Rusyns - History

History

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. In the interwar period, the Rusyn diaspora in Czechoslovakia enjoyed liberal conditions to develop their culture (in comparison with Ukrainians in Poland or Romania). 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. The Republic's president, Avgustyn Voloshyn, was an advocate of writing in Rusyn. 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, transliteration 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, transliteration 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, 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. 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. 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.

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. 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".

In March 2007, the Zakarpattia Regional Council adopted a decision which recognized Rusyns as a separate national minority at the oblast level. 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.