- Rusyn:
- ruskyi
- Also called:
- Ruthenian, Carpatho-Rusyn, Lemko, or Rusnak
- Related Topics:
- Carpatho-Rusyn
- Belorussian
- Ukrainian
- East Slav
-
Who are the Rusyn people?
The Rusyn people are an East Slavic group whose name comes from Rus (Ruthenia), the territory they once inhabited. Ruthenus, a Latin term for Slavic inhabitants of Eastern Christian religion, equates to the Slavic Rusyn, meaning "an inhabitant of the land of Rus".
After Soviet armies arrived in 1944, the designations Rusyn and Carpatho-Rusyn were banned, and inhabitants were declared Ukrainian. The ethnonym Rusyn only remained among the Carpathian diaspora and immigrant communities in the United States.
With the collapse of communist rule in 1989, a Carpatho-Rusyn revival occurred, with activists seeking recognition as a distinct nationality. Since the 1990s, several countries have recognized Rusyns as a distinct national minority. It is estimated that one million Rusyns live in their Carpathian homeland and adjacent countries. The name Rusyn also refers to the spoken language and literary variants codified in the 20th century.
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Where do Rusyn people traditionally live?
Rusyn people, also known as Carpatho-Rusyns, are an East Slavic group primarily inhabiting the Carpathian region and adjacent countries. This area spans parts of present-day Ukraine, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Serbia, and the Czech Republic. Following World War II, the ethnonym Rusyn was banned in some regions, but the identity persisted among the diaspora, particularly in Serbia's Vojvodina and Croatia's Srem, where they were recognized as an official nationality. Since the collapse of communist rule in 1989, there has been a Carpatho-Rusyn revival, with many countries recognizing Rusyns as a distinct national minority.
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What language do Rusyn people speak?
The Rusyn people speak Rusyn, also known as Ruthenian, a language with a written medium initially based on spoken Belarusian. Today, Rusyn refers to the spoken language and literary variants codified in the 20th century for Carpatho-Rusyns living in Ukraine, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, and Serbia. After the arrival of Soviet armies in 1944, the designations Rusyn and Carpatho-Rusyn were banned, and the language was declared to be Ukrainian. With the collapse of communist rule in 1989, a Carpatho-Rusyn revival took place, with national activists calling for recognition of Rusyns as a distinct nationality with the right to use their language. In 1995, a codified form of Rusyn was presented in Slovakia, enabling its teaching in schools.
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What are some traditional Rusyn customs and celebrations?
The Rusyns are an East Slavic group inhabiting areas of modern-day Belarus, Ukraine, and Carpathian regions. Traditional Rusyn folk culture shares similarities with other East Slavic cultures, and many traditions were suppressed during the Soviet era but have seen revival since the 1980s.
Traditional celebrations and customs include:
* Folk holidays Many involve street carnivals with traditional Russian dress, such as long-sleeved red or blue shirts for boys with embroidered collars and three-piece ensembles with red or green sarafans and kokoshnik headdresses for girls.
* Maslyanitsa This old Russian folk holiday marks the end of winter with pancakes symbolizing the sun, served with garnishes and tea.
* Easter Baked goods like sweet bread and Easter cake are common, along with pashka (curds, butter, and raisins) and painted hard-boiled eggs.
* Red Hill holiday Observed on the first Sunday after Easter, it's considered the best day for wedding ceremonies.
* Ivan Kupalo A summer celebration of St. John the Baptist, often celebrated with picnics or fireworks by rivers.
* Troitsa (Pentecost) Homes are adorned with fresh green branches, and girls make garlands of birch branches and flowers for fortune-telling.
* The Spas A cluster of three folk holidays in August celebrate honey and the sowing of apple and nut crops.
* Communal banquets Preserved in various forms like the Russian bratchina and Serbian slava, these banquets have pre-Christian roots, often dedicated to deceased persons or patron saints.5 Britannica SourcesCreated from Britannica articles using AI. AI can make mistakes, so verify using Britannica articles. -
How has the history of Central and Eastern Europe affected the Rusyn people?
The history of Central and Eastern Europe has significantly shaped the Rusyn people's identity and status. After World War II, the Soviet Union annexed Subcarpathian Rus, and the designations Rusyn and Carpatho-Rusyn were banned, as the local East Slavic inhabitants were declared to be Ukrainian. This Soviet policy was also followed in neighboring communist Czechoslovakia and Poland.
With the collapse of communist rule in 1989, a Carpatho-Rusyn revival occurred, with activists calling for recognition as a distinct nationality with the right to use their language in schools, media, and cultural life. Since the 1990s, several countries, including Slovakia, Poland, Hungary, and others, have recognized Rusyns as a distinct national minority. Ukraine has been reluctant to follow suit, but in 2007, the regional assembly in the Transcarpathian region recognized Rusyns as a distinct nationality.
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What challenges do Rusyn communities face in preserving their culture today?
Rusyn communities face challenges in preserving their culture, including the legacy of past suppression and varying levels of recognition across different countries. During the communist era, the ethnonym Rusyn was banned, and Rusyn inhabitants were designated as Ukrainian.
Since the collapse of communist rule in 1989, a Carpatho-Rusyn revival has occurred, with activists seeking recognition as a distinct nationality with the right to use their language in schools, media, and civic life. While some countries recognize Rusyns as a distinct national minority eligible for state support, Ukraine has been reluctant to follow suit. However, in March 2007, the regional assembly in the Transcarpathian oblast recognized Rusyns as a distinct nationality, and in August 2012, Ukraine adopted a law listing Rusyn as a regional language.
2 Britannica SourcesCreated from Britannica articles using AI. AI can make mistakes, so verify using Britannica articles.
Rusyn, any of several East Slavic peoples (modern-day Belarusians, Ukrainians, and Carpatho-Rusyns) and their languages. The name Rusyn is derived from Rus (Ruthenia), the name of the territory that they inhabited. The name Ruthenian derives from the Latin Ruthenus (singular), a term found in medieval sources to describe the Slavic inhabitants of Eastern Christian religion (Orthodox and Greek Catholics) living in the grand duchy of Lithuania and, after 1569, in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Rusyn-inhabited territories in those states had from the 10th to the 14th century belonged to several principalities referred to collectively as Kievan Rus. The Latin term Ruthenus (plural Rutheni) is the equivalent of the Slavic Rusyn (plural Rusyny), meaning “an inhabitant of the land of Rus.”
Rusyn (Ruthenian) language
Rusyn (Ruthenian) refers as well to language. Ruthenian was the term used to describe the written medium (initially based on spoken Belarusian) that functioned as the official or chancellery language of the grand duchy of Lithuania and to refer to the spoken, or simple (prosta), language of the duchy’s East Slavic inhabitants (present-day Belarusians and Ukrainians). Ruthenian (German: Ruthenisch; Hungarian: rutén) was also the official designation for the spoken and written language of the East Slavs (present-day Ukrainians and Carpatho-Rusyns) living in the Habsburg-ruled Austrian Empire. Today the name Rusyn refers to the spoken language and variants of a literary language codified in the 20th century for Carpatho-Rusyns living in Ukraine (Transcarpathia), Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, and Serbia (the Vojvodina).
Rusyns before World War II
Following the partitions of Poland-Lithuania in the late 18th century, Rusyn-inhabited lands were divided between the Russian Empire (present-day Belarus and much of Ukraine) and the Austrian, later Austro-Hungarian, Empire (present-day western Ukraine, southeastern Poland, and northeastern Slovakia). In the course of the “long” 19th century (1780s–1914), the name Ruthenian fell out of use in the Russian Empire and was replaced by either White Russian or Little Russian. The term Ruthenian continued to be used, however, in the Austro-Hungarian Empire as the official designation (German: Ruthenen; Hungarian: ruténok) for the East Slavic inhabitants living in that state’s provinces of Galicia and Bukovina and the northeastern counties of Hungary. A large-scale immigration from Austria-Hungary to North America during the half century before World War I saw the introduction of the term Ruthenian to describe those newcomers in American and Canadian census reports.
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By the outset of the 20th century, the Rusyns in the Austro-Hungarian and Russian empires (and in the North American diaspora) were gradually becoming differentiated into Belarusians, Ukrainians, and Carpatho-Rusyns. At the close of World War I, historic Rusyn-inhabited lands were divided between the Soviet Union (the Belorussian Soviet Socialist Republic [S.S.R.] and the Ukrainian S.S.R.), Poland, Romania, and Czechoslovakia. In Czechoslovakia, Ruthenian-Rusyn survived as the official designation of a people, Carpatho-Rusyns (Czech: Karpatští Rusíni), who lived in the far eastern part of that country—that is, in what is now northeastern Slovakia and in a province called Subcarpathian Rus, or the Subcarpathian Rusyn Land (Czech: Podkarpatská Rus; Země podkarpatoruská).
Subcarpathian Rus was endowed with autonomous status approved at the Paris Peace Conference and inscribed in two international treaties (St. Germain [1919]; Trianon [1920]) and in Czechoslovakia’s constitution (1921). Rusyn became alongside Czech an official language of the province. Yet, despite international treaties and constitutional guarantees, Subcarpathian Rus did not acquire full autonomous status until October 1938. Pressured by Nazi Germany and its ally Hungary, Czechoslovakia was forced to cede to those two countries parts of its territory until it ceased to exist entirely in March 1939. During Czechoslovakia’s last months, autonomous Subcarpathian Rus (also known at the time as Carpatho-Ukraine) acquired its own elected diet, which on the last day of Czechoslovakia’s existence (March 15, 1939) symbolically declared its independence as the “republic for a day.”
Hungary annexed Subcarpathian Rus in March 1939, while the Carpatho-Rusyn minority in Slovakia remained in that new state, which, like Hungary, was allied with Nazi Germany. Hungary never implemented the autonomy that it promised, but it did recognize what were called Hungarian Ruthenians (Uhro-Rusyns). At the same time, Rusyn (ruskyi) was declared the official language alongside Hungarian in the region.
Status since the end of World War II
Following the arrival of Soviet armies in the fall of 1944, Hungarian rule was replaced by a transitional local government (National Council of Transcarpathian Ukraine), which rejected the return to Czechoslovak rule and instead fulfilled Joseph Stalin’s desire to see the region annexed to the Soviet Union. In June 1945 Subcarpathian Rus was ceded by Czechoslovakia to the Soviet Union and became the Transcarpathian oblast (region) of the Ukrainian S.S.R. The designations Rusyn and Carpatho-Rusyn were banned, and the local East Slavic inhabitants and their language were declared to be Ukrainian. Soviet policy was followed in neighbouring communist Czechoslovakia and Poland, where the Carpatho-Rusyn inhabitants (Lemko Rusyns in the case of Poland) were henceforth officially designated Ukrainians. Hence, during the post-World War II communist era in central and eastern Europe (1945–89), the ethnonym Rusyn lived on only among the Carpathian diaspora in Serbia’s Vojvodina and Croatia’s Srem—regions of Yugoslavia where Rusyns (locally known as Rusnaks) were designated an official nationality—and among the large immigrant communities in the United States.
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With the collapse of communist rule (1989) in central and eastern Europe, a Carpatho-Rusyn revival took place during which national activists called for the recognition of Rusyns as a distinct nationality with the right to use their language in schools, the media, cultural life, and civic affairs. An important goal of the revival was to codify a modern Rusyn literary language, something that occurred in Serbia as early as 1923 and was achieved in 1995 in Slovakia and has since happened in Poland (2000) and Ukraine (2014).
The status of Rusyns (Carpatho-Rusyns) varies from country to country. Since the 1990s, Slovakia, Poland, Hungary, Romania, Serbia, Croatia, and the Czech Republic have recognized Rusyns as a distinct national minority eligible for state support for educational and cultural activity. Ukraine has been reluctant to follow the lead of its western neighbours, although in March 2007 the regional assembly in the Transcarpathian oblast (Zakarpattya) recognized Rusyns as a distinct nationality, and the central government in Ukraine adopted a law (August 2012) that lists Rusyn (rusynska) as one of the country’s regional languages.
No country contains a distinct administrative entity called Ruthenia (Carpathian Rus). Two countries, however, do provide a form of autonomy. Since 1993 Hungary has allowed self-government for individual communities (villages as well as districts in cities) that have a certain percentage of inhabitants of a given nationality other than Hungarian. At present the Rusyn Minority Self-Government in Hungary consists of 72 communities, mostly in the northeastern part of the country and in the centrally located capital city of Budapest and surrounding county of Pest. Budapest is also the seat of the statewide Administration for Rusyn Self-Government. Since 2002 the province of Vojvodina in Serbia has provided for elected councils, among which is the National Council of the Rusyn National Minority. It determines policy and the distribution of state funds for cultural and civic activity among the Rusyns (Rusnaks) of that province.
It is generally difficult to determine the number of people who belong to a nationality other than the official one of the state in which they live. Rusyns (Carpatho-Rusyns) are no exception, since not all countries where they live record them accurately on census reports. Informed estimates suggest that there may be as many as one million Rusyns living in their Carpathian homeland and adjacent countries. Much smaller are the numbers found in official census data from the first decade of the 21st century that are based on answers to questions of national or ethnic identity (Rusyn, Rusnak, Lemko) or mother tongue or native language: Slovakia (55,500), Serbia (14,200), Poland (10,500), Ukraine (10,100), Hungary (3,900), Croatia (2,300), Czech Republic (1,100), and Romania (250).