Speaker A
So, we see in Europe the demise of Rusyn ethnicity as such. Now, it's not that you can't propagate Rusyn foods and dance and language, but you can't call it Rusyn. It has to be called Ukrainian, a subset of Ukrainian.
Part 4 of John Righetti's Rusyn series covers Rusyn survival in the US under McCarthy-era pressures, the 1970s ethnic revival sparked by Roots, and the post-1989 revival in Europe.
Key Takeaways
- Rusyn identity was suppressed in both Europe and the US during the 20th century.
- Ethnic revival in the US was driven by a broader cultural movement in the 1970s.
- Democratic transitions allowed Rusyn identity to revive rapidly in Europe.
- Minority rights models in Hungary, Romania, and Poland demonstrate institutional revival of Rusyn identity.
What the video covers
- Europe saw the decline of Rusyn ethnicity as a distinct identity, with Rusyn culture often rebranded as Ukrainian.
- In the US, 1950s McCarthy-era suspicion of Eastern Europeans led Rusyn communities to turn inward and abandon ties with relatives in Europe.
- Greek Catholic churches adopted heavier Latinization in the 1950s, adding stations of the cross, rosaries, and removing icon screens.
- Alex Haley's Roots helped spark a broader American ethnic revival in the early 1970s, including Rusyn festivals and dance groups.
- Yugoslavia's communist governments uniquely recognized Rusyn minorities, providing language schools, theater, publications, and television.
- After communism fell in 1989, Rusyn cultural organizations quickly reemerged across Eastern Europe.
- Rusyns are now official minorities in several European states, with government support for language, culture, and media.
- In Romania, the president of the Rusyn organization serves as the Rusyn delegate in parliament.
- Hungary's minority model lets Rusyn villages elect representatives, growing from 14 Rusyn villages to about 85.
- Poland's census shows self-declared Lemkos rising from about 6,000 to 10,000.
Chapters
- 00:00Rusyn Identity Loss in Europe
- 00:31Community Insularity and Latinization in the US
- 01:33Severed Ties and Cold War Surveillance
- 02:19Roots and the American Ethnic Revival
- 03:39Rusyn Communities in Yugoslavia
- 05:14Post-Communist Rusyn Revival in Europe
- 07:40Minority Rights in Hungary, Romania, and Poland
Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown
Speaker A
Here in the United States, we have another different issue. And that's that by the time we get to the 1950s, Rusyns and their churches and their communities, many of which are now associated with a Russian nationality, but at least things Eastern um have to deal with that in the context of Joe McCarthy's uh era, the 1950s, a period of time in the United States where everything that was Eastern Europe was suspect.
Speaker A
And so, what you start to see happen in the Rusyn community is that things that the community does happens within the community itself. They don't talk about it or spread it to other individuals within the community.
Speaker A
The churches take on the Greek Catholic Church, especially, takes on a much heavier Latinization process in the '50s with the installation of things that make it look more American Catholic, like stations of the cross and rosaries and removing icon screens.
Speaker A
Um within the Rusyn community as a whole, the ties to family in Europe virtually disappears.
Speaker A
You talk to families here who wrote to their relatives in Europe and sent things from the turn of the century to the war.
Speaker A
By the time we get to the early '60s, almost nobody is writing to relatives in Europe, and nobody in Europe is writing to relatives in America because both realize that they're being watched by governments who don't like the idea of East Europeans talking to Americans or Americans talking to East Europeans.
Speaker A
If one looks at the entire history of Carpatho-Rusyns, particularly over the last 150 to 200 years, for all intents and purposes, Rusyns shouldn't be here.
Speaker A
With both the denationalization in the United States and the forced denationalization in Europe, by the time we get to the late 1960s, there should be no such thing as Rusyns existing in society.
Speaker A
And yet, there's an absolutely fascinating phenomenon that happens here in the United States.
Speaker A
A prominent um writer, Alex Haley, writes a book called Roots.
Speaker A
And the story is a story about his African ancestors as slaves coming to the United States and him genealogically tracing back the stories of his family.
Speaker A
And not only does it create a great deal of fervor about their heritage amongst African-Americans, but it does it to all Americans.
Speaker A
And so, by the early '70s, what we see is the revival of ethnicity in the United States.
Speaker A
We see um various communities holding ethnic festivals, churches starting ethnic festivals, dance groups popping up, people wanting to learn the language of their ancestors.
Speaker A
And in fact, at this point in time amongst the Rusyn community, um we went from just a handful, maybe two or three Rusyn dance groups in the United States in the late 1960s to as many as about a dozen by the time we got to the middle of the mid to late 1970s.
Speaker A
So, this entire revival was very, very powerful, and it's even more powerful in 1989.
Speaker A
Where here we begin to have Rusyn educational materials about who are Rusyns in the English language for the first time.
Speaker A
But then, 1989, a miracle occurs, and that's the communism falls in Eastern Europe.
Speaker A
That none of us could have predicted.
Speaker A
Now, remember that from 1946-47 to 1989, there was no legal status for Rusyns in Europe.
Speaker A
These people virtually did not exist except in one situation, immigrant populations in Yugoslavia, in Croatia and Serbia since 1922.
Speaker A
Even the Yugoslav communist governments recognized its Rusyn minorities.
Speaker A
And so there was this little pocket of Rusyns who were recognized by the government.
Speaker A
They had Rusyn language schools, Rusyn language theater, Rusyn could be taught at the university level, um Rusyn performing ensembles, Rusyn publications, Rusyn television.
Speaker A
It all existed there as a microcosm for what could be if the right political atmosphere is established.
Speaker A
Well, this is what begins to happen in 1989 because uh every uh Rusyns around the world were I think almost astounded that as soon as communism fell, Rusyn ethnicity revived itself in Europe.
Speaker A
And in every country where Rusyns live, Slovakia, Poland, even Ukraine, which was a part of the Soviet Union, within weeks of communism falling, Rusyn cultural organizations developed.
Speaker A
And people began to ask questions again about how can we speak the Rusyn language and learn our children learn in the Rusyn language?
Speaker A
And what about Rusyn language press?
Speaker A
And all of this began to bubble to the forefront.
Speaker A
So that by the time we get to contemporary times, it's now been 20 to 25 years since the fall of communism.
Speaker A
The role of Rusyn ethnicity in Europe has just absolutely mushroomed.
Speaker A
Today in Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Croatia, Serbia, and Romania, Rusyn minority is recognized as an official minority in those states.
Speaker A
The government supports language development in all of those places.
Speaker A
The government supports um cultural development, performing ensembles, the printing of periodicals.
Speaker A
Um and in some, the the the experiment has has become something so profound that for instance in Romania, whoever is elected the president of the Romanian Rusyn organization becomes the Romanian Rusyn delegate in the Romanian Parliament.
Speaker A
So, actually has a government seat.
Speaker A
For in Hungary, which is truly astounding, they set up their model for minority rights that if a village declared itself to be Rusyn, then it would elect someone to head that village and the heads of each of those villages then create a council who elects a president and that president becomes the Hungarian delegate in essence the Hungarian parliamentary representative on behalf of the Rusyn people.
Speaker A
So, it gives real self-determination to these groups.
Speaker A
To fulfill that story, when that first happened, when the Hungarian government said you can declare yourself Rusyn if you want.
Speaker A
About a year after that happened, 14 villages in Hungary declared themselves Rusyn.
Speaker A
Now, I have to tell you those of us in the West were already excited cuz we had no clue there were 14 Rusyn villages left in Hungary.
Speaker A
But, just three or four years ago when I was in Hungary, I asked the Hungarian Rusyn leadership, so have others done so?
Speaker A
Have other villages or segments, and you can do this if you're a section of a city, you can say this section is Rusyn.
Speaker A
Have others in essence developed in that way?
Speaker A
And they said yes, and I said today how many Rusyn communities are there in Hungary?
Speaker A
Remember, it was 14 25 years ago.
Speaker A
It is 85 today.
Speaker A
So, in clearly democratic societies, Rusyn ethnicity can and does revive itself.
Speaker A
Censuses are a good measure of how Rusyn ethnicity has revived itself in Poland, the Polish government made the decision that no longer can one declare to be Lemko, which is obviously the Polish local word for Rusyn and Ukrainian.
Speaker A
That if you want to be Lemko, then you are not Ukrainian.
Speaker A
If you are Ukrainian, then you are not Lemko.
Speaker A
Lemko is to be Rusyn.
Speaker A
Um this past in the first census that was taken, 6,000 people declared themselves to be Lemkos, not Ukrainians.
Speaker A
In the census that was just taken 2 years ago, that number has increased from 6,000 to 10,000.
Speaker A
So, the number is on the rise.
Topics:RusynCarpatho-Rusynethnic revivalLemkocommunismminority rightsLatinizationRootsHungarydiaspora
