ADVERTISEMENT
Borys Kosarev: Modernist Kharkiv, 1915-1931 at The Ukrainian Museum thru May 2, 2012
Posted by Maryellen Tobiasiewicz on April 29, 2000 at 14:46:01:
In Reply to: Back to the Rusyn issue! posted by Zmiy Mamay on April 19, 2000 at 23:06:22:
" And please, don't argue, that Russian and Ukrainian are very close languages as well!!!! Russians that did not learn Ukrainian CANNOT understand it (at least 60% of it)!! But a Ukrainian who has never learned Rusyn CAN understand it!"
Hi! I am Rusyn descent. When I was growing up, my family always siad that we are "Russian". We attended a Russian Orthodox Church. When I started college, I signed up for a Russian class (as did many of my peers). My mother was excited about this desire to learn the language and she was very willing to help me. However, when I brought home the book, she made comments like I dont understand this, this is the wrong word, I cant read this writing. This was the start of my quest for my heritage and genealogy research! I found out we are not Russian at all!! Also, my aunt had married a man from a village outside of LVIV. He spoke Ukrainian and not Russian. We understood him very well. My mother & my uncle argued regularly about the Russian-Ukrainian heritage. The more I learned, the more I realized my uncle was very knowledgeable about Ukrainian & Rusyn history. I wish I had asked him more questions then. Anyway, I agree, Rusyns were mostly stuck in the mountains and their language remained mostly untouched from the original.