Encyclopedia of Rusyn History and Culture

Myroslav Shkandrij is head of the Department of German and Slavic
Studies at the University of Manitoba and the editor of The Cultural
Renaissance in Ukraine: Polemical Pamphlets, 1925–1926.

The avowed aim of this volume is to make available information on the
approximately 1.2 million Carpatho-Rusyns who live within the borders of
Poland, Slovakia, Ukraine, Romania, and Hungary. Over 1000 entries
provide information on a variety of figures, organizations,
publications, and geographical facts. Much of the information is being
made available to a wide audience for the first time.

The difficulty is with the fundamental terms. The editors occasionally
implicitly assume that the various groups who live along the southern
and western slopes of the Carpathian Mountains (Lemkos, Boikos, Rusyns,
and other inhabitants of Subcarpathian Rus) are, indeed, one ethnic
group with a common identity. There is, however, a distinction to be
made between, on the one hand, the region and its inhabitants, and, on
the other hand, the Rusyn identity. Many of the entries devoted to
individuals highlight this. Figures like Andrii Alyshkevych, Bohdan Ihor
Antonych, Iurii Bacha, Alexander Baran, Ivan Chendei, Stepan Hostyniak,
Vasyl Markus, Stepan Rosokha, Sylvester Sembratovych, although they may
have come from or spent some time in the area, would not by any means
describe themselves as Rusyns. In fact, they were passionately dedicated
to another identity-building project—the Ukrainian.

In the relevant entries, particularly in those dealing with language
and literature, contributors to the encyclopedia describe the contest
between those in this region who adhered to the Ukrainian, Rusyn,
Russophile, and Old Ruthenian identities. In most entries the adherence
of a particular figure to one of these identities is noted.
Nevertheless, in their introduction the editors insist that we are
dealing with one people and one contiguous territorial unit. The purpose
of the volume is, of course, not only to redress the loss of historical
memory, but to build awareness of and adherence to a Rusyn identity.

The project has proven to be controversial for two reasons—in the
past because of attempts by Czechoslovakia, Poland, and Hungary to
assimilate the population, and in the present because of heightened
competition between Ukrainian and Rusyn allegiances. However, outside
the underlying and still-contentious issues of conceptualization, scope,
and definition, there are many valuable pieces of information contained
in the entries on ethnography, art, architecture, cinema, politics, and
history. The reader will, for example, find an entry on Andy Warhol,
perhaps the most famous individual claimed by many Rusyns as their own.