Ruthenians

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(Ruthenian and Russian:Rusin, pluralRusini)

ASlavic people from SouthernRussia, Galicia and Bukowina inAustria, and North-easternHungary. They are also called in Russian,Malorossiani, Little Russians (in allusion to their stature), and in the Hungarian dialect of their own language,Russniaks. They occupy inRussia the provinces or governments ofLublin (Poland), Volhynia, Podolia, Kieff, Tchernigoff, Kharkoff, and Poltava, inRussia, and number now about 18,000,000. InAustria they occupy the whole of Eastern Galicia and Bukowina, and inHungary the northern and north-eastern counties ofHungary: Szepes, Saros, Abauj, Zemplin, Ung, Maramaros, and Bereg, and amount to about 4,500,000 more. The Ruthenians along the borderland of the ancient Kingdom ofPoland and the present boundary separatingAustria fromRussia proper are also calledUkrainians (u, at or near, andkrai, the border or land composing the border), from the Ukraine, comprising the vast steppes or plains of SouthernRussia extending into Galicia. In theAustro-Hungarian Empire the Ruthenians are separated from one another by the Carpathian Mountains, which leave one division of them in Galicia and the other inHungary. The Ruthenians or Little Russians inRussia and Bukowina belong to the GreekOrthodox Church, whilst those of Galicia andHungary are GreekCatholics in unity with theHoly See. For this reason the wordRuthenian has been generally used to indicate those of the race who areCatholics, andLittle Russian those who are Greek Orthodox, although the terms are usually considered as fairly interchangeable. It must be remembered that in the Russian and Ruthenian languages (unlike in English) there are two words which are often indiscriminately translated asRussia, but which have quite different meanings. One isRuss, which is the generic word denoting an abstract fatherland and all who speak a Russo-Slavic tongue, who are of Russo-Slavic race and who profess the Greek-Slavonic Rite; it is of wide and comprehensive meaning. The other word isRossia, which is a word of restricted meaning and refers only to the actual Russian Empire and its subjects, as constituted today. The former wordRuss may be applied to a land or people very much as our own word "Anglo-Saxon" is to English or Americans. It not only includes those who live in the Russian Empire, but millions outside of it, who are of similar race or kin, but who are not politically, religiously, or governmentally united with those within the empire. From the wordRuss we get the derivativeRussky, which may therefore be translated in English as "Ruthenian" as well as "Russian", since it is older than the present Russian Empire. FromRossia we have the derivativeRossiisky, which can never be translated otherwise than by "Russian", pertaining to or a native of the Russian Empire. Indeed the word "Ruthene" or "Ruthenian" seems to have been an attempt to put the wordRusin into a Latinized form, and themedieval Latin wordRuthenia was often used as a term forRussia itself before it grew so great as it is today.

The name Ruthenian (Rutheni) is found for the first time in the old Polishannalist, Martinus Gallus, who wrote towards the end of the eleventh and the beginning of the twelfth century; he uses this name as one already well known. TheDanish historian,Saxo Grammaticus (1203), also uses it to describe theSlavs living near the Baltic Sea. TheseSlavs were alreadyconverted toChristianity and the name was probably used to distinguish them from thepagans. The term Ruthenian was well known in the eleventh century and its origin seems to be considerably older. It is said to have really originated in the southern part of Gaul in the time ofCharlemagne. When the Huns overranEurope in the fifth century, they subdued theSlavic tribes with whom they came in contact and made them a part of their victorious army. UnderAttila's leadership they pressed still farther west, devastating everything in their path, and penetrated into NorthernItaly and the south-eastern part of Gaul. In the great battle atChâlons theChristian armies overcame them; a portion of the Huns' forces was slaughtered, but other portions were divided and scattered in small detachments throughout the country, and the greater part of these were theSlavs who had been made captive and forced to join the army. After the death ofCharlemagne they had settled largely throughout the land, and their names are still retained in various Latin names of places, as Rouerge (Provincia Ruthenorum), Rodez (Segdunum Rutheni), and Auvergne (Augusta Ruthenorum). As theseSlavic tribes furnished the name for the Latin writers ofItaly andFrance, this same word was also used later in describing them in their native land, where descriptions came to be written by western writers who first came in contact with them. Indeed the word "Ruthenian" is considerably older than the word "Russian", in describingSlavic nationality; for the termRussia (Rossia), indicating the political state and government, did not come into use until the fourteenth or fifteenth century.

The Ruthenians may well claim to be the original Russians. Theirs was the land where Sts. Cyril and Methodius converted theSlavic peoples, and that land, with Kieff as the centre, became the starting point of Greco-SlavicChristianity, and for centuries that centre was the religious and political capital of the presentRussia. GreatRussia was then merely a conglomerate, ofSwedish,Finnish, andSlavic tribes, and although it has since become great and has subdued its weaker brethren, it does not represent the historic race as does the Ruthenian in the south. They were never so thoroughly under the rule of the conquering Tatar as the GreatRussians ofMoscow, Vladimir, and Kazan. Besides, LittleRussia was separated from GreatRussia and was for nearly five centuries subject toPoland and Lithuania. Yet GreatRussia has become inRussia the norm of Russian nationality, and has succeeded largely in suppressing and arresting the development of the Little Russians within the empire. It is no wonder that the old dreams of Mazeppa, Chmielnicki, and Shevchenko of LittleRussia, independent both ofRussia andPoland, have found a lodgment in the hearts of the Southern Russians; the same feeling has gained ground among the Ruthenians of Galicia andHungary, surrounded as they are by the German, Polish, and Hungarian peoples. However, the milder and more equitable rule ofAustria-Hungary has prevented direct political agitation, although there is occasional trouble. The resultant of such forces among the Ruthenians of Galicia andHungary has been the formation of political parties, which they have brought to America with them. These may be divided into three large groups: theUkraintzi, those whobelieve in and foster the development of the Ruthenians along their own lines, quite independent ofRussia, the Poles or theGermans, and who actually look forward to the independence of LittleRussia, almost analogous to the Home Rulers ofIreland; theMoscophiles, those who look to presentRussia as the norm of the Russo-Slavic race and who are partisans of Panslavism; these may be likened to the Unionists ofIreland, in order to round out the comparison; theUgro-Russki, Hungarian Ruthenians, who while objecting toHungary, and particular phases ofHungarian rule, have noidea of losing their own peculiar nationality by taking presentRussia as their standard; they hold themselves aloof from both the other parties, theideas of theUkraintzi being particularly distasteful to them. (SeeGREEK CATHOLICS IN AMERICA.) InRussia all political agitation for LittleRussia and for Little Russian customs and peculiarities is prohibited; it is only since 1905 that newspapers and other publications in the Little Russian language have been permitted. It was LittleRussia which united with theHoly See in 1595, in the great reunion of theGreek Church; and it was in LittleRussia where the pressure of the Russian Government was brought to bear in 1795, 1839, and 1875, whereby the GreekCatholics of LittleRussia were utterly wiped out and some 7,000,000 of the Uniats there were compelled, partly by force and partly by deception, to become part of the GreekOrthodox Church.

In some indefinable manner the Ruthenian or Little Russian speech is considered as leading away from Russian unity, whether of State or Church; the prompt return of a quarter of a million of Little Russians toCatholicism in 1905-06, at the time of thedecree of toleration, perhaps lends countenance to thebelief in Russianminds. The Ruthenian language is very close to the Russian and both are descendants of the ancient Slavonic tongue which is still used in the Mass and in theliturgical books. The Ruthenian, however, in the form of its words, is much nearer theChurch Slavonic than the modern Russian language is. Still it does not differ much from the modern Russian or the so-called Great Russian language; it bears somewhat the same relation to the latter as the Lowland Scotch does to English or the Plattdeutsch to German. The Ruthenians inAustria-Hungary and the Little Russians inRussia use the Russian [Cyrillic --Ed.] alphabet and write their language in almost the same orthography as the Great Russian, but in many cases they pronounce it differently. It is almost like the case of an Englishman and aFrenchman who write the wordscience exactly alike, but each pronounces it in a different manner. Many words are unlike in Ruthenian and Russian, for example,bachiti, to see, in Ruthenian, becomesvidet in Russian;pershy, first, in Ruthenian, ispervy in Russian. All this tends to differentiate the two languages, or extreme dialects, as they might be called. In late years a recession of the Russian alphabet in Galicia and Bukowina has provoked much dissension. For the purpose of more closely accommodating the Russian alphabet to the Ruthenian, they added two new letters and rejected three old ones, then spelled all the Ruthenian or Little Russian words exactly as they are pronounced. This "phonetic" alphabet differentiates the Ruthenian more than ever from the Russian. It has divided Ruthenian writers into two great camps: the "etymological", which retains the old system of spelling, and the "phonetic", which advocates the new system. It has even been made a basis of political action, and the phonetic system of orthography is still strongly opposed, partly because it was anAustrian governmental measure and partly because it is regarded as an effort to detach the Ruthenians from the rest of the Russian race and in a measure to Polonize them. The phonetic system of writing has never been adopted among the Hungarian Ruthenians, and it is only within the last two or three years that anyone has dared to use it in Little Russian publications issued in the Russian Empire. Yet in many parts ofHungary the Ruthenian language is printed in Roman letters so as to reach those who are not acquainted with the Russian alphabet. The language question has led to many debates in the Austrian parliament and has been taken up by many Ruthenian magazines and reviews. The Ruthenians have also brought their language and political difficulties with them to America (seeGREEK CATHOLICS IN AMERICA:Ruthenian Greek Catholics), where they encounter them as obstacles to racial progress. Not only in history but in literature have the Ruthenians or Little Russians held an honourable place. Their chief city, Kieff, was the capital of the country beforeMoscow was founded in the middle of the twelfth century. A portion of them led the wild, stirring life of the Cossacks,painted in Gogol's romance of "Taras Bulba"; their revolt under Chmielnicki in 1648 is pictured by Sienkiewicz in his historical romance "With Fire and Sword"; that of half a century later under Mazeppa is made known to most of us by Byron's verse. They had free printing presses for secular as well as religious literature in the sixteenth century; still many of their best writers, such as Gogol, have used the Great Russian language even when their themes were Little Russian, just as so much of the text of Scott's Scotch novels is pure English. The Ruthenian language, however, has been employed by authors of international repute, the greatest of whom is the poet Shevchenko. Other authors of widening reputation have followed in the present century, and some like Gowda have transferred their literary efforts to American soil.

The Ruthenian GreekCatholicChurch inAustria-Hungary is represented by one province in Galicia,Austria, and threedioceses inHungary. The former is composed of the GreekArchdiocese of Lemberg with the two subordinatedioceses of Przemysl and Stanislau. InHungary there are the separatedioceses ofEperies and Munkács in the north and the Diocese of Kreutz (Crisium, Krizevac) in the south. These northern two are subject to the LatinArchbishop ofGran, and the southern one to the LatinArchbishop ofAgram. The Ruthenian immigration to America comes almost wholly from thesedioceses, and their efforts and progress in solidly establishing themselves in theUnited States andCanada have been described. They have built many fine and flourishing churches, have establishedschools and now have abishop here of their own rite (seeGREEK CATHOLICS IN AMERICA). Some of them are becoming wealthy, and in some places inPennsylvania are reckoned as a factor in American politics. Nevertheless, they have been subjected in America to strenuous proselyting, both on the part of the Russian Orthodox mission churches, which preach Panslavism in its most alluring forms, and which are at times bitterly hostile toCatholicism (seeGREEK ORTHODOX CHURCH IN AMERICA, underRussian Orthodox), and on the part of variousProtestant missionary activities, which have succeeded in establishing in many localities "independent" Ruthenian communities apparently practising theGreek Rite in connexion with thePresbyterian,Baptist, and other churches. Much has been effected by both proselyting parties because of a lack of a suitable RuthenianCatholic press and literature, and of sufficientpriests. For instance, there is aProtestantcatechism using the name of theCatholicChurch and teaching the sevensacraments, and there areProtestant so-called evangelical missionaries who use vestments, candles,censers, crucifixes, andholy water, with apparently all the GreekCatholic ritual, having even the official GreekCatholic mass-books on the altar. The Russian Orthodoxclergy find the task even easier, for they appeal to theSlavic national feeling and adopt the usual religious practices of the GreekCatholicclergy, and are thus enabled to win over many an immigrant by offering sympathy in a strange land.