
ceased to exist.

In the fall of 1944, the German army, together with its Hungarian and
Slovak allies, was driven from all parts of Carpathian Rus' by the Soviet
Army. Among the victorious Soviet forces was the Czechoslovak Corps with
its large contingent of Rusyn soldiers. During the course of the war, the
Allied Powers (United States, Great Britain, France, the Soviet Union)
had agreed that Subcarpathian Rus' should again be part of a restored Czechoslovak
state. In October 1944, however, the Soviet Generalissimo Stalin suddenly
changed his mind. With the help of local Communists, the Soviets prepared
the ground for the annexation of Subcarpathian Rus' to what was described
as the "Soviet Ukrainian motherland." No general plebiscite was
ever held, and in June 1945 a provisional Czechoslovak parliament (with
no Carpatho-Rusyn representation) ceded Subcarpathian Rus' to the Soviet
Union. As for other Carpatho-Rusyn territory, the Presov Region remained
within Czechoslovakia; the Lemko Region became part of a restored Poland;
and the Vojvodina became part of the Serbian Republic within a federated
Yugoslavia.

Father Jevmenij Sabov, an important cultural activist of Russophile
orientation in interwar Subcarpathian Rus'.

Within a few years after the end of World War II, all Carpatho-Rusyns
found themselves under Communist rule, either in the Soviet Union or in
countries under Soviet domination. The last of these countries to become
Communist was Czechoslovakia. That took place in 1948, the same year Yugoslavia
freed itself from the Soviet bloc, although it still remained Communist.

Communist rule had a particularly negative impact on traditional Carpatho-Rusyn
life. During the first few years after World War II, the Greek Catholic
church was outlawed; land was taken from the individual farmers who were
obliged, often against their will, to work in collective or cooperative
farms; and the Rusyn nationality was forbidden. Anyone who might claim
his or her identity as Rusyn was against their will listed in official
documents as a Ukrainian. The Rusyn language was banned in schools and
all publications.

An even worse fate befell the nearly 180,000 Lemko Rusyns living in
Poland. About two-thirds were encouraged to emigrate "voluntarily"
to the Soviet Ukraine in 1945 and 1946. Then, in the spring of 1947, those
Lemkos who had remained in the Carpathians were driven from their homes
by Polish security troops. They were forced to live in the former German
lands of western and northern postwar Poland (in particular Silesia). As
for the Lemko Region itself, many age-old Rusyn villages were destroyed,
while others were taken over by Polish settlers.

The only exception to the sad fate of Carpatho-Rusyns during the post-World
War II Communist era was Yugoslavia. In the Vojvodina and neighboring Srem
region, Rusyns were recognized as a distinct nationality with their own
government-supported schools, publications, cultural organizations, radio,
and television programs. The Greek Catholic church also was allowed to
function in Yugoslavia. Finally, in 1974, when the Vojvodina became an
autonomous province within the republic of Serbia, the Rusyns became one
of the five official nationalities in the region.

Despite the harshness of Communist rule, the Carpatho-Rusyns did from
time to time protest their fate. In Poland during the late 1950s, Lemkos
began to return illegally to their native mountain villages, and by the
1980s about 10,000 did succeed in reestablishing new homesteads or in buying
back their old houses. Some Lemkos also tried to set up their own cultural
organizations and publications distinct from Ukrainians, but they were
blocked in those efforts by the Polish government. In neighboring Slovakia,
Carpatho-Rusyns protested their reclassification as Ukrainians by identifying
themselves as Slovaks and sending their children to Slovak schools. The
result was large-scale assimilation among Carpatho-Rusyns in the Presov
Region whose numbers declined by two-thirds after a policy of forced Ukrainianization
was implemented in 1952. During the Prague Spring of 1968, when Czechoslovakia's
leaders tried to "humanize" Communism. Carpatho-Rusyns in the
Presov Region demanded the return of their nationality as well as the re-establishment
of Rusyn schools and publications. Those efforts were cut short, however,
by the invasion of the country by the Soviet Union and its allies on August
21, 1968. Within a year of the invasion, the hard-line pro-Soviet Czechoslovak
Communist authorities once again banned all activity that might in any
way be connected with a distinct Carpatho-Rusyn identity. Only the Greek
Catholic church, which was restored in Czechoslovakia in June 1968, was
allowed to survive, although it rapidly dropped its former Carpatho-Rusyn
orientation and became an instrument of Slovakization. Thus, the four decades
of Communist rule following World War II brought to an end many aspects
of traditional Carpatho-Rusyn life and led to the virtual disappearance
of the group as a distinct nationality.

Carpatho-Rusyns, like every other people in central and eastern Europe,
were profoundly influenced by the reforms that began in the Soviet Union
after the accession to power in 1985 of Mikhail Gorbachev as head of the
Soviet Communist party. The first changes actually took place among the
Lemko Rusyns in Poland, who as early as 1983 organized an annual folk and
cultural festival (Vatra). The goal of the Vatra was to restore among Lemkos
the idea that they belonged to a distinct nationality that was neither
Ukrainian or Polish, but Carpatho-Rusyn.

A Carpatho-Rusyn national revival really got underway only after the
fall of Communism in 1989. During the next two years, a new organization
to promote the idea of a distinct Carpatho-Rusyn nationality was established
in each of the countries where Rusyns live: the Society of Carpatho-Rusyns
in Ukraine, the Rusyn Renaissance Society in Slovakia, and the Lemko Association
in Poland. This same period saw as well the establishment of new organizations
among Rusyns outside the Carpathian homeland, such as the Society of Friends
of Subcarpathian Rus' in the Czech Republic, the Ruska Matka in Yugoslavia,
and even the Organization of Rusyns in Hungary where it was thought Rusyns
had long ago disappeared through assimilation already by the end of the
nineteenth century. Also, for the first tirne since World War II, Rusyn-language
newspapers and magazines began to appear, including Rusynand Narodny
novynkyin Slovakia, *Podkarpats'ka Rus'*in Ukraine, and Besida
in Poland.

The greater ease of travel following the fall of Communism allowed Carpatho-Rusyns
new opportunities for cross-country cooperation. As a result, in March
1991, the first World Congress of Rusyns and, in November 1992, the first
Congress of the Rusyn Language were held, both in Slovakia. The cultural
and organizational activities that have taken place since the Revolution
of 1989 have in varying countries been assisted by the governments of all
the countries where Rusyns live, except Ukraine. In March 1991, Rusyns
were even recognized and recorded as a distinct nationality in the census
of the former Czech and Slovak Federated Republic.

In the wake of the Revolution of 1989, the vast majority of Carpatho-Rusyns
in Europe found themselves living in new countries. In the surnmer of 1991,
the Rusyns of Yugoslavia became divided by a new state boundary between
a smaller Yugoslavia (that still included the Vojvodina) and a newly independent
Croatia. Unfortunately, the Carpatho-Rusyns of Croatia (about 2,500 in
the area near Vukovar) were in the war zone between Croatia and Serbia
and suffered much material losses and forced deportation as part of Serbia's
policy of ethnic cleansing. At the end of 1991, when the Soviet Union collapsed,
the Carpatho-Rusyns in Transcarpathia voted overwhelmingly in favor of
an independent Ukraine. Finally, in January 1993, the Czechoslovak state
broke up, so that the Presov Region Rusyns now live in an independent Slovakia.

Today, the governments of Slovakia, Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary,
and Yugoslavia recognize Carpatho-Rusyns as a national minority. Rusyn
organizations in each country are concerned primarily with preserving the
group's existence as a distinct nationality through cultural activity,
such as publications and the work of scholarly institutions. schools, and
theaters. In Ukraine's Transcarpathia, however, the emphasis has been on
political activity, in particular efforts to obtain autonomy.

In December 1991, at the same time that the citizens of Ukraine voted
in a referendum for their independence, 78 percent of the inhabitants of
Transcarpathia voted in favor of autonomy (self-rule) for their province.
To date, neither the Ukrainian government nor parliament has implemented
the promised autonomy voted on by over three-fourths of the population
in a legal vote. In an attempt to put pressure on Ukraine to fulfill the
results of the December 1991 referendum, a "Provisional government
of the Republic of Subcarpathian Rus"' was formed in Uzhorod in May
1993, headed by Professor Ivan Turjanycja. In June 1994, Turjanycja was
also elected a deputy to the regional parliament (Narodna Rada), and it
seems that the struggle to achieve autonomy for Subcarpathian Rus' (Transcarpathia)
in Ukraine will henceforth be carried out within the framework of the regional
parliament.

The Carpatho-Rusyn revival that began in the 1980s has not been greeted
with universal favor. Those individuals in each country who accept a Ukrainian
self-identity and who head pro-Ukrainian organizations reject all efforts
by Carpatho-Rusyns to assert their national identity. Local Ukrainian leaders
state categorically that "there cannot and should not" be a distinct
Carpatho-Rusyn nationality. This is because the pro-Ukrainians believe
that all Rusyns are simply a regional variant or "branch" of
the Ukrainian nationality. Such views are particularly widespread in Ukraine,
the only country that refuses to recognize Carpatho-Rusyns as a distinct
people. Despite such denials as expressed by the Ukrainian government and
by nationalistic elements within the Ukrainian population, the idea of
a distinct Carpatho-Rusyn nationality and culture continues to be greeted
favorably, both in neighboring countries where the group lives as a minority
(Slovakia, Poland, Hungary, Yugoslavia) as well as by several non-governmental
organizations based in other countries who are concerned with fate of minority
cultures and languages in Europe.

**Last modified on September 27 1997

Colophon

Paul Robert Magocsi's five-part survey "The Carpatho-Rusyns" (Copyright
1995-1996 by Paul Robert Magocsi and Carpatho-Rusyn American -- Part 1:
Vol. XVIII, No. 2, Summer 1995; Part 2: Vol. XVIII, No. 3, Fall 1995; Part
3: Vol. XVIII, No. 4, Winter 1995; Part 4: Vol. XIX, No. 1, Spring 1996;
Part 5: Vol. XIX, No. 2, Summer 1996 -- all rights reserved) is hosted at
carpatho-rusyn.org (Carpatho-Rusyn Knowledge Base). Captured 2026-08-05
from http://www.carpatho-rusyn.org/cra/chap1.html through chap5.html.
Published here under permission held by the New Tianmu Anglican Church
for this material, recorded 2026-08-05; all rights remain with the
original author, Paul Robert Magocsi, and Carpatho-Rusyn American.
Statistical tables from Part 1 are reproduced as plain text; a handful of
period photograph captions naming the images (Bishop Andrej Bacyns'kyj,
Adol'f Dobrjans'kyj, Msgr. Avhustyn Volosyn, Father Jevmenij Sabov, Fedir
Koriatovyc) are preserved as running text since the images themselves were
not captured in this text-only preservation pass.

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