Interethnic conflict, alliance and identity in the history of Slavjane

Robert Carl Metyl’, Pittsburgh

This article originally appeared in the Winter 1996 issue of Carpatho-Rusyn American, Vol. XIX, No. 4.

Slavjane, which means “the Slavs,” is a dance, song, an instrumental youth ensemble based in western Pennsylvania and consisting of about fifty-five performers ranging in age from five to nineteen. It is an egalitarian, non-professional performing arts collective, whose current bylaws stipulate: “All performing members are required to participate in all phases of performance, including singing, dancing and playing of a musical instrument to the best of their ability.” Performing members receive inst-ruction from Slavjane’s adult directors in dancing, singing and the playing of one or two musical instruments. The org-anization has an informal one-month trial period for new performing members, but conducts no auditions. Slavjane has been in existence under its current name since the early 1970s, but has direct predecessors in other performing arts groups which were active in the 1950s and 1960s. Among the Pittsburgh-area pre-decessors to Slavjane, on the basis of membership and sponsorship, were the Western Pennsylvania Byzantine Catholic Chorus (predominantly an adult dancing group), Karpatho-Rus’, and the Slav Cultural Dancers.

Slavjane’s Current Status

The group’s leader is its choreographer and program director, Jack Poloka [1938-2010], an active figure in Pittsburgh area Slavic performing arts since the 1950s. Its headquarters is the Holy Ghost Byzantine Catholic Church in McKees Rocks, Pennsylvania, just outside of Pittsburgh. Slavjane is co-sponsored by the Greek Catholic Union, or GCU, a fraternal insurance corporation, founded in Pennsylvania in 1892 as the Sojedinenije Greko-Katoličeskih Russkih Bratstv, or the Union of Greek Catholic Rusyn Brotherhoods. The majority of Slavjane’s adult officers and trustees are of Rusyn descent, as is nearly one-half of its artistic staff and approximately twenty-five percent of its performing members. Slavjane is governed by a board of officers democratically elected by the organization’s parents’ group. The parents’ group plays a vital role in supporting the performing members in a variety of ways, including making costumes, transporting performers to and from engagements, fundraising, and performing music for recordings used to supplement live music at Slavjane rehearsals and performances.

The Slavjane Community is characterized by intergenerational continuity, which is expressed by parents in conversations and is also in programs, bylaws, and other related publications. For example, the program notes to Slavjane’s 1994 Eighteenth Annual Concert state the following: “Our heritage is a rich legacy passed on lovingly from one generation to the next. [It] is truly [a] cherished bond between the past, present and future. Slavjane’s goal is to preserve and share this legacy with our family, friends, and neighbors.”

Slavjane’s intergenerational nature is underscored by the fact that a number of the parents of children who perform with the group were themselves performing members of the ensemble when they were children and young adults in the 1970s. For instance, Jack Poloka’s granddaughter is a performing member of Slavjane, as were all of his four children, including Deal Poloka, who is Slavjane’s current associate choreographer. Dean is an amateur folk-lorist who has conducted participant-observational fieldwork among Rusyn and Slovak traditional performing artists in the European homeland. Also, Slavjane’s president, Greg Fejka, related through marriage to Jack Poloka, is a Slavjane alumnus with two children now per-forming in the current group.

Slavjane is the official representative of culture for the pre-dominantly Rusyn-descent Byzantine Catholic Arch-diocese of Pittsburgh. The Rusyns of the greater Pittsburgh area, represented by Slavjane, are chartered members of the Pittsburgh Folk Festival, a popular annual public event that highlights the traditional cultures of many ethnic groups in western Pennsylvania. Slavjane also appears at a variety of other venues throughout Pennsylvania and several neighboring states. In the 1970s, the ensemble performed traditional American and Slavic material on the grounds of the Statue of Liberty in New York harbor. The group has also performed at the Epcot Center in Orlando, Florida, and at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. For many, the highlight of Slavjane’s history was its June 1992 performance at the Thirtieth Annual Festival of Culture and Sport in Medzilaborce, Slovakia.

The ethnic “heritage” and “legacy” of the Slavjane ensemble is far from homogeneous. What is called “our heritage” is not that of one discrete European ethnic group, but rather an accretion of several eastern European heritages represented by the ethnically diverse membership of the ensemble itself. This heterogeneity becomes apparent through the simple observation of physical objects owned by parents and performers present during a Slavjane rehearsal. One is confronted by a puzzling and seemingly incongruous array of messages conveyed by the diverse media, whether T-shirts, car bumper stickers, or decorative instrument case decals. One encounters potentially conflicting messages such as “Kosovo je Srpska” (Kosovo is Serbian) on one instrument case resting alongside another with a souvenir sticker of the “Jadrany Junior [Croatian] Tamburitzans,” yet the respective owners of these instruments dance happily together nearby. As one would expect, shirts worm by some parents speak of their Rusyn ethnicity, with such messages as “Carpatho-Rusin, Someone Special,” and “Russka Dolina University.” Russka Dolina, or “Rusnak Valley,” is the popular name of one section in the working-class Pittsburgh neighborhood of Greenfield. The valley received its name thanks to its concentration of Rusyn immigrants and their descendants, and its large, highly visible Rusyn Byzantine Catholic church, St. John Chrysostom, the headquarters of Slavjane’s predecessor, the Western Pennsylvania Byzantine Catholic Chorus. Also visible at Slavjane rehearsals and performances are shirts of parents bearing the designations, “Czechoslovakia” and “Magyarorszag” [Hungary], accompanied by the corresponding ethnic and national emblems. Vanity license plates on a number of parents’ cars read SLAVJANE, and one may also see bumper stickers that communicate ethno-national proclivities, including messages of Slovak orientation.

The heterogeneous eastern European ethnic composition of Slavjane’s community, indicated by the personal property of its performers and members, is reflected in the image of the ensemble’s pan-Slavic repertory and vice versa. This heterogeneous pan-Slavic image is also projected outward to the general public, attracting patronage from a heterogeneous admixture of patrons, including Serbian, Croatian, Slovenian and Slovak groups. Slavjane’s directors transmit and reinforce this image by customarily announcing at performances that the group “performs the traditional music and dance of many Slavic peoples, specializing in that of the Carpatho-Rusyn people.”

A Word on Rusyn Identity in Relation to Ukrainian and Slovak Identity

Of particular interest is the oppositional relationship to Rusyns on the part of Pittsburgh-area Ukrainians and Slovaks. American Rusyns have experienced the greatest conflict with American Ukrainians, especially those originating from western Ukraine (Galicia). By contrast, the Pittsburgh-area Slovak response to Rusyns, while not always idyllic, has been characterized by a greater degree of tolerance. This general attitudinal difference on the part of Slovaks and Ukrainians to the concept of Rusyn ethnicity may be attributed in part to the Slovaks’ readiness to recognize Rusyns as a separate and distinct people on the basis of their language and culture. Slovaks are a West Slavic people who speak a West Slavic language and are predominantly Roman Catholic or Lutheran. Rusyns, by contrast, are an East Slavic people who preserve an East Slavic set of Rusyn dialects and adhere primarily to eastern forms of Christianity, whether Byzantine/Greek Catholic or Orthodox. Since Ukrainians are also East Slavs, it is simpler to argue that Rusyns are ethnologically Ukrainian than to argue that they are Slovak.

The issue of Rusyn identity and Ukrainophilism is more complex and problematic when one considers the activities of Ukrainophile Rusyns in eastern Slovakia. The only organization representing Rusyns in Slovakia before the Revolution of 1989, KSUT (Kul’turnyj Sojuz ukrajins’kych trudjaščych/Cultural Union of Ukrainian Workers), has been criticized for being a vehicle for ukrainianization and a contributor to the erosion of Rusyn identity in eastern Slovakia. Careful analysis reveals, however, that while ukrainianization was part of its agenda, KSUT also sponsored, organized, and supported many traditional performing arts groups and performance events devoted to local Rusyn culture. The foremost example is the annual June folklore festival in Svidník (first staged in Medzilaborce in 1955), which showcases hundreds of traditional Rusyn performers. Since Czechoslovakia’s Velvet Revolution of 1989, KSUT’s successor SRUSR (Sojuz rusyniv-ukrajinciv Slovackoji Respublyky/Union of Rusyn-Ukrainians of the Slovak Republic) has increased its efforts toward the propagation of local Rusyn performing arts. And outstanding example of this is the annual Makovyc’ka Struna concert (established in 1973) which is held in Bardejov each December under the artistic direction of Andrej Karško, a founding member of PUL’S. Makovyc’ka Struna features dozens of local Rusyn solo and duo vocalists who perform traditional, yet innovative and little-heard Rusyn folksongs from eastern Slovakia. Many Rusyn “star” singers of eastern Slovakia first achieved lasting public recognition through their performances at Makovyc’ka Struna. These include Anna Servicka and the male duo Vasilenko and Džupin, who were honored in 1996 as recipients of gold cassette awards in Slovakia for outstanding sales of their recordings of Rusyn songs. Many Rusyn songs which have become classic favorites in eastern Slovakia – including “Švit' mišjačku” (Shine, Moon), performed by the make duo Lukacko-Karafa, received considerable exposure through the venue provided by Makovyc’ka Struna.

Slavjane’s contacts in Slovakia have been with Rusyn’ska Obroda/Rusyn Renaissance Society, an organization with no Ukrainian orientation comprised of many former members of KSUT, hence the focus of the present essay on that relationship.

The Early Years of Performing Arts and the Puzzle of Identity

A look back in history reveals that conflict with Pittsburgh’s Ukrainian community and cordial relations with the local Slovak community already characterized Slavjane’s proto-ensemble, the Western Pennsylvania Byzantine Catholic Chorus. The chorus debuted at the First Annual Pittsburgh Folk Festival in 1956, and performed exclusively for “insiders” to a traditional performing arts ensemble geared to the general public resulted from the meeting of two individuals: Poloka and Dick Crum, the festival’s organizer.

Crum was then the director of the world-renowned Duquesne University Tamburitzans, an ever-popular university student ensemble with a predominantly pan-Slavic repertory. At the beginning of his association with Poloka and his “Carpatho-Russian” circle, Crum expressed open bewilderment at its members’ idiosyncratic and multifarious relationship to their own ethnicity. He challenged them to justify their use of the name Russian, since their ancestral homeland was geographically far removed from Russia. Moreover, several members of the early “Carpatho-Russian” ensemble socialized freely and even performed with the festival’s Slovak ensemble. Perhaps more puzzling was the fact that although the “Carpatho-Russians” all either spoke or understood a language resembling Ukrainian, the “Carpatho-Russians” and Ukrainians never mixed and, in fact, viewed one another with enmity.

Throughout the late 1960s and early 1970s, the group experienced several name changes, including Karpatho-Rus’ and The Slav Cultural Dancers. The latter name was predicative of what would become not only the group’s future name, Slavjane, but also its eventual pan-Slavic orientation.

The 1970s Synthesis of Rusyn Identity and a Pan-Slavic Repertory

In the early 1970s, several important elements aligned to produce the requisite conditions for Slavjane’s consolidation of the Rusyn identity and its expansion of its repertory and patronage base. Among the primary factors were (1) the effect of the writings of the historian Paul R. Magocsi; (2) the sponsorship of the Greek Catholic Union; and (3) the adoption by Slavjane of an open membership policy.

Influenced in part by the work of Professor Magocsi, Slavjane began identifying itself specifically as Carpatho-Rusyn at public, interethnic events. The Rusyn fraternal insurance corporation, the GCU, became the ensemble’s co-sponsor. An intensive development and expansion of the ensemble’s Rusyn repertory was also realized during this period, largely through the inspired and multifaceted creative efforts of Jerry Jumba, who from 1971 to 1980 collaborated with Poloka as the ensemble’s co-director. Slavjane’s affirmation of Rusyn ethnicity peaked in June 1992, when it was honored by the Rusyn Renaissance Society as the first Rusyn-American ensemble invited to perform in the European homeland at the Thirtieth Annual Festival of Culture and Sport in eastern Slovakia. The location of the festival, Medzilaborce, is also the site of the Warhol Family Museum of Modern Art, a short distance from the Rusyn village of Mikova, from which the Pittsburgh-born artist Andy Warhol’s Rusyn parents emigrated. The cost of Slavjane’s trip was paid principally by the Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts in New York City.

In the spring and summer of 1993, Jack Poloka’s son, Dean Poloka, returned to eastern Slovakia to work with members of the Rusyn Renaissance Society in Prešov, as well as to rehearse with, and collect repertory from, the traditional performing arts companies, PULS and Šarišan. Dean returned to Pittsburgh in the summer of 1993 to instruct Slavjane in the new Rusyn and Prešov-Region material he collected. It has been modified too meet the needs of a youth group, and is now included in Slavjane’s performance repertory.

In the early 1970s, the group changed its name to “Slavjane,” meaning “the Slavs,” and or the first time it opened its membership to non-Rusyns, including non-Slavs and non-Catholics. This policy resulted in an influx of new, multiethnic, multireligious members as well as a diversification of repertory. The changes reflected Jack Poloka’s professional vision for the group, which was influenced by three factors: (1) his pluralistic aesthetic and social sensibility; (2) his own dual Rusyn and Croatian origins; and (3) his admiration for the success and exposure of the Duquesne University Tamburitzans.

In 1973, Slavjane’s current president, Greg Fejka, was accepted with a full academic scholarship into the Duquesne University Tamburitzans. From 1973 to the present, the Duquesne University Tamburitzans have accepted a total of thirty-one Slavjane alumni among their ranks with academic scholarships. As a result, Slavjane became known as South Slavic folklore specialists, and by the mid-1980s was being engaged by the local Slovenian and Croatian communities to represent their respective cultures at the Pittsburgh Folk Festival. Since the successful cultivation and growth of this new South Slavic patronage base, Slavjane has been regularly hired to perform for many American Serbian, Croatian and Slovenian organizations, church festivals, and junior tamburitzan groups.

Aside from the Slavic world, Slavjane’s performance repertory includes material from other European cultures. Examples of the latter include the Austrian folk song “Edelweiss,” sung in English, an Italian instrumental medley, and several Ashkenazic Jewish folk instrumentals. Such variety of repertory and patronage together with its unique pan-Slavic Rusynophile orientation is what distinguishes Slavjane from other ensembles. The group’s orchestra contains South Slavic tamburitza ensemble instruments as well as western European band instruments. Tamburitza ensemble instruments are sometimes utilized even during performances of Rusyn material, resulting in a stylistically syncretic blend of music and instruments.

Slavjane’s non-professional status, coupled with the characteristic intensity and spontaneity of its performances, prompted one American reviewer, Susyn Mihalasky, familiar with “the exacting regimentation, synchronization, and controlled emotional discipline of East European folk dancers” to refer to Slavjane’s performance in Medzilaborce as “controlled chaos” (Carpatho-Rusyn American, Vol. XV, No. 3, 1992, p.11). At the same time, the Rusyn journalist and singer Anna Kuzmjakova, of the Prešov-based Rusyn newspaper Narodny Novynky, witnessed the same performance as the above reviewer, and wrote that “the group Slavjane, from the American city Pittsburgh, truly has an authentic repertory, when considering its preservation of many Slavic attributes” (Narodny Novynky, 15 July 1992).

Through the combined channels outlined above, Slavjane has become the most visible purveyor of Rusyn traditional performing arts in western Pennsylvania, and is now the most significant Rusyn performing arts group anywhere in the United States. Its reputation has been enhanced by exposure at the Pittsburgh Folk Festival and other venues, where it consistently announces at all performances and to all audiences, that while it “performs the repertory of many Slavic peoples,” its area of specialization is the traditional music and dance of the Rusyn people.” Thus, Slavjane has become the principal local symbol of Rusyn culture to the general public, to Orthodox as well as Byzantine Catholic Rusyn Americans, to other ethnic groups, and to de-ethnicized Americans, or Americans of Rusyn background with allegiances to other ethnic and religious groups.

Slavjane in an Interethnic Context: The Ukrainian and Slovak Responses

In the essay, “Karpaty: koliska alebo križovatka balad?” (The Carpathians: The Cradle or the Crossroads of Ballads), Orestes Zilins’kyj describes the Carpathian Mountain region as “a crossroads of influences borne in merchants’ wagons and artisans’ bundles by pilgrims, seasonal farm workers, wandering soldiers, and beggars.” Slavjane’s Rusyn repertory also occupies a crossroads, in that it contains a number of popular folk pieces readily recognized by a mixed American audience, including members of various Slavic ethnicities and Hungarians. One many find in its programs many examples of Rusyn folk tunes, texts, and dances that are either shared by or very similar to those of the dominant ethnic groups of the states they inhabit, i.e., Ukrainians, Slovaks and Poles. This recognizability of repertory on an interethnic level, coupled with the Rusyns’ status in Europe as a stateless minority, has elicited divergence reactions to Slavjane’s performances from sundry ethnic groups.

For example, the ensemble’s Rusyn performances in the 1970s inspired militant reactions from Pittsburgh-area Ukrainian Americans. At one such event, the 1972 Allegheny County Fair in greater Pittsburgh’s South Park, a Rusyn group was scheduled to follow the performance of a Ukrainian group. A disturbance ensued when the Ukrainians refused to vacate the stage for an extended period, temporarily barring the Rusyn group’s entrance. Eventually, the Ukrainians acquiesced and allowed the Rusyns to perform, reportedly under the threat of police intervention. On another occasion in the 1970s, when Slavjane’s turn came to perform at the Sto-Rox Nationalities Festival in McKees Rocks, the master of ceremonies, a well-known media figure in local Ukrainian-American circles, declined to introduce the Rusyn group as Rusyns. Then in 1979, when Slavjane was scheduled to appear at the Pittsburgh Folk Festival, a representative or representatives of the festival’s Ukrainian contingent sent an angry, emotional letter to the festival’s display chairman that decried the manner in which “others rape our heritage,” and “pray[ed] God we can be spared this persecution in Pittsburgh.” The letter ended with the terse statement, “If you want two Ukrainian groups, we [the Ukrainians] can accommodate.” Poloka and others clearly recall how in 1979 the Ukrainian contingent openly sought to prevent the Rusyns from appearing at the Pittsburgh Folk Festival, claiming “double representation” of Ukrainian ethnicity.

Poloka hastens to add that in recent years such expressions of antagonism have diminished markedly. Recent reports of cooperation between Ukrainian- and Rusyn-American cultural activists augur well for a more harmonious future. That some of the rigidity of the past has relaxed may be deduced from the 1994 participants of a Slavjane graduating senior and new Duquesne University Tamburitzan inductee, Robert Bartko, who is of Rusyn descent, in both Slavjane and the local Ukrainian group, Poltava.

Nevertheless, Slavjane has not yet been engaged to perform at a Ukrainian function, and it has modified its repertory somewhat to minimize possible antagonistic reactions from Pittsburgh-area Ukrainian American cultural activists is its avoidance of Hutsul costumes, which they had used from 1976 until approximately the early 1980s. While there is no attempt to exclude systematically all transregional Rusyn and Ukrainian material from Slavjane’s performance repertory, its inclusion is not specifically designed to attract Ukrainian patronage.