The Rusynophile Orientation
Professor Magocsi believes that there was a chance for the Subcarpathian Ruthenians to evolve into a separate nation: “Of these three, the separatist, or Rusyn, national orientation was the weakest....
This does not mean that Subcarpathian civilization did not possess the potential to be transformed into a separate nationality. It did. What the Rusyn orientation lacked, however, was purposeful leadership” (274). He blames this alleged failure on the inferiority complex of the Ruthenian intelligentsia, whose members preferred to adhere to existing larger national entities, the Russian or the Ukrainian, instead of building a distinct national identity on a purely local foundation.The weakness of this reasoning consists in the plain fact that, on the level of ethnicity, a separate “Subcarpathian civilization” simply does not exist, since by language and folk culture the Subcarpathian Ruthe- nians are undoubtedly a branch of the Ukrainian people. But the problem may be approached from another angle as well. There are national formations that are not ethnically based, but owe their existence to a specific historico-political constellation. It is, therefore, permissible to speculate whether the Subcarpathian Ruthenians might under certain conditions have evolved a distinct national consciousness of a political kind while remaining ethnically Ukrainian. In that hypothetical event, their situation would perhaps have been comparable to that of the inhabitants of the canton of Tession, who are Italian by language and culture, but who politically identify themselves with the Swiss nation.
In order to obtain a better understanding of the problem, it will be helpful to adduce the actual case of an incipient “political nation” in Eastern Europe. During the Civil War in Russia there appeared a trend toward the federalization of the several Cossack “Hosts” and the establishment of an independent Cossack state.
The projected “Cossackia” would have been multi-ethnic, as it would have included the Russianspeaking Don and Terek Cossacks, the Ukrainian-speaking Kuban Cossacks, and the non-Slavic mountain peoples of North Caucasia. This concept came to naught because of the Soviet victory in the Civil War, but at the same time it enjoyed a measure of genuine popular support in each of these regions, and partisans of an independent “Cossackia” remained vocal in the emigration for decades.The contrasting example of the Cossack lands demonstrates why in the case of Subcarpathia the Rusynophile national orientation did not represent a viable option. A national identity of the non-ethnic, political kind must possess an institutional focus capable of evoking the citizens’ allegiance. The corporate organization of the Cossack “Hosts” provided such a focus. The Cossacks could take pride in the awareness of having always been freemen and warriors, and in glorious memories of past revolts against the autocracy of Moscow. Features of a comparable nature were altogether absent in the historical record of Carpatho-Ukraine. The Ruthenians had lived for centuries in the Kingdom of Hungary as an enserfed peasant people, without any institutions of their own except for the church. In contradistinction to Croatia and Transylvania, the Subcarpathian region had never formed a distinct body within the framework of the Lands of the Crown of St. Stephen. The modem Hungarian state, created by the 1867 Compromise, was from the very outset conceived as a unitary nation-state. What Hungary offered its minorities was the prospect of equal partnership in the life of the Magyar nation, to be obtained at the price of assimilation. This prospect was certainly attractive to many educated Ruthenians, among whom Magyarization made heavy inroads during the latter part of the nineteenth century. If the threat of Magyarization was to be averted, the only realistic foundation of the Subcarpathian Ruthenians’ struggle for survival was the undeniable fact of their ethnicity—and this logically implied an orientation toward their ethnic kinsmen beyond the mountains.
Where, then, we may ask of Professor Magocsi, were the building stones from which a separate “Rusyn” national identity could possibly have been constructed?What did the Rusynophile orientation actually represent? Professor Magocsi subsumes under this label two phenomena which differed in
both time and character: on the one hand, the pre-World War I populists (narodovtsi), and, on the other hand, the circle around the weekly Nedilia in the 1930s. I shall discuss the populist movement further below. For the moment, the statement must suffice that Subcarpathian populism, which emerged around the turn of the century, should properly be viewed as the embryonic stage of modem Ukrainian nationalism in this land. As to the so-called nedilianshnyky, they may be fairly described as thinly disguised Magyarones. Under the conditions of the Czechoslovak regime, overt expressions of a pro-Hungarian attitude had become inopportune. Consequently, the Magyarized segment of the Ruthenian intelligentsia (mostly men of the older generation) assumed the protective colours of Rusynophilism, while secretly hankering after the good old days under the Crown of St. Stephen. These were the first, and also the last, proponents of the idea that the Subcarpathian Ruthenians should become a separate nationality. The true nature of the self-styled Rusynophiles was revealed between 1939 and 1945, when they acted as quislings of the Hungarian occupant. By this behaviour they damned themselves in the eyes of the great majority of their compatriots.
Professor Magocsi admits, apparently not without a touch of regret, that the Rusynophile orientation was the weakest of the three national orientations in inter-war Subcarpathian Ruthenia. But this weakness was not accidental. The idea of the “Rusyns” becoming the fourth East Slavic nation, alongside the Russians, Belorussians, and Ukrainians, was a phantom without ethnic and historic substance. A few local figures could trifle with it, some Czech politicians could patronize it for reasons of their own, Hungarian revisionists could covertly support it in order to subvert the territorial provisions of the St. Germain and Trianon Treaties—but it could never get off the ground. The Rusynophile concept was an artificial contrivance, incapable of evoking the spirit of uncompromising dedication and self-sacrifice that is the hallmark of every authentic national-liberation movement. An idea for whose sake nobody was ever willing to stake his or her life weighs as a negligible quantity on the scales of history.