Minorities in the EU

In this issue, Outpost Dispatch begins a series of articles about ethnic minorities in the European Union. As of 1 May, Rusyns have become one of the EU’s official minorities, in the new member states of the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia. By looking at other minorities’ experiences, we hopefully will get an idea of what sorts of benefits and drawbacks to expect for the Rusyns.

Rusyn groups are already members of several international organizations which interact in varying ways with the EU. Unfortunately, the primary international Rusyn organization, the World Council of Rusyns, is not a member of any international organization. This situation must be remedied as soon as possible, in order to ensure that the Rusyn people are accorded proper representation on the international level.

One of the central organizations for nations without states is the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization (UNPO), based in the Netherlands, in the Hague. Rusyn’ska Obroda (Slovakia) is a member of this organization, though the UNPO website also includes news from the Carpatho-Rusyn Society (USA). The UNPO unites “indigenous peoples, occupied nations, minorities and independent states or territories who have joined together to protect their human and cultural rights, preserve their environments, and to find non-violent solutions to conflicts which affect them,” according to the organization’s website. The acronym indicates it sees itself perhaps as an alternative United Nations.

Rusyn’ska Obroda is also a founding member of the European Federation of Maisons de Pays (EFMP), based in Antibes, in the French region of Provençe. The organization was formed in 1993 by representatives of 16 minority groups from throughout Europe. The group holds a congress every three years, and the Rusyns hosted the second one in Prešov in 1996. In 2000, the group published Those Europeans Who Want To Speak And Live Their Languages, a guide to 32 European minority languages including nearly 40 pages (of 364) about Rusyn as spoken in Slovakia, Ukraine and the former Yugoslavia. The organization’s next congress will be held in 2005.

The Federal Union of European Nationalities (FUEN) is a highly active organization promoting and lobbying for the rights of national minorities. Founded in 1949 simultaneously with the Council of Europe, it is based in Flensburg, Germany. Today, FUEN has 76 member organizations from 32 states, including the Carpatho-Rusyn Society (Ukraine) and the Ukrainian-oriented Lemko Union (Poland). The Rusyn-oriented Lemko Association has participated in FUEN events, e.g. a 1999 conference on national minorities’ media held in Germany, but is not a member.

According to the organization’s website, FUEN “serves the ethnic groups in Europe and pursues the goal of preserving their national identity, their language, culture and the history of national minorities. This objective is pursued only by peaceful means. It decisively takes a stand against separatism and the violent moving of national borders, and works towards a neighborly, peaceful coexistence of majority and minority in one state or region.” FUEN has consultative status at the UN, the Council of Europe and the OECD.

In 1963, FUEN created the Youth of European Nationalities (YEN), which unites organizations of minority youths. YEN was formally separated from FUEN in 1984 and today is a completely autonomous organization working to promote minority cultures, languages and rights. The group focuses on promoting exchange among its member organizations by bi- and multilateral exchanges, congresses, youth-for-youth projects and the building of communication structures. YEN has 21 members, but none among them are Rusyn organization. The World Forum of Rusyn Youth should by all rights join as soon as possible.

The European Bureau of Lesser Used Languages (EBLUL) was founded in 1982 by the European Parliament. However, it is a non-governmental organization and is not formally linked to the European Union. The EBLUL unites fourteen committees in various EU member states, with committees currently being registered in Portugal and Poland as well. These committees represent the interest of regional and minority languages in their states, while the EBLUL umbrella organization does the same on the international level. Both the Rusyn-oriented Lemko Association and the Ukrainian-oriented Lemko Union are founding members of the Polish Bureau for Lesser Used Languages, PolBLUL.

Though the work of all of these organizations is of the highest importance to the Rusyns, so far it has been FUEN which as devoted the most attention to problems specifically affecting Rusyns communities. In October and November 2000, Joseph Komlossy the then Vice-President of FUEN, conducted a study visit to Ukraine and produced a report which was published in January 2001. The study visit was intended to investigate a number of issues in Ukraine, including the urgent problems of the Russian minority there, though much of the report specifically deals with the problems faced by the Rusyns.

Komlossy began his visit in Subcarpathian Rus’ (Transcarpathia), which he alternately refers to as “Sub-Carpathia,” “Ruthenia” and “Kárpátalja.” A second trip in the same time period took him to the state capital, Kiyv. Particularly interested in the then-upcoming 2001 census in Ukraine, Komlossy met with both government officials and with representatives of minority groups.

Concerning Subcarpathian Rus’, Komlossy writes, “It is a great pity that at the time of recognition the new State Ukraine, no State exerted influence on the newly established Kiev government to recognize the expression of the rightful will of self-determination of 1.3 million inhabitants of Ruthenia/Sub-Carpathia. This question is still open, and at the present time is in several respects timelier than before.”

The report culminated in a resolution adopted on 24 May 2001 at FUEN’s 46^th congress in Heerenveen in the Netherlands. The resolution, 2001/08, expresses concern at the “continuing infringement of the national rights of the Carpathian Ruthenians (Rusyns)” in Ukraine and demands that the minority be recognized by the Ukrainian state and accorded the corresponding rights, that cross-border contact among Rusyn organizations and individuals be facilitated and that the then-upcoming 2001 Ukrainian census allow freedom of choice as to religious and ethnic affiliation.

One year later, at the 47^th congress in Subotica, Serbia, a second resolution on the Rusyns was passed. FUEN resolution 2002/08 expresses “concern at the continuing violation of the national rights” of the Rusyns in Transcarpathia. The Assembly “demands yet again” that Ukraine recognize the Rusyns as a national minority, end the assimilation of the Rusyns into the Ukrainian nation and grand them rights equal to the other national minorities in Ukraine. This resolution again demands that cross-border contacts be facilitated, and that the results of the 2001 census concerning the Rusyns be published.

Unfortunately, Julijan Tamaš of the local Union of Rusyns and Ukrainians addressed the Subotica congress. Tamaš began his speech by announcing the Rusyn question has been solved. “My answer is as follows,” he said. “My answer is as follows: Ruthenians (Rusyns) are a regional identity of the Ukrainian nation like the Provencal and French, Latin and Italians, old and modern Greeks. Consequently, they are and they are not Ukrainians because linguistic differences are indisputable and this is the basis of the international protection of minority rights. At the same time, they are historically a completely legible community, a destiny in Central Europe and Vojvodina.” This is of course in direct contradiction to FUEN resolutions 2001/08 and 2002/08, but no members of proper Rusyn organizations were present to contradict Tamaš’s claims.

At its 48^th congress in 2003 and its 49^th congress this year, FUEN did not pass any resolutions concerning the Rusyns at all. The latest congress in fact was held in Poland, but only representatives of the Ukrainian-oriented Lemko Union were present – much the same as at the 2002 Subotica congress. Indeed, since it joined FUEN in 1997, the Lemko Union has participated in many, many more meetings, seminars and workshops organized by FUEN than the only Rusyn member organization, the Carpatho-Rusyn Society of Ukraine. It is unclear why Poland’s central Rusyn-oriented Lemko Association is not a FUEN member.

At the 42^nd congress, the Lemko Union was able to get a resolution passed concerning the 50^th anniversary of Akcija Wisla, and it prepared a special English-language version of its magazine, Vatra, as an outreach project for the congress. If it seems that the Rusyn-Ukrainian point of view is being more clearly expressed on the international level, it is quite simply due to the fact that it is. It is also worthwhile to point out that Ukrainian-oriented Rusyn publications have also devoted considerably more time to information about such international meetings than the Rusyn media has.

There is a clear lesson to be learnt here: if Rusyns’ issues are to be discussed at such international meetings, then Rusyns must be present at these meetings. The split between Rusyns and Rusyn-Ukrainians is even more dangerous on the international level. Countries only respect the difference between the two groups thanks to international pressure. If the international community is satisfied that Rusyns are in fact just a strange breed of Ukrainians, then that international pressure will be lifted and countries will be free to disregard the Rusyn nation all together.

The recently-formed Polish Bureau of Lesser Used Languages, a subsidiary of the European Bureau for Lesser Used Languages, is fortunately starting off on the right foot, with members of both Rusyn- and Ukrainian-orientation side by side. PolBLUL was founded on 13 December 2003 in Gdansk by nine minority organizations representing Poland’s Germans, Karaites, Kashubians, Lemkos, Lithuanians, Pomeranians, Roma, Russians and Silesians.

According to EBLUL, Poland is home to three sorts of language groups: regional, national minority and diasporic. The first group includes Kashubian, Silesian and Wilamowicean; the second includes Belarusian, Czech, German, Lithuanian, Russian, Rusyn/Lemko, Slovak and Ukrainian; while the third includes Armenian, Hebrew, Karaim, Romani and Yiddish.

The Ukrainian-oriented Nasze Slowo commented, “This division solicited criticism from the Lemko Union, which stressed that the organization is much needed but nevertheless they do not support the division” since it lists Rusyn/Lemko as a national minority, and not a regional, language. The Lemko Union proposed that the PolBLUL statute list regional and national minority languages together in a single group, rather than in two lists. This solution was accepted by the group.

Lemko Association representative Olena Duć-Fajfer suggested that PolBLUL allow only one representative organization per language, which was not accepted since those present at the meeting agreed that no single organization has the right to speak for their entire group. Nasze Slowo pointed out that this means that other Ukrainian organizations, such as the Lemko Union of Podolia and the Ukrainian Teachers’ Association, will be able to join PolBLUL.

If the number of Ukrainian voices at PolBLUL increases, the number of Rusyn voices should increase in kind. Rusyn participation in this organization is more urgent than ever, since the EBLUL is closely allied with the EU. The very future of the Rusyn language in Poland may well depend on Rusyn representatives striving to participate in PolBLUL activities. And Poland is just the first of the new EU member states to form a national Bureau for Lesser Used Languages. As the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia – which also have Rusyn and Ukrainian minorities – form their own bureaus, Rusyns must also play an active role.

The EU is clearly not the first international organizations in which the Rusyns have been involved. However, their memberships in various organizations have not been exploited to any great degree. The threat posed to the existence of legal protections for Rusyn minorities throughout Europe by Ukrainian-oriented groups has never been as strong or pressing as it is right now. International cooperation is crucial to the Rusyns’ survival as a nation in Europe, particularly if the Ukrainian-oriented Rusyns become influential in the PolBLUL. In the coming weeks, this series will explore the ways that other minority groups in Europe have adjusted to life in the EU and how they approach the opportunities and dangers posed by international cooperation.