From the USSR to the dynasties of ancient China, rotting institutions have been a barrier against radical change. Human capital, economic resources, and prestige are held up by these decayed versions of systems that no longer function correctly. This can be acceptable when a society is in a healthy or even decent state with no need for change, however if it is on the decline this can prove catastrophic as the needed vacuum and its available resources for rebirth are not there. A vacuum in this case is in itself a space for opportunity. It can turn out positively like the ascension of Confucianism in China to state religion status after the fall of the Qin dynasty, or badly in the gangster capitalism of the Russian 1990s after the collapse of the Soviet system. It is the potential energy to drive change and nothing more.
To fully grasp the context of this article, first start by reading our geopolitical report on the Rusyn cultural situation by clicking here. In it, we argue that the narrative of continued Rusyn growth in culture and identity is largely fiction, and that our nation is in terminal decline. In the diaspora this is particularly true, where declining membership along with the absence of leaders with new ideas demands immediate attention if any Rusyn awakening is to survive in North America. Here is one section that I find the most important in relation to this article.
- While the total amount of named Rusyns increased in the 2021 Slovak census, the number of speakers has decreased.
- There has been no major geopolitical change for Rusyns in the last 15 years and the recognition of Rusyns in Ukraine is in no better of a situation.
- The average age of membership in the diaspora organizations of North America has risen to almost retirement age. In some organizations, the young adult population is below 10%.
- There are no Gen Z or early Millennial (below 30) founders or community leaders of organizations.
- No significant policy or project has been issued by the World Congress of Rusyns in the last 15 years.
- The organizational structure of Zakarpattia is disunited, without a central institution and set of goals.
- There are still no political Carpatho-Rusyn organizations thirty years after the fall of the Soviet Union (except for one person specially elected as a minority member in Romania).
Some of these are facts, others educated opinions. For example, my argument regarding there being no geopolitical change is based on a few points. The first is that no actual laws or progress towards recognition in Ukraine in any official capacity has occurred. A second is that Rusyns have already been recognized everywhere else important and have received no additional privileges like autonomy. My statistics regarding less than 10% is from being the former membership manager for the Carpatho-Rusyn Society, the largest Rusyn diaspora organization. This role allowed me to evaluate data on membership quite extensively. On a few of these such as Zakarpattia and the World Congress, it is particularly hard to get data, but those who know the scene well will understand where I am coming from.
Link: https://rusynsociety.com/2022/09/08/reports-embedded-stasis-obligations/
After being involved at the committee and board level for almost two years, I’ve come to the conclusion that the Carpatho-Rusyn Society is one of these decayed institutions unwilling to change. Not only this, but it is also stopping those of us outside of the homeland from evolving our Rusyn identity into a more patriotic and everlasting version of itself. As the central organization of the diaspora in North America, it gets the greatest funding, volunteer support, and political activism prestige. In return, it wastes it with ineptitude on a scale that can only take place in a poorly run non-profit. It will be best to go piece by piece of my experience to illustrate.
The organization of roughly 1,200 members generally regularly lacks the vigor needed to be in such a position as the main pillar of North American Rusynia. Few projects or events are published yearly, and when they are it is on the level of rather plain lectures that hold no interest to those with advanced knowledge of Rusyn culture. Its operational structure has also been shrouded in confusion since its creation, taking both the social club approach as well as accessing available political resources while providing neither with a result that is satisfactory. Local chapters without a strong leader die quickly with little to no support from the national organization, while any political action amounts to the level of emailing a priest or sending out some official announcement. There are notable exceptions to this, but it is the general rule that has remained unchanged throughout multiple cycles of the board.
Attempts to correct this through a strategic reorganization committee that I was a part of led to no substantial results. Many of the objectives we created were never voted on, and the entire idea was thrown into the dustbin before long. I had resigned by the time this occurred after Maryann Sivak had tried to throw a bunch of chapter presidents and herself into our meeting to make sure we weren’t planning anything too crazy. Nobody in the organization could understand the difference between a social and goal-orientated organization and why trying to combine the two would be a problem if not done right. Furthermore, the new board change to the current one did not yield much better results in this regard. Whether they have done so since I left this summer is unknown to me. Good for them if they have.
C-RS’s leadership is old and decrepit at every level, clearly showing a succession crisis that cannot be resolved given how the original founder John Righetti had to assume control again in the recent election. It was tough getting people to fill out other board positions too after the catastrophe that was the Maryann Sivak era. Not like there is anyone now under the age of thirty-five to take on a role in the first place. Membership amongst the youth is horribly low in the main few organizations of the diaspora including C-RS. Additionally, there is so much internal fighting you would often think you were in a Game of Thrones episode. Odd resignations, plots to stop projects from people that weren’t liked, missing funds, and a list of strange interactions that can go on here for pages. Hell, we even had one guy literally mail all of us some bland brochures after an argument in a meeting with a note saying how much he did for the organization. On some level, this can be understandable if the organization is dynamic, but C-RS isn’t. There have been no major political or organizational sways in the last five years if not longer. Recent shifts in board staffing have been managerial, not ideological.
What is unforgivable and perhaps the worst aspect of C-RS is its abuse of willing volunteers by the board and committees. The number of people over the years who have volunteered their energy only to be met with hostility can probably fill an auditorium by now. In my time alone I probably saw upwards of twenty highly skilled people quit to never return to Rusyn cultural life because of how they were treated. Usually, this negative experience would take the form of being insulted or personally ignored in meetings. If it wasn’t this, it was probably the droning feeling of hours-long meetings every week or month that would lead nowhere. This doesn’t count as abuse per se, but suffering the mountains of bureaucracy might as well be. In the end, whether due to abuse or frustration these people felt like they had such a horrible experience they wanted nothing to do with our community again. Not just C-RS, but Rusynness as a whole. Now take that twenty and multiply by at least ten to get a rough estimate for over the years before me. Because of this society’s standing as the largest Rusyn organization in North America people often go here first to get involved as it seems like the easiest option. It’s like sending someone straight to the enthusiasm slaughterhouse.
These structural problems at C-RS do not only have to do with petty bickering and a lack of organizational focus, but also with a poorly mapped out ideology that has corrupted our entire western intelligentsia. Stuck in the trap of liberal internationalism, the view of the Rusyn in the mind of modern-day Rusyn-American elites who run organizations like C-RS is one of subservience to other peoples around us. They care neither for the creation of serious Rusyn political ability nor actually modernizing our culture in a way that is advantageous. Notions of independent Rusyn interests are subsumed by American, Western European, and even Central European interests. As one person told me “The goals of Rusyns are the same as the countries they live in.”. The usual go-to method of action is through networks of NGOs or talking to insignificant institutional players of various governments within Europe. A majority of the time this leads to nowhere. Realpolitik is seen as an ugly old way of thinking, and even uttering the word of autonomy will get you sent to the shadow realm. Go to the yearly meeting of the society or any other diaspora grouping and try asking about it.
Instead, everything is treated like a museum by these people with seminars about the old days or how we can make another great virtue signaling moment. This would be fine if they weren’t in positions of leadership. Academics and those that are academic-adjacent clutter the scene where community leaders usually should be, and as a result many of these environments have a sterile feeling. Political and cultural action is often put on the backseat for more book seminars and studies about Rusyn identity. It is almost as though a post-mortem is already being done on us before we have died. You have to actually be in these conversations to fully understand what I’m talking about here, but this is the best way I can describe it.
To many of these people, these activities seem to be little more than a checkmark to further their careers. For a select few there is also a question of dual interests. How are we supposed to expect people to advocate for Rusyn interests in a political capacity if they are employed by the US government or work in Ukrainian studies? This happens in our leadership circles much more than you might think. I often feel no special patriotism radiating from these people when I speak with them too, yet they are supposed to lead us. A letter by the CRRC (below) laying out their frustration at Rusyns who live in the homeland for raising the issue of Rusyn’s rights in their condemnation of Russia speaks for itself. It should also be noted here that every person on this letter is part of the Carpatho-Rusyn Consortium of North America. It is a group of the most influential diasporan leaders who often use their meetings to coordinate their activities across multiple organizations. This is partially why every organization in North America feels the same on some level. They are run by the same people with the same goals in mind.
The accomplished British journalist Peter Hitchens has often voiced his desire for the Conservative Party in the UK to be dissolved. This conclusion came to him after an arduous journey of trying to help reform it. His reasons for advocating for such a momentous action are not out of spite alone. The real purpose of disemboweling the party is so that something new may take its place and be actually conservative in its values. He concluded that regardless of whatever he did, the incentives to change would never be great enough. The disease had riddled the body of the party too much to be able to save it. Old bureaucrats would fight tooth and nail against even the faintest of notions of actually being conservative while hoarding whatever prestige, voter base, and power there was left. I feel the same way about C-RS and a lot of our current institutions in general.
Time for action is slowly dwindling away as the younger generations get older and their Rusynness remains dormant. No changes are on the horizon, and the unwillingness to accept previous attempts as failures is clear. Our current leaders have made sure of it through their ideology and decision to forgo any such reflection. It is on this basis that I argue that the only possibility for real change is through the death of a large organization like the Carpatho-Rusyn Society and the rise of new thinkers in its place. Until there is a vacuum in the Rusyn scene, there will be no major changes to our approach. When this occurs will largely depend on how quickly current institutions implode. Without revolutionizing reform the current board will probably be the last for C-RS.
Often times when people see a forest fire, they see it as a depressing event. The actuality of the forest with its rotting tree bark and orange-colored grass is hidden behind the action of the flame. What they miss is that sometimes it is actually a positive thing to happen. The decayed underbrush is removed, the sun finally hits the soil that is beginning to be replenished by nutrients from the burnt matter, and sometimes the trees grow higher than the ones before them. I think it’s time to stop watering our trees. For if the smoke does not start soon, there may not even be a new forest that grows after the current one is burnt to the ground.