Rusyns, as one of the 13 legally “established national minorities” in Hungary, in addition to the right to form local and national self-government bodies, are also entitled to a spokesperson (representative) in the national parliament. The minority spokespersons are not MPs; they do not have the right to vote for laws – but they are entitled to voice inquiries on behalf of ‘their’ ethnic minority, and to sustain its interests in the country’s legislative body. Vera Giricz has been the Rusyn spokesperson since 2014.
The office of the Rusyn All-National Self-Government is located in a cozy villa in a quiet quarter of Pest. In addition to the Self-Government’s office, the house accommodates the István Udvari Rusyn Library (the late Prof. István Udvari (1950–2005) who was the Head of the Department of Rusyn and Ukrainian Philology at Nyíregyháza University), Atanáz Fedinecz Rusyn Museum (Atanáz Fedinecz (1936–2012) was a known nuclear medicine physician and artist), Antal Hodinka Rusyn Scientific Institute, and Ruszin Világ (The Rusyn World) magazine editorial office.
Viktor Kramarenko, Chairperson of the All-National Rusyn Self-Government, says that the number of Rusyns in Hungary recorded by the latest census of 2011 was 3,883 persons [the published estimate figure for 2016 was 2,342 persons only]. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the next census that had initially been scheduled for 2021 was postponed until later this year. Mr. Kramarenko asserts that the number of representatives of a national minority does play a big role for them as the minority’s self-government because the amount of the governmental subsidy directly depends upon the size of the respective ethnic community.
An important activity of the national and local Rusyn self-governments is organizing summer camps for children. According to Viktor Kramarenko, such camps are held at Balaton Lake or other localities; each camp is attended by up to 15 kids, and the program, apart from entertaining, includes Rusyn lessons and folk songs.
In 2018, the National Self-Government won a grant to build the Rusyn Greek Catholic Centre and Museum in Debrecen. The national flag, the coat of arms, and the cross for the Centre were consecrated by Pope Francis during a personal audience.
On the whole, Hungary’s Rusyn community seems to actively organize various cultural and enlightening activities. Here is an incomplete list of the events that were organized by the Budapest Metropolitan Rusyn Self-Government, Terézváros Rusyn Self-Government, and Antal Hodinka National Association of Rusyn Intellectuals this summer: a presentation of Rita Szilágyi’s book Walks across Cemeteries; a conference in memoriam of the historian Károly Mészáros, the author of the History of Ungvár book; a conference in memoriam of the historian Antal Hodinka…
Regretfully, the Rusyn nationality school in Komlóska was closed two years ago due to a lack of pupils (Viktor Kramarenko says that there were only five kids enrolled during the last school year in the village). Komlóska is known to be the heart of the little Rusyn communities in its neighborhood – the villages of Erdőhorváti, Tolcsva, Vámosújfalu, and the towns of Sárospatak and Sátoraljaújhely. In Mucsony which is considered the other Rusyn village in Hungary, the Rusyn language and literature are taught as facultative subjects. The situation is aggravated by the fact that residents of Komlóska speak the Pryashivan Rusyn dialect (and the textbooks for the school in Komlóska were printed in Slovakia), while in Mucsony it is the Pannonian Rusyn language that is spoken. In addition, Rusyns in Budapest and other cities mostly come from Subcarpathia, hence is the third variant of the Rusyn idiom in Hungary. The linguistic institution headed by Mihály Káprály announced its plans to codify the ‘Hungarian Rusyn’ based on the three abovementioned patois, but it is still unclear how it could succeed. Meanwhile, Hungarian Rusyns have published quite a few textbooks for elementary schools (regretfully, they are not available on sale, so taking into account the situation with Rusyn ethnic schooling it seems that they are art for art’s sake so far).
The Rusyn library can boast of about 2,500 book titles (fiction, nonfiction, dictionaries, textbooks, etc.), subscriptions to Rusyn magazines, and of course all publications of the National Self-Government – and some books are really fancy and rare. Ildikó Polánszkiné Nádas, the head of the library and a genuine enthusiast of librarianship, has a good eye for valuable books: she scrolls over the Internet antiquarian bookshops and tries to buy what is really worthwhile.
A more detailed survey of publications of the National Rusyn Self-Government will appear soon; here I would like just to showcase some pearls from the library and note that it also holds three to four presentations of its activity a year.
Other facts about the Rusyn minority in Hungary in English are available here: https://emberijogok.kormany.hu/the-rusyns-of-hungary.