This is a history of a stateless people, the Carpatho-Rusyns, and their historic homeland, Carpathian Rus’, located in the heart of central Europe. A little over 100,000 Carpatho-Rusyns are registered in official censuses but their population is estimated at around 1,000,000, the greater part in Ukraine and Slovakia. The majority of the diaspora—nearly 600,000—lives in the US.
At the present, when it is fashionable to speak of nationalities as “imagined communities” created by intellectuals or elites who may live in the historic homeland, Carpatho-Rusyns provide an ideal example of a people made—or some would say still being made—before our very eyes. The book traces the evolution of Carpathian Rus’ from earliest prehistoric times to the present, and the complex manner in which a distinct Carpatho-Rusyn people, since the mid-nineteenth century, came into being, disappeared, and then re-appeared in the wake of the revolutions of 1989 and the collapse of communist rule in central and eastern Europe.
To help guide the reader further there are 34 detailed maps plus an annotated discussion of relevant books, chapters, and journal articles.
Table of Contents:
List of Maps
List of Tables
Introduction
Chapters
1. Carpatho-Rusyns and the land of Carpathian Rus’
Human geography
No shortage of names
Physical geography
A borderland of borders
2. Carpathian Rus’ in prehistoric times
Earliest human settlements
The Iron Age and the Celts
Early peoples in Carpathian Rus’
The Roman Empire and the Dacians
3. The Slavs and their arrival in the Carpathians
The Huns and the displacement of peoples
The origin-of-peoples fetish
Is DNA the reliable way?
The Slavs and Carpathian Rus’
Dwellings of the early Slavs
The White Croats and the Avars
4. State formation in central Europe
The Pax Romana and the Byzantine Empire
Greater Moravia
Saints Constantine/Cyril and Methodius
Christianity becomes “our” religion
Contents
Who among the East Slavs first received Christianity?
The Magyars and Hungary
Historical memory and political reality
The rise of Poland
Kievan Rus’
The Great Debate: the origin of Rus’
5. Carpathian Rus’ until the early 16th century
The formation of the Hungarian Kingdom
A medieval Carpatho-Rusyn state: fact or fiction?
The Mongol invasion and the restructuring of Hungary
The Vlach colonization
Kings, nobles, and the implementation of serfdom
Poland: administrative and socioeconomic structure
The fall of Constantinople and the decline of Orthodoxy
6. The Reformation, the Counter-Reformation, and Carpathian Rus’
The Ottoman Empire in central Europe
The Protestant Reformation
The Catholic Counter -Reformation
Poland and church union
Transylvania and church union in Hungary
The Union of Uzhhorod
Uniates/Greek Catholics: A new church or a return to the old?
7. The Habsburg restoration in Carpathian Rus’
Rákóczi’s “War of Liberation”
Habsburg Austria’s transformation of Carpathian Rus’
The Bachka-Srem Vojvodinian Rusyns
Poland and Galicia’s Lemko Region
8. Habsburg reforms and their impact on Carpatho-Rusyns
The reforms of Maria Theresa and Joseph II
Uniate/Greek Catholics and the Enlightenment in Carpathian Rus’
Carpatho-Rusyns become an historical people
9. The Revolution of 1848 and the Carpatho-Rusyn national awakening
The multicultural Austrian Empire
Kakania’s emperors and kings
What is nationalism and what are national movements?
Nationalism in Hungary
From inferiority to superiority: the transformation of a dangerous complex
Revolution in the Austrian lands and Hungary
The Carpatho-Rusyn national awakening: politics
The first Carpatho-Rusyn political program
The Carpatho-Rusyn national awakening: culture
Did Carpatho-Rusyns really love the Russians?
10. Carpathian Rus’ in Austria-Hungary, 1868–1914
The Dual Monarchy and Austrian parliamentarism
In search of a Rus’ national identity
The national awakening in the Lemko Region
Hungary and its magyarization policies
Magyarization despite the letter of the law
Carpatho-Rusyns in Hungarian politics
Carpatho-Rusyns and national survival
Socioeconomic developments
Was life in pre-World War I Carpathian Rus’ so destitute?
11. Carpatho-Rusyn diasporas before World War I
Migration to the Srem, Banat, and Bachka
Emigration abroad to the United States
Rusyn-American religious and secular organizations
Rejected Greek Catholics and the “return” to Orthodoxy
“You are not a proper priest”
“Ruthenians” become Uhro (Hungarian)-Rusyns, or Russians, or Ukrainians
Rusyn Americans and international politics
12. Carpathian Rus’ during World War I, 1914–1918
The end of ....
