Rusyns in the aspect of security policies

Földvári, Sándor (2014) Rusyns in the aspect of security policies. CULTURAL RELATIONS QUARTERLY REVIEW, 1 (2). pp. 43-54. ISSN 2064-4051

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Abstract

Rusyns in the aspect of security policies The Rusyn represents ethnic minorities, living in contemporary Ukraine, Slovakia, Poland, Rumania, Hungary and Serbia, and descendants of those emigrated from these countries in the late 19 c. reside in Australia, Canada, and The United States. The center of the best reputation for researches in Rusyn culture and history has formed around Prof. Paul Robert Magocsi, chair of Dept. Ukrainian Studies at Toronto University, and lately enriched by activities of the new generation of scholars as P. Krafcik. There are three universities in Europe with departments for Rusyn studies, in Preshov (Slovakia), Níregyháza (Hungary) and Novi Sad (Serbia). Rusyns constitute officially recognized ethnic minorities in almost every European countries they live in, but not Ukraine. Though inhabitants in Western Ukraine, who identify themselves Rusyn, represent the largest part of The Rusyn worldwide, according to the Ukrainian laws, there no such ethnic minority exists. The situation in neighboring Slovakia has become quite different since the collapse of the socialism. For the last two decades, Rusyns in Slovakia have elaborated their codified literary language (since it has been missing for centuries, thus Rusyn authors has written in Latin, Church Slavonic, then Russian, a few of them in Ukrainian, and the most in various vernaculars), they established a Department of Rusyn Studies (while in Hungary the Rusyn and Ukrainian Dept., founded by the pioneer scholar Istvan Udvari, has significantly reduced soon after the tragic death of the “founding father”), and, last but not least, a PhD program in Rusyn studies has been accredited at Preshov University (chaired by Prof. Anna Plishková), being the unique as such in the world. The fear in Ukraine has rooted in the history of Transcarpathia: it had not been a part of Ukraine before it became a district of the Ukrainian Soviet Socilistic Republic in results of the World War II. Earlier it formed a part of the Hungarian Kingdom during centuries, and after the First World War it was attached (for two decades, as the history turned) to the newly then shaped Czechoslovakia. Consequently, efforts by some right-wing political movements in Hungary, which endeavor to reconnect the Carpathian territories to Hungary, are nowadays of extreme risk. First, Ukraine has lost and is probably losing some territories in its south and west, where the state control is quite weak over those districts are still (and hopefully remain) parts of the country. The fear for territorial instability is certainly increasing. West part of Ukraine has been the traditionally strongest bases of the stability of the Ukrainian State. Thus destabilizing any part of West Ukraine, even Transcarpathia, may result some sharpening of the threat of a new Cold War. Therefore the Rusyn question must not been only regarded in the frameworks of ethnic minorities and their rights, but in a wider sense of the international diplomacy and peace building.

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