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Old April 27th, 2009 #5
Stegura
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Join Date: Apr 2006
Location: Virginia
Posts: 189
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Euvipro View Post
Rutheneans are interesting.
Yes they are. My paternal Grandparents were Carpatho-Rusyns or Ruthenians as they liked to be called.



The Rusyn language is divided as follows: (From wikipedia)

* Hutsul is spoken in the montaineous part of Suceava County and Maramures County in Romania and the extreme southern parts of the Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast (as well as in parts of the Chernivtsi and Transcarpathian Oblasts, and on the northern slopes of the Carpathian Mountains.

* Boyko is spoken on the northern side of the Carpathian Mountains in the Lviv and Ivano-Frankivsk Oblasts. It can also be heard across the border in the Subcarpathian Voivodship of Poland

* Lemko is spoken outside Ukraine in the Prešov Region of Slovakia along the southern side of the Carpathian Mountains.

* Dolinian Rusyn or Subcarpathian Rusyn is spoken in the Transcarpathian Oblast.

* Pryashiv Rusyn is the Rusyn spoken in the Prešov (in Ukrainian: Pryashiv) region of Slovakia, as well as by some émigré communities, primarily in the United States of America.

* Bačka Rusyn is spoken in northwestern Serbia and eastern Croatia. Rusin language of the Bačka dialect is one of the official languages of the Serbian Autonomous Province of Vojvodina)

Quote:
though a lot also prefer to consider themselves Russian instead.
That's a real shame.

I used to call my Rusyn Grandparent's "Russian" but they took offense to it. They later took the time to tell me that they have never considered themselves to be Russians and that Ruthenians had their own unique culture, history, and ethnic identity.

Ruthenia's culture and history is much more closely tied to Central Europe, Catholicism, and the Hapsburg monarchy then it is to Eastern Europe, Orthodoxy, and the Russian Federation.

Historically, Ruthenia belonged to the Austro-Hungarian Empire, then the Czechoslovaks, and then briefly to the Hungarians. Tragically, the eastern half of Ruthenia fell into the Russo-Soviet sphere of influence after WW2.