Posted by Stefan Iwaskewycz on November 19, 1999 at 16:25:55:
In Reply to: Re: For Brian, in search of identity posted by The mad Rusyn on October 20, 1999 at 10:55:30:
This is indeed a very interesting debate, and, I think, Ukrainians--or those descendents of the people of Rus'who so choose to self-identify as Ukrainians today rather than as Rusyns, but whose ancestors prior to the modern period were known as Rusyny or Ruthenians, and not Muscovites--should be cautious so as to not engage in a kind of cultural imperialism. It is true that the modern Ukrainians descend from a people who were called Rusyn, lest all the histories that claim this to the case be wrong; and the proponents of the notion that all histories claiming the continuity between early Rusyn and modern Ukrainian identity are false will be hard up to explain why the Tsardom of Muscovy took the name Russia once its objective of gathering all Rus' under the sovereignty of a supposed "3rd Rome" was successful. It is also true that the people calling themselves today Rusyn are descendents of that same general Rusyn ethnic bunch that are the ancestors of the modern Ukrainians. And it is also accurate to say that the name Ukraine was adopted in order to combat the very, very clever Muscovite co-optation of Rusyn ethnicity.
However, none of this answers the question of whether or not those who call themselves Rusyn and those who call themselves Ukrainian today are the same people. Ukraine is an enormous territory with very real and very powerful differences within. Noone can deny the existence, in much of Ukraine's history, of "two countries" within. . .the West Ukrainians are, indeed, a different bunch from their eastern brethren, having had developed its sense of self as part of Western empires for hundreds of years. This marks it culturally distinct from the easterners. Of course, the national struggle has been, in part, to develop a sense of a singular national culture, which seems to me to be the task before independent Ukraine today--insofar as the ethnic Ukrainian population is concerned (I am always worried that there may emerge attempt to Ukrainianize the minority groups, such as the Tatars--but so far, I am impressed by Ukraine's respect of Crimean autonomy). Thus, the nation-building process should be accomplished democratically, and only by willful participation. I applaud this effort today, since it may be the only way that those who wish to identify as Ukrainian to prevent their culture from once again being attacked and dominated.
However, it is of no minor significance that a significant chunk of people of Rusyn ancestry did not adopt the modern "Ukrainian" identity; neither during the 17th and 18th century nationalist movements, nor during the early half of this century, and neither today. This may be due, in part, to foriegn control by Hungarians as well as Hapsburg policy that kept these Carpathian Rusyns seperate from the events that lead to the development of Ukrainianism/Ukrainian identity among the other Rusyns. That is, these Rusyny were isolated from the nationalism/nation-building process that lead to the development of a Ukrainian ethnic identity (out of a term that was originally merely a territorial, not ethnic, designation) among others of the Rusyn stock. But that then means that those calling themselves Rusyn today did indeed take a different course in the evolution of their culture than did those who became Ukrainian.
SO if they wish to be viewed as distinct, then so be it. The only objection I would have is if the argument was made that the Ukrainians and modern Rusyns had a different ancestry--if were said that the people calling themselves Rusyny/Ruthenian prior to the modern period were not the ancestors of the Ukrainians as well as modern day Rusyns.