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Borys Kosarev: Modernist Kharkiv, 1915-1931 at The Ukrainian Museum thru May 2, 2012
Posted by Stefan on April 27, 2000 at 13:36:49:
In Reply to: Back to the Rusyn issue! posted by Zmiy Mamay on April 19, 2000 at 23:06:22:
To begin with, I will comment on the issue of monastic jurisdiction. It being clearly the case, in the examination of history, that Muscovite imperial policy was to depopulate the then Kozak-Rusyn lands of all their best educated elites for service in the imperial bureaucracy; which therefore meant cooptation of the centers of learning, ie, Church institutions, which therefore meant placing Rusyn-Kozak-Ukrainian Orthodoxy under Muscovite control; it would make perfect sense that, in this era of yet another attempt to seperate from this imperial rule by the Ukrainian people, that the churches/monasteries would return to their traditional jurisdiction under Kyjivan leadership. The Moscow patriarchate is not the product of a natural transference of the culture of Rus' from Kyjiv to Moscow, but the result of a robbery of Rusyn-Kozak proto-Ukrainian culture by the tsars.
But now, I would also like to comment on the Rusyn issue, or rather, on the identity of those in contemporary times calling themselves Rusyn and those saying Ukrainian. Both people have common ancestry, and those ancestors are the descendents of Kyjivan Rus' and who called themselves Rusyny during medieval times. However, the vast majority of the Rusyny people underwent a period of tremendous cultural development/transformation, whereas some were not touched by this experience at all. I believe that the Kozak experience is the key defining element in a process I would call Ukrainianization, long before the activities of the 19th century intelligentsia. That is, I believe that it is the Kozak epxerience, of most, but certainly not all, the Rusyn people that transformed them into the modern era's Ukrainians. This was a profound transformation that built upon the Rusyn heritage, and added something to it--all the trappings of Kozak custom, which, to this day, every thinking person knows, deeply informs Ukrainian self-identity. AND the Kozaks did not exist in Kyjivan Rus', and so it is simply incorrect to argue that the Kozaks were essentially, organically Rusyny. Many of those in Rusyny society produced Kozakdom, and would later become Ukrainians. As for the rest, remote as they were from the experience of Kozakdom and these developments of their Rusyn brethren, living high up in the Carpathians, under strong Hungarian influence, as well as many others, it is very fair to say that they were likewise isolated from the Ukrainianization of their Rusyn brethren, and thus rightfully claim to this day to be Rusyns, not Ukrainians; even if at times of struggle against non-Slavs like the agressive Hungarians, they chose to join the Ukrainian cause (and this despite the self-conscious effort to Ukrainainize these Karpato-Rus' by the OUN ). The langauges certainly being very similar, the contemporary advocates of Rusyn culture mostr certainly realize that their society lacks many of the key elements, essentially the Kozak spirit, that would define them as Ukrainians. AND, furthermore, it is more that Ukrainians have expropriated elements of this Rusyn culture to define themselves--I am thinking of the Hutsuls--since the basic premise of Ukrainain identity is the Cossack custom built upon the traditions of Kyjiv-Rus' and the Halychyna-Volhynshchyna Principalities. And insofar as my upbringing has always taught me, the Hutsuls were Ukrainians, but of a different sort. Exactly. Ukrainians, the victims of Polonization and Russification, should be weary of being the perpetrators of a Ukrainianization upon a people resistent to it, again, even if in times past, they seemed to go along with it. (One last note: Language is not enough to establish cultural homogeniety--which has often been a fallacy believed by the Ukrainian intelligentsia. Distinct national cultures exist throughout Latin America, and yet they all speak Spanish and descend from the same set of ancestors).
And all this from an American-Ukrainian who believes that the Rusyny have every right to assert their identity.