The current use is a post WWII narrowing, where it now means almost exclusively the Carpetho-Rusyns
Yes, I studied this history in undergrad too. The historical
Rus’ even led the late Omeljan Pritsak of Harvard University to attempt a multi-volume Origin of Rus’. Kyivan Rus’ with its capital in Kyiv was the historic capital of the East Slavic State from which came the Ukrainian, Belarus, and Russian peoples later. Mykhailo Hrushevsky covers the territory in his History of Ukraine-Rus’, multivolume, now translated into English.
The point however is that
Rusyn and Ruthenian by and large now in modern use is an archaic term, barring
ONE major exception: the people who emigrated from Subcarpathia to the U.S.A. at the turn of the last century. That is mostly it. It was also at the turn of the century when modern Ukrainian nation-building was reaching its culmination. In the 19th Century, because of the multitudinous rulers of Ukrainian territory, Ukraine went through something by no means unique in European history: nation-building without a state. In the 19th century often the term Rusyn’ was used in the 1848 springtime of nations, even in Galicia of course.
Foreign powers would often set up reading houses in their own languages on Ukrainian lands to attempt to entice the locals to their own cause. For instance, in Galicia and in Bukovina, then under Austria, tsarist Russia poured in tons of money into Kachkovsky societies and reading houses to plant Russophile culture. It failed as people stuck with Ukrainian. People until the turn of the 20th Century in Ukraine, especially in the rural areas, would often use their province to describe themselves: Volhynianyn, Halychanyn, Bukovinets’, Zakarpatskyi’ Rusyn, Lemko, Boiko, Maloros, Poltavets’, etc. However, by the end of the First World War, this all became Ukrainian as borders fell down and the people realized they shared a common language and culture. Even Subcarpathia Rus’, under the Czechs, in the interwar period naturally became Ukrainian, while the emigration in the USA remained crystallized in the pre-WW1 appellation of Rusyn’ which sticks to this day. This is by no means unique. Lots of immigrations remain sealed ethno-linguistically in the state they left the old country in, even after the old country “progresses” otherwise, for lack of a better term. I by no means say this is bad. I am entirely familiar with how this worked out in the 19th Century. It is to be admired.
Velyka (Large) Ukraina under Tsarist Russia came first in nation-building with Shevchenko giving it its standardized literal language, followed by Ivan Franko in Western Ukraine. People like Vasyl Stefanyk would add the local dialect in stories however. I read Patchunky’s materials and newspapers to which was linked and I can understand the language. Some would argue it’s a dialect of Ukrainian, others not.
The thing with Subcarpathian Rus’ is that it, of all “Ukrainian” ethno-linguistic territory, remained separate from the neighboring Ukrainian territories for some 900 years on the other side of the Carpathian mountains where the Hungarians ruled. Nevertheless, by the 1930s, the people there considered themselves Ukrainians. The grandparents who had emigrated to the U.S. two generations before stuck with the term Rusyn’ and Ruthenian. Perfectly understandable.
Today, Subcarpathia, or Zakarpattia, unfortunately, is the poorest oblast’ (region) in Ukraine. I know this because when people from the diaspora go to help the orphanages in Ukraine, some of which are still run in the old Soviet mentality, Zakarpattia needs the most help. In the 1980s as the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church was coming out of the catacombs, I met leaders of the Church from Subcarpathia. They considered themselves Ukrainian and spoke the language as I. It is just a natural process.
The problem with people who put the Lemkos in with the Rusyns for instance into one ethnic group as some of the maps show, is that the Lemkos spoke and speak a totally different dialect of Ukrainian so it is no use putting them in the same group as I believe Magocsi does in his maps. Lemkos went on to live under Poland after WW1. They don’t use the “l” in consonants but “w” like the Poles, among other things.
This is interesting stuff, but of course, I am not sure what it is exactly we disagree on if anything after posting this doctoral dissertation. I agree Ruthenian and Rusyn’ was a term used in the past by and for certain Ukrainians, but is now used almost exclusively for the same-named Church and faithful in the USA and by the people in Priashivshchyna in Slovakia I believe as well.
I have no argument.
.