At this point, I have been involved in the global Rusyn community for just over 6 months. Throughout my time so far, I have learned a lot not only about Rusyn history and culture, but also about modern Rusyness and how Rusyns interact with each other.
I discovered the truth about the complexity and fullness of my Rusyn heritage sometime in the late winter at the beginning of 2022. My interest in this newly discovered heritage exponentially grew as time went on. Once I finished my undergraduate degree in May of that year, I fully went down a Rusyn rabbit hole and began to research the history and culture of the Rusyns, as well as modern issues. This interesting process included listening to LemkoWithHistory podcasts while working out, reading a bit too much of Magocsi, watching Myhal speak Rusyn to people in Lviv, and observing John Righetti on YouTube talk about painting Pysanky. By June, I was accepted as a columnist at SRE (at the time the Rusyn Literature Society) and I met a lot of new people in the global community.
I must say that the internet and the proliferation of social media and social networks have certainly been a saving grace for us in many ways. It seems almost coincidental that the advent of the internet and simplified global telecommunications almost nearly lined up with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the Second Great Awakening of Rusyns. The First Great Awakening of Rusyns, I’d argue, occurred in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when Rusyn literary societies and organizations sprang up both in the homeland and in the diaspora. The period of 1945-1989 I’d consider a dark age for global Rusyness, where Rusyness itself was suppressed by community policy in the homeland. However, by the grace of God, in 1989 the communist grip of power was lost on our homeland, and our movement entered a Second Awakening. Cultural institutions begin sprouting promoting an exclusively Rusyn and not Ukrainian identity and culture in Slovakia and Ukraine. During the 90s, we saw the recognition of the Rusyn people in Slovakia and the codification of the Pryashiv and Lemko dialects. The Carpatho-Rusyn Society in America was formed and Rusyns in the diaspora began to interact with those in the homeland.
By the mid-late 2000s, the movement seemingly started to face stagnation. The Carpatho-Rusyn Society kept increasing in age and failed to attract more younger people into the movement. Even in the homeland, efforts to get Rusyn recognized in Ukraine failed on multiple fronts except for the local level. At this point, no real consequential work was being done for the movement, especially in the diaspora. Now, in the past few years, there has seemingly been more actively on a global stage and more collaboration among Rusyns internationally. It is not for me to judge whether or not these past few years have been a third great awakening or just a continuation of that second awakening – that is left for historians of the future to write. However, from what it seems like, more and more Rusyns internationally have begun to work with each other from a variety of fronts.
The SRE is a great example of this. With its humble origins as the Rusyn Literature Society in the fall of 2020, SRE has evolved to become a space and forum for Rusyns from every walk of life and from many different countries to interact with each other and share ideas. Pryashiv, Transcarpathian, Lemko, Pannonian, and diaspora Rusyns have all been able to interact with each other in a meaningful way because of the existence of SRE. While there is still much work to be done, I think the right steps have been finally taken to push us in the right direction.
My biggest fear is frankly Rusyn disunity globally. This was historically one of our greatest weaknesses in the past. It’s a commonplace phenomenon that Pannonian Rusyns for example have no clue about the existence of Carpathian Rusyns, or Slovak Rusyns not knowing about the existence of Rusyns in Ukraine. This inadvertent ignorance has led to stagnation and the inability to expand across countries’ boundaries in the past, and furthermore, a continuation of this ignorance will lead to only more of the same in the future. While I do have an optimistic outlook on international collaboration among Rusyns, this is still an existential threat that we face at the end of the day. There are, however, several steps that we can take to make this threat completely left in the dust.
Now I have some thoughts to take things further. The first important step is community awareness and education. Community leaders in each of the different communities around the world should encourage multinational cooperation of Rusyns as in the case of our organization. I am very optimistic because currently there are several different actions being taken that are taking this into consideration. Projects such as Alternativa Ruthenica and the growth of Rusyn language YouTube channels have allowed Rusyns globally to interact with other Rusyns in different approaches. These projects allow for education to occur on a massive scale thanks to the internet. For example, a Rusyn YouTube channel allows for Rusyns from different countries to not only interact with others in the comments, but also fosters an environment in favor of Rusyn education.
Education is surely incredibly important. Community leaders need to also start to encourage Rusyn linguistic, cultural, and historical education to occur among Rusyn children starting from a young age. This is particularly important because once those currently in the movement get older, there needs to be a generation of people prepared to take on the role of community leaders to further the movement. This education should also surely include international education in the sense that Rusyn children should understand that there exist many Rusyns outside of just their home countries. These Rusyn children should also be encouraged to and taken on field trips to other countries and areas that Rusyns inhabit. Once you have a generation of children trained to this capacity, the future has limitless possibilities regarding the movement.
This is something that I believe the Baby Boomer class of Rusyns has failed to do in the diaspora. As much as I have respect for the leadership class of Rusyns in the diaspora for their hard work in the 80s and 90s, it seems they haven’t prepared a new generation of Rusyns in the diaspora for leadership. I’ve heard some say that there aren’t enough young people interested, to which I would disagree. There are plenty of young people interested in the movement, and it seems the number of young people interested in our movement is growing still. It’s a matter of if they are willing to work with the old establishment. My hope is that the younger folk in the movement currently can counter this by self-organizing, as was done with the creation of the SRE.
Another thing we should strive for is the full codification and standardization of the Carpathian Rusyn language. Currently, we have standard forms of the Pryashiv, Lemko, and Transcarpathian dialects. I think for the sake of the future we need to focus on a single unified language. Perhaps a delegation of linguistic experts from each dialect should meet and standardize the language fully. While I believe each dialect is precious and should be preserved, a fully standardized language is a necessity in the academic and high literature setting such that Rusyns from Osturna to Rhakiv should be able to learn a single standard language.
Something else that is very necessary is finalizing the definition of who is Rusyn. While Hutsuls and Boykos are considered Rusyn, we need community leaders to figure out and understand within these sub-communities whether they want to identify with the Rusyn movement or not. This is an important discussion because once we establish the Rusyness of different groups, we can finally unify under one single movement with fully defined borders and identity. Now achieving this is much easier said than done, but I think a step in the right direction is interacting with community leaders within Hutsul and Boyko-populated areas and figuring out the consensus among those that identify as either of the two.
A particularly important issue that needs to be realized is that, in specific regard to the Hutsuls, there exist Hutsuls that exist outside of eastern Subcarpathia and Romania. Plenty of Hutsuls also exist across the mountains in the Ivano-Frankvisk Oblast. If we include Subcarpathian and Romanian Hutsuls in our greater definition of the Rusyn people, why limit it to just the Hutsuls within those strict boundaries? A similar issue emerges when dialogue arises regarding the Boykos. The Boykos that inhabit mostly the realms of southern Lviv Oblast and far southeastern Poland have nearly undistinguishable cultural aspects when compared to the Verkhovintsi Rusyns that live in far northern Subcarpathia. So then why do we not fully include Boykos in our definition as well?
This poses an existential crisis since many ultra-nationalists in Ukraine simply claim the Lemkos, Boykos, and Hutsuls are all sub-ethnos of Ukrainians. Their argument inevitably falls apart when you realize they label the Slovak Rusyns as Lemkos, and that most Rusyns in western and central Subcarpathia have never identified as either of those three identities.
In retrospect, the simple answer from most would perhaps be that these two specific groups of people – Ivano-Frankvisk Hutsuls and Boykos — have been considerably more Ukrainianized than the other groups of Rusyns, however, I don’t find this explanation sufficient. Many Lemkos were extremely Ukrainianized over the years, yet most still maintain an exclusive Rusyn identity. These are all important questions and distinctions that need to be discerned by the global Rusyn community for us to fully unify as a movement under direct and clear objectives.
While this is not meant to be an exhaustive list, I believe these steps and questions are an ideal move in the right direction for the future of our movement. We need to encourage unity not just within our own communities, but also internationally. We need to recognize the existence of Rusyns elsewhere besides just our village or country. We need to work with each other and establish fully who we are as a collective of people with a shared culture. We need to educate a class of children that will be ready to take the reigns over once we age. If we fail to take these steps, then it is almost inevitable that we will fall into global disunity. And once we fall into global disunity, the movement will be lost. Without taking necessary steps such as these for our future, we will continuously be discredited by Polish, Slovak, and Ukrainian nationalists. A better structure is needed overall but also changes in our mindset. The movement should start perhaps entering a new phase. Organizations in the diaspora and in the homeland should all be working together under unified leadership and goals for our future. While discussing and celebrating the traditions and works of our ancestors is important, surely, we also need to look to the future optimistically. By achieving global unity, we will achieve something that the other ethnic groups surrounding us following the Revolutions of 1848 were able to achieve and establish fully by the turn of the century.