An Eastern European Ethnic Group aka Ruthenians, Ruthenes, Rusins, Carpatho-Rusyns, and Rusnaks who speak the Rusyn language.
Rusyns are a modern ethnic group of people who descended from a minority of Ruthenians. Rusyns were a separate people who chose to NOT adopt the Ukrainian national identity ... that dates way back to some time in the nineteenth century. So, controversy surrounds the true ethnic identity of Rusyns. Some say Rusyns are a distinct Eastern Slavic identity, separate from Russians, Ukrainians, and Belarusians. Some group the Rusyns into the Ukrainian nation.
My fascination is purely relative in the sense that my paternal ancestry traces to the Rusyn people.
Quick, weigh in on these people ...
Rusyns at a glance
Rusyns have a most compelling history I think!
L to R: Fedor Vico * Oleksandr Dukhnovych * Michael Strank * Andy Warhol
Rusyns are an Eastern Slavic ethnic group who speak an Eastern Slavic language or dialect known as Rusyn. Rusyns descend from Ruthenians who did not adopt the Ukrainian ethnic identity in the early twentieth century. Some governments have prohibited the use of the term Rusyn, as seen in after 1945 in Soviet Transcarpathia and Poland, and by the early 1950s in Czechoslovakia.
Today, Slovakia, Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Serbia and also Croatia officially recognise Rusyns as an ethnic minority.Ukraine's ethnic minority seeks independence. RT In 2007 Rusyns were recognized as a separate ethnicity in Ukraine by the Zakarpattia Regional Council. Ruthenians within Ukraine have Ukrainian citizenship, and most have adopted a Ukrainian ethnic identity. Most contemporary self-identified ethnic Rusyns live outside of Ukraine.
Of the estimated 1.2 million people of Rusyn origin, only 55,000 have officialy identified themselves politically or ethnically as Rusyns according to contemporary censuses. The ethnic classification of Rusyns, however, is controversial as contemporary scholars claim it as a separate East Slavic ethnicity, distinct from Russians, Ukrainians, and Belarusians.
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.
The terms Rusyn, Rusniak, 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.
The buzz on Rusyns
- Serbia's Vojvodina Regains Autonomy
- The province has six official languages -- Serbian, Hungarian, Slovak, Romanian, Croatian, and Panno...
- Vojvodina's autonomy is challenged
- The province has six official languages: Serbian, Hungarian, Slovak, Romanian, Croatian, and Pannoni...
- Рішення Закарпатської облради про новий гімн області може опротестувати ...
- ?????????? ??????(Carpatho-Rusyns) -- ??????? ?????. ??? ??????...
How many Rusyns?
Of the approximately 2 million people claimed by Rusyn organizations as being Rusyns, only 55,000 declare themselves as having this nationality.
Influence of Andy Warhol's Carpatho-Rusyn Heritage
Influence of Andy Warhol's Carpatho-Rusyn Heritage
Paul Warhola Jr., Andy Warhol's nephew, discussing Andy's life in the summer of 1968 and how his Carpatho-Rusyn heritage was a part of his everyday life. Recorded at the 10th Annual Carpatho-Rusyn Event at the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh PA.
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Andy Warhol's Religious and Ethnic Roots: The Carpatho-Rusyn Influence on His Art
by Raymond M. Herbenick
Andy Warhol's Religious and Ethnic Roots: The Carpatho-Rusyn Influence on His Art (Studies in Art and Religious Interpretation, 20)
Amazon Price: $109.95 (as of 01/02/2010)
Notable Rusyn Americans
Sandra Dee, actress
Steve Ditko, comic book illustrator and co-creator of Spider-Man
Bill Evans, jazz musician (Rusyn mother)
Thomas Hopko, Orthodox Christian theologian
Tom Ridge, politician (Rusyn mother)
Tom Selleck, actor (Rusyn father)
Mark Singel, politician (Rusyn mother)
John Spencer, actor (Rusyn mother)
Michael Strank, soldier
Robert Urich, actor (Rusyn father)
Andy Warhol, artist
James Warhola, illustrator
Peter Wilhousky, composer
Gregory Zatkovich, lawyer and political activist
Paul Zatkovich, newspaper editor and cultural activist
Our People: Carpatho-Rusyns and Their Descendants in North America
by Paul Robert Magocsi
Our People: Carpatho-Rusyns and Their Descendants in North America
Amazon Price: (as of 01/02/2010)
Rusyn language at a glance
The language of the Rusyns has an interesting history!
Rusyn is a language or a dialect of Ukrainian spoken by the Rusyns living in Central Europe. Opinions differ among linguists concerning whether Rusyn is a separate East Slavic language or a dialect of Ukrainian. The political implications of the dispute add to the controversy.
Carpatho-Rusyn is spoken in the Transcarpathian Region of Ukraine, in northeastern Slovakia, southeastern Poland, or Lyshak and Hungary (where the people and language are called Ruten). The Pannonian Rusyn language used in Serbia is sometimes considered part of the Rusyn dialectic subgroup. In Ukraine, Rusyn is officially considered a dialect of Ukrainian, since it is very close to the Ukrainian Hutsul dialect. Ukraine does not officially recognise Rusyns as a separate ethnicity, despite the fact that some speakers prefer to consider themselves ethnically distinct from Ukrainians.
Attempts to standardize the dialects suffer because native speakers are divided among four separate countries. Efforts are hampered because some Rusyns living outside of the region do not speak the dialect fluently. In each of these countries different orthographies (in most cases using variants of the Cyrillic alphabet) and a grammatical standards exist, based on regional dialects. The cultural centres of Carpatho-Rusyns are located in Pre?ov in Slovakia, Uzhhorod and Mukacheve in Ukraine, Krynica and Legnica in Poland, Ruski Krstur in Vojvodina and Budapest in Hungary. Many active western Ukrainians including active Rusyns live in Canada, the USA and South America.
It is very difficult to count the number of fluent speakers of the Rusyn language, but their number is sometimes estimated at almost a million, most of them in Ukraine and Slovakia. Yugoslavia recognized Rusyn, more precisely Pannonian Rusyn, as an official language. In 1995, Rusyn was recognized as a minority language in Slovakia, enjoying the status of official language in municipalities where more than 20% of the inhabitants speak this Western Ukrainian dialect.
The Carpatho Rusyn language can be divided as follows: Boiko, Hutsul and Dolinian are sometimes identified as Ukrainian dialects since some of their speakers identified themselves Ukrainians.
Rusyn language dialect of Ukrainian?
Rusyn (less accurately referred to as the Ruthenian language) is close to the Ukrainian language-enough so that the Ukrainian government considers Rusyn merely a dialect of Ukrainian, to the resentment of some Rusyns. In the extreme west of Carpathian Ruthenia, the language approaches Slovak.
Morphophonemic Variability, Productivity and Change: The Case of Rusyn
by Marta Harasowska
Morphophonemic Variability, Productivity and Change: The Case of Rusyn (Trends in Linguistics. Studies and Monographs)
Amazon Price: $172.00 (as of 01/02/2010)
On the vast, fertile plain of Vojvodina, the autonomous province of Yugoslavia's Serbia, lives a small Slavic minority, the Rusyns, whose history and, particularly, language have captivated and perplexed many a scholar, and who, despite the controversies with regard to their ethnic and linguistic origin resounding in the scholarly sanctuaries, have developed a dynamic and distinct social structure within the larger society in which they live.
East Slavic languages at a glance
The East Slavic languages constitute one of three regional subgroups of Slavic languages, currently spoken in Eastern Europe. It is the group with the largest numbers of speakers, far out-numbering the Western and Southern Slavic groups. Current East Slavic languages are Belarusian, Russian, Ukrainian. Rusyn is considered a language or a dialect of Ukrainian.
Classification: Indo-European >> Balto Slavic >> Slavic >> East Slavic >> Old East Slavic >> Vladimir-Suzdal dialect >> Russian >> Ruthenian >> Ukrainian
Rusyn song: Lemko/Rusyn/Ruthenian - Poljana Poljana
Countries where an East Slavic language is the national language.
Straddling Borders: Literature and Identity in Subcarpathian Rus
by Elaine Rusinko
Straddling Borders: Literature and Identity in Subcarpathian Rus'
Amazon Price: $142.00 (as of 01/02/2010)
The Subcarpathian Rusyns are an east Slavic people who live along the southern slopes of the Carpathian mountains where the borders of Ukraine, Slovakia, and Poland meet. Through centuries of oppression under the Austro-Hungarian and Soviet empires, they have struggled to preserve their culture and identity. Rusyn literature, reflecting various national influences and written in several linguistic variants, has historically been a response to social conditions, an affirmation of identity, and a strategy to ensure national survival.
In this first English-language study of Rusyn literature, Elaine Rusinko looks at the literary history of Subcarpathia from the perspective of cultural studies and postcolonial theory, presenting Rusyn literature as a process of continual negotiation among states, religions, and languages, resulting in a characteristic hybridity that has made it difficult to classify Rusyn literature in traditional literary scholarship.
Rusinko traces Rusyn literature from its emergence in the sixteenth century, through the national awakening of the mid-nineteenth century and its struggle for survival under Hungarian oppression, to its renaissance in inter-war Czechoslovakia. She argues that Rusyn literature provides an acute illustration of the constructedness of national identity, and has prefigured international postmodern culture with its emphasis on border-crossings, intersecting influences, and liminal spaces. With extracts from Rusyn texts never before available in English, Rusinko's study creates an entirely new perspective on Rusyn literature that rescues it from Soviet dominated critical theory and makes an important contribution to Slavic studies in particular and post-colonial critical studies in general.
Places inhabited by Rusyns
Rusyns (those who keep identifying themselves so today in difference to all other Rusyns who call themselves Ukrainians today) have traditionally inhabited the area of the Eastern Carpathian Mountains and still inhabit those areas. While their homeland is often referred to as Carpathian Ruthenia, that area no longer exactly corresponds with the places inhabited by Rusyns. There are also resettled Rusyn communities located in the Pannonian plain, as well as in parts of present day Serbia (especially in Vojvodina - see also Ethnic groups of Vojvodina), as well as in present-day Croatia (in the region of Slavonia). Still other Rusyns migrated to the northern regions of present-day Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Many Rusyns also emigrated to the United States and Canada, and now are able to reconnect as a community with the advent of the internet, voicing their concerns and trying to preserve their separate ethnic and cultural identity.
More info on the Rusyn peoples
- Carpatho-Rusyn Knowledge Base
- This independent website, that debuted in January 1995, is the result of the support of countless fellow Rusyns worldwide as well as independent research and the efforts of many friends.
- The Carpatho-Rusyns Part I
- 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.
- The Carpatho-Rusyns Part 2
- 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.
- What is Rusyn?
- Rusyns (sometimes spelled Rusins, or called Carpatho-Rusyns signifying their villages being in the Carpathian Mountains) are one of the many nationalities/ethnic groups of Slovakia, along with Slovaks, Hungarians, Germans, and Romanies (Gypsies).
- Ukrainian Rusyn Slovak What's the Frequency Kenneth?
- Carpatho-Rusyns in the US often became confused as to what to call themselves. Many whose family history was from Slovak territory, adopted the name for themselves, even mistakenly referring to the liturgical language heard in church (Church Slavonic), as "Slovak."
- A People without a Country
- Hitler and his cronies knew of us: a people who for the most part were poor, uneducated farmers dwelling in the Carpathian Mountain regions of present day southeastern Poland, western Ukraine and eastern Slovakia - and who were targeted for extermination by the Nazis.
Rusyns early independent statehood ...
Rusyns are an ethnic group that never attained the status of independent statehood, except for ephemeral Lemko-Rusyn Republic and Komancza Republic after World War I, and Carpatho-Ukraine, in existence for a few days in 1939.
Lemko-Rusyn Republic at a glance
Lemko-Rusyn Republic or Ruska Narodna Respublika Lemkiv was founded in Florynka on December 5, 1918, in the aftermath of World War I, after the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. As a Russophile organization, it originally had the intent of unification with a democratic Russia, and opposed union with the West Ukrainian National Republic. As union with Russia was not possible, it attempted to join with Carpathian Ruthenia on the southern slopes of the Carpathians as an autonomous province of Czechoslovakia. This strategy was opposed by Gregory Zatkovich, the governor of Carpathian Ruthenia. The republic was headed by the President of the Central National Council, Doctor Jaroslav Kacmarcyk. It was ended by the Polish government in March 1920. Its fate was sealed by the Treaty of Saint Germain, which gave Galicia west of the San to Poland , and by the Peace of Riga in 1920.
This state should be distinguished from the short-lived Komancza Republic of eastern Lemkivshchyna. This was a smaller, Ukrainiophile organization, lasting from November 1918 to January 23, 1919.
Komancza Republic at a glance
The Komancza Republic was an association of 30 Lemkos villages, founded in eastern Lemkivshchyna in Koma?cza on November 4, 1918. It had a Ukrainiophile orientation, and planned to unite with the West Ukrainian National Republic. It was suppressed by the Polish government on 23 January 1919 during the Polish-Ukrainian War. Its head of state was the President of the Council, Pantelejmon Shpylka.
Its fate was sealed by the Treaty of Saint Germain, which gave Galicia west of the San to Poland
Carpatho-Ukraine at a glance
Carpatho-Ukraine () was an autonomous region within Czechoslovakia from late 1938 to March 15, 1939. It declared itself an independent Ukrainian republic on March 15, 1939, but was occupied by Hungary between March 15 and March 18, 1939, remaining under Hungarian control until the Nazi Occupation of Hungary in 1944.
The Ukrainians: Unexpected Nation
by Andrew Wilson
The Ukrainians: Unexpected Nation, Second edition
Amazon Price: $16.24 (as of 01/02/2010)
This marvelous work examines Ukrainian history and politics in light of the literature of the country's nationalism. Legends of a heroic past buttress feelings of kinship within national groups, and nationalists, consequently, look to antiquity to rally popular support. Accordingly, Wilson (Ukrainian studies, University Coll., London) surveys the myth of national origin conveyed by Ukraine's supposed biblical origins and the lays (ballads) of ancient Russia. Memories of past grievances, such as subjugation to foreign powers, typically bolster national sentiments. Though Russia dominated the country until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Ukrainians take pride in their ancient culture, and the widespread use of the Russian language is a daily reminder to the Ukrainians of their traumatic past. Wilson rounds out the study by assessing the country's economic prospects and sketching a future course for Ukrainian geopolitics.
Rusyns are a Modern Ethnic Group
Ruthenians, Ruthenes, Rusins, Carpatho-Rusyns, and Rusnaks are a modern ethnic group that speaks the Rusyn language and are descended from the minority of Ruthenians who did not adopt a Ukrainian national identity in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
Rusyns outside Ukraine ...
Because an overwhelming majority of Ruthenians within Ukraine itself have adopted a Ukrainian identity, most modern self-declared Rusyns live outside Ukraine.
Books on the Ukraine
Controversial Ethnic Identity ...
The ethnic identity of Rusyns is therefore highly controversial, with some researchers claiming a separate East Slavic ethnicity distinct from Russians, Ukrainians, and Belarusians, while others considering Rusyns to be a subgroup of the Ukrainian nation.
More information on Rusyns ...
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Are you of Rusyn heritage or know someone who is? Are you interested in the study of these people? Did you learn something from my lens?
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Reply
- dc64 dc64 Jul 8, 2009 @ 10:48 am
- Very interesting, I've come across the Rusyn people several times in my research, but I didn't quite understand who they were. Thanks to you, now I do.
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Reply
- Lav Lav Mar 10, 2009 @ 6:39 am
- Hi,
thanks for putting up your site - however there are a few problems with some of the numbers that you cite.
According to a multitude of the respondents to the Ukrainian census which produced this figure there were several confusing questions concerning Rusyn identity put forth by the census-takers. Many were pressured to say that if you are Rusyn then you are not Ukrainian, remember there is no such thing in Europe right now as a Ruso-Ukrainian, a Franco-German as people would identify themselves in the states. Also people were pressured NOT to admit to Rusyn identity, denying the claim of Ukraine for a fair and impartial taking. This was verified by EU researchers as stated in the yearly report on minority languages.
For a comparison of Rusyn vs Ukrainian refer to the Rusyn Information pages.
On an aside when I spoke Rusyn to Ukrainians while in Uzh, most did not understand my "Magyarized Slovak" while others refered to it as "Russian". So much for mutual understanding.
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