The Rusyns: who they are (15.09.2023)
A street dialogue by the channel’s author with an interlocutor about the Rusyn question. Despite the street format, it offers a substantive segment: the Rusyns as an ethnographic (dialectal) group of Ukrainians versus the political project of “Rusynism” of the 1990s, which declares them a separate Slavic people (the thesis of the Canadian historian Paul Robert Magocsi). The instrumentalization of the Rusyn question by Hungary (Orbán) as a lever against Ukrainian unity; “Rusyn” as an old self-designation of Ukrainians; and the status of the Rusyns in the legislation of neighbouring states and of Ukraine.
Key moments
- 00:57 The Rusyns — a dialectal group of Ukrainians; the political "Rusynism" of the 1990s
- 01:19 Why "a separate people" does not fit: a sub-ethnos, like the Boykos or the Hutsuls
- 01:34 The Canadian historian Magocsi: the Carpatho-Rusyns as a separate Slavic people
- 01:46 Schools and literature in Rusyn in Transcarpathia; the linguistic status
- 02:55 Hungary (Orbán, right-wing parties) supports political Rusynism
- 03:07 The goal — a claim to Transcarpathia (which was Hungarian in 1939–1944)
- 03:54 "Rusyn" — an old self-designation of Ukrainians; alongside "Little Russians"
- 07:26 The Rusyns as a national minority in Slovakia, Poland, Hungary
- 08:59 In Ukraine the Rusyns are recognized as a sub-ethnic group of Ukrainians, not a separate people