A small, good-hearted nation in the heart of Europe

Alena Blykhova

The original Rusyn-language version of this article appeared in the 1/2 2004 issue of Rusyn.

It is 22 March 2004. The rain is cleaning away the last bit of snow and turning it into a muddy pudding. A mist drifts down the streets of the city along which here and there black and white figures scurry by. Nowhere is there even a hit of spring. Simply put, it is the St. Petersburg of literature.

I was standing at the entrance to the city library, and I was looking at announcements for concerts, readings, plays…and my eyes were immediately drawn to a little yellow slip of paper. I drew closer and read that the University of St. Petersburg Department of Ethnology was holding a seminar called “The Rusyns of Eastern Slovakia.” The seminar was on 22 March at 6:00 p.m. at the university.

I never imagined that anyone here would know anything about the Rusyns. I thought how great it was to be so far from home and to hear something about your own people. At once, I forgot about the rain and the time. I don’t know how, but I found myself sitting in the university auditorium. I’m glad that even such cold weather did not deter people from coming. The audience was mostly young people who had come to hear a lecture about the Rusyns, and later I learnt that the university students learn that Rusyns are a small nation that lives in several states in Central Europe and that has its own codified language. The large number of questions showed that the students of St. Petersburg University really were interested in Ol’ga Ponosova’s lecture.

The audience sat for an hour and a half listening to the lecture. Throughout the lecture, various things were passed around the auditorium, including examples of the Rusyn press, a dictionary and the Gospel of John in Rusyn. It was so nice to hear a foreigner say that, according to the research which formed the basis of her lecture, the Rusyns are a good-hearted people, hospitable, modest, open and that education and faith are very important to them. Ol’ga enumerated two negative things about the Rusyns, however: they are ashamed of being Rusyn, and alcoholism is very common among them.

I realized that if I were hearing about Rusyns for the first time, I would think to myself that this is would be the perfect nation if they would only like to be who they in fact are. The lecture was based on ethnographic research, on materials which Ol’ga gathered from conversations and interviews with Rusyns and with representatives of other nations who live together with the Rusyns. She gave an objective picture of the Rusyns’ life in Slovakia, of our culture, economic situation, of the Rusyn intelligentsia, of religious life, of the relations between Rusyns and other national groups, their fortune and their history and language, of the views the Rusyns hold of themselves and as a nation, etc.

I was especially interested when Ol’ga said that according to her research the negative phrase “Crazy Rusnak” was dreamt up by Rusyns who were already assimilated and who thought that to be a Rusyn is to be something lesser than to be a Slovak or anything else. According to her research, other national groups not only in Slovakia have an contrary view of the Rusyns.

I must say that this lecture made me think about questions which our people don’t often consider: what do other nations think of us? And if they have a positive impression of us, then why are we ashamed of ourselves and why do we think that we are something lesser? According to Petersburg philologists and many others, the Rusyns are a small, independent, East Slavic nation (they laugh at the word “Rusyn-Ukrainian”), and according to the hard, but true, words of Ol’ga Ponosova, the Rusyns are a small but separate nation with their own language but unfortunately half of the group does not realize who they really are. Slovak? Ukrainian? Rusyn? Or what?

At the end of the lecture, questions Ol’ga could not answer hung in the air. For example, why are the Rusyns ashamed of themselves? Why is Rusyn only taught in a couple schools? Is there no interest? In the territory where the Rusyns live, in which language are the Gospels read in churches? Why not in Rusyn? Why is Rusyn self-awareness so low?

These questions were offered by the majority of students, and several of them were hearing about Rusyns for the first time. I think these questions are very important for us, and we must answer them as soon as possible, because in a couple years we will no longer know who we are and in a couple decades no one else will be speaking about the small, good-hearted nation in the heart of Europe. Other than as an historical fact.