Straddling Borders: Literature and Identity in Subcarpathian Rus' 9781442680227

Table of contents :
Contents
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
TECHNICAL NOTES
TRANSLITERATION TABLE
Introduction: Straddling Borders
1. Inventing an 'In-between' Culture
2. Mimics and Other 'Others'
3. Awakening to Rusyn Reality
4. Strategies of Survival under the Magyar Yoke
5. Re-imagining Rusyn Identity
6. The Makings of Rusyn Modernism
Conclusion: Straddling Past and Future
NOTES
WORKS CITED
INDEX

Citation preview

STRADDLING BORDERS: LITERATURE AND IDENTITY IN SUBCARPATHIAN RUS 1

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ELAINE RUSINKO

Straddling Borders: Literature and Identity in Subcarpathian Rus'

U N I V E R S I T Y OF TORONTO PRESS Toronto Buffalo London

www.utppublishing.com © University of Toronto Press Incorporated 2003 Toronto Buffalo London Printed in Canada ISBN 0-8020-3711-9

Printed on acid-free paper

National Library of Canada Cataloguing in Publication Rusinko, Elaine Straddling borders : literature and identity in Subcarpathian Rus' / Elaine Rusinko. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-8020-3711-9 1. Carpatho-Rusyn literature — History and criticism. 2. CarpathoRusyns - Ethnic identity. 3. Ethnicity in literature. I. Title. PG3990.5.R88 2002

491.7

C2003-900081-8

University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial assistance to its publishing program of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council. University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial support for its publishing activities of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program (BPIDP).

For Stu, Ben, and Julia

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Contents

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS TECHNICAL NOTES

IX xi

TRANSLITERATION TABLE

xiii

Introduction: Straddling Borders

3

1 Inventing an 'In-between' Culture 2 Mimics and Other 'Others'

22

64

3 Awakening to Rusyn Reality

111

4 Strategies of Survival under the Magyar Yoke 5 Re-imagining Rusyn Identity

296

6 The Makings of Rusyn Modernism Conclusion: Straddling Past and Future

NOTES

467

WORKS CITED INDEX

537

509

407 443

182

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Acknowledgments

For suggesting that I embark on this project and for his support, friendship, and unfailing encouragement throughout, I would like to thank Dr Paul Robert Magocsi. He has been most generous in sharing his extensive knowledge on all things Rusyn, as well as his invaluable personal library. I could not have written this book without him. I am also grateful to Aleksey Gibson, Angela Moorjani, and others who read all or part of the manuscript and offered valuable advice and suggestions. L'ubica Babotova, head of the Department of Ukrainian Language and Literature at Presov University, shared with me her detailed knowledge of East European languages and cultures and was of tremendous service in matters of translation and transliteration. I am thankful to the University of Maryland Baltimore County for honouring me with the Provost's Research Fellowship in 1997, which allowed me to devote an entire semester to this project. The interlibrary loan staff of the Albin Kuhn Library at UMBC helped me gain access to many hard-to-find publications, and Shahid Mokal, the technology assistant in the Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics, offered advice and aid in producing the manuscript. I would like to thank the publishers who have granted permission to use material that appeared in earlier essays. A part of chapter 2 was originally published as 'Between Russia and Hungary: Foundations of Literature and National Identity in Subcarpathian Rus" in Slavonic and East European Review 74, 3 (1966), 42144, and a section of chapter 3 first appeared as 'The National Awakening in Subcarpathian Rus': Aleksander Dukhnovych's Reconfiguration of Cultural Identity' in Canadian Slavonic Papers 41, 1 (1999), 1-17. For their patience and emotional support, and for keeping me grounded and entertained over the long period of work on this book, I thank my husband Stuart Rothenberg and my children, Ben and Julia. Finally, I am grateful to my

x Acknowledgments Rusyn grandparents, parents, aunts, and uncles for preserving and passing on to me elements of Rusyn folk culture. This academic study of Rusyn literary culture is my tribute to them.

Technical Notes

Because of the numerous languages and orthographies represented, the technical matters associated with this study have been particularly daunting. I have adapted the Library of Congress transliteration system (without diacritical marks) for materials published in Rusyn, Russian, and Ukrainian. In addition, to present an accurate representation of the language used in some older Rusyn texts, I have employed the following additions: 6 = 6, bi = y, t = t (see transliteration table). The transliteration reflects the original form (not modernized orthography) of a name or title. Because the traditional etymological orthography, including jat' (fe) and the hard sign (T>), had ideological significance for Russophile writers through the first half of the twentieth century, I have rendered texts and references in the original, whenever they were available to me. In transliteration, final hard signs are omitted. Otherwise, I have noted when I am citing a text in which the orthography has been modernized or adapted. To simplify matters, I have used the Cyrillic alphabet wherever practicable in the text, in place of transliteration. For titles and works in the Subcarpathian recension of Russian, I have used the Rusyn transliteration pattern, for the most part. However, for this intermediate linguistic sample, there is often a judgment involved in classifying the language, and I have used Russian occasionally where it seems more appropriate. The multi-lingual nature of this text, and especially the references, means that the same proper name may appear in different spellings when transliterated. For example, the name of the national awakener, AneKcaH«ep flyxnoBM, is transliterated in this study according to the Rusyn transliteration pattern as Aleksander Dukhnovych. However, it appears as Aleksandr Dukhnovich when it is part of a Russian-language text, and as Oleksandr Dukhnovych in a Ukrainian-language text. Given names of individuals also vary. Since the official language of Subcarpathia and the Presov region changed several times

xii

Technical Notes

and was almost always different from Rusyn, an individual may have spelled his name in Rusyn and/or in one or more state languages. The Rusyn form of the name is used in this text; it may differ from the name as it appears in references or in quotations from Russian- or Ukrainian-language texts. For Rusyn names, I have conformed to the spelling and transliteration pattern established in The Encyclopedia of Rusyn History and Culture, ed. Paul Robert Magocsi and Ivan Pop (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2002). Place names are given according to the official form used in the country where they are currently located. Thus, Presov is rendered in Slovak, Uzhhorod and L'viv in the Ukrainian transliteration pattern. A few personal names and geographic designations are rendered in their commonly known English forms; for example, Kiev rather than Kyiv, Gogol rather than Gogol1. PyccKuu is translated as 'Russian,' pycbKuu as 'Rusyn.' However, Russian-oriented writers tended to merge the two concepts and also used pyccKuu to refer to Rusyns, whom they considered to be part of an undifferentiated Russian nation. This occasionally leads to confusion, which I have tried to mitigate by adding qualifying adjectives or providing more substantial explanations in the notes. Unless otherwise noted, all translations included in the text are my own. Finally, a word on textual sources. Throughout history, Subcarpathian editors have exercised a liberal hand in changing and correcting the texts submitted to them by authors. In the nineteenth century, texts may have been 'corrected' to bring them closer to standard Russian, and in the twentieth century, the very possibility of such past alterations of texts has been used to support, for example, a critic's allegation that a particular poet actually wrote in a language closer to Ukrainian. Some anthologies have modernized and 'ukrainianized' the orthography of texts originally written in Church Slavonic, Russian, and Rusyn. When there is a controversy about a writer's language, I have dealt with it in my analysis and called upon other available resources (reviews, other publications, the author's extra-literary comments) to substantiate the best reconstruction possible. Because the entire issue of language has been so heavily politicized in the twentieth century, one must be especially cautious with texts reproduced in anthologies. Besides the need to consider the selectivity of the individual anthologist, I have found frequent lapses in editing. Language is often adapted or altered, with no mention of the fact to the reader, and significant deletions are made in texts, sometimes without even an ellipsis to mark the omission. When the literature itself is as inaccessible to the Western reader as Rusyn literature has been, this casual approach to textual reproduction, oftentimes prompted or compelled by politics, can seriously impede the efforts of scholarship. Fortunately, in almost all cases, I have had the opportunity to work with original publications, and I have made it clear when there is any uncertainty about a text's reliability.

Transliteration Table

A 6 B

r r fl E

e E

>K 3

I I

M bl M K 71 M H O

6

n p c

T

y

[hard] b [soft]

Rusyn

Ukrainian

Russian

a b

a b

a b

V

V

V

h g d e ie io zh z i i

h g d e ie zh z i i

g

y y

i k 1 m n

0

6 P r s t u

f

kh ts ch sh shch i iu ia " '

y -

d e e

zh z i

y

i k 1 m n o P r s t u

i k 1 m n o -

kh ts ch sh shch T iu ia "

kh ts ch sh shch e ie iu ia "

f

P r s t u

f

CARPATHIANRUS', 2000

STRADDLING BORDERS: LITERATURE AND IDENTITY IN SUBCARPATHIAN RUS'

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Introduction: Straddling Borders

There is hardly a more exhilarating experience for a literary scholar than the discovery of an unknown text by an established writer, or the revelation of a talented author previously unrecognized by the canon. Imagine, then, the excitement of discovering an entire literature, hitherto unrecognized by western scholarship. I exaggerate only slightly. While it has always had a place in the geopolitics of Eastern Europe, Subcarpathian Rus1 is unfamiliar territory for most scholars of Slavic literature, and to western literary scholars it is terra incognita. In the last decade, however, the revolutionary changes in East Central Europe have put Subcarpathian Rus' on the cultural map. Its position, however, is one that straddles geographic, historic, and linguistic borders, as well as the borders of established academic disciplines. In the aftermath of the fall of communism, we have seen the assertion of national rights by many previously submerged ethnic groups. The positive aspects of these emergent nationalisms include a reaffirmation of identity, a rebirth of ethnic pride, and a revival of interest in national history, the popular language, and traditional culture. For the Rusyns of the Carpathian region, the revolution has had profound effects. Until recently, in their homeland, which straddles the borders of five countries - Ukraine, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, and Romania - Rusyns did not officially exist. After the Second World War, Soviet-dominated governments stubbornly denied the existence of any such ethnicity, and Rusyn identity had seemingly evaporated or assimilated to more prominent neighbouring ethnic groups. Since 1989, however, a Rusyn renaissance has been underway. Today Rusyns are recognized as an official minority in Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, and Yugoslavia, and six world congresses have been held to promote their preservation as a distinct people. In 1995, for the first time, a Rusyn literary language was codified in Slovakia and proclaimed before government, state, and academic officials. In addition to Slovakia,

4 Introduction writers in Hungary, Poland, and Ukraine are currently producing literary works in Rusyn, and fifteen journals and newspapers devoted to Rusyn culture are read by the international Rusyn community. This remarkable rebirth has prompted scholars to call Rusyns a 'new Slavic nationality,' and the revival of Rusyn literature in the present has directed the attention of scholarship to its little known and even less appreciated past. Through centuries of cultural oppression under the Austro-Hungarian and later the Soviet empires, Rusyn literature has persisted in various forms and in several languages, only to be reborn in post-Soviet Eastern Europe as a 'new' Slavic literature. In fact, Subcarpathian Rus' made an appearance on the world stage of literary scholarship as early as 1929 at the first International Congress of Slavic Philologists in Prague, where Galician scholar lul'ian lavorskii presented 'Znachenie i miesto Zakarpat'ia v obshchei skheme russkoi pis'mennosti' (The Significance and Place of Transcarpathia in the General Scheme of Russian Literature). To be sure, there has been no lack of devoted research and study among scholars in the Subcarpathian homeland. In 1931, the renowned Slavist Roman Jakobson noted that 'in the whole East Slavic world, there is hardly any other marginal area whose past has been examined with such affectionate meticulousness and scholarliness as Subcarpathian Rus" (cited in Magocsi, 'Historiographical Guide,' 201). After the Second World War, interest in ethnic and regional studies resulted in a quantitative and qualitative increase in scholarly productivity, especially in the Presov region of Slovakia and the Vojvodina of Yugoslavia. In the west, thanks to the establishment of the Carpatho-Rusyn Research Center in 1978, Subcarpathian Rus1 has figured in the disciplines of history, linguistics, art and architecture, music, ethnography, and folklore. Paul Robert Magocsi's bibliography of Carpatho-Rusyn studies, which covers the period 1975-94, lists over 1700 scholarly studies dedicated to the region from over two dozen countries (Carpatho-Rusyn Studies, 2 vols.). Considering the Rusyn renaissance currently underway in the European homeland, future bibliographies will undoubtedly confirm the accuracy and predictive validity of Roman Jakobson's observation. However, one area of Carpatho-Rusyn studies has lagged behind the general forward trend. Magocsi's observation in 1988 that 'the whole field of literary criticism remains underdeveloped' is still something of an understatement. In fact, except for a small group of specialists in Eastern Europe, few scholars of Slavic literature are even aware of the existence of Rusyn literature. In part, this neglect is due to the traditional academic organization of knowledge into distinct disciplines and insular departments. Situated at a crossroads of states, cultures, and languages, Rusyn literature resists easy categorization in terms of political, geographical, ideological, or linguistic origins. In the academic world,

Straddling Borders

5

where scholarly disciplines are organized largely by nation-states or language, Rusyn literature has had no logical niche. Its inherent hybridity presents a challenge to the institutionalized study of literature, and as a result, it has been largely excluded from the discourse of western literary scholarship. Since there is no established academic discipline of East European or East Central European studies, in terms of existing rubrics, Subcarpathian Rusyn culture is usually positioned somewhere between Russian and Ukrainian studies. In nineteenth-century Russia, pan-Slav critics included it along with, but distinct from, Little Russian (Ukrainian) literature, as a regional subcategory of an overarching all-Russian literature (Pypin and Spasovich, eds., Istoriia slavianskikh literatur, 2:440-7). For historical and political reasons, many prominent writers and scholars among the Rusyns endorsed this judgment. More than one historical survey begins unequivocally, 'Carpatho-Rusyn literature is a part of Russian literature' (Vergun, 'Karpatorusskaia literatura,' 47).1 In the early twentieth century, this orientation was countered by Ukrainophiles, who engaged with Russophiles in a battle over the identity of Rusyns, a battle in which those who supported a distinct Rusyn identity scarcely figured. The conflict was ended only by Stalinist fiat. After the Soviet annexation of part of Subcarpathian Rus' as the Transcarpathian oblast' in 1945, Rusyns there, as well as in the Presov region of Czechoslovakia, were declared to be Ukrainians. Their literary legacy was classified as part of Ukrainian literature, 'a branch of the Ukrainian cultural tree.' Since that time, Ukrainophile scholars have reiterated the official maxim that 'Subcarpathian Ukrainian [sic] literature is an integral part of the Ukrainian literary process' (Babota, Zakarpatoukrams'ka proza, 5).2 The idea of a distinct Rusyn nationality was outlawed, and Rusyn literature was constrained within the Ukrainian paradigm, where it has been subjected to predictable Marxist simplifications with more or (usually) less critical sensitivity. Adding to overt external political pressure, the intense national biases and rivalries that have persisted among the various Slavic groups and within the Rusyn community itself have caused literary analysis to be exploited endlessly for political purposes. In western Slavic scholarship, Rusyn literature has been largely ignored. Even that part of it written in Russian goes unrecognized, since it cannot be classified as emigre writing, and there is no other category for Russianlanguage literature written beyond the borders of Great Russia or, in modern times, the Soviet Union.3 In western surveys of Ukrainian literature, Rusyn literature is given a nod, only to be dismissed as 'totally outside the literary development of the other parts of the Ukraine' (Cyzevs'kyj, History of Ukrainian Literature, 492). The one original English-language historical survey of Subcarpathian Rusyn literature, a sketchy study from 1941 by an immigrant

6

Introduction

Rusyn-American priest, cites as its first objective 'to prove that there was and is a Rusin [sic] literature' (Hanulya, Rusin Literature, 4). More than half a century later, western scholarship has made little progress in fulfilling even this modest aim.4 Rusyn literature is not included in traditional Slavic graduate programs. The complexity of its geographical, political, and linguistic background has discouraged scholars in any established branch of the Slavic field from investigating it. And the rare independent scholar who would analyse it in its own context must be prepared to receive rebuffs from editors of certain journals, some of whom understand the term 'Subcarpathian Rus" to have something to do with medieval literature, and others who, as a condition of publication, demand that 'Rusyn' be replaced with 'Ukrainian.' The scholar of Rusyn literature cannot escape politics. The very suggestion that there exists a distinct Rusyn culture elicits charges of 'political Rusynism,' the dismissive shibboleth of tradition-bound Ukrainian nationalists. It is no wonder, then, that the literature of Subcarpathian Rus' has received so little attention. A marginalized literary culture that was written in several languages, that produced no internationally recognized geniuses, an ungainly Slavic stepchild that is recognized only reluctantly and with some embarrassment by its nearest (Ukrainian) relative, Rusyn literature has not found a place in western journals or on conference panels and has not yet attracted objective historians and analysts. In the history of literary study, organized in the west under various exclusive rubrics and encumbered in Europe by the political burdens of cultural nationalism, Rusyn literature has fallen between the cracks. All of this suggests the need for an innovative approach to the subject, a comprehensive theoretical framework that will respect the specificity of Rusyn culture while taking into account the multiplicity, complexity, intersecting orientations, and blurred boundaries that define it. At the Crossroads of Cultures The history of the national development of the Rusyn people is a complex story, which is told in great detail by Paul Robert Magocsi in his several studies devoted to the subject.5 In view of the prevalent confusion about the Rusyns as a national group, a brief overview may help to situate them in time and space. Present-day Rusyns are descendants of several groups: early Slavic peoples who came to the Danubian basin in the fifth and sixth centuries, the White Croats, the Rusyns of Galicia and Podolia, and the Vlachs of Transylvania. Carpathian Rus1 was never, until the second half of the twentieth century, under the political hegemony of any East Slavic political entity, although it was connected by religious and cultural ties to the Kievan principality of Galicia to

Straddling Borders 7 the north and with other Orthodox lands (central Ukraine and, later, Russia) to the east. By the second half of the eleventh century, the Rusyn land south of the Carpathians came under the rule of Hungarian feudal lords and survived as a Slavic island in the Hungarian sea until 1918. Tracing their cultural and religious origins to the ninth-century Moravian mission of Cyril and Methodius, which brought Christianity to the Slavs, the Rusyns proudly claimed the writers and chroniclers of medieval Kievan Rus' as their literary forefathers. Over the course of centuries, nationalities and languages were delineated. Ukrainians (or Little Russians), Belorusans (or White Russians), and Russians (or Great Russians) gradually came to be recognized as distinct East Slavic peoples, and Russian culture became generally identified with the predominant political power that flourished in the north. However, for the Carpathian Slavs who were cut off from the Slavic mainland and lived in constant threat of assimilation or elimination under Hungarian rule, the continuation of the culture and language of early Kievan Rus' became a means to preserve their East Slavic ethnic identity. Retaining the original appellation Rusyn (Latin: Rutheni) that was shared by the Slavs of the Kievan state, the Rusyns of the Carpathian region, while forced to accept political disjunction, refused to acknowledge any division among the East Slavs, believing themselves to be part of a single Rus' people. Consequently, their traditional ethnonyms have been derived from the noun Rus' and they have described themselves, and have been known by others, as Ruthenians, Rusnaks, Rusyns, Carpatho-Russians (KapnaTopoccbi or KapnaxopyccKHe), and Ugro- (in Russian) or Uhro- (i.e., Hungarian-, in Rusyn, Ukrainian) Russians. Only in the twentieth century have some alternative names been used, such as Carpatho-Ukrainians, and for Rusyns living on the northern slopes of the Carpathians, Lemkos. For simplicity, the people and culture that are the subject of this study will be consistently referred to as Rusyn.6 The original Rusyn homeland is in the very heart of Europe. Until 1918, it was part of the Kingdom of Hungary within the Hapsburg-ruled, multinational Austro-Hungarian empire. Today the ancestral homeland lies within the borders of Poland, Slovakia, and Ukraine, along both slopes of the Carpathian mountains. High mountain crests divided the small ethnic group, and as a result, Rusyn cultural development demonstrates the variance that ensues when a single literature develops under different historical, political, and linguistic circumstances. Rusyn literature north of the Carpathian mountains in Galicia and Bukovina developed in close contact with Polish and Ukrainian cultures and presents a pattern of development distinct from that on the southern Subcarpathian slopes. When politics allowed, the Subcarpathian Rusyns cooperated with and were influenced by their 'brothers to the north,' but in time,

8 Introduction local cultures diverged. Therefore, Rusyn literary development north of the Carpathians will require a separate study. An active Rusyn culture exists as well in the Vojvodina of Yugoslavia. The ancestors of these Rusyns migrated to the Bachka region in the eighteenth century. In modern times, they were recognized as one of the five official nationalities in Yugoslavia and were allowed to standardize their language, which is today the basis for its own extensive, well developed, and much studied national literature. This volume will focus on the literature of the Rusyn lands south of the Carpathian mountains, that is, the Presov region of Slovakia and the part of Slovakia that together with the Transcarpathian oblast' of Ukraine were unified in 1918 within the first Czechoslovak republic. These lands will be referred to as Subcarpathian Rus'. The same geographic term is used today by the Rusyn movement, which rejects the Ukrainian designation 'Transcarpathia' (SaKapnaxbe). The idea of 'lands beyond the Carpathians' expresses the perspective from Kiev. The Rusyns, however, have always lived at the foot of the Carpathians, and from their perspective it is Kiev and eastern Ukraine that are 'beyond the mountains.' Subcarpathian Rus' was the site of the Rusyn national awakening in the mid-nineteenth century, from which all Rusyn culture has taken its inspiration. Today, Subcarpathian Rus' is the locus for the multiple political and cultural collisions that continue to challenge Rusyn literary study. In addition to the confusion over nomenclature and the complex, multinational historical and geographical background of the region, Rusyn scholarship, like Rusyn literature, has been stymied by linguistic controversy. The Rusyns of the Carpathian region speak several East Slavic dialects, which many contemporary scholars classify with Ukrainian. As a result of political repression and economic factors that hindered widespread printing, a Rusyn literary standard was not established during the mid-nineteenth-century national awakening when other Slavic groups codified their languages. This remained a major obstacle to the development of Rusyn literature and a coherent Rusyn consciousness. The 'language question' has been a perennial topic of dispute down to the present day. It was only in 1995 that a Rusyn literary language was formally standardized in Slovakia. In 1999, a codified standard was created for the Lemko-Rusyns. In Ukraine, however, any form of Rusyn is still ostracized and politically illegitimate. For example, in response to the codification in Slovakia, the Ukrainian poet and influential civic activist Ivan Drach dismissed the Rusyn language and its prospects, calling it 'a macaronic jargon ... developed in the test-tubes of Ukrainophobic alchemists [with] no perspective in education, culture or administration' ('Codification: Another Viewpoint,' Literaturna Ukra'ina, 2 February 1995; trans, and reproduced in Carpatho-Rusyn American 18, no. 1, 1995: 7). It is one of the ironies

Straddling Borders

9

of contemporary nationalism that Drach, who was connected to the Rukh movement that stressed Ukrainian political and cultural independence from Russia, does not perceive a hegemonic attitude in Ukraine's treatment of Rusyn culture. Over the centuries, Subcarpathian Rus' has known several 'official' languages, including Church Slavonic (or Slaveno-Rusyn, as its Subcarpathian recension was called), Latin, Hungarian, Ukrainian, Russian, Czech, and Slovak. The politics and practicalities of language choice continually obtrude in Rusyn culture and will be an issue in each of the historical periods covered here. For much of its history, Rusyn literature was written in a mixed language, based on Slaveno-Rusyn, with degrees of Hungarian, Slovak, and local dialectal influences. The literary texts that result demonstrate inconsistencies in spelling and apparent aberrations in grammar that invite elucidation, but a detailed linguistic analysis is beyond the scope of this book. A comparative and historical linguistic study of Rusyn is sorely needed, and it is my hope that this literary survey will inspire an interested linguist to undertake a complementary study of language development.7 My concern here is not with linguistic details and technical analyses, but with language as a social and cultural construction that mediates political and ideological frameworks and is, in turn, shaped by them. The vagaries of Rusyn geography, political allegiances, language, and even group appellation have complicated the establishment and preservation of a Rusyn national identity. Today the controversy as to whether Rusyns are a distinct people rages on. Although Rusyns have been recognized as an official nationality in Yugoslavia, Slovakia, and Hungary, political and cultural authorities in Ukraine adamantly reject such a concept, insisting that the term 'Rusyn' is nothing more than an obsolete synonym for the modern ethnonym 'Ukrainian.' The current Rusyn cultural movement is dismissed by Ukrainians as 'an example of national nihilism' and 'a symptom of militant provincialism.' The Rusyns' effort to distinguish their own culture from Ukrainian is viewed as 'an aggressive act of Ukrainophobia,' and the use of the Rusyn language in literature is censured and ridiculed. The polemics surrounding this issue have been numerous and heated, frequently devolving into invective and personal attacks.8 Although I intend to keep a scholarly distance from the controversy, the very topic of this study will be seen as biased and provocative 'political Rusynism' by critics who maintain an uncompromising Ukrainian orientation. To make my position clear, I will proceed cautiously from the conclusion of Paul Robert Magocsi's 1978 study that Rusyns constitute an ethnic group with all the necessary objective characteristics - distinct speech, historical tradition, territory, customs - to become potentially a distinct nationality. At that time, Magosci expressed the belief that although they had not yet fully realized that

10 Introduction potential, a distinct Rusyn nationality (as opposed to a Rusyn nation-state) was theoretically possible (Shaping, 272-5). Today in Subcarpathian Rus', a nationality-building process is underway and has made great strides. Its outcome is as yet unclear, but one prominent site of its development is literature. This study will demonstrate that Rusyn literature has always been informed by nationality formation, and, it will provide a historical backdrop against which contemporary and future Rusyn literary development can be appreciated. While it is impossible to avoid political implications, I intend to eschew political ideology as such. My approach to the question of Rusyn national identity is from the perspective of cultural studies, which stresses the 'inventedness' of nations, the construction of collective identities based on culture and consciousness, and the role of writers and other native intellectuals in creating and sustaining a national discourse. As the expression of a minor, marginal culture, Rusyn literature has always been preoccupied with political questions and social action, and, consequently, less concerned with canonical aesthetics. Traditional critics have found it easy to dismiss the literature as deficient, 'incomplete,' or imitative, and even Rusyn cultural nationalists are defensive and apologetic. According to traditional formal criteria, much of Subcarpathian literature is indeed faulty, exhibiting 'intermediate, eclectic forms' rather than strict genre distinctions, imperfect rhymes, faulty rhythms, and idiosyncratic poetic and narrative structures. Often regarded as embarrassing or naive, the classics of the Rusyn 'awakeners' are stigmatized in regard to form, even as they are venerated as models of national creativity. From the perspective of nationality building, Rusyn literature has always been a primary response to social conditions and an affirmation of dignity and humanity that was not to be found elsewhere in Rusyn life. The aesthetic pleasure it evokes is based less on form or standard cultural values than on the expression of identity that emerges from the negotiation of political and cultural differences. Literary theorists have noted that ethnic cultures which, as a consequence of historical damage, have not developed a fully autonomous cultural sphere, are often regarded as historically inadequate, and 'underdeveloped,' rather than 'differently developed' (Lloyd, 'Ethnic Cultures,' 227). In order to navigate the course of a 'different' development in Subcarpathia and to engage the literature fairly, a distinct critical lens and an alternative mode of reading are required. Such a perspective is offered by cultural studies. Cultural Studies The field of cultural studies was initiated in the early 1970s at the Centre for

Straddling Borders

11

Contemporary Cultural Studies at the University of Birmingham. Since its inception in Britain, it has been further developed in Canada, Australia, France, India, and the United States. In each region, cultural studies acquired a unique orientation. Most often applied to contemporary culture, it is concerned with gender and sexuality, race and ethnicity, discourse and textuality, popular culture and everyday life, and global culture in the postmodern age. Other issues of interest, especially relevant to the present study, are national identity, identity politics, colonialism, and postcolonialism. Cultural studies cuts across disciplines and has no methodology of its own; it draws from various fields, including sociology, the law, science, anthropology, political economy, women's studies, and literary theory. Rather than examining any single topic through a specific methodology, cultural studies approaches its object by studying the interactions of culture with other social and political phenomena, or, more broadly, it studies culture in relation to power. As one theorist has defined it, '[Cultural studies] functions largely as a term of convenience for a fairly dispersed array of theoretical and political positions which, however widely divergent they might be in other respects, share a commitment to examining cultural practices from the point of view of their intrication with, and within, relations of power' (Tony Bennett, 'Putting Policy into Cultural Studies,' in Grossberg, Nelson, and Treichler, eds., Cultural Studies, 23). My brief survey of the field here will focus on the aspects of cultural studies that are most useful for this study of Rusyn literature.9 As an interdisciplinary approach, cultural studies is sufficiently elastic to deal with the theoretical and disciplinary border crossings that are inherent in the case of Rusyn culture. Its understanding of culture is not limited to the high arts, but emphasizes popular culture and favours populist standards of evaluation, as opposed to elitist appraisals in terms of traditional artistic criteria. In fact, cultural studies is 'most interested in how groups with least power practically develop their own readings of, and uses for, cultural products - in fun, in resistance, or to articulate their own reality' (During, 'Introduction,' 7). Thus, it stresses the ways in which meanings, identities, and values are produced. To proponents of cultural studies, culture is 'a region of serious contest and conflict over meaning,' in which the consumers of culture 'inevitably participate in the constitution of cultural meanings' (Agger, Cultural Studies, 8-9). Viewing Rusyn literature from this perspective opens a new dimension that reveals its active, creative, and political potential as a producer and repository of national meaning. A concept that is central to cultural studies, and to Rusyn literature, is identity. Rejecting scientific positivism, cultural studies concentrates on subjectivity. It perceives identity not as fixed, but as the product of a history of various

12 Introduction techniques of self-formation. '[Identities] spring from an already existing history of narratives, slogans, and styles with which we choose to connect or in which we are educated' (Fuery and Mansfield, Cultural Studies, 143). That is, identity is not absolute, but is constructed from its own background of political entanglements and textual practices, which is distinct from the history of others. Cultural studies recognizes that one's identity can be established only in relation to another identity; one social group identifies itself in distinction to another. The politics of identity manifests itself in culture through a device that has become known as 'othering.' The 'other' is represented as the opposite of the self and, commonly, as inferior to the self. As one theorist puts it: Thus, if the identity of the self only becomes possible in relation to the other, it automatically constructs a complex set of political relationships that, in turn, become an inevitable strand in any textual process. The values and practices of the other become subordinate to those of the self and vulnerable to judgement and condemnation on their terms. This inevitable subjection of one set of behaviours to the world-view of another means that the other is never seen on its own terms. It always appears as a deficient or inferior version of the self. (Fuery and Mansfield, 147)

The concept of the 'other' is central to the development of Rusyn culture and history. Rusyns have always identified themselves in opposition to some dominant group by whom they were disdained and despised. They have perennially been 'othered' by hierarchically superior groups, but a process of 'othering' has also taken place within the Rusyn community. In the early twentieth century, Rusyns identified themselves as Russians, Rusyns, or Ukrainians, and their choice of nationality determined their cultural, linguistic, and political allegiances. As the Ukrainian orientation became dominant in the Soviet period, those who self-identified as Rusyns were marginalized and silenced. Their distinctive identity was denied in an extreme example of the process known as 'the reduction of the other to the same (or self)' (Fuery and Mansfield, 148). In Ukrainian-dominated culture, the 'other' (Rusyn) lost his independent identity and became merely an inferior version of the dominant (Ukrainian) self. Traditional Ukrainian literary scholarship has taken this approach to Rusyn literature, judging it as a deficient and inferior version of Ukrainian literature, and this has become the standard critical narrative. A way out of this doctrinaire thinking is through cultural studies. Along with postmodernism, cultural studies starts from the assumption that cultural difference, including diversity of identity, must be recognized and respected. An approach to literature through cultural studies articulates the relationship

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between culture and power and identifies strategies for survival. The analysis of Rusyn literature from this perspective does not judge its value in terms of another national paradigm, but on its own terms and within the context of power that shapes it. Power, or dominance, is sustained in societies through the concept of hegemony, which has been defined as 'what binds society together without force' (Sardar and Van Loon, Introducing Cultural Studies, 49), or 'domination by consent' (Ashcroft, Griffiths, and Tiffin, Key Concepts in PostColonial Studies, 116). Certain social groups achieve and maintain hegemony by shaping the consent of subordinate peoples through their authority over society and culture. They influence the thought of 'othered' groups especially through their control of definition and meaning, such that the subject group is 'contained within an ideological space which does not seem at all "ideological"; which appears instead to be permanent and "natural," to lie outside history, to be beyond particular interests' (Dick Hebidge, 'From Culture to Hegemony,' in During, 366). Thus, the shapers of Rusyn literature have obliquely resisted the hegemony of the dominant power by contesting the meaning imposed upon them and by struggling to create their own meaning through the negotiation of discourse. The word discourse is associated with French philosophical thought, and as used in cultural studies it is derived from Michel Foucault's use of the concept. For Foucault, discourse is a strongly bounded area of social knowledge, a system of statements within which the world can be known and through which it is brought into being. Discourses do not reflect an objective reality; rather, they construct reality through language. In Roger Fowler's description, discourse 'is speech or writing seen from the point of view of the beliefs, values and categories which it embodies; these beliefs etc. constitute a way of looking at the world, an organization or representation of experience ... Different modes of discourse encode different representations of experience; and the source of these representations is the communicative context within which the discourse is embedded.'10 Discourse, then, shapes the rules of what can be known and said about the observed phenomena of existence. For example, one can speak of 'legal discourse,' 'scientific discourse,' or 'religious discourse,' each of which would mediate reality through its own system of meanings. In the case of Rusyn literature, for example, Russophiles and Ukrainophiles constructed individual discourses that were based on the same facts. Discourse is bound up with the notions of power, knowledge, and truth. Foucault argues that the production of knowledge is the result of power struggles, negotiated through discourse. He sees power not as unidirectional, but dispersed throughout social relations: 'Power must be analysed as something which circulates, or rather as something which only functions in the form

14 Introduction of a chain. It is never localised here or there, never in anybody's hands, never appropriated as a commodity or piece of wealth. Power is employed and exercised through a net-like organisation. And not only do individuals circulate between its threads, they are always in the position of simultaneously undergoing and exercising this power' (Foucault, Power/Knowledge, 98). Discourse theory views power as a relation rather than an imposition, and it does not assume that individuals are necessarily passive victims of systems of thought. Rather, they are understood as 'actively constructing positions for themselves, using discursive constructs' (Mills, Discourse, 91). It allows for relatively different effects to be experienced by individual groups, which might employ different modes of discourse to construct reality. A discourse analysis of femininity, for example, would reveal that some women 'negotiate for themselves positions of institutionalized power and others accrue power to themselves by negotiating with the seemingly powerless positions which they have been allotted.' Thus, discourse must not be interpreted at face value. Rather, it must be recognized that 'individuals actively engage with discourses in order to forge particular positions of identity for themselves' (Mills, 94). In their construction of reality, Rusyn writers employed various discourses - religious, national, popular, and Marxist, among others. Rather than accepting any one of these as 'true,' a comprehension of the diverse discourses in Rusyn literature allows an appreciation for the Rusyns' active interaction with power and reveals the different ways in which they form identities and endow them with meaning. The Postcolonial Model The critical discourse known as postcolonial theory, initiated in the late 1970s, has become widely used in contemporary literary study. With roots in the theory of Jacques Derrida and Michel Foucault, it was developed and elaborated by Edward Said, Gayatri Spivak, and Homi Bhabha, among others. After the publication of Said's study of the relationship between dominance and discourse in Orientalism (1978), various cross-disciplinary reading practices evolved, parallel to deconstructive and poststructural theory. The 1989 book The Empire Writes Back summarized these discursive methods and scrutinized specific issues and applications of postcolonial theory. This survey was followed by numerous studies and collections, in which postcolonial theory was elaborated and applied to diverse literatures around the world.11 In its broadest interpretation, the term postcolonial covers 'all the culture affected by the imperial process from the moment of colonization to the present day' (Ashcroft, Griffiths, and Tiffin, The Empire Writes Back, 2). In Postcolonial Theory:

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Contexts, Practices, Politics, Bart Moore-Gilbert reviews the development of the theory, as well as the objections to it.12 He offers a useful definition: Postcolonial criticism is a more or less distinct set of reading practices, if it is understood as preoccupied principally with analysis of cultural forms which mediate, challenge or reflect upon the relations of domination and subordination - economic, cultural and political - between (and often within) nations, races or cultures, which characteristically have their roots in the history of modern European colonialism and imperialism, and which, equally characteristically, continue to be apparent in the present era of neo-colonialism. (Moore-Gilbert, 2)

As this definition suggests, postcolonial theory, like cultural studies, does not constitute a precise methodology or field of inquiry. Rather, it allows a perspective from which the cultural discourse of marginalized groups can be appreciated as assertions of identity and strategies for survival. In this volume, I do not intend to engage the theory itself, but rather to develop aspects of postcolonial criticism that are useful for the study of Sub-Carpathian Rus'. The benefits of the postcolonial model are several. Foregrounding questions of identity and cultural difference, it addresses the hybridity of postcolonial cultures, the heterogeneity of their languages, and the discontinuity of their histories. It confronts the problematic relationship between aesthetics and politics in the literary text, enabling alternative modes of reading and reevaluative strategies of analysis. Thus, deviations from canonical norms are not dismissed as deficiencies, but analysed in terms of their usefulness in resisting or subverting domination. Moreover, postcoloniality crosses cultural boundaries, and what may have seemed nationally unique, and perhaps embarrassing, to generations of scholars of Rusyn literature is revealed to be characteristic of the postcolonial condition worldwide. By setting Rusyn literature in a comparative context, the postcolonial model provides new frameworks, strategies, and terminology that liberate it from decades of stereotypes, cliches, and national or Marxist constraints. Finally, postcolonial theory highlights the marginalized utterance in counterpoint to the dominant cultural voice, pointing to the fundamental role of literary culture in nationality building and identity formation. The-postcolonial model has contributed to a recuperation and reevaluation of the literatures of former European colonies in Africa, the Caribbean, South America, and parts of Asia, as well as the 'settler colonies' of Australia, New Zealand, and Canada. Recently, the relevance of the postcolonial model to Eastern Europe has become apparent. The fall of the Soviet Union ended the formal colonization of several of its subject peoples, who are now working out their own independent identities and building national cultures.

16 Introduction These developments have prompted scholars of Slavic literature to consider the postcolonial nature of former Soviet satellite states, and in recent years scholarly studies have applied concepts of postcolonial theory to Ukraine, Latvia, Romania, and to Eastern Europe in general.13 The postcolonial model is particularly useful in the case of a border culture like that of Subcarpathian Rus1. Although the Rusyns of Subcarpathia were never in an exactly analogous situation to that of British colonies such as India, Australia, and numerous African countries, there is no doubt about their history of subordination and cultural oppression. The key feature of colonial oppression, as identified by Tzvetan Todorov, is control over the means of communication (Conquest of America, 61.) In light of this criterion alone, Subcarpathia, which was first allowed a Cyrillic printing press only in 1863 and struggled under censorship throughout its history, fully qualifies as a colonial culture. Members of the Rusyn creative intelligentsia themselves began to characterize their situation as colonial in the mid-nineteenth century, and they identified with other colonized peoples. In a poem from 1884, the poet Aleksander Pavlovych expresses solidarity with India (Izbrannye proizvedeniia, 121), and in a travel sketch from the same period, Aleksander Mytrak generalizes the concept in a comment on a Hungarian comparison of the Verkhovyna region of Subcarpathia with Ireland: 'If by Ireland is meant a poor, forgotten land, whose scarce resources are appropriated for the profit of outsiders and about which no one cares, then Verkhovyna is one of the most wretched Irelands in the world'; ('Putevye vpechatleniia'; see chapter 4). After the fall of the Austro-Hungarian empire, Subcarpathian Rus' became a province of Czechoslovakia. Aspects of colonization became ever more apparent as subjects for literary treatment, and Rusyn writers foregrounded the people's resentment of cultural imperialism. In 1938, renamed Carpatho-Ukraine, Subcarpathian Rus' enjoyed five months of political autonomy before being invaded by Hungary, and after the Second World War, it fell under the Soviet sphere of influence. Clearly, the cultural legacy of Subcarpathian Rus' is a history of the 'relations of domination and subordination' that are at the heart of the postcolonial enterprise. Another justification for the application of postmodern critical theory to the history of Subcarpathian literature comes from the recognition, voiced by author Salman Rushdie, that writers in colonial situations are in a sense modernists avant la lettre. 'Polyglot inhabitants of fractured, hybrid, upturned worlds,' they 'have been forced by cultural displacement to accept the provisional nature of all truths, all certainties, have perhaps had modernism forced upon [them]' ('Imaginary Homelands,' quoted in Boehmer, Colonial and Postcolonial Literature, 125). For the Rusyns of Subcarpathia, who straddled geographical, political, religious, and political borders, the acknowledgment of

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their liminality naturally called forth strategies of adaptation and boundary crossing as a response to domination and an essential condition for survival. As a result, the Rusyn awakening of the mid-nineteenth century was not separatist, but global in nature, based on communication, rather than confrontation. The national awakener, Aleksander Dukhnovych, eschewed essentialism in favour of a flexible, supra-national configuration of self-differentiated entitities. While he tirelessly promoted the Rusyn cause, his work shows a constant effort to forge new alignments across national, ethnic, linguistic, and cultural borders. In this sense, his vision of the world resembles that of postmodern theorists who criticize essentialism and native separatism in favour of a 'contrapuntal perspective' that takes into account 'intertwined and overlapping histories.' Edward Said, one of the foremost scholars of postcolonial discourse, argues that 'literary [and cultural] experiences overlap with one another and [are] interdependent despite national boundaries and coercively legislated national autonomies,' and calls for an alternative to the 'destructive politics of confrontation and hostility' (Culture and Imperialism, 18, 312). In his vision of the world, Aleksander Dukhnovych drew on the legacy of the 'in-between' nature of Rusyn culture, anticipating Said by more than a century. The conditions that he and succeeding generations of Rusyn awakeners faced called forth a pluralistic vision of the world and strategies of identity politics that prefigured the postmodern interest in hybridity and cultural syncretism. The primary conditions of postcoloniality - cultural marginality, a preoccupation with identity, and resistance to oppression - characterize every stage of Rusyn literature, and the fluid postcolonial model is well suited to mediate its complexities, contradictions, and intersecting cultural orientations. Still, the unusual features of the Rusyn case distinguish it from other colonial situations, and to some degree its divergence from the norm constitutes a challenge to the postcolonial model. For Subcarpathian Rus', survival sometimes required measures that are not consistent with the theory's underlying assumptions. For example, in the nineteenth century, the Rusyn creative intelligentsia refused to build an independent national culture using a literary language based on the vernacular. Instead, they 'borrowed' Russian, a language that was foreign to most of the Rusyn population, and tried to assert a place for themselves within Russian culture. Often, at least on the surface, their resistance to the colonial situation looked more like submission and compliance than resistance. In the nineteenth century they invited Russian annexation, which they saw as deliverance from Hungarian domination, and in the twentieth century many writers adopted a Ukrainian cultural orientation and some expressed Soviet political sympathies as a counterweight to Czech colonialism. Throughout their history, the Rusyns of Subcarpathia had to negotiate multiple

18 Introduction levels of oppression. As the nature and form of oppression varied, so did the Rusyn response to it. In this respect, Rusyn literature, situated between intersecting lines of cultural dominance and subservience, presents an especially complex picture of cultural dependence. Its history illustrates several characteristic phases of postcolonial literary development. The Terrain of World Literature The Rusyns of Subcarpathia have survived through a process of continual negotiation between states, religions, and languages. By the end of the eighteenth century, they had fashioned a unique 'in-between' national narrative between east and west, Orthodoxy and Catholicism, orature and literature, Slavonic and Latin, Hungarian and Rusyn dialect. How this narrative affirmed and kept faith with native Rusyn culture, while accentuating the stratagems of adaptation and compromise that would become the foundation of Rusyn culture, is discussed in chapter 1. In the early nineteenth century, the literature of Subcarpathia exemplified the first stage of a colonial literature, in which the native author assimilates to the language and literary form of the dominant culture. Consequently, in this period, Rusyn histories were written in Latin, and ceremonial odes in Hungarian. The next stage of postcolonial development, in which the author adapts a native language to the imported form but still addresses the dominant power or 'superior' culture, is exemplified by the ceremonial verse addressed to the Palatine of Hungary in 1805, in which the Rusyn poet encoded a defence of Rusyn culture in a panegyric to the oppressor. In this period, mimics and migrants learned to negotiate the gap between their local culture and the metropolitan Hungarian and Russian worlds, and they began the process of defining their own 'otherness' by creating an 'autoethnography' that would serve as a cognitive foundation for the next generation of national awakeners. This process is analysed in chapter 2. A literature becomes truly national only when the native writer begins to address his own people, as in the Rusyn national revival of the mid-nineteenth century, when the nationally conscious intelligentsia wrote for the local population in a colloquial form of the language. Chapter 3 surveys the Rusyn national awakening, which entailed the invention and elaboration of a cultural tradition and the development of a literature of resistance. But before the initiatives of the 'awakeners' could flourish, a new period of oppression ensued, and Magyar domination after 1867 called forth strategies subversive of the cultural centre that took the form of affiliation with the fraternal, if equally imperialistic, culture of Russia. This stage is similar to what in postcolonial theory is called 'settler' culture, such as that of Canada, in which the advance-

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ment of a central tradition over local inspiration provides a sense of belonging and security within an established culture. Even if the idea of a Rusyn 'exile' from the Russian motherland was largely imaginary, the Slavophile aspirations expressed by Rusyn writers of the second half of the nineteenth century served as a means of psychic survival and self-assertion in a hostile political context. Chapter 4 examines the Rusyns' Slavophile strategy and questions whether the zeal with which the Russophiles asserted their legacy to the Great Russian tradition compromised local Rusyn cultural development. Finally, as part of the first Czech Republic at the beginning of the twentieth century, the Rusyns of Subcarpathia were relatively free for the first time to follow their own quest for identity formation. However, the attending internal dispute over cultural orientation (Russian vs. Ukrainian) proved detrimental to the development of an integrated national literature. Chapter 5 discusses the conflict between the two opposing versions of the 'imagined community,' providing an acute demonstration of the 'constructedness' of national identity. Amid the international crises that foretold the coming of the war, Subcarpathia achieved a short-lived period of autonomy and one day of independence before being engulfed by the Hungarian invasion; literature was again compelled to adapt to circumstances. Ironically, it was only during the war that a literature based on Rusyn vernacular finally arose, and writers emerged from the stifling RussianUkrainian rivalry into a Rusynophile version of modernism. Unfortunately, whatever promise the Rusynophile orientation may have held was rendered futile by political circumstances and was extinguished when Rusyns were declared to be Ukrainians after the Second World War. Rusyn writers were then subjected to the demands of Soviet socialist realism, and any traces of a distinctive Rusyn literature were subordinated to Ukrainian cultural hegemony. The fate of Rusyn literature in the second half of the twentieth century will not be treated here. Rusyn culture was now doubly marginalized, dominated by an official (Ukrainian) culture, which was itself resisting denationalization at the hands of Soviet cultural imperialism. Ukrainian nationalism, at least in relation to Rusyn culture, became in effect a new centre, reproducing hierarchical conditions of domination. Thus, in today's Transcarpathian oblast' of independent Ukraine, Rusyn literature is once again part of a dominated culture struggling to survive. By contrast, in the neighbouring Presov region of Slovakia, where there is finally a standardized Rusyn language, Rusyn literature has achieved a promising stage of development that mediates between tradition and modernity. In the conclusion, I will suggest ways in which some of the lessons learned from a postcolonial interrogation of the history of Rusyn literature can provide a model for the direction of future Rusyn literature and literary scholarship.

20

Introduction

The untidy Rusyn cultural past has, in fact, prefigured the international postmodern present, with its emphasis on hybridity, border crossings, and liminal spaces. Postcolonial theorist Homi Bhabha writes, 'Where, once, the transmission of national traditions was the major theme of a world literature, perhaps we can now suggest that transnational histories of migrants, the colonized, or political refugees - these border and frontier conditions - may be th terrains of world literature' (Bhabha, Location of Culture, 12). Geographically, Subcarpathian Rus' is located in the heart of Europe, but from a cultural standpoint, Rusyns have always been marginal, peripheral, and 'in-between.' However, consonant with Bhabha's viewpoint and from the perspective of cultural studies and postcolonial theory, Subcarpathian Rus' may be seen as constituting a central 'terrain of world literature.' Its very survival and continued existence on the cultural map testify to the aesthetic and strategic potential of liminal spaces, intersecting orientations, and blurred boundaries. For the Rusyns of Subcarpathia, these terms and concepts are not simply abstracts of literary theory, but realistic descriptions of their own lived experience. My aim in this volume is a critical reconstruction of Subcarpathian Rusyn literature in its relation to identity and nationality formation. It is not meant to be a comprehensive literary history, although the most prominent figures from each historical period are represented. Through readings (or rereadings) of individual texts, I trace the diverse 'postcolonialities' that correlate with the various modes of oppression in Rusyn literary history. My concern is not to evaluate, praise, or debunk cultural or aesthetic value, but to analyse the discursive formations through which Rusyn cultural identity is communicated. The literary works themselves prompt interpretive strategies that often dovetail with postcolonial theory, and I have allowed the authors I examine to direct my inquiry. The unique features of the Rusyn situation and the fact that I am working with literature in the original language differentiate this study from most postcolonial works. In place of professional jargon, I have tried to use everyday language as much as possible. This work is addressed to several different audiences. For scholars and students of Slavic literatures, the case of Subcarpathian Rus' will fill out the general development of Slavic culture. Poised as it is between East and West Slavic lands, Rusyn literature represents a unique blend of Slavic characteristics, culminating in the contemporary situation, in which Rusyn writers like to see themselves as neither eastern nor western, but as central Slavs. In addition, my application of the postcolonial paradigm to Subcarpathian Rus', the first large-scale postcolonial analysis of a Slavic literature, develops a theoretical basis for further studies of East European postcoloniality. Scholars interested in postcolonial studies of other cultural traditions will find unexpected com-

Straddling Borders 21 plexities in the case of Subcarpathian Rus', some that validate and some that challenge elements of the model. Readers in the European homeland will undoubtedly find my methods and conclusions unorthodox, novel, and, I hope, stimulating. Many of my readings will challenge dominant interpretations, but rather than presenting a definitive explication, I mean to open the tradition for further inquiry. Finally, part of my purpose is to introduce the literature itself to a western audience. To this end, I have included numerous textual excerpts in the original and in English translation.

1 Inventing an 'In-between' Culture

(They smeared over our history with mud, And wrote a new one of their own invention.) Aleksander Pavlovych,

The zeal with which Rusyns voiced issues of national identity in their literature was a consequence of the inescapable historical and geopolitical uncertainties that beset their existence. Like that of many Slavic nations, the early history of Subcarpathian Rus' is obscured by a screen of conflicting theories grounded in ideological discord. There is no scholarly consensus as to when the Rusyns settled in the Subcarpathian region or when and from whom they received Christianity. In the absence of authentic documentation, these volatile questions have been answered by myths and legends that vary according to one's patriotic predisposition and the prevailing political imperatives. As a subject people for practically their entire existence, the Rusyns of the Carpathian region had various 'histories' imposed upon them by the dominant power or by competing nationalisms. For the nationalist intellectual elite, national self-assertion demanded that they rewrite the 'master' narrative and reconstruct native culture in their own historical discourse. Rusyn historians and writers sought to perceive their land and cultural experience in their own terms, to validate and authenticate their identity, and to counter negative images with positive definitions of self. As a result, Rusyn history fostered a restorative myth that reinterpreted historical fact in a search for self and wholeness. The dearth of documentation and the obscurity of the remote past enabled historical improvisation and ensured passionate polemics that have continued to our own day.

Inventing an 'In-between' Culture 23 The History of an 'Obscure People' According to 'an ancient and sacred oral tradition,' Subcarpathian Rus' already existed as an independent state before the coming of the Magyars at the end of the ninth century (Schematismus Cleri Graeci Ritus Catholicorum Dioecesis Munkdcsensis adA.D. 1908, cited in Pekar, History of the Church, 13). In this version of history, the local inhabitants put up a heroic resistance, led by the legendary Prince Laborets', before they were vanquished by the Magyar invaders and lost their independence for the next ten centuries. However, native historians allege that the already Christianized Rusyns, while subordinate in numbers and power, were culturally superior to their new masters. Aleksander Dukhnovych, the nineteenth-century 'awakener' of the Rusyn people, even insisted that the Rusyns exerted a strong influence on Magyar culture and language, that the very name 'Ugriia' came from Igor, the son of Rurik, the Varangian founder of Rus' ('Istinna istoriia' in Tvory, 2: 531-66). These visions of Slavic preeminence in the Danubian basin gained credence beyond the small circle of Rusyn patriots in the nineteenth century, when Russian Slavophiles endorsed the early distinction of Carpathian culture, proclaiming it the source of all East Slavic civilization. After visiting the area, the Russian publicist, literary critic, and ethnographer N.I. Nadezhdin wrote: 'The beginnings of our history, the origin and meaning of our ancient chronicles, the spread of the beneficial rays of Christianity in our Fatherland, the coming to us of the Church Slavonic language that had such an important influence on our spiritual and literary formation - all these items which had been more or less mysterious and unclear to me suddenly became understandable' (quoted in Magocsi, Shaping, 119). The Slavophile characterization of the Carpathian region as 'the cradle of the Slavs' answered the Rusyn need for recognition and would become a cherished motif of Subcarpathian literature for centuries. However, the Slavophile confidence in Carpathian precedence was almost completely subjective. The scant historical evidence for early Rus' civilization generated a set of popular legends and a national mythology, which included, besides Prince Laborets', Petro Petrovych, leader of a fourteenth-century uprising, and, most important of all, Prince Fedor Koriatovych. A historical figure who gained his reputation in battles against the Tatars, Fedor Koriatovych (ca. 1320-1414) was an Orthodox Rus1 prince from Podillia (Podolia), an area between the rivers Dniester and Bug east of the Carpathians. According to legend, in return for shifting his loyalties from the Lithuanian rulers to the Hungarian King Zsigmond, Koriatovych was granted an estate in the northeastern part of the Hungarian kingdom. He colonized his estate in 1395 with 40,000 Rusyns and ruled it as an autonomous Rusyn province, known in the chronicles

24 Straddling Borders as Marchia Ruthenorum. He also is believed to have established the St Nicholas monastery near Mukachevo, becoming, in Rusyn historical memory, the founder of spiritual, ecclesiastical, and secular culture. Koriatovych inspired the first known example of syllabic verse in Subcarpathian Rus' - a carving from 1661 on a commemorative stone in the Mukachevo monastery. The opening lines read:

Fedor Koriatovych was a prince, / For the remission of sins, a monastery he built. (Mykytas1 and Rudlovchak, eds., Poety Zakarpattia, 75)1

Rusyn, Hungarian, Russian, and Ukrainian historians have disputed the facts surrounding Koriatovych. A rough consensus of the various schools of history might be as follows. Koriatovych arrived in Mukachevo with 40,000 (possibly 60,000) Rusyns in 1360 (Rusyn interpretation). He fled to Hungary by himself in 1396; he was lord, not prince, of Mukachevo, and did not establish any settlements (Hungarian). He arrived in Mukachevo at the end of the fourteenth century, with only his own retinue (Russian). Rusyns did not reach the Subcarpathian region until after the Magyars, and Koriatovych is pure legend (Ukrainian). These conflicting historical suppositions inscribe the power relations that have prevailed at various times between and among the groups involved (Magocsi, Shaping, 105-29). Since the 1989 revolution in Eastern Europe, historians have been able to reexamine the topic independent of political prohibitions. On the basis of new findings, the Slovak historian Michal Popovic uncovered a second Fedor Koriatovych, who succeeded the first as ruler, thus resolving some of the historical questions based on chronology. He confirms the essentials of the Koriatovych legend, and mediates the contradictions among the various schools. The latest scenario put forward stresses the Rus' orientation of Fedor Koriatovych, alleging that his mother and grandmother were daughters of Rusyn chiefs, that he was raised in a Rusyn atmosphere, and that he knew the Slavic language of Rus1. When he was forced to leave Podolia, it was natural that he should turn to a people with whom his own family and nation were closely related, and from 1352 he lived on his Mukachevo estate. He settled his own people in the Subcarpathian lands, but, stresses Popovic, this cannot be considered colonization, since the population on the border of Podolia was the same as in Subcarpathia. Thus, 'it would be more correct to speak of the arrival of one's own people' (Popovych, Fedor Koriatovych, 5-25). Koriatovych held

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25

administrative, judicial, and military power, fostered the development of culture and religion, and promoted the development of the Rusyn nationality. This modern interpretation returns in spirit to the folk legends and resolves the disputed facts in the favour of nationalist assertions. Similar disputes surround the introduction of Christianity, which brought with it a written language and a literary culture. Traditionally, Rusyns have traced their Christian faith to the missionary activity of Constantine (Cyril) and Methodius, the two Greek brothers who were sent to Moravia in 863 by Emperor Michael III of Byzantium. In the ninth century, Subcarpathian Rus' bordered on Great Moravia and Bulgaria, and disciples of Methodius are believed to have spread Christianity and a written language into the eastern Carpathians. Rusyn historians date the acceptance of Christianity in Subcarpathian Rus' to approximately 867, a full century before the baptism of Kievan Rus' by Prince Vladimir in 988. Thus, according to the Rusyn hypothesis, Christianity was widespread in an independent Rusyn state as early as the ninth century. The Magyars, who ended Rusyn independence in 896, accepted Christianity only in the year 1000. After the schism of 1054, Subcarpathian Rus', like all eastern Slavic lands, remained loyal to Orthodoxy. These cherished myths of Rusyn cultural tradition were re-examined in the twentieth century by historians of varied convictions, which, not coincidentally, corresponded to their national partiality. Hungarian historiography asserts that the Magyars, not the Rusyns, were the indigenous population of the Carpathian region, that the Rusyns' economic and cultural freedom under Magyar rule was ended only by the ascendancy of the Hapsburg monarchy, and that the Subcarpathian Rusyns formed a distinct Slavic nationality, independent of their Ukrainian neighbours to the north and the Russians to the east, that was consistent in its loyalty to the Hungarian crown (Bonkalo, The Rusyns, 531). Galician and other Ukrainian scholars insist even to the present day that the inhabitants of Subcarpathian Rus' are not a distinct people with their own language and culture, but that they belong to the Ukrainian nation. The Russian/Soviet interpretation concurs with the Ukrainian, recognizing Subcarpathian Rus' as a part of Kievan Rus' that was for centuries cut off from its homeland, that is, Ukraine. The first histories of Subcarpathian Rus' by native historians are from the early nineteenth century, and except for loannykii Bazylovych's three-volume Brevis Notitia Fundationis Theodori Koriathovits, all remained in manuscript. Based on the national myths and legends that had been handed down through the centuries, these histories influenced generations of writers and cultural leaders. The historical interpretation they fostered refused to see distinctions among the East Slavic nations and insisted on the ethnic unity of Subcarpathian

26

Straddling Borders

Rus', Galicia, Dnieper Ukraine, and Great Russia. This 'Russophile' orientation held that in spite of the short-lived existence of Subcarpathian Rus' as an autonomous entity and the centuries of subjugation it had endured, their cultural origins in ancient Rus' and their keenly felt kinship with Russia had preserved the Rusyns as a national group. In fact, because of its enforced isolation as an island cut off from the Rus' mainland, the Rusyns of Subcarpathia had preserved the true essence of Rus'. Thus, the Rusyn nationalists transformed a history of oppression and suffering into a positive culture of survival that made its own contribution to the history of the great Rus' nation. It was this aspect of Rusyn history that was stressed by native historians, as in the epigraph to Mykhailo Luchkai's history of Carpatho-Rus': 'Historia etiamsi obscurae gentis, lumen addit clarion nationi.'2 'Our own Subcarpathian princes' Postcolonial theory addresses the problems of the history of oppressed peoples. In postcolonial terminology, Rusyns were in the position of 'subaltern,' a name for subordinate individuals and groups 'who do not possess a general "class consciousness'" (Young, White Mythologies, 160). A branch of postcolonial theory, 'subaltern studies' seeks to liberate 'history' from the metanarrative of the nation-state, and to understand subaltern peoples as 'subjects of their own histories' (Chakrabarty, Tostcoloniality and the Artifice of History,' 384).3 A controversial topic laden with ideological encumbrances, the question as to whether historians can recover expressions of subaltern consciousness (that is, as Gayatri Spivak puts it in a well-known essay, whether the subaltern can 'speak'), has engendered much critical debate ('Can the Subaltern Speak?', excerpted in Ashcroft, Griffiths, and Tiffin, eds., Post-Colonial Studies Reader, 24-8). Without delving into the theoretical complexities of the issue, we can accept the importance of understanding the colonized peoples as subjects of their own histories, rather than as passive figures in the histories of others, and apply the concept to the history of the Rusyns in Subcarpathia. To gain power over their present existence and to assert their authenticity, subjugated peoples typically need to re-evaluate, and often to rewrite, their past. As one might expect, retrieving repressed histories often involves a degree of imaginative reconstruction. As Seamus Deane writes in regard to Irish literature, 'The hypothesis of a tradition may be frail, the felt necessity for it is very real and powerful. Knowledge of the past affects it, but the demands of the present activate it. It is an enabling idea and of its nature involves a degree of idealization' (Celtic Revivals, 19). From their position in the nineteenth century as survivors of ten centuries of oppression, Rusyn nationalists

Inventing an 'In-between' Culture

27

found the official versions of history inadequate to express their experience or explain their survival. Therefore, they turned to myths, legends, and superstitions and created a speculative history in which their own consciousness would dominate. Rusyn writers developed their own historical tradition, which stressed the process of adaptation and survival. Their 'culture of survival' provided solace and inspiration during times of oppression, and rewriting official history was a form of resistance to domination. Thus, it was at the time when Rusyns were being subjected to the powerful force of magyarization that writers revived the legends of Prince Laborets' and Fedor Koriatovych. Koriatovych was the subject of poems written in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries by levhenii Fentsyk and Ivan Sil'vai that expressed pride in the past to counter present abasement. In their idealized version of history, Koriatovych transcends royalty and takes on aspects of sainthood.

Never before had there had been, / Nor since then until today, / And never again will there be / One like Fedor Kor'iatovich. (Sil'vai, 'Fedor Kor'iatovych,' Izbrannye proizvedeniia, 176; orthography modernized)

He was the spirit of revenge for the insulted, / To criminals he was merciful; / He was the father of poor widows and orphans, / All Novgorod was pleased with him; / All people respected the prince, / He surpassed all in Rus', / For he revered God as he could, / He was loved by the nation and by God. (Fentsyk, 'Kor'iatovych,' Mlsiatsoslov na 1870 hod, 35)

At the beginning of the twentieth century, when Rusyn self-identification was

28 Straddling Borders divided between Ukrainophiles and Russophiles, writers selectively recalled particular aspects of historical heroes that resonated with their own national and political perspectives. Andrii Karabelesh, a Russophile traditionalist, evokes the Koriatovych who 'vanquished the serpent' amid the Carpathian fields and left a spiritual legacy in the monastery, shining above the river ('V Mukachevskom zamkie,' in V luchakh razsvieta, 114). The Ukrainophile nationalist Vasyl' Grendzha-Dons'kyi, who had flirted briefly with communism, expressed a more pessimistic attitude toward the possibility of recovering the past, as he futilely searches the Mukachevo castle for Koriatovych's grave and asks rhetorically what has become of his ancient weapons and armour ('V Mukachovskom zamku,' in Trembtta, 18). By any account, all of these images of Koriatovych are imaginative augmentations of the known historical facts. In the context of dominated cultures, however, such glorification of images from folklore is common. Writer and critic Wilson Harris sees imaginative escape as 'the ancient and only refuge of oppressed peoples' (cited in Ashcroft, Griffiths, and Tiffin, The Empire Writes Back, 35).4 Even more shrouded in misty legends was another national hero, Prince Laborets' of Uzhhorod, who also became the protagonist of several poems and romantic tales. The twentieth-century Ukrainophile writer Vasyl' GrendzhaDons'kyi glorified him as the symbol of Ukrainian unity, anachronistically raising a blue and yellow Ukrainian flag over his medieval castle ('Kniaz' Laborets',' in Tvory Vasylia Grendzhi-Dons'koho, 1: 28). The detail was to give historical grounds for Grendzha-Dons'kyi's own political support for an allUkrainian state. One of the most popular tales of Prince Laborets' came from the pen of Anatolii Kralyts'kyi, archimandrite of the Basilian monastery in Mukachevo, who supported a Russophile interpretation of Rusyn history. First published in a L'viv journal in 1863, it became popular again during the 1920s, when the Subcarpathian intelligentsia was resisting Ukrainophile pressures, and in 1930 it was translated into Czech.5 A talented writer of historical fiction, Kralyts'kyi fills the 'blank spots' of history with a narrative that reflects contemporary national issues and redefines the Rusyn image, using techniques that are recognized today as typical of postcolonial resistance. 'Kniaz' Laborets" is not simply a glorification of the past or a simple inversion of the discourse of domination, but a calculated reading of Rusyn history that stresses the processes of adaptation and survival. Kralyts'kyi's story focuses on the loss of Rusyn independence as a result of the Magyar migration into the Danubian basin and Pannonia. While he reiterates the romantic legends (the story is set in independent Christian Rus' in the year 895), the author's attention to realistic detail and his critical assessment of the Rusyns' situation indicates that there is more to the story than inspirational

Inventing an 'In-between' Culture

29

nationalism. It is characteristic of subject peoples to imagine artistically what they might have been before domination, but as Edward Said puts it, more important than the past itself is its bearing upon cultural attitudes in the present (Culture and Imperialism, 17). Kralyts'kyi addresses the characteristic Rusyn acceptance of subjection with his introductory appeal to the reader: 'You know, at one time we had our own Subcarpathian princes.' Even more fundamentally, he presents a revision of geography and language, reclaiming them from the invader. 'The land on which we now live and struggle for our rights and our nationality (napoAHocTb) was known then as Pannonia (FlaHOHifl) - for it was free. An inhabitant would proudly point to his compatriot and say, 'He is a lord, as I am, we are all lords!' (nan-on-i-H, nci MH nanoBe)... Everything changed! The Huns (FyHHH-Mafl>Kape) arrived and began to call it Hunniia (FyHidH), and now Hungary (BeHrpin).' One of the arguments used by Rusyn historians to demonstrate that the autochthonous inhabitants of the region were Slavs was etymological; that is, they analysed geographical place names and found Slavic linguistic roots.6 Kralyts'kyi's creative etymology is an effort to do the same in artistic terms, to link language, place, and history. The concern with developing or recovering an appropriate identifying relationship between self and place is a major feature of postcolonial literatures. For indigenous peoples, this often involves rewriting textually a place that has been overwritten by the colonizer, so that 'place' exists not as a visual construct but as a kind of 'ground of being' (Ashcroft, Griffiths, and Tiffin, eds., Post-Colonial Studies Reader, 392).7The metaphorical naming and retrospective re-naming create a symbolic space that can be inhabited by those who have been dispossessed of their geographical homeland. Kralyts'kyi is saying that the 'true' name of the Rusyn homeland, and therefore the authentic Rusyn state of being, embodies inherent nobility and democratic values, while the name of the dominant power evokes images of destruction and barbarism. The Magyar invaders, referred to as 'Polovtsy' (Polovtsians), are described as pagan savages from the wild Asiatic steppes. Having themselves been displaced by the Mongols, the Polovtsians conquered Kievan Rus' and now threaten the Rusyns of Subcarpathia. The reference to the defeat of Oleg, Grand Prince of Kiev, attenuates the Rusyns' own subjection - how could the small population of Subcarpathian Rus' resist the invaders when Kiev itself had fallen? Moreover, it makes it clear that if the Rusyns of Subcarpathia are victims, they share the fate of Rus' as brothers in a common affliction, and this belief in a shared history was fundamental to the idea that they were one nation. Kralyts'kyi manages to excoriate the invaders (who were, at the time of his writing, the dominant power), by putting an abusive description in the mouth of

30 Straddling Borders Vlastich, a character who is described as 'playful' and 'frivolous.' He describes the Magyars as 'not people, but beasts': The Polovtsian is inseparable from his horse, he eats raw meat, drinks mare's milk and blood from his own arm, and he worships some Hadur. Oh, pagans, pagans!' Vlastich's audience laughs at these hyperbolic curses, which mitigates the author's responsibility for them. But for Kralyts'kyi's audience of Slavic readers, who were only too familiar with the Hungarian sayings, 'Totnem ember, cyudarorosz' (The Slovak/Slav is not human, the Rusyn/Russian is vile),8 this inversion of the discourse of domination undoubtedly provided a cathartic sense of retaliation. The imaginative re-creation of the past made historical fiction a powerful medium through which the oppressed 'other' could speak out to counter, and even reverse, the representations of the dominant culture. With the Polovtsy almost at the gates of the city, Prince Laborets' calls a general meeting, where he yields authority to the townspeople, telling them to decide their own fate. The oldest member of the council, Dragutin, advises peace and an alliance with the invaders. He is opposed by the outspoken Slavoliub, who calls for war and resistance, since 'it is shameful for us Christians to make peace with pagans.' Those who support Slavoliub do so tentatively (HCCMUIO); the Rusyns are unwilling fighters. Laborets' himself is described as old (cxapeHbKHH), soft, and indecisive, and as a result Slavoliub prevails. Although the author shows sympathy for the prince, he interjects a critical commentary: 'Unfortunately, Laborets' caused more harm with his indecision and - yes, with his incapacity - than the council with its discord.' This is hardly the image of a dauntless hero. What is there here to evoke pride in Rusyn history? In fact, the first literary treatment of the legend of Prince Laborets' was written in 1846 by a Slovak, Bonus Nosak-Nezabudov. In this version, with which Kralyts'kyi was certainly familiar, Laborets' is described as a young captain full of strength and zeal to defend the fortress hill town of Uzhhorod from the invaders (Holenda, introduction to Anatolii Kralyts'kyi, 74-5). By contrast, Kralyts'kyi's Laborets' seems to be pointedly non-heroic. However, all is not as simple as it might appear, and the author's image of Rusyn valour, or lack thereof, is a significant component of the historical vision he is constructing. The ardent Slavoliub turns out to be a traitor, disguising evil intentions under valiant rhetoric. As the story continues, the reader realizes that the better strategy might well have been to follow the advice of Dragutin, to take a pragmatic course and forge an alliance with the Polovtsy for the sake of peace and survival. Instead, the Rusyns are vanquished by the superior force and numbers of the Magyars, Laborets1 is captured and killed, and Rusyn independence comes to an end. The unlikely positive images in the story are two women and a Magyar-

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31

collaborator. The beautiful Vira, the daughter of Laborets', whose prototypes were undoubtedly the heroines of romantic novels rather than any real women, is the incarnation of courage, prudence, patriotism, and virtue. Disguising herself as a knight, she leaves the palace, and with the help of Nastia, a loyal servant, witnesses Slavoliub's treachery. Refusing to be used as a prize for the victor, she exposes the traitor. More emblematic than real, Vira is typical of the feminine images used by Slavic nationalists to represent the nation and inspire patriotism. Like Jan Kollar's Mina from Sldvy dcera (Daughter of Slava), she blends romantic love with love of country.9 A more realistic, though still idealized, feminine figure is Nastia, an old, trusted retainer who was unjustly expelled from the court. A feminist avant la lettre, Nastia buys herself a small house and sets up housekeeping on her own. 'For some time she expected suitors, but when none appeared, Nastia shut out the world and all its vanities and let her hair grow grey.' However admired by the author, Nastia's independence and self-reliance are not respected by her compatriots, who label her a sorceress. Only Vira still respects Nastia and treats her humanely (no-moRCKii). The negative character Slavoliub's rebuff to Nastia, with which he sends her back to the kitchen, 'Women (6a6H) shouldn't know everything,' marks him as ignorant, as well as ignoble. Lest we assume that the early Rusyns were the first feminists, it should be noted that Kralyts'kyi's liberalism is more apparent than real. The development of postcolonial theory has been paralleled by feminist approaches to literature, which similarly seek to reinstate the marginalized in the male-dominated literary canon. The conjunction of the two theories points up the 'double colonization' of women in colonial, patriarchal societies. Feminist scholarship seeks to address 'the relationship between Woman as a cultural and ideological composite "other" constructed through diverse representational discourses and "women" as real, material subjects of their collective histories' (Mohanty, 'Under Western Eyes,' in Ashcroft et al., eds., Post-Colonial Studies Reader, 259). The 'real,' 'material' women of Subcarpathian Rus', whether of the ninth century or the nineteenth, are nowhere to be found in Kralyts'kyi's story. The plucky, enterprising Nastia is no less an idealization than the beautiful, unconstrained Vira. Since the author's purpose is to dignify the Rusyn past, he describes the place of women in society in romanticized terms that had little to do with reality, and the abstract construct of 'Woman' fostered by Kralyts'kyi was no less confining than the constraints of real life. The author's true opinion regarding the place of women and his didactic message to his female readers is suggested by negation. Nastia's lack of superstition (she pointedly does not look behind her for a pursuing spirit) is contrasted with the general opinion of society, which interprets her independence as sorcery. Her equanimity upon

32 Straddling Borders losing her position at court exposes the deceit and envy of those who caused her expulsion. And Vira's perfection, she is described as a 'second Diana,' points up the flaws of real women. The author's objective of dignifying the Rusyn past is in fact a part of his practical goal of changing the Rusyn present. The clerical background of the literary author and his didactic intentions are never out of sight. Another of the ideological burdens of the story is carried by Ukrainets, a Slav from Kiev who had compromised his allegiance and become an emissary of the Magyars to the Slavs of Pannonia. Taking Slavoliub's double-dealing negotiations at face value, he believes that he is arranging peace between the two sides. When he learns the truth from Vira, Ukrainets acts instinctively to save Prince Laborets' and his daughter from the rampaging invaders. Kralyts'kyi's use of the name 'Ukrainets' (Ukrainian) for his hero is provocative. When Kralyts'kyi was writing 'Prince Laborets1,' the Ukrainian-populist movement was gaining strength in the Hapsburg empire, accompanied by a flowering of cultural life in Galicia. By the 1870s, the Subcarpathian intelligentsia, who favoured a pan-Slav opposition to the central government, would explicitly reject Ukrainian separatism, but in 1863, when Kralyts'kyi's story was published in a Galician journal, the name 'Ukrainian' was perceived neither as a challenge to the central Hungarian government nor as an obstacle to fraternal relations. However, Ukrainets's unwitting appeasement of the perfidious Magyars carried an implicit Russophile criticism of perceived Ukrainian collusion with the dominant Hungarian power. Significantly, when he learns the truth of the situation, Ukrainets takes the side of the Rusyns. Kralyts'kyi's 'Ukrainian' hero specifically identifies himself as Rusyn. 'From head to toe I am Rusyn, from afar, from the broad Rus' land where the turbulent Dnieper flows.' That is, his Ukrainian-ness is subsumed in his Rus'-ness, a powerful statement of Russophile ideology on Kralyts'kyi's part. Ukrainets's attraction to the Rusyns of Subcarpathia is based on ethnic and religious affinities. 'You are Christians, your prince is a Christian, but in our land Christianity is not widely disseminated. Oleg himself is still a pagan.' Their legendary early acceptance of Christianity was obviously a point of pride for the Rusyns, which distinguished them among the Slavic peoples. Moreover, the consciousness of belonging to the supranational spiritual and cultural community of Orthodox Slavdom was a characteristic stage in the development of Slavic ethno-linguistic nationalisms, and it was fundamental to the Russophile orientation that underlay the nineteenth-century Rusyn national awakening (Goldblatt, 'Orthodox Slavic Heritage and National Consciousness,' 336-54). Kralyts'kyi is careful to point up both factors, as much to the dominant powers surrounding the Rusyns of Subcarpathia, as to the Rusyns

Inventing an 'In-between' Culture 33 themselves. In the conclusion of the story, Ukrainets and Vira manage to flee the invaders, but Laborets1 is captured and executed. The author suggests that his death is in fact a martyrdom, since his capture allows for the safety of Vira, who marries Ukrainets, and together they raise their children at the foot of the Carpathians. On the symbolic level, the marriage of Vira and Ukrainets denotes the recovered unity of Rus', by which its survival is ensured, despite its political subjugation. The conclusion of the story brings the reader back to the present, where young Rusyns 'at the end of the nineteenth century are working to raise the Rus' nationality in Subcarpathian Uhro-Rus1.' This 'impossible story,' as Hungarian historians characterized it, continued to be criticized into the twentieth century by Soviet Ukrainian scholars for its subjective view of the past and its lack of any 'cognitive significance' (Bonkalo, Rusyns, 54; Vyshnevs'kyi, Tradytsi'i ta suchasnist', 82). Its importance, of course, lies in its mythological significance for the Rusyn reading public and for its valorization of Rusyn traits of self-sacrifice, deliberation, peace, compromise, a belief in the unity of Rus1, and dedication to the Eastern Orthodox religion. Vasyl' Grendzha-Dons'kyi, the Ukrainophile Subcarpathian author of numerous historical epics and stories in the early twentieth century, admitted that his purpose was 'to bring to light heroes from our poor Subcarpathian history and sing their praise' in romantic tones. Defending himself against critiques of mythmaking, he adds, 'I do this consciously, according to plan' ('Na literaturnomu fronti,' in Tvory Vasylia Grendzhi-Dons'koho, 9: 129). That these 'historical' stories are infused with myth goes without saying, and the tradition evoked by the national intellectual elite is consciously invented. In fact, the 'folk legends' on which the facts of Rusyn history are based were transcribed only in the twentieth century. Scholars have suggested that the legends did not actually originate with the folk masses, but were handed down from the intelligentsia and subsequently 'folklorized' (Mushynka, Z hlybyny vikiv, 341; Magocsi, Shaping, 400 n. 35). Moreover, it is clear that a certain selectivity was involved in the creation of tradition. While collections of folklore from the Subcarpathian region reveal many tales about unconventionally virtuous brigands who robbed from the rich and gave to the poor, in the nineteenth century these legends were not elevated to the level of written literature by the national intelligentsia, who instead created Rusyn versions of royalty. As Paul R. Magocsi speculates, 'It was perhaps too much to expect of an intelligentsia, most of whom had only recently raised themselves from the peasantry to the more sophisticated provincial "city life" of Uzhhorod, Mukachevo, and Presov, that they should make heroes from a rural context they preferred to forget' (Shaping, 110). Magocsi's intuitive interpretation of the Rusyn case concurs with what literary scholars

34 Straddling Borders have found to be true of subjugated cultures in general. Edward Said notes that such creative reconstructions are often 'pure (even purged) images' of 'a privileged, genealogically useful past, a past in which we exclude unwanted elements, vestiges, narratives' (Culture and Imperialism, 15, 17).10 Since their purpose is to legitimate their history in the eyes of the colonizer, to invoke the past as a protest against national and cultural denigration, it is not surprising that nationalist writers and historians do so in terms of the values of the dominant power. Nationalists worked with the colonizer's vocabulary of power even while creating oppositional categories of meaning. In the effort to be more themselves, therefore, they ran the risk paradoxically of mirroring the authoritative poses of the colonizer. Forced to participate in the dominant culture in order to make their case, writers could find themselves supporting the symbolic system that impelled their resistance in the first place. This problem, called approximation, emerges as a recurring feature in most reverse or counter-discourses, including anti- and postcolonial writing. (Boehmer, Colonial and Postcolonial Literature, 104)

The self-confidence that is necessary to defend one's culture as the antithesis, rather than as an approximation, of the master culture frequently accompanies the birth of nationalism, but it remains beyond the reach of the Rusyn nationalist movement through the nineteenth century.11 Nameless Heroes In the early twentieth century, Russian historians and literary scholars joined Rusyn patriots in defending the Russophile ideology, even while modifying the mythology that underlay it. Aleksei L. Petrov, professor of Slavic Studies at St Petersburg University, devoted most of his career to the study of Subcarpathian Rus'. In his meticulous analysis of ancient history, he overturned the national mythology, contending that patriotic illusions only obscured the true historical role of the Carpatho-Rusyn people. He argued that Rusyn political independence was pure myth, that the historical Prince Fedor Koriatovych was not the hero projected by legend, that his alleged retinue of 40,000 was a major exaggeration, and that his 'testament,' dated 1360, was a sixteenth-century falsification. The impenetrable forests, he claimed, could not have been settled until well after the arrival of the Magyars, and therefore Rusyns could not have been converted to Christianity by Methodius. Instead, he theorized, the eastern Slavs came to Subcarpathian Rus1 as pagans, and only gradually, under the influence of incoming Christianized settlers from the Kievan state, did they

Inventing an 'In-between' Culture 35 accept the 'Russian faith.' Still, the national legends have maintained their saliency for Rusyn writers and patriots, and in the end Petrov's scholarly interpretation only serves to underscore the Rus' spirit of the long-suffering Rusyn people. He concludes, Through ages of oppression and suffering and into the twentieth century, this obscure hero ... preserved his Russian soul, his Russian customs, and his Russian name' (Drevneishie gramoty, xii).12 This interpretation of Rusyn origins and history confirmed the spirit, if not the letter, of the national legends and their treatment in literature. As Rusyn poet and Russophile patriot levhenii Fentsyk had phrased it in his poem 'Kor'iatovych': 'The prince founded here a second Rus" (Myshanych, ed., Na Verkhovyni, 286). It is illuminating to compare the sentiment of historical fiction with the known historical facts. A review of chronicles and early history demonstrates that the Russophile cultural orientation was based on a history that, regardless of interpretation, reveals a good deal of contact between the populations of Kievan Rus1 and Subcarpathian Rus' after the latter came under control of the Magyars. And even discounting patriotic exaggeration, there is sufficient evidence to indicate a strong Slavic influence in the area. Hungary and Rus' were linked by marriages. Anastasia, daughter of laroslav the Wise (ruled in Kiev 1019-54) was married to Andras I, the son of the first king of Hungary. She was undoubtedly accompanied by a retinue of Rus' clergy, scribes, servants, and guards, along with the spirit of East Slavic culture that was at its height during laroslav's reign. When Andras ruled as king (1046-61), he and Anastasia founded churches and monasteries, where monks from the Kievan Crypt monastery were settled. The Kievan Primary Chronicle documents further marriages between the Rurik and Arpad dynasties, including that of a daughter of Vladimir Monomakh with the Hungarian King Kalman (reigned 1095-1114), who invited Rusyns from Volhynia and Galicia to serve in Hungary as bodyguards and court doormen. The early Hungarian monarchs tolerated and were even influenced by the eastern faith, and the spread of Orthodoxy in the region was extensive enough that in 1204 Pope Innocent bewailed the large number of Orthodox monasteries there in comparison to monasteries of the Latin rite.13 In old Rus' literary documents, the first references to contacts between Kievan Rus' and Subcarpathian or Ugro-Rus' depict the Rusyn affinity and fidelity to the east. In fact, it is not unreasonable to view the chronicles of Kievan Rus' as examples of colonial discourse, at least in regard to their treatment of the 'other.' The chroniclers of ancient Rus' represent the Slavs of Subcarpathia as situated between self and 'other,' an in-between position that will become part of their self-image. A Rusyn is featured in one of the bestknown legends from the Primary Chronicle, the story of the martyrdom of the

36 Straddling Borders Kievan princes Boris and Gleb at the hand of their brother Sviatopolk in the year 1015. Preferring death to internecine strife, Boris and Gleb exemplify humility and the acceptance of fate, which become distinctive characteristics of Rus' Christianity. A minor but imposing character in the tale is Boris's beloved servant, Georgii Ugrin (George the Hungarian), the epithet referring to his place of birth, rather than his ethnicity.14 As a consequence of his loyalty, Georgii is killed together with Boris, and his death is particularly gruesome. The Prince had given him a large gold necklace which he wore while serving him... But since they could not quickly take the necklace from Georgii's neck, they cut off his head, and thus obtained it' (Russian Primary Chronicle, 127). The Soviet literary historian Nikolai Gudzii notes that it was politically more effective for the author of the chronicle to focus on the martyrdom of the prince than on the equally impressive sacrifice of his servant. 'It is curious that the unselfish act of Boris' retainer George, who perished only for love of his prince and who, according to Christian ideas, thereby exhibited the height of Christian virtue, is mentioned in the Legend only in passing. From the standpoint of political effect, a common soldier and his deed did not much matter, and neither the literary nor the ecclesiastical apotheosis of such a nameless hero came within the hagiographer-publicist's purview' (History of Early Russian Literature, 104). From the postcolonial perspective, it is not at all curious that the Rusyn subaltern is essentially written out of Russian history. Colonial discourse, as represented here by the Kievan chronicler, typically assumes the primacy of the dominant power. Gudzii's Marxist orientation recognizes that, however lofty Georgii's Christian virtue, it is the political context that determines his literary-historical treatment in the chronicles of Rus1. It was left for subsequent Rusyn historians and literary scholars to draw attention to him. From the Rusyn point of view, the political message of the Boris and Gleb legend serves to reinforce the sense of unity and brotherhood that existed between Subcarpathian and Kievan Rus', even if the chronicler chose to draw attention to his 'otherness' with the epitaph 'Ugrin,' and to ignore his ethno-linguistic and religious 'sameness.' In the spirit of colonialism, subsequent Rusyn historians gratefully accept the Rusyn's place of subordination in the hierarchy established by the chronicles of Rus', seemingly oblivious to the disparate interpretations of the relationship. In his histories of the Ugro-Rusyns, Aleksander Dukhnovych, the national awakener, expresses a proud pathos that 'even Nestor said of the Ugro-Rusyns only that they also exist in the world, although he commented little on either their origins or their situation' ('Kratkaia istoriia ugorskykh Rusynov,' Tvory, 3: 271).15 The brothers of Georgii Ugrin also have a place in the literature of Rus'. The

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Kievan Crypt Puterikon tells the story of Moisei 'the Hungarian,' the first narrative portrait of a Subcarpathian Rusyn in any literature. To gain knowledge of the Slavic world, Moisei left his homeland and travelled to Kiev, where he joined his brother in service to Prince Boris. After the deaths of Boris and Georgii, Moisei took refuge with Boris's sister Predslava. With her he was captured and taken to Poland as prisoner. Like Boris and Gleb, Moisei passively accepted the will of God, submitting to torture without defending himself, and there he was secretly consecrated as a monk. He addressed his tormentors: 'Brothers! Do as you were ordered, do not delay. By no means will I renounce monastic life and the love of God. No form of torture, not fire, nor sword, nor agony can sever me from God and his great angelic image.'16 While the author credits Moisei with the highest integrity, Christian virtue, and martyrdom for the faith, Moisei the Hungarian also has the dubious distinction of being the major character in the sole erotic tale of early medieval Russian literature, and his story is hardly a romantic idyll. Described as 'strong in body and handsome of face,' Moisei spurns the advances of his Polish female captor. He is held in chains for five years, tortured for six, and finally, on her order, he is castrated. He explains his submission with the phrase, 'So God wills it.' 'I do not want your power or your wealth. Best of all is spiritual and physical purity. I will not perish, if God gives me to suffer five years in chains. I have not deserved such tortures, and by them I will be spared eternal suffering' (Stender-Petersen, ed., Anthology of Old Russian Literature, 63). He eventually returns to Kiev and enters the Crypt monastery, 'bearing the wounds of a martyr and the crown of faith, like a victor and courageous warrior of Christ' (66). A third brother, Efrem, also became a monk and constructed a stone church in honour of the Kievan princes Boris and Gleb, while the arguably superior spiritual achievements of his Subcarpathian brothers receded into the background of the history of Rus'. A Palimpsest of Cultures During this period, while Rusyns figured in Kievan documents, it is uncertain whether there was any literary activity underway in Subcarpathian Rus'. According to scholars of early Rusyn literature, copies of religious texts from the Methodian mission were available in fortified Subcarpathian towns such as Uzhhorod, Mukachevo, Khust, and Vyshkiv (Mykytas', Davnla literatura, 62). It has also been suggested that certain glagolitic translations and Czech vitae (saints' lives) that show linguistic signs of Slovak and Ukrainian may have been copied in Subcarpathian Rus'. However, no written monuments, translated or original, survive from ninth-, tenth-, or eleventh-century Subcarpathia.

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Straddling Borders

Centuries of wars, catastrophes, and religious struggles in the region meant the rampant destruction of ancient monuments, architectural no less than literary. The few surviving texts contain hints that many more had once existed. The 'Subcarpathian document' (OoflKapnaTCKaH rpaMora) of 1404, a secular document attesting to a grant of land to the Hrushevo monastery, was written on a piece of parchment that was later used as the cover of a Latin manuscript book. One can only speculate how many Slavic cultural monuments were destroyed in this manner, literally overwritten by the dominant culture. In fact, many more Latin than Slavic documents survive from early Subcarpathian Rus1,17 which suggests the need for an uncommon historical perspective. Instead of viewing history as the 'scientific narrative' of events in linear time, in which subject peoples are relegated to footnotes to the march of progress, postcolonial theorists propose to substitute the concept of place, as a 'palimpsest written and overwritten by successive historical inscriptions' (introduction to 'History,' in Ashcroft et al., Post-Colonial Studies Reader, 356). This notion is particularly apt for the situation of Subcarpathian Rus', where numerous cultures contended at different times for control and where, as the Latin manuscript cover indicates, the term 'palimpsest' has literal as well as figurative meaning. As in all Slavic lands, the first centres of culture were monasteries, and the most ancient literary texts were church-related. The oldest dated Subcarpathian documents are the Mukachevo and Imstychovo fragments of the gospel and minei (calendars where saints' lives are arranged according to their feast days) copied from the twelfth to fourteenth centuries. The Uzhhorod polustav, a 209page collection of daily prayers and monastery rules from the second half of the fourteenth century, is believed to have been copied from the polustav of the Kievan Crypt monastery, which may have been brought to Subcarpathian Rus' by a monk in the retinue of Fedor Koriatovych. Through the sixteenth century the religious literature of Subcarpathian Rus' was closely connected with that of Kievan Rus', as indicated by numerous translations of gospels, minei, epistles, and other prayer books. The sixteenth-century Moscow gospel (MocKOBCKoe eBaHreme,), now in the library of Uzhhorod university, was probably acquired at great cost in Russia and brought to Subcarpathian Rus', where its high level of artistry served as a model for Rusyn scribes. While the church and official religious culture stressed the exact transcription of the revealed word of God in the sacred Church Slavonic language, at this time there is also evidence for the development of a distinct national character in Subcarpathian texts. This is apparent in the language and style of miscellanies and interpretive gospels (postilly), which were the most popular form of religious literature. The Gerlakhov interpretive epistle and the Tereblia prolog are written in Church Slavonic of the Russian recension, but with

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admixtures of local Subcarpathian dialect. The contents of the prolog were copied from various old Rus' sources and included the vitae of St Constantine/ Cyril and the Czech St Wenceslas, the apocryphal legend of the arrival of St Andrew in Russia, as well as instructive articles from patristic literature, and edifying tales, such as the popular 'Tale of Varlaam and Josaphat.'18 The oldest popular literary document, the Gerlakhov interpretive epistle contains Slavonic scriptural texts, accompanied by didactic interpretations written in the Subcarpathian vernacular. This interesting linguistic compromise reflects the belief that 'only Church Slavonic, the supranational language of Orthodox Slavdom, was an appropriate medium for divine revelation and the sacred liturgy,' while, to ensure the intelligibility of Christian teaching for the masses, the vernacular was acceptable (Goldblatt, 'Orthodox Slavic Heritage,' 341). These works were intended to be read outside of the strict church rituals. Therefore, the popular language was deemed appropriate and better suited to the pragmatic didactic goal; the more so since the audience for such literature consisted not of readers, but listeners, and even the clergy was poorly educated. Subcarpathian scribes were careful to preserve the dignity of Church Slavonic where necessary, but they also recognized the benefits of adapting the language to suit the needs of the local audience. From this early period, Rusyn culture occupied an intermediate space between religious universalism and local nationalism, and Rusyn literary discourse set off on an evolutionary path that negotiated between worlds and their discrete narratives. Ivan Franko, the Galician Ukrainian writer and scholar, noted that the distinctive feature of Carpatho-Rusyn literature of the time was its 'popular' character ('Karpato-rus'ke pys'menstvo XVII-XVIII vv.,' 4). This adaptation, which occurred in many Slavic cultures, was due in part to the influence of the Reformation, with its stress on the use of the living language in religious worship. In Subcarpathian Rus', the vernacular became more and more predominant from the second half of the sixteenth century. The Niagovo postilla survives in two copies from the seventeenth century, which are based on a sixteenth-century model. The author writes: '[People] go to church so that the priest might preach God's word, the Holy Gospel, in the language spoken by the people in order that the poor might understand. What use is it to them if a priest speaks in a foreign language that they do not understand?' (quoted in Bohdan Strumin'skyj, 'The Language Question in the Ukrainian Lands,' 2: 31). In spite of the continuing religious nature of literary texts, the first traces of local originality and creativity appear in style and theme, as well as in language. The development of a national character is apparent particularly in the interpretive gospels, which combine Bible texts with homilies in simple, comprehensible language.19 The local copies of such texts do not perfectly

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Straddling Borders

reproduce the originals. Rather, the scribes freely adapted the original texts, adding material from various sources, including folklore, and using a language rich in local dialectalisms and popular sayings. Keeping faith with the local culture, the nameless Subcarpathian scribes acted also as ethnographers, inserting their own cultural 'truth' into the authoritative universalism of the religious text. Their creative expression of a shared presence and psychic condition fosters a sense of collective identity in their audience. So, for example, the author of the Danylovo interpretive gospel (1646) expresses bitterness over the sufferings of the Rusyn people at the hands of foreign lords and Catholic Jesuits, and he laments the bad harvests and other misfortunes sent by God. And in the Niagovo text, the author asks, 'Why in this world has there never been any truth? And the evil and unjust one acquires a fortune through falsehood. Why does he not think of his brother, of the poor?' (quoted in Mykytas', Davnia literatura, 139).20 Like interpretive gospels, didactic miscellanies, or sbornyky, were intended for use outside of church rituals. As Evgenii Nedziel'skii points out, if they were to have the desired instructive effect, they needed to satisfy also the aesthetic requirements of their audience. Thus, alongside the words of the Holy Fathers of the Church, there appeared artistically reworked narratives from the Bible and saints' lives, as well as secular tales and even superstitious materials. These diverse, unorthodox materials provided an assertive counter-discourse to the authoritative text, even while reproducing its forms. Thus, the miscellany was 'an original encyclopedia of philosophy and life's wisdom, imbued with the religious-superstitious authority of sacred history as it was understood by the common people' (Nedziel'skii, Ocherk, 56). Ivan Franko's evaluation was intended as a negative appraisal, but he aptly captures the natural subversion that results from this intersection of official and popular cultures: 'It is clear that the authors treat their themes not at all as something sacred but merely as literary themes, and they rework them freely in an effort to create a sharp, local coloration. The ancient patriarchs and prophets, Greeks and Romans, kings and saints all speak exactly like CarpathoRusyn mountain dwellers, imitate their behaviour and turns of speech' (Karpato-rus'ke pysmenstvo, 13-14). In a witty, if condescending, discussion of Subcarpathian miscellanies, Franko evaluated these didactic works as more belletristic than religious in nature, designed to captivate the people's attention with stories of marvels and miracles. He reproved the uneducated clerical authors, who were 'just as distant from European enlightenment as their illiterate audiences,' for their 'crude, primitive anthropomorphic theology' and for their literary and scholarly technique. Franko finds the only valuable and original aspect of these works to be the simple, popular language in which they

Inventing an 'In-between' Culture

41

are written, rejecting as inauthentic and pretentious the palimpsest it creates by infiltrating the conventions of religious culture. Ironically, as a spokesman for the liberation of Ukrainian culture from imperial Russia, Franko neglects the naturally subversive nature of these texts, in which the people's own conception of the world, faith, and life confronts the authority of religious teachings. Franko, who would become one of the most vocal Ukrainophile critics of Subcarpathian literature, often let his political antagonism to Subcarpathian Russophiles colour his critical perception, as seems to be the case here, where his mocking criticism resembles the discourse of the colonizer, rather than that of a fellow subject. Franko was working within the political and aesthetic perspectives of the nineteenth century that devalued the naivety and artlessness of such early work. Postcolonial analysis appreciates it as an authentic artistic expression and a strategy of subversion. In a discussion of what he calls the 'semiotic collision' between the written word of Christianity and the oral tradition of the Slavs, Tomislav Longinovic interprets the 'colonial authority of writing' as an ideological force employed to suppress oral culture. Ecclesiastical writing 'expelled the oral semiotic production into a zone of non-culture, codifying it as demonic and subversive' (Borderline Culture, 2). The colonial authority of writing is then subverted to the extent that it is permeated by elements of low, excluded discourses. From this perspective, the Subcarpathian miscellanies are of particular interest for the elements of pre-Christian folklore that enter the written tradition and take their place within the broad frame of church doctrine. For example, the seventeenthcentury Rakoshyn sbornyk contains a 'dream book,' entitled 'The Interpretation of Dreams of Daniel, the Holy Prophet.' Explanations are given for 128 dream subjects; for example, 'To see stars - happiness'; 'Seeing one's brother dead signifies profit'; 'Hearing a dog signifies trouble'; 'Crying in a dream means coming joy' (lavorskii, Novyia rukopisnyia nakhodki, 95-8, 127-31). The Uglia miscellany, known as 'Key' (Kliuch), also from the seventeenth century, contains a treatise concerning which dreams are to be trusted, since some are said to come from God and others from the devil (lavorskii, Novyia rukopisnyia nakhodki, 71-95; Nedziel'skii, Ocherk, 61). Some of the superstitious material in the Torun sbornyk includes prayers or incantations against the devil and a book of predictions, 'The Work of the Prophet Ezra on Years.' This text, known as a koliadnyk, foretells the weather and other events of the coming year based on which day of the week Christmas is celebrated: 'If Christmas falls on a Sunday, there will be a variable winter, a wet spring, a dry summer, a windy autumn, joy in war, corruption in power, an abundance of fruit, an increase in cattle, much honey, devastation for young people' (lavorskii, Novyia rukopisnyia nakhodki, 113). The Torun manuscript was also apparently used

42 Straddling Borders for divination. On forty of the three hundred pages there are added handwritten 'fortune-telling answers,' unrelated to the text, such as 'You will have a good life,' 'Pray to God and God will hear you,' 'Beware of evil,' and 'You will emerge from sorrow into joy' (lavorskii, Novyia rukopisnyia nakhodki, 11011). At least at this stage, the final design of the Subcarpathian palimpsest was not predetermined; ecclesiastical writing and 'high' culture could be overwritten by folk culture. The merging of religious and superstitious beliefs was typical of ancient East Slavic culture. Condemned by ecclesiastical authorities, this dvoeverie was a means by which people attempted to cling to their own pre-Christian beliefs and oral traditions, while still fulfilling the demands of the dominant religious culture. Such mixed beliefs were reflected in these hybrid texts, which juxtapose official church doctrine with oral traditions and pagan superstition. Such folklore was suppressed by church and state in Russia and other Slavic countries. In Subcarpathian Rus', where the educational level of the clergy was hardly higher than that of the population, such blasphemous junctures of religion and native lore enjoyed great popularity and wide circulation. As a form of resistance to cultural domination, they helped to preserve a sense of local tradition within the imposed religious culture. However, the persistent syncretism of faith and superstition in Subcarpathian Rus1 also promoted an unyielding medieval world-view that was difficult to dislodge when it proved politically and socially counterproductive. Between Orthodoxy and Catholicism Through the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Subcarpathian Rus1, along with much of central Europe, was wracked by political wars, religious struggles, and peasant uprisings. After their victory at the battle of Mohacs in 1526, the Turks controlled the central plains of Hungary for the next century and a half. The remainder of the country was split between the Hapsburgs in the northwest and the Transylvanian princes in the east, who fought each other for the Hungarian throne. Carpathian Rus' was the highway between the Hapsburg and Transylvanian domains, and the battlefield on which the war between them was fought. The political struggle was complicated by the religious hostilities stimulated by the Reformation and Counter-Reformation. The Hapsburgs supported Roman Catholicism, the Transylvanian princes defended Protestantism, and the Carpatho-Rusyn people were caught in-between. The Rusyns, of course, were neither Catholic nor Protestant, but Orthodox. Subcarpathia came under the jurisdiction of the diocese of Mukachevo, which was affiliated with the Metropolitan See of Kiev, but was now in the hands of

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Protestant nobles in Transylvania. Feeling pressure from both Protestantism and Roman Catholicism, the Rusyns of Subcarpathia sought a way to preserve and protect their religious heritage, and they found it in union with Rome. At the Union of Brest in 1596, their Rusyn Orthodox brothers in the PolishLithuanian Commonwealth had established the Ruthenian Uniate church, later known as the Ruthenian Greek Catholic church. They had received the assurances of Pope Clement VIII that in accepting union with Rome, they would be permitted to retain their language, rites, and ceremonies. Prompted by the political advantages of such religious unification, in the early seventeenth century the Hungarian Catholic church, the Jesuit order, and local landlords attempted to spread the idea of union among the Rusyns of Hungary. After decades of negotiation and persuasion, a group of local Orthodox priests swore an oath of allegiance to Rome at the Union of Uzhhorod on 24 April 1646. Under conditions of the union, the Rusyn Greek Catholic church retained all rites and traditions of Orthodoxy, but was placed under the jurisdiction of the pope; that is, they retained the use of Church Slavonic as a liturgical language in a rite according to St John Chrysostom, adherence to the Julian instead of the Gregorian calendar, and the receipt of the sacraments in both species. The preservation of Orthodox customs such as the married priesthood, the iconostasis or altar screen in the church, and a style of singing unaccompanied by musical instruments and heavily influenced by folk music, known as Carpathian plainchant, meant that the externals of the faith were essentially unchanged. The official announcement of union came in 1649, with inducements of indulgences and privileges to win the hearts of the population. Still, it was another century before the Subcarpathian Rusyns accepted union, a century marked by ideological conflict and fierce struggle that often erupted into violence.21 The Union of Uzhhorod met opposition from several directions. The Protestant nobles of Transylvania objected to the incursion of the Catholic church into Subcarpathian Rus'. A virulent opposition to Greek Catholicism erupted in this area, voiced in literary form as polemical tracts and in political form as anti-Hapsburg rebellions. Decades of uprisings sparked by political, economic, and religious discontent followed. From 1703 to 1711, Subcarpathian peasants took active part in the revolt of Transylvanian Prince Ferenc Rakoczi II against the Austrian crown, in which Rakoczi was supported by Russia's Peter I. The very complex political situation was, from the point of view of the Subcarpathian clergy and peasantry, subsumed in the cultural and religious struggle between the union and the 'old faith.' For the Uniate clergy, even after the official declaration of union, there were continual skirmishes with the Latin hierarchy for autonomy and equality. According to church historian Athanasius Pekar, 'the Latin-rite Catholics regarded the Uniates who wished to retain their own

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rite only as "half-Catholic" and considered the union as no more than a "transitional stage" on the way to Latinization' (History of the Church in Carpathian Rus', 27). The Roman Catholic bishops of Eger and the Jesuit fathers in Uzhhorod exerted pressure on the Uniate clergy to adopt Latin-rite practices in regard to the sacraments and calendar, and they controlled tithes and the election of eastern-rite bishops. It was only after 1771, when, with Maria Theresa's endorsement, the independent eparchy of Mukachevo was established, that the conditions promised by the Union of 1696 were finally implemented, and cultural and religious life began to flourish in Carpathian Rus1. Depending on their ideological point of view, cultural historians have seen the Uzhhorod union either as a positive step toward western civilization and enlightenment, or as a betrayal of Orthodoxy, the destruction of the achievements of East Slavic culture, and an attempt on the part of western powers to destroy the population's national identity and eastern allegiance. The fact is, however, that for the Rusyns of Subcarpathia, union with Rome represented neither surrender to the west, nor betrayal of the east, but an acceptance of religious and cultural hybridity, which eventually became for them a positive statement of identity. As Pekar notes, eastern-rite Catholicism provided the people with a secure position from which they could repel encroachments from Protestantism and Roman Catholicism and, later, from the Orthodox east. 'Their rite became for them not only "the external expression of their faith," but also the vehicle of their national identity and the bulwark of their cultural and religious heritage. The Carpatho-Rusyns thus began to identify their rite with their faith and their faith with their nationality. Their Church became for them the Rusyn Church and their faith, the Rusyn faith' (History of the Church in Carpathian Rus', 19). Indeed, religious identity substituted for national consciousness in Subcarpathian Rus' through much of the nineteenth century. The significance of the Union of Uzhhorod for the culture and national identity of Subcarpathian Rus' cannot be overemphasized, as demonstrated in the recent celebrations devoted to its 350th anniversary. For three and a half centuries, the stateless Rusyn people have supported their Greek Catholic church under political regimes that were formally Roman Catholic (Hungarian Kingdom, Slovakia), Protestant (Transylvania, Czechoslovakia), or atheistic (Soviet Ukraine, communist Czechoslovakia). In his address on the occasion of the anniversary, historian Paul Robert Magocsi spoke to the church's talent for survival, noting that the genius of the Greek Catholic church in Carpathian Rus' 'lies in the church's ability to survive, and that survival has depended on its willingness to adapt to ever changing political, socioeconomic, and religious circumstances. For the most part, the Church as a body has been

Inventing an 'In-between' Culture 45 able to adapt without giving up its essence' ('Adaptation without Assimilation,' 197-8). Rejecting the self-defeating attitudes of 'purists' at one extreme and 'assimilators' at the other, the church has mediated the differences and defended its distinctiveness, emerging as 'the ideal embodiment' of Rusyn culture. Magosci contends that this strategy of adaptation succeeded because 'by nature Rusyns have always tried to avoid extremist solutions and ideologies, and to accommodate to the needs of their neighbours and to the environment in which they live' (ibid., 204). That is, the essence of the Rusyn people is its sensitivity to environmental realities and its ability to adapt to those realities, while retaining their cultural integrity. The Union of Uzhhorod and the foundation of the Greek Catholic church became a paradigm for subsequent Rusyn national and cultural pursuits. Making a virtue of necessity, the Rusyn people created a self-definition that rejects essentialism and that resonates with postmodern interrogations of the nation that stress the plurality and differentiality of identity. This 'essential hybridity' will become emblematic of effective Rusyn cultural production. Between 'Heaven' and 'Hell' While war, rebellion, and virtual anarchy disrupted the general progress of enlightenment in the Subcarpathian region, the very urgency of the situation stimulated the expression of deeply held beliefs, which paradoxically produced cultural advantage into the following centuries. The opposing forces burned offending ecclesiastical books, leaving bookless churches and an unschooled clergy, and few intact documents from the years between 1646 and 1770. The first printed book intended for Carpatho-Rusyns, the Catechism of Joseph de Camillis (1641-1706), the first Greek Catholic bishop of Mukachevo, was published in Trnava in 1698 to educate priests in the precepts of the Roman church (Magocsi and Strumins'kyj, 'First Carpatho-Ruthenian Printed Book,' 292-3). DeCamillis, a Greek by origin who was educated in Rome and unfamiliar with the local language and the Subcarpathian recension of Church Slavonic, wrote his Catechism in Latin, which in turn was translated into Church Slavonic by a Galician monk, Ivan Kornyts'kyi. Honoured as a defender of culture and Greek Catholicism by Greek Catholic writers, De Camillis is reviled as a traitor by Orthodox and Marxist scholars for supporting a church that they consider to be a Vatican-inspired westernizing force among the eastern-oriented Slavic population. He was forced to leave Mukachevo in 1704 by Rakoczi's revolt against Hapsburg rule. The most vocal contemporary opponent of DeCamillis was the Orthodox priest Mykhailo Andrella of Rosvygovo (1637-1710), a village near Mukachevo,

46 Straddling Borders who produced a voluminous anti-Uniate polemical literature. In the words of literary historian lul'ian lavorskii, Andrella was 'an outstanding, brilliant personality, whose stormy, selfless life and ardent, passionate writing are in many respects reminiscent of the similarly frenetic and unfortunate zealot ... Archpriest Avvakum' (Andrella, Dukhovno-polemicheskiia sochineniia lereia Mikhaila Orosvigovskago Andrelly, v). Certainly a rare specimen in seventeenth-century Subcarpathian Rus', Andrella was educated in Jesuit academies and Uniate seminaries, well read in the religious teachings of both east and west, and highly cultured for his time. In 1669 he turned to Orthodoxy and dedicated himself to a lifetime of struggle against the Uniate church, suffering persecution and exile for his activities. In his writings he excoriated what he saw as the cupidity, venality, and toadyism of the Uniate clergy and defended Orthodoxy and the Rusyn people, mixing theological and social motifs. Andrella's two polemical works, Logos (1691-2) and Oborona viernomu cholovieku (Defence for the Faithful Man, 1697-1701), have been interpreted in the context of the Ukrainian polemical literature of the late sixteenth century, the outstanding representative of which was Ivan Vyshens'kyi (ca. 1550-1620). Like Vyshens'kyi's, Andrella's work is rhetorical in nature and oratorical in style, sarcastic, bombastic, and vitriolic. Instead of expounding theological subtleties, Andrella expressed his thoughts emphatically, substantiating them by quotations from a wide variety of religious and secular writings, and he used rhetorical devices, rather than logical exposition, to persuade his readers. Historian of Ukrainian literature Dmytro Chyzhevs'kyi calls Andrella's treatises 'chaotic,'22 which aptly describes not only their expository style, but also their language. However, while Ukrainian literary historians use the term 'chaotic' to dismiss Andrella, scholarly investigation reveals his 'chaos' to be the result of deliberate discursive mechanisms, including intertextuality and allusion, linguistic play and code switching, anecdotes and puns, irony, and direct address. The result, a kind of postmodern pastiche, is generated by, and indicative of, the ideologically and linguistically heterogeneous culture he represents. Andrella is clearly conscious of the power dynamics within which he exists. This is apparent most of all in the self-conscious process of language variation in his texts. Andrella set out to persuade his Uniate and Latin counterparts using the written language of Rus', Church Slavonic, which carried the authority of the Orthodox faith and linked the church in Subcarpathia with other Orthodox churches. But his rhetorical thrust was also directed to the surrounding dominant powers that threatened to impose their own cultures, as well as to the humble parish priests, through whom he might reach the Rusyn people. Thus, a range of languages and cultures is reflected in his writing. Forced by

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circumstances to be multilingual, Andrella turns his subject status to his advantage. He claims superiority over his opponents, since it is he who learned the other's language: The Latins cannot read my writings, while I, thanks be to God, can read Latin, Hungarian, Greek, and even a little Polish' (Dukhovnopolemicheskiia sochineniia, 237). Finding strength, rather than humiliation, in his position, Andrella challenges the dominant religious culture by explicitly exposing the assumptions under which it operates: 'I would write to you in simple language, but you would judge the writer accordingly' (33). Rather than using any single language, Andrella employed a macaronic discourse that mixed Church Slavonic with the vernacular idiom, as well as with Russian, Hungarian, Greek, Latin, and Polish lexical elements. Any one page of Andrella's writing rewards close textual scrutiny and proves the truth of the witticism that for Rusyns, one language is not enough.23 However, this linguistic melange reflected linguistic realities and did not hinder, but amplified, communication as a result of Andrella's creative use of language variance.24 His deliberate incorporation into the text of native and foreign lexical elements and specific rhetorical strategies draws attention to the intercultural nature of the medium and the self-consciously literary nature of the text. To a great extent, language is not only the medium, but also the message, as Andrella is engaged in an open linguistic battle: 'Not in the Roman style do I say this, not in Latin, not in Lutheran or Calvinist style, but in our own language.'25 It is likely that Andrella's writings had their roots in his oral sermons. The force of orality and verbal intonation is inscribed in passages such as the following:

'God is not mocked' - what is said, what is signified in these three words? First God; second - is not; third - mocked. 'Be not deceived; God is not mocked.' (Dukhovno-polemicheskiia sochineniia, 216)

The reader receives the impression that he is participating in a heated debate, an impression created in part by Andrella's use of interjections and direct address. The author exclaims with indignation: 'O, uniates!', or with scorn: 'What is written will come to pass. Just wait!'; or with warning: 'Let them wait until Christ's judgment day - they will see how it will be.' He commands, 'Here, read the psalm,' challenges, 'Hey, do you hear?', and prohibits, 'Enough,

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silence!' He exhibits wonder, shock, or disgust in expressive utterances like 'Oof!' (Ycjyb!), or 'Pfe!' (Fire!). As though taking his adversary by surprise, he writes, 'Aha, here you are, you devil!' (Ara, Tyn> CCH TH, diabolus, fliaBone!). And to be certain his abuse is understood by his non-Slavic audience, he provides a Latin gloss for the Slavonic word 'devil.' That is, the author foregrounds the process of language variation. He employs a linguistic shift to signify difference and the gap between cultural realities, while at the same time he introduces linguistic strategies to bridge that gap. So, for example, he intensifies his emotion by expressing it multi-lingually, with a list of interjections from various local languages, all expressing the meaning 'alas': 'yBbi,xo ecxb, orb, OXT>, vei, Ban, xenrreiobHeK, jay-' The blending of languages in Andrella's text serves several purposes. Glossing juxtaposes not only two languages, but also two cultures, and underscores the space that separates them. By translating selected items, the author, bearer of a non-dominant language, asserts his authority as interpreter of his own culture to the adversary. By incorporating Hungarian or Latin words (often transliterated in the Cyrillic alphabet) into his own linguistic flow, he gains metonymic status over those languages and the cultures they represent. Furthermore, by juxtaposing languages, he emphasizes cultural distinctiveness and implicitly interrogates the dominance of the prestige language. For example, he interposes the command 'Just wait!' in his discourse - in three Slavic versions and in Hungarian: OocxyH MSLJIO, »cflHTe, neKaHxe, BapAflT> nan! (106). (The last expression is the Hungarian vdriad csak I vdrj csak in Cyrillic.) His use of foreign lexical items often caricatures the use of those languages by his adversaries in the Uniate church. He mocks the translator of DeCamillis by ironically mirroring him and translating him back into Latin. Kornicky

Kornicky does not yet see the radiance of the light or the spiritual light, but he scripsit, writes, a multitude of falsehoods. Like a typical little Uniate head, Father lanosh Kornytsky's is empty, deserted. (216)

His mix of languages often bears an ironic sense by mimicking the dominant discourse, talking back to the dominant religious culture in its own language, but reversing the intonation to express resistance. His linguistic doubling in the following example creates an apparent distinction between the God of the 'Hungarian' Uniates and the God of Orthodox Rus'.

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But why do they forcibly drag, pull our church? And though they would be glad to see me perish soon, ... they request, implore me to return. To what? To their union. Pfe, I spit on it ... nem kell mas nekem Isten: that is, I do not need their God: van. I have God. ( I l l )

The Rusyn writer's sensitivity to language variance comes from his awareness of the split semantic and stylistic alternatives available even within his own 'native' languages. The variance inherent in Slavonic orthography inspires puns and word games. Playing with homonyms, he concludes that the Lord will reveal himself 'HC PHMOBH, 60 PHMTJ Mipt, a He MHp-b, Hime MVpo PHMTJ, HO Mipo^io6ubi OHM, a He MHpo;iK>6rbUbi' (not to the Romans, because Rome is of the world, not peace; nor is Rome anointed, for they are world-lovers, and not lovers of peace; quoted in Vozniak, Istoriia ukrams'koi literatury, 114). In several cases, Andrella glosses himself in another version of his own language, using synonyms from different style registers or dialects. For greater comprehension and emphasis, he 'waits' for the Holy Spirit with two verbs: xdy (used in eastern dialects) and nexaro (used in western regions of Subcarpathia). He expresses the phrase 'it is said,' or 'they say,' in two vernacular dialects and Church Slavonic: TBapjrni, MOBSTt, Hiarojuorb' (111). For his native listeners/readers, such self-translation is both instructive and emphatic, comprehensively invoking the entire East Slavic tradition. An even greater challenge to the concept of language dominance involves leaving individual words in the text untranslated, or switching from one language to another. Such code switching interweaves languages and orthographies to foreground the hybrid nature of the text and the ideological implications such hybridity suggests. According to the formulation of postcolonial theorists, the refusal to gloss 'not only registers a sense of cultural distinctiveness but forces the reader into an active engagement with the horizons of the culture in which these terms have meaning' (Ashcroft et al., Empire Writes Back, 65). Andrella points his discourse in several directions, and although he sets out to write 'in our own language,' his incorporation of proximate languages is meant to reflect the intersection of languages and cultures that is part of Rusyn reality. The incorporation of Latin or Hungarian, often in parenthetical comments, alerts those 'dominant' cultures, or more immediately the Rusyn sycophants of those cultures, to the democracy of discourse. Such interweavings are liberally

50 Straddling Borders scattered throughout the text. Ertem mostan ('now I understand') introduces a Slavonic Bible text. Enumerating requirements for the struggle against Latin priests, he states that it 'is necessary, elsoben is (in the first place) faith in the cross of Christ the Lord.' He interposes questions: ertedj ('do you understand?'). Hungarian lexical items are transformed into Slavic forms: 'I would rather go begging ...' (Koedoeamu, from Hungarian koldulni). By blending languages in this way, Andrella situates his text at the intersection of cultures. Languages coexist and are interwoven, dismantling assumptions of dominance, presenting language variance as the norm, and asserting the authority of the text. The absence of translation is 'an endorsement of the facility of the discourse situation, a recognition that the message event, the "scene of the Word," has full authority in the process of cultural and linguistic intersection' (ibid., 65). Ironically, the collision of voices in Andrella's discourse has as its object the assertion of a single voice and the one 'true' Word. However mixed his style, there is no ambiguity about the author's message, which is a straightforward defence of Orthodoxy and the culture of the east. His text is densely saturated with quotations from scripture, aphorisms from East Slav miscellanies, and allusions to the treatises of Ukrainian Orthodox theologians Pamva Berynda, loannikii Galiatovs'kyi, Petro Mohyla, and others. Defending against negative Jesuit appraisals of East Slavic culture, he insists that he would not give even one page of the Ostroh Slavonic Bible for all of 'Prague, England, the German faith, Lithuania, Prussia, Helvetia, Poland, Moravia, the Slovaks, Czechs, Swedes, Flemings, Livonians, Burgundians, Europeans, Indians, and other such pagans' (quoted in Mykytas', Davnia literatura, 185). He urges the Rusyns of Subcarpathia to turn their backs on the false novelty of the Latin west in favour of tradition, truth, and the Orthodox east.

Faith was given once, not one hundred, not one thousand times, but by the Holy Spirit only once. With it I will die ... I understand that many living [faiths] are sacred, but not the Roman one; what was once the Greek faith is now the same as the Bulgarian and Russian, all being one holy old faith, but not the new evil Roman [faith]. (195)

He accuses De Camillis and especially his 'traitorous' translator of having

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sold the Eastern Orthodox believers of Subcarpathian Rus1 into Latin slavery, of deceiving them with their 'pagan' catechism. He reproves his own people with mild irony for succumbing to the Uniate deception: 'The Rusyn's head is large, but the brain in it is small' (BennKa ronoBa BT> PycHHa, Moary BT> HCH BC;IMH Mano; 17). While he uses an affectionate diminutive for this 'foolish Rusyn' (flypHHHOK-b-pycHHHOK-b), there is nothing but derision in his use of diminutives for his adversaries, as in 'lanosh' Kornyts'kyi's 'little head' in the example already cited, or in the repeated designation PHMHHKOBC (miniRomans) for the Uniate priests. In allusions to scripture, Andrella employs a more formal Church Slavonic, but defends his severity as a preacher and the power of the word. He

As a poison cannot be expunged from the heart except by bitter medicine, so also sin, [which is] infernal, demonic, satanic poison. This is not removed from the soul by kindness, but by the boldness of the teacher and the sharp word of God. (Quoted in Mykytas', Davnia literatura, 191)

Andrella's 'chaotic' treatises reflect the chaos that pervaded the religious, political, and linguistic life of sixteenth-century Subcarpathia, and in this sense they are valuable ethnographic texts. Viewed from this perspective, their polyphonic form contradicts their unequivocal content. Andrella's multicultural erudition and linguistic virtuosity is put to the service of an uncorrupted Orthodox faith with an unalloyed Church Slavonic as its only legitimate voice. He invokes the scriptural 'good shepherd': 'And the sheep follow him for they know his voice. And a stranger will they not follow, but will flee from him, for they know not the voice of strangers' (John 10: 4—5). 'And our Rusnaks did well not to use the tone of an alien voice, but to sing in church in their own eight tones "Lord God," period, comma' ('H PycnaKOBe namfe jiynuie TBopn/iH, am,e rnaca ny^caro Hory HC nepeiiMOBa/iH, HO CBOHMM OCMW raacbi y ijepKBH rrfenn: «Borrb rocnoAi>», TOHenica H;IH aariHTa; 110). While Andrella virulently condemns all forms of compromise, his multiform text is an illustration of the virtual impossibility of such linguistic and ideological purity under the historical and geo-political conditions of Subcarpathian life. Although the ecclesiastical union compromised administrative autonomy, it was in fact an instrument by which traditional culture and native voice could be preserved by an op-

52 Straddling Borders pressed group struggling to survive in a threatening environment. Andrella's ideological purism perceived sharp dividing lines and intrinsic verities: 'Eastern books are heaven, but western books are hell' (KHHI-H BOCTonmH - pan, a aanaflHin a« ecn>; quoted in Mykytas', Davnia literatura, 192).-But his mixed discourse is a more realistic articulation of the blurred boundaries and inbetween spaces of the Rusyns' intellectual homeland. Caught between 'heaven' and 'hell,' east and west, for most of their existence, the Rusyns of Subcarpathia would develop Andrella's discursive strategies of survival. At some points in their history, they rejected his attitude of vitriolic non-compromise in favour of pragmatic adaptation, and at others they replicated it, resulting in a fitful and discontinuous cultural evolution. Between Orality and Literacy While theological and ecclesiastical issues were elaborated by churchmen in prose treatises, cultural attitudes and a Rusyn world-view were worked out in an original verse art based on the rich heritage of oral folk poetry. While medieval popular culture was oppressed by the government in Russia and persecuted by the church in the west, it flourished freely in Subcarpathia, where there was no educated class or even an enlightened clergy to hinder its spread. The oldest recorded folk song in all western Rus1 lands, 'Song of the Warrior Stefan' (^ynaio, flynaio, neMy CMyxeH TCHCUJ?), was transcribed in the Subcarpathian area in the mid-sixteenth century. Recorded in Jan Blahoslav's Czech grammar from 1571, it has been studied by Aleksandr Potebnia and Ivan Franko, among others (Mykytas' and Rudlovchak, eds., Poety Zakarpattia, 74, 601). Subcarpathian oral art, like the folklore of other Slavic groups, includes songs of soldiers, shepherds, and foresters, love lyrics, historical songs, and ballads.26 Its most characteristic and distinctive verse form is called the kolomyika, which in its strict form consists of fourteen-syllable couplets, divided by a caesura into two hemistiches of eight and six syllables.

Sat a thrush in a field and began to twitter: / Tell me, brother, tell me, master, where to find a maiden. (Cited in Hnatiuk, 'Kolomyiky,' in Vybrani statti pro narodnu tvorchist', 67)

However, variations are common, and most kolomyiky are couplets of twelve or thirteen syllables, most often divided into four-line stanzas:

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53

O my youth, my younger days, / How it vainly passes, / And how like an apple, / That moulders in a stream. (Spivanky Anny Matsibobovoi, 68)

Kolomyiky reflect local nature and history (the frequent geographical reference to the Danube is a conventional trope), and they differ from similar Polish and Ukrainian songs in both form and content. (The most typical form of Ukrainian folk poetry, the duma or epic poem, is unknown in Subcarpathia.) The influence of this distinctive Subcarpathian oral tradition is apparent in Rusyn written poems and songs, which were collected in manuscript form and in which a Rusyn world-view and self-image became established. While the development of prose in early Subcarpathian culture directly reflected the influence of East Slavic ecclesiastical and historical sources, the development of Rusyn poetry followed more complicated paths of influence. In the production of verse, the western Catholic lands set the pace. Syllabic verse, where all the lines within a given poem are of equal length, became popular in Poland in the mid-seventeenth century. It passed from Poland through Kiev and the southwestern Rus' lands to Moscow, where it predominated for a century and a half. Subcarpathian Rus', however, was passed over in this eastward progression. Due to the lag in educational development and Subcarpathia's traditional orientation to East Slavic culture, western poetic influence crossed the Carpathian mountains only after a roundabout trip through Russia. Historical developments contributed to the Subcarpathian tendency to look to the east. In the second half of the seventeenth century, Muscovy began to be perceived as the successor to the Kievan intellectual and cultural legacy. In 1654, the Cossack-controlled territory of Ukraine was incorporated into Muscovy, which then replaced Poland as the dominant power in the region. According to Magocsi, Kievan intellectuals supported, and indeed promoted, the displacement of power from Kiev to Moscow, which became known as 'the capital of all Rus',' justifying it as 'the logical conclusion of history,' the renewal of the unity of the Rus' lands (History of Ukraine, 257). But the reunion of Rus' was not total. Left out were the Carpatho-Rusyns of Galicia, who were under Polish control, and the Rusyns of Subcarpathia, whose homeland was wracked by wars, power struggles, and peasant revolts. However, while they were forced to accept political disjunction, the Subcarpathian Rusyns persisted in seeing themselves as part of a single Rus' nation. Separated by

54 Straddling Borders political and geographical borders from their East Slavic brothers, the Rusyns developed an image of themselves as orphans, abandoned to the mercy of alien powers, intellectual and emotional exiles in their own homeland. As a result, their emotional and cultural ties to Rus', represented now by Moscow, became all the stronger. A picture of the chaos and fragmentation experienced by the Rusyns of Subcarpathia emerges from the verse of the period. Virshi, or poems conceived in written form, are distinct from folklore and considered to be part of written literature. The oldest specimen of Slavic literary verse is the rhymed preface to the Ostroh Bible from 1581, and through the seventeenth century, printing presses in Kiev and Moscow turned out panegyric and didactic virshi written in Church Slavonic by high-ranking clerics. However, in Subcarpathian Rus' where they could not be published by their anonymous authors, virshi and spiritual songs circulated in manuscript form and were copied and recopied by scholars, wandering students, teachers, and simple people. Such manuscripts, known as songbooks (pesenniki), were numerous and so popular in Subcarpathian Rus' from the mid-eighteenth into the nineteenth century, that they rarely outlived a generation. More than fifty have been preserved from Subcarpathia, making up half of all the known songbooks from western Ukraine.27 Some of the best known are those of Ivan luhasevych and Ivan Ripa, who copied much of the content from the well-known Bohohlasnyk of the Pochaiv monastery in Volhynia, adding local linguistic and cultural details, along with original verses from Subcarpathian Rus'.28 The Subcarpathian songbook is a medley of diverse forms, styles, languages, and content. Virshi in Church Slavonic are set alongside others showing the influence of popular speech, and some in pure vernacular. Thematically, religious hymns juxtapose comic songs and parodies of ecclesiastical hymns, historical motifs, and secular concerns of everyday life. The songs represent products of the local oral tradition, expressed in an imported written form. However, the oral quality of the written text is ever apparent, since the intended audience was not one of readers, but of littleeducated or entirely illiterate peasants. According to Tomislav Longinovic, the struggle for hegemony over the writing practice and the resulting opposition between 'high' and 'low' cultural values resulted in a binary model of cultural identity in many Slavic cultures. However, this gap between 'high' and 'low' cultures, which was extreme in Russia and Poland, gave way to a greater level of cultural hybridization among other Slavs, especially those of the Balkan peninsula, who had experienced invasion and colonization. Here there was no acute distinction between high and low culture, and although Church Slavonic was the official language of the

Inventing an 'In-between' Culture 55 Orthodox church, it blended with the vernacular idiom, which was linguistically quite similar to it. The "low" popular culture was much closer to the holy, iconic element, thus contributing to a more homogeneous blend of high-low cultures than in the case of Imperial Russia' (Borderline Culture, 1-12). Longinovic's analysis applies equally to the East Slavs of Subcarpathia, where the gap between 'high' and 'low' cultures hardly existed. As literary historian Oleksa Myshanych notes, while some of the songbook verses are from popular sources, even the most bookish are closer to folk poetry in Subcarpathian Rus' than in other East Slav lands, since their authors differed from the masses only in that they were able to formulate their thoughts in literary form (Literatura Zakarpattia XVII-XVHI stolit', 65). Moreover, spiritual and secular virshi from these manuscript collections eventually passed into, or returned to, popular culture, further blurring the distinction between folklore and literary verse. The songbooks are another indication of the natural syncretism of Rusyn literature. They occupy a space between orality and literature, between art and popular culture, and they resist genre definitions and binary distinctions. Not surprisingly, some of the earliest virshi portray the bitter clashes that wracked the region in the seventeenth century from the perspective of the powerless Rusyn population. The unknown authors frequently evoke an apocalyptic mood, as in the introductory lines of 'Piesn' o strashnykh lietekh' (Song of Terrible Years):

Ominous signs are noted in the world, / And the final years are upon us; / The earth is laid waste, war has broken out, / Mother and children are dead of hunger. / Who will not lament such a great misfortune, / As an eclipse conceals the sun? (Cited from lavorskii, Materialy, 267-8; repr. in Poety Zakarpattia, 100)

The 'Piesn' o obrazie Klokochevskom' (Song of the Icon of Klokochevo) depicts the suffering and destruction resulting from the wars of 1683-6, when the peasant upheaval led by Imre Thokoly against Hapsburg authority allied itself with the Ottoman Turks. The author describes the Turks' siege of Vienna, their defeat, and retreat. The icon of the title miraculously reacts to the terror.

56 Straddling Borders

The image of the Virgin in Klokochevo wept, / Taken and placed in Mukachevo. / God's anger is felt, / The Lady's icon laments.29

'The Icon of Klokochevo' is original and formally sophisticated. Based on the kolomyika rhythm, it reveals a complex structure, indicating the technical artistry of the Rusyn poet. This song belongs to a category of narrative and political verse known in Hungarian literature as 'Kuruc songs,' written and circulated during the rebellions of Thokoly and Ferenz Rakoczi from the late seventeenth to the early eighteenth centuries. In 1678, the rebel forces, known as kuruc, attacked the imperial Austrian army and the Hungarian nobles who supported the Hapsburgs, or labanc, and songs were written by both sides describing battles and eulogizing leaders. The Rusyn songs are more likely to lament the destruction of the land and the suffering of the people. The author invites listeners to learn 'what is happening in this world / and in the Hungarian region.' He condemns the rebels for their alliance with the Turks and sides with the labanc as defenders of Christianity.

Because of the kuruc, in Klokochevo the church was burned, / And the entire Hungarian land was laid waste.

He reproaches both sides for the ruin caused by internecine warfare. 'Brother attacks brother, / And the son prepares death for his father.'

Anyone who comes from outside must admit, / That the Hungarian land was a good mother, / But she had evil children, / Who would not live in peace.

The verse is historically accurate and must have been written soon after the

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events it describes. In spite of its title, its significance is political rather than spiritual; the miraculous icon is but a pretext to discuss the conflict between political forces. While the influence of spiritual virshi is apparent in imagery and theme, and the verse adheres to the traditions of literary versification, it is structured as a folk song. Written in a four-line stanza with couplet rhyme, the first two lines have thirteen syllables, with a tendency to tonic meter, while the second two, consisting of seven or eight syllables, were apparently sung as a refrain. The language is the Rusyn vernacular of eastern Slovakia, with some Church Slavonicisms and elements of Slovak, which was common in dialects of the border area (Myshanych, Literatura Zakarpattia, 99). In the 'Song of the Icon of Klokochevo,' local language and tradition underlie and modify literary technique. Other historical songs reflect similar sentiments in a variety of forms. 'Piesn' o Budynie' (Song of Budyn) expresses joy at the defeat of the Turks near Budyn (Budapest), and like the 'Song of the Icon of Klokochevo,' it ends as a prayer for the Hungarian throne and a wish for peace. Again the tendency is apparent to couch moralizing and didactic content in a form approaching folk poetry, as seen in the interesting poetic structure of 'Budyn.'

Joyful news / Came from Budyn. / Rejoice, people. / Raise your hands / And appeal to God / That it may ever be so. (Poety Zakarpattia, 79)

The six-line tonic stanza and the tightly woven rhyme scheme (aabccb), where every third line is repeated as a refrain, are traditional techniques of oral tradition. The Rusyn voice reverberates through the scribal and poetic conventions. Myshanych notes examples of virshi where phrases and whole lines are borrowed from folk literature or, conversely, where folk songs are adapted to the melody of spiritual songs. The use of oral tradition is a deliberate assertion of the local poetic practice over the received literary code. The interweaving of styles and genres was a conscious effort on the part of the author to ensure the popularity of his verse among the people and to maximize the effectiveness of his message (Literatura Zakarpattia, 101). In accepting the bookish literary

58 Straddling Borders form with its formal versification, the native authors and scribes adapted it to the traditional ways of local culture. A specific example is the 'Song of Worldly Vanity,' which was composed by its unknown author in imitation of folk songs. Its regular fourteen-syllable line with a caesura after the seventh syllable reproduces the structure of the kolomyika, and many of its images come directly from folk sources.

Bloody rivers flow, blood is spilled, / The earth weeps and moans, smothered in blood. / Along the roads lie bodies, strewn here and there, / Scattered by savage beasts. (lavorskii, Materialy, 267)

Preserving these traditional indigenous forms within the imported literary tradition created the foundation for a syncretic model of cultural construction and allowed for the expression and elaboration of a national self-image and cultural identity. Other verse genres that parallel folk poetry are humorous student songs, composed by wandering divinity students to entertain their hosts and burlesque the religious and scholarly life, and light-hearted social satires, expressing the point of view of the simple people. Written in the vernacular language using rhythms from oral art, these songs use folk epithets and images to articulate the Rusyns' view of their own experience. Fulfilling the need to find a meaningful identity in an oppressive, unstable world, they turn images of powerlessness into endurance, and social oppression into moral virtue. They express an irreverent attitude toward outside authorities, while demonstrating communal relationships within national formations. Tiesn1 o rusnakakh' (Song about Rusyns) and 'Piesn' o zlykh panakh' (Song of Evil Landlords) establish the Rusyns' self-image as stoic, rather than passive, their resistance emerging as ironic cynicism.

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Now truth is not to be found, / He is good who knows how to lie. //... Anyone in a top-coat / Demands to be called a lord. (Poety Zakarpattia, 89)

Their fatalism is rooted in a belief in the inevitability of divine, if not social, justice.

For God punishes evil masters, / Sends them death and wars. / The simple poor man is unwitting, / He stands on his own, / Bathed in tears. (Poety Zakarpattia, 89)

The paradoxical vision of the necessity for self-reliance coupled with the certainty of injustice and the futility of opposition emerges from the realities of Rusyn lived experience. In its artistic transcription, stoic resignation becomes a cliche of Rusyn literature and a virtue of the Rusyn character. A large number of lyrics belong to the category of melancholy secular elegies, where the overriding theme is the difficulty of life. It seems only logical that the obsession with being a victim would be common in the literatures of oppressed cultures. The colonial state of bereavement, the sorrow of broken cultural lineages, and the search for an authenticity in an alien environment reverberates through the literatures of Africa and the Caribbean, and novelist Margaret Atwood has documented it in her thematic description of Canadian literature.30 It is described by writers in images that underscore the loss of communal and kinship relations. In the Rusyn elegies, the literal 'orphanhood' of a people isolated from fraternal peoples and subject to hostile masters takes on social and metaphysical implications. It encompasses complaints of social injustice, loneliness, the pain of old age, fear of death and the afterlife, nostalgia for one's homeland and family, world-weariness, and pleas to God for redress. The most popular of these virshi is 'Piesn' o marnosti svietie' (Song of the Vanity of the World), an acrostic that identifies its author as Aleksander Padal'skyi (lavorskii, Materialy, 287; Poety Zakarpattia, 92). Written in a regular twelve-syllable quatrain with couplet rhyme and a six-syllable refrain, his lament for the hard lot of the orphan attains to philosophical reflection, tempered by real-world resentment. A few extracts from this lyric are representative of this popular genre.

60

Straddling Borders

For one born into this world with ill-fortune, / The world turns, like a wheel, without purpose. / Years flow fruitlessly, like swift rivers, / The time of youth, like streams of rain, / All pass on in vain. // Wherever I go I have no joy, / Just tears in my eyes and sorrow in my heart. / Out among people I stand and think / that people pass by like fish in the Danube. / Oh, my grief is heavy. // No one acknowledges the unfortunate man / who does not wear rich clothing. / Even though he be from a glorious people, / If he has nothing in his purse, then trouble is certain / Even if he be the wisest of men. // There are people who do not know grief, / Born in happiness, in happiness they die, / And others from birth have no good fortune / No matter how long they live, they know no ease, / Even to their death. After eighteen stanzas of expressed grievances, the author, in a ritualistic conclusion, turns to God: 'Have mercy, O God, to you I cry, / Only in you is all my hope.' Padal'skyi's verse inspired many imitators, who echoed his lachrymose effusions in the same dispirited tone. They complain of undeserved suffering,

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often with melodramatic flair: 'On my gravestone will be written / "Here lies a man who was known as an orphan'" (Poety Zakarpattia, 96). But the best of these elegies reflect the influence of the psalter in their heart-felt, if conventionally hyperbolic, sorrow, while their imagery and oral tonality reveal their folk origins.

Of what am I guilty? For what do I perish? / Never do I have peace from evil men! / They hate me, pursue me, beat me, and devour me alive, / Like hawks attacking a poor bird. / With an evil fire, with fury they burn beyond measure, / They hurl themselves against me like wild beasts. / Whether I may hide, or walk abroad / They openly pursue me, strike me again and cast their nets against me. / Oh who is at fault, what is the reason? / Is it because I am an orphan that they beat and pursue me? / Oh my God, consolation for the sorrowful! / Look down on me, an orphan, save me from this evil. / Judge, O God, my enemies, and let them know / That I live under the shelter of your grace. (Poety Zakarpattia, 97-8; orthography modernized)

These early-eighteenth-century melancholy lyrics articulate feelings and ideas that later become commonplaces of romanticism. Thematically, they resemble early Ukrainian poetry, and Russian literary historian Evgenii Nedziel'skii suggests that they may be Carpatho-Rusyn variants of a general theme, represented in Russia by the tale-poem Tope-3noHacmue' (Miseryluckless-plight), the story of a prodigal son (Nedziel'skii, Ocherkkarpatorusskoi literatury, 77). However, the Rusyn lyrics have none of the narrative interest of the Russian example, nor do they preach religious regeneration. They are

62 Straddling Borders similar in their use of imagery and in their generally dismal vision of man's fate, but the Subcarpathian elegies are more personal and introspective, and, in the final analysis, more unrelentingly pessimistic. Whether prompted by social factors or by an inherently sombre world-view, these melancholy lyrics are in fact predictive of the tone of subsequent Rusyn verse, even into the twentieth century. The popularity of these songbooks demonstrates that there existed among the masses an appreciation for literature and a consciousness of its political and religious import. Syllabic songs appear in the verse of the manuscript collections as early as the mid-seventeenth century, while syllabic virshi appear in print only in the latter half of the eighteenth. And the songbooks demonstrate that almost all forms of versification worked out in the nineteenth century were already known in the eighteenth. Their originality derives from their source in orality, which is preserved through the adaptation of written literature to local tradition, and this in turn allowed for the expression of a higher sense of national consciousness than was seen again in Subcarpathian Rus' for a century and a half (Hnatiuk, 'Uhrorus'ki dukhnovni virshi,' in Vybrani statti, 60-1). Ironically, the free form and popular creativity reflected in the manuscript songbooks resulted from the adversity of the social and cultural situation within which they arose. The development of Rusyn literature in Subcarpathia at this time was not so much oppressed or controlled as simply neglected by church and state alike. The arrival of printing and institutional censorship in sixteenth-century Hungary coincided with the Reformation and the arrival of the Turks. While Latin and Hungarian religious verse and popular lyrics were published in Debrecen and Kolozsvar (Cluj), the Slavic culture of the Subcarpathian region was entirely peripheral to the metropolitan culture of Hungary and Transylvania. Within the Slavic world, it was marginalized by its distance from the Orthodox intellectual centres, the religious academies of Ostroh and Kiev, as well as by its ties to the Uniate church. Since there was no possibility of publication, there was no censorship. Lacking access to a printing press or a cultural centre, Rusyn culture of Subcarpathia straddled the worlds of orality and literacy. Left to their own cultural devices, creative intellectuals transferred and adapted the norms and techniques of traditional oral art to the imported literary form. The result was an original verse culture, and what is more, a culture that was specifically Rusyn in feeling. At the end of the nineteenth century, when Subcarpathian culture was suffocating under intense magyarization, Ivan Franko would look back from a position of assertive Ukrainian populism and, departing from his usual condemnation of Rusyn culture, pronounce the spiritual verse of the songbooks to be 'the most valuable contribution made by the Uniates to our [Ukrainian]

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literature in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries' (quoted in Myshanych, Literatura Zakarpattia, 63). Franko's denial of a distinctive Rusyn culture, and his appropriation of its virtues (but not its weaknesses) to his own Ukrainian culture, which was itself struggling against Russian domination, reflects the changes through time of the power dynamic among and within cultures. Franko neglects to mention that what enabled this contribution was the relative freedom, albeit amid oppression and adversity, under which Subcarpathian literature developed during this period, the last extended period of cultural autonomy that Rusyn culture would enjoy until the twentieth century. Recent studies have emphasized the creative element of cultural construction in the process of national formation. Eric Hobsbawm speaks of 'the invention of tradition,' and Ernest Gellner writes that 'nationalism is not the awakening of nations to self-consciousness; it invents nations where they do not exist.' Benedict Anderson describes nations as 'imagined communities,' and proposes that '[nationalism has to be understood, by aligning it not with self-consciously held political ideologies, but with large cultural systems that preceded it, out of which - as well as against which - it came into being.' Postcolonial theorist Homi Bhabha elaborates the idea of 'nation as narration,' and proposes to encounter the nation 'as it is written' with its own textual strategies, metaphoric displacements, subtexts, and figurative stratagems.'31 This approach is particularly appropriate in the case of Subcarpathian Rus', where a 'nation' emerged from underlying cultural systems as a process of conscious invention. Through continual negotiation between states, religions, languages, and literary forms, the Rusyns of Subcarpathia managed to capitalize on situations that might otherwise have meant self-destruction or assimilation. By the end of the eighteenth century, they had fashioned a unique 'in-between' national narrative, which affirmed and kept faith with the subtext of native Rusyn culture, while accentuating strategies of adaptation and compromise with the dominant culture. This fluid model of identity, situated at the intersection of apparently conflicting orientations, was the foundation from which Rusyn culture would resist future incursions against its cultural integrity. Its survival depended on whether this 'in-between' space would prove to be terra firma or an insubstantial mirage.

2

Mimics and Other 'Others'

(By this we submit to the world That we unfortunate Rusnaks Might not be judged as simpletons.) Arsenii Kotsak, verse introduction to 'Grammatika Russkaia"

The interest in literature and the conditions for its creation expanded with the educational reforms of the Hapsburg government in the second half of the eighteenth century. Rusyns from Subcarpathia began to attend institutions of higher education in the capital city of Vienna, returning to their villages with broadened perspectives that challenged the delicate balance of their 'in-between' culture. Their Latin and western European education developed in them a 'colonialist consciousness,' that is, a disparaging attitude toward their own culture. In a pattern familiar to subject peoples, the Rusyn intellectual elite accepted the metropolitan vision of themselves as 'other,' and in self-defence began to identify with the dominant cultural power. Alienated from Rusyn cultural values, they subsequently propagated among their own people a mental colonization that would become a part of their world-view and self-image. During this period, Rusyn writers and intellectuals were forced by circumstances to make important decisions concerning language, national orientation, and strategies of cultural assertion, and the survival of a distinct Rusyn culture would depend on the practical effectiveness of their choices. This century saw the testing of diverse modes of cultural struggle, ranging from cultural insurgency to outright surrender and assimilation. For the first time, the Rusyn

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intelligentsia recognized the implications of the cultural nexus in which they found themselves. As a result, many of the clashes they had previously mediated and issues that had resolved themselves, such as language and national consciousness, now became explicit topics of literary discussion. Alienated Elites or 'Stupid Ignoramuses' One positive result of the union with Rome was the effort made to raise the educational level of the Uniate clergy. Seminarians from the Uniate, or as it was known after 1775, the Greek Catholic church, were offered positions in Jesuit-administered Roman Catholic seminaries in Trnava (after 1704) and Eger (after 1733). In 1775, a Royal Greek Catholic general seminary was established at the church of St Barbara in Vienna. At this institution, known as the Barbareum, eleven of the forty-six places were reserved for seminarians from the eparchy of Mukachevo. For the first time, Rusyns from Subcarpathia mingled with their fellow Rusyns from Galicia and with Slavs from other parts of the Austrian empire. They attended lectures at the University of Vienna by the progenitors of Pan-Slavism, including the Czech cultural activist Josef Dobrovsky (1753-1829) and the Slovene philologist Jernej Kopitar. Thus, while they were exposed to western influence in the imperial capital, Subcarpathian Rusyns also for the first time became aware of a Slavic brotherhood of nations and felt the consciousness of their own distinct identity within it. The experience was short-lived, however, as the Barbareum was disbanded in 1784, after which time Rusyns from Subcarpathia were sent to the Hungarian seminary at Eger. A perennial problem for the Rusyns, as for most stateless peoples, was the discontinuity of their cultural development, due to their lack of control over the institutions that fostered it. Still, the influence of the Barabareum was disseminated by the seminarians who studied there and went on to play important roles in the cultural life of Subcarpathia. As Subcarpathian Rus' began to profit from the influence of western enlightenment, it also became vulnerable to assimilationist pressures from the dominant Hungarian-Roman Catholic culture. The Greek Catholic clergy, most of them educated in Latin at the Trnava and Eger seminaries, returned to their Rusyn villages and set up schools, where, along with latinized ecclesiastical culture, they passed on to their students a language studded with Magyar and Latin borrowings. Following the now familiar scenario, educated members of the minority became alienated from their own culture. Literary historian Evgenii Nedziel'skii writes that the Trnava-educated theologians so inundated Subcarpathia with Latin culture that in the homes of priests Latin came to be used in everyday life. 'There were even priests' wives who spoke Latin. Anyone

66 Straddling Borders who did not speak Latin was considered uncouth and an idiot. Everything Rusyn/domestic, everything Russian, was considered barbaric, and what was foreign was thought to be enlightened' (Nedziel'skii, Ocherk karpatorusskoi literatury, 85). This situation might have put an early end to the development of a national consciousness in Subcarpathia, and with it the local language and culture. They survived, however, due to a conflation of influential factors: first, the efforts of assertive individuals possessed of a strong sense of Rusyn identity; second, the prevailing sense among the Rusyn intelligentsia of kinship with the Slavs beyond the mountains to the east; and finally, their familiarity with and affinity to Russian literature. Since the Union of Uzhhorod, the eparchy of Mukachevo had been served by Rusyn vicars of the Latin-rite Eger bishop, a situation that bred incessant resentment. Recognizing the Eger bishops' goal to latinize and magyarize the Mukachevo eparchy, the Carpatho-Rusyn clergy chafed at their 'subjugation to Eger' and demanded the implementation of the rights guaranteed by the union. An eparchial synod held in 1764 resolved 'to break once and forever its dependence on the bishop of Eger,' sending a delegation to Vienna to convince the monarch that the hegemony of Eger was a primary obstacle to successful implementation of the union. Empress Maria Theresa requested the Apostolic See to grant independence to the Mukachevo eparchy, but with an eye to preserving Hungarian authority, the Roman Catholic bishop of Eger convinced the pope of the need to control 'the unreliable Greeks.'1 After it became clear that the bishops of Eger, who came from prominent Hungarian families, could not be persuaded to treat the Greek Catholics of Subcarpathian Rus' and their common-born bishops 'more favourably and less despotically,' and prompted by regional revolts among the Greek Catholic population and violence between the two clergies, Empress Maria Theresa (ruled 1740-80) insisted on erecting an independent Rusyn eparchy in Mukachevo, which Pope Clement XIV finally approved in 1771. The establishment of an independent Rusyn eparchy bolstered national self-esteem, and Andrii Bachyns'kyi, who became bishop in 1772, was a powerful energizing force for the stimulation of Rusyn national culture. For Rusyns, Bachyns'kyi, who headed the Mukachevo eparchy for thirty-six years, is a cultural hero, and the years before and after the turn of the nineteenth century subsequently became known as 'the Golden Age of Bachyns'kyi' (Nedziel'skii, Ocherk, 87). As bishop, he was the first to call attention to the pernicious influence of foreign cultural domination and to raise the consciousness of the Rusyn intelligentsia and alert them to the dangers of denationalization. By the year 1800, he noted, 'Day by day our "Rusynness" (pysHHsna) and Rusyn (PycKoe) devotion, our patrimony, more and more approach dissolution'

Mimics and Other 'Others' 67 (Bachyns'kyi, 'Mukachivs'kyi iepyskop,' 229). Bachyns'kyi was keenly aware of the inadequacies of Latin education for a clergy that was responsible for preserving the eastern tradition and for educating the Rusyn people. In letters addressed to local pastors, he noted that students who had finished Latin schools were presenting themselves for entrance to the seminary with no functional ability in their own liturgical language and with disregard for eastern ritual. They arrive as 'stupid ignoramuses, very negligent in their knowledge of Rusyn language and culture (BT> CBOCH pycKoft Hayirt).' They cannot read [in Rusyn], nor even write their own names. As to song or church rules, they cannot even open their mouths. Some have completely neglected their Rusyn devotion, the essential knowledge without which one cannot enter the clerical order. Thus, it happens that in the seminary such ignoramuses need to learn Rusyn culture (HayKbi pycKia) from the beginning, to study the fundamentals, thus doing injustice to theology. Others, on arrival in their parishes, are made a laughing stock because of their ignorance of their own devotion, and are seen as impious abusers and corrupters. (Cited in levmenii Sabov, ed., Khristomatiia, 57)

In conclusion, he directs his clergy not to send anyone to the seminary, 'no matter how many foreign languages he knows,' unless he 'is educated in and habituated to his own primary Rusyn language and religious culture.' Not only will these students not be accepted, but, Bachyns'kyi threatens, he will 'call to strict account' their parents as well ('Mukachivs'kyi iepyskop,' 227). From the national point of view, the inadequacy of the existing educational institutions can be surmised from Bachyns'kyi's description of their graduates. There is indirect evidence for the existence of a school in Uzhhorod as early as 1400, and Bishop Bradach, Bachyns'kyi's immediate predecessor, had taken significant steps toward the promotion of education. But it was Bachyns'kyi who was primarily responsible for the improvement of educational opportunities in Subcarpathian Rus'. During his administration, a network of elementary parochial schools was established, and by 1806 there were more than 300 schools in Rusyn villages. After 1794, teachers were trained at a teachers' college in Uzhhorod, but through most of this period they were graduates of monastery schools, some of which offered a relatively sophisticated advanced education. The most interesting was at the Krasny Brod monastery, a major cultural centre in the eighteenth century, with its own library, scriptorium, and an advanced philosophical and theological faculty, where students studied history, rhetoric, theology, poetics, and Church Slavonic grammar (Myshanych, Literatura Zakarpattia, 14).2 The language of instruction in elementary schools

68 Straddling Borders was the local dialect, while the few texts available were in Church Slavonic. In institutes of higher learning, the primary language of scholarship, as in most of Europe, was Latin. In 1777, Bishop Bachyns'kyi transferred the administrative seat of the eparchy from Mukachevo to Uzhhorod and reorganized the monastery theological school as a four-year seminary. After the Austrian Emperor Joseph II (ruled 1780-90) disbanded the Barbareum in 1783, Bachyns'kyi resisted efforts to close the Uzhhorod seminary and opposed a government order that Rusyns from Subcarpathia were to attend the Hungarian seminary at Eger. Instead, he sent Subcarpathian students to the Greek Catholic seminary in L'viv, where they studied alongside Rusyns from Galicia and Bukovina. In 1787, the first secular Rusyn institution of higher learning, known as the Studium Ruthenum (1787-1809), was established in L'viv, where the official language was Slavonic.3 By the turn of the nineteenth century, five of the sixteen instructors at the Studium Ruthenum were Rusyns from Subcarpathia, marking a redirection of the educational orientation of Subcarpathia from west to east. An Inherited Tradition in Smuggled Books In spite of measured progress in educational opportunity, major obstacles to the development of a literature, and indeed to the advancement of literacy, in Subcarpathian Rus' remained. A major problem was the lack, until the middle of the nineteenth century, of a Cyrillic printing press.4 The Rusyns of Subcarpathia had been familiar with Cyrillic books published in Krakow, Prague, L'viv, and Moscow since the fifteenth century. Many copies of the Ostroh Bible, for example, are known to have come into the region in the first half of the seventeenth century, not long after its publication in 1581. The printing house in Trnava, which produced the DeCamillis Catechism in 1698, acquired Cyrillic type only around 1681 at the instigation of Cardinal Leopold Kollonich, who was a zealous promoter of the Hungarian Counter-Reformation and who took a particular interest in the Orthodox minorities. A dedicatory address to the cardinal acknowledges his motivation in introducing Cyrillic printing in Trnava: 'Your Eminence desired to make provision for the utterly forsaken souls of the Ruthenians and Serbs, which, sunk as they are in the darkness of ignorance, you are at great pains to enlighten, by procuring, with great generosity, type for Ruthenian printing, which has never been seen in these parts before' (quoted in Cleminson, 'Cyrillic Printing in Trnava,' 43). For the next twenty-six years (1700-25) there is no record of any Cyrillic printing at Trnava, which is explained by the death of Cardinal Kollonich and the instability caused by the Rakoczi uprisings. The last Cyrillic imprint, a Roma-

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nian translation of De Camillis's Catechism, appeared in 1725, after which the Cyrillic type was removed from the press. Finally, in 1770 the Austrian government set up the 'Illyrian' print shop of Joseph Kurzbeck in Vienna to publish all Cyrillic books for use in the Hapsburg empire. However, it was directed primarily to the needs of the empire's Serbs, and only three of the fifty Cyrillic publications issued were for Rusyns (Magocsi, Shaping, 28). In The Conquest of America, an important work on discourse analysis, Tsvetan Todorov identifies the key feature of colonial oppression not as the control of life and property or even language, but as the control over the means of communication. In this respect, Rusyns fully qualify as an oppressed people. As the church had exercised colonial authority by imposing one form of communication over another - writing over orality - the Hapsburg government empowered itself at the expense of its subject peoples by restricting their access to print communication. By silencing their voices and marginalizing their languages and cultures, the metropolitan centre, to use the terminology from cultural studies, seized the power of the word, which had political as well as cultural implications. In the case of Subcarpathia, it denied Rusyns the right to information and, even more fundamentally, prevented the development of a common standard language that might foster group solidarity. In his study of nationalism and culture, Benedict Anderson ties nation building to the spread of 'print-capitalism,' which contributed to the demotion of sacred languages, gave a new fixity to vernacular languages, and 'created unified fields of exchange and communications below Latin and above the spoken vernaculars' (Imagined Communities, 44). As a result, nations, or 'imagined communities,' formed around print information, newspapers, and novels. The Hapsburg empire denied the Rusyns of Subcarpathia access to the liberating and modernizing aspects of print, which might have contributed to nation creation. Instead, Rusyns in Subcarpathia were compelled to look beyond the borders of the empire for literature in their own language, an eventuality that further reinforced their ties to the east. An unintended result of Hapsburg cultural policies was that, prevented from creating their own print community within the Austrian empire, the Rusyns gravitated toward the cultural community of Russia. Historical records indicate a continual influx of books into Subcarpathian Rus' from Galicia, eastern Ukraine, and Russia, especially grammars, catechisms, Bibles, and hymnals. The Greek Catholic authorities and the Vienna government considered these 'schismatic' Orthodox books an ideological and political threat. In 1751, the Eger Bishop Barkoczy reported: It is well known that in the Eger diocese there are so many Rusyns and Romanians that there are four times as many of their priests as Roman Catholic priests.

70 Straddling Borders The ancestors of these Rusyns and Romanians accepted the union, but this, as I have been convinced on visiting their churches, is for the most part in name only. Schismatic ritual, schismatic ideas, and schismatic morals are predominant among them. The reason for this is the ignorance and negligence of their priests, who themselves are not free of errors in faith and morals, and all because they use primarily muscovite church books. Incidentally, during the liturgy, instead of Her Highness [Maria Theresa] and the pope, they pray for the Tsar and the Petersburg Patriarch(l). (Cited in Petrov, 'K istorii "russkikh intrig,'" 127)

In accordance with a 1693 law, all publications were subject to censorship by the Jesuit authorities in Trnava, and an imperial decree of 1727 made it illegal to possess uncensored publications. After the foundation of the Kurzbeck printing press in 1770, the government imposed a further ban on the importation of Cyrillic texts from beyond the borders of the realm. Nonetheless, scholars estimate that fully half of all material published in Ukraine and Russia in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries reached the Rusyns of Subcarpathia.5 Evidence for the lively trade in books is available in the records of customs searches and confiscations at the Hungarian border. For example, two Vladimir merchants, Ivan Shaliapin and Mikhail Vakurov, were detained in 1727 with a load of bibles, psalters, and icons. Customs officers withheld 530 books until the Russian embassy intervened, but the merchants declared that they had been engaging in such trade freely for the past sixteen years. In 1757 in Uzhhorod, 1140 books were confiscated, of which 400 were grammars and 100 church almanacs. As a result, an order was issued specifically prohibiting Mukachevo's Bishop Ol'shavs'kyi from importing religious books from Russia. Nonetheless, customs reports indicate the importation of ten loads of books from Moscow two years later, followed by another 999 books in 1760 and 733 books in 1762. Judging from the records, in greatest demand were grammars and primers; 150 were imported in 1760, and 400 in 1762. Since we know of hundreds of confiscated books, we can assume that thousands actually penetrated into Subcarpathian Rus'. And although there are no records, it is likely that even greater numbers had been imported earlier in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, before the ban became official (Petrov, 'K istorii "russkikh intrig,'" 129-32; Nedziel'skii, Ocherk, 82). Besides ecclesiastical texts and grammars, a wide variety of Russian books in the fields of history, geography, and science were imported. In the area of literature, the Rusyn intelligentsia of Subcarpathia had access to the works of many of Russia's contemporary writers, including the syllabic odes of Feofan Prokopovich and his 'Sermon on the Interment of Peter the Great' (1725), Mikhail Lomonosov's 'Congratulation on the Ascension to the Throne of the

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Empress Elizaveta Petrovna' (1741) and his tragedy Demofont(ll52), Aleksandr Sumarokov's Eclogues (1769-74), and Mikhail Kheraskov's epic The Rossiad (1779). First editions of Lomonosov's monumental work on rhetoric from 1748 and his Russian grammar, published in 1757, are found in Subcarpathian libraries (Lintur, Traditsii russkogo klassitsizma v literature Zakarpat'ia XIX v.,' 126; Mykytas', Davni rukopysy i starodruky). Russian periodicals found their way to Subcarpathian Rus1 soon after their publication in Moscow or St Petersburg, including Novikov's Old Russian Library (first and second editions, 1773-5 and 1788-91), which reprinted archival materials and literary monuments. These and other printed books and manuscript copies were collected in monastery libraries and episcopal archives, the largest of which was founded in Uzhhorod in 1745. As part of his efforts to counter the prevalent Roman Catholic influence on the Rusyn clergy and to revive the spirit of Russian culture, Bishop Bachyns'kyi sent two monks to the Kievan Crypt monastery to familiarize themselves with eastern ritual and liturgical practice, as well as Kievan monastic life. They also brought back items for Bachyns'kyi's library, which consisted of 9000 volumes, half of which were Slavonic and Cyrillic manuscripts and printed books. These contraband volumes undoubtedly impressed upon Rusyn readers the greatness of their Slavic heritage, which was treated at best with indifferent neglect, and at worst with forthright disparagement, by the dominant Magyar culture. In 1794 Bachyns'kyi directed the village clergy to seek out old manuscripts and books for preservation in library collections. Indeed, though the educational level of the people was low and books were expensive, inscriptions in surviving texts indicate that they were highly valued even among the masses in Subcarpathian Rus'. The sources and the prices paid were carefully noted, often accompanied by imprecations against potential thieves, as in the testament of Shtefan Vintz, inscribed in the fifteenth-century Korolevo Gospel:

For if anyone recklessly or negligently violates this precept and delights in the acquisition of this book and sells it, may he be cursed by God and His purest Mother and by all the saints and the twelve apostles and by the six councils and the 318 fathers of Nicaea. May he share the fate of Judas Iscariot, and on Judgment Day may the Savior with His power and His holy angels be his adversary. Amen.6

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Books were paid for in cattle, oxen, or sheep. Villagers from Izky gave three cows for a triodion; a resident of Strychava paid one cow and twelve lengths of cloth for an epistolary in 1654; in the village of Dubove in 1743, a triodion was worth twelve sheep. Even illiterate peasants were proud to own a 'pycbica KHHra,' (Rus1 book), which eventually would be donated to the church 'for the remission of their sins' (Mykytas1, Davnia literatura, 135-6). An unknown cantor and teacher inscribed in his triodion in 1701, 'As the birds delight in spring, so the church delights in a book' (Myshanych, Literatura Zakarpattia, 32). 'Mimic men' As a result of the Hapsburg educational reforms and Bishop Bachyns'kyi's cultural policies, by the end of the eighteenth century there were individuals among the Rusyn intelligentsia of Subcarpathia who were prepared to apply the lessons learned from Latin seminaries and Russian texts to an 'authentic' Rusyn literature. Authenticity, however, is a problematic concept, since the authority to determine what is 'authentic' in literature lies with the cultural centre. Since the concept of literature itself is a product of conditioning, only certain categories of experience expressed in conventional forms are presumed to have literary value. If the cultural representatives of a repressed people wish to articulate their own experience in literary form, it must be within the terms established by the dominant discourse. If contemporary theory has found this to be true of modern colonial societies, it applies even more strictly to the neoclassicism of eighteenth-century Europe, which compelled a normative aesthetics based on the imitation of recognized classical models. Just as Russian literature of this time imitated western sources, so too did the writers who would insinuate Subcarpathian literature into European culture echo the process of Russian literary development. As a result, the Rusyn writer wrote within the discursive limits set by the neo-classical tradition, regardless of its applicability to his own experience. Theorists have described writers who begin to form a local literature as 'consigned to a world of mimicry and imitation' (Ashcroft, Griffiths, and Tiffin, Empire Writes Back, 88). While the terminology is from contemporary postcolonial theory, the concepts it seeks to explain pre-date the modern age. Theorizing the state of Rusyn literature in these terms helps to elucidate it from an impartial, non-judgmental perspective. Although such a situation would seem to stifle any 'authentic' subaltern voice, alternative reading practices have theorized strategies of resistance that mediate its expression through what has become known as 'cultural mimicry.' Studied most thoroughly by Homi Bhabha, mimicry, from one perspective, is a form of colonial control generated by the dominant culture,

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which has the objective of assimilating local cultures and suppressing difference.7 That is, the dominated subject is required to adopt the outward forms and internalize the values and norms of the cultural centre. However, the result is an 'ironic compromise' and ambivalence. While the 'mimic man' of the subject intelligentsia apparently reinforces the dominant authority, he simultaneously disrupts it by writing from the perspective of his ingrained 'double vision.' In the case of Subcarpathia, for example, the westerneducated intelligentsia found itself caught between cultures. The result is a double consciousness, 'having Janus-like access to both metropolitan and local cultures, yet alienated from both' (Boehmer, Colonial and Postcolonial Literature, 115). The writer from the periphery voluntarily or by necessity immerses himself in the dominant culture, but for all his mastery of the language and literary form of the centre, he cannot escape the dominant ideology, which relegates him to an inferior position. 'Almost the same, but not quite,' in Bhabha's phrase, the author takes advantage of the ambivalence of his position to transform mimicry into mockery; that is, he imperfectly copies the authoritative discourse, and in the distorted echo that results, his own apparently silent subaltern voice resonates. [Mimicry] is a form of colonial discourse that is uttered inter dicta: a discourse at the crossroads of what is known and permissible and that which though known must be kept concealed; a discourse uttered between the lines and as such both against the rules and within them ... Mimicry is like camouflage, not a harmonization or repression of difference, but a form of resemblance, that differs from or defends presence by displaying it in part, metonymically ... Mimicry rearticulates presence in terms of its 'otherness,' that which it disavows. (Bhabha, 'Of Mimicry and Man,' in The Location of Culture, 89, 91)

An elusive subversive strategy, mimicry challenges the dominant culture on its own ground by appropriating its signs, by challenging the boundaries of discourse, and by transforming it from a site of imposed authority to a site of hybridity. In the formulations of postcolonial theory, by asserting his own voice in mimic forms, the writer creates his own ironic 'authenticity,' which disrupts the authority of the dominant discourse. What on the surface appears to be reverent imitation of cultural authority, and may even seem to implicate the dominated writer in his own oppression, is in fact 'an agonistic space' that continues the struggle for self-assertion in civil terms. As Bhabha puts it, To the extent to which discourse is a form of defensive warfare, mimicry marks those moments of civil disobedience within the discipline of civility: signs of spectacular resistance' ('Signs Taken for Wonders,' in The Location of Culture,

74 Straddling Borders 121). For Subcarpathian Rusyn culture at the turn of the nineteenth century, such mimicry was the only means of gaining voice and the only possible mode of resistance. Into the early decades of the nineteenth century, most Rusyn literature of Subcarpathia was imitative. It exhibited characteristics of the first stage in the establishment of a colonial literature, where the native author assimilates to the language and literary form of the dominant culture. Thus, Rusyn poets, historians, and grammarians produced works in Latin, the recognized language of European scholarship and the official language of the Hungarian kingdom until 1844. However, there was yet another model and language choice for the writers of Subcarpathian Rus1, one that allowed them to mimic the dominant culture and yet retain their own Rusyn identity by using a language they considered their own. Most of the conservative churchmen who were the founders of written Rusyn literature turned for inspiration not to the dominant Latin-Magyar culture, but to the Church Slavonic language and Russian literature. They found models in writers such as Simeon Polotskii, Stefan lavorskii, Dimitrii Rostovskii, and Feofan Prokopovich, who, in the early seventeenth century, had imported the formal style of syllabic versification into Russia from Poland via Kiev, a style that by the nineteenth century had become obsolete. As is universally the case, such mimicry was unsatisfactory from the point of view of aesthetic development. However, in the Magyar context, the Rusyn identification with Russian culture represented resistance to alien domination and a positive effort toward self-definition. Through the subversive manoeuvre of mimicry, the writers of Subcarpathia began to wrestle with the available discourse in an effort to infuse universal styles and themes with their own national voice. The European practice of congratulatory and occasional verse, as mimicked in Subcarpathian Rus', reveals specifically Russian sources, but emphatically local patriotism. For example, some of the first Rusyn national heroes to be honoured in verse are the bishops of the Mukachevo eparchy. One anonymous author greeted the 1743 consecration of Bishop Mykhail Ol'shavs'kyi with an ode that recognized his activity in establishing schools and churches and protecting local culture. Not surprisingly, however, the most popular cultural hero was Bishop Andrii Bachyns'kyi. Transcarpathian archives hold many panegyrics written in his honour, seventeen from the years 1802-3 alone. Most are in the baroque style, in Latin, Romanian, and Hungarian, as well as Church Slavonic, and they typically praise Bachyns'kyi for his struggle against denationalization (Mykytas1, Haluzka mohutn'oho dereva, 22). The 'ironic compromise' of mimicry is immediately apparent in the contradiction between form and content - the baroque European poetic form is used to praise the national

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consciousness of a Rusyn bishop. Referring to the influence of germanization under Emperor Joseph II, one author, Aleksandr Baizam, says of himself that, thanks to the efforts of Bachyns'kyi, he is 'now a Cossack,' while previously he was 'a German.' Presenting his tribute to Bachyns'kyi as 'Aleksandr, your spiritual child,' he acknowledges another Aleksandr as his literary model:

If only I were Aleksandr Sumarokov, / Like Alexander the Great or Alexandr, the Russian tsar, / 1 would offer better verses, / Whereas now I make bold to present childish babble. ('Arkhieree slavnyi, blahodeiu bohomdannyi!' in Rudlovchak, ed., Khrestomatiia zakarpats'koiukrai'ns'koi literatury XIXstolittia, 22; orthography modernized) Although he uses standard rhetorical devices, classical references, and humility topoi, in the Hungarian context, the author's implied comparison of the three 'Alexanders' makes a subtle political, as well as literary, statement. In Bhabha's terms this is the 'unthought' expressed through the interdictory discourse of subversive mimicry (The Location of Culture, 91). Two poetic works dedicated to Bachyns'kyi were discovered in the archives of the Slovak writer Pavel Jozef Safarik. Sent to him by an unknown correspondent for inclusion in the Slovak poet's collection Slovansky ndrodopis (Slavic Ethnography, 1842), the manuscript is accompanied by a notation that identifies the author as Andrii Val'kovs'kyi, a cleric from Mukachevo and a student at the Trnava seminary. Written to honour Bachyns'kyi on his name day in 1807, one of the texts is a ceremonial ode in the popular Sapphic stanza verse form. In five stanzas of convoluted imagery and turgid, ornate Slavonic, Val'kovs'kyi invokes Saturn and the nine muses and, in general, displays his erudition. Concluding his invocation, he begs the indulgence of the muses for his choice of language, apparently in a bow to Bachyns'kyi's respect for the contemporary local version of Church Slavonic, which was popularly identified as 'Russian.'

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Well, then! Therefore inspire the poet, /That he may sincerely even in the domestic tongue / (O Russian language!) this holy occasion bless... / Show your benevolence! (Poety Zakarpattia, 137) The rhetorical humility topos is conventional, but here it also serves to foreground the poet's deliberate choice of the 'domestic language' as an appropriate means for the expression of lofty thoughts and classical images and the most suitable medium for the elevation of a Rusyn national figure. Ironically, he goes on to praise this Greek Catholic bishop, in hyperbolic classical imagery, for his revitalization of the eastern, or specifically, the Russian spirit:

PoccKOMy Tap-root of Ugro-Russians, Guardian of orphans / And Father of poor widows, Star / Of the Eastern Church, always / And everywhere, / Model for the Priesthood. //... Your Age resembles the age of Saturn, / And as his was the golden age for the Romans, / So yours is the age of Rusyns [Russians] and will be / for Rusyn [Russian] Posterity. (Poety Zakarpattia, 138) Between Russia and Hungary The only Subcarpathian poet from this period to dedicate a panegyric to a secular figure was Hryhorii Tarkovych (1754-1841). Educated at the Barbareum in Vienna from 1803 until 1813, Tarkovych served as censor of Slavic books for the Royal Slavic Printing Press in Buda, a position that allowed him to become familiar with much of contemporary Slavic literature and earned him the reputation of a stern critic. He also represented the Mukachevo eparchy in the Hungarian parliament, then located in Bratislava. One historian of the Presov Greek Catholic eparchy described him as serious, scholarly, and reclusive, unaware even after ten years in Hungary's capital 'on which bank of the Danube was situated Buda, and on which Pest.'8 A Russian historian of the church in Subcarpathian Rus' repeats this characteri-

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zation: 'Serving in Buda as censor for more than ten years, it seems that he was not once in Pest on the other side of the Danube. He knew nothing other than his apartment, library, and the nearest church, spending his days and nights reading and writing. He read the Latin and Greek philosophers and historians in the original, neglecting not a single Latin or Greek historical record.'9 However reticent he may have been, it is known that Tarkovych maintained contacts with the Czech and Slovak Slavists he had known in Vienna,10 and he must have been fairly well acquainted with the burgeoning cultural life of Hungary. Moreover, the poem that earned him a place in Subcarpathian cultural history reveals broad erudition, determined opinions, and an informed political sense. 'On the Nameday of his Royal Highness, the Illustrious Sovereign Joseph, Palatine of Hungary' was published as a separate pamphlet in 1805, and its author was identified only by his initials.11 The ode is addressed to the 'Russian [Rusyn] muses,' who are invited by the poet to descend from the Carpathian Mountains to celebrate the name day of Palatine Joseph, the younger brother of Emperor Francis I.

Rusyn Muses! From the Carpathian mountains descend; / Take your place in my episcopal court on the Uzh river. / Hearken: joyful news from Pest I have received, / That a holiday is being prepared on the Danube currents.12

The introduction identifies the national group for which Tarkovych speaks and introduces the complex political and geographical nexus within which it exists. The poet establishes an identifying relationship between self and place, and his contraposition of the episcopal court on the Uzh with the royal court on the Danube stakes out the physical and cultural territory that he must negotiate. For the Carpatho-Rusyns, whose historians believed they were the autochthonous inhabitants of the region, the use of topographical imagery implied self-assertion and national autonomy. The body of the poem is a tribute to the sponsor of the festivities, Count Ferenc Szechenyi (1754-1820), the founder of the Hungarian National Library (1803), patron of arts and culture, and father of Istvan Szechenyi, the most influential political thinker and social reformer of Hungary's age of reform. Tarkovych dubs Ferenc Szechenyi 'the Hungarian Apollo.'

78 Straddling Borders

Count Ferenc Szechenyi, the Hungarian Apollo, / Whose name has flourished in Europe, / Creator of the Hungarian Library, / True friend to the muses of local peoples.

Szechenyi was instrumental in the revival of Hungarian language and culture that followed the 1784 decree of Joseph II that replaced Latin with German as the official language. While Latin, a dead language, could be justified as lingua franca, the introduction of German offended the rising national consciousness of the Hungarians. From the 1790s, the Hungarian language gradually gained ground in educational institutions and in scholarly works, until it achieved official status in 1844. During these years, various cultural institutions were opened in or transferred to Pest, which became the centre for the national cultural revival. For the Rusyns of Hungary, a national awakening was still fifty years in the future. Still, while there was little national consciousness among the masses, Tarkovych and a few other clerical intellectuals were encouraged by the national aspirations of fraternal Slavic nations and the relatively tolerant cultural atmosphere of the Hungarian revival to express the Rusyn national identity in their own literary voices. Szechenyi, who had publicly urged religious tolerance, a system of rational education, the teaching of modem foreign languages, and a true enlightenment based on Christian principles, was seen as a possible protector and benefactor of the infant Rusyn literature.13 Tarkovych's political pragmatism is evident in the fact that this poem, presented on the occasion of the Palatine's name day, in fact honours the individual who was in a position to be well disposed and helpful to the Rusyn cultural cause. Tarkovych's motivation was at once pragmatic, patriotic, and, perhaps, personal. Archduke Joseph was married to the Russian grand duchess Aleksandra Pavlovna, daughter of Paul I. While Aleksandra Pavlovna charmed the Hungarians by her adoption of national dress, she was also very popular with the empire's Slavs. On several occasions she had expressed concern for the oppressed Serbs in Hungary, and the Slavic men of letters assumed that the Palatine himself was a supporter of the empire's Slavs, or at least hoped that he would share his wife's concerns (Rudlovchak, Khrestomatiia, 13). Aleksandra Pavlovna fell under suspicion of encouraging separatist tendencies, however, and when she died in childbirth in 1801, her grave became a

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place of pilgrimage for Rusyns ('Vospominaniia i zapiski russkikh ofitserov,' in Svientsitskii, Materialy, 56-83). Thus, Tarkovych's reference to her as the 'Nymph of the Neva,' an overt salute to her memory and her Russian heritage, inevitably suggests a subtle allusion to the nationalist sympathies she engendered.14 Archduke Joseph's immediate response to the poem is unknown, but Tarkovych was later to benefit personally from his attention. In 1815, when it was decided to divide the eparchy of Mukachevo and to erect a new eparchy centred in Presov, the emperor asked Palatine Joseph to seek information on possible episcopal candidates and to submit nominations. As first bishop of the new eparchy, Palatine Joseph nominated Hryhorii Tarkovych. Although Tarkovych first declined the position, pleading advanced age and insufficient financial support, he eventually accepted and was consecrated on 17 June 1821. While this particular event could not have been foreseen by Tarkovych when he presented his poetic tribute to Archduke Joseph in 1805, it can be viewed as a realization of the attention to Rusyn national culture that the poem solicited.15 From 'Vulgar Songs' to the Permessus Waters While Tarkovych appeals for the protection of Rusyn culture in his poem, he clearly intends it simultaneously as an object lesson to Rusyn writers on how best to merit the favour of Hungarian cultural authorities. He calls the Carpathian muses to gather on Parnassus, 'that is, [Szechenyi's] court,' to cease their mourning for Aleksandra Pavlovna, and to prepare for a new, brighter day. He advises them to 'put themselves in order,' to leave off their poor workaday peasant costumes and to adorn themselves in holiday style, to ready pipes and flutes, and to quit the national Parnassus for the Hungarian court. He distinctly deprecates the state of local culture:

I know your trepidation: the national Parnassus is frightening, / For where there are roars, gurgles, babbles, shouts, sounds, croaks, cries - / There is not a pleasant choir. / For Lado, Koliada, Leliia, naiads / There are vulgar songs and common flutes.16

80 Straddling Borders Scholars have interpreted Tarkovych's imagery here, with its references to the pagan Slavic gods, as a condemnation of Rusyn folk art. This would not be unexpected for a suppressed literature, in the first stages of which native authors typically assimilate to the literary taste of the dominant culture. Moreover, the metropolitan education of the native intelligentsia conditioned them to believe that the local experience was 'unworthy' of literature. Trinidadian writer V.S. Naipaul speaks of the disorder and inauthenticity imposed by the centre on the margins of empire. As summarized by the authors of The Empire Writes Back, 'The center, the metropolitan source of standard language and power, stands as the focus of order, while the periphery, which utilizes the variants, the "edges" of language, remains a tissue of disorder' (Ashcroft et al., 88). Tarkovych describes the 'disorder' of the margins through the visual imagery of clothing and the aural imagery of song and sound. The import of the pagan deities, however, is unclear, since in the next stanza, Tarkovych lists Siva and Volos among the gods present in the count's court in Pest and Buda, alongside Bacchus and Pomona. It is possible that the reference is a metaphorical, rather than a literal depiction of Rusyn art, which this poet-priest compares to an unenlightened pre-Christian culture.17 The mixture of Christian and pagan motifs was common in Russian neo-classicism, and the discovery (or invention) in the eighteenth century of a Slavic pantheon was a manifestation of early romanticism, associated with the assertion of a national historical identity and the audience's taste for the strange, the wondrous, and the entertaining.18 In this respect, Tarkovych's evocation of the Slavic deities and muses alongside gods of classical antiquity can be seen as an assertion of equality and a subtle insinuation of Rus' into the European cultural context. The metaphorical interpretation of this imagery is reinforced by the poet's explanation in the following lines for the sad state of Rusyn literature and his defence of its virtues.

Pallas Athena placed her throne by the Neva. / Ungrateful one! She abandoned the Uzhok and Latiurka. / The Carpathians are the true father and mother of the Slavs, / But the dispersed children do not seek to know this.19

In Tarkovych's Pallas, Franko and subsequent Ukrainian scholars have seen another reference to Catherine II of Russia (Franko, 'Zrazok,' 463; Mykytas',

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Haluzka, 25; Myshanych, Literatura Zakarpattia, 72). In this interpretation, Catherine, the patroness of enlightenment in Russia, is reproached by Tarkovych for ignoring the 'Russians' of the Carpathians, the original homeland of the Slavs. However, even such a muted glorification of a Russian empress in a poem dedicated to a representative of the Austrian government would be unexpected. Furthermore, this putative reproach to Catherine would contradict the spirit of the earlier reference to the 'Nymph of the Neva,' in which Franko also inferred a reference to Catherine. In any case, the details of the image, which has Athena placing her throne on the Neva, are more consistent with the figure of Peter I than with Catherine, and it is unclear how Catherine can be seen as 'abandoning' the Carpathian region, in view of her expansionist policies. It would seem, then, that Catherine II of Russia owes her presence in Tarkovych's poem only to Franko's interpretation, which has been repeated persistently over the decades down to the present day. It is more likely, and more compatible with the image system of the work, that Tarkovych's Pallas is a literal, mythological reference to Athena, the goddess of wisdom, who has favoured the Slavs of St Petersburg over those of the Hungarian kingdom. In this reading, Tarkovych recognizes the foremost position of Russian culture among the Slavs, a popular idea of early pan-Slavism,20 while expressing discontent at being left out of the Slavic enlightenment and a readiness to profit from the revival of national cultures foreseen by the poet in Hungary. Thus, the poet exhorts the national muses to bring their offering to Pest and Buda on behalf of their 'Father, the clergy, and the people,' that is, as an expression of Rusyn culture, in hope of winning favour in the Hungarian court. In spite of his reproof to local culture, he has faith in the very artlessness of the Rusyn muses, who, after all, inspire his own song.

So be it: from the waters of Permessus you are / Far; may Sumarokov live on there! / Love, loyalty, modesty, natural simplicity / Are more pleasing to the prince than correct rhymes.

Interpreting these lines to mean that Tarkovych was unaware of Sumarokov's 1777 death, scholars, going back to Franko, have seriously underestimated the breadth of the poet's erudition. The reference to Sumarokov and the Permessus waters (a river originating in Mount Helicon, considered sacred to the Muses)

82 Straddling Borders appears to be an allusion to an inscription written by the Russian poet M.M. Kheraskov on the frontispiece portrait of Sumarokov in Novikov's 1781 edition of his collected works:

EMy PacHH Sumarokov is depicted for posterity, / This soaring, ardent, and gentle author, / Who by himself reached the Permessus waters, / To him Racine and Lafontaine presented a wreath. (Berkov, 'Zhiznennyi i literaturnyi put' A.P. Sumarokova,' in Sumarokov, Izbrannye proizvedeniia, 5)

Tarkovych, like Kheraskov, is certainly saluting Sumarokov's poetic achievement in this image. He recognizes the distance between the abilities of Rusyn men of letters (including, it seems, his own) and the genius of Sumarokov. Yet he affirms the aesthetic values of sincerity, simplicity, and modesty that are natural to the Rusyn muses. The inspiration of Sumarokov is evident in Tarkovych's poem. The first true practitioner of Russian classicism, Aleksandr Sumarokov opposed the syntactical complexity and baroque ornamentation of his predecessors and favoured the standard spoken language as the basis for a new Russian literary language and a simpler, lucid poetic style. Tarkovych's reproaches directed to the 'vulgar songs' of the Rusyn 'popular Parnassus' reflect Sumarokov's similar censure of unskilled Russian poetry: 'O you who strive for Parnassus, possessing the coarse voice of an untuned fiddle, desist from singing! Your song is not attractive when music itself is unfamiliar to you ... You, uncomprehending, sing in a savage voice. Everything a boor composes insolently transforms his labours into shame. The bold composer ascends Parnassus without benefit if Apollo does not lead him to the summit of the mountain.'21 Sumarokov preached the necessity of training and education for would-be poets, a notion that had obvious implication for Subcarpathian writers: 'It is impossible for one to glorify himself by his writing who does not know the peculiarities or rules of grammar and, not knowing how to write correctly, wants all at once to be a creator and a poet... Poetry is not the fruit, after all, of desire alone, but of diligence and hard work' (Segal, Literature of Eighteenth-Century Russia, 1: 288). In addition to insisting on a knowledge of genres and rules, however, Sumarokov advises, 'Sing what is natural for you,' and Tarkovych essentially provides the same advice to the Rusyn muses, although he recommends a change

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in their costume to suit the more formal circumstances of ceremonial poetry in the Hungarian court. Here again, Tarkovych's imagery recalls Sumarokov in his 'Epistle on Poetry.' Using the popular lexicon, Tarkovych admonishes the muses to lay aside their peasant costumes, their peasant shoes (Kep6u,bi), straps (BOTIOKM), trousers (XOTIOIIIHHH), felt cloaks (my6bi), sheepskins (ryHbi), and long grey cloaks (cbpaKH). He admonishes them to put on a white pinafore (6\>n miax), ribbons (naHiviH), headdresses (napxbi), braids, curls, rings, and necklaces, and to tune their instruments (flyflbi, rmmanH, porn, Tpy6w).22 This imagery of adornment is similar to that of Sumarokov, who, echoing Boileau's Art poetique, advises that the style and lexicon be appropriate to the genre: 'A shepherdess in a meadow garbs herself in what nature has made to grow there and not in gold and silver. A meadow of precious stones and pearls does not appeal to her - she adorns her head and breast with flowers. Since she is dressed in such raiment all the time, so too should be the whole style in pastoral poetry. In them, proud words, exalted phrases only raise a wind in the meadows and agitate the streams. Leave your splendid voice in your idylls but among the flocks do not drown their reed-pipes with a trumpet.'23 'You, princes, for us are born' In contrast to the modest tones of pastoral style, Sumarokov prescribes that 'the sound roaring in an ode like a whirlwind pierces the hearing ... the lightning in it divides the horizon in half' (Segal, Literature of Eighteenth-Century Russia, 1: 231). And Tarkovych effects the grandiloquence of a whirlwind in the remainder of his poem, where he praises the Hungarian Palatine for his beauty, his honour, and his benevolence, which is optimistically described as 'equal to all.' His capital is depicted in conventional, hyperbolic imagery as heaven on earth, but on this Olympus, figures from Slavic mythology coexist with Greek and Roman gods.

Vlas, Bacchus, Siva, Pomona are there, there it is an earthly paradise; / There are streams of milk and honey. O thrice-blessed land!

As consummate mimic, Tarkovych corroborates the self-image of the dominant power in the rhetoric required by the dominant culture. However, the 'lack of fit' between the inherited aesthetic vocabulary and the local environment holds the potential for subtle ironic subversion. The Rusyn poet goes on to

84 Straddling Borders stress the individual character of Carpathian homage to the sovereign with an original image that provides a concrete topographical counterpoint to the trite 'land of milk and honey' of the capital:

Coming before the prince's high throne, / On your knee, in your heart, offer a deep bow. / Remember the kindness of the Austrian monarchs, / The many bounties bestowed on the Carpathians: / Which melt with fervour for their prince, / Though ever visited by snow, wind, and winter.

On the surface, the poet is obsequious to the Austrian crown, but more importantly, Tarkovych's imagery provides a concrete foundation for national definition in local geography and in the experience of endurance and survival it requires. The florid eulogy to the Palatine, although extravagant, is expressed in conventional, even banal terms, repeating the trite rhyme flo6poxw / me«poTbi. Furthermore, the panegyric exaltation of Archduke Joseph is offset by the poem's epigraph, also from Sumarokov:

Such customs have been ordained by fate: / We for you, and you, princes, for us are born. (Izbrannye proizvedeniia, 136)

These lines come from an epistle dedicated to Grand Prince Pavel Petrovich, composed when the addressee was but seven years old and Elizabeth II occupied the throne. Sumarokov's intention was to paint a portrait of 'the ideal prince' and thereby to suggest a comparison with the actual sovereign, Elizabeth, who had incurred the poet's disapproval. Prefacing his verses with this pointed epigraph, Tarkovych concludes his own poem with blessings on Archduke Joseph and Count Szechenyi for health and long life to further 'the enlightenment of the world.' Writing in 1895, Ivan Franko concluded that Tarkovych was overly obsequi-

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ous to the Hungarian and Russian nobility and contemptuous of his own culture. Clearly the author considered himself part of a servile (xrconcbKoi) people; he felt that his Muse, aside from the Nymph of the Neva and Sumarokov, must be servile and stand in servile formation before lofty individuals. The bond between the intellectual and the Uhro-Rusyn peasant was not then fundamentally severed as it is now, although we see no sympathy at all from the author toward that peasant. On the contrary, his sympathies apparently draw him towards the lords, and it is all the same to him whether they live in Budapest or in Petersburg.24

Franko's harsh judgment of Tarkovych may derive partly from personal antiRusyn sentiment, but his critical error comes from not viewing the poem contextually. As James Von Geldern has noted in his study of the eighteenthcentury ode, panegyric poetry was a rhetorical genre, written to be performed in public, with accordingly circumscribed themes and conventions: Poetry was not so much read by nobles in the privacy of their studies as it was read to them on ceremonial occasions. Art was public in the sense that its conventions and functions were determined by public life ... The structure of an ode reflected the ceremony of which it was a part, and ceremony prescribed the etiquette of reading ... The ode was an event. It was directed to a specific audience and occasion, and its rootedness in a concrete present conditioned the whole of its poetics. ('The Ode as a Performative Genre,' 927-8)

Von Geldern's conclusion, that 'if the ode is to be fully understood, its performative nature and intent must be acknowledged,' surely applies to Tarkovych's poetic and political tribute to Archduke Joseph and Count Szechenyi. Szechenyi's home in western Hungary was a 'center of multilingual, literary-musical cultural exchange in which members of the intellectual community could freely move under the wings of their enlightened noble patrons regardless of religious, ethnic, or even social background.'25 The event that prompted Tarkovych's poem, judging from the reference in its title to 'muses of many languages,' was probably just such a multilingual, cross-cultural occasion. If the poem is interpreted within this socio-political context and within the conventions of court poetry, what seems on the surface to be obsequiousness to the lords can be seen instead as the poet's effort to reproduce the style of the dominant culture, while subtly interrogating it and integrating local culture within it. The critical history of Tarkovych's poem demonstrates the 'mental coloniza-

86 Straddling Borders tion' of subsequent Rusyn scholarship. Under the domination of Soviet and Ukrainian cultural authorities, Rusyn scholars over the years apologetically frowned upon his lofty literary style and shrugged their shoulders in consternation at his apparent denigration of Rusyn folk culture. Even more telling is the fact that Rusyn scholars and critics, at least officially, accepted the dominant view of Tarkovych as politically naive and culturally uninformed, a view that conformed to a mentality formed by colonial education and a tradition of cultural denigration, even while it was contradicted by facts, most of which remained unexamined. Soviet and Ukrainian nationalist ideologies ensured that Franko's flawed but influential judgment was scarcely questioned, and literary historians have continued to read Tarkovych's poem in the context of an alien ideology, branding him, and by extension all of Rusyn literature, as naive, servile, ignorant, and lacking in national consciousness. In retrospect, Franko's reaction to this poem is an example of one of the pitfalls of national consciousness, as pointed out by early postcolonial theorist Frantz Fanon (The Wretched of the Earth, 148-205). Speaking for a fledgling Ukrainian culture, which was itself resisting denationalization at the hands of Russian and Polish cultural imperialism, Franko expressed a literary and linguistic nationalism that was, to use the words of Seamus Deane, 'no less hegemonic and monologic than that by which it was oppressed.' Deane has pointed to the problematic results of an anti-colonial nationalist dynamic in which 'a nationalist self-conception imagines itself to be the ideal model to which all others should conform.' Like imperial nations that universalize themselves, 'they regard any insurgency against them as necessarily provincial' (introduction to Eagleton, Jameson, and Said, Nationalism, Colonialism, and Literature, 9). Mutatis mutandis, Franko's condemnation of Tarkovych's poem, not unlike much subsequent Ukrainian reaction to Subcarpathian literature, derives from a belief that there is but one path to cultural self-affirmation. While criticizing imperial ideology, Franko effectively reproduces it, blocking the emergence of any alternative narrative of resistance. One of the facts that Franko failed to recognize is that, given the performative nature of rhetorical poetry, Tarkovych's poem must be considered 'inside its intended environment.' The meaning of the work is predicated by the occasion and conventions of its reading; the audience is asked not to insinuate its own interpretation but to participate in the one provided' (Von Geldern, 'Performative Genre,' 927). Tarkovych's poem is situated within the constraints of neo-classical aesthetic doctrine, which valued rhetoric, rules, and decorum. Moreover, it was apparently presented before an audience that included the patrons who were the objects of his praise. In this context, the sincerity of the sentiments expressed is largely irrelevant, and the references to

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native culture, rather than demonstrating obsequious servility, assert a positive, individual, non-Magyar national identity and a commendable desire for enlightenment. Finally, Franko fails to detect the 'split consciousness' of Tarkovych's discourse, to use Homi Bhabha's phrase, in which two attitudes toward external reality persist - 'one takes reality into consideration while the other disavows it and replaces it by a product of desire that repeats, rearticulates "reality" as mimicry' (The Location of Culture, 91). Rather than servility, this hybrid, multi-layered, rearticulated version of the dominant culture in a distinct literary context contains the seeds of resistance. While the 'mimic man' may be accused of being 'the white man's artifice,' in colonial terms (Boehmer, Colonial and Postcolonial Literature, 172), or 'servile to the lords' in Franko's, a postcolonial reading stresses the destabilizing potential of such hybrid figures as Tarkovych, who play the role of intermediary between cultures. Inhabiting an elusive position between the dominant Magyar and local Rusyn cultures, and reflecting as well a filiative relation to Russia, Tarkovych, along with the culture he represents, resists being categorized by the central authority. However, while Tarkovych was clearly cognizant of the nuanced cultural situation, we need not assume that he had a conscious aim of subversion. The resistance inscribed in mimicry is generated by the inevitable ideological conflict at the core of the text. While Bhabha speaks of the 'menace' to the dominant order that emerges from cultural mimicry, in the case of Rusyn culture Bart Moore-Gilbert's critique of Bhabha's ideas is more to the point. That is, 'there is little material evidence that psychological guerrilla warfare of the kind which Bhabha describes as operating "strategically" from within the subordinate formation was, in fact, particularly destabilizing for the colonizer' (Postcolonial Theory, 134). Moreover, such resistance 'cannot function for the colonized as the grounds on which to construct a considered counter-discourse' (133). That is, the value of mimicry for the development of local culture is limited. Defining itself within imposed alien parameters, a subordinated literature is 'unsure of itself.' It is selfconscious, preoccupied with its own nature and value (Tarkovych's subject is in fact Rusyn culture), and lacking in 'spiritual energy' or belief in itself (Boehmer, Colonial and Postcolonial Literature, 112; Ashcroft et al., Empire Writes Back, 137). Thus, at this stage in its development, Rusyn literature offered no positive national self-affirmation that could reach contemporaries and inspire a national cultural awakening. However, this does not mean that Tarkovych should be vilified as a sycophant and denounced as detrimental to the development of Rusyn culture, as he has been in conventional criticism. In The Conquest of America, Tsvetan Todorov re-evaluates the role of the intermediary between cultures. He chooses

88 Straddling Borders to see La Malinche, the translator between Cortes and Montezuma, not as 'an incarnation of the betrayal of indigenous values, of servile submission to European culture and power,' but as 'the first example, and thereby the symbol, of the cross-breeding of cultures; she thereby heralds the modern state of Mexico and beyond that, the present state of us all, since if we are not invariably bilingual, we are inevitably bi- or tri- cultural. La Malinche glorifies mixture to the detriment of purity - Aztec or Spanish - and the role of the intermediary. She does not simply submit to the other... She adopts the other's ideology and serves it in order to understand her own culture better' (101). Tarkovych plays the same intermediary role as translator between cultures, but by employing his own Slavonic language he avoids the destruction of culture that was the result of La Malinche's translation. His poem to Palatine Joseph provided symbolic imagery for the next several generations of Rusyn poets, and his conflation of distinct cultures would become a basic tenet of the Rusyn national awakening. Instead of traditional criticism's judgment of Tarkovych's intermediary role as 'servility,' a postcolonial reading of the poem uncovers a simultaneous recognition of reality and a subtle resistance to cultural control. 'O Russian language!' The need for enlightenment in Russia voiced by Sumarokov in the 1750s was still a valid concern in Subcarpathian Rus' when Tarkovych wrote his tribute to Palatine Joseph. He finds himself in the paradoxical position, one that will become familiar to Carpatho-Rusyn authors and activists, of defending national culture by reproving its shortcomings and urging its betterment. Although he appeals to Sumarokov as a model, he is clearly aware of the distance between himself and the Russian writer. For example, he makes no attempt to follow Sumarokov's precepts of versification, with which he certainly was familiar. Instead, he uses the awkward syllabic verse form that goes back to Simeon Polotskii and was later rejected by Trediakovskii and Lomonosov. However, he uses it with a high degree of skill; the apparent lapses in metre or rhyme are explained by local rules of pronunciation.26 Moreover, it is clear that Tarkovych is aware of the language reforms underway in Russia, and by including lexical items from popular speech in his poem, he makes an early, if uncertain, effort to legitimate the native language as a medium of literature in Subcarpathian Rus'. The same language problem that impeded the growth of South Slavic and other East Slavic literatures, that is, the lack of a suitable literary language, almost crippled the development of Subcarpathian literature in this period. In Russia, the inadequacy of Church Slavonic for secular literature was apparent

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by the end of the seventeenth century, when the reforms of Peter the Great began to westernize and modernize culture and society. The intrusion of vernacular elements and foreign borrowings, coupled with a lack of rules or standards to govern usage, resulted in 'a linguistic chaos that took most of the eighteenth century to sort out' (Vinokur, Russian Language, 97-125). In 1757 Mikhail Lomonosov's theory of three styles set standards for lexical usage, eliminating from most literature the extremes of archaic Slavonicisms on the one hand and popular vulgarisms on the other. Still, his 'middle style,' a mixture of Russian and Church Slavonic, was cumbersome and archaic, a far cry from the spoken language of even the most cultured stratum of society. Rather than the theory of Lomonosov, literary scholars agree, it was the poetic practice of Sumarokov that made the greatest impact on the formation of the modern Russian literary language. Hostile to the Church Slavonic tradition, Sumarokov considered the properly cultivated Russian language a suitable medium for literary expression. In his own poetic work he set out to demonstrate its possibilities, and in his 'Epistles' he urged his fellow writers to do the same. He objected to syntactic complexity and baroque ornamentation, and encouraged the classical virtues of simplicity and lucidity, a natural syntax, and diction based on the spoken language of the cultured class. Opposed to a distinction between spoken and written language, he considered Church Slavonic obsolete and unnecessary. He concluded his second 'Epistle': 'Writer, just give enlightenment to the mind; our beautiful language is capable of anything' (Segal, Literature of Eighteenth-Century Russia, 1: 238). That a few Rusyn writers understood and appreciated Sumarokov's teachings on language is apparent in their own work. While Baizam and Tarkovych explicitly hail him within their poems, Val'kovskyi demonstrates a consciousness of Sumarokov's linguistic philosophy by explicitly drawing attention to his choice of literary language with his exclamation, 'O Russian language!' However, the 'HSWK poccKuV of the Rusyn poets was not Sumarokov's 'beautiful language,' but a modified version of Church Slavonic. Lacking a cultured 'middle style' in their own spoken language, Rusyn writers were forced to choose between Church Slavonic and the vernacular language of the people, neither of which was adequate for secular literature. The lack of printing facilities was one of the factors that had hindered the determination of a local literary standard, and while the vernacular had made significant gains in the miscellanies and explanatory gospels of the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, it was rejected by the European-educated clergy who made up the intelligentsia at mid-century. In the context of the prevailing neo-classicism, their only choice was Church Slavonic. The influx of books from the east, which included Meletii Smotryts'kyi's Church Slavonic gram-

90 Straddling Borders mar, had kept alive among the Rusyn intelligentsia the idea of an already formulated native literary language (Udvari, 'Do pytannia vplyvu rosiis'kykh gramatyk na zakarpatoukrains'ku pysemnist' XVIII stolittia,' 243-59). Moreover, given the political situation, where the officially sanctioned languages were Latin and Hungarian, that choice was an assertion of Rusyn national identity, a reaffirmation of their East Slavic roots and their relation to Rus'. Tarkovych might well have presented his tribute to Archduke Joseph in Latin. Instead he used Lomonosov's 'high style' and the Slaveno-Rusyn language, which was essentially a Subcarpathian recension of Church Slavonic, distinct from the local vernacular, although it contained admixtures of dialectalisms. It was this language that Bishop Bachyns'kyi promoted among the latinized clergy, and under Tarkovych's supervision in 1809, the complete Bible was published in a Church Slavonic translation, the only translation of the Bible to originate in the region. Thus, as Magocsi notes, 'The Bible, that classic barometer for judging the development of literary languages, was never translated into the Subcarpathian vernacular,' and consequently, the Rusyn intelligentsia of Subcarpathia considered Slaveno-Rusyn not as an imported language but as their own.27 Moreover, it was a defence against the imposed official languages. As Rusyn cultural historian Pavel Fedor wrote in 1929, Church Slavonic was referred to as 'Rusyn' (pyccKHft), by analogy with the 'Rusyn' language of the church, to stress its distinction from Latin and Magyar. In the practical life of our people, who were deprived of a school in their native language, Church Slavonic was naively identified with the liturgical language that was to become the stumbling block both for those who would magyarize the culture and later for ukrainianizers. Therefore it is not surprising that CarpathoRusyn writers so abundantly use both the lexicon and forms of the liturgical language in their compositions, the language that was the father of the Russian literary language and the only national school for us Carpatho-Rusyns. (Ocherki karpatorusskoi literatury, 13)

Thus, in the geopolitical situation at the turn of the nineteenth century, the attachment to Church Slavonic served a national purpose. However, the language was to remain a major obstacle to the development of Subcarpathian Rusyn literature throughout the nineteenth century. While Rusyn men of letters may have admired Sumarokov's simpler, more natural style, there was a limit to how successful they could be in achieving it, given the hindrance of the Slaveno-Rusyn language. Tarkovych's use of elements from the popular lexicon was a deliberate and provocative attempt to synthesize clerical and secular linguistic styles, but Tichy is surely overly laudatory in concluding that

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Tarkovych's 'common sense, taste, and talent' allowed him to preserve a balance between Church Slavonic and the conversational language (Tichy, Vyvoj, 34). Finally, there is a peculiar irony in the Rusyn poets' respect for Sumarokov and his linguistic reforms. According to Sumarokov, 'For the fundamentals of the Russian language I owe a debt to my father, and he in turn is obliged to his tutor Zeiken [sic].'28 Ivan Aleksandrovich Zeikan was tutor to the Sumarokov children until 1727 and had been chosen by Peter I of Russia to serve as tutor for his grandson, the future Tsar Peter II. Zeikan was a CarpathoRusyn. The Language Question - Round One Until the end of the seventeenth century, Church Slavonic was the unchallenged prestige language of the East and South Slavs, glorified by Andrella and other Orthodox polemicists as 'the most fruitful of all languages and God's most favourite' (Ivan Vyshens'kyi, cited in Strumins'kyj, 'The Language Question in the Ukrainian Lands,' 16). As a counterweight to Latin, it carried the authority of the Eastern Christian tradition and was the lingua franca that brought religious salvation to all orthodox Slavdom. Even in Muscovite Russia, it was not displaced as the literary language until the end of the eighteenth century. On the unstable religious and political ground of Subcarpathian Rus', the local version of Slavonic, known as Slaveno-Rusyn, carried these extralinguistic burdens into the nineteenth century and maintained its dignitas long after other Slavic groups had rejected it. For the Rusyn intelligentsia, it was one of the few verities of their world. It vouched for their historical legitimacy, provided symbolic security from the incursions of more powerful cultural forces, and linked them with the broader Slavic community. Subsequently it proved to be an impediment to Rusyn literary and national development, but in the context of the time, it was one of the few genteel cultural properties at the disposal of would-be enlighteners, and they held fast to its solace. According to the eighteenth-century mindset and aesthetic, the homogeneity of culture and the purity of language were ideals to be valued, even in face of contradictory realities. The 'pure Slavonic language' is evoked repeatedly by East Slavic writers and grammarians, who apologize for the occasional intrusion of 'vulgar expressions' (Strumins'kyj, 'Language Question,' 160). In this respect, Tarkovych's unapologetic inclusion of 'indigenous' lexical items in his elevated poetic style is notable for its challenge to poetic convention. In an effort to standardize Slaveno-Rusyn as a literary language, Arsenii Kotsak compiled the first grammar for Subcarpathian use in 1788. Modelled on the well-known Slavonic grammar of Meletii Smotryts'kyi and the works of

92 Straddling Borders Lomonosov, Kotsak's Grammatika russkaia opens with a verse preface, where the author makes his patriotic objectives perfectly clear. He expresses a desire for enlightenment with a brutal candour that enlivens the formal syllabic style and staid Slavonic language. His preface succinctly expresses a typically ironic sense of Rusyn pride and self-deprecation.

Having mastered Latin grammar, / I also learned something of Greek, / Then reaching theological school / I also acquired some Hebrew. / Being moreover rather curious / And living among various heathens / I came to know not only Hungarian grammar, / But then also German. /Thus, all the languages of Europe / I have studied for love of learning. / Only the wretched Rusnaks alone / It seems to me, are simpletons.29

Such frank self-criticism, as seen earlier in Andrella, reveals the educated intellectual's alienation from his native culture and his sense of national inferiority in face of world culture. Kotsak explains that the reason for writing his grammar is to elevate the national image.

And thus clearly to propose to the whole world, / That we miserable Rusnaks / Will not be judged by all as simpletons.

Kotsak demonstrates the predicament of the Subcarpathian Rusyn intelligentsia at the turn of the nineteenth century. They strove to integrate the

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cultural tradition of the east with western forms of scholarship and experience, for the edification of the Rusyn people. His purpose in standardizing the Slaveno-Rusyn language was to facilitate the translation of Latin books for use by Greek Catholics, thereby countering Orthodox influence and raising the national cultural level. However, Kotsak's grammar, like DeCamillis's Catechism, was intended for an educated audience and was largely inaccessible to the broad population. Not until 1803 was a catechism published for use by the common people. The author, Ivan Kutka (1750-1814), a professor at the Mukachevo theological school, consciously chose to use a simple language and to eschew latinized terminology. Since the serious content of his work did not allow use of the vernacular, his popular Katekhisis malyi Hi nauka pravoslavno-khristianskaia (Catechism or Orthodox Christian Science) was written in a modified Slaveno-Rusyn.30 Partly through the influence of Kutka's extremely popular Catechism, the people became comfortable with this language over the course of the nineteenth century and identified it as a native literary standard that was related to their own speech. Modern linguistics has affirmed the strong influence of Slavonic on the Carpathian dialects and documented the wide dispersion of Slavonic elements in the vernacular languages (Baletskii, 'Tserkovnoslavianskii iazyk i slavianskie dialekty,' 31-6). Subsequent Slaveno-Rusyn grammars by Mykhailo Luchkai-Pop (1830) and Ivan Fogarashii-Berezhanyn (1833) argued against the use of the vernacular in writing and promoted Church Slavonic as a pan-Slavic literary language.31 While a seminarian at the Barbareum, Luchkai attended lectures by the Slovene philologist Jernej Kopitar, and in an epilogue to his grammar, he credits the influence of the Czech founder of Slavic philology Josef Dobrovsky. These and other linguists deduced the idea of Slavic unity from the scientific comparative study of the Slavic languages. Luchkai begins with the assumption of cultural and linguistic kinship, and in an extensive introduction he sets forth his ideas on the creation of a literary language for the Subcarpathian Rusyns. In accord with Dobrovsky's two-language principle, Luchkai insisted on the distinction between a spoken language for the masses and a written pan-Slav language for the educated. 'No literary language is identical with the common language, because that could occur only if the peasant were born with those ideas and concepts which the educated person acquires by means of reading and study' (Luchkai, Hramatyka slov'iano-rus'ka, 48). Luchkai was critical of the tendency to replace Slavonic with the popular language, disputing the idea that the latter would be more accessible to the broad masses. To master a literary language, he argued, one must study its grammar, and the common man would find it just as difficult to achieve a more perfected style in the popular language as to study Church Slavonic. Abandoning the traditional Slavonic, he felt,

94 Straddling Borders would lead to linguistic separatism and threaten the existence of the individual dialects, which might then be 'swallowed up' by foreign languages. Like Luchkai, Ivan Fogarashii absorbed the ideas of early pan-Slavism in Vienna and participated in the newly established circles for the study of native dialects. In his discourse on Slavic dialects, he contends that while they should be studied, they should not be raised to the status of literary languages ('V obshche o razlichii Slavianskikh narechii, sobstvenno zhe o malo i Karpato ili ugrorusskikh,' in Svientsitskii, Materialy, 1: 46-56). Ironically, the concerted effort of early Slavic philologists to defend Church Slavonic as an Orthodox pan-Slav literary standard in fact drew attention to the popular language. Luchkai felt that there was no need for a grammar of the Carpatho-Rusyn vernacular language, since, in his opinion, it did not differ substantially from Slavonic, and he included dialectal forms in his grammar only to demonstrate how little this language deviated from 'its mother.' Following the model of Dobrovsky and contemporary Hungarian grammars, Luchkai provides a supplement of original works of oral creation, fables, proverbs, songs and riddles under the rubric 'Examples of Rusyn style,' which, he says, 'are written as they would be told by an uneducated peasant' (Hramatyka slov'iano-rus'ka, 168).32 Thus, while the goal of his grammar was to strengthen Slaveno-Rusyn, Luchkai was also the first to give an account of the colloquial dialect. While Luchkai and Fogarashii propose a theory of styles reminiscent of Lomonosov's high, middle, and low styles and celebrate the putative purity of Slavonic, in practical terms a mixture of levels was inevitable. Luchkai's second work was a collection of fifty-seven sermons, Tserkovnyia besiedy na vsie nedieli roka na pouchenie narodnoe (Sermons for Each Week of the Year for Popular Instruction, 1831), which might be expected to manifest his theoretical views. However, in the preface to his sermons, Luchkai notes that since 'the Biblical style is not easy to understand,' and since the simple language is not appropriate for lofty concepts of faith and morals, he chose 'the middle path.' He writes: 'I tried to use what is expressed well in Rusyn and what is easily comprehensible from Biblical language. For the Rusyn people does not like the simple language in church, but is pleased by a middle style' (cited in V. Pogorielov, Karpatorusskie etiudy, 20). In fact, Luchkai's language is a mixture of the Church Slavonic he presented in his Grammar and Rusyn dialect, which he described in the poetic supplement. In creating this mixed language, Luchkai was following the model set by Lomonosov in Russia. The result was artificial in a sense, but it did not prevent the book from being read and appreciated, and if conditions had allowed for publication and dissemination, it might have been the first step toward the creation of a literary standard.

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Subsequent scholars and historians, preoccupied with the nineteenth-century emphasis on the 'purity' of language, underestimated its value as a communicative code. Later, in 1893, Evmenii Sabov, a Rusyn literary historian, pointed out: '[Luchkai's] sermons, with all the defects in the purity of their style, exerted great influence and became favourite reading for the simple people. Priests imitated him in composing their "instructions," and the simple people became accustomed to this mixed language and understood it, as they did Kutka's Catechism' (Khrestomatiia, 194). It requires a postmodern perspective toward language to recognize that 'what is a deviation for one beholder is a communicative act for another language user.'33 In fact, Luchkai's linguistic ambivalence reflects a conscious functional view of language. He attempts to create a middle style in his sermons for the people, but to reach an international scholarly audience, he wrote his sixvolume History of the Carpatho-Rusyns (1843) in Latin, a language which at that time was losing its pre-eminence in scholarship but was still the official language of Hungary. In practice Luchkai acknowledges the inevitability of linguistic hybridity, while his theory, following the received scholarly opinion of the time, insisted on a pure Slavonic as the only possible Rusyn literary language. As a result, his legacy to the Rusyn intelligentsia was linguistic uncertainty, which left them in an untenable in-between position. 'Some saw in him nothing more than an attempt to introduce Church Slavonic into literature; others saw an attempt to introduce the vernacular into literature. Both camps found partial foundation for their views in the examples and the grammar of M. Luchkai' (Birchak, Literaturni stremlinnia Podkarpats'koi Rusy, 83). For his patriotic and cultural activities, Luchkai is considered a forerunner of the literary renaissance in the western Rus' lands. Known throughout the Slavic world, he met with the Polish Slavist Roman Kucharszki, shared with him his collection of Subcarpathian folklore, and through him exerted influence on the 'Ruthenian Triad,' a group of poets who sparked the national awakening in Galicia.34 For his efforts on behalf of his people Luchkai was mentioned alongside Smotryts'kyi, Zyzanii, Karamzin, Obradovic, Dobrovsky, Nejedly, and Vuk Karadzic as one of the pantheon of Slavic leaders listed in Jan Kollar's epic, Sldvy dcera (The Daughter ofSlava, 1832).35 Under more favourable socio-economic and political conditions, Luchkai's linguistic ambivalence might have been productive. Under the prevailing circumstances, and given the contradictory influences of church, state, and outdated Russian literature, it is not surprising that the culturally insecure Rusyn intelligentsia sought safety in tradition, in their faith in the supremacy of pure Slavonic. The inability to adapt linguistic tradition and theory to accommodate reality would hobble the development of Rusyn language and literature through-

96 Straddling Borders out the nineteenth century and into the twentieth. Tomislav Longinovic speaks of the dualism that is characteristic of Slavic cultures: Historical and economic development did not allow for an intermediate zone of culture to develop as rapidly as it did in the western part of the European continent. Trade and printing technology initiated the consolidation of the middle classes by the sixteenth century in the West, while the Slavic feudal lords actively worked to destroy the bourgeoisie in East-Central Europe. The region remained locked in a binary model of cultural identity, constructing a peculiar model of 'for or against' ideology and the already proverbial Slavic extremism both in politics and culture ... The lack of a neutral, intermediate zone of cultural values makes it impossible for the course of history to perform a complete break with the old and achieve a qualitatively new stage in the future ... It shows the extent to which the Slavic world was retarded by its inability to allow for the development of the middle classes. (Longinovic, Borderline Culture, 3, 7)

In Subcarpathian Rus', the gap between the educated class and the peasantry was absolute. The Church Slavonic tradition was sustained by acclamation, and facts to the contrary were ignored. As a result, there could be no linguistic compromise between high and low cultures. Ukrainian critics of Subcarpathian literature interpret the Rusyn tie to Slavonic as elitism, pointing as a contrast to Ivan Kotliarevs'kyi, whose mock epic Enei'da (1791-6) introduced the use of the vernacular as the language of Ukrainian literature. Indeed, it is frequently the creative work of one talented individual that provides impetus for language reform. While there was no lack of talent or intelligence among the Subcarpathian intelligentsia, there were few outlets for creative activity in the conservative, church-dominated intellectual community, in which the pursuit of literature was seen as a diversion. Luchkai rejected criticism of Carpathian Rus' as an 'unknown country' bereft of talent. As evidence, he named several clerical writers and scholars, 'so burdened with eparchial duties that they are not able to bring profit to their people in the field of literature' (Hramatyka, 50). Another exceptional priest-scholar was Vasyl' Dovhovych (1783-1849), who came from a peasant background and was educated in Trnava and Uzhhorod, where, after the death of Bishop Bachyns'kyi, Church Slavonic had given way to Latin and Hungarian. Naturally talented in music, art, and literature, Dovhovych studied the philosophy of Kant, Fichte, and Schelling, as well as the physical sciences. For his original philosophical treatises, written in Latin and published in Hungarian scholarly journals, he was elected a corresponding member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in 1831. In 1832 he compiled

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an extensive manuscript collection of verse, entitled Poemata Basilii Dohovits, containing a preface, an autobiography, a bibliography, and 190 poems.36 Of these, 131 are in Latin, 41 are Hungarian, and 18 are in Rusyn vernacular. The Latin poems include meditations, solemn odes, poems on scientific and philosophical themes, and epigrams on figures from world culture, including Spinoza, Kant, and Mirabeau, with references to Fichte and Benjamin Franklin. The vernacular verses are short, humorous lyrics, their content based on peasant reality or adapted from German or Hungarian folklore. Only two of Dovhovych's verses, one in Latin and one in Rusyn vernacular, found their way into print during his lifetime. Dovhovych's vernacular verse reveals poetic talent and an appreciation for native creativity. One of his classical imitations of folk songs was included in Luchkai's Slaveno-Rusyn Hramatyka as an illustration of versification and imagery. He also wrote travesties and drinking songs. His thirteen-stanza poem 'Pianytsia y eho korchazhytsia' (A Drunk and His Drinking Mug) is a Subcarpathian reworking of the Hungarian bordal, or drinking song, popularized by Mihaly Csokonai (1773-1805).

My precious little darling, / My good old brandy jug! / 1 would not trade you for my sister / Or my very dear sweetheart. // Round as can be is your little mouth / And how wonderful is your face. / If only you were here to kiss me / I would let my wife go on sleeping. //... O, if only I were a magician, /1 would turn you into my wife, / Would that you give birth to girls, / Four little brandy pots.37

Dovhovych's verse demonstrates a successful, creative use of the vernacular

98 Straddling Borders language in various forms of versification, and the coarse humour of these poems recalls the kotliarevshchyna of Ukrainian literature. In the period of late classicism, the vernacular was appropriate in the genre of travesty and in folk stylizations, but in Subcarpathia there was, generally speaking, no scholarly outlet for such verse, which held little appeal for the denationalized intelligentsia. Following the standards of their time, the Rusyn poets, like Tarkovych, took only cautious steps toward integrating the vernacular language in 'higher' artistic forms. The interest in folk literature would come only with the rise of romanticism, which was just beginning in the Slavic lands. Writing in the 1930s, literary historian Nedziel'skii says of Dovhovych and his contemporary, the philosopher and historian loann Churhovych (1791-1862), that they were inundated by western education and, as a result, largely indifferent to their own native culture. While it is easy, in retrospect, to bemoan the loss to local literature of these talents who chose to devote themselves to metropolitan culture, it should be noted that arguments over language choice go on even today in minority cultures, where the obstacles to education and publication are much less limiting than they were for the Rusyns of the Hapsburg empire. 'If I am a Rusyn, I will go to Rus" In the Hapsburg empire at the turn of the nineteenth century, the Rusyn intelligentsia found few outlets for intellectual and creative activity. They could serve their own people as clergy, but the position of parish priest in a peasant village held little attraction for them and made no effective use of their metropolitan education. Making a career in the Hungarian kingdom was problematic for members of an unrecognized Slavic minority and would entail a complete abandonment of their native language and culture. Those educated Rusyns who were unwilling to forsake their ethnic identification faced a problem common to colonial nationalists, 'the problem of self-fashioning: finding a position of cultural integrity from which to speak' (Boehmer, Colonial and Postcolonial Literature, 114). Situated between their own denigrated local culture, in which they were uncomfortable and ineffectual, and the dominant European culture of Hungary, to which they were not admitted as equals, they had no foundation upon which they could construct a new selfhood for themselves and raise the conditions and consciousness of their debased Rusyn culture. A typical escape for oppressed peoples is to retreat into history and myth in search of ancestral affiliations and communal memory that might provide authentication for their uncertain sense of self. The Rusyns of Subcarpathia had an alternate option; they could seek out ethnic affinities in the real world among their fellow Slavs. In particular, they were drawn to their

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most prominent brothers and co-religionists in Russia, where their hybrid background of Slavic roots and European education made them especially welcome. In the first years of the nineteenth century, the Russian government of Aleksandr I, led by Mikhail Speranskii, had launched a wide-ranging series of reforms in law, education, and administration. Between 1802 and 1820, four new lycees (in Tsarskoe Selo, Odessa, Kremianets', and Nizhyn) and five universities (in Derpt, Vilna, Kazan', Kharkiv, and St Petersburg) were founded. Because of the shortage of adequately trained personnel among its own population, the Russian government was eager to take advantage of foreign expertise, especially when the educated individuals were also Slavs who shared the same faith and language. Rusyns from Subcarpathia found in Russia an opportunity to apply their scholarly knowledge and European experience, and they were to make significant contributions to the development of Russian education, philosophy, medicine, jurisprudence, and Slavic studies. At the same time, from a position beyond the borders of their homeland, they redefined themselves and their native people and elaborated a paradigm for Rusyn cultural identity that persisted throughout the nineteenth century. In 1791, Ivan Orlai (1771-1829) arrived in Russia. There is anecdotal evidence concerning his motivation for emigration. Working as a teacher in the lower classes of an Austrian gymnasium, Orlai sought a promotion. Although he excelled in the competition, he was denied the position because of his nationality. 'Well, if I am a Rusyn,' responded Orlai, 'then I will go to Rus" (Kukol'nik, 'I. S. Orlai,' in Litsei kniazia Bezborodko, 72). Educated in philology, medicine, and theology at universities in L'viv and Budapest, he continued his education at the Medical-Surgical Institute in St Petersburg and the University of Vienna. In St Petersburg he served as court surgeon and was active in organizing the Russian medical profession. In 1803, he submitted a proposal to the ministry of education to supplement the Russian-language teaching staff in Russia by inviting Carpatho-Rusyns, 'since they usually know Church Slavonic thoroughly.' He justified his proposition by asserting the forgotten kinship of Carpatho-Rusyns with Russians. Cut off from their mother Russia, from ancient times Russians (poccmme) have populated the Carpathian mountains, allotted to them by the nation that ruled them. Like a branch cut off from its tree, they have been neglected for several centuries and consigned to oblivion even by the Russian chroniclers. But animated by the sense of their cultivated origin and by the grandeur of the people of whom they are an outgrowth, they have never lacked for worthy men, who have, in their own fields, brought fame to the name 'Russian.'38

100 Straddling Borders He lists the names of several recommended individuals and concludes: There is no doubt that these Carpatho-Rusyns, presently educating members of another religion and another nation who hold various prejudices against them, would gladly devote their labour and talent to their ancient fatherland Russia and train the minds of their brothers, rather than foreigners. They will accept such confidence in them on the part of Russia with joy, that besides the satisfaction of being of service to their kin and co-religionists, they might acquire advantages in remuneration for their talents and their diligence in Russia, which in the service of Austria they cannot achieve without extreme difficulty, due to the restrictions set by Catholics, as well as other political circumstances. (Baitsura, Zakarpatoukrainskala intelligentsiia v Rossii, 27)

At the same time, Orlai made efforts to familiarize the Russian public with his native land. His article, 'A History of the Carpatho-Russians,' appeared in St Petersburg's Sievernii viestnik in 1804 (reproduced in Svientsitskii, Materialy, 1:56-83). Orlai explained the conditions of oppression under which the Rusyn nationality existed in the Austrian empire and encouraged Russian scholars to take an interest in their Subcarpathian brothers. In numerous articles, reviews, and letters to the Society for Russian History and Antiquities, of which he was a member, Orlai disseminated knowledge about the Rusyn people. 'These Carpatho-Russians have maintained the name Ruskii or Rusin, the ancient appellation of the people of Rus'... Living for many centuries under the Hungarian state, they have preserved to this day their adherence to the Greek Catholic faith and the Rus1 language in a dialect that is, surprisingly, much purer than that of contemporary Kiev.'39 The reception of his work among the Russian intelligentsia is indicated by the fact that Karamzin mentions Orlai and quotes from his Sievernii viestnik article in Istoriia gosudarstva Rossiiskago (The History of the Russian State).40 In texts such as these, Orlai began the creation of a Rusyn 'auto-ethnography,' a term Mary Louise Pratt defines as 'texts in which people undertake to describe themselves in ways that engage with representations others have made of them.' Constructed in response to and in dialogue with those representations, they are part of the 'intricate transcultural pragmatics of communication.' Auto-ethnographic texts are not authentic forms of self-representation. Rather, they involve a selective collaboration with and appropriation of the idioms of the dominant power, which are then merged with the indigenous idiom. They are often addressed both to metropolitan audiences and to the speaker's community (Pratt, 'Transculturation and Autoethnography,' in Barker, Hulme and Iversen, eds., Colonial Discourse /Postcolonial Theory, 28). Thus,

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Orlai takes the name 'Rusyn,' a term of opprobrium for the Magyars, valorizes it, and creates from it a narrative of identity ('If I am a Rusyn, I will go to Rus"). From this deliberate engagement with what the Magyars think his world is, he articulates an auto-ethnographic narrative that draws on local constructs of national identity and expresses resistance to Hungarian domination. Orlai also needed to persuade the Russians to accept the Rusyn version of their legacy of connection, and to form and elevate the consciousness of his own people. Thus, his discourse of self-identification is addressed in three directions and engages several cultures. Based on ancient genealogical and spiritual ties to the Russian state, religion, and language, Orlai's auto-ethnographic representation depicts Rusyns as victims of injustice at the hands of alien masters, who can reach national fulfilment through identification and relationship with Russia. This narrative of identity, constructed by the Rusyn intelligentsia, underlies the national awakening at mid-century and informs Rusyn self-representation into the twentieth century. In response to Orlai's proposal, three of his countrymen came to St Petersburg in 1803^, all possessing academic credentials from European institutions and pedagogical experience. Petro Lodii (1764-1829), Mykhai'l Baludians'kyi (17691847), and Vasyl' Kukol'nyk (1765-1821) became professors at the St Petersburg Pedagogical Institute. Upon the formation of St Petersburg University in 1819, Kukol'nyk became professor of Roman and Russian law, Lodii became dean of the faculty of jurisprudence, and Baludians'kyi was named the university's first rector. These Rusyns were integrated into the life of the liberal Russian intelligentsia. They took an active part in the reforms of the time and were in positions to exert influence on individuals and on the development of Russian society. Kukol'nyk's books on economy and law were standard texts, and his lectures on natural law were popular among young liberals. The Decembrist A.P. Bariatinskii was one of his students. Baludians'kyi was appointed to numerous government commissions and worked with Mikhail Speranskii, the most notable statesman of the time and the spearhead of reform, on the codification of Russian law. Petro Lodii, who had written poetry in his homeland in praise of Russian science, taught and published in the area of philosophy and political science. In addition to those in St Petersburg, Rusyns served at the University of Kharkiv, founded in 1804, where Andrii Dudrovych became rector in 1829. Also on the faculty there were Mykhail Bilevych and his brother Ivan Bilevych. Ivan Dudrovych was director of the Richelieu lycee in Odessa, and when the Bezborodko Institute was established in Nizhyn in 1820, its first director was Vasyl' Kukol'nyk. After Kukol'nyk's death the following year, Ivan Orlai stepped in and headed the institution for five years. The Slavic patriotism of the Rusyns from Subcarpathia appealed to the

102 Straddling Borders tsarist government administration. During the political reaction of the last decade of Aleksandr's reign, when efforts were made to root out all liberal and controversial influences from the educational system, Rusyns were expected to be more politically and ideologically reliable than other foreigners. When a university was established in Kazan' in 1820, the reactionary administrator of the Kazan' school district wrote in a memorandum to the Minister of Education and Procurator of the Holy Synod, Prince A.M. Golitsyn: 'There is one people from whom we can request scholars, the Carpatho-Russians, who speak our language and preserve the faith of our fathers' (cited in Baitsura, Zakarpatoukrainskaia intelligentsiia v Rossii, 33). However, this expectation failed to take into account the complementary elements in the Rusyn hybrid - their advanced European education and their experience of national discrimination. Baludians'kyi popularized the ideas of Adam Smith in Russia and set the tone for the teaching of political economy in St Petersburg (ibid., 67). Lodii critiqued the philosophical ideas of Kant, Schelling, Berkeley, and Hume, asserted the natural (not religious) origin of philosophy, and taught that all peoples have a part in the formation of philosophical thought. It was the Rusyn scholars who first introduced the concept of natural law and the social contract into Russia. In his textbook, Kukol'nyk states that 'man, conceived outside of civil law, that is, in his natural state, already possesses rights, the perception and utilization of which are derived from his own common sense' and that only the necessity for protection prompted the rise of governments, based on the 'social contract' (Baitsura, Zakarpatoukrainskaia intelligentsiia v Rossii, 127-8). Lodii's lectures developed the idea that the object of the state is to preserve man's natural, inalienable rights, namely to freedom, property, and security, and the right to resist oppression. Baludians'kyi's lecture notes express democratic principles and an apprehension of colonialism that might have derived from his experience as a Rusyn in Hungary: The introduction of private property is the reason for the introduction of state power; the strong and the rich become tsar, the poor and weak become their subjects... Has there not been an increase in slavery in our time? (which results either from conquest, or the subjection of those without land to owners; consequently is it not true that those who have more land, also have more slaves?)' (ibid., 140). As the political reaction intensified, Golitsyn accused these professors, among others, of 'teaching in a spirit contrary to Christianity and subversive of the social order.' Their textbooks were censored, and university courses in natural law were prohibited. In the campaign that ensued, known as the 'freethinking affair,' Lodii was among the professors dismissed as revolutionaries and rabble-rousers, and Baludians'kyi, then rector of the university, resigned in protest. Besides these three, Orlai and Aleksander

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Dudrovych were dismissed from their teaching posts in the widespread purges of educational institutions (ibid., 125-50). In the years leading up to the Decembrist revolt, Rusyns were also active in the movement of Russian Freemasonry, which had become a forum for the discussion of liberal political views. Orlai was a member of the Petersburg lodge of Aleksandr of the Crowned Pelican. Lodii, along with Mikhail Speranskii, belonged to the Lodge of the Polar Star in 1809-10, and in 1818-19 he joined the lodge of Aleksandr of the Triple Salut. Dudrovych belonged to the Odessa Lodge Pont-Euxin (Bakounine, Repertoire biographique des Francs-Masons russes, 303^4-, 318, 380). In 1826, a statement was required from all state servants declaring their relationship to any secret societies. Orlai declared that he had been a member of the Aleksandr lodge in St Petersburg for a short time in 1810. He cited as reasons for membership his interest in philanthropy, charity, and 'in general, the execution of Christian and civic beneficence' (Baitsura, Zakarpatoukrainskaia intelligentsia v Rossii, 131). Recent studies of Russian Freemasonry have modified some of the previous assumptions about the radical nature of the Petersburg lodges. While Freemasonry did not provide a vehicle for social reform, it was effective in the propagation of the ideal of human perfection and in the encouragement of philanthropic attitudes (Leighton, 'Freemasonry in Russia,' 244-61). Through their membership in Masonic lodges and their involvement in government and education, Rusyns were in positions that lent them influence on the development of Russian culture and society. Possible contacts between Rusyns and Russian literary figures have scarcely been explored, but many such contacts must have existed. It is known that Orlai was acquainted with Nikolai Karamzin, and that he conducted a debate with the linguist Keppen on the proper definition of the Uhro-Rusyn dialect. While studying in Vienna, he had met the German poet Goethe, and maintained a correspondence with him from Russia. One of Petro Lodii's students in St Petersburg was PA. Pletnev, poet of the Pushkin pleiad, critic, editor of The Contemporary, and eventually professor of Russian literature and rector of St Petersburg University. Lodii and Baludians'kyi were among the scholars who took part in the examination at the Tsarskoe Selo lycee on 4 January 1815, when one of the students tested was Aleksandr Pushkin. And four days later, at the examination in Latin, French, and Russian, Orlai and Vasyl' Kukol'nyk witnessed Derzhavin's legendary acknowledgment of Pushkin's poetic talent. Even after leaving Petersburg, Orlai maintained ties with the Tsarskoe Selo lycee, since his son was a student there, one course behind Pushkin (Shternberh, 'Zakarpattsi v otochenni Pushkina,' 65-70). Nestor Kukol'nyk, son of the Rusyn emigrant and a fellow student of Gogol's at the Nizhyn Institute, became a Russian dramatist and

104 Straddling Borders novelist, known primarily for his patriotic plays on historical themes. And N.I. Bilevych, the son of Ivan Bilevych, also a student at Nizhyn, became a scholar and critic of Russian literature (Litsei kniazia Bezborodko, 2: 14-17, 87-94). The Rusyn emigres found in Russia the opportunity denied them in their own country. They were able to apply their education in activities that contributed to the greater good of their adopted country, while they nurtured their Rusyn identity and advanced its cause among the Russian intelligentsia. In response to Magyar oppression, they constructed a Rusyn auto-ethnography that turned ethnic disparagement into ancestral pride and alienation into belonging. From a position of equality, or for that matter of social and intellectual pre-eminence, the Rusyns in St Petersburg asserted their Slavic filiation with Russia and their familial rights, and this self-representation was subsequently recognized and validated by the Russian Slavophiles. Drawing on their European education, they transmuted a distinct experience of poverty and persecution into a universal doctrine of social and political reform, 'seeing their own history as an aspect of the history of all subjugated men and women,' a concept that, as Edward Said has noted, is remarkable even in modern times (Said, Culture and Imperialism, 214). For Rusyn posterity, they became part of the auto-ethnography they initiated, living evidence that the Rusyn people, under impartial circumstances, were capable of taking their place in the world and making substantial contributions to scholarship, education, government, economics, and advanced civilization. It is an unfortunate irony that political relations between Russia and Hungary made it impossible for them to apply themselves to the benefit of their own people. Before emigration to Russia, Baludians'kyi had been under police surveillance in Hungary, suspected of involvement in revolutionary activities, and after emigration all the Rusyns were restricted in their ability to communicate with their homeland. As a result, Subcarpathia was deprived of progressive thought and potential leadership, and for their own people, the Rusyns' achievements in Russia had value only as symbolic inspiration, rather than practical influence. Rusyn/Russian/Ukrainian Literature While literary influence travels easily from the cultural centre to the margins, the reverse direction has historically been less likely. However, the Rusyns who migrated to Russia may have left an imprint not only on Russian education and government, but also on Russian literature in the initial stages of its development. From the perspective of Russian literary scholarship, it has scarcely been mentioned, but the view from the margin reveals points of significant contact. When Ivan Orlai served as director of the Nizhyn Institute,

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his most famous student was Nikolai Gogol, the master of Russian prose. It was through the acquaintance of Kukol'nyk and Orlai with D.P. Troshchyns'kyi, the owner of the estate that Gogol's father managed, that Nikolai Vasilievich entered the gymnasium. The twelve-year-old Gogol informed his parents of Orlai's arrival in a letter of 6 October 1821. 'With great pleasure I inform you of our local news, which you will find interesting. We are expecting any day the arrival of the new director who has been assigned to our gymnasium. The director is Doctor Orlai, whom you know from [Troshchyns'kyi's estate] Kybyntsi' (Gogol1, Polnoe sobranie sochinenii, 10: 36). Orlai maintained a correspondence with Gogol's parents, sending them the following assessment of their son's progress in 1824: 'Dear sir, most respected friend Vasilii Afanas'evich! I know how much you love your son; therefore, I must first of all inform you that he is healthy and studying well ... It is a pity that your son is sometimes lazy, but when he applies himself, he does as well as the others, which indicates his excellent abilities' (cited in lofanov, N.V. Gogol', 273). By all accounts, Orlai was a humane and progressive educator, known as 'a man of advanced convictions for his time,' and well liked by his students. He believed that universal public education for all classes of children was the best guarantee of productive citizens and a moral society, and that stipends should be made available to ensure that the children of the poor were educated along with the wealthy. While the Nizhyn Institute remained a school for the privileged, Orlai for the first time admitted non-resident students. He defended the freedom of instructors to make their own teaching plans, insisted on high standards for teachers and students, asked for higher salaries for teachers, promoted the free exchange of ideas between faculty and administration, introduced the study of Greek and a course in natural law, and employed gentle forms of discipline. During his tenure as director, the Nizhyn gymnasium gained a reputation for its 'democratic spirit' (lofanov, 279). Orlai is most likely the prototype for Alexandr Petrovich, the head of the educational establishment described at the beginning of the second volume of Gogol's Dead Souls.41 It is difficult to document any specific influence of Orlai on Gogol, although Transcarpathian scholars have posited it, attributing Gogol's interest in Ukrainian and Carpathian folklore to him (Lintur, 'Vlianie russkoi literatury na tvorchestvo zakarpatskikh pisatelei,' 140). Certainly Orlai would have reinforced Gogol's natural affinity to local culture, which was expressed so clearly in his first works Vechera na khutore bliz Dikanki (Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka, 1831) and Mirgorod (1835). One of the most evocative stories from his first collection, 'Strashnaia mest' (A Terrible Vengeance), is set in the Carpathian region. 'A Terrible Vengeance' is sufficiently different from the

106 Straddling Borders other Dikanka stories to suggest a special inspiration. Orlai's influence is felt in Gogol's remark in the introduction to his story that 'until you get to the Carpathian Mountains you may hear Russian speech, and just beyond the mountain there are still here and there echoes of our native tongue.' The only story from this collection that is totally devoid of humour, it is replete with mystery, sorcery, and magic, qualities associated with the sombre Carpathian mountains. They stand, Gogol writes, like a huge horseshoe between the Galician and Hungarian peoples ... There are no such mountains in our country. The eye shrinks from viewing them and no human foot has climbed to their tops. They are a wonderful sight. Were they perhaps caused by some angry sea that broke away from its wide shores in a storm and threw its monstrous waves aloft only to have them turn to stone, and remain motionless in the air? Or did heavy storm clouds fall from heaven and cumber up the earth? For they have the same gray color and their white crests flash and sparkle in the sun. (Collected Tales and Plays of Nikolai Gogol, 163)

Gogol's Carpathians are haunted by a mysterious horseman, whose existence is explained only in the final chapter, along with the motivation for plot, characterization, and the atmosphere of foreboding. In revenge for an ancient murder and betrayal, the murderer's corpse is destined to be gnawed by his ancestors in a bottomless pit beneath the Carpathians for all eternity. 'And so it all was fulfilled; the strange horseman still sits on his steed in the Carpathians and sees the dead men gnawing the corpse in the bottomless abyss and feels how the dead Petro grows larger under the earth, gnaws his bones in dreadful agony, and sets the earth quaking fearfully' (ibid., 173). The first depiction of the Carpathian region in Russian literature, Gogol's vision, coloured by the influence of folklore and romanticism and inscribed in motifs of violence, sinister mystery, and vague peril, set the tone for subsequent literary descriptions into the twentieth century. Gogol's Carpathians are an imagined or constructed space, a stereotype that is not unlike the standard colonial discourse characterized by Edward Said as 'Orientalism.' Even more important than encouraging Gogol's interest in local folklore, Orlai may also have influenced Gogol's use of Russian as a literary language. Orlai supported instruction in classical and modern foreign languages, and his pedagogical approach to teaching these languages was, even by modern standards, innovative. Soon after his arrival at Nizhyn, Orlai issued a directive on the teaching of modern language that mandated a 'total immersion' approach. On specified days of the week, students were to use only the language being studied, and in order that they might have as much practice as possible, it was

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required that even the support staff of the school, such as footmen and waiters, should know a foreign language (Speranskii, ed., Gogolevskii sbornik, 23, 338). However, in a proposal to the Ministry of Education concerning educational reforms, Orlai gave primacy to a firm knowledge of Russian. He promoted Russian for its utility as a general means of communication among Slavs, but also praised its beauty: 'In regard to the richness of the Russian language, there is no doubt that it can be considered the very richest. Its force, loftiness, eloquence, and richness incomparably surpass all the newer languages.'42 Orlai's recommended syllabus for Russian language study at the Nizhyn gymnasium stressed a thorough presentation of Russian language and literature, including etymology, orthography, prosody, syntax, rhetoric, and poetics. The list of classical and foreign prose writers and poets was complemented by Russian classicists and contemporaries: Emin, Karamzin, Lomonosov, Sumarokov, Kheraskov, Derzhavin, and Zhukovskii. While Ukrainian was primarily spoken in the Gogol family household and their correspondence shows a mixed language, Gogol chose not to follow the rising tendency to use Ukrainian in written literature. He explained his reasoning to a Ukrainian friend in words that recall those of the Rusyn philologists, 'We should write in Russian. One should strive to support and strengthen one dominant language for all of us kindred races (nvieMe'H), (cited in Luckyj, Between Gogol' and Sevcenko, 99). While his contemporary and countryman Taras Shevchenko consciously sought to fan the flames of Ukrainian nationalism in his poetry, Gogol deliberately blurred the boundaries between 'Little' and 'Great' Russia. He believed that by choosing to write in Ukrainian, Shevchenko had taken the wrong path, that great literature in Ukraine could be written only in Russian. While Soviet and Ukrainian critics have attributed Gogol's thoughts on language to his 'reactionary views,' George S.N. Luckyj objects that Gogol's opinion is an honest expression of disagreement with Shevchenko. However, he points out that Gogol's language 'never became purely Russian in spirit' and refers to 'the suffering which his inability to write in good Russian must have caused him.' 'The substratum of Gogol"s art and philosophy was Ukrainian. His humour and his moralism were the products of his native soil. He simply transplanted them into Russian literature ... Gogol"s profound unhappiness and his tragic end can be traced, in part at least, to his uprooting and his intense endeavour to be more Russian than the Russians' (ibid., 127). Luckyj attributes Gogol's choice of Russian to traits in his personality, particularly his ambition to succeed, that propelled him toward Russia, away from Ukrainian provincialism. By contrast, a more recent, post-Soviet evaluation by Russian scholar lurii Barabash recognizes the hybrid character of Gogol's literary work, describing it as part of 'the Russian branch of Ukrain-

108 Straddling Borders ian literature' (Pochva i sud'ba, 82). The implications of Gogol's choice of language cannot be analysed here, but the same issues will pertain to CarpathoRusyn writers who choose Russian as their literary language in the second half of the nineteenth century. Gogol's choice of literary language is a logical development of his view of his own national identity and the relation of Ukraine to Russia, which again raises the question of Orlai's influence. Gogol felt himself a part of all-Russian (o6ni,e-pyccKafl) culture, expressing even in his Ukrainian tales universal, rather than local, themes. George S.N. Luckyj, who has studied the contrast between Shevchenko and Gogol, attributes the latter's preference for Russian to the influence of D.P. Troshchyns'kyi, the patron of his family, who, in Luckyj's words, 'while bursting into tears over Ukrainian songs was ready to hasten the absorption of his country by Russia' (Between Gogol' and Sevcenko, 99). But certainly Gogol's national self-representation bears a close resemblance to the pan-Slavism advocated by Orlai, which argued not for absorption of one culture by the other, but for a recognition of their common roots and the complementarity of their related but distinct Slavic characters. Luckyj cites Gogol's own national definition: 'I myself do not know what soul I have ... Ukrainian (xox/iaTCKaa) or Russian. I only know that on no account would I give priority to the Little Russian before the Russian, nor to the Russian before the Little Russian. Both natures are richly endowed by God and each of them separately contains what the other lacks ... a sure sign that they should complement each other. Therefore, the very histories of their past existence are unlike each other so that different powers of their characters were developed in order to merge, later, into one, to create something more accomplished in mankind' (ibid., 123). Luckyj contrasts Gogol's aesthetic approach to Ukrainian folklore and history with Shevchenko's political nationalism, concluding that Gogol 'transcended nationality.' 'Gogol' was a Little Russian and Shevchenko a Ukrainian' (192). In fact, Gogol and Shevchenko represent two aspects of nationalism. While Shevchenko represents a traditional, separatist nationalism, Gogol's approach to cultural nationalism partakes of the postmodern features adumbrated by Edward Said and other contemporary postcolonial theorists; that is, 'a more integrative view of human community and human liberation' that recognizes that 'culture is never just a matter of ownership, of borrowing and lending with absolute debtors and creditors, but rather appropriations, common experiences, and interdependencies of all kinds among different cultures' (Culture and Imperialism, 127). After analysing Gogol's linguistic views and capabilities, the Russian literary scholar Dmitrii Ovsianiko-Kulikovskii concludes, 'While he was of Little Russian descent, by nationality he was not a Little Russian, but an all-Russian (o6m,epyc), that is, an all-Russian on a Little

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Russian foundation' (cited in Barabash, Pochva i sud'ba, 80). The same duality will become internalized in Subcarpathian Rus' in the early twentieth century, when Ukrainophile Rusyns take the path of Shevchenko and Russophiles follow Gogol's lead. This integrative all-Russian philosophy, which became popular in the Slavic world following the rise of pan-Slavism, was part of the auto-ethnography established by the Russophile intelligentsia from Subcarpathia. They sought to establish the individuality and cultural worth of their own people and of each Slavic nation toward the ideal of re-establishing Slavic unity. The defence of any of the small, dispossessed Slavic nations was a contribution to the reclamation of their own patrimony. One of the members of the Subcarpathian intellectual emigration became known as the 'national awakener' of the Bulgarian nation. lurii Venelin (1802-39), who came to Russia in 1823, was educated in Uzhhorod. He taught in a seminary in Kishineu and attended a Moscow medical institute, but abandoned medicine to concentrate on historical studies. In his published work he initiated and defended the idea that the Bulgarians were not of Turkic descent but were Slavs, and that their language was related to Russian. In fact, his interest in Bulgaria was part of a broader concern with the interrelated Slavic peoples. A.S. Shishkov, president of the Russian Academy of Sciences, backed Venelin's application for support in his studies, citing Venelin's intention to investigate the relationship between modern Bulgarian and 'the Little Russian, Carpatho-Russian and Great Russian dialects' (Saunders, Ukrainian Impact on Russian Culture, 226-7). In 1830, under the auspices of the Academy of Sciences, Venelin travelled through Moldavia, Bulgaria, and Romania, collecting and studying manuscripts. He wrote a grammar of Bulgarian and a history of Bulgarian literature, and composed the first program for teaching Slavic studies in Russia. A member of the Society of Russian History and Antiquities, he actively participated in the study and publication of Russian chronicles. He also contributed studies in the area of Carpatho-Rusyn and Ukrainian folklore, and promoted the cultural-national unity of the individual 'Rus' tribes.' As one of the fathers of Slavistics, Venelin's example influenced K.S. Aksakov, A.S. Khomiakov, M.R Pogodin, and other emerging Russian Slavophiles. In 1828, Pogodin referred to Venelin in Moskovskii vlestnik as 'a native Carpatho-Rusyn (karpatoruss), who knows Hungary, Transylvania, Galicia, and Bulgaria intimately, and has promised to provide us with information about everything relating to these countries' (cited in Svientsitskii, Materialy, 85). David Saunders comments, 'Only a sub-Carpathian Ukrainian, perhaps, would have perceived the unity of an area stretching from Bulgaria in the south, via Ukraine, to Russia' (Ukrainian Impact on Russian Culture, 227). The problems encountered by Rusyn cultural activists during this period

110

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entailed convincing other Slavic groups of the unity they perceived, thanks to their in-between perspective, and asserting a place for Rusyn culture within that unity. They had an acute consciousness of the problems and promise of Rusyn literature, deriving its inspiration from and contributing to Russian culture, but forced to survive within a hostile political context. Mimics and migrants learned to negotiate the cultural gap between their local culture and the metropolitan Hungarian and Russian worlds, and they began the process of defining their own 'otherness' by creating an auto-ethnography that would serve as a cognitive foundation for the next generation. The Slavophile aspirations they expressed served as a means of psychic survival and enabled Rusyn writers to launch the infant literature of their own nation into the culture of Central and Eastern Europe. However, their accomplishments in this period were addressed primarily to the dominant groups that surrounded them and were only symbolically important for their own people, and that with much delay. In practical terms, they had made little progress in building a concrete foundation that might support the weight of a national movement, which would require established organizations, a press, a literary language, and a common national identity. It was only with the political and social changes of the midnineteenth century that an opportunity arrived for cultural leaders to address the Rusyn people and initiate the construction of a Rusyn national culture.

3

Awakening to Rusyn Reality

(I was, I am, and I will be a Rusyn.) Aleksander Dukhnovych, 'Vruchanie'

The guiding force behind the Rusyn national awakening was Aleksander Dukhnovych (1803-65). The opening words of his poem 'Vruchanie' (Dedication, 1851), cited above, have achieved scriptural status for Rusyns and are ubiquitous in international Rusyn culture to the present day. They have appeared on the mastheads of newspapers and the banners of competing political factions, and they are carved in stone on numerous pedestals and monuments. They have been quoted reverentially in poetry, prose, polemics, and scholarship, and appear as the inevitable epigraph to almost any work that deals with Rusyn culture. The poem from which they are taken is an emotional valorization of Rusyn identity.

I came into the world in the Carpathians, / My first breath was Rusyn air, /1 was nourished by Rusyn bread, / A Rusyn rocked my cradle. (Dukhnovych, Tvory, 1: 248-51)1

Dukhnovych's poem was almost immediately set to music and became the unofficial Rusyn national hymn. Whether sung as an indication of ethnic pride,

112 Straddling Borders or as consolation in oppression, Dukhnovych's poem provides 'an experience of simultaneity' and an 'echoed physical realization of the imagined community,' which, according to Benedict Anderson, is the purpose of a national anthem (Imagined Communities, 145).2 For dispersed Rusyns living in various states dominated by alien and often hostile powers, this affirmation of identity had unique cohesive force and became a constant motif in the counterpoint of Rusyn national culture. Dukhnovych was the cultural leader who almost single-handedly inspired the Rusyn national movement and he is honoured as the 'national awakener' of the Rusyns. His influence and legacy are unparalleled in Rusyn culture, and in subsequent internal disputes over national orientation he has been claimed as patron by proponents of opposing convictions. In the mid-nineteenth century, Dukhnovych tackled the practical problems hindering the development of Rusyn culture - the inadequacy of education, the lack of national organization, the paucity of books, and the scarcity of nationally minded intellectuals. Building upon the legendary mythologies of self-representation that animated the minds of the people, as well as the consciously constructed Rusyn auto-ethnography that was the legacy of previous generations of Rusyn thinkers, Dukhnovych began to transform ideology into actuality, and abstract notions of Rusyn identity into pragmatic Rusyn solidarity. In just a few years, Dukhnovych and a small group of like-minded individuals accomplished what took generations in other Slavic nations. Nonetheless, it must be acknowledged that the Rusyn national awakening had only limited success. Due to inherent weaknesses and external political forces, a stable, independent national culture did not emerge from Dukhnovych's efforts, and Rusyn culture was consigned by historical circumstances and subsequent cultural critique to continued marginality. However, as postcolonial theorists have noted, 'there is something to be said for failure.' In fact, 'as marginalized, subordinated discourses, subaltern insurgencies have historically been failures,' and even the most successful revolts demonstrate a record of cognitive failure (Sharpe, 'Figures of Colonial Resistance,' 152; Spivak, 'Subaltern Studies,' 199). Conversely, an analysis of the ultimate collapse of the nineteenth-century Rusyn national movement reveals numerous successes, the relative importance of which needs to be judged today in the context of a century's experience of national cultural liberation. It has become clear that certain major philosophical issues in postmodern thought have perennially preoccupied the builders of minor and marginal cultures in the past, as well as in the present. Accordingly, a new hermeneutic reading of the texts of the Rusyn national awakening questions the assumptions of traditional criticism, eschews patronizing condescension, and suggests new critical configurations. For example, contemporary syncretic models of cultural definition,

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which accept diversity and hybridity as foundations for aesthetics and cultural identity, more accurately than traditional models represent the Rusyn cultural awakening and are better suited to evaluate it. Combining the postulates of postcolonial theory with a realistic appreciation for cultural specificity, the successes and failures, ambiguities and contradictions of the Rusyn national revival can be explained as an idiosyncratic response to circumstances that nonetheless adhere to a universal pattern in the quest for self-formation. 'I am a Slav' The Rusyn awakening occurred in a political arena dominated by the rise of national consciousness and in the cultural context of international romanticism. Throughout early-nineteenth-century Europe, the study of history, folklore, popular languages, and national individuality fostered the development of national identity and encouraged aspirations to self-determination and popular sovereignty among intellectual elites. For the submerged Slavic groups in Austria-Hungary, the opportunity to recreate their communities sparked a process of cultural development that set a paradigm for the rebirth of national culture. Beginning in 1826 with the founding of the Matica srbska, various groups of Austro-Slavs organized scholarly-patriotic institutions, or maticas, for the advancement of popular education and culture. In addition to the Serbs, over the next four decades, the Czechs, Croats, Slovaks, and Slovenians founded such institutions, which functioned with various degrees of success (Kimball, The Austro-Slav Revival, and Slavianskie matitsy XIX vek). For the Rusyns of Subcarpathia, however, the obstacles on the path to national revival were particularly daunting. In Stanley Kimball's cogent characterization, The Ruthenians in Hungary were the most exploited, miserable, and nationally unconscious of all minorities in the monarchy' (Austro-Slav Revival, 75). Cut off from their fellow Rusyns in Galicia and Bukovina by natural and political boundaries, the Rusyn masses were 98 per cent illiterate, and the clerical intelligentsia and church hierarchy were almost thoroughly magyarized. With no Rusyn educational institutions or previously existing cultural societies, Rusyns in Hungary had only limited access to a Cyrillic printing press, and there were no local Rusyn newspapers or scholarly journals. As a result, Rusyn cultural activists of the mid-nineteenth century were forced to start from scratch, creating the basic material foundations of culture before a national literary tradition could be disseminated. Moved to action by the example of other Slavic groups, Dukhnovych's evolution as a creator of Rusyn national culture was aided and influenced by developments in neighbouring fraternal cultures. A trip to L'viv in 1838 for the

114 Straddling Borders consecration of Vasylii Popovych as bishop of Mukachevo allowed him to make the acquaintance of Galician writers and cultural activists. The Rusyns of neighbouring Galicia were already in the midst of a national revival, as manifested by the recently published Pycanna flnrbcmpoeax (Nymph of the Dniester, 1837), an almanac of writings in the vernacular language. In a poem addressed to the poet and grammarian losyf Levyts'kyi (Tvory, 1: 189-92), Dukhnovych responded to the Galician literary achievement with a desire to fashion a Subcarpathian literary life on the same model. It is the first literary expression of his belief in an East Slavic unity, extending from Galicia to the Neva and the Volga, and his first assertion of Subcarpathian Rus' as a member of that East Slavic family. In the early nineteenth century, for philologists of the small dependent Slavic nations, comparative linguistics inspired movements toward Slavic unity. Convinced by linguistic affinity that the Slavs were one people the writers and poets who were the cultural leaders of the minority peoples found a sense of security in unity. Inspired by Herder's ideas, Slovaks Pavel Jozef Safaiik and Jan Kollar asserted the Slavs' cultural equality with surrounding peoples and encouraged the notion that only 'Slav reciprocity' would permit Slavic cultural activists to be 'national architects involved in the building of the temple of human culture.' For the Rusyns of Subcarpathia, who numbered about 400,000 in 1840 and were even more cut off from Western Europe than the other Slavic groups, the notion of Slav cultural alliance was understandably attractive. The construction of national consciousness is a process of self-definition. Built on tradition, legends, and mythologies of self-representation, a national culture is an assertion of legitimacy, a statement of values, an expression of praise for the actions through which the people has created itself, and hope for its continued survival. What frequently emerges from national movements is a defence of the purity and authenticity of the native culture and a claim to superiority that sets it apart from all others, that is, an essentialist conception of identity. By contrast, the pattern of Rusyn cultural resistance to the psychological and social oppression of the Hapsburg empire was not narrowly essentialist, but more broadly ethnic and linguistic in nature. To negotiate an intermediate course between essentialism and assimilation, Dukhnovych appealed to the discourse of Slavophilism. Confronted by, at best, indifferent neglect, and at worst by forthright disparagement from the dominant culture, the leaders of separate national groups reacted to Hungarian or German oppression with the creation of a Slav mythology and a celebration of their common Slavic identity. While Slavophilism held great sentimental appeal, the crossing of cultural and linguistic boundaries in a common discourse of self-conscious entities was simultaneously a defensive strategy. To use the terminology of postcolonial

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theory, the small Rusyn minority, through its spokesmen, aspired to define their own 'otherness.' Thus, their self-definition as Slavs was a form of psychological self-assertion, in which their collective identity was no longer 'other' but autonomous and self-sustaining. Moreover, Slavophilism provided practical protection. In face of the threat from the dominant alien culture, Rusyn culture seemed to be more secure as a component of Slav culture than it would be as an independent entity. The emergence of pan-Slav culture as a regional assertion of nationality anticipates postcolonial models of national self-apprehension. The model of Slav unity proposed by Kollar arrogated the authority of the privileged cultural centre and formulated a new constellation of national cultures: 'Each people (IUICMH) will be a planet spinning around one sun, Slavia, following its own path, and yet Slavia will influence each people as the peoples will influence one another' (Pynsent, Questions of Identity, 57). In the 1840s, Dukhnovych propelled the Rusyn people into the same orbit. Along with the leaders of other Slav groups, he replaced the Magyar cultural centre with the myth of 'Slavness' and perceived Rusyn culture as part of a revolving, intersecting, non-hierarchical national and cultural system. That is, he rejected the marginality imposed on individual Slavic cultures within the Hapsburg monarchy and, to use the terminology of postcoloniality, asserted 'the complex of intersecting "peripheries" as the actual substance of experience' (Ashcroft, Griffiths, and Tiffin, Empire Writes Back, 78). The model also provided a defensive nationalist strategy. Rusyn culture was safer in orbit around 'Slavia' than as an independent entity in a binary relationship with the oppressive centre. From 1838 to 1844, Dukhnovych occupied the position of consistory notary in Uzhhorod. During these years, he had access to the excellent episcopal library, where, he recalls, 'I spent the nocturnal hours reading the Rus' books that so tenderly captivated my soul' ('Kratkaiia biohrafiia,' Tvory, 3: 405). Surrounded by growing Magyar nationalism and magyarone sentiments among the Rusyn clergy, Dukhnovych found refuge in the works of Slavic national activists. Besides Slovaks Pavel Safarik and Jan Kollar, he studied the works of the Serbs Vuk Karadzic and Dosifej Obradovic and the Pole Adam Mickiewicz, and especially the literary works of the Russians, including Mikhail Lomonosov, Aleksandr Sumarokov, Gavrila Derzhavin, Denis Fonvizin, Nikolai Karamzin, and Aleksandr Pushkin. He maintained personal relationships with the Russian musician Konstantin Matezonskii, a Decembrist who had taken refuge in Uzhhorod; with the Slavist Izmail Sreznevs'kyi, professor of Kharkiv University; and with the Slovak writer and activist Bonus Nosak-Nezabudov - all of whom fostered in him Slavophile ideas and reawakened his filial relationship to Russia. Among the Rusyn intelligentsia, Dukhnovych found support for his

116 Straddling Borders literary and national philosophy in the Slavophile ideals of Hryhorii Tarkovych, Vasyl' Dovhovych, and Mykhailo Luchkai. It was during this period and under these influences that Dukhnovych's national and linguistic views were crystallized. As a result of his reading, he noted, 'I understood that I am a Russian (pyccidH). I remembered my grandfather's words, and I became Russian in body and soul. My thoughts rushed to the north and I thirsted to see the northern Jerusalem' ('Kratkaiia biohrafiia,' Tvory, 3: 405).3 Just as the Slovak progenitors of Slavophilism tended to merge the concepts Slovak and Slav, so too did Dukhnovych equate Rus1, Rusyn, and Russian. The emergence of Slavophilism as the first stage of Rusyn nationalism resonates with the observations of psychiatrist and political theorist Frantz Fanon on postcolonial Africa and the liberation of oppressed peoples in general. Fanon distinguishes a preliminary stage in the awakening of cultural consciousness as identification on a racial or continental level: The native intellectual who decides to give battle to colonial lies fights on the field of the whole continent ... Culture, extracted from the past to be displayed in all its splendor, is not necessarily that of his own country.' Citing the example of the colonial attitude to Africa, which did not distinguish Nigeria or Angola but saw the continent only as 'the Negro's country,' Fanon concludes that since 'colonialism's condemnation is continental in its scope,' the culture that is affirmed in response is at first African culture. Colonialism did not dream of wasting its time in denying the existence of one national culture after another. Therefore the reply of the colonized peoples will be straight away continental in its breadth ... The problem is not as yet to secure a national culture, not as yet to lay hold of a movement differentiated by nations, but to assume an African or Arabic culture when confronted by the all-embracing condemnation pronounced by the dominating power. In the African world, as in the Arab, we see that the claims of the man of culture in a colonized country are all embracing, continental, and in the case of the Arabs, worldwide. (Wretched of the Earth, 211-14)

Similarly, the small Slavic groups of the Hapsburg empire, for the most part undifferentiated by their colonial masters, opposed themselves to the dominant power first on the level of Slavic kinship. Deprived of any specific national dignity, the Hapsburg Slavs found psychic support in their common cultural heritage. Kollar was the first to urge the awakening of the Slavs as a single nation: 'For the first time after many centuries the various dispersed Slav tribes regarded themselves as One great nation and their various dialects as One language. They awaken to a national sentiment and long for a close tie' (quoted

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in Kohn, Pan-Slavism, 12). His poetic ode to Slavic solidarity, Sldvy dcera (Daughter of Slava), was all-embracing and 'continental' in scope, as demonstrated in Mother Slava's instructions on identity: Who art thou? A Russian; and thou? A Serb; and thou? A Czech; and thou? I am a Pole. My children: Unity! Speak not so, but say: I am a Slav. (Quoted in Kohn, Pan-Slavism, 10)

However, while he asserts the legitimacy and historical necessity of this stage in the consciousness of oppressed peoples, Fanon cautions that it should not be more than a transient phase. '[The] historical necessity in which the men of African culture find themselves to racialize their claims and to speak more of African culture than of national culture will tend to lead them up a blind alley ... Negro and African-Negro culture broke up into different entities because the men who wished to incarnate these cultures realized that every culture is first and foremost national' (Wretched of the Earth, 216). Correspondingly, the Slavic groups eventually moved from a pan-Slavic affirmation to the defence of individual national cultures as self-constituting entities. The Rusyns clung to the romantic notion of Slav reciprocity long past its initial usefulness, and while it may have allowed for cultural self-preservation, it ultimately hampered the development of a unique self-sustaining national culture. In the early decades of the nineteenth century, however, they saw only the advantages of belonging to a larger ethnic and linguistic community, and the particular features of the Rusyn awakening are best understood in that context. Evolution of a Rusyn Cultural Activist The story of Aleksander Dukhnovych's life and activity illustrates a distinct Rusyn response to the cultural, psychological, social, and political configurations of domination faced by cultural minorities in the Hapsburg empire, but it also conforms to modern accounts of the typical role of the native intellectual in the construction of a national culture. In 1963, Frantz Fanon outlined the emergence of national culture in the modern age. Most of his insights apply retrospectively to the awakening of Slavic national consciousness in the AustroHungarian empire. The examples of variance are equally illuminating. Aleksander Dukhnovych was born into a clerical family in the village of Topol'a in the Presov region of northeastern Slovakia.4 He was educated first in a parish school, then at the Uzhhorod gymnasium where, reflecting the Hungarian nationalist spirit of the times, instruction was conducted in Hungarian

118 Straddling Borders and Latin. Although Dukhnovych at first knew neither language, he was later to admit with shame that as a result of his gymnasium education, he had become alienated from his own people, their language and culture, that he had changed 'from a Rusyn to a Magyar' ('Kratkaia biohrafiia,' Tvory, 3: 402). At the Greek Catholic seminary in Uzhhorod, where Dukhnovych studied from 1823 to 1827, the primary language was Latin, and only after 1825 was Slaveno-Rusyn, the local version of Church Slavonic, used in certain courses. During his final two years of study, Dukhnovych took courses in pedagogy and pastoral theology in Slaveno-Rusyn, which undoubtedly began to shape his thoughts about the need for textbooks and instruction in the national language. The educational system is a powerful weapon of all colonial societies and its pressures are particularly insidious. Through curriculum, language, and the attitudes of teachers, education under conditions of political and cultural dominance often produces psychological dissonance in the minds of subject peoples, who are presented with a distorted vision of themselves as inherently inferior beings (see Ngugi, Decolonizing the Mind). Duknovych's educational experience is indicative of the extreme cultural denigration suffered by Rusyns at the hands of the dominant and exclusive Magyar culture. In his autobiography, Dukhnovych recalls being taught the sayings 'Tot nem ember, czudar orosz' (The Slovak is not a human being, the Rusyn is contemptible). The Magyars strove for the destruction of the Slavs, reviling everything Slavic, and they took hostile aim at the Rusyns ... in order to alienate poor Rusyns not only from their nationality but also from their Greek [Catholic] faith. The teachers themselves carried out this Jesuitic principle, and woe to the poor Rusyn in school, who was honoured with the names diszno orosz (Rusyn-pig), czudar orosz (contemptible Rusyn), and so on. The Rusyn never heard a respectful word, all the more perversely, since all the Rusyns were highly intelligent and talented. ('Kratkaia biohrafiia,' Tvory, 3: 402)

It is not surprising that such conscious oppression of Rusyn culture by the dominant Magyars effected in Dukhnovych's generation an alienation of identification and a crisis in self-image. And it is all the more understandable, then, that in a search for identity and authenticity, Dukhnovych would eventually cling to a legendary family genealogy that connected the Dukhnovych family to a Russian Prince Cherkasskii, a leader of the Streltsy revolt who, in the early eighteenth century, supposedly fled Moscow and settled in Topol'a. Now believed to be groundless, this version of Dukhnovych's genealogy informed his world-view and his national self-consciousness. Subsequently, it would fuel his cultural filiation with Russia.

Awakening to Rusyn Reality 119 After being ordained a celibate priest in 1827, Dukhnovych was appointed clerk and archivist at the eparchial chancery in Presov, where the Slovak national revival was already well advanced. There he witnessed the growth of Slovak national aspirations and made the acquaintance of local writers and cultural activists. At this time, he wrote his first literary works, two formal odes in the Slaveno-Rusyn language, praising the Russian victory over the Ottoman Turks. Unhappy in his position and incompatible with his superior, Bishop Tarkovych, Dukhnovych returned to Uzhhorod in 1830, where for the next two years he served as tutor in the family of the vice-governor, Istvan Petrovay. The atmosphere in the Petrovay home was Hungarian, liberal, and democratic. Here Dukhnovych began writing poems in Hungarian under the influence of the sentimental and political poetry of Ferenc Kolcsey and Janos Batsanyi. This formative metropolitan period of Dukhnovych's life represents what Fanon calls the first phase in the typical evolution of native writers, in which 'the native intellectual gives proof that he has assimilated the culture of the occupying power,' and his work reflects definite trends in the literature of the dominant culture (Wretched of the Earth, 222). In Dukhnovych's case, his earliest literary efforts mimicked the discourse of Russian neo-classicism and Hungarian sentimentalism. Called to return to Presov in 1832, Dukhnovych took up his work in the eparchial administration, but the following year his displeased bishop relegated him to the position of parish priest. He was assigned to a parish in the village of Komlosa (now Chmel'ova), and was transferred in 1833 to Beloveza, both in Saros county. Dukhnovych referred to the six years spent in Rusyn villages as exile from civilized culture, but ultimately the experience was crucial to his literary development and to the evolution of his ideas on national identity. Again, his conflicted feelings are typical of the alienated native intellectual who returns to his people, but 'is not a part of his people.' This period of the intellectual's creative work reflects an immersion in the life of his people expressed through a 'borrowed estheticism.' 'Past happenings of the byegone [sic] days of his childhood will be brought up out of the depths of his memory; old legends will be interpreted in the light of a borrowed estheticism and of a conception of the world which was discovered under other skies' (Fanon, Wretched of the Earth, 222). Indeed, Dukhnovych's poetry from the 1830s and into the 1840s derives from the aesthetic standards of European sentimentalism, rather than from Rusyn reality. Consisting mainly of melancholy meditations on loneliness, lost love, and isolation, with some allegory and satire, his poems only occasionally reveal traces of folk poetry and colloquial language. At the same time, in his imitations of the Russian classicists, aptly characterized as trediakovshchina for their turgid linguistic style (lavorskii, 'Znachenie i

120 Straddling Borders miesto Zakarpat'ia,' 16), Dukhnovych adapts religious and philosophical motifs to didactic moral precepts and personal emotion. But in all of his early work, there is a sense of estrangement and artificiality that corresponds to Fanon's generalization that a period of distress and difficulty often characterizes 'literature of just-before-the battle.' 'At the very moment when the native intellectual is anxiously trying to create a cultural work he fails to realize that he is utilizing techniques and language which are borrowed from the stranger in his country. He contents himself with stamping these instruments with a hallmark which he wishes to be national, but which is strangely reminiscent of exoticism. The native intellectual who comes back to his people by way of cultural achievements behaves in fact like a foreigner' (ibid., 223). Fortunately, this stage in Dukhnovych's evolution was short, and he soon began to appreciate his immersion among the people. Fanon maintains that the native intellectual eventually 'not only turns himself into the defender of his people's past; he is willing to be counted as one of them, and henceforward he is even capable of laughing at his past cowardice' (Wretched of the Earth, 218). Indeed, Dukhnovych came to rue his previous pretensions to Hungarian culture and admitted in his autobiographical notes, 'For the first time I was among Rusyns and discovered that I too am a Rusyn (pycHn). A Rusyn (pyccKoe) feeling was awakened in my soul and I began to read and write in Rusyn (nopyccKH)' ('Kratkaiabiohrafiia,' Tvory, 3:404—5).5 Dukhnovych's experience in Beloveza, where he was immersed in the life of Rusyn villagers and shared their economic deprivations and social oppression, contributed a sense of reality to his subsequent creative work. As parish priest, he became familiar with their outlook on life, their superstitions, their faults, and their potential, all of which eventually became his literary material. Eventually, he came to the realization that, in Fanon's words, 'the truths of a nation are in the first place its realities,' and his work entered the third phase in the evolution of a national culture, which Fanon calls 'the fighting phase.' The native, after having tried to lose himself in the people and with the people, will on the contrary shake the people. Instead of according the people's lethargy an honored place in his esteem, he turns himself into an awakener of the people; hence comes a fighting literature, a revolutionary literature, and a national literature. During this phase a great many men and women who up till then would never have thought of producing a literary work ... feel the need to speak to their nation, to compose the sentence which expresses the heart of the people, and to become the mouthpiece of a new reality in action. (Wretched of the Earth, 222-3)

With this self-awakening, Dukhnovych turned his attention to the needs of his

Awakening to Rusyn Reality 121 people and adapted his literary interests to the pragmatic goals of education, organization, and political activity. 'Mama, mama, buy me a book' Dukhnovych began his work under adverse political circumstances. The 1840s saw an intensification of oppression against national minorities in Hungary and an active persecution of Slavic activists. In 1844, Hungarian replaced Latin as the official language of the country, prompting a counter effort to preserve the Rusyn language in elementary schools and church services. In 1849, the Mukachevo eparchy decreed that the clergy must use Rusyn in all documents, rejected non-Rusyn books in theological schools, and urged priests to encourage the use of Rusyn among parishioners. Dukhnovych's contribution to this effort was his KHUMUI^I Humannafi dnx HcmuHatow,ux (Primer for Beginners, 1847), the first primer for Rusyns, which was so popular that four editions were published in six years. The central part of the Primer was a didactic poem entitled 'School Rules' addressed to children, consisting of 250 quatrains in Rusyn dialect (Tvory, 1: 200-37).6 With this publication, for the first time Dukhnovych directly addressed his people, specifically the rising generation, concerning the realities of their existence. In an engaging style and playful rhyme, he launched a positive attack against some of the practical barriers to national self-renewal - illiteracy, resistance to change, and popular vices, such as drinking and indolence. His underlying purpose was to change the Rusyns' social and psychological self-image as inferior 'other' that resulted from the experience of political and social degradation, and to replace the disabling metropolitan framework of humiliating condescension with a national framework of psychological empowerment. To this end, it was necessary to integrate certain metropolitan civilizing standards into the local value system, but to make them acceptable to the masses he needed to adapt them to local mores. Dukhnovych deliberately interweaves disparate discourses to urge a seemingly paradoxical program of tradition and innovation, secular progress and religious orthodoxy, local and global cultural orientations. The text of the Primer is pedagogical in nature, but appealing in form to children. Section headings include 'On the Joys of School,' 'On Children's Behaviour in Church,' 'On Sins and Punishments,' 'On Amusements,' and 'On the Future of Children.' It expresses social and moral values for the benefit of Rusyn youth - honesty, self-discipline, diligence in work and in religious worship, coupled with respect for Rusyn tradition and civil authority. His call for loyalty to the earthly Tsar' (the unnamed Austrian emperor) is unambiguous, but contextualized within the Rusyn religious tradition of subservience to

122 Straddling Borders 'the heavenly Tsar.' Not surprisingly, this poet-priest appeals to his people using the discourse of religion. From within this guarantee of cultural identity, he can non-threateningly urge them to adopt 'alien,' 'outside,' 'worldly' values, such as education, ambition, and entrepreneurial activity, while preserving local traditions. Thus, the crossing of cultures is implicitly suggested as a means to regenerate Rusyn civilization. Dukhnovych makes his first appeal to the people in the popular language, rather than in the exalted Slaveno-Rusyn of ecclesiastical literature, and he makes deliberate use of the features of oral folk poetry. His personal experience with education in an alien tongue, where his native language was associated with backwardness and humiliation, had certainly awakened him to the image-forming power of language for children, to the perspective it provides on how they perceive themselves and the world (see Ngugi, Decolonizing the Mind, 15). The introductory quatrain, with its endearing native diminutive forms in children's discourse, for the first time connects the native and homey with the values of the outside world. MaMKO, M3MKO Kym> MH KHHUIKy,

TMHTY, nanipb, H Ta6;iHHKy, Bo H noftfly ffo uiKCwibi, YMMTHCH no BO;IH. Mama, mama, buy me a book / Some ink, paper and a little tablet, / Because I'm going to school / To do my best to learn.7

The subject of the poem, that is, the ideal Rusyn child, is respectful of parents, teachers, and friends, and in turn he receives their respect. He is encouraged to take responsibility for his behaviour, rewarded for diligent work, and punished for laziness and misdeeds. In addition to prayers, the Primer teaches the rules of fair play and the principles of basic hygiene. Children are taught the advantages of planting a kitchen garden and encouraged to take a book along when going to the pasture to herd sheep. A section on 'Children's Sins and Punishments' goes beyond children's typical faults, such as fighting, throwing rocks, and fidgeting in church, to include more adult vices; seven quatrains are devoted to alcohol abuse.

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A drinker loses his reason /And forgets about God, /A drinker does nothing good, / He just lies around like a pig. The extensive treatment of this topic in a school reader would indicate that Dukhnovych's message was meant not only for children, but also for their parents. In the concluding section of the poem, 'On the Future of Children,' Dukhnovych again implicitly addresses adults as well as children in an effort to boost the Rusyn self-image. It is not a disgrace, he tells them, to till the earth, to take up a trade, to engage in commerce, or even to be a servant. From among the children, one might become a gentleman and others his retainers, and many could become soldiers 'to protect our land and our emperor' and defeat the 'godless enemy.' The only shame is in not taking responsibility for oneself.

But it is a disgrace, a shame, to lie around / Just waiting for heaven's help. / The greatest shame is to go begging, / To take from people. // ... For every occupation is good / If the body has a vigorous will, / Every position is fine, / If the person is honourable. While Dukhnovych promotes traditional Rusyn occupations, he contests the negative stereotypes associated with them. He valorizes Rusyn custom, even while advocating enlightenment and regeneration. His message to children is one of conservative national pride and individual responsibility. Dukhnovych's immediate didactic intent, of course, was to teach children to read. For a population with an illiteracy rate over 90 per cent, it was vital to open the mental vision of the people by convincing them of the usefulness of reading. He therefore deliberately chose the vernacular language as a code accessible to them. Publishing in the vernacular served to legitimate it as a medium capable of carrying cultural and moral authority. However, Dukhnovyc was clearly cognizant of intersecting lines of linguistic prestige and exploited

124 Straddling Borders the situation for his own purposes. Because the printer lacked the facilities to produce the modern Cyrillic alphabet, the first edition of the Primer was printed in the Slavonic characters conventionally used for ecclesiastical publications.8 Out of necessity, Dukhnovych used what was available. Whether intended or not, the effect was to elevate the vernacular by appropriating the privileged script as a means for its expression. Language issues are implicit throughout the Primer. It opens with a presentation of the Cyrillic alphabet, headed by the rubric 'An Illustration of Ancient and Modem Slavic Letters, in Print and Script.' This is followed by the Latin alphabet and exercises in parallel Rusyn and Hungarian texts, addressed to Rusyn speakers of Hungarian, mostly from clerical families, who needed to learn their native language. Dukhnovych takes linguistic hybridity to an extreme with an 'Exercise in Dual-reading' (B ABoeHTeHiH), in which he actually intermingles Slavic and Hungarian words in a single text: 'Boa 6ceMO^yu^iu, minden-hato Isten, Cmeopumejib ne6a u SCMMI. Teremtoje mennynek, esfoldnek, comeopuxb nenoerbKa, teremtett embert, Ha ceou o6pa3~b, tulajdon kepere' (Tvory, 2: 18). Whatever its instructive value, this exercise served to raise the status of Rusyn by demonstrating its parity with the privileged language, Hungarian. In 1850, Dukhnovych revised the Primer, reflecting the changes brought about in the post-revolutionary period; he added the German and Slovak alphabets and a few pages of German and Slovak text to the linguistic mix. He also expanded the subject matter to include universal and multicultural secular topics, describing foreign peoples and the proper relation to them ('Your neighbour is your friend, as is the foreigner'), while still valorizing local culture through proverbs in the vernacular ('Hn 6e3i> npau,bi cyTb KonanH'; 'No work, no cake'), and subliminally promoting the native language ('Turks speak Turkish, Rusyns speak Rusyn [no pycKH], and Circassians speak the Circassian language, or Tatar'). To demonstrate its universal capabilities, he also uses the Rusyn language to teach ancient history, with texts on Julius Caesar, Diogenes, and 'Rurik, the Russian Tsar.' 'The Life of a Rusyn' While textbooks and dictionaries are vital in the first stages of a national awakening, another immediate task for a national leader is to raise the question of the identity and self-image of the individual, to demolish the stereotypes within which he has been confined and which he has internalized. Included in the Primer is Dukhnovych's poem 'Zhizn1 rusyna' (The Life of a Rusyn), which extols earthy Rusyn reality in the spirit of romanticism, with sympathy for the innate nobility of the downtrodden and unappreciated Rusyn peasant. In

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conjunction with the didactic material of the Primer, in 'The Life of a Rusyn,' Dukhnovych contributes to the auto-ethnography of the Rusyn people. His mythology draws on earlier Slavic mythopoets, particularly Pavel Safarik and Jan Kollar, who themselves derived their ideas from Johann Gottfried Herder's comments on the Slavs in Ideen zur Philosophic der Geschichte der Menshheit (1784-91). Kollar identifies five characteristics that distinguish the Slavs: piety, diligence, innocent merriness, love of their language, and tolerance towards other nations. He also identifies as characteristic traits hospitality, chastity, moderation, modesty, domesticity, simplicity of manners, and respect for old age and the bond of friendship. Dukhnovych's depiction of the typical Rusyn derives from this general Slavic portrait. In colloquial language and trochaic metre familiar from folk songs, the opening lines of this long poem introduce the Rusyn peasant in his natural setting:

Beneath the mountains, beneath the forests, / The cold wind blows, / There the peaceful, God-fearing / Rusyn lives in poverty, / Like his people / He lives in the Carpathians / He does not envy those / Who live in great palaces. (Tvory, 1: 235; facsimile, Tvory, 2: 98)9

In 'The Life of a Rusyn,' the awakener of his people presents a creative reformulation of the national psyche. Characteristics that have been judged by the dominant culture as negative, such as poverty, arduous toil, and simplicity, are transmuted into virtues. Modest in his material needs, the Rusyn is depicted as satisfied with the gifts of nature - stream water is his only drink, oats and barley replace wheat or rye bread, and the meadow serves for a bed. Farming is not a feudal imposition, but his natural vocation. As a child of nature, he is also unsophisticated, pious, peace-loving, submissive and obedient to authority, cheerfully hard-working and long-suffering. His lack of formal education is recompensed by the gift of common sense, which allows him to comprehend the secret of serenity.

126 Straddling Borders

Therefore he is at peace /And has no worries, / He is self-composed, / For he knows no sin, / He is not a rogue or a robber, / His conscience is clear, / He is a pious, good person / With a generous heart, / He loves God, respects / The emperor and high authority, / He endures all and will do everything/ For his Master.

Reflecting reality and proffering the Rusyn a positive self-image even under the conditions of serfdom, the poet reinterprets subservience as honourable devotion. However, the pan, or master, who was usually a Hungarian landowner, disappears from editions of the poem published after the abolition of serfdom in 1848. In a significant revision in later editions, the liberated Rusyn suffers and exerts himself 'for his near and dear ones.' Dukhnovych's depiction of the Rusyn character is a melange of romanticism and idealized peasant characteristics. As Kollar noted, however, it was precisely these virtues of the Slavs that contributed to Slavic oppression, and they explain, albeit from a favourable perspective, why almost all Slavs were subject nations. The image of the Slav as innocent victim is taken by Dukhnovych as the basis of his mythology, the domestic complement to the auto-ethnography established by the Rusyns who achieved success in St Petersburg. For Dukhnovych, who addresses the Rusyn masses rather than their oppressors or their Slavic brethren, as did previous generations of Rusyn patriots, this becomes the dominant element of Rusyn auto-ethnography. 'Poor Rusyn' becomes a fixed epithet in much of subsequent Rusyn culture, evoking sentimental affection and a perverse pride in victimhood that is not unique to the Slavs. Psychiatrist Frantz Fanon sees the fatalism of subject peoples as a behaviour pattern that results from denial and avoidance, a defence mechanism that attenuates in their minds the power the oppressor has over them (Wretched of the Earth, 54). Margaret Atwood, who finds in her own Canadian literature 'a

Awakening to Rusyn Reality 127 superabundance of victims,' sardonically summarizes the 'Basic Victim Positions' (Survival, 36-7). According to her model, the Rusyn as depicted by Dukhnovych is a victim who acknowledges his victimhood but explains it as an act of Fate or the Will of God, and therefore is neither blamed for his position nor expected to do anything about it. The writer, however, while still accepting that he is oppressed, distinguishes between the role of victim and the external reality that creates it. This allows him to take initiative in creating change and urging his fellow victims to do the same. Within the discourse of religion, Dukhnovych can praise the essentially Christian traits of the Rusyn peasantry, but he will find Rusyn passivity to be something of an obstacle to his educational and reforming mission. In fact, the mythopoeic idealism of The Life of a Rusyn' is clearly apparent when contrasted with Dukhnovych's depiction of Rusyn life in the play ffo6podrbmenb npeeuiuaem 6ozamcmeo (Virtue Is More Important than Riches), where he completes the picture of the typical Rusyn by adding such failings as superstition, avarice, and alcohol abuse (Tvory, 1:585-625). Still, as inevitable consequences of the Rusyn's subjugated position in the world, even such negative traits are accommodated in the national myth, and to some degree tolerated as unfortunate weaknesses, minor in gravity compared to the vices of oppressor groups. The Life of a Rusyn' and the didactic 'School Rules' are companion pieces, and together with the play Virtue Is More Important than Riches they constitute Dukhnovych's creative formulation of the Rusyn character. As the first product of the national awakening, the Primer is a significant effort to provide a positive self-definition for a denigrated people largely lacking national identity. With its emphasis on schooling the child, the Primer implies an analogy with the situation of the Rusyn people, whose immaturity conceals its potential. The subversive power of this simple book can be judged by the consequences it brought for its author. During the 1849 Magyar war for independence from Austria, Dukhnovych was identified as a rabble-rouser and Rusyn agitator. He was arrested, humiliated, and imprisoned, as he writes in his autobiography, 'for having written Rusyn books (pycbid KHH^COHKH).' I() 'Without literature a people cannot exist' The Rusyn national awakening was founded on Duhnovych's mythology, but it was immediately prompted by current political events that point up the overlapping and intertwining historical destiny of Rusyns with the surrounding nations. The revolutionary events that swept through Europe in 1848-9 energized the intelligentsia, who for once saw opportunity for Rusyn self-assertion in the perennial instability of Rusyn history. In 1848, the growing sentiment of Hungar-

128 Straddling Borders ian nationalism exploded into the Kossuth-led war for independence from the Hapsburg empire, activating general Slavic opposition and Subcarpathian Rusyn demands for autonomy. While Rusyn leaders and the church hierarchy remained loyal to Hungary, a small group of activists centred in Presov began to formulate their own program of liberation. In the belief that a degree of cultural autonomy could be achieved more readily under the Hapsburgs than with a Hungarian victory, the Presov leadership supported the Austrian emperor. In April of 1849, Dukhnovych published an article in the Galician journal Zoria Halyts'ka, 'Sostoian'e Rusinov v Ugorshchini' (On the Situation of the Rusyns in Hungary), in which he traced the history of the Rusyn people and their oppression under the Magyars (Tvory, 3: 235-8). In its conclusion, he endorsed the political program of fellow Rusyn activist Adol'f Dobrians'kyi, which demanded the unification into one province of Subcarpathian and Galician Rusyns living under Austrian rule. According to Dukhnovych and Dobrians'kyi, the survival of a distinct Rusyn people depended on Hapsburg emperor Franz Joseph. When the emperor, alarmed at the advance of Hungarian revolutionaries on the imperial capital, called on Tsar Nicholas I to send Russian troops to crush the Hungarian forces, he named Dobrians'kyi as Hapsburg civil commissar to the tsarist Russian army. Dukhnovych was not involved politically with the Russian intervention, but he shared the Rusyn people's positive emotional reaction to their encounter with Russian troops. For him, meeting the Russian soldiers was the realistic culmination and confirmation of his theoretical Slavophile and Russophile convictions. The Russian army crossed into Hungary in June 1849 along Carpathian mountain passes that led through Subcarpathian Rusyn territory. Conducting reconnaissance, the Cossack units in the Russian army explored the countryside. They were met enthusiastically by Rusyn peasants, who were surprised to be able to understand their language and converse with them. According to one tsarist officer, 'These Slavs awaited our campaign as salvation' ('Vospominaniia i zapiski russkikh ofitserov,' in Svientsitskii, ed., Materialy, 15; Roberts, Nicholas I and the Russian Intervention in Hungary, 130-1). On 22 June the troops converged in Presov and Dukhnovych was able to make the acquaintance of several individuals, whose names he listed in his notes. He describes his own reaction: 'There was one great joy in my life. That was in 1849 when I first saw the glorious Russian army, which came to subdue the rebelling Magyars. I cannot describe or even suggest my feeling of joy at seeing the first Cossack on the streets of Presov. I danced and cried with delight, shed streams of tears, and prayed: "Now, Lord, lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace ..." It was truly the first, perhaps the last, joy of my life, and it remains forever in my memory' ('Kratkaiiabiohrafiia,' Tvory, 3:405).11

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The Russian intervention reinvigorated Dukhnovych's Slavophile sentiments and inspired in him a 'Russian hope.' For the Rusyns of Subcarpathia, exposure to the language of their East Slavic brothers stimulated pride in their own related but depreciated Rusyn tongue. Dukhnovych noted that Rusyn youth became zealous for 'the Rusyn spirit and the Rusyn word,' and girls were no longer ashamed to sing Rusyn (pyccKie) songs ('Zbirka-shchodennyk Oleksandra Dukhnovycha vid 1861 roku,' 529). Dukhnovych himself was inspired to further Rusyn-related pedagogical and cultural efforts. For the next three years, his home in Presov was the centre of the Rusyn national awakening and the focus of the first organized Rusyn literary activity. In late 1849, Dukhnovych organized the Presov Literary Society, modelled on the maticas of other Slavic groups, which fostered the national language and literature, facilitated publishing and education, and attempted to disseminate literature and enlightenment among the masses. Although it was banned by the government in 1853, during its short active life the Presov society brought together Rusyn, Slovak, and Czech writers, clerical and secular, who shared the patriotic ideals voiced by Dukhnovych. Despite the lack of a local printing press, a dearth of financial support, continual difficulties with censorship, and surveillance by the government, the society of less than one hundred members succeeded in publishing twelve books. In the brief period of relative freedom for minorities that followed the collapse of the Hungarian revolution, the Presov Literary Society spearheaded the Rusyn national awakening and laid the foundation for a national Rusyn literature. The initial announcement of the establishment of the Presov Literary Society appeared in the new Rusyn-language journal established in Vienna by the Austrian imperial government in 1850. We are glad to inform you that here on the other [southern] side of the mountains the scattered and dispersed Rusyns are gradually coming together. With a joyful feeling we comprehend our newborn nationality (napoflHOCTb)... One sign of this joy is that we have formed a society for the dissemination of popular literature ... This society will strive to publish books comprehensible to the forgotten Rusyn people, and thus to awaken their repressed energy, to give them easy means toward the most basic education; in a word, to make every effort to raise up the oppressed people south of the mountains. This practical goal concerns all humanity, and therefore we earnestly request that zealous Rusyns, bearing the balance of mankind in their hearts, be so gracious as to support our intention with decorous writing, good advice, and financial support, knowing that without literature a people cannot exist (cymHH HapoA MepTBWH ecib), and that literature itself is capable of endowing the people with a soul. (Tvory, 3: 241)

130 Straddling Borders Dukhnovych's statement of purpose highlights two complementary aspects of the Presov Literary Society, that is, its pragmatic/didactic goal and its aesthetic/spiritual aspirations. The pedagogical activities of the society have been well documented and studied (Dranichak, Aleksandr Dukhnovich, 10852). Along with publications of a religious or pedagogical nature and the play Virtue Is More Important than Riches, the society issued an almanac entitled Pozdravlenie Rusynov (Greetings to the Rusyns) that presented the work of twenty local authors, as well as translations from Russian, Slovak, Hungarian, and German literature.12 Although only three annual issues appeared before the cessation of the society's activities, Greetings to the Rusyns provided a foundation for the development of Rusyn literature. The first task of the organizers of the Presov Literary Society was to gather together a central core of known writers and collaborators and to solicit manuscripts from would-be authors. Without a cultural base or educational centre that might provide a concentration of potential writers, Dukhnovych reached out to the Rusyn public with requests for financial and artistic support. He solicited folk songs and stories for the almanac, 'so that we might demonstrate that we also are alive and want to live' (Tvory, 3: 441). Dukhnovych's efforts to establish a Rusyn creative intelligentsia were only partially successful. His request for folk songs and stories went unanswered, and the first issue of the almanac was entirely the work of Dukhnovych himself. In the second almanac, of twenty-four titles, half are from the pen of Dukhnovych. Nonetheless, in the course of the society's publishing activities, Dukhnovych managed to collect the work of twenty local authors. Most of the writers were amateurs, their artistic talent ranging from nil to mediocre to promising. Among them were priests, students, social activists, a peasant-cantor, an office worker, and, most surprising of all for the time and place, three women. The authors' literary sophistication and artistic technique were uneven, but they were united by patriotic and poetic enthusiasm, and in this respect, their work fulfilled Dukhnovych's goal of manifesting the soul of the Rusyn people. The almanacs might best be viewed as exercise books, presenting the first deliberate artistic efforts of a people in the process of forming a national cultural identity. That some of the material was amateurish or imitative was of little concern to Dukhnovych, who stressed the importance of initiative. 'We are not ashamed to admit that we are all beginners and that our literature is not yet perfect, but who can be a philosopher without first learning the alphabet? Beginnings require pioneers, and through practice, we will achieve great success and lofty enlightenment. And for the present, "anything is better than nothing'" (Tvory 3: 241). The Rusyn writer and editor loann Rakovs'kyi agreed on the usefulness of even a weak beginning. 'At the commencement of our emerging national life, we

Awakening to Rusyn Reality 131 rejoice at any writing, interpreting it as a sign of the developing spirit of our people. Just as in the construction of a house even the smallest stone and grain of sand is useful, so our writers and all our literature, no matter how weak they may be and no matter how they might amuse others, will enable us in our own time to create a temple corresponding to the calling of our people' (quoted in Rudlovchak, 'Spilka,' 2: 58). It is not uncommon for the creators of a dominated literature to be unsure of themselves. In fact, beneath the diffidence of the Rusyn cultural leaders, the psychological assertiveness implicit in their statements is remarkable, given the cultural and social denigration under which they operated, and part of their objective in publishing the almanacs was to engender a corresponding psychological sense of self-respect in their readers. From this point of view, the organizers' very consciousness of their people's own imperfect artistic capabilities reveals a laudable ambition, high standards, and a literary sophistication that may have exceeded their current grasp, but given the right conditions boded well for a promising artistic future. The pedagogical aim of Greetings to the Rusyns is captured in the apt semi-ironic use of an epigraph from the Russian classicist Aleksandr Sumarokov that heads the 1851 edition: 'It is not as easy to compose verses as some might think' (Segal, ed., Literature of Eighteenth-Century Russia, 1: 227). This is preceded by an epigraph from Dukhnovych's 'Dedication,' which privileges nation building over aesthetic expression as the primary purpose of the publication. Similarly, in our own day, in response to Western criticism of emerging African literatures, Chinua Achebe defends the 'earnestness' of the African writer, whose work is conceived of in instrumental terms as an 'applied art' that acts as both the voice of his people and as its conscience (quoted in Moore-Gilbert, Postcolonial Theory, 177; see also Ashcroft et al., Empire Writes Back, 130, 188). Dukhnovych would undoubtedly endorse this evaluation. Consequently, the interest of the almanacs for contemporary scholars is not their intrinsic, aesthetic value, but the 'strategic value of their con tent.' Postmodern literary scholarship has studied the development of minor literatures within new critical paradigms. A famous five-page diary entry by Franz Kafka on the literature of small nations has been the focus of renewed debates on national culture in today's Central Europe. 'Many of the benefits of literary activity,' he writes, 'can be produced even by a literature whose development is not in actual fact unusually broad in scope.' That is, even a minor literature produces 'the stirring of minds' and 'the coherence of national consciousness,' it arouses 'the pride which a nation gains from a literature of its own and the support it is afforded in the face of the hostile surrounding world.' He likens literary production to 'keeping a diary by a nation - something entirely differ-

132 Straddling Borders ent from historiography,' because it amounts to a 'detailed spiritualization' of the broad scope of public life. Literature induces crucial changes in the subjective consciousness, which has practical and educational benefits. It marks 'the birth of a respect for persons active in literature,' and brings about the transitory awakening in the younger generation of higher aspirations, which nevertheless leaves its permanent mark, the acknowledgment of literary events as objects of political solicitude, the dignification of the antithesis between fathers and sons and the possibility of discussing this, the presentation of national faults in a manner that is especially painful, to be sure, but also liberating and deserving of forgiveness, the beginning of a lively and therefore self-respecting book trade and the eagerness for books. (Kafka, Diaries, 148)

These were the practical benefits that Dukhnovych and the Rusyn awakeners hoped to achieve, benefits that superseded aesthetic goals. In examining the initial stages of a minor literature, the literary historian must keep in mind that the contemporary needs and the social role of the literature in question determines its aesthetic code. It would be a mistake to expect the burgeoning Rusyn literature to be as autonomous, aesthetically independent, and satisfying as developed European literatures of the time. Rather, these early almanacs are valuable in that they allow us to observe the foundation of a national literary tradition from the vantage point of its creators. For the compilers and contributors the meaning of the process takes precedence over the value of the outcome, and for literary historians both process and outcome provide insight into the creation and subsequent direction of Rusyn literature. 'Let each have his own nationality' The first edition of Greetings had the character of a calendar for 1850, with listings of church holidays and the schedule of local fairs (Pozdravlenie Rusynov na novyi god 1850; Tvory, 3:113-67). Its dedication to Adol'f Dobrians'kyi, the most prominent Rusyn political activist, described as 'protector of the CarpathoRussian (KapnaTO-Poccidfl) people,' immediately announces the ideological burden of the publication. The literary content of the almanac is limited to a lengthy poem by Dukhnovych entitled 'Greetings' and a short prose afterword that serves as a gloss on the poem. In a handwritten inscription in the original volume, Dukhnovych noted, This little book is worthy of attention, because it was the first Rusyn (pyccKift) calendar in Hungary, published by Aleksander Dukhnovych, canon of Presov. For prior to this, Rusyns used only Magyar calendars' (Tvory, 3:410).

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This modest statement is in fact a symbolically significant assertion of equality and self-determination, as well as a bold effort to break the dominant power's control over communication and information. The publication of a calendar, the first notation of which marks 'the years since the creation of the world according to the calculation of the Eastern church (7358),' stakes a Rusyn claim to possession of their own history, and symbolically to their own present and future. Yet this is followed by calculations according to the Western church (6563) and to the Jewish calendar (5610), which indicates a recognition of equality in difference, rather than a naive nationalist assertion of distinction. While his work in the Primer stressed the 'essential Rusyn spirit' in the manner typical of nineteenth-century nationalism, the almanacs reveal Dukhnovych's conscious effort to establish the foundation for a national tradition that was not separatist, but global in nature, based on communication rather than confrontation. This attitude may well have come naturally to the Rusyn intelligentsia, given the practical hybridity of Rusyn linguistic, religious, and cultural life and its historical experience of surviving as an 'in-between' culture. This hybridity is clearly apparent even in the form of the calendar, through the parallel Julian and Gregorian styles and the names of months presented in their Latin and vernacular forms (in an idiosyncratic, mixed orthography), with notations of dialectical difference (e.g., 'Jynift, 7lHneirr> min KOCCHB'). 'Pozdravlenie' (Greetings) is a poem of 300 lines, divided into uneven stanzas of alternating trochaic trimeter and tetrameter (Tvory, 3: 147).13 The language is basically colloquial, with admixtures of Church Slavonic in thematically appropriate places. Its warm and folksy opening, which congratulates the people on the new year (1850), also serves as an announcement of identity:

I greet you on the holiday / Of the young year, / Dear brother Rusyns, clan / Of the Slavic family.

Dukhnovych reaches out to his people in endearing terms (note the untranslatable diminutive of 'Rusyns'), and immediately states their relationship to the broad Slavic brotherhood. After welcoming the new year, which has brought a 'new sun' and 'new life,' the poet surveys local history, situating the Rusyn people in time and space.

134 Straddling Borders

Ten times already, one hundred years / Have gone by, / Eternally long years / Have passed ignominiously, / But in the Beskyds, nowhere yet / Has the morning star gleamed, / No alien hand has the Rusyn's/ Own little hand pressed.

However, 'beyond [north of] the Beskyds' the day has already dawned. There the Vistula, the Volga, and the Neva rivers flow in glory, but have forgotten their brother mountain in the Carpathians. On the thematic level, the poet speaks of Subcarpathian isolation from their brother Slavs, but the subtext of these lines serves to forge symbolic bonds of connection with East Slavic cultures. The river imagery and the tropes of family relationships were first enunciated in Rusyn culture by Hryhorii Tarkovych in his verses in honour of the Palatine of Hungary from 1804 (see chapter 2). The 'grey Volga' is redolent of East Slavic medieval literature, and a reference to the 'gay Neva flowing in granite' recalls the Russian neo-classical trope that was made famous by Pushkin. Thus, Dukhnovych's poetic discourse has secure roots both in local Rusyn and broader East Slavic literatures. He concludes this section with some light irony in his description of the outcome of a history of abandonment.

So the poor Rusyn wandered / Shunned by all, / By the world he is not recognized / Let alone respected!

Next, Dukhnovych turns to the state of culture among the 'abandoned' and 'unrecognized' Rusyns. Again borrowing images from Tarkovych, who represents local poetic authority, he describes the silent Rusyn muses among the cliffs, caves, and forests and the muted water nymphs along the shores of

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the Uzh, Latorytsia, and the Tisza rivers. However, whereas Tarkovych urged the local muses to adapt to the conditions of the royal palace in the Hungarian capital, Dukhnovych takes a more independent posture and celebrates primitive Rusyn nature. The nationally conscious poet expands the nature metaphor to depict Rusyn culture as a neglected meadow of wild flowers, blossoming with specifically local and familiar varieties. Thus, universal images are localized to reclaim and recuperate the Rusyn world.

O most colourful vales / Full of lilies, / With kadilo and wild tulips / The hills are magnificent, / Who heeded you? - (you are) as though shorn / By a sharp scythe, / Because no one anointed you / With a beneficent dew.14

That is, the naturally beautiful meadow of Rusyn culture has withered from lack of attention. However, the explanation for the current sad state of Rusyn culture, according to Dukhnovych, goes beyond external oppression and neglect to the internal psychology that such abuse engenders. He describes the Rusyn people as ungrateful and ashamed of their 'mother's milk,' easily seduced by things foreign, and remiss in national consciousness.

136 Straddling Borders For deprived of a nationality, he remained in ignorance, / Totally subject to an alien power, / He did not see himself. / That he is Son of the Fatherland / He was little aware, / For labouring under the yoke / He did not recognize himself. / But what is still worse - to a ruler / From an alien foreign land / Subjected, he heard from him / Not a single Rusyn word.

This verse anticipates many of the insights that became accessible to literary criticism only with postcolonial theory. Although he surely recognized its effects, Dukhnovych may have been only subconsciously aware, if at all, of the psychological process of objectification by which the oppressed group internalizes the outside oppressor. In his analyses of the psychological and sociological consequences of colonization, psychiatrist Frantz Fanon noted that the oppressed adopt the guidelines and prohibitions of the oppressor and become agents of their own oppression. The oppressor without becomes an introppressor - an oppressor within. The well-known inferiority complex of the oppressed originates in this process of internalization. Because of this internalization and its attendant but repressed rage, the oppressed may act out, on each other, the very violence imposed on them. They become autopressors as they engage in self-destructive behavior injurious to themselves, their loved ones, and their neighbors. (Bulhan, Frantz Fanon and the Psychology of Oppression, 126)

Dukhnovych explicitly makes the same charge against the contentious and self-destructive Rusyn villagers in his play Virtue Is More Important than Riches, recognizing that the dynamic of dominance is more complicated than simple political or cultural hegemony. Accepting the image of themselves created by the dominant power, the subject people unconsciously acquiesce in their domination. Furthermore, Dukhnovych finds the root source of this ignorantly self-destructive psychological mindset in the Rusyns' lack of selfawareness. As a result of the geopolitical situation in which he is subject to an alien power, condemned to forced labour, deprived of his language, uneducated, and unrecognized, the Rusyn has been deprived of a civic identity as 'son of the Fatherland.' What is even worse, he is deprived of a sense of self; he does not 'see' or 'recognize' his true self, but accepts the dominant culture's view of him as an inferior 'other.' Dukhnovych's way out of this situation is to take advantage of the political climate and exploit intra- and international discord toward the benefit of his people. The following section of the poem transitions from a dour historical and cultural survey of Rusyn life to a hopeful evaluation of the present and

Awakening to Rusyn Reality 137 future. Looking back on the revolutionary year just passed, the poet condemns and dismisses the unnamed 'false friends' (Magyars) who attempted to 'uproot' the Rusyns and destroy their language, and he accepts the 'new day' that has dawned as a gift from God and the 'young emperor.' Franz Joseph took the throne of Austria in 1848 at the age of eighteen. In conjunction with the defeat of the Hungarian revolt in 1849 and the emancipation of the peasants, which preceded it in April 1848, there seemed to be at last a window of opportunity for the assertion of Rusyn identity and culture. In what seems to be a conventional paean to the ruler, Dukhnovych celebrates the complex relationship between ruler and ruled in terms of the imported literary discourse, wishing the emperor good health and long life in the time-worn cliches of rhetorical public poetry. However, Dukhnovych's strategic imitation or mimicry of the dominant discourse is a form of subversion. In the tradition of Tarkovych, he transposes the rhetoric and literary form of the dominant culture to the Rusyn context, expanding the expressive potential of literary conventions without directly antagonizing the dominant power.

The emperor is young as a little berry, / Nineteen years old, / Quick-witted, heaven-sent / Handsome in heart and spirit / Franz Joseph, may God give him / Health and vigour. / May the Father of many peoples / Live for many years.

Scholars of postcoloniality have noted that subversion by imitation is reflected mainly in the unspoken and understated in texts. 'It emerges in ironies, double meanings, unlikely juxtapositions and disjunctures' (Boehmer, Colonial and Postcolonial Literature, 175). In Dukhnovych's praise of the emperor, an ironic tension is felt between the words' referential meaning and the local context into which they are placed by the poet. For example, he describes Franz Joseph in a folk metaphor as 'young as a little berry.' While warm in feeling, the expression undermines the subsequent praise of the emperor's wisdom. Moreover, a certain irony is felt in Dukhnovych's application of the imperialist cliche 'Father of many peoples' to a nineteen-year-old ruler, which calls into

138 Straddling Borders question the entire 'parent-child' colonial relationship. Overall, there is a hint of the condescension of a pedagogue in this section, which couches praise for the young emperor's policies in instructive tones, as though the poet's approval were a form of positive reinforcement from a teacher to a not entirely reliable student. Dukhnovych optimistically endorses the emperor's commitment to the native languages and national identities of the empire's minorities, his promise of civil parity for all regardless of race or class, and his recognition of equality in difference.

Moreover, let each / Have his own nationality. / And only by his own character / Should his worth be judged. / So for the poor Rusyn / Doors have been opened / That for more than a thousand years / Were shut, / Now he, too, will be recognized / By other nations. / Free peoples / Will proffer him honour and civility.

This section that begins with praise for the ruler concludes with the elevation of the 'poor Rusyn.' Taking his place in the new political and cultural configuration, he has now attained the recognition of others and, by extension, a sense of himself. This is the goal of Dukhnovych's Rusyn nationalism, an equality of opportunity. The ultimate result will depend on Rusyn individual character, in which Dukhnovych has, at least at this stage, a firm faith. Diverse Voices in Unison Next, Dukhnovych emerges from the binary Magyar-Rusyn opposition he has described and turns to the international community of Slavs. The strength of Dukhnovych's Slavophile convictions points up one area of variance with

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Fanon's analysis of the modern situation of the colonial intellectual, who is typically torn between his birth tradition and his education. The cultural matrix in which Dukhnovych found himself was complicated, or from a positive perspective enriched, by the family ties that connected individual Slavic groups and by his wishful filiation with the most advanced Slavic culture in Russia. The bond with Slavic tradition that Dukhnovych inherited from previous generations of Rusyn thinkers provided a broader context for an acceptance of his native Rusyn culture. For him, Slavophilism was an effective strategy to ensure and fortify the national feeling of the Rusyn masses. In the almanacs, Dukhnovych strove to impart his own understanding of the complex political, social, and cultural matrix within which the Rusyn people existed. His goal was to awaken in the Rusyn masses a sense of national consciousness as a distinct ethnic group within the broad Slavic brotherhood and in their Hungarian homeland. Thus, Dukhnovych, speaking for the Rusyn subjects, chooses to identify them as 'sons of Mother Slava' and brothers of all Slavic peoples. The use of familial metaphors is natural to describe colonial relationships, but here it is also a calculated use of psychological symbolism. Dukhnovych accepts the standard colonial reference to parent and child, analogizing the process of growth into nationhood to one of birth and maturation. He praises and pledges loyalty to the imperial 'father,' but for a sense of authenticity, cultural continuity, and belonging, he turns to the biological 'mother.' The metaphors are archetypal; the father is the embodiment of law and civil authority, while the mother image evokes identifications with land, earth, territory, and the mother tongue. While the father represents the 'other,' the mother is closer to the 'self.' Unlike many modern colonial situations, where 'daughter-colonies' relate to the imperial centre as the 'mother-country,' the Rusyns, like many other AustroSlavs, were conscious of their 'mixed' civil and genealogical parentage. This distinction becomes basic to Rusyn self-identity throughout the century. Caught between cultures and seeking to acknowledge the advantages of both, Rusyn writers could express love for the mother or mourn her loss, while keeping the relationship with the authoritative father correct, but strictly unemotional. Asserting a place for the Rusyns in the constellation of Slavs, Dukhnovych addresses a plea to the Russians for fraternal recognition. He also congratulates the Rusyns' closest neighbours in Galicia on their own youthful cultural revival, including a metaphoric reference to specific Rusyn-language journals, and he subtly endorses Dobrians'kyi's policy of Rusyn unity with the statement 'ByflbMe GJJHO rkno' (Let us be one body). Mentioning by name fifteen other distinct groups of Austro-Slavs, he concludes with a call for Slav unity in the Austrian empire, using the familial metaphor already established.

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Give (us) your hand, look / To the Rus' mountains, / We will the Austrian/ Emperor all support, / Although in diverse voices, / We will acclaim in unison, / O we will understand one another / Honestly and helpfully; / For our Mother is one, / Although she on the Neva / Established her throne / In the cold North.

The 'throne on the Neva' is a reference to Tarkovych's description of the flourishing of Slav enlightenment in the Russian capital. The sense of devotion is formally directed, however, to Mother Slava, rather than to Russia. Although Russia is given prominence because it is the most advanced and powerful among the Slavic peoples, the emphasis is on fraternity and mutual responsibility, rather than one-sided subservience. Dukhnovych's effervescent political romanticism in 'Greetings' is tempered by political pragmatism in a prose afterword entitled 'Farewell to 1849' (Tvory, 3: 161-2). A gloss on the poem, it presents allegorically Dukhnovych's understanding of the intermediary political position of the Rusyns. Headed by an endearing address, 'Dear brothers' (ConoflKH 6paxn), this short piece is in the nature of a sermon and uses biblical discourse and ecclesiastical diction to make explicit the in-between political situation of the Rusyn people. As once the Israelite people crossed effortlessly to their promised land through troubles, mountains, cliffs, and shade, and through the grace of God they crossed the deep sea not wetting their feet, so we, with the help of the same God leave behind this cruel but also for us, this glorious year ... O the wave of destruction was almost upon us, the watery storm crashed against us and all but covered our people with awesome billows, when the gracious all-powerful One, with his mighty finger, parted the sea before us into two walls, that is, Austria and Russia, and we - oh, great joy! - pass between them, still alive, to the promised land, with firm hope in the life of our people.

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In the poem, Dukhnovych celebrates the liminal position of the Rusyns and points to the cultural benefits of being situated between great imperial powers and among fraternal peoples. By contrast, the prose piece describes the perilous fate of cultures that straddle political borders. Dukhnovych understands the tenuous nature of the political realities that permitted the Rusyn national awakening and the contraposition that the Rusyn people must continue to negotiate in the future. Looking back on the revolutionary year of 1849, he celebrates the Rusyns' survival, giving thanks for the apparent miracle of history that made it possible. A contextualized nationalism also characterizes Dukhnovych's appeal in 'Greetings' to the Carpatho-Rusyns. He exhorts them to look to the future with hope and confidence in the new emperor, who has favoured the Rusyns with attention and promises of political autonomy. But he also cautions his people to put aside envy and hatred and to welcome their new sense of self in an wnselfish fashion.

And so, Rusyn brothers / Let us give glory to God, / Our newborn nationality / Let us in unison welcome, / Let us gather up all our lost / Strength of zeal, / Let us recuperate ourselves as firmly / As possible, ardently. / But individual gain / Do not heed. / Only the general national / Good shall we respect.

What follows is a poetic recuperation of the Rusyn nation through a litany of geographical terms and proper names of local villages and regions inhabited by Rusyns. As noted by many postmodern theorists, the concern with place, understood as a complex interaction of language, history, and environment, is a major feature of postcolonial literatures. 'It is here that the special postcolonial crisis of identity comes into being; the concern with the development or recovery of an effective identifying relationship between self and place'

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(Ashcroft, Griffiths, and Tiffin, eds., Post-Colonial Studies Reader, 9). This was an issue for the Rusyns of Subcarpathia throughout their history. For Rusyns, whose historians believed they were the autochthonous inhabitants of the region, self-assertion and national identity included reclaiming the right to their historical homeland, at least as a spiritual construct, if not a geographical designation on a world map. Dukhnovych's recitation of Rusyn names and geographical terms constitutes an identification between self and place, a place that was not at all peripheral but central to the geography of Europe and the Slavic world. His reclamation of geography compensates for the insecurities of Rusyn history and for the uncertain political present. The multiple references to regions and topographic features here (e.g., MaKOBHin'a, nonoHHHa, BepxoBHHa), as in the metonymic allusions to Russian and Subcarpathian rivers in an earlier section of the poem, implies 'a reinterpretation of the map as a medium of spatial perception' (Huggan, 'Decolonizing the Map,' in PostColonial Studies Reader, 408). Thus, the various regions of Subcarpathian Rus', separated by customs, dialects, and imperial domination, are here consolidated in poetic and linguistic unity and linked with the territories of their Slavic brothers. For Dukhnovych, the Rusyn ethnic and cultural connection transcends geographic topography and crosses political boundaries. 'Greetings' concludes with a conventional appeal to God and the Austrian rulers to bless future Rusyn national development. Dukhnovych's poem in this first edition of Greetings to the Rusyns presents a model for the development of Rusyn national culture. Rather than a naive profession of separatism or national distinction, Dukhnovych's mediatory model stresses dialogue across national borders, diversity within cultural borders, and solidarity among heterogeneous Slavic peoples. He carefully negotiates the perilous pass between national identity and the state, between local tradition and Slavophile culture, and he reconstitutes Rusyn geography and history in a cross-cultural context that speaks to the dominant culture as well as the local audience. He clearly believed that an awareness of the liminality of Rusyn culture and an appreciation for heterogeneity and boundary crossing was essential for its survival. While he tirelessly promoted the Rusyn cause and opposed Hungarian cultural imperialism, his work also shows a constant effort to forge new alignments across national, ethnic, linguistic, and cultural borders and occasionally, like the Israelites in the Red Sea, to pass in-between. A Polylogue of Civilizations In the same cross-cultural spirit, the subsequent two issues of the almanac Greetings to the Rusyns exemplify what has been called 'cultural translucence,'

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a commitment to one's own nation permeated with a responsiveness to others, a sense of multiple, communicating identities (Kavoulis, 'Nationalism, Modernization, and the Polylogue of Civilizations,' 136). The contents, diverse in style and language, include solemn odes in lofty Slavonic and folk lyrics in the local vernacular, prose sketches and stories, and translations from Hungarian, Russian, Slovak, and even Persian. Themes range from local Rusyn nature to Pan-Slav politics, from romantic love to philosophical meditation, from ancient Slav history to the abolition of serfdom. Among the authors were clerics and social activists, publicists, students, office workers, one peasant cantor, and three women. The Rusyn nationalism manifested in the almanacs of the Presov Literary Society was inclusive, democratic, egalitarian, and exuberant, celebrating the rebirth of Rusyn culture and identity, without an exclusionary assertion of separatism or ethnic superiority. A telling point is that what was essentially the 'Rusyn maticd1 (scholarly-patriotic institution) was named not for the ethnic group upon which the founder concentrated his efforts, but for the town of Presov, the spatial site of cooperation among cultures. In this sense, the object of the Presov Literary Society coincided with Kollar's call for a Slav 'communal national literature' to be published in a multilingual literary periodical: Those one-sided days [of independent literatures] are past; the spirit of today's Slavdom entrusts us with another, greater duty, that is to create a reciprocal panslav literature' (quoted in Pynsent, Questions of Identity, 73). While the Presov Literary Society was a product of and a channel for the Rusyn national awakening, its membership and its literary taste were broadly multicultural and egalitarian, anticipating Franz Kafka's characterization of a minor literature as 'a democracy of talent' and a collective enunciation (Diaries, 149).15 The membership of the society included Slovaks Jan Moravcik, the brothers Bohumil and Timotej Ignac Nosak (pseud. BohuS NosakNezabudov), Peter Kellner, and Jan Andrascfk, as well as the Serb Petr Stic, the Croat Gabriel Smicikas, and the Galician Rusyns Ivan Holovats'kyi, Bohdan Didyts'kyi, and lulii Vyslobots'kyi. Corresponding to the multinational Slavic membership and inspiration for the almanacs was the range of publication sites. For lack of a local press, Dukhnovych was forced to look beyond the borders of Hungary for publishers, and accordingly the society's publications came out in Vienna, Budapest, L'viv, and Przemysl. As Vytautas Kavoulis notes, on the surface level, inter-civilizational encounters take the form of borrowing, which, 'due to various kinds of developmental unevenness, differential power, traditional prestige, and waves of fashion,' is commonly asymmetrical ('A Polylogue of Civilizations,' 129). In Kafka's words, because of their 'democracy of talent,' minor literatures are more likely than major literatures 'to be influenced by the unstriking qualities of the

144 Straddling Borders fashionable writers of the moment, or to introduce the works of foreign literatures, or to imitate the foreign literature that has already been introduced' (Diaries, 149).16 The Rusyns' awareness of and dependence on other literatures is apparent through translations and imitations. The 1851 almanac contains Dukhnovych's translation of a poem by the Hungarian sentimentalist Pal Anyos (1756-84), 'Complaints of an Unhappy Youth beneath the Pale Moon.'17 Sentimentalism in Hungary, as elsewhere in Europe, was characterized by an emphasis on the emotions, a focus on the writer's inner world, the impossibility of love or personal fulfilment, and a consciousness of the futility of life. Anyos's lamentation is overloaded with sentimentalist cliches and images graves, crosses, uneasy shades, and soulful sighs.18 Dukhnovych's translation exists in three manuscripts, the first of which dates from the 1830s, when he might well have felt a personal identification with Anyos and an affinity to his world-view. Dukhnovych's attraction to the Sentimentalist aesthetic is apparent also in his early long poem, 'Khram liubvi' (The Temple of Love),19 in which a statue of Amor in a picturesque natural setting conceals the corruption of vain love, and in a prose sketch, 'Pamiat' Shchavnyka' (Memories of Scavnyk, Pozdravlenie 1851, 71; reprinted in Tvory, 1: 507). A philosophical reflection on God, man, and nature, it exploits the pre-romantic obsession with the mortality of man and the greatness of God as manifested in the natural world. The last ray of sunlight, nightingales, and the inevitable cross-covered grave motivate the author's sweet despondency. Dukhnovych's attraction to sentimentalism may have represented the fashion of the moment or simply personal taste, but his popularization of it determined the aesthetic taste for much of subsequent Rusyn literature. Sentimentalism in Europe began among the bourgeoisie and was dominated by its class values, which would explain its attraction to the culturally unsophisticated Rusyn intelligentsia. It is tempting to speculate that what for writers in other countries was a short-lived literary conceit, the sentimentalist worldview in fact corresponded to the reality perceived by the oppressed, passive, and frequently pessimistic Rusyns. Indeed, Dukhnovych applies the universal sentimentalist philosophy to his own vision of Rusyn reality in the conclusion of 'Memory of Scavnyk,' with his exclamation, 'O Lord! After his many labours, heavy afflictions, and drudgery, the poor Rusyn moulders without glory, cheered only by the hope of the general Resurrection!' In Dukhnovych's work, the international sentimentalist aesthetic and the creative depiction of Rusyn reality interconnect to produce and display the interaction of the local and the universal. Other translations in the almanacs include fragments from the Slovak poet Sladkovic's 'Marina' and a fable by the Persian poet Saad, whose message of

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hope echoes the predominant theme of the collection. But the foreign literature most prominently represented in the Rusyn almanacs is Russian. The 1852 issue contains a poem by the Russian poet Vladimir Benediktov (1807-73).20 His rhetorical, declamatory poetry is characterized by scholars of Russian literature as representing 'the decline of poetry from the high standards set up during the Golden Age,' and a vulgarization of Russian romanticism.21 Nonetheless, his collection of poetry published in 1836 enjoyed enormous popularity among the Russian public. He was hailed by Zhukovskii, Viazemskii, and Tiutchev and praised for presenting important thoughts and ideas in a form accessible and comprehensible to all. The inclusion of Benediktov in the Rusyn almanac is curious, given the absence of Pushkin, Lermontov, or any of the brighter stars of the Russian Golden Age of poetry. To be sure, Russian literature was accessible in Subcarpathian Rus' to a very limited extent, due to censorship and customs restrictions, and therefore the Rusyn intelligentsia in the first half of the nineteenth century became familiar with it in a very unsystematic fashion (Lintur, 'Traditsii russkogo klassitsizma,' 123-36).22 Still, it is not difficult to understand the appeal of Benediktov's verse to the relatively naive, artistically unsophisticated Rusyn audience. His poetry was closely connected to the Russian archaist tradition, and in its rhetorical style and civic content it recalls the neo-classical ode, a form long familiar to the Rusyn intelligentsia. Benediktov is represented in Greetings to the Rusyns by the poem 'Mogila' (The Grave, Pozdravlenie 1852, 115), which uses striking imagery and language to express an energetic romanticism. The poetic persona is a poetwarrior who pledges to battle evil and injustice even from beyond the grave, in the form of evil winds, volcanic lava, and fatal plagues. The poet's ornamental style and animated narration may reach an untutored reader more effectively than the harmony, restraint, and mastery of a poetic genius, and his enthusiastic exhortation to activity stands in marked contrast to the passivity of much of native Rusyn poetry. In fact, the Rusyn poets might have found satisfaction in expressing through the voice of a foreign poet thoughts and attitudes that, whether for political or psychological reasons, they could not voice themselves. In the almanac version of Benediktov's poem, the first four introductory stanzas are omitted and the poem begins with the its most ringing and most often quoted verse:

146 Straddling Borders In the world I am a fighter; yes, I want to do battle, / Look, I have cast aside my lyre; /1 grasp a sword, and openly fly / To confront the corrupt world.

Benediktov's imitative, simplified, and ornamental poetic style brought the poetic down to the level of the common, romantically inclined Russian audience. In terms of the Rusyn awakeners' goal of constructing a literary aesthetic and inspiring moral and creative activity, the choice of Benediktov as model was undoubtedly based on natural affinities, with the nature and capacities of the Rusyn audience in mind. Representing the opposite end of the poetic spectrum, the most prominent of Russian poets in Dukhnovych's almanacs was Gavrila Derzhavin (1743-1816), whose odes 'Bog' (God, 1784) and 'Bezsmertie dushi' (The Immortality of the Soul, 1797) were included in the 1852 edition. The Russian classicists were well known to the Rusyn intelligentsia, as they were to many of the minor Slavic groups. Their belated popularity outside of Russia can be explained by the difficulty of procuring Russian-language books and the conservative taste of the audiences (Frantsev, Derzhavin u slavian; Lintur, 'Traditsii russkogo klassitsizma'). Among Dukhnovych's first poetic efforts was an ode dedicated to Russia's defeat of the Turks at Varna, 'Oda na vzatie Varny' (Ode on the Seizure of Varna, Tvory, 1: 174), patterned on Lomonosov's 'Oda na vziatie Khotina' (Ode on the Seizure of Khotyn). And the 1851 almanac contains a panegyric to Emperor Franz Joseph on the occasion of his birthday, written by Orel Tatranskyi in the style of Lomonsov.23 For Dukhnovych, it was Derzhavin's religious odes that exerted the strongest influence, although that influence is refracted through a local Rusyn prism. The introductory poem to the 1852 almanac, 'Viechnost" (Eternity, Pozdravlenie 1852, 3; Tvory, 1: 266), demonstrates Dukhnovych's attraction to Derzhavin's form and religious thematics and his adaptation of them as a medium for the expression of concrete Rusyn concerns. Like the Russian poet, Dukhnovych indulges in abstract philosophical meditation. The familiar antithesis of time and eternity is expressed through Derzhavin-inspired images of measureless depths, the endless abyss, the chain of being, and swift-flowing streams that converge in the bottomless sea.

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This we call eternity, / Infinite being, / A chain perceived without beginning. / Intangible essence, / What was, is, and will be, having no author, / Knowing neither beginning nor end, / Composed in and of itself, / And never embodied, / Untouched by death or decay. However, for cultures asserting a contested identity, abstract philosophizing is an unknown luxury. In his meditations on time and eternity, Dukhnovych's special concern is the fate of nations and ethnic groups.

There [in the abyss] are countless myriads / Of various national peoples, / And inconceivable specters of / Former sweetly elapsed epochs. / As though they never existed, / They disappeared without exception, / As a straw in a flame, / A rock thrown into the depths / Instantly vanished. This opening poem makes clear the pragmatic and didactic goal of the almanac; many of the poems that follow will reiterate the theme, either celebrating the recognition of Rusyn nationality, or warning of the tenuous nature of the concept of nationhood and its fragility in face of the rigours of time. Dukhnovych borrows Derzhavin's style and theme to establish a perceptual framework for the appearance and fate of the Rusyn people, who, it is implied, have a place not only in geographical space, but also in time and eternity. Not only nations, but also rulers of state are subject to the laws of time, although arrogance and indifference to their subjects might belie the fact. He describes the coming and going of rulers, who bring taxes, disorder, war, and famine, with complete disregard for the lowly. The poem concludes with a plea for a favourable, peaceful, benevolent new year. Traditional literary scholars have lamented that Derzhavin's imitators among

148 Straddling Borders the Slavs showed 'not even a shadow of the influence of Derzhavin's muse' (Frantsev, Derzhavin u slavian, 75), but the comparison is hardly equitable. Derzhavin's talent emerged after decades of Russian apprenticeship to western literary masters, while the poets of Greetings to the Rusyns were largely trailblazers, inventors of tradition. Moreover, a postmodern critical mentality alerts the reader to a variance in poetic purpose. In minority national literatures, political concerns are never far below the surface. Kafka's list of literary benefits that accrue to a minor literature include 'a narrowing down of the attention of a nation upon itself and the acceptance of what is foreign only in reflection' (Diaries, 148). Stanley Corngold interprets Kafka's comments to mean that a minor literature is 'less a medium for preserving foreign differences than for producing unity, solidarity, and the assimilation of the foreign within an intimate circle, mirror, or hearth' ('Kafka and the Dialect of Minor Literature,' 92). Indeed, Dukhnovych assimilates Derzhavin to the Rusyn community. Rather than matching the quality of Derzhavin's muse, the Rusyn awakeners' conscious concern is to express a regional consciousness through a privileged literary form with the flair, if not the finesse, of a creative master. Creating a Rusyn Vocabulary of Symbols Derzhavin is recognized as a transitional figure in the history of Russian poetry. His combination of elements of the classical poetic system with romantic themes and naturalistic descriptions in a mixture of genres, styles, and poetic metres was inspirational for the apprentice Rusyn poets, who were unburdened by the constraints that a rigid orthodox literary background might have imposed. Accordingly, the Rusyn almanacs reveal an eclectic literary taste. In the 1851 edition, there is a formal division between poetry, prose, and folklore, but for the most part formal odes stand side by side with romantic ballads, and a stuffy, artificial literary language gives way on the following page to a lively and colloquial popular idiom. This literary melange emphasizes the opportunities open to Rusyn writers at the beginning of their young literary history. As founders of a new literature, they exhibit contradictory tendencies toward, on the one hand, following an established privileged tradition within which their work can only be imitative and derivative, and, on the other, developing a literary praxis that would elevate local themes in an indigenous literary style. The former path provided the security of an established culture, a sense of form and discipline, and the status of having attained, however imperfectly, the skill of their models. It gave an inarticulate people a voice that might be recognized on the world scene, even while it limited its accessibility among the uneducated masses. The second alternative, while

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promising the development of a truly original national literature, demanded rare genius if it was to succeed, and it was offset by the risk of being denigrated and dismissed by the surrounding dominant cultures, of providing the people with a voice that resonated only within the small circle of local intelligentsia who made up the audience. As a result, at mid-century there existed two parallel streams of Rusyn literature, one striving toward the expression of universal themes on the sophisticated level of established European culture, the other looking to more common sources of inspiration and voicing indigenous concerns in a more popular idiom. At this stage, the two tendencies were not antipathetic; indeed, they were not even sharply delineated, since certain writers took alternate paths in individual works. And in both streams, Dukhnovych led the way in developing a symbolic vocabulary that was recognizably Rusyn. Dukhnovych had begun to develop a Rusyn lexicon and thematics of authentic self-definition in the Primer of 1848. In Greetings to the Rusyns, he adapts the influence of Derzhavin and other Slavic models to begin the recuperation of what he considered to be a specifically Rusyn cultural integrity and to construct a Rusyn cultural tradition. As a result, the almanacs become a repository of national themes and symbols that retained their saliency for Rusyn authors through subsequent decades. As in most emerging cultures, the concept of art existing for its own sake was unknown to the founders of Rusyn literature, and their idea of the function of literature was to facilitate education, self-identification, and elevation of the Rusyn people in an unsympathetic environment. Consequently, the almanacs' themes reflect those popular traits of romanticism that dovetail with Dukhnovych's purpose of national awakening: an interest in history and prehistory; the expression of edifying feelings, ranging from passionate love to religious sentiment; the evocation of nature as a living entity and a native landscape; a romantic idealization of the people; and an overall celebration of freedom. Not surprisingly, given the clerical impetus behind the Presov Literary Society, while there is some attraction to Ossianism, as reflected in dreams and the Gothic, the young Rusyn literature is devoid of the degenerate romanticism that characterized more sophisticated European cultures in the form of eroticism, demonism, and Byronism. The predominant spirit of the almanacs is one of optimism, youth, and promise, expressed in themes and symbols that testify to Rusyn cultural richness. In his New Year poem for 1851, Dukhnovych combines philosophical ideas about the passage of time with images from local nature, evocations of hope for the future, expressions of support for political authorities and faith in God. With exaltation he announces the persistence of the Rusyn people into the present.

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And we are alive! - our transit / We begin into the new year, / In the glory of our leader / The great Almighty, / Flattering ourselves with hope. (Pozdravlenie 1851, 3-8; Tvory, 1:253-6)

The leitmotif of the poem, hope, is depicted in numerous metaphors. It flies on the wings of a falcon; it is 'the spouse of time'; together with time, hope is a doctor, more healing than reason or experience. Indeed, the poet calls on readers to cling to hope despite experience.

With hope we are born, / With hope man passes / His tedious life. / In hope, all his short life / He carries out dismally. // So hope itself / Is recompense to time, /And time, into eternity, / Into the abyss of infinity, / Disappears like a shadow.

In face of the Rusyns' historical experience and their sense of the futility of life, hope is not a congenial attitude. Yet for regeneration a sense of the possible is necessary, and Dukhnovych exhorts his readers to a new psychology and an optimistic vision of life. In the following two poems, he offers Rusyns a credible foundation for hope - in the civil authorities and in God. 'Orel' (Eagle, Pozdravlenie 1851, 9-14; Tvory, 1: 256-9) depicts the ideal relationship between the Austrian monarchs and their Subcarpathian subjects, a vision that is grounded more in hope than in reality. The image of the eagle represents a powerful, invincible, wise, and compassionate government, to

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which the Carpathian region offers support and loyalty, and from which it expects in return security and protection.

His [the Eagle's] sturdy throne / Is lavished with praise, / For it is reinforced / By Carpathian cliffs. / The Carpathian cliffs, / The Beskyd mountains / Are its support / And its imperial court. / On their summit / He will rest in the heights / His yellow-black wings / He will spread wide /Above the dark north, /Above the leafy groves, / Where he is greeted by / The honourable daughters of Slava. // For the all-glorious Eagle / Two-headed / Will defend the Beskyds / With his powerful force.

The early leaders of Slav reciprocity had never held out the demand, or even the hope, of political independence. At most, their pragmatic goal was semiautonomous federalism and cultural autonomy. Therefore, the Rusyn selfdefinition, in the conventions of Austro-Slavism, included allegiance and loyalty to a humane and just monarch as part of the Slavic brotherhood. Like many representatives of dominated cultures in the early stage of their development, whether out of genuine fealty or from pragmatic concerns of

152 Straddling Borders self-protection, Dukhnovych identifies with the imperial centre and accepts Austrian political hegemony, mediated by implied ties to the Slavic world. However, the Rusyn people for whom he speaks are not depicted as politically passive or inferior subjects. The imagery of the poem emphasizes geographical rather than national determinants, positioning the Rusyn people amidst the vast area ruled by the Austrian eagle, with reference to the Danube, Vltava, and Morava rivers in the west and the Sava, Dniester, and Tisza in the east. Nor is the poem a bow of obeisance to the Austrian government, but an expression of reciprocal obligation. Deriving his authority from Slavic collective identity, Dukhnovych speaks from a position of strength, relative to the small numbers of Rusyns. In return for their loyalty, the Slavs expect defence and safety to develop their own culture within the multinational political structure. Whether this vision corresponded to actual political reality is less important for Dukhnovych's nation-forming purposes than the appeal of the political discourse by which he articulates a Rusyn/Slav political identity. The carefully balanced confluence of pragmatism and hope that Dukhnovych elaborated into a Rusyn political self-definition took its place in the Rusyn symbolic arsenal and became a central element in the Rusyn awakening. Nine other poems in the 1851 almanac express similar themes of Austro-Slav patriotism. The following poem, 'Mysl1 o Bozie' (Thoughts on God, Pozdravlenie 1851, 15-18; Tvory, 1: 259-61), with its evocation of Derzhavin's well-known ode, further places the budding Rusyn culture within the Slavic paradigm. The attempt to replicate the privileged form of the religious ode in the status Slavonic language is an effort to assert the conformity of Rusyn literature with the larger, developed Slavic cultures. In 'Thoughts on God,' Dukhnovych echoes Derzhavin's assertion of the insignificance of man before God and borrows the Russian poet's well-known metaphor depicting man as a worm, which Derzhavin had appropriated from the English poet Edward Young (16831765).

I am a weak worm, you are almighty, / I am ash, clay and dust, / You God are

Awakening to Rusyn Reality 153 munificent to all, / In terror I look on you; / You are spirit of spirits, God of gods, / And I am nothing before you, / You live unto the ages, / 1 am entirely in your power.

In contrast to the philosophical and structural complexity of Derzhavin's ode, Dukhnovych's poem exhibits a more straightforward and traditional religious posture. Whereas the Russian poet's protestations of humility before the Deity are combined with a proud assertion of man as a manifestation of divine will, Dukhnovych's simple contrasts between light and dark, eternal and mortal, creator and creation are artlessly sincere and, in their forthrightness, more affecting.

Wherefore am 1 poor and zealous / Before you? Nothing, a wretch, / 1 have no power even over myself, / You are my strength, You are my God!

That is, the obligatory humility topos in the Russian ode is taken at face value and poetically exploited by the Rusyn poet-priest. Again, although the Rusyn enlightenment was heavily influenced by Russian literature, that influence reflects an ethnographic distinction. While Dukhnovych echoes Derzhavin's form and lexicon, his thoughts of God are distinctively Rusyn in their humble acquiescence to God's will, and in that respect, perhaps, an impediment to a vigorous national self-assertion. However, piety, devotion, and faith in God were crucial elements of the Rusyn self-image. Transcending the ecclesiastical rifts that existed within the ethnic group, this common religious posture provided a sense of spiritual community and wholeness that was often inaccessible to the Rusyn people in the material world. For the Rusyns and their clerical awakeners, there is an unquestioned spiritual homeland to which they feel an ultimate sense of belonging. The progression of the opening poems in the 1851 almanac reveals the conscious construction of national identity and the inscription of a Rusyn sense of universal order. From an assertion of Rusyn identity, to the expression of loyalty to the Austrian monarchy, followed by an acknowledgment of God's dominance over all men, Dukhnovych places the Rusyn people in a political and cultural hierarchy within the cosmic order, in which all men are equal in their subservience to the highest power. Given this context, the fourth poem of the 1851 almanac, also by Dukhnovych,

154 Straddling Borders is an allegorical expression of the complex position of the Rusyn people within and between the cultures and hierarchies evoked in the preceding poems. 'Syrota v zatocheniy' (An Orphan in Confinement, Pozdravlenie 1851, 19-23; Tvory, 1: 261-4) evokes the local Rusyn literary tradition of spiritual verse and secular elegies from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Another unobtrusive subtext for Dukhnovych's poem is the highly influential work of Hryhorii Tarkovych, who was the first to identify Subcarpathian Rus1 as the cradle of Slavic culture. Through a creative misreading of Tarkovych, Dukhnovych narrowed the sense of the poetic trope to focus on the relationship between Subcarpathian Rus1 and Russia as one of abandoned child and neglectful parent.24 Thus, the image of the orphan, a commonplace in the melancholy lyrics of the early songbooks, attains a covert political dimension. Only significant poetic images reveal the allegorical meaning of this lament for a lost mother.

[Circumstances] separated us, and to a foreign land / Drove me into confinement, / With an alien spirit and manner, / And in strange garments clothed! / Now we are at a distance, / 1 know not mama, nor does she / Recognize me; a situation of long standing; / Of natural joy / We have no mutual feeling, / Deprived of pleasurable gazes / We feel no common love.

The theme of exile or displacement is common to oppressed cultures affected by migration or enslavement, and the colonial state of bereavement is often described in terms of orphanhood (Ashcroft et al., Empire Writes Back, 9; Boehmer, Colonial and Postcolonial Literature, 190). For the Rusyns of Subcarpathia, the image of the orphan evokes the psychological sense of exile from or abandonment by Mother Russia and coerced adoption by an alien

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culture. The orphan image had deep roots in the people. Its powerful resonance is demonstrated by the fact that this poem was included in practically every collection of Dukhnovych's work and the motif has been echoed by Rusyn poets into the twentieth century. Undoubtedly, the legend of the Russian origins of his family and Dukhnovych's association with tsarist Russian troops during the Hungarian revolution reinforced his belief in the common historical origins of Subcarpathian Rus' and Russia in Kievan Rus' and inspired the kinship he expresses allegorically in this poem. Obviously, these filiative emotions to Russia could be expressed in print in Austria-Hungary only indirectly and unobtrusively. Still, there is more original Rusyn spirit in this plaintive piece than in the previous, more explicitly patriotic panegyrics. As the anchor to Dukhnovych's poetic introduction of the Rusyn predicament, 'Orphan in Confinement' can be read as an assertion of the latent force of the Rusyn people, based on their powerful legacy and kinship. And although the Rusyns of Subcarpathia are separated from their 'mother' Russia by rivers and abysses, the poet's persona has faith in the familial relationship, providing yet another foundation for the hope he advocated in his opening poem.

Although you in singularity / Reside contentedly, / Nonetheless, your native child, / You forget not at all. // ... Oh, woe! Between us / Is a great breach, / And although I have a dear mother, / Nonetheless I am an orphan!

In these opening poems, Dukhnovych outlines a broad subversive stance that will become the posture for Rusyn literature for much of the remainder of the century. The Slavophile identification and the affiliation with Russian culture will serve as antidotes to the cultural denigration Rusyns suffered from the increasingly nationalist Magyar centre. On the periphery of a dominant, alien culture, they derive psychological empowerment from the belief in their relationship with a powerful fraternal culture. This idea of kinship is implicit in the inclusion and imitations of Russian poets in the almanacs, and it is voiced more

156 Straddling Borders explicitly as time and circumstances allow. The challenge to the founders of Rusyn literature at this stage in its development is to assert and maintain a unique Rusyn identity, while claiming filiation with the Slavic cultural world and securing a position for Rusyn culture within the Hungarian political context. Walking such a tightrope demanded the creation of a complex ideology and techniques of subtlety, indirectness, and irony that are uncharacteristic of a fledgling literature. Instead, the Rusyn writers dealt with these multiple goals by splitting the ideology into its separate parts and isolating them in individual works. As a result, Rusyn literature from its foundation reflected seemingly contradictory aims and a coexistence of diverse styles. While celebratory odes and formal language expressed Rusyn aspirations to Slav reciprocity and world culture, they existed alongside popular, colloquial forms intended as a positive evocation of Rusyn distinctiveness. National Historical Fictions The four Dukhnovych poems that open the 1851 almanac position Rusyn literature and the Rusyn people in time, in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, in an orderly cosmos ruled by God, and finally in relation to a powerful, if negligent, filial culture. The fifth poem, 'Vospomynovanie' (Memorial, Pozdravlenie 1851, 4), introduces a new author and begins the elaboration of a Rusyn historical myth. Aleksander Pavlovych (1819-1900) is second only to Dukhnovych as a poet of his people. Born in the village of Czarna in the Lemko region of Galicia, he spent his youth in L'viv, Miskolc, Eger, and Bardejov. His life and education exposed him to all the languages and peoples of the area; he was familiar with Hungarian, German, and Slovak literatures, and he particularly felt the influence of Polish culture. Studying theology at the Jesuit seminary atTrnava, Pavlovych became 'a conscious Slavophile' (A. Shlepets'kyi, Oleksandr Pavlovych, 14), and the poetry he produced throughout the second half of the nineteenth century expressed specifically Russophile ideas, a topic to be explored more thoroughly in a subsequent section of this study. He was ordained in 1848 and replaced Dukhnovych as parish priest in Biloveza, where he spent thirteen years. A close collaborator with Dukhnovych, Pavlovych played an active role in the Presov Literary Society, contributing four poems to each of the almanacs. In typical romantic fashion, he sought the national Rusyn spirit in history and folklore. The writing of history played a major role in moulding national consciousness among the Slavs in the period of romanticism (Rogger, National Consciousness in Eighteenth-Century Russia, 186-252; Magocsi, Shaping, 105-29). The recovery of a national history, or in some cases the creation of a national

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mythology, was intended to convince the people of their common heritage in the past and, thus, their common identity in the present. Moreover, the writer of history was also a preserver of ancient legends, which told of glories won and trials endured. An idealized past provided psychological solace amidst the humiliations of the present and created a favourable impression of the national character. Accordingly, the patriotic historical images excavated and refurbished by poets took their place in the lexicon of national symbols. Pavlovych's 'Memorial' looks back one thousand years into Rusyn prehistory and evokes a therapeutic wealth of cultural and historical memory. In this narrative, after the demise of their 'mother,' the 'noble children of Slava' are vanquished by an alien people and forced into the dark mountains. There they created a 'paradise' (Ha Eeooiffb ycrpomrb pan!), built temples to signify their acceptance of God's will, and awaited a saviour.

Emperor Franz healed the wound, / Removed the yoke, / United the abused people, / To make it his own. //... Brothers acknowledge one another, /Who were previously unknown, / They join hands, / In devotion to their homeland.

The contrast between past and present is based on the security perceived within the Austrian empire, where for the first time 'brothers acknowledge one another.' The theme of Slavic solidarity comes together with that of loyalty to Austria, and in that context the Rusyns as a distinct people are metonymically present through the geographical image of the Beskyd mountain range. Standing among the introductory poems to the 1851 almanac, Pavlovych's 'Memorial' evokes legendary Rusyn themes and images and combines them with the contemporary political concerns of the Presov Literary Society. A quintessential example of romantic national historical fiction in the 1851 almanac is Dukhnovych's prose story 'Milen i Liubytsia' (Milen and Liubytsia), subtitled 'An Idyllic Story from the Times of the Ancient Rusyns' (Pozdmvlenie 1851, 79-149; Tvory, 1: 510-37). Written in florid sentimentalist style in the

158 Straddling Borders spirit of Karamzin, the story is set in ancient times when, according to Rusyn historians, the Rusyns lived peacefully and autonomously in their homeland that stretched from the 'snow-capped Carpathians' in the north to the Tisza and Danube Rivers in the south. In Dukhnovych's idealistic reconstruction, this land resembles some idyllic Shangri-la more than any known region of the Carpathians.

Along the swiftly flowing Laborets, Ug, Latiurka, and the glorious banks of the Tisza, brave Rusyns, content under their own authority, lived in comfort and happiness, serving God with a clear conscience, free as birds frolicking in the sacred simplicity of nature, loving one another like brothers.

The pious shepherds and tillers of the soil are described by the fixed epithet 'innocent Rusyns.' They are at home among the primeval forests, satisfied with bread earned by the sweat of their brow and milk from their herds, with plain homespun clothing, and with the entertainment of simple games. The selfdefinition presented here, an elaboration of the poetic persona of 'The Life of a Rusyn' from the 1848 Primer, exceeds even that image in idealization as a result of the genre conventions that provide temporal distance between the ideal and the real. At a springtime holiday celebration at the local monastery, the young hero and heroine of the title fall in love at first sight. As in his other prose piece in the same issue, 'Memory of Scavnyk,' Dukhnovych makes lavish use of sentimentalist cliches to describe the courageous, 'raven-eyed' Milen and the pure, 'dark-browed' Liubytsia. Their virtuous love is expressed in anguished exclamations with heavy sighs, trembling hearts, rivers of tears, and images of angels and turtledoves. Threatened by the treachery of a romantic rival and a natural disaster (flooding of the river that symbolically separates them), Milen and Liubytsia withstand all temptation and overcome all obstacles. In the manner of neo-classical comedy that carried over into romantic optimism, the story concludes with their wedding at the same monastery that was the setting for the opening scene. The blending of styles and influences that characterizes the almanac as a whole is apparent in this typically romantic plot, with its contrived coincidences and unlikely turns. Dukhnovych follows the formulas of sentimental-

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ism, a universal literary movement, manifestations of which he knew from Hungarian and Russian literature. At the same time, he interjects into his story elements from Rusyn tradition and popular culture. Milen is a natural poet, whose emotional effusions take the form of folk songs and traditional prayers. His venerated father Bohdan tells him stories 'of the old times, of campaigns and defeats, and the miraculous protection of the Mother of God.' Milen and Liubytsia are an expression of natural virtue, presented also as national virtue, voicing the author's didactic messages: 'God's blessing coincides with parental blessing'; 'God punishes disobedient children'; and 'I despise riches acquired without work ... my riches are my own two hands.' Radan, a former senator rescued from the flood, expatiates on the superiority of the natural life over the corrupt civilization of the city: 'In the cities, man's world is constricted, man is a snake, an enemy, a wolf to other men. But here the earth spreads out for all, here there are friends, brothers.' In response to his stories of corrupt city life, the 'innocent fishermen' marvel in disbelief that there are places where 'innocent people are persecuted and the guilty are protected.' This self-proclaimed idyll manifests the didactic techniques that characterize Dukhnovych's work and the almanacs as a whole. Seamus Deane's description of Padraic H. Pearse's role in the Irish national revival applies as well to Dukhnovych's didacticism. According to Deane, a powerful teacher, like a propagandist, restricts himself to a small vocabulary, 'manipulating it in a nearly endless variety of ways, saying the same things over and over again with such urgency that the words seem to fulfill an already implicit logic' (Celtic Revivals, 67). Like Pearse, Dukhnovych exploits a kind of pastoral sentimentality, associating certain words and images with profound emotion, heightening the sentimental appeal and minimizing the rational element of the topic under discussion. The repeated natural metaphors and agricultural similes resonate with his audience, while they evoke a primordial innocent atmosphere that is a part of the poet's message. Dukhnovych's prose, like his poetry, evinces simplified patterns of syntax, incantatory rhythms, repetition of key words and images, and an abundant use of the superlative. His anachronistic language, with its biblical phraseology and deliberately poetic tone, is calculated to move his audience with religious and national sentiment. Having shown himself in other works to be eminently aware of the pragmatic concerns of Rusyn patriotism, in 'Milen and Liubytsia' he indulges the sentimentalist mode of emotion and authenticity that characterized the notion of nationhood as a mystical state. The 'authentic' Rusyn, then, is pure, uncorrupted by civilization, naturally virtuous, devout, hard-working, satisfied with the simple pleasures of life, and proud of his people and their heritage. While the selfdefinition seems here to be a product of romanticism, it could not have caught

160 Straddling Borders the imagination of Dukhnovych and others if it were solely a universal literary convention. In fact, this picture of Rusyn character goes back to the 'Song about Rusyns' from the popular songbooks of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Reviving the theme in 1851, Dukhnovych's point is to stress the opportunity provided by contemporary political circumstances for a renewal of national identity. Dukhnovych consciously exploited the conventions of early romanticism to inspire his didactic national message. Later, in 1863, he looked back on the beginnings of Rusyn literature and noted as one of its failings the insufficiency of 'diverting romanticism' that 'might serve as a means to decorous, pure and moral education,' affect the emotions, and inspire a love of reading. He cites as models the 'French, German and Italian romantics (although not all of them), and the Russians Marlinskii and Lermontov.' In addition to his own 'Milen and Liubytsia,' he approves the Rusyn reworking of Oliver Goldsmith's The Vicar of Wakefield by Bohdan Didyts'kyi, and Petro lanovych's adaptation of the German writer Christopher Schmid. However, he warns, 'I am not immersed in Romanticism and would not want our Rusyn maidens to sit all week reading novels and neglecting their work. Oh, no! Not for us are [Eugene] Sue, The Wandering Jew, and so forth. But why should they not read Christopher Schmid, Nieritz, and other purifying, heart-restoring stories, not only to pass the time, but for the edification of feeling and wholesome thought' (Tvory, 3: 339).25 Dukhnovych acknowledges the unpopularity of his literary taste in face of the rising populist style, which to his way of thinking, elevated 'crudity and ignorance.' The literary fashion extolled by Dukhnovych and other writers of the almanacs was admittedly homely and unsophisticated. In traditional literary scholarship, Marxist and non-Marxist Ukrainian scholars have largely dismissed it, at least on aesthetic grounds, as conservative and reactionary kitsch. Even Rusyn patriots who idolize Dukhnovych for his national views are constrained to recognize his 'backward and mistaken aesthetic positions' and his misplaced emphasis on 'the religious and patriotic education of Rusyn children.' As Olena Rudlovchak puts it, 'It was not the fault, but the misfortune of the Subcarpathian-Ukrainain [sic] literary leaders that their ideological and aesthetic views were formed not by Shevchenko's "Kobzar," but by KvitkaOsnov'ianenko's "Marusia," Derzhavin's "God," and the poetry of Kheraskov and other authors that reached the Subcarpathian-Ukrainian reader in the first half of the nineteenth century' (Rudlovchak, 'Spilka,' 2: 60). In fact, as Rudlovchak herself notes, the Subcarpathian almanacs reveal no familiarity with the literature of East Ukraine. In any case, the political ethnocentrism of such criticism does an injustice to the integrity of Dukhnovych's thought and the legitimacy of local cultural development. His conservative

Awakening to Rusyn Reality 161 artistic philosophy emerged from the reality of Rusyn life and the influences that impinged upon it, as seen from his personal religious perspective. The 'contradictions' that result become embarrassments for traditional and Marxist literary scholars. 'Life made him raise important social questions, a multitude of disturbing themes, but his social status as a clergyman in the church that supported the exploiting state, his faith in the power of the almighty and in the existing monarchical order, prevented him from solving complex social problems' (Mykytas1, Haluzka, 55). In their condemnation of 'backward' indigenous values and in their ideologically driven efforts to find 'progressive elements' in Rusyn cultural history, such readings have unwittingly imposed upon the native culture an alternate hegemonic master narrative that ignores the unique native voice. Eschewing ideology, cultural studies and postcolonial theory stress the need to understand the work from within its own cultural context. In that context, Dukhnovych's sentimentalist immersion in historical fiction is not an indulgence in retrograde pastiche at the expense of social activism. Rather, it contains within itself the impetus to 'control,' 'self-imagining,' and 'form-giving,' which are prerequisites for social change (Boehmer, Colonial and Postcolonial Literature, 196). For an oppressed people to tell their own story meant assuming control, taking charge of their past and self-definition. In contrast to their contemporary political impotence stands the mythology of ancient autonomy. The account of a community's past is fundamental as well in the process of national self-imagining. 'More freely perhaps in a historical fiction than in a conventional history, a disappearing, threatened or neglected way of life could be re-created and preserved. Narrative had the capacity to project communal wholeness, to enact nationalist wish-fulfillment in text, and to provide role-models' (ibid., 197). It was this aspect of romantic literature that held special salience for Dukhnovych, with his moral and didactic priorities. Finally, nationally inspired fiction gives structure to history, imparts coherence to a fragmented past, and creates defining symbols for the purposes of constructing the nation. 'Milen and Liubytsia' assembles images from folklore, religion, history, and legend to correlate with idealist national selfperceptions and thereby compensate for present debasement. The problems Dukhnovych attacks in this story are spiritual in nature, rather than social. He adapts themes of journeying and homecoming to capture a pilgrimage into a spiritual reality that begins and ends at a Rusyn monastery. Before dismissing Dukhnovych's aesthetic taste and moral sensibilities as old-fashioned and impractical, it is important to put them into the context of his cultural work. While it is natural at one stage of national awakening to seek solace in an idyllic, autonomous past, the short span of the Rusyn national

162 Straddling Borders awakening did not allow a predictably stable development, and what in other cultures might have been protracted over decades was condensed in the Rusyn case into a few critical years. So while one part of Dukhnovych's cultural strategy included evocation of an idyllic past, in almost contemporaneous works he rejected that strategy and proposed a more active liberationist tactic that would move his people forward into the future. In Virtue Is More Important than Riches, for example, it is the negative characters who express the romantic appeal to the 'good old days' of the Rusyns' forefathers and cling to the insular village way of life. By contrast, the Rusyn future is represented by the children of the play, who can achieve success only by going out into 'the world.' They return to the village bringing the benefits of outside civilization, their Rusyn roots and traditional moral values having helped them withstand its corruption. In his play, Dukhnovych is intent on presenting the practical benefits to be derived from education, and he openly propagandizes for specific economic initiatives, from large-scale private enterprise to household beekeeping. While virtue remains the primary value, he is careful to point out also that virtue brings material as well as spiritual rewards, thus refuting the world-view based on traditional Rusyn experience as one where the godless and unjust rule while the honest man suffers. In contrast to 'Milen and Liubytsia,' in Virtue Is More Important than Riches Dukhnovych's national argument is based not on romanticism or emotionality, but on reason and justice. Rather than bewail the victimization of the Rusyns or analyse the complex social problems surrounding them, he argues that, given a situation in which justice prevails, the ability to surmount obstacles and achieve success is within their own control. Whether or not that position was grounded in reality, it is undeniable that the message was elaborated with a view toward inspiring and psychologically empowering the contemporary Rusyn audience. Thus, the national thematics were not always positive; negative images had their place in the Rusyn symbolic lexicon alongside the earnest 'poor Rusyn.' The message of Aleksander Pavlovych's 'Hlas k rodyne' (Appeal to the Motherland, Pozdravlenie 1852, 47-54) is the importance of taking responsibility for one's fate. In this poem, the spirits of Rusyn ancestors castigate Pavlovych's contemporaries as slaves of idleness and lust, who are corrupted by the world, attracted to things foreign, given to envy and hate, and unwilling to make the most of their newly gained freedom. The predominant metaphor is that of the Rusyn as a child, but now it is not the innocence and potential of childhood that is foregrounded, but weakness, fear, timorousness, and diffidence.

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He stands pensive, bent over his stick, / As though waiting for someone to offer a hand, / Like a small child just beginning to walk, / He has no courage, he must be led.

Even God is not fully the answer to the Rusyns' dilemma, according to Pavlovych, who tempers his faith with pragmatism. The Rusyn placed his hope in God, rather than man, believing himself to be a weak and incapable creature. Therefore, he is overly dependent upon national, ecclesiastical, and civic leaders, 'waiting patiently for what God will give.' The much-vaunted Slav unity is revealed to be riddled with discord, envy, and resentment, to which Pavlovych responds with the admonition that life is not fair, virtue is not always rewarded, and slights from one's neighbour must be put aside in the interest of collective progress.

Even from your own insensitive brother / Today grief is your ungrateful reward. / But pay no attention, so it was and will be, / There have always been and always will be ungrateful people.

After the abolition of serfdom and the attainment of at least the potential for autonomy, conditions demanded that the Rusyn awakeners modify the psychological self-image they held up to the Rusyn public. When the powerless Rusyn peasant-serf needed to be exalted and fortified, humility and longsuffering could be praised as Christian virtues and appropriate psychological defences. Under conditions of freedom, however, the same traits could be drawbacks, as Dukhnovych explicitly stated in a newspaper article, where he directed his anger at Magyar collaborators among the Rusyn clergy: 'Modesty is a fine virtue. But to repudiate one's rights out of modesty, to abandon one's people, to become a traitor by not improving their unfortunate fate to the best of one's abilities, this is a serious vice. And in this respect, for us to trust the discretion of outside parties and await their favour is shameful pusillanimity. To lick Magyar boots, as some of our priests and civil figures do, while their nation is enslaved, this is heinous servility' (Tvory, 3: 311). The awakeners

164 Straddling Borders appealed both for courageous leaders and bold followers. Of necessity, they modified their message depending on audience and circumstance. Such incitement to independence, which increases in the 1860s, finds more favour with certain schools of subsequent cultural historians than does the discourse of religion and sentimentalism that prevailed during the short honeymoon of the Rusyn awakening. Yet both were legitimate positions in the counterpoint of Rusyn culture during the national awakening. 'Lively' Dilettantes and Spirited Language In another confluence between romanticism and pragmatism, Dukhnovych and his colleagues extol the theme of freedom. In the 1851 volume, four poems have the word 'freedom' in the title, and several other works are devoted to the theme. Dukhnovych's persona uses characteristically romantic images to bewail his loss of personal freedom in 'Ubihsha svoboda' (Lost Freedom, Pozdravlenie 1851, 33), describing himself as a prisoner and a captured bird. These lyrics relate to Dukhnovych's years in provincial 'exile' and can be read as expressions of a common romantic conceit. In two accompanying poems, Aleksander Pavlovych adapts the same romantic theme and imagery to the Rusyn political situation and the recent abolition of serfdom. He welcomes freedom for the Rusyn people, describing it through images from nature. Even more explicit politically is 'Radost' o svobodi' (Joy of Freedom, Pozdravlenie 1851, 30). Again, starting from nature images, the poet describes the dawn of freedom in a world of darkness, but the allegory is explicit:

Oh, rejoice / Free Rusyn, / Your enemies' / Spiteful force is spent. / Franz Joseph gives / To each nation, / Stand and welcome it, / Sacred freedom! (Pozdravlenie 185], 30.)

Pavlovych combines a romantic paean to freedom with a panegyric to the emperor and an apostrophe to the Rusyn people, using anapestic metre and

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colloquial language that recall the style of folklore. This hybrid form reflects the complexity of Rusyn culture at mid-century. Struggling out of the benighted past into the present, it expresses hope for recognition and acceptance of its constructed form of creativity in the future. In spite of its light-hearted simplicity, the ideology expressed is anything but naive, implying a new vision of reality that offers opportunities, along with costs and responsibilities. The collaborators of Dukhnovych and Pavlovych elaborated the themes and symbols of the Rusyn national awakening with the enthusiasm characteristic of young literatures. Franz Kafka theorized that while minor literatures may lack a dominant talent, they have a compensatory strength in what he calls 'liveliness' : 'The liveliness of such a literature exceeds even that of one rich in talent, for, as it has no writer whose great gifts could silence at least the majority of cavillers, literary competition on the greatest scale has a real justification. A literature not penetrated by a great talent has no gap through which the irrelevant might force its way. Its claim to attention thereby becomes more compelling' (Diaries, 149). As a result, the independence of the individual writer is better preserved. Less constrained by the example of a national genius, an established style, or official language, he is free to follow whatever inspiration moves him. Thus, despite the common themes connected with national patriotism, the almanacs display a variety of treatments, ranging from formal neoclassical panegyrics and philosophical meditations to folk lyrics and ballads. This diversity is especially apparent in the 1852 edition, which displayed the work of twenty authors and evinced a subtle growth in creative independence. In addition to the by now familiar paeans to hope in the future, the emperor, and Slav brotherhood, there are more poems that speak directly to and about the Rusyn people and express universal themes and heartfelt emotions in meaningful, indigenous images. Petro lanovych, a student of classical and Slavic philology at the University of Vienna, describes the passage of time as the garden of life, planted, cultivated, and harvested by man ('Zhizn" [Life], Pozdravlenie 1852, 45). Ivan Ripa, a collector of spiritual songs, contributed 'Pisn1 na snesenie urbara' (Song on the Abolition of Serfdom, 66), in which he rejoices that 'the foreman's mouth has been stopped,' that the Rusyn peasant works for himself, mowing his own wheat and cutting his own grass, 'or if he works another's field, he earns money for himself.' Nikolai Nod', who separately published a book of poems set to music in 1851 entitled Russkii solovei (Rusyn nightingale), had eight poems in Dukhnovych's almanacs, several of which are panegyrics in lofty style and stodgy language. More informally, in 'Zhazhda i holod' (Hunger and Thirst, 75) he makes the simple point that to a thirsty man, water is more valuable than jewels, and even Alexander the Great could be satisfied by

166 Straddling Borders simple bread. A folk lyric by an unknown poet A. lankura entitled 'Pechal' Rusyna' (A Rusyn's Sorrow, 122) repeats familiar motifs of orphanhood and refers to the Rusyn homeland as the valley of Jehoshaphat, that is, the site of final judgment where God will judge the enemies of his people. Anton Rubii, an office worker, authored 'Serdtse' (Heart, 124), a poem that shows the influence of folk poetry in its negative similes: 'It is not the stars that shine, but her dark eyes.' And Aleksandr Labants, an unmarried priest and social activist, contributed a romantic lyric, 'Obnovlenna liubov" (Renewed Love, 127). Labants had spent two years in Italy as court priest to Prince Carlo Bourbon, where he was selected an honorary member of the literary society Hetruscae de Valle Tiberina. His poem echoes classical models and manifests West Slavic influence and an informed knowledge of poetics. Even Dukhnovych's contributions to the 1852 almanac demonstrate a more vivacious style. His New Year poem is a light-hearted catalogue of wishes, articulated in diminutives, earthy metaphors, and playful rhymes. He wishes his readers to live as many years as there are forests in Russia, ships on the sea, wines in Tokaj, and words in the psalter, and so on for some 150 lines ('Novyi god' [New Year], 40; Tvory, 1:86). A quick description of the contents of the almanacs indicates the 'liveliness' of dilettantes, who are perhaps not poets so much as lovers of poetry. Besides Dukhnovych, the only literary reputations that outlived the Greetings to the Rusyns almanacs were those of Aleksander Pavlovych and Nikolai Nod'. There are signs of potential in the work of Ivan Vyslots'kyi, a parish priest identified by Dukhnovych in a list of members of the Presov Literary Society as 'a national orator.' In his three almanac poems, Vyslots'kyi foregrounds simple peasants, presenting the view from within the group in the first person. In a romantic ballad, 'Kripost' nad Popradom' (The Fortress on the Poprad, 86-7), he compares the past, when Rusyns worked for Polish landlords, with present independence.

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If this castle on high / Could open its ancient mouth, / It would name each village, / Where the Rusyn toiled, / Under what yoke he worked, /And how from his brow fell / Bitter tears and sweat. // Now two years have passed, / And it is quiet in the fortress, / Ghosts are silent, and hushed / Is the evil of pride, / The Rusyn follows his own oxen, / Works his own field / To his heart's content.

This praise of independence was seen as a threat to existing conditions by the tsarist censor in Kiev, who banned the 1852 almanac because of Vyslots'kyi's and Ripa's acclaim for the abolition of serfdom. The 'liveliness' of early Rusyn national literature was enhanced by what seems to have been a momentary lapse in the characteristic Rusyn obsession with language. Since Andrella's linguistic exuberance in the sixteenth century, more conservative voices had prevailed, promoting the stodgy Slaveno-Rusyn as the only appropriate literary language. During the exhilaration of the awakening, however, with its zeal to create a national culture that would reach the people, arguments over style and form took a back seat to content and unrepressed voice. Judging from the diverse language used in the almanacs, there were no controlling, restrictive notions of linguistic propriety. Various dialects of Rusyn were represented, with admixtures of Slaveno-Rusyn and neighbouring languages and individual variations in grammar and orthography. Writers exercised their own discretion in using diverse levels of formality in individual works, or combining them within the same work. The enthusiasm for using any form of Rusyn as opposed to Hungarian in a cultural endeavour outweighed concern for homogeneity and precision. Besides the Primer of 1848, Dukhnovych set the linguistic tone of the awakening with his play Virtue Is More Important than Riches from 1850. Its appearance was hailed for its assertion of Rusyn national character and especially for its use of the vernacular language. Dear God! What a difference! Before 1849, anyone who would have dared to present Rusyn theatre would have been laughed at. Even now some Magyars say that it is shameful and disgusting to produce Rusyn theatre in Hungary, to which one sixty-year-old gentleman responded, 'It is not the healthy ones who need the doctor, but the sick.' In truth, Rusyns need a Rusyn theatre, for Hungarian plays run constantly (which the Rusyn people do not understand), but Rusyns have never seen or heard of Rusyn theatre in this area.26

168 Straddling Borders However, Dukhnovych's preface to the play reveals an awareness of the linguistic situation and the reality of style registers and language variance. Writing in ornate Slaveno-Rusyn, he maintains that his most important purpose in writing the play was to introduce the unique character of the popular Subcarpathian language into genteel Slaveno-Rusyn literature ... To this end, it was my intention to choose a simple and humble subject and concept for this piece, adding no embellishment. And for that reason I most worthily await and humbly beg your indulgence, dear Reader, that you will judge me kindly if you find that I have intended this work not for wise gentlemen of letters, but out of benevolence for the sake of the rural members of my people who are just embarking upon literary life. (Tvory, 1: 738)

There is a sharp distinction between the preface, addressed to 'wise gentlemen of letters' and the body of the play in vernacular dialogue. However, even here the colourful, earthy dialect yields to a more eloquent Slaveno-Rusyn in appropriately solemn passages. According to losyf Dzendzelivs'kyi, who has analysed the language of the play, Dukhnovych used primarily the southern Lemko dialect of the Presov region with dialectalisms from other areas of Subcarpathia and admixtures from Hungarian and Russian, in addition to Church Slavonic.27 However, he deliberately avoided strictly local dialectalisms and attempted to ground his literary language in the broad vernacular that would be most comprehensible to the largest number of Rusyn spectators. His conscious linguistic craftsmanship, demonstrated by his deliberate use of codeswitching and glossing to facilitate understanding, suggests a purposeful attempt to work out a standard literary Rusyn. However, Dukhnovych was not able to surmount the linguistic prejudice in favour of Slavonic that came with his clerical education. In 1852 he wrote: 'If we want to have a literature, it is necessary to study the language, just as it is necessary to work the land and weed the ground if we want wheat. If we don't want to study, we can still write; however, although there may be many books, we will not have a literature. Just as without labour there will be only thorns and thistles' (Tvory, 3: 285). Dukhnovych adhered to the Slavophile insistence on a common, elevated literary language (although in practice he frequently used the vernacular), and his influence would affect linguistic arguments into the 1860s and beyond. The national awakener made the significant step away from Hungarian, the language of the centre, to the prestige Slavic language, but philosophically could not advance to an acceptance of vernacular Rusyn as a native literary standard. Nonetheless, there remained a gulf between linguistic theory and practice, which meant that writers of the Rusyn national awakening had relative free-

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dom to make their own linguistic decisions. The diversity of the language in the almanacs emerges from its free adaptation to various literary styles and themes by individual writers with distinct preferences and purposes. That is, a process of language variation was under way, whereby the Rusyn language was being applied to diverse uses. As contemporary linguists see the development of language, 'these uses themselves become the language' (Empire Writes Back, 40). If external conditions had allowed, if the Rusyn activists had had access to their own Cyrillic printing press at mid-century, this natural process might have resulted in a Rusyn literary standard, and a century of linguistic struggle might have been avoided. Instead, language will remain an issue for Rusyn writers to our own day. Rusochki Finally, the presence in the almanacs of three female authors deserves mention. Given the social and educational restrictions that existed for Rusyns in general, any participation of women in the national movement would be unexpected. Although we can assume that they came from families of priests, nothing is known about Mariia Nevyts'ka, Tereza Podhaets'ka, and Anna KryherDobrians'ka as individuals. In any case, it is clear that they stood out against a milieu in which traditionalist patriarchal gender attitudes were the norm. Previously, the role of women in Slavic literature had been to act as symbolic inspiration for men. Poets had historically invoked abstract female figures, whether the Mother of God or the Carpathian muses (see Rudinsky, Incipient Feminists, 17-26). Dukhnovych echoed these religious and neo-classical conceits, and following Jan Kollar's pan-Slavism, he appealed to the mythology of Mother Slava and her daughters as the apotheosis of the nation. His other works displayed romantic extremes in regard to the treatment of women. His sentimentalist heroine Lyubitsia is an idealistic vision of pure Rusyn womanhood, while Olena, in Virtue Is More Important than Riches, is demonized as unvarnished evil, a harridan who embodies all the most grievous faults of the Rusyn people and perpetuates them by corrupting the rising generation. Some ambivalence about the role of women in the national movement is evident as well in Dukhnovych's poem from the 1852 almanac, 'Liubov' myloi, y otechestva' (Love for My Dear One, and the Fatherland, Poidravlenie 1852, 31; Tvory, 1: 279), where the poet opposes romantic love to patriotism, and the male persona spurns his beloved and personal happiness in favour of the 'higher calling' of the national force. More typical of literatures resisting oppression, however, are the poems and songs of the Rusyn awakening in which young women are regarded as 'icons of

170 Straddling Borders national values,' and mother figures symbolize the integrity of the national past and guardians of tradition (Boehmer, Colonial and Postcolonial Literature, 225). In the Rusyn awakening, the dark-eyed, black-browed rusochka displays the features of typical romantic heroines, supplemented by a heightened Rusyn national consciousness. In a song from Rusyn Nightingale, the heroine accepts a declaration of love only in the Rusyn language, and spurns non-patriotic suitors:

With him, who for a slice of bread / Sells his Rusyn nationality, / Never will I live. (Russkii solovei, 17)

Interestingly, the ideal Rusyn heroine is a distinctively subaltern figure. She is glorified in masculinist treatments as a proletarian image, who, in her attitude to work, is equal or even superior to man. In 'Fortress on the Poprad,' Vyslots'kyi's rusochka is described as labouring in the fields under conditions of serfdom alongside the Rusyn peasant. Pavlovych's 'Myloho zhdaiushchaia divushka' (Maiden Awaiting Her Beloved) is also pointedly a worker. In this humourous folk poem from the 1851 almanac (p. 150), the maiden awaits her 'proud Rusyn,' convinced of his honour and loyalty and sure that he has not abandoned her for another woman. However, expressing an assertive independence, the feminine subject knows her priorities, or at least, what the male, clerical author assumes they should be.

Greetings, dark little moon, / I can no longer wait, / For tomorrow morning on time /1 must get up for work; / Tell that faithless one for me / That I've gone home unhappy!

The emphasis on work in the Rusyn myth of identity, along with the dearth of a Rusyn bourgeois leisure class, made the apotheosis of the rusochka as

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diligent toiler and loyal helpmeet an inevitable image formation. While such discourse may seem to share the spirit of modern feminism, in fact it inscribes subtle conceptual restraints that inhere to the gendered national identity being constructed. Specifically, there is no room in the female Rusyn's sphere for idleness or emotional self-indulgence. As Dukhnovych's advocacy of morally uplifting romanticism made clear, Rusyn girls were not to spend their time reading novels for diversion, neither were their romantic sensibilities to divert them from their domestic responsibilities. In Rusyn folk culture, the pampered, self-seeking, indolent female image was ascribed to foreigners and aristocrats, while Dukhnovych's poetic description of 'Schastie zhizni' (Life's Happiness, Tvory, 1: 318) includes 'a beautiful, work-loving, quiet and not-spiteful wife.' With the publication in the 1852 almanac of three poems by women authors, a female self-definition could begin to emerge. It would be unrealistic, however, to expect any great variance from the conventional established images. Aside from influences of social and moral conditioning, the thoughts expressed were determined by the circumstances of publication, which were dominated by religious and national concerns. Nonetheless, the symbolic importance of women telling their own stories and generating their own characterization should not be overlooked. It would be almost a century before literary women of Subcarpathian Rus' were next heard from, and therefore these three unknown female authors attained a symbolic significance far in excess of their aesthetic importance. Their three poems were reprinted frequently in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. They appeared as well in collections of folk songs, where their authorship was unattributed, indicating that they had passed into popular culture as authentic emanations of the people. Anna Kryher-Dobrians'ka's poem 'Liubov" (Love, 117) presents a woman's counter-discourse to the clerics' denigration of emotions. In Kryher-Dobrians'ka's romantic cliches, love is described as the source of all sorrows and the cause of all joy, the determinant of mood and spirit. This female author's poetic persona is unlikely to give up a moonlight tryst in the interests of the morning's work.

172 Straddling Borders No matter how many troubles and torments / The scorned lover suffers, / All misfortunes will be recompensed / By just a single minute. / By that minute when his dear one/ Only glances at him, / He forgets all the pain / Of his suffering.

In Toska nad ubihshym sokolom' (Lament over an Escaped Falcon, 119), Tereza Podhaets'ka's poetic persona is a mother who grieves for a son who has been forced to flee his native land. He is described in a series of folk metaphors in idiomatic language as 'my wealth, my treasure, my precious stone, the dearest name.' She imagines receiving news about 'her little white falcon' from a springtime swallow:

He will tell me: your falcon is in a faraway land, / He lives well, without need, by God's will, / But the fateful time has not yet come / When he can show himself without danger, / He resides in pleasure in a beautiful country, / Flowing with milk and honey, by the glorious ocean, / Where splendid ships sail the sea, / Where people fly with birds in the air, / And where noxious spite will not reach, / Nor envy, pride in rank, nor grievous complaint, / He lives, and with him live children like angels, / You will be with them together, and you will be glad. .

Although she offers no details, the contrast between the paradisiacal land where the son has taken refuge and the injustice of his homeland might be read as a woman's maternal perception of national concerns. Podhaets'ka's poem was explicitly politicized in 1919 when it was included in Rus'ka pravda, the official organ of the commissariat of Rus'ka Kraina, the autonomous region established for Subcarpathian Rusyns within Hungary in 1918 (Rus'ka pravda [Mukachevo], 3 May 1919; cited in Rudlovchak, ed., Khrestomattia, 54). Finally, Mariia Nevyts'ka amplifies the Rusyn female identity in the poem

Awakening to Rusyn Reality 173 'Rusochka' (Rusyn Woman, 77). In twelve quatrains, she describes the rusochka using diminutive forms and nature metaphors to capture her simplicity, innocence, and purity. Her physical perfection rivals that of nature, where she is at home among the flowers and birds. She enjoys more decorous pursuits than does the rusochka of the male poets - she sings more beautifully than the nightingale and the only toil she engages in here is needlework. While her innocent sighs reveal 'a flame burning in her breast' and a naturally passionate nature, she is shy and not attracted by outsiders; her thoughts go only as far as neighbour Ivan. The concluding six-line stanza repeats the introduction, summing up the physical, moral, and spiritual perfection of the young Rusyn woman.

The glory of the high Beskyds / That is the young rusochka, I Wholesome in body and soul, / Like a ripe berry. / Dark-eyed, dark-browed, / That is the virtuous rusochka. (Cited from Poety Zakarpattia, 161; orthography modernized and ukrainianized)

The rusochka, then, is not simply a female Rusyn, but the embodiment of Rusyn national virtue. Described by male authors as pure, good, beautiful, loyal, hardworking and patriotic, her image is modified by women writers, who add a capacity for strong emotion, an awareness of injustice, compassion, and more traditionally feminine interests. Unfortunately, there is simply not enough material to constitute a Rusyn female self-narrative, but one might expect that had it been possible to create a woman's discourse, it might well have differed from the narrative offered by priests. 'The darkest gloom' In 1853, the Presov Literary Society was banned by imperial order, and the Rusyn national literary movement withered. Dukhnovych, exhausted by years of struggle with government censors and his own ecclesiastic authorities, dejected by dashed hopes and vain expectations, acknowledged, at least for the moment, the futility of his national cultural pretensions. He wrote to lakiv

174 Straddling Borders Holovats'kyi, 'I have given my all for the enlightenment of the people, but no one helps with even a single kreuzer and I can not long sustain myself... I am already impoverished' (Dukhnovych, Pis'ma, 8-9). And in another letter, 'Brothers, we are in unheard of poverty and because of that, literature is in distress' (11). The activist priest who almost single-handedly sparked the flame of hope among his countrymen now confided to his Galician colleague and friend, 'What is ahead of us is the darkest gloom' (5). The ultimate failure of the Presov Literary Society's efforts was due in large part to political and material conditions, many of which were beyond the control of the well-intentioned awakeners. The authorities' reaction to the Presov Literary Society is evidence of the intelligentsia's success in configuring a Rusyn national identity, asserting cultural autonomy, and resisting external repression. But the specific material and political obstacles were compounded by internal problems that face every national movement to one degree or another - the creation of an audience, the control over language and communication, and the reconciliation of internal discord. Once political partiality is eliminated from the analysis, it is clear that there is no single correct solution to any of these problems. The postmodern discipline of cultural studies approaches the discursive construction of a national culture through dynamic reimaginings of political, ethnic, linguistic, and cultural borders, producing a flexible model of national self-formation that is better suited to construe the vagaries of the Rusyn cultural situation. The problems of language, audience, and intra-ethnic discord are inseparably linked. In terms of its expression, the Rusyn awakening was marked by a resurgence of the vernacular in an exuberant linguistic melange. While it was not tidy, the variegated, stylistically differentiated language was functional and an intermediate stage in the process of standardization. A major impediment to that process was the lack of a printing press. As observed earlier (see chapter 2), the development of print capitalism is seen today as indispensable to the development of nationhood. Under the Hapsburg government, cultural and educational work among the masses was considered anti-government activity, and it was a crime to operate a printing press with Cyrillic fonts. In the entire empire, there were only two official Cyrillic presses, in Vienna and at the University of Pest (Kimball, The Austro-Slav Revival, 13). In 1848, Dukhnovych began discussions with the Mukachevo diocese about the establishment of a press in Uzhhorod to be operated by monks. Bishop Popovych initially gave his permission, but in 1851 when Dukhnovych, who by then had been branded a 'Russian agitator' by the Uzhhorod police, presented his plan to the consistory, Popovych withdrew his support and refused to discuss the subject. In the government-sponsored Rusyn-language newspaper, the Subcarpathian publi-

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cist Turian criticized the lack of initiative on the part of the church: 'If we had a printing press of our own, it is inconceivable that we would not have great activity in the literary field. Why are those on whom it depends dawdling? Why are they not fulfilling their responsibility? Now, when for the national need, for our national life, a Rusyn printing press is indispensable, why is nothing being done to direct diocesan money, which could help so much, to this essential matter?' (quoted in Rudlovchak, 'Spilka,' 1: 91). In 1852, Dukhnovych sought out alternate access to a press. Since the Slovak journal Slovenske pohl'ady already had numerous Rusyn subscribers, Dukhnovych proposed cooperation with its editors on the publication of a dual-language Slovak-Rusyn religious and literary journal. Despite the willingness of the Slovak publishers, material and bureaucratic obstacles prevented the realization of this project as well. With no other outlets, the Rusyn almanacs of the Presov Literary Society had to be published with considerable difficulty and at great cost outside of Subcarpathia. The role of the Greek Catholic hierarchy in creating this situation and, in general, the church's attitude toward Rusyn national aspirations, is problematic. While the church had always been the bulwark of Rusyn religious and cultural life, it had taken from its turbulent history the lesson that in order to survive, it was necessary to compromise where possible. Therefore, for Greek Catholic bishops, balancing religion, ethnicity, and politics had become a way of life. It is not unreasonable that the church hierarchy saw their first duty as the perpetuation of the Greek Catholic church, perilously situated as it was between Roman Catholicism and Orthodoxy. The bishops used their discretion in handling competing pressures, and over the years individual bishops interpreted the role of the church differently. Historically, many followed the example of Bishop Bachyns'kyi and defended Rusyn national consciousness, while others found it expedient to appease their Hungarian superiors. However, even the most fervent advocates of the Greek Catholic rite and promoters of Rusyn national consciousness were forced to operate within civic and ecclesiastical constraints that frustrated the desires of those low-level Greek Catholic clergymen who were in the forefront of the national movement. In the years following the Hungarian revolution, both Bishop Popovych of Mukachevo and Bishop Gaganets' of Presov supported the Rusyn awakening. Popovych's reasons for withdrawing support from Dukhnovych's proposal for a printing press are unknown, but Dukhnovych, who at the time narrowly escaped arrest for anti-government activity, apparently did not pursue the matter with him. Not only did the bishop not support Dukhnovych's work, the Mukachevo eparchy, suspicious of activities in Presov, refused even to purchase and disseminate the publications of the Presov Literary Society (Beskid,

176 Straddling Borders A. V. Dukhnovich i ego poeziia, 48; Rudlovchak, 'Spilka,' 1: 92). In Presov in 1848, Bishop losyf Gaganets' had been the first to take advantage of changed circumstances by convoking an eparchial synod, which initiated the Rusyn cultural renaissance and inspired his secretary, Dukhnovych, to his own cultural efforts. Gaganets' was a patron of the Presov Literary Society and supported Adol'f Dobrians'kyi's endeavours for political autonomy. In retaliation, he was issued a public 'canonical reprimand' by the Hungarian cardinal. Returned to favour in 1854, however, he was knighted by the emperor with the Order of Franz Joseph. Perhaps it is these circumstances that have led Soviet scholars to speculate, although without presenting direct evidence, about the bishop's complicity in the imperial ban of the Presov Literary Society in 1853.28 For his part, Dukhnovych speculated in a letter from 1853 that 'many [in the church] think that an educated people is dangerous' (Pis'ma, 16). Whatever the realities, it is clear that the public criticism of Dukhnovych and his politically suspect activities had an effect on the level of support he could expect. And lacking the support of the church made it all the more difficult to reach the people. Jan Kollar had identified Slav disunity, internal discord, and the tendency of educated people to abandon their Slavness as the main obstacle to Slav reciprocity (Pynsent, Questions of Identity, 95). This 'typical Slavic failing' is in fact characteristic of many minority groups who, suffering from ingrained cultural and psychological denigration, begin to assert their national identity. The national awakener must first struggle with the intellectuals from his own people, many of whom have been convinced of the inferiority of their culture. Those Rusyns who had a metropolitan education and were familiar with foreign literatures found the elementary efforts of Rusyn writers embarrassing and refused to support or collaborate with them. Dukhnovych complained, 'Our own people, with few exceptions, laugh at the Rusyn word, and therefore, of all the impoverished, the poorest is the Rusyn writer' (Pis'ma, 5). In his 1850 New Year poem, Dukhnovych had decried the neglect of the Rusyn language by an alien government. In 1852, Pavlovych turned the criticism inward, criticizing those faithless brothers among the Rusyns who were ashamed of their own language, a theme that would gain in resonance through the next decades. Centuries of cultural oppression made it difficult for Rusyns to take advantage of opportunities for indigenous expression, and hostilities that had their source in external oppression manifested as internal tensions. If native intellectuals found the young Rusyn literature embarrassing, among the Rusyn masses it was met with indifference. Dukhnovych wrote to Holovats'kyi, 'Poverty reigns here, spiritual poverty as well as material' (Pis'ma, 5); 'Our readership is extremely weak; even our priests are not accustomed to

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purchasing books. For the most part I give them away, so people will get used to them gradually' (8). The journalist Turian observed, 'Obviously, for us the worst problem is not writing, for we already have writers and there are still others who could write and compose, but where are our readers?' (quoted in Rudlovchak, 'Spilka,' 1: 92). Other journalists complained about the high price of books, insisting that inexpensive volumes would circulate among the people. They called for the establishment of reading rooms and societies that would make books available to the public, but they scarcely touched on the root of the problem - the lack of a Cyrillic printing press in northern Hungary. The Rusyn situation would seem to confirm Tsvetan Todorov's emphasis on control of the means of communication as the key feature of colonial oppression. Access to a Cyrillic printing press would have allowed Dukhnovych and his colleagues to publish affordable materials that would circulate among the people, stir minds, raise national consciousness, and contribute to the development of a standard literary language. It also might have liberated culture from the church and transformed internal animosities into productive discourse. Despite all the other obstacles facing the Rusyn national awakening, the lack of easy access to printing might have been the greatest factor in its ultimate failure. Nonetheless, despite external obstacles, the hindsight afforded by a century of national liberation movements points to certain cognitive errors in the ideology of the Rusyn national awakeners. Their emphasis on Slavophilism as a framework for the Rusyn national revival, while comprehensible under the circumstances of time, place, and numbers, proved ultimately to be untenable and counterproductive. Once relations had been established, genealogies drawn, and subjective feelings of kinship satisfied, it should have become clear that the objective problems were fundamentally heterogeneous and demanded individual national approaches, as Frantz Fanon concluded in regard to the assertion of a pan-African consciousness. [It] finds its first limitation in the phenomena which take account of the formation of the historical character of men. Negro and African-Negro culture broke up into different entities because the men who wished to incarnate these cultures realized that every culture is first and foremost national ... In the same way certain Arab states, though they had chanted the marvelous hymn of Arab renaissance, had nevertheless to realize that their geographical position and the economic ties of their region were stronger even than the past that they wished to revive. (Wretched of the Earth, 216)

Certainly the Slav groups were more closely related to one another, even if

178 Straddling Borders only in terms of proximity, than Africans and African-Americans. Still, even the related Rusyn groups of Subcarpathia and Galicia, who were separated only by the Carpathian mountains, ultimately found that social and political conditions could more easily strain cultural bonds than historical memory and filial relationships could sustain them. Moreover, while the leaders may have increased the Rusyn odds for survival as Slavs by aligning themselves with the Slavophile movement, at the same time, Slavophile proclivities made them suspect to the Austrian political authorities and provoked opposition to them as Rusyns. Had conditions allowed a more protracted process of delineation, the Rusyns, like other Slavic groups, might have transmuted their culture from Rusyn-Slav into national Rusyn. Instead, they entered the next decade still in the process of defining their culture, leaving themselves open to the definitions imposed upon them by larger and more powerful groups. It is ironic that, in a sense, Dukhnovych's ideology was ahead of its time, displaying many of the elements that have been identified by postcolonial theory as appropriate for the twenty-first century. In the modern era, Herder's notion of cultures as 'closed, historical shapes,' which characterized many of the awakenings of the nineteenth century, has given way to theories of culture that seek to redescribe local cultures as global constructions.29 In Culture and Imperialism, one of the most influential texts of imperial-discourse theory, Edward Said criticizes the essentialist and nativist separatism that typically characterizes postcolonial nationalism, and points out 'the danger to oppositional effort of becoming institutionalized, marginality turning into separatism, and resistance hardening into dogma,' which has been the result of many decolonization efforts in our own day. In place of separatism, he advocates a postcolonial opposition that seeks to alter the cultural legacy of imperialism from within. By taking what he calls a comparative or 'contrapuntal perspective' and looking at 'intertwined and overlapping histories,' Said seeks to formulate 'an alternative both to a politics of blame and to the even more destructive politics of confrontation and hostility' (Culture and Imperialism, 18, 54). His alternative is 'a more generous and pluralistic vision of the world' as an interactive global system (229). He insists that this does not mean abandoning national specificity. It does, however, mean 'thinking of local identity as not exhaustive' (230), but rather as part of 'the disparate, but intertwined and interdependent, and above all overlapping streams of historical experience' (312). Speaking of the modern world, Said calls for violation of the logic of borders and acknowledgment 'of a world map without divinely or dogmatically sanctioned spaces, essences, or privileges,' and argues that 'literary [and cultural] experiences overlap with one another and [are] interdependent despite national boundaries and coercively legislated national

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autonomies' (quoted in Buell, National Culture, 261). 'No one can deny the persisting continuities of long traditions, sustained habitations, national languages, and cultural geographies, but there seems no reason except fear and prejudice to keep insisting on their separation and distinctiveness, as if that was all human life was about. Survival in fact is about the connections between things' (Culture and Imperialism, 336). Perhaps as a result of the uncertainties of Rusyn history and identity, the liminal nature of Rusyn culture, and the pragmatic social and political concerns foisted upon him by more powerful geographic neighbours, Dukhnovych anticipated Said's vision by more than one hundred years. Of course, as Vytautas Kavoulis remarks, cultural ferment, involving blurred boundaries, identity diffractions, polyethnicity, and heterogeneity, is not a new phenomenon, but deeply traditional and characteristic of transition periods in civilizational development ('A Polylogue of Civilizations,' 130). Indeed, Salman Rushdie has observed that writers in colonial situations were in a sense modernists avant la lettre: polyglot inhabitants of fractured, hybrid, upturned worlds, they 'have been forced by cultural displacement to accept the provisional nature of all truths, all certainties, have perhaps had modernism forced upon [them]' ('Imaginary Homelands,' quoted in Boehmer, Colonial and Postcolonial Literature, 125). Although entirely traditional in his religious, social, and political convictions, Dukhnovych, like his cultural forerunner Mykhailo Andrella, situates them in a strikingly flexible, perhaps even overly fluid, 'supra-national' configuration. It is equally important to distinguish this world-view from that which would abolish cultural difference in favour of an abstract universalism. As globalization theorist Frederick Buell notes, the simultaneous awareness of the global and the local has yielded an important new view of world order that is different from the totalitarian idea of 'universal syntheses' (National Culture, 297). It presents 'a decentred, democratically egalitarian view of world organization' that diminishes the importance of nation-states and calls on civilizations and societies to be explicit about their 'global callings,' that is, their geocultural or geomoral contributions to world history. Recall Dukhnovych's often repeated appeal to the Rusyn people, especially in Virtue Is More Important than Riches: 'If we help one another, in a short time we can grow into a great nation that will be of service to the world' (Tvory, 3: 12). Dukhnovych's effort to transform man, to call his people to a stern ethical life, had regenerative implications that transcended Rusyn national aspirations. He did not regard nationality as an end, but as a means to a higher purpose, the liberation and dignity of the individual. His cast of mind may be closer to certain intellectual leaders of today's 'postmodern' nationalism: a humane, rather than virulent, nationalism, a culture of forgiveness rather than blame, that valorizes individuals, rather

180 Straddling Borders than perceiving them as embodiments of the 'collective soul' of the nation (Kavoulis,' A Polylogue of Civilizations,' 135, 138). However, while postcolonial models may help to illuminate and even in some intellectual sense to vindicate the Rusyn national awakening, the fact remains that the confluence of external political conditions and internal ideological positions brought it to a premature end. While in today's world Dukhnovych's ideals may indeed be worthy of emulation, for the nineteenthcentury national discourse within which Subcarpathian Rus' tested its national aspirations, a better paradigm may be that put forth by Frantz Fanon. Although his call for national political liberation is unrealistic in reference to Rusyns, his statement of the necessity for the transition from a 'continental' to a national assertion of culture is proven correct. The nation is not only the condition of culture, its fruitfulness, its continuous renewal, and its deepening. It is also a necessity. It is the fight for national existence which sets culture moving and opens to it the doors of creation ... The nation gathers together the various indispensable elements necessary for the creation of a culture, those elements which alone can give it credibility, validity, life, and creative power. In the same way, it is its national character that will make such a culture open to other cultures and which will enable it to influence and permeate other cultures ... National consciousness ... is the only thing that will give us an international dimension ... It is at the heart of national consciousness that international consciousness lives and grows. (Wretched of the Earth, 245-8)

By configuring Rusyn literature within the pan-Slav constellation, Dukhnovych may have inadvertently undervalued the specificity of Rusyn national culture, causing complications for cultural activists in the following decades. The Rusyn national awakening would continue into the 1860s, but the exuberance of the post-1848 period would not be seen again until the twentieth century. While the awakeners may have roused a small circle of intellectuals to the national cause, they were unsuccessful in establishing the institutions that could support a broad-based cultural movement. As a result of their activity, the illiterate Rusyn peasant now had a place in literature, sometimes as a realistic literary protagonist, more often as an idealized emblem. Yet he was hardly more likely than before 1848 to be able to read Rusyn poetry or even to identify with the national aspirations of the Rusyn cultural workers. In historical perspective, the general failure of the Rusyn national awakening was a foregone conclusion. According to Ernest Gellner, the clerical leaders of a national movement in an agrarian society can never be successful in incorporating the broad masses of the population. The most the clerisy can achieve is to ensure

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that its ideal is internalized as a valid but impracticable norm, to be respected or even revered, perhaps even aspired to in periodic outbursts of enthusiasm, but to be honoured more in the breach than in the observance in normal times' (Nations and Nationalism, 11). Dukhnovych's contribution was to spark the ideal of Rusyn culture, if only among the small class of educated Rusyns, who would struggle to keep it alive through the following decades of virulent Magyar nationalism.

4

Strategies of Survival under the Magyar Yoke

(We want to live with you as free people, Rusyns want to be Rusyns.) Aleksander Pavlovych, 'Dumy moi, dumy'

During the national awakening in the mid-nineteenth century, the in-between culture created by Subcarpathian Rusyns received a shot of national energy that manifested itself in a burst of creative activity. Nevertheless, straddling geographic and political borders, Rusyn culture in Subcarpathia existed in a delicate balance, and the Rusyns themselves had little control over the seesaw. The national cultural movement was made possible because, after 1848, the centralist Austrian government found it expedient to foster the interests of the empire's minorities as a counterweight to the rebellious Magyars. As Austria's fortunes fell, however, the power of the Magyars to control internal affairs, including minority cultures, rose, and the Rusyns of Subcarpathia looked to other powers to offset Hungary's political weight. Their history and national philosophy made it natural for them to embrace Russia as a counterbalance, which, if it did not exactly create equilibrium, at least kept Rusyn culture in the game. The precarious Rusyn position at the fulcrum of the political seesaw meant that a slight shift in balance might have serious consequences, and by necessity Rusyn cultural activists became adept at adjusting to the ups and downs. In addition to the two great powers, they needed to adjust for the weight of their own church hierarchy, which gravitated to the Hungarian end of the balance, and their Rusyn brothers in Galicia, whose divergent manoeuvres toward the Ukrainian orientation also disturbed the precarious equilibrium. By the begin-

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ning of the twentieth century, in spite of the Rusyn cultural activists' efforts, they seemed to be losing not only their balance, but also their very space in the national configuration. Rusyn literature in the second half of the nineteenth century reflected the manoeuvres by which the Rusyn intelligentsia struggled to maintain their national equilibrium. The Testament of an 'Old Falcon' The Rusyn national awakening continued into the 1860s, although in a subdued atmosphere that was characterized by less optimism, more realism, and contentious literary and linguistic debates. The idealism with which Dukhnovych had embraced freedom and asserted the Rusyn nationality gave way in his poetry to sombre meditations on life, such as 'H;iaHb H nenanb, cicop6b H 6o;rb3Hb / Ha TOM TO cBtrb Kama >KH3Hb!' ('Lament and sorrow, grief and pain, / That is our life in this world!' 'Zhyzn' chelovika' [The Life of Man], Tvory, 1: 344), and defensive rejoinders to critics ('Klevetnikam moim' [To My Slanderers] Tvory, 1: 345). In his correspondence from the 1850s, Dukhnovych refers to the dismal material conditions of Subcarpathian life ('famine, the like of which has not been seen before, will destroy a tenth of all Rusyns,' Pis'ma, 26), as well as its spiritual distress ('We live here in poverty, without spirit, our life is only vegetation,' 36). Frustrated by Rusyn passivity and intra-ethnic dissension, he castigated his countrymen for their faint-heartedness and timorous behaviour: 'Let us not attribute our oppression to the Magyars, but to ourselves. We complain that others oppress us, but we do not take action against them' (Tvory, 3: 336). By 1860 the situation was extreme: 'We are in great disorder. The Magyars are rampaging and openly resisting imperial law ... Magyarism is spreading in full cry. Everyone is carried away with anything Hungarian. For fear of reprisals, not a word of Rusyn is heard' (Pis'ma, 46,49). Dukhnovych's emotional characterization of the atmosphere was not exaggerated. As the political position of Hungary relative to Austria improved during the 1860s, the national minorities felt more pressure toward denationalization. In response to acculturation pressures, in 1862 Dukhnovych and the Rusyn statesman Adol'f Dobrians'kyi organized the Society of St John the Baptist. The society's goal was the 'education of Rusyn youth for the future advantage of a national movement and renaissance,' with a view to expanding the Rusyn secular intelligentsia (Magocsi, Shaping, 53). Through the society, Dukhnovych succeeded in raising money to subsidize Rusyn students and to construct a dormitory. However, the educational activities of the Society of St John the Baptist came to an end when Dukhnovych died in 1865, and the centre of Rusyn cultural life moved from Presov to Uzhhorod.

184 Straddling Borders Dukhnovych's place was filled by other 'awakeners.' In 1866, Adol'f Dobrians'kyi and loann Rakovs'kyi established the Society of St Basil the Great, which was to dominate Rusyn political and cultural life for the remainder of the century. Its stated objectives were 'the creation, compilation, publication, endowment and distribution of school books to meet the needs of schools in the Mukachevo and Presov eparchies; in general, the composition in Russian and Magyar of all kinds of instructional and beneficial books, brochures, and periodicals, which, by their content and spirit will result in the successful spiritual-moral education of eastern Catholics' (cited in Nedziel'skii, Ocherk, 181).1 In other words, the Society of St Basil the Great undertook to foster the general national, religious, and cultural development of Rusyns. The society was greeted enthusiastically by the small Rusyn intelligentsia, and by 1870 it boasted seven hundred members. In the years from 1848 to 1866, when the rulers of Hungary were politically subordinated to Vienna, Rusyns were able to make some progress in building a national culture. However, after Vienna's defeat at the hands of Prussia in 1866, it became clear to the imperial government that in order for the empire to survive, the Hapsburg government had to reach a compromise with Hungary. The result was th&Ausgleich, or compromise, negotiated in 1867, which brought into existence the dual monarchy of Austria-Hungary. Hungary gained complete autonomy in all internal administrative affairs. Its parliament immediately set about consolidating a centralist policy, which did not augur well for minorities. In 1868 the parliament in Budapest proclaimed that 'all citizens of Hungary constitute a single nation, the indivisible, unitary Magyar nation (Magyar nemzet), of which every citizen, to whatever nationality (nemzetiseg) he belongs, is equally a member' (cited in Magocsi, Shaping, 56). In a sense, this was a tolerant policy, that is, a Rusyn had the right to become a Magyar, and many would take advantage of that opportunity. The drawback, however, was that they were not given the right to propagate their own culture. All national societies were declared illegal, laws were passed limiting the use of the Rusyn language in schools, and the struggle for Rusyn culture became more intense. The Rusyn literature that had been so optimistically launched by the Presov Literary Society in the wake of the Hungarian revolution almost disappeared from view. In 1859, only a decade after the appearance of the first Rusyn publications, Dukhnovych wrote that the Rusyn literary field had become a desert for lack of cultivation (Pis'ma, 41). Not long before his death in 1865, Dukhnovych left his testament in a poem that recalls the imagery and themes of the almanac verse, but now they are reinscribed with despondency, expressing a weary summing up of his life's work and dashed hopes. In 'Poslidnaia pisn' Dukhnovycha' (Dukhnovych's Last Song, Tvory, 1: 361),2 he addresses the

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next generation from his own position as an 'old falcon' who once soared above the mountains but is now grounded, his wings broken by external aggression and internal dissension.

Ah, how many tempestuous storms, / How many lightning bolts and vicious arrows / 1 suffered from natural enemies / Both alien and native.

Dukhnovych's early patriotic poems optimistically appealed to the Austrian eagle for protection and national sovereignty and promised loyalty in return. Now he sees the eagle as predatory, having allied itself with the falcons' primary foe, the Caucasus raven, that is, the Magyars.

The feathered emperor is also an enemy / He snared my people in the mountains, / Aiding him in battle / Is the slyly fawning raven of the Caucasus.

The political charge is concealed between the lines and behind the imagery. Dukhnovych's national appeal to the next generation is embedded in meaningful images from local nature and from the context of his own early poetry. His self-quotation from 'Vruchanie,' in which he remembers his birthplace (rne CKbx yaptn), emphasizes the change in tone between the poem that initiated the Rusyn awakening and this, his swan song, where he uses the same image to describe his burial place.

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Knowing mountain life, / Sing only your own song, / For an alien song is not yours / It is hostile to your people. //... In the Beskyds, in my native land / In the pure Rusyn paradise / Where I first saw light, / There I want to lie, to rest eternally. //... Bury me in a leafy grove / In a grotto on the grey cliff, / Yourselves, fly on with vigour / And keep your father in your memory.

Dukhnovych's example would remain inspirational and provide national selfconfidence in the struggle against denationalization that confronted the next generation. Yet as the change in his poetic posture indicates, the times demanded a revised approach to the problems of Rusyn self-definition, one that was more specifically national and more explicitly political. A National 'Nightingale' In an 1859 letter to his Galician colleague lakiv Holovats'kyi, in which he announces his own retirement from literary work, Dukhnovych commends his friend Pavlovych, whom he describes as 'a slave of literature' (Pis'ma, 41). Aleksander Pavlovych (1819-1900) was a contemporary of Dukhnovych and a collaborator in the Presov Literary Society, whose poems were included in the 1851 and 1852 editions of Pozdravlenie Rusynov. A prolific poet, Pavlovych is second only to Dukhnovych himself in the Rusyn national pantheon, honoured as the 'Makovytsia nightingale' for his poetic evocations of his native region of Subcarpathian Rus'. However, placing Pavlovych alongside Dukhnovych as an honoured 'awakener' and singer of freedom and Rusyn life obscures the distinction between them. It is certainly correct to see Pavlovych as upholding the national and emancipatory ideas of Dukhnovych, but Pavlovych's poetry demonstrates an intellectual and political advance over that of the Presov Literary Society, an approach to self-determination that grounded itself in the realities of Rusyn oppression. Pavlovych's formative years demonstrate the experiences common to the native intellectuals of marginal peoples, with some individual features that lend personality to his poetic vision. Left an orphan in childhood, he was

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shunted from one relative to another. The image of the orphan appears frequently in his work, not metaphorically, as in Dukhnovych's poems, but compassionately, as a literal example of Rusyn misery. A valuable consequence of his irregular childhood was that it afforded him a direct experience of diverse regional cultures and languages. Pavlovych began his education in a school in L'viv that promoted Polish and German cultures, where he found the hegemony of Polish culture odious: TIpeA copoK roflaMH H BO JlbBose >KH;I / He pyccKHM fl/[fl PycM pyccKHH ropofl 6bm' (Before the 1840s I lived in L'viv / For Rus' the Rusyn city was not Rusyn).3 He attended a Latin gymnasium in Bardejov and, later, Hungarian schools in Miskolc and Eger. Finally, he studied theology at a seminary in the west Slovak town of Trnava. He would later capture in verse the experience of the uprooted native in the alien metropolis:

In the cold alien land / For me, a child of Rus', / It is difficult to adapt; / Here my people are cursed, / Humiliated, mocked, / A child can only cry. (Cited in Shlepets'kyi, 'Iz nepublikovanoi tvorchosti Pavlovycha,' 200)

In the metropolitan centres, Pavlovych was exposed to Polish, Latin, Slovak, German, and Hungarian. In his L'viv school, the language of instruction was Polish, and as Pavlovych described it, he returned to his homeland as a 'little Pole' (IP, 447). 'Kxo pyccKMH, KXO OOAHK. To MM HC ana/rn, / H6o jiHiiib no no/ibCKy MM BCC gadali' (Who was Rusyn, who a Pole we did not know, / For we all gadali [spoke] only in Polish, IP, 439). At the Jesuit seminary in Trnava he was educated with Slavs from other regions and became conscious of the bonds that connected them: 'Thus in Trnava I became even more polonized, but I became a conscious Slav' (quoted in Shlepets'kyi, Oleksandr Pavlovych: Zhyttia i tvorchist', 14).4 As a result of his early conditioning, Pavlovych wrote his first verses in Polish, and when he began to compose in his native language, he used the Latin alphabet. Only with the rise of national consciousness in the 1840s did he begin 'to think in Rusyn' and to write in Cyrillic. Pavlovych welcomed the Hungarian revolution as liberation: 'KouiyxoBa BOHHa CBo6oay naM aana, / Toma yp6apcKaa naHm,HHa nponana' (Kossuth's war gave us freedom, / It was then that serfdom collapsed, IP, 194). However,

188 Straddling Borders he shared the general positive reaction to the subsequent incursion of Russian troops into Subcarpathian territory to quell the rebellion. In his memoirs he recalls that Rusyn priests did not comply with a government order to read an official condemnation of the invasion at divine services. This gave rise to a subversive anecdote, based on the colonial subject's manipulation of language. When the gendarmes asked whether the announcement had been read, the priests answered in Hungarian 'hat igen (well, of course), and then added in Rusyn 'HO HC aa o6eAHero, a sa o6e,n;oM' (not at the altar, but at the dinner table, IP, 469). In 1850 Pavlovych was in Presov, where he came under Dukhnovych's influence and expressed a Slavophile consciousness, invoking in his poetry the images of Mother Slava, Holy Rus', and Slav unity. His concept of Rus', like Dukhnovych's, was inclusive of all Slavic peoples. In several poems he names the individual Slavic nations and sums up, 'We are the Rus1 (pyccKHft) people Slavs,' and he warns his brothers, 'Remember that you are a Rus' (pyccioiH), Slav!' (IP, 79, 89).5 Inspired to work with his people, Pavlovych requested a village parish. He replaced Dukhnovych in Beloveza and remained there for thirteen years. The isolated Rusyn-inhabited village in northeastern Slovakia that Dukhnovych found so confining was conducive to Pavlovych's creative spirit. Inspired by folklore and local customs, he produced lyric poems in all the dialects of the Presov region, along with didactic verse that encouraged temperance, diligence, and education. This, he believed, was the duty of a nationally conscious poet, even if his audience was less than receptive. He addresses fellow poets: 'Sing to the people.'

Even if the people do not understand / And do not want to understand / The truth of sacred principles, / The spirit of the poet must speak prophecy. (IP, 45)

Not only must the poet speak to his own people, it is also his duty to speak out on behalf of his people, to represent Rus' before alien and hostile powers.

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O Lord bless / The strings of our lyre, / That the west might understand the truth / Of the Orthodox faith. (Vinets stykhotvorenii o. Aleksandra Iv. Pavlvovycha, 57)

In 1864 Pavlovych was transferred to a parish in Svidnfk, where he continued to write, publishing his poems in almanacs and the newly established Rusyn periodicals until his death in 1900. His depiction of the wretchedness of Rusyn life in Makovytsia, written in local dialect, filled out and particularized the established Rusyn auto-ethnography.

We live in the mountains, the thickets, along the summits, / Ignorant of profits and luxuries. / Our children are poorly, meanly dressed / And we are more often hungry than satisfied. (IP, 81)

Since much of Pavlovych's published work has not been collected and most remained in manuscript during his lifetime, it is difficult to evaluate the formal properties of his verse. Reading through his oeuvre, one finds repetitions and variations that would likely have been elided in a polished version. His writing is primarily a response to social conditions, with content superseding aesthetic function, and his style is traditional and often imperfect in form. Most of his poems are written in regional dialect; many are in a mixed language, with dialectalisms, foreign borrowings, and elements of Russian and Church Slavonic. The most successful poems movingly evoke the crisis situation of the Rusyns in a terse style, with no rhetorical excess.

190 Straddling Borders

Our need is great, / There is no bread, / No forage. // O the times are sad, stringent, / Terrible. // Our barns and troughs / Are empty, / Depleted. // The cattle bellow, / Children cry, /They are hungry. // Lord, / feed the cattle, / Give us bread, father! //Ah, I am poor, /1 have nothing, / Nothing to give you, / Because she is meagre, / Nothing was given us / by our land, our mother.6

It was this popular verse in the Rusyn tradition of cynical lament, a stylized complaint about real-life trials and troubles, that endeared Pavlovych to generations of Rusyns. Speaking for the masses, Pavlovych articulates the Rusyns' experience from their own perspective. He captures Rusyn 'types' in their own voices, as in this image of a village cantor, written in the Makovytsia dialect with traces of Church Slavonic.

Oh, I sing, I sing as long as my throat holds out; / Everyone hears my song, but no one gives a thing. / I've sung enough already, for twenty years I've been a cantor, / Now it makes me sad and brings me to tears. / It's hard for me to perform everyday tasks, / I've already grown old, my body is weak; / My hair is going grey, my brow is wrinkled, /As much as I would like to, I cannot sing with joy. (Vinets, 142)

The elements of Church Slavonic in this poem lend realism to the characterization and testimony of the cantor, whose professional discourse would naturally

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reflect that idiom, and the poetic monologue depicts the character type through his carefully reproduced speech style. Pavlovych's poems celebrate the daily life of the Rusyns. The poet 'overhears' a conversation between Rusyn peasants in a tavern and presents them in a poetic dialogue in 'Kum s kumom' (Friend to Friend, Misiatsoslov na 1869 god, 42), and he reports the thoughts and feelings of various subsets of the people in poems such as 'Chestnyi staryi otets zhenyt svoeho syna' (An Honest Old Father Marries off His Son, Misiatsoslov na 1898 hod, 35) and 'Dumky russkykh krasavyts' (Meditations of Rusyn Beauties, Misiatsoslov na 1899 hod, 65). While many of his poems contain social criticism and the details of poverty, he also reflects Rusyn strengths that normally go unsung, depreciated by the dominant culture and unrecognized by the people themselves. In 'Kolomeika' Pavlovych uses the distinctive Rusyn folk song form to fortify the Rusyn spirit.

Though Rusyns are naked and barefoot, they are peasants like beech trees, / They have common sense, and strong, powerful hands. /They will plow, sow, and work the field / And our people will no longer be hungry and naked ... Rejoice, rejoice, exult dear motherland, / We will plow, we will sow; our grandsons will reap. (Misiatsoslov na 1898 hod, 56)

These laments offer few consolations. From the perspective of national assertion, however, Pavlovych demonstrates a political consciousness that goes beyond expressions of love for the Rusyn people and idealistic visions of a supranational Slav future. Writers and theorists of postcolonial literature have noted that, while identity is crucial for a people, just to assert a distinctive identity is not sufficient. The next step is to recognize and acknowledge the reality of oppression. As Edward Said puts it, 'To become aware of one's self as belonging to a subject people is the founding insight of anti-imperialist nationalism ... We must not minimize the shattering importance of that initial insight - peoples being conscious of themselves as prisoners in their own land' (Culture and Imperialism, 214). That insight informs Pavlovych's work. While

192 Straddling Borders Dukhnovych looked beyond present suffering to an idealistic solution in the future, Pavlovych articulates the experiences of a people suffering under domination, identifies the causes of the situation, and voices resistance to it. In distinction from Dukhnovych's irony and ambiguity, Pavlovych's counterdiscourse is unequivocally combative. His poetry is replete with proper names of responsible parties, and he directly confronts complex social issues, such as serfdom, alcohol abuse, imperialism, capitalist exploitation, and emigration. With Pavlovych's poetry, Rusyn literature enters the stage of what has come to be known as 'colonial resistance.' The Plight of the Peasant In a poem from 1878, Pavlovych specifically states the question that underlies all of his work: TAC >KC npHHMHa ana? B Hapoae? Bne Hapo^a?' (Where is the cause of evil? In the people? Outside the people? IP, 49). Dukhnovych's idealistic poetry had depicted the Rusyn peasant as a victim of fate, who could not be blamed for his position, nor expected to do anything about it. Pavlovych distinguishes between the role of victim and 'the objective experience that causes his victimization.' This is Margaret Atwood's third 'victim position.' Once the real cause of oppression is identified, anger can be directed against the source of oppression, and energy can be channelled into constructive action. It also allows for 'a realistic evaluation of the extent to which change is possible' (Survival, 38). If it is not within the power of the victim to resist or change the situation, he can focus on strategies of survival. In itself, however, the recognition of the source of oppression is intellectually significant and psychologically empowering. Whereas the verse of Dukhnovych's almanacs focused on the freedom that came with the abolition of serfdom, Pavlovych takes a closer look at the institution of serfdom itself and sees in it the source of Rusyn problems. Instead of depicting the serf as a loyal servant to his master, as Dukhnovych did in the first version of 'The Life of a Rusyn,' Pavlovych emphasizes the inhumanity and injustice of serfdom.

We did not deserve slavery, / We had not killed anyone, / We lived peacefully, honestly, / Why, then, were we shackled? (IP, 141)

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Pavlovych created the Uncle Tom's Cabin of Rusyn serfdom (five years before the American novel) with his long narrative poem 'Slav bidnaho selianyna' (The Plight of a Poor Peasant).7 There was no possibility of publication in 1847 when the work was written, but it circulated in manuscript and became popular among the people. Sections were put to music and sung as folk songs. The text was published only in the twentieth century.8 The poem opens with an epigraph that prompts the desired response from the reader: 'LJu HC MAC TH #o miany, HK BHAHuih Hy>K,n,y ce^nHHy' (Are you not moved to tears when you see the poverty of the peasant?) In the 335 quatrains that follow, Pavlovych tells the story of the serf Ivan, his brutal treatment at the hands of overseers and guards, his death, and the fate of his widow and six children. The narrative begins within Ivan's consciousness and in his local dialect, lending verisimilitude and authenticity to the narrative. After a beating at the hands of the overseer, Ivan comes home to a meagre dinner. In his world, Ivan ruminates, people are treated worse than animals, for 'Mw o cxaroK CH crapaMe/ O Hac HHKTO, RCA He MaMe' (We make efforts for our cattle/ No one does the same for us, when we are in need). Before bed, he leads his family in prayer.

God, our Father in heaven, / We are in extreme need, / We ask your help, / We bring glory and honour to you. // Hallowed be / your holy name / You are the world's highest king, / We await the dawn of your kingdom.

Pavlovych goes on to render the Lord's Prayer, not in Church Slavonic, the prestige sacred language, but in the dialectical discourse of a Makovytsia peasant. The result is partly to humanize the Almighty and Ivan's relation with Him by violating the discursive demands of religious dogma. From another perspective, however, the poet subtly interrogates that discourse, along with the assumptions and social conditions it entails.

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Give us this day our daily bread, / It is essential for life, / Or summon us to heaven, / Where we will not need bread. // Forgive us our debts, / Do not punish our debtors / When, from human weakness, / They troubled us in anxiety.

Later in the poem, Pavlovych similarly rescripts the Communion Prayer from the Divine Liturgy, retaining the original sense of the words, but giving them a distinctly personal, peasant tonality.9 At night Ivan hears the ominous cuckoo's call and responds to it in the style of oral tradition.

You, cuckoo, nocturnal bird, / You incite fear in many, / For whenever you call cuckoo, I They say, you call one to his grave.

Having appealed to folk wisdom, if only obliquely, the poet-priest immediately overrides it with condemnations of superstition and gypsy sorcery, shifting from the discourse of folklore back to that of religion. The fact remains, however, that the cuckoo's call does portend death for Ivan. The next morning he is too weak to work, despite the invective of the overseer. Foreseeing his death, he prays with his family and, in a long lecture that is out of character, he regales his children with Bible stories and admonitions to trust in God's mercy. Although his words imply a recognition of the injustice of the world, he looks to God for retribution and final judgment.

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God is a merciful father /And a just judge, / He takes pity on the righteous, / And punishes sinners. // The highest lord above the lords / God will remain forever above us, / The earth and all its people will perish, / But God alone will be God forever.

The deathbed scene is played out to full effect. The last words are spoken to wife and children, and Ivan folds his hands over his chest and takes his last breath: ' AMHHI>, KOHCU,, HHT HOMOHH' (Amen, the end, there is no help for it). Under the circumstances, Ivan's faith in God seems irrational. The experience that Pavlovych encodes in the discourse of religion conflicts with what we see of the serf's reality. Their collision creates a contestation of meaning that remains unresolved for the reader. Thus, surely contrary to Pavlovych's conscious intent, Ivan's last instruction to his children takes on ironic overtones.

Everyone can see, / That God loves his children, / For no matter how sinful, / God will not leave them helpless.

For Ivan, faith in God confers meaning on the world. After Ivan's death, however, his wife, whose voice has scarcely been heard up to now, enunciates a critique of material and social conditions that contradicts the postulates of faith.

Our fields are all empty, / There are no potatoes, no cabbage! / There is no grain, no cattle, / We will perish in poverty.

Neighbours refuse to help for fear of contagion, and there is not enough money

196 Straddling Borders for a coffin or a candle. The only consolation comes from the parish priest, whose words of hope carry the weight of religious authority, but little moral satisfaction and no practical power. The greater part of the poem deals with the struggle for survival waged by Ivan's widow and orphans. While the poet's focus on the plight of Ivan and his family heightens the emotional tenor of the poem, Pavlovych also subtly generalizes the situation to comment on the common plight of Subcarpathian Rusyns. The poem concludes with a lengthy song - purportedly an original product of folk art that is sung by girls returning from the fields - that points to specific abuses borne by the peasants. The singing girls bemoan the barren land, the arduous labour, the fines and corporal punishment meted out by the lords, and denounce the lavish lifestyles the nobles enjoy at the expense of the Rusyn serfs. It becomes clear that Ivan's story is not an exception, as the song echoes the lords' threats, which use 'Ivan' as a collective name for their Rusyn subjects. In another clash of religious discourse with folklore, the girls' mental challenge to the hegemony of church and state, voiced in the validating authority of popular proverbs, stands out against the background of the inspirational sermons and didactic Bible stories surrounding Ivan's death.

The emperor is far away, God is on high, / A crow does not gouge out or peck / Another crow's eye, / They do what is right for them.

However, this stanza, which is often cited in Marxist criticism as Pavlovych's challenge to religious authority, is followed by another that mediates these irreverent sentiments. At least in 1847, Pavlovych, like Dukhnovych, expressed a measured confidence in the Austrian government, a confidence that seems to recognize its own futility, but is unwilling to relinquish hope.

The Emperor sits in Vienna, / He does not see our misery. / If someone could describe it to him, / He would take pity on us.

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The irony that is sensed by the reader is an inevitable, perhaps unintentional, product of the intersection of discourses upon which the poem is constructed. The native intellectual's double consciousness, in this case mediating between religious faith and social reality, creates a tension that remains unresolved. Speaking of twentieth-century colonial literatures, scholars note that it is typical of postcolonial texts to resist integration and to occupy a space of 'double inscription,' where experience is grounded in doubleness and disjunction (Lawson, 'A Cultural Paradigm,' 67). In the same way, Pavlovych's poem from the mid-nineteenth century metaphorically reflects the poet's ambivalence, or double consciousness. On the practical level, Pavlovych suggests that the only solution is to struggle against serfdom, to insist on Rusyn dignity. The peasant's song includes a defence of Rusyn honour.

We will show the world that we are human beings, /That something will come of Rusyns, / And only the future will tell / The great worth of the Rusyn people.

Because of his double-voiced discourse, Pavlovych's poetry can be valued alternately as an expression of Rusyn religious patriotism and an anticipation of Marxist political sentiments.10 Except for the lengthy didactic segments, this poem effectively presents the discourse of the oppressed Rusyn in his own voice. The language is skilfully and accurately reproduced; both narration and Ivan's speech arc in the Makovytsia dialect. The girls' song echoes the abusive speech of the serfowners: 'Bw roBe,na, Bbi pycHarjH, / BH IKWIHIJH, BM 6opTau,H' (You are cattle, you Rusyns, / You are scoundrels, dunces). The language of Ivan's wife is filled with diminutives that express love, despair, and a humanity that goes unrecognized by overseers and lords. Thanks to his own Rusyn roots and his immersion in the Rusyn countryside, in 'Plight of a Poor Peasant,' Pavlovych succeeds in validating local experience, recuperating the lost testimony of serfdom, and giving voice to the Rusyn subaltern. Colonial Consciousness Pavlovych also focuses on 'the evil within' the people, those factors over which they have some control and can be persuaded to change. Many poems are

198 Straddling Borders devoted to the subject of alcohol abuse, a perennial problem among downtrodden peoples. Yet Pavlovych makes it clear that the evident social problems do not in themselves constitute Rusyn culture, and he goes beyond condemnation and exhortation to explain the causes of Rusyn faults. He finds them in the legacy of serfdom, in economic exploitation, and, on the broadest level, in imperialism. He recognizes that the Rusyns as a people were warped by their experience as serfs, that '[their] nature was damaged by slavery' (pa6cTBOM HcnopieHHbi npaBbi, 7P, 192). Therefore, the abolition of serfdom was not sufficient to improve the situation of Rusyns; a moral and cultural reclamation was necessary. According to Pavlovych, serfdom gave way to another kind of oppression, an economic exploitation, the local representative of which was the Jew.

Long ago there was misery, but now the misery is worse: / The peasant used to work for the master; now he must work for the Jew. (Misiatsoslov na 1901 hod, 100)

The Jewish tavern-keeper represented the new money economy that was changing the village and dislocating the peasants. The stereotype of the Jew, created out of local prejudices, was common in the literatures of Eastern Europe (Grabowicz, 'The Jewish Theme,' 327^42). But Pavlovych's castigation of Jewish tavern-keepers and moneylenders is limited to their economic exploitation of the local population; he does not refer to religious beliefs or national traits, as did much of Ukrainian literature.

Long ago under serfdom we worked / The land for the master, / Today, for whiskey, farmers / Will do all the work for the Jew. // ... In exchange for whisky

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they give eggs, chickens, / Ducks and geese, / They fast, while the Jews / Celebrate the Sabbath in style. (Vtnets, 74)u

In fact, several studies have documented that there was less anti-Semitism in the area of Subcarpathian Rus' than in Galicia or eastern Ukraine, due in part to the fact that the Jews of Subcarpathian Rus1 were predominantly rural and lived in poverty not unlike that of their Rusyn neighbours (Baran, 'Jewish-Ukrainian Relations in Transcarpathia'; Rothkirchen, 'Deep-rooted yet Alien'; Himka, The Galician Triangle'). Nonetheless, it is true that the Rusyn population's economic dependence on Jewish tavern-keepers, lease-holders, and estate agents bred antagonism to Jews in general. Pavlovych, like Dukhnovych before him, demonizes the Jew as the tempter, who 'knows human weakness' (IP, 261) and feeds it with liquor and usury. Yet he is no less censorious of the Rusyns themselves for failing to resist the temptation of the tavern. Moreover, Pavlovych and other awakeners also encourage Rusyns to 'learn from the Jew,' to take up trade and handicrafts, the traditional occupations of Jews and Germans. Discord between and among oppressed groups is a common by-product of imperialism, where an existing antipathy is exacerbated within the broader political and economic context. In Eastern Europe, Jews were prominent as the officials attached to estates (stewards, overseers, lease-holders, etc.), and in this intermediate position between landlords and peasants, they often bore the brunt of the peasants' resentment. John-Paul Himka points out that the Jewish tavern-keeper was at the mercy of the noble landlord. 'If the tavern-keeper wanted to pay his rent and make something for himself, he had no choice but to foster the alcoholism of the peasants and to extract as much as possible from them in payment by employing sharp practices or by encouraging them to drink on credit. This is why the Jewish tavern-keeper, the agent of demoralization and economic ruin, was such a hated figure' ('Ukrainian-Jewish Antagonism,' 137). For the most part, Rusyn writers ignored the larger political context in favour of the local scapegoat, taking into consideration the needs and intellectual capacity of their audience. In Virtue Is More Important than Riches, for example, Dukhnovych passes over comprehensive social criticism and concentrates on instilling in Rusyns a sense of responsibility for their own economic health, to the extent that it is within their control. By contrast, Pavlovych indicates an awareness of the broader political setting and its impact on the situation of oppressed peoples. For example, there are many expressions in his poems of the brotherhood of peoples:

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Poles, Magyars, Germans and Latins, / And all the Turks are near to us, though they are not Christian, / Give us your hands, we want to live in accord, / Love us, brothers, and we will love you. / (In Shlepets'kyi, 'Iz nepublikovanoi tvorchosti Pavlovycha,'221) Yet he also describes the discord that exists between and among peoples, which is fuelled by higher powers to forward their own interests. Concerning the Poles he writes,

The enmity of our neighbours / Embittered us / And they aroused us, the members of one body, / To battle. (7P, 134) He calls on those powerful neighbours to account for their self-interested imperialism:

We are a young people, you are old, / History will say: You were barbarians! / You have poorly enlightened the Slavic people, / From free people you have made slaves. // ... You were driven by greed, / And this deterred you from enlightening the Slavs. / Where is your culture, where are the national schools? / Foreigners are the lords, and the Slavs are cattle. (In Shlepets'kyi, 'Iz nepublikovanoi tvorchosti Pavlovycha,' 221) Pavlovych frequently refers to historical figures and topical political concerns. He warns against Bismarck and ultramontism, supports France against Prussia,

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protests high taxes and corruption, and in a poem from 1884, he links the concerns of Rusyns with other colonized peoples of the world.

The people in Ireland live in poverty ... / And what can be said of India? / How do the lords administer power? / They torture and kill the people. // Tremble, fierce England! / India will punish you / For all your injustices to her sons, / Whose blood you have spilled. (IP, 121)

Pavlovych predicts colonial uprisings against England, not Hungary, but his support for oppressed peoples must be extrapolated to the Rusyn situation in Central Europe. Censorship would not allow any hint of insurrection, but the poet makes specific references to Rusyn attempts at legal resistance. In a tribute to Adol'f Dobrians'kyi, Pavlovych praises him for 'demanding just laws,' for defending the Rus1 people before the authorities in Budapest, and for joining battle with the Magyars in the name of the Rusyn people.12 He apologizes for the lack of support for Dobrians'kyi among the Rusyn people, whose indifference to politics leaves them threatened with annihilation. He writes, 'Hac nomomaex aanaa' (We are being swallowed up by the west).

And the Magyar enriches himself / With our treasures, / The people are robbed, / Persecuted by traitors. (IP, 426)

Although Pavlovych's rhetoric remains hopeful ('We will struggle with fate!'), in fact many Rusyns gave up the battle. Pavlovych comments extensively on the most popular form of passive resistance - emigration. Beginning in the 1880s, the economic and social oppression in Subcarpathia

202 Straddling Borders prompted emigration to the United States, and by the First World War almost 150,000 Rusyns had left their homeland, legally or otherwise (Magocsi, Shaping, 66). Pavlovych devotes an entire cycle of poems to the theme of emigration to America. Taking an unexpected angle, at least in terms of typical American treatments of the subject, he writes from the perspective not of the emigrant, but of those left behind. His America is not the land of opportunity, but a vast unknown beyond the ocean, into which sons, daughters, brothers, and sisters disappear. He describes the hardships involved in making arrangements for emigration - getting the money for passage, purchasing suitable clothing, getting to Hamburg by train, obtaining the necessary papers - and the perils of the sea journey. In a poem entitled 'Chestnyi Rusnak s Makovytsy rozdumue v Amerytsy' (Reflections of an Honest Rusnak from Makovytsia in America, IP, 252), Pavlovych begins from the perspective of the emigrant's parents, in whose discourse the word America takes on a sardonic tonality.

My father and mother cried bitterly, / When they saw me off to America. / - What will we old people do now, / When we send our son across the sea? / It will be hard, very hard for us! / What good to us is this America?

The parents borrow from the Jewish moneylender at a high rate of interest to finance the trip, but once in America, the son abandons his old-world values and neglects to send reimbursement back home. Instead, he sees himself as a carefree bachelor (napo6oK ne ^enaTWH), a 'son of Rusyn Makovytsia living luxuriously in America' (fl CWH pyccKoii MaKOBHijH / PocKomyro B AMCPHU;H). Eventually he has a change of heart, but back home his parents have lost their house and land and suffer from poverty worse than what they had known before: 'Only because of this America / They came to such great ruin' (JleM npo Tory AMepHKy / HpHiiMH Ha ncory se^HKy, IP, 257). For Pavlovych, then, emigration to America is but another negative consequence of Hungarian oppression. He is not unsympathetic to those who must leave, but he sees it as a temptation and, at best, a necessary evil. In an 1888 'letter to the editor,' he makes the point that as a result of the conditions

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allowed to exist under the Hungarian government, Rusyns are 'lured' by better wages in America to forsake their homeland. But instead of seeing opportunity in emigration, he fears the unknown.

They leave, they depart, people go away, / To seek happiness beyond the sea, / O God, God, what will become of them, / Will they not cry there? ('Amerika novyi svit,' Misiatsoslov na 1889 hod, 71)

His poems stress the difficult life of the emigrant, who is forced into dangerous and arduous labour in America and who longs to die in his own country. Not for Rusyns are 'strike it rich quick' stories and images of streets paved with gold. In his letters, Pavlovych mentions individuals who have returned from America with money, but there are also cases such as one Ivan, who got sick in America and returned penniless. In 1899, Pavlovych calculated that 120 to 140 people had left Svidnik for America (IP, 444-6), approximately 30 per cent of the population. Emigration in such large numbers was a strategy of survival for the individuals who left, but a further humiliation for the Rusyn homeland.

And we, Rusyn people of poor Makovytsia, / Look beyond the sea for bread in America. (IP, 251)

Rather than America's promise for individual Rusyns, Pavlovych focuses on the impact of emigration on the Rusyn people as a whole. He sees only negative effects - uprooting young men and women from their home and cultural heritage, a painful process of separation, and a disconnection from Rusyn tradition and values. In other words, emigration is another means by which Hungarian power sets about the annihilation of the Rusyn people. Pavlovych's negative depiction of it in his work is his own form of resistance. The Language Question - Round Two For lack of a local press, through the 1850s and into the 1860s Pavlovych's

204 Straddling Borders poems were published in newspapers and journals put out by the Rusyns' neighbours in Slovakia and Galicia, or in the annual almanacs (misiatsoslov) issued by the Society of St Basil the Great.13 In the wake of the Hungarian revolution of 1848-9, the Austrian government was sympathetic to the demands of nonMagyar peoples and agreed to finance a journal in Vienna devoted specially to the empire's Rusyns, Vistnyk posviashchennoie Rusynov Avstriiskoi derzhavy (1850-66). Edited by the Galician Rusyn lakiv Holovats'kyi, a professor of philology and holder of the first Chair of Ruthenian Language and Literature at the University of L'viv, and the writer Bohdan Didyts'kyi, it also included contributions from Subcarpathian writers, including Aleksander Dukhnovych, Nikolai Nod', Aleksander Pavlovych, and loann Rakovs'kyi. Vistnyk came out three times a week under conditions of heavy censorship, but it had a wide circulation and provided a forum for discussion of Rusyn cultural issues. Vistnyk also served as a link between the Rusyns north and south of the mountains. During this period, lively intellectual contacts were established and relations between Subcarpathian and Galician Rusyns flourished. Dukhnovych and Holovats'kyi carried on a correspondence and exchanged books, two of Dukhnovych's almanacs were published in Galicia, and Rusyns on both sides of the mountains shared the same national aspirations, the same orientation to Rus'. As Dukhnovych wrote in 1860:

Beyond the mountains are our own people, not foreigners; / Rus' is one, a single idea in all our souls. //... So now I confidently declare to you / That the Carpathians will not permanently separate us. (Tvory, 1: 537)

This poem is often cited, with disregard for chronological exactitude, as evidence of Dukhnovych's identification with Galician 'Ukrainians' and support for what was to become the Ukrainian national movement.14 Dukhnovych, in agreement with Rusyn statesman Adol'f Dobrians'kyi, did at one time advocate a union with Rusyns in Galicia to form an autonomous province within the Austrian empire and under the broad pan-Slav umbrella. But when opinions on language, literature, and politics in Galicia diverged from the Russophile convictions shared by the Subcarpathian Rusyns, Dukhnovych and the Rusyns south of the Carpathians became estranged from the Galician

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populist Ukrainophiles. Ultimately, it was not the topography of the Carpathians, but the differing views on linguistic, cultural, and political issues that divided the Rusyns. It was not long before Dukhnovych disagreed with his Galician colleagues in print on the subject of language. Now that publication was finally possible, the question of which language to use became urgent. In distinction from most other minorities in the Austrian empire, the Rusyns entered the 1860s without a codified language. Between 1750 and 1850, the empire's other Slavic groups had accepted four literary languages: Czech, Slovak, Croatian, and Slovene. Of these, Czech represented a revived form of a traditional literary language, Croatian and Slovene were based in part on popular speech and in part on an older, established literary standard, and Slovak had as its exclusive source the spoken language (Auty, The Linguistic Revival among the Slavs of the Austrian Empire,' 393). Analysing this process, Robert Auty concludes that where the authority of the traditional language was strong, fewer concessions could be made to colloquial usage, as was the case in Czech. By contrast, the Slovaks, with no traditional language as a model, turned to the spoken language, while the Croatians stood halfway between these positions, in the end adopting a compromise (404). Auty also points to the influential role of individuals in each of these cases, Josef Dobrovsky for Czech, Ljudevit Gaj for Serbo-Croatian, and L'udevit Stur for Slovak. For Subcarpathian Rusyns, of course, the authority was Aleksander Dukhnovych, whose influence might have applied one of these models to the development of a literary language in Subcarpathia. In many of his works, especially the drama Virtue Is More Important than Riches, Dukhnovych uses synonyms and glossing to make the language of the play comprehensible to the broadest audience of Rusyns, which suggests an attempt to work out a standard literary Rusyn. In the same spirit, he found fault with Galician Rusyn populists (Ukrainophiles) for their use of local dialecticalisms, which distanced them from the Rusyns of Subcarpathia. In a letter of 1853 to the Galician newspaper Zoria halytska, Dukhnovych reacts to recent Galician publications: You cannot imagine to what extent our people dislike the productions of some of your writers who use the popular language for lofty, scholarly subjects, even worse - the popular language mixed with Polish. Their compositions are not entirely comprehensible for our people, for it is well known that the Subcarpathian Rusyn dialect differs from the Galician, and almost no one here knows Polish ... We are trying to find some middle way in the Rusyn language, and ordinarily we write so that we will be understood also in Galicia. May our Brother Galicians make the same concession for us. (Tvory, 3: 289)

206 Straddling Borders The 'middle way' is precisely what one would expect from the Rusyns of Subcarpathia, for whom balance and moderation had always been the key to survival. However, the result of Dukhnovych's approach was an ambivalent linguistic legacy that ensured disputes for over a century. What language did Dukhnovych use in his literary work? Much ink has been spilled in trying to answer this seemingly simple question. According to Ukrainian literary historian Volodymyr Birchak, Dukhnovych used 'the popular Little Russian (Ukrainian) language, although not in a pure form' (Literaturni stremlinnia, 104). The Russian Evgenii Nedziel'skii insists that Dukhnovych's language was Russian (Ocherk, 156). The Czech philologist Frantisek Tichy states that 'Dukhnovych never wrote in Russian and did not know how to write in Great Russian' (Poeziy Dukhnovycha, 14). A.V. Popov asserts, 'Dukhnovych not only knew, but knew to perfection the Russian literary language. And if he wrote in the popular language, it was only for the people, but for the intelligentsia he wrote in the pure Russian literary language' (Aleksandr Vasil'evich Dukhnovich, 9). Most analysts and readers agree that elements of each of the languages mentioned, plus Slaveno-Rusyn and admixtures of Slovak and Hungarian, can be found in Dukhnovych's work. Twentieth-century Ukrainian linguists have applied 'scientific' methodologies to the question, calculating the percentage of Russian, Ukrainian, Church Slavonic, and dialectal words in a given poem. Not surprisingly, these analysts conclude (with minor qualifications) that whether he knew it or not, Dukhnovych was writing in Ukrainian.15 The list of linguists who would like to claim Dukhnovych for their own language or national group could be extended. In reality, Dukhnovych's language was idiosyncratic and it changed over time. The linguistic label applied to it is largely a political decision, determined by the predominant cultural orientation and national ideology of the analyst. This is an interesting variation on the standard colonial situation, in which a European language is imposed on a native population. In the Rusyn case, the native language has been retrospectively pre-empted by Ukrainian cultural authorities, who presume to define, name, and claim it. In fact, during most of the nineteenth century, any writer living in the Hungarian kingdom who refused to write in Hungarian used instead whatever language was at his disposal. 'We write as we know how,' said Pavlovych1 (Novyi svit,l&7l, quoted in Chumak, 'Svoeobrazie literaturnogo protsessa v Zakarpat'e,' 135). As a result, literary works were written in linguistic forms that might be placed on a continuum ranging from the vernacular to formal Slaveno-Rusyn. It is left to literary historians to sort out the politics behind the language and even to give it a name.16 If, as some would have it, language determines national identity, it is also true that in the political and linguistic strife of Subcarpathian Rus', na-

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tional affinities can determine the categorization and definition of language. Since Rusyns of all geographical and political backgrounds claim him as their awakener, Dukhnovych has been held hostage in the language wars between competing national groups into the twentieth century. If it is difficult to determine what language Dukhnovych used, it is also unclear what language he advocated for Rusyn literature. His theoretical statements were contradictory and had no direct connection to his poetic praxis. Of the models adopted by other Slavs of the Austrian empire, Dukhnovych tended toward Dobrovsky's two-language principle, defending the use of popular speech in some cases, and insisting on Slaveno-Rusyn in others. 'What German,' he asks, 'or Frenchman or Englishman writes as the simple people speak? No one' (Tvory, 3: 285). In theoretical pronouncements, he supported Slaveno-Rusyn as the basis for a Rusyn literary language. In an 1850 article protesting the tendency of Galician writers to abandon Church Slavonic in favour of the vernacular, he writes, 'Our national (HapoflHbift) language is one with the biblical, or Church Slavonic language; our desire is to move closer to Church Slavonic and base our nationality on it' (Tvory, 3: 252). This was the position of earlier Rusyn grammarians and it corresponds to Dukhnovych's fundamental Slavophile philosophy. Church Slavonic was to be the medium of communication for the entire Slavic family, and therefore, like most Slavophile intellectuals, he viewed the development of individual national languages as detracting from Slav unity. He objected to the creation of a local literary standard, citing the special features of the Subcarpathian Rusyns - their small numbers, their dispersal in a mountainous region in isolated villages, the consequent rise of numerous local dialects - to which might be added the lack of potentially unifying public media or national schools. In response to efforts in Galicia to raise the local dialect to a literary standard, Dukhnovych objected, 'No brothers! This cannot be, or else of the four million in the Austrian empire there will be one thousand Rusyn dialects, constant disputes, and internecine strife which in the end could annihilate the Rusyn people' (Tvory, 3: 253).17 In his own writing, Dukhnovych used Slaveno-Rusyn in formal odes, in ecclesiastical writings and histories, and in the preface that introduces the vernacularlanguage play Virtue Is More Important than Riches. At the other end of the spectrum, Dukhnovych also respected Rusyn vernacular, which he used in the Primer, in his play Virtue, and in much of his lyric poetry. In the same article where he spoke of basing nationality on Slaveno-Rusyn, he also defended the vernacular language. However, of its virtues he singled out its similarity to Slaveno-Rusyn: 'The Carpatho- or Beskyd-Rusyn language ... has been preserved in the mountains in its innocence and primordial simplicity; it maintains the purity of the Slaveno-Rusyn

208 Straddling Borders language, it is closest to its old Slavonic mother' (Tvory, 3: 244). Therefore, he could support the use of Rusyn vernacular in appropriate genres, believing that it was possible to revive a purified popular language without breaking the bond with Church Slavonic. In fact, it is true that Subcarpathian spoken dialects retained many of the archaic structural and lexical elements of Church Slavonic, and many local expressions came directly from Slavonic (Baletskii, Tserkovnoslavianskii iazyk i slavianskie dialekty,' 31-6). Thus, a compromise position was logical: 'In Hungary our idea is not to comply exclusively with Old Slavonic grammar, but we take care that we do not distance ourselves completely from it, and we always have before our eyes its rich and wise perfection ... We do not use the Old Slavonic dialect in our writing; as much as possible we adapt to our popular language, which is extremely close to Old Slavonic. We cannot nourish a dead body, but we respect the virtues of the dead and do our best to emulate it' (Tvory, 3: 253). Dukhnovych describes a process that is similar to what is recognized today as a typical strategy of colonized peoples - abrogation and appropriation, that is, the rejection of the normative standards of the prestige language and its accommodation to local cultural experience. Here the prestige language in question (Church Slavonic) is not entirely alien, but the process of 'adapting' or appropriating it to the vernacular is the same. However, Dukhnovych's linguistic practice did not always correspond to his expressed principles. The preceding pronouncements on language are from 1850. Over the next two years Dukhnovych would produce the almanacs Pozdravlenie Rusynov, which included a few poems in lofty Slaveno-Rusyn, but in which the popular language predominated. By the 1860s, Dukhnovych's views on language would change again and he would support Great Russian as the literary language of Rusyns. In the ensuing polemics over language, individuals representing various points of view expressed their support for the 'native language.' As the literary scholar lurii Bacha points out, however, no one ever specified precisely what was meant by the term, and more often than not, commentators subjectively associated it with their own dialect. At midcentury, the first and the only generally accepted meaning of 'native language' was 'not-Hungarian' (Bacha, Literaturnyi rukh na Zakarpatti, 79). Later it might also mean 'not-Great Russian' or 'not-Ukrainian.' That is, the native language was defined in opposition to some imposed or competing standard. Politically motivated and culturally defensive, this act of definition by negation did not provide a positive affirmation of 'native language' on which might be built a truly 'national language.' As a result of the politically inspired linguistic polemics and the amorphous linguistic vision that characterized his era, Dukhnovych's legacy has been vulnerable to manipulation.

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Language Wars The linguistic issues with which Dukhnovych struggled are universal, and language wars continue to be waged today in postcolonial societies. The most prominent warrior is Kenyan writer Ngugi wa Thiong'o, whose study of the politics of language in African literature has become a focal point for discussion of the issue. Ngugi abandoned a successful career writing in English and turned to his native language, Gikuyu, arguing that 'the choice of language and the use to which language is put is central to a people's definition of themselves in relation to their natural and social environment, indeed in relation to the entire universe' (Decolonizing the Mind, 4). A national language, he writes, is a 'collective memory bank' of experience that forms the basis of a people's identity (Writers in Politics, 57). In disagreement with Ngugi are other African writers who continue to use English or French, including Chinua Achebe and Nobel Prize-winning playwright Wole Soyinka. In addition to the practical and aesthetic advantages of English, these writers cite the potential of a world language for unifying Africans of diverse linguistic backgrounds. Chinua Achebe acknowledges feelings of guilt for abandoning his mother tongue, but about writing in English, he announces, 'I have been given the language and I intend to use it' (Decolonising the Mind, 7). The question is still open, and not only in Africa.18 The issue of language choice is a continual concern of contemporary societies and a frequent literary theme. In the nineteenth century, the Rusyns, for whom notions of national selfdefinition coincided with language, struggled with the same problems in deciding on a literary language. In Subcarpathia, Dukhnovych supported Slaveno-Rusyn as a pan-Slav language that promoted Slav unity. By contrast, in eastern Galicia by the 1860s, the most dynamic linguistic-national group was the 'Populists' or Ukrainophiles. They believed, as did Dukhnovych, that the Rusyns of Austria-Hungary and the Little Russians in the southwestern provinces of the Russian empire were one people, but instead of seeing them as part of an over-arching Rus' nationality, the Galician populists believed that together they formed a distinct Ukrainian nationality. From their point of view, the only appropriate conclusion to the language controversy was to raise the local Galician Rusyn dialects to the level of a viable literary language. Dukhnovych watched this growing trend in Galicia with displeasure and sharply denounced the Ukrainophile linguistic orientation, criticizing it as a regrettable departure from the principle of an all-Rus' language. Excuse me, brothers, if I am insulting someone but I must state that your Ukrainian stories are not in good taste. Your contemporary belles-lettres are for

210 Straddling Borders the tavern, for Hryts' and for Ivan, to make them smile and laugh, but not to educate them ... Leaving aside the vulgar expressions that debase a person, I do not understand for what reason you could suddenly change the pure Rusyn language to Ukrainian. However, Galicia is not Ukraine. As far as I know, the dialect is not the same ... I do not understand why Galicia is drawn to Ukraine. (Tvory, 3: 340)19

As the Czech historian and linguist Frantisek Tichy noted, the efforts of Galician and Subcarpathian Rusyns toward establishing a literary language 'had nothing in common' (Vyvoj, 99). Dukhnovych's rejection of the Galician vernacular has a distinctly elitist tone, which is otherwise unexpected in the 'national awakener,' author of the Rusyn national anthem and the first Rusyn primer. Ideologically motivated literary scholars have wrestled with the implications of Dukhnovych's linguistic orientation, seeing it as a result of his 'mistaken' philosophical views and his clerical background. Ivan Sozans'kyi was just one of the Ukrainophile critics who would over the decades accuse Dukhnovych of spuming the Rusyn vernacular in favour of a 'salon' language (Sozans'kyi, 'Poetychna tvorchist' Oleksandra Dukhnovycha,' 13). However, an unbiased recollection of the scope of Dukhnovych's clerical, national, and pedagogical activities among the people would argue against such a reductive explanation. Neither can his preference for a prestige language be attributed to alienation arising from his metropolitan education. If that were the case, he might have written in Latin or Hungarian. One must look elsewhere to find an explanation for Dukhnovych's linguistic 'elitism.' Dukhnovych's literary taste was formed by his reading of neo-classical Russian literature, and his linguistic views reflect Mikhail Lomonosov's stylistic norms for the Russian literary language. As Church Slavonic was giving way to Russian in the mid-eighteenth century, Lomonsov established three styles - high, middle, and low - appropriate for corresponding genres of literature. Dukhnovych adapted Lomonosov's model to Rusyn, distinguishing a 'high' style, dominated by Church Slavonic, from a 'low' vernacular style. Although Lomonosov's theory was long outmoded in Russia, Dukhnovych applied a modified version of it to the development of Rusyn literature, where it coincided with his predilection for neo-classical grandiloquence, decorous romanticism, and genteel sentimentalism. Indeed, in rejecting the 'low style,' Dukhnovych claimed to be speaking also for the Rusyn people, who respected Slaveno-Rusyn and had come to view it as their own literary language. In instructions to lakiv Holovats'kyi on some material to be published, he tells the editor not to admit any 'Galician idiotisms' into the text, for 'they call forth

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great antipathy from our people.' 'Our Rusyn,' he explains, 'will not read such a book and will get so angry that he will not even want to hear of it' (Pis'ma, 8). Even at the end of the nineteenth century, writers could comment on the attachment of the Rusyn people to Slavonic. Writing in 1893, levmenii Sabov names it as an obstacle to constructing a literary standard on a local dialect: 'Every Uhro-Rusyn person held, and even now holds the Church Slavonic language as holy, elevated, the language of his ancestors ... Hence the conservatism of the Uhro-Rusyn people, which even now clings to Slavonic style print rather than the modern, civil script. From this also comes his alienation from anything in print that has an everyday look and contains material over which he does not need to reflect or conjecture' (Khristomatiia, 186).20 As counterintuitive as this may seem, the subjective factor in language choice cannot be neglected. Thus, a number of factors come into play in Dukhnovych's condemnation of 'vulgar' language in literature. In addition to personal factors - his clerical background, his literary predilections, and his foreign education - it is important to take into consideration the contemporary cultural parameters within which he formed his linguistic and literary opinions. In this context, it is revealing to look at the new literature that was then emerging in Ukraine and contrast it with the Subcarpathian tradition of genteel romanticism. According to historian of Ukrainian literature George Grabowicz, Ukrainian romanticism tended to be historicist, restorationist, and antiquarian, that is, nativist, to which 'more intellectualized concerns as Slavophilism appear to be rather less central' ('Province to Nation,' 121). The populist movement in Ukraine, which 'established the tenor of virtually the entire nineteenth century,' began with the phenomenon of kotliarevshchyna, understood as 'the general tendency established ... to identify the Ukrainian literary idiom as such with the burlesque, the buffo, the crude, and the vulgar' (123). The term is derived from Ivan Kotliarevs'kyi, whose mock epic Eneida (1798), with its burlesque comic devices, its coarse colloquial language, and its pictures from common life, marks the beginning of modern Ukrainian literature in the vernacular. However, in addition to its positive consequences in terms of developing national consciousness, populism had the negative effect of contributing to 'a self-imposed isolationism and provincialism.' Grabowicz points out that kotliarevshchyna, marked by intimacy, inimitability, and emotionality, was a literary strategy to define Ukrainian literature in opposition to Russian, which was considered cold, formalized, structured, and convention-bound. Critics, however, from the Russian Visarion Belinskii to Ukrainian literary historians Mykola Zerov and Dmytro Chyzhevs'kyi reacted to this literary style with revulsion, seeing it as 'nothing short of a literary disease, the very epitome of

212 Straddling Borders provincial hack work, and a major impediment in the normal development of Ukrainian literature' (Grabowicz, 123). The Slavophile Ukrainian nationalist Mykola Kostomarov shared Dukhnovych's linguistic views, classifying Ukrainian literature as 'a literature for home use.' Kostomarov saw the desire to raise Ukrainian to a literary language as artificial, since 'the all-Russian language was as much Ukrainian as it was Great Russian' (quoted in Grabowicz, 123-5). Although historical perspective has demonstrated the misconception of these literary judgments, one can hardly blame Dukhnovych for sharing the same opinions. His rejection of the 'low' style, in conjunction with his Slavophile ideology and preference for Slavonic, was an effort to avoid the provincialism that he found, and literary historians have verified, in the nascent Ukrainian literature. In a letter from 1858, Dukhnovych admitted that 'we are very weak in the field of literature ... however, in my opinion our literature and language today are better than the Ukrainian or Galician. Ours maintain their age-old purity, and although they are not brilliant, they exist in their ancient native attire' (cited in Matula and Churkina, eds., Zarubezhnye slaviane i Rossiia, 627). As the political situation changed, Dukhnovych modified his ideas on language accordingly. The rise of Hungarian nationalism, accompanied by the assimilation of Rusyn intellectuals in ever greater numbers, prompted Rusyn leaders to reconsider their support for Slaveno-Rusyn as the Rusyn literary language and turn to Russian. In the postmodern era, it has been demonstrated that the natural progression of language variation in colonial societies involves bringing the status language under the influence of the vernacular, thereby producing a culturally distinctive writing. This may well have been the ultimate result of Dukhnovych's compromise between Slavonic and Rusyn vernacular, had it been given time to develop. (The fact that the status language in this case was their own, rather than an imposed foreign language, made such an outcome more congenial than the typical colonial situation would allow.) Since the national renaissance in 1848, Rusyns had been using language in literature each according to his own notion of grammar and spelling. Writing in 1858, loann Rakovs'kyi, Rusyn editor and official Russian translator to the Hungarian government, surveyed the difficulties of forming a literary language. One decade is far from the time required to establish various rules for any language. We notice that great nations, which long ago undertook the development of their languages (with government assistance, no less) frequently meet with disagreements and debates about the lexicon and grammatical features of their language ... Under the present circumstances, it will be sufficient if we write in such a way that we can understand one another, hastening the development and

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dissemination of our language toward the benefit and education of our people. (Quoted in Tichy, Vyvoj, 180-1)

Under the urgent circumstances in which they found themselves after 1867, Rusyn leaders considered it expedient to condense the process of development, so to speak, to choose an established language that had already accomplished its compromise with Slavonic and was essentially comprehensible to the Rusyn reading public. The most notable 'descendent' of Church Slavonic and the most prominent of the regional 'dialects' of Rus' was Great Russian. Therefore, a large segment of Rusyn intellectuals decided, as formulated by the editor of the journal Listok, 'Our language will be the generally accepted Russian literary language, based on the fundamentals of Church Slavonic' (Listok 1, no. 1, 1885). Of course this decision was not based solely on linguistic history and theory. The time-honoured cultural and filial connections between Russia and Subcarpathian Rus' meant that Russian was a defensible choice from the perspective of Rusyn nationalism; that is, it was not an alien language, but 'our own.' More importantly, the fact that Russian was the language of a powerful state, which was viewed by many Rusyns as their protector from Magyar aggression, was not lost on the Rusyn cultural leaders. Their use of Russian as the Rusyn literary language during the second half of the nineteenth century was a deliberate defensive manoeuvre directed against encroachments from the dominant Magyar culture. The editor of the newspaper published for Subcarpathian Rusyns in Buda, loann Rakovs'kyi, supported the choice. In the journal Tserkovnaia gazeta he stressed the practical linguistic reasons for adopting Russian. Among us Austrian Rusyns the linguistic struggle continues. Those who disagree with us would like to choose one of the local dialects as a literary language. But we have an almost innumerable profusion of dialects. Our Hungarian Rusyns decidedly abhor the Galician Little Russian dialect. Here in Hungary we speak differently in almost every district. Some scholars even distinguish by name several Rusyn sub-dialects among the Hungarian Rusyns ... In our opinion, given such a confusion of dialects, if we wish to promote popular education among our countrymen, there is nothing to be done but, given favourable circumstances of national equality, to adopt the Great Russian language for the dissemination of popular education. (Tserkovnaia gazeta, 1858, cited in Tichy, Vyvoj, 65-6)21

In a letter to lakiv Holovats'kyi, however, Rakovs'kyi provided an alternate reason based on political calculation. He wrote that since the Austro-Hungarian government 'persecutes everything that has the appearance of Slavic literature

214 Straddling Borders anyway, if we want to act against them, we must choose the most forceful weapon' (quoted in Chumak, 'Svoeobrazie literaturnogo protsessa,' 132). The most powerful linguistic weapon available to the Subcarpathian Rusyns at the time was the Russian language. In 1868, Rakovs'kyi again stressed the political importance of maintaining a unified all-Russian language: 'Why should we divide a single Russian language into two or three? Can such a division enrich or strengthen Russian letters? Divide et impera - this saying is true also in regard to literature ... He who wants to divide the Russian language is not a friend who supports its flourishing, but an enemy of our language and our people' (Svit, 1868, cited in Chumak, 'Svoeobrazie literaturnogo protsessa,' 132). But the division was already in progress. Arrayed primarily against their imperial 'enemy,' the Rusyn cultural forces were diverted by continual linguistic skirmishes with 'friends' over tactics, and they found themselves fighting on several linguistic fronts. At least within the Uzhhorod circle, Russian was the tactic by which they opposed Magyar oppression. Thus, when the first Cyrillic print shop was established in Uzhhorod in 1863, the dominant language was a Subcarpathian recension of Russian. The first Rusyn publications demonstrate the intelligentsia's pedagogical motivations. They include Rakovs'kyi's Russian Grammar, written in Hungarian (the official language of education), a three-volume Russian-language world history, and Russian-language textbooks in algebra and geography. The first locally published periodical for Rusyns appeared in 1867. A project of the Society of St Basil the Great, Svit (Light), a weekly four-page newspaper, published articles on religion, language, history, folklore, and literature.22 Taking as its slogan 'the light of the world,' with its religious and pedagogical implications, it became an outlet for the younger generation of Rusyn awakeners. Although it occasionally glossed the Russian-language texts with Hungarian and was full of Latin phrases, Svit supported Russian as the literary language for Rusyns, defended Rusyn culture and religion from the inroads of magyarization, and gave the Rusyn intelligentsia a national perspective on their history and current political situation. The editors supported the Rusyn national movement with articles on the needs of the Rusyn masses and bold condemnations of Rusyn assimilators to Magyar culture. Before discussing further the linguistic tactics of the Rusyn national movement, it is necessary to assess the forces of the enemy - magyarization. Renegade Rusyns The small group of national activists that surrounded Svit was not representative of the Rusyn intelligentsia as a whole. In fact, they were opposed by a

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much larger and more powerful group of magyarones, that is, Rusyns who favoured complete assimilation to Magyar culture. Dukhnovych's articles hold up to national scorn those Rusyns who are ashamed of their nationality, who are embarrassed to speak or write in Rusyn, and who do not know even the Lord's Prayer in Rusyn (i pycKift OTHenam HC SHaior). And Pavlovych's poetry castigates the magyarone intellectual's alienation from the people; the Rusyn intellectual speaks a foreign language and therefore, he charges, 'CBOH xe6a ne noHHMaex' (Your own people do not understand you; IP, 327-8).

And you are ashamed of your native tongue, / A foreign tongue is sweeter to you than your paternal language. (Vinets, 52)

This alienation from the Rusyn people and servility to Magyar culture became a popular theme for nationalist literature. CeMeunoe npaadnectneo (The Family Celebration, 1867), a play by Ivan Danylovych-Korytnians'kyi, satirizes the Rusyn fetishization of Magyar society. The play's Rusyn protagonist, Kyryl Chumakov, changes his name to Karoly Csomakovy and strives to live in aristocratic style (no nancKH). Under the influence of an honest Rusyn (whose home, in the words of the magyarone, 'CMCPAHT or pym,H3Hbi' (reeks of Rusynness), and through the love of a patriotic young girl, Kyryl/Karoly returns to the Rusyn traditions he had abandoned. In reality, seeing the path to self-enrichment in Magyar society, the majority of educated Rusyns disassociated themselves from the Rusyn nationality and defined themselves instead as Magyars of the Greek Catholic faith. The denationalization of the Rusyn secular intelligentsia left only priests to occupy leadership positions. In Budapest the 'Greek Catholic Magyars' established committees, clubs, and newspapers to propagate magyarism further among Rusyn professionals. Only the Church Slavonic liturgy still tied them to the Slavic world, but in 1900 they went so far as to petition Rome to replace Slavonic with Magyar as the liturgical language. Refusing to allow the Hungarians to use the Church for political ends, the Vatican rejected their demand. Nevertheless, when the first Greek Catholic church was founded in Budapest in 1904, Magyar was introduced into the liturgy.23 For Rusyn nationalists, then, the closest, most immediate opposition was not the Magyar authorities, but the magyarone renegades in their midst, and particularly in the hierarchy of the Greek Catholic church. Over the years, government and church policies had isolated and weakened the Carpatho-Rusyn

216 Straddling Borders eparchies and brought them under Hungarian control.24 Having opposed the efforts of Pope Gregory XVI to establish an independent Greek Catholic patriarchate that would have united the faithful in Galicia and Subcarpathia, the Hungarian ecclesiastical hierarchy insisted on the subordination of Greek Catholic clergy to the archbishop of Esztergom, the result of which was the imposition of a Latin mentality on the Greek Catholic priests and seminarians. Even worse, the Hungarian government arrogated to itself the right to nominate bishops and to control the education of the Carpatho-Rusyn clergy. As a result, after 1867, only candidates who supported magyarization policies were approved, and Greek Catholic Rusyns found their church, formerly the bastion of Rusyn national identity and cultural heritage, now led by Rusyn 'renegades.' For the remainder of the nineteenth century and into the twentieth, the bishops of Mukachevo and Presov, with few exceptions, hastened the latinization and magyarization of the Rusyn Greek Catholic church. They were assisted by the higher ecclesiastical ranks, the canons, archdeacons, professors of theology, and eparchial officials. Thus, according to church historian Athanasius Pekar, the Uzhhorod seminary, which until the mid-nineteenth century had served as the bulwark of Carpatho-Rusyn identity and culture, was transformed into an agent of denationalization. 'As a result, by the end of the nineteenth century, the Carpatho-Rusyn theological seminaries were producing a completely magyarized clergy - priests who were ashamed of their nationality and who preferred to call themselves "Hungarian Greek Catholics" rather than "Carpatho-Rusyns"' (History of the Church in Carpathian Rus', 89). The chief Rusyn proponent of magyarization was Stepan Pankovych, bishop of the Mukachevo eparchy from 1867 to 1874. During this time, Bishop Pankovych enthusiastically supported the policies of the Hungarian government and the Hungarian Roman Catholic church authorities. 'For bishop Pankovyc, only that which was imbued with a Hungarian spirit was considered genuinely "Catholic." The Hungarian language, Hungarian culture, and Hungarian organizations were deemed by him the only bearers of the "true Catholic spirit" in Carpathian Rus" (ibid., 88).25 Driven by ambition and self-aggrandizement, Pankovych turned his back on Rusyn culture and renounced his own Rusyn identity, saying, 'If now we live under the rule of the Magyars, then we should become Magyars.'26 Although it included politically expedient odes on Pankovych's various awards from the Hungarian government, Svit predominantly published correspondence and editorials expressing sharp criticism of his denationalization policies. The bishop responded by issuing an anathema against the newspaper for its 'dangerous tendencies' and forbidding his priests to read it. In 1871 the paper was discontinued and succeeded by Novyi svit (New Light, 1871-2),

Strategies of Survival under the Magyar Yoke 217 which also proved to be too Russophile and nationalist. Novyi svit was replaced by Karpat (1873-86), which began by defending Rusyn culture, but before long was publishing most of its articles in Hungarian. Nonetheless, as Evgenii Nedziel'skii put it, 'even in these organs, through an ideology based on ambiguity, Rusyn literature flourished' (Ocherk, 226). A few courageous individuals moved from ambiguity to direct critical satire. A journal of humour and satire named Sova (Owl) was initiated in 1871, but it was closed after six issues and its editors were exiled. The efforts of Sova were not supported by Novyi svit, the cautious and conservative organ of the St Basil Society, which found it indecently scornful of church leaders, science, and morality (1, no. 25, 1871). Pankovych's magyarone policies did not distinguish between radical satire and conservative opposition. He put an end to the active life of the St Basil Society, and on his orders, the entire leadership of the society was sent out of Subcarpathia. Preferring exile to magyarization, several of them fled to pursue careers in Russia. Pankovych's death in 1874 was greeted by the Rusyn poet Aleksander Pavlovych not with eulogies, but with expressions of liberation and thanksgiving.

He was never great, / Why should we celebrate him? /A lover of foreign tongues / For Rusyns he was an archenemy. // ... Stefan, disloyal bishop, / For distinction and gold / He tormented, persecuted the Rusyn people / And besmirched his nation. (In Shlepetskii, 'Iz nepublikovanoi' tvorchosti Pavlovycha,' 218)

Frantz Fanon speaks of the 'pitfalls of national consciousness,' including the post-liberation rise of a totally assimilated national bourgeoisie and treasonable leaders, 'a sort of greedy little caste, avid and voracious, with the mind of a huckster, only too glad to accept the dividends that the former colonial power hands out to it' (Wretched of the Earth, 175). The Rusyns were still subject to Magyar domination and had barely achieved national consciousness when, mutatis mutandis, the same internal dynamic occurred, producing opportunis-

218 Straddling Borders tic leaders who betrayed the national cause. The alienated intellectual became a figure of scorn and loathing in Rusyn literary culture. Pavlovych addresses a poem to 'the pseudo-intellectual' who is educated and arrogant, self-satisfied, a lover of luxury and 'six-kreuzer cigars.' The poet asks him:

And what good have you done / For your brothers among the people? (IP, 332)

The official editor of textbooks for Rusyn schools, Vasyl' (Laszlo) Chopei, was just such an opportunist in the eyes of Rusyn cultural activists. In 1883, he published a Rusyn-Hungarian dictionary, which elicited an award from the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, but cries of protest from Rusyn national leaders. In the bilingual Hungarian-Rusyn preface, Chopei announced the purpose of his work: 'To prepare a Rusyn-Hungarian dictionary in which Hungarian words and expressions used in the Hungarian land are translated by Rusyn words and also by those Hungarian words which have entered the Rusyn language' (Ruten-magyar szotdr-Rus'ko madiarskyi slovar', viii). The result was a mix of Rusyn words in etymological orthography, dialectalisms in a pseudo-phonetic orthography, Church Slavonic forms, polonisms, and russified Hungarian words (the last were printed in italics), with the goal of 'making it easier for our Rusyns to learn Hungarian' (xlv). In the preface, the author made the Hungarian government's point that the Rusyn language was independent, and not a dialect of Russian. In Chopei's language:

The Rusyn language is independent, not a dialect of Russian ... When the question is posed, in my opinion, it will hardly be a vain task to answer that the Rusyn language has the same rights to be called an independent language as any of its Slavic brothers, (xi)

As an 'independent language' Rusyn was much more vulnerable to incursions of Hungarian than it might be if considered a dialect of Russian. In colonial societies, grammars and dictionaries are political statements, and the response to them is dictated by national political considerations. In the

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twentieth century, Ukrainian-oriented Rusyns would consider Chopei's dictionary 'the first sign of a turn toward the native language' (Za ridne slovo, 29).27 By contrast, according to the Russophile linguist Georgii Gerovskii, 'hardly anyone could use [Chopei's] dictionary' (Istoriia ugro-msskoi literatury v izobrazhenii Volodimira Birchaka, 44).28 Pavlovych responded to it with a poem, 'Vasyl' rodu yzmenyl, russkyi bukvar' oskvernyl' (Vasyl1 Betrayed His People and Defiled the Russian Alphabet), which disparages Chopei's linguistic distortions.

He used to be an honest, Rusyn lad ... / When he forgot the 'Our Father', / Considered himself a scholar, / And began to ruin the Rusyn language. //... He took foreign words, / And with them put together a dictionary / So that our Rusyn children / Might learn what is alien. // ... You know, brother Vasylyi, / That the Rusyn language is rich: / It does not need foreign words / From alien outsiders. (7P,51-2)

He makes the point that many Russian words have made their way into neighbouring languages. And in a subtle but snide rejoinder to Chopei's tactic of italicizing Hungarian loan words used in Rusyn, Pavlovych italicizes prominent Rusyn words.

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The straw must be cut, / The horses must be fed oats. / When a child is christened, I The kinsmen must be treated. // There will be pastry, cabbage, I Good kasha with thick honey, I The yard must be swept clean, I When they carry him to the christening. (IP, 52-3) Of course, the Russophile intelligentsia was bound to object to any dictionary that promoted not only the alien Hungarian language, but also dialectalisms from regional vernaculars. Their understanding of the Rusyn language did not coincide with the Hungarian academy's definition. In fact, Chopei's dictionary was most likely a response to another Rusyn-Hungarian dictionary composed by the Russophile writer Aleksander Mytrak, Russko-mad'iarskii slovar - orosz magyar szotdr. Completed in 1871 and published in 1881, Mytrak's dictionary had just the opposite objective - to make it easier for the denationalized Rusyn intelligentsia to learn Russian and return to Rus' culture. A massive work of scholarship containing over sixty-eight thousand words, it was based on the Russian literary language, with dialectical variants. However, Bishop Pankovych refused to publish it 'for political reasons,' and the Hungarian Academy of Sciences rejected it 'for scholarly reasons.' Finally, Mytrak published it at his own expense.29 This dictionary duel is a telling illustration of the anomalous linguistic situation that existed in Subcarpathian Rus' during the second half of the nineteenth century, distinguishing the Rusyns from typical subject people in colonial situations. The Rusyn cultural leaders had a number of choices in deciding the orientation and language of Rusyn national culture. It was clear to them that they must reject the language and culture of the Magyar oppressor. The traditional status language of the Slavs, Church Slavonic, was recognized as inappropriate for secular, modern literature. The conflict came in deciding whether to raise a local dialect to the level of a literary language, or to use an available literary language (Russian) that they considered their own, but which the intelligentsia knew only imperfectly and which the uneducated masses knew hardly at all. In most contemporary situations, in a binary contest between the vernacular and the language of the imperial centre, the national preference would go to the popular language. But the Rusyns straddled more than one linguistic boundary. Besides Hungarian and numerous Rusyn dialects, they had to consider Russian, as well as the Ukrainian that was developing on their borders. Each alternative had political implications.

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The Hungarian government, recognizing that Slavs outnumbered Magyars in their own country, promoted the use of Rusyn vernacular, as put forth in Chopei's dictionary and textbooks. Based on the Rusyn dialects of the lowland regions, which were heavily infiltrated with magyarisms, it effectively distanced Rusyns both from Russians and from their fellow Rusyns in Galicia. The government designated it with the Latin-based term 'Ruthenian,' and declared it an independent language, not a dialect of Russian. For Russophileoriented Rusyn nationalists, this fabricated language and identity were just as alien as Hungarian.30 In an editorial in Listok, levhenii Fentsyk indignantly rejected the imposed nomenclature. No doubt you, respected readers, will be astonished at the word 'Ruthenian.' You cannot imagine what the word means ... But your surprise will be extreme, when I tell you that 'Ruthenians' are - you ... Although the people has never called itself by this name, today it is considered the Ruthenian people. Its language is also called the 'Ruthenian language' ... Can you imagine a people without a name, for whom other, alien people choose a name without their consent? ... Would it not be shameful for us to be invented by other, alien people and to accept their name? ... We have an ancient name - there is no need to substitute it with a new one ... Every person, and consequently an entire people, should be called by the name they call themselves, since one must presume that every person knows his own name best. ('Rufeny,' Listok 2, no. 3, 1886: 129)

The Russophiles considered such government interference as another Magyar tactic of control, part of a 'divide and conquer' strategy. For the same reason they disapproved the development of Ukrainian as an independent language, which they saw as playing into the Austrian government's own policy of divide et impera through linguistic fragmentation. As Chopei's dictionary seemed to demonstrate, the development of 'Ruthenian' had as its ultimate goal assimilation with Hungarian, and Rusyn leaders expected the same progression in Ukrainian. What does an oppressed national culture do when the dominant power prefers, and commands, a form of the vernacular?31 Until the end of the century, the dominant response from Rusyn cultural activists was to turn to Russian, which they perceived as the language of Rus'. 'lazychie' There was more than one problem with the Russophiles' choice of standard Russian as a literary language for Subcarpathian Rus', but perhaps the greatest was that most writers did not have a working knowledge of Russian. Writer

222 Straddling Borders Ivan Sil'vai recalled: 'At the beginning of the 1860s my knowledge of the Russian language was still insufficient. It was restricted to the speech of the common people ... If I wanted to write something in Russian, I would first have to compose it in Magyar and then translate it into Russian; but this translation was extremely awkward, heavy, and filled with magyarisms' (Sil'vai, 'Avtobiografiia,' in Izbrannye proizvedeniia, 118). Sil'vai learned Russian by reading the Church Slavonic Bible and checking the meaning of unfamiliar words in the Latin Vulgate (ibid., 121). Aleksander Pavlovych, who wrote most of his verse in Rusyn dialect, explains, 'I did not study Russian in schools anywhere. I am not in a position to write correctly in Russian, and therefore I compose folk-style verse' (IP, 452). Even loann Rakovs'kyi, the editor of the first Russian-language newspapers in Subcarpathian Rus' and the official government translator of laws into Russian, admitted, 'I only recently began to study Russian, and therefore have not yet mastered it in correct style' (Zarubezhnye slaviane i Rossiia, 382). The Rusyn intelligentsia discussed the problem in print. To the question 'Do our priests know Russian?' one correspondent answered: We do not know Russian ..., but no wonder! ... Our old priests finished school in those years that were so destructive for national minorities, when a person was afraid to admit to being Rusyn/Russian, because he would be branded as a traitor. Neither in the secondary school, nor in the theological seminary did he study Russian. Rusyn students went to a Roman Catholic church, where they studied the catechism in Latin or Hungarian. Many went to the seminary in Trnava, or the Pazmany seminary in Vienna, where again all things Russian were terra incognita ... How can they be expected to know Russian? Is it any wonder that our popular education progresses so slowly? (Svit 2, no. 18, 1868, cited in Dobosh, lulii Ivanovich Stavrovskii-Popradov, 43-4)32

Those Rusyn priests who were interested in literature were adequately prepared to understand the literary Russian of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, which had preserved many of the lexical and orthographic features of Church Slavonic. The nineteenth-century modernization of Russian was less familiar in Subcarpathia, since Russian was not taught in schools and there was little access to books and newspapers. For the Rusyns, Russian literature meant Sumarokov and Derzhavin. According to linguist Georgii Gerovskii, It is not surprising that for the inhabitants of Subcarpathian Rus', who knew the Russian literature of the eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth centuries, the

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literary Russian language seemed to be the same bookish Slaveno-Rusyn (Church Slavonic) language to which they were accustomed, the only difference being that it was better adapted to living speech ... Thus, the transition from the old bookish Church Slavonic language to the Russian literary language of Lomonosov in Subcarpathian Rus' was essentially the same process that had taken place in Russia during the time of Lomonosov (the mid-eighteenth century), but on a minor scale and with a delay of one hundred years. (lazyk Podkarpatskoi Rusi, 62)

The Subcarpathian poetry that was written in imitation of the Russian models could not be other than bookish and obsolete. The second generation of Rusyn awakeners, writing in the latter half of the nineteenth century, used a language based on the grammar compiled by Kyryl Sabov in 1865 (Grammatika pis'mennago russkago iazykd). Sabov's language was derived from 'examples of the best authors,' that is, the Russian classics of the first half of the nineteenth century. Thus, while their language represents a new phase of development, it lagged at least half a century behind standard Russian. Accepting contemporary literary Russian as the standard of correctness, the Rusyn awakeners felt they were taking a common-sense practical approach to language planning. Ivan Sil'vai believed that the Russian language had completed the development that still lay ahead for the Rusyn language of Subcarpathia. Even with a great expenditure of national energy and time under favourable conditions, he felt, future Rusyn generations would have no more than what was already available in the Russian literary language (Nedziel'skii, Ocherk, 220). Therefore, Rusyns could accelerate the natural process of linguistic evolution by making a concerted effort to study, read, and write in Russian. Naturally, depending on the age, education, and experience of the individual, this effort produced varying degrees of accuracy and purity. As a result, the 'Russian' language of the Subcarpathian Russophiles ranges from Church Slavonic to contemporary literary Russian. Between these two extremes, there is a range of transitional linguistic forms that exhibit deviations in grammar and spelling, as well as admixtures of dialectalisms and traces of the languages in which the writers had been educated - Latin, Hungarian, German.33 As natural as the process may seem from the point of view of modern linguistics, puristic trends of the nineteenth century perceived the resulting language as corrupted and deficient. For its contemporary detractors and for generations of critics, it has been known by the pejorative diminutive for iazyk (language) - iazychie (macaronic jargon). All the Russophile writers were self-taught in Russian, and therefore, the iazychie varied, according to the writer's knowledge of Russian literature.

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Besides alien lexical elements, the Subcarpathian recension of Russian exhibits deviations from standard Russian in morphology, orthography, and phonetics. Gerovskii cites as examples the confusion of endings in the masculine adjective, the replacement of -mb (sBaib) in the infinitive with -mu (sBaxH), and mutations of the type Kpuw for Kpow (lazyk Podkarpatskoi Rusi, 72-3). Feerchak points to idiosyncratic translations confusing 'grapevine' (BHHorpafl) and 'vineyard' (BHHorpaflHHK), and 'capricious, ungrammatical fabrications' such as ymyuiaem waxcdy based on the verb mytuumb (to extinguish), in place oiymonxem xcaxcdy (to slake thirst) (Ocherk literaturnago dvizheniia ugorskikh russkikh, 35). According to Gerovskii, on one hand, these deviations represented a return to the norms of Church Slavonic; on the other hand, they brought the literary language closer to popular speech. They did not hinder comprehension. Yet as magyarization intensified, more and more 'mistakes' appeared in the works of individual writers. This had more than linguistic implications, since the Hungarian government and Rusyn populists seized upon the 'artificial' iazychie as justification for imposing the 'Ruthenian' dialect in its place. Therefore, proponents of Russian were constantly on the defensive about their choice of language and their level of mastery in it. The new Rusyn periodicals demonstrated the capacity of language to transmit power and identity. The first Rusyn-language journal, Rakovs'kyi's Tserkovnaia gazeta (1856-8), used standard literary Russian and the modern Cyrillic civil typeface. Responding to Galician denunciations of 'muscophile propaganda,' the Hungarian government demanded a change from Russian to local dialect and from civil typeface to the ecclesiastical script. Rakovs'kyi published a few issues under these conditions, changing the title to Tserkovnyi vistnyk (1858), but, unwilling to compromise his linguistic ideals, he discontinued the journal within a year. Under government surveillance and unable to find a suitable position, Rakovs'kyi was forced to return to his village parish. Dukhnovych remarked in his notebook: 'Oh, the poor honest Rusyn, only for having written Tserkovnaia gazeta in literary Russian, he incited enemies (Galician Rusyns), was dismissed from his post and insulted in a foreign land. Deprived of bread, his homeland, his possessions, he wanders God's world, but remains true to his people. He does not betray them, but constantly suffers for the truth and for the Russian word. Lord help him!' (quoted in Nedziel'skii, Ocherk, 161-2).34 The Russian consul to Budapest claimed that 'to write -mb [as in Russian] instead of -mu [Slavonic and Subcarpathian dialect] and KCIK instead of HK was a political act. One who used correct Russian, but preserved -mu was considered a well-meaning Austrian, while -mb was tantamount to high treason, a sign of support for Moscow' (Devollan, 'Ugorskaia Rus',' 244).35

Strategies of Survival under the Magyar Yoke 225 In the 1860s Rakovs'kyi continued his struggle for the Russian language as editor of Svit, the language of which became the subject of bitter polemics. Supporting the idea of cultural solidarity with Russia, the editors of Svit endeavoured to use Russian and encouraged their readers to study it as a weapon against Hungarian assimilation. Not all readers agreed with this position, and the Rusyn literary language became the topic, as well as the medium, of discussion. In 1868, a letter to the editor from a writer calling himself Verkhovynets charged that the language of Svit was incomprehensible to the public, and he called for publication in the vernacular: 'Writers capriciously choose words, expressions, and styles from dictionaries and do not use the language we speak or words that every reader can understand without a dictionary (which does not yet exist) in which we might look up the meaning of a word in Hungarian. Our public would like them to write "in our own way" (no-HaiueMy), without "fancy" words, "muscovite" style, or "new" expressions' (Svit 2, no. 1,1868). A year later, another major attack on the language of Svit came from a correspondent who identified himself only with the letter A.36 In a series of articles entitled 'How we write,' he examines the problems facing Svit, noting that the newspapers' readership had dropped as the language improved, that is, as it gradually approached Great Russian. The author identified the conditions that must be met to ensure success: the readers must understand the newspaper, readership must be increased, and the language used by the paper must be pure. In his response to these letters, the editor noted that these conditions led in contradictory directions. On the one hand, the newspaper must demand perfection in literary style, but at the same time, its language must be comprehensible. Unlike Verkhovynets, writer A did not favour a turn toward the vernacular. However, his alternative, a blend of Church Slavonic and the vernacular, 'in the form and grammar of the civil language,' was no less problematic. As the editor noted in his response, while the ideas seemed practical, their implementation was unfeasible. Not even the anonymous author practised what he preached. The editor of Svit responded to the criticism of Verkhovynets with an anecdote based on the words of Dukhnovych, which summarized the newspaper's editorial policy. 'When one of our writers asked the now deceased Dukhnovych in which language an almanac should be published, the great man answered him: write correctly. That will be comprehensible for the people as well as the intelligentsia, and for the fool it is all the same.' The editor goes on: 'Education consists of giving man new concepts, for the expression of which new words are required. But where is the writer to get them when he does not find them in the people? He would have to create them, but in that case too they would be incomprehensible for the people. Whereas in a Russian dictionary

226 Straddling Borders one can find purely Russian words and expressions that all educated Russians have mastered' ('lavnyi otvit na otvertyi lyst do redaktsii "Svita",' Svit 2, no. 3, 1868). Russian words were used not to imitate the Russians, claimed the editor, but out of necessity, since the needed words were not part of the people's speech. Indeed, the purpose of Svit was to educate the readership, to perfect and disseminate the language, and to foster the development of literature. Accused by the Magyars of promoting Russophilism and pan-Slavism for its inclusion of news and information from Russia and other Slavic lands, the editor countered that the Rusyn intelligentsia read and supported numerous Magyar newspapers and insisted on the right of the only Rusyn-language paper to 'promote the benefit, profit and interests of the Rusyn nationality and Rusyn literature' (Svit 2, no. 7,1868). 'Take any Magyar scholarly newspaper; in any given copy you will find plenty of foreign news, even about Russia, and that is all free and fine. Only we Russians must beware of "Slavs" and the "moskal" as of poisonous reptiles! Is this what the free development of enlightenment in a free state means?' The awakeners of the second half of the nineteenth century inherited Dukhnovych's idealistic view of a world with permeable linguistic, cultural, and political borders, along with his aversion to provincialism and national essentialism. They moved fairly easily across linguistic boundaries and fostered a tolerant attitude toward their neighbours' languages, while defending and promoting their own. To the charge that love for the Rusyn language under conditions of life in Hungary was unpatriotic, levhenii Fentsyk responded sardonically: Since we have been born Russian [PVCCKHMH], we must love our Russian language. Whoever has betrayed his natural position and come to hate his native word can be suspected of any treachery ... He who does not love his native language and customs has no notion of patriotism, for he is lacking the very quality that inspires love for the fatherland. We must also study the Hungarian state language, and we fulfil this obligation brilliantly: among the sons of Russian priests there are even Magyar poets! ('Eshche koe-chto o materinskom iazykie,' Listok5,no. 15, 1889: 171)

This view of interpenetrable borders, coupled with extreme notions of linguistic loyalty, was a motivating factor for supporting the use of literary Russian over the local dialect. The defenders of Russian acknowledged the importance of studying the vernacular dialects as a means of enriching the literary language. But they opposed basing a literary language on the vernacular, on the grounds that the development of literature required resources that the people could not give. As the organ of the Society of St Basil Svit was followed by Novyi svit, which

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continued the use of the Subcarpathian recension of Russian. The newspaper's announcement of its orientation indicated a turn away from theoretical linguistic discussion toward practical language concerns: The Society of St Basil was founded for our Subcarpathian people, and not for our brothers in Moscow, Kiev, and Petersburg ... The people do not demand lofty politics from the St Basil Society. They need only educational books, written in a language they understand. They demand primers, and not dissertations on whether the infinitive ending should be -mu or -mb' (quoted in Feerchak, Ocherk, 38). Novyi svit was more tolerant of the popular language, suggesting that Great Russian should not be forced on the people 'even if for their own good,' and that the Rusyns of Subcarpathia should 'take time to consider' the development of local dialects in Galicia (Novyi svit 1, no. 2). However, the language used in the newspaper was the same mixed language of Svit, including features of dialect, traces of Church Slavonic, and borrowings from Russian. Novyi svit closed within the year and was replaced by Karpat, whose editor, Nikolai Homichkov, set forth the newspaper's language policy: 'We want to write in the dialect (language) which is most comprehensible to all. In this respect we will not tolerate any innovations' (quoted in Tichy, Vyvoj, 95). Instead of taking a firm position on any specific language, Karpat referred frequently to 'our language.' If this rather indistinct formulation was meant to satisfy everyone by its ambiguity, it was not successful. In an early issue of the newspaper, the editors responded to criticism from Rakovs'kyi that the name Karpat is Hungarian, that, for the title of a Rusyn newspaper, the Rusyn name for the mountains, Beskyd, should be used. The editorial response was indicative of what would become the linguistic fate of the paper. Writing in Russian, the editor objected to Rakovs'kyi's suggestion, claiming that 'our intelligentsia uses Hungarian for science and scholarship,' and that 'Rusyn is used only in church and in relations with the folk' (Karpat, 19 July 1873). By the 1880s Karpat was publishing a large part of its material in Hungarian, and Homichkov went on to edit the Hungarian-language Magyar Kdrpdt (1815-6). However, accustomed to the perils of national survival, the Russophiles managed to take support and encouragement where they found it. The editors of Karpat distanced the paper from the Russophiles of the 1850s and 1860s, since the Russophile orientation 'did not begin among the people but among certain individuals, and those men are now gone.' The people can now 'express their own views, and they consider themselves one among many of Hungary's peoples' (Karpat, 2 August 1873). Still, Karpat continued to publish in a mixed Russian-based language, and at a time when most access to Russian was blocked, Rakovs'kyi and the other Russophiles had to come to terms with it. Rakovs'kyi recommended Karpat 'despite its shortcomings.'

228 Straddling Borders In 1871, after the destruction of the St Basil Society, a deadly silence prevailed in our national life. The scattered spiritual forces no longer had a leader or centre ... The Russian language was not even taught by professors at Uzhhorod and Sighet because, they said, the very language itself had a pan-Slav flavour. At the [Uzhhorod] theological seminary, the students were being tortured because they had to learn Church Slavonic. From a national point of view, we were moving backwards ... It was forbidden to send students to Vienna to study, while in the Uzhhorod gymnasium, the department where history had been taught in the Russian language was dissolved, and religious instruction was being conducted alternately in Hungarian and Russian. The Russian language is now limited to Karpat only. (Karpat, 20 December 1880)

The journal Listok (1885-1903), established by levhenii Fentsyk, returned to the language policy of Svit: 'It is our opinion that our journal must be Russian, must be published in the Russian language. Our language will be the generally accepted literary Russian language, formed on the basis of Church Slavonic. We dismiss any mix or muddle in this question. Our goal is to educate and instruct, not to confuse, muddle, and disrupt' (Listok 1, no. 1,1885). In addition to the work of local authors, Listok published the Russian classics in literary Russian, with glosses in Hungarian and Rusyn dialect. The periodical clearly fulfilled a pedagogical need. As an example to local poets and a model for would-be speakers of Russian, lyrical verse from Russian authors was often printed with marks to indicate word stress. And in 1889, the journal began a series of lessons in Russian grammar, 'not a systematic grammar, but only the elements that seem to be the most needed and useful for us, that we might speak and write more correctly' (Listok 5, no. 1, 1889). In championing the use of Russian, the Russophiles were forced to battle on several fronts. Criticism came from all sides, but there was no consensus on an alternative. The Hungarian government was threatened by the implications of a pan-Slav language that linked the Austrian Slavs with Russia. Thus, the government solution was to foster the development of regional vernaculars, with large infusions of Hungarian, toward the goal of ultimate assimilation. The church hierarchy and the Rusyn secular intelligentsia adopted Hungarian to protect their own interests. A few individuals stood behind some form of Church Slavonic, whether in combination with the vernacular or with Russian. But the most bitter attacks came from the populist Ukrainophile Rusyns in Galicia, who chose the alternative rejected in Subcarpathia - that of basing the literary language on a vernacular dialect. In return, the Subcarpathian Russophiles were hostile to the Galician Ukrainophile efforts, claiming that the use of the popular dialect was a demand not of the people, but of the government. This

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produced 'opportunists,' who wrote literature in what they called the 'popular language,' but what the Russophiles considered a magyarized jargon. Svit and the Society of St Basil the Great have been justifiably accused of ignoring the Rusyn masses, even if such charges have been exaggerated by traditional Ukrainian-oriented critics. The Russophile practical efforts in writing for the people were well intentioned, but hindered by political circumstances. When he was editor of Svit (1867-9), Kyryl Sabov undertook a series of literary brochures for the people called 'Popular Readings.' Sabov believed that the accessibility of literature to the people depended not on grammar and orthography, but on the style of the writing and the accessibility of the content. Only one issue of the 'Popular Readings' series was published before Bishop Pankovych suppressed the activities of the Society of St Basil. Of the Rusyn newspapers, the language of Fentsyk's Listok was closest to standard Russian, but the editor paid more attention to reaching the masses. He announced a contest to collect folk tales, written 'in the simple language of the people' (Listok 8, no. 2, 1892), and included in the newspaper folk songs and other examples from various Rusyn dialects. Although Listok continued the Russophile resistance to writing in the popular language, the editor paid lip service to it. 'We do not want to allege that the written language should be distinct from the popular language. No, it must be a language that is entirely popular. It must reflect the spirit and logic of the people, it must use popular forms, it must be the same language that the people speak. Except instead of capricious forms, it must follow correct forms and all the characteristics of linguistic culture' (Listok 13, no. 10). Fentsyk added a supplement (Dodatok) to Listok that published literature for the masses. Printed initially in the ecclesiastical typeface that was most familiar to the people from religious texts, Dodatok gradually introduced the civil script, although the ecclesiastical typeface was not completely abandoned. Civil and ecclesiastical scripts were mixed, with articles on cholera appearing in the ecclesiastical script, while Bible stories were sometimes published in the civil typeface. The supplement included fables by Dukhnovych, poems by Pavlovych, and stories by Anatolii Kralyts'kyi and other Rusyn and Russian writers. For example, 'Selo Vydrenuvka' (Vydrenuvka Village), published in Dodatok in 1893, is a moral tale similar in content and style to Lev Tolstoy's late stories for the people. Like Tolstoy, Kralyts'kyi concurrently wrote more sophisticated Russian prose for the intelligentsia. The language of the supplement was dialectical in vocabulary, but it followed standard Russian grammar. Dodatok was perhaps the most successful Rusyn publishing venture to this point. In 1897 Fentsyk noted in Listok that he received many requests to subscribe to Dodatok independently of Listok, and he proposed a plan to make

230 Straddling Borders it available in villages at an affordable price. In his 1893 anthology, levmenii Sabov calls Dodatok the first publication of its kind for Subcarpathian Rusyns, and he submits, 'We are certain that the circulation of Dodatok among the people would have a positive influence and would distract them from destructive and idle occupations' (Khristomatiia, 208). However, given the use of Hungarian in schools, the people's disinclination, and the low material and spiritual level of the Rusyns, whether the language of the newspaper would have made a difference is a question not easily answered. In reference to a plan to publish a Rusyn newspaper in 1880, Karpat reported: The intelligentsia is afraid even to speak Rusyn in the street, let alone to subscribe to a Rusyn paper such as the proposed Slovesnost' ... Although Rusyn is spoken here by the people, they do not need Slovesnost', because they first need to learn to read and write. A true prophet in the here and now would be one who informed people how to get food' (Karpat, 30 September 1880). On the face of it, using the vernacular for popular literature would seem a logical choice, but the Russophile position was not unfounded. Because of its lexical basis in Church Slavonic and its etymological spelling that reflects the development of linguistic forms, Russian was accessible to a broad range of Rusyns, who brought it under the influence of regional vernacular phonology. Russophiles insisted that the pronunciation of words in colloquial speech according to a local dialect did not hinder the unity of the literary language. Mykhai'l Kotradov, Subcarpathian writer and rector of the Greek Catholic Theological Seminary in Presov, challenged Ukrainophiles: 'We write Russian the same as the most intelligent, educated, and the largest part of the Russian world, but we read our own and foreign languages according to the pronunciation of our people. Thus it happens that our Rusyn villager understands our common-Russian (obshcherusskii) better than your (Galician) regional style' (quoted in Tichy, Vyvoj, 61). Throughout the language controversy of the 1860s and 1870s, Subcarpathia's youth studied and spoke standard Russian in Presov according to the Presov pronunciation, and in Uzhhorod according to the pronunciation of Uzhhorod (Sabov, 'Riech' po sluchaiu otkrytiia pamiatnika,' 14). Still, while Rusyn speakers appropriated Russian to their own phonological system, the communicative function of the language remained intact. As for the Rusyn masses, the Russophiles substantiated their acceptance of Russian and their capacity for the language by citing the people's response to the Russian soldiers who had passed through Subcarpathian Rus' in 1849. Dukhnovych and Ivan Sil'vai expressed the people's delight that they could communicate with the soldiers: 'All [the villagers] fluently conversed with the Muscovites and understood their language without difficulty' (Sil'vai, 'Avtobiografiia,' in Izbrannye proizvedeniia, 103), and from the Russian side,

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individual officers left accounts of the 'Russian' language they encountered in Hungary.37 The Russian writer I.S. Aksakov, who travelled through the area in the mid-nineteenth century, corroborated this judgment, writing that '[The Rusyns] speak Russian much more purely than the Little Russians [Ukrainians]' (Ivan Sergeevich Aksakov v ego pis'tnakh, 2: 56-60).38 Clearly there was more than wishful mythologizing behind the Russophiles' elevation of Russian as a Rusyn literary standard. As the century neared its end, the Hungarian government's language policy became more restrictive. In 1869 a decree was passed forbidding the teaching of history in Rusyn at the Uzhhorod gymnasium, and within a few years the Slaveno-Rusyn language was dropped as a required subject. In 1879 the teaching of Hungarian was made mandatory in all state-run schools, and in 1889, even the teaching of religion in Rusyn was outlawed. When Listok reported the ban, the gymnasium issued a statement, which was published in Magyar newspapers, charging 'pan-Slavism.' levhenii Fentsyk protested in an editorial: Thus, our maternal language is being banished everywhere, and we are not free to comment or express regret without being called pan-Slavs or even traitors to the fatherland ... There is no doubt that the Russian people is the most backward in our fatherland, and the main reason is that it cannot be educated in its mother tongue ... In all of Hungary there is not a single middle or higher institution in which we can study our native language. The half-million Ugro-Russian population is condemned to stagnation, to obscurity - and if you complain, you are an enemy of the fatherland! (Listok 15, no. 8, 1889)

In 1894, two Rusyn priests proposed replacing Cyrillic with the Latin alphabet in school textbooks according to Hungarian transcription, which produced such monstrosities as zascsisscajuscsij (aammnaiomHH), khvoszt (XBOCT), and tiszjaszcsi (TbicHHHJ.39 Nationally conscious priests conducted necessary correspondence with their bishop in Latin to avoid the hated Hungarian. Only the most courageous would address the bishop in Russian, although among themselves the awakeners used Russian in written correspondence and they used Rusyn vernacular in communication with the people. On city streets, only Hungarian could be spoken without fear.40 By the 1890s, the larger battle for the Russian language and the Rusyn nationality seemed lost.41 Meanwhile, the Subcarpathian Russophiles objected to any suggestion of cooperation with the populist Rusyns of Galicia, who were successfully creating a Ukrainian literary language. Galician Ukrainian writers such as Ostap Terlets'kyi, Ivan Franko, Osyp Makovei, Kyrylo Studyns'kyi, Mykhailo Vozniak, and Vasyl' Lev gradually introduced the vernacular into literature, which re-

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suited in the codification of a Ukrainian literary language (Magocsi, The Language Question in Nineteenth-Century Galicia'). To Volodymyr Hnatiuk's proposal of joint ventures under the auspices of the Ukrainian-oriented Shevchenko Scientific Society, the Rusyns responded with disdain for the language and with aversion to the cultural, national, and political position it represented. On this side of the Carpathians there is not a single educated Rusyn who would be attracted to your independent script and self-generated dreams. In vain do you assert, even swear, that you are Rusyn. You will be considered by all a Pole, a destroyer of the beautiful Russian language. Do not send me your books; even reading your letter was torture, not to mention an entire book. Between us there can be no common cause, so leave me in peace.42

Just as the Galician Ukrainophiles accused the Subcarpathian Russophiles of muscophile sympathies for their use of Russian, the Rusyn poet Stavrovs'kyiPopradov linked the newly created Ukrainian language with separatism and disloyalty. We use the language and orthography of Dukhnovych, but your dialect and phonetics are difficult and alien. If our literate population were to read, for example 'napudnix dwmeme,' they would think it was written in Serbian, rather than Rusyn. For not accepting your radicalism and your orthography, you consider all of us enemies of the government. But you are in solidarity with the Poles and even under the patronage of the Poles, who inspire you to these endeavours. (Quoted in Nedziel'skii, Ocherk, 257)

In return, the Galician cultural leaders dismissed the efforts of the Subcarpathian awakeners with scorn and condescension. Ivan Franko characterized Dukhnovych as 'without doubt a man of good intentions and not lacking in ability,' but 'hopelessly confused in linguistic and political doctrine' (cited in Mykytas', Tvorchist' O. Dukhnovycha v otsintsi doradians'koho literaturoznavstva,' 104). He described the literary work of the second generation of awakeners as 'wafting the cold of the grave that can be felt from ten miles away' (Zhytie i slovo 1, no. 2, 1894: 304). Hnatiuk spoke similarly of Mytrak: 'As a person, he is not bad, but his views, like those of the other katsaps [pejorative for Russophiles] have a fearfully retrogade odour.'43 The Russophiles who followed in Dukhnovych's wake were accused of hostility toward the people and their vernacular. These antagonistic exchanges capped a progressive drift that began with Dukhnovych and ended in linguistic and political

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enmity that culminated after the First World War and that has persisted until the present day. The Carpathian mountains were only the most obvious boundary between Subcarpathian and Galician Rusyns. More important was the historical and political rift that resulted in conflicting cultural and linguistic orientations, leaving activists on both sides of the mountains convinced of their own rightness. Rereading the 'lazychie' The recriminations between Russophile and Ukrainophile Rusyns were configured in a binary pattern of oppositions. The Ukrainophiles accused Russophiles of being elitist, reactionary, tsarist, and detached from the people. In return, the Russophiles charged Ukrainophiles with vulgarity, radicalism, separatism, and toadyism to Polish culture. Overarching and embodying all of these conflicting characteristics was the disagreement over language choice. From the point of view of contemporary sociolinguistics, the Ukrainophile development of a literary standard on the basis of the vernacular, using a phonetic alphabet, is perhaps the most productive solution. For the Galicians this was possible in part due to the use of the vernacular in education and also to the influence of a writer of genius, Ivan Franko, who chose to use a vernacular-based language. Ultimately, however, the Galician populist Ukrainophiles abandoned the purely vernacular principle they had maintained against Russophiles, gave up the Galician variant of Ukrainian, and accepted a literary norm based on the Poltava dialects in the eastern, Dnieper Ukraine, which was substantially different from their own local dialects. Like Russian for the Russophiles, it provided prestige and security, since it was used by a population of 32 million Ukrainians living in the Russian empire. Because this solution was the one ratified in the twentieth century by another imperial power, the Soviet Union, it has been considered the only possible 'correct' solution to the language question in all the Rusyn lands.44 Was that in fact the case? Was there no merit to the Subcarpathian approach? Was the adoption of the Russian literary standard indeed so perilous for Rusyn identity? The Subcarpathian intelligentsia was hardly naive in linguistic matters; their history had impressed upon them a good understanding of language as a medium of power. Going as far back as the purposefully macaronic language of Mykhailo Andrella's polemical treatises from the seventeenth century, to the grammarians and poets Mykhailo Luchkai, Vasyl' Dovhovych, and Hryhorii Tarkovych, who alternated among Slaveno-Rusyn, Rusyn dialect, and Latin, circumstances forced Rusyn writers to be cognizant of the political significance of language variance. In the second half of the nineteenth century,

234 Straddling Borders Russophile writers chose a literary language based on the 'Great Russian dialect,' rather than any of their own Subcarpathian dialects, believing that, as the language of the Russian empire, it would help this people of one and a half million souls to resist Magyar assimilation. Similar colonial situations throughout history have resulted in cultural alienation and the total loss of indigenous language and culture, which would have been the case if all writers of Subcarpathia had succumbed to Magyar assimilationist pressures. However, the iazychie, as motley and awkward as it was, kept alive cultural specificity and served as a defence against denationalization. Still, could a Rusyn literature have emerged in Russian, or some variant thereof? Traditionally, the answer has been negative. The Russian-oriented intelligentsia looked to Russian culture for inspiration, but the universally condemned iazychie was seen as an immovable obstacle to their own cultural progress. Numerous critics and historians, even those sympathetic to the Rusyn national movement in Subcarpathia, have assailed the iazychie for its defects and censured the writers who used it. Into the twentieth century, scholars have repeated that while Rusyn writers 'thought they were writing in Russian,' they were actually using a Subcarpathian (read 'inferior') recension of Russian. This was the time-honoured linguistic judgment, and it is still alive today in Subcarpathia.45 However, postcolonial theory and modern linguistics have provided new ways of looking at language. The emphasis on the standard code and contempt for regional variations in language, which was characteristic of orthodox linguistics, is seen by postcolonial theory as an 'imperialist prejudice.' According to the postcolonial model, 'The syncretic and hybridized nature of post-colonial experience refutes the privileged position of a standard code in the language and any monocentric view of human experience' (Ashcroft et al., Empire Writes Back, 41). In this context, it is instructive to re-examine the iazychie and to suggest reading strategies that may shed a new light on the practice of the Rusyn Russophiles. Whereas orthodox linguistic theory dealt with static models of discrete languages and standard codes, modern linguistics sees language as a continually changing process.46 As a continuum of human behaviour, new models have been devised to theorize it. For example, the Creole continuum theory 'focuses on the variations generated in the habits of speakers rather than the putative grammatical standard. [It] reaffirms the notion of language as practice and reintroduces the "marginal" complexities of speakers' practice as the subject of linguistics' (ibid., 45). The concept of the Creole continuum is applied to the polydialectal culture of the Caribbean, where distinguishable modes of language or 'lects' overlap in a speaking community. The subject of this linguistic theory is the variants of speech that have developed from acts of negotiation

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and crossing that occur on the continuum between the grammatical standards of the major languages that stand at the extremes. Today these variants are considered language systems in their own right and not 'broken' or approximate languages. Language variants are the natural result of a postcolonial interrogation of the dominant code and can establish themselves as counterdiscourses, 'even though such variance is always attacked from the centre by the dismissive terms "colloquialism" or "idiom"' (ibid., 56), or in the Subcarpathian case, iazychie. In a similar way, the written form, with its variations, neologisms, idiosyncratic word use and spelling, continually reshapes the contours of a national literature. In Subcarpathia, the linguistic continuum spanned the distance between Church Slavonic and Rusyn vernacular. In between are overlapping modes of language, within which the individual writer situates a representative written form. As the authors of The Empire Writes Back point out, a model such as the Creole continuum is an example of how postcolonial theory can confront received theoretical norms: 'Where a traditional theory posits the ideal speaker in order to deal with a language which is grammatically consistent, a "standard" language which can be approached with the use of consistent and coherent structures, polydialectical theory reveals that the performance of speakers, with all the variations that must be taken into account, is the true subject of linguistics' (47). Similarly, the performance of writers, with all the arbitrary and marginal variations of written language, should be the subject of literary study. To study the language of Rusyn literature objectively, the extremes of the continuum are not sufficient as a focus of discussion or as a standard of comparison. Instead, the variants or 'edges' and overlaps of language are more relevant. A full analysis of the iazychie would need to take into account the function of intruding Church Slavonicisms and dialectalisms, the effect of latinized syntax on poetic expression, the significance of alternate declensions, and the transitional nature of the linguistic phenomenon. As twentieth-century Russophiles noted, the iazychie was 'a step toward perfection' (Vergun, Evgenii Andreevich Fentsik, 13). An analysis of the Subcarpathian recension of Russian from this perspective might reveal a range of linguistic variance that, under more favourable conditions, could have become a variant of Russian and the medium for a Rusyn version of Russian literature.47 The language of Orosz Nyelvtan es Olvasokonyv - Russkaia hrammatyka y chytanka, the grammar compiled by levmenii Sabov in 1890, which was developed from the literary Russian language on the basis of local dialect, was an effort to codify the progress of this variant linguistic formation.48 Beyond non-standard or mixed linguistic composition, another target for scurrilous attacks on the Rusyn Russophiles was their grammatical errors,

236 Straddling Borders which have provided an easy pretext for dismissal of their literary work. The fact is that their knowledge of Russian was incomplete and faulty. Again, this is not a problem exclusive to Subcarpathia, but a situation that persists in many emerging cultures. According to modern linguistic theory, however, the 'incorrect' language of the Russophiles should be seen not as a linguistic aberration but as an illustration of 'interlanguage.' The concept of 'interlanguage,' the fusion of the linguistic structures of two languages, refers to the genuine and discrete linguistic system employed by learners of a second language. In this context, utterances are seen not as deviant forms or mistakes, but rather as part of a separate linguistic system, distinct from both the source language and target language. Transient by definition, it is constantly being reconstructed, but at any stage such an interlanguage 'may become the focus of an evocative and culturally significant idiom' and 'the basis of a potent metaphoric mode in cross-cultural writing.'49 Thus, the 'error' described above, the substitution ofymyiuumb (extinguish) for ymonxmb (slake), can be viewed as a mistake, a linguistic aberration, or, more productively, as an example of the creative potential of intersecting languages, in which new lexical items are coined by authors who are 'unhindered by a native speaker's restrictions on their application' (Angogo and Hancock, 'English in Africa' [1978], cited in Zabus, The African Palimpsest, 120). Scholars have noted such innovation in Rusyn Russian-language literature, and even unfriendly critics acknowledge in it some creative potential. Hence, the Soviet Marxist Ukrainophile, Vasyl' Mykytas' writes, 'Their inadequate knowledge of the literary language is reflected in their poetics. There are interesting poetic images, comparisons, metaphors, rhetoricisms, tautologies, but also weak lines, hopeless from the lexical and metrical point of view' (Haluzka, 118). To be sure, the Russophiles' 'creativity' in this respect was unintentional, a result of their imperfect knowledge of Russian, and not an effort at subversion of the standard. However, as a reading strategy, the awareness of interlanguage prompts the contemporary reader to look for the essence of Rusyn literature in its position straddling discourses. That is, in Russophile texts, the tension that exists between the poet's aspiration to the language of Russian culture and the evidence in the text of the underlying linguistic influences, whether vernacular, religious, or foreign, metaphorically pictures the dilemma of an oppressed people trying to maintain a distinct identity between cultures. Postcolonial theorists apply the concepts of abrogation and appropriation to the decolonization of language. Abrogation is defined as 'a refusal of the categories of the imperial culture, its aesthetic, its illusory standard of normative or "correct" usage, and its assumption of a traditional and fixed "meaning"

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inscribed in the words.' Appropriation is 'the process by which language is taken and made to "bear the burden" of one's own cultural experience' by bringing it under the influence of a vernacular tongue (Ashcroft et al., Empire Writes Back, 38-9). For the Rusyns, whose adoption of Russian was in itself a subversive manoeuvre against Magyar culture, any abrogation or appropriation of Russian was unintended. Nonetheless, abrogation and appropriation inevitably occurred, as natural processes of linguistic interface. For example, the iazychie was characterized by 'syntactic fusion,' the adaptation of a vernacular syntax and phonology to standard orthography, allowing vernacular rhythms to resonate through standard vocabulary. Since the Rusyn writers learned Russian from books, with little or no exposure to spoken Russian, they tended to superimpose vernacular oral stress patterns on Russian words. The poets naturally adapted the Russian words to the melodic base of one or another Subcarpathian dialect. Thus, Russian-speaking readers of Rusyn poetry often must choose either to follow the rhythm of a verse, distorting the standard word stress, or to read it according to logical stress as syllabic versification, in which case the rhythm and melody of the verse is lost. From the perspective of Rusyn dialect, as an anonymous writer observed in an article on Rusyn poets and prosody, 'If one were to read several lines with proper [Russian] stress to a peasant, he would be astonished and probably would accuse the reader of spoiling the language' (Svtt 2, no. 24, 1868). However, in the postcolonial context, accepting Rusyn prosody as an example of interlanguage, the reader becomes aware of the tension created between the poet's aspirations to genteel Russian literary culture and the persistence of the vernacular. By superimposing Rusyn word stress on Russian syntax, Russian is made 'to bear the burden' of local cultural experience. The Russophiles were at least partly aware of the literary processes that were taking place and made some attempt to control them. In 1858, loann Rakovs'kyi, perhaps the greatest advocate of Russian, set out linguistic principles for the Russian-language journal Tserkovnyi vistnyk that imposed elements of local discourse on standard Russian. These included introducing expressions 'which are characteristic of our people,' using grammatical forms from the local dialect, and maintaining the orthography most widely accepted by Rusyn writers (quoted in Tichy, Vyvoj, 180-7). Writing at the end of the century, lulii Stavrovs'kyi-Popradov was conscious of engaging in what is now called appropriation, and he defended it against accusations of ignorance: 'As our written language we chose the Russian dialect, which is used in the scholarly world as a literary standard. And we have been using it over the course of many years, adapting it to our circumstances and to our Hungarian-Little Russian dialect. And have we done wrong? No, we have done what other peoples are doing, and

238 Straddling Borders what linguistic science and ordinary speech demand.'50 In defence of the Russophiles' written language against later accusations from hostile critics, one might cite contemporary linguistic debates. The universality of the process of adapting a world language to local conditions becomes apparent if we return to the discussion of language in African literature. Chinua Achebe, who did not follow Ngugi in abandoning English for a vernacular language, nonetheless refuses to submit totally to the alien language. He writes: 'I feel that the English language will be able to carry the weight of my African experience. But it will have to be a new English, still in full communion with its ancestral home but altered to suit new African surroundings.' And Gabriel Okara articulates an understanding of language that demonstrates the commonality of the Russophiles' problems: Some may regard this way of writing English as a desecration of the language. This is of course not true. Living languages grow like living things, and English is far from a dead language. There are American, West Indian, Australian, Canadian and New Zealand versions of English. All of them add life and vigour to the language while reflecting their own respective cultures. Why shouldn't there be a Nigerian or West African English which we can use to express our own ideas, thinking and philosophy in our own way. (Quoted in Ngugi, Decolonising the Mind, 8)

According to the tenets of postcoloniality, the kind of interlanguage we see in Subcarpathia's Russophile literature is paradigmatic of all cross-cultural writing, since 'the development of a creative language is not a striving for competence in the dominant tongue, but a striving towards appropriation, in which the cultural distinctiveness can be simultaneously overriddenoverwritten' (Ashcroft et al., Empire Writes Back, 68). Ironically, from today's perspective, the mistake of the Russophiles was in striving for competence in correct Russian, rather than boldly and creatively appropriating the language to their own cultural needs. Speaking of postcolonial English-language literature, the authors of The Empire Writes Back stress the importance of encouraging a situation in which a multiplicity of what they call 'englishes' are able to coexist, as opposed to a world in which one metropolitan English is dominant over other 'deviant' forms. Of course, writers and critics were not ready in the 1870s to accept various versions of 'russian.' As products of their time, they held to the evaluation of linguistic variants as 'correct' or 'incorrect,' 'good' or 'bad,' and insisted on the necessity for 'prescriptive intervention' to regulate language variance.51 Of the Rusyns, lulii Stavrovs'kyi-Popradov held what might be called postmodern language ideals. 'The Lord God gave man the gift

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of language so that he might communicate his thoughts to help his neighbour. If the language satisfies this goal, that is, if it is capable of expressing a person's inner thoughts, then one can say that the language is perfect' (cited in Dobosh, lulii Stavrovskii-Popradov, 116-17). Postmodern writers wrestling with linguistic questions have devised models that more accurately than traditional approaches reflect the complex state of language in postcolonial societies, and a thorough discussion of the linguistic aspects of Rusyn literature would include a more complete survey. A few relevant examples come from scholars of Caribbean and African literatures. Edward Kamau Brathwaite, speaking of the Caribbean context, proposes the term 'nation language' to replace 'dialect,' which, he alleges, has pejorative overtones. 'Dialect is thought of as "bad English." Dialect is "inferior English'" (Ashcroft et al., Post-Colonial Studies Reader, 311). As the manifestation of a specific cultural experience, he avers, 'nation language' subverts the imperial standard. Describing a process that is identical to the Rusyns' nineteenth-century strategy, Chantal Zabus, scholar of African postcolonial literatures, speaks of 'relexification,' which she defines as the making of a new register of communication out of an imported lexicon by using the vocabulary of an alien language alongside indigenous structures and rhythms, that is, a planned, intentional, subversive interlanguage. Such texts, she writes, are palimpsests, 'for behind the scriptural authority of the target European language, the earlier, imperfectly erased remnants of the source language are still visible.' 52 Thinking of the Subcarpathian recension of Russian as palimpsest, interlanguage, or 'nation language,' or in the context of a Creole continuum opens up intriguing prospects and instructive strategies for rereading the iazychie and reconceptualizing the literature that resulted from it. Russia's 'Younger Brothers' As we have seen, in reaction to magyarization pressures, Rusyn cultural leaders looked to their most powerful Slavic brothers in Russia and found support in Slavophile circles. In nineteenth-century Russia, Slavophilism functioned as a conservative, aristocratic reaction against westernization, a defence against charges of backwardness, and a rejection of government-imposed values and identity. The definition of 'Russianness' included a patrimonial monarchy, communalism, and Orthodoxy - traditional values that Slavophiles believed were best preserved in the peasantry. The central Slavophile thinkers, Aleksei Khomiakov and Ivan Kireevskii, were popular among the Subcarpathian Rusyn intelligentsia. Khomiakov's programmatic poetry, characterized by gentility and a slightly archaic language, was published often in Subcarpathian periodi-

240 Straddling Borders cals, and both Dukhnovych and Pavlovych devoted poems to him. In his correspondence, Dukhnovych frequently cited a verse from Khomiakov as evidence of Russia's familial concern for Rusyns. O M/iaAuiHX 6parbHX HC 3a6y,n,b, O 6paTbHX B Kapnarax TCMHbix.

Do not forget about our younger brothers / Our brothers in the dark Carpathians.

An indication of Khomiakov's popularity among the Rusyn intelligentsia is an anthology of Russian literature published by lakiv Holovats'kyi in Galicia, which contains only one poem by Aleksandr Pushkin ('Klevetnikam Rossii'), but twenty-five from the work of the minor poet Khomiakov (Huziova, 'Retseptsiia slov'ianofil'stva u zakarpatoukrains'kii literaturi,' 325). It is not surprising that this social and literary philosophy would find adherents among the pious, conservative Rusyn intellectuals, who were scarcely a generation removed from the peasantry. They found even more to admire in the next generation of Russian Slavophiles, their own contemporaries. Mikhail Pogodin and Ivan Aksakov modified the original Slavophile philosophy, constructing a political program under the term 'pan-Slavism' that advocated the religious and cultural unity of the Slavic world. The Austrian Slavs recognized the protective potential of Slav unity, and in response to a Russian initiative that came just after the Ausgleich of 1867, Slovaks, Serbs, Croats, Slovenes, and Czechs attended a Slavic Congress in Moscow. There were three Galician Russophiles among the delegation, and Rusyn ethnographic artefacts were included in the associated exhibit. The political character of the trip to Moscow was openly acknowledged by the Austro-Slavs - to establish a 'foundation for the reciprocity of all the Slavic stock which will procure protection especially for the Austrian Slavs against all kinds of future storms which threaten the national development they so vainly seek here at home' (Petrovich, The Emergence of Russian Panslavism, 204). No concrete program came out of the Moscow congress, and although it fortified feelings of kinship and good will, it also generated suspicion about the dangers of Russian cultural imperialism. Over the years, the initial idea of pan-Slavism, based on reciprocity and mutual equality, devolved into an assumption of Russian linguistic and cultural hegemony and an objection to particularism. Vladimir Lamanskii, a professor of Slavic studies in Petersburg, believed that the 'servile position and spiritual slavery' of the European Slavs arose from the diversity and autonomy of their languages and literatures. He drew a contemptuous parallel with the linguistic situation in Africa, Asia, and America: 'Such is the ideal which is being

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proposed to us in the form of a Slavic federation in which every people, every microscopic folk, is to have its own literature without recognizing the hegemony of any other Slavic language. Meanwhile, until such a federation is established, the Slavs are living under the rule of the Germans and the Turks, and are being subjected to the hegemony of other languages: German, Italian, Greek, and even Hungarian and Rumanian' (cited in Petrovich, Emergence of Russian Panslavism, 157). Instead, Lamanskii urged the Slavs to follow the example of the German and Italian unification movements. By accepting Dante's Tuscan as their literary language, he claimed, the Venetians, Genoese, and Neapolitans had not lost their own characteristics and individualities but had gained in the preservation of their common culture. Essentially, he was suggesting to the Austrian Slavs that Russian hegemony was preferable to German or Hungarian, a notion that coincided precisely with the ideals of the Subcarpathian Russophiles. It is another anomaly that the Rusyns of Subcarpathia, in an effort to resist the domination of one imperialist power, welcomed the imperialism of another. In an 1880 article entitled 'Golos iz Ugorskoi Rusi' (A Voice from Hungarian Rus') published in the Moscow journal Russkaia mysl', an anonymous author goes so far as to request that the tsar, having liberated the Slavs of the Balkan peninsula, might 'finally reunite to its great kingdom Hungarian Rus', which is now suffocating under the Magyar yoke, but which from time immemorial was an heir to the Rus' of St Vladimir and therefore also of the Russia of the Romanovs.' Should that not be possible, he asks the Russian government to colonize the Crimea with Rusyns from Hungary, 'who would easily resettle there thirty to forty thousand households.'53 And if even these drastic measures are not taken, he asks, 'What is left for us to do, but to revolt with weapons in hand in defence of our faith and our nationality, even in complete certainty that such a revolt would end in our destruction ... The resolution to commit suicide from despair is just as possible for a nation, as for an individual' ('Golos,' 23). Facing certain destruction through assimilation and magyarization, the Rusyns were prompted to extreme solutions. Given their belief in the unity of Rus', their common religion, and closely related languages, the Russophiles of Subcarpathia could see only advantage in Russian cultural imperialism. Dukhnovych and his followers were pleased to accept the position of Russia's 'younger brothers in the dark Carpathians' and they revelled in the encouragement they received from the Russian pan-Slav movement. In 1858, an organization for extending philanthropic aid to foreign Slavs was founded in Moscow. Russian records note that 120 rubles were sent to the Society of St John the Baptist in Presov for the education of Carpatho-Rusyn youth, in addition to several donations of books and newspapers. Dukhnovych

242 Straddling Borders thanked the committee, stressing what he called the Rusyns' 'Russian hope': 'A people numbered at 600 thousand has thrown off its childhood, is beginning to gain confidence in itself, and is no longer ashamed of its native language. Although they are distant from their own people, they still belong to their people, and they live in this natural feeling, glorying in their native brothers and awaiting the hour of salvation from their foster family' (quoted in Shlepets'kyi, 'Z spadshchyny O. Dukhnovycha i O. Pavlovycha,' 73). Contributions of money and books continued into the 1870s. Acting as liaison between St Petersburg and Subcarpathia were Mikhail Raevskii, protopresbyter of the Russian embassy church in Vienna, and, later, Konstantin Kustodiev, a priest at the Russian Orthodox church in Pest. Through Raevskii, Dukhnovych received Russkaia besieda (1856-60) and circulated it among Rusyn intellectuals: 'It is passed from hand to hand among honourable people with great danger; you know the conditions in which we live' (cited in Rudlovchak, Bilia dzherel suchasnosti, 154). When Raevskii sent religious books, Dukhnovych was disappointed and responded that 'for the development of our common nationality,' the classics are required. 'I already have enough liturgical books ... better would be books for enjoyment of the spirit of the times. If you have enough of these -1 beg you' (cited ibid., 155). Dukhnovych also asked Raevskii to intercede for him with Ivan Aksakov, with the hope of publishing in Aksakov's journal Den'. Raevskii wrote to Aksakov, 'You know Dukhnovych, who writes me such sincere letters. You know his ardent love for the Russian people. Print the ad or the letter in Den' and do what you can for the Subcarpathian Russians' (cited ibid., 154).54 Dukhnovych's letter to Aksakov requested aid for the construction of a dormitory for Rusyn students. The Lutherans, he says, receive aid from the Germans and the Swedes, 'but we are left on our own ... We have no supporters other than God, our native brothers have forgotten us, and we ourselves are powerless. Therefore we are gradually perishing and being exterminated in foreign countries ... Even a few kopecks can save an entire people, an ancient people, a Russian people, which has been crushed by deceit and Jesuitism and which already stands on the brink of destruction' (Shlepets'kyi, 'Z spadshchyny O. Dukhnovycha i O. Pavlovycha,' 7). Konstantin Kustodiev began his collaboration with the Rusyns of Subcarpathia in 1870. He enjoyed diplomatic privileges in Pest, where he served at the Orthodox church that marked the grave of the Russian princess Aleksandra Pavlovna, wife of the Hungarian palatine. In 1871, Kustodiev wrote an article about the struggle for church autonomy in Subcarpathian Rus1, which was published in the Russian journal Pravoslavnoe obozrenie. Surveying conditions in Subcarpathia, he tells his readers, '[The Rusyns] stand alone, they have no support, no protection, no refuge' (cited in Rudlovchak, Bilia dzherel

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suchasnosti, 164). Kustodiev offered his own support by translating Dukhnovych's History of the Eparchy of Presov from Latin into Russian and publishing it in St Petersburg. He transmitted other documents to be published in Russia after they were banned in Hungary, and set about publishing Duknovych's poetry for the benefit of the Rusyn reading public. He explained his motivation as follows: 'I do not consider the publication of Dukhnovych's manuscript a scholarly work. It is important rather as a memorial to a man who is loved here, and it will put in the hands of the Ugro-Rusyn people a book that not even [Bishop] Pankovych himself would dare take away' (ibid., 168). It is not surprising that the Hungarian government, as well as subsequent antitsarist critics, considered Kustodiev to be a Russian spy, determined to undermine central authority by putting a cultural weapon, Russian and Rusyn literature, in the hands of the Rusyn people. The Rusyns welcomed Russian patronage. Through individual contacts they received moral support and cultural sustenance. Kustodiev corresponded with Aleksander Pavlovych and, in 1873, sent him the collected works of the Russian poet Nekrasov, whose influence is apparent in Pavlovych's civic poetry. He maintained close relations with poet lulii Stavrovs'kyi-Popradov and presented him with a copy of Pushkin's Eugene Onegin. Through Kustodiev and Raevskii, Rusyns became acquainted with other influential Russian Slavophiles, including Ivan Aksakov and Vladimir Lamanskii (Rudlovchak, Bilia dzherel suchasnosti, 175-80). Several decades earlier, Mikhail Pogodin had travelled through the Carpathians and urged the Russian government to come to the Rusyns' aid, asserting that they were among the first who had a right to Russian aid. These Rusyns, inhabitants of Galicia and northeastern Hungary, of our ancient renowned Galician princedom, are pure Russians, the same Russians as those we see in Poltava or Chernihov, our own brothers, who bear our name, speak our language, profess our faith, share our history. Pure Russians who moan under a triple or quadruple yoke of Germans, Poles, Jews, and Catholicism, and they complain bitterly of our inattention ... It is absolutely necessary to support their emerging literature through private channels, second- or third-hand, to extend support to authors, print books, offer prizes for assigned themes - history or language, send Russian books to libraries, collaborate in composing grammars and dictionaries, in collecting legends and songs. ('Pis'mo k ministru narodnogo prosveshcheniia,' Sochineniia, 4: 27-8)

Scholars of pan-Slavism have concluded that the Slavic Benevolent Committees were not inspired by aggressive imperialistic designs, although their

244 Straddling Borders philanthropy certainly had political implications. Austria-Hungary, subject to strong internal stresses, had reason to be troubled by the pan-Slav idea of Russia as a leader and protector of non-Russian Slavs. The Russian Slavophiles were particularly hostile to the Magyars, whom they regarded as 'Asiatic interlopers, whose usurpation of the Pannonian plain had resulted in the separation of the Slavic peoples from one another.' Their writing included threats: 'If [the Magyars] are not blind, then they must see that at the present time history is bringing with it the rebirth of the Slavic race in all its branches ... Woe to the Magyars, should they wish to interfere. The march of history has crushed better peoples' (cited in Petrovich, Emergence of Russian Panslavism, 275-6). In response, the press in Austria-Hungary engaged in a virulent campaign against 'the Slavic peril' and Russia's imperialist designs, which, of course, also justified their own policies of repression and imperialism. History shows, however, that the danger of pan-Slavism was overestimated, since most Slavic groups resisted the hegemony of Russia. Ironically, the Rusyns of Subcarpathia represent a rare success story for Russian pan-Slavism. They invited and welcomed the cultural hegemony that Russia was anxious to offer. In fact, they would have preferred an even more aggressive Russian policy to counterbalance the Magyar pressure of acculturation. In spite of their unassuming submissiveness to Russia, the Rusyns of Subcarpathia did not see the cultural exchange as unidirectional. They proudly recalled several Subcarpathian Rusyns who had contributed to Russian culture and education at the beginning of the nineteenth century - Baludians'kyi, Orlai, Lodii, Venelin, and others. At the beginning of the twentieth century, a Russian scholar of Subcarpathian literature characterized their significance: They represented a clear affirmation of the proposition that even a small country, such as their homeland - the forgotten and down-trodden Hungarian-Rus' - under favourable conditions, can make a contribution even to such a rich storehouse as all-Russian scholarship, literature, and culture' (Aristov, Literaturnoe razvitie Podkarpatskoi (Ugorskoi) Rusi, 16). Not only did they recall the past, the Russophiles expected to contribute their own Rusyn riches to all-Russian culture in the future. An editorial in Karpat from 1876 makes the point that adopting the Russian literary language does not mean neglecting Rusyn folk songs, proverbs, and folk tales. By disseminating the Russian language among the public, the author continues, 'we hope that eventually among us too will arise geniuses, who, with the help of all-Russian literature, will be able to search out and secure the cherished beauty and plastic versatility of our local language, and contribute it to the general storehouse of a common Russian literature' (quoted in Dobosh, lulii Ivanovich Stavrovskii-Popradov, 132-3). For the Russophiles among the Rusyns, there was no contradiction between

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their Rusyn national aspirations and their orientation to Russia. Dukhnovych explained that the feeling of unity with Russian culture awoke in Subcarpathian Rusyns a love for their own native culture: 'It gave us a means to national ideas and national enlightenment that was previously strange and incomprehensible to us' (quoted in Rudlovchak, Bilia dzherel suchasnosti, 158). For them, the tendency to Russian language and culture was not a betrayal but a fulfilment of their own Rusyn culture. Russian Spiritual Exiles in the Carpathian Homeland In the Hungarian context, the Rusyn cultural affinity to Russia was a strategy of resistance and an assertion of identity that was emphatically and proudly 'other.' However, in relation to Russia, Russophilism among Rusyns represented a cultural dependence and a presumptive claim to 'sameness.' Besides a tactic of resistance to Hungary, Russophilism also offered the Rusyns a sense of tradition, authenticity, and belonging. Postcolonial theory offers a parallel in the concept of 'settler culture,' which describes the cultural patterns in colonies such as Australia and Canada. At first settlers find security in the established cultural tradition of the motherland, with which they 'at least have the temporary illusion of a filiative relationship' (Empire Writes Back, 26). In time they begin to discover the potential for self-definition and assert a separate and independent literature. In a similar way, the Rusyns of Subcarpathia believed themselves to be 'settlers' from old Rus' in the Carpathian region, and they found security in the language and traditions that had been preserved and developed in Great Russia. Their national cultural goal was to retrieve and reconstruct a literary tradition according to the Russian model. Although history did not allow for the succeeding stage of individuation, Rusyn writers saw the potential for a national literature to grow from the transplant of Russian culture in the Carpathian mountains. The issues for writers in settler societies revolve around a common set of problems. Their concern is to revive the lost ancestral link, to recuperate a contested identity, and to claim for themselves the traditions of the past. The established mother-culture is their one sure possession in their present displacement and a promise of national culture for the future. However, the situation has attendant problems. Subservience to tradition generates imitation, a search for authenticity in an imported language, an impulse to compete on the terms of a 'superior' literature, and an ensuing sense of cultural and national inferiority that emerges from the inevitable failure of these aspirations. Thematically, these issues manifest themselves as a concern with home and homelessness, an experience of suffering, endurance, and survival, and an effort to

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adapt language and aesthetic vocabulary to local circumstances. For the Rusyns, who were not voluntary colonial settlers but indigenes who were isolated (or exiled) from their spiritual home even while living in their own physical homeland, filiative anxieties were all the more intense and the problems were more intractable. In the settler colonies of the British empire, writers inevitably experienced anxieties about their dependent relationship on the established culture and began to seek a distinct identity. For Rusyn Russophiles, identity was to be found in an assertion of distinction from Magyar culture and convergence with a kindred culture. Whereas European settlers carried the colonial culture to the colonies, the Rusyns felt abandoned by their mother-culture and deserted in their own homeland. Moreover, while their peculiar relationship with Russia approximated 'settler culture,' in reference to the Magyars, they represented indigenous culture, resisting an alien invader. The Rusyns of Subcarpathia were caught in the paradoxical position of being 'spiritual exiles' from Russian culture in their Carpathian homeland. Looking back on the second generation of Rusyn awakeners in 1930, Shtefan Fentsyk comments on the unexpected element in the construction of Rusyn literature in Austria-Hungary: 'Educated in Magyar schools, steeped in the Magyar spirit, our writers stand directly under the influence not of Magyar and German models, but almost exclusively of Russian models' (Karpatorossy i Rossiiane, 14).55 In fact, the affinity to Russian literature at the end of the nineteenth century was the continuation of the traditional Rusyn cultural orientation, going back as far as Dukhnovych's imitation of Derzhavin, Tarkovych's glorification of Sumarokov, the auto-ethnography established by Rusyn emigres to Russia, and the Russian literature smuggled into Subcarpathian Rus' in the seventeenth century. The editors of the journal Svit described their aim, the preservation and propagation of the Russian spirit, in phrases that emphasize the bond with Russian culture that persisted in Hungarian Rus': 'We know that we have a responsibility to our people, a responsibility that we have received intact from our ancestors and which we will pass on intact to our descendants, that is, our Russian faith, our Russian nationality, our Russian language, and our Russian part of the Hungarian land' (Svit, 1867, cited in Voskresenskii, 'Khudozhestvennaia literatura na stranitsakh zakarpatskoi gazety Svet' 126). To advance this objective, the journal frequently published examples of Russian literature, including Pushkin's Tales of Belkin, Gogol's 'Portrait,' Turgenev's 'Asia' and Notes of a Hunter, as well as the work of the Slavophiles Khomiakov, Aksakov, andTiutchev. In addition, there were biographical sketches of Russian cultural figures and occasional theoretical articles on literary technique, especially the rules of Russian prosody. In 1868 Kyryl Sabov published a 206-page anthology of literature, entitled Kratkii sbornik izbrannykh sochinenii

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v prozie i stikhakh dlia uprazhneniia v russkom iazykie (A Short Collection of Selected Works in Prose and Verse for Exercise in the Russian Language), which was used in Subcarpathian Rus' as a textbook. In addition to selections from old Rus' literature and the eighteenth century, it contained poems, stories, and excerpts from longer forms by twenty nineteenth-century authors, including Zhukovskii, Krylov, Lermonlov, Pushkin, Gogol, Dal', and Turgenev. Only one representative of another part of Rus' was included - the Russian-born Ukrainian Marko Vovchok, but in the anthology her story 'Dream' appeared in Great Russian. After the demise of Svit and Novyi svlt, when Karpat began publishing most of its articles in Hungarian, levhenii Fentsyk published Russian literature in Listok and regularly devoted a special section to Russian language instruction. The Rusyn appropriation of the Russian literary tradition was total. In the first months of its publication, Svit claimed, 'We already have a ready-made, developed literature, but it has not yet become our common property. There is no need for us to construct our own literature, as did, for example, our brother Magyars. We need only study it' (1, no. 4, 1867). This startling statement was clearly an emotional exaggeration rather than a reasoned program, and its significance is at least partly in its pointed reference to one area of Rusyn 'superiority' over the Magyars. In fact, Svit and the later Subcarpathian periodicals also included numerous works by young local writers. In addition, Rusyn readers were exposed to diverse cultures - Arabian and Indian stories, translations from German, Czech, and English newspapers, and their own Rusyn folklore. However, believing they were rightful heirs to the tradition, the Russophiles of Subcarpathia absorbed Russian literary values unconditionally. By mirroring them, they hoped to become 'more Russian than the Russians,' while still maintaining their Rusyn identity and promoting Rusyn culture. Not only did they see no contradiction in this position, they saw it as productive. 'Only having recognized one's participation in this pan-national culture can one really ardently love one's own local, native culture. And the reverse is also true: only by uniting all the best that is developed by each area, each separate part of the Russian earth, can one restore the strength and might of a unified Russian nation' (Vilinskii, Komi edinstva russkoi kul'tury, 27). It is difficult to interpret such statements. On the one hand, this seems to be a case of extreme cultural subservience, as in settler colonies where 'the stress on lineage ensures that the relationship with the imperial power is a subservient-subclass one, fixed always in relation to the "parent"' (Empire Writes Back, 148). On the other hand, the more devoted the Rusyn intelligentsia was to the Russian tradition, the more definitive was their silent rebuff to Magyar culture, which went unmentioned in Svit and other periodicals.56 (There was

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virtually no literature written in Rusyn vernacular in Subcarpathia until the end of the century.) These intersecting lines of association and resistance make any categorical judgment of Russophile cultural and identity politics imprudent. Postcolonial theorist Gillian Whitlock describes settler societies as sites of 'contesting and conflicting claims, an array of identifications and subjectivities which refuse to cohere neatly into oppositional or complicit post-colonialisms. Settler post-colonialism confounds the positions of self and other in relation to discourse and discursive strategies' (Post-Colonial Studies Reader, 359). If this is true in a relatively straightforward case, such as Australia, where the writer is located between a parent tradition and an indigenous culture, the situation in Subcarpathia is even more confounding. Rusyn writers have a 'parent' culture in Russia, a 'beloved mother' who is, however, distant and neglectful. At the same time, they must articulate resistance to an evil Magyar 'stepmother,' who is intrusive and malevolent. Towards Russia they are subservient and loyal subjects, while in relation to Hungary, they are oppressed indigenes, deprived of their land and culture. The poet Aleksander Mytrak metaphorically depicts their situation.

Happiness nurtures other people, / Like their own mother, / But it hates the poor man / Like an evil stepmother. // Not for any rich man / Is the world too small, / But for the poor orphan / Nowhere is there room. ('Dobro tomu bogatomu' [It Is Good for the Rich Man], Misiatsoslov na hod 1894, 90)

The image of the orphan echoes Dukhnovych's allegorical use of the motif to describe the physical dispossession and spiritual displacement of the Rusyns of Subcarpathia. Under these circumstances, writers faced serious obstacles to the development of a mature, independent Rusyn literature. In order to achieve individuation this literature would be forced to distance itself from Russian culture, its only sense of security, and to assert an independent identity. In order to survive,

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moreover, it would need to compete with the rival Ukrainian offspring of the beloved mother-culture. The forces arrayed against the emerging Rusyn literature were indeed daunting, but in the second half of the nineteenth century, Rusyn writers made a valiant effort toward preserving and expanding the traditions of Rus' in the Carpathians. The 'Dark Carpathians' The second half of the nineteenth century saw the rise of prose forms in Subcarpathia. Stories, sketches, and novellas took their place alongside lyric and narrative poetry.57 The language was primarily the Subcarpathian recension of Russian. The writers were Greek Catholic priests, and they favoured an emotional, didactic lyricism, with some prose realism. Still struggling for national identity, social development, and educational progress, Rusyn writers continued to stress social over aesthetic values. Literary texts of the period reflect a sanctioned national narrative and a consistent set of discursive structures, within which the struggles of power and subservience, complicity and resistance are played out. The major writers who are honoured as the second generation of Rusyn 'awakeners' were Aleksander Mytrak (pseud. Materin, 1837-1913), Anatolii Kralyts'kyi (1835-94), Ivan Sil'vai (pseud. Uriil Meteor, 1838-1904), levhenii Fentsyk (pseud. Vladimir, 1844-1903), and lulii Stavrovs'kyi-Popradov (185099). They were all Rusyn-born, most into clerical families. Stavrovs'kyiPopradov was born to a Rusyn father and Magyar mother, but emotionally he inclined to the Rusyn language and identity. All the efforts of my mother, her mother, and my nurse to teach me to speak well in Hungarian proved to be unsuccessful... When I did not want to speak Hungarian, my magyarizers would scold and punish me and sometimes make fun of the Rusyn peasant language. It was probably this abuse and invective that made me stubborn in my preference for Rusyn over Hungarian ... I consider Rusyn to be my native language, the more so because my father and then the village teacher taught me to read elementary Rusyn from Aleksander Dukhnovych's primer. (Quoted in Dobosh, lulii Ivanovich Stavrovskii-Popradov, 24-5)

Unlike the previous generation, the intelligentsia did not typically leave Subcarpathia for their education. Fentsyk studied in Vienna and Stavrovs'kyiPopradov in Budapest, but the others went to theological seminaries in Uzhhorod or Mukachevo. They all served as priests in Rusyn villages. Starting from the cultural position of Dukhnovych, and encouraged by the attention of Russian

250 Straddling Borders Slavophiles, they shared a Russophile orientation that contested Magyar domination, as well as Ukrainian competition. The belief in a common Rus' nationality and the kinship of Subcarpathian Rus' with Russia underlies all their work, whether the surface thematics address nature, language, history, or love. In terms of perpetuating the Russophile idea in Subcarpathia, the Rusyns were spiritual exiles, but in respect to the Hungarian government, they were the indigenous occupants of an invaded land. To demonstrate their rootedness in the land, to claim their patrimony and counter dispossession, they often took geography as a point of focus. levhenii Fentsyk uses geography to validate the Rusyns' claim that they are part of a single Rus' entity, despite the contradiction of state boundaries. In effect, he blurs boundary lines and reconstructs the map, connecting the Carpathians with the Urals and beyond, glorying in the magnitude of the true fatherland of Rus'.

From the magical lands of the Carpathians / To the summits of the Urals - / Everywhere is Rus' and our nation! ... One sixth of this world / Is ruled by the Russian voice, / The sphere of the sun / Does not go down on us - / When it is dawn in the Carpathians, / It is evening in the Urals, / And on Kamchatka it is night! // Our nation is brave and glorious, / For 'Slava' is our mother. ('Russkii narod' [The Russian People], Svtt 2, no. 51, 1868)

Fentsyk renews the Russian romantic conceit that goes back to Gogol's 'Terrible Vengeance' of the 'magical' Carpathians. But he reinscribes their significance, evoking the nexus of geography and history by recalling their role in 'defending Europe from the Altai barbarians.' From the opposite geographical

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perspective, Stavrovs'kyi-Popradov acclaims the Tatra mountains for their service to Russia: 'Orb sanaflHwx-b xHMep-b, orb nxevHemH aflCKHXi> / Boo Pycb HC3bi6neMO xpaHMTb' (From western chimeras, from infernal false teachings/They steadfastly protect all of Rus', 'Spysh' [Szepes County], Listok 11, no. 2, 1895, reprinted in Poeziia Popradova, 50). Left in-between to struggle under the barbarian yoke and against western heterodoxy are the Rus' people of the Carpathian region. Their 'in-between' position, defending both eastern and western Slavs, and their centuries of endurance justify their claim to the Carpathians.

My homeland is here in the Carpathians, / Among the dark forested mountains, / Where my people have lived in ancient peasant huts / From unfathomable times. (Stavrovs'kyi-Popradov, 'Po vozvrashcheniy na rodynu' [Return to My Homeland], Poeziia Popradova, 47)

The insertion of Slavonic forms for 'homeland' (oTHHana) and 'unfathomable' (HeHaoiefl-bMbix) metonymically emphasizes the venerable cultural and historical experience being evoked. They stand in counterpoint to the vernacular 'huts' (xaxbi), rendering the whole distinctively Rusyn. The Rusyn claim to the Carpathians was based not only on geography, but also on history. Concerned to root their people and culture in European history and to counter present abasement, Rusyn writers looked to ancient times for evidence of autonomy and past glory. Sil'vai sets his story 'Dennytsa mezhdu zvizdamy' (The Sun among the Stars, 1901) in the time of King Stephen I and 'Maty i nevista' (Mother and Daughter-in-law, 1902) in the time of King Bela IV, during the Tatar invasion. Both stories assert the indigeneity of the Rusyns and relate the struggle between east and west for hegemony in the Hungarian lands. Anatolii Kralyts'kyi's story (see chapter 1) was but one evocation of Prince Laborets'. Ivan Sil'vai treated the subject in a ballad, levhenii Fentsyk devoted a verse drama, Pokorenie Uzhhoroda (The Subjugation of Uzhhorod), to the myth of Prince Laborets', and Aleksander Homichkov wrote a short story by the same name. Sil'vai and Fentsyk also wrote verse narratives about Fedor Koriatovych, the legendary colonizer of Subcarpathia (see chapter 1). Although the legends tell the story of the ultimate defeat of Rusyn warriors and their subjugation to the Magyars, these poems and stories end on a positive

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Slavophile note. They expound the message, relevant for the nineteenth as well as the ninth century, of the necessity for internal unity, and they rally the audience for a repetition of national heroism through reunion with Mother Slava.

But God lives, and there is hope / That Slava, our tender mother, will embrace us. / Again as in ancient times there will be heard / In palaces, the Russian voice. (Fentsyk, 'Kor'iatovych,' in Misiatsoslov na hod 1870,42)

The Slavonic enac, with its suggestion of the phrase ^nac napoda ('voice of the people'), is semantically and emotionally forceful. Because of the perilous Rusyn political position on the seesaw of east and west, history is not as reliable a foundation for the Russophile national idea as is the local landscape. Addressing the river Poprad, from which he took his pseudonym, Stavrovs'kyi-Popradov reviews historical legends, but concludes, TIponano BCC! Ho TH ocxanca' (Everything is gone! But you have remained, 'Vospominanie Poprada' [Memories of the Poprad], Poeziia Popradova, 53). The Poprad river, 'the beautiful son of the Tatras,' was an eternal point of identification for the Carpatho-Rusyn people that would outlast national legends and historical facts. As the Russophiles interpreted ancient history, Holy Rus' had been transplanted in the Carpathians. Fentsyk writes:

The prince founded here a second Rus', / He rooted here the holy language of the Russians; / And the Russian was happy in the Carpathians / While Koriatovych was alive. (Misiatsoslov na hod 1870, 40)

Love for the Carpathian homeland, then, was love for Rus1 and, by extension, for Russia. Not surprisingly, the Carpathian mountains are ubiquitous in the lyric poetry of the awakeners. Along with the mountains themselves, poets sing of the

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streams, waterfalls, forests, cliffs, ancient oaks, and soaring eagles that are associated with them. Carpathian nature is described as virginal, magical, and healing, a veritable Utopia. 'Ax, Kanan yrfexa xaMO npo^cHBarb!' (Ah, what a delight it is to live there) is the refrain from Stavrovs'kyi-Popradov's poem 'Rodyna' (Homeland, Poeziia Popradova, 48). It is perhaps not unexpected that the Rusyn Utopia would include work and native assiduity, which, since Dukhnovych's 'Life of a Rusyn,' had been a central feature of the Rusyn autoethnography. In Carpathian village huts, according to Stavrovs'kyi-Popradov, laziness is shameful, 'all hands work,' and 'life is work, labour' (cited in Mykytas', Haluzka, 109). In the poem 'Spysh' (Szepes County, Poeziia Popradova, 50), which is headed by an epigraph from Pushkin's poem 'Derevnia' (The Village), Stavrovs'kyi-Popradov begins and concludes with a typical Utopian vision of rural life. But the central part of the poem describes an industrial scene that includes mines, smiths, factories, mills, and lumber yards. However paradoxical it may seem to sing the beauty of forests and sawmills in the same poem, given the wretched economic situation of the Carpatho-Rusyns, factories could only enhance the beauty of the landscape for its real-life inhabitants. Rather than offering a romantic or even a realistic description of nature, the poet's aim is the real-world construction of the idiosyncratic Utopian vision he describes. And thus, the standard nature lyric is reworked in a distinctively Rusyn discourse. In contrast to the romantic vision of the Carpathians, the writers also describe a gloomier mountain region, which its Rusyn inhabitants endure stoically. The same epithets are used to describe the land and the people 'dark,' 'poor,' 'unfortunate.' Along with nature, the Rusyn people sleep under winter snows, hoping for spring. In 'Zymnii vecher' (Winter Evening, Poeziia Popradova, 41), Stavrovs'kyi-Popradov presents the allegorical springtime awakening as a sure eventuality. Aleksander Mytrak is less certain what the mountains augur for their inhabitants.

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Mountains, our mountains, / Our poor mountains! / To you I sadly / Direct my gaze. / >vhat marvellous force / Has cast you here, / Has stolen the warm ray of the sun / And the earth! / Do you hide in your depths / A golden fate, / Or are you preparing for us/ Eternal captivity?58

A predictable trope is tht- opposition between dark and light, or fog and sun, which has both realistic and metaphorical significance. Shrouded in heavy clouds, the Carpathians and their inhabitants are victims not only of social injustice, but also of nature's discrimination. The predominant vernacular cast of the following poem, with motifs from folklore, effectively reflects its angle of vision.

Cloudy, dark, / A crow caws, / My heart cries for the people. / For a dark people, / Poor, unfortunate. // Why sun, / Do you not shine on us? / Freely, you serve only the gentry. / For there is so little of you / That our people do not even know you. (Lintur, A.A. Mitrak, 46)

Living in their natural homeland, Rusyns are subject not only to repressive social and economic forces, but also to oppression by natural and environmental forces. As a result, in Fentsyk's despondent depiction, the Carpathians are ruled by despair.

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Clouds have embraced the Carpathians, / Of all countries, darkening. / I see: black, winged, / Doom rushes directly at us ... // Cries, moans everywhere are heard / Rus' is full of despair, / And the frightened people / Are sick of a life of pain. ('Sovremennyi stykh' [Modern verse], Slovo, no. 8, 1880, reprinted in Karpatskii sviet 5, nos. 1-3, 1932: 1258) The following poem by Aleksander Mytrak is worth citing in full. He expresses the social injustice borne by the Rusyns from their own point of view and in their language, with sardonic humour that recalls the good-humoured cynicism of folk sayings and proverbs.

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Good for the rich man / Who was born a gentleman, / Good for the lucky man / Who is not Ivan. // Not so for the poor man, / Who has not known luck; / His fate is like that of a flower, / Withered in the field. // Luck nurtures other people / Like their own mother / But it hates the poor man / Like an evil stepmother. // Not for any rich man / Is this world too small, / But for the poor orphan / Nowhere is there room. // People will say: / 'Death deals fairly,' / But I have seen that for the poor man / Even the grave is cramped. // But his soul is not cramped / There with God Almighty; / It was not killed by fate, / Nor buried in the ground.59

Mytrak, author of the Rusyn-Hungarian dictionary that upheld the Russian literary standard, did not spurn the vernacular when it contributed to artistic effect. A collector of folk songs, in this poem he used the popular Rusyn kolomyika rhythm and numerous dialectalisms: the particle zu (HK, Kaic); the noun Mcmoxa (Manexa); the adverb posyMno (VMHO); the dative singular forms drbdnxKoeu, i^erbmoHKoeu, and 6ozcmoeu\ and past tense forms in -e&. The vernacular flavour is crucial to the artistic integrity of this poem, which is an expression of the peasant voice. In a prose sketch published in Svit in 1867, Mytrak accounts for his lyrical melancholy by making explicit the social, economic, and cultural abuses of colonization. 'Putevyia vpechatliniia na Verkhovyni' (Travel Notes on Verkhovyna)60 is an account of the author's trip through the mountainous district of Subcarpathian Rus', distinguished from other regions by its colder climate, its poor land, and the particular dialect and dress of the inhabitants. He describes the poverty and wretchedness of the local Rusyns of the townTiushka, evoking a mental space that corresponds to the 'dark and desolate land.' Everywhere it was so empty, so quiet, deserted. Only occasionally, the sad voice of a shepherd's flute reaches us and soon ceases. In a short time the same sorrowful Verkhovyna melody again plaintively resounds through the summits and the valleys and soon dies out. Dark and desolate land! ... Tiushka, Tiushka, what a gloomy, sorrowful place. I have never seen such a gloomy place. All around there

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are bare mountains; in the narrow valley - poor huts dirty with smoke; a wretched wooden temple to God; desolation, stagnation. (Svit 1, no. 16, 1867)

Reaching the mountain pastures, the traveller looks out over the spacious expanse of the mountains and regrets the harshness of nature that forces people to live in the valleys, where their horizon is limited, both literally and figuratively. The Verkhovyna Rusyns reflect their cruel and cramped environment in their appearance and manner, which is characterized as 'humiliating submissiveness and cringing prostration,' and explained as a legacy of serfdom. The author explains the present through an evocation of the past, relaying, with sarcasm, a story about 'the kindness of our gentry.' Specifically, he comments on a certain landlord who spent as little time as possible in Verkhovyna, returning to the village only to administer justice. To demonstrate their joy and submission, the serfs were expected to go out to meet him and present their gifts, the products of Verkhovyna - the best ram, sheep, cheese, butter, homespun cloth, and if anyone had silver or gold, he had to offer these treasures as well, to which the master helped himself. When he appeared before the people, the crowd had to get down on their knees. If he needed to cross a creek, faithful serfs stretched their bodies across the water, so the horse would not wet his feet. That was the kind of living bridge that he, benefactor and father, could build! And so as not to deprive the female gender of his fatherly caresses, he summoned the prettiest female slaves and took advantage of the right of 'primae noctix.' (Svit 1, no. 16, 1867)61

Mytrak makes the point that, as a result of their past subjugation, the Rusyns have no energy to reimagine themselves or even to comprehend the realities of their present oppression. When two hungry young boys artlessly tell the traveller that the local Jews give them money for bread, Mytrak decries the irony in the 'philanthropy' of the Jew and the failure of the Rusyns to see it: 'A strange people, Rusyns! There is much poor, sorrowful poetry in you, but little worldly wisdom or concern for the future.'62 In spite of the overwhelming gloom of the story, the travelogue ends on a positive, inspirational note as the narrator emerges from Verkhovyna to the village of Velyka Kopania in Maramaros county, where he visits an orderly school and is struck by the beautiful choral singing in the village church. The writer shifts discursive frameworks, and his sense of reality changes as he adopts the rousing, optimistic discourse of the awakener: T set off for home with pleasant memories of the joyful reception I received everywhere in my short travels around Verkhovyna' (Svit 1, no. 16, 1867). As in Pavlovych's 'Plight of a Peasant,' the author's text is the site of a

258 Straddling Borders contestation of opposing discourses - the moralistic sermonizing of the priest and the protest of the social reformer. The priest urges education and prayer to overcome the oppressive conditions he presents. The social critic points to their sordidness and analyses their origins. Describing a mountain pass, the author comments parenthetically, 'It was along this road that the Magyars came in the ninth century,' associating contemporary suffering with ancient, and not so ancient, invasions. The following passage is deleted in modern editions: According to the chronicle of Anonymous, the Galician Rusyns lay the road for the Magyars. In 1848, on orders of the Magyars, the Ugro-Rusyns were to block the same roads with abatis to prevent the movement of the Russian troops. After the rebellion was put down, it was they who cleared the way for the easy passage of victorious troops returning to Russia. A long-suffering people! Even now one finds felled trees in the streams that were to serve the Magyars as a bulwark against the northern colossus.63

Turning from history to current events, Mytrak links the conditions in Verkhovyna with those in another country suffering the social and economic consequences of colonization. A Hungarian writer, describing Verkhovyna in Maramaros county, called it the Ireland of Hungary. If by Ireland is meant a poor, forgotten land, whose scarce resources are appropriated for the profit of outsiders and about which no one cares, then Verkhovyna is one of the most wretched Irelands in the world.

Comparative postcolonial studies have shown the commonality of many features that might otherwise be regarded as regionally unique. The justification of this approach is ratified by the author himself in this comparison. Another common motif across postcolonial cultures is the political effects of colonization on national identity. From the mountain summit, Mytrak comments on the arbitrary nature of state borders and imposed nationalities. I stood right on the border of Galician and Hungarian Rus'. Poor Rus'! On both sides of the border there is a deathly quiet among the mountains, these graves of our people, in which our fate is buried. Will it arise again? The mountains are the same, there is one people, one language, the same flesh and blood, but people have separated us. They called one Hungarian and the other a Pole, and in the end, we came to believe it ourselves.64

Stavrovs'kyi-Popradov is explicit about the sources of oppression. In

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'Stradanie slavian' (The Suffering of the Slavs, 1871), he surveys the condition of the Slavs in the Russian and Austrian empires and denounces both imperial powers.

O, how the poor Pole has suffered, / And the dear Great Russian / Under the all powerful sceptre of the tsar! / How the tyrants of Russia beat them both, / The Russian and the Pole in Siberia / Suffer under the tyrant emperor! / O Pole, Russian, because you are Slavs, / You are tortured, strangled and beaten / By an alien vicious tyrant! (Poeziia Popradova, 70)

The final lines cited here are used as a refrain to describe the situation of the Czechs, Slovaks, Serbians, Croats, Bulgarians, and Dalmatians. The 'cruel and vicious tyrants' referred to are the 'proud Magyar,' 'the wild Tatar,' 'the German element,' and 'the son of Mongolia.' Like Mytrak, however, Stavrovs'kyi-Popradov shifts discursive frameworks in the conclusion of the poem. After presenting a long litany of accusations against the dictators of the Slavs, he speaks for himself in calling down 'the wrath of heaven' on the tyrants. Yet he immediately returns to the discourse of religion and offers God's forgiveness to the 'alien, vicious tyrants': ',H,a rpoMT, He6eci>!... HO Htrb, - «a Bon. sac-b / MH^OCTHBO - noMH/ryeTV (The wrath of heaven! ... but no - may God mercifully pardon you). The conclusion is unmotivated and jarring. The poetic texts of these clerical social reformers metaphorically mirror reality by reflecting their dissonant perspectives and the ambiguities of complicity and resistance required for their survival. By contrast, another poem by Stavrovs'kyi-Popradov on the theme of 'the enemy of Slavdom' eliminates the ambivalence of identification, resulting in a monologic, totalizing discourse.

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Consider yourself, German! / Account to the world for the past, / Only then condemn others / If it is called for! / Do not teach us whom we should love, / Whom we should honour as a relative, / The heart itself announces /Whom it should love! / Although he is tsar, although an autocrat, / Still he is the father of Russians, /While he ardently loves the Slavs, / We also love him with pure hearts! ('Otvtt vragu Slavianstva' [Reply to the Enemy of the Slavs], Poeziia Popradova, 68)

The poet's ambivalence toward the Russian tsar as dictator is overcome by his resistance to Austrian efforts to distance Rusyns from Russia. As opposed to 'Stradanie slavian,' this poem reinforces the concept of Rusyn filiation with Russia as a counter-discourse to the politics of the Hungarian imperial centre. The Rusyn of these descriptions little resembles Dukhnovych's ideal 'noble savage.' Ironically, the abolition of serfdom has left him passive and bereft of all dignity. In Mytrak's words, the 'stamp of slavery' marks his brow: 'BT> HCBO^t TOpKOH OHT> HyJKHMT. Oiy^KKTrb, / A CBOK) OiaBy COBCfeM nO3a6bmij'

(In bitter captivity he served foreigners, / And his own glory he completely forgot, 'Liubyte nash narod' [Love Our People], A.A. Mytrak, 41). Fentsyk addresses the Slavs:

Can it be that the most numerous people of the world / Is a laughing stock, an orphan, a slave, a beggar? / You are despised and disgraced, / God's finger beats you all; / From time immemorial upon you lies / A twofold oath, a double sin.

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('Slavianam' [To the Slavs], Slovo, no. 4, 1870, reprinted in Karpatskii sviet 4, nos. 8-10, 1931, 1235)

In the oppressive and pessimistic atmosphere of the 1870s, the Rusyn autoethnography was correspondingly sombre, a corrective to post-revolutionary romantic exuberance. However, just under the surface is the suggestion that, under favourable conditions, the Rusyn can call on inner resources to reinvent himself. A contrast to the servile spirit described in many of the poems and in Mytrak's Travel Notes on Verkhovyna' is Stavrovs'kyi-Popradov's sketch 'larmarok v odnomu misti Vyshn'oho Spyshu' (A Fair in Szepes County). This feeling of the Szepes-Rusyn peasant, this weary spirit and spiteful prejudice against the landlords disappears completely or at least weakens at the fair in L'ubovna. For on the territory of the fair, all differences in hierarchy, rank, and position are erased to the point that it is something like a democratic country. The peasant passes by the landlord, whose hand he would kiss at home, without any special attention, knowing that here the landlord will not beat him, for here everyone has equal rights. (Rudlovchak, lulii Ivanovych Stavrovskii-Popradov, 172)

The ambivalent vision of the Rusyn peasant that emerges from these works is a result of the author's contextualization of the Rusyn subject. This contextualization counters the essentialism that characterized the dominant approach to cultural identity at the time, as well as in subsequent literary scholarship. Identity can be imposed and distorted by states and politics, but geography confers authenticity. Despite the depressing picture they present, the Russophile writers identify the Carpathian region with the Rusyn people. Although their religious, political, linguistic, and cultural ties may be contested, the Rusyns have a sure foundation in the land, poor as it may be. Fentsyk writes: It is agreeable for us in our Carpathians. We are on a friendly footing with them. Our hearts are riveted to them. There is not a single Rusyn soul that would prefer the fruitful plains flowing with milk and honey. Among our mountains there are insufficiencies, poverty, but there is also poetry, and that poetry makes us forget our grief. It entrances our souls and in this way rewards us for all our afflictions. There is not another people in the world who are as attached to their homeland as the Ugro-Rusyn is to his Carpathians, his fatherland. ('Karpaty,' Listok 2, no. 14, 1886: 306)

The mountains are part of their physical and psychological make-up and play a

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symbolic role in their moral and spiritual life. So the renegades who reject their own people also commit the sin of turning their backs on the Carpathian homeland. In Stavrovs'kyi-Popradov's poetry, the mountains grieve over renegades and feel shame for their wayward children:

Ah, the Beskyd mountains whisper to me sadly: / 'All is lost, there is no hope! / 1 find it vile, foul / Even to look at the Ugro-Rusyns. // ... Ah, I am ashamed, a hundred-fold ashamed, / A hundred-fold pained and offended / To look on this disgraceful dream /Anticipating the death moan!' // ... So the Beskyd mountains weep / Over the grave of the Ugro-Rusyn children. ('Lasciate ogni speranza,' Poeziia Popradova, 78)

The Rusyns are at home in the Carpathian mountains, and the 'fit' between land and people is good, if depressing. The Carpathians will endure. Whether or not the Rusyns will prove themselves worthy of their homeland is an unanswered question. National Pathos The Rusyn literary tradition is rooted in moralism and didacticism. The writers of this period use their authority as 'awakeners' to exhort the people to meet the demands of their Carpathian homeland and Rusyn ancestors. They address their sermons primarily to members of the intelligentsia who opportunistically abandoned their Rusyn identity to become 'Magyars of the Greek Catholic faith.' To demonstrate their sincerity and the typicality of denationalization, the Rusyn awakeners begin with accounts of their own personal awakening. Aleksander Mytrak writes,

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Vile for me was the language / Of my people. / 1 became accustomed to an alien language / Not knowing my own. // ... Now pleasant for me / Is the sound of my native word, / Now it is for me / Dearer than any wisdom. ('Moe probuzhdenie' [My Awakening], Lintur, A.A. Mitrak, 44)

Similarly, Stavrovs'kyi-Popradov's poem entitled 'la russkii' (I Am a Russian, Poeziia Popradova, 63) is a confession of the shame he had felt previously for his nationality and his language, and the 'light of self-consciousness' by which he was ultimately illuminated. Having demonstrated their own past transgressions, with the zeal of converts the awakeners turn their attention to those members of the Rusyn intelligentsia - in fact, the majority - who assimilated to Magyar culture. Their poetic wrath takes the form of what has been called 'national pathos,' defined by the Rusyn literary historian Pavel Fedor as 'not a satire of contemporary life and not irony toward contemporary people, but the indignant voice of a preacher, mercilessly castigating the defects in the national life of Carpatho-Rusyns' (Ocherki, 62). Stavrovs'kyi-Popradov's verse provides many examples:

Carpathian Rus', why do you stagnate half alive, / Like a sacrifice condemned to the knife? / Your passion has expired and the blood in your veins is cold, / Your face already bears the paleness of the dead. / All of your children have fallen into

264 Straddling Borders deep sleep / And have drowned in a bottomless well of sloth. / O unhappy Rus'! I tell you in reproach: / To live the way you do is an abomination and a disgrace! ('K ugrorusskym [To the Ugro-rusyns], Poeziia Popradova, 77)

In the preacher's rhetorical discourse, the poets characterize the traitors among the intelligentsia with stinging epithets (servile spirit, base egoism, sickly Ugro-Rusyn) and abusive labels (traitor, blood-sucker, extortionist, coward). And to the recalcitrant people, they issue ringing commands - 'Awaken!', 'Arise!', 'Work!', 'Make haste to self-consciousness, Rusyn!'

A new hour has come, to work, to work! / Study, be sober, you backward people, / To escape doom - seek what is high, / And with thought and aim step into the new year! // Only when the dirty taverns are empty, /And the churches and schools are all full, / When high ideals warm the breast, / You too will live happily and with honour. ('Moim zemliakam, na Novyi God' [To My Countrymen on the New Year], Llstok 1, no. 1, 1890, reprinted in Karpatskii sviet 2, no. 1, 1929:393)

The preachers place the burden of responsibility on the Rusyns themselves 'everything depends on us,' 'our fate is in our own hands,' 'we are ruining ourselves.' When the Rusyn national movement was barely alive, Stavrovs'kyiPopradov expressed his pessimism in a poem entitled 'Lasciate ogni speranza!' (1890). He asks the question 'What will happen with the Ugro-Rusyn people?' and turns to the wisdom of Carpathian nature. The mountains pronounce their judgment: 'All is lost, there is no hope.' The Rusyns are fated to perish, because they have slept through decades of 'awakening.'

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The peoples of other fatherlands / Awoke long ago and flourish, / Long ago they awoke to new life, / But the Ugro-Rusyn - shame and disgrace! / He is still in thrall, a beggarly slave, / He sleeps like a dormouse in the darkness of his lair, / Without feelings, without memory, like a corpse, / He remains an illiterate dolt. (Poeziia Popradova, 78)

The severest rebukes are addressed not directly to the Rusyn masses, but to the false-hearted opportunists among the intelligentsia, whose personal welfare takes precedence over the state of their people.

Alas! All the helmsmen of the people / Have hidden in their burrows like moles, / Trembling to please outsiders, / Themselves, they desire darkness. // ... Such helmsmen, honest to God! / Will not raise the people from sleep, / Will not blaze for them a trail, / To successful life, never!

In the twentieth century, Ukrainophile critics like Volodymyr Birchak criticized the Russophiles for being 'divorced from reality,' for not dealing with social and economic issues, for blaming the people and repeating the pessimistic motif that 'the peasants are unfortunate because they are cursed by God.'65 It is true that the poets' exhortations are frequently vitriolic and, on their face, insulting to the Rusyn masses. The poet-priests' vehemence emerges from the discourse of sermons and from their own frustration. Succeeding generations of Russophiles recognized in Stavrovs'kyi-Popradov's discourse 'an enraged Moses,' and saw his pessimistic poetic harangue as 'a mighty weapon' and 'a moral force.'

266 Straddling Borders The poet simply reflects the bald, unpleasant truth of life without any false colours. And this open reality forces a person to suffer unbearably. The spiritual power, infused into the reader of Stavrovskii's verse, is great; it seizes him and drags him to the edge of a frightening abyss. At the bottom of the abyss lie the ruins of Russian national life in the Carpathians. And he who has courage to look into the yawning abyss, which was opened to the eyes of the reader by Stavrovskii - he arises anew for his native Rus'. (V v, 'lulii Ivanovich Stavrovskii-Popradov (1850-99),' Karpatskii krai 1, no. 1, 1923, 20)

This is not the place to evaluate the effectiveness of such an approach, nor to analyse its psychological implications. Comparative investigations indicate that it is not unusual for writers in postcolonial societies to feel a certain ambivalence about their homeland, which is alternately depicted as a radiant ideal and an underworld of poverty and degradation. Each intellectual must come to terms with the history and present reality of his people, and postmodern writers have found it important to accept this legacy unconditionally, with all its shame as well as its heroism. Moreover, it is often a history of internal dissension and ignorance that led to colonization and current conditions, and while the people are often not intellectually prepared to understand this, it is the writer's duty to point it out. The profusion of 'national pathos' or poetic rebukes to the people reflect at once the zeal for reform and the growing frustration of the 'awakeners.' In 1891, levhenii Fentsyk addressed an article to his people that demonstrates his tenderness and his despondency. My dear countrymen, if I compare you with other educated peoples, then my heart becomes filled with tears, for I see that you are lagging behind other peoples in everything ... All peoples that surround you are flourishing, all have surpassed you. And if you do not exert yourselves to flourish as they are, then you will inevitably disappear like salt in boiling water. Your beautiful land will fall into the hands of foreigners, and your children will serve those foreigners, until they completely disappear from the face of the earth ... Are we not people like the Germans and others? Do we not have reason? Are we not created in the image of God? ('Dobrye sovity moim zemliakam,' in Misiatsoslov na 1891 hod, 86)

In this two-part article, published in almanacs in 1891 and 1892, Fentsyk criticizes the faults of the people bluntly. Yet in contrast to the stringent admonitions in much of his poetry, his tone here is tender and benevolent, with more than a touch of forbearance. The awakeners harshly berated their people, but always with a consciousness of the realities of life. Only a social, political, and economic analysis

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could explain the practical impossibility of establishing the kinds of institutions and realizing the kinds of reforms that were accomplished in neighbouring regions. Given the capacities of their popular audience, the awakeners urged self-improvement and education as the first requirements of a people whose intellectual horizons and economic possibilities were so limited. However, they also recognized to some degree the futility of their sermons and their own alienation from the people, who were not willing listeners. With selfdeprecating irony, Aleksander Mytrak turned his sarcasm against himself and his fellow activists, presenting the national movement from the point of view of the recalcitrant peasants.

We are poor, we are few, / We have too many troubles, / Our children go barefoot / Due to our neglect. // Our people tell us: / 'Love your language, /And your national rights / Give up to no one!' // Fine for them to talk so, / Well fed and satisfied, / And they write their 'little articles' / About the life of the people. (Lintur, A.A. Mitrak, 42)

In modern anthologies, this poem is usually published without the final stanzas, where the poet turns his critical sarcasm from the intelligentsia to the people:

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We poor will come to an agreement: / We will sell our nationality / Perhaps our noble masters / Will show us kindness. // Our fathers' lives were just as hard / They also lived in need, / In exchange for the old faith / They obtained cake. // But to us, their descendants / They left their nationality. / For that, their kind remembrance, / May they rest in peace.

The poet's sarcasm is directed both at the peasants' incomprehension and the activists' alienation. The peasants have more immediate concerns than nationality, which from their point of view has no practical value. Thus, the sermons and lectures of the Rusyn intelligentsia are ineffectual, given the level of the people's consciousness and the gap between their vision and the discourse of the awakeners. The connection between their miserable material condition and their lack of national self-consciousness was beyond their comprehension. The intellectual, who sees the larger picture, has an ambivalent attitude toward his people. He loves them and tries to ameliorate their position, but at the same time he abhors their ignorance and their obstinacy. This double vision produces poetic rebukes for the people and frustration for the poet-activist. Gifts and Curses Stavrovs'kyi-Popradov's image of the mole that seeks darkness reappears in an audacious satire by Ivan Sil'vai, published in the short-lived satirical journal Sova in 1869. 'Liudi v zheleznykh shliapakh' (People in Iron Hats) depicts a world without light, where a black sun sheds rays of darkness and where blindness is a virtue (Svit 3, nos. 11-12, 1869). With a mole as their emblem, the ruling Iron Hats (their headwear, we are told, mirrors the brains within) are threatened by a group of rebels who want to introduce light into the world of darkness. Lest the reader fail to draw the obvious parallel between the journal Svit (Light) and the coterie of self-serving obscurantists surrounding Bishop Pankovych, Sil'vai specifically situates the world of darkness 'in the spiritual

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sense' within the borders of Hungarian Rus'. With sharp sarcasm and lively humour, he describes the sycophancy, corruption, and anti-national feeling that rules in the highest circles, where one's place in the hall is determined by 'the perfection of one's blindness,' where the language is sprinkled with Hungarian and other foreign phrases, where the leader of the Iron Hats wields power through intimidation and denunciation. The author deals satirically with topics from Rusyn reality, at the forefront of which was the language question. Before they can open their 'conference against sedition,' the Iron Hats must decide on a procedural language. One speaker argues for 'the most decorous, ancient and classical language' - that in which the animals communicated their thoughts before the sun was created. An opponent responds, That was a barbaric language! For me, the most decorous language is that which Noah spoke with his family in the ark.' A third speaker proposes the language that appeared 'on the scholarly horizon' in Babylon. Finally, after several decades of debate, the council declares: In the present council, each may speak in the language that pleases him most. But for every one hundred elders, the Exchequer will be obliged to maintain one thousand translators, who will furnish listeners with generally useful explanations and interpretations of events, even during an eclipse of actual ideas. If even the collective throng of interpreters is not in a condition to agree on the meaning of certain items or individual words, they will be sent an orator, who can do commentary in sign language, using his hands, feet, and other parts of his body and soul. Finally, if even this has not accomplished the goal, it is permitted to communicate mentally with weapons that inspire trust, such as the palm, the fist, the hook, iron pitchforks, etc.

When the meeting resumes, the leader of the Iron Hats presents decrees on the issue of national identity, which are enthusiastically acclaimed by his cronies. 1. We are not a people. If it were supposed that we are a people, we would be drawn into political affairs, which, as all mature people know, and especially as we know, are poison ... 2. In order that our peaceful situation be even more perfect, we swear that we do not exist!

He goes on to repudiate daylight, to eliminate the journal Svit, and to shun all who do not wear the iron hat. The avenger of the Rusyn people is an angel of light, who presents demands to the leaders: subscriptions to Svit, publication of a Rusyn-Hungarian diction-

270 Straddling Borders ary, the creation of a Rusyn theatre, museum, and a national Rusyn academy. It is clear that the future belongs to the forces of light and progress, as one Iron Hat reasons: 'One small candle can disperse immense darkness. And remember, the enemy intends to use the electron to illuminate the world!' In the conclusion of the story, the author addresses the reader: 'If you have recognized yourself in the figures I have drawn, in these caricatures, grotesques, or God knows what kind of freaks, then you are frightfully angry at me, gnashing your teeth. Then, please, return of your own free will to the world you love, and put on your glory - an iron hat.' He exhorts all others to continue the struggle against the forces of darkness, despotism, and denationalization. In 'People in Iron Hats,' as in his 'Kreuzer Comedy' (1870), another satirical allegory attacking Bishop Pankovych's administration, Sil'vai's villains are Rusyn renegades, and the conflict is within the Rusyn intelligentsia. A more subtle and complex conceptualization of contemporary issues is Anatolii Kralyts'kyi's allegorical satire 'Prometei' (Prometheus, Svtt 2, nos. 10-11, 1868).66 In the introduction to the story, the author provides the necessary background. The gods of Olympus had deprived their 'close relations,' the Titans, of their rights and forced them to live on the 'poor earth' among the mortals. Among the Titans were many who dedicated their entire existence to benefit the people on earth, only to be punished by the gods, who made up their own 'special club' on Olympus. One of these 'good Titans,' Prometheus, realizes that the gods have failed to enlighten the people of earth, leaving them in blindness and darkness. After insulting Zeus, Prometheus was banished from Olympus, and he dedicated himself to raise 'despicable man.' He creates men and women from the clay of the earth, but gives them heads of gold, hands of silver, bodies of bronze, and, most important, reason. Sarcastic Minerva advises Prometheus to give them four legs and horns, to which he retorts, 'Goddess, instead of horns, he will have a stronger weapon - speech, with which he will conquer souls.' Apollo advises that for this, a spark from heaven will be necessary and he promises to help Prometheus acquire it. However, the other gods impede Prometheus's work by various ruses, and his plan to steal the spark is foiled by Minerva, who masks herself as 'Hazeta narodovd1 (Popular Gazette) and betrays Prometheus to Zeus.67 Playing this false populist part, she actually furthers the cause of the gods, that is, to leave man in his dull ignorance. Only Apollo stands by Prometheus, saying, 'he strives for good, and to advance good is a worthy effort for any god.' Admiring his tenacity and desiring to take advantage of the Titan's ingenuity for his own interests, Zeus offers Prometheus a place on Olympus if he will give up his plan to animate the statues he has formed. But Prometheus rejects immortality, asserting that his memory will be eternal on earth, where he will

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be honoured forever as the one who first 'lit the torch.' 'But what if it does not turn out that way?' asks Zeus. 'What if the first word of these animated people is a curse against their creator?' Sure of his cause, Prometheus pledges himself and his creations to the will of Zeus if he does not receive the gratitude he expects from the people of earth. With this bargain, Zeus gives Prometheus the spark, and the statues are given life. Prometheus takes his creations to the summit of Mount Caucasus to impart his instructions to them and to reveal the future of mankind. The new people listen with rapture to the inspiring words of Prometheus, but hardly had he begun, when the earth beneath them begins to tremble and the winds begin to blow - the work of Vulcan and the sea monster Ore, on orders of a jealous Zeus. Terrified, the people turn against their creator with curses. Prometheus has lost his wager. The people are left to the whim (or neglect) of the gods, and Prometheus is punished by being chained to Mount Caucasus, where the eagle of Zeus preys on his liver. Kralyts'kyi's treatment of the Prometheus myth is interesting on many levels. First, by his appropriation of Greek mythology to the Rusyn experience, he stakes a claim to world culture on his own terms. His use of Prometheus mobilizes classical mythology to the defence of a culture considered primitive and backward. Published in Svit in 1868, the story is clearly addressed to an educated reader. The intended audience is expected to be familiar with the Prometheus and Pygmalion myths, as well as Ariosto's Orlando furioso, the source for the sea monster Ore. However, the author also adapts the conventions of mythology to local culture, which provides much of the story's humour. On the lexical level, humour emerges from Zeus's reference to himself as Apollo's 6ambKO (vernacular 'father'), who acts no-KopmeuicKu (as a corrupt Hungarian official) in lobbying the gods against Prometheus. The allegorical significance of Prometheus becomes clear when, called before a council of the gods, he is described as wearing a 'schismatic's beard with shaven mustache,' shorn hair, and ragged dress - the very image of a beaten-down Rusyn priest, flouting Pankovych's order to give up the traditional long hair and beards that tied them to the eastern tradition. Prometheus is labelled a 'dangerous EfleKiuaHflop,' after the pseudonymous author of a notorious story promoting atheism. The congress of the gods on Mount Olympus is compared with the Paris Congress of 1856, which ended the Crimean War on terms very disadvantageous for Russia. Zeus is referred to sarcastically as an 'all-seeing pan' (landlord, master), and Prometheus goes about deceiving him like the wily peasant from folklore who always manages to dupe his master. Joining motifs from folklore is the notion of empowerment: '[The earth] will be your kind mother (MaxyiiiKa), and you will be her masters and owners.' And in a biblical reference, Prometheus's challenge to the gods is compared to Moses's demand

272 Straddling Borders to Pharaoh to 'let my people go.' Kralyts'kyi plays lightly with chronology in the story, noting that 'Prometheus had already read the grammar of our Luchkai (of course, only from a mental manuscript),' which gives the author the opportunity to include a popular proverb in Rusyn vernacular: To,irk TaM-b Mara npasfly, me e^em, o6BHHHTe;ib H cyffHxejib!' (It is good to have truth on your side when the accuser is also the judge!) Another point of interest from the postcolonial perspective is the theme of language as a gift and as a weapon. Prometheus endows his creations with language, 'a weapon that will conquer souls.' But instead of using it as an instrument of enlightenment, the people use it against their benefactor. Kralyts'kyi's source for this motif is unknown, but it bears striking resemblance to the story of Prospero and Caliban from Shakespeare's play The Tempest, which today is read as a metaphor for relations between the dominant power and its subjects. Caliban's retort to his 'benefactor' Prospero is 'You taught me language; and my profit on 't / Is, I know how to curse' (I, ii: 363^). The Tempest has been reinterpreted and reworked by several postcolonial writers to stress the justice of Caliban's response. The story offers issues that reverberate through all colonial literatures.68 With no evidence of direct influence, the coincidence of parallel motifs only demonstrates the universal relevance of the topic to colonized societies. However, the complexities of Subcarpathian ethnic and class relationships produce a multi-faceted fable. Once again, the Rusyn consciousness of the in-between confounds the selfother binary and brings an element of ambivalence into the structure of power. As an 'in-between' figure who moves back and forth from Olympus to earth with the goal of enlightening the people, Prometheus captures the reality of the Rusyn clerical intelligentsia, situated between the Magyar Olympus and the Rusyn masses. Kralyts'kyi's Prometheus struggles with the gods, but then also with his own people, who are incited against him by the gods, who themselves have been aided by Prometheus' 'populist' rivals. There is no possibility of progress in this convoluted arrangement of opposing forces, and for the Titans, situated between gods and men, there is only impotent frustration. The Rusyn intelligentsia in the Carpathians must have identified closely with the figure of Prometheus, chained to a mountain cliff, and preyed on by an eagle.69 The geographical and imperial symbolism is apt. In his autobiography, Sil'vai uses similar imagery to describe the position of the Russophile intelligentsia: On the people's meadow, deprived of all vital juices, not the slightest vegetation could be cultivated. There was no sun, no air. Because of the insufficiency of newspapers and periodicals, there were no writers, no readers. There was no

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incentive to work, no exchange of ideas, no joining of literary forces. The few people in whose hearts the spark of love for their nationality had not yet been extinguished could not expect either protection or reward, or even appreciation. On the contrary, they could only suffer the tortures of the eternally hungering and thirsting Tantalus. (159)

Sil'vai evokes another figure from Greek mythology to describe the frustration of the Rusyn Russophile intelligentsia. Tantalus, the legendary king of Lydia, was condemned to stand up to the chin in a pool of water in Hades and beneath fruit-laden boughs, only to have the water or fruit recede at each attempt to drink or eat. Sil'vai's attraction to Greek mythology and civilization - also apparent in his story 'Eternal Youth,' which is set in ancient Athens - was not an idle predilection, but an element of the Russophile world view, which looked to the east with reverence, for 'the east serves as a source of light, the rays of which have penetrated to all peoples' (Karpat, 1876, cited in Babota, Zakarpatoukrains'ka proza, 163). The Russophiles' efforts and inclinations were informed by a broader political understanding than they are usually credited with. Sil'vai's story 'Millionaire' (1904) goes beyond local concerns to satirize the universal appeal of power and money. Set in America, it mentions contemporary 'robber barons' by name - Rockefeller, Carnegie, Morgan, and Vanderbilt - and pictures them as petty tyrants, demanding kowtows from their obeisant inferiors (Misiatsoslov na 1904 hod, reprinted in Sil'vai, Sobranie sochinenii, 1: 38-49). More interesting than the topical satire, however, are the hints at a postcolonial consciousness that was much ahead of its time. Sil'vai observes that a monument should be raised not to Columbus for discovering America, but to the passing birds who were there before him and 'never thought of mercilessly dispossessing native inhabitants. They did not flee to America to escape charges of theft, murder, crime and punishment, but remained inviolable as before, pure and uncorrupted by any criminal desire to become an American millionaire' (66). The powerful attraction of emigration for the Rusyns, with its attendant evils, is felt as the critical impulse behind this statement. Fighting a losing battle, the Russophiles were justifiably pessimistic. levmenii Sabov, editor of the first anthology of Rusyn literature, looked back to the optimism of the early days of Svit, when 'writers were rising like mushrooms' and the editors could not accommodate all the literary contributions they received (Khristomatiia, 202). Even in 1870, the St Basil Society had seven hundred members. However, by the time Listok, Fentsyk's Russian-language successor to Svit, ceased publication in 1903, it had only twenty-five subscribers. In 1888, Kelet, the first completely Hungarian-language newspaper for

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Rusyns, began publication. By the turn of the century, nationally conscious Rusyn writers had turned away from Russian and started a new movement in the direction of Rusyn folklore and the Subcarpathian dialect. However, the process of magyarization had gone so far that one Hungarian publicist who travelled through Subcarpathian Rus' could write: Among them I did not even discover a trace of particularism. Actually I found there only Rusyn-speaking Magyars. Their intelligentsia is composed of priests and teachers. These are pure Magyars. Their social and domestic language is only Magyar ... In short, they are Magyars from head to toe ... At this time we cannot have any more important task than to liberate this Magyar-feeling people from the claws of destructive forces [pan-Slav influences] and, regarding their language, to fuse it with Magyar. Don't forget that the Rusyn wants to become a Hungarian ... We will in a short time magyarize the four hundred thousand souls in this land. (M. Bartha, Kazdr foldiin, 1901, cited in Magocsi, Shaping, 69; italics in the original)

Conflicting Discourses The Promethean image of the intelligentsia as friends of the people, subjected to unmerited suffering, which they bear with stoic endurance, is certainly a flattering self-portrait. Kralyts'kyi wrote 'Prometheus' under a pseudonym for his fellow activists, who undoubtedly found fellow feeling in its message. For the people, he wrote gothic folk tales, stories set in the bucolic Rusyn past, and didactic stories with a social message from the Rusyn present. The language of his work varies according to content and intended audience. And yet, Kralyts'kyi is thought by many scholars to be the author of 'How we write,' an anonymous series of articles in Svit that accused the intelligentsia of neglecting the people they claimed to serve. 'Have any measures yet been taken, have we made the slightest step toward making our Svit accessible to the people? ... All the peoples of Hungary, even the downtrodden Jews, have their own literary enterprises for the people. We have nothing for this "simple" people and we want to be renowned for literature, which for this people at least is inaccessible! We are creating a literary monopoly, consisting of a few, and the people remain where they were - in ignorance' (Svit 3, no. 33, 1869). In the Marxist criticism that prevailed in the Rusyn homeland for a halfcentury, the Russophiles have been an easy target for charges of elitism, aristocratism, and 'unwillingness to lower themselves' to the level of the people. However, this standard cliche does not bear scrutiny. First of all, the Russophile intelligentsia were themselves 'of the people,' and they all served

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as priests in peasant villages, where they endeavoured to preserve the linguistic, cultural, and religious traditions of Rus'. By contrast, the true Rusyn 'elitists' were speaking Hungarian in Uzhhorod or Budapest. The priests' alleged neglect of the people's culture is belied by the attention they paid to folklore and ethnography. Aleksander Mytrak, who, of all the awakeners, castigated his parishioners' faults most loudly, compiled erudite scholarly dictionaries, but also collected Subcarpathian folklore. Nonetheless, the charge that these writers were aloof from their people is repeated unquestioningly in traditional Marxist criticism. Volodymyr Birchak describes Ivan Sil'vai as 'an enemy of the popular language and folk poetry,' who, although he lived among the people, turned his back on them for his own literary work (Birchak, Literaturni stremlinnia, 128). In fact, Ivan Sil'vai authored an ethnographic work on marriage rites in Hungarian Rus', which was published in the St Petersburg journal Zhivaia starina, and his correspondence reveals a scholarly and personal interest in 'our folk songs' (Sochka-Borzhavyn, Budyteli, 54). While he rescripted Greek mythology for an educated audience, he also wrote didactic fables and stories from village life in language that approximated popular speech. Despite their serious mien and conservative outlook, all the periodical publications of the Russophile awakeners included folk literature and encouraged the collection and preservation of folklore.70 The confusing configurations of identity in nineteenth-century Subcarpathia have complicated subsequent literary analysis. Ivan Franko established the discursive framework for subsequent critics with a wholesale condemnation of the Russophiles' actions and motives. In his words, the 'progressive', 'democratic' Subcarpathian activists of the 1849 awakening were replaced in the second half of the century by 'a diverse heap of people for whom the common foundation for action was in fact a common hatred for their own people, a common distrust in the organic growth of the people and its consciousness, a pursuit of their personal careers and a common hypocrisy and spinelessness.'71 Thus was established the Ukrainophile critical response to the Rusyn Russophiles. It interpreted their devotion to Rus' as 'muscophilism,' 'retrograde Slavophilism,' and 'narrow-minded religious mysticism.' The Russophile paradigm, in which Subcarpathian Rus' formed part of a common Rus' culture, was dismissed as 'pseudo-all-Russianism,' or a blind to cover the alleged selfinterested nature of Russophile activities. Defended briefly at the beginning of the twentieth century by a new generation of Russophiles, by the 1950s the Russian orientation was politically taboo, and all official literary commentaries followed the Ukrainophile line. Up to the present day, the officially sanctioned narrative dictates that the Russophile awakeners were well intentioned, but limited by their clerical background, with

276 Straddling Borders a program of reform that did not take into account the class nature of the situation and was too liberal and amorphous to mobilize the people (Dobosh, lulii Ivanovich Stavrovs'kyi-Popradov, 99). Following this line of thought, the Russophiles were misled by reactionary Russian pan-Slavists, and failed to understand that their 'natural focus' was not Russia, but Ukraine. In Subcarpathia, scholars have reconciled respect for the awakeners with scorn for Russophilism by positing a dual ideology - a popular, progressive Russophile tendency, which looked to the Russian people as 'a natural centre,' and a conservative, reactionary 'Muscophilism,' which looked to Russian tsarism and 'led to the swamp of pan-Slavism' (Shlepets'kyi, Oleksandr Pavlovych, 26).72 The awakeners' identification with Russia is dismissed as a mistake that revealed their backwardness and demonstrated that they 'did not even recognize their own nationality' (ibid., 27) According to this line of analysis, the Russophiles ignored the people, being concerned only with 'literature for aristocrats,' and their mistaken ideas about the literary language caused 'the tragedy that determined the history of our people' (ibid., 28). Therefore, for Ukrainophile literary scholars, the entire half-century in which the Russophile orientation dominated Rusyn culture was described euphemistically as 'complex, multifaceted, and riddled with contradictions' (Dobosh, lulii Ivanovich Stavrovs'kyiPopradov, 54). Of course, since the Ukrainian orientation was imposed on Subcarpathia by the Soviet Union and survived into the 1980s, politically orthodox Ukrainian commentators have accepted it as the only correct and logical assessment and have interpreted the past through that narrow prism. An alternative way to look at the 'contradictions' of Russophile literature is offered by discourse analysis theory. In opposition to Marxist analysis, discourse analysis theory does not assume that individuals are necessarily passive victims of systems of thought, and literature does not simply reflect a particular ideology. Rather, creative work is understood as an active and deliberate construction of reality through language. Thus, as we have seen, Rusyn literature has been a site of the contestation of discourses, among which one might distinguish conventional, religious, popular, and national discursive frameworks, all of which reflect the dissemination of knowledge and power. Michel Foucault's concept of discourse analysis theory touches on questions of ideology and the truth value of discourse, which has been the focal point of traditional criticism of the Rusyn Russophiles. Foucault points out that truth is not intrinsic to discourse, as meaning is not intrinsic to linguistic utterances. Rather than simply transferring meanings from speaker to addressee, language interacts with a set of conceptual structures to produce meaning. In the analysis of a literary text, this means that the reader brings his own discursive formations to its interpretation in an interaction of discourses, and

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meaning emerges from that interaction. Consequently, there is no single, 'correct' meaning of a text. Foucault rejects ideologically based analyses because they necessarily imply a pre-existent truth that is exterior to a specific discourse. Whereas ideology, according to Foucault, produces reductionist visions, simplistic models, and doctrinaire thinking, discourse analysis points up the complexities in power relations and focuses on the structures through which they are manifested. Foucault notes that, 'whether one wants it to be or not, [ideology] is always in virtual opposition to something like truth ... The problem does not consist in drawing the line between that in a discourse which falls under the category of scientificity or truth, and that which comes from some other category, but in seeing historically how effects of truth are produced within discourses which in themselves are neither true nor false' (Power/ Knowledge, 118). For the literary analyst, then, the question is not what a text means, but how it means, how discourse operates in relation to the power structures of a given society. The model that results from discourse analysis is not as clear-cut as in an ideological approach, because, as we have seen, in any one text, there may be several contrasting discourses at work, which interact and often compete with one another. In this sense, contradictions and disjunctures in a text are a sign of the conjunction of opposing discourses or perceptual frameworks, rather than ideological or aesthetic faults. If one approaches the analysis of the Russophile Rusyn literary texts from this perspective, it becomes apparent that it is possible for Rusyn poets to write in seemingly compliant ways yet still make powerful statements in their own self-presentation, to be obedient churchmen and still support social and institutional reform, and to appropriate the discourse of the classics of Russian literature to folk culture. Applying an ideological model to these texts necessarily results in a reductive, simplistic analysis that leads to a condemnation based on the 'false consciousness' of the awakeners that was the result of social and economic relations, and accusations of 'contradictions' and 'errors' of thought. Discourse analysis, by contrast, is not concerned with finding the 'truth' of a statement, but with analysing the constructs within which it exists. Neither is discourse analysis evaluative. Difference is no longer a marker of subordination and inferiority, but of identity and voice. If we consider the languages of a particular community as a complex web of interacting discourses, then the language of Russophile texts embodies the ideological, social, and political conflicts in that society. In this respect, the Russophiles' choice of Russian might be viewed not as 'a tragedy' or cause for wholesale dismissal of their work, but as a marker of the dynamics of and resistances to power. Thus, the clerical and class background of the Russophiles is neither right nor wrong, but a discourse with which the writers engage to construct an identity, constantly

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evaluating it, comparing it against other discursive norms, and shifting perceptions to revise it. The literary critic needs to be able to distinguish the conflicting discourses, as well as the discursive limits within which the writers operate, and to shift his own perceptions to accommodate them. In Foucault's concept, discursive structures determine reality, taking on 'a solidity and a normality which it is hard to think outside of' (in Mills, Discourse, 54). He analyses the processes of exclusion that constrain language and thought - prohibition or taboo, the authority or lack thereof of the speaker, and the opposition between knowledge that is perceived to be true and that which is considered to be false. He also points to commentary, academic disciplines, and institutional limitations on discourse as processes that create and support the institutionalization of literature. These concepts are useful not only for the analysis of Rusyn literature, but also for its treatment in subsequent criticism. In the political context within which most analysts have worked, an ideologically based reading has acquired canonical status and has remained fixed and scarcely challenged. In Subcarpathia, traditional critical discourses have operated under limitations that exclude certain statements as untrue, such as the Russophiles' primary claim - that Rusyn literature might be written in Russian as part of a Rus1 tradition. This Ukrainian critical paradigm is part of a discursive format that has accrued truth value to itself through political influence and familiarity, but its limitations prevent it from engaging productively with the Russophile discourse. The field of cultural studies challenges the idea that ideological values are inseparable from literature. Especially in the evaluation of the Russophile orientation of the second half of the nineteenth century, discourse analysis negotiates the space between ideologically opposed critics by focusing on the multiple discourses that meet in the literary text. Russophilism is a counterdiscourse to Magyar domination. In this respect, its exclusion of Hungarian culture from Russophile discourse is a powerful assertion of independence.73 However, this was offset by the cultural dependence evident in the Subcarpathian acceptance and internalization of the aesthetic values of the dominant culture, which for them was Russian. Does it make a difference that the 'dominant culture' was not imposed upon them, but chosen by them, that they perceived it as protective and nurturing, rather than threatening? Although it provided a sense of security in the connection to a great tradition, within this discourse the subject writer fetishizes a culture that is hardly aware of his existence. No less than the denationalized Rusyns who aspired to Hungarian recognition, the Russophiles adulated Russian culture. Anxious to be claimed by their 'mother' Russian culture, they adopted and aspired to Russian standards of discourse, even though, within that discourse, their own literary efforts were depreciated

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and diminished.74 Despite whatever protection and spiritual nourishment it might have provided, their dependence on Russian culture greatly impeded the construction of a positive and independent Rusyn self-image. In spite of the weight of the Russophile discourse, the awakeners, whether purposefully or not, were elaborating a viable literary tradition. Ukrainian critics saw the tragedy of Subcarpathia in the writers' choice of Russian as literary standard, and Russophiles saw tragedy in the fact that their Russian was not perfect. The situation looks somewhat different from today's perspective. At least theoretically, a distinctive Rusyn literature might have been constructed by abrogating and appropriating the Russian language. Unfortunately, by the standards of the time, such appropriations were considered errors and defects. As such, they undermined the confidence of the Russophiles and provided ammunition for their adversaries. New modes of reading, however, understand them as elements of the Russophile discourse that point to processes and continuums and to the means of negotiating divergent perspectives. Instead of defining, labelling, or dismissing the Russophile orientation, an alternative critical paradigm must make room for multiple vantage points, from which we can grapple with the cross-currents that inform the Rusyn quest for self-formation. As Rusyn literature entered the twentieth century, the crosscurrents became more explicit, but the vantage points of participants and observers became progressively more limited. Rusyn Populism At the end of the nineteenth century, Rusyn culture in Subcarpathia was on the verge of dissolution. As the Hungarians celebrated their millennium as a nation in 1896, the government redoubled its efforts to assimilate the national minorities. Hungarian became the official language of the teachers' colleges in Uzhhorod and all schools at the gymnasium level. In 1897, a new law required that students demonstrate proficiency in Hungarian by the fourth grade of elementary school. Even teachers who taught in church schools were required to take an oath of loyalty to the state and were legally 'bound to encourage and strengthen in the souls of the children the spirit of attachment to the Hungarian fatherland and the consciousness of membership in the Hungarian nation' (Magocsi, Shaping, 65). In 1871 there were 350 Rusyn-language schools on the territory of Subcarpathia and the Presov region, compared to 265 Hungarianlanguage schools. By 1914, Magyar was the exclusive language of instruction in all but thirty-four elementary schools, where some use of Rusyn was allowed. However, in these bilingual schools, Hungarian was the primary language, and Rusyn children were even taught to pray in Hungarian. The conditions

280 Straddling Borders of Rusyn oppression worsened. Until 1918, illiteracy was somewhere between 70 and 90 per cent (ibid., 169). Subcarpathian society was subjected to electoral discrimination, police surveillance of suspected pan-Slavs, limitation of contacts with Galician Rusyns, and charges of treason. In 1914, thirty-two peasants were sentenced to fines and a total of thirty-nine and a half years of imprisonment for 'high treason against the Hungarian state.' Their crime was converting to Orthodoxy, which was interpreted by the state as pan-Slav machination (ibid., 65-8). Literary and scholarly circles experienced the same pressures. The largely assimilated intelligentsia responded by completely adopting the Hungarian language, as demonstrated by the first entirely Hungarian-language newspaper for Rusyns, Kelet (1888-1901), a scholarly journal, Felvideki Sion (1889-91), and the most influential periodical for Rusyns, Gorogkatholikus Szemle (18991918). All supported the policies of the Hungarian government and the Greek Catholic church, openly propagating the idea of national assimilation. When the St Basil Society was revived in 1895, it shed its former Russophile orientation and stressed the independence of Rusyn culture. Its deliberations, however, were held in Hungarian. Literary historian Evgenii Nedziel'skii writes that if denationalization of the intelligentsia was not complete, it was only because priests were required to have at least a rudimentary knowledge of their native language (Ocherk, 326). Facing what seemed to be their certain demise, nationally minded cultural activists mustered their forces in support of the Rusyn spirit, which seemed to be alive only among the people. After the failure of the Russophile movement, and under conditions of coercive assimilation, their only practicable direction seemed to be the one endorsed by the Hungarian government - an independent Rusyn (or 'Ruthenian') culture. For the first time in Rusyn literature, a populist or Rusynophile group of writers emerged, celebrating local cultural tradition. Younger writers and scholars like levmenii Sabov (1859-1934), Feodosii Zlots'kyi (1846-1926), Avhustyn Voloshyn (1874-1925), Hiiador Stryps'kyi (1875-1949), and Mykhail Vrabel' (1866-1923) turned away from the Russophile orientation of their predecessors and emphasized the folklore and language of their own people. As history has demonstrated, such a nationalist orientation is typical in decolonization efforts, and in Subcarpathian Rus', where the intelligentsia was attracted to affinities that were more global, it was long overdue. However, Rusyn populism was ultimately no more successful than previous Russophile or pan-Slav strategies. As it turned out, the Rusynophile phase was short-lived, and frustrated by historical events, internal discord, and a recalcitrant public. Little original literature was produced. Instead, the turn of the century was a time for consolidating a national tradition through literary

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and ethnographic scholarship, and for clarifying linguistic disorder through grammars and textbooks. In the volatile political atmosphere of Subcarpathian Rus', such assessments of the national culture naturally provoked debate. Depending on cultural orientation, later scholars of Subcarpathian literature would see this period variously as a gallant but futile attempt to establish an independent culture, an interval of perilous experimentation, or a positive transition to a Ukrainian cultural consciousness. The most notable cultural advance claimed by Rusynophile activists was the utilization of the vernacular language in literature and periodicals. In 1902 the St Basil Society was succeeded by the Unio Publishing Company. Until this time, Magyar publishers had had a monopoly in printing, and their books were expensive. The purpose of Unio was to publish Rusyn-language periodicals and books, and in fact, almost all Rusyn books from the beginning of the century issued from Unio. The St Basil Society initiated Nauka (Uzhhorod, 1897-1922), a popular journal for the broad public. Its editors included lulii Chuchka, Vasyl' Hadzhega, and Avhustyn Voloshyn. The newspaper Nedilia (Budapest, 1898-1918) was published by the Hungarian ministry of agriculture in all languages of the country. The Rusyn version often included translations from Hungarian and reprints from Galician and Russian literature. Both periodicals included folk songs and short stories, as well as religious and didactic pieces that were accessible to the people. Besides traditional admonitions in support of enlightenment, the populist journals also fostered a pragmatic political awareness of the people's rights in short articles written in simple language. Mykhail Vrabel', editor of Nedilia, explained, 'Simple peasants ... can understand only the common (prostonarodnyi) style. We have taken the side of the peasants, for the newspaper's purpose is to enlighten them. We write so that the peasants understand us, even though this approach is not appreciated by many from our intelligentsia.'75 In 1907, Hiiador Stryps'kyi, vice-curator of the ethnographic section of the National Museum in Budapest, adopted the populist position and called for a complete break with the Russian literary language. He promoted instead the language of the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century explanatory epistles, which he described as 'the Rusyn vernacular with admixtures of Church Slavonic, polonisms and magyarisms' (Starsha rus'kapys'mennost', 9-11). The merit of this language, according to Stryps'kyi, was political; it united the Rusyns of Subcarpathia with their brothers in Galicia. However, Stryps'kyi insisted that this language was not to be confused with Ukrainian, and he consistently propagated the idea that Rusyn language and literature were part of a distinct culture, independent both of Russia and Ukraine: 'Ukrainianism is completely impossible for us; it is just as alien as muscophilism' (cited in Myshanych, Karpaty nas ne rozluchat', 10). As an 'independent' language, however, Rusyn

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was extremely vulnerable to government pressure. After 1916, the Hungarian government proscribed the use of Cyrillic in Subcarpathia, and Nedilia began publishing in the Latin alphabet according to Hungarian orthography, which made Rusyn almost unrecognizable: 'Ot Pozsonya do Nizsnyaho Dunaja, ot Karpat do Adriaticseszkoho morja sztoit za otecsesztvo jeden voodusevlenqj i na vszi zsertvo hotovqj narod' (cited in Gerovskii, lazyk Podkarpatskoi Rusi, 80). After the fall of the Austro-Hungarian empire in 1918, Nauka began renewed publication in Cyrillic. An editorial asked with indignation, '[What other people] would tolerate the alien imposition of a foreign alphabet, a script different from that which they had inherited from their ancestors and preserved as their own?' (Nauka, 23 Oct. 1918) The language of these publications had a strong vernacular cast, but essentially it was the traditional Rusyn mixed written language, distinguished by a more extensive inclusion of dialectalisms. To imply a complete break with tradition in the direction of a new (Ukrainian) language, following the claims of some subsequent Ukrainophile scholars, would be inaccurate. In fact, Nauka carried articles that excoriated the efforts of Ukrainianizers to spread their 'half-Polish' language. In response to criticism from a L'viv newspaper, one contributor stridently rejected the Galician Ukrainians' pretention 'to teach us Uhro-Rusyns how to write.' He objected, The gentlemen from Vistnyk have taken a strong interest in us and want to save us by force. If we will not write in the phonetic alphabet (the new Ukrainian writing) and foul the Rusyn language, then we will collapse, say our tutors from Vistnyk ... Leave us in peace, "Ukrainian" gentlemen. We Rusyn people do not speak "Ukrainian" and do not need "Ukrainian" tutelage' (Nauka, no. 19, 1904). Initially both Nauka and Nedilia used the ecclesiastical script for articles of diverse content. An editorial in 1898 criticized the introduction of the civil script and Galician dialect in Nedilia: 'Our people not only dislike the civil script, but they also find newspapers that use it difficult to read ... Our people understand communication in their own Rusyn words. Nedilia should not add foreign Galician, Bulgarian, or Serbian words' (Nauka, no. 3,1898). According to the editor of Nedilia, Mykhail Vrabel', the paper strove to adapt the Rusyn mixed literary style to the needs of a simple audience, not in an artificial language, but in the traditional 'melifluous Little Russian' language, with conventional etymological orthography, rather than Ukrainian phonetic spelling.76 In this language, Ivan Polivka, a contributer to the populist press, wrote feature articles on history, geography, physics, nature, household economy and the like, which were later collected in a book that circulated widely through Subcarpathia and beyond. Polivka provides a writer's functional interpretation of the populist linguistic orientation. Using the 'traditional written

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language of Subcarpathia,' with 'all-Russian spelling,' he allowed 'free usage of the specific characteristics of our Little Russian dialect.' Such a language, he insisted, was 'comprehensible not only to the educated, but also to the little educated and barely literate Rusyns' throughout the territory of Subcarpathian Rus'. Moreover, it could be understood not only by Subcarpathian Rusyns, 'but also by Galicians and Russians, even the native Muscovite.' Like Vrabel', Polivka was careful to distinguish it from 'the strange, invented writing of the Ukrainian separatists' (quoted in Nedziel'skii, Ocherk, 271). In competing grammars and textbooks, authors tried to crystallize the language orientations of the past and to shape the linguistic future. In 1899, Avhustyn Voloshyn published his Metodicheskaia grammatika ugro-russkago literaturnago iazyka dlia narodnykh shkol (Methodological Grammar of the Ugro-Rusyn Language for National Schools). In it, he promoted an 'UgroRusyn' language that was similar to the traditional mixed literary language used by Rusyn writers in the second half of the nineteenth century. By 1907, however, under increasing government pressure, Voloshyn's linguistic views changed. He issued another grammar, Gyakorlati Kisorosz (Ruszin) Nyelvtan (Grammar of the Little-Russian [Ruthenian] Dialect), written in Hungarian and based on Subcarpathian dialects, with magyarisms and elements of GalicanUkrainian orthography. Scholarly opinion on this grammar breaks down along political lines. Ukrainophiles responded enthusiastically: 'In Ugro-Rus' there has not yet been a grammar of Rusyn. Previous grammars dealt not with our popular language, but with Great ('hard') Russian, or the language of the church' (Emyliian Nevyts'kyi, quoted in Birchak, Literaturni stremlinnia, 154). By contrast, Russophile linguist Gerovskii charges that Voloshyn's grammar was an invention that did not correspond to any living Rusyn dialect (lazyk Podkarpatskoi Rusi, 78). The response of the Hungarian government, however, was unequivocal - an award from the Academy of Sciences. After the war, when Russian was restored to favour, Voloshyn's grammar was republished - not the dialectical 1907 edition, but the Russian-based grammar from 1899. Revised again in 1923, it took on a more dialectical cast, and by the end of the 1920s, three more editions had gradually moved the grammar in the direction of the Galician-Ukrainian language. During the cultural and political transition that marked the first three decades of the twentieth century, Voloshyn's views shifted dramatically. In 1908 he had decisively distinguished Rusyn cultural and linguistic traditions both from Russia and from Ukraine. In a 1909 almanac, he rebuffed 'those terrible diseases of Ukrainianism and radicalism that have recently spread in Galicia, [which] have brought about continual strife, and have alienated the Rusyn from his church, his language, and even from his name Rusyn' (cited in Magocsi, Shaping, 62).

284 Straddling Borders From this independent position, Voloshyn's national preferences inclined steadily toward Ukraine. In a polemical piece from 1921, he still defended the 'popular spirit' of the old Subcarpathian manuscript literature, but now he rejected any concept of a distinct or 'all-Russian' tradition and instead identified Rusyn with 'Little Russian' (Ukrainian) culture (O pys'mennom iazytsi podkarpatskykh rusynov, 22-32). In general, the populists were the first generation of Subcarpathian Rusyns to show sympathy toward the Ukrainophile movement that fluourished north of the mountains. Once again, politics subsumes language, and as in assessments of Dukhnovych's work, different labels are applied to the same linguistic phenomenon depending on one's political orientation. Ukrainophile literary historian Volodymyr Birchak notes approvingly that in subsequent editions, Voloshyn's grammar gradually developed from a dialectical grammar to a grammar of the Ukrainian literary language using Ukrainian phonetic spelling (Literaturni stremlinnia, 155), while Russophile literary historian Evgenii Nedziel'skii sees a rambling, opportunistic orientation behind Voloshyn's grammars and texts. It is no wonder, he notes sardonically, that not only pupils, but also compilers of textbooks could not adapt to the 'newest trend.' They could only guess, depending on which way the wind was blowing, what would be in the new grammar, or even in the latest edition of the old one (Ocherk, 247). In the Populist Idiom Along with the language, the writers of Nauka and Nedilia adapted the literary style of stories, poems, and short articles to a popular audience. Since the intelligentsia had totally adopted Hungarian culture, books for Rusyns were largely limited to religious subjects, textbooks and songbooks, that is, books that were 'useful' for school and church or wholesomely entertaining. A few secular journals were published in Rusyn dialect after 1918, but these found little support among the reading public. The populist journal for children Nash rodnyi krai (Our Native Land, 1923-9) issued a supplemental series of translations and original literary works that featured populist themes and the vernacular language. In this series, a collection of poems by Feodosii Zlots'kyi was published in 1923. Zlots'kyi is remembered today as a populist, but he had formerly been a collaborator on the Russophile journal Svtt, to which he contributed poems written in the traditional mixed literary language. His book Vybor yz poezii (Collected Poetry) is a good indication of the prevailing ambivalence in language and national orientation at the turn of the century. The publisher and editor of Nash rodnyi krai was Aleksander Markush, who eventually became a Ukrainophile (and later Soviet) writer and teacher. In the unsigned preface to Zlots'kyi's book,

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written in Rusyn, it is noted that Zlots'kyi's poems have been adapted to the vernacular dialect. At the request of the author, however, one poem was reproduced in its original form. This was the opening poem of the book, entitled 'K Svitu' (To Svit). Originally published in the journal Svit in 1867, the poem is a homage to the Russophile journal that 'opened the path of learning for Rusyns (russkim) in the Rusyn spirit (v russkom dukhi)' and confirmed a sense of nationality in the hearts of the Rusyn people (Rusynov). The language of this poem is the Subcarpathian recension of Russian in the traditional orthography. While Zlots'kyi's Rusynophile sentiments are clear, he seems to contextualize them within the Russophile national orientation. A lack of enthusiasm for the editor's Ukrainophile orthographic reforms is felt in the author's request, as mentioned in a footnote, that his name be spelled in the old style, with a theta and without a soft sign.77 Over all, Zlots'kyi's effort to unite vernacular Rusyn with elements of traditional bookish writing proved to be futile. Like other journals of the populist-Ukrainophile orientation that initially published in Rusyn dialect, Nash rodnyi krai eventually adopted modern orthography and the standard Ukrainian literary language, its title changing to Nash ridnyi krai. Zlots'kyi's collection of poems shows a range of language styles, from local dialect to a mix of Russian, Rusyn, and Church Slavonic, in accordance with style and theme. They include imitations of folk songs, religious verse, humorous poems, love lyrics, and one long narrative poem based on a Rusyn folk legend. Although the vernacular is most prominent in his folk-style verse, it is also used effectively in more serious poetry, as in this conclusion to a love poem.

Why live, if the feeling / Of bitterness will not die? / Is it in order to torture / My poor heart? / O be happy without me, / But remember one thing, / That you will not find another / Who will be as faithful to you as I. (Vybor yz poezii, 38)

The stories and poems of the populists were largely rewritings of folk tales, translations from Hungarian, German, or Slovak, and anecdotes from everyday

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life. Later critics noted the talent of vernacular-language writers, but found their work naive and primitive. Mykola Lelekach considered their strong reliance on folklore to be superficial: they 'did not delve into the essence of popular creativity but imitated it only in external form' ('Podkarpatskoe pys'menstvo,' 256). However, not all writers were simply passive mimics, and early critics may have misinterpreted the writers' artistic purpose. Some poetic reworkings of folk motifs show a conscious deviation from the folk tradition and a significant ironic contrast between form and content. Using the standard imagery and conventions of folk song, populist poets such as Feodosii Zlots'kyi and Petro Kuzmiak invert their semiotic import to focus on the contrast between the idyllic and the real. Zlots'kyi uses rhythms and lexical elements familiar from popular culture in diminutive folk forms: rain (AOK/IHK), dew (poami), mother earth (aeM/iHija), brook (noxoHKa), water (BOflurja), grass (rpaBMHica). However, in distinction from typical nature descriptions, in Zlots'kyi's countryside the brooks are dry, fields are barren, children are hungry, and rain is the object of unanswered prayers. The ironic deflation of these potent folk images implies an unstated comparison between romantic folklore and realistic Rusyn life. Similarly, in Kuzmiak's adaptation of folk poetry, the lark (>KaBopOHOK) is featured prominently, as in countless traditional popular songs. But instead of love or nature, this lark sings of Rusyn freedom from serfdom or, in a more sombre mood, of the Rusyn's unwillingness to adapt to freedom and his inclination to return to the security of bondage ('Spivai, zhavoronku' [Sing, Lark], PZ, 309). Peasant poet Petro Kasenchak paints a grim picture of Rusyn village life that includes empty fields, mourning widows, and unschooled children, a scene that is at odds with the poem's sing-song folk rhythm.

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I am sad for the old grandfather, / Poor one, all alone: / Scarcely has he buried his wife, / He must feed the children. //1 am sad for myself, a young man: / Leaving my native land / Because of great poverty / For the far away unknown. //1 am sad for the dark-browed girl, /1 am so very sad, my God! / For only her blue eyes / Dispersed the night clouds. ('Choho meni zhal' [Why I Am Sad], PZ, 310)

The poet cynically expresses a naturalistic vision of peasant life by subverting the conventions and images of the conventional folk song. The stereotype of the radiant, mirthful 'dark-browed girl' of folk tradition is here transformed to a cheerless image. The Rusynophile imitation of folk poetry is not simply a populist revival of traditional folklore, but a conscious manipulation of the tradition, an adaptation of familiar figurative forms to showcase the unsightliness of contemporary reality. In addition to poetry, populist prose also concentrated on scenes from everyday Rusyn life. Irinei Legeza and Ivan Myhalka published didactic stories in Nauka about repentant thieves, recovered drunks, returned prodigals, and intractable Jewish merchants. In his survey of the literature from this period, Lelekach criticizes its thematics. The Jewish tavern-keeper, the priest, the sexton, the curator, the bell-ringer, the uncouth gypsy, the sly blacksmith and a pair of legendary historical figures, and we have practically exhausted the heroes of our literature of the beginning of the twentieth century. If it were not for the Jewish parasite, Rusyn life would be idyllic. Here and there, Rusyn life in America is touched upon, but that life is also miserable, since they all yearn for home. If Rusyns of the time had any higher ideals, culture, or artistic aspirations, it is not apparent in their literature. ('Podkarpatskoe pys'menstvo,' 256)

Writing in 1943, Lelekach also deplores the overall attitude projected by these authors, which was total submission. 'The poet is submissive, as is the editor, the hero, and even the readers themselves, to whom everyone relates with submission. We do not see a bold expression. The story's hero does not struggle against his fate, but submits to it' (255). The sole artistic value in this work, according to Lelekach, is in the dialogue and thinking patterns of the characters, which localize them 'almost to individual neighbourhoods.' Anthologizing Tradition If little progress was made in crystallizing the linguistic phenomena of Subcarpathian Rus' in grammars, a positive step was taken toward consolidating a

288 Straddling Borders Subcarpathian literary history with Petr Feerchak's Ocherk literaturnago dvizheniia ugorskikh russkikh (Survey of the Literary Movement of the UgroRusyns, 1888) and levmenii Sabov's Khristomatiia tserkovno-slavianskikh i ugro-russkikh literaturnykh pamiatnikov (Anthology of Church Slavonic and Ugro-Rusyn Literary Monuments, 1893). Feerchak, a Rusyn born in Hungary, was part of the intelligentsia that emigrated to Russia in the late nineteenth century to escape magyarization. Writing in Russian, Feerchak speaks from a Russophile position, describing the Rusyn language as a south-Russian dialect with many particularities that tie it to Russian, and he indicates the many points of cultural contact between Russia and Subcarpathian Rus' as evidence of their kinship. However, Feerchak adopts the perspective of the dominant Russian culture and represents his native people as an inferior 'other.' His short survey takes a condescending attitude to the concept of a Rusyn literature: 'Speaking of the literary movement of the Ugro-Russians, we do not mean literature in the strict sense of the word; such does not really exist' (Ocherk, 4). On the other hand, he offers a sympathetic overview of Rusyn history, ascribing the Rusyns' cultural backwardness to the 'colonization efforts' of their powerful neighbours, and attributing their survival to an 'instinct for self-preservation' (5-8). His critical evaluation reveals an underlying anti-Magyar political agenda. Concentrating on the literature of the second half of the nineteenth century, he calls Aleksander Mytrak 'the most talented and most political' of Rusyn writers, and he refers to Ivan Sil'vai's satire as an 'extraordinarily bold and effective political pamphlet' (31-2). Feerchak's overall judgment, however, is negative and pessimistic. He finds fault with the Rusyn intelligentsia for neglecting the education of the people and for failing to preserve the Rusyn cultural heritage. The fact that the works of the leading Ugro-Russian writer [Dukhnovych] have not yet been collected and published is the most eloquent indicator of the weakness of the literary movement in Ugro-Rus"(21). Again, speaking from the Russian perspective, Feerchak ignores the political circumstances in Hungary that would make such a publication difficult, if not impossible. As this brief commentary on Feerchak's work demonstrates, the function of literary criticism in an emerging minority literature goes beyond textual commentary. To a greater extent than in established cultures, it actually creates the literature as it circumscribes and defines it. No less than writers, critics and literary scholars present, in Gerry Smyth's words, 'their version of the national narrative in a metadiscourse that is tied up with nation building and identify formation.' Smyth describes the traditional role of criticism as 'a crucial site for hegemonic encounters between different ways of figuring the culture/ politics nexus (and hence different versions of the national identity)' (Decolonisation and Criticism, 98). Thus, in a culture that is working out an

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identity, criticism is necessarily ideological. Petr Feerchak, who was forced to leave Hungary for his Russophile views, utilized literary criticism to elaborate his own anti-Magyar version of the national narrative. In his Russophile interpretation, Rusyn culture is derived from and dependent on Russia, which he sees as natural, given his understanding of the ties of kinship between Russia and Subcarpathian Rus'. Accepting a more palatable Russian hegemony to counter Magyar domination, Feerchak configures Rusyn literature in a subordinate position, aspiring to Russian linguistic and literary standards and inevitably falling short. On one level, he acknowledges the political determinants of Rusyn literature. At the same time, he reproves Subcarpathian writers for not taking an aggressive independent posture in regard to preserving their literary heritage and reaching out to the people. Feerchak's concern is to raise the status of Rusyn culture, but only within the Russophile context, and the import of his literary survey is that Rusyn cultural activity is to serve its Russian-oriented national identity. Since Feerchak's critique was published in Russia, it could have only limited impact, if any, on the developing literature in Subcarpathian Rus'. Much more influential was the first anthology of Rusyn literature, compiled by levmenii Sabov and published in Uzhhorod. The Khristomatiia tserkovno-slavianskikh i uhro-russkikh literaturnykh pamiatnikov contained literary excerpts ranging from fifteenth-century manuscripts to contemporary poetry in a consolidation of Rusyn literary tradition that had clear political implications. According to literary scholar Francis Mulhern, 'Anthologies are strategic weapons in literary politics ... Anthologies deploy a special type of rhetorical force: the simulation of self-evidence. Here it is as it was: the very fact of re-presentation, flanked by equally self-attesting editorial learning, deters anyone so merely carping as a critic. And so, in principle, whole corpuses, genres, movements and periods can be "finished" - resolved, secured, perfected or, as the case may be, killed off' ('A Nation, Yet Again,' 23). In sum, the anthology testifies to a literary development and embodies its culmination, as the anthologist essentially creates a national literary canon, forming it by the selectivity with which he includes certain texts and excludes others. The consolidation of historical experience and literary process in the anthology is a powerful affirmation of the 'imagined community' that it represents. Moreover, the compilation of existing texts configures a discrete literary tradition, with significant implications for national identity and cultural politics. As Gerry Smyth summarizes: 'The anthology, ... both through the selection process and editorial reflection, implied the existence of a coherent developmental narrative and a canon of texts which could be transposed into a political register and employed to validate one or another mode of decolonisation' (Decolonisation and Criti-

290 Straddling Borders cism, 111). In Subcarpathian Rus' there was a crying need for such an affirmation of 'a coherent developmental narrative.' In contrast to Feerchak's Russophile colonialism, levmenii Sabov's anthology is intended to validate an independent, Rusynophile model of decolonization. The 'Nestor of Carpatho-Rusyn literature,' as Nedziel'skii called him, levmenii Sabov was a Greek Catholic priest and a teacher of Russian at the Uzhhorod gymnasium. He was active in cultural affairs, a leading member of the St Basil the Great Society and its successor Unio, a co-founder of the Rusyn-language newspaper Nauka, and the author of a widely used grammar that supported the Subcarpathian recension of Russian. A Rusynophile by orientation, he advocated the development of a discrete Rusyn culture, independent of any dominant nation, but connected in kinship to a broader Slavic cultural family. His evidence for the validity of this interpretation is the anthology itself, although, in light of political circumstances, his argumentation is understandably subtle. In a prefatory section that comes before the body of the anthology and, in distinction from the main text, is marked with Roman numerals, Sabov begins his history with an excerpt from the Ostromir gospel, the oldest dated monument of old Slavonic literature (1056-7), with a parallel text from the Buda Bible (1804), and an illustration of the Glagolitic alphabet. His placement of these texts in a preface indicates a scholarly Slavophile, rather than a narrowly nationalist intent. That is, by separating them from the body of the anthology, he implies an acknowledgment that the oldest written documents represent a literary and spiritual heritage that belongs not to any one national group, but to all East Slavic peoples. And he claims this common Slavic legacy as the fountainhead of Rusyn literature. One of Sabov's primary goals in his anthology is to show the development of the literary language; thus, the remainder of the texts are categorized by language. The first section on Church Slavonic literature 'according to the monuments found in local libraries' is divided further into 'Church Slavonic showing the influence of Uhro-Rusyn dialects' and 'monuments in which the Uhro-Rusyn dialect predominates.' Although Sabov acknowledges a supranational Church Slavonic linguistic and cultural community, he also posits a local tradition, in which Church Slavonic was brought under the influence of the local language. Included are excerpts of chronicles, copies of interpretive epistles, histories, grammars, sermons, and episcopal letters, printed in the ecclesiastical script. As with other old Slavic literatures, one can raise the question of the 'literariness' of such works, that is, whether they are in fact works of verbal art. Ultimately, the construction of a literary canon reflects a political point of view, and Sabov's agenda is apparent in the selection of texts. For example, Mykhailo Andrella's bombastic defence of Orthodoxy is ex-

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eluded from this history by the anthologist, a Greek Catholic priest.78 And a subtle Rusyn nationalist orientation is apparent in the inclusion of the wellknown open letter from Bishop Bachyns'kyi, in which he decries the denationalization of Rusyn candidates for the priesthood (Khristomatiia, 57). The second half of the anthology is entitled 'Ugro-Rusyn Literary Language from Dukhnovych to the Present Day.' As the development of the literary language is traced in the texts provided, a gradual progression toward literary Russian is apparent, although the language remains a mixture of Russian, Church Slavonic, and Rusyn dialect. However, Sabov also highlights the use of Rusyn vernacular. Of the four Dukhnovych prose texts included, two are in Rusyn. In fact, a broad range of language styles is demonstrated in this section. Besides strictly literary texts, Sabov includes editorials from the newspapers Svit and Listok, Ivan Rakovs'kyi's speech to a meeting of the Society of St Basil the Great, and scholarly commentaries on history, linguistics, and folklore that had been published initially in Svit. The language of these texts is the Subcarpathian recension of Russian, the written language of the intelligentsia. Also included in a separate subsection are sermons, dating from 1791 to 1890. Since the sermon is essentially an oral form, this section demonstrates how priests adapted the literary language to be comprehensible to the people, simplifying the linguistic style, while retaining Russian grammar and vocabulary. By contrast, Sabov also includes an excerpt from Chopei's preface to his Rusyn-Magyar dictionary, written in a vernacular-based language that had been roundly condemned by the Russophile circles around Svit and Listok. All of the texts focus on the Rusyn people, not as a branch of the Russian nation, but as a discrete, local culture that is characterized by multiple linguistic styles. Subliminal nationalist messages are woven throughout; for example, Feodosii Zlots'kyi promotes the collection of folk tales because 'to improve their condition, [our poor Rusyn people] must first of all know themselves' (122). Finally, the anthology's concluding section, 'Ugro-Rusyn folk tales,' includes stories in six distinct Rusyn dialects, which are identified geographically. The anthology also includes two articles of literary scholarship -'A Short Survey of the Church Slavonic Language and Verbal Culture' by Emmanuil(?) Roshkovych and Sabov's 'Survey of the Literary Activity and Development of the Ugro-Rusyns.' With this editorial commentary, Sabov further defines the scope and nature of Rusyn literature. He starts from the position that literary activity appears only at a certain level of national development, which depends on three factors: the spirit of the time, the proximity of a neighbouring people, and local schools. Following this schema, he divides Rusyn literary history into three periods: Church Slavonic, Latin, and Magyar. In the national narrative he constructs, Rusyn culture emerged from the struggles of the Reformation, de-

292 Straddling Borders fining for itself a third way between Protestantism and Roman Catholicism. In the 'Latin period,' he notes, priests willingly went to study in Trnava (Slovakia), but only under coercion did they go to Eger (Hungary), where they were suspected and persecuted. He speaks of the effect of loanykii Bazylovych's history of Subcarpathian Rus': 'This work opened the eyes of the Ugro-Rusyns and they began to know themselves' (190). A section is devoted to the Society of St Basil the Great, which Sabov perceives as marking a 'golden age' for Rusyn literature, followed by an accounting of the subsequent literary 'decline.' In the case of Subcarpathian Rus', where the intelligentsia could not agree even on what the language of a particular text was, Sabov's judgments carried great formative power. His linguistic views parallel his Rusynophile understanding of Rusyn culture and identity as distinct, even as he acknowledges the polyglot nature of Rusyn literature. Sabov takes a practical approach to linguistic analysis, describing Dukhnovych's mixing of languages as an effort 'to ennoble the vernacular expression with Church Slavonic' (198). Of the writers who used the Subcarpathian recension of Russian, Sabov holds up Mytrak's simpler, more vernacular version as a model for a Rusyn literary standard, and criticizes Sil'vai's style and 'protracted sentences' as 'rather difficult' (205). Most important, Sabov perceives the Subcarpathian Creole as a local standard, rather than a corruption of Russian, and he praises the newspaper Listok and its supplement Dodatok, written 'in a language close to the speech of the people,' as a step forward in the promotion of Rusyn culture. Still, this optimism is balanced by his final understated, but despondent, appraisal of the fate of his own Orosz Nyelvtan es Olvasdkony - Russkaia hrammatyka y chytanka (Russian Grammar and Reader, 1890), which was based on literary Russian, with phonetic and lexical accommodations to local Rusyn dialects: 'With the permission of the Hungarian ministry of religion and education, this Grammar is used in gymnasia for the teaching of the Rusyn language, which, since 1879, has been an elective (non-required) subject' (210). Overall, Sabov's critical approach is scholarly and cautious. He limits himself to known facts, avoids nationalistic exaggeration, and expresses openness to diverse views. His judgments are even-handed, both sympathetic and censorious. He suggests that there remain many unknown manuscripts and books that 'might throw a bright light on the education and spiritual life of the UgroRusyns' and gives credence to the allegation that there existed a printing press and local schools in Subcarpathian Rus' as early as the sixteenth century. He praises the 'nameless' Rusyn heroes who fought for equality and freedom of the press during the Hungarian revolution of 1848, and salutes the awakening and flourishing of literary activity around the newspaper Svit. And while he glorifies the Church Slavonic language as 'holy and exalted, the language of

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our forefathers,' he notes with disapproval that its strong influence hindered the creation of a local literary standard on the basis of one of the Subcarpathian dialects. Sabov bemoans the strictness of Bishop Tarkovych's censorship, which caused many interesting works to remain unpublished, and he charges the intellectual circle around Svit with ignoring the literary and educational needs of the people, which he calls 'an eternal and inexcusable mistake' (207). Implicit in Sabov's restrained and scholarly treatment are several underlying messages directed to the Rusyn intelligentsia. He calls upon them to address the uneducated Rusyn people, and insinuates that the discord among the intelligentsia retards the development of Rusyn literature. About Laszlo Chopei's dictionary, which largely opposed Sabov's own linguistic views, he tactfully says only that 'Chopei belongs to the phonetic school, but he has no followers.' However, he adds, '[t]he mutual mistrust between Chopei and Ugro-Rusyn writers can bring no advantage to the Ugro-Rusyn people,' and he calls for a rapprochement between them (209). Sabov's version of the national narrative puts the Rusyn people at the centre. In their interest, he urges the intelligentsia to adopt a rational pluralist approach to nation formation, rather than insisting on a fixed idea of national identity. His moderate style and cautious criticism indicate an understanding of the fissures that riddled the Rusyn community and represent his own effort to build bridges, to mollify, and to consolidate. Forty years later, in 1929, a new edition of Sabov's anthology inspired and fortified the Russophile intelligentsia, who found support for their own positions, even if they considered Sabov's patriotism to be somewhat 'local' [read, insufficiently Russophile] in character,' as though his national horizon were limited by the high Carpathians' (Popov, 'E. I. Sabov,' Karpatskii sviet 2, nos. 5-6, 1929: 556). More important in Popov's estimation was Sabov's assertion of a Subcarpathian literary tradition that had strategic implications for the present and the future: 'One cannot help but admit that literature existed in Ugro-Rus1, that it is not necessary to begin from scratch. It is not necessary to invent it over again. No, one should only continue it, holding to the traditions of the outstanding sons of Subcarpathian Rus'. Nothing more! Its development now cannot be stopped by politics, artificial experiments, monetary incentives, linguists-onhire ... or political inquisition and persecution' (555-6).79 However, Sabov's anthology drew caustic criticism from another quarter, to which the above statement was a rejoinder. In 1894, Ivan Franko, the leading writer and cultural activist among the Galician Ukrainophile Rusyns, reviewed Sabov's Khristomatiia in his newspaper Zhytie i slovo (no. 2, 1894: 304). The strategic value of anthologies is validated by Franko's vehement response to this first Rusyn anthology. As its purpose was to affirm a discrete Rusyn literary tradition, 'critical carping' (to use Francis Mulhern's phrase) would not

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have been a sufficient response. The only fitting counter argument, as extreme as it might seem, was to deny the existence of such a tradition, thereby rendering the anthology meaningless. This is Franko's critical reaction, one that will reverberate through the twentieth century. Charging that Sabov was following the line of the Hungarian government, Franko cavils that he 'gives no conception of the integrity of the southern Rus' language and literature, and induces readers to believe that Uhro-Rus' is something separate from Galicia and Ukraine.' Indeed, Sabov's purpose was precisely to establish Rusyn culture as discrete and independent, albeit grounded in the common Slavic tradition. Within the Subcarpathian intelligentsia, that meant distinguishing it from Russian culture. With the rise of the Ukrainian orientation among the Rusyns of Galicia and its spread to Subcarpathian Rus', it would now be necessary also to insist on Rusyn distinction from Ukrainian culture and identity. Franko tries to reshape Sabov's national narrative by redrawing the boundaries of the 'imagined community.' He claims that, in fact, the anthology supports the Ukrainophile orientation, since it includes extracts from the Ostromir gospel and other 'old Slavonic texts,' which, Franko assumes, are actually 'old Ukrainian.' Sabov's intention, as stated above, was to highlight the common origins of East Slav literatures in ancient Church Slavonic texts, and he indicated their distinction from Rusyn literature as such by putting them in a preface, marked with Roman numerals, rather than in the body of the text. Ignoring this fine distinction, Franko counters with his own national narrative, claiming Church Slavonic literature as part of the Ukrainian tradition, which would, by extension, make Rusyn literature a part of Ukrainian culture. He castigates Sabov for claiming distinction for Rusyn literature and for ignoring 'southern-Rus" (iuzhnorus'ka) literature, of which, he believes, Subcarpathian Rusyn literature is a component. That is not to say that he welcomes it as part of his own 'southern-Rus" or Ukrainian culture. The only literary texts of any value in Subcarpathia, according to Franko, are the vernacular writings from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, that is, before the divergence between the Subcarpathian and Galician cultures. He declares that all Subcarpathian Rusyn literature from the time of Dukhnovych to the time of his writing should be deleted from Sabov's anthology and from Rusyn (or in his view, Ukrainian) literary history. Franko's critique goes beyond a critical judgment of Sabov's anthology or an aesthetic assessment of Subcarpathian literature to a political dismissal of the very concept of a distinct Subcarpathian Rusyn culture, language, and identity. Rusyn literature, which had barely survived the Russophile effort to 'imagine' it as a local version of Russian, would now be faced by a Ukrainophile attempt to subsume it as an integral part of Ukrainian literature. Rejecting the Russophile

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notion of a common-Russian nationality, the Ukrainophiles also denied the East Slavs of Austria-Hungary, or Rusyns, a discrete identity, regarding them as part of a distinct Ukrainian nationality. Ivan Franko (1856-1916), one of the first Ukrainian socialists, was co-founder of the Ukrainian Radical party, which called for the transformation of Galician society according to socialist principles, unification of Ukrainians on both sides of the Austro-Russian border, and the creation of an independent Ukrainian state. In their concern for national unity, the Galician Ukrainophiles adopted a policy that rejected any but their own version of nation building and their own definition of national identity. This would become the primary national struggle for Subcarpathian Rusyns in the following decades and throughout the twentieth century.

5 Re-Imagining Rusyn Identity

(We are eagles of the Carpathian land, Russian sons of the Slavs.) Andrii Karabelesh, 'Marching Song' MM po3ea;iHM ropn I xiopeMHi crinH, CHHH YKpainH CHflVTb AO CTo;ia... (We will pull down the mountains And prison walls, The sons of Ukraine Will have a seat at the table ...) Vasyi Grendzha-Dons'kyi, 'The Carnage Begins'

The Czechoslovak period in the history of Subcarpathian Rus' held out the promise of independence and cultural autonomy. Moving from the autocratic regime of Hungary to the liberal democracy of Czechoslovakia, the Rusyn intelligentsia for the first time enjoyed relative freedom to work out their identity and construct their own national narrative. Making up for lost time, Rusyn writers and activists produced a voluminous literature, including journals, polemics, critical studies, and belles lettres. Although the period between 1918 and 1945 proved to be a true renaissance for Subcarpathian Rus', the process of decolonization also took a toll on the already precarious condition of national unity. Rusyn culture emerged from under the Magyar yoke barely

Re-imagining Rusyn Identity 297 alive, bearing the scars of centuries of colonial coercion. Shaped by its history of oppression, the Rusyn community was fragmented along linguistic, religious, and political lines. Now the cultural leaders of Subcarpathia took up the task of reconstituting the shattered national image and 're-imagining' the Rusyn community. However, their separate imaginations followed divergent tracks. Individual groups constructed conflicting versions of the national narrative, and these diverse narratives competed for primacy in the liberal intellectual atmosphere. One result of the unfamiliar openness was to produce contending nationalisms and foster the emergence of long repressed antagonisms. Russophiles and Ukrainophiles reopened the questions of language, history, and identity, and the period was one of competing nationalist polemics. Subcarpathian Rus' - Province of Czechoslovakia The world war and the subsequent dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian empire created an atmosphere that was conducive to a revival of Rusyn identity. While magayarization intensified at home, Rusyns joined other national minorities in the ranks of the Austro-Hungarian army. There the denationalized Rusyns were exposed to Czechs, Serbs, and Croats, who had a stronger national consciousness and pride in their Slavic languages. Many Rusyns were captured on the eastern front and waited out the hostilities in Russia or joined the Red or White Russian armies, as well as the Czechoslovak Legion. After the revolutionary upheavals of 1917-18, they returned to their homeland with a heightened sense of national identity and an awareness of the possibilities of social change. At the conclusion of the war, the international spirit could not help but encourage the Rusyns in the homeland and abroad. Woodrow Wilson's famous Fourteen Points stated the general principle of self-determination for all nations, and on 28 June 1918 U.S. Secretary of State Lansing declared that 'all branches of the Slav race should be completely freed from German and Austrian rule' (cited in Magocsi, Shaping, 80). In late 1918, when the Hapsburg administrative authority began to dissolve, the Rusyns, like other minority ethnic groups, formed national councils to help determine their political future. At the same time, Hungarian politicians under the leadership of Count Mihaly Karolyi established a Hungarian republic, which included an autonomous province called Rus'ka Krai'na for a part of the Rusyn population. When Bolshevik elements under Bela Kun took over, a Soviet Rus'ka Krai'na was proclaimed - a nominally autonomous province that recognized the independence of the Rusyn people, declared Rusyn the official language, and took other steps toward establishing cultural autonomy. However, the Rus'ka Krai'na

298 Straddling Borders lasted only a few weeks, providing a promise of independence that had symbolic value, but little real significance. As the map was being redrawn after the war, several alternatives were proposed for the Subcarpathian Rusyns: autonomy within Hungary, complete independence, or union with Russia, Ukraine, or the new state of Czechoslovakia. The Rusyn intelligentsia in the Subcarpathian homeland, with input from the Rusyn-American emigration, debated the alternatives, each of which found some support.1 Ultimately, political realities decreed that union with Czechoslovakia was the only feasible alternative. On 10 September 1919 the Minorities Treaty, signed at Saint Germain-en-Laye, endowed 'the Ruthene territory south of the Carpathians' with 'the fullest degree of self-government compatible with the unity of the Czecho-Slovak state.' It provided for autonomy in linguistic, educational, and religious matters in a Rusyn province within the Czechoslovak state and 'equitable representation in the legislative assembly of the Czecho-Slovak Republic.' However, the Prague government argued that the local inhabitants were not yet mature enough to participate in a modern democratic political process and declared a transitional period, during which Prague would rule the region directly. Ignoring another Rusyn political demand, that the republic of Subcarpathian Rus' include all the Rusyns living south of the Carpathians, the border between Slovakia and Subcarpathian Rus' was set along the Uzh River, which left about 90,000 Rusyns in the northern portions of Szepes, Saros, and Zemplen counties under Slovak administration. Although their political demands were not immediately fulfilled, during the Czechoslovak years the inhabitants of Subcarpathian Rus' acquired experience with democracy. The masses participated in fair elections, were represented in both houses of the Czechoslovak parliament, and were courted by newly established political parties. Even more significant for the development of national identity, Rusyns were designated the 'state nationality' in Subcarpathian Rus', with their own national anthem (Aleksander Dukhnovych's 'Subcarpathian Rusyns Arise from Your Deep Slumber'), and an official coat of arms, which appeared on publications and governmental documents. The Rusyn language, never clearly defined, but in Cyrillic traditional orthography, appeared alongside Czech on all village, town, and street signs in Subcarpathian Rus', as well as on some denominations of Czechoslovak paper money. And for the first time in their history, the Rusyn intelligentsia were relatively free to work out their own national identity and develop an independent national culture. While the first decade under Czech rule in Subcarpathian Rus1 was a time of optimism in cultural affairs, the economic crisis, Prague's refusal to initiate the promised autonomy, and growing intolerance on all sides resulted in a more cynical attitude in the 1930s. In 1928, a new provincial administration began to

Re-imagining Rusyn Identity 299 function, which entailed an influx of Czech officials and was perceived as an obstacle to Rusyn autonomy. 'Autonomist' parties arose among the Rusyns, which were supported by foreign governments.2 Having favoured the Ukrainian orientation until 1923 and the Russophile orientation until the early 1930s finally by the mid-1930s, the Prague government supported a Rusynophile policy as the most politically reliable. In 1936, a Czech ethnographer predicted: 'More and more the Carpatho-Russians [Karpatorusove] are developing into an independent branch and national unit... which already has many individual attributes of an independent people.' He concluded that after twenty or thirty years of development, Subcarpathian Rus' 'would surely overcome the chaos of the divisive cultural, linguistic and political orientations and crystallize into an independent, individual nationality - into a Carpatho-Russian [karpatorusky] people' (quoted in Magocsi, Shaping, 224). However, as before in Subcarpathian history, the Rusyns were not granted a repose of twenty or thirty years for a natural development. After a severe setback in the 1935 parliamentary elections, Prague hoped to placate the Subcarpathian people by introducing the long-awaited autonomy. In 1936, the Subcarpathian intelligentsia united to draw up a proposal for autonomy, which was rejected, leaving the Prague administration still in control of language and other national matters. By 1938, having tried to manipulate the competing national orientations, Prague had succeeded only in alienating the Subcarpathian leaders. It took the international crisis at Munich to force Prague to grant Subcarpathian Rus' its long-awaited autonomy. A Ukrainophile autonomous government under Avhustyn Voloshyn survived for six months until Hungary once again took control of Subcarpathia. After-Effects of Colonization From today's perspective, it is clear that with autonomy or independence comes a variety of complex political challenges for the decolonising community. The after-effects of centuries of colonial pressure live on in the newly autonomous culture. According to sociologist Stuart Hall, the postcolonial period 'is characterized by the persistence of many of the effects of colonisation, but at the same time their displacement from the coloniser/colonised axis to their internalization within the decolonised society itself ('When Was "the Post-Colonial"?' 248). The after-effects of colonial rule, then, are reworked through the relationships within the community. Despite the demise of the Austro-Hungarian empire, the effects of its hegemony lived on, most crucially for Rusyns, in their self-identification. The fissures that had been created by colonial pressure were now perceived as natural and real, as Aleksander Mytrak had noted already in

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1867: There is one people, one language, the same flesh and blood, but people have separated us. They called one Hungarian and the other a Pole, and in the end, we came to believe it ourselves' (Svit 1, no. 14, 1867). After the First World War, the external divide between Hungarian and Galician Rusyns was localized in Subcarpathian Rus' as a dispute between Russophiles and Ukrainophiles, that is, an internalization of the colonial imposed binary opposition. Having cast off the burden of 'otherness' imposed upon them by the dominant Magyar culture, they now commenced to 'other' their ideologically averse Rusyn brothers. To complicate the picture, under Czechoslovak rule, Subcarpathian cultural autonomy remained limited, and although for the most part education ceased to be an instrument of assimilation, new options fuelled new linguistic problems. All of this promised a continuation of struggles within the Rusyn community, preventing it from mounting a unified attack on universal issues. As Hall puts it, 'The way difference was lived in the colonised societies after the violent and abrupt rupture of colonisation, was and had to be decisively different from how these cultures would have developed, had they done so in isolation from one another' (251). To extrapolate Hall's observation to the Subcarpathian example, the development of relations between Hungarian and Galician Rusyns, both across and within borders, was decisively different from what it would have been in the absence of colonial interference. As a consequence of the opposition between Ukrainophiles and Russophiles, there were essentially two separate Rusyn literatures, each with its own writers, critics, journals, and, of course, language. All cultural workers dealt with the same problem, that is, reconstituting a community shattered by centuries of oppression. But since each faction elaborated its own version of the national narrative with no room for compromise, there was little chance that the community could recover its integrity. Each side promoted an essentialist conception of identity that asserted a unitary national culture. Speaking of the conflicts that can exist within the same national tradition, Bart Moore-Gilbert and Henry Louis Gates refer to the 'multiplication of the margins.' 'Each new "margin" comes to voice in the first instance through a double process which involves defining itself not just against an oppressive centre, but against the "margins" immediately adjacent to it' (Gates, quoted in Moore-Gilbert, Postcolonial Theory, 189). Thus, the Ukrainian and Russian orientations defined themselves not only in opposition to the Magyar-imposed identity, but also in opposition to one another. Sure of the correctness of its own orientation for the Rusyn people, each community demonized the other as traitors, or caricatured them alternatively as snobbish aristocrats or benighted provincials. Even worse, rather than simply excluding the opposing community, each side endeavoured to convince the other that it did not exist, invalidating the other's identity by

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subsuming it in their own version of the national narrative. Such 'forced inclusion' of the 'other' through negation, while it might from one perspective appear inclusive, is in fact an insidious form of domination. For a critic or literary historian, it is difficult to deal with this fractious period in Subcarpathian cultural history without being seen as taking sides, especially since the struggle, in a slightly different form, continues into the present. Soviet Ukrainian scholarship discounts the entire period as an attempt of the 'western imperialist bourgeoisie' to carry out their policy of czechization of the Rusyn people (Baleha, Khudozhni vidkryttia, 14). Marxist critics dismiss both competing Rusyn cultural orientations, which they saw as dominated by 'Ukrainian bourgeois nationalists, priests, and emigre White Russians' and condemn them for 'spreading clerical and nationalist propaganda, as well as slander against the Soviet Union' and for conducting 'insane counter-revolutionary activity among the population' (Baleha, Literatura Zakarpattia, 40). In such scholarship, the language debate is not analysed, but condemned as a policy of the Czech government to divert the people from economic and social issues (Baleha, Khudoznhi vidkryttia, 12; Mykytas' and Rudlovchak, 'Poety zelenykh Karpat,' in Poety Zakarpattia, 38^2). Writers and journals are labelled as progressive or reactionary. Any deviations from the official political or cultural line in the work of 'progressive' writers are explained away as 'disorientation due to bourgeois propaganda' or 'mistakes' that were recognized and corrected when the writer eventually joined the Communist party (Mykytas' and Rudlovchak, Poety Zakarpattia, 31, 33). The work of Russophile writers is brought up only to be dismissed, and Russophile literary scholars are branded dupes of Moscow. On the other hand, Ukrainophile Rusyn writers and scholars of the Soviet period are cited as examples of 'the creative force with which Transcarpathia merged with Ukrainian literature,' implying that this was the only correct and natural outcome (Myshanych, Karpaty nas ne rozluchat', 6, 13). Only as the Soviet empire began to unravel did Ukrainian scholars return to the Czechoslovak period and re-examine the competing orientations in the Subcarpathian region, asking, 'Is it not time for us also to reject the obsolete, one-sided stereotypes in evaluating [the Ukrainophile and Russophile cultural] organizations?' (Sen'ko,' Viddilyty zerno vid polovy,' 65). It is impossible to set aside politics completely, but in discussing the Czechoslovak period of Subcarpathian cultural history, getting bogged down in the claims of opposing nationalisms is counterproductive. It is more useful to start from the position offered by cultural studies, that identities and nations are constructed discursively, and to focus on how the nation is represented and narrated, that is, on 'the stories that are told about oneself or which one tells of oneself (Eley and Suny, 'Introduction,' Becoming National, 32). The

302 Straddling Borders Russophiles and Ukrainophiles presented essentialist, primordial, and, they believed, unassailable claims to self-identity to validate their cultural orientation. However, shaped as they were by a colonial history of subjugation, in doing so they actually validated the imperialism they seemed to be replacing. The ideas of Edward Said are useful here. As Said puts it, To accept nativism is to accept the consequences of imperialism, the racial, religious, and political divisions imposed by imperialism itself (Culture and Imperialism, 228). Rather than enter the fray, then, scholars would do better to set the individual Rusyn identity claims within a critical paradigm that recognizes them as social constructions. 'In an important sense, we are dealing with the formation of cultural identities understood not as essentializations (although part of their enduring appeal is that they seem and are considered to be like essentializations) but as contrapuntal ensembles, for it is the case that no identity can ever exist by itself and without an array of opposites, negatives, oppositions' (ibid., 52). According to Said, 'The job facing the cultural intellectual [in reading and interpreting the cultural texts of opposing nationalisms] is therefore not to accept the politics of identity as given, but to show how all representations are constructed, for what purpose, by whom, and with what components' (314). Since one side of the Ukrainophile-Russophile binary was subsequently endorsed by the Soviet Union, a Ukrainian-oriented narrative of Rusyn nation formation in the twentieth century was sanctioned and became a new master narrative. This narrative will need to be challenged, not with a political intent, but for the sake of a re-evaluative exploration of the cultural discourse that created it and silenced all other narratives. The task of the critic, then, is to question the assumptions of the received colonial mindset, to interrogate the ideological biases that have shaped the dominant notion of Rusyn literature, to broaden the critical lens to include marginalized elements, and to scrutinize the rhetorical strategies that inform the opposing orientations. An analysis of the literary texts, and to some extent the commentaries on them, will reveal how rhetorical tropes and discourse styles have shaped the conventional wisdom concerning the Rusyn 'nationality.' The purpose of this chapter, then, is to provide a critical reconstruction of Subcarpathian Rusyn literature between the wars, with the goal not of supporting either cultural orientation, but of clarifying the ideological forces that are manifested through the discursive formations of literature. Competing Cultural Models In the early years of the Czechoslovak regime, the separate factions within the Rusyn community formalized and fortified their cultural, linguistic, and politi-

Re-imagining Rusyn Identity 303 cal orientations by establishing competing cultural organizations. There was one early attempt to set up a unified association, but the proceedings ended in disruption. Russophiles claimed that they went into the joint project in good faith, but found that the proposed cultural and educational organization was to be a centre for the Ukrainian separatist movement, that it would 'violate the precepts of Dukhnovych and destroy all the pre-war progress of the Subcarpathian Russian people' (Kaminskii, 'Pervoe obshchee sobranie,' 5). Thus provoked, the Russophiles disrupted and closed the meeting. Subsequently, a group of Ukrainophiles and Rusynophiles established the Tovarystvo Prosvita Podkarpatskoi Rusy (Enlightenment Society of Subcarpathian Rus', hereafter, the Prosvita Society) in 1920. Its goal was the 'cultural and economic uplifting of the Rusyn people (pycbKHM napozi,) living within the borders of the Czechoslovak Republic,' and the publication of popular and scholarly books 'written in the national tongue and accessible to every Subcarpathian Rusyn' (Statut Tovarystva 'Prosvita'v Uzhhorodi, cited in Magocsi, Shaping, 156). In a brochure published to introduce Prosvita to the people, Vasyl' Pachovs'kyi expanded on the overall purpose of the society: The Prosvita Society will make our oppressed people aware of what holds them together, what is due them, which path they should follow to become once again lord, master, and proprietor of their own land, as they once were' (Chto to prosvita? 4). The brochure goes on to present the success of the L'viv Prosvita Society, established in 1868, in educating Rusyn peasants, without mentioning, however, its transformation of Galician Rusyns into nationally conscious Ukrainians. The Prosvita Society in Uzhhorod was established on the model of the L'viv Prosvita with the help of Galician Ukrainians, many of whom had emigrated to Subcarpathian Rus' from their homeland, which, since 1919, was ruled by Poland. Ukrainian cultural activity in Galicia had declined after 1918, due to the shift of the cultural centre from L'viv to Kiev, the emigration of Galician intellectuals as a result of the Polish-Ukrainian war, and the restrictive cultural atmosphere of the Polish regime. Consequently, Galician activists found an outlet for their national aspirations in Subcarpathian Rus'.3 Welcomed by the Czechoslovak government, many Galicians received positions in Subcarpathian governmental, educational, and cultural institutions. The Prosvita almanac from 1923 stated explicitly that 'the work of the society is inseparable from the work of the Ukrainian (particularly Galician) emigration, which, taking advantage of its time here, has corrected their ancestors' errors in neglecting their younger Subcarpathian brother' (Divnych, Tovarystvo "Prosvita" Pidkarpats'koi Rusy,' 139). The Prosvita Society's publications included almanacs, a series on language, literature, and history, popular articles on agriculture and economics, the chil-

304 Straddling Borders dren's journals Pcholka (1922-32), Vinochok (1920-4), and Nash rodnyi krai (1923-39), and a fourteen-volume scholarly journal, Naukovyi zbornyk Tovarystva 'Prosvita. '4 The language of Prosvita publications initially was based on Rusyn dialect and written in the traditional orthography, but gradually it approached Ukrainian, and in 1930 the modern Ukrainian orthography was introduced. In an effort to reach the people, reading rooms were set up, where villagers had access to newspapers, books, and lectures, and where the aim was clear: 'In the reading-rooms our peasants must first of all be taught that they are Rusyns ... The reading room must teach our peasant to love his mother tongue; in short, everything that is Rusyn' (quoted in Magocsi, The Nationalist Intelligentsia,' 194). It should be noted that Subcarpathian Ukrainophiles used the term Rusyn as a synonym for Ukrainian, and their aim was to make Subcarpathian Rusyns aware of belonging to a larger Ukrainian nationality beyond the Carpathians. In 1923, the Russophile community responded to Prosvita by establishing its own organization in Uzhhorod, the Russkoe Kul'turno-Prosvietitel'noe Obshchestvo imeni Aleksandra Dukhnovicha (hereafter, the Dukhnovych Society), levmenii Sabov, a long respected Rusyn patriot with roots in the Rusynophile populist movement, was chosen chairman, although the organizing and guiding spirit was the younger political activist, Dr Shtefan Fentsyk. The expressed goal of the Dukhnovych Society was to foster the 'cultural development of the Russian (pyccKHft) people living within Czechoslovakia, and most important, to educate them in a moral, patriotic and Russian spirit, exclusive of all political activity' (cited in Magocsi, Shaping, 158). While the local Prosvita Society maintained close relations with the Ukrainian Shevchenko and Prosvita Socities in L'viv, the Dukhnovych Society stressed its affinity with the Russophile Kachkovskii Society in Galicia, as well as Russian emigre organizations in Prague, Sofia, Belgrade, Paris, and the United States. Besides erecting monuments and sponsoring folk festivals, the Dukhnovych Society published the journal Karpatskii krai (1923-4) and, later, Karpatskii sviet (1928-33), which contained literary works and scholarly articles in the Russian language. The society published a series of 115 pamphlets (Izdaniia, 1924—37), which were primarily intellectual treatments of language, literature, and national consciousness. A dozen or so pamphlets on health and nutrition, peasant life, agriculture, and religion were issued in a subsection of Izdaniia called Narodnaia Biblioteka (The People's Library). The Dukhnovych Society published a reader for the people, edited by Shtefan Fentsyk, only in 1932. All publications used the Russian language, although the Narodnaia Biblioteka pamphlets contained elements of local dialect and glosses on the Russian. Lectures on topics of interest to the people were presented in local reading rooms into the 1930s,

Re-imagining Rusyn Identity 305 while in the cities, professors from the Russian University in Prague gave lectures on scholarly subjects. Statistics show that in 1929, the Dukhnovych Society had 202 reading rooms while Prosvita had 83. In 1936-7, the margin was smaller, but the Dukhnovych Society was still leading in the reading room rivalry, with 297 to Prosvita's 25 3.5 The numbers do not necessarily represent popular consensus, since the cultural orientation of a specific village was often determined by the local teacher's affinities. If he was a Russophile, the reading room's cultural activities might include amateur performances of plays by Gogol, Chekhov, and Ostrovskii (adapted to the local dialect), and the library would showcase the 'Russian and Little Russian classics,' in addition to Subcarpathian authors. By contrast, Prosvita theatrical groups performed Kotliarevskyi's Natalka Poltavka and promoted the literature of Subcarpathian writers who used dialect and, later, literary Ukrainian, as well as Shevchenko and Galician writers. As for membership, in 1936 the Dukhnovych Society claimed 21,000 members, compared to Prosvita's 15,000.6 However, after the death of levmenii Sabov in 1934, the Dukhnovych Society became dominated by politics, alienating many and discrediting the organization, while Prosvita continued to gain allegiance.7 The competing nationalisms of the Prosvita and the Dukhnovych Societies demonstrate the theoretical assumption of a nation as a Fictional construct. The 'Rusyn [Ukrainian] people' uplifted by Prosvita and the 'Russians' fostered by the Dukhnovych Society were in fact one and the same. In the eyes of Prosvita, the national appellation 'Rusyn' was considered merely an antiquated term for 'Ukrainian,' which should ultimately replace it, while for the Dukhnovych Society, Rusyn meant 'son of Rus" and connected them to the other descendants of historic Rus'. From the same set of 'facts,' each group selectively constructed a framework of mythic elements that constituted mutually exclusive concepts of Rusyn identity and nationhood. In polemical and artistic texts, each group developed its own system of cultural signification, in which rhetorical tropes and creative fictions were woven together to construct an imagined community that seemed, at least to its adherents, natural and inevitable. Writers and polemicists invoked images that suggested a shared knowledge and consensus of sentiment among Rusyns, although in fact they projected disparate realities and fractured discursive fields. To buttress their competing certitudes, Ukrainophile and Russophile cultural workers adumbrated separate mythic Rusyn identities that depended on distinctive ideological visions of Rusyn 'essence.' These representational practices drew on cultural and linguistic strategies as implicit modes of political opposition, and their individual styles of cultural theorizing resulted in distinct cultural models.

306 Straddling Borders The Ukrainophile cultural model was unambiguous and straightforward. It redefined Rusyns as Ukrainians and set in motion an enthusiastic campaign to demonstrate the lightness and superiority of that identity and national designation. The first issue of the Prosvita almanac from 1922, Narodnyi yliustrovanyi kalendar', exemplifies the Ukrainophile position. It opens with Shevchenko's poem 'SanoBrr' (Testament, 20-1), which evokes images of the Dnieper River and expresses love for 'dear Ukraine.' Identified as 'our national hymn,' Shevchenko's poem is supplemented with new verses 'as sung in Galicia,' which expand the image of 'our native Ukraine' to include the land 'from the San to the Don.'

Crossing the Carpathians, resounding through the steppes, / The glory of Ukraine will rise among the nations.

As the insurgent force, the Ukrainophile movement was aggressive in tone, aligning itself with revolutionary politics, and eventually becoming associated with Communism. The banner of protest was carried by Ukrainophile writers of Galicia, who only two decades previously had prevailed in their own battle with provincial nationalists and local Russophiles. Klym Polishchuk sets his war story in a Polissia where the district revolutionary committee occupies what used to be the Jew's tavern and the hero is an atheistic revolutionary ('Voenko,' 49-64). Ivan Franko sings the praises of the 'new haidamaky' (767), who bring justice and enlightenment to Rusyns and a happy future to Ukraine. Using military rhetoric and revolutionary cliches, other writers represented in the almanac acclaim freedom, glorify labour, and rouse their audience to build a 'new life' in the future. The Ukrainophile movement opposed what it saw as the 'aristocratic spirit' of the Russophiles with a democratic celebration of the 'popular genius.' L. Bilets'kyi's article on the history of Ukrainian literature in the Narodnyi yliustrovanyi kalendar' (100-1) showers hyperbolic praise on contemporary writers and attributes their success to their rootedness. The endurance and the enchanting force of Ukrainian poetry, like the art of any people, is grounded only if its roots are buried in the life and culture of the people ... Only Ukrainian folk poetry, the poetic creative spirit of the Ukrainian people, was the living water that enlivened Ukrainian poetry and made it eternally young, crowned it with a wreath of the most beautiful flowers of the Ukrainian steppes of

Re-imagining Rusyn Identity 307 the Dniepr and the mountains of Galicia and Bukovina ... Not another people have reached such heights of poetic spirit as the Ukrainian people.8

In the polemics of the 1920s, the Subcarpathian Ukrainophiles repeatedly vaunted Ukrainian literature, appropriating the legacy of Kotliarevs'kyi, Shevchenko, and Franko for Subcarpathian Rus'. Avhustyn Voloshyn spoke of Shevchenko's Kobzaras 'the most famous book of Little Russian literature and in general, the most famous book of the century,' and identified Shevchenko as 'the greatest poet of the Rusyns, the Rusyn Petofi' (Opys'mennom iazytst, 12). Finally, the only acceptable linguistic medium in this model was at first the Rusyn vernacular, and eventually the Ukrainian literary language, of which more will be said later. In the first issue of the Prosvita almanac, Galician poet Vasyl' Pachovs'kyi, a member of the modernist group Moloda muza, touches on the issue. In a survey of conditions in 'Pidkarpats'ka Ukraina' (the Ukrainian designation for Subcarpathian Rus'), he decries the 'conservatism' of the Subcarpathian teachers' congress, which had chosen a Russian-oriented grammar for use in schools, and attributes their action to materialistic self-interest and their 'aristocratic spirit.' As for the Rusyn people, the Ukrainophile model sees them as passive and easily pacified by governmental policies calculated to ensure their docility. Asked for their opinion on the policies of various governments, the peasants respond, according to Pachovs'kyi, 'Let it be as it is, it could always be worse' (141).9 Nation building, then, was the province of the small and divided Rusyn intelligentsia. Later issues of the Prosvita almanac show a continued dominance of Galician literary models, which were addressed to a largely uneducated audience. In its scholarly series, Naukovyi zbornyk, the Prosvita Society supported their nationality claims through scientific studies of old Subcarpathian manuscript literature, analyses of folklore, history, and other topics that appealed to the intelligentsia. But in its thrust, the Ukrainophile model was populist, confident, and assertive. Its proponents marshalled their facts and fashioned their myth to persuade the people of the truth and superiority of the Ukrainian orientation. The Ukrainian student movement in particular was radically nationalist and in some cases demagogic in nature, as indicated by the tenor of many articles that were published in the 1930s. For example, one young nationalist expressed his frustration with the attitude that 'the struggle between the nationalities can be solved reasonably, democratically, [and] justly.' He maintained that the Ukrainian orientation would dominate, even if force had to be used' (quoted in Magocsi, 'Nationalist Intelligentsia and the Peasantry,' 216). The Russophile movement countered with its own vision of the Rusyn community. The Subcarpathian Russophiles of the Czechoslovak period were

308 Straddling Borders in the position of upholding the tradition of previous generations, and in the face of the Ukrainophile assault, they were frequently on the defensive. Their model of Rusyn culture and identity was an elaboration of the Slavophilism of the nineteenth-century awakeners. They believed in an all-Russian nationality that encompassed Great and Little Russians, and they denounced any threat to Russian unity, such as that represented by Ukrainian separatism. They claimed Russian culture as their patrimony, citing its international renown as an argument for the acceptance of the Russophile model of Rusyn cultural identity. The first issue of the journal Karpatskii krai, published by the Dukhnovych Society beginning in 1923, opened with Turgenev's famous dictum on the consolation provided by the Russian language, followed by a verse from the Russian-language poetry of Rusyn writer lulii Stavrovs'kyi-Popradov, which invoked images of springtime and repeated the time-worn appeal to the Rusyn people to 'awaken from their deep slumber.' In the Russophile pantheon, the Russian classics ranged alongside the Rusyns' own 'glorious fighters for national liberation from an alien, hostile yoke,' - Dobrians'kyi, Dukhnovych, Fentsyk, Stavrovs'kyi-Popradov, and the other awakeners. In contrast to the Ukrainophile movement's explicit link to revolutionary politics, Russophile cultural activists claimed to 'stand outside of all political and religious influences' in their striving for a national cultural renaissance. Their identification with Russia was considered natural, not political. However, it was only intensified by their opposition to the Bolshevik revolution, which strengthened their resolve to preserve traditional Russian culture. Images of the Carpathians as 'the cradle of Slavic civilization,' tropes of spiritual and national resurrection, and family metaphors that bonded Rusyns to Russians as 'children of one mother' were reanimated. The conventional Russophile notion of Subcarpathian Rusyns as involuntary 'exiles' from Mother Russia was now validated, as the indigenous Subcarpathian Russophiles took their place among the European circles of Russian emigres. If Galician immigrants were an active force behind the Ukrainophile movement, emigres from Russia and Russophiles from Galicia informed and inspired the Subcarpathian Russophile orientation. While they viewed their own position as natural, the Russophiles had no doubt about the political motivation behind the Ukrainophile orientation. It was viewed as an adventurist threat against Russian unity that had its roots in Austrian, German, and Polish political machinations. The Limits of Theory The identity polemics carried on in Subcarpathian Rus' between the wars bring to mind the proverbial irresistible force that encounters an immovable object.

Re-imagining Rusyn Identity 309 In this case, rational theorizing confronts an idee fixe, with Russophiles and Ukrainophiles taking alternate roles in the collision. On one level, Subcarpathian theorizing of national identity was relatively sophisticated, anticipating many aspects of modern postcolonial thought. However, it made no headway against cultural biases that presented themselves as unimpeachable truth. In a retrospective analysis of the polemic, we are not interested in the truth value of the competitive claims, but in the way in which the dialectic between self and other confers meaning and identity on both. Of the two groups, the Russophiles were more disposed to abstract theorizing. Long articles in Karpatskii sviet, which were republished as individual pamphlets in the series of Dukhnovych Society publications, problematized the nationality issue in universal, as well as local, terms. An article by Antonii Lukovich, serialized in four issues of Karpatskii sviet in 1928 and 1929, discussed the conditionality of national identity, defining nation as a function of culture. The nation is not an anthropological or sociological order, with precisely delineated and knowable signs. A nation is a peculiar style of popular existence, the form taken by the artistry of the people in its effort to solve general human cultural tasks. Not the material 'what' but the formal 'how' of national existence comprises the national character. The national spirit is not a ready-made substance complete in itself, not a given, but the long process of a people's acculturation. ('Natsional'naia i iazykovaia prinadlezhnost' russkago naseleniia Podk. Rusi,' Karpatskii sviet 1, no. 10, 1928: 349)

Such reasoning seems to preface a recognition, such as that voiced by postcolonial theorist Homi Bhabha, that 'identity is never an a priori, nor a finished product,' but 'the problematic process of access to an image of totality' (The Location of Culture, 51). Indeed, such a negotiated understanding of identity and nationality came natural to the Rusyns, according to Lukovich, given their historical experience of being situated between fixed identities and political entities. From this perspective, he recognizes the Russophile tradition of the nineteenth-century Rusyn intelligentsia as a conscious construction of national identity, which the intelligentsia, the 'bearers' of national consciousness, intended to transmit to the masses through cultural and pedagogical activities. Thus, the twentieth-century Russophiles accepted the conscious nationality decisions offered by previous generations of the Rusyn intelligentsia and looked to the recent past as justification for their contemporary Russian orientation. However, here their sophisticated theorizing, having brought them to a preconceived idea, crystallizes as an essentialist notion. Although theoreti-

310 Straddling Borders cally they start from the proposition that nationality is constructed, they ultimately accept the traditional Russophile construction as the only one possible and deny any adjustments or alternatives to the model. Members of the Dukhnovych Society asserted: 'Our Russianness ... is inborn in us. It is part of us from the first moment of our existence' (N. Beskid, 'Popradov,' Karpatskii sviet 2, no. 4, 1929: 522). And in an effort to prove their theory, they reiterated the historical connections and affinities between Rusyns and Great Russia. From this theoretical vantage point, the Russophiles, along with Russian opponents of Ukrainian separatism, had no problem recognizing the constructedness of the competing Ukrainophile national orientation. Yet whereas their own identity formation led to a 'natural' conclusion, they saw only artificiality in the Ukrainian construction. In 1929, Karpatskii sviet reprinted an article from the Paris emigre newspaper Vozrozhdenie, in which the author raised significant questions about the Ukrainophile cultural model. The Russophiles of Subcarpathia agreed with the Great Russian position that one could not make the distinction between Russians and Ukrainians, but only between Little Russians (Ukrainians) and Great Russians, since both were part of the all-Russian nation. The danger of Ukrainianism, Russophiles noted, is that the name itself holds 'a creative, almost mystical, force.' 'People think that repeating a new name is harmless; they fail to understand that in doing so they are creating, contributing to the genesis of a new people, to the detriment of Russian unity' (Volkonskii, 'V che'm glavnaia opasnost1?' Karpatskii sviet 2, no. 4, 1929: 493). In this case, the notion of a constructed national identity (which provided the theoretical basis for their own Russianness) is negated when it comes up against their ingrained cultural bias against a separate Ukrainian nation. The Rusyn Ukrainophiles were less likely to engage in abstract theory. Instead, they relied on arguments that over the past decades had largely succeeded in distinguishing Ukrainians from Great Russians as a separate people, with special attention to linguistic arguments, which will be discussed separately. As relative newcomers to the ongoing Subcarpathian quest for identity, but with a sense of self-importance that came from their association with embattled Ukraine, the Rusyn Ukrainophiles felt obliged to negate established tradition, and thus much of their polemical writing challenged accepted truth in a self-righteous, captious tone. Ukrainophiles summarily dismissed as groundless the historical tradition of contacts and filial relations with Russia. In the days of Hungarian censorship, they argued, Rusyns acquired books wherever they could, with no special predilection for Russian literature. True, they admit, a few Rusyns such as Orlai and Baludians'kyi took their talents to Russia, but there could be no talk of influence in either direction, especially since the

Re-imagining Rusyn Identity 311 Russia of the time was 'more German than Russian' (Za ridne slovo, 27). Finally, they justified their own right to precedence in Subcarpathian Rus1 by reference to the history of oppression that Ukrainians had endured under Russian rule. The thousand years of tradition claimed by the Russophiles was interpreted through the Ukrainian experience as a millennium of oppression, and Ukrainophile Rusyns therefore dismissed tradition as an argument. Much of the Ukrainophile reasoning went toward proving a point that was already largely won, that is, that Little Russians were distinct from Great Russians. But in contrast to the Russophiles, who counted themselves among Little Russians as a distinct sub-group, the Ukrainophiles considered 'Little Russian' as equivalent to Ukrainian. By stressing the distinction between Ukrainians and Russians, they believed to be emphasizing the sameness of Ukrainians and Subcarpathian Rusyns, placing them all solidly under the Ukrainian national umbrella. Appealing to ethnology, psychology, and philology, the writers of Za ridne slovo, a collective Ukrainophile work from 1937, present statistics and physical characteristics to demonstrate the distinction from and superiority of Ukrainians over Russians. One might expect their calculations to proceed to a substantiated identification of Rusyns with Ukrainians, but this last step is deemed unnecessary, since to them it was self-evident. Ultimately, like the Russophile theorizing, the Ukrainophile 'scientific studies' lead to the confirmation of a preconceived idea: The great Ukrainian nation and Subcarpathians who have a Ukrainian consciousness ... consider themselves a separate people, for healthy common sense tells them that a Ukrainian and a Muscovite are not the same' (Za ridne slovo, 59). Yet just as the Russophile's theorizing was considered applicable only to their own case, the Ukrainophiles do not extend to their opponents the right of independent 'common sense.' Accepting in their own defense President Masaryk's words to the effect that '[i]f an entire people, like the Ukrainians, consider themselves to be a separate nation, that is sufficient' (60), they soon refute the same words when they are voiced by the Russophiles: We cannot agree with the assertions of some Muscophiles that neither racial features nor language can be the criteria for belonging to a particular nation. We cannot agree that the people's self-identification is sufficient criterion. Selfidentification is relative, subjective, and in scientific questions, it cannot be a criterion. We know ourselves that in Subcarpathia there are families in which one brother considers himself Ukrainian and the other considers himself Russian. From the scientific perspective, this is absurd. In addition, now the entire Ukrainian nation is distinct from the Great Russians. Therefore the principle of selfidentity will not be of any help to our Muscophiles. (62)

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While the Russophiles comforted themselves with theory and the Ukrainophiles appealed to 'science,' each camp ultimately retreated to comfortable notions of ingrained identity and familiar cultural biases. Resting on received tradition, the Russophiles at least give the appearance of greater tolerance, while the Ukrainophiles' combative and denunciatory tone creates an impression of positivist rigidity. In theory, each side comes close to modem ideas of constructed identities and nations as 'imagined communities,' but their limited interpretive models left them incapable of moving beyond totalizing structures to the pluralistic, mediative style of thought that is especially needed in periods of transition. The Russophiles engaged in intellectual analyses that theoretically demolished the Ukrainophile construct, but in practice they had little force against the political assault they perceived in the erection of Ukrainian culture. From their conservative, decorous position as upholders of tradition, they deplored the militant tone of the brash and aggressive Ukrainophile movement. As the latter grew in numbers and influence, the Russophiles excoriated what they saw as its intolerance, national extremism, and megalomania, while they prided themselves on their moderation and 'healthy patriotism.' Appealing to religious discourse, they described the true spirit of Subcarpathia as imbued with Christian love and tolerance, and Dukhnovych Society chairman Sabov appealed for a spirit of 'brotherly love' in relations with their adversaries. From their own side, the Ukrainophiles deplored the 'dishonest methods' used by the opposing camp. To justify their own approach, they explain: 'Love for our native word prevented us from finding more delicate polemical forms to express the sorrow of our long-suffering hearts' (Za ridne slovo, 105). Before long the intense rivalry between the two groups overran cultural and theoretical bounds. There was name calling on both sides, arguments ad hominem, personal denunciations, accusations of reading-room arson, and even an assassination attempt on a Russophile cultural figure by a radical Ukrainophile student.10 Essentially, the struggle between Russophiles and Ukrainophiles was a dispute waged by factions of the intelligentsia in the name of the people, but the opposing groups naturally had different views on what their relationship to the people should be. The Russophiles were particularly vulnerable on this point, inheriting along with the tradition of the nineteenth-century awakeners their alleged indifference to the people. Viewing themselves as leaders and teachers of a recalcitrant peasantry, they assumed a distrustful attitude on the part of the public, considering it a typical characteristic of societies where the natural gifts and talents of the population have not been given an opportunity to develop. The lead article in the first issue of Karpatskii krai is a rallying cry to brave the indifference of the public and redouble the Dukhnovych Society's

Re-imagining Rusyn Identity 313 efforts to awaken in the people 'a thirst for light and truth' (Breshkovskaia, 'Tvorchestvo,' Karpatskii krai l,no. 1, 1923: 10). Honorary chairman levmenii Sabov deplored the antagonism between the intelligentsia and the masses, and he repeatedly exhorted the society's student groups to talk with the people, to teach them, 'so they will know about our work and trust us' ('Nasha tsel' budushchnost' nashego naroda,' Karpatskii sviet 1, no. 1, 1928: 33). Citing the example of Dukhnovych, Russophile leaders insisted that success is possible only where 'the leaders consciously strive to reach what is sleeping in the depths of the masses, their dreams and desires' (N. Beskid, A. V. Dukhnovich i egopoeziia, 5). According to the Russophile orientation, however, the solution to all problems was to fortify and mobilize the people's 'Russian consciousness.' To that end, Russophile youth were urged to spend their summer vacations in Rusyn villages, to educate the people about the internationally recognized wealth of Russian culture, and to preach 'the truth about the Russian nation, its broad and welcoming soul, its sacrificial suffering for oppressed Slavs' (Sabov, 'K uchashcheisia molodezhi,' Karpatskii sviet 1, no. 6, 1928: 185). There were also calls for accessible literature in Dukhnovych Society reading rooms, and members were encouraged to organize reading and theatrical circles for the people during long winter evenings. Although leaders such as Sabov voiced respect for the people as a reservoir of natural patriotism, the Russophile model entailed an underlying condescension that occasionally became insultingly explicit, with the less tactful among them comparing the people to children in need of direction from their superiors. The Russophiles expressed a firm belief in the potential of the peasantry, however, and saw their own role as lifting them to a higher level of education and national awareness. In retrospect, their expectations were unrealistic, and this attitude left them open to scathing accusations of elitism. The Ukrainianization of the 'Son of Rus" On a broad cultural level, a telling indication of the differences between the Russophile and Ukrainophile orientations in philosophy and tactics was their distinctive responses to the jubilee celebrations of the birth of the national awakener. As the most influential and respected national cultural figure, Aleksander Dukhnovych was revered by all factions of Rusyns, if for different reasons. Russophiles saw him as a true son of Rus', whose sympathies were with Slav solidarity and the Russian language, while Ukrainophiles praised his attachment to the people and their vernacular. In 1922, the Prosvita Society published the first collection of Dukhnovych's poetry, Poeziy Aleksandm Dukhnovycha, edited by the Czech pro-Ukrainian scholar FrantisekTichy, with

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help from Galician Ukrainophile Ivan Pan'kevych. In his introduction to the first and only collection of Dukhnovych's work until the 1960s, Tichy made provocative statements that became the norm for future studies; he debunked Dukhnovych's purported Russian roots as 'a textbook example of romantic irony,' initiated a highly questionable interpretation of Dukhnovych's satirical poem 'On Court Life' as pertaining to Bishop Tarkovych, and claimed that Dukhnovych's grammar of Russian was actually written by Ivan Rakovs'kyi, since 'Dukhnovych did not write or know how to write in Great Russian.'11 Tichy went on to bring tradition in line with current ideology in an article written for the 120th anniversary of Dukhnovych's birth in 1923. In 'Aleksander Dukhnovych y teperishnost" (Aleksander Dukhnovych and the Present Day), he reveals the awakener's 'democratic' activities and social conscience, and even the 'communist' lifestyle that Tichy believed to be latent behind his religious sentiments ('V pamiat' Aleksandra Dukhnovycha 1803-1923,' 1721). Prosvita declared Dukhnovych's birthday a national holiday, and it was marked by church services, concerts, and public meetings not only in Uzhhorod, but also in smaller towns.12 The Russophiles marked the jubilee year 1923 by founding their own cultural organization, naming it in honour of Dukhnovych, and proclaiming their intention to continue his work in the spirit of the great unified Mother Rus'. At the first general meeting of the society, chairman levmenii Sabov called for the collection and publication of Dukhnovych's works, a commitment that, according to the Russophiles, illustrated more respect for the awakener than any public celebrations or other Ukrainophile manifestations. However respectful the commitment, for various practical reasons the project was never realized by the society. For the 125th anniversary of Dukhnovych's birth in 1928, Prosvita translated Dukhnovych's 'Autobiography' from Latin into Rusyn and published it in a bilingual edition, as well as his vernacular-language play, Virtue Is More Important than Riches, both of which held great appeal for the people. In the same year, the Dukhnovych Society published a scholarly bibliography of the poet's works (Aristov, Khronologicheskii perechen' napechatannykh sochineniiA. V. Dukhnovicha}. While its value for Dukhnovych scholarship is unquestioned, it represents an approach to Dukhnovych that could appeal only to the intelligentsia. Over the years, numerous poems were dedicated to Dukhnovych, although the politically uninitiated may be forgiven for not recognizing the same person in the divergent Ukrainophile and Russophile characterizations. For the 1923 jubilee, the Ukrainophile poet Vasyl' Grendzha-Dons'kyi published 'Arestovania A. Dukhnovycha' (The Arrest of A. Dukhnovych) in Nedilia Rusyna (nos. 1112: 41). In this narrative, Dukhnovych comes across as a defiant rabble-rouser

Re-imagining Rusyn Identity

315

who stands up to the arresting officers and delivers a twenty-six-line fiery oration in a common, vernacular speech style. He denounces the Hungarian authorities for oppressing the Rusyn people and for working toward their ultimate elimination as a nation.

Long centuries of heavy chains / Have wearied us, tormented us. / You are executioners, not people! Cruel tyrants, / Rivers of blood and tears have often flowed. In the Ukrainophile refashioning of Rusyn cultural history, the national awakener becomes a national freedom-fighter, with all the sentiments, sympathies, and rhetorical skill of a twentieth-century revolutionary. Grendzha-Dons'kyi even attributes Dukhnovych's democratic sentiments to Ukrainian influence, depicting the Rusyn national awakener as reading a book by Shevchenko, a notion that springs entirely from the author's mythic imagination. By contrast, the central figure of Russophile poet Andrii Karabelesh's poem 'Dukhnovichu' (To Dukhnovych, Karpatskii sviet 1 , no. 4, 1928: 50), written for the 1928 anniversary, is inspired by a higher power. In Russophile discourse, which is imbued with religion and tradition, Dukhnovych is a 'teacher of truth and love searching for peace' and a 'beloved father,' obedient to the teachings of the Creator. And quite in contrast to Dukhnovych's common speech style and indecorous lexicon in Grendzha-Dons'kyi's poem, Karabelesh links him inseparably to the sacred Russian word.

From sleep and deadly stagnation, / He raised his old brothers, / And the Russian word - the sacred word - / In sacred love, he proclaimed! In Russophile treatments, Dukhnovych was deified with exaggerated praise, while Ukrainophiles tended to link him to their own political battles. Fighting over the legacy of the greatest Rusyn hero, each side made him over in the image of their own political and national orientation, providing alternative

316 Straddling Borders heroic myths to the Rusyn people. The linguistic distinction of these poems Grendzha-Dons'kyi uses the vernacular, while Karabelesh uses literary Russian - is only the superficial indicator of the cultural divide that separates them. The scholarship conducted on Dukhnovych by the two orientations reveals the same self-interested motivations. In 1924 Prosvita published an article by Kyrylo Studyns'kyi ('Aleksander Dukhnovych i Halychyna') on Dukhnovych's relations with Galician cultural figures, emphasizing the views of Galician critics such as Ivan Franko. Another article by Ivan Pan'kevych focused on Dukhnovych and Shevchenko ('Pam'iatni rokovyny,' Pchilka, no. 7, 1928: 187-9). The selection of such topics and the authors' efforts to uncover previously unknown connections were calculated to demonstrate Dukhnovych's alleged dedication to Galician-Subcarpathian 'Ukrainian' unity, although the more exacting Ukrainophile studies necessarily contained much criticism directed at Dukhnovych for his 'mistaken' political and linguistic views. In connection with the jubilee celebrations, Prosvita also published several short hagiographic treatments of Dukhnovych, including some addressed to children, which in a simple, non-scholarly manner revealed to the people Dukhnovych the 'Ukrainophile.'13 Finally, in 1929, a Russophile biographical and critical sketch of Dukhnovych by the teacher A.V. Popov was published by the educational council of the Irshava district, near Mukachevo. In its preface, school inspector N. Tsimbolinets notes that the book is a welcome service from 'our Russian side,' since it has not yet published a separate book on Dukhnovych. In the previous year, the Dukhnovych Society had announced a special commission to publish a complete collection of Dukhnovych's work. Although the project was never completed, an introduction to the proposed publication written by Nikolai Beskyd was serialized in Karpatskii sviet in 1929 and published separately in 1930. Beskyd's work clearly had an anti-Ukrainophile political message. He implicitly addresses previous Ukrainophile studies, stating, for example, that Dukhnovych used the term 'Rusyn,' 'not to support some separatist tendency, but precisely in opposition to such an idea, to strengthen clan unity. He was Rusyn, not in the artificial interpretation of some circles, but in the strict etymological meaning of the word, that is, a son of Rus" (A. V Dukhnovich i ego poeziia, 19). Beginning with a scholarly discussion of the fate of Dukhnovych's manuscripts and a detailed historical introduction to Slavophilism, the author takes a hagiographic approach to his subject. Acknowledging but explaining away his technical faults, Beskyd praises Dukhnovych as a Godgiven poet ('Dukhnovich byl poetom Bozh'ei milost'u'), who touches people's hearts and shows them the way to truth and light (ibid., 76). Although, or perhaps because, the repetition of praise and lofty epithets for Dukhnovych

Re-imagining Rusyn Identity 317 was a tradition of Subcarpathian culture, subsequent Ukrainian critics have seen Beskyd's article as an explicit political tactic directed against 'the progressive forces of the land' (Mykytas1, Tvorchist' O. Dukhnovycha v otsintsi doradians'koho literaturoznavstva,' 112). Thus, the rival orientations depicted Dukhnovych each in their own image and likeness. While Russophiles saw him as a patron saint, leading the defence of a united, holy Rus', Ukrainophiles reinterpreted him as a revolutionary, leading Rusyns in a new, Ukrainian direction. To conclude this general survey of the competing cultural orientations, it is instructive to note the significant parallels between them that resulted in mirror images of Rusyn identity. Both Russophiles and Ukrainophiles recognized that Rusyn culture was unique, situated at the point where eastern Slavic culture met western. However, instead of exploiting the special hybrid character of Rusyn culture, both Russophiles and Ukrainophiles saw themselves as the 'younger brothers' of superior cultures, indicating the persistence of a colonial mentality. Their aspirations were limited to proving to the Rusyn people the Tightness of the claimed relationship, on the one hand, and urging the Rusyn people to be worthy of their respective superior brothers, Russia or Ukraine, on the other. Hence, the hyperbolic praise of Russian or Ukrainian culture as 'the highest expression of the human soul' and the intense rhetorical solicitude for the Rusyn people, who nonetheless managed to frustrate both movements by their indifference and passivity. Each orientation defended its own authenticity, while it saw the other as a political tool of foreign powers. The Russophiles attributed Ukrainian separatism to German and Polish attacks on Russian unity, while Ukrainophiles blamed Russia, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary for 'denationalizing' the Subcarpathian 'Ukrainians.' Each side assumed the unqualified allegiance of the Rusyn masses and deprecated their adversaries as traitors. Needless to say, the subaltern was rarely able to speak for himself, and when the small Rusynophile movement claimed to speak for him, asserting the existence of Rusyns as a distinct ethnic group, no one listened. From today's perspective, the most significant and inexcusable parallel between the Ukrainophile and Russophile groups was that they were united in their opposition to the Rusynophile orientation. They considered its claim to a distinct Rusyn identity as groundless and its political implications dangerous, since it supposedly provoked the aggressive designs of neighbouring powers. Ukrainophiles dismissed Rusynophiles as magyarones, less idealistically motivated even than Russophiles (Za ridne slovo, 109). The Russophiles accused them of narrow provincialism and considered them as much a threat to Russian unity as the Ukrainophiles. Whether through dedication to past tradition or to political ideology, each side looked past reality, ignored facts, and imagined a

318 Straddling Borders Rusyn identity that best suited their own creative vision, as well as their cultural and political aims. A few individuals attempted to bridge the gap between the rival orientations toward the unification of Subcarpathian Rus', but in the ambient atmosphere of extremism they were not well received. In the early 1930s, Ivan Andrashko set up a students' group in Prague and began to publish a journal, Zhivaia mysl' (1932-6), that promoted the idea of Subcarpathian cultural unity. Regretting that 'our one Carpatho-Russian people' was divided into 'two enemy camps' ('Pievets krest'ianskago goria,' Zhivaia mysl', no. 1, 1932: 9), Andrashko did not argue for the existence of a separate nationality, but called for an end to destructive squabbling and promoted the equal propagation of the 'Russian and Ukrainian cultures [that] are both native, dear, and valuable to us' ('Ne razbivaite naroda,' Zhivaia mysl', no. 4, 1934: 15). Andrashko was supported by the Czech critic Antonm Hartl, who called for tact and decorum in relations between the two camps and advised a reasonable, receptive, and compromising attitude toward nation building: The Subcarpathian Rusyns who are concerned for their own future and culture ... will acquire cultural benefit from Russians, Ukrainians and Czechs, as they build for themselves their own domestic economy in Czechoslovakia' ('Za natsional'noe budushchee Podk. Rusynov,' Zhivaia mysl', no. 5, 1934: 13). levmenii Sabov, the traditionalist who headed the Dukhnovych Society, also expressed support for the synthesis of cultural orientations, telling Andrashko pragmatically, 'We must associate also with Ukrainian culture, for we do not know what the future will bring' (quoted in Andrashko, 'O. Evmenii Iv. Sabov,' Zhivaia mysl', no. 5, 1934: 1). However, the radicalized opponents ignored these endorsements and attacked Andrashko's efforts from both sides. Finally, in an apt illustration of the prevalent extremism, Vozrozhdenie (the Renaissance Association), a Russophile student group of which Andrashko was a member, expelled him from the organization and brought him to trial for national treason (Magocsi, Shaping, 175). From a historical perspective, the Russophile-Ukrainophile dispute points up some of the errors of essentialist thinking and the dangers of idealized cognitive models as they relate to nationality and language. In the Subcarpathian example, such thinking led to strict categorization based not on experiential data, but on 'theory-impregnated facts,' which produced dogmatism, immodesty, and unwarranted certainty.14 The essentialism that characterized their romantic perception of nationality and their traditionalist yearning for discrete categorization blinded the Subcarpathian Rusyns to the potential of their own unique in-between character. It prevented both Russophiles and Ukrainophiles from seeing the realities of their situation and from coming to a productive consensus, which in turn left them totally vulnerable to imposed categorization

Re-imagining Rusyn Identity 319 by external forces. While Russophiles and Ukrainophiles alike recognized the futility of their continual factional sparring and the wasted effort it represented, neither camp could break from the cycle of confrontation and blame. Only the most optimistic might hope, as did Russophile literary scholar Pavel Fedor, that the national discord of the 1920s was a sign of progress, an inevitable transitional stage that indicated 'a revival of free thought after the silence of the grave.' 'We have begun to talk about ourselves, and this guarantees that we will not stop at squabbling but will compete on the cultural plane, which will replace hasty hypotheses with living progeny' (Fedor, Ocherki, 16). The Language Question - Round 3 Many accounts of the language debate in Subcarpathian Rus' during the interwar period begin with a favourite anecdote from the work of satirist Marko Barabolia (pseudonym of Ivan Rozniichuk), who built a twenty-year comedy career on the prevalent linguistic chaos: 'The time when the "language question" prevailed was the most romantic in the history of Transcarpathia. Just imagine, everywhere in cities and villages, in reading rooms, theatres, government offices and cafes, everywhere they might gather, people talked only about the "language question." Oh, what times those were! When, for instance, the weather hadn't changed in a long time and people had nothing to talk about there was always one good topic: the "language question'" (Barabolia, Proiekt avtonomii, 28). Barabolia himself favoured the Ukrainian orientation, and he directed most of his satire at the Russophiles and Czech government policy. For example, he critiques the Russophiles' formality and their adherence to the traditional orthography through a parody of a letter to the editor, which abounds in gratuitous hard signs: 'TwcKaeMbiH Bamyio pyKyt npe6biBaio CT> HacroamHM'b'bT. pyccKHMT> noHTCHieMT)' (41). Nonetheless, his ridicule of the linguistic disorder prevalent in Subcarpathian society touches on all sides of the controversy. In a sketch from 1928, he lampoons the penchant for bureaucratic solutions to linguistic and national questions and Czech mismanagement of the process. He caricatures a session of the 'o6me-3aranbHo-cnoneHHOa;rra;iaHomHoe KynbiypHoe TOBapncTBO,' that is, the 'General [in Russian, Ukrainian, Czech, and Hungarian] Cultural Society,' which degenerates into a polyglot mishmash. The Hungarians, Czechs, Magyarones, 'pan-Russians,' and Rusyns who make up the presidium finally issue a fifteen-volume report, establishing an official language for Subcarpathian Rus'. The result is a 'monstrosity' - 'HGT na pyccKH, HGT na yicpaHHCKH H OAHaKo rmcaHO LJHPH/IHKOH' (neither Russian, nor Ukrainian but written in Cyrillic; 84). In 'The Production of Languages' (1931), Barabolia depicts a session of another language com-

320 Straddling Borders mission, meeting after a delay of ten years, where delegates present their opinions in a jumble of languages and orthographies - and ultimately postpone a resolution for another ten years (62). As Barabolia's humour indicates, the language issue was one that resonated throughout Subcarpathian society and if polemics on national identity were harsh, those that focused on language were vicious. Ironically, although Ukrainophiles and Russophiles were voluble on the issue, each side insisted that, in fact, there was no language question, that the issue was illusory, a product of politics. For example, the protocol of a 1931 Dukhnovych Society congress states, The Dukhnovych Society does not recognize any language dispute' (Karpatskii sviet, nos. 3-4,1931:1155), and Russophile V.A. Frantsev opens his 1924 study on language with the categorical declaration: 'The Dukhnovych Society is of the opinion that there is not and never has been a language question' (K voprosu o literaturnom iazykie Podkarpatskoi Rusi, 2). Likewise, from the Ukrainophile point of view, the language question was considered to be not a real issue, but an obsession of the Dukhnovych Society, which, in spite of its assertion that the question was resolved, issued numerous articles and brochures on the topic. In contrast, representatives of the Pros vita Society pointed out that of ninety brochures published by Prosvita, only one dealt with language, since 'we know to which nation we belong' (' "Prosvita" v Zakarpats'kii Ukrai'm,' Narodnyiyliustrovanyikalendar'TP, 1928: 81). In 1929 a congress of the Ukrainophile Narodovets'ke Uchytel's'ke Tovarystvo (Populist Teacher's Society) declared unequivocally, 'The people themselves speak their own language, Ukrainian, and so the language question is solved' (cited in Magocsi, 'Nationalist Intelligentsia and the Peasantry,' 213). The narrative sanctioned by history and subsequent Soviet scholarship was established by Oleksa Borkaniuk, editor of the Communist organ Karpats'ka pravda from 1929 to 1933, who dismissed the efforts of both groups as a bourgeois diversion. 'They fight among themselves for the Russophile or Ukrainophile position only to distract the workers from the revolutionary struggle for social and national liberation with debates about "language."'15 Following the party line, Prosvita reproved Subcarpathian cultural activists for occupying themselves with the 'language question' instead of 'real work' ('"Prosvita" v Zakarpats'kii Ukrai'ni,' 78.) More to the point, however, may be the observation of President Tomas G. Masaryk that the language question is often significant in societies where cultural life is not yet fully developed. Indeed, in the absence of a welldeveloped literature or educational system in Subcarpathia, all issues of politics and nationality were subsumed under and identified with the 'language question.' There is no doubt that the language dispute became a political touchstone in

Re-imagining Rusyn Identity 321 the inter-war years, but neither is there any question that the issue was a real and enduring problem for Subcarpathian Rus1. The failure of Dukhnovych and other nineteenth-century awakeners to establish a literary standard was now compounded by the ambivalence, delay, and compromise of the Czechoslovak government. Early administrative statutes of the Czechoslovak state referred the issue of language use in Subcarpathia to the proposed Subcarpathian soim (regional parliament), but the promised soim did not come into existence until 1938. In the interim, the Prague government complicated the issue with its imprecise formulation of the question: The name of the local population is not fixed: they call themselves Rusnaks, Rusyns, Subcarpathian Rusyns; they call their language Russian [ruskd fee}. The language is Little Russian, that is, a particular local dialect, and the people themselves are ethnographically Little Russians' (cited in Magocsi, Shaping, 136). This memorandum conflates the perceptions of three mutually exclusive Rusyn orientations: was the language Russian, Little Russian (that is, Ukrainian), or a distinct local dialect? In 1919 a meeting of Czech academicians and linguists issued a report opposing the creation of a new 'artificial' language and recognizing as the standard language of the population 'the Little Russian literary language, used by their closest neighbours and fellow countrymen, i.e., the Galician Ukrainian language' (quoted in Magocsi, Shaping, 136). While Ukrainophiles welcomed the decision, Russophiles considered the government policy to be poorly thought out, opposed to the wishes of the Rusyn population, and the immediate cause of the subsequent 'language mess' in Subcarpathia. After the formation of Czechoslovakia, the grammar used in Subcarpathian elementary schools was that of Avhustyn Voloshyn. First published in 1899, reissued in Hungarian in 1907, and revised in 1919, this was essentially a grammar of the Subcarpathian recension of Russian with numerous magyarisms and dialectalisms. Judging the Voloshyn text to be inconsistent with the spirit of government statutes, in 1919 the state school administration invited the Galician-Ukrainian linguist Ivan Pan'kevych 'to regulate the language of instruction and official language for Subcarpathian Rus" (Pan'kevych, 'Mii zhyttiepys,' 33). To this end, in 1922 Pan'kevych published his own Hramatyka rus'koho iazyka (Grammar of the Rusyn Language), which remained the standard grammar for higher grades in Subcarpathia through the 1930s. Because it found the people unsympathetic to the phonetic alphabet as used in Galicia, the Czechoslovak government commission mandated the continued use of the traditional etymological alphabet, which included the letters iat' (t), iery (w), and the hard sign (t).16 For the Rusyns, whose immediate neighbours and the Czechoslovak administration used the Latin alphabet, Cyrillic traditional orthography had tremendous psychological significance. Given these constraints,

322 Straddling Borders Pan'kevych suppressed his own preference for standard literary Ukrainian, which used the phonetic alphabet, and came up with a compromise. Built on a Galician Ukrainian grammatical base, Pan'kevych's language was overlaid with Subcarpathian dialectalisms and written in the traditional Cyrillic etymological orthography. As Pan'kevych himself remarked, 'Indeed, my grammar could not and cannot be a dialectical grammar' ('Odpovid,' nos. 7-8: 172). However, it could and did bridge the gap between local Rusyn dialects and standard Ukrainian by presenting grammar in 'pure forms, not distorted by the provincial pronunciation' ('Odpovid,' nos. 9-10: 203). Pan'kevych's compromise drew criticism from all sides. Russophiles objected to the prominence of dialectal elements, Ukrainophiles protested the inadequacy of the etymological alphabet to transmit the vocal features of Ukrainian, as well as its difficulty for the newly literate. Subcarpathian-Ukrainian communists, who converted to the phonetic alphabet in 1925, abhorred the 'outdated' orthography.17 In subsequent revised editions (1927 and 1936), Pan'kevych retained the symbolically significant orthography, but moved steadily toward literary Ukrainian by eliminating local dialectalisms. Although it pleased no one completely, the pan'kevychivka was the standard for subsequent grammars and textbooks in Subcarpathian schools. The Dukhnovych Society countered the Pan'kevych grammar with one of its own, written by a Galician Russophile, but published in 1924 under the name of levmenii Sabov.18 In the introduction, Sabov explains, The present grammar is a grammar of the Russian literary language in its written, not oral, application ... [Its] purpose is not to address the nuances of pronunciation in various parts of the Russian land. It will make use of some of them (specifically nuances of Carpatho-Russian dialects) only to facilitate the mastery of several rules of the general Russian literary language' (2).19 Ignoring the modern Soviet orthographic reforms, Sabov used the traditional orthography, as did all Dukhnovych Society publications. Just as Pan'kevych's grammar used the local dialect to make learning standard Ukrainian easier, the Sabov grammar was to facilitate the study of local Carpatho-Rusyn authors (Sil'vai, Stavrovs'kyi-Popradov, Fentsyk) and the Russian classics. The Russophile intelligentsia rallied around Sabov's grammar in their opposition to the policy of the Czechoslovak school administration, demanding that its language be used as the standard for local publications. The Prague Ministry of Culture consulted Avhustyn Voloshyn (author of a rival grammar) and the distinguished Czech Slavist professor Jiff Polivka on the suitability of the Sabov grammar for Subcarpathian schools. While the Ukrainophile Voloshyn rejected it, Polivka concluded that although the work was not based on the dialects of the region, it might be used in secondary schools where Russian was taught as a separate

Re-imagining Rusyn Identity 323 subject. The government procrastinated, but finally in 1936, under different political circumstances, recommended the Sabov grammar for use in Subcarpathian schools. The government's 1936 decision was a reaction to the prevalent discontent with school administration policy in Subcarpathia, specifically among the majority of teachers in Subcarpathian Rus'. At a 1923 teachers' congress, Pan'kevych's grammar was rejected in favour of Voloshyn's 1919 text, based on the traditional Subcarpathian written language, by a vote of 544 to 2, because it did not 'conform to the character of the Carpatho-Russian language' (quoted in Magocsi, Shaping, 140), and subsequent teachers' congresses reiterated this position. Nevertheless, the linguistic trend in schools continued to follow government policy: Ukrainian-oriented textbooks by the Galician emigre Volodymyr Birchak were introduced in the schools, and finally, in 1936, the first Ukrainian elementary textbook was published in Subcarpathia, using the modern phonetic orthography and only a few dialectalisms. Since educational policy had taken a trend against their position, the Russophiles were the first to expound on the language question. In order to promote Russian as the Subcarpathian literary language, they returned to their perception of Rusyn history, which was based on the theory of a unified Rus1 people and a single Rus1 literary language. They elaborated these ideas in numerous articles for the Russophile intelligentsia that merely affirmed and fortified their prior convictions. Representing complex historical theories to the masses and convincing them of the linguistic implications of those theories was a more challenging task. In a brochure from the popular series Narodnaia biblioteka entitled 'Poznai sebia' (Know Yourself), the Dukhnovych Society directed to the people a detailed historical and linguistic survey. Not only were the facts intricate and the concepts abstruse, the linguistic medium (standard Russian) required elucidation. Synonyms were provided for foreign terms (kul'tura - prosvieshchennost', obrazovannost'}, dialectical words and even local barbarisms clarified unfamiliar Russian terms (prochnye - staemny; zhgly - palyly; dan' - portsii). The author explains the seemingly counter-intuitive fact that Great Russians are not a separate people by analogy to American Rusyns: 'Our brother Carpatho-Rusyn Americans did not stop being Rusyn because they crossed the ocean. Different conditions of life create different customs and influence the language. Just listen to our Americans when they return home. How many new words they bring back! And they call themselves not zemlekopami but mainerami, not drevodiel'tsami but karpenteramf ('Poznai sebia,' 10). The distinction between a literary language and local dialects is presented by analogy to France and Germany, where, we are told, individual dialects differ from one another significantly more than do the dialects of

324 Straddling Borders Russian, but they share a single literary language (ibid., 14-15). The author is careful to point out that the literary language does not fully correspond to any one dialect, and that all dialects have contributed to the development of the allRussian literary language. For the Ukrainophiles, the existence of distinct dialects did not justify an overarching literary language. In fact, they pointed out that German dialects on the basis of which there developed a literature, such as Flemish, Dutch, and Danish, eventually became independent languages. Placing Ukrainian in the same category, they rejected the imposition of an all-Russian literary language (Za ridne slovo, 10). The Russophiles, however, needed to establish that the Russian literary language was also 'ours.' They alleged that not only did Rusyns contribute to Russian, citing the individual Rusyn emigres who took part in the development of Russian culture, but generations of Rusyn writers had chosen Russian as their own literary standard. The fact that their implementation of it was not perfect was explained as a result of 'one thousand years of slavery' to alien masters, and the solution was the approximation of the Subcarpathian Rusyn dialects to 'the literary language of Gogol', Pushkin, and Dostoevsky' (Hus'nai, lazykovyi vopros v Podkarpatskoi Rusi, 14). With the fall of Magyar domination, the process of approximation to Russian already underway in the second half of the nineteenth century would have continued, according to the Russophiles, if not for the incursion of Galician emigres, who brought with them the language dispute that had divided Galician Rusyns and led to the adoption of a Ukrainian consciousness. The Russophiles now revived the term iazychie (macaronic jargon) and applied it to the language of their 'Galician pseudo-Ukrainian' rivals, which they saw as an artificial mixture of the Galician dialect, standard Ukrainian, Polish, and neologisms based on 'Russian words turned inside out' (ibid., 18). ARussophile from Presov, Ihor Hus'nai presented examples taken from the works of the writer and socialist politician Volodymyr Vynnychenko and asked, 'Can we Carpatho-Russians consider this our native language? ... Such capers [orthographical and lexical changes] of the separatists can only repel, not attract' (24-5). The Ukrainophiles found support and vindication for their position in the 1905 statement of the St Petersburg Imperial Academy of Sciences that distinguished Little Russian from Great Russian and recommended that 'the Little Russian population should have the same right as Great Russians to use their native language in public speech and in the press' (quoted in Voloshyn, O pys'mennom iazytsi, 8). Unimpressed, the Russophiles interpreted the academy's report as referring to independent dialects, rather than languages. As for the polonisms in their language, Voloshyn insisted that they 'did not alter the popular (narodnyi) character of the language' (34). Moreover, taking a more

Re-imagining Rusyn Identity 325 modern, less purist approach to language growth, Voloshyn saw the foreign elements and neologisms as a sign of development, a process necessary to all languages. However, Ukrainophiles had their own standards of purity. Voloshyn quotes Hiiador Stryps'kyi's admonition to write 'simply, clearly ... but without the errors of our dialects' (36). Therefore, the Ukrainophiles promoted a Subcarpathian literary language based on the dialects spoken in the northernmost mountainous regions that were considered the purest, that is, closest to Ukrainian and least corrupted by Magyar and Slovak words. In a 1939 review, Vasyl' Simovych described language development in Subcarpathian Rus' as a Ideological process of purification that culminated in standard Ukrainian. According to Simovych, 'He who understood that he belonged to the Ukrainian people, that his language was Ukrainian, rejected the Pan'kevych compromise grammar, ceased to write in the old (etymological) orthography, and turned to the pure literary Ukrainian language and the spelling which we all now use' ('Mova,' 105). The Ukrainophiles agreed with the Russophiles (both sides were more interested in making a point than being factual) that there had been no language question before the war. According to their narrative, writers had been gradually approaching the vernacular language, a process that, without interference, would have produced a Subcarpathian literary language. However, after the formation of Czechoslovakia, 'traitors and fanatics' from tsarist and bolshevik Russia insinuated themselves into Subcarpathian Rus' and began their 'dangerous fratricidal work' (Voloshyn, O pys'mennom iazytsi, 4). The Ukrainophiles interpreted the traditional two-language principle, which in Subcarpathia went back to Luchkai's 1830 grammar, as an effort to create an aristocratic language (Russian) and a peasant language (Rusyn), while they 'praised Moscow culture to the skies and stamped their own popular treasure into the swamp' (Za ridne slovo, 8-9). Setting up this simplified account of Russophile linguistic intentions, the Ukrainophiles could earnestly appeal to the 'contemporary democratization of culture [which] condemns the absolutism of so-called dominant languages.' Feeling secure in the new world, where 'the cultural and national development of even the smallest nations [was] ensured by international treaties,' they branded the Russophile attitude toward Russian an anachronism (ibid., 33). The Russophiles' arguments based on Subcarpathian tradition were countered by a distinctive Ukrainophile perception of history. According to Voloshyn, the Russophile tradition went back only sixty or seventy years to Dobrians'kyi (the Ukrainophiles did not place Dukhnovych in the Russophile context), while Rusyn literature had a vernacular literature as early as the fifteenth century (O pys'mennom iazytsi, 23). Voloshyn traced Ukrainian influence to the eleventh

326 Straddling Borders century, considering as 'Old Ukrainian' the manuscripts in Old Church Slavonic that provided models for early Rusyn literature. Rejecting the traditional Russian interpretation of history, Ukrainophile historians claimed all the achievements of Kievan Rus' for the Ukrainian people and prided themselves on alleged Ukrainian superiority over Muscovite barbarism. In Za ridne slovo, it is argued that all the important literary monuments of the Kievan era, including Slovo opolku Igoreve (Tale of Igor's Campaign), belong to Ukrainian culture, while Great Russian culture begins only with Lomonosov (ibid., 14). Fortunately, it is not necessary to enter the controversy over whether one should use the term Ukrainian to apply to the pre-Mongol era. Even if this earliest period is set aside, the Ukrainophiles correctly make the point that from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries, Subcarpathian Rus' shared a common cultural life with their brothers to the north, or as they would put it, with Ukraine. The manuscript literature of this time foregrounded the vernacular language in interpretive epistles and the like. Quoting from Hiiador Stryps'kyi's influential study from 1907, Starsha rus'ka pys'mennost' na Uhorshchyni, Voloshyn asserts that 'the writers of Subcarpathian Rus1 had worked out for themselves a literary language independent from the Muscovite language as much as 150 years before Lomonosov.' He goes on to say that since the vernacular language survived to the twentieth century in the folk tradition, the use of Russian in the second half of the nineteenth century is 'strictly speaking just an episode in our history' (ibid., 25). The Ukrainophile critics frequently cite Stryps'kyi's study to establish a connection between the seventeenth-century tradition and Ukrainophile writing in the 1920s, but they fail to mention that for Stryps'kyi, the early texts did not speak of a connection to Galicia and Ukraine, but indicated an independent Rusyn literature. In Stryps'kyi's words, 'As it happened, if the Muscovites were taken aback to recognize the right of two Rus' literatures (Great and Little Russian), they finally had to admit it. Now we are obliged to claim also a right for a third Rus1 literature, which follows a middle road between the other two; namely the Uhro-Rusyn literature' (ibid., 8-12). Rejecting Stryps'kyi's conclusion and using his observations for their own purpose, the Ukrainophiles looked back to the documents from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, which had been only recently discovered and analysed.20 As Stryps'kyi had stated, 'Our forefathers wrote in Rusyn excellently, much better than we, their descendants ... Two hundred and fifty years ago, our people wrote more beautifully and more comprehensibly than today ... The popular, simple language of the old writings teach us ... how we are to write in our own language ... It is our duty to continue this old literature, for it is our own' (Starsha rus'ka pys'mennost', 14). To illustrate his point, Voloshyn juxtaposes a passage from the seventeenth-century Huklyvyi chronicle with a pas-

Re-imagining Rusyn Identity

327

sage from a story by Ivan Sil'vai from 1892-4, and asks, 'Which of these is written according to our Rusyn language? You see with your own eyes, where our fate has led, how our literature has been cut off from its legacy, from the good old Rusyn literature' (Opys'mennom iazytst, 35). On the surface, Voloshyn's point is won, since the chronicle reads easily and the passage from Sil'vai consists of part of one long sentence, with convoluted syntax and complex vocabulary. However, the comparison is not a fair one, since the chronicle piece is written not as literature but as an informal personal observation on weather and crop conditions, while Sil'vai's passage is a self-consciously literary description of a fictional character's psychological state. Russophiles countered that the popular character of the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century manuscripts was exaggerated and misrepresented. Gerovskii concedes that the seventeenth-century Niagovo interpretive gospel is the first original monument of Carpatho-Rusyn literature, but he notes that it contains polonisms, magyarisms, and neologisms that hindered comprehension. His analysis shows that the manuscript exhibits numerous corrections and explanations that facilitate understanding and indicate readers' indignation at some of the scribal innovations in the direction of the vernacular (lazyk Podkarpatskoi Rusi, 46). The Niagovo text, which was remarkable for its time, did not establish a tradition. Other interpretive epistles and gospels of the seventeenth century were not based on an individual local dialect, but were copied from various Little Russian texts from outside the territory of Subcarpathian Rus'. Gerovskii's description of the language contrasts sharply with that of the Ukrainophiles': 'In this language, which has nothing in common with the Subcarpathian dialect, what most significantly strikes the eye are polonisms. By contrast, the Subcarpathian features introduced by the scribe are so insignificant as to escape notice. In addition, several copies preserve a rather large number of magyarisms, also introduced into the text by scribes' (ibid., 47). Gerovskii is content to agree with the Ukrainophiles that there is a similarity between the contemporary literary language they used and that of the seventeenth-century texts: 'Contemporary Ukrainian literature in the southern Carpathian Russian linguistic region, which appeared after the world war through Galician influence and a school system administered by Galicians and the Czech government, does indeed use the Galician literary language studded with Polish words, and in this sense it recalls the influx of Polish influence in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries' (Istoriia ugro-russkoi literatury, 47). However, the Ukrainophiles justifiably contended that the experiment with literary Russian in the second half of the nineteenth century had not been successful. Svit and the other Russian-language journals did not put down roots in Subcarpathia, and thus their goals of transmitting Great Russian culture and

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fashioning a Subcarpathian literature on its pattern were not achieved. The authors of Za ridne slovo point out that in 1898 the newly established populist journal Nauka had eight hundred subscribers, while the Russophile journal Listok had only twenty-five (28). For Ukrainophile critics, it was sufficient to point to the failure and place the blame on the Russian language, without examining underlying social and political problems that may been contributing factors.21 If we are to judge from Ukrainophile polemics, Russophilism came about only due to the influence of Russian troops in Subcarpathia in 1839; the Russophiles' weak self-confidence was a result of living under the Magyar yoke; their laziness prompted them to accept another literature rather than create their own; and their aristocratism led them to despise the people and their language (Za ridne slovo, 26). And Russophiles responded in the same self-righteous tone, insisting that literary Russian was accessible to the peasants and preferred by them to the 'Ukrainian-Polish jargon' promoted by the Ukrainophile movement. Unfortunately, their obsession with simplistic polemical attacks and defensive arguments prevented both sides from examining the facts and possibly modifying or compromising their positions. Their theories crystallized and hardened, while in practice the language situation was more fluid than their ideological frameworks could accommodate. 'Bbi no-HamoMy HC snaeTe' (You do not know our way of speaking) There is only indirect evidence as to which language orientation was preferred by the peasant masses.22 In 1937, the Czechoslovak Ministry of Culture conducted a 'language plebiscite' among parents of Subcarpathian elementaryschool children to determine whether the Sabov grammar (billed by the Ministry of Culture as russkii) or the Pan'kevych text (termed malorus'kyi or ukrains'kyi) should be used in schools. The results indicated that 313 schools chose the Russian grammar and 114 favoured the Ukrainian. However, the terminology employed may have skewed the perceptions of the Subcarpathian populace, who associated the term pyccKuu with their own language, pycbKuu, or Rusyn.23 Thus, it is difficult to gauge the relative support for the two, although the Ukrainian alternative was clearly second to whatever the people understood as pyccKuu (Magocsi, 'Nationalist Intelligentsia and the Peasantry,' 218). Similarly, there are conflicting reports as to which written language was better understood by the people and disagreements about how to define the popular (narodnyi) language. When the Russophiles spoke of the 'Russian language,' they actually meant 'all-Russian' (obshche-russkii). They were careful to distinguish it from 'Great Russian,' which they understood as one of the dialects of obshche-russkii, along with Ukrainian and Rusyn.24 As a written

Re-imagining Rusyn Identity 329 language, the Dukhnovych Society insisted that the people understood and preferred the Subcarpathian recension of Russian, as used in the journal Listok and its supplement for the people, as well as in Sabov's 1893 anthology. In a speech to the first congress of the Dukhnovych Society, Sabov cites the response of one peasant to his own supposition that Listok might be too hightoned and aristocratic: 'What we don't understand, we'll figure out.' The same peasant supposedly rejected brochures of the Galician Shevchenko Society, saying, 'We don't want them. They're Polish' (Karpatskii krai 1, nos. 3-4, 1923-4:42). In response to the Ukrainophiles' arguments that the obshcherusskii language was foreign to the local population, Husnai cited a passage from Tolstoy and concluded: This excerpt of the "Muscovite" language contains about eighty words, and we are convinced that here [in Subcarpathian Rus'] you will find no one, not even an illiterate peasant, who would say that he did not understand all but three per cent of these words' (lazykovyl vopros, 29). However, like Voloshyn's comparison of the Huklyvyi chronicle and Sil'vai, Hus'nai's example is spurious. His sample of Tolstoy's language comes not from War and Peace, but from the simple stories Tolstoy wrote for the people. Although the Rusyn people may well have understood this story that was directed at their intellectual level, to extrapolate from this that literary Russian was easily accessible to them would be unjustified. The Russophile linguist Georgii Gerovskii asserted that whenever the Rusyn people were able to speak for themselves, free from interference from the intelligentsia (for example, in religious sects), they chose Russian as their literary language. He also observed that Russian was the language of the popular lubok literature of Subcarpathia.25 Nedziel'skii noted that the demand for literature in Russian first came not from the intelligentsia, but from the people, noting a series of books published for the people in 1906-7. These books, written by one 'Did Mykula,' were bowdlerized versions of foreign works, in which names were changed and elements of adventure and horror were magnified. Gogol's 'Vii' was published in such a distorted form, and Robinson Crusoe was published for the people in Church Slavonic ('Desiat' liet karpatorusskoi literatury,' 118). Teachers complained of using Ukrainian-oriented textbooks that 'crippled' their students, linguistically and culturally. At the general meetings of the Dukhnovych Society, Russian-oriented teachers shared anecdotal evidence of the confusion of students and teachers alike when faced by Ukrainian vocabulary in textbooks and readers,26 and Ukrainophiles countered with their own anecdotes. However, for Subcarpathian teachers, the specific language complaints reached only the most superficial level of the controversy. They considered the alien cultural message being communicated to be a more insidious

330 Straddling Borders problem. Since the traditional Subcarpathian recension of Russian was now rejected by state policy, the new approved textbooks were written by GalicianUkrainian authors, whose 'message' was just as foreign to the Rusyn people as were the Russian classics. Prayers for 'the motherland Ukraine' replaced reverence to Carpathian Rus' and respect for its current home state, Czechoslovakia. Literary texts by Subcarpathian authors were replaced by Ukrainian works. Russophiles saw Ukrainophile education as alienating children from their parents not only linguistically, but also by inculcating in them new cultural and national sentiments. Despite the feelings of the majority of teachers, the Ukrainophile linguistic orientation was popular with the people in its oral forms. Ukrainian theatrical performances could be understood in the original, while Russian plays had to be adapted or translated into Rusyn. Again, however, the issue is not simply the linguistic medium, but also the message. While Russian dramatic and operatic literature featured the grand and heroic, the Ukrainian tradition was based on rural themes and folk motifs. Participants in drama groups remember that the popularity of works like Zaporozhets' za Dunaiem or Oi, ne khody, Hrytsiu could not be matched by any Russian works (Magocsi, 'National Intelligentsia,' 205). As for publications in the vernacular, evidence shows that they were well received. An organ of the Mukachevo diocese, Nedilia, which tried to avoid the Russian/Ukrainian controversy by publishing in uncodified dialect, received letters such as the following: 'I was used to the fact that when I took in hand some Rusyn [i.e., Russian-language] journal, every third or fourth word I did not understand. For there were many aristocratic [panskt] words ... which were in no way understandable. But when I read Nedilia each word is clear to me because it is written as we Rusyns speak [iak my rusyny hovoryme]' (cited in Magocsi, Shaping, 413). Again, the limitations of the message may have been as responsible for that easy reading as was the medium. The Ukrainophiles rejected Nedilia's populist orientation because of its mixed language. Part of the language problem was in identifying just what 'as we speak' meant, that is, to define and describe the narodnyi iazyk or popular language. Once again, what one saw (or in this case, heard) was a function of one's cultural orientation. The Russophile linguist Gerovskii, a native of Bukovina who settled in Subcarpathian Rus' after the First World War, concluded that the Subcarpathian dialects occupy 'a completely independent position' and must be considered as a dialect independent of Great Russian, Little Russian, or Belorussian. He charged that to Ukrainophiles who promoted the popular language, the term narodnyi iazyk meant their own Galician dialect, rather than the actual popular speech of Subcarpathian Rus'. 'The term "popular language"

Re-imagining Rusyn Identity 331 (narodna riech'/mova) ... is only a label, a stamp, by which [they] understand not the actual popular speech of the area, but their own distinctive Galician language, which [theyj for some reason call "comprehensible." It is as though the true Ugro-Russian popular speech spoken by peasants and not the aristocrats is completely non-existent' (Istoriia Ugro-russkoi literatury, 15, 49). In contrast, the Ukrainophiles argued that the dialects of Subcarpathian Rus1 belonged to the Ukrainian language and were closely related to the Galician dialect north of the mountains. They found support for their position in the General Statute of Czechoslovakia, which had identified the Subcarpathian dialects as Little Russian. For them, that meant Ukrainian.27 If Ukrainophiles heard their own Galician dialect in the speech of the Rusyns of Subcarpathia, other outside observers had the same experience, recognizing in it their own distinct language. When the Soviet Russian writer Il'ia Erenburg travelled through the PreSov region of northeastern Slovakia in 1928, he noted: To the question about who they are, the peasants answer without reservation, 'We are Russian [pyccttue].' Among themselves they speak the Carpatho-Russian dialect. This seems to be a mixture of Russian, Ukrainian, and Belorussian, with many 'magyarisms' and 'slovakisms.' However odd the language, we understood them well, and they - us. I do not know who was more amazed: the peasants of the village Nyklova, at seeing 'people from Moscow,' or we, at the sight of these kindred people, who had preserved their native Russian language through centuries of persecution and poverty.28

In the Presov region, the Rusynophiles and Russophiles were dominant (Prosvita had only one affiliate in eastern Slovakia),29 while the Uzhhorod government tended more and more to Ukrainian. However, even in Subcarpathian Rus1, Erenburg observed: My specialization is not philology and I am not concerned with the origin of the Carpatho-Russian dialect. I will say only that the local language is more comprehensible to me than Ukrainian ... As for the peasants, there is no question that they understand the Russian literary language only with difficulty, but literary Ukrainian, the book language, they understand no better. It is clear to them, however, that they will not survive with just the local dialect. They love and appreciate the Russian language as the language of a kindred and, more importantly, a large nation. (281)

And Czech scholar Tichy found numerous elements of Czech in Rusyn written

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language.30 As Erenburg points out, the language question entailed much more than simply choosing between two or three linguistic options. At the heart of the issue were cultural and political considerations, as well as subjective notions. The language spoken by the people was, in fact, a mixed language. Nonetheless, Russophile and Ukrainophile polemicists tried to make it fit their preconceived ideological frameworks. A Czech observer maintained that some Carpatho-Rusyn dialects were closer to the Russian literary language than to the Ukrainian standard,31 which the authors of Z# ridne slovo describe as having 'the linguistic structure of the Poltava-Kiev strain of the southeastern dialect' (16). Ukrainophiles argued that the people did not understand Russian. Yet Subcarpathian speech was not uniform. There were dialects and subdialects, some of which were closer to Ukrainian, and some to Russian. Border dialects deviated from those of the lowlands. No rhetorical generalization could embrace them all. Russophile polemicists also tried to prove that Ukrainian was not a legitimate Subcarpathian language because it contained Polish borrowings, and Ukrainophiles dismissed the Russophile iazychie because of its magyarisms and slovakisms. Still, as the Ukrainophiles pointed out, by searching out similar words in the geographically and genealogically related languages, one might easily 'prove' that Polish is Russian, or Serbian is Ukrainian (La ridne slovo, 70). The writers and cultural activists who were willing to accept and build on the hybrid character of the Subcarpathian language could be counted on one hand. And thus, despite their theories, models, and polemics, it was a rare intellectual from either linguistic camp who did not at one time or another hear from the people, 'Bbi no-namoMy ne sHaexe' (You do not know our way of speaking). The Place of Rusyn Vernacular Both the Russophile and Ukrainophile orientations needed to convince the general population that its chosen code was not only the correct one, but that it was accessible to them and respectful of their vernacular language. To some extent, this was easier for the Ukrainophiles, who relied on the similarities between Rusyn and Ukrainian pronunciation and their folk-based written culture to reach the Rusyn audience. However, even Pan'kevych recognized the necessity for a dialectical dictionary, for 'not all our terms for plants, animals, and other objects are understood here.'32 In fact, the difference was such that when historian Vasyl' Hadzhega, a Rusynophile member of the Prosvita presidium and the Naukovyi zbornyk editorial board, submitted an article that emphasized the Maramaros dialect and used the etymological orthography,

Re-imagining Rusyn Identity 333 editor Pan'kevych altered the language to bring it closer to Ukrainian, 'often against the will' of the author (Pan'kevych, 'Mii zhyttiepis,' 36). The Russophiles made a concerted effort, at least in the relatively small number of publications they produced specifically for the people, to make both code and message accessible to them. The first volume of the Dukhnovych Society's Popular Library (Narodnaia bibliotekd) announced the society's intention to issue one or two brochures per month 'with useful information from various fields of scholarship and on various questions of social life' ('Chto takoe biblioteka?' cover). The first volume - 'What is a library?' - introduces the series, but first, the Russian term biblioteka had to be explained: 'The word 6u6niomeKa is from Greek. The Greek word bibliotheka is formed from the words biblion (KHUZO) and theka (lUKcufi-b, cKpuHx). Consequently it corresponds to our Russian word KHmoxpanunume' (1). Throughout the short article, the author, Ivan Polivka, similarly glossed unfamiliar Russian words: no;n>30BaTbCH / xocHOBara; flOBonbno BpeMeHH / nacy. Subsequent volumes of the Popular Library dealt with nutrition, infectious diseases, agricultural cooperatives, animal husbandry, and issues of language and national identity in an adapted language that was fairly accessible or comprehensible through context. The popularity of the series is confirmed by the fact that of ten issues, all but one was sold out. Texts from Russian literature, however, required substantial glossing. In Ivan Bunin's story 'Na krai svieta,' sixteen lines of text required fifteen explanatory notes (Razskazy novieishikh russkikh pisatelei, Izdanie OIAD, no. 87, 13). The Russophiles, blinded by their theoretical model, explained the insufficient success of their publications among the folk by admonishing the people for their 'unwillingness' to learn. They saw their goal as 'raising the language of the people from primordial primitivism to the level of a developed literary language,' and insisted that 'this is not aristocratism, but a question of the education and culture of our people' (Kaminskii, 'Istoriia obshchestva im. A. Dukhnovicha,' 7).33 While the Russophiles emphasized educating the people to understand standard Russian in the etymological alphabet, the Ukrainophiles believed they could make literature more accessible to the people through orthographic reforms. Like many analysts of language in newly literate societies, they considered the phonetic alphabet, where each sound is represented by a separate symbol and words are spelled as they are pronounced, to be the easiest path to literacy. In Subcarpathia, however, where the people had traditionally been introduced to literacy by religious texts, the familiar alphabet was the ecclesiastical script that was a legacy of Church Slavonic. When levhenii Fentsyk, editor of the Russian-language Listok, began issuing his supplement for the people (Dodatok) in 1891, he initially used this traditional orthography for all

334 Straddling Borders articles, and only gradually introduced the conventional civil script. The populist newspaper Nauka also used the ecclesiastical script. If the masses needed to be educated to the related modern Cyrillic alphabet, the leap to a phonetic alphabet might not have been as easy as Ukrainophiles assumed.34 Even more significant was the symbolism of the old orthography, which the peasants considered their own, in contrast to the Latin alphabet that surrounded them and the modifications being introduced into Cyrillic by Bolsheviks and Ukrainophiles alike. Russophile poets wrote poems to the letter jat' and the hard sign, which had been deleted from the modern Cyrillic alphabets.

I am proud of you, o letter "BY In Russia you were banished, / But you will live forever / On the Subcarpathian slate!35

The sentiment in favour of the traditional etymological alphabet was strong enough that Czech language planners considered its preservation to be necessary. It was the only concession made to the Russophile orientation, which valued it as a toehold that might lead to further progress. The Russophiles, ever conscious of the need for connection to the larger Russian culture, feared that the Galician-Ukrainian phonetic alphabet would cut them off, not only from Great Russian, but from other Little Russian dialects (Trotokol godichnago obshchago sobraniia ... 1931,' 1344). Moreover, since the etymological alphabet allowed standard Russian to be read in the local pronunciation, it aided their efforts to abrogate the Russian language, to bring it under the influence of their own dialect. Although from today's perspective, this is a natural process typical of postcolonial linguistic negotiation, to the Ukrainophiles it was treason. The Russophiles recognized, of course, that the pragmatic intention behind the Ukrainian orthographic reforms was precisely the opposite of their own - to cut off Ukrainian language and culture and make it distinct from Russian, and they charged that the Ukrainophiles 'introduced a new grammar and new written language, the motto of which was - make sure that the artificial difference between the all-Russian written language and the new Ukrainian language is as great as possible.'36 For their part, the Ukrainophiles considered the Russophile resistance to the trend toward phonetic spelling to be just another aspect of their 'aristocratism' and contempt for the vernacular. There was definitely an element of traditionalist conservatism in the more

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extreme Russophiles' inflexible, purist view of language: 'At a time when all literary languages of cultured peoples from the ancient Greeks and Romans, from Cyril and Methodius have striven to perfect linguistic rules, the new Ukrainian language takes the exact opposite approach - it simplifies language' ('Kaminskii, Natsional'noe samosoznanie nashego naroda, 5).37 Their extreme animosity to Ukrainophile reforms and their strict adherence to 'sacred tradition' caused the Russophiles to neglect the spirit of the times and to lose sight of the progress of their literary language, which in lived experience had already violated the bounds of their polemical declarations. In fact, Russophile practice had never been as exclusively Russianoriented as their polemics would lead one to believe. From the early years of the movement, the Russophiles were tolerant of the local language and receptive to its use in education and literature. The honourary chair of the Dukhnovych Society, levmenii Sabov, formerly a professor of Russian and Church Slavonic, had roots in the Rusynophile tradition, and his support for Russian was always tempered by his appreciation for the traditional value of the Subcarpathian recension of Russian and the popular attachment to the local vernacular. His lectures and speeches are filled with homey anecdotes that show a willingness to compromise between the standard Russian literary language, the local recension of Russian, and popular language. In his 1923 speech to the Dukhnovych Society, Sabov recounted an incident from his teaching career: 'A student in the Mukachevo institute asked, "Should I recite in Moscow pronunciation (po-moskovskomu) or in the Sevlius style?" I responded, "Recite in your local style (po-domashnomu}r And I listened to her recitation with delight. Why should we not know the Moscow pronunciation, which even foreigners speak? And why should we not respect our own dialect?'38 Speaking from a functional linguistic perspective, he insisted that the use of local pronunciation did not hinder communication or linguistic unity. 'Pronunciation of words in living speech according to one's local dialect does not detract from the unity of the literary language. But a cultured Rusyn must be able to understand Russian; and a Great Russian understands the Rusyn even in his vernacular speech' (Riech1 po povodu torzhestva otkrytiia pamiatnika-biusta Aleksandra V. Dukhnovycha, 14). On this point, the Ukrainophiles were adamantly opposed to compromise, seeing the idea as an absurd project of Russification, a tactic of imperialist tsarist Russia. They cited the Petersburg Academy's reaction to the government's 1876 restriction on publication in any but the conventional Russian orthography: 'The thoughts and feelings of the Little Russian irrepressibly break through on paper and he has no other recourse but to express them in his own dialect, for the alien Great Russian literary language cannot be-

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come a channel for his own speech, and in fact should not be compared or approximated to it' (Za ridne slovo, 32). From their own perspective, Ukrainophiles could say, 'We stand for the purity of language,' and, sarcastically, 'If it is to be the Russian literary language, then let it be, but it should be a pure, authentic Russian' and not 'a crippling of Muscovite speech with various Carpatho-Rusyn pronunciations' (Za ridne slovo, 21). The Russophile leader was also more tolerant than the polemics would suggest in regard to the purity of the Subcarpathian written language, insisting that 'one must know our dialects as well as the Russian literary language' (Riech1 po povodu ... Dukhnovycha, 48). Russian-language authors made an effort to include elements of the vernacular in their Russian-language writings, although glossing was necessary. This time the vernacular elements were glossed for the benefit of the denationalized intelligentsia (raa^a/ xoannH'b; naneHKa/ BOflKa), or translations were interpolated in the story: 'A OHM yxKH?' 'fl TonbKo-HTO npiexant H3i> ITparH - OTB^TUJITJ OKHO, cpaay noHHBT>, HTO KpecTbHHHHrb cnpauiHBacx ero, OTKysa OHT>.' ('Where are they from?' [dial., using third-person plural to refer to the nobleman]. 'I just came from Prague,' answered Okno, immediately understanding that the peasant was asking where he was from' [Russ.]; R. Vavrik, 'Nochleg,' in Karpatskii krai 1, no. 2, 1923: 23, 25). In this case, the message of the story corresponds to the style, as the returning Prague intellectual comes to recognize that before he can teach the people, he must learn from them. The Russophiles, inspired by Sabov's respect for the vernacular, were apparently open to bridging the gap between the intelligentsia and the people by adapting the Great Russian 'dialect' to their own, in the tradition of their literary models from the 1860s and 1870s. In this sense they claimed to be more respectful of the local vernacular than the Ukrainophiles, who promoted assimilation of the Subcarpathian dialect to the Galician-Ukrainian. However, as the Ukrainian orientation aggressively gathered momentum, the Russophile movement hardened its stance in response. Their polemics more strongly advocated standard Russian, even while a compromise course was apparent in the literature. The literacy rate more than doubled during the Czechoslovak period, but by 1930, 42 per cent of the Rusyn population ten years of age and older was still illiterate (Magocsi, Shaping, 15-16). According to one set of statistics, in 1930 seventy-one Subcarpathian books were published in Russian, seventy-three in Ukrainian, and twenty-three in the local dialect (Jaszi, The Problem of SubCarpathian Ruthenia,' 208). One fact that stands out against the linguistic chaos of the Czechoslovak period is that there was never a serious effort to codify a separate Rusyn literary language. It was almost as though there was

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more linguistic material, with too much cultural and political baggage attached, than the newly semi-autonomous Subcarpathian intelligentsia could cope with. The indecisive policy of the Czechoslovak government complicated the issue, and the influx of Russian and Ukrainian emigres, who under Czech democracy exercised the freedom to promote their causes that was denied them in their own countries, essentially took the language question out of Subcarpathian hands. As in the past, any chance of a natural evolutionary development was squelched by outside interference and the imminence of political change. By 1938, it was clear that the Ukrainian language, now enjoying status as the official language in the Soviet socialist Ukrainian republic, showed democratic dynamism in Subcarpathian Rus', as compared to Russian, which, fairly or not, had by now earned an elitist reputation (Tichy, Vyvoj, 134). The polemics had demonstrated the Ukrainophiles' superiority, at least in single-mindedness of purpose and self-confidence. Relying on the victory of the populist strain in Ukraine and Galicia, they ended their arguments with emphatic statements: 'It is clear that victory is on our side' and 'The Ukrainian language is invincible' (Za ridne slovo, 104, 108). By contrast, the Russophile expressions of compromise that undertook to uphold the Russian literary language, while 'not turning their backs' on the popular dialects were read as a subliminal recognition of the weakness of their position. The Russophiles claimed to be practical, choosing 'what will guarantee our freedom and future' (Hus'nai, lazykovyi vopros v Podkarpatskoi Rusi, 15). Since Russian was used by the intelligentsia of many neighbouring countries and studied around the world, it seemed to offer pragmatic benefits to the downtrodden Subcarpathian intelligentsia. But the Russophiles clearly misread the spirit of the time, which was moving in the direction of democracy, self-governance, and cultural autonomy. As the Ukrainophiles pointed out, with the fall of the Russian empire, separatism had become the rule, as all previous subject peoples sought independence. On the other hand, the Ukrainophiles also misread the future, as they put their faith in a democratic Russia. Voloshyn predicted, 'The history of the suppression of the Little Russian language and the struggle of Slavic philology for the rights of the Little Russian word clearly show that the new, free democratic Russia cannot repeat the mistakes of the tsarist regime' (O pys'mennom iazytsi, 40). More developments in linguistic policy were yet to come between the demise of the Czechoslovak Republic and the final post-war imposition of Ukrainian, but in subsequent scholarship, the harsh politically inspired polemics of the period precluded any objective efforts to understand the role of language in the context of Rusyn literature.

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Literary karpatovedenie In the last quarter of the nineteenth century, literary development in Subcarpathia attracted the attention of scholars from neighbouring countries, who made the first efforts at its systematic evaluation. Volodymyr Terlets'kyi from Volhynia spent many years at the Krasny brod monastery in the Presov region, and in 1874, he wrote a Russophile interpretation of Rusyn literary history that was published in Kiev (Ugorskaia Rus'i vozrozhdenie soznaniia narodnosti mezhdu russkimi v Vengrii). In Russia, Rusyn literature was included in the anthology of Slavic literature compiled by Nikolai Gerbel' and in the Slavic literary history of Aleksandr Pypin and Vladimir Spasovich, who characterized Subcarpathia as 'a Russian island.' Vasyl' Lukych (pseudonym of Volodymyr Levyts'kyi) published a brochure in L'viv in 1887 that surveyed the history and current state of Rusyn literature (Ugors'ka Rus', ei rosvoi i teperieshnii stari), and the study by Rusyn emigre to Russia Petr Feerchak, published in Odessa in 1888, has already been discussed. Ukrainian-oriented interpretations of Subcarpathian culture began with the work of Mykhailo Drahomanov from 1876, Po voprosu o malorusskoi literature. Drahomanov criticized the ailRussian approach to the study of Galician and Subcarpathian culture, declaring that Subcarpathian Rusyns were part of the Ukrainian people. This view was supported in subsequent literary studies by the ethnographer Volodymyr Hnatiuk and the Galician writer and scholar Ivan Franko.39 The foreign scholar most dedicated to the literature of Carpathian Rus' was the Russian Fedor Aristov (1888-1932). A professor at Moscow University and the Moscow Institute of Eastern Studies, Aristov had an abiding interest in the Carpathian region, which he understood 'not simply as a territory with a native Slavic population, but most of all as a land, inhabited by a full-blooded Russian people' (Aristova, 'Fedor Fedorovich Aristov i karpatorusskaia problema,' introduction to Aristov, Literaturnoe razvitie Podkarpatskoi (Ugorskoi) Rusi, 5), and he was^ommitted to making it known to the broad Russian public. In 1907 he began to collect materials from Carpathian Rus' and opened the Carpatho-Rusyn Museum in Moscow. Exhibits included five thousand manuscripts and letters, as well as books, artefacts, portraits, and photographs relevant to Carpathian literature. There were also mock-ups of individual writers' studies, precisely reproduced down to the furniture, books, and pictures. The museum operated until 1917, when it was packed into boxes and put in storage for protection. Unfortunately, practically all materials were lost during the revolution. Based on his collection of hitherto unpublished sources, Aristov undertook a three-volume biographical and bibliographical work devoted to selected writ-

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ers from Galicia, Bukovina, and Subcarpathian Rus'. The first volume of Karpato-russkie pisateli was published in Moscow in 1916 and granted an award from the Academy of Sciences. A printing of two thousand copies sold out within a month. The final two volumes were already typeset when the war intervened and made publishing impossible.40 Finally, Aristov organized the publication of a series of writings by Rusyn authors called 'The Library of Carpatho-Russian Writers,' which was to appear in thirty volumes, but which was also forestalled by the war. In his introduction to the series, Aristov explained his goal: 'Carpatho-Russia from the time of its national renaissance (1848)... has produced an entire pleiad of outstanding writers, with whom not only Slavs have already become acquainted, but also the cultured peoples of America and the west. Now it is the turn of Russian society, for whom these writers are not foreigners, but native, our own' (quoted in Fedor, Fedor Fedorovich Aristov, 22). The Dukhnovych Society made Aristov an honourary member, provided him with material, and maintained a correspondence with him until his death in 1932. Except for levmenii Sabov's 1893 critical anthology of Rusyn literature, practically no systematic literary scholarship or criticism was conducted within Subcarpathia before the twentieth century. After 1919, however, it became important for the rival orientations to consolidate and legitimate their national claims through literary history, which consequently took on a polemical role. Significantly, most literary studies of Rusyn literature in the Czechoslovak period were written not by local Rusyns, but by emigres from Galicia who held biased literary tastes and had a personal interest in the political outcome. The first overview came from the pen of Volodymyr Birchak, a Galician emigre, educated in L'viv and Krakow. A specialist in Ukrainian philology, Birchak was also a prose writer and head of the L'viv modernist group 'Moloda muza.' In a brochure from 1921, he asserted that the literature of Subcarpathian Rus' was a branch of Ukrainian literature.41 This was countered by a Russophile Galician emigre, Dmitrii Vergun, who opens his 1925 study with the rejoinder, 'Carpatho-Russian literature comprises a part of Russian literature,' and closes it with a barb aimed at Birchak's 'libelous' work ('Karpatorusskaia literatura: Kratkii ocherk,' 47, 57). In the same year, the Dukhnovych Society republished Sabov's overview of Rusyn literature, Ocherk literaturnoi dieiatel'nosti i obrazovaniia karpatorossov, which was initially included in his 1893 anthology. Since it was not revised to include recent developments, it added nothing new to the discussion, but it reasserted Sabov's essentially Rusynophile view of the independence of Rusyn literary development, presenting an alternative to extreme Russophile and Ukrainophile interpretations. In 1929, Pavel Fedor, a Russophile teacher from Subcarpathia, offered a collection of biographical

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sketches of thirteen Subcarpathian Russophile authors, Ocherki karpatorusskoi literatury so vtoroi poloviny XIX stolietia.42 Subcarpathian literature was introduced to the scholarly world at the First International Congress of Slavists in Prague, 1929, by Mian lavorskii, a Galician Russophile, who presented a paper entitled 'Znachenie i miesto Zakarpat'ia v obshchei skhemie russkoi pis'mennosti' (The Significance and Place of Subcarpathia in the General Scheme of Russian Literature). While the ideological burden of the paper is indicated by its title, lavorskii's well documented and scholarly study does not oversimplify the issue. Introducing Subcarpathian literature in the context of its early connections to Russia and Galicia, describing its nineteenth-century 'spiritual' affinity to Russian literature, and mentioning the newest 'Ukrainian' movement, lavorskii concludes: Corresponding to these fundamental positions, the entire literary history of Subcarpathian Rus' until the nineteenth century and including, in part, its newest literature, generally represents two different, clearly distinct faces, forming a rather complex and exceptionally eccentric mix: on the one hand, it so directly and firmly affiliates itself with the all-Russian, and in particular, with the allLittle Russian literary centre, that it can with complete justification consider itself simply one of its regional, dialectical parts; on the other hand, it is complicated by foreign, outside influences or admixtures to such a degree that at the same time, it reflects a distinct, intermediately formed outgrowth or type.43

All of these early studies focused on the periodization of Rusyn literature and the identification of writers, journals, and individual works, with scarcely any literary analysis or critical commentary. Franz Kafka's diary entries on the literature of small peoples, discussed earlier for their relevance to Dukhnovych's national awakening, include illuminating comments on the role of literary history. The creative and beneficent force exerted ... by a literature poor in its component parts proves especially effective when it begins to create a literary history out of the records of its dead writers. These writers' undeniable influence, past and present, becomes so matter-of-fact that it can take the place of their writings. One speaks of the latter [their writings] and means the former [their influence], indeed, one even reads [their writings] and sees only [their influence]. But since that effect cannot be forgotten, and since the writings themselves do not act independently upon the memory, there is no forgetting and no remembering again. Literary history offers an unchangeable, dependable whole that is hardly affected by the taste of the day. (Kafka, Diaries, 149)

Re-imagining Rusyn Identity 341 In the case of Subcarpathian Rus', actual knowledge of the writers' texts was secondary, since few had been collected and made available to a broad audience. As a result, the comments of literary historians were taken as dogma and had significant canon-building implications. Kafka's characterization applies particularly well to the Russophiles, the defenders of tradition, for whom literary history meant a re-articulation of names, dates, and titles that were ingested whole and used as a bulwark to ward off challenges from the Ukrainophile 'taste of the day.' The most solid and complete work on the literary process of Subcarpathian Rus' from ancient times to the time of its writing in 1932 was Evgenii Nedziel'skii's Survey of Carpatho-Russian Literature. Born in the Kharkiv region, Nedziel'skii studied in Petersburg and Moscow, fought in the civil war for the White army, and in 1926 received a degree in philology from Charles University in Prague. He participated in the Russophile cultural life of Subcarpathia as poet, editor, translator, and critic. Nedziel'skii proposed a Russophile model of Subcarpathian literary history, emphasizing early contact with Russia, Dukhnovych's Russian-inspired national awakening, and the Russian-language literature of the late nineteenth century. Utilizing his access to private manuscript collections, Nedziel'skii provided a wealth of source material, as well as bibliographical and factual data, which made his history valuable to subsequent critics of all views.44 He presents literary history within the context of a systematic survey of cultural, national, political, religious, and socioeconomic conditions, providing the first integrated and coherent treatment. His critical judgments are supported by reference to historical facts, primary materials, and up-to-date secondary sources from Ukrainophile and Rusynophile, as well as Russophile, scholars. He refutes opposing views with scholarly citations in measured tones. While it is clear that he is sympathetic to the Rusyn quest for identity, Nedziel'skii takes a cautious approach to patriotic claims, debunks cherished myths, and avoids idolization of the central figures of Rusyn literature. He demonstrates a sophisticated understanding of all the internal and external political pressures that shaped the Rusyn cultural experience and repeatedly points to historical distinctions between Subcarpathian and Galician Rusyns that underlay their opposite twentiethcentury orientations. The nation-building role of literary history is corroborated by the Russophile response to Nedziel'skii's book: 'Only with the appearance of this book can we Carpatho-Russians specifically define our historical national visage and our contemporary ideals ... It should be read by every Carpatho-Russian so that he might know himself (S[htefan] Fentsyk, Karpatskii sviet, 4, nos. 8-9, 1931: 1311-12). However, for all Nedziel'skii's scholarly efforts, his theoretical framework is

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clear and, for subsequent Ukrainophile scholars, unforgivable. In his introduction, he surveys previous scholarship and concludes: On this basis, one can say that Carpatho-Russian literature is a legitimate and organic part of ail-Russian literature, with a development analogous to that of the literature of other territorial regions inhabited by the Russian people. Since the Carpatho-Russians belong to the Little Russian family, to that extent their literature belongs to Little Russian literature in terms of origin and territory; that is, it has passed through all the periods of development ... that are common to allRussian and Little Russian literature, including its most recent Ukrainian reservoir. But in no sense can Carpatho-Russian literature be considered part of Ukrainian literature, since one must consider, as do Ukrainian historians, that right up until 1900 it followed an 'alien course.' (16)

To support this view, he notes the connections with Russia that caused the Rusyns of Subcarpathia to defend all-Russian culture, 'to oppose sharply the Ukrainian movement in Galicia,' and to resist Ukrainian influence until 1918 (124, 155, 158). Nedziel'skii places the history of Carpatho-Russian literature in a Russian paradigm, juxtaposing its periodization to that of Great Russian literature, comparing, for example, the efforts of Rusyns Luchkai and Fogorashii with Russians Lomonosov and Karamzin, and postulating the influence of Russian writers on Rusyn authors. He bases his observations, however, on verifiable facts and avoids unfounded speculation. Moreover, he objectively critiques the extremes in the rival orientations: Ukrainophile reliance on ideology, Russophile blindness to the dialectical character of Rusyn literature, and Rusynophile 'provincialism.' Finally, like lavorskii, Nedziel'skii recognizes the need for a distinctive approach to Rusyn literature: 'Carpatho-Russian literature must be studied in the frame of all-Russian literature, but it also deserves its own separate analysis ... because it developed in special conditions, the elucidation of which present significant interest' (16).45 Ukrainophiles responded to Nedziel'skii's work in 1937 with the publication of an expanded edition of Birchak's 1921 study Lyteraturni stremlinnia Podkarpats'koi Rusy (Literary Trends in Subcarpathian Rus'). Birchak opens with an unequivocal assertion: 'The literature of the area now known as Subcarpathian Rus1 is a branch of Ukrainian literature. In its main contours, the history of Subcarpathian literature demonstrates the same tendencies, motifs, ideas and aspirations' (5). Basing his judgment on 'ideas and aspirations' rather than observable connections or bonds of influence, Birchak frequently expresses notions for which there is no direct evidence and too often relies on assertion rather than evidence. Creating a mirror image of Nedziel'skii's schema,

Re-imagining Rusyn Identity 343 he places Rusyn literature firmly within a Ukrainian paradigm, making continual comparisons to developments in Ukrainian literature to demonstrate the 'backwardness' of Subcarpathian Rus' within this framework, which he attributes to the influence of Russia. 'Progressive' developments, such as the rise of the vernacular in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century documents, are ascribed to Galician and Kievan influence, while contact with Russia is blamed for the Subcarpathian dependence on Church Slavonic that retarded literary development. Throughout, Birchak resorts to selective quotations and unsubstantiated generalizations to make a spurious point, as in his statement, 'Throughout the entire nineteenth century there did not appear in Subcarpathian Rus1 a single story from the life of the people' (119).46 But Birchak's most serious complaint against the Rusyn literature of Subcarpathia was directed at its language, which he condemned from its beginnings until the appearance of elements of his own Galician dialect in 1919. Birchak's history is less than half as long as Nedziel'skii's, although it covers a lengthier time span, and it is correspondingly lighter on details and documentation. While contemporary Russophile scholars found it biased and unfair, subsequent Marxist critics, who found his basic orientation more correct than Nedziel'skii's, would eventually also find it inadequate, charging Birchak with 'bourgeois nationalism' and 'hostility to the leadership of Russian culture and Soviet literature' (Mykytas', Davnia literatura, 13). Birchak and Nedziel'skii continued to write literary criticism through the 1930s. While Nedziel'skii moved gradually toward a more inclusive view of Rusyn literature, expressing an appreciation for literature from the Ukrainian and Rusyn as well as Russophile orientations, Birchak persisted in his tendentious and aggressive critical approach. Other non-Rusyn scholars continued to comment on the Subcarpathian literary scene from their positions above the fray. The Czechs Frantisek Tichy and Antonfn Haiti utilized the Ukrainophile ideological framework in their evaluations, while Sandor Bonkalo revived the Magyar 'Ruthenian' model.47 Birchak concludes his literary history with a word on the state of literary criticism in Subcarpathia. In the Russophile orientation, he sees no literary criticism at all, only 'idealization and uncritical praise' for every work, while among Ukrainophiles he sees a growing trend to 'raise demands' on writers (185). In fact, the comments on Subcarpathian literature expressed by writers and editors had traditionally tended to extremes, praising the appearance of even the slightest work as a patriotic victory against cultural oppressors, while taking writers to task for their deficiencies in language, technique, and sophistication. In the twentieth century, criticism also took on a militant role, praising writers of the critic's preferred orientation and vilifying others, again providing an illustration of Kafka's observations.

344 Straddling Borders Since people [of small nations] lack a sense of context, their literary activities are out of context too. They depreciate something in order to be able to look down upon it from above, or they praise it to the skies in order to have a place up there beside it. (Wrong.) Even though something is often thought through calmly, one still does not reach the boundary where it connects up with similar things, one reaches this boundary soonest in politics, indeed, one even strives to see it before it is there, and often sees this limiting boundary everywhere. (Diaries, 150)

This was precisely the situation in most Subcarpathian literary commentary in the Czechoslovak period. Critical observers could not see the connections between things, but only the boundaries separating them. The result was, as Kafka put it, 'the dissemination of literature ... on the basis of political slogans.' Everything is done very honestly, only within a bias that is never resolved ... But in the end bias interferes not only with a broad view but with a close insight as well - so that all these observations are cancelled out ... Insults, intended as literature, roll back and forth. What in great literature goes on down below, constituting a not indispensable cellar of the structure, here takes place in the full light of day, what is there a matter of passing interest for a few, here absorbs everyone no less than as a matter of life and death. (150)

The limitations of literary criticism in Subcarpathian Rus' may have been typical for small literatures, but they created a distorted legacy that has yet to be remedied. And due to the eventual imposition of Soviet politics, the biases and slogans of opposing Rusyn critics were never 'cancelled out,' according to Kafka's model. Rather, the Russophile and Rusynophile sides were silenced, thus perpetuating biased judgments and hindering the construction of new ones. Both literary history and textual knowledge have been badly served by partisan critics and those who have unquestioningly repeated their conclusions. A re-evaluation of the opposing orientations on the basis of a close examination of the literary texts themselves is long overdue. 'A holy, new Russia' Birchak described the literary situation in Subcarpathia after the war as consisting of two competing literatures - one that was on its way in, and one on its way out (Literaturni stremlinnia, 156). For Birchak, of course, the progressive literature was that of the Ukrainian orientation, while the Russian trend was outworn and passe. To be sure, Russian-language writers continued the

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Russophile tradition of the previous generation and felt a direct kinship with past Rusyn poets and the Russian classics, a sentiment they underscored by using epigraphs from Dukhnovych, Stavrovs'kyi-Popradov, Pushkin, and Tiutchev. The leading proponent of the Russophile tendency in literature was Andrii Karabelesh, who was considered by Russophiles 'a worthy borderline between two epochs - that of a salutary sleep and awakening' (introduction to Karabelesh, V luchakh razsvieta, 6), and 'a link that connects our CarpathoRussian creative work with the work of the entire Russian people' (unsigned review of Karabelesh, Izbrannyia stikhotvoreniia, Karpatskii sviet 1, no. 10, 1928: 390). Despite his ideological traditionalism, Karabelesh in fact contributed something new and important to Rusyn literature, although it went unrecognized by Birchak. He was the first Rusyn writer to stress the element of aesthetics in national patriotic poetry, thereby initiating a change in the overall understanding of literature in Subcarpathia. As Nedziel'skii put it, The applied significance of poetry, as a means of awakening and sustaining national sentiment and self-consciousness is replaced in Karabelesh by the notion of poetry as pure art. To be sure, the majority of his themes deal with his native land, its fate, the people, and so on, but all of this is carried out not only in declaratory terms, but also artistically. He gives due attention to native colour, though it is expressed not in the typical way, but with original rhymes in carefully composed verse structures. ('Desiat' liet karpatorusskoi literatury,' 119)

Indeed, in Karabelesh's poetry, the aesthetic function outweighs the patriotic. What is most political about Karabelesh's work is the low profile of politics. Andrii Karabelesh (1906-64) was the first secular Russophile writer. Although he spent three years at the Uzhhorod seminary, he left before ordination, and in 1932 he converted to Orthodoxy. After leaving the seminary, he continued his studies at the academy of art in Prague, ultimately receiving a degree in philosophy from Charles University in 1934. Born in the Rusyn village of Tybava in the former Bereg county of Subcarpathian Rus', now the Transcarpathian region of Ukraine, he entered the gymnasium in Mukachevo in 1918, when the language of instruction was still Hungarian. After 1920, he was able to complete his education in Rusyn and Russian, which was then being taught by recently arrived emigres from the former tsarist empire. He began writing poetry in the Mukachevo gymnasium and he made his publishing debut in 1923 in the Dukhnovych Society journal Karpatskii krai with a poem entitled 'Fatherland' that praised the natural beauty of his homeland. While still a student he published two large collections of lyrics in Russian, Izbrannyia stikhotvoreniia (Selected Verses) and V luchakh razsvieta (In the

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Rays of Dawn).48 Later he organized groups of student poets and edited the Mukachevo student literary journal Nashi stremleniia. Vluchakh razsvieta appeared in 1929, the tenth anniversary of the founding of the Czechoslovak state, and for the Russophile movement it was the consummation of decades of aspirations. In Karabelesh, Russophiles finally had a writer who was not only schooled in the Great Russian literary tradition, but, most important, was competent in the Russian language. In over two hundred poems in Vluchakh razsvieta, there are infrequent dialectalisms (in two cases, they are deliberate and glossed), and only a few misplaced stresses. The Russophiles had finally overcome the iazychie and reached their goal of writing in correct Russian, even if its tone and style were not quite contemporary. The cost for this linguistic achievement, however, was a dependence on Russian models that resulted in cliches, borrowings, repetitions, and a forfeiture of originality. Such hackneyed phrases from Russian romanticism as 'golden days' (anaxwe SHH), 'ineffable sadness' (HeH3bHCHHMaa Tocxa), 'the Russian spirit' (pyccKHH ayx), 'withered leaves' (yBHfliuHe HHCTW), 'sweet dreams' (MJMHH MCHTW), 'the gloom of the grave' (MpaK rpo6oBOH), and 'cold life' (xonoflHaa »cn3Hb) are repeated in various poetic contexts. Entire lines from Pushkin, Lermontov, and Blok are lifted or appropriated: 'He OTXOAH HM mary nponb' (Sredi osennei temnoty, 88), 'H Bbixo^cy oflHH H B TCMHWH cafl' (V zatvorie, 159), 'Snaft: 'veritas in vino est' (V osennei stuzhie, 98). There are echoes from Turgenev: 'B MHHyxw coMHbHMH H rpycxH TH>Ke;ioH ... / Jlmiib Tbi Mirk noAAep^cna, 3ain,HTHHK BecenwH, / O Hb^cHbiM, npocxopHbiM, oxpaflHbiH HSWK! (Russkii iazyk, 15). Themes are borrowed from Tiutchev (chaos, the abyss, Manichaean contrasts of day and night, a Slavophile metaphysics of passive humility). And Lermontov's 'stony path' (KpeMHHCTWH nyTb) is Karabelesh's favourite road. Il'ia Erenburg commented that although Karabelesh's language was correct, his imitation of venerable Russian models made his verse sound almost parodic (Viza vremeni, 281). As though to flaunt the productivity and linguistic virtuosity of Karabelesh, the publishers included in Vluchakh razsvieta not only finished verses but a number of fragments and variants of individual poems, without noting them as such. The collection might easily have been reduced to a quarter of its size. As it stands, the aesthetic impact of the collection is lessened by repetitions, duplications, and poetic exercises. The deliberate imitation of the Russian masters in this context indicates the poet's apprenticeship. Karabelesh does not conceal but flaunts his dependence on Russian literature, opening each section of his book with epigraphs from Russian and Rusyn poets.49 Besides the Russian classics, he makes reference to Goethe and Byron and heads individual verses with Latin and Church Slavonic epigraphs. Overall, the book projects an impression of the poet's aspirations to erudition and aestheticism.

Re-imagining Rusyn Identity 347 Karabelesh's thematic and stylistic dependence on Russian poetry reflects the ideological message of the collection, that is, the Russophile assertion that, from the Tisza River to the Pacific Ocean there is one Russian people, to which Subcarpathian Rusyns belong. His prayer is familiar from the times of Dukhnovych:

May our Russian people understand / At home as well as in hard exile, / That we all are an indivisible family, / That we all are native Slavs. ('Moia molitva' [My Prayer], 309)

However, Karabelesh adapts the traditional Slavophile imagery to reflect Rusyn history and the realities of the twentieth century. Russia is no longer the shining star and salvation of the Slavs, but another suffering member of the Slavic family. In the title poem, 'V luchakh razsvieta' (In the Rays of Dawn, 329), the poet hopes for a metaphorical cathartic inundation of Russia and all the Slavic lands.

348 Straddling Borders To roil in the mighty ocean, / And, like a horrible worldwide flood, / To overflow the expanse of all the Slavs, / To overflow without sorrow, without promise! // So the hateful hostility / And the roar of internecine disputes / Might flame out forever, / Amid the blooming expanse, // So the disagreeable debris and pus / Might decay forever in the lifeless storm / And in a new world a new Noah / Might bring a sacrifice of freedom... // So that, in the greening steppes, / Like the sun into a dense glen, / Might shine in the morning rays / A holy, new Russia...

As in the Slavophile dream, Karabelesh erases political boundaries and replaces them with a transcendent, spiritual Slavic homeland. However, unlike past Russophiles, who looked to Russia for recognition and easy salvation, Karabelesh's devotion cannot be dismissed as mere political opportunism. Rather, it is an expression of support and sorrow for the present degraded state of Holy Russia. Karabelesh sustains the image of Rus1 unity, but now positions have been altered. In democratic Czechoslovakia, Rusyns are part of a 'new, dear, fraternal world,' suffused by the 'light of freedom,' while Great Russians suffer under the yoke of Bolshevism. In 'Russkii dub' (Russian Oak, 296) the poet recalls the organic unity of Rusyns and Russians, but instead of asking to share the glory, now Rusyns offer to share the pain.

But we know, we are one with you, / One soul, one nature, / And one is our misfortune, adversity ... / You are a mighty and spacious oak, / You are the indivisible Russian oak ... / And now storms, rain, and hail / Roar and rage above you, / They tear at you, smash you, / Feed on your lush foliage ... /And you decay

Re-imagining Rusyn Identity 349 and crack / And moan, waving your branches, / You sob in grief, and you stand / Accepting hunger and need.

The poem ends with an expression of faith in Russia's victory and a warning to other 'branches' that even in its distress, their life depends on clinging to the 'native bark.' Naturally, Ukrainophiles rejected the philosophy of their Russophile rivals, but later, when Subcarpathian critics embraced Soviet cultural policies, Karabelesh came in for even more censure. A few sympathetic critics tried to accommodate the poet's Russophilism to Soviet patriotism, as did Karabelesh himself in later years. While Pavel Lintur chose to see Karabelesh as a 'fighter for the great Fatherland' and for 'liberation from alien rule and unification with the single East Slav family,' the Soviet critic lurii Baleha objected with righteous Communist indignation: 'Karabelesh took a position of reactionary "Russophilism" and supported not a union of free republics and peoples [the USSR], but an "indivisible unity."' Like other Ukrainian communists, Baleha interpreted Karabelesh's poem 'Russian Oak' as an expression of 'great-power chauvinism.' 50 In fact, Karabelesh was not a political poet. His 'indivisible unity' is an organic, philosophical, and religious notion, rather than a political statement. However, critics, both contemporary Rusyns and later Soviets, had no other context within which to judge him. In a literature that had been historically dominated by narrow political concerns, the novelty of such an aesthetic and philosophical stance resulted in misapprehension and faulty political conclusions. A Holy Force Religious philosophy, another traditional element of Rusyn poetry, would count as another charge against the poet in Soviet criticism. Karabelesh's first collection received the church's imprimatur, verifying that it 'contains nothing against the holy faith or the morality of the Catholic church.' In announcing the bishop's approval, the Dukhnovych Society 'could not help but note' that 'our national pride coincides with the pleasure of the Greek Catholic Church, which for centuries, through its hierarchs as well as our literary-spiritual individuals, has preserved our national Russian ideals' (Karpatskii sviet 2, no. 2, 1929: 483). In this sense, Karabelesh remains firmly within the Rusyn tradition of religious patriotism. However, although he received higher education in a Greek Catholic seminary, there is little trace of specificity in his religious poems, and little conventional religious reverence. His conversion to Orthodoxy in 1932 may indicate a turn away from the political stance of the Greek

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Catholic church in the direction of a connection with traditional Russian spirituality. Rather than a bulwark of Rusyn patriotism, he finds in religion a childlike comfort, and he often entertains poetic memories of childhood prayers, visits to church, and other nostalgic sentiments. In addition, his spiritual affinities are tied to romanticism, expressed in images from Lermontov and Blok or in evocations of nature.

When in adversity and sorrow / In the fog of the world I wandered, / Your face and gaze saved me, / Your light illumined my path. ('Ave Maria,' 27)

And the stars blaze like pearls / And there is no end to their fascination, / They drift and seemingly sing a hymn / To the eternal creation of God. ('Nebo,' [The Sky], 47)

Karabelesh also finds God in poetry: 'In sweet sounds I saw God' ('Poeziia' [Poetry], 13), and he reworks prayers and psalms in poetic form ('Psalm XII,' 'Psalm I,' 42,45, 'Prayer,' 46). By foregrounding religious discourse, Karabelesh honours and perpetuates the traditions of the nineteenth-century Subcarpathian Russophiles. However, Karabelesh's deity is not the conventional God of the Greek Catholic catechism, but an amorphous, spiritual force that provides metaphorical potential and philosophical sustenance for the poet. His understanding of God is more in line with the mystical philosophical trends at the turn of the twentieth century than with the religious attitude of Dukhnovych and Pavlovych. Karabelesh devotes a cycle of poems to the 'powerful, eternal force' that reveals itself in hurricanes and 'in every gentle movement of the leaves' ('Moguchaia sila' [Powerful Force], 283).

Re-imagining Rusyn Identity 35 1

I believe in a holy Force ... /And in this alone I believe, /1 feel it above me, /And I sense it in the spirit of Being. ('Pod zviezdnym nebom' [Under a Starry Sky], 298)

The poet's mystical world view has its source in symbolist poetry, rather than orthodox religion. Numerous poems refer to 'the other, distant world' or contrasts between 'here' and 'there,' darkness and light. The poet seeks 'something,' waits for 'someone,' 'some kind of moan' resounds through space, 'someone's' voice calls to him from another world. His persona seeks light, 'the sun of awakening,' the heights, and 'Eternal Beauty.' He repeatedly expresses the desire to escape from this world of gloom to another mysterious, perfect world, the link to which is the 'eternal force.'

A powerful, eternal Force / Breathes in everything, / It sustains us from days of old, / But we will never, ever understand it. ('Moguchaia sila,' 283)

His symbolist withdrawal from the world of appearances is interpreted by orthodox Marxists in political terms: 'At a time when the Communist organization of the land was calling workers to struggle for social and national liberation and the unification of Transcarpathia with Soviet Ukraine, A. Karabelesh was calling to go there, '... where there is no suffering, / Where there is no life or people.'51 Like his models from Russian symbolism, Karabelesh intertwines politics and social commentary within a metaphysical frame. The poem 'Dva tabora' (Two Camps, 142) presents a Manichaean vision of the world that is divided into two groups: one that promotes sin, persecution, 'mad freedom,' spite, and the 'death of subject peoples,' and another that stands for life, light, knowledge, and good. He situates this division within 'our shameless, splendid, proud age,' but reaches for precedents into the eras of Nero, Diocletian, and Napoleon. Influenced, undoubtedly, by Blok's 'The Twelve,' although lacking the artistic complexity and ambiguity, 'Two Camps' predicts victory for the cause of truth:

352 Straddling Borders

And so, the holy cliff is alive, / The witness of so many bitter tears, / And glowing with eternal life - / Its protector - Christ himself!

Whatever political views are subsumed within this collision of good and evil are left unstated, but Marxist critics identified the conflict as one between Communism and Christianity. Referring to the church's imprimatur, Baleha concludes that Karabelesh was part of a reactionary, religious, anti-people camp that opposed the progressive, democratic movement of Communism (Literatura Zakarpattia, 163). However, this is just one of Karabelesh's references to a dualistic world view, and the victory of Christ is not always a certainty. Again, his vision cannot be confined within a political context.

We want to believe in nature, in Christ, / Ready to submit slavishly to all, / But, ice-bound, our lips are silent, / And we see: life is hopeless and empty, /And we see: there is no one to pray to in our need ... ('Nash viek' [Our Age], 113)

Karabelesh's faith in God is tempered by romantic doubt and insecurity. In response to the farewell greeting, 'S Bogom' (Go with God), he asks, 'Co MHOH JIM Bon> - HC 3Haio a' (Is God with me? I do not know; 87). And indeed, his world is ruled by a cosmic sense of pessimism. He asks, 'O, RJIH nero po«nnoi H?' (Why was I born? 'Uviadanie' [Fading], 90); he finds happiness only in death ('Gde schast'e?' [Where Is Happiness?], 79); and he yearns for oblivion:

No matter what I might be in this savage world -II say that it is better not to be. ('Byvaiutdni...' [There are days ... ], 92)

Re-imagining Rusyn Identity 353 The poet alerts the reader to his despondent view of life and the world in the opening poems of the collection. In 'Poeziia' (13), he describes life as 'an empty, aimless dream' and 'senseless suffering.' In a testimony 'Ot menia' (From Me, 14), he warns, 'I am not a singer of joy and love ... I am an emissary of struggle and bitter torture ... My fate is to suffer along life's path.' His poetic lexicon emphasizes words like sorrow, suffering, anguish (xocKa), gloom (MpaK, yHbiHHe), fog, fading (vBH#aHHe), moans, silence, and darkness. His favourite time of day is dusk, and his favourite season is autumn. Graves are ubiquitous, both literally and figuratively, and death is always welcome. While much of this imagery represents no more than romantic or symbolist stage decoration, and while declarations such as 'I was not born for happiness' ('Neudovol'stvie' [Dissatisfaction], 93) bring to mind the Byronism of Lermontov's Pechorin, many poems, such as 'Pessimism' (64), are convincing in their concrete psychological realism.

Now I hate it all, / Everything seems a mistake / Whomever I meet - 1 insult, / Nor is there peace for me. // I have never suffered so before / What to do - / I do not know / Everything I affirmed yesterday / I deny it all today.

Birchak criticizes Karabelesh for his 'pessimism and fear of battle' and points to their likely sources. 'This pessimism was undoubtedly due to the author's psyche, but more importantly, the author appropriated from Russian literature the idea of patience and non-resistance to evil from the works of Dostoevski!, Tolstoi, Chekhov, and others.' Further, he contrasts him with optimistic Ukrainophile Rusyn writers (Literaturni stremlinnia, 175-6). For Birchak, the psychological tone of Karabelesh's work provided just one more opportunity for a broadside against Russian culture and its allegedly deleterious effects on the Rusyns. In fact, an authentic and persistent sense of melancholy seems to have been the poet's personal predilection. It found expres-

354 Straddling Borders sion in forms derived from pervasive literary influences, and occasionally it transcended them. Essentially, his 'battle' was not political or literary, but personal. Karabelesh's poetic persona speaks of himself as weak, tired, and sick, a hopeless wayfarer, an exile, a lonely wanderer, an ignoramus, a slave, and a superfluous man. With all these poetic incarnations of himself, the poet waged an internal struggle:

A hero is one who conquers the foe himself, / Winning battle after battle, / But he who defeats himself in battle - / O, he is one hundred times greater than a hero. ('Est' v solntsie vlast' [There Is Power in the Sun], 119)

Still, the poet's pessimism was so out of tune with the militant tenor of the times that his supporters felt the need to deny it or explain it away. In fact, Nedziel'skii finds an 'organic optimism' in Karabelesh's work. While the poet's world view does not exclude sorrow, Nedziel'skii writes, his belief in a multiform Eternal Force sustains him. Moreover, 'this spiritual presence keeps him from seeking comfort in and comforting others with images of a theatrical future, and from hiding himself as a man behind stage-prop hopes' ('Sovremennaia karpatorusskaia literatura,' 205).52 Elsewhere, Nedziel'skii vouches for Karabelesh's fighting spirit: 'There are new motifs in Karabelesh, including a dose of disillusionment and irony, but even here he does not give in to evil. His national, social, religious, and political themes are intertwined to create a single theme: light must conquer, the ideals of life cannot be destroyed by the facts of the day, no matter how sad they might be' ('Literatura i izdatel'skaia dieatel'nost',' 132). While Nedziel'skii focuses on the underlying philosophy that informs Karabelesh's poetry, the fact remains that the overwhelming impression produced by his verse is one of melancholy. Although its immediate source is undoubtedly the poet's literary influences, the melancholic attitude is also completely in line with Subcarpathian tradition. 'I suffer for the Russian spirit' Whatever his personal predilections might be, as a Rusyn poet Karabelesh could not escape the social and political problems of his native land. Several sections of V luchakh razsvieta are devoted to the situation of Rusyns in

Re-imagining Rusyn Identity

355

Subcarpathian Rus'. Consistent with his own philosophical pessimism and the Russophile literary tradition, the poet's descriptions of Subcarpathian life and nature are sombre. The most frequent epithets he applies to the Carpathian region are 'troubled' (cMyTHo), 'dismal' (yHbmo), 'sombre' (yrpiOMo), 'silent,' 'asleep,' and 'suffering.' There are some awakener-like rousing cries to the people, but these are outweighed by doubts and questions. He exhorts, 'People! The fatherland is perishing, / When will you finally awaken?!' ('Na gorakh' [In the Mountains], 52), but also plaintively questions the possibility of renewal: 'Will my native land awaken?' ('Zviezdy' [Stars], 51). He mourns the loss of past heroes and sees only decay and stagnation in the present ('Spit narod' [The People Sleep], 56). Although this and many other poems end with a rousing call to 'arise,' the overall impression is one of futility. Numerous poems repeat Tiutchev's and Blok's evocations of suffering, peasant Russia. Subcarpathian Rus' is also a 'wretched land' covered by 'scattered huts' and pervaded by 'ineffable sorrow.' Here, among the 'pitiful huts of poor peasants,' the life of the Rusyns flowed 'like the life of blind slaves' ('U kamina' [By the Fire], 304). Birchak was critical of such an attitude to the land and people, seeing in it contempt and derision. In an effort to resist the characterization of all of Russophile literature as pessimistic, Gerovskii responds, 'Would it not be more accurate to say that sadness pervades all of Carpathian mountain nature, and everyone feels it with no pessimism involved, except for those who are prone to that mood?' (Istoriia ugro-russkoi literatury, 55). A traditional consolation for Rusyn poets had always been Carpathian nature, the one generous bequest conferred on them by God, history, and their forefathers. Karabelesh combined this heartfelt legacy with the tropes of romanticism in numerous poems devoted to nature description. Unfortunately, they are peppered with trite metaphors and commonplaces of nature poetry that universalize the homeland, distancing it from the Rusyn audience. In a sense, Karabelesh had the problem experienced by writers in settler cultures, who must adapt an imported aesthetic vocabulary to the environment. Whereas the Rusyn writers of the nineteenth century had asserted their sense of the local and specific, an effort that was assisted by their mix of dialect and standard Russian, Karabelesh is foiled in creating an effect of authenticity, not so much by his use of Russian as by his total assimilation to the conventions and lexicon of Russian literature. lulii Stavrovs'kyi-Popradov and Aleksander Mytrak had reworked the standard nature lyric in a distinctive Rusyn discourse that revealed a wealth of feeling and pure native emotion (see chapter 4). For the most part, Karabelesh's borrowed discourse does not effectively evoke the same sentiments. Instead, it provokes parody. Marko Barabolia mocked the pretentious banality of such poetry.

356 Straddling Borders Poets are extraordinary people ... They see everything clearly and tell us about it. For them the moon is 'pale' (blidolytsyi), the forest 'whispers' (shepuchyl) or 'slumbers' (drimuchyi), the grove is necessarily 'green,' fate is almost always 'unhappy,' autumn, for some reason, is 'cold' (winter is even colder, - author's note), etc. ... In my opinion, one might phrase it differently: the moon is 'beardless,' the forest is 'unsystematic,' anger is 'colorless,' wet as water or wide as a board, a wall can be 'chalky' (white as chalk), etc. (Barabolia, Proiekt avtonomi'i, 42-3)53

While Karabelesh's choice of Russian cannot explain all the deficiencies of his work, there is some truth to the Ukrainophile/Soviet criticism that '[h]e did not become a Ukrainian poet, a poet of his people, but as much as he may have wished, he could not enter Russian literature either' (Shelepets1, 'Poet superechnostei i dramatychnykh konfliktiv,' 86). The inadequacy of such criticism, however, is in its presumption of binary alternatives. Karabelesh's adherence to Russian linguistic and literary standards blinded him to other possibilities. Partly as a result of his dependence on Russian literature, but also due to his own personal and artistic predilections, too many of Karabelesh's nature poems present an abstract vision that does not resonate with Rusyn life, a vision in which national pathos or philosophical meditation dominates reality. For Karabelesh, nature is not life, but an escape from the despondency of life. It is a reservoir of hope and happiness, and the dwelling place of God. Frequently it is the anteroom to the mystical 'other world' that he so longed for.

I so love my native mountains, /1 so love this Russian land, / Here it is dear to the heart and sweet to the gaze ... / May this be my eternal paradise! ('V chervonykh luchakh' [In Crimson Rays], 170)

A poem that describes mowing moves from a depiction of real life to serious, but banal, thoughts on life and death.

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The scythe rings and hums, glistening, / The whole field cries and is silent: / This is the young harvest of life, / Telling us stories of death. ('Na sienokosie' [Haymaking], 73) In poems such as 'Maiskaia noch" (May Night, 161), hackneyed descriptions of a bright moon, a babbling brook, and a whispering forest lead to the concluding characterization of the scene as a 'land of reflection, a land of dreams, rapture for the solemn soul.' The scene cannot be localized to Subcarpathian Rus', but neither does it rise to the universal level of accomplished art. It occupies the in-between space inhabited by writers who have not acquired an independent artistic voice. The poet only occasionally includes references to native geographical elements, such as the names of mountains or rivers ('Vecherom' [Evening], 278; 'Na rodinie' [In the Homeland], 259), and many descriptive nature poems are mere exercises in versification. Karabelesh is at his best when he turns from grandiloquence to a more moderate romantic realism. The poem 'Moi narod' [My People], 55) opens:

Villages of scattered houses, / Traces of a dismal life, / Only desires and suffering / 1 see among the people.

Instead of elaborating on the pathos of 'desires and sufferings,' as he and many other Rusyn poets are wont to do, Karabelesh concentrates here on the 'traces'of life: 'fences of abandoned gardens,' 'dried-out grape vines,' 'bars of broken down churches,' 'unplowed fields.' Such visual images are more evocative of the plight of the people than the poet's constant invocations of 'ineffable sorrow' or his melodramatic 'muffled moans.' His scenes of village life present a mixture of romantic cliches and realistic details.

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The evening bell peals. /Alerting the local thickets. /And sonorously, somewhere beyond the hill, / A young shepherdess is singing. // The people pour out from vespers / In a happy, motley crowd, / A bright Sunday round dance / Resounds before the mother church. // And there beyond the quiet river, / Music, singing resonates, / In a ringing, joyful wave / Tuneful melodies resound ... // In the reading room the youth sing / And sounds of Russian songs are heard, / The Russian spirit, life is in flower, / The ringing of music, clapping of hands. (Trekrasen solnechnyi zakat' [Sunset Is Beautiful], 241)

The dialectical stress on muzyka, one of Karabelesh's infrequent deviations from standard Russian, seems appropriate to the local coloration of the poem, in which the traditional (round dance) and the contemporary (reading room) coexist in an idyllic vision. Local color dominates also in 'Trembita' (234), where the poet uses the image of the shepherd's mountain horn to evoke village life and the folk song tradition, and in 'Zhizn1 okhotnika' (Life of a Hunter, 152), where nature description is personalized in the Subcarpathian hunter's perspective. In spite of occasional up-beat treatments of nature and life, Karabelesh's vision is one of fatalistic passivity and pathetic despondency.

Re-imagining Rusyn Identity 359

I find a life of scattered settlements, / A life full of gloom and slaves, / A life of poverty and full of torment, / The poor life of Carpathian peasants. //1 hear the cry and sounds of doleful groans, / The pitiful shout of half-naked children, / 1 hear a mother's moan of sobs / And the shouts of vengeance from the enraged people. (Tervoe ianvaria' [The First of January], 232)

Rarely is there a hint of protest, as in the 'enraged people' of this citation, which follows the poet's first reaction to 'appeal to the law for help.' On the other hand, he finds peace when he links his own suffering to that of his people, and expresses indignation toward those responsible.

Again my soul revives, / When I realize the truth, / That I suffer for the Russian spirit, / My soul burns for my homeland. / And strength again rises up in me, / And again I am ready for battle, / And hate seethes, rages / Against my traitorenemies. ('Uspokoienie' [Calm], 277)

Such a subtle accusation would not satisfy the more aggressive critics, who found fault with Karabelesh's lack of revolutionary consciousness. Baleha classifies him among decadent, reactionary poets, 'who had nothing in common with the struggle of workers for social and national liberation and the unification of Transcarpathia with the Soviet Fatherland' ('Ob oshibochnykh otsenkakh tvorchestva A. Karabelesha,' 86). 'Where you are born, there you should die!' Ukrainophiles and Soviets trace Karabelesh's failings, both political and poetic, to his choice of Russian as literary language, ignoring personal, philo-

360 Straddling Borders sophical, and artistic considerations. 'Educated on examples of Russian classical literature, he chose not the language of his father, his mother, or his people, and as if to complete the tragedy of the Subcarpathian Ukrainians, he began to write in Russian. This tormented him excessively, corroded his sensitive soul and engendered in him more contradictions and conflicts, from which he was never able to escape ... He continually struggled between the real and the possible, between what was given to him and what he gave to others, and perhaps would have emerged victorious, had he been standing firmly on native ground' (Baleha, 'Ob oshibochnykh otsenkakh,' 51-2). From the opposite perspective, Russophile critics also noted the poet's dependence on Russian literature, but for them this was balanced by the poet's 'integrated world view, the thematic basis of which was set unmistakably in the Carpathians' (Nedziel'skii, 'Literatura i izdatel'skaia dieatel'nost',' 132). Karabelesh attempted to combine devotion to the Russian spirit with a deep attachment to his native land and people. He believed that Rusyns were part of the Russian nation, but unlike his predecessors, who lived at a time of widespread pan-Slav sentiment, Karabelesh maintained this notion at a time when the Rusyn intelligentsia was divided between a Russian and a Ukrainian identity. While he was determinedly opposed to the imposition of Ukrainian consciousness, the poet expressed the discomfort he felt at being emotionally situated between his education and his native culture. As he takes leave of his 'native, beloved little nook' (the village) for 'another life in another land' (the more cosmopolitan city), he feels like a 'torn-off leaf and promises to remain true to his homeland.

My consciousness will not be clouded / By a distant, foreign land, - / Not of the wild mountains, its creation, / Nor the radiance of the hot sun; / Where you are born - there you should die! ('Proshchanie' [Farewell], 250)

Whatever the torments of his new life, he vows to uphold Dukhnovych's testimony, 'I was, I am, I will be a Rusyn.' Many poems present dreams of home (e.g., 'Vzdokh po domashnim' [A Sigh for Home], 192; 'I nynie snitsia mnie poroi' [I Sometimes Dream], 196). However, situated between urban and rural cultures, the native intellectual is forced to hide his discomfort from his loved ones at home, even while he 'languishes' in the city.

Re-imagining Rusyn Identity 361

In a foreign land, a distant land / I will not forget my native home, / Languishing in suffering, alone, /1 will yearn for it with all my soul. // When bad times oppress me, / And the joy of my heart is far away, / I will tell my dear ones: My life is happy, / My life is pleasing and light. / / 1 do not wish to make my dear ones / Suffer at heart innocently. / Better I should deceive them / And suffer myself in silence ... ('K rodnym' [To My Dear Ones], 239)

As a native intellectual in a colonized society, Karabelesh is suspended between worlds, unable to be satisfied in either and largely ineffective in each. Expecting relief from the 'sly world,' he returns to the village, only to find his house forgotten and abandoned, covered in vines and ivy. Only shadows remain and everything is now alien to him. The withered leaves of the forest recall memories of childhood and the only solution to his plight is death ('V rodnom selie' [In My Native Village], 202). In a happier mood, he is comforted to find the Russian spirit still alive in the village: 'The national self-identification flourishes, / It lives, the Slav race!' ('Posieshchenie' [Visiting], 189). These two possibilities, the renewal of the Russian spirit or its loss, torment the poet in his urban exile. To add to his suffering, Karabelesh recognizes that his in-between psychological state hinders his ability to assist his people.

And I would gladly help my weary brothers, / But I am a Carpathian myself, I am also a poor peasant! ('Duma o brat'iakh' [Thoughts of My Brothers], 245)

Karabelesh remained suspended between cultures, maintaining a Russian

362 Straddling Borders identity in a world where that was becoming less and less meaningful. As the Russophile movement began to get involved in politics, it neglected cultural work, especially among the people, where the Ukrainophiles were proving more effective. Thus, Karabelesh's audience was essentially limited to the likeminded Russophile intelligentsia. His early work shows little or no attempt to popularize his message or make it more accessible to the Rusyn masses, and his total assimilation to Russian literary language and style tended to diminish the expression of his love for his homeland and people. At the same time, circumstances prevented him from moving past the apprenticeship stage in his own poetic development. When Hungary occupied Subcarpathia in 1939, Karabelesh fled to the Czech Republic, where he headed an anti-fascist organization during the war. In 1942 he was arrested and interned in concentration camps until 1945. Having settled among Carpatho-Rusyns in the Presov region of Slovakia, he continued teaching and writing. He never joined the Communist party, but in 1952 he became a member of the Ukrainian section of the Union of Slovak Writers. In 1953 he published memoirs of his wartime experiences, together with poems written from 1938 to 1953, in Na smertel'nom rubezhe. Two years later he published another collection of verse, VKarpatakh, which was much more political and emotionally upbeat than his early work. Also written in literary Russian, the poetry of these collections reveals greater maturity and artistry, although the demands of Socialist Realism now present a further obstacle to the development of an authentic Rusyn literary voice. Karabelesh adapted his Russophile sentiments to the Soviet context; the one family of Slavs, in which Russia is the older brother, has now become a family of workers (Na smertel'nom rubezhe, 207). His national self-identification is not explicitly stated, nor does it need to be, since the only choice is Ukrainian, but he now refers to his homeland as 'my native Transcarpathian oblast'.' Religion is dismissed and the poet now sees God 'only in callused hands' ('Vykhodnoi den' rabochego' [A Worker's Day Off], 197). Dismal scenes of autumn are replaced by the banners of October ('V karpatakh osen" [Autumn in the Carpathians], VKarpatakh, 158). Now he finds the cause for the wretched life of the Ruysns in foreign capitalists and tyrants, against whom he provokes his audience. As he had once parroted Lermontov, Karabelesh now cites Lenin and Stalin, Ostrovskii and Gorky. The Soviet liberation of Subcarpathia simply replaced one cultural colonialism with a more virulent form that erased most elements of native distinction. In 1955 Karabelesh returned to his homeland after an absence of seventeen years, and shortly thereafter began to protest against the Soviets' forced ukrainianization of the Rusyn people. He was accused of 'serious ideological mistakes,' 'falsifications of Soviet reality,' moral decadence, and slander directed at the Soviet nationalities policy, 'to

Re-imagining Rusyn Identity 363 which the Ukrainian people are grateful for the eradication of the falsehood which had caused damage for centuries' ('Zaiava pro poeta Andriia Karabelesha,' Duklia, no. 3, 1958: 7). Consequently, Karabelesh was expelled from the writers' union in 1958. He died in 1964. 'The founder of Ukrainian literature in Subcarpathia' If Karabelesh represented one end of the linguistic and literary spectrum in the inter-war era, the opposite extreme was occupied by Vasyl' Grendzha-Dons'kyi. In life experience, world view, literary affinities, political ideology, and linguistic philosophy - in fact, in all but national origin, they encapsulated the divergent and incompatible orientations that opposed one another in Subcarpathian Rus'. Born in 1897 to a peasant family in Volove (now Mizhhiria), approximately 100 kilometres from Karabelesh's home village, Grendzha (his original surname) was mobilized into the Austro-Hungarian army at age eighteen and was wounded on the Russian front. Sent to Budapest to recuperate, he completed a commercial school, attended an art academy, and worked for a time in a Budapest insurance company. Even before this time, influenced by his reading of Petofi, he had begun writing poetry in Hungarian, although, as he recalled in his autobiography, 'This literature was alien, aristocratic, I found no traces of anything native there. Of course, I never thought that there could be such a thing [as native literature].'54 In 1918, he was mobilized again and sent to the Romanian and Italian fronts. On his return to Budapest, he was arrested for participation in Communist demonstrations, and then served in the Hungarian Soviet army against the Romanians. In 1921 he returned to his homeland and worked in the Podkarpatskii Bank in Uzhhorod. He became active in Rusyn cultural life, supporting the populist-Ukrainophile orientation on the executive board of the Prosvita Society. In 1923, the same year that Karabelesh began his literary career, Grendzha published his first collection of verse, adding 'Dons'kyi' to his name to demonstrate his conscious Ukrainian identity and his political support for a united Ukraine that would extend from the Carpathians to the Don River. For his introduction of Ukrainian into Rusyn literature, Antonin Haiti called Grendzha-Dons'kyi the founder of a new literature in Subcarpathia ('Deset let podkarpatskeho pfsemnictvi 192). Grendzha-Dons'kyi's first book, Kvity z tern'om (Flowers with Thorns, 1923), was the first collection of the poetry of an individual Rusyn author ever to be published in Subcarpathia. Since the time of Dukhnovych's almanacs, Rusyn literature had appeared in print only in calendars and periodicals. Kvity z tern'om continued the populist literary trend and was written in the author's local Verkhovyna dialect (a Subcarpathian dialect that was close to standard

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Ukrainian), using the traditional orthography. This was followed in the same year by Zoloti kliuchi (Golden Keys). The verse of these collections in the vernacular language energized the traditional lyric evocation of the beauties of Carpathian nature and lent authenticity to the depiction of Carpathian poverty and suffering. Grendzha-Dons'kyi's talent is lyrical, arising from the folk tradition, and he scarcely strays from characteristic folk motifs, images, rhythms, and forms.

Here a mountain, there another, / The high plains stand alone, / And below these highland pastures / Close and narrow valleys. // Even if the sun does shine / No warmth will it give, / On the mountain, lofty mountain / The winter wind will whistle. ('Zvidsy hora' [Here a Mountain], T, 16)55 Into traditional folk poetry he introduces patriotic themes, which, in Kvity z tern'om, are strictly local. He refers to his homeland variously as Verkhovyna, the Carpathians, his 'native land,' and, in a folk epithet, the 'silver land.' In the opening poem of the collection, 'Moia pisnia' (My Song, 5), the poet claims his right to the land, asserts his belonging, and announces the purpose of his poetry.

My mother is a narrow valley / The Carpathians are my family, / To sing the land

Re-imagining Rusyn Identity 365 of the high plains /1 was taught by a bird. //... The national treasure-house is a deep sea / Which 1 preserve in my soul - / That my people might become great / In their own native land!

In his early poems, Grendzha-Dons'kyi uses the term 'Rusyn' to refer to his people, as in a poem dedicated to Avhustyn Voloshyn ('Rusyne!' T, 12), and in the title of one of his most famous poems ('Rusyn,' T, 10), which depicts the Rusyn as enslaved from birth.

Even before he entered the world / Even before he was known / Shackles were being prepared, / Fetters were being forged. // His mother had not yet given birth, / She carried him under her heart, / But already his hands were tied / By an unknown force. // No sooner was he born / Even before he was dressed, / Already above his cradle / Chains were clanging.

However, as early as 1923 he also refers to 'father Ukraine' ('Ty u hrobi, nen'ko' [You Are in the Grave, Father], T, 10) and to the Rusyns as 'children of Ukraine' who live in sorrow ('Lltt'sia slezy' [Tears Flow], T, 13). In Zoloti kliuchi, Ukraine is his homeland ('Povii' [Wind], T, 63), and in another poem, the poetic persona stands on a mountain top and surveys his unhappy people who inhabit the land 'from this sharp summit all the way to the Black Sea ('Na shpyliu Karpativ' [From the Summit of the Carpathians], T, 74.) Although for the poet Rusyn is a synonym for Ukrainian, his use of the traditional national ethnonym strengthens his overall evocation of the local spirit - the Rusyn homeland, its people, and its language.

366 Straddling Borders

Love your native language, the dear Rusyn word, / Do not be ashamed of her, beat your breast for her, / For the native word, be prepared for anything / And know that you are a Rusyn, never forget. ('Liuby ridnu movu' [Love Your Native Language], T, 10)

In distinction from Karabelesh, Grendzha-Dons'kyi enlivens his didactic verse with fantasy, humour, varied personae, and narrative interest. A dialogue between fetters and a sabre results in a moral concerning the value of fighting for freedom ('Sablia i kaidany' [Sabre and Fetters], T, 73). An old dido ruminates on taking a young girl for his fifth wife ('Didus" [Grandpa], T, 20). And a Magyar mogul surveys his holdings and justifies his cruel treatment of the 'stupid Rusyn,' who serves as a subservient slave and as cannon fodder for the emperor's army ('Pisnia madiarskoho magnata' [Song of a Magyar Mogul], T, 80). 'Bezdol'na maty' (Luckless Mother, T, 7) tells the story of an abandoned baby boy who is raised by a foreign aristocrat. Eventually he returns to his native village as its lord. Not recognizing her own son, his mother curses him, as well as the woman who bore him, for his cruelty. Having called down fate upon herself, she is hanged by her son from the tree under which she had given him birth. Inherent in this narrative is the poet's comprehension that ethnicity is not inborn, but formed, and the poem's message concerns the dangers and consequences of assimilation. A similar moral is at the base of 'Bludnomu synkovy' (To a Prodigal Son), which opens with a mother's lullaby:

Know, my son, that you are a Rusyn / Of a great race. / Your forefathers died / For their freedom. (7", 11)

The son goes off to war, where he abandons his identity, becomes ashamed of his language, and engages in disputes over 'how to write and how to speak.' That is, he becomes a Russophile, and while he is occupied with questions of language and religion, external enemies deprive the Rusyn people of freedom.

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Betrayed by his false friends, he finds himself in prison, where his mother's words return to him.

When the native word perishes, / The land will perish, / Born in prison, in prison you will die / Luckless child.56

Grendzha-Dons'kyi was a prolific writer, publishing more than twelve books of poetry and prose before the end of the 1930s, and like Karabelesh, he published his verse with an urgency that prevented careful craftsmanship. Although he had definite lyrical talent, he had no literary education, and his technique is frequently faulty. His rhymes are monotonous and weak, he repeats images, and his rhythm is often deficient. Most of his poems are written in the same traditional kolotnyika form, and many are simply reworked folk songs.57 Oles Babii, a L'viv poet, welcomed Grendzha-Dons'kyi's first book of poetry, but in a review of his second book, Babii advised the poet of the necessity to broaden his world view, to deepen and enrich his inner world, and to take a more exacting approach to his work. 'In general, V. GrendzhaDons'kyi needs to study for some time, to write less and read more' (cited in Mol'nar, 'Doha spivtsia polonyn,' 21). This advice might have been well taken by many Rusyn writers of the early twentieth century. One can only assume that the new freedom to publish was so tempting, and, given Rusyn history, so undependable, that writers were determined not to waste time or space on a page. Kafka's comments on the enthusiastic dilettantes of young literatures (see chapter 3) are equally applicable to this period of Rusyn literature. Technical faults were minor in the eyes of the Ukrainian-oriented reading public, who appreciated the sharpened patriotic pathos produced by the vernacular language. Volodymyr Birchak, for example, castigated GrendzhaDons'kyi's literary failings, but always based his final judgment on the poetic language. Birchak criticizes the undeveloped motifs, superficial narration, and anachronisms of Grendzha-Dons'kyi's novella Petro Petrovych, but concludes that, 'in spite of everything, it must be noted that the story reads smoothly and briskly' (Literaturni stremlinnia, 162). The use of Rusyn dialect was not entirely new in Subcarpathian literature, but it was a welcome change from the overwhelmingly didactic tone and formal decorum of most Russophile writers. The modernist Galician poet Vasyl' Pachovs'kyi wrote the preface to Kvity z

368 Straddling Borders tern'om. Although his critique of the Russophiles here is immoderate, he captures much of what appealed to readers in Grendzha-Dons'kyi's work: There was not to be found among the intelligentsia even one heart that might sing a song of despair in the language of his people. Ancient writers wrote in an alien, dead language, and new writers wrote in an alien Magyar or Muscophile iazychie. Even now they contrive, borrow, look for aristocratic words from alien, distant lords to express their thoughts ... Therefore they could write in this borrowed language only moral 'instructions,' spiritual narratives, histories of foreign kings and lords, wise advice, and even Great Russian testimonies to Rusyn-ness (pycbKocTb). But they did not create poetry, that is, the song of the heart, which emerges from the blood and tears of national pain. For those in aristocratic clothing do not speak from the heart in the language of their people, and therefore they cannot cry from the heart in the people's language ... Such poetry is born in our land only when great hearts speak in that silver-stringed language which the people have spoken for a thousand years in our beautiful land of blue mountains high and bright sun ... (4-5)58

For Subcarpathian Ukrainophiles, Grendzha-Dons'kyi's language choice recompensed whatever failings there might be in style or aesthetic quality. However, in other ways as well his poetry was more accessible than that of Karabelesh. Rather than abstract descriptions, it offers specific details of local character and countryside, and instead of literary phrases and erudite references, it relies on familiar folk motifs and melodies. In spite of Pachovs'kyi's delineation between Russophile 'elitism' and Ukrainophile 'compassion,' the distinction in national orientation between Karabelesh and the GrendzhaDons'kyi of Kvity z tern'om is not striking. At least in his earliest collections, Grendzha-Dons'kyi's appeal to his readers is primarily one of local patriotism, and his views on national orientation are muted. 'Arise!' All subtlety disappeared, however, as Grendzha-Dons'kyi became active in revolutionary politics and was drawn to the Communist party of Czechoslovakia. In 1924, he published Shliakhom ternovym (On a Thorny Path), the first book in Subcarpathian Rus' to use the modern Ukrainian literary language and the Ukrainian phonetic alphabet.59 In content as well as in form, the poetry of this collection announced a radical stance in terms of national orientation and the fight for social justice. This was followed in 1926 by a cycle of poems published in the literary almanac Trembita, which introduced several young

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Ukrainophile writers to the reading public. Grendzha-Dons'kyi's contributions were primarly imitations of folk songs, but he also included an unfinished long poem entitled ' Vstavaimo!' (Arise!) that set forth his views on national orientation in no uncertain terms (Tremblta, 19-25). Dedicated to the chairman of the Khust national council, Mykhailo Brashchaiko, who first called for the union of Subcarpathian Rus1 with an independent Ukrainian state, it expresses Ukrainophile political views in versified speeches, ostensibly from the mouths of the people, to indicate the populist source of the revolutionary movement. During the second half of the 1920s, Grendzha-Dons'kyi also wrote prose stories that glorified the history of his people, praised their determination to defend their land from foreign occupiers, and supported what he believed were their efforts for unification with the Ukrainian nation. The development of his aesthetic and political views came to a head in 1927, when Grendzha-Dons'kyi became the editor of Nasha zemlia (Our Land), the first Subcarpathian Ukrainian-language literary and socio-political journal, which was in fact an unofficial organ of the Subcarpathian Communist Party of Czechoslovakia. In his memoirs, Grendzha-Dons'kyi explains that the Communist press, perhaps following his own lead in Shliakhom ternovym, had converted in 1925 to the Ukrainian phonetic alphabet, but few Subcarpathian activists actually knew Ukrainian or were able to write correctly in the new alphabet. He took on the editorial position at the request of two Galician emigres who were in Subcarpathian Rus' illegally and were connected with the communist paper Karpats'ka pravda (Carpathian Truth). Grendzha-Dons'kyi agreed to be a front, or Trojan horse,' for the newspaper, which was subsidized by the Ukrainian ministry of culture. He explains his collaboration as follows: In the first place, on the pages of the journal we had the possibility to identify ourselves not only in national terms, but in social terms as well. The ukrainianization of Subcarpathia would be strengthened by the journal and we would draw young people away from the influence of priests and denationalizers. I wanted to evoke in them love for their native brothers beyond the Carpathians and for the epochal accomplishments in Ukrainian culture and in the socialist construction of Soviet Ukraine. The ukrainianization of Subcarpathia was for me the most important matter, lest czechization and the separatist tendencies of 'rusynism' put down roots, for at that time I already saw such tendencies. ('Moi' spohady,' 352-3)

The title initially proposed for the journal, 'Ukrains'ka zemlia' (Ukrainian Land), was proscribed by the Czech authorities, but its opening statement set forth the editor's program:

370 Straddling Borders The same curse that pursued our people from ancient Rus' to Austria has come down to us as well. In the past they tried to make our people 'Little Russians,' 'Ruthenians' or 'Rusyns,' and now they want to make from us a mini-nation lacking culture, history or literary language - 'Rusnaks' - so as to beat us more easily ... Scholarship has demonstrated that we are the same people as those beyond the Carpathians, that is, we are Ukrainians. (Quoted in Mol'nar, 'Dolia spivtsia polonyn,' 32)

In individual articles, the journal criticized 'reactionary muscophilism' and decried denationalization at the hands of the Czech 'occupiers' of Subcarpathian Rus1. Writers promoted the social interests of peasants and workers, summoning them to join the revolutionary struggle for their national and social rights. Based on articles from Soviet periodicals, the journal also acquainted its Subcarpathian readers with the progress being made in Soviet Ukraine. Some pieces, including four poems by Grendzha-Dons'kyi, were censored by the Czech government, in which case the journal was printed with blank pages marked 'confiscated.'60 Nasha zemlia was welcomed by Karpats'ka pravda, which reprinted some of its articles, and the Soviet Ukrainian press praised its political orientation and its defence of the Communist party. It was condemned by the 'reactionary press,' that is, by Rusyn, Russian, Czech, Magyar, and nationalist Ukrainian publications. Among the Subcarpathian intelligentsia, Grendzha-Dons'kyi began to be seen as a 'Sovietophile.' In the literary component of Nasha zemlia, Grendzha-Dons'kyi published the amateurish but politically correct writings of Subcarpathian peasants and workers.61 He also published Soviet Russian literature, including excerpts from Gorky's novel Mother, Demian Bednyi's tales, and Nikolai Tikhonov's poetry, as well as a great deal of Ukrainian literature. The editor popularized the Ukrainian classics and claimed the legacy of Ukrainian literature for Subcarpathia. Two entire issues were devoted to Shevchenko, and included an article in which Grendzha-Dons'kyi explains the relevance of Shevchenko to Subcarpathia. 'We Subcarpathian Ukrainians have been covered by dark clouds and have known little about Taras Shevchenko. But having come to know him and his golden words, we have also sensed that he is our own, that his memory is dear to us and is alive among us.' Citing examples from Shevchenko's works that are relevant to the Subcarpathian experience, he concludes, Therefore, he is ours. For he is the greatest son of the same people, of which we are an indivisible part. And no one can isolate us from his thoughts' (T, 9: 10-11). Second only to Shevchenko for Subcarpathian Ukrainophiles was the Galician poet and socialist Ivan Franko, whom Grendzha-Dons'kyi praised in similar

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terms on the twentieth anniversary of his death in 1936: The great Franko, son of a village smith, was true to his people. We Subcarpathian Ukrainians bow to him, for he is so close to us! Every line of his writing is a mirror of our suffering and a clear signpost to follow. Ivan Franko is ours! In vain do our enemies want us to turn away from the name and language of Ivan Franko. He has become ingrained in our flesh and our hearts, and we will never renounce him!' (T, 9: 134). In Nasha zemlia, Grendzha-Dons'kyi also published the works of contemporary Ukrainian writers such as Pavlo Tychyna, Volodymyr Sosiura, Ostap Vyshnia, and Mykola Tereshchenko. Other influential Ukrainian models included Vasyl' Pachovs'kyi, Spyrydon Cherkasenko, Mariika Pidhirianka, Oleksander Oles', and Maksym Rylskyi. Grendzha-Dons'kyi published about forty of his own poems in Nasha zemlia, in which he expanded and intensified the ideological thrust of Shliakhom ternovym. The opening poem of his 1924 book signals the change in the poet's sentiments from the nationalist pathos of his earlier work to revolutionary zeal. The strings of his lyre are no longer silver, but 'bloody,' and he charges them to cry no longer over the suffering of his native land, but to 'rouse the slaves to battle' ('Hraite, hraite krovavii struny' [Play, play bloody strings], T, 111). With this book, Grendzha-Dons'kyi made the transition from romantic lyricism to a poetry of resistance and revolutionary struggle, assimilating to the established style and jargon of Marxist revolutionary poetry. To mark the fall of AustriaHungary, he wrote:

Arise, people, cast off your chains, / Slaughter the tyrants, kill the executioners, / For our tears, for our wounds, / For our torment, - crush the tyrants, / Slaves, to battle for our beloved land! ('28.X. 1918,' T, 1 12)

His poetic lexicon in this period includes terms familiar from Shevchenko's and Franko's work: fetters, chains, tyrants, executioners, slaves, torture, police, prisons, swords, and bayonets. In contrast to the Russophile Karabelesh, for whom 'prison' was a metaphor for life and 'fetters' were metaphysical or psychological constraints, Grendzha-Dons'kyi's chains and tyrants are cliches borrowed from revolutionary poetry and used in a literal sense.

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We are not afraid of bayonets, / We do not fear your police, / For our freedom, for our native land / We will break the chains on our hands, / We will break them and forge from them sabres ... (Tam'iaty dobi vidrodzhennia v r. 1918' [In Memory of the Renaissance of 1918], T, 111)

The religious devotion of the Russophiles is nowhere to be found. Instead of reworked psalms, Grendzha-Dons'kyi's prayers ask God to cease 'mocking us,' and implore him to 'see and mourn' the ruin of the Rusyn people. There is no national flavour or cultural specificity in his description of a Subcarpathian Christmas eve, which is rich in traditional folk customs. Rather he adopts the Communist class orientation and contrasts the ritual solemnity of Christmas in the church with the real sufferings of children ('Koly ty pravdyvyi, Bozhe' [If You Are Real, God], Shliakom ternovym, 84; 'Sviatyi vechir' [Christmas Eve], T, 118). The distinguishing feature of Grendzha-Dons'kyi's poetry is its language, which he uses to best advantage through dialogue within poems, individualized personae, and informal narratives. Rather than the abstract, romantic effusions of Karabelesh, he expresses misery in concrete terms and simple language, as in the thoughts of a poor orphan:

'Behold, the worth of a poor life, / When for the lords a dog is more valuable / Than I, even though I have human blood ... / More than once in life I have been hungry, / 1 have known only trouble, / 1 haven't eaten yesterday or today, / And probably not tomorrow ...')62

Detailed description is the poet's best means to evoke the realities of Subcarpathian life, as in this description of Rusyn foresters:

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Poor foresters! / With their blue lips / Swollen eyes, and wrinkled brows ... / In hunger, through water, / He drags his saw, / He counts the calluses on his hands ... ('Poliamy-lisamy' [Through Fields and Forests], T, 143)

The militant pieces Grendzha-Dons'kyi published in Nasha zemlia, which unequivocally denounced the Czech administration of Subcarpathian Rus', caused him trouble with the authorities. Although many writers were published in the journal, Grendzha-Dons'kyi was the only one to have his works censored. In one of the poems banned by the government, he evoked a radical depiction of oppression:

Lords ... Prison ... / Sorrow ... Grief ... / Chains ... Police ... / This is my native land! (7, 209)

A poem written to honour Shevchenko ('Prorokovi - velykomu Kobzarevi' [To the Prophet, the Great Kobzar], T, 184), also provoked the police, who prohibited Grendzha-Dons'kyi from reading it at a celebration to honour Shevchenko on the seventy-sixth anniversary of his death.63 Within his poem, Grendzha-Dons'kyi cites Shevchenko's dialogue with peasants and sets off his words in upper-case letters: '... BCTABAMTE, KAHflAHH nOPBITE I BPA)KO10,3JIOK) KPOB'K) BOJIK) OKPOniTE...'

'ARISE, / CAST OFF YOUR CHAINS / AND WITH YOUR HOSTILE, SPITEFUL BLOOD, / IRRIGATE FREEDOM.'

374 Straddling Borders He concludes the poem by applying Shevchenko's moral to Subcarpathia, or in Grendzha-Dons'kyi's words, 'to our Ukraine.'

His fiery words / The Carpathians have understood, / He leads us along a common path, / And we stride forward boldly!

Grendzha-Dons'kyi also wrote prose stories for Nasha zemlia and in the course of his career he published several collections of prose and novellas. His first stories, published in 1926 as Opovidannia z Karpats'kykh polonyn (Stories from the Carpathian High Plains), were reworked folk tales he had heard first from his blind grandfather.64 Subsequent collections include historical fiction, with special focus on the circumstances surrounding the revolutionary events of 1918-19, exposes of social injustice and the exploitation of peasants and workers, satires of traitors and assimilators, and tendentious sketches directed against denationalization. Two stories first published in Nasha zemlia provide a summary of his thematics and prose style. In 'Olia,' the hero is a Rusyn soldier in the Austro-Hungarian army. Sent to Ukraine, he protects and comforts the Ukrainian villagers being persecuted by his officers. 'Only the uniform is Austrian, but I myself am a Ukrainian from Hungary ... the very same Ukrainian as yourself, only from Austria' (ST, 254, 256). He falls in love with 'one of the daughters of glorious Ukraine,' a romantic vision with eyes dark as night and the expression of a suffering madonna. The enchanting heroine is merely emblematic of the land itself. 'I fell in love with Ukraine, its broad steppes and its people, the same people as on this side of the green Carpathians, of which I am a member. I realized that there is not the slightest difference between us: the same language, costume, and customs. Only the songs [in Ukraine] are more beautiful ...' (ST, 258-9). The writer's message to the Rusyn people is that nationality is the same on both sides of the Carpathians, but Ukraine is better. His only persuasive techniques are enthusiastic rhetoric and sentimental romanticism. More effective is 'They Divided the Land' (Dilyly zemliu), published in the first issue of Nasha zemlia and directed at the Czech administration's unfulfilled promises of land reform. The narrative is developed through dialogue, and the colloquial, dialectical language, which is Grendzha-Dons'kyi's strong point, contributes authenticity and reveals the characters' psychology. The

Re-imagining Rusyn Identity 375 story is set in a village of Subcarpathian Rus' at election time. After a narrative introduction of the central character, a poor widow, whose 'veined arms show that every piece of bread had to be dug out directly from the land with her fingernails' (ST, 248), her neighbour greets her with good news.

'Good day, kumal ... I came to say that we are to sign up today.' 'Why should I sign up? I'll only be signed out, and the lords will do that themselves, as soon as I blink.' 'No, no ... Sign up ... They're going to divide the land ... The land should belong to the one who works it.' (ST, 249)

The peasants begin dreaming about their 'radiant future,' and their simple wishes arouse emotion in the reader, who anticipates their disappointment. Only the sensible Fedor is suspicious. To Mariika's question about the appearance and demeanour of the gentleman handling the transactions, he replies:

You know, he's neither one thing nor the other: you look at him - the 'great lord' is okay, but for some reason, I don't trust him, he rolls his eyes, his hair is in tufts here and there on his head, maybe honest people have tugged at it, a nose red from wine, and a mug that looks as if someone punched it ... He says that we'll soon get the land, but never believe lords or dogs. God protect you from the lord's 'right away.' (ST, 250)

At the field, where the peasants are to register, the following dialogue ensues between an electoral candidate and the peasants:

376 Straddling Borders

'Here is yours, this is yours, and that is his, I'll enter it into the land book myself.' 'And give me some,panochok.' 'How much do you want?' 'Two measures.' 'You fool, take three, there - from the ewe tree to the boundary - it's all yours ... Just don't forget to vote for us tomorrow.' (VT, 251)

The simple peasants maintain faith in the scheme until the police forcefully remove them from the land. Fedor's concluding appraisal conceals revolutionary sentiments: The lords will not give land voluntarily ... It will be ours only when we can divide it ourselves' (ST, 252). Grendzha-Dons'kyi sympathetically describes the peasants' simplicity, against which the duplicity of the candidates, exaggerated as it may be, appears truly heinous. The gradual shift in their consciousness from trust to suspicion to disillusionment is expressed primarily through dialogue. The colloquial speech provides authenticity, although occasionally even the most non-poetic characters wax lyrical, as in the widow's reaction to the promise of land. OTO >K Ao6pe, LU.O B>Ke pas Ai>KACMOCb i MH norocb. O aeM^e csaxa, HK MM Te6e ;iio6HMO. TH Kama Main. MM xe6e rapHCHbKo o6po6HMO, TH aa Hauiy xa>KKy npau,K> npHHeceiii naM rmoAH A MH 6yACMO maoiHBi. XOH 6oAaM nisro^Aa! It's good that we will get something at last. O sacred earth, how we love you. You are our mother. We work you nicely, and for our hard work you give us a harvest and we will be happy. At least, God grant, a half measure! (ST, 249-50)

However, in this story, such rhetorical intrusions are few and they are limited by the popular context that ties them to reality. Mykhailo Mol'nar voices the general consensus of critics, that 'Dilyly zemliu' is the best prose work written by any Subcarpathian author of the time ('Dolia spivtsia polonyn,' 34). 'We Are Ukrainians' Communist critics characterized Grendzha-Dons'kyi's work in this period as 'populist romanticism, revolutionary enthusiasm for the people's liberation and national revolt' ('Introduction,' Trembita, 4), and subsequent Soviet scholars have praised it for its 'great revolutionary pathos' (Myshanych, introduction to Grendzha-Dons'kvi, Tvorv, 9). It becomes clear, however, that iust as

Re-imagining Rusyn Identity 377 Karabelesh's dependence on Russian models and the literary commonplaces of romanticism worked to the detriment of his poetry, so did Grendzha-Dons'kyi's enthusiasm for the Ukrainian classics and Communist slogans impair the originality and national character of his own literary work. The Ukrainophile Birchak applied more rigorous aesthetic standards in 1937 than the Soviet critics of the 1960s. While he was overenthusiastic about Grendzha-Dons'kyi's language, he criticized the poet's socio-political and patriotic lyrics as weak, bordering on rhetoric and propaganda (Literaturni stremlinnia, 158). And in 1931, the Russophile literary scholar Evgenii Nedziel'skii wrote, 'GrendzhaDons'kyi's lyric talent is unquestionable, to the extent that he sings of his land in the style and technique of folk songs. However, the problem is that onto this pure and unaffected lyricism, the poet tries with all his might to superimpose social and militant communist rationalism, together with a slavish nationalism that is alive with blunt hatred for other peoples, rather than mutual respect and love.' He believed that this was a result of the sources of Grendzha-Dons'kyi's formal influence - Ukrainian poetry, 'which for historic reasons featured a significant amount of national chauvinism,' and 'the pogrom-like slogans of Communist poetry' ('Sovremennaia karpatorusskaia literatura,' 204). Grendzha-Dons'kyi described his homeland in harsh terms as a 'beggar land' (>Kep6aHHH Kpaft), a 'cursed land,' 'a land of sorrow, suffering, torment / And eternal darkness.' Although to some extent this picture was familiar from decades of Rusyn writers, Grendzha-Dons'kyi, having adopted a Marxist Ukrainophile world view, introduced the element of protest and rebellion. Later Soviet critics would say that although the Russophiles and populist Rusynophiles properly bemoaned the poverty in their mountains, 'they did not see an exit from the terrible situation.' They did not 'comprehend and demonstrate the correct path of the people's struggle for a radiant future' because they lacked 'conscious socialist ideals' (Baleha, Literatura Zakarpattia, 59, 67). While from the Soviet perspective Grendzha-Dons'kyi expressed the 'correct' ideals, in fact, at least in his Nazha zemlia poems, he started Subcarpathian Rusyn literature down a path toward certain denationalization. He and other Ukrainophiles were no better at forecasting the future than were previous groups of the Rusyn intelligentsia. Just as the nineteenth-century Russophiles were willing to exchange Magyar dominance for Russian imperialist protection, Grendzha-Dons'kyi and the Ukrainophiles at the dawn of the twentieth century just as eagerly and even more completely subjected themselves to Ukrainian national aspirations. Unable to foresee the totalitarian trends of the future, they considered ukrainianization not as the eradication of their nationality, but as its fulfilment. Grendzha-Dons'kyi firmly rejected Rusyn tradition and all previous national nomenclature, declaring:

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We are not ashamed of who we are, / Here's whose sons we are: / We are called Ukrainians! /And not Rusnak-Rusyns. ('My ukramtsy!' [We Are Ukrainians], T, 215)

In poems addressed to readers in the Ukraine, such as 'Shchyre pryvitanyia shliut' hruni stepam' (The Mountains Send Warm Greetings to the Steppes), he praised Ukraine, 'where there are no whips, no tsar,' and pledged to follow its example to a 'new life' (T, 151.) To his own people, he presented Ukraine as a saviour ('When the slaughter begins ... Know that there is Ukraine, there are brothers') and urged ruthlessness toward internal adversaries: 'Spit in his eye when he teases that you are not Ukrainian' ('lak riznia pochnet'sia' [When the Slaughter Begins], T, 146). Grendzha-Dons'kyi's affinity to Ukraine was politicized and aggravated by his direct antagonism to the Czech-led state, of which Subcarpathia was a component part. Although Shliakhom ternovym contains verses of gratitude to the Czech people for raising their Slavic brothers from slavery ('Khai zavaliat'sia kliati mury' [Let the Accursed Walls Topple], T, 114), the Communist-inspired verses of Nasha zemlia identify the source of Subcarpathian misery in Czech colonialism.

Re-imagining Rusyn Identity 379 We have a rich land, / Rich in wine, - / We ourselves are beggars / And we have no destiny. // For here, we are not ourselves, / Here, they rule, / We die from hunger, / The lords drink our wine ... //... But now a wondrous voice is heard, / Now the mountain tells us: / The damned yoke / Must be destroyed, it is time! (Our Land Is Rich, T, 205)

Whereas the Great War brought an end to colonialism in much of the world, it was only at this time that the issue was brought to light in Subcarpathia. Although past Rusyn writers, especially Aleksander Pavlovych, had alluded to the protracted colonial condition of the Subcarpathian Rusyns, GrendzhaDons'kyi was the first to name it.

We waited centuries / For a morsel of land, / Now to colonists / They have given it away ... ('Verkhovyna,' T, 226)

In 1928 the censor banned the publication of Grendzha-Dons'kyi's anticolonial poem 'Rozdilyly Ukrainu pomizh vorogiv' [They Partitioned Ukraine among Her Enemies], T, 181). The 'enemies' alluded to are Poland, Romania, and Czechoslovakia, the states that claimed parts of Rusyn-inhabited territory after the war. The political message is embedded in a folk-style verse form:

In the Carpathians it is quiet, quiet ... / Sorrow presses your breast ... / In the Carpathians it is quiet, quiet ... / In the Carpathians there is grief. / Bayonets thrust / From both sides ... / They partitioned Ukraine / Among her enemies.

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The popular lyrical form lends expressiveness to the trite motifs of sorrow and grief, but the poem ends in a burst of compulsory, optimistic rhetoric that supersedes attention to artistic technique:

But she will rise, rise, / For the nation lives! / After a short time of suffering / Freedom will live again! (T, 181)

In other poems on the theme of revolution, lexical items such as revolt (6yHT), protest (npoxecx), revolutionary (peBomom'oHep), police (nomrjaH), law-breaker (fleniKBCHT), irredentist (ipeflCHT), autonomy (aBTOHOMin), and strike (cxpaHK) are introduced into the literature of Subcarpathia, a vocabulary that was certainly foreign to the Rusyn people, despite the vernacular flavour of GrendzhaDons'kyi's writing. Also included in Nasha zemlia and Skliakhom ternovym are traditional love lyrics and nature descriptions, where the poet leaves behind the strident tones of revolutionary verse and sings the beauty of nature in delicate metaphors.

The opera of spring is heard, /A bird holds a soprano note, / Wondrous charms and wondrous dreams / And wondrous is every colour... // For a moment I overcome / Sorrow, misfortune, discord, /1 am free here, here I am once again / The free son of nature. ('Stoiu, divliusia na krasu' [I Stand and Marvel at the Beauty], T, 236)

In nature the poet's persona acquires an identity that transcends nationality. A hint of modernism is apparent in 'A my obderti, bosi, bez kutka' (We Are Ragged, Barefoot, Homeless, T, 206), where the poet uses elliptical language

Re-imagining Rusyn Identity 381 and an unusual stanza form to contrast lords and people. And modernist sound play is intermixed with folk rhythms and the rhythm of manual labour in 'Molot'ba' (Threshing, T, 241).

Tock-tock ... the barn, rye-grain, / The seed-bags are gathered, / And on the threshing floor there tock-tock: / Threshing in the barn. / Work here / Briskbrisk, / Tock-tock, tock-tock / And one and two - / And one and two, / The flail flies, / Tock-tock, tock-tock, / And the sheaf is ready.

There was scarcely any interest in modernism among the writers of Subcarpathia. They were decades behind the avant-garde writers in Ukraine and Russia, unable to appreciate the style, and for most, their political conservatism prevented them from following the progressive ideas often connected with it. Such tenets of radical modernism as experimentation in language and form, aestheticism, and allusiveness, which demand a sophisticated literary audience, held little attraction for Subcarpathian writers. As Elleke Boehmer writes about other postcolonial movements, 'If metropolitan culture of the early twentieth century laid accent on the experience of alienation, and began to distrust the capacity of language to mean, it was, in contrast, imperative for the new nationalists to continue to make sense. Their need was to create meaningful identity' (Colonial and Postcolonial Literature, 133). If radical Ukrainophiles occasionally flirted with modernism, traditional Russophiles consciously rejected it. The Galician Russophile writer and scholar Dmitrii Vergun, who was active in Uzhhorod Russophile circles, published in Karpatskii krai a poetic rebuke to the Moscow Futurists, making it clear that the Subcarpathian refusal to follow the modernist trend represented a conscious decision rather than naive backwardness.65 Eventually, the Communist

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press also prohibited any incipient modernism. In the introduction to Poety Zakarpattia, the editors approvingly sum up twentieth-century literary development, 'Not the ultra-complex little verses (eiptuuKu) of the modernists, not the croaking of the nationalists, but proletarian poetry becomes the true visage of the development of Ukrainian literature at that time in Transcarpathia' (Poety Zakarpattia, 40). After two years of publication, Nasha zemlia was closed by the police in 1929. Soon after, Grendzha-Dons'kyi's flirtation with Communism ended, and he joined the Ukrainophile nationalists, serving as a frequent contributor to Ukrams'ke slovo (1932-8) and assistant editor of Nova svoboda, the leading daily during the autonomist period (1938-9). Grendzha-Dons'kyi was the first Subcarpathian author to be published in the Soviet Union. Through his Soviet connections, four books of verse and prose were published in Kharkiv and L'viv.66 In an effort to promote Ukrainian-language literature in Subcarpathia, he took a leading role in the establishment in 1936 of the Society of Ukrainian Writers and Journalists in Uzhhorod. He continued to write and publish during the 1930s, returning to his early style of romantic nationalism, with admixtures of folk-tale fantasy. In his 1936 collection Tobi, ridnyi kraiu (To You, Native Land), the poet turns to local sources of inspiration, calling himself 'a true son of Verkhovyna.' The native land that he glorifies is not Ukraine but 'our green Carpathians,' and he praises local folk art - the kolomyika, wood carving, and especially embroidery - as 'an eternal fight for existence, a struggle for culture' (My tvorym iholkoiu kul'turu' [We Create a Needle Culture], T, 242). Noting the talent of the Carpathian people that had survived through the ages, he declares, 'fl ixmH! ,fl,e 6 He OITHHUBCH - npo HHX nuin 6yny H cnisaxb' (I am theirs! Wherever I might find myself, I will sing only of them). When the poet's persona communes with the gods in the Carpathians, he finds not Zeus on the throne, but Dazhboh, the pre-Christian Slavic idol ('Na Borzhavi' [On the Borzhava River], T, 273). Like the Russophile poets of the second half of the nineteenth century, he reclaims the geography of his land by including local topographical details and the names of individual mountains, rivers, and villages ('Polonyns'kyi pastukh' [Shepherd of the High Plains], T, 288). He has not forgotten the problems of colonialism, but expresses them more artistically and with less direct antagonism. For example, in a poem that features tyrants, the yoke of captivity, and the flowing of innocent blood, the persona is identified in the title as an Irish woman. The only specifically Irish detail in the poem is a reference to clearing snakes from the homeland, but since the mid-nineteenth century, Subcarpathian poets had drawn explicit parallels between Ireland and Subcarpathia (see chapter 4). The individualized perspective of the feminine persona brings freshness to otherwise timeworn

Re-imagining Rusyn Identity 383 laments and also generalizes the problems of Subcarpathia, raising them from the local to the universal level. In the 1930s Grendzha-Dons'kyi turned to history for his poetic inspiration and his political message, and from lyricism to the lyric-epic mode. His most popular verse epic is Chervona skala (Red Cliff), written in 1930.67 Here, as in his novella Petro Petrovych (see chapter 1), Grendzha-Dons'kyi resurrects the lost Rusyn past, with the goal of legitimizing history and drawing from it a lesson for the present. Chervona skala is based on a folk tale about the defence of the Khust castle led by Prince Bohdan during the Tatar raids of the thirteenth century. The poem tells an engaging story with lively descriptions of battle, colourful landscape, and entertaining, if simplistic, plot twists that rely on mistaken identity. Under Prince Bohdan's wise rule, the people of Verkhovyna (their land is otherwise referred to only as ridnii krai, 'our native land') enjoyed an idyllic existence. While the Verkhovyna men discuss military plans with the princes of Galicia, their allies (anachronistically called 'Ukrainian princes'), the women sing kolomyiky. Soon, however, the Tatars attack, vanquish Bohdan's forces, and eventually take Bohdan's wife and son captive. Bohdan's son Ivan is raised as a Tatar. He learns his real identity only as an adult, when his mother recognizes him and 'swears by the Ukrainian God' that he is actually Prince Ivan, son of Prince Bohdan. She persuades him to escape and return to his father in Khust. As Ivan reaches the walls of the castle, he is perceived to be a Tatar by Prince Bohdan, who realizes only after he has killed him that the Tatar was his son. Out of despair he then kills himself, and his blood stains the castle cliff, from which it takes its name. Grendzha-Dons'kyi uses elements of history freely, borrowing historical data and infusing it with folk legends. As a result, he creates a myth that vindicates the history of his people, explains how they, who were once autonomous, became a subject people, and comforts his audience with tales of past glory. As in Kralyts'kyi's story 'Prince Laborets',' told from the Russophile point of view (see chapter 1), the brutality of the Tatars is contrasted with the mercy and justice of the Rusyns. But Grendzha-Dons'kyi's primary political message comes only in the epilogue, which is a contemporary appendix to the legend. Bohdan's funeral becomes a convocation of Slav leaders from Uzhhorod, Makovytsia, Verkhovyna, Galicia, Moldavia, and the Czech lands, representing 'the genius of the people' (posyM naposy). When another threat, this time from the Magyars, becomes imminent, they consult about choosing a successor to Bohdan.

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Whom to choose? That is discussed. / The emissaries cry out a well-known name, / They gave their consent to the prince from L'viv: 'It is necessary to unite all ethnic regions of the land.' (278)

Lev accepts the authority but asks for a local administrator, since he needs to return to L'viv to repel the threat from Poland. The assembly chooses Hryhorii, a local leader, who began to rule the land from Mukachevo. However, in the absence of Lev, the land south of the Carpathians is left defenceless, and the Magyars soon attack and occupy it. The significant political point is stated almost between stanzas - for a brief but shining moment, the land is united under Galician rule. Grendzha-Dons'kyi adds a note to emphasize his message: Thus, at that time, our land belonged to the Galician-Vladimir kingdom' (595). The message, tacked on as it is to an entertaining tale, is not convincing, since the idea of union with Galicia does not inform the story itself. Nonetheless, the poem became favourite reading for the youth of Subcarpathia and could not fail to have an effect, fulfilling the author's overall intention of placing historical myth in the service of present politics. For his collaboration with the Ukrainian nationalists, Grendzha-Dons'kyi was arrested during the Hungarian occupation and sent to a concentration camp. After a brief internment he was released, and he emigrated to Bratislava in 1939. In 1945 he joined the Czechoslovak Communist party and took an active part in organizing the literary life of Ukrainians in post-war Slovakia. Like so many writers, his subsequent reputation depended on the current party policy in Eastern Europe and Ukraine. Promoting ukrainianization in predominantly Russophile Slovakia, he was ignored, boycotted, and refused publication. Accused of bourgeois nationalism and other sins, he was prohibited from publishing for twenty years, and his work began appearing again in periodicals and anthologies only in 1960, when a kind of rehabilitation began. In 1963 he was elected a member of the Ukrainian section of the Union of Slovak Writers, and subsequently critics and literary historians downplayed his political 'mistakes' and stressed his accommodations to the contemporary political situation, lurii Baleha's history of Subcarpathian literature of the twenties and thirties published in Kiev in 1962 characterizes Grendzha-Dons'kyi in a trite euphemism as 'one of the most productive, but at the same time most contradictory poets of Transcarpathia' (Literatura Zakarpattia, 116). The author accuses him of interpreting the troubled condition of Subcarpathia 'not as social injustice but only as national oppression,' criticizes his calls to battle as 'rather abstract,'

Re-imagining Rusyn Identity 385 and dismisses his poetry of the 1930s as 'pervaded by the ideas (ideku) of Ukrainian bourgeois nationalism' (118, 122). After the 1930s, GrendzhaDons'kyi's work was not published again in book form until 1964, when a collection of verse under the title Shliakhom ternovym was issued in Presov. The Soviet-oriented editor Mykhailo Mol'nar evaluates the poet's work from the period ofNasha zemlia and Ternovi kvitypolonyn as belonging to 'the most beautiful efforts of Transcarpathian Ukrainian literature, resonating with the work of Czech and Slovak proletarian writers.' Mol'nar praises it for its 'conscious rebellion,' its 'expressive social motifs,' and 'its lack of romanticism' ('Dolia spivtsia polonyn,' 34). Oleksa Myshanych confers the Soviet critic's highest praise on Grendzha-Dons'kyi, writing that the poetry of this period raises him to the level of proletarian poets. 'V. Grendzha-Dons'kyi created a poetic image of Verkhovyna that not only suffers, but also struggles. This is his greatest contribution' ('Literatura Zakarpattia doradians'koho periodu,' introduction to Na Verkhnovyni, 22, 23). As was frequently the case with Subcarpathian authors, individual writers were exploited by posterity and used to sponsor a particular political position. The editors of the 1965 anthology Poety Zakarpattia included only those poems by Grendzha-Dons'kyi that were published in the 'communist or progressive press' of Transcarpathia. Thus, Grendzha-Dons'kyi survived Soviet literary scholarship as a writer of Transcarpathian Ukraine, but any connection to his role in Subcarpathian Rusyn literature went unmentioned. Commonalities and Differences The inter-war culture of Subcarpathian Rus' bore many similarities to that of Dukhnovych's times, since both were periods of national rebirth. In that respect, Frantz Fanon's schema of the development of national culture, which was cited here in reference to the literary activities of 1848 (see chapter 3), can also highlight the paradigmatic features of the literature that emerged in the Czechoslovak period. Native intellectuals followed a track similar to Fanon's theoretical pattern of unqualified assimilation, borrowed aestheticism, and creative reworkings of history, leading eventually to a literature of resistance. The step toward a revolutionary literature was taken by the Ukrainophiles, and their work demonstrates Fanon's thesis that under conditions of a political struggle against colonialism, the significance of tradition changes. His observation that 'all that has made up the technique of passive resistance in the past may, during this phase, be radically condemned' (Wretched of the Earth, 224) accounts for the hostility of Ukrainophile writers toward Russophile traditionalists. During the struggle for national freedom, according to Fanon, tensions

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produced by international events and the collapse of colonial empires result in 'relative overproduction' of writing that, at first, 'chooses to confine itself to the tragic and poetic style' and later turns to 'words of command' (239). In Subcarpathian Rus', these theoretically consecutive phases occurred simultaneously, as Russophiles developed the art of florid lament and Ukrainophiles issued rallying cries to revolution. True to Fanon's projection, the inter-war period saw an 'overproduction' of literature, as novice writers of both orientations gained access to publication. The positions taken by Karabelesh and Grendzha-Dons'kyi represented two ends of the national-literary spectrum. The trajectories they followed, passing through imitation, nationalism, and conformity to the cultural norms of a dominant group, were repeated by many of their contemporaries. Since the 1930s, literary historians have worked within a contrastive paradigm based on language, comparing Ukrainophiles with Russophiles. Subsequently, the enforced ideology accentuated the differences between the two positions and they were evaluated along political lines. Only a few contemporaries and fewer subsequent Marxist critics could step outside the linguistic and ideological framework to entertain the idea that, in fact, the seemingly opposed writers formed a single, complex Subcarpathian literature.68 As it had throughout its history, Rusyn literature between the wars existed as a hybrid mix of languages, styles, and ideologies. In the twentieth century, from the diverse Subcarpathian discourses, politicized terminology constructed separate literatures, ignoring origins and common features. Since the social and historical realities of their land affected writers of all orientations, the most obvious commonality was the thematic concern with the Rusyn nation. However, this pervasive national theme was realized in terms of different aesthetics and disparate discourses. A brief overview of the most notable writers of the time illustrates the various artistic treatments of national identity and character in Subcarpathian Rusyn literature of the early twentieth century. In the 1920s and 1930s, writers in Subcarpathian Rus1 grouped themselves according to their choice of literary language and national orientation, publishing their poetry and stories together in anthologies. The works of Ukrainianoriented writers from Subcarpathian Rus' appeared in two anthologies, one published by the Pros vita Society, Trembita (1926), the other compiled by Andrii Voron and M. Khapko, Al'manakh pidkarpats'kykh ukrains'kykh pys'mennykiv (APUP, 1936). In 1934, Evgenii Nedziel'skii united almost all the Russianlanguage writers around the journal Russkii narodnyi golos (The Russian Popular Voice, Uzhhorod, 1934-8), and its publishing house 'Sodruzhestvo.' Works by Russian-oriented writers also appeared in two volumes prepared by the Society of Carpatho-Russian Students in Prague, Al'manakh vozrozhdentsev (1933,

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1936). The almanacs of the Ukrainian orientation highlighted creative literature exclusively, presenting the early work of Grendzha-Dons'kyi alongside beginning poets and prose writers. The almanacs of the Russophile Vozrozhdenie Society were broader in scope. In fact, the 1936 edition contained little original literature and instead highlighted articles on art, economics, local history, women in Subcarpathia, and the position of Carpatho-Rusyns in Yugoslavia and America. In artistic as in expository prose, the political positions of the organizations stood out clearly. Russophile stories depicted the depredations of Bolshevik rule in Russia and the failure of political agitation in Subcarpathian villages, while writers of the Ukrainian orientation described the abuses of capitalism in Czechoslovakia. If there was a point of political agreement, it was on the common Rusyn resentment of the Magyars, who had dominated for a millennium and were threatening, with the incipient war, to reimpose control. In a historical story, Mykola Vaida depicts the awakening of a Ukrainian consciousness in the Rusyns, 'who knew only that they were not Magyars' ('Ukrains'ka krov,' APUP, 159). Russophile Alesha Makovichanin (pseudonym of Aleksei Farynych) recalls the battles of the world war that raged in the Carpathians, where the Magyar forces 'shoot the Rusyns like dogs' ('Razstriel,' Al'manakh vozrozhdentsev, 1933:42). Besides anthologies, collections of stories and poems by individual writers were published, satisfying the expectations of the time for passionate indignation and melancholic lament. Traditionalist Russophile writers renewed the Slavophile themes of the nineteenth century. Lev Tyblevich, a Galician Russophile who came to Subcarpathian Rus' in 1911, described it after the war as the last remaining refuge for the Russian people, a haven where they were protected by their 'Czech brothers' (Rifmy, 6). He praises the 'all-Russian spirit,' the children of Slava, the Russian tri-colour, Russian historical and cultural figures, and the letter t. In a story that hearkens back to traditional images of the allegorical Subcarpathian orphan, Dmitrii Vergun sees the Carpathian region as a place where authenticity is preserved and where 'the name "Holy Rus" has not yet died out.' He exalts an 'authentic Rus',' which is portrayed as 'beaten, humbly wise, long-suffering' ('Mitriun bezrodnyi,' Al'manakh vozrozhdentsev, 1933: 5-12), Similarly, Pavel Fedor, a village teacher who became an official in the Czech school administration, published a collection of traditionalist Russophile verse and authored a survey of Rusyn literature from the Russophile perspective (Ocherki karpatorusskoi literatury). These older, committed Russophiles continued the promotion of an essentialist Russian identity for Rusyns through the literary use of the Russian language, an appeal to the Russophile version of history, and symbolic associations with Russian culture. In the careers of other writers, the notion of identity as a social construct is

388 Straddling Borders foregrounded, as their orientations underwent modification according to the changing configurations of political and social life. Andrii Patrus-Karpats'kyi began publishing in 1934. His first book, Plet'iu po soviesti (A Whip to the Conscience, hereafter PS), appeared in 1937, and in the same year the poet joined the Communist party. Although he began writing in Russian, under the impact of later events he switched to Ukrainian. His Russian-language verse in Plet'iu po soviesti shows the influence of Russian poetry and the proletarian spirit. One of Patrus-Karpats'kyi's models was the Russian writer Maxim Gorky, and like Gorky, he often chose as his lyrical persona a tramp or a 'simple worker-poet.' The poet's political orientation entailed a certain degree of versified sloganeering and replaced traditional Rusyn national pathos with a sense of revolutionary solidarity. Tracing the history of repression in Subcarpathia, he welcomes the 'breaking of chains' that came with the fall of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, but he bemoans the 'new grief that replaced it 'protektsiia, krizis, korruptsiia, golocT ('Piesnia o dolie' [Song about Fate], PS, 9). He adroitly moves from the local to the global, evoking in a single poem the most potent symbols associated with Subcarpathia (Rus1, polonyna, trembita, kolomyika, khaty, zabytyi narod), and blending them with images of international labour and revolution. Putting primordial symbolism and nostalgic nationalism in the service of revolutionary resistance, he sees himself as supported by 'a class of a multimillion repressed workers from all countries' ('K sebie,' PS, 13) and shares the fate of millions of hungry workers ('Ad se ipsum,' PS, 29). Occasionally, in more self-reflective tones, the carefree tramp retreats from revolutionary fervour and questions his life path:

Six years I languished as a tramp, / Six years I wandered like a dog. / No one in the world was born / To bear such grief. ('Moia zhizn" [My Life], PS, 7)

In a style of heroic romanticism that recalls the Russian poet Nikolai Gumilev, Patrus-Karpats'kyi sees himself as 'forgotten, luckless, damned,' 'a tramp with a good heart' ('Brodiaga' [Tramp], PS, 31). While Marxist critics condemned such sentiments as ideologically suspect,69 this emotional tone conveys the Subcarpathian national spirit, which was never entirely submerged in the poet's revolutionary internationalism. It emerged again in the late 1930s, when PatrusKarpats'kyi became associated with the nationalist Voloshyn government and

Re-imagining Rusyn Identity 389 began writing in Ukrainian. Later, he fled to the Soviet Union, and when he returned to his homeland after the war, he became a member of the Soviet Union of Writers in Ukraine. Accommodating himself to the political situation, he recanted his former 'nationalist errors' and published several collections of Soviet poetry. In the 1930s, other Subcarpathian poets expressed profound ambivalence about the future of the Rusyn people in terms of their own personal experience. Vasilii Dobosh was concerned with the role of literature and the poet in Subcarpathian Rus', taking a sceptical view of the poet's ability to influence the development of resistance among the people. Instead he drew on the people's cumulative experience of suffering as a force for creating a true community, rather than a political movement. Dobosh's only collection of verse, Sviataia zloba (Holy Anger, hereafter SZ), is headed by an epigraph from the Russian civic poet N.A. Nekrasov, which asserts the continuing relevance of a classic theme, that is, the people's suffering.70 His poetic persona composes verse 'for the future children of Rus" ('Pamiatnik' [Memorial], 5), and wanders with his muse 'to bring happiness to the people.' However, he plainly feels the futility of his cause:

And my Rus' comes out to meet me, / Forgotten, poor, God-forsaken land, / And starving people whisper: / 'We are dying, help us, dear son!' / O Lord, who needs songs here? / Why should anyone compose verses? / The fields are black; an unknown fog lies / On the wildly growing burdock. ('Muza' [Muse], SZ, 7)

Dobosh's poet is the intellectual who finds himself situated between village and city, at the time when faith in the values of the new colonial culture begins to wane and love for native values reasserts itself. He depicts his arrival in the city and his indignant reaction to colonial education:

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1 came to the city - an old Russian city!. / Books threw me a joyful summons, / And here I learned boredom, hunger, cold, / And why my people are poor. // ... They gave me various admonitions / About how the distant west gives us the sun, / But I no longer trust false teachings, / Trusting in what is native, I go forward. ('Piesn' o zhizni' [Song about Life], SZ, 9)

Following his muse along the 'thorny' native path, he sings 'love for the poor,' but upon returning to his village, he finds his home to be nothing more than a grave (Tered rodnym domom' [At My Home], 19). Finally, his doubt and ambivalence about the future become explicit, as he asks, 'Why is it always forwardT

So why is it always forward? / Ahead there is only suffering, / There no one awaits me! / Can it be perhaps the blizzard's howl? ('Zachem vpered' [Why forward], SZ, 27)

Dobosh's poems do not call for revolution, but his evocation of the backwardness of Subcarpathian Rus' implies a respect for the traditional form of passive resistance that is inherent in the people's history. Although these lines appear in an intimate lyric about lost love, Marxist critics saw decadence and ideological error in the poet's inability to comprehend the 'radiant future' (Baleha, Literatura Zakarpattia, 33). Indeed, the use of the cliche 'forward' from political poetry suggests a universal meaning behind the personal sentiments, and in fact Dobosh did not move into the future as a poet. Upon the Hungarian takeover in 1939, he took refuge in the Soviet Union and apparently gave up poetry, becoming a teacher in a village school. Carpathian nature and geography continued to attract writers, who, like their

Re-imagining Rusyn Identity 391 late-nineteenth-century predecessors, were intent on claiming their rights to the land, now threatened by incursions of modernity under Czech colonialism. Poets described natural scenes in a sentimental tone and with a lexicon of dimunitives to demonstrate their emotional attachment to the land. Ukrainianlanguage writers especially tended to folk forms and language.

O soft breeze, waft and waft / In the silken grove, / And fly away, my stormy one, /To my dear native land. (Borshosh-Kum'iats'kyi, 'Teche voda popod verbnyk' [Water Flows under the Willow], Trembita, 33)

Authors cite geographical names to ground their work in Subcarpathian reality. For example, the popular names of Carpathian peaks figure in Dmitrii Vergun's story 'Mitriun bezrodnyi' to indicate the orphan's true patrimony. And writers of both orientations employ frequent dialectalisms as a means of situating their story in Rusyn life. In Russian-language texts, Russian terms are linked with Rusyn to add local feeling: BtffbMbi-6ocopKH, e^oHKH-cMepeKa. The native kolomyika form was popular with all poets, and in the Rusyn tradition, writers of both orientations lamented the sorrowful fate and current misery of Subcarpathia, which they describe routinely as a land of charm and sorrow, prayers and curses, beauty and poverty. Both the Ukrainophile and Russophile movements accepted the characterization of Rusyns offered by Czech novelist Ivan Olbracht in his 1933 novel Nikola Suhaj loupelnik (Nikolai Suhaj the Bandit), in which he immortalized Subcarpathian brigands. Olbracht wrote: 'In each drop of [Carpatho-Rusyn] blood lives a vague memory of past insults, a burning consciousness of present affronts, and in each of their nerves oozes a wild yearning for freedom' (quoted inAl'manakh vozrozhdentsev, 1933: 92). Olbracht's observation of the Rusyn people of the 1930s applies as well to the literature of the time. Although Russophiles and Ukrainophiles emphasized different elements of Olbracht's general description, taken as a whole, Subcarpathian literature is the articulation of that character. Colonial Consciousness lulii Borshosh-Kum'iats'kyi (1905-78) published his first book of poetry, Vesniani Kvity (Spring Flowers) in 1928. Like Grendzha-Dons'kyi, he initially wrote in

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dialect, but soon adapted to literary Ukrainian and became a fervent adherent of the Ukrainophile orientation. His folk-style verse and social themes, although not original in idea or accomplished in form, were well received. In the Ukrainophile romantic politics of the 1920s and early 1930s, perceived authenticity was more important than conventional literary criteria, and for these critics, authenticity meant the Ukrainian language and Ukrainian national consciousness. Although reviewers pointed out Borshosh-Kum'iats'kyi's faulty rhythms and incorrect rhymes, they welcomed his 'love for his native land and language' and his celebration of the beauties of local nature (Podkarpats'ka Rus', 5, 1928: 110). In his early work, the poet presents himself as a 'child of the green mountains,' for whom the polonyna (high plain) is both sister and school ('Hir zelenykh ia dytyna' [I am a child of the green mountains], NV, 387).71 Foregrounding a sense of local distinction, the poet identifies himself in regional terms, as a hutsul from Verkhovyna. Although his poetic inspiration is local, the poet's artistic realization of it is often borrowed. He looks to the Ukrainian literary tradition for models and follows them slavishly. Turning to social themes, he took revolutionary motifs from Shevchenko and Franko. He borrowed phrases and entire lines from Franko and Lesia Ukrai'nka, and the influence of Pavlo Tychyna is felt in form, imagery, and specific scenes.72 Such imitation indicates the persistence of a colonial mindset, which hindered the development of an original national literature. Revolutionary motifs of struggle and resistance, which theorists like Fanon consider crucial to the liberation of a colonized literature, may indeed have defended Subcarpathian Rusyns against Czech cultural colonialism. However, since themes of liberation were borrowed from Soviet culture, along with revolutionary cliches and exalted rhetoric, they led to a more stifling cultural reliance on Ukraine. Grafted unconvincingly onto Subcarpathian literature, they contribute little aesthetic substance that might, if it were authentic, lead to a literary liberation. For example, Borshosh-Kum'iats'kyi urges his readers:

Take into your hands the whetted scythe, / Go to battle against misery, / Let the blood flow to the sea ... / You are still lively, not leaden. ('Ty ne plach' [Do Not Cry], NV, 392.)

The echoes of Shevchenko here mark the poem as derivative of a borrowed tradition, rather than emergent from the life of the Rusyn people.

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In their resistance to Czech colonialism and Russophile tradition, poets like Grendzha-Dons'kyi and Borshosh-Kum'iats'kyi set the literature of Subcarpathia into the context of a Ukrainian cultural colonialism that would become more virulent as time went on. Subsequent Subcarpathian critics, who accepted the official literary dogma of Soviet Ukraine, would evaluate such imitations as the highest achievements of Subcarpathian poetry. However, it was inevitable that as the poet assimilated more completely to the reigning political norm, the aesthetic value of his poetry lessened. The colonized critic approvingly noted the assimilation and decried the aesthetic decline, without apparently seeing the correlation between the two developments. In the late 1930s, BorshoshKum'iats'kyi revised his political orientation and like Grendzha-Dons'kyi, he joined the Ukrainian nationalist government of Voloshyn. His poetry from this period, although written in standard literary Ukrainian, expresses genuine Subcarpathian concerns in a voice that begins to resonate with local anticolonial pathos. In 'Krarna dyv' (Land of Marvels, NV, 394), he highlights a land where 'people are given only half the right to their lives' and where 'history was trampled for bloody centuries.' In 'Lis rubaiut" (Felling Trees, NV, 401), he expresses economic and ecological concern for native forests, which were being felled by 'the hands of foreigners.' More effectively than borrowed rhetoric, elements from Rusyn reality capture the indigene's sense of humiliation and resentment at the incursion of foreigners.

Herding sheep. Suddenly from a horn / A bus whistle scatters the herd. / The moment is caught by the camera / Of an amused, red-browed tourist. // The Tisza brings turbid waves, / The shepherd chases his sheep across the path, / Hutsuls from the mountains wonder sadly /At their alien but native land. ('V Rakhovi' [In Rakove], NV, 400)

From his position as a local representative of Socialist Realism, lurii Baleha dismisses much of Borshosh-Kum'iats'kyi's poetry from this period as bourgeois nationalism and condescendingly assesses the poet's political judgment:

394 Straddling Borders 'Borshosh-Kum'iats'kyi could not stand aside from the struggle that was growing in Subcarpathia in the second half of the 1930s. Of course, the poet could not comprehend the complex political conditions. He vacillated between the progressive and reactionary camps and committed bourgeois-nationalist errors' (Literatura Zakarpattiai, 54). One feature common to Subcarpathian writers of pre-Soviet times, Russophiles as well as Ukrainophiles, was that their consciousness of colonialism always predominated over consciousness of class. This would frustrate representatives of official literature and become a bete noire for local politically correct literary historians. For example, Baleha criticizes GrendzhaDons'kyi for thinking that 'if the Czech aristocrats were replaced by "his own," class peace would prevail and the welfare of the people would increase' (Literatura Zakarpattia, 124). Such 'reactionary' attitudes in Rusyn writers were attributed to their so-called 'limited world-view' and their 'enthusiastic, rather than programmatic' socialist consciousness (Haiti, quoted in Baleha, Literatura Zakarpattia, 125). This kind of reductionist Marxist thinking is countered in today's theorizing by emphasizing culture as the main site where subordinate groups carry on the struggle for preservation and self-definition. Postmodernism has taken issue with the Marxist 'grand narrative' of liberation, and the fall of the Soviet Union and re-emergence of nationalism among suppressed groups in Eastern Europe demonstrated its failure. In the reinterpretation that has followed, cultural manifestations have been reassessed and the moving forces behind them have been re-examined. Clearly, Rusyn culture in Subcarpathia was overwhelmingly concerned with national identity and its manipulation by external forces, and this led the writers to focus on colonialism, whether implicitly or explicitly. Thus, one can better assess the development of Subcarpathian literature from a national or postcolonial perspective, rather than in terms of class, which was less relevant to the Rusyn experience. Like the Ukrainophile Borshosh-Kum'iats'kyi, the Russian-language writer Mykhai'l Popovych (1908-56) stressed the image of Subcarpathian Rusyns as a colonized people. Popovych's first poetry appeared in 1928, when he was a student at Charles University in Prague. It expressed Slavophile ideals and national patriotism, overlaid with metaphysical concerns and traces of decadence, which were then in poetic fashion. He shows his traditionalist Russophile colours, but adapts them to the modern age. One poem written in free verse and approximating a modernist style is devoted to the nineteenth-century Russophile activist Adol'f Dobrians'kyi, whom Popovych calls 'our leader, Russian father, and bold fighter' for the people, freedom, and the 'old Slavic' faith (Dobrianskii, 2). By education, Popovych was a lawyer. Working in the judicial system in the 1930s, he turned to social themes in his poetry, repeating the lachrymose and

Re-imagining Rusyn Identity 395 melodramatic descriptions of the poverty of Subcarpathia that were canonical in Rusyn verse. Social and class inequities are foregrounded in a few of his poems, such as 'Perchatki' (Gloves), in which the poet exposes the suffering of the subaltern seamstress that is behind the aristocratic custom of kissing a lady's hand.

And ladies in posh salons / Will put the gloves on their hands - / Eh, bow, bourgeois, / Eh, bow and make obeisance / And kiss the tears and torments / That are sewn into the gloves! (Dumy o Verkhovine [DV], 112)

In general, Popovych expresses a more restrained sentimentality than Karabelesh or Grendzha-Dons'kyi and his poems are refreshingly laced with irony. His prose sketches from the 1930s are more explicitly anticolonial in character. In expanded anecdotes, he captures the situational incongruities of everyday life and the psychology of the Rusyn people. He uses a prose style that straddles the border between traditional written literature and oral narrative art, allowing him free rein in the use of language. Refusing to abide by the prescriptive norms being bandied about in the linguistic polemics that were going on around him, Popovych uses Russian as his base language, but also takes advantage of the linguistic kaleidoscope of Subcarpathian Rus' to create a hybrid form that more accurately expresses Rusyn reality. In the sketch 'Bez zaglaviia' (Without a Title, DV, 26), Popovych's narrator utilizes the linguistic issue as an artistic and comedic device. He depicts Mykola Kriuk and Petro Kvak, two inhabitants of Verkhovyna, as they journey to Prague 'for a passport, or whatever it's called' to visit Rusyn emigrants in Canada. The narrator foregrounds the language issue in his ironic introductory statement about international contacts: 'They come to us from Canada, and we go to them. They say it's called tourism. I don't know, I don't like foreign words.' However, before the Rusyns can reach Prague on the train they manage to lose their tickets, and a comical confrontation ensues in a mixture of Czech and Rusyn dialect (in this adapted version, it is referred to as Ukrainian) between the Rusyn Hutsuls and the Czech conductor. The narrator comments: 'Although the Czech and Ukrainian languages, as the philologists say, arose

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from the same root, still the conductor could not plainly understand Kvak, nor Kvak the conductor. Even in spite of brotherly bonds and in general, so to speak, the pan-Slav element ... They could not find, as they say, a common language' (28). In 'Shatna' (DV, 36), the narrator begins the story with a linguistic gag and a strong dose of irony: In Russian, shatna is garde rob [cloak room]. Although even the word garde rob is not of Russian origin, the more so since it sounds unmistakably foreign. But it smacks, as they say, of the broad Russian soul. Perhaps for that very reason it entered the Russian language. Of course, one cannot have any objections either against shatna or garderob. Personally, on this point, it's all the same to me. I was born in Verkhovina, and in Verkhovina, in general, so to speak, there is no such word. That is, to tell the truth, we have neither garderob nor shatna. And that, of course, is understandable: what do Rusyns need a shatna for? Especially since they have but one suit. They even sleep in it. Maybe the village elder might have a couple of old suits. But the rest of the people live according to the principle of Christ: they do not gather up riches, so the moth will not destroy them.

Popovych combines colloquial Russian with Rusyn dialectalisms and interjects conversational Czech, for which he provides glosses in footnotes. Mixing elements of bureaucratic language with undigested propaganda slogans, pretentious phrases with bits of slang, the personalized narrator satirizes the Czech judicial system, the economy, the state of education, and the unrealized Subcarpathian autonomy. The colonial situation and topical issues are the basis and source of the humour that pervades these stories. The narrator addresses his audience, 'Dear autochthons' (33), and gives a sardonic inflection to the popular appellation of the colonial centre, 'Golden Prague' (36). The narrator allows one 'Ukrainian ra-ra!-socialist' to explain the reason for toothache in Subcarpathia - teeth must be exercised three times a day, while Rusyns in Verkhovyna eat only once, and then only cabbage and water (40). The author metaphorically suggests concerns with colonial censorship as a frightened character's face turns 'as pale as, let's say, a confiscated article in a newspaper' (27). Popovych also pokes gentle fun at his Rusyn characters, depicting them as completely at sea in the bustle of the colonial capital. Two Rusyns visiting an agricultural exhibition in Prague marvel at the number of gentlemen in the city and the lack of wells in the streets. Eventually they find a Russian-speaking waiter in a German restaurant, but refuse his request to leave their sheepskin coats in the cloakroom. The narrator comments: They did not trust the gentleman. Such is our custom. Perhaps the tax collectors have instilled fear in the

Re-imagining Rusyn Identity 397 people. It's difficult to make out what the problem is and why there is such distrust toward cloakrooms ... Even reciprocal Slav emotions, so to speak, did not help to disperse the Hutsuls' distrust and fear' (38). The Rusyns leave 'with hurt in their souls and thirst in their mouths,' murmuring, 'Oh, it's hard with the gentlemen.' The narrator concludes, 'We have no such misunderstandings with our tavern keepers in Verkhovyna. They don't demand our sheepskins and don't lead us to the cloakroom. They even, so to speak, serve beer on trust.' The final jibe signals the difference between the narrator's voice, which shares the Rusyns' naivety, and the author's voice, which disdains the economic exploitation of Rusyns by government authorities and Jewish tavern-keepers. The distance between these two voices provides a space from which to defend and criticize at the same time, and artistically it negotiates the passage between colonial submission and anticolonial pathos. The story 'Strategicheskii povod' (Strategic Measures, 42) illustrates the Rusyns' complex blend of naivety and craftiness. The protagonist's careful navigation of the colonial quandary also serves as a metaphor for Popovych's subversive literary and linguistic tactics. The story's Rusyn narrator is sceptical about the warnings of war that come from the village's Czech intelligentsia. 'Of course I have my own opinion about this air defence. But the notary doesn't consider my opinion. Well, I think, so it goes with intellectuals these days; no one believes us old-timers. Even if we have smelled gunpowder, so to speak, and picked up some intelligence in the very, so to speak, battle.' On the night of the air defence exercise, he obediently refrains from lighting the lamps in his house, but according to local custom, in the mountains he lights a fire to protect his crops from wild boars. For this, he is fined and summoned to appear before the court, where he comes up with an interesting defence that, in his view, mimics the structure of thought of the colonial authorities. In the case of an actual air attack, he offers, he would have lured the enemy aircraft away from the town to the forest. The commissar refuses to hear him out ('Perhaps he doesn't understand Rusyn,' the narrator explains disingenuously), and he is sentenced to a fine and jail time. Insisting on his innocence and the value of his 'strategic tactic,' and relying on the corruptibility of the court, the Rusyn files an appeal. A year later he is still waiting for a hearing, but he is not concerned. 'I'll live another year and wait. After all, our ancestors waited a thousand years for freedom. And nothing happened. Thank God, no one grew old from impatience. And no one turned grey from patience. In a word, we'll live and wait' (44). Again, in Popovych's conclusion, implicit judgment of his fellow Rusyns is mingled with grudging respect. In this sketch and others, Popovych captures the Rusyn experience amid a world of colonial illusions. As a writer, he emerges from the prevalent colonial-

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ism and its opposite face, anticolonialism, into the postcolonial mode. Acting according to his people's customs and traditions, which provide the only firm ground in his world, the Rusyn adapts to the colonial administration by responding to the illusory air raid with an illusory strategy of his own, as he pretends to lure away from the village the non-existent airplanes. The author's double perspective in these satirical sketches evokes the dilemma faced by the Rusyn people - the necessity of accommodating to colonial rule and the persistence of tradition and custom. Through humour, irony, and his play with narrative voice, he hints that the people's backwardness is, in its own way, a form of resistance. Similarly, Popovych's mix of languages transcends the theoretical positions set forth by opposing Russophile and Ukrainophile camps. However, his creative use of language was only partly appreciated. The Russophile camp, from which he emerged, minimized its originality in order to make it fit a theoretical Russian model. The recent verses of Popovich abound in Carpatho-Rusyn dialectical words and forms, but this represents a complex Russian style and an aesthetic requirement. In Popovich we already have a school of Russian verse and speech, and only after having achieved this, he tries to create an original stylistic nuance, which can convey the local coloration of everyday life. This is not the path to the formation of some kind of special literary language, but a worthy effort to introduce Carpathian exotica, which has been so richly preserved in its native land, into Russian literature. (Fedor, Ocherki, 75)

The colonial outlook of this critical stance, which sees Carpathian reality as an 'exotic' contribution to Russian literature, prevented the autonomous development of a Subcarpathian style among the Russophiles. Rather than focus on the interlocutionary situation from which Rusyn literature emerged, Russophile critics postulated intrinsic characteristics that linked it to Russia. Dismissing the hybridity that was natural to Subcarpathian Rus' and might have been a source of originality, Russophiles, like Ukrainophiles, promoted mutually exclusive essentialisms, ideas of unitary identity, and an imposed purism that resulted in the cul-de-sac of mimicry. Ethnographic Realism Critical attitudes could be elaborated more fully in artistic prose, where Subcarpathian writers favoured ethnographic realism. Nedziel'skii noted that whereas young poets had some memory of traditional Rusyn poetry, Rusyn prose of the nineteenth century, scattered in almanacs and inaccessible jour-

Re-imagining Rusyn Identity 399 nals, could not provide a model to young prose writers. Therefore they looked to Russian and Ukrainian literature for direction, but the most important influence was native oral art, which provided them with style, theme, and language. Many authors had begun publishing around the turn of the century in the Rusynophile newspapers Nauka and Nedilia, which used Rusyn dialect and favoured themes that arose from among the people. Therefore, the first stories by writers such as Luka Dem'ian and Aleksander Markush grew out of folk anecdotes and superstitions. Later, writers expanded the scope of fiction to explore the social problems and inequalities that prevailed in village life. However, while the surface social and political issues attracted popular attention, the real interest of the story often reaches below the surface to issues of psychology, tradition, and a history of colonial domination. The first prose writer to use dialect in his works was Luka Dem'ian (18941968), a peasant and railroad worker who had only an elementary school education. His contributions of folklore to Nauka and Nedilia began appearing in 1911, attracting the attention of Volodymyr Hnatiuk, who encouraged him and gave methodological advice on collecting folklore. Dem'ian's first stories are situated on the border between folk tale and literary art. 'Chort na vesiliu' (The Devil at a Wedding, 1920) and 'Vid'ma' (Witch, 1924) were based on folk superstitions. Written in popular dialect, 'Chort na vesiliu' tells the story of the love of a young couple and describes their betrothal and wedding with authentic ethnographic detail. During the wedding party, a storm blows up, bringing the devil, who, envious of human happiness, causes the death of the bride. As the critic Birchak noted, in such stories Dem'ian combines the didactic sentimentalism of the Ukrainian writer Kvitka-Osnovianenko and the romanticism of the Russian Gogol with Rusyn folk beliefs ('Literaturna tvorchist' Zakarpattia v rokakh 1919-29,' 93). In later editions, the devil was omitted and the story was given more realistic motivation to bring it closer in line with Socialist Realism. Such adaptations did not contribute to the aesthetic integrity of the story as artistic prose, but only distorted the inherent integrity of the folk tale. In 1924 Dem'ian published his second fantasy, 'Vid'ma' (Witch), in which Mykola, a poor peasant, marries a rich young woman who proves to have evil supernatural powers. However, Mykola manages to turn her magic against her, transforming her into a horse and shoeing her hooves in metal. She returns to human state, but within a few days she dies, and Mykola follows her into death shortly thereafter. Characterized by unbridled fantasy, the story's identification of wealth with evil reflects the peasant mentality, but there is less realistic attention to the details of Rusyn life than in his first story. Nonetheless, to the reader, and indeed to the author, the story represented truth. Birchak relates the author's response to the critic's characterization of his story: 'How is it fantas-

400 Straddling Borders tic? Everything described here is the truth. My grandfather saw the woman with horseshoes.' Neighbours agreed, 'It's true! We know. And who would write lies and put them in a book?!' ('Literaturna tvorchist1 Zakarpattia,' 94). Indeed, although he had some familiarity with Ukrainian and Russian writers, Dem'ian's early stories involve less artistic creativity than reporting and recording the art of the people. In 1936, the Russophile critic Nedziel'skii summed up his contribution: 'His stories, written in dialect and broadly utilizing popular beliefs and superstitions, are succinctly and vividly executed. Although Dem'ian has contributed only a few small pieces, the path he forged was the right one, and it is being followed by numerous writers' ('Literatura i izdatel'skaia dieiatel'nosf, 133). Ukrainophile Birchak hopefully predicted a turn toward realism: 'Lukach Demian is a peasant, and a peasant is not interested in depicting his own life realistically in literature. Conversing with him on this topic, I came away with the impression that he did not want to depict life realistically. Thus, perhaps he will remain with witches, devils, and a general romantic depiction of peasant life. Such is the author's level of sophistication at this time and in these surroundings' ('Literaturna tvorchist' Zakarpattia,' 95). In the 1930s, Dem'ian turned to critical realism, but continued to manipulate skilfully the popular themes and devices of folk tales. In his later work, he adapted to the linguistic and stylistic demands of Ukrainian literature Aleksander Markush (1891-1971) worked in Subcarpathia as an elementary school teacher and school inspector for thirty-five years. The author of several readers and textbooks, he was the founding editor of the children's journal Nash rodnyi kral (1923-39). Many of his stories focus on the psychology of children. In contrast to Dem'ian and the many poets who focused on the poverty of Subcarpathian peasants, Markush depicts middle-level peasants, whose relative prosperity allows him to explore their psychology. In his artistic prose, which began to appear in almanacs and journals in 1925, he used humour and satire to focus on topical concerns. One of his most popular stories ('Vymirialy zemliu' [They Apportioned the Land], NV, 369) deals with land reform, a promise perennially made and broken by the Czech administration and various Subcarpathian political parties. However, unlike Grendzha-Dons'kyi in his story on the same theme, Markush is less intent on making a political point than in exploring the Rusyn peasants' psychology, which remains constant despite social change. As the story begins, the peasants recall centuries of oppression under alien landlords and approach the division of land among the peasants with a mixture of hope and distrust. Predicting that 'landlords will be landlords. They won't give away the land,' they nonetheless set aside money for the possible fulfilment of their dreams. When the long-awaited day comes

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and a commission begins to parcel out the land to individual peasants, lura, the most cynical among them, foresees some sort of swindle on the part of the gentlemen and prods the people to demand an apportionment by lot, rather than by assignment of the commission. According to the people's demand, the land is apportioned by lot. For a long time afterwards, the people take pleasure in reminding one another how they outwitted the commission and foiled what must have been an inequitable scheme, until the same 'always calculating lura' laughs at their naivety. The gentleman must have swindled them, he argues: 'Somehow or other they fooled us, but we didn't understand it. After all, it's an old rule that gentlemen never do anything without swindling.' Thus, the peasants are persuaded to hold on to their instinctive distrust, even in the face of positive change. The indefinite ending of this story allowed critics to interpret it and categorize the author according to their own predisposition. Birchak would have preferred a happier ending, which, he suggests, might describe the peasants' joy and tell of their work on the land they had so long awaited. Instead, he says, The author strays from the main motif and depicts the peasants as foolish and funny, like Stets'ko and Hryts'ko of the old Ukrainian comedies' ('Literaturna tvorchist' Zakarpattia,' 95). Birchak accuses Markush of not respecting the peasant as a person. 'Reading Markush's stories, one has the impression that a gentleman is standing aside, observing the life of the peasant, and choosing from it only that which is stupid and funny' (95). In fact, Markush's stories reveal much about the peasants besides their naivety. The dialogue and narrative tone suggest deeper levels of reality that are only superficially apparent in the plot line. Opposing anything less than glittering optimism in literature, Birchak refuses to look beneath the surface level of Markush's stories. Similarly, the Soviet critic Baleha takes Markush's story at face value. His political ideology moves him to accept the peasants' suspicion that there had to be some swindling involved, even if there is no indication of factual irregularity in the story itself. Baleha, therefore, sees Markush's ending as a retreat from realism. In this case, as elsewhere, the colonial and ideological attitudes of critics serve to reduce the contradictions and complexities of Markush's story, rendering it politically correct, but artistically vapid. Markush contributed numerous stories that present a similarly ambivalent depiction of the Rusyn peasant, a state that, the author implied, arose from the contradictory conditions of his life. In 'Panski durnytsi' (Aristocratic Silliness), the visit of a city artist to the village is described from the point of view of the peasant lura, who appears to be the same suspicious character of 'Vymirialy zemliu.' 73 lura is the indigenous inhabitant of a backward but colourful land that has been newly discovered by Prague aristocrats and academicians. As he

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sits before his house, he recalls with incomprehension the interest evidenced by these panchuky: OAHH criHcye Ha noAaxy, flpyrift B napxiio, Tperiw Ka3Ky xone nym a eme Bor 3Hae, s HKHMHflypHHUHMHHe npHHAyTb H rpe6a BCC posyMHoro no^oetKa npn XH»C&, a6w anas OTnostAaTH Ha SBtAana H npeAyBeAbnieM o6oponHTHCfl npoxHB CHX

flypHHU,b.

One wants to sign you up for taxes, another for the party, a third wants to hear a folk tale. God knows what silliness they won't come up with, and any sensible man in the house must know how to respond to an inquiry and protect himself pre-emptively from such silliness.

As seen from the naive perspective of the peasant, the gentleman sets up a stick that grows three legs (an easel) and sets upon it a board 'like the one on which an old woman rolls out dough' (a canvas). When lura finally approaches and asks to see what the gentleman is doing, he is shown a painting of the house. After his initial expression of wonder, lura draws back in dismay. He does not comprehend the painter's explanation that his house is beautiful, and his suspicions of the gentleman's evil intent increase. lura offers to take him to a 'more beautiful' house, which was recently built by a returning American emigrant, but the artist responds: 'To HC Kpacna! TaKHx XH>K HaH^y H THCHH! AJIC CHKy, HK Baiiia! HTO aa Kpacoxa, HC poayNrkere BBI TO #k,n,y?' (That's not beautiful. I can find thousands like it. But one like yours! Don't you understand what a beauty it is, grandfather?) The peasant is torn between doubts about the gentleman's intentions and pride at his attention to the decrepit family homestead. As he expresses his fears, he is aghast to learn that the artist can make a living by painting village scenes, but his doubts are vanquished and he agrees to pose for the artist alongside his house. All ends well. Only when his wife hears the story of the painter and warns him to expect a bill for the painting, does lura begin to worry. 'You really don't know, you can't trust the gentlemen. Who knows with what kind of silliness they deceive a poor man.' The clash of cultures and the simplicity of colonized peoples is a typical theme of colonial literatures. Markush sympathizes with his peasant characters, whose simplicity is presented not as an inherent characteristic of their nature, but as a result of centuries of submission to dominant alien cultures. The accumulated mistrust of generations causes Rusyns to cast a jaundiced eye on contemporary conditions, no matter how benign they may be in actuality. On one level Markush highlights the social inequality and economic repression of the time; on a deeper level he explores the psychological damage caused by colonialism, which is

Re-imagining Rusyn Identity 403 apparent in lura's indignation at being treated as an ethnographic artefact. The Russophile critic Evgenii Nedziel'skii called Aleksander Markush the most talented writer of the time, finding that although his themes derive from Ukrainian literature, 'in his language he retains many local words, laying the ground for the creation of a distinctive Carpatho-Russian style' ('Literatura i izdatel'skaia dieiatel'nost',' 133). Indeed, Markush's exposure of the soul and psychology of the Rusyn peasant depends largely on the dialectical language he uses in the narrative, as well as in direct speech. Stories such as 'Tsy voly, tsy kom' (Oxen or Horses) consist almost entirely of dialogue (Nedilia rusyna, 1, no. 21, 1923: 87-91). Mykhailo and his wife discuss the recent order that closed taverns on Sundays and the enforced temperance it will entail. Soon they argue about what to do with the money they will save by giving up drinking and smoking, and the argument degenerates into humourous insults about personal and domestic matters. By the end of the story, the peasants evade the issue of the closed tavern by appealing to 'an honest Jew,' and their argument loses its point as they smoke and drink away their projected savings. They commiserate with one another: 'Thank God there are still honest Jews, or you couldn't relax on Sunday ... O, it's hard, hard to live in the world. The aristocrats are bad, but thank God there are still honest Jews' (91). The author's ironic commentary in the story's conclusion points to the peasant's inability to comprehend his own exploitation. But the appeal of the story and its local spirit lie in the earthy conversational style. Unfortunately, the dialectical flavour of Markush's stories is lost in later revised editions, where local expressions are omitted, and language is significantly altered and adapted to standard Ukrainian.74 From the Russophile camp, the most popular prose contribution was the story by Georgii Verkhovynskii 'lurko Rusyn i ego vnuchka' (lurko Rusyn and His Granddaughter, 1928). Set in the 1920s, it depicts the return of a young Prague-educated Rusyn to his native Carpathians. Compared to the ironic and amusing anecdotes of the Ukrainophiles, Verkhovynskii's story is serious, sentimental, and contrived. In a heavy-handed manner, the author manipulates symbolic Russophile tropes and themes, with intermittent lyrical effusions inspired by nature, freedom, and patriotism. Like the writers of the second half of the nineteenth century, he evokes Dukhnovych and contemporary Russophile leaders and decries the faithless Rusyn intelligentsia. An inserted narrative tells the story of the bandit lurko Rusyn, a Rusyn patriot who protested social injustice and took to the hills to avenge his countrymen. The Prague student falls in love with a Rusyn girl who is revealed to be the granddaughter of lurko Rusyn. As he returns to the city, his romantic effusions are grounded in the traditional Slavophile hope for the preservation of Rus': 'I will look to the east with hope, and like the last wave of the great Russian sea, fated to beat

404 Straddling Borders eternally against the rocky bank of the west, I believe that I will not dry out, since I am nurtured by maternal depths ... O Russian sea, you reflect the floating white clouds, the red dawn rising in the east, and the blue skies that ascend to other worlds and are lost in holy infinity!' (23). Verkhovynskii's prose reflects the literary tastes of an earlier time, dissolving into the maudlin sentimentality that recalls Dukhnovych's 'Milen and Liubytsia' from 1851. The language of the story is Russian, with occasional dialectalisms in the narration and admixtures of Czech and Hungarian in dialogue, many of which are glossed. A somewhat more dialectical language and similar themes were used in the dramatic literature of the Russophile orientation. These plays were based on village motifs, with predictable plots and melodramatic flourishes reminiscent of Dukhnovych's drama Virtue Is More Important than Riches from 1850. The most popular Russophile playwrights were Anton Bobul's'kyi (1877-195?), Sion Sil'vai (1876-1932), and Pavel Fedor (1884-1952).75 In the 1930s, writers from the Russian and Ukrainian orientations used both languages to treat social issues and peasant life in prose. In a Ukrainianlanguage story published in 1936, Mykhailo Tomchanii compares the unemployed with the blind, to the advantage of the latter ('Slipyi' [Blind One], APUP, 1936: 164-5). In Russian, Aleksei Farynych-Makovichanin presents realistic stories from Carpatho-Rusyn life, in which he portrays with naturalistic detail the poverty, stench, and vulgarity of the peasants. Admitting to the reader that 'it is bitter to see, bitter to hear,' he moderates his harsh description by finding hope even in the stench: 'Robust life smells of sweat, and wheat grows from fertilizer' ('V kraiu rabov' [In the Land of Slaves, Stal'naia roza, 5). Another Russian-language writer, Emilian Balets'kyi, describes city scenes, where neon lights and the sounds of jazz provide a background for starving tramps and poor village girls in search of work and a home. Many of his characters find peace only in the freedom of a wandering life.76 Fedor Ivanchov uses Russian with dialectical terms and phrases for narration, while he presents dialogue entirely in local dialect. Since his stories rely heavily on dialect, the resulting hybrid form has a strongly local cast.

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Polania runs to her friend Petrulia, meets her in the entrance way, and greets her: - Glory to Jesus Christ! Listen, dear friend, I have something to tell you, if it will remain between us ... - Ooh, listen, friend ... - kuma Petrulia answers proudly - so maybe you don't trust me anymore. Dear God and Holy Virgin, who would I tell! May God strike me down! Really, I've never been a tale-teller! Oi-ioi, by no means! ('Priletieli soroki,' Pod solomennoi striekhoi, 7)

By the late 1930s, the younger Russophile writers were sensitive of the need to bring the language of their literature closer to that of the people, but for political and ideological reasons they maintained their adherence to the Russian literary language. The result was an original, hybrid style. Niedziel'skii's review of Farynych could apply to many of the Russophile writers of the time: In dialect and in his lexicon, Farinich sees not only linguistic phenomena as such, but also the soul and specificity of the life and situation of his people. Dialect, when created by means of free creative work, is a living organism of the people's soul and psychology, and from artistic and spiritual perspectives, a simple translation of dialect into literary language is insufficient. Taking into account its creative possibilities, following the path of Gogol', Mel'nikov-Pecherskii, Remizov and other writers who have enriched the literary language with dialectical colour, Farinich in fact worked out a vivid and original Carpatho-Russian style. In indirect speech he extensively employs local words, and in direct speech he conveys entire tirades in dialect, at the same time striving not to sever ties with the long-established Russian literary language. ('Literatura i izdatel'skaia dieiatel'nost1,' 135)

A Russophile himself, Nedziel'skii accepted the use of local dialect in literature, which he saw as a normal development within the Russian literary tradition. Despite the extreme polemics, the linguistic purism that had been preached by the opposing camps had never been absolute in practice. By the late 1930s, strict linguistic distinctions began to break down, as some writers among the Russophiles began to accept a hybrid linguistic literary norm. Had circumstances allowed, the Russophile position might have continued to evolve, naturally creating a distinctive literary language. Moreover, whereas representatives of the Ukrainian orientation gradually adapted the local dialect to the Ukrainian standard, the Russophile compromise might have allowed the preservation of local Rusyn dialect. Nedziel'skii also approvingly noted writers from the people who used dialect in their stories, but were 'alien and even opposed to national separatism.' This political stance, which had always been

406 Straddling Borders implicit, now emerged as the explicit distinction among writers, regardless of their language choice. Nedziel'skii noted that 'all contemporary literarature is in a sense dialectical, unstable in terms of language, but united in terms of the details of daily life, and most importantly, in terms of practicality, vital in its essence' ('Sovremennaia karpatorusskaia literatura,' 203). Ultimately, the literary polemics were less relevant to the development of a Subcarpathian literary language than were the aesthetic demands of literature itself. The development of Subcarpathian literature during the years of the Czech republic was ultimately less successful than might be expected, given the relatively favourable conditions and the atmosphere of intellectual freedom. Writing in 1936, Nedziel'skii notes that during the first ten years of freedom, the publishing arms of the Pros vita and Dukhnovych Societies together issued 250 books and brochures, but fewer than a dozen of them aimed at creating a new aesthetic or announced the names of new literary artists. Most were directed at the question of defining a national identity, a form of 'first aid, a point of departure for new creativity' ('Literatura i izdatel'skaia dieiatel'nost',' 131). Ultimately, the polemics were not productive and did not contribute to the development of an autonomous literature. Conducted in abstract terms, the Russian-Ukrainian debate was politically opportunistic, and as a result missed the essence of the problem. While elaborating theory, the polemicists did not take literary practice into account and ignored the literary work that was being created all around them. Despite the binary opposition of the polemics, in fact, as Nedziel'skii noted, literature 'covered the entire spectrum from the Russian literary language, through dozens of dialects, orthographies and grammars, to the Ukrainian literary language' (136). For contemporaries closely involved in the process, it was difficult to see that, in terms of form, this diversity was in fact the essence of Carpatho-Rusyn literature. Nedziel'skii concluded, 'The question of the people's forces will be decided not by demagogues ... but by humble writers, who make up the cultural essence and value of the people.' As it turned out, however, the question was decided by history.

6 The Makings of Rusyn Modernism

(In appearance ever new Drink old wine!) Evgenii Nedziel'skii, 'Kpbiconoe'

Despite the Hungarian occupation of Subcarpathian Rus', the war years saw a blossoming of literature in Subcarpathian Rus' on a sophisticated aesthetic level. As a result of twenty years of relative freedom in Czechoslovakia, Rusyn writers had a greater knowledge of world literature and a firmer grasp on the question of national identity. Their identity options were limited under Hungarian control - Ukrainian identity and language were proscribed, and although Russian was allowed, sympathies with Russia (now the Soviet Union) had to be hidden. Therefore, Russian-language writers developed subversive strategies to express their thoughts in spite of the censor. Ironically, the urgency of wartime and the need for subterfuge promoted careful poetic practices that ultimately raised Russophile literature to a new level of achievement. For the first time, there was an effort by some Rusyn intellectuals to put forth a Rusyn national identity and also to standardize the Rusyn language and raise the vernacular to a literary language. However, since this was the option favoured by the Hungarian occupiers, the Rusynophile position was tainted by association. Many contemporaries equated it with 'Magyarism,' and could not appreciate the contributions it offered or the advances it represented. Subsequent Soviet-Ukrainian critics and scholars have dismissed it entirely. This is unfortunate because, in retrospect, the Rusynophile orientation may have allowed the independent development of Rusyn literature that had previously been frustrated by the intrusions of Russian and Ukrainian culture.

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From Rusyn Autonomy to Soviet Power After the Munich Pact of September 1938, Czechoslovakia was transformed into the federative republic of Czecho-Slovakia, and an autonomous Subcarpathian administration was formed. The first government was dissolved when two of its Russophile leaders (Andrii Brodii and Shtefan Fentsyk) were accused of treason for working toward reunion with Hungary. Prague then appointed a new Ukrainian-oriented government, with the local activist and Greek Catholic priest Avhustyn Voloshyn as prime minister. A provision in the act that gave legal status to the autonomous province called for elections to a soim, but ukrainianization began even before the election, as the Voloshyn regime changed the name of the province to Carpatho-Ukraine. In the elections of February 1939, the electoral commission did not accept the Russophile ticket, and the Ukrainophile party was the only choice offered. The Voloshyn government argued that the vote would be a kind of plebiscite, with a positive result indicating support for the present Carpatho-Ukrainian government and the federative alliance with Czechs and Slovaks. In this context, the election was overwhelmingly positive for the Ukrainian orientation.1 However, the Czecho-Slovak federative solution and six months of Subcarpathian autonomy were ended by Hitler, who granted Slovakia independence and permitted Hungary to march into Carpatho-Ukraine. With no help from the Czechoslovak army stationed in the province, a local militia known as the Carpathian Sich fought for three days against the invaders until they were entirely overwhelmed. On 15 March, in the midst of the fighting, the soim passed a decree establishing the independent Republic of Carpatho-Ukraine. In the face of the Hungarian invasion, the members of the Carpatho-Ukrainian government were forced to flee the country just a few hours after their symbolic declaration, and by 16 March the 'republic for a day' was occupied by the Hungarian army. Subcarpathian Rus1 was reincorporated into Hungary, renamed Kdrpdtalja, and ruled directly from Budapest. While the Hungarian government allowed some cultural autonomy, the Ukrainophile orientation was rejected and all Ukrainian-language publications were liquidated. The Hungarian administration favoured the Rusynophile orientation and made an effort to convince the local population that they constituted a separate Uhro-Rusyn nationality, whose past history and culture were intimately related with Hungarian civilization. Not surprisingly, however, within a few years, an assimilationist policy gained prominence, especially in education. A few Russophile publications continued to appear, and despite the restrictions on the Ukrainophile movement, the debate over national identity continued. The end to controversy came only in October 1944, when the Red Army

The Makings of Rusyn Modernism 409 entered Subcarpathia and drove out the Hungarians. Although still legally considered part of Czechoslovakia, Subcarpathian Rus' became dominated by local Communists and other pro-Soviet elements, which pushed for union with Soviet Ukraine. The reorganized Subcarpathian Communist party held its first conference in Mukachevo on 19 November 1944, adopting a resolution that 'demanded that historical injustice be removed and that the Transcarpathian Ukraine be reunited with Soviet Ukraine' (Magocsi, Shaping, 253).2 A national council was organized, which unanimously adopted a 'Manifesto ... for the Reunification of Transcarpathian Ukraine with Soviet Ukraine' and asked for entry into the Soviet Union. A short period of self-rule ensued from October 1944 to the end of 1945, when Subcarpathian Rus1, renamed Transcarpathia, was governed by its own national council. The Czechoslovak government-inexile did not oppose these events, having 'a quiet but clear understanding' with the Soviet government that 'no conflict should be allowed to occur over Subcarpathian Rus" (quoted in Magocsi, 254). On 29 June 1945, a treaty was signed by Prague and Moscow recognizing the cession of the Transcarpathian Ukraine (Subcarpathian Rus') to the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. As a result, Transcarpathia lost its self-governing status and became a region (oblast') of the Soviet Union. Subcarpathian Rus' was now ruled by a government that had a clear-cut policy on national identity. The local inhabitants, whatever they might call themselves, were to be considered Ukrainian. In the first census of 1945, all persons who claimed their nationality was Rusyn (rus'kyi), Carpatho-Russian (karpatoross), or any other variant, were listed in documents and identity papers as Ukrainian. The Soviet regime then commenced to transform all Subcarpathian Rusyns into conscious Ukrainians by means of the educational system, language policy, Marxist revisions of history, the imposition of Socialist Realism on culture, population transfers, collectivization, and the dismantling of the Greek Catholic church. This consistent, comprehensive, and coercive approach proved effective, and Rusyn identity officially disappeared in the Rusyn homeland for the next forty-five years. Inter arma silent Musae? The international crisis of 1938 resulted in a brief period of self-government for Subcarpathian Rus', but in terms of national and cultural identity, the autonomous period essentially entailed victory for the Ukrainian orientation. The Voloshyn regime considered the Rusyn people, not as representing a distinct nationality, but as part of the Ukrainian nation, and although Russophile and Rusynophile sentiments were still alive among the people, the cultural

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orientation of the autonomous regime was determined by political circumstances. Because of the defection among Russophile leaders and the antiHungarian stance of the Ukrainophile orientation, there was a general increase in adherence to the Ukrainophile cultural position, especially among young people. Symbolically, the autonomous government's replacement of Dukhnovych's 'fl pycHH 6bin, CCMB, H 6y«y' (I was, am, and will remain a Rusyn) with 'IU,e HC BMepjra YKpaina' (The Ukraine will never die) as the Subcarpathian national anthem was an obvious indication of the political and cultural transformation that was under way. The return of Hungarian rule to Subcarpathian Rus' in March 1939 compelled another shift in political orientation and a corresponding adaptation in cultural consciousness. Enforcing a total proscription of the Ukrainian orientation, the Hungarian government closed the Prosvita Society and liquidated all Ukrainian-language publications. Reading rooms of both orientations were closed and books published after 1918 were burned in public bonfires. The government officially endorsed a revival of the Rusynophile, or as it was now called, the Uhro-Rusyn national orientation. Although the Czechoslovak administration had encouraged the Rusynophile orientation toward the end of the 1930s as a way of assuring Rusyn loyalty to the Prague government, there had been little response from cultural workers, who largely adhered to the Russophile-Ukrainophile binary model. The new Hungarian government, by contrast, initiated sweeping policies to convince the local population that they constituted a separate Uhro-Rusyn nationality. Opposition to the governmentsupported efforts to promote a Uhro-Rusyn language came from the Russophile newspapers Karpatorusskii golos (1939-42) andRusskoe slovo (1940-3), which continued to use a Subcarpathian version of Russian, although the people whom they previously called 'Russian' (pyccKHft) were now referred to as Rusyn or Uhro-Rusyn (pycHH, pycbKHH, yrpo-pycbKHft), according to government constraints. The intervening two decades of relative liberalism made it impossible for Hungary to return to the total dismissal of Rusyn culture that had prevailed before 1918, but within a few years, assimilationist pressures were brought to bear in education, culture, and religion. The progress that had been made in literacy and education during the Czechoslovak period hindered Hungarian efforts at denationalization, and in fact the Hungarian occupation provoked a healthy opposition from a more politically sophisticated and nationally conscious Rusyn intelligentsia. In the realm of literature, the Hungarian period (1939-44) proved to be surprisingly productive. The education department of the Regent's Commission, the civil administration that ruled Subcarpathia, issued five retrospective anthologies of Subcarpathian literature for use in schools, which followed an essentially

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Russophile line. Contemporary writers, particularly Russian-oriented groups, cooperated to publish more than twenty anthologies and individual collections. Lacking governmental financial support and their own publishing houses, and in spite of censorship and the hardships of war, young writers rushed into print to express solidarity with the people's suffering and optimism for their cause. Belles lettres took on civic responsibility, especially the dominant genre of poetry.3 Political editors of the Uzhhorod Russian-language newspapers often filled pages with the verse of young poets, and in the words of Oleg Grabar', Russkoe slovo became 'a literary tribune for young people' ('O poeticheskom tvorchestve zakarpattsev v gody okkupatsii,' Poeziia Zakarpat'ia 1939-1944, 33). Students and other literary enthusiasts at various gymnasia formed literary 'schools,' to avoid the governmental oversight that came with the term 'circle.' Each school put out its own almanac, and between 1940 and 1943 poets published their verse in eight collective anthologies, in addition to periodicals and newspapers.4 Nedziel'skii noted that in 1940 alone, sixteen young poets published upwards of three hundred poems and added, 'One can only imagine how many verses were written overall!' (Nedziel'skii, '1940 god,' 31). Although much of this verse was amateurish, the overall quality of literature had increased during the Czechoslovak period, as Russian-language writers, educated in Russian gymnasia, became more sophisticated readers and critics. Moreover, the oppressive circumstances within which they worked prompted a new intensity, obliging writers to moderate their internal political feuds and to voice their opposition toward the occupying power through strategic techniques. This, combined with their study of other modern literatures and their own literary past, allowed the young Russophile writers to navigate the conflicting cultural and political circumstances, to diminish the political nature of recent Subcarpathian verse, and to re-inflect traditional themes in terms of sophisticated poetics and cultural resistance. Nedziel'skii noted the transformation from a literature of national pathos and revolutionary fervour to a serious, committed literature: 'The young writers do not overestimate their strength, and in that lies their merit. Their poetry is a new type of populism (narodnichestvo), where 'civil sorrow' occupies only a limited place, and another task faces the poet - to lead a 'civil feat' (podvig, '1940 god,' 32-3). Ivan [Georgii] Kercha, who as poet, editor, and organizer was at the centre of much of the wartime literary activity, noted that the difficult political conditions had created a persuasive and artistic 'authentic literature': 'The conscience of the Russian writers of the Carpathian region is clear. Avoiding any tendentiousness, they write only that about which they cannot remain silent, they write only what they consider to be their creative duty. All the literary workers of our small motherland take a single artistic approach: they require the writer to be a

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citizen, a free herald of a better future' ('Mukachevskaia literaturnaia shkola,' introduction to Zhivaia struia, 3). Kercha welcomed this attitude as a turning point in Carpathian literature, a shift away from a 'childish' view of poetry as mere versification, and a preservation of the 'spiritual bonds' with literary tradition, which was now re-evaluated to stress its practical, if not aesthetic, achievements. Carpatho-Russian literature is a series of heroic feats (minus posing and highsounding words) of completely dedicated people ... True, these people did not create great artistic works; on the other hand, they performed a miracle - they saved the half-million Russian population from spiritual and physical death. They were not concerned with pure art. After all, the question was 'To be or not to be!' (Petr Lintur, introduction to Budet den', quoted in Grabar', Poeziia Zakarpat'ia 1939-1944, 69) During the war, the same question was prominent for Subcarpathian writers. The aim of literature became a topic of poetry, as writers wrestled with the serious questions of the day. Kercha pointed to poetic tasks that were equal in importance to aesthetic quality: 'to command profound thought, to propagate ideas, and to strengthen the national spirit' (introduction to Nakanunie, 6). Thus, the experience of Rusyn literature during the war served to underscore the pragmatic and committed stance that had characterized most of Rusyn culture. There has been more than enough dismissing literature and poetry as some luxury, something that is good, tasty, and refreshing on a full stomach. We do not intend to occupy ourselves with such 'art' neither in wartime nor in times of peace, neither on a full nor an empty stomach. If for the only reason that our people is too small and too poor to purchase for itself objects of luxury. Besides, it is not at all aesthetic to see marble washbasins and rococo sofas in a wooden hut with a straw roof and a clay floor. (Shagi, 1) Such evaluations of the aim and character of Subcarpathian poetry have changed little since 1805, when Bishop Tarkovych's poem to the Hungarian palatine expressed a cautious political pragmatism and an aesthetic requirement, urging the Rusyn muses to 'sing what is appropriate to you' (see chapter 2). In the context of wartime Rusyn poetry, the implied object of Kercha's criticism was the poetry of the Rusynophile movement, in which apolitical modernist verse had made an appearance. Although the Russophiles held to their pragmatic stance, in this period writers discovered new, more sophisticated, and aesthetically satisfying meth-

The Makings of Rusyn Modernism 413 ods of practising their civic duty. The poetry produced during the war was astute and interesting, demonstrating a significant degree of individualism. Formal experimentation, evocations of folklore, and scrupulous criticism were encouraged. Regardless of which language the poet used, there was a sense of creating an independent Subcarpathian literature that responded to local cultural needs. The ideological lines that had divided Rusyns internally were blurred in the face of Hungarian control. Individuals were known to cross boundaries and contribute to more than one group. Russophiles and former Ukrainophiles sometimes united in opposition to the Rusynophiles and occasionally blended together with them in a cooperation that was dictated by circumstances. In subsequent Ukrainian scholarship, critics dismissed the Rusynophiles, or tuteshniaki (locals), as they were called, and pointed to Marxism-Leninism as the prevailing belief system of other wartime writers. However, in most of the poetry of the time, ideology was perforce understated, allowing diverse multivalent readings. The common elements of Subcarpathian poetry during the Hungarian period were a thematic emphasis on the future and a formal reliance on symbolism and intertextual techniques, which together subverted the occupying government's cultural policy. Intertextual Colloquy In Hungarian-occupied Subcarpathia, where expression of the traditional Russophile ideology was now an act of treason, Russian-oriented writers were put in serious peril. The commissioner of the Hungarian administration, Miklos Kozma threatened 'to crush into powder and send to the grave anyone who dares call himself Russian,' and outspoken writers could expect retaliation in the form of prison camp or the warfront, and some even received death sentences (Grabar', 'Russkaia poeziia Zakarpat'ia 1939-1944,' Putiaml istorii, 207). The government made an effort to ban in literature any 'partisan notions that could damage national unity,' 'stimulate class distinctions,' or encourage 'aspirations to peace' (Baleha, 'Poeziia oporu i borot'by,' afterword to Dmytro Vakarov, Vishchyi vohon', 289). In order to evade the authorities, Subcarpathian writers employed various strategic tactics. First, they masked their identity through the use of symbolically significant pseudonyms. About half of the poets chose their pseudonyms from local geographical names (for example, Karpatskii, Rusak, Borzhavin, Laborchanin, Makovichanin), subliminally asserting their claim to the territory now occupied by the invader. Others, following Soviet proletarian writers like Maksim Gorky, adopted names that indicated a proletarian sensibility - Bosiak, Bezdomnyi, Besprizornyi, Goremyka. Many used multiple pseudonyms to divert the censor's attention.

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Similarly, they chose meaningful titles for their anthologies - Budet den' (Day Will Come), Nakanunie (On the Eve), Shagi (Strides). The number that stands as title of a 1940 anthology, 12, refers to the number of poets represented in its pages, but it is also a subtle reference to the Russian poet Aleksandr Blok, whose poem 'Dvenadtsat" (The Twelve) expresses ambiguous but powerful parallels between twelve Red Guardsmen and the apostles of Jesus. 'Karpatskim apostolam' (To the Carpathian Apostles), the programmatic poem of the anthology Zhivaia struia (Living Water), which was issued the same year by the same editor, expands the metaphor. Written by Emilian Balets'kyi, it calls on poets, or 'apostles,' to bring light, hope, and resolve to the people suffering in darkness and gloom: 'Diacw cpe«b HauiHxrb rop-b H CKa;n>, / Mxo JKHTB He;n>3fl BO Mpaicfe rpo6a' (Proclaim among our mountains and cliffs, / That it is impossible to live in the gloom of the grave; Zhivaia struia, 6). Following the web of allusions, one notes that the 'living water' of the anthology's title is taken from a poem included in 72 that is dedicated to Uhro-Russian youth: 'Mw pyccKaro po«a >KHBan crpya' (We are the living water of the Russian people; Petr Prodan, 'My' [We], 54). The allusions to the poems of Prodan and Blok thus become anthology titles, a complete understanding of which must be based on the hidden subtext. The concept of intertextuality has its antecedents in Russian formalism of the 1920s and was elaborated in Prague structuralism in the decades before the war. Jan Mukafovsky's On Poetic Language, in which he sets forth the 'semantic dynamics of context,' is from 1941, contemporary with the Subcarpathian poets' use of intertextual poetic practices.5 This semantic analytical approach views poetry as an aggregate of consciously chosen historical-cultural memories, held together by meaningful allusions, quotations, and reminiscences. Such memories are activated in a poetic text through the concepts of subtext and context. It is proposed that an individual text obtains its full meaning only in relation to other texts and to the context as a whole, which is usually considered to be the corpus of an individual author, but might be a 'macro-text,' such as, in this case, the corpus of Russian-language poetry of Subcarpathia under the occupation. Thus, the meaning of a key word or image in a particular poem is illuminated by reference to the overall context, and it gains in semantic value as a result of its recurrence in diverse texts. Subtext is an allusion to another poet, a metonymic reference to an alien text. The subtext becomes a physical part of the quoting text, a complete understanding of which must be based on the covert subtext and the determination of its semantic function. The calculated use of subtext and context among the Subcarpathian poets allows them to create multivalent symbols that obtain their full meaning only in relation to other texts and to the context of the wartime poetry as a whole. Thus,

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images gain in semantic value as a result of their recurrence in diverse contexts, producing an intensified semantics, which, however, is comprehensible only to the initiated. The poem is, in a sense, meta-cultural or meta-literary and exists in a dialogic relationship with other literature. Like the Russian Acmeists, whose poetic technique gave impetus to structuralist theoreticians, the Subcarpathian poets used subtexts, primarily from Russian literature, to preserve and renew traditional culture and humanistic values. The Subcarpathian poets' reliance upon Russian literature in this period, then, is not simply imitation, but a conscious aesthetic and political choice. Evgenii Nedziel'skii, writing under the pseudonym lurii Vir, 'exposes the device,' in the formalist sense, and prompts the reader to appreciate poetic deception in a poem from Nakanunie entitled 'Krysolov' (Rat-catcher, 18). The subtext of this poem is identified in a parenthetical subtitle as 'a Provencal song.'6 Nedziel'skii's krysolov is a street entertainer who calls on the poet to 'don the apparel of the jester,' to learn to walk the tightrope and perform magic tricks, to hide his contempt for the obtuse crowd under smiles and bows, but 'with a sensitive ear' to detect 'the mute crowd's ventriloquy.'

Who are you? - And what do they command you to be ... / You're a dog - learn to growl and bark, / You're a wolf! - learn to howl wolfishly, / A raven! - caw ... /

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Howl, shout to all Provence! / But in appearance ever new / Drink old wine! In a word / Learn to exclaim, 'Vive la France!' I As old rat-catchers should. // Having drunk, do not believe your intoxicated head. / Lay your bones / On the grass in a midnight grove / And sleep. Do not believe the slander / About the approach of a stealthy lion ... / It is night in Provenge - the owl's time to cry, / And power belongs to the owl there; / But as soon as dawn comes - into the tree's hollow goes the owl, - / Hey, rat-catcher, to your work!

The allusion to the Provencal jester alerts the ideal reader to a covert message, and within the poem, Nedziel'skii himself demonstrates the 'tricks' his jester recommends, performing a show of illusions from which there emerges a serious message. The rat-catcher preaches the social responsibility of the poet, admonishing, Tloax-b, B HOXCHW npoponnH KJIMHTJ, / BT> XBOHXT> pyKaxt ybipKanift 6HHT, / Beit no cepnn.aM'b, icaic 6bK>xi> no Mopnk!' (Poet, put prophetic appeals aside, / In your hands is a circus whip, /As they whip [animals] across the snout, you must whip hearts!). But he also advises a kind of poetic 'ventriloquy,' that is, to sing what the poet can contrive, given the demands of the audience. 'Flo yjiHuaM-b n n/ioin.a.ii.HM'b / PaaptmeHO HTTH AO>K,IIHMT> / H nponeil pH(pM%, aa arMTKH / Flo ;iy»cajvrb cxasnxb s^fecb H xaM-b' (Along streets and squares / The rain may go / And random rhymes and agitki (political verse) / May be left in puddles here and there). Yet despite the new costume to please the crowd, for truth and inspiration, he advises 'old wine,' that is, tradition. The old wine that the rat-catcher drinks is the traditional, regional culture that rules covertly in Provence, or as transposed to Nedziel'skii's situation, it is Russian culture, which persists quietly beneath the carnivalesque surface of Hungarianoccupied Subcarpathia. At night, however, the truth emerges with the owl, and power belongs to the 'owl there' (cost TaMi>, read costxaM, that is, 'to the Soviets'). While Russophiles had always looked to Russia for a sense of poetic inspiration, ethnic belonging, and national salvation, now Russia, in the figure of the Soviet army, became a focus for Rusyn hopes of liberation, and Subcarpathian poets merged the concepts 'Russian' and 'Soviet.' After his night of indulgence in old wine, the rat-catcher is roused to action, and the time-honoured summons of decades of 'awakeners' takes on revolutionary implications: '3ft, canKKMOTb, nopa Bcxasaxb, / Hxo6T> Kpbicy xomyio noiiMaxb, / 4x061. Kpwcy mipHyio noBecHTb!' (Hey, sans culotte, it's time to wake up, / To catch a skinny rat, / To hang a fatty one!). Nedziel'skii closes the poem with a refrain that prompts his readers to consider the parallels he has drawn:

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Have you been to my Prover^e, / The Bastille, and ' Vive la France!' I And old wine?

In this poem, Nedziel'skii introduces into the poetic text an analysis of the text itself, a device that has been called 'auto-meta-description' in structuralist criticism (Timenchik, 'Avtometaopisanie u Akhmatovoi'). Traditionally interpreted as a one-sided revolutionary statement, Nedziel'skii's poem is in fact a complex blend of the political and the aesthetic, in which the political message is activated by the poetic device. 'Krysolov,' a programmatic poem for the Russophile school of Rusyn poetry under Hungarian occupation, provides readers with instructions on how to approach all the poetry written in this period.7 Most of the subtexts that appear in Rusyn poetry during the war are taken from pre-Soviet Russian literature, particularly from the poetry of the Russian symbolists. Attracted to their idealist philosophy, Subcarpathian poets take advantage of the vagueness of symbolist style to conceal their political message. The sense of unreality that pervaded the world of the symbolists, their penchant for shadows and gloom, and their yearning for escape from torpid life resonated with the Subcarpathian experience under the occupation. The images that were most provocative for Rusyn poets came from the symbolists' solar mythology. Subcarpathian poetry appropriated the symbolists' cult of the sun, ubiquitous in Konstantin Bal'mont and Andrei Belyi as a symbol of eternity and cosmic oneness. Bal'mont's well-known poem 'la v etot mir prishel, chtob videt' Solntse' (I Came Into This World to See the Sun, 1903) is the subtext for at least three individual Subcarpathian poems. Bal'mont's persona is the symbolist poet-priest, who, by his gaze and poetic force, creates the world in his dream-image and becomes its ruler: 'fl aaioiioHH/i MHpw B e^HHOM saope, / fl-B7iacTe;iHH' (I encompassed worlds in a single gaze, /1 am the ruler). Poet transforms a world of suffering into an ideal world, through the power of the poet.

I vanquished the cold oblivion / By creating my dream. / Each moment I am filled

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with revelation, /1 ever sing. // My dream was awakened by sorrows, / But I am loved for that, / Who is my equal in the power of song? / No one, no one.

The Subcarpathian poets adapted Bal'mont's message to their own wartime situation, toning down the self-glorification of the Russian and opening their self-contained vision to the conditions of the real world. The poet I.G. (I. Liavinets) writes:

With the quiet rustling, crunching of April /1 came into this world to grasp bliss. / (Strange, but many believe / That in life bliss cannot be found.) // Days flow by, and fate drums / Its dismal, tedious march. / It would be good if somehow by stealth, / Spring would flash with bliss. (Cited in Grabar', Poeziia Zakarpat'ia 19391944, 232—3; orthography modernized)

The quotation from Bal'mont is a reminder of bliss and beauty that exists somewhere beyond the martial tedium of life in occupied Subcarpathia. Indeed, the subtext is the flash of spring that stealthily penetrates the poem and inspires hope. S.I. Pan'kov (Simeon Pan'ko) opens his poem 'Credo' with an unmistakable echo from Bal'mont:

I came to this planet / To see the sun, the expanse of the fields ... / Life said to me: 'Be a poet, / Master the hearts of the people.' (12, 49)

He goes on to describe his aspirations as a poet (to be as mighty as an eagle, as bright as a sun beam), and for his verse - to mimic the trill of a nightingale and

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the gurgle of a mountain brook. However, unlike Bal'mont's dream, Pan'ko's vision is not wholly aesthetic. He adds an ethical dimension that was not a feature of Russian symbolist art, but had certain relevance to Subcarpathia.

And in this world I will sing / Of Faith, Truth and Love. / In this work, everywhere / O Lord, bless me!

Oleg Grabar' interprets 'Faith, Truth and Love' very narrowly to mean faith in the victory over Fascism and love for the Soviet Union (Poeziia Zakarpat'ia 1939-1944,50). There is no internal evidence in the poem to indicate a focused political reading, but clearly Pan'ko's ideal world is grounded in justice and virtue. The subtext from Bal'mont strengthens the poet's assertion of the power of poetry (and specifically, the power of Russian culture) to achieve it. One notices also the borrowing of sound and rhythm, which in this case has definite semantic value, since it signals the allusion to Bal'mont. Finally, Dymytrii Vakarov, a soldier-poet who was a member of the antifascist underground movement, uses the subtext from Bal'mont to signal a polemic with the symbolist poet-aesthete, and perhaps with his own less political Rusyn contemporaries. He retains the structure and rhythm of Bal'mont's poem, but employs it in the service of a civic cause, announcing 'H npmiie;!, Mxo6 Kapnaxbi Bocnexb' (I came to sing the Carpathians). In sharp contrast to Bal'mont's apotheosis of the poet's ego, Vakarov pledges himself to the people:

1 came to bow to the People, / And to ignite in them living emotions; / I came to sing about Freedom, / To love and suffer with the People.8

Vakarov's assertion of the poet's duty to the people achieves greater definition upon recognition of the subtextual polemic with Bal'mont's aestheticism. Lev Mansvietov-Bezdomnyi similarly deflates the romanticism of Bal'mont's poetic stance in his 'Piesn' o solntse' (Song about the Sun, 72, 13), in which he refers

420 Straddling Borders to the title of Bal'mont's 1903 collection, Budem kak solntse (Let Us Be Like the Sun):

There is so little kindness, so many tears / And can you really love in earnest? / And can you really sing happiness / When you think that it does not exist. / Let us be like the sun - the poet said: / The sun is not delirium, not verse, but light. / You must not sing, not write, but burn, / You must forget that you are a man. / In love you must hate, burn, / In love you must send others to death. (72, 13)

Rejecting the mystical and aesthetic trappings of Bal'mont's sun, Mansvietov rejects the poet's detachment from the world and reinterprets the image under conditions of war, where to be 'like the sun' is to be relentless and fierce. The Subcarpathian poets borrowed 'the sun' from the Russian symbolists consciously and employed it lavishly. They augmented the mythopoeic force of the image by lending it a political cast connected with victory and liberation, and interpreting it as a metonymy for the dawn, that is, the East, or Russia, the source of truth and idealism. In Zhivaia struia (1940), Emilian Balets'kyi urges his readers to pray, sing, and build pyramids to the sun-god ('Solntsebog,' 6). I.S. Gorianin (I. Liavinets) expresses the desire to 'fly to the Sun, to Truth' with Rus1 (24), and V. Goremyka passionately 'awaits the sun' (22) and identifies it with 'harmonies of happiness' (21). In poems too numerous to mention, poets aspire to the sun or mourn its loss, for in the Carpathians, the sun is not invincible, but vanquished by the fogs of autumn. In a poem dated September 1939, the month of Hitler's invasion of Poland, V. Goremyka writes: 'Co;mi],a ;uo6oBb na 3CM;rb see oia6fee, / OCCHB ece 6;iH3HTCH KT> naM-b' (The love of the sun on earth is weakening, / Autumn is ever nearer; 'Osenii motiv' [Autumn Motif], Zhivaia struia, 20). The poet T. Ch. notes allegorically that as the sun goes down, 'the west smoulders in the rays of sunset':

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Summer has finished its song: / The sun has gone out... It is already dark / And the autumn night has fallen! / Dark and damp ... cold, gloom ... (72, 61)

To evoke the symbolic contrast between sun and gloom, Emilian Balets'kyi quotes from Aleksandr Pushkin's 'Prorok' (Prophet), urging the poet, 'sa^crn cep/m,a ;no,n,eH' (enflame the hearts of people), and from Pushkin's 'Vakkhicheskaia pesnia' (Bacchic Song), telling him to sing of the sun in the dark of night, 4 Hxo6 TbMa Hcneana nepefl necHeft' (so dark might disappear before songs). In these examples, the subtext serves to ground the author's poem firmly in the Russian poetic tradition, to provide support for the text, and to universalize its meaning. Only a few examples of the widespread use of subtext in Subcarpathian Russian-language verse of the period can be noted here. In a poem written in a Nazi concentration camp, Andrii Karabelesh alludes to Sergei Esenin's suicide poem: 'YMMpaxb, KOHCMHO, naM HC HOBO / H >KHTb, naBepno, TWKC HC HOBCH' (To die, of course, is nothing new / And to live, no doubt, is also no newer), rejecting the Russian poet's passivity with a forceful rejoinder, 'Hex, H pa6oM xiopeMHbiM He yivipy!' (No, I will not die as a prison slave!'; Grabar', Poeziia Zakarpat'ia 1939-1944, 241). Aleksandr Blok is quoted frequently, explicitly in epigraphs and strategically through poetic lexicon and imagery. The title of Balets'kyi's poem 'Stikhi o karpatskoi dame' (Verses about the Carpathian Lady, Zhivaia struia, 8) signals a subtext from Blok's 'Stikhi o prekrasnoi dame' (Verses about the Beautiful Lady). However, instead of Blok's early idealistic image of the Beautiful Lady as an ideal, unearthly beloved, Balets'kyi evokes the later transformation of the image in Blok's poetry as 'Neznakomka' (the unknown woman), an ordinary urban prostitute. For Balets'kyi, she is a personification of Subcarpathia, abused and deceived, but, like Blok's neznakomka, still capable of inspiring love and mystery. 'Geroi nashego vremeni' (Hero of Our Time), an echo from Lermontov, is the subtitle for Georgii Kercha-Gor'koust's poem Tip' (Character, Literaturnyi al'manakh, 25), which describes a shameless hypocrite in epigrammatic style. Balets'kyi's reminiscences of his school days in 'Mukachevo' owe their poetic reconstruction to Pushkin's ' Vospominaniia o Tsarskom sele' (Reminiscences of Tsarskoe Selo), but the political circumstances lend Balets'kyi's poem a special poignancy.

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Mukachevo, you remember how / We friends strove for bright ideals? / Is anyone now following in the traces / Of our aspirations in the gloom of darkness? (Zhivaia struia, 7) Balets'kyi explicitly mentions 'striving to Pushkin' and his 'sonorous bronze' that has been shattered to dust, a covert allusion to a bronze bust of Pushkin on the grounds of the Mukachevo gymnasium that had been destroyed by the Hungarians. Another hidden reference is to the Mukachevo student journal Nashi stremleniia (Our Aspirations), which united Subcarpathian writers of the Russian orientation. The evocation of Pushkin and aspirations to Russian culture were a unifying and fortifying force for Rusyn poets in 1940, when this poem was published. In addition to its function as subliminal expression, the Rusyn use of subtext had as its aim the preservation and renewal of traditional culture, and not surprisingly, in addition to Russian literature, poets relied on subtexts from the Rusyn classics. Here the debt could be recognized more openly, and in addition to echoing their voices, individual poems pay homage to Rusyn writers, especially Dukhnovych, Pavlovych, and Stavrovs'kyi-Popradov. In the poem 'Dukhnovych,' Nedziel'skii presents a recuperation of Dukhnovych's message through a contextualized recitation of titles and aphorisms from his work (Grabar1, Poeziia Zakarpat'ia 1939-1945, 212). The Rusyn poetic tradition is ubiquitous in the poetry through imagery of Carpathian nature and motifs of poverty and the suffering homeland, mitigated by a new pride in images of peasants and shepherds. Petr Prodan writes, 'Mw-nacxyxM, / CBOK> nHTypruio HOCM' (We are shepherds, / We sing our own liturgy),9 and Mykhail Varga's poem 'Ia-syn krest'ianina' (I Am the Son of a Peasant) is an understated freeverse proclamation of his peasant origins.

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1 was born in a peasant family. / My godfather and godmother; / To renounce the devil and his snares / Carried me to church ... / A humble priest sprinkled me with holy water / And 'pronounced' me Mikhail. / In a peasant family I grew up. / My emaciated mother fed me, / Baba [grandmother] told me stories about villains, / My aunt sang me songs / About love and sorrow ... / And they occupied my soul. / My old grandfather, sitting idle in the winter, /Told me about good people ... / But baba died. After her / In five years followed my shrivelled grandfather. / And I learned to work. (Zhivaia struia, 17)

In addition to the collective anthologies, a few collections were published by individual writers in these years. One of the Hungarian government's means of dealing with troublesome individuals was to send them away from the city through administrative transfers. From his exile in the interior of Hungary, the writer Simeon Pan'ko responded with a small collection of verse and prose, Moi put' (My Path), in which he expresses loneliness and love for his homeland. Under the pseudonym Tania Verkhovynka, Ivan Kercha issued a collection of verse for children, which inspired love for the Rusyn people (understood as Russian) and their native land, as well as loyalty to the spirit of their ancestors.10 In Gory i dolia (Mountains and Fate), Vasyl' Sochka-Borzhavyn evokes the memory of his favourite among the nineteenth-century Rusyn classics writers, Aleksander Mytrak." Like Mytrak, he is interested in ethnography and he integrates folk customs and dialect in his Russian-language poems. His melancholic poems about the plight of Verkhovyna are, like Mytrak's, powerful in their unflinching terseness. Pointing to starving children, he asks, '^CTHM nysarbiM / CHHTOI nn ca;io?' (Do children with swollen bellies / Dream of bacon?; Grabar1, Poeziia Zakarpat'ia 1939-1945,281; orthography modernized). Best known is the poem 'Doha' (Fate), in which a mother grieves over the death of the family cow.

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Why has God so cruelly / punished them? / Why did he not take / from them / a child? / Why did little Vasyl' not die / Or little Mikhail, or lurii? /To have a child / Is so easy! / Not even a year passes by. / But where can a new / Mitsia / be found? /... / And from the high plains / The wind blows; / In the valley rustles / The oatgrain, / And the dog howls / Under the fence, / About his unhappy fate ... (Grabar1, Poeziia Zakarpat'ia 1939-1945, 281)

Sochka's use of dialect in this poem is especially suited to the imagery and local motifs. Grabar' writes that 'Dolia' is pervaded by the spirit of authentic populism (HapoflHocxb) and calls it 'one of the most outstanding creative successes of Subcarpathian literature' (137). The Russophile poetry of this period displays a new maturity and sophistication, the result of the writers' education in Russian literature and the conditions of the wartime occupation. Compelled by circumstances to restrain the traditional Rusyn sentimental effusions and social critique, which only a decade earlier had marred the verse of Karabelesh and Grendzha-Dons'kyi, writers turned to a more disciplined poetics. By using subtexts and precise language, poets intensified meaning in their work. Their writing was not an elemental reaction to circum-

The Makings of Rusyn Modernism 425 stances, but a well-thought-out strategy to achieve maximum effect. The multiple layers of meaning in the best examples integrate Russian literature with Rusyn tradition on a more equal foundation than had been possible in the past. Poets used subtexts from Russian literature to ground their work in Russian culture, but instead of slavishly following their models, they adapted or even overturned their semantic import to reflect Rusyn conditions and their own contribution to the tradition. Poets such as Sochka-Borzhavyn demonstrated a sensitive blending of languages and respect toward both Russian and local traditions that seemed to indicate a promising future direction for Rusyn literature. Rusynophile Literature During the first half of the twentieth century, Russophile literature in Subcarpathia underwent a definite development in the direction of local tradition, and the work of many writers acquired a distinctive vernacular cast. Evgenii Nedziel'skii noted in 1936 that the question of 'the popular force' in literature would be decided not by demagogues, but by 'the humble writer and the equally humble reader ... It is an indisputable fact that [the development of Carpatho-Rusyn prose] is taking place on a broad path extending from the Russian literary language to the Ukrainian literary language. A process is under way of a gradual rapprochement (c6;m>KeHHe) of the literary language and the requirements of the local soul, but there is not a single example of an effort to create a separate literary language' ('Literatura i izdatel'skaia dieiatel'nost',' 136). Nedziel'skii and the Russophiles were apparently willing to expand the boundaries of literature and literary language, as long as it occurred naturally and according to the aesthetic demands of readers and writers. But they were unwilling to abandon their ideological position that Rusyn literature was a part of Russian culture, and they resisted the imposition of a separate, 'artificially created' Rusyn language. Ukrainophiles as well contemptuously dismissed tuteshniachestvo (localism), their pejorative term for the Rusynophile movement. Since the Ukrainian language was completely proscribed under the Hungarian occupation, some Ukrainophile writers accommodated themselves to the demands of Rusynophile editors, but the Ukrainian orientation never abandoned its ideological identification with Ukrainian culture. The master narrative that was established by Ukrainian Marxist scholarship after Subcarpathia became part of Soviet Ukraine has consistently condemned the Rusynophiles on political, aesthetic, and linguistic grounds. As a result, the Rusynophile school has become encumbered with cliches that depict Rusynophile writers as local, provincial, patriotically suspect, and limited by an artificial, inadequate language.

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Throughout the history of Subcarpathian literature, there had never been a serious attempt to construct a literary language based on the vernacular, nor, for that matter, had there been a conscious effort to fashion a separate Subcarpathian Rusyn literature. To summarize the issues that have been examined throughout this study, this striking failure is explained by the activists' fear that their small numbers would make an independent Rusyn language and nationality politically untenable, and by the writers' belief that the inevitable result of such efforts would be inferiority and provincialism. Another factor was the psychological insecurity that has been shown to be characteristic of subject peoples. Subcarpathian Rusyn literature is probably one of the most extreme examples of cultural subservience, or what one scholar of Australian literature has called 'cultural cringe' (Phillips, The Australian Tradition, 1958, quoted in Empire Writes Back, 12). That is, the acceptance and internalization of the aesthetic values of various dominant cultures caused the Rusyns to experience their own culture as not worthy of a unique literary expression. Consequently, there never emerged an indigenous literary theory that would be effective in abrogating imposed concepts. The Rusynophile vernacular-language newspapers that appeared around the turn of the twentieth century, Nedilia and Nauka, were popular with the people, but the movement did not attract writers whose interests transcended the folk style, and therefore Rusynophile literary development met a dead end. levmenii Sabov's emphasis on localism within the awareness of a larger context might have been the first step toward an indigenous literary theory, but this respected leader eventually became the figurehead for the Dukhnovych Society and his distinctive views were swallowed up by Russophile theorizing. During the Czechoslovak period, the intelligentsia's interest in raising the cultural level of the local Rusyn population was co-opted by the Ukrainophile movement, which ultimately became concerned for Subcarpathian Rus' primarily as part of the Ukrainian nation. Finally, in the late 1930s, Hungarian rule provided one last chance for the ascendance of an indigenous, Rusynophile cultural orientation. A leader emerged in Ivan Haraida (1905-44), a native of Subcarpathian Rus', who had not previously participated in cultural or political life. During the years of the Hungarian regime, he was the central figure in Uhro-Rusyn cultural policy. In 1939, Magyar and 'Magyar-Rusyn' were declared the official languages in Subcarpathia, and Budapest ordered the creation of 'a suitable Rusyn grammar,' which would help promote 'a patriotic Rusyn orientation' and convince the people that they were not Ukrainian, but Rusyn (quoted in Magocsi, Shaping, 142). Accordingly, in 1940 an Uzhhorod commission published a dialectical grammar of the Uhro-Rusyn language for secondary schools. One year later, the newly formed Subcarpathian Society of Sciences (Podkarpatskoe

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obshchestvo nauk) issued a grammar written by Haraida 'so that young people could be liberated from linguistic influences brought here from abroad and with this book learn to love their own mother tongue [MarepHHCKHH HSWK].' This grammar was based on Rusyn vernacular as spoken in the central lowlands and it used the traditional orthography. An excerpt from Haraida's introduction exemplifies the linguistic norms established and points to the more serious political problem faced by the grammarian: HanHcaiH rpaMMaiHKy TSKOFO HSMKS, KorpwH #0 CMXT> nopi. eme HC MaBT> CHCTCMaTHHHOH rpaMM3TMKH, ecrb jicrKoe fffc/io ... A;ie HanncaTH rpaMMarnKy nHCbMCHHoro H3biK3 jyw TaKoro HSbiica M pflH TaKoro Hapofla, y Korporo #o CHXT> nopT> noHBHTiocfl y>Ke MHTOKCCTBO rpaMMaTHKT> BCHKoro MOK^HBOFO HanpflMa H HflCH 6e3T> TOrO, MTo6bI XOTb OflH3 H3T> HMXT> 6bl/ia npHHHTa irbflOK) CynOflbHOCTbK)

6e3T> npOTHBOptniM H 6e3T> ocyAHxe^bHOH M npespHie^bHOH KPHTHKH npocTO H333 TOH npHHHHbl, 4TO HHTCJUlHTeHl^iH TOFO HapO^a ClUe H HWHb HC BblTBOpH^a

B co6t HCHbiH nomflflij o Hauiona^bHOH npHHaAfle>KHOCTH - c« saflana SAaecH /UIH Ka^KflOrO, KTO CHMT. BOHpOCOMT. 3aHHM3BCH, M3H)Ke HCpOSptlJUHMOIO.

To write a grammar for a language that until this time has not had a systematic grammar is simple ... But to write a grammar of the written language for a language and people who have already had a multitude of grammars of every possible orientation and idea, although not a single one of them has been accepted by the entire community without contradiction or censorious and contemptuous criticism, simply because the intelligentsia of this people has not yet worked out a clear view of national identity - this task is nearly insoluble for anyone who might undertake it. (Haraida, Hrammatyka rus'koho iazyka, 3, 6)

Haraida's grammar was applied in the language of the weeklies Karpatska nedilia (Carpathian Week), later Nedilia (1939^44), and Lyteraturna nedilia (Literary Week, 1941^1), which he edited and where, for the first time, an explicit, comprehensive effort was made to raise Rusyn vernacular to the level of a literary language. The Uhro-Rusyn language was also used, along with occasional articles in Hungarian and Russian, in Zoria-Hajnal (Uzhhorod, 1941-3), the scholarly journal put out by the Subcarpathian Society of Sciences. Haraida also edited a popular series of short stories and histories, children's books, agricultural manuals, and a monthly for Subcarpathian youth. On the pages of Lyteraturna nedilia the language wars were renewed, as Haraida defended his grammar and the very notion of a Rusyn language against opposition from Russophile purists. He responds to criticism with verve and defiance.

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You charge that our language is a Ukrainian-Czech-Slovak-Magyar-Rusyn mixture. (You forgot Church Slavonic-Great Russian-Romanian-German-Yiddish-Gypsy! The effect would be greater.)... Is there a language in Europe that does not contain admixtures of neighbouring languages to a greater or lesser extent? Is Great Russian not a mixture of Church Slavonic and the Moscow dialect, and does it not contain German, French, and (in navigation) English words and phrases? On what basis do you demand from our language a crystal clarity that you yourselves do not have? ('OtpovTd' na pershu chast' "Krytyky hrammatyky rus'koho iazyka,'" Lyteraturna nedilia, no. 5,1941:39)

Claiming that the language of Haraida's grammar, the direct descendent of the language of Nedilia, was more authentically Subcarpathian than Voloshyn's or Pan'kevych's, that its etymological alphabet and vernacular declensional and conjugational patterns were more comprehensible to the majority of Rusyn people, Lyteraturna nedilia challenged Russophiles and Ukrainophiles to a test. Present the same article to the people in Ukrainian, in the Great Russian of levmenii Sabov's 1890 grammar, and in the language of Nedilia, and allow them to choose. According to the editor, Russophiles and Ukrainophiles were unwilling to submit to such an experiment. He concludes: 'We have always insisted that no one can consider himself an educated person who does not know the Great Russian and Ukrainian languages and their literatures. But the road to them begins from our native language, and not the other way round' (40). The cultural orientation of Lyteraturna nedilia was defined by Hiiador Stryps'kyi, whose 1907 linguistic analysis of old Subcarpathian texts had established a basis for the Rusynophile cultural interpretation. In 1941 he returned to the evidence of Subcarpathian seventeenth-century interpretive epistles to argue that Rusyn culture was distinct from Russia and Galicia, that it was grounded in western civilization, and formed under the influence of western humanism and the Reformation. Turning angrily and with a degree of hyperbole to the Russophiles, he charges: You talk about us Rusyns in an odd tone: 'They are creating a literary language, they have their own literature.' They, always as though from a distance, they. As if we were being referred to from outside by a Czech or an interloper from Moscow. In this way you exclude yourselves from the society of Rusyns. You consider yourselves not Rusyns but Russians, although you wear a cap of ruszin nyelv.12... But here in Subcarpathia there are no Russians, except for those who have fled from the Russian paradise. Rusyns live here, and you may not speak for them! We Rusyns are westerners (aana^HHKH). We are western in relation to geography and history, the state and the church, politics and language, in a word, in relation to all

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of Rusyn culture. We want nothing in common with the Russian-Tatar culture of eastern Moscow, and nothing will transform us westerners into easterners, for Russian culture is alien to us! ('Zabludilym synam Podkarpatia,' Lyteraturna ned!lia,no. 14, 1941: 117)

Slryps'kyi compared the development of Rusyn literature with that of Hungary and Slovakia, each of which returned to the language of the people after a period of foreign cultural domination. Interpreting Rusyn literary development within the Hungarian paradigm, Stryps'kyi believed that the Russian orientation of the second half of the nineteenth century represented a deviation in Rusyn cultural development that was corrected only by the appearance of the vernacular-language journals Nauka and Nedilia at the end of the nineteenth century. Accepting the pejorative epitaph muzhytskyi (peasant) that was applied to the Rusyn language by its opponents, Stryps'kyi accused the Russophiles of aristocratism and quoted examples from folk poetry to demonstrate the richness and creative potential of the language. Like the Ukrainophiles, Stryps'kyi insisted that every authentic literature has roots in the people. However, instead of buttressing his argument by reference to Shevchenko and Franko, Stryps'kyi cites Sandor Petofi and Ferenc Kazinczy. Thus, the theorization of Subcarpathian literature was once again constrained within foreign frameworks.13 However, the literature and literary criticism that grew out of the Rusynophile orientation was not what one might have expected, given the populist cast of Stryps'kyi's programmatic statement. To be sure, there was support for folklore and folk-style literature, but a more objective, modern approach to village literature was advised. As one writer puts it, 'Literature is closely connected with folk art, and it achieves full expression and development only when it is based on the poetry and thought of the people.' Yet he criticizes Russophile and Ukrainophile writers who 'cry' about the people's sorrow, accusing them of not knowing the popular soul, not recognizing that while 'the people's mirrors weep, the people's art laughs.' 'Only he can create an Il'ko Lypei and a song about Laborets' who has clearly heard the people's call, who is not ashamed of his native language.'14 Rusynophiles denounced the efforts of authors to add local colour by including ethnographic material and elements of dialect, charging that they often do so in a superficial, uninformed manner, confusing and mixing dialects. On the stage, for example, it is averred, inhabitants of a single village are dressed in costumes from various regions and speak in several regional dialects. Themes, characters, and plots are stereotyped and limited. But instead of appealing to tradition, Rusynophiles promoted an approach that would alter tradition and move literature closer to a new reality. 'Without a doubt, the village is the reservoir of our forces, but it has not yet received its truthful image in our literature. Recent

430 Straddling Borders decades have renewed and transformed it.' Authors, it is charged, have not taken note of the changes and continue to cling to romantic visions (V. K., 'Paru zamitok do nashoi lyteraturnoi tvorchosti,' Lyteraturna nedilia, nos. 13-14,1944: 164—5). A clear-sighted, modern view, it is argued, would result in a more truthful and more aesthetically satisfying literature. An even more radical literature is promoted by other writers among the Rusynophiles. In an article published under the initials F. P., Fedor Potushniak surveys international twentieth-century intellectual advances and trends, citing the theory of relativity, Freudian psycho-analysis, quantum theory, Bergson's elan vital, behaviourism, and parapsychology as examples of a new, more fluid understanding of the world. Within this context, he promotes the literary style of surrealism, describing it as a psychological, spontaneous, individual vision that produces an autonomous literary object. His view of the role of art as a means toward the cultivation of the soul differed dramatically from the local norm. Opening art to an expression of the unconscious and philosophical musings on life and the world was a major contribution to Subcarpathian Rusyn literature that had revolutionary potential. Potushniak considered it a question of national survival, which, paradoxically, depended on opening the national soul to the world. We have had enough of limping behind, weaving bast-sandals, so as not to 'nurture ourselves on an alien soul.' We can catch up with others only by losing, perhaps, a particle of our own spiritual 'I.' However, we must not remain behind. This is why some of our authors have turned to modernism, seeing in it a great restorative and recuperative force for the soul that sends down a beneficent rain on the native meadow. We cannot do without the spiritual force of modernism and still retain our place in the family of nations. Pride in our spiritual T is a fortifying and sustaining salve, and the consciousness of our weakness is a worm that gnaws at our spirit. Therefore we must not lag behind others in terms of culture. ('O suchasnoi lyteraturi,' Lyteraturna nedilia, no. 5, 1943: 60)

Arguing that Potushniak's 'art for art' aesthetic is not for everyone, the poet losyf Arkhii cites Goethe and several French theorists (whom he knew through Hungarian translations) to support his position that art is condensed life. In his opinion, the purpose of art is to describe life expressively and fully, in all its vitality. Rejecting the 'swamp of tears and sighs' that kept Rusyn literature trapped in the nineteenth century, he writes, 'We need verses, broad verses from everyday, modern life and from simple life, immortalized through untold centuries' ('Poety,' Lyteraturna nedilia, no. 17, 1943: 204). Potushniak and Arkhii represent two opposing modernist artistic viewpoints, similar to futur-

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ism and Acmeism in Russian literature, which were both reactions to Russian symbolism.15 On the pages of Lyteraturna nedilia, these writers and others discussed the possible exits from the morass of opposing orientations that was Subcarpathian literature. To begin to extricate themselves, the contributors to Lyteraturna nedilia conducted a discussion on the need for a strict, evaluative literary criticism. Numerous articles decried the 'graphomania' that had traditionally characterized Subcarpathia. One writer complained, 'Nowhere, not in a single literature, is the title "writer" granted as easily as in ours' (A. M., 'Chios' pro nashu lyteraturu,' Lyteraturna nedilia, no. 18, 1942: 190). He and others called for a 'kind, objective, and strict criticism.' Our criticism must emerge from the diapers of romantic enthusiasm, one-sidedness, subjectivism, superficiality, primitivism, and all such uncritical attitudes ... With the help and direction of criticism in the broadest sense (including literary theory), our strongest writers could be advanced. Eventually schools, trends, and in general, a modern literary life would develop. (V. M., 'Problemy nashoi suchasnoi lyteraturnoi krytyky y lyteratury,' Lyteraturna nedilia, nos. 15-16, 1944: 189-90)

Another writer added, 'We do not have a sieve that would separate the wheat from the chaff... We have no literary critics' (A. V., 'Pro lyteraturnu krytyku,' Lyteraturna nedilia, no. 17, 1944: 199). Calling for consistent standards and dedication to the craft of criticism, Lyteraturna nedilia also urged writers to take a careful approach to their work, to supplement their talent with selfcriticism, careful revision, and self-improvement. In response, a young writer criticized the education available to writers. We often read that among us only painting has achieved a European level of artistic development, and many cannot understand ... why other branches of our culture lag behind. The reason is simple. Each of [the painters] has completed art school, travelled to Rome and Paris, met with world-famous painters, and visited the galleries of the world. In addition, our painters have their own society, their own school, their own cottage where they gather in the summer to paint together, take counsel together, and criticize one another ... This is the secret of the development of Subcarpathian painting. Writers must follow the same road.16

He suggested that the journal might assist the development of writers by publishing excerpts from world literature, arguing that 'there is no need to publish stories solely about our semerky, bokory, and hory' (a local variety of

432 Straddling Borders fir tree, rafts, and mountains), the ubiquitous symbolic images of Subcarpathia. It would be better to provide models of exemplary artistic structure, composition, and style. Accordingly, over the years, Lyteraturna nedilia published Cervantes, Shakespeare, Goethe, Strindberg, Poe, Knut Hamsen, Arthur Conan Doyle, Petofi, and Maupassant in Rusyn translation. In addition to providing models for beginning writers, conveying the classics of world literature in Rusyn translation lent the native language respectability and demonstrated its potential. It was characteristic of the Rusynophile movement to advocate opening up the native tradition and looking to the west for an infusion of spirit that would contribute to the development of an indigenous Rusyn culture. Rusynophile Poetry Poetry continued to be the dominant genre, although editors regularly published calls for more prose.17 In 1943, Pered skhodom (Before Sunrise), a collective anthology containing the work of three Rusynophile poets, appeared, losyf Arkhii, lu. Barvinok (lurii Kerekesh), and K. Vershan (Kyrylo Halas) were all students at Budapest University when they began writing poetry. Halas had previously written in Russian and published in the Russophile anthology Budet den' under the name Krasin. Arkhii had contributed to Nakanunie and published an individual collection of Russian verse, S poletom dnei (1941), under the pseudonym losyf Ivanov. The poetry included in Pered skhodom, like Russophile verse, uses symbols and imagery (fog, dawn, autumn) to express the oppressive atmosphere of the time. The focus, however, is more localized, and the perspective is Rusyn, rather than pan-Slav or Russian. Arkhii expresses a sense of local patriotism and inspiration, insisting that especially amid the hardships of war, he will not abandon 'the path of his ancestors' (Poety Zakarpattia, 577). lurii Kerekesh-Barvinok addresses those 'chameleons' who were born in 'the wrinkled Carpathians,' but who 'forgot simple songs' and offered their sacrifices to 'alien gods' (ibid., 581). Kyrylo Halas-Krasin expresses the obscure villages' political voice:

The Carmagnole revolutionary song did not resound in our villages, / The guillotine did not screech, / But we too would like to live / And to be heard for once, (ibid., 558)

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However, the work of the Rusynophiles is interesting not for the political positions the writers take, but for the visions of Subcarpathia that dominate in their poetry. Stressing the aesthetic, they present sketches of Subcarpathian life in realistic detail. losyf Arkhii invokes the land and the people by name in poems of restrained melancholy. His concrete imagery depicts poetic scenes that have much in common with paintings of the Subcarpathian Barbizon artists.

I know a land, a distant land, / Sonorous, dark thickets, / Narrow strips of fields, pine forests, groves / And age-old mountains ... //And I know a nation - people: / Hutsuls, Boikos, Lemkos. / And they all labour, yes, / From dawn till dusk. (Poety Zakarpattia, 579)

Arkhii admonished Subcarpathian poets to break with the tradition of 'sorrow and sadness,' 'tears and dreams.' He called for poems about everyday life, broad-ranging, expressive imagery, and careful craftsmanship, so that poetry would be 'condensed life.' His poems provide visions of Rusyn life, where the poet's voice is muted and the images speak for themselves, as in his picture of beggars surrounding a church.

434

Straddling Borders

Such a contrast! ... / Happy and sad / come together at the church to cry ... / Crossing themselves, praying under a shelter - / the old ones. / The sad shuffled with the cripples. / The first gave two ... / The second a little more, / another got up and went / to the altar, / - where there were more than a few stingy ones - / where the blind cripple did not go. / On the steps the poor recall the kingdom / And beg alms from the people, - / from the old women /. who finger their beads / But give no money. / The young prance, run happily, / squealing whistles, eating biscuits ... / Time to hear the 'teaching': 'My dear brothers in Christ ...' / The people doze, sleep ... // Such a contrast!... / Happy and sad, / Healthy and tortured by life / gathered together. / Site of pilgrimage ... / Songs resound ... / Punctuated by cries, moans, and wailing.' ('Otpust" [Procession], Lyteraturna nediliq, nos. 13-14, 1944: 165) Characteristic of Rusynophile poetry are short, terse depictions of local scenes, meant not to provoke the reader to political action, but to reassure him of the beauty and value of home, while making a statement about the aesthetic value

of art. HoMb. TCMHO. CnHTb ce/io BT> AOTIHH'B, CriHTb BT> my6oKOH Mnrb.

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Night. Dark. The village sleeps in the valley, / Sleeps in deep mist. / Night. Dark. Into the blue distance / Go little angels. // Stealthily the moon emerges above the mountains, / The village sleeps deeply, / Night falls quietly in the deep forests, / Without even a rustle. (V. Zvonar', 'Selo v nocht,' Lyteraturna nedilia, no. 2,1942: 67)

Sensory details and imagery predominate in Kerekesh-Barvinok's poetic evocation of autumn.

No songs are heard. The forest is silent. / And the field is quiet. - The wind blows, /Above the stream the snowball bush droops ... / Speedily into the waves. They murmur, / From midday the clouds pass on by. ('Osin',' Poety Zakarpattia, 578; orthography adapted)

Rusyn Surrealism Fedor Potushniak takes a step beyond these aesthetic scenes from Subcarpathian reality to an individualized, whimsical, often surrealistic, vision that uses modernist techniques to expand the creative potential of language. Associated with the forceful expression of the author's personality, experimentation in language and form, aestheticism, and a challenge to realism and traditional values, modernism focuses on the language itself, making it not only the medium, but also the message. Potushniak's verse brims with puns, alliteration, word play, and striking metaphoric associations. In 'Holub-den" (Doveday), the poet describes natural phenomena using incongruous imagery and unnatural juxtapositions.

436 Straddling Borders

Like drops of quicksilver dove-day / A whirl of days beyond the mountains, / The azure blue grows in the sun, / Fly, fly with the doves! // For thoughts, full mangers, / But give the heart ardent sorrow! / The torrent dashed up its oars / Like an arrow into the green of horizons. (Taemnychi vechory, 50)

Potushniak manipulates sound combinations and creates verbal puns, making the reader apprehend the texture of the language. The neologism 'dove-day' (holub-den1) arises from the rhyme with 'azure blue' (holuberi) and evokes the connotations of holub, or dove: sky-blue, dear, darling, mild, meek, kind. Taking advantage of the polydialectical nature of the Rusyn speech community, the poet uses multivalent images. 'Ardent sorrow,' for example, also bears the suggestion of a 'burning rainbow.' In this description of a change in weather, motifs of colour and flight are integrated in a whirl (kruhovoroi) of images that is reflected in the horizons (vydnokruhiv). There is a tenuous semantic connection with the reality of a rushing storm, but it is muted in the creative linguistic play. The manipulation of sound and metaphor can be taken as pure word play, language made palpable for its own sake, but its more serious contribution is to rejuvenate one's perception of the language. The following, for example, is a metaphoric description of sunset.

Strings resound in the greenness, / Arrows of winds on the horizon, / The frightened horses of the sun / Fly to the west in the dusk. ('Zeleni struny,' [Green strings], Lyteraturna nedtlia, no. 5, 1941: 1).

Although his imagery is cultivated and refined, the poet does not abandon the

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details of life in Subcarpathian Rus'. In 'Molot'ba' (Threshing), Potushniak applies exquisite imagery and sonorous musicality to the activities surrounding nighttime threshing at harvest time. The threshing yard, lit by stars and scented with the aroma of unmowed flowers, where plowmen work the golden ears of silver grain, is transformed into a magical tableau and leads to an elemental world view that is grounded in nature and the life of the people.

And the land is a dear mother, / That bakes for us this poor bread, / Like this field - black and fragrant, / Which conceals the mighty archetype of the world. / And the sheaves are a father's hands, / Pitiable, black, knowing no torment, / In diligent labour for the good of the people, / Which expects for its sons only happiness and plenty. (Grabar1, Poezlia Zakarpat'ia 1939-1945, 182; orthography adapted)

The titles of Potushniak's early collections, Taemnychi vechory (Secret Evenings, 1938) and Mozhlyvosti (Possibilities, 1939) suggest his mystical philosophical world view. Many poems are set in 'the depth of night,' with reference to 'magical distances,' 'heights,' 'fogs,' and 'dreams.' In 1940, however, he comments on village life in a lyrical form that tends toward prose.

Yes! Here lives my friend Zaichun ... / He brought firewood. He kindled a fire. / He almost died, coming down the mountain. / What a cursed day he had today!

He combines such prosaism with ornamentalism and startling metaphors in nature description: 'Haa CHI-TOM FI'HHHM xo^HTb 6^y«OM HIH / H (bonapHKH y HopHOMy n;iaiii,H' (Above the world the night wanders aimlessly drunk /And the lanterns are cloaked in black; Grabar', Poezlia Zakarpat'ia 1939-1945,

438 Straddling Borders 184; orthography adapted). In his surrealist verse, colours and sounds contribute to the poet's individualized vision.

A hidden unison of green eyes / You can't count the blue cries of happiness / You will say that above the water somewhere is an eagle /And the heights, like a pleat, fell down // The sound of bells dropped into the abyss of desire / Spirits in the field began to croak // And memory drowns in a stream of white hands / Eyes sink in the wish of midnight / And the green dove of your dreams flew away / And the black diadem of night weeps // Like a will-o'-the-wisp in the house. (Mozhlyvosti, 54)

Here the poet's semantics take a second place to startling and evocative imagery for its own sake. Potushniak's next collection, Na bilykh skalakh (On White Cliffs, 1941), was published under the pseudonym F. Pasichnyk. In it, the poet's mystical visions are presented with less surrealistic coloration, although mystery and mistiness persist. The opening poem sets the tone:

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On white cliffs, in the coffin of golden dreams / Burn the phantoms of broken hopes / A widow is in her loving shawl, for lilies / In fires singed remembrances and dreams. // The wilderness is wise, the blueness is wildly bright, / The wormwood of distant worlds blossomed, / There where neither nights nor days enter, / May the temple of my soul rise up. (7) The 1941 collection was issued by the Subcarpathian Society of Sciences, and Ivan Haraida, the editor, undoubtedly had a hand in adapting Potushniak's language and orthography to his standard of Rusyn. During the Czech period, Potushniak had begun writing in Ukrainian, with admixtures of dialect. Under the Hungarian occupation, and with the corroboration of Haraida's editing, his verse became dense and saturated with dialectical elements. He exploited the possibilities offered by dialect in constructing his personalized vision of reality and, reciprocally, his artistic vision made headway in constructing the language. When the language in question is struggling for existence and acceptance, playing with words, sounds, and images can have serious implications. Such 'play' can point to the creative and communicative potential of the language. It will inevitably, however, resonate within a small circle of those initiated into the techniques of modernist verse. Potushniak's poetry was simply unintelligible to the broad public and his mysticism went against the grain of post-war political attitudes. Therefore, his philosophical and psychological intentions, along with his linguistic efforts, went unappreciated. Oleg Grabar', who was perhaps the kindest of his subsequent critics, writes: What is most striking in Potushniak's verse is his unhealthy apoliticism, his detachment from life, his refusal to be a guiding force in society and his withdrawal from major themes. Under the pen of this doubtlessly talented author, poetry became a play of symbolic images and suggestions ... The verses of Fedor Potushniak, without date, without historicism, without a guiding idea, became an aesthetic toy, a jewel, and in no way could they pretend to a reform of Subcarpathian poetry, and even less to a transformation of reality. (Grabar', Poeziia Zakarpat'ia 1939-1945, 96-7)18 Mykola Lelekach is reported to have said that Potushniak's verses could be read with equal comprehension backwards, or starting from the middle (cited in Baleha, Literatura Zakarpattia, 171). In his introduction to Na bilykh skalakh, however, Lelekach defends Potushniak against the charge that his verse is incomprehensible. On first reading, his verses seem incomprehensible to us. But with careful

440 Straddling Borders reading of a few verses, the extraordinary artistic beauty of poetry full of harmony and an individualized world view is revealed to us. And one need not search for content or plot in it, but only for the beauty of words and a subjective impression of the inspiration of nature. The poet sees nature and life through his own individualized philosophical world view. This profound philosophical harmony and world view are linked with delicate lexical and linguistic innovations, which give his poetry a special resonance.(3)

Clearly, once Soviet standards were imposed, there was no room in Subcarpathian literature for the apolitical, individualistic poetry -of Potushniak. However, from today's perspective, his efforts deserve further consideration. While it is common in emerging literatures for authors to write primitivist verse in the style of folklore, reaching back into native tradition to resurrect lexical items and elevate colloquial speech patterns to literary status, the appeal to modernism is another way to create meaning, accentuate the potential of language, and advance the quality of literature. The Rusynophile group made several important contributions to the development of Rusyn literature that are not generally credited. First, they were receptive to outside influences and favoured breaking the age-old dependence on Russian literature and the more recent indebtedness to Ukrainian writing. Recognizing that the dominant style of national pathos had led into a blind alley, they were willing to experiment, in hopes of revitalizing the writers' aesthetic vision and literary practice. Most important, they understood Subcarpathian Rusyn literature as an integral, individual phenomenon that arose from inherent local conditions and circumstances, rather than as an inferior appendix of a larger entity somewhere beyond the mountains. Despite Stryps'kyi's politically motivated fulminations against the Russophiles, Lyteraturna nedilia reviewed Russian-language publications positively as part of an integral Subcarpathian literature that 'would not be complete without them' (review ofNakanunie in Lyteraturna nedilia, no. 5,1942: 130-1). Owing to political circumstances, moreover, all three orientations were to some extent represented in the newspaper, which was the closest Subcarpathian literature had come to a unification of forces. In his poetry, losyf Arkhii expressed hope for Subcarpathian cultural unity.

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An end to quarrels, hostility, / The naive, proud 'I and You.' / And forerunners might arise, / To join us in an equal 'We.'19

Unlike Russophiles and Ukrainophiles, the Rusynophile theoreticians were not concerned for the lack of purity that might characterize the resulting 'We.' It was recognized that 'our literature is an original mix and remix that is not often met with, even without bringing in the language question' (M. D., 'Nasha lyteraturay \yteratumipamiatky,' Lyteraturna nedilia, no. 15, 1942: 154). At the beginnings of secular Rusyn literature, Aleksander Dukhnovych's play Virtue Is More Important than Riches was recognized as 'a mosaic of all of the current and previous literary orientations.' In the twentieth century, the same mosaic of literary orientations was in fact the essence of Rusyn literature, and in the Rusynophile journal Lyteraturna nedilia, this fact was at last openly acknowledged. The potential benefits of the situation were not yet apparent, but writers began to adopt a positive, confident cultural consciousness. Calling for a renewal of literary criticism and theory, one writer explains: It seems to me that our literary criticism suffers from a special 'Rusyn' disease that is an obstacle to a healthy cultural and economic expansion ... This disease is the consciousness of and lamentation over our poverty, primitiveness, and inferiority. Whoever a priori sees a 'poor Rusyn' in our cultural and social conditions and our literary efforts ... is inevitably diffident and satisfied with less than other, richer peoples and ... can unconsciously hinder our economic, cultural, and literary development. It is necessary now to discard this ... thought about the social and cultural poverty and inferiority of the Rusyn. (A. M., 'Chios' pro nashu lyteraturu,' Lyteraturna nedilia, no. 18, 1942: 191)

Calling on talented writers to develop their skills through work and study and to move confidently forward, Lyteraturna nedilia stopped apologizing for Rusyn deficiencies. Along with the Rusynophiles' inclusive attitude toward other literary tendencies, this stance might have promoted a positive and productive Rusyn cultural consciousness. Unfortunately, this was not to be. No matter how positive and productive its aesthetic innovations, the Rusynophile movement could not overcome the negatives of the political circumstances that allowed its appearance. For example, the anthology Pered skhodom was dedicated to Aleksander Il'nyts'kyi, a leading dignitary of the Greek Catholic Mukachevo eparchy who supported a pro-Hungarian political orientation and was granted several appointments by the Hungarian government administration. For many readers and for all subse-

442 Straddling Borders quent critics, including Oleg Grabar', this indicated a collusion with the Hungarian occupiers that could not help but negatively influence the perception of the poetry contained in the collection. In retrospective analyses, any cooperation with the Hungarian-supported Subcarpathian Society of Sciences is seen as suspect, and any support for the official Uhro-Rusyn nationality is viewed as a step toward assimilation. Grabar' noted that the title of the collection (Before Sunrise) and many of its poems seemed to indicate an independent orientation. However, writing under Soviet conditions, he could explain the work of the authors connected with Pered skhodom only by accusing them of treason, careerism, or confusion. After 1939, the Rusynophile orientation may have been granted a chance to exist, but the atmosphere of terror, arrests, and persecution under Hungarian occupation rendered it odious to most of the intelligentsia and unfeasible as a national alternative. However, its cultural contributions and aesthetic potential have not yet been objectively evaluated and they deserve further study.

Conclusion: Straddling Past and Future

From the sixteenth century until the middle of the twentieth, literature in Subcarpathian Rus' developed in tandem with the intelligentsia's quest for a national identity. In its initial stages, Rusyn literature established itself as part of an in-between culture, negotiating a position between east and west, Catholicism and Orthodoxy, written literature and folk art. As centuries passed, Rusyn national identity was the underlying focus of meaning behind the literary strivings of writers who represented diverse orientations in various languages. As borders and languages shifted, the changing interlocutionary situation in which the writers found themselves determined the problematics of literature and identity in Subcarpathian Rus'. Searching for political and psychological security, writers sought to define themselves in reference to other related peoples, offering their writing as proof of that postulated relationship. Neither the Russophile nor the Ukrainophile orientation attempted to create a distinctive Subcarpathian literature, and neither succeeded in creating a successful Subcarpathian adjunct to Russian or Ukrainian literature that was in any way nationally specific. Ironically, the most distinctive literary efforts were the most heterogeneous, arising from the free-wheeling enthusiasm of Dukhnovych's national awakening and, during various historical periods, from the subversive strategies that sought to mediate the difference between rival influences. Ultimately, cultural workers who defined themselves as distinctly Rusyn, as opposed to Russian or Ukrainian, acknowledged their 'in-between' character and their mixed language, and came to an understanding that hybridity was the essence of Rusyn literature. The Rusynophiles were on the verge of recognizing the benefits of this position, seeing it as a source of creative selfesteem, and consciously using it to their cultural advantage, when the natural Rusyn cultural and national evolution was arrested.

444 Conclusion During the course of the Second World War, the Allied Powers had agreed that Subcarpathian Rus' should again be part of a restored Czechoslovak state. In 1944, however, the Soviets, with the help of local Communists, prepared the ground for the annexation of Subcarpathian Rus1 to what was described as the 'Soviet Ukrainian motherland.' With no general plebiscite and no CarpathoRusyn representation, a provisional Czechoslovak parliament ceded Subcarpathian Rus' to the Soviet Union in June 1945. Traditional Carpatho-Rusyn life was uprooted, along with traditional identity, language, and religion. During the first few years after the war, the Greek Catholic church was outlawed and land was taken from individual farmers, who were obliged to work in collective or cooperative farms. The nationality question was resolved by Soviet decree. Based on a decision made by the Communist party of Ukraine in December 1945, all Rusyns, regardless of what they may have called themselves, were forcibly listed in official documents as Ukrainians. The Rusyn language was banned in schools and in all publications. The Rusyns of the Presov region, which remained part of Soviet-controlled Slovakia, were also subjected to collectivization, the liquidation of their church, and, after 1952, forced Ukrainianization. The people responded to their reclassification as Ukrainians by identifying themselves as Slovaks and sending their children to Slovak schools, leading in the 1950s and 1960s to the greatest degree of national assimilation that the Rusyns in Slovakia had ever experienced. The Czechoslovak state created a wide range of Ukrainian cultural organizations, and during this period the local intelligentsia studied the scholarly and literary work of the 'Ukrainians of Eastern Slovakia' within a socialist political paradigm. It was these scholars who reinterpreted Rusyn literary history and established the modern conceptual framework for discussion of Dukhnovych and other classics of Rusyn literature in a Marxist Ukrainian discourse. During the Prague Spring of 1968, Carpatho-Rusyns in the Presov region, whose numbers had declined by two-thirds since forced Ukrainianization was instituted, demanded the return of their nationality and the re-establishment of Rusyn schools and publications. During this period of relative liberalization, the first collection of Dukhnovych's works was published since the early 1920s. However, both scholarly and broad-based efforts were cut short by the invasion of the country by the Soviet Union, and within a year, Czechoslovak authorities had once again banned all activity that might in any way be connected with a distinct Carpatho-Rusyn identity. After 1945, except for the Rusyns of Yugoslavia, who were recognized as a distinct nationality, CarpathoRusyns had officially ceased to exist. Accordingly, after the establishment of the Soviet regime in Subcarpathian Rus' (renamed the Transcarpathian oblast'} in 1945, there was no Rusyn

Straddling Past and Future 445 literature. Ukrainian was declared the only acceptable literary language, and many Russian-language Rusyn writers adopted the new linguistic medium. During the Stalinist years and again in the 1970s, Subcarpathian writers who tried to adapt to the obligatory optimism required by Socialist Realism overlaid traditional themes with Soviet cliches. All local feeling and loyalties were replaced by Communist ideals. In their historic novels and short stories, Fedor Potushniak, Mykhailo Tomchanii, and Ivan Chendei, among others, rewrote Rusyn history and created a reality that was in accord with the imposed political ideology, an injunction that in the long run was more damaging to the integrity of Rusyn literature than any previous restrictions on language.' In the Presov region of Czechoslovakia, Fedor Lazoryk and Ivan Matsyns'kyi, who also switched from Russian to Ukrainian, were among the first poets to relate the Rusyn experience of the post-war years. In prose, Vasyl' Zozuliak, Fedor Ivanchov, Mykhailo Shmaida, and others described the Rusyns' problems with collectivization and adaptation to a Ukrainian national identity within a politically correct framework. A younger generation of prose writers, such as Vasyl' Datsei, Stepan Hostyniak, and Mykhailo Drobniak, used Ukrainian consistently to treat subject matter from everyday life with some satire and psychological realism. Only a few writers, mostly amateur authors living in the countryside (Anna Halchak, Nykolai Hvozda, Ivan Kindia, lurko Kolynchak, Andrii Tsaptsara, Ivan Zhak) were allowed to publish in Rusyn dialect lyrical poetry and stories that dealt with nature, village life, traditions, and national consciousness in the Presov region.2 For the most part, the literature of the 'Ukrainians' of eastern Slovakia is treated as a regional variety of Ukrainian literature. Despite broad consensus that the Rusyns had been entirely assimilated, in 1989 a Rusyn revival got under way in each of the countries where Rusyns live. In historic Subcarpathian Rus', organizations to promote the idea of a distinct Carpatho-Rusyn nationality were established in Slovakia - Rusyn'ska Obroda (the Rusyn Renaissance Society) - and Ukraine - Obshchestvo podkarpatskykh Rusynov (Society of Subcarpathian Rusyns). A Rusyn organization was established also in Hungary, where it was thought Rusyns had disappeared through assimilation by the end of the nineteenth century. For the first time since the Second World War, Rusyn-language newspapers and magazines began to appear, including Rusyn and Narodny novynky in Slovakia, Podkarpats'ka Rus' and Rusyns'ka bysida in Ukraine, and Rusynskyi zhyvot in Hungary. In all countries except Ukraine, Rusyns have been recognized as a distinct national minority. When the Communist regimes fell throughout East Central Europe and the Soviet Union, Rusyn writers responded quickly. Many who had previously made a career using Ukrainian now turned to some form of the Rusyn language and

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applied their talent and expertise to rejuvenating a Rusyn national literature and identity. Having analysed Rusyn literary history, it may now be instructive to take a quick look at contemporary Rusyn literature. As it emerged from a complex history of cultural and political entanglements into the postmodern age of global cultural interdependence, what might one expect of the renewed Rusyn literature? What strengths can writers draw on in the untidy Rusyn tradition, and what might their relationship be to the assertion of a Rusyn nationality? Will they attempt to return to some idealistic vision of primordial cultural purity, some essential Rusynism? Given the syncretic intercultural nature of Rusyn literary tradition and the perennial political insecurity of Rusyn existence, this might be an alluring vision, but it is one that goes against contemporary currents of cultural development. Postcolonial theorists note the ultimate impossibility of recovering pre-colonial cultural purity and emphasize instead the notion of hybridity. Seen as an inherent strength of postcolonial cultures, hybridity does not mean the disappearance of independent cultural traditions. Rather, it promotes their continual and mutual development as an integral part of a complex cultural palimpsest. Hybridity provides the means of survival for the most distinctive aspects of an oppressed culture within new formations ('Hybridity,' in The Post-colonial Studies Reader, 183-209). A representative sampling of the new Rusyn literature demonstrates the variety and continuing hybridity of Rusyn national experience. For some writers, national and political concerns continue to dominate. Gabrel HattingerKlebashko is the leader of the Rusyn movement in Hungary. In the Rusyn language used in Hungary and in a modem, spare, free verse style, the poet treats explicitly national topics, as well as traditional themes of love, religion, art, and philosophical meditation. He establishes the indeterminate, in-between position of the Rusyns by comparison to a stateless people that is better known to the international community.

We are like Kurds / in the heart / of little Europe, / on the threshold / of the 21st century. (Zakazana zvizda, 33) With related, but more universal appeal, Hattinger contributes a Rusyn commentary on 'Body and Soul.'

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the body will remain /just some kind of / form / only the soul perhaps / for man is the / norm (Tilo i dusha, Zakazana zvizda, 5 1 )

In Ukraine, the home of three-quarters of Europe's Rusyns, Rusyn life is marked by national nullification and political, economic, and cultural oppression.3 There are an estimated 600,000 to 800,000 Rusyns in the Transcarpthian oblast' out of a total population of 1.3 million. Although the Rusyns are the indigenous inhabitants of the region, 85 per cent of high government officials are non-Rusyns. The unemployment rate among Rusyns is higher than in other parts of Ukraine, forcing many to look for arduous and illegal work beyond the borders of Transcarpathia. In 1991, when the citizens of Ukraine voted overwhelmingly for independence from the USSR, the same referendum in Transcarpathia carried a supplemental question: 'Do you agree that Transcarpathia should have the status of a self-governing territory in sovereign Ukraine?' A resounding 78 per cent of Transcarpathians agreed with this proposition. As it turned out, however, the Rusyns of Transcarpathia were no closer to autonomy in an independent Ukraine than they were as part of the Soviet Union. The Rukh movement for the cultural and political independence of Ukraine was unsympathetic, even antagonistic, to the Rusyn movement, seeing it as a political phenomenon whose goal was 'to tear Transcarpathia away from its mother Ukraine' (cited in Michaels, 'The Rusyn-Ukrainian Debate in Soviet Transcarpathia,' Carpatho-Rusyn American 13, no. 4, 1990: 5). (Ironically, the discourse of colonialism came easily to Ukraine. Recall that for centuries Ukrainians, or 'Little Russians,' were forced to defend their own identity against 'mother Russia.') The Ukrainian constitution, adopted in 1996, proclaimed Ukraine 'a unitary state.' Although it promises assistance in the development of the ethnic, cultural, linguistic, and religious distinctiveness of all indigenous peoples and national minorities, the Rusyns are not included, since the government does not recognize Rusyns as distinct from Ukrainians. In 1993, a splinter group from the Society of Subcarpathian Rusyns created a provisional government for Subcarpathian Rus', the goal of which was not to secede from Ukraine, but to restore autonomous status within its framework.4 Soon after their adoption of the constitution in 1996, the Ukrainian government

448 Conclusion commissioned its ministries to propose strategies for resolving what it called 'the problem of Ukrainian-Rusyns.' The result was a plan for eliminating 'the Rusyn problem' by eliminating Rusyn organizations and excluding Rusyns from the prospective 'official list of nationalities' (Galloway, 'Stalinism or Tsarism in Present-Day Ukraine,' Carpatho-Rusyn American 19, no. 3, 1996: 10). Today in Ukraine, Rusyn newspapers do not enjoy any support from the government, unlike the publications of many other national minorities, and Rusyns are not allowed even to establish Saturday or Sunday schools where they might be taught their own language. Literary life in Rusyn Transcarpathia has been dominated by two writers, Ivan Petrovtsii and Volodymyr Fedyny shy nets'. Both are poets, members of the writers' union of Ukraine, and both were prolific Ukrainian-language writers before taking active roles in the Rusyn movement after 1989. Petrovtsii's first Rusyn-oriented book was a dictionary in verse, 'a museum, or pantheon of dead words,' which, thanks to the unofficial resurrection of the Rusyn language in literature, now have a new lease on life (Dialektarii, abo zh myla knyzhochka rusyns'koi bysidy u virshakh). Similar in concept to Dukhnovych's 1848 primer, the verses offer not only definitions of Rusyn lexical items, but also descriptions of Rusyn life and assertions of Rusyn identity. Petrovtsii's 1996 book of Rusyn-language folk-style verse, Nashi spivanky (Our Songs), caused a literary scandal that spread from Transcarpathia to Kiev, reached the attention of Ukraine's president Leonid Kuchma, and resulted in Petrovtsii's expulsion from the Ukrainian writers' union. In frank, often coarse language, the poet addresses political issues of relevance to the local Rusyn community in their struggle for national recognition. Writing in the vernacular language of his native village Osii, located near Mukachevo, Petrovtsii points a finger of blame at the Ukrainian state with biting satire and mordant irony.

The Communists were splendid, / They died off in good time. / But even worse are the democrats / Who exploit us. ('Spivanka za dovhy,' Song to Debts, 11)

Petrovtsii is a cynical, modern-day awakener, for whom the future is bleak and humiliating. In 'Spivanka za byzrobotnoho' (Song for the Unemployed, 59), two jobless professionals 'drink up their intellect' and all their money in a tavern and manage to harness a pig to pull their disabled car.

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The unawakened people sleep through the awakeners. / Our pigs pull an American Ford. / Alcohol has dulled /The intellect. / Forward, Rusyns! But, forward-/Where to?!(60)

The most outrageous of Petrovtsii's challenges to the Ukrainian state was the poem 'Prizident na pivstavky' (Part-time President), a parody of an election campaign program. The poet berates the Ukrainian leadership for corruption and neglect of the people's needs, and in his conclusion he calls for the dissolution of the 'Ukrainian empire': 'Ukraine - to the Ukrainians, / Crimea to the Crimeans, / Subcarpathia - to the Rusyns, / and Galicia - to the Galicians' (40). At a meeting of President Kuchma with a leading deputy, the journalist and former dissident Viacheslav Chornovil, who had spoken out against the Soviets in the 1960s, now raised his voice against Rusyn poet Ivan Petrovtsii, branding his book 'anti-Ukrainian, anti-president, anti-parliament, and anti-government.'5 Kuchma berated the government's representative in Transcarpathia, Vasyl' Ustych, for allowing such a publication and he demanded an investigation of the book's sponsors, with threats of criminal action. There ensued a virulent Soviet-style newspaper campaign against Petrovtsii and the sponsors of his book, in which Petrovtsii was accused of violating moral standards and inspiring international enmity. Support for the author came only from certain fellow Rusyns, who saw the verses from a different perspective. Valerii Razgulov explains the crudeness of Petrovtsii's work as 'a reflection of our contemporary distorted and sarcastic existence' ('Na poklyk sumliniia,' Khrystians'ka rodyna, 21 November 1996). Another reviewer points out that 'behind a shield of bravado and vulgarity and in some places, courage, the author of Nashi spivanky has hidden his pain for the fate of his people.' He suggests that the virulent criticism may have arisen because there was 'too much truth' in the book, and that the fuss surrounding it served to divert the people from 'the hungry rumblings in their stomachs' (V. Opryshek, 'Akademicheskii perevod s tochnost'iu do naoborot,' Edinstvo plius, 21 September 1996). Particularly important in Petrovtsii's work is his use of the Rusyn language, which in Transcarpathia is intrinsically a political matter. As Petrovtsii points

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out, it is the sad fate of Subcarpathian Rus' that 'we have never had leaders who spoke our language' ('Interv'iu')- Certainly, Petrovtsii's use of Rusyn vernacular was one reason for the book's popularity (it sold out in bookstores and circulated in photocopies), and for its notoriety. Just the fact that the Rusyn language was being used in published literature was enough to attract attention, but what Rusyn language! Petrovtsii himself describes it as betiarskii, that is, something like 'soldiers' slang,' crude, non-standard, and vulgar. From the opposite perspective, of course, it might be described as direct, uncompromising, and vivid. Swear words are sprinkled generously throughout, scatological humour abounds, and sexual allusions range from moderately indecorous to explicitly obscene, reminiscent of the rough layer of folklore that exists in the art of all peoples. In this context, the profane language is appropriate to the content, the humourous tone, and the sarcastic style of the collection. And the artistry of the verse, which is impossible to communicate in translation, alternately mediates and accentuates the roughness of the language. Crude as the language may be, it seems to be what is needed now, a wake-up call from a modern day awakener. Yet if the traditional awakeners focused on their own people, Petrovtsii aims his alarm also in the direction of the government. He claims that his 'non-normative lexicon' was meant to reach the 'average midlevel official who swears incessantly for no reason' ('Interv'iu'). In other words, if he speaks obscenely it is because he is speaking their language. Thus, Petrovtsii's purpose in using non-standard language is twofold - first, to awaken Ukrainian officialdom to the condition of the Rusyns in what he believes is a form accessible to them and, second, to awaken his own people to the obscenity of Rusyn life in Subcarpathia. Fedynyshynets' also has strong feelings for the Rusyn language and speaks eloquently in its defence. He insists that Rusyn is not a dialect, as Ukrainians maintain, but 'a living language,' and, with its roots in the ancient common Slavic tongue, it is the key to understanding other Slavic languages. It could become, he believes, the Slavic Esperanto (Myrna nasha rusyns'ka put', 102). A codified Rusyn language would provide 'everything needed for the expression of thoughts, feelings and aspirations of today's modern man, just as all other modern languages' (la esm" vechnyi rusyn, 72). At a 1992 conference devoted to the topic, The Ukrainian Language in Transcarpathia in the Past and Present,' Fedynyshynets1 stood alone against eighty pro-Ukrainian scholars in defence of Rusyn. He predicted provocatively that by the year 2018, one hundred years after its introduction there, the Ukrainian language will no longer be in active use in Subcarpathian Rus1 (Podkarpats'ka Rus', 15 May 1992: 3-4). All of this sounds like what one might expect from a writer in an oppressive, colonial situation. The catch is that of all the sixty-plus books and some

Straddling Past and Future 451 thousand articles Fedynyshynets' had published up until 1999, none are written in Rusyn. Fedynyshynets' had always written in Ukrainian or Russian, albeit often with the use of Rusyn dialectalisms. The writer discusses the language issue in a rather defensive tone. Had it not been for the Soviet revolution, he says, he would have always written exclusively in Rusyn (Istorychna metafora Profesora Magochiia, 181). He expresses guilt for using Ukrainian, the 'language of the aggressor,' but after all, 'the language is not guilty,' and he is unwilling to wait in silence for a codified Rusyn. Therefore, he continues writing in Ukrainian only 'out of inertia.' To those who demand an immediate switch to Rusyn, he responds, 'I will not take a final leave from the Ukrainian language. Of course, I will work with it till the end of my life along with Rusyn. And why should I not write in Russian as well?' (Myrna nasha rusyns'ka put', 89). Both Petrovtsii and Fedynyshynets' have demonstrated their love and respect for the Ukrainian language, but while Petrovtsii vows never to use it again in literature, Fedynyshynets1 defends his right to use whatever language he chooses in a distinct Rusyn literature. To put these two writers in a larger context, it is not at all uncommon for activists in a cultural resistance movement to engage in pitched battles over the proper approach to building a national culture, and these two Rusyn patriots represent two sides of a classic debate. The nativist position, traditional literary nationalism, advocates an aggressive literary politics and a political literature, written exclusively in the native vernacular language, with the goal of retrieving and preserving the primordial national essence. The opposing 'integrative' position, which arises from postmodernist thought, offers a pluralistic vision of the world that thinks of nationality, in the words of Edward Said, as part of 'the disparate, but intertwined and interdependent, and above all overlapping streams of historical experience'; Culture and Imperialism, 312). Fedynyshynets' adheres to something like this position. Throughout his work, he speaks of the Rusyns as 'common Slavic' and the Carpatho-Rusyn writer's work as 'multiSlavic' (Vechnyi Rusyn, 280). He sees the future Subcarpathian Rus' as a European nation with 'transparent borders,' and advocates a turn away from the confrontational patterns of the past: 'Why go down the same path with the Ukrainians that they did with the Russians?' ('Shi ne vmerla rusyns'ka tsivilizatsiia,' Rusyn, nos. 5-6, 1992: 39). Taking a position that resonates with the postmodern understanding of linguistic nationalism, he urges his fellow Rusyn writers to be grateful for, not embarrassed by, the foreign borrowings that are part of the Rusyn language (Vechnyi Rusyn, 49). As the historical survey of Rusyn literature in this volume has suggested, the cultural essence of the Rusyn people is hybridity - a sensitivity to environmental realities and the ability to adapt to those realities, while retaining cultural integrity. Cautious

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adaptation has always been a survival strategy for Rusyns, and in today's cultural world, Fedynyshynets"s 'integrationist' position is more 'politically correct' in the western sense than Petrovtsii's 'nativism.' But is it correct in terms of practical politics? Transparent borders and intertwining histories are attractive concepts, but for a people struggling to be recognized as such, they may be impracticable. In the nineteenth-century awakening, for example, the Rusyns clung to the romantic notion of Slav reciprocity long after the other Slavic groups had moved on to the defence of individual national cultures, and this ultimately hampered the development of a distinct, self-sustaining Rusyn culture. Today in Slovakia, where Rusyns are recognized as a separate people and their language has been codified, the new literature in fact comes close to Said's prescription in spirit. By contrast, in Subcarpathian Rus', the first task of literature may be to achieve a stable, recognized national identity. While nativist tactics can cause discord, within the Rusyn community as well as with the authorities, they surely attract attention. Still, my concern is not which approach is more likely to succeed politically. From the literary point of view, each of these disparate approaches has merit, and there is no reason why they should not be able to coexist. In fact, they are complementary, the political strengths of one complementing the deficiencies of the other. Together they might produce a distinct Europeanlevel literature in Subcarpathian Rus', hybrid in form and language, but united in resistance to Ukrainian cultural hegemony. By 1999, however, Fedynyshynets' was caught up in the Rusyn revival and produced a book of poetry in Rusyn, My-slyzynka na zemly (We Are But a Teardrop on the Earth). Slyzynka is Fedynyshynets"s assertion of a distinct Rusyn identity and culture, as well as his contribution and challenge to the Rusyn movement in Subcarpathian Rus'. Yet what is perhaps most important about the collection is the aesthetic argument it makes. Fedynyshynets' looks at political questions through the prism of art and uses metaphor to create national meaning and to accentuate the potential of the Rusyn language. In verse, he discusses his transition from Ukrainian to Rusyn, admitting that it was not easy. He writes that although he has always thought in Rusyn, thirty years of writing in Ukrainian impeded the literary use of his native language, and the Rusyn-language verses in Slyzynka were long in ripening. He attributes his alienation from his native language to his Ukrainian-language education and his metropolitan life, but he also bemoans the debasement of the Rusyn language that is the result of the damage and insult inflicted on it by forty-five years of Soviet communism. Only by a difficult plodding process, he believes, can we reach even the level at which the language stood in the mid-1940s (Slyzynka, 74). He describes his own linguistic struggle in verse.

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Five years I struggled / With a foreign language: / It did not let me go home, / It did not allow / My native language / Into my heart. / But the mother-tongue is patient: / She would wait even a thousand years/ Until at last I would realize / That she had never left my heart. / She, being kind and trusting, / Had allowed in - / Only for a moment! - / A n ungrateful foreigner. (Slyzynka, 48)

As a lyric poet, Fedynyshynets' starts with his personal linguistic struggle and in it reflects the broad national endeavour to recapture, revive, and preserve the Rusyn language in Transcarpathia. Fedynyshynets' estimates that there are currently about twenty writers in Subcarpathia using Rusyn in literature. Since the language in Transcarpathia is not codified, each writes 'as he knows how' ; that is, each writer creates his own norm. Fedynyshynets' considers this a positive phase that will provide rich material for an eventual scholarly elaboration of a linguistic standard. The language of Slyzynka is based on the Boiko dialect of the highlands and written in Fedynyshynets"s own idiosyncratic spelling, but in more fundamental artistic ways, his work is unique. Petrovtsii and many contemporary Rusynlanguage poets, as is frequently the case in emerging literatures, write primitivist verse in the style of folklore, reaching back into native tradition to resurrect lexical elements and elevate colloquial speech patterns to literary status. By contrast, Fedynyshynets"s style is modernist, similar to that of Potushniak in form and motive. Although it shares the traditionalists' goal of linguistic rejuvenation, the modernist approach to language is not so much historical and preservative (or conservative) as experimental and creative. The modernist

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poet expands the creative potential of language by focusing on the language itself, and making it not only the medium, but also the message. Therefore, modernist verse brims with puns, alliteration, word play, and striking metaphoric associations. Fedynyshynets' sums up the modernist style as 'metaphor, sparked by the subconscious play of linguistic elements.' When applied to one's native language, as in his own verse, it becomes a 'national spark of imagery' (naiiioHajiHO o6pa3Ha icKpa; 'Put' do iazykovoi normy Podkarpatia derzhyt tyrn'om,' Karpato-ruteny v XXI storochi, 104). Fedynyshynets' uses all the above-mentioned linguistic techniques in his verse. Some of his miniatures are trifles featuring a pun or palindrome. For example, 'A Chance Palindrome?' consists of three words: AMHO OH fta (Yes He 1,15). If there is any message attached to the language play here, it may be a subtle suggestion of the power of compromise, that is, he and /literally 'coming to yes.' The larger message is that truth is to be found hidden in the depths of language. Another piece, 'Jerusalem: Variations on a Palindrome,' rearranges the syllables of the name of the holy city Gpyca^eM to reveal the message: Jlein pyc e (Only Rus' Is, 44). Fedynyshynets' also finds Rusyns amid the ancient Etruscans: ExpycKbi - 3xo pycbKi? (Etruscans - are Rusyns? 57). While such palindromes can be taken as pure word play, language made palpable for its own sake, they effectively rejuvenate our perception of language and the relationship between semantics and sound. When the language in question is struggling for existence and acceptance, such 'play' can have serious implications. Fedynyshynets' takes advantage of the polydialectal nature of the Rusyn speech community to accentuate meaning by using dialectal synonyms: G mmi po6oxa. / 6 ;ICM po6oxa. / TI/IBKO po6oxa. / Binno po6oxa (There is only [lish, lent, til'ko} work, eternally work, 27). And he uses the multilingual nexus to make a political point by juxtaposing languages and exposing contrast:

The Ukrainian kit I That is, our machka I Eats Rusyn mice / On thin pieces / Of bacon /Ukrainian salo. /Tasty! (Slyzynka, 15)

Such internal glossing points to the self-conscious process of linguistic varia-

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tion in the text. The mix of dialects and languages reflects the cultural difference between Rusyn and Ukrainian, and it suggests the social and political forces that underlie the clash of languages. A master of modernist poetic technique in Ukrainian-language poetry, Fedynyshynets' applied modernism to expand the aesthetic into the political. Metaphorically, he places his Rusyn verse in the context of centuries of linguistic arguments.

How many spears have been broken / Over the last two hundred years! /1 brandish one more spear - Not to strike the wound, / Not to chafe the wound, / Not to open the wound, / But to heal the wound. /... Will it hit the mark? (Slyzynka, 43)

Having won his personal linguistic struggle, Fedynyshynets' applies his oxymoronic 'healing spear' to a modernist assertion of national identity and creates national meaning through metaphor. He explains the need for a new modernist Rusyn poetry, new 'metaphorical clothing' for the 'old - albeit proper! - patriotic content' (ibid., 75). 'We must reorient metaphor, imagery, style. We must turn to a normal and normative universal aesthetics. And we must not confuse the genre of poetry with a speech at a party conference or a political slogan' (ibid.). Fedynyshynets' couches his ideology in imagery and describes the Rusyn land and the Rusyn spirit in fresh metaphors. While his traditionalist colleagues continue to laud the long-suffering Rusyn people in terms established by Dukhnovych in 1850, Fedynyshynets' eschews the literal and depicts Rusyn endurance in a late-blooming rose (5) or a flood-washed mountain (95). The landscape of the Carpathian region is a bright-coloured embroidered towel (PVHHMK), rolled down by his ancestors from the mountain ridges, a design of squares and crosses in which the patterns of history can be read (9). The mountains themselves are the lost shoe of an astral horse that reared up in central Europe (6). Traditional metaphors, a parallelism reduced to a single point, are expanded and realized, so that the poetic trope becomes a plot element. For example, not only is the mountain air as thick as sour cream (a

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single point of parallelism), but you can cut it with a knife and take a piece with you back to town (54). It is the last element of the metaphor, taking a hunk of sour-cream mountain air back to what is understood to be a non-Rusyn town, that reifies the metaphor and carries the 'national spark.' Apocalyptic imagery is recurrent in the poems of Slyzynka, reflecting a metaphysical anxiety that has its roots in politics. The end of the millennium (16), the greenhouse effect (19), and the rape of the environment (29) are blamed for ever-increasing numbers of natural disasters. The earth seems to have gone crazy. Yet where, asks the poet whimsically, is the cure? Perhaps the planet can 'blast off on a rocket ship / through the nearest Black Hole / to visit a cosmic psychiatrist? / But what are his office hours?' (26). Or is it the fault of the masters of the earth (ra3«H), who have neglected their housekeeping duties, and are now being warned by the earth "4-ro OHH TVHKBI, KH«b TaK,-BpeMCHHi' (that they are only temporary here, 30). Such universal themes and images converge in Fedynyshynets"s poetic treatment of a local event that had more than metaphorical significance for the Rusyns of Transcarpathia. The great flood of autumn 1998 becomes a symbol of Ukrainian oppression. In answer to the question, Who is responsible? Fedynyshynets' angrily points to those '[w]ho chopped down the forests / For dollars, / Who strung our mountains and valleys / With the smokestacks of factories / Like an iron rope'... to those '[w]ho did not plow or sow the seed / But only harvested the fruit' (42). As a writer, he bewails not only the material losses, but also the loss of spirit, dreams, and traditions. The water carried off not only fashionable clothing but also baba's embroidered blouse, dido's sheepskin and kyptar (Hutsul short, sleeveless fur cloak), not only everyday items but also native musical instruments - the reedpipe, violin, and drum ('Velyka voda,Mmo, nos. 2-5, 1998:40). Ironically, the flood had a positive side effect in the attention it brought to the Rusyns' plight. But, the poet asks, 'Must my land drown / For the world to notice us?' (41). In whatever form, the apocalypse comes to the Rusyns through Ukraine. Chernobyl is a convenient image for a politically induced apocalypse (12), as well as an explanation for the 'abnormal people' who haunt Uzhhorod (50) and the two-headed calves and pig-sized rats that overrun the black earth of Ukraine (46) in Fedynyshynets"s nightmare vision. He expresses sadness about the decline of Ukraine, but as a Rusyn he is emotionally detached from its fate and hopeless about its future. His real-life problems with the delivery of electric power generate an analogy that sees no light at the end of the Ukrainian tunnel (39). If Ukraine represents apocalypse, Fedynyshynets' finds rebirth for Rusyns in associations with Europe. The recognition of Europe as the pre-eminent cultural model goes back to the Ukrainian avant-garde and the war-time Rusynophiles, but Fedynyshynets' champions national connections. He re-

Straddling Past and Future 457 calls the historic link of Subcarpathian Rus' with the Czechoslovak republic through his mother's memories of Carpathian nature's response to the death of the former country's founding president, Tomas Masaryk. The fields were covered in gloom, white water blackened, day became night, (in a metaphorpun) 'grass stood lower than grass,' and the dormant Carpathian volcanoes covered the earth with a grey ash that remains to the present day (7). While it is winter in Kiev and L'viv, Uzhhorod shares a European spring with Prague (53). Playing on homonyms for springtime (Hpb) and plow work (HPOBETM), Fedynyshynets' praises the plowmen of the perennial Prague spring for the fruitful harvest that reached even into Subcarpathia (31). While Ukraine prompts nightmare visions, the poet attributes an inexplicable good mood to a minuscule movement in the tectonic plates, which might bring Subcarpathian Rus' a millimetre closer to Europe (48). Through such devices of metaphor and analogy, rather than declarative propaganda, Fedynyshynets' nudges Rusyn identity a millimetre away from Ukraine and in the direction of central Europe. Fedynyshynets' has the same goal in regard to literature. He writes in the modernist style, for 'we are in Europe.' His purpose is to demonstrate to Europe that 'here too poetry is written' (75), and not just in the impersonal, lifeless style of Socialist Realism. Fedynyshynets' expresses bitter resentment for the leaders of literary politics, again through metaphor. The Ukraine Writers' Union is Baba Yaga for the Rusyn poet, luring the 'innocent children of literature' to her hut as to a crematorium (53). Fedynyshynets' himself narrowly escaped Baba Yaga's oven, but the 'Kiev kasha' he had innocently eaten still sticks to his vocal chords (34). On the other hand, impeded as he is by Kievan kasha, he finds little nourishment for poetry in his native region.

Poetry - / My faithful donkey, / On which, through the Carpathian desert, I ride /And ride, and ride ... / Where not even oats grow. / What will I feed him tomorrow? (Slyzynka, 17)

In Slovakia, where a Rusyn language was codified in 1995, literature is on somewhat firmer ground. Prosaist Mariia Mal'tsovska and poet Shtefan Sukhyi were both involved in the codification of the Rusyn language, before which

458 Conclusion time they published in Ukrainian. Their collections of stories and poems are exemplars of the artistic capabilities of the Rusyn literary language. Their work is contemporary and sophisticated in style and theme, and a reviewer of Sukhyi's book (Myron Sysak) applies the term 'postmodern' to his style.6 Sukhyi is an unquestionably talented poet, whose collection Rusyn 'skyi spivnyk (A Rusyn Songbook, 1994) ranges in theme over traditionally poetic subjects, such as nature, love, and art, to specifically national topics, anecdotes, and comic commentary on modern life. The form varies from traditional rhyming quatrains to free verse, with an emphasis on narration and dialogue. In fact, only a small percentage concerns specifically Rusyn themes, and these are often parenthetical - for example, his exultation on being hailed in Rusyn on Schillerstrasse in Berlin (20), thoughts on the monument to Aleksander Dukhnovych in Presov (55), speculations on why Rusyn-American immigrants turned grey (from drowning their sorrows in foamy beer; 43). Still, a distinct Rusyn coloration is felt through the use of personal and local place names (e.g., the Krasnobrid'skyi monastery (33), 'A Dialogue with 100-year old lurko Bavlovich from Stakcin' (13), colloquial dialogue (he addresses a beaver, KyMe; 24), and subtle references to Rusyn cultural history. Sukhyi confidently plays with the Rusyn language in a lighthearted fashion, using rhyme, assonance, and neologisms to startle the reader with a pithy quip. This playfulness and self-consciousness about language places his verse in the postmodern sphere, as does his frequent use of self-deprecating irony, both situational and verbal, to reveal the illusions and incongruities of modern Rusyn life. His poem of exaggerated thanks to fate that, through his wife's boss, has given him a job (44), or his thoughts on the clash of modern technology and tradition (neighbour Demian sold his TV so he might die quietly, and so the angel coming for him might not get caught in the antenna, 25), express the indeterminacy of postmodern Rusyn reality and the poet's resistance to conventional stereotypes of nationalism or the reconstruction of hoary traditional values. In a characteristic postcolonial and postmodern modality, Sukhyi's literary and political resistance to past or present external pressure does not result in an anticolonial dynamic or a simple reversal of dominance, but is internalized and expressed as a sense of ambivalence, provisionality, and subtle cynicism. The poetic persona stands between systems, between discursive worlds. His 'Valal'skyi filozof' (Village Philosopher, 49) relies neither on communists nor on democrats, but on the mailman; not on money, but on better times. Sukhyi's irony is not corrosive, but agreeably edifying, persuading the reader to accept and honour both Rusyn tradition and modernity. He consistently asserts the ethical role of poetry and the high calling of the poet. The opening poem of the collection equates poetry and surgery in their ability to

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create and renew life. The poem describes a visit to a Rusyn cardiac surgeon in Bratislava who, to be absolutely concrete, is mentioned by name, and then ironically dubbed 'our Aesculapius.' The poet addresses him:

What is it for you / to remove a thorn from the heart. / (Just let politics and politicians / try to do that!) / But to remove the heart from a thorn bush, / only pure affection / and poetry, like wine, can do that. ('Poeziia i khirurgiia' [Poetry and Surgery], 3) 'Na pulsi' (On the Pulse, 4) opens with a reference to the tragicomic fall of the USSR, CoHu,e ifle 3 BbixoAy na sanafl, a HHrAa HC naaaAA >KWBOT - HascnaK?

The Sun goes from East to West, / and never back. / But life moves - in reverse? and ends with a challenge to the poet:

And you, versifier, / write down everything, / discard nothing, / the record will be long, / the honorarium - paltry. In his review, Myron Sysak comments on Sukhyi's debt to Polish, Slovak, and Ukrainian poetry, and yet he notes the Rusyn spirit that pervades his work. 'His lyrical hero is a product of our temperament, our surroundings. Here he is

460 Conclusion sovereign ... here he is unique; he cannot be taken for a Pole, or a Czech, a Slovak, or even for a Ukrainian.' In fact, the national feeling of the reviewer is more peremptory than anything in Sukhyi's poems. By contrast, the poet does not seek a sense of authenticity through assertion of myths of cultural purity or national superiority. His poetry achieves a balance between the local and the universal, in which he achieves the postcolonial drive for identity, but one that shares universalist concerns, concepts, and images. With his verse, Rusyn poetry achieves a level of cultural self-sufficiency and confidence to enable it to coexist and cooperate in the cultural world without being co-opted. Mariia Mal'tsovska's stories in Manna y oskomyna (Heavenly Sweetness and Bitterness, 1994) are deceptively simple in form. Yet far from an unsophisticated realism, her stories demonstrate aspects of the postmodern and postcolonial that have been noted in emerging literatures across boundaries of language and culture. Indeed, in several ways, Mal'tsovska's prose represents a challenge to the conventions of simple realism. In the opening story of the collection, 'Materyna svichka' (Mother's Candle), which straddles the borders between fiction and autobiography, she challenges the conventions of genre. The first-person narrator progressively becomes more openly autobiographical, until finally, in the last section, the fictional persona fades and the author identifies herself clearly with her narrative persona through a reference to her (the author's and narrator's) first book. In a theme common to postcolonial literatures, the heroine is a sophisticated, educated newspaper editor who undertakes the care of her old-fashioned mother, a symbol of Rusyn tenacity in a flowered kerchief, who loves wild flowers and folk songs. The daughter's movement between her job in Presov (the city) and the village visually depicts her passage between two worlds. Through dreams, reminiscences, and conversations, she manages to treat themes that resonate with the nation's experience, such as childhood memories of herding cows and climbing haystacks, her father's wartime exploits and his winter work in the Czech forests, the family's hardships at home, Easter bread baking, and her mother's nepHna (down-filled bed covering). She states explicitly her belief that everything in her native village has conferred on her the strength and spirit necessary for her subsequent life in town. However, she was not formed solely by family and traditions of the distant past; she also reviews more recent events that have contributed to the psyche of the modern Rusyn. In an old trunk, she uncovers literary journals with portraits of the last Communist president, Gustav Husak, and a letter from an old school friend who had emigrated to Canada in search of a better life. She deals with the frustrations of the medical system, and through her father she castigates the evils of alcohol abuse. But instead of sermonizing, she evokes Rusyn reality

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through symbolism and allegory. The story is framed by the change of seasons, beginning with thoughts of Easter and ending with the OTHC nain (Lord's Prayer) at Christmas. While the figure of the mother is perhaps overly sentimentalized, she bears a symbolic meaning as the incarnation of Rusyn tenacity, Christ-like meekness and suffering, and the living bond that ties the family to the land of which they are a part. Offsetting the sentimentality and the specifically local themes and imagery, however, is the narrator's expression of frustration at her inability to solve her parents' problems, her fatigue in trying to deal with them, and her feeling of being torn between her own life and responsibilities to her parents, emotions common to first-generation intellectuals, whether Rusyn, American, African, or Asian. Mal'tsovska announces her Rusyn identity and reveals the path that brought her to that point by foregrounding the language issue early in the story. She recalls a time when she was deeply disappointed that her father, whom she identifies as her moral and creative support, was unable to relate either to the world view or the 'hard Ukrainian' of her first idealistic stories. In an example of ironic double-voicedness, she explains to him that 'our [Rusyn] language is weak, it must be raised to a higher level.' Therefore, she goes on, she has learned to love Ukrainian, 'the language closest to ours,' and will not give it up for the whole world - to which her father responds, 'Tw ma^ena, xoijb ecb lUKonoBana' (Even though you are educated, you are foolish, 10). This double-voiced discursive strategy has the effect of working with the existing dominant (Ukrainian) discourse and contesting it at the same time. By citing the timeworn cliche about the 'weak' Rusyn language on the second page of this story, one of the first to be published in a codified Rusyn literary standard, the author points up the realities of the past that have influenced the present, a reality that must elicit a sheepish smile of recognition in her Rusyn readers. It also alerts them to appreciate her skill with the language, especially in the next story, which treats contemporary issues in a distinctly modern Rusyn idiom. In 'Rozkvitnuta planka' (Rose in Bloom), Mal'tsovska again uses allegory to make subtle points about the Rusyn people in the past and their prospects for the future. In this coming-of-age story, another thematic allegory that crosses many emerging literatures, Martyna takes refuge from the stress and strain of modern life with her Rusyn 6a6Ka (granny), who regales her with fairy-tale style stories from real life. Martyna's grandmother is explicitly described as 'a grandmother from a folk-tale,' who radiates health and unselfconscious beauty, and whose house is redolent of 'cleanliness and peace.' Yet the present sense of calm and serenity is belied by the story she tells Martyna, which is tinged with eroticism and full of passion, tragedy, lost love, despair, and the magical restorative powers of Carpathian nature, spread out against the background of

462 Conclusion everyday realistic details of Rusyn life. It is a story that Martyna needs to hear, as her mind struggles with questions about her place in the modern world, and her body awakens to a new stage of life. The symbol of the mysteriously blooming winter rose points to the continuity between her life and her grandmother's and provides a foundation of wholeness and integrity for her developing self-consciousness. On the level of allegory, the grandmother is the central link of a dispersed Rusyn family, who come together at her death from Prague, Ostrava, Medzilaborce, Humenne, Bratislava, America, and Canada, and gather strength for future life from death and their remembrance of the past. Mal'tsovska's realism in this story goes beyond the faithful representation of concrete reality. It might be described as 'magical realism,' a term applied to a characteristic postcolonial literary form that moves between the worlds of the historical and the imaginary. Magical realism draws upon cultural systems that 'privilege mystery over empiricism, tradition over innovation, empathy over technology.' It is a mode suited to 'exploring and transgressing ontological, political, geographical or generic boundaries and it often facilitates the fusion or coexistence of possible worlds that would be irreconcilable in other modes of fiction.' The assault of magical realism on the basic structures of rationalism and realism is subversive: its 'in-betweeness,' its 'all-at-onceness encourages resistance to monologic political and cultural structures' (Zamora and Paris, introduction to Magical Realism: Theory, History, Community, 5). It is not surprising to see elements of 'magical realism' emerge naturally in a literature that is freeing itself from monologic, essentialist, Socialist Realist dogma. In a dialogue with the Rusyn past, Mal'tsovska reassesses modern values in a counterpoint with tradition. She taps into myths, legends, fairy tales, and superstitions, presenting them as positive inner resources of the folk, resources that allowed them to exert some control over their uncertain history and thereby survive into the modern age. Thus, she valorizes what had been dismissed as 'backward' and asserts its relevance for contemporary society. The result is a postmodern sense of synchronic time and space and a postcolonial interweaving of cultural traditions that develops into an original, hybrid, authentic, but not essentialist, sense of national identity. It has been noted that in contrast to past 'awakenings,' the presence of women in the contemporary Rusyn movement is conspicuous, and thus Mal'tsovska, as a female writer, is situated in yet another border area, that of gender. In her title story 'Manna y oskomyna,' she combines national and feminist concerns in a tale about exploitation and liberation that has obvious allegorical overtones. At the centre of the story is Petro Pyrii, a tyrannical, demanding, and self-absorbed husband to Nastia, his devoted wife. In the opening pages, we see that Nastia's devotion knows no bounds. To her he is

Straddling Past and Future 463 'the image of God,' she 'takes his blows as caresses,' even accepts his snoring as 'part of her life, as her own breath,' and wants only once in her life to hear him say he loves her. Her self-effacement seems so totally exaggerated that one can only anticipate a by-now banal story of a woman's self-actualization. However, there are other clues in the opening pages that qualify our interpretation of Nastia as an oppressed victim. We are told that Nastia 'understands according to her own reasoning.' She loves Petro beyond all measure, she 'accepted the cross of this life and carries it every blessed day,' and she wants Petro 'at any price.' Hers is not an unexamined life of self-abnegation. She holds in her memory all of the past, the good and the bad, the 'manna y oskomyna,' and reviews it in a conscious exercise of self-reclamation. The central question of the story is posed explicitly as Nastia's question to herself: With such a man, how can a woman know, apprehend, or recognize herself (BbianaTH CH)? Once again, the issue is identity and self-consciousness. In a postmodern disjunction in the narrative, the author fills in Petro's previous relationships with three women - the manipulative Palaha, who is 'as lean as death'; the 'plump-as-cheese' and just as astute Zuzha; and Evka, the seductive married woman, who fills his temporarily empty nights. Against this background, it becomes clear that Nastia is a synthesis of the women in Petro's life. Her personality occupies a middle ground between Zuzha's passivity and Palaha's malevolence, and with Petro, her first and only lover, she has the sensuality of Evka. So, when Petro refuses to marry Nastia or support their child, she threatens to take him to court. She suffers Petro's mother's viciousness with prayers and patience out of love for Petro, but only to a point. On his mother's death, it is Petro who comes to Nastia, to accede to her terms. It is hardly a conclusion that would cheer feminists, however, for Petro remains master of the situation, and Nastia 'feels herself to be a full and equal person' for the first time only when Petro proposes. She continues to live her life in submission and resignation, until at Petro's death, which is mourned and praised by all four of the women who loved him, she closes the story with the exclamation: 'But he was mine, only mine ... Before God and before the world!' What then is the answer to the question of how to achieve self-consciousness and identity with such a man? How does an individual, or a people, achieve equality and a sense of wholeness? Nastia follows her own path and knows who she is; she demonstrates a confluence of old-world values and modern-age self-sufficiency, and this synthesis is her greatest strength. She follows a path that might not be the choice of every woman, but one that is right for her and must be respected. Still, the author's postmodern split discourse prevents us from siding wholly with Nastia. When her son reproaches her for being Petro's

464 Conclusion servant, her only answer is, 'I'm accustomed to it.' Her son, representing a new generation and a modern world view, replies, 'You could get accustomed even to the gallows!' Nastia's reaction is a mixture of pride at her son's defence and unwillingness to admit the need for it. Thus, in spite of her emphatic closing words, the story ends on a note of ambivalence. The author challenges the reader to accept a position that might be uncomfortable to the modern sensibility, then undercuts it with double-voiced irony, leaving her heroine and her reader in an indeterminate border area. The interstitial space between fixed identifications, according to Homi Bhabha, is an area of cultural hybridity that allows for a recognition of cultural difference without imposing a hierarchy of cultural values (Location of Culture, 4). In this story as in the others, Mal'tsovska focuses on moments and processes that reveal cultural differences across space and time. She places her characters (and her readers) in the in-between spaces where they must elaborate strategies of selfhood that mediate between tradition and modernity. Their success does not depend fully or solely on the persistence of tradition. As Bhabha writes in The Location of Culture, 'The borderline work of culture demands an encounter with "newness" that is not part of the continuum of past and present. It creates a sense of the new as an insurgent act of cultural translation. Such art does not merely recall the past as social cause or aesthetic precedent; it renews the past, refiguring it as a contingent "in-between" space, that innovates and interrupts the performance of the present. The "past-present" becomes part of the necessity, not the nostalgia, of living' (7). This is the best characterization of the uses of the Rusyn literary legacy and the potential role of a renewed literature in the present national revival. As for its future, for a literature to come into its own, there needs to be not only good poems and stories, but the whole nexus that supports literature - its own language, of course, but also a publishing industry, including literary journals, its own set of norms and values, scholarly and critical evaluators, 'its sense of settling in to keep doing a job that has to be continually done, and - most important of all - its own community of readership or audience, which receives the work and feeds back into it reciprocally' (Stephen Gray, 'A Sense of Place in New Literatures,' quoted in The Post-colonial Reader, 167). Too often in the past, history did not grant the Rusyns time to accomplish such tasks before a war or repressive government quashed them. But assuming that these practical concerns can be managed, there is no better time or theoretical context for the emergence of a renewed Rusyn literature than the present, with its emphasis on postcoloniality, postmodernism, border crossings, and liminal spaces. To quote Homi Bhabha again, 'Where, once, the transmission of national traditions was the major theme of a world literature, perhaps we can now suggest that

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transnational histories of migrants, the colonized, or political refugees - these border and frontier conditions - may be the terrains of world literature' (ibid., 12). In other words, being 'in-between' today is being 'in.' And surely Subcarpathian Rus' has extensive experience of straddling borders. Instead of reverting to confrontation, hostility, and the 'rhetoric of blame' (Said, Culture and Imperialism, 18) that has tempted other renewed cultures, modern Rusyn writers are wisely exploiting their ample and often hapless experience with hybridity to the advantage of Rusyn literature. Such a model would identify hybridity and syncretism as the defining features of Subcarpathian literature, that is, the merging into a single new form of previously distinct linguistic categories and cultural formations. The most successful and distinctive Rusyn literature of the past represents an effort to create a national literature by blending cultural traditions and ethnicity in defiance of state and linguistic boundaries. In response, it has been criticized from all sides as defective, impure, a pale copy of something other than itself. In their history of attempts to achieve acceptance from Russian or Ukrainian cultural authorities, Rusyn writers and cultural activists have provoked this critique, but there is no longer any need to perpetuate it in today's scholarship. Contemporary scholars have begun to recognize that Rusyn identity resides precisely in its complexity. The recognition of the value and creative potential of hybridity and cultural syncretism is an essential first step toward a revised appreciation of any culture that straddles borders. This cultural model provides a possible direction for future Rusyn literary scholarship, a way out of past recriminations, national denigration, and cultural subservience. There are lessons to be learned from postcolonial theory for the newly revived Rusyn literature as well - that is, marginality can be a source of creativity. Postcolonial theory has demonstrated that marginal cultures have important implications for theories of language and literature, as well as for social and political analysis. In this light, the factors that created tension and disharmony in the past can be reframed and transformed into creative energy. The cultural, historical, and linguistic complexity that embarrassed generations of writers and critics of Subcarpathian Rusyn literature might be reinterpreted as a source of strength that has allowed this in-between culture to survive. Indeed, the acceptance of its liminal position and hybrid nature may be the key to a productive literary future.

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Notes

Introduction 1 Other prominent Russophile treatments of Rusyn literature are to be found in the following: Fedor Aristov, Karpato-russkie pisateli; Pavel Fedor, Ocherki karpatorusskoi literatury; Evgenii Nedziel'skii, Ocherk karpatorusskoi literatury. 2 Some of the most prominent modern literary surveys that follow this orientation are Vasyl' Mykytas,' Haluzka mohutn'oho dereva; lurii Bacha, Literaturnyi rukh; and lurii Baleha, Literatura 7/ikarpattia dvadtsiatykh-trydtsiatykh rokiv. 3 Rusyn Russian-language literature of the interwar Czechoslovak republic is mentioned briefly in a recent study of emigre literature: John Glad, Russia Abroad, 210-12. 4 The only other English-language treatment is a historical survey in a series of four articles that was largely derivative of Russian-oriented studies: Arthur P. Coleman and George B. Bezinec, 'The Rise of Carpatho-Russian Culture.' 5 Paul Robert Magocsi, The Shaping of a National Identity. See also Magocsi's essays in Of the Making of Nationalities There Is No End, especially The Carpatho-Rusyns,' 1:3-25. 6 See 'The Problem of Nomenclature,' appendix 1 in Magocsi, Shaping, 277-81. Depending on the transliteration system adopted, the term might be spelled Rusin. 1 A recent study that begins to answer this need is Juraj Variko, The Language of Slovakia's Rusyns. 8 The current debate began with a five-part article by the Uzhhorod State University professor of linguistics, Pavlo Chuchka, 'Kak rusiny stali ukraintsami,' Zakarpat'ska pravda (Uzhhorod), 12-16 September 1989. It has continued and intensified in Ukraine's Transcarpathian oblast', Slovakia, and Yugoslavia. Beginning in August 1990 and for nearly a year thereafter, Transcarpathia's Ukrainian- and Russian-language daily newspaper, Zakarpats'ka Pravda/

468 Notes to pages 11-16

9

10

11

12

13

Zakarpatskaia pravda, ran a popular column entitled, 'Ukrai'na i rusynizm' (The Ukraine and Rusynism). (See Oleksa Myshanych, Politychne rusynstvo i shcho za nym.) Polemical articles promoting the same view are translated into English and included in The Persistence of Regional Cultures: Rusyns and Ukrainians in Their Carpathian Homeland and Abroad, ed. Paul Robert Magocsi; see especially Oleksa Myshanych, 'From Subcarpathian Rusyns to Transcarpathian Ukrainians,' 7-52, and Mykola Musynka, 'The Postwar Development of the Regional Culture of the Rusyn-Ukrainians of Czechoslovakia,' 53-82. My overview of cultural studies is based on the following sources: Ben Agger, Cultural Studies as Critical Theory; Simon During, 'Introduction,' in Cultural Studies Reader, Patrick Fuery and Nick Mansfield, Cultural Studies and Critical Theory; Lawrence Grossberg, Gary Nelson, and Paula A. Treichler, 'Cultural Studies: An Introduction,' in Cultural Studies; and Ziauddin Sardar and Borin Van Loon, Introducing Cultural Studies. Cited in Sara Mills, Discourse, 6.1 have drawn extensively on Mills's overview of discourse in my brief summary of the topic. The definition of discourse here is also based on that of David Lee in Competing Discourses: Perspectives and Ideology in Language. The literature on postcolonial theory is vast. For an overview, see two works written and compiled by Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths, and Helen Tiffin: The Empire Writes Back: Theory and Practice in Post-colonial Literatures and The Post-Colonial Studies Reader. See also the following bibliographies: Steven Totosy de Zepetnek and Sneja Gunew, 'Postcolonial Literatures: A Selected Bibliography of Theory and Criticism'; Joan Nordquist, Postcolonial Theory: A Bibliography; and Nordquist, Postcolonial Theory II, Literature and the Arts: A Bibliography. As Gilbert points out, postcolonial theory has been criticized for its overstatements, imprecise periodization, and obfuscated jargon (5-22). For examples of critical treatments of postcolonial theory, see Russell Jacoby, 'Marginal Returns: The Trouble with Post-Colonial Theory,' and Dorothy Figueira, 'The Profits of Postcolonialism.' The applicability of postcolonial theory to post-Soviet Slavic literatures is currently a topic of discussion. See David Chioni Moore, 'Is the Post- in Postcolonial the Post- in Post-Soviet? Toward a Global Postcolonial Critique.' Moore, whose specialty is international studies, suggests that 'the term "postcolonial," and everything that goes with it - language, economy, politics, resistance, liberation and its hangover - might reasonably be applied to the formerly Russo- and Soviet-controlled regions post-1989 and-1991, just as it has been applied to South Asia post-1947 or Africa post-1958' (115). His analysis of various 'colonization types' that exist contemporaneously in the post-

Notes to pages 24-9 469 Soviet situation is similar to my analysis of various postcolonialities in the chronological history of Subcarpathian Rus'. Moore concludes: '[T]he colonial relation at the turn of the millennium, whatever it may be, is thus not theoretically inflated to a point of weakness, nor is it the property of a certain class or space of peoples, but rather it becomes as fundamental to world identities as other "universal" categories, such as race, and class, and caste, and age, and gender' (124). For critiques of Slavic literatures that make use of postcolonial concepts, see the following: Darusia Zoriana Antoniuk, Postcolonial Theory and the Soviet-Ukrainian Context: Reading lurii Andrukhovych's 1989 Collection of Army Tales as a Post-Colonial Text; Edith W. Clowes, 'The Robinson Myth Reread in Postcolonial and Postcommunist Modes'; Vytautas Kavoulis, 'Nationalism, Modernization and the Polylogue of Civilization'; Tomislav Longinovic, Borderline Culture; Christian Moraru, 'Allegories of Subversion'; Marko Pavlyshyn, 'Post-Colonial Features in Contemporary Ukrainian Culture' and 'Ukrainian Literature and the Erotics of Postcolonialism: Some Modest Propositions'; Myroslav Shkandrij, Russia and Ukraine: Literature and the Discourse of Empire from Napoleonic to Postcolonial Times; and Juris Silenieks, 'Decolonization and Renewal of Latvian Letters.' 1: Inventing an 'In-Between' Culture 1 Hereafter cited in the text as Poety Zakarpattia. In this anthology, the orthography of all Russian, Rusyn, and Church Slavonic texts has been modernized and ukrainianized. 2 Mykhailo Luchkai, Historia Carpato-Ruthenorum, 6 vols. (1842). Luchkai's history was published serially in the Latin original with parallel translation in Ukrainian, in Naukovyi zbirnyk MUK u Svydnyku, vols. 11, 13, 14, 16, 17, 18, 20, 21 (1983-8). 3 Excerpted in Ashcroft, Griffiths, and Tiffin, eds., The Post-Colonial Studies Reader, 383-8. Articles included in this collection will hereafter be cited as PostColonial Studies Reader. 4 Hereafter, Empire Writes Back. 5 'Kniaz' Laborets': Istorichna povist' iz IX vika,' Halychanyn, nos. 3—4, L'viv, 1863. For publication history and a critical survey, see lolana Holenda, Anatolii Kralits'kyi, 72-86. The story is reprinted according to the 1925 edition on pages 130-42 of this volume. 6 See, e.g., Luchkai's Historia, where he relates 'Karpat' with 'rop6ar' (humpbacked), 'Dunai' (Danube) with 'AVH/ayx' (spirit), and the name of the river 'Tisza' with the comparative form of 'THXHH' (quiet). Naukovyi zbirnyk MUK u Svydnyku 11 (1983): 45-181.

470 Notes to pages 29-36 7 See Bob Hodge and Vijay Mishra, 'Aboriginal Place,' in Post-Colonial Studies Reader, 412-17. 8 See Dukhnovych's reminiscences of his education in Uzhhorod in 'Kratkaia biohrafiia Aleksandra Dukhnovycha, Kryloshana Priashovskaho,' in Dukhnovych, Tvory, 3: 404. 9 Doch' Slavy, trans, into Russian by N.V. Vodovozov, in O vzaimosviaziakh slavianskikh literatur (Moscow, 1967). Slavy dcera was published in 1824 and was popular among Slav nationalists. See the discussion of woman as inspiration in Rudinsky, Incipient Feminists, 7-26. 10 This 'nation-state creation' continues in the present. Robert B. Pynsent notes that a textbook of Slovak history published for the 1994—5 school year does not mention the early-eighteenth-century bandit Juraj Janosik, formerly a central figure in the creation of Slovak national identity and self-satire, probably because 'the rebellious spirit he embodied for Slovak nationalists does not comport with state-forming.' (Introduction to The Literature of Nationalism, 12, n. 21) 11 When the more radical Subcarpathian writers of the twentieth century adopted the communist symbolic system, the heroes of historical poems and stories were chosen from among the people. In Vasyl' Grendzha-Dons'kyi's novella 'Petro Petrovych,' the eponymous hero is a local chief, who leads a rebellion against the Hungarian throne (Tvory Vasylia Grendzhi-Dons'koho, 2: 486-582). GrendzhaDons'kyi also devotes a story to a contemporary Carpathian bandit ('Il'ko Lypei,' ibid., 2: 406-85). 12 In 1998, a revised translation of Petrov's Drevneishie gramoty appeared as Medieval Carpathian Rus': The Oldest Documentation about the Carpatho-Rusyn Church and Eparchy. Several of Petrov's conclusions have recently been challenged by Michal Popovic, including the authenticity of the 1360 testament by which Koriatovych founded the Mukachevo monastery (Popovych, Fedor Koriatovych, 85). As a consequence of Petrov's findings from 1906, Popovic writes, '[f]or the supporters of a Rusyn national movement, the beginning of our century was very difficult. They had none of the moral support that any people needs. And the Rusyn people found no support at all from historians' (22). 13 Evgenii Nedziel'skii, Ocherk karpatorusskoi literatury, 25. Much of my summary of the early period of Rusyn literature is based on Nedziel'skii, 19—41, and Vasyl' Lazarovych Mykytas', Davnia literatura Zakarpattia, 19-52. 14 The Old Church Slavonic term ugrin (or uhryn) did not make the distinction that applied later, when 'Hungarian' referred to any inhabitant of the kingdom of Hungary, regardless of his or her native tongue, and 'Magyar' was restricted to those Hungarians who spoke Hungarian as their native language. Mykytas' notes that even today many Rusyns bear the name 'Ugrin' or 'Uhryn' (Davnia literatura, 60).

Notes to pages 36-47 471 15 See also 'Istinna istoriia karpato rossov ili ugorskikh rusinov,' Dukhnovych, Tvory, 2: 531, where in addition to Nestor, Dukhnovych refers to the Russian historian Karamzin. 16 'Slovo o prepodobnem Moisii Ugrine,' in A.D. Stender-Petersen, ed., Anthology of Old Russian Literature, 65. For a Russian translation from the Church Slavonic, see 'Zhitie prepodobnogo nashego Moiseia Ugrina,' in Kievo-pecherskii paterik, 263-72. 17 According to Vasyl' Mykytas', the dearth of ancient literary texts from the small state of Subcarpathian Rus' is not surprising. There are also no surviving texts from this period from the much larger state of Bulgaria. (Davnia literatura, 68, 75) 18 A description of the Tereblia Prologue, a listing of its contents, examples of dialectical elements, and several extracts can be found in lul'ian Andreevich lavorskii, Novyia rukopisnyia nakhodki, 9—41 and 101-9. 19 Numerous Subcarpathian interpretive gospels are known to scholars. Frantisek Tichy analyses the language of several texts from the sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries (Tichy, Vyvoj soucasneho spisovneho jazyka na Podkarpatske Rusi, 8-14). See also [Georgii Gerovskii], 'Jazyk Podkarpatske Rusi,' Ceskoslovenskd vlastiveda, 3: 460-517; repr. in Russian translation as lazyk Podkarpatskoi Rusi; and Laszlo Dezso [Dezhe], Delovaia pis'mennost' rusynov v XVII-XVHI vekakh. 20 See also L. Dezhe [Laszlo Dezso], 'O vzgliadakh i stile zakarpatskoi Niagovskoi Postilly serediny XVI-go veka,' 5-18. 21 For a thorough analysis of the adoption of union in Subcarpathian Rus', see Lacko, The Union ofUzhhorod and Pekar, The History of the Church in Carpathian Rus'. 22 'Interesting but "chaotic" treatises come even from the region beyond the Carpathians, from the pen of Rev. Myxajlo Andrella; they are Baroque attempts at writing popular scholarly works of a theological nature' (Dmytro Cyzevs'kyj, History of Ukrainian Literature, 351). Chyzhevs'kyi echoes the opinion of Mykhailo Vozniak, who referred to Andrella's 'chaotic work' (Istoriia ukrains'koi literatury, 111). Vozniak also calls Andrella a 'weak copy of Vyshens'kyi' (113). 23 In his urgency to communicate, Andrella seems to question the sufficiency of language itself; he even incorporates rebus-like drawing to make his point. Editor Petrov indicates that in the original manuscript, the drawing of a hand illustrates the citation 'It would be better to be without hands, than to be without the head, Christ God' (Dukhovno-polemicheskiiasochineniia, 121). 24 Mykytas' points out that Andrella's mixed language was fully comprehensible to his primary audience, the local clergy, who experienced the same foreign influences (Davnia literatura, 206). 25 Quoted in Mykytas', Davnia literatura, 165. For a phonetic and morphological

472 Notes to pages 52-70

26

27

28 29 30

31

analysis of Andrella's language, see L. Dezhe, 'O iazyke ukrainskogo polemista M. Andrelly i zakarpatskoi "narodnoi literatury" XVII v.' For information on Rusyn folk literature, see Sen'ko, lak zachuiu kolomyiku, and Myshanych, Zhir karpats'kykh. Also see the ethnographic materials collected in Subcarpathia at the turn of the twentieth century: Volodymyr Hnatiuk, Etnografichni materialy z Uhors'koiRusy. In the renaissance of Rusyn culture that followed the revolutions of 1989 in Eastern Europe, several new collections of folk poetry were published. Folk songs from the Humenne district are collected in Spivanky Anny Matsibobovoi. Sh'vit', mishiachku is a collection of folk songs from the village Shambron. For descriptions of songbooks and texts of verse, see lavorskii, comp. and ed., Materialy dlia istoril starinnoi pesennoi literatury v Podkarpatskoi Rusi. Hereafter cited as Materialy. See DeCarlo, 'A Study of the Carpatho-Rusyn Chant Tradition in the Late Eighteenth Century.' Preserved in a manuscript collection composed in 1734 in Kamionka, a village in eastern Slovakia. Cited from Poety Zakarpattia, 76-8. Atood, Survival: A Thematic Guide to Canadian Literature. See the discussion of the postcolonial search for self-definition in other literatures in Boehmer, Colonial and Postcolonial Literature, 188-92. Hobsbawm and Ranger, eds., The Invention of Tradition; Anderson, Imagined Communities, 12; Gellner, quoted in Anderson, 15; Bhabha, ed., 'Introduction: Narrating the Nation,' in Nation and Narration, 2.

2: Mimics and Other 'Others' 1 See Pekar's account of the erection of the Mukachevo eparchy in History of the Church in Carpathian Rus', 36-61. 2 The monastery at Krasny Brod was founded in the fourteenth century. It was destroyed three times in its history, for the last time in 1914. Its valuable library, which included the personal collection of Aleksander Dukhnovych, was lost (Mykytas1, Davnia literatura, 118). 3 Magocsi, Shaping, 26-30. For more information on the languages used in education, see Bohdan Strumins'kyj, 'The Language Question in the Ukrainian Lands,' 34-6. 4 Many Carpatho-Rusyn historians have repeated the theory, advanced first in 1851, that a Cyrillic print shop existed at the Hrushevo monastery in the seventeenth century. Twentieth-century scholars have rejected the idea (see Magocsi and Strumins'kyj, 'First Carpatho-Ruthenian Printed Book,' 299), but today the subject is under discussion once again in Eastern Europe. 5 My sources for information on the importation of Russian books into Sub-

Notes to pages 71-7 473

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

Carpathian Rus' are Petrov, 'K istorii "russkikh intrig'"; Mykytas', Davnia literatura, 122-36; and Myshanych, Literatura Zakarpattia, 21-39. Cited in Mykytas', Davnia literatura, 73. Written in Church Slavonic by a scribe who calls himself 'Stanislav, a sinful grammarian,' this is one of the earliest texts that reflect the influence of the oral vernacular language. Homi Bhabha, 'Of Mimicry and Man: The Ambivalence of Colonial Discourse,' in The Location of Culture, 85-92. See also discussions of the concept in Boehmer, Colonial and Postcolonial Literature, 171-5; The Empire Writes Back, 88-91; and Bart Moore-Gilbert, Postcolonial Theory, 114-51. Bhabha's study is critiqued by Patrick Colm Hogan in Colonialism and Cultural Identity, 24-43. Alexander Duchnovic [Dukhnovych], The History of the Eparchy ofPrjasev, 51. Dukhnovych served under Tarkovych when the latter was Bishop of Presov. A personality conflict between the two men led to Dukhnovych's departure and may also have coloured his judgment of Tarkovych in this history. Dukhnovych describes him as having a 'kind and tender conscience but a hot temper,' and he implies that Tarkovych was overly obsequious to civil authorities. Galician Ivan Levyts'kyi gives a somewhat different impression, referring to Tarkovych's persistence in securing material support from the Hungarian authorities for the establishment of the Presov eparchy ('Hryhorii Tarkovych,' 466). K. Kustodiev, Tserkov' ugorskikh russkikh i serbov v ikh vzaimootnoshenii, 20-1; cited in Olena Rudlovchak, 'Oleksandr Dukhnovych: Zhyttia i diial'nist',' in Dukhnovych, Tvory, 1: 33-4. Tichy, Vyvoj, 28. His name appears in the correspondence between Kopitar and Dobrovsky from 1823 in a list of literary materials being transmitted from one to the other. Among these is a 'Schematism' from Tarkovych (Briefwechsel zwischen Dobrowsky und Kopitar, 1808-1828, 497-9). The full title reads as follows: 'On the Occasion of the Nameday of his Royal Highness, the Illustrious Sovereign Joseph, Palatine of Hungary, etc. etc., sponsored by His Excellency Count Frantishek Secheni [Ferenc Szechenyi] etc., verses dedicated in an assembly of the muses of many languages, and also separately published, in the year 1805. In Buda, at the Royal University of Pest, published by the press for peoples of the Greek rite.' Subsequently Tarkovych's poem was published, with several inaccuracies, by Ivan Franko from a handwritten copy found among the papers of the Galician grammarian losyf Levyts'kyi (Ivan Franko, 'Zrazok uhrorus'koho madiaro- i moskofil'stva z pochatku XIX v.,' 462-3). Frantisek Tichy's publication was based on the original (Vyvoj, 157-9). The version cited here, in modernized orthography, is included in Poety Zakarpattia, 134-6. The complete text, in the original orthography, is included in Elaine Rusinko, 'Between Russia and Hungary,' 21-44. In a prefatory note, Tarkovych explains, The greater part of the Uhro-Rusyns

474 Notes to pages 78-9

13

14

15

16

inhabit the Carpathian Mountains. Their bishops formerly lived below the Carpathians in the city of Munkacs [Mukachevo], on the Latorytsia River, which flows down from the Latiurka region. Now the episcopal seat is in the city of Ung [Uzhhorod], on the Ug [Uzh] River, which flows from the village of Uzhok, that is, Little Ug.' George Barany, Stephen Szechenyi and the Awakening of Hungarian Nationalism, 11-37. In his later years, Ferenc Szechenyi became more conservative and by the 1820s, the non-Magyar minorities of Hungary were generally being treated with hostile condescension. See Laszlo Deme, 'Writers and Essayists and the Rise of Magyar Nationalism,' 624-40. On the Hungarian national revival, see Lorant Czigany, The Oxford History of Hungarian Literature, 101-19, and George Barany, 'The Age of Royal Absolutism,' 174-208. Many scholars have considered 'the Nymph of the Neva' to be an allusion to Catherine II, Empress of Russia (1762-96). Franko in part charges Tarkovych with Russophilism and sycophancy, based on this identification, taking the poet to task for lamenting Catherine's death as late as 1805 (Franko, 'Zrazok,' 463). See also Nedziel'skii, Ocherk, 89; Myshanych, Literatura Zakarpattia, 72; and Mykytas', Haluzka, 25. However, Svientsitskii (Materialy, 8 n. 1) and Tichy (Vyvoj, 29) identify the image as a reference to the Hungarian palatine's Russian wife, Aleksandra Pavlovna. In contrast, Rusyn church historians interpret the creation of the Pre§ov eparchy as an attempt to 'cripple the religious and cultural aspirations of the CarpathoRusyns' (Pekar, History of the Church in Carpathian Rus', 72). The partition of the Mukachevo eparchy allowed the Hungarian authorities to divide the Carpatho-Rusyns without losing control over them. Athanasius Pekar makes explicit Dukhnovych's implication that Tarkovych was rewarded for 'his loyalty' to civil authorities and support for Hungary's denationalization policies. Eventually discouraged by bureaucratic obstacles, Tarkovych 'removed himself from public life and sought refuge in books.' For a complete description of Tarkovych's role in the organization of the Presov eparchy, see Pekar, ibid., 72-83. Tarkovych's introductory comments elaborate for his Hungarian audience: 'Before accepting the Christian faith, Slavs or Russians held the following gods, among others: Koliada, the god of peace and celebration, whose holiday is observed on December 24; Liado or Lada was the goddess of love and merriment, that is, the Slavic Venus; Leliia was a lesser god who inspired love, like Cupid; rusalki are like naiads or nymphs to the Greeks; Vlas or Volos was the god of cattle, similar to Pan, first after Perun, or second among all the Slavic gods; Siva was the goddess of fertility, similar to Ceres; the Muses, nymphs, Apollo, Parnassus, Pallas, Bacchus, Pomona are well known gods from Greek and Roman mythology.'

Notes to pages 80-3 475 17 A metaphorical usage of the pagan deities had been common in East Slavic religious writings. Dimitrii Rostovskii, for example, compared the pagan idols of Perun, Volos, and Lado to the evil that rules the hearts of men and must be crushed forever as the idols once were crushed (Znayenko, The Gods of the Ancient Slavs, 23). 18 Hans Rogger, National Consciousness in Eighteenth-Century Russia, 167-70. Tarkovych would have been familiar with Tatishchev's work on Slavic pagan mythology in his Istoriia rossiiskaia, a copy of which is preserved in the Uzhhorod University library, inscribed by Bishop Bachyns'kyi (Mykytas1, Davni rukopysy, 82). See V.N. Tatishchev, 'O idolosluzhenii byvshem,' in Istoriia rossiiskaia, 97-102, and Znayenko, Gods of the Ancient Slavs, for other sources Tarkovych may have used. 19 The meaning of the last line has been disputed. Russophile scholars interpret it to mean 'the Russian children (poccHaHbi) do not want to know this,' thus emphasizing the Russian nature of Subcarpathian Rus', which is, in their view, unacknowledged. The Rusyn national awakener Aleksander Dukhnovych accepted this interpretation, incorrectly citing the problematic word as pyccKU ('Istinna istoriia karpato-russov,' in Tvory, 2: 535). In the form accepted by contemporary scholars (paacEHHHbi A^TH), the verse indicates that the Carpathian origin of the dispersed Slavs has been generally forgotten. Tichy points out that Tarkovych was the first to refer to the Carpathians as the 'cradle of the Slavs,' a frequent motif of N.I. Nadezhdin and other Russian Slavophiles throughout the nineteenth century (Vyvoj, 28). 20 Petro Lodii (1764—1829), a Rusyn philosopher and pedagogue, expressed the same idea in a panegyric to the rectors of the Studium Ruthenum for their contributions to the development of science and culture in southern (Little) Russia. He envisions Aristotle, Socrates, and Plato rejoicing 'that in the Russian language / In the eighteenth century / The temple of nature is opened to all Russians' (Poety Zakarpattia, 127-9). Lodii's joy at the dawn of enlightenment is reminiscent of Lomonosov's paeans to science. He sees himself as sharing in the creation of a unified all-Russian science, in which Great Russia has taken the lead. 21 Aleksandr Sumarokov, 'Two Epistles, the First Treating of the Russian Language, the Second of Poetry,' in Harold B. Segal, ed. and trans., The Literature of Eighteenth-Century Russia, 1: 227. The originals are in Sumarokov, Izbrannye proizvedeniia, 112-25. 22 Tarkovych comments in his prefatory note: 'The clothing and musical instruments of the Carpathian Muses are referred to by their indigenous names.' 23 'Epistle II,' Segal, Literature of Eighteenth-Century Russia, 1: 229-30. With the rise of interest in folk art in the romantic period, the imagery of adornment took on more symbolic significance. Thus, there may be an echo of Tarkovych's

476

24

25

26 27

28

29

30

31

Notes to pages 85-93

imagery, reworked to suit the romantic theme, in the introduction to Rusalka Dnlstrovaia (1837), the almanac that announced the Galician Rusyn revival: 'Do not fret, Nymph of the Dniester, that you are not quite tidy. In a costume of nature and your simple and kind-hearted people, you stand before your sisters. They are kind and generous, they will accept you and adorn you' (iv). 'Zrazok,' 464; quoted in Mykytas', Haluzka, 25 and Myshanych, Literatura Zakarpattia, 72. Only Tichy disputes Franko's influential judgment, noting the error in identifying 'the Nymph of the Neva' and pointing out that to posit magyarone sentiments in 1805 would be anachronistic (Vyvoj, 29). Barany, Stephen Szechenyi, 34. Barany continues, 'Indeed there were many such foci of friendly intercommunication and common work between the aristocratic upper strata of late 18th-century Hungarian society in northwestern Transdanubia, Slovakia, and Transylvania, where the closeness of Vienna or the traditions of urban life had deeper roots than in the areas previously occupied by the Turk.' For a thorough analysis of the versification and language of Tarkovych's poem, see Tichy, Vyvoj, 28-34. Magocsi, The Language Question among the Subcarpathian Rusyns,' in Aspects of the Slavic Language Question, 2: 69. It has been noted that of all the Slavic languages, Church Slavonic had the greatest influence on the Carpathian dialects, and elements of Church Slavonic entered folklore and the everyday lexicon at the time of their formation (E. Baletskii, 'Tserkovnoslavianskii iazyk i slavianskie dialekty,'31). Sumarokov, Izbrannye proizvedeniia, 1:10. Zeikan served as tutor to Peter II for three and a half years. He had previously been a tutor for the Naryshkin family. See A.V. Florovskii, 'Karpatoross I. A. Zeikan - nastavnik imperatora Petra IIogo,' in Karpatorusskii sbornik, 112-22; 'I. A. Zeikan - pedagog iz Zakarpat'ia,' in Russkala literature. XVIII veka i slavianskie literatury, 105-22; and Shternberh, 'Novi materialy pro Ivana Zeikana,' Tezy dopovidei ta povidomlennia, 49-54. 'Verse introduction to Grammatika russkaia,' in Poety Zakarpattia, 126; orthography modernized. First published in Ivan Pan'kevych, 'Slavenorus'ka hramatyka Arseniia Kotsaka druho'i polovyny XVIII vika,' 232-59. For a study based on a newly uncovered variant of the grammar, see losyp Dzendzelivs'kyi and Zuzana Hanudel', 'Hramatyka Arseniia Kotsaka,' Naukovyi zbirnyk MUK u Svydnyku 15, pt. 2: 5-332. It includes facsimile pages from Kotsak's manuscript and a bibliography. Kutka's Catechism was reprinted in a facsimile edition, with a commentary by Istvan Udvari: loann Kutka, Katekhisis malyi Hi nauka pravoslavnokhristianskaia (Nyfregyhaza, 1997). Mykhailo Luchkai, Grammatica Slavo-Ruthena (Buda, 1830), trans, and repr. as Hramatyka slov'iano-rus'ka (Kiev, 1989). The language of Luchkai's Grammar

Notes to pages 94-105 477

32 33 34

35 36 37 38

39

40

41

has been analysed in detail by Georgii I. Gerovskii, 'Russkii iazyk v tserkovnoslaviansko-russkoi grammatike Mikhaila Popa-Luchkaia,' in Karpatorusskii sbornik, 259-311. See P.B. Pletnev, 'Obraztsy karpatorusskogo narodnogo iazyka i tvorchestva v grammatike M. Luchkaia,' Karpatorusskii sbornik, 312-28. Kachru, 'Introduction: The Other Side of English,' in The Other Tongue: English across Cultures, 9. Italics are the author's. Rudlovchak, Khrestomatiia, 1: 43-4. Members of the 'Ruthenian Triad' were Markiian Shashkevych (1811^3), Ivan Vahylevych (1811-66), and lakov Holovats'kyi (1814-88). Their famous collection of vernacular verse, Rusalka Dnistrovaia (1837), reveals the influence also of Tarkovych. See Cyzevs'kyj, History of Ukrainian Literature, 478-95. Translated into Russian, it is reprinted as Doch' slavy in O vzaimosviaziakh slavianskikh literatur. Luchkai is mentioned in canto 65. Published in Naukovyi zbirnyk MUK u Svydnyku, 10:111-232. Included are Ukrainian translations and a facsimile of the original manuscript. Tichy, Vyvoj, 163-4. A lexical analysis of this poem and others by Dovhovych is found on 34—8. Cited in Tamara Baitsura, Zakarpatoukrainskaia intelligentsiia v Rossii v pervoi polovine XIX veka, 26. Baitsura's book is a comprehensive presentation of the subject, and I have drawn much of my material on Rusyns in Petersburg from it. See also the following studies by Baitsura, published in Naukovyi zbirnyk MUK u Svydnyku: 'Pedagogicheskie vzgliady i pedagogicheskaia deiatel'nost' I. S. Orlaia v Rossii,' 7: 251-73; 'I. S. Orlai i ego vklad v razvitie istoricheskikh znanii,' 8: 75-92. 'O iugo-zapadnoi Rusii. Pis'mo iz Nezhina k sekretariu obshchestva,' read at a meeting of the Society for Russian History and Antiquities on 28 February 1824. Reproduced in Svientsitskii, Materialy, 1: 41-6. In the first volume of his history from 1818, Karamzin writes: 'The [CarpathoRussians] speak and write perfect Russian. As an example, I include one of their latest poems.' The poem in question is Tarkovych's verse to the palatine of Hungary, which was undoubtedly made known to Karamzin by Orlai (N.M. Karamzin, Istoriia gosudarstva Rossiiskago 1, 2: 9 n. 302). V.I. Shenrok, Materialy dlia biografii Gogolia, 3: 427. After Orlai's departure from Nizhyn, what became known as the 'freethinking affair' erupted. One of the Rusyn teachers, M.V. Bilevych, denounced a professor of judicial sciences, N.G. Belousov, who had been hired by Orlai as his assistant. In the ensuing contentious atmosphere, retrospective evaluations by Gogol and others found fault with Orlai's administrative skills. See Gogol's letters, where he expresses general dissatisfaction with the gymnasium and its administration (Polnoe sobranie

478 Notes to pages 107-17 sochinenii, 10: 73, 77, 117, 122; as well as Mashinskii, Gogol i delo o vol'nodumstve and Srednitskii, 'Materialy dlia biografii N. V. Gogolia,' in M. Speranskii, ed., Gogolevskii sbornik, 219-312). An early biographer of Gogol writes, 'We do not know what reasons might have compelled Gogol to change so completely his opinion and the nature of his relationship to Orlai, to whom he had previously referred only cordially.' He places Gogol's attitude in the context of his developing negative feelings to all those associated with his early years, beginning with his schoolmates and teachers and extending to Orlai and D.P. Troshchyns'kyi (Shenrok, Materialy, 1:131-4, 199-200). Toward the end of his life, Gogol apparently revised his opinion, if the beginning of part two of Dead Souls is indeed autobiographical. Also, Shenrok's material indicates that while in Odessa in 1848, Gogol associated with the sons of Orlai - one had been his schoolmate at Nizhyn - whom he calls 'excellent people' (4: 711). Incidentally, Kukol'nik describes Orlai's 'great predilection' for his fellow Carpatho-Rusyns. He also refers to a certain 'malicious person,' who rose to a professorial position by taking advantage of Orlai's ethnic sympathies, a situation that Orlai, allegedly, later regretted (Litsei kniazia Bezborodko, 76.) This is perhaps a hint at M.V. Bilevych, the reactionary Carpatho-Rusyn professor of political philosophy, who provoked the 'freethinking affair' at Nizhyn, which resulted in administrative and organizational changes at the gymnasium. 42 Orlai's proposal was published as 'O neobkhodimosti obuchat'sia preimushchestvenno otechestvennomu iazyku i nechto ob obuchenii iazykam inostrannym,' in Zapiski of the Ministry of Education, 1825. Cited in Baitsura, Tedagogicheskie vzgliady,' 258. 3: Awakening to Rusyn Reality 1 Unless otherwise noted, the orthography of all texts in Oleksandr Dukhnovych, Tvory (hereafter Tvory) has been modernized. 2 There is also a national myth about the creation of this poem. In 1849, during the Hungarian revolt, Dukhnovych was arrested as a Rusyn agitator. He was forced to walk in chains from Presov to Kosice, where the gallows awaited him. The myth contends that in response to taunts from his captors and promises of 'heaps of gold' if he would renounce his Rusyn identity, Dukhnovych composed this song and sang it as he walked (Vergun, 'Karpatorusskaia literatura,' 53). 3 Dukhnovych here refers to his grandfather's admonition to 'remember your people, love your people, pray to God, and look ever to the east and to the north, whence comes our salvation.' 4 The best biography of Dukhnovych is by Olena Rudlovchak, 'Oleksandr Dukhnovych: Zhyttia i diial'nist',' in Tvory, 1: 15-168. See also Dranichak,

Notes to pages 120-44 479

5

6 7

8

9

10

11 12

13 14

15 16

Aleksandr Dukhnovich and the Carpatho-Russian National Cultural Movement. Here I will review only those facts relevant to Dukhnovych's cultural activity. Dukhnovych does not distinguish between the terms Rusyn (pycbKHft) and Russian (pyccKHfr). His reference to reading and writing no-pyccKu probably indicates materials in Church Slavonic or Slaveno-Rusyn. A facsimile (photo-reproduction) version of the original Primer is included in Tvory,2: 1-116. I have based my translation on that provided by Dranichak in Aleksandr Dukhnovich, 57-8. She points out that the endearing vocative form of mamko is difficult to render into English, as is the diminutive knishka. Ivan Matsyns'kyi suggests that the printer lacked the facilities to produce the modern Cyrillic alphabet; subsequent editions were published primarily in the civil alphabet. See the commentary in Tvory, 2:611, and the facsimile version of the Primer in Tvory, 2: 1-116. A complete English translation of this poem by Paul Robert Magocsi appears in Carpatho-Rusyn American 3 (1980), 4—5, and a translation by Dranichak is included in Aleksandr Dukhnovych, 60-1. 'Duchnovics Alexander,' Tvory, 3: 397-8. Dukhnovych recounts that he was forced to walk, at times barefoot, from Presov to Kosice, a distance of some twenty miles, escorted by Hungarian and Polish soldiers and a squadron of hussars. He was insulted, mocked, struck, and spat at. After more than a week of imprisonment, he was permitted to return to Presov and was placed under house arrest. The biblical quotation continues 'for mine eyes have seen Thy salvation, which Thou hast prepared before the face of all people' (Luke 2: 29). For a thorough history and analysis of the literary positions and publications of the Presov Literary Society, see Rudlovchak's four-part series, 'Priashivs'ka literaturna spilka Dukhnovycha i literaturni problemy,' Duklia 13, 1-4 (1965), 88-93, 56-66, 79-88, 76-87. Hereafter, cited in the text as 'Spilka,' with issue and page numbers. See my analysis of this poem in Rusinko, 'The National Awakening in Subcarpathian Rus'.' The KaAH/io (Melitis melisphyllum) is a grassy medicinal plant with white or yellow flowers and a lemon scent. People came from neighbouring villages to an area on the river Tsirokha, near the now flooded village of Starina, to gather these locally famed flowers. CnwHAs (Helleborus niger) is a local variety of wild tulip. See the commentary in Deleuze and Guattari, Kafka: Toward a Minor Literature, 17. Such foreign imitation is less a temptation for writers in a major literature, 'rich in

480 Notes to pages 144-60

17 18

19 20 21

22

23

24

25

great talents, such as the German is, where the worst writers limit their imitation to what they find at home' (Kafka, Diaries, 149). Neither major nor minor literature can be said to be more authentic in terms of resistance to influence. Pozdravlenie Rusynov na god 1851,40-2. Hereafter, Pozdravlenie 1851. Reprinted in Ivory, 1: 182. Anyos, a Pauline monk, suffered from a clash between his vocation and a secret, unfulfilled love, which led to depression, alienation, and the deterioration of his health. He died at the age of twenty-eight (Czigany, The Oxford History of Hungarian Literature, 90). Pozdravlenie Rusynov na god 1852 (Buda, 1852), 15-30. Hereafter Pozdravlenie 1852. Reprinted in Tvory, 1: 271-9. Pozdravlenie 1852, 115-16. The original can be found in V.G. Benediktov, Stikhotvoreniia, 41-3. See Terras, ed., Handbook of Russian Literature, 47; Mirsky, A History of Russian Literature from Its Beginnings to 1900, 127; and Lidiia Ginzburg, 'Benediktov,' introduction to Benediktov, Stikhotvoreniia, v-xxxviii. It is interesting to speculate about a more direct means of communication. Benediktov's 1835 edition of poetry was published at the expense of V.I. Karlgof, an acquaintance of Benediktov's, who had previously published Nestor Kukol'nik's play Torquato Tasso. Kukol'nik, another very popular Russian writer of the 1830s, was the son of the Rusyn Vasyl' Kukol'nyk, professor of Roman and Russian law at the University of St Petersburg, who emigrated to Russia in 1803. It is known that many of the Rusyn emigrants to Russia maintained ties to their homeland and facilitated the exchange of literary materials. Emperor Franz Joseph is extravagantly praised as 'the father of the Rus' people and the creator of Rusyn destiny' (Pozdravlenie 1851, 52-6). Tatranskyi's panegyric was seconded by Nikolai Nod', who honours the emperor, 'who gave us the nationality (napoAHOCTb) requested by our fathers' (57-9). Tarkovych writes, 'The Carpathians are the true father and mother of the Slavs, / But the dispersed (paacfeflHHbi) children do not seek to know this,' indicating that the Carpathian origin of the Slavs has been generally forgotten. See Rusinko, 'Between Russia and Hungary,' 436. Dukhnovych misread and misquoted the phrase in one place as 'the Russian (PocciHHbi) children' (Tvory, 2: 535) and in another, 'the Russian (pyccKin) children' (Tvory, 3: 274). Christopher von Schmid (1768-1854), a priest and pedagogue, was the author of sentimental, moralistic stories addressed to youth, which were widespread in the Austrian school system. His collected works were published in 28 volumes in Regensburg, 1855; an 8-volume Hungarian edition was published in Kosice in 1828. Karl Gustav Nieritz (1795-1876) published his well-liked moralizing stories in the series Jugendbibliothek and Jugendschriften, and they were widely

Notes to pages 167-87 481

26 27

28 29

translated. His popular calendars, published beginning in 1854, may have served as a model for Dukhnovych's almanacs. See commentary in Tvory, 3: 438-9. For an English translation and a comprehensive commentary, see Dukhnovych, Virtue Is More Important than Riches. Dzendzelivs'kyi, 'Sposterezhennia nad skladom leksyky dramy O. Dukhnovycha,' in Rychalka, ed., Oleksandr Dukhnovych: Zblrnyk materialiv, 151-69. In the same volume, see the following articles on Dukhnovych's language: Shtets', 'Mova "Bukvaria," 184-91; and Bunhanych, 'Movni riznovydy virshovanoi' tvorchosti O.V. Dukhnovycha,' 170-83. Rudlovchak, 'Spilka' 1: 92. For information on Bishop Gaganets', see Pekar, History of the Church in Carpathian Rus', 82-3, 195-6. These interdisciplinary theories, which include decolonization theory, imperialdiscourse theory, deconstructionist and poststruturalist literary, cultural, and ethnic theory, the sociology of nationalism, world-systems theory, and globalization theory, are reviewed and analysed in Buell, National Culture and the New Global System.

4: Strategies of Survival under the Magyar Yoke 1 The Society of St Basil the Great considered the terms Rusyn and Russian to be synonymous and believed that the national language of the Rusyns should be Russian. To preserve the writer's intent, 1 will translate the term russkii, referring to Rusyns, as Russian where appropriate. 2 'Poslldnaia pisn' was first published (in a slightly different form) in the L'viv periodical Halichanyn, 1862, and later in textbooks and periodicals in Subcarpathia. Translated into Russian, it was included in Nikolai Gerbel's collection Poeziia slavian (St Petersburg, 1871). 3 Aleksander Pavlovych, Izbrannye proizvedeniia, 436. Hereafter citations from this volume appear in parentheses within the text as IP and page number. This is the first published edition of many of Pavlovych's poems, which had previously existed only in manuscript. Whereas Pavlovych used the traditional orthography with dialectical variations, editor Andrii Shlepets'kyi adapted the orthography to the modern Cyrillic alphabet. Where I had access to an earlier version of a particular poem, I have reproduced the original orthography. Otherwise, I have had to rely on Shlepets'kyi's modernization, which, unfortunately, elides the dialectical nature of Pavlovych's language. 4 This biography includes a bibliography of Pavlovych's work, citing titles from manuscripts and printed sources, and primary critical works (212-72). Pavlovych would later criticize the Poles for their divergence from the Slavic community, expressing the Slavophile idea that T!O/IHKH HaM poflHbi 6paxbi, / Hx nopxHT

482 Notes to pages 188-206

5 6 7

8 9

10

11

12

13 14

15

apHCTOKpaxbi' (The Poles are our native brothers, / Though corrupted by the aristocracy, IP, 79). See also 'Duma ob atamane podkove, ubytomu Pol'shei vo L'vove,' 127. In this case, neither 'Rusyn' nor 'Russian' captures the poet's meaning. What is needed is an adjective form to describe a citizen of historical Rus'. Poety Zakarpattia, 238. Hereafter, cited in the text as PZ. The orthography of all the poems in this collection has been ukrainianized. The full title is 'The plight of a poor peasant, a description of the fate of the Rusyn peasant in the barren valleys of the Carpathians in the Hungarian land under serfdom' (IP, 143-91). See the publishing history in the editors' commentary in Poety Zakarpattia, 617. Ivan Shlepets'kyi and T.M. Chumak note that similar reworkings of the Lord's Prayer appear in Czech, Slovak, and Galician poetry of the time, often with revolutionary implications (Chumak, 'Sotsial'nye motivy v tvorchestve A. Pavlovicha,' 159). For the Marxist interpretation, see Rudlovchak, 'Oleksandr Pavlovych i nasha suchasnist,' 9-39. Rudlovchak examines poems written by Pavlovych in 1848-9, which expressed revolutionary sympathies. The word 'zhyd/ziaVzsicT is the standard term used in West Slavic languages to designate a member of the ethnic group. Rusyns and Ukrainians in Galicia follow West Slavic languages in using this term, which has no negative connotations. According to Pavel Fedor (Ocherki, 26), when Dobrians'kyi served as a delegate to the parliament in Pest, he gave a speech in which he threatened the Hungarian authorities: 'If the Rusyn population of Hungary continues to be deprived of its legal rights, if it is subjugated to the Magyars, who are introducing the Hungarian language into the administration and appointing exclusively Magyar officials, then one could hardly guarantee its complacency.' For a history of the Rusyn press, see Rudlovchak, 'Hazeta Svit i i'l poperednyky.' In current disputes, it is cited to justify the claim that Rusyns are not a distinct nationality, but part of the Ukrainian people. See Myshanych's collection of essays from 1993 entitled Karpaty nas ne rozluchat'. However, it is clear that Dukhnovych sees the unity of Rusyns on both sides of the Carpathians within a greater Rus' that comprises all Slavic peoples. In a response to Myshanych on this issue, Magocsi points out that Dukhnovych never used the term Ukrainian for himself or for his people ('Commentary,' in The Persistence of Regional Cultures, 194). See Bunhanych, 'Movni riznovydy virshovanoi tvorchosti O. Dukhnovycha,' in Oleksandr Dukhnovych: Zbirnyk materialiv naukovoi konferentsi'i, 170-83; and, in the same volume, Shtets', 'Mova "Bukvaria" ta inshykh posibnykiv

Notes to pages 206-10 483

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17

18

19

O. V. Dukhnovycha,' 184-91. For example, Bunhanych calculates that in Dukhnovych's poem 'Vruchanie' (Dedication), the word count analysis is as follows: 17 words (10.9%) are from the popular dialect (which Bunhanych classifies as Ukrainian), 17 words (10.9%) are from the Ukrainian literary language, 90 words (58.7%) exist in both Ukrainian and Russian, 22 words (14.1%) are from Russian, and 1 word (0.6%) is from Church Slavonic. From this he concludes that 'Vruchanie,' the poem that became the Rusyn anthem, was written in Ukrainian, although he acknowledges that it is not literary Ukrainian (178). Olena Horiachko asserts that a scrupulous analysis of the language of Dukhnovych's Primer proves with certainty that it is Ukrainian, although, as she admits, 'A superficial glance at the texts of the Primer might raise doubts' ('Knyzhytsy chytalnii ... - 150'). This type of struggle to determine and define language is not uncommon among the closely related Slavic languages. As linguist Kevin Hannan points out, the study of language change is complicated by the fact that we have to deal with similar languages. Patterns of language change, the assimilation of foreign influences, borrowing, and the rise of native innovations are often more difficult to analyse where closely related languages are in contact than in areas where contiguous languages have fewer features in common (Hannan, Borders of Language and Identity in Teschen Silesia, xvii). Dukhnovych's approximation of the number of Rusyns (four million) refers to all Rusyns living in Austria-Hungary and is probably exaggerated. As for the number of dialects, there were about 1000 Rusyn villages in Hungary and 3500-4000 more in Galicia and Bukovina. Each valley or region (sometimes village) had a discernibly different dialect. Dukhnovych's numbers are exaggerated, but not illogical. In the Rusyn renaissance of the 1990s, writers made the same arguments about using Ukrainian, the 'colonial' or imposed language, or switching to Rusyn vernacular. Prominent, talented writers have followed both paths. For further details, see the conclusion to this study. In this article, Dukhnovych also provides an example of 'vulgar' language from Galician literature and a reference to the distinctions between Galician and Ukrainian dialects. It is not unknown for initiators of a new literature to attempt to raise its prestige by resisting the intrusion of 'vulgar expressions.' At the dawn of the new American literature, Washington Irving wrote in his diary in 1817: 'There is an endeavour among some of the writers of the day (who fortunately have not any great weight) to introduce into poetry all the common colloquial phrases and vulgar idioms. In their rage for simplicity they would be coarse and commonplace. Now the language of poetry cannot be too pure and choice.' Similarly, a traditionalist American editor accused Benjamin Franklin of being 'the founder of

484 Notes to pages 211-16

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22 23 24 25

that Grubstreet sect, who have professedly attempted to degrade literature to the level of vulgar capacities, and debase the polished and current language of books, by the vile alloy of provincial idioms, and colloquial barbarism, the shame of grammar, and akin to any language rather than English' (both quoted in Matthews, Tradition in Exile, 67-8, 71). In retrospect, these judgments may be seen as incorrect, but not necessarily elitist or unpatriotic. levmenii Sabov expanded on this idea in an interview in 1926, where he said that during the Reformation, the threat to the Rusyn people was greater from the Jesuits than from Protestants. 'Because of the mystical tendency of our people, they will not become Calvinists; but they might be drawn to the Latin rite. The Latin mass is more mystical than our rite, for in our service, one can understand a good deal, if not all. But in the Latin mass, except for the clergy, almost no one understands anything ... And this is why the Rusyn soul strives to understand what is incomprehensible to him. In that is the riddle of the Rusyn soul' ('levmenii Ivanovich Sabov,' in Russkii narodnyi kalendar' obshchestva Aleksandra Dukhnovicha na obyknovennyi god 1927, 90). For more on Rakovs'kyi's opinions on language and his fight to use Russian in Subcarpathian publications, see Frantsev, 'Iz istorii bor'by za russkii literaturnyi iazyk v Podkarpatskoi Rusi.' See Rudlovchak, 'Hazeta "Svit" i i"i poperednyky. Bibliohrafiia materialiv "S vita".'Appended is a bibliography to the contents of Svit. For details on Rusyn magyarones, see Magocsi, Shaping, 68-72, and Maria Mayer, The Rusyns of Hungary, 153-89. My summary of church history is based on Athanasius Pekar, History of the Church in Carpathian Rus', 84-100. Pankovych's position was opposed to that of the Vatican. Pope Gregory XVI (1831-1846) and Pope Leo XIII (1878-1903), in efforts to preserve the conditions of church union, sought to curb the Hungarian government's manipulation of the church and to raise the prestige of the Eastern rite. Pope Gregory's 1843 proposal to establish a Greek Catholic patriarchate within the borders of AustriaHungary was rejected by the Hungarian government, which feared losing control of the Carpatho-Rusyn eparchies. Called by historian Pekar 'a great friend of the Slavic peoples,' Pope Leo XIII also sought to end the subordination of the Greek Catholic church in Subcarpathia to Hungarian ecclesiastical authorities by attaching the Mukachevo and Presov eparchies to the Galician metropolitanate. The Hungarian press launched a campaign against the proposal, and in reaction to public protests by Hungarians and their Greek Catholic sycophants, Pope Leo abandoned his plan. The creation of an independent metropolitanate in Subcarpathia was finally approved only in 1937, when the onset of the war prevented its realization.

Notes to pages 216-21 485 26 Ivan Sil'vai, 'Avtobiografiia,' in Izbrannye proizvedeniia, 144. Pankovych's statement continues: 'If the Germans come to power, then we will be Germans. If the Moskal' [pejorative for Russian] takes over, which, by the way is completely unthinkable and impossible, then we will acknowledge the rule of the Moskal'... But what is your Society of St Basil doing? What is its goal? What ideas do they entertain? It is meddling in politics, spreading muscophilism and instigating schism!' 27 Volodymyr Hnatiuk, the Ukrainian ethnographer, considered Chopei's dictionary and textbooks to reflect 'pure Rusyn (rus'kii) speech.' Quoted in Hlavachek, 'Moia podorozh po Zakarpats'kii Ukraini v 1896 rotsi,' 56. 28 This is essentially a review of Birchak's book Literaturni stremlinnia Pidkarpats'koiRusy. To Ukrainophile Birchak's generalization that Chopei's grammar is rich in dialectical material from Subcarpathian Rus' (150), Gerovskii responds with numerous examples of lexical items to support his opinion that Chopei's dictionary is a motley collection of unrelated words. 29 Undeterred, Mytrak continued work on a Magyar-Rusyn dictionary, which he completed in 1891. It was published only in the 1920s (Mad'iarsko-russkii slovar' - Magyar-orosz szotdr). 30 In the first issue of the satirical journal Sova, editor Viktor Kymak ridiculed the magyarone 'Ruthenians' by creating for them a national anthem, a take-off on the well-known Dukhnovych poem, 'I was, am, and will be a Rusyn.' It began: ft pyrenoM 6nn, HO HC 6y#y, XOTfa pOflH/ICH pyTCHOM -

CKBepHbiH MOM poA no3a6yAy, EyAy HOBHM MaflbHpOM ...

(I was a Ruthenian, but will be no longer, /Although I was born Ruthenian. / My disgusting people I will forget, / I will be a new Hungarian...) Cited in Mykytas', Tolemika na storinkakh hazet Sova i Novyi svtt,' Tezy dopovide'i i povidomlennia do XIX naukovoi konferentsii, 74. 31 A similar situation prevailed in our own day in South Africa, where the apartheid regime encouraged the use of vernacular languages among the natives instead of English. Ngugi wa Thiong'o cites one opinion: 'The [South African] government has decreed that the African languages shall be used as the medium of instruction right up to secondary schools. The aim is obviously to arrest the black man's mental development because the previous system whereby English was the medium for the first six years of primary education produced a strong educated class that has in turn given us a sophisticated class of political leaders and a sophisticated following - a real threat to white supremacy' (Ezekia Mphahlele, letter to the editor, Transition 11 [1963], quoted in Ngugi wa Thiong'o, Writers in Politics, 54). Ngugi suggests that the policy had more to do with censorship than

486

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36 37

38

39

40 41

42

43

Notes to pages 222-32

education. Mphahlele's interpretation is similar to the Rusyns' belief that accepting Great Russian would facilitate the education of the Rusyn masses. The references to 'Russian' here probably allude to Slavonic, which, for the Russophiles, was identical with 'Rusyn.' For specific examples of transitional forms, see Gerovskii, lazyk Podkarpatskoi Rusi, 64-73. For the details of Rakovs'kyi's experience in publishing Tserkovnaia gazeta, see Frantsev, 'Iz istorii bor'by za russkii literaturnyi iazyk,' 14-30. Mykytas' cites Devollan's comment and indicates his disagreement by inserting exclamation and question marks into the text of the citation. Tvorchist' O. Dukhnovycha v otsintsi doradians'koho literaturoznavstva,' In Rychalka, ed., Oleksandr Dukhnovych, 98. Tichy also refers to the choice in verb ending as a political act (Vyvoj, 69). Devollan cites examples of strategies by which Rusyn writers, editors, and translators slipped standard Russian into publications, evading the Hungarian censors' insistence on the vernacular (246). The series 'How we write' (Kak imtem pysati) was published in Svtt 2, nos. 30 and 32-6 (1869). The editor's response appeared in vol. 3, no. 37 (1869). In his presentation to the 1930 Conference of Russian Scholars, Russophile Shtefan Fentsyk noted that 'even now stories of the arrival of the Russians are circulating, anecdotes of various incidents, permeated with the feeling of rapture and wonder' (Moiapoezdka v Bolgariiu, 14). lulii Stavrovs'kyi-Popradov believed that Russian was more accessible to the Subcarpathian Rusyn masses than the Little Russian (Ukrainian) dialects. This issue will be explored in greater detail in the following chapter. lulii Stavrovs'kyi-Popradov satirized this attempt in untranslatable verse: TBOH Ma/ibHHK - arc - szin [cbm], a cbnb, TO CHoea - szyny. 1A cHHb Hedecnyio OHIIIH nonpome: sziny (cited in Rudlovchak, lulii Ivanovych Stavrovs'kyi-Popradov, 115). See Frantisek Hlavacek's account of his visit to Uzhhorod in 1896, 'Moia podorozh,' 58. Denationalization had made such progress that in 1890 the number of individuals in Uzhhorod speaking their native language was: among office workers - 229; among local teachers - 212; among the clergy - 74 (cited in Dobosh, lulii Ivanovich Stavrovskii-Popradov, 9-10). Ivan Sil'vai, letter to Volodymyr Hnatiuk from 7 November 1897, cited in Nedziel'skii, Ocherk, 257. See similar comments from Sabov and Stavrovs'kyiPopradov, 256-8. Quoted in Hlavachek, 'Moia podorozh,' 59. At the same time, these Ukrainian observers acknowledge the isolation and political repressive atmosphere of UhroRus'. Hnatiuk noted that the words 'progress' and 'democracy' were incompre-

Notes to pages 233^1 487

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46 47

48 49 50

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53

hensible to the Rusyn intelligentsia (ibid.), and that they knew nothing about Galicia or Ukraine (56). So, for example, Bunhanych asks rhetorically why Ivan Franko 'was able to pass from Russophilism to the correct position in the language question,' while Dukhnovych could not ('Movni riznovydy virshovanoi tvorchosti O. Dukhnovycha,' 171). In the commentary to Dukhnovych's poem 'Mysl' v nachalie vesny,' the editor Rudlovchak characterizes it as 'one of the most correct of Dukhnovych's poems in terms of form,' and suggests that 'perhaps it was corrected. It is written in correct Russian' (Tvory, 1: 690). The question of language in postcolonial writing is dealt with in detail in The Empire Writes Back, 38-77.1 will draw on this account in my discussion. The Russophiles of the twentieth century likened Dukhnovych's objectives for a Rusyn variant of Russian literature to the situation of Proven§al literature in France. Politically, they saw the Rusyns as occupying the position of the French citizens of Switzerland, who maintain their French language and culture while they are loyal Swiss citizens (N. Pavlovich, Russkaia kuitura i Podkarpatskaia Rus', 14-15). See Emel'ian Balets'kyi, 'lazyk hrammatyky E. Sabova z 1890-ho roku,' 336-50. The term 'interlanguage' is from W. Nemser and Larry Selinker. The concept is summarized in The Empire Writes Back, 67. Cited in Dobosh, lulii Ivanovich Stavrovskii-Popradov, 117. In a more typical postcolonial dynamic, Rusyns also abrogated and appropriated Hungarian to their own vernacular. Shtefan Fentsyk comments that, going through Hungarian schools, they knew Hungarian better than their own language. Many Hungarian words were morphologically russified in conversation to such an extent that the Rusyn terms were forgotten. He cites the phrase 'nay BT> Bapoiirb AO opBOiua' (I am going to town to the dentist), where Rusyn grammatical declension is imposed on Hungarian lexical items, and calls it 'a symbol of national tragedy.' As a reaction to such unconscious linguistic change, Russophile writers purposely excluded any magyarisms from their work, consciously replacing Hungarian words that had taken root in Rusyn speech with Russian or Church Slavonic vocabulary (Chekhovslovaki i karpatorossi, 23). Wexler, Purism and Language, 1-30. Wexler provides examples of Ukrainian linguistic debates that are similar to those in Subcarpathian Rus'. Chantal Zabus, The African Palimpsest, 3. In the preface to this work, Albert S. Gerard repeats the witticism that 'when a dialect has an army, it becomes a language' (iii). In the 1860s the Slavic Benevolent Committees in Russia supported a project to attract Czech colonists to the Caucasus and the Amur valley. Only a few Czech

488 Notes to pages 242-56

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58 59

families responded (Petrovich, Emergence of Russian Panslavism, 150). A group of Galician Russophiles emigrated to Russia, where in 1913 they set up a Carpatho-Russian Committee for Liberation. Its goal was to prepare the groundwork for the future incorporation of the Hapsburg 'Carpatho-Russian' territories into Russia (Magocsi, Shaping, 73). The Rusyn editor loann Rakovs'kyi also corresponded with Raevskii, and through him Rakovs'kyi's article 'A Voice from Hungarian Rus' on the Rusyn Language' was published in Aksakov's journal Den' on 11 November 1861. Ivan Sil'vai mentions his youthful attraction to Petofi and Janos Arany, but dismisses it as 'a diversion of youth, which had no roots in my soul' (hbrannye prvizvedeniia, 138-9). According to Shtefan Fentsyk, the newspaper Listok contains not a single word about Magyar culture, and only two Magyars are mentioned sympathetically Ede Egan, who led a program of economic improvement for the Rusyn people of Hungary, and Sandor Petofi, the Hungarian poet, although in the latter case it is made clear that Petofi was born Petrovics, son of a Slovak mother and Serbian father (Chekhoslovaki i karpatorossi, 22). Zoltan Medve lists only six articles in Listok with any Hungarian reference, and these are insignificant ('Social-political Background of the Reception and Translation of the Hungarian Literature in SubCarpathia,' in Specimina Nova, 71-90). There are references in the literature to a novel written by levhenii Fentsyk, Na rodyni bez otechestva (A Homeland without a Fatherland). According to Pavel Fedor, it was published anonymously in the St Petersburg journal Tserkovnye viedomosti in 1904 (Ocherki, 50). According to Liubytsia Babota, more recent research has shown this to be in error. According to Vergun, Fentsyk's novel was read in 1878 at a ceremonial meeting of the St Petersburg Slavic Benevolent Society by Professor O.F. Miller, professor of Russian at the University of St Petersburg (Evgenii Andreevich Fentsik i ego miesto v russkoi literaturie, 17). If this novel in fact exists, it is a bibliographical rarity. 'Na Verkhovyni,' Svit 1, no. 12 (1867). In later publications, the final word is erroneously changed to nedoliu (unhappy fate). Cited according to the text in Misiatsoslov na 1894 hod, 90. In most modernday Ukrainian publications - e.g., Poety Zakarpattia, Na Verkhovyni, and Rudlovchak's Khrestomatiia - the poem is printed without the final stanza; only an ellipsis indicates a deletion. Clearly the Marxist editors preferred the cynical meaning of the poem that emerges if the spiritual reconciliation of the final stanza is omitted. Or, seeing this as part of the awakeners' 'mistaken' perceptions, they considered it beneath notice. This is an example of the unreliable editing that can be found in many Marxist Ukrainian anthologized collections of Subcarpathian literature.

Notes to pages 256-72 489 60 Svit 1, nos. 13-16 (1867). The story is included in several anthologies, although each reproduces it selectively, reflecting the contemporary political situation and stance of the author. See Rudlovchak, Khrestomatiia, 108-9, and Na Verkhovyni, 231-6. It is cited (also selectively) in Mykytas', Haluzka, 95; Feerchak, Ocherk, 31; Sochka-Borzhavyn, Budytelipodkarpats'kykh rusynov, 99-103. 61 Cited in Rudlovchak, Khrestomatiia, 108-9, and partially in Mykytas', Haluzka, 95. Only Rudlovchak includes the conclusion of the story of the 'kind' master. In the original, Mytrak explains that in 1824 two Rusyn priests sent a complaint about this landlord to Vienna. An investigation was conducted and he was imprisoned and fined 6000 florins, which was to be used for the benefit of the people he had oppressed. However, the author concludes, 'the money was spent somewhere or other and not given to the people' (Svit 1, no. 16, 1867). 62 Svit no. 1, 14 (1867). The remark about the Rusyns' lack of worldly wisdom was omitted in the text as published in Sochka-Borzhavyn, Budytelipodkarpats'kykh rusynov, and also in Na Verkhovyni. It is included in an excerpted passage from Mytrak's text in Feerchak, Ocherk, 31. The Na Verkhovyni text has also deleted any mention of the Jews and the concluding description of the church. 63 Svit 1, no. 13 (1867). This passage is omitted in Sochka-Borzhavyn, Budyteli podkarpats'kykh rusynov, and also in Na Verkhovyni. It is included in Feerchak, Ocherk, 31. The chronicle referred to is from the twelfth century and is commonly known as the Gesta Hungarorum of Anonymous. 64 Deleted in the Sochka-Borzhavyn, Rudlovchak, and Na Verkhovyni texts; included in an excerpt in Feerchak, Ocherki, 31, and Babota, Zakarpatoukral'ns'ka proza, 101. All but the final sentence is cited in Mykytas', Haluzka, 95. 65 Birchak, Literaturni stremlinnia, 121.1 have found no reference to 'being cursed by God' in any of the Russophile writers, and indeed such a notion runs counter to the direction of their thought. 66 Reprinted with many excisions in Anatolii Kralyts'kyi: Rozvidka i vybrani tvory, 155-60. 67 In her commentary to the story, Olena Rudlovchak writes the following: 'Hazeta narodova was a daily L'viv newspaper that was published from 1862 to 1915. Until 1886, its editor was the liberal-democratic journalist Dobzhans'kyi. The newspaper came out against Muscophiles. In all that was sympathetic to Russia it saw and "uncovered" "agents of Moscow," turning even to slander and unfounded defamation of people and organizations' (Khrestomatiia, 319). 68 The most influential reading of the play is George Lamming, 'A Monster, a Child, a Slave,' in The Pleasures of Exile, 95-117. Other versions by African and Canadian writers are surveyed in The Empire Writes Back, 189-92. 69 My reading of this story differs slightly from that offered by Ukrainian scholars. Liubytsia Babota and Vasyl' Mykytas' interpret Zeus as Pankovych, and the story

490

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Notes to pages 275-8

reads well as a parable of internal Rusyn dissensions. It seems to me, however, that there are also references to imperial control and retaking the land from alien occupiers that validate the interpretation of the gods as the Hungarian ruling powers. Mykytas' implies that there is no difference or distance between Prometheus and the people, thereby reducing the complexity that prevails in the relationships. Finally, Mykytas' reads Prometheus's fate as his sacrifice for the people. If so, it is futile. Mykytas', Haluzka, 141-3; Babota, Zakarpatoukrdins'ka proza, 111-12. Listok 3, no. 2 (1887) included a light and frivolous folk song entitled 'Ishov kozak.' In a footnote, levhenii Fentsyk commented: 'Of course, such songs are not appropriate in a spiritual journal. But as we have no other publication, and as we are concerned with literature in general, we have included this song. However, it seems that it is not of Ugro-Rusyn origin. In the future, we request that you send us songs and tales taken directly from the lips of the Ugro-Rusyn people. They are interesting because they reflect the soul of the people.' Quoted in Bacha, Literaturnyi rukh, 228. Other critics even extend their censure to Dukhnovych: 'Dobrians'kyi and Dukhnovych were hostile to the revolution ... In this way they betrayed the interests of their people and pushed them on a fatal reactionary road' (cited in Bacha, Literaturnyi rukh, 21). According to Shlepets'kyi, the Subcarpathian Russophiles were mistaken in turning to Russia as their 'natural centre' (the concept is from Engels). He asserts (without support) that their national centre was not Russia, but Ukraine. For the most part, the Russophile discourse also excluded Ukrainian literature, although this is disputed by the standard critical tradition. Stavrovs'kyi-Popradov mentions his respect for Shevchenko, Gogol, Kvitka, Vovchok, Maksymovych, Kulish, Kostomarov, and Fed'kovych in the context of an all-Russian literature. On this basis, Dobosh concludes that if Russophile writer Stavrovs'kyi-Popradov had lived longer, he would have supported the use of the Ukrainian language in Subcarpathia (lulii Stavrovskii-Popradov, 132, 144). Admitting that there is no direct evidence, T.M. Chumak suggests that Dukhnovych's 'I was, I am, I will be a Rusyn' was written under the influence of Shevchenko ('Svoeobrazie literaturnogo protsessa v Zakarpat'e v seredine XIX v.,' 158). Statements such as this one by Mykytas' are typical: 'It is entirely possible that this poem was written under the influence of Shevchenko or Fed'kovych, with whose works the poet could have become acquainted in the L'viv periodical press' (Haluzka, 94). Ivan Dolhosh sees Shevchenko as the inspirational force behind the entire Subcarpathian awakening, even though he admits, 'Historical documents that testify to the proliferation of Shevchenko's works in Subcarpathia in the second half of the nineteenth century found by us to this point are very few, but undoubtedly there were many.' Worse is the comment 'Judging by the themes of the

Notes to pages 279-81 491 awakeners' works, one can believe that they could not have been ignorant of the works of the great Kobzar,' and he finds the influence of Shevchenko in the fact that the Subcarpathian awakeners used folklore, as did Shevchenko. The contribution of Kralyts'kyi, writing for and about the people, 'could have happened only under the influence of Shevchenko and Marko Vovchok' (Dolhosh, T. G. Shevchenko i Zakarpattid). Almost to the present, Ukrainian commentators insist that '[i]f Dukhnovych had lived longer, he would have turned the national orientation of his contemporaries from Rusyn to Ukrainian. He could not fail to understand historical evolution and established convention.' ('Editorial statement,' Duklia, no. 2, 1991: 29). Unfortunately, during the Soviet era, such extreme totalizing statements were characteristic of the Ukrainian approach to Subcarpathian literature and could not be questioned. In fact, evidence indicates that Subcarpathian Rusyns began to be acquainted with Ukrainian literature only through Volodymyr Hnatiuk in the late 1890s. 74 Nikolai Gerbel', Russian editor of an anthology of Slavic poetry, describes the positive features of the non-Russian Slavic literatures as 'youthful exuberance and passion, their simple-hearted relation with nature, their unconscious sympathy with the simple people, their national-patriotic sentiment, warmed by bright hopes for a great future for the Slavs and founded on a firm consciousness of Slav unity, and their love for Russia' (Poeziia slavian, iii). In levhenii Fentsyk's story 'Poor in Spirit' (1891-5), a denationalized Rusyn is reproached for not applying his talent to his own Rusyn literature for the benefit of his people. 'Instead of enriching your own native literature, which is poor and needs artists, you write Hungarian verses that are unnecessary to the Magyars. You are enriching Hungarian literature, which is already sufficiently rich and does not need your services.' Cited in Babota, Zakarpatoukrdins'ka proza, 183. Ironically, like all Russophiles, the writer sees no conflict in striving to enrich Russian culture with his own Rusyn literature. 75 Cited in Lelekach, 'Podkarpatskoe pys'menstvo na pochatku XX vtka,' 233. The complaint of the older members of the intelligentsia was that the language of the populist journals 'smelled of magyarism.' Kyryl Sabov, a Russophile member of the former St Basil's Society and uncle of populist levmenii Sabov, admired the goal of Nauka 'to write as the people speak,' but in his opinion, the language of the writers of populist periodicals was not authentic Rusyn. The Magyareducated Rusyn intellectuals intermixed Magyar linguistic features, which lent to the language a Magyar spirit. In an interview with one of the populist writers, Sabov explained his objection: The people speak according to highland dialects ... but each speaks according to the jargon of his own village and none sin against the Rusyn (russkii) language. But who among your colleagues knows well the language of his own village?' ('levmenii Ivanovich Sabov,' in Russkii

492 Notes to pages 282-304

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narodnyi kalendar' obshchestva Aleksandra Dukhnovicha na obyknovennyi god 1927, 93). Cited in Nedziel'skii, Ocherk, 269. See linguistic examples from Nauka and Nedllia in Magocsi, Shaping, 342. Zlots'kyi had participated in the linguistic debates in Svit on the side of the Subcarpathian recension of Russian. He supported the 'perfection' of the local dialect, but he insisted that 'if that dialect were to be perfected, it would be the same as that in which Svit is now published' (Svit 2, no. 2, 1868). In his essay 'Survey of the Literary Activity and Development of the UhroRusyns' included in the Khristomatiia, Sabov mentions Andrella's 'works in three volumes from 1672-1682, which throw a bright light on the era when UhroRusyns accepted the union' (Khristomatiia, 186), but he does not include them in the anthology. In a speech from 1925, Sabov refers to newly discovered manuscripts of Andrella's work, but says that they 'have not provided any reason to correct or change my opinions' as expressed in the 1893 Khristomatiia (Riech'po povodu torzhestva otkrytiia pamiatnika-biusta Aleksandra V. Dukhnovicha,' 4). Writing in 1929, this author comments that Sabov's anthology also played a practical role in preserving the Rusyn literary tradition, since many of the texts included were lost during the war.

5: Re-imagining Rusyn Identity 1 The complex disagreements and negotiations are fully explored by Paul R. Magocsi in the chapter 'Incorporation into Czechoslovakia' in Shaping, 76-102. 2 For details on political developments, see Magocsi, Shaping, chapters 11 and 12. 3 For the Ukrainian and Galician history of this period, see'Magocsi, A History of Ukraine, 512-20; and Magocsi, Galicia: A Historical Survey and Bibliographic Guide, 174-215. 4 Naukovyi zbornyk TP was published in fourteen volumes from 1922 to 1938 and edited by Ivan Pan'kevych. It contained scholarly articles on literature, language, ethnography, art, and the social, political, and ecclesiastical history of Subcarpathian Rus'. Historical studies defended the notion that the Rusyn/Ukrainian people were the autochthonous population of Subcarpathia; linguistic and ethnographic analyses supported the theory that the Subcarpathian Rusyns were part of a single 'Ukrainian' nationality; and literary studies focused on contacts between Subcarpathian and Galician Rusyns. See Pal'ok, 'Naukova i vydavnycha diial'nist'.' In 1996 the Subcarpathian Regional Prosvita Society in Uzhhorod resumed publication of the journal, publishing volumes 15-17 in 1996 and 1999. Volume 15 is largely devoted to the activities of the Subcarpathian Prosvita Society in the 1920s.

Notes to pages 305-14 493 5 Magocsi, Shaping, 159-60. See Magocsi's comments on the reliability of the statistics and the geographical distribution of the reading rooms. 6 Evgenii Nedziel'skii [Evgenij Nedzielskij], 'Spolek Alexandra V. Dukhnovice,' and Ivan Pan'kevych [Pankevic], 'Spolek "Prosvita" v Uzhorode,' in Jaroslav Zatloukal, ed., Podkarpatskd Rus, 298-9. For a review of statistics and activities for the first decade of the republic's existence, see Shtefan Fentsyk, 'Russkoe kul'turno-prosvietitel'noe obshchestvo imeni Aleksandra V. Dukhnovicha v Uzhhorodie na Podkarpatskoi Rusi,' in A.V. Popov, ed., Karpatorusskiia dostizheniia, 89-116. After the revolution of 1989 in Eastern Europe, the Dukhnovych Society was re-established in Uzhhorod. It publishes annual almanacs, containing contemporary literary works and historical articles. See 'Novi dokumenty pro Obshchestvo im. A. V. Dukhnovicha,' in Kalendar' 1996, 54-7. 7 Shtefan Fentsyk was an ambitious man who wanted to play a significant role in his homeland. Nephew of the nineteenth-century activist and poet levhenii Fentsyk, Shtefan was a priest and professor at the Uzhhorod seminary in the early 1920s. In 1930, his efforts to be appointed bishop failed and he was suspended from the priesthood in 1934. From the early 1930s, he received funds from Poland to publish a weekly 'autonomist' newspaper, Karpatorusskii golos. A leader of the Dukhnovych Society, he entered politics full time and founded the Russian National Autonomous party, using the Dukhnovych Society for propaganda purposes. In 1938 he was appointed to the region's first autonomous government. After he was accused of treason and the government was disbanded, he organized a fascist-type youth group to insist that all Subcarpathian Rus' be returned to Hungary. He was apprehended and hanged by local vigilantes in 1945, for alleged treason against the people. 8 Ukrainophile cultural theorizing often entailed emphatic assertions, in which boldness sometimes exceeded scholarly caution. For example, Bilets'kyi defends his praise of Ukrainian poetry by reference to Herder, who, according to the author, 'on the basis of its artistic creativity alone, predicted a great future for the Ukrainian people.' This is most likely an exaggerated interpretation of Herder's comments on the Slavs in Ideen zur Philosophic der Geschichte der Menshheit. 9 In 1910, 89.6% of the region's Rusyn inhabitants were peasants. 10 In 1929, a Ukrainophile student from the Uzhhorod Teachers' College attempted to assassinate the head of the Dukhnovych Society, levmenii Sabov. See Fentsik Dielo o pokushenii na E.I. Sabova. At his trial, the perpetrator explained his motivation for the shooting: 'Russians in Subcarpathian Rus' are traitors who deceive and oppress the Ukrainian people' (2). And in an effort to justify his client's action, the defence attorney addressed the jury: 'You were and are Rusyns. You do not know that you are Ukrainians' (7). 11 Tichy's edition, which contained thirty-eight of Dukhnovych's verses, was

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vehemently attacked by the Russophiles for its 'unscholarly approach,' its inaccuracies, omissions, and, most of all, for the 'shameful' changes made in the poet's language to bring it closer in line with the vernacular (N. Beskid, 'Zhizn' i tvorchestvo A. V. Dukhnovicha,' Karpatskii sviet, nos. 7-8, 1929: 672). In fact, the deliberate linguistic alterations are few and relatively minor, although the text is marred by typographical errors. See the Ukrainophile review of the Dukhnovych celebrations in Mykola Vaida, Velikii probuditel'Zakarpattia, 31-48. Vaida concludes that 'the 125th anniversary of Dukhnovich's birth was celebrated not by the society that bore his name, but by the Prosvita Society' (46). 'Pozdravlenie Rusynov. Pamiaty Dukhnovycha 1803-1923,' ed. F. Tykhii [Tichy]; Avhustyn Voloshyn, Pamiaty Aleksandra Dukhnovycha; A. Markush, Pamiaty Bat'ka Dukhnovycha 1803-1928. See Karol Janicki's comments on idealized cognitive models in Toward NonEssentialist Sociolinguistics, 112-14. Quoted in Mykytas' and Rudlovchak, 'Poety zelenykh Karpat,' introduction to Poety zakarpattia, 39. See also Baleha, Khudozhni vidkryttia, 12. Baleha also quotes the Communist periodical Karpats'ka pravda (9 Oct. 1932): 'Russian counter-revolutionaries, who over the course of hundreds of years oppressed the Ukrainian people socially and nationally, have now started their disgraceful work here in Subcarpathia. At a time of terrible famine and poverty ... the black-hundred Russian counter-revolutionary bourgeoisie has begun linguistic hostilities in our starving villages, in order to more successfully czechify our people and prevent a united front of fighters against capital punishment, for bread, work, land, and freedom' (22). The Russophile writer Mikhail Popovych makes a similar point in a humorous story from 1934. Two populist intellectuals argue about the proper word for 'lime' - Russian izvest' or Ukrainian vapno. A peasant interrupts with the practical observation that when there is money, both vapno and izvest' are available, and when there is no money, there is no point in discussing it (Dumy o Verkhovine, 24-5). In the phonetic alphabet, each sound is represented by a separate symbol. By contrast, etymological alphabets, like that of English, reflect the development of linguistic forms and expose the roots and other component parts of lexical items. Thus, the morphological connection between the words sign and signature is apparent, but correspondence between phonetics and orthography is compromised. An etymological orthography aims to preserve phonemes and phonemic contrasts from an earlier stage of the language that have since been lost in modern pronunciation, resulting in silent letters and two-to-one correspondences between sound and symbol. The utility of such an orthography includes the fact that it allows contemporary speakers of the language to read archaic texts more

Notes to pages 322-8 495

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easily and it facilitates communication among speakers of contemporary dialects of the language. The Russian alphabet is etymological. In Galicia, a phonetic alphabet was introduced for Ukrainian in 1895. By 1925, the Communist party adopted and popularized a new phonetic orthography for standard Ukrainian. See Mykola Shtets', 'Rozvytok ukrains'koho pravopysu na Zakarpatti i v Skhidnii Slovachchyni,' Naukovyi zbirnyk MUK u Svydnyku 4, pt. 1 (1969): 279-92. Mykola Shtets', 'Rozvytok ukrains'koho pravopysu na Zakarpatti,' 286. The Communist newspaper Karpats'ka pravda dedicated several articles to the matter of orthography. 'By what right have you produced some kind of Subcarpathian provincialism and given it a scientific foundation? By what right have you set up an etymological barrier between the Ukrainian motherland and the Subcarpathian Ukrainian branch, such that along that barrier, thanks to your mediation, all kinds of imperialists and adventurists can make Russians, Czechs and Slovaks out of Ukrainians? By what right do you, Ukrainians, hinder the development of national identity, by introducing the purgatory of "rusynism" and etymology?' (quoted in Shtets', 286). levmenii Sabov et al., eds., Grammatika russkago iazyka dlia srednikh uchebnykh zavedenii Podkarpatskoi Rusi. The use of Sabov's name as well as those of eight other local leaders who were labelled 'editors' was to elude the accusation that Galician immigrants were involved in the Russophile orientation. Ukrainophiles were also sensitive to such charges. Pan'kevych proposed that the second edition of his grammar (1927) be published under the name of Avhustyn Voloshyn, who by that time shared Ukrainophile linguistic views ('Lysty do Volodymyra Hnatiuka,' 84). Sample texts from Sabov's and Pan'kevych's grammars can be found in Magocsi, Shaping, 344-5. Believing that the main distinction between the Russian literary standard and local dialect was in pronunciation, Sabov supplied stress marks throughout the grammar to aid in proper pronunciation. Subcarpathian Ukrainophile scholars put great effort into the analysis of these old texts at this period, as evidenced by the contents of Prosvita's scholarly series Naukovyi zbornyk. For example, the authors of Za ridne slovo, who see politics everywhere in respect to the fate of the Ukrainian language, accept at face value the justification for the Magyars' promotion of local dialect in the contention that neither children nor teachers understood Russian-oriented texts (25). There are numerous linguistic atlases and other studies from this period, which categorize dialects and map dialectical regions. See, e.g., Zilyns'kyi, 'Mova zakarpats'kykh ukraintsiv'; Pan'kevych, Ukrams'ki hovory Pidkarpats'koiRusy i sumezhnykh oblastei; and Gerovskii, 'Jazyk Podkarpatske Rusi.' My concern here

496 Notes to pages 328-33

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is not with the linguistic details and technical analyses of the language, but with language as a social and cultural formation. In local terminology, Great Russian was rendered as rossiis'kyi or moskovs'kyi, rather than russkii. The Russophiles complained that their Ukrainophile adversaries failed to recognize this difference and deliberately distorted Russophile intentions by interpreting 'all-Russian' to mean 'Great Russian.' Georgii Gerovskii, lazyk Podkarpatskoi Rusi (Russian translation, Moscow, 1995), 87. In a review of Gerovskii's book, Ivan Pan'kevych contested his conclusions point by point. See Pan'kevych's review in Casopis pro modernifilologii 23, no. 3 (1937): 275-81. 'Protokol godichnago obshchago sobraniia,' Karpatskii sviet 1 nos. 5-6 (1928): 616. One teacher related a student's interpretation of the phrase omen, numae Mamu (father questions mother [Ukr.]) to mean 'father torments mother,' from the Russian verb numamt>. According to the teacher, the student would have understood the Russian version, ometj eonpouiaem Mamu. Russophile polemicist Hus'nai suggested that the best example of a Little Russian was Nikolai Gogol, who had a Little Russian consciousness but used the Great Russian language. Essentially, the Russophiles defined the term politically, and insisted that 'Little Russians' were those who did not consider themselves Ukrainian separatists (Hus'nai, lazykovyi vopros, 24). Il'ia Erenburg, Viza vremeni, 267-8. The term pyccKue in Erenburg's transcription ('We are Russian') in fact was probably pycbKbi ('We are Rusyn'). Haraksim, 'Rusyn'ska identita i ematsipatsiia,' 2. In 1929, the Dukhnovych Society had twenty reading rooms in eastern Slovakia. Shtefan Fentsyk, 'Russkoe kurturno-prosvietitel'noe obshchestvo imeni Aleksandra V. Dukhnovicha,' 91. See Tichy, Vyvoj. In a review of Tich 's book, the Rusynophile Mykola Lelekach criticized the author's judgment, writing that for any Rusyn word for which there was a parallel in Czech, Tichy posited a Czech source. With this approach, he claims, 'we would find that hundreds of Rusyn words come from "Czechoslovak" or some other neighbouring language' (Zoria-Hajnal, nos. 1-4, 1943: 596-7). Semerad, 'Natsional'nyia otnosheniia i iazykovyi spor v Podkarpatskoi Rusi,' 41. This author promoted the Russian literary language for Subcarpathia and suggested that the Rusyn dialects could be a bridge between Czechs and Russians. 'Lysty do Volodymyra Hnatiuka,' 64. In another letter, Pan'kevych complains that he received no cooperation from Subcarpathian teachers in collecting ethnographic information, and the proposed dialectical dictionary was never published (65). The Dukhnovych Society apparently made progress in teaching the people to read

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40

some version of Russian. Speaking for the peasantry, a representative of the reading rooms reported to the 1931 congress of the society: 'Is it not success when previously one person read a Russian book and ten listened, while now the majority, if not all, are able to read Russian' ('Protokol obshchago sobraniia Obshchestvav 1931 g.,' 1164). Ihor Hus'nai, a Russophile from Presov, where the etymological alphabet was firmly entrenched, quotes a resolution of a teachers' congress from 1921, which stated, 'In defiance of what might be done and what books might be published, our Rusyn would make the trip to Presov for books' (lazykovyi vopros v Podkarpatskoi Rusi, 16). On the significance of innovation and tradition in orthography, see Robert Auty, 'Orthographical Innovations and Controversies among the Western and Southern Slavs during the Slavonic National Revival.' Tyblevich, 'Bukvie "B v al'bom,' Rifmy, 36. Pavel Fedor wrote a poem promising Subcarpathian fidelity to the hard sign. Tverdyi T>' (Russkii narodnyi kalendar' obshchestva Aleksandra Dukhnovicha na obyknovennyi god 1927, 94). Kaminskii, Natsional'noe samosoznanie nashego naroda, 4. Kaminskii goes on, 'Creating a new reformed grammar is not difficult: mutilate the Russian language, invent new words, simplify declensions, introduce the rules of culinary provincialism, and the new language is ready. You can pride yourself on being not a linguistic conservative, but a modern evolutionary' (5). See also Volkonskii, 'V chem glavnaia opasnost'?' 497; and Medvietskii, 'Edinstvo russkago iazyka v egonariechiiakh,' 60. Kaminskii goes on to criticize the streamlined case formation of Ukrainian. 'Their grammar can serve as a model of conservation and simplicity. The principle varietas delectat does not interest them.' 'Riech' arkhidiakona levmeniia Sabova vtorichno izbrannago obshchestva imeni Aleksandra Dukhnovicha 27.XII. 1923, v Uzhgorodie,' 46. See other personal anecdotes in Sabov's speech to the 1930 Dukhnovych Society Congress in Karpatskii sviet, 1316-19. Volodymyr Hnatiuk, 'Rusini v Uhrach,' Slovansky prehled (Prague, 1899), pt. 1, 216-22; pt. 2, 418-27; Ivan Franko, Narys istorii ukrai'ns'ko-rus'koi literatury do 7590 r. (L'viv, 1910). The first volume was reprinted in the United States in 1977: Fedor F. Aristov, Karpato-russkie pisateli. It includes a brief history of Carpathian Rus' and an introduction by Panteleimon lur'ev, providing information about Aristov and his Carpatho-Russian Museum. Included in the first volume are the Subcarpathian writers Aleksander Dukhnovych, Ivan Rakovs'kyi, Adol'f Dobrians'kyi, and Aleksander Pavlovych. Aristov intended to include in the last volume a historical overview of 'all-Russian [obshcherusskaia] literature in Carpathian Rus'.'A brief 1928 essay devoted to Subcarpathian literary development was published in 1995

498

41

42

43

44

45

46

47

Notes to pages 339-43

by the scholar's daughter in Moscow (Literaturnoe razvitie Podkarpatskoi (Ugorskoi) Rusi). Volodymyr Birchak, Lyteraturni stremlinia Pidkarpats 'koi Rusy, Vyd. TP, oddtl lyt.-nauk., no. 2 (Uzhhorod: Unio, 1921). An expanded edition was published in 1937. Both are marked by careless scholarship, questionable methodology, and biased interpretation. lulii Rusak (pseudonym of lulii Hadzhega) points to specific instances of falsification, omission, and misinterpretation in Birchak's 1921 study, 'Kak sozdaetsia "rusinsko-ukrainskaia" literatura?' 90—4). Shtefan Fentsyk calls Birchak's work 'a mockery of the creative activity of the Carpatho-Russians rather than a textbook or an informative book' (Karpatskii sviet 4, nos. 8-9, 1931: 1311). The 1937 edition was thoroughly critiqued by Georgii Gerovskii in Istoriia ugro-russkoi literatury v izobrazhenii Volodimira Birchaka. In a review entitled 'lak pyshet'sia u nas ystoriia podkarpatorus'kot lyteratury,' Ukrainophile Ivan Pan'kevych criticized Fedor for skimming over the Galician connection and omitting the Ukrainophile orientation. 'Znachenie,' cited from the 1930 edition, 6-7. lavorskii's article was reviewed in a positive light by the Ukrainophile journal Podkarpats'ka Rus', no. 4 (1931): 85-7. The author, while criticizing the terminology used by lavorskii ('all-Russian' and 'all-Little Russian'), agrees that 'without a basic knowledge of Russian literature from the eleventh to the nineteenth centuries, one cannot understand our literature, for it is to a great extent [Russian literature's] echo' (87). Subsequent ideological critics like Vasyl' Mykytas' charged that Nedziel'skii's methodology was 'borrowed not only from reactionary Muscophiles but also from the counter-revolutionary, chauvinist white emigration.' Unjustifiably, he dismissed the study as worthless, but admitted the value of certain factual material (Davnia literatura, 14). Ibid., 16. In a review of Nedziel'skii's book, Ivan Pan'kevych countered that Subcarpathian literature 'basically parallels the development of Ukrainian literature,' and that 'the creation of eastern Carpatho-Rusyn literature cannot be understood without a good knowledge of the creation of the Ukrainian people' (Podkarpats'ka Rus', nos. 9-10, 1932: 188-91). In an extensive review of the 1937 edition of Literaturni stremlinnia Pidkarpats'kot'Rusy, published as Istoriia ugro-russkoi literatury v izobrazhenii Volodimira Birchaka, Russophile Gerovskii countered Birchak's interpretation and accused him of fraudulent scholarship. For example, he cites Birchak's anachronistic transformation of 'Carpatho-Russia,' in Luchkai's reference from 1822, into 'Little Russia (Ukraine)' (24), his one-sided examples of the linguistic polemic in Svit (34), and selective quotations (22). Tichy is the author of numerous articles, surveys, and reviews, many of which have already been mentioned. An overview from the early Czechoslovak period is

Notes to pages 346-54 499

48 49

50

51

52

'Pisemnictvi na Podkarpatske Rusi 1920-30.' Haiti produced several articles and general overviews: 'Deset let podkarpatskeho pisemnictvi,' published separately under the title Literdrni obrozenipodkarpatskych Rusinu v letech 1920-1930; 'Literatura podkarpatskych Rusinu v XX. stolen',' Encyklopedia XX stoleti, vol. 7: 119-22; Die literarische Renaissance der Karpathoruthenen; 'Pfsemnictvi Podkarpatskych Rusinu,' Ceskoslovenskd vlastiveda, vol. 7: 273-90; Tfehled literarnfho hnuti na Podkarpatske Rusi,' Podkarpatskd Rus, 181-7. Bonkalo published A Kdrpdtalji Ruten Irodalom es Muvelodes (Pecs: Dunantiil Pecsi Egyetemi Konyvkiado es Nyomda, 1935). There was also a survey of Rusyn literature published in Rome: Wolfgang Giusti, 'La Russia subcarpatica e la sua letteratura,' Revista di letterature slave 1, nos. 1-2 (1926): 115-38. Hereafter, the poetry of Karabelesh will be cited in the text with page numbers from V luchakh razsvieta. The poets referenced are Aleksandr Pushkin, Aleksei Kol'tsov, Fedor Tiutchev, lakov Polonskii, Aleksei Khomiakov, Mikhail Lermontov, Afanasy Nikitin, Valerian Maikov, Vasilii Zhukovskii, and Nikolai lazykov. The epigraph from Pushkin is from his poem 'The Prophet' (Prorok). Interestingly, Karabelesh cites not the oft-quoted line interpreted to refer to the poet's civic duty ('burn the hearts of the people'), but one that stresses the aesthetic and spiritual role of the poet: 'Only the divine word / Reaches his sensitive ear ...' (11). Significantly missing from Karabelesh's pantheon of nineteenth-century Russian poets is the civic poet Nikolai Nekrasov. The Rusyn poets included are Aleksander Dukhnovych and lulii Stavrovs'kyi-Popradov. For quotations from Lintur's article, 'Spivets' Zakarpattia,' from Literaturna hazeta, 29 March 1957, and Baleha's comments, see lurii Baleha, Literatura Zakarpattia dvadtsiatykh - trydtsiatykh rokiv XX stolittia, 154, 160-1. The political and colonial subservience of Baleha's critique is apparent in his reaction to Karabelesh's depiction of the besieged 'Russian oak': 'And this was written at a time when the peoples of the Soviet Union under the leadership of the Communist Party were struggling to implement the first five-year plan, with ardent sympathy from workers of the entire world' (161). Baleha, Literatura Zakarpattia, 157. In an unsigned biographical introduction to Karabelesh's 1953 collection of memoirs and verse, the religious nature of much of his poetry was explained as follows: 'The publication and proofreading of the book was undertaken by people who were completely dependent on the influence of the Uniate Greek Catholic clergy and the poet was horrified when he saw completely distorted verses in his book' (Na smerteinom rubezhe, 8). However, the poems that Karabelesh published during the same period in various journals were no different from those in V luchakh razsvieta. Nedziel'skii's comments on the future and 'stage-prop hopes' undoubtedly refer

500 Notes to pages 356-70 to the militant revolutionary poetry of some of Karabelesh's Ukrainophile rivals.

53 See also Barabolia's poem 'Uvaha! la poet,' where he parodies Russophile poetic style and motifs, as well as the poetic ego (Poety Zakarpatiia, 424). 54 Grendzha-Dons'kyi's autobiographical notes were included in Ternovi kvlty polonyn (Kharkiv, 1928). They are reprinted in Grendzha-Dons'kyi, Tvory (Uzhhorod, 1991), 588-91. 55 Unless otherwise noted, Grendzha-Dons'kyi's verse will be cited from Tvory Vasylia Grendzhi-Dons'koho, vol. 1, ed. Wasyl Lew (Washington: Carpathian Alliance, 1981), henceforth cited parenthetically in the text as T. Unlike most Ukrainian editions, the Washington edition retains the poet's original orthography. 56 The poet reworked most of his poems in later years to bring them more firmly into the compulsory Ukrainian context. In some instances, he replaces the ethnonym 'Rusyn' with regional terms, such as 'Verkhovynets',' and eventually with 'Ukrainian.' The poem 'Love Your Native Language,' addressed in the 1923 collection to Rusyns ('Know that you are Rusyns'), is altered in 1942 to read: 'Love Ukraine, more than anyone, / She is your mother, do not forget' (T, 42). In reworkings of 'Luckless Mother' from 1962, the situation is more dramatic. The abandoned child is raised in an orphanage. When he returns to his homeland as a foreigner during the war, he supports Russia and orders that local Rusyns (including his mother) be hanged as spies. 'Prodigal Son' is likewise overdramatized. Instead of one prodigal, the Rusyn mother has four sons, who all become renegades. For comments on other reworkings of earlier verse, see Ivan Sen'ko, Troblemy etnohenezu u tvorchosti Vasylia Grendzhi-Dons'koho,' 95-106. Reworked variants are included in the Washington edition. 57 Mykhailo Mol'nar gives an example of Grendzha-Dons'kyi's reliance on folklore. Compare Grendzha-Dons'kyi's poem 'Popid horu' (Under the Mountain, T, 17): 'On HC 6iiiCH, AiBHHHOHbico, / Mene MOTIOAOFO, / He aeis a na 6uiiM cam/ HiKoro, HiKoro,' with the folk song 'Za horodom kachky plyvut": 'Oft ne 6iiicfl, fliBHHHOHbKO, / He 6iHCH ninoro, / Bo H xfloneijh MO/roACHbKHH / He apa^HB niKoro.' (Mykhailo Mol'nar, 'Dolia spivtsia polonyn,' introduction to Vasyl' Grendzha-Dons'kyi, Shliakhom ternovym, 16.) 58 Also in Tvory Vasylia Grendzha-Dons'koho, 11: 325-6. 59 The title of Grendzha-Dons'kyi's book recalls a poem by Shevchenko from 1849, which begins, Thorny and prickly is the way to Ukraine.' Grendzha-Dons'kyi became familiar with the work of Shevchenko in 1912, when he spent some time in Galicia and acquired Shevchenko's Haidamaky ('MoT spohady,' 344). 60 See T, 10: 88-9. The journal's reaction to the first confiscation was printed in a subsequent issue: 'The November issue of Nasha zemlia was spoiled by the police

Notes to pages 370-86 501

61 62 63

64

65

66

67

68

on the order of the Uzhhorod procurator. An entire text of a poem by our editor was confiscated. This was the first poem confiscated in Subcarpathia, and it was not confiscated by the Magyar chauvinists who ruled for a thousand years, but by the Czech 'democrats,' who came here to 'liberate their Slavic brothers ...' (T, 10: 90). The journal's statement fails to take into account that access to publication under Magyar control was severely limited. The verses by proletarian writers that were published in Karpats'ka pravda and Nasha zemlia are included in Poety Zakarpattia, 339-406. Grendzha-Dons'kyi, 'O dole neshchasna' [O Unhappy Fate], Tvory, 53. In this 1991 edition, editor Oleksa Myshanych has modernized the orthography. The police banned the reading on the grounds that the poem had not been submitted to the censor in advance, a point disputed by the poet. Nasha zemlia later published an account of the incident. See T, 10, 90-4. This collection was republished in Kharkiv in 1928. Subsequent collections of prose include Pokryv tuman spivuchi riky (Uzhhorod, 1928); Na zustrich voli. Zbirka opovidari z chasiv revoliutsii 1918-1919 r. ta inshi (Uzhhorod, 1930). My excerpts from prose works come from the 1964 collection, edited by Mykhailo Mol'nar, Shliakhom ternovym. Vybrani tvory (ST in the text). 'Moskovskim "futuristam,"' Karpatskii krai 2, nos. 5-6 (1924), 48. By contrast, the Russophiles preferred the Futurists' traditionalist rivals. In 1923, Karpatskii krai published a poem by the Russian Maksimilian Voloshin, dedicated to his compatriot poets Aleksandr Blok and Nikolai Gumilev, both of whom died in 1921 and were considered by some to be victims of the Bolshevik state. 'Na dnie preispodnei' bemoans the sad fate of Russian writers (Karpatskii krai 1, no. 2, 1923: 26). Opovidannia z Karpats'kykh polonyn (Kharkiv, 1928); Voly ta vedmedi. Kazka (Kharkiv, 1928); Malen'kyi olenyk. Kazka (Kharkiv, 1928); Ternovi kvity polonyn (Kharkiv, 1929); Il'ko Lypei, karpats'kyi rozbiinyk (L'viv, 1936). Chervona skala first appeared serially in the journal Pchilka, 1930-1. It was issued as a separate brochure in 1931, reworked and republished in 1938. Citations here are from the Washington edition, which was reprinted in Uzhhorod, 1991. In 1931, Nedziel'skii noted that the political position of the author did not necessarily correlate with a particular language and was an inappropriate basis for evaluation. For example, he cited Aleksander Pavlovych, a committed Russophile, who had written exclusively in dialect, Ivan Myhalka, who was associated with the Ukrainophile orientation, but who persisted in using dialect, and Irynei Kontratovych, who published in collections of both orientations. Therefore, he writes, it is inappropriate to correlate the political or national conviction of the author with his creative tendencies, especially given the extraordinary licence that Subcarpathian publishers took with the writer's literary language. ('Sovremennaia

502 Notes to pages 388^04

69 70

71 72

73

74

75

karpatorusskaia literature,' 203.) Marxist scholar lurii Baleha divided literature into progressive or reactionary, with no reference to language, since, as he put it, there were writers of Ukrainian, Russian, and dialect in both camps (Literatura Zakarpattia, 62). Later Marxist theorists criticized the traditional classification by language and tried to categorize writers by their class orientation. For example, see P.P. Ponomar'ov's review of Oleg Grabar', Poeziia Zakarpat'ia 1939-1944, Duklia, no. 4 (1958): 7-91. Baleha noted critically that unlike Gorky's 'proud tramps,' those of PatrusKarpats'kyi are passive petitioners (Literatura Zakarpattia, 149, 153). The epigraph reads, FlycKaft HaMT> roBOpHTb HSMtHMHBaa MO#a, MTO TCMa cxapa« - CTpaAania HapoAa, H HTO noasifl 3a6biTb ee flo^^cna, He Btpbxe, IOHOIIIH, - HC CTapkerb ona! Let fickle fashion tell us / That the suffering of the people is an outdated theme, / And that poetry should forget it, / Do not believe it, youth - it does not age. Borshosh-Kum'iats'kyi's work is cited from Na Verkhovyni (NV), in which the poet's language has been adapted to Ukrainian. For example, Tychyna's lines 'Ha Maudani KOJIO u,epKeu / HocMymunucb Mamepi' (On the square near the church / Mothers grieved) are adapted by BorshoshKum'iats'kyi: 'Haynui^i KOJIO u,epKeu / noxMypueca nac" (On the street near the church/ it grew dark). For an analysis of Borshosh-Kum'iats'kyi's borrowings and influences, see Baleha, Literatura Zakarpattia, 89-115. The original of 'Panski durnytsi' appeared in the journal Nedilia rusyna 1, no. 18 (1923): 74-5 and 19 (1923): 77-9. With significant revisions and linguistically adapted, it was republished in 1956 under the title 'Maliar na seli' and is included in Myshanych, ed., Na Verkhovyni, 365-8. Here I will cite from the story in its original language and orthography. For example, the standard Rusyn exchange of greetings, 'daea Hcycy XpHcry!' 'OiaBa na stick!' (Glory be to Christ! Glory forever) is transformed to 'Good day,' according to contemporary political standards. Evgenii Nedziel'skii documented the tremendous popular interest in amateur drama circles, which stimulated the writing of plays for the people. By 1910 there were 210 amateur theatrical groups (155 under the auspices of the Dukhnovych Society and 55 under the Prosvita Society); by 1936, there were 357 (214 DS groups and 143 PS drama circles). In 1931, there were 574 theatrical productions, and in 1936 there were more than one thousand. The demand for plays was so great that, even given the use of the ready repertoire of Russian and Ukrainian plays, in 1938 the number of plays written and published locally exceeded the

Notes to pages 404-14 503 books of prose and poetry taken together. Most of these village amateur circles operated without intellectual leadership (Evgenii Nedziel'skii, Ugro-russkii teatr [Uzhhorod, 1941], 7). The Prosvita Society also had a professional theatre, which played ten seasons, averaging 133 performances a year (see Magocsi, Shaping, 163-6). Most of the plays produced by local authors were superficial in theme and primitive in form. According to Nedziel'skii, 'Dramaturgy has not been perceived as an artistic problem in Ugro-Rusyn cultural life. It has not stimulated needed criticism or patronage, although it has the potential to represent the spirit of the people most successfully' (Ugro-russkii teatr, 95). 76 See stories in Emel'ian Baletskii, Verbnyi trepet, specifically 'Brodiagi,' 15-19, and 'Tsyrkovka,' 27-37. 6: The Makings of Rusyn Modernism 1 According to Magocsi, 'This did not mean, as many Ukrainophile writers assert, that the local populace rejected the Russophile or Rusynophile national orientations. The February 1939 elections, for instance, were as much, if not more, a vote of confidence in the continued existence of a federated Czecho-Slovakia than an indication of Ukrainian national consciousness' (Shaping, 245). 2 The term 'reunited' was based on the assertion of some historians that the province had been part of Kievan Rus' for a short time during the thirteenth century before it was occupied by Hungary. The term Transcarpathian Ukraine (Zakarpats'ka Ukraina) was the only one used in official and other publications after the liberation. 3 In an announcement of a poetry competition in Russkoe slovo (7 February 1943), it was noted that 'in the expression of the national soul's rights and in the assertion of our national distinction and the rights connected with it, no one has played a greater role than poets ... As soon as the question "Who are we?" is raised, there immediately begins an enumeration of the names of our poets, who, in their inspired words, have spoken of us more often and more expressively than professional orators' (quoted in Grabar', Poeziia Zakarpat'ia 1939-1944, 106). 4 12 - sbornik molodykh ugrorusskikh poetov (1940), Zhivaia struia (1940), Budet den'(1941), Shagi (1941), Nakanunie (1941), Troika (1942), Peredskhodom (1943), and Literaturnyi al'manakh (1943). Pered skhodom was Rusynophile in orientation. Literaturnyi al'manakh included a few Rusynophiles and the Ukrainophile (later Rusynophile, and after the Second World War, once again Ukrainophile) writer Fedor Potushniak, who contributed Russian-language verses. The other anthologies were exclusively Russophile in orientation. 5 Jan Mukafovsky, On Poetic Language. Prague structuralism grew out of the Prague Linguistic Circle, a group of mostly Russian and Czech scholars (R.

504

Notes to page 415

Jakobson, J. Mukafovsky, B. Havranek, N.S. Trubetskoi, etc.) who, between 1926 and 1948, developed a functionalist theory of language and moved eventually to the conception of a literary work as a semiotic system. The Prague Circle held numerous lectures and discussions from the mid-1920s until 1939 and issued a journal and other publications of their views. The Rusyn writers, many of whom were educated at Charles University in Prague and associated with Russian emigre groups, might well have been aware of the fashionable theories of modern poetics being developed. Oleksa Myshanych indicates the presence of some of the books of the Prague Circle in Subcarpathian libraries, although he does not name them ('Praz'ka shkola ukrains'koi poezii i Zakarpattia,' iwKarpaty nas ne rozluchatr). Ethnographer Petr Bogatyrev, a member of the Prague Circle, made several expeditions to Subcarpathian Rus' in the 1920s and 1930s, on which he based several articles, conference papers, and a book, Actes magiques, rites et croyances en Russie subcarpathique (1929; for an English translation of this work see Vampires in the Carpathians). The Prague Circle presented their new view of language and verbal art at the First Congress of Slavists held in Prague in 1929, the same forum at which lul'ian lavorskii discussed the place of Subcarpathian Rus' in Russian literature (see 'Theses Presented to the First Congress of Slavic Philologists in Prague, 1929,' in The Prague School: Selected Writings, 19291946, 3-31). Intertextuality was an outgrowth of Mukafovsky's ideas on contextinduced meaning in poetry. The Rusyn poets' study of Russian verse of the Silver Age, which, in fact, largely inspired and programmed the theory of intertextuality, would have familiarized them with the practice. For more information on intertextuality in Russian poetry, see Elaine Rusinko, 'Intertextuality: The Soviet Approach to Subtext.' 6 Grabar' identifies the source of this poem as Pierre Jean de Beranger, the nineteenth-century national French song-writer, whose work encoded political messages that supported French republicanism. Beranger was received enthusiastically by Soviet Russian and Ukrainian writers and scholars as a poet of revolution, and this reputation may have influenced the interpretation offered by Grabar'. I have been unable to find a similar poem among Beranger's work and suspect, based on the postcolonial implications of its content, that the subtext is indeed from a Provencal song. Beranger had no connection to Provenge, and in this poem, anticolonial sentiments prevail over revolutionary ideas. Another source of the subtext may have been Beranger's Russian translator, Vasily S. Kurochkin, whose translation of the French poet was published in three editions (1859, 1864, 1874). Kurochkin was also a poet of satirical verses and his theory of translation included adaptation to local circumstances. (See Staritsyna, Beranzhe v Rossii: XIX vek; Krasnov, 'Velykyi poet-pisniar'; Khudzei, 'Beranzhe v otsintsi T. H. Shevchenka.')

Notes to pages 417-23 505 7 In a continuing effort to deceive the censor, poets were pushed past creative poetic devices and into deliberate mystification. Literaturnyi Al'manakh (Literary Almanac, 1943) was headed by three epigraphs that illustrate the inventiveness of its compilers. The first, a quotation from the nineteenth-century Rusyn writer Ivan Sil'vai, alludes to the responsibility of writers living under Magyar oppression to live for future generations and to make a contribution to the nation and the common good. The second is purportedly a Russian translation of Henrik Ibsen's verse comments on the positive effect of adversity toward uniting and strengthening a people. The third ('if not all three,' suggests Grabar') is an outright mystification. Supposedly taken from a poem by 'the American poet' Reginald Hugh, the epigraph is a poem that carries hidden messages in its reversed double-acrostic form. 'Giaea coeeTaivi' (Glory to the Soviets) expresses the writer's desire for the defeat of Hungary and liberation for Subcarpathia. 'Giaea BeHcuiy' (Glory to Benes) indicates an allegiance to occupied Czechoslovakia and the president of the Czechoslovak provisional government in exile, which had existed in London since 1940. The inclusion of these two covert messages in the same poem should deter any reductionist political interpretations. Grabar' interpreted the Russophile poets as pro-Soviet. His critics, by contrast, insisted that the Russophiles' orientation was reactionary, that their glorification of Rus' was abstract and not directed (as it should have been) to the Soviet Union. The latter judgment is probably correct. Despite a few references to the Soviets as liberators, the Russian-language poetry of the time shares the Russophile and pan-Slav attitudes of traditional Rusyn writers. (See Grabar', Poezlia Zakarpat'ia 1939-1944, 107-8.) 8 Cited in Grabar', 'Poeziia Zakarpat'ia 1939-1944,' in Putiami istorii, 232; orthography modernized. Vakarov was the most outspoken of the Subcarpathian poets and the most committed to the Soviet political cause. He was arrested by the Hungarians in 1944 and died in a concentration camp the following year. Several collections of his unpublished works appeared in the Soviet period, and he was hailed as a martyr for the liberation of the homeland. 9 'Skazka,' Budet den', 1941, in Grabar', Poeziia Zakarpat'ia 1939-1945, 269. See also Prodan's 'Ovchar' (Herdsman) and 'K neizvestnomu drevnemu pastukhu' (To an Unknown Country Shepherd, 274-5). 10 Tania Verkhovynka, Monisty. Other individual collections included Ivan Gorianin, Strana prostatskaia, Vasilii Fedorov, Kanareechnoe schast'e, Vasilii Borzhavin, Gory i dolia, Kolia Laborchanin, Staraia byl', and Dimitrii Popovich, lz zhitia. \ 1 In his reminiscences, Sochka-Borzhavyn describes his education at the Uzhhorod gymnasium, his first acquaintance with Russian and Ukrainian literature, and his admiration for Aleksander Mytrak ('Iz literaturnykh vospominanii,' included in the 1990 revised Gory i dolia, 138-212).

506 Notes to pages 428-31 12 That is, 'Rusyn language,' in Hungarian. A political accusation is insidious in this remark. Grabar' notes that Stryps'kyi's article was published on the eve of Hitler's attack on the Soviet Union and criticizes his cultural position as politically motivated (Poeziia Zakarpat'ia 1939-1944, 102). 13 The honorary allusions to Hungarian writers may be considered obligatory under the political circumstances and did not prevent Haraida from objecting in print to the framework established for Rusyn literature in the anthology Ystoriia podkarpats'koi lyteratury. Written but not signed by Shtefan Dobosh, this anthology was issued by the Regents' Commissariat for use in Subcarpathian schools. In a review of this history, Haraida writes, 'In no way can it be said that our literature "corresponds with analogous chronological periods of Hungarian literature.'" He takes issue with the author's treatment of sentimentalism and pseudo-classicism, insisting that these 'two European literary movements' are not relevant to Rusyn literature. Symbolically important is his objection to the unsystematic use of translation and transliteration, which sometimes gave prominence to the Hungarian version of a Rusyn title. He also found the language of the anthology, a mix of Russian and Rusyn, to be inadequate for the Rusyn language schools for which they were intended. ('Novi knyzhky,' Lyteraturna nedilia, no. 11, 1942: 105-8.) 14 I. G., 'Lyteratura y narodna tvorchost',' Lyteraturna nedilia, no. 2 (1943): 24. The reference is to Vasyl' Grendzha-Dons'kyi, Ukrainophile author of 'Il'ko Lypei' and 'Kniaz' Laborets'.' 15 Potushniak mentions Russian futurism, along with western movements, as an influence on his poetry. Potushniak began writing in Ukrainian. If he was familiar with Ukrainian modernist poets, he could not, under the political circumstance, have cited their influence. 16 lu. St., 'Shche pro nashu lyteraturu,' Lyteraturna nedilia, no. 22 (1942): 237. A prolific school of Subcarpathian painters flourished between the wars. Influenced by western impressionism, expressionism, and cubism, their subject matter was drawn almost exclusively from the Carpathian region. When Subcarpathian Rus' became a part of Czechoslovakia, the painters losyf Bokshai (1891-1975) and AdaFbert Erdeli (1891-1955) started a school of painting known as the Subcarpathian Barbizon. In 1927 they founded a public art school, and in 1931 they united local artists of all national backgrounds in the Society of Fine Arts in Subcarpathian Rus' (Tovarystvo diiachiv obrazotvorchykh mystetstv na Pidkarpats'kii Rusi). After the return of the Hungarian regime, a new Union of Subcarpathian Artists (Soiuz podkarpats'kykh khudozhnykiv) was formed. Bokshai and Erdeli's followers included Fedor Manailo, Ernest Kontratovych, Andrii Kotska, the sculptor Olena Mondych, and others.

Notes to pages 432-49 507 17 The editor of Lyteraturna nedtlia calculated that 80% of Rusyn writers were poets ('Bol'she prozy,' Lyteraturna nedtlia, no. 11, 1942: 105). This article seconds a summons from the editor of the Russophile newspaper Russkoe slovo. Both see the preponderance of poetry as a sign of the immaturity of Rusyn literature. Therefore, the Subcarpathian Society of Sciences made an effort to encourage prose writing, and of the first collections issued by the society, five were of short stories, one was a comedy, and only one was a book of poetry. Collections of stories by Aleksander Markush (lulyna, 1942) and Ivan Muranii (Opovidania y baiky, 1941) were sold out, demonstrating their popularity among the people. Markush, a Ukrainophile, continued to publish his stories of rural life under the Hungarian regime. Muranii wrote original plays and short stories and also translated the works of Shakespeare, Dickens, and Poe into Rusyn. 18 Olena Rudlovchak writes, 'It is difficult to find something positive to say about most of Potushniak's poetry' (Poety Zakarpattia, 632). Because of its apolitical nature, little of Potushniak's work is included in anthologies and his collections have not been reprinted. Grabar' was criticized for including a few poems by Potushniak in Poeziia Zakarpat'ia 1939-1945. On the other hand, the realistic short stories that Potushniak began writing at the end of the 1930s are better appreciated, although critics find fault with his psychologism. 19 'V otvet pryiatelevy,' in Grabar', Poeziia Zakarpat'ia 1939-1944, 102. Exactly who the 'I, you, and we' refer to here are, of course, open to interpretation. Grabar' interprets the message as anti-Ukrainian. Conclusion 1 For a complete bibliography, see Ivan V. Khlanta, Literaturne Zakarpattia u XX stolitti. 2 For a general study in English, see Josef Sirka, The Development of Ukrainian Literature in Czechoslovakia 1945-1975. 3 For information on Ukrainian minority policies, see Tom Trier, 'Inter-Ethnic Relations in Transcarpathian Ukraine.' 4 The provisional government suspended its work in January 2000. See Timothy Garton Ash, 'Hail Ruthenia!' New York Review of Books, 22 April 1999, 54-5, and 'Has "Political Rusynism" Ended?' RFE/RL Poland, Belarus, and Ukraine Report 2, no. 2 (11 Jan. 2000). 5 Chornovil's newspaper Chas mocked Petrovtsii's book and saw it as confirmation of 'political Rusynism.' (Ol'ha Nalyvajko, 'Zakarpattiu sumno stalo, ta sumno stalo, ta hej!' Chas, no. 20, September 1996). Petrovtsii did not respond directly to this criticism, but implied a similarity between Chornovil's dissidence and his

508

Notes to page 458

own. He acknowledged that Chornovil is an extremist, an attitude that he now finds very congenial. ('Interv'iu z pys'mennykom, iakii... dospivavsia!' Zakarpats'kapravda, 21 September 1996.) 6 Sysak's review appears as jacket notes in Shtefan Sukhyi, Rusyn'skyi spivnyk. Sukhyi's poems will be cited by page number from this edition.

Works Cited

Abbreviations KSUT KSVSPR MUK NTSh OIAD PNS PTPR RK RNG SPV SPVVUL SVKL TP UDU

Kul'turnyi Soiuz Ukrains'kykh Trudiashchykh, Presov Knihovna Sboru pro Vyzkum Slovenska a Podkarpatske Rusi pfi Slovanskem listavu, Prague Muzei Ukrains'koY Kul'tury u Svydnyku, Svidnik Naukove tovarystvo imeni Shevchenka, L'viv Russkoe Kul'turno-Prosvietitel'noe Obshchestvo imeni Aleksandra Dukhnovicha, Uzhhorod Podkarpatorusskii Narodoprosvietitel'nyi Soiuz, Uzhhorod Pedagogicheskoe Tovarystvo Podkarpatskoi Rusy, Uzhhorod Regentskii Komyssariat, Uzhhorod Russkii Narodnyi Golos Slovats'ke pedahohichne vydavnytstvo, Bratislava Slovats'ke pedahohichne vydavnytstvo, viddil ukrains'koi literatury, Presov Slovenske vydavatel'stvo krasnej literatury, Bratislava Tovarystvo 'Prosvita,' Uzhhorod Uzhhorods'kyi Derzhavnyi Universytet, Uzhhorod

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Index

Achebe, Chinua, 131, 209, 238 Acmeism (Russian), 415, 431 Africa: language issues in, 209, 238, 485n.31; postcolonialism and, 15-16, 59, 116-17, 177-8 Aksakov, Ivan, 231, 240, 242-3, 246, 488n.54 Aksakov, Konstantin, 109 Aleksandr I (emperor of Russia), 99, 102 Aleksandra Pavlovna (grand duchess of Russia), 78-9, 242, 474n. 14 Aimanakh pidkarpats 'kykh ukrains 'kykh pys'mennykiv, 386 Al'manakh vozrozhdentsev, 386 Alphabet: Cyrillic, 48, 334,479n.8; Glagolitic, 290; Latin, 231, 321, 334. See also Ecclesiastical script, Language, Orthography Anastasia, Queen (of Hungary), 35 Anderson, Benedict, 63, 69, 112 Andras, King (of Hungary), 35 Andrascfk, Jan, 143 Andrashko, Ivan, 318 Andrella, Mykhailo, 45, 51-2, 92, 179, 290,471 n.22; and language, 46-50, 91, 167, 233,471nn.23, 24 Anthologies (literary): in Czechoslovak

period, 386-7; during Second World War, 410-11,432, 503n.4; value of, for nation building 289,293 Anyos, Pal, 144,480n.l8; 'Complaints of an Unhappy Youth beneath the Pale Moon,' 144 Arany, Janos, 488n.55 Aristov, Fedor, 338-9, 497n.40 Arkhii, losyf [pseud. losyf Ivanov], 430, 432-3,440; 'Procession,' 434 Arpad dynasty, 35 Atwood, Margaret, 59, 126, 192 Australia: cultural studies in, 11; and postcolonialism, 15-16,245,248 Austro-Hungarian empire: Ausgleich (Compromise of 1867), 184, 240; fall of, 16, 282, 297, 299, 371, 388; Rusyns in, 4, 7, 483n.l7; Slavs in, 113, 116, 139, 151-2, 240-4, 259.See also Hapsburg empire, Hungarian Kingdom and Hungary Auto-ethnography, 18; as created by Rusyns in Russia, 101, 104, 109-10, 112, 246, 253; defined, 100; Dukhnovychand, 125-6; in 19th-century Hungary, 261 Autonomy: and autonomist parties, 299;

538 Index Rusyn political, 298-300. See also Carpatho-Ukraine, Rus'ka Kraina Auty, Robert, 205 Babii, Oles, 367 Babota, Liubytsia, 488n.57,489n.69 Bacha, lurii, 208 Bachka region. See Vojvodina Bachyns'kyi, Andrii (bishop of Mukachevo), 74-5,475n.l8; and defence of Rusyn culture, 66-8,175,291; and language, 90,96; odes in honour of, 71-2 Baizam, Aleksandr, 75,89 Baleha, lurii, 494n.l5,502nn.68,69; on Borshosh-Kum'iats'kyi, 393-4; on Grendzha-Dons'kyi, 384-5, 394; on Karabelesh, 349, 352, 359,499n.50; on Markush, 401 Balets'kyi, Emilian, 404,414,420-2; 'Living Water,' 414; 'Mukachevo,' 421-2; 'Sungod,' 420; 'To the Carpathian Apostles,'414; 'Verses about the Carpathian Lady,' 421 Bal'mont, Konstantin, 417-20; 'I Came Into This World to See the Sun,' 417-18; Let Us Be Like the Sun, 420 Baludians'kyi, Mykhail, 101-4,244, 310 Barabash, lurii, 107 Barabolia, Marko. See Rozniichuk Barbareum. See Education Bariatinskii,A.R, 101 Barkoczy, Ferenc (bishop of Eger), 69 Batsanyi, Janos, 119 Bazylovych, loannykii, 25,292 Bednyi, Demian, 370 Belinskii, Visarion, 211 Belousov, N.G., 477n.41 Belyi, Andrei, 417

Benediktov, Vladimir, 145-6,480n.22; The Grave,'145-6 Beranger, Pierre Jean de, 504n.6 Berynda, Pamva, 50 Beskyd, Nikolai, 316 Bhabha, Homi, 14,20,63,309,464; on mimicry, 72-3,75,87 Bilets'kyi,L.,306,493n.8 Bilevych, Ivan, 101,104 Bilevych, Mykhail, 101,477-8n.41 Bilevych, N.I., 104 Birchak, Volodymyr: and history of Rusyn literature, 339, 342-5,485n.28, 498nn.41,46; on Dem'ian, 399-400; on Dukhnovych, 206; on GrendzhaDons'kyi, 367,377; on Karabelesh, 353, 355; on Markush, 401; on Russophiles, 265,275; textbooks prepared by, 323; on Voloshyn's grammar, 284 Blahoslav, Jan, 52 Blok, Aleksandr, 501n.65; influence on Rusyn literature, 346,350-1,355; subtexts from, 414,421; 'The Twelve,' 414; 'Verses about the Beautiful Lady,' 421 Bobul's'kyi, Anton, 404 Boehmer,Elleke,381 Bogatyrev, Petr, 503^n.5 Bokshai, losyf, 506n.l6 Bonkalo, Sandor, 343 Boris, Prince (of Kiev), 36-7 Borkaniuk, Oleksa, 320 Borshosh-Kum'iats'kyi, lulii, 391—4, 502n.72; 'Do Not Cry,'392; Telling Trees,' 393; 'I am a child of the green mountains,' 392; 'In Rakove,' 393; 'Land of Marvels,' 393; Spring Flowers, 391; 'Water Flows under the Willows,'391

Index Bourbon, Prince Carlo Ludovico, 166 Bradach, Ivan (bishop of Mukachevo), 67 Brashchaiko, Mykhailo, 369 Brathwaite, Edward Kamau, 239 Brodii,Andrii,408 Budetden',432, 503n.4 Buell, Frederick, 179 Bunin, Ivan, 333; 'On the Edge of the Earth,'333 Byron, Lord George, and Byronism, 346, 353 Canada: cultural studies in, 11; literature of, 59,126-7; and postcolonialism, 18, 245 Caribbean: language of, 234,239; and postcolonialism, 15,59 Carpathian mountains (region): as ancestral homeland of Rusyns, 7-8, 308; in Dukhnovych's work, 158; in Gogol's work, 106; in 19th-century Russophile literature, 252-5, 261-2; in Tarkovych's work, 77, 84; in 20thcentury literature, 382, 387,391-2, 419 Carpatho-Russian Committee for Liberation, 488n.53 Carpatho-Russians: as descriptive term, 7. See also Rusyns Carpatho-Rusyn Research Center, 4 Carpatho-Ukraine, 16,408; and autonomous (Voloshyn) government, 299, 388, 393, 408-10 Carpatho-Ukrainians: as descriptive term, 7. See also Rusyns Catherine II (empress of Russia), 80, 474n.l4 Censorship: in Czechoslovakia, 370, 373, 379, 396, 500-ln.60, 501n.63; in

539

Hungary, 70,486n.35; during Second World War, 411, 413-14, 505n.7 Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies, 11 Cervantes, Miguel de, 432 Chekov, Anton, 305, 353 Chendei, Ivan, 445 Cherkasenko, Spyrydon, 371 Chopei, Vasyl' (Laszlo), 218,291, 293, 485nn.27, 28 Chornovil, Viacheslav, 449,507-8n.5 Chuchka,Iulii,281 Chumak, T.M., 490n.73 Churhovych, loann, 98 Church Slavonic language: in Andrella's work, 47-51; in Dukhnovych's work, 133, 168, 206, 210, 292; in education, 67-8, 228; as literary language, 93-4, 96, 207-11, 220, 228, 290, 343; as official language, 9,18; in 19th-century Rusyn literature, 74, 75, 89-91; in Russian literature, 89,222, 333; as Rusyn 'high style,' 96, 210; and Rusyn vernacular, 208,476n.27; Sabov on, 292-3; as sacred language, 23, 38-9, 43,91; in secular literature, 88, 329; in Subcarpathian recension of Russian, 227,235, 285; translation of Bible into, 90; in virshi, 54-5, 57. See also Slaveno-Rusyn Chyzhevs'kyi [Cyzevs'kyj], Dmytro, 46, 211 Clement VIII, Pope, 43 Clement XIV, Pope, 66 Colonialism, 16-17,200-1; in Czechoslovak period, 378-9,382, 385-6, 389,391-9,401-3 Communism and communist party, 301, 306, 352; Grendzha-Dons'kyi and, 368-9, 372, 377-8, 382, 384;and

540 Index language, 322,494n.l5; and literary criticism, 349,376; and orthography, 495n. 17; and unification of Subcarpathia with Soviet Ukraine, 409. See also Marxism Conan Doyle, Arthur, 432 Corngold, Stanley, 148 Counter-Reformation, 42,68 Croatian: codification of, 205 Csokonai, Mihaly, 97 Cultural studies: defined, 10-12; and ideology, 278; and nationality formation, 10,174; andRusyn literature, 20, 161 Cyril (Constantine) and Methodius, Saints, 7, 25, 34, 37 Czech language: codification of, 205; 'Kniaz' Laborets" translated into, 28; as official language, 9; and Rusyn language, 496nn.30, 31; in Rusyn literature, 395-6,404 Czechoslovakia: and colonization of Subcarpathian Rus', 370, 378-9, 391; and land reform, 374,400; language policy in, 319-23, 328, 334, 337; Subcarpathian Rus' governed by, 296-8, 348 Czechoslovak Legion, 297 Dal', Vladimir, 247 Danubian basin, 6, 23, 28 Danylovo interpretive gospel, 40 Danylovych-Korytnians'kyi, Ivan, 215; 'The Family Celebration,' 215 Datsei, Vasyl', 445 Deane, Seamus, 26, 86, 159 DeCamillis, Joseph (bishop of Mukachevo), 45,48, 50,68-9,93 Dem'ian, Luka, 399^400; 'The Devil at a Wedding,' 399; 'Witch,' 399-400

Derrida, Jacques, 14 Derzhavin, Gavrila, 103,107,160,222; Dukhnovych and, 115,146-8,152-3, 222, 246; 'God,' 146,160; 'The Immortality of the Soul,' 146 Devollan, Grigorii, 486n.35 Didyts'kyi, Bohdan, 143, 160, 204 Discourse: colonial, in Kievan chronicle, 36; as concept, 13-14,276-8; conflicting, in Rusyn literature, 258-9,276-7 Dobosh, Shtefan, 490n.73, 506n.l3 Dobosh, Vasilii, 389-90; 'At My Home,' 390; Holy Anger, 389; 'Memorial,' 389; 'Muse,' 389; 'Song about Life,' 289-90; 'Why Forward,' 390 Dobrians'kyi, Adol'f, 132, 201, 308, 325, 394,490n.71,497n.40; political program of, 128,139, 176, 204,482n.l2; and Society of St John the Baptist, 183-4 Dobrovsky, Josef, 65, 93-5, 205, 207, 473n.lO Dodatok (supplement to Listok), 229, 292,333 Dolhosh, Ivan, 490n.73 Dostoevskii, Fedor, 324, 353 Dovhovych, Vasyl', 96-8, 116, 233; 'A Drunk and His Drinking Mug,' 97-8 Drach, Ivan, 8-9 Drahomanov, Mykhailo, 338 Drobniak, Mykhailo, 445 Dudrovych, Andrii, 101, 103 Dukhnovych, Aleksander, 229-30,246, 248-9, 253, 260, 284,288, 291, 294, 298, 308, 313, 340, 345, 347, 360, 385,403^, 410,422, 455,458, 472n.2,475n.l9,478nn.2, 3,479nn.5, 10,480n.24,480-ln.25,494n.l2,

Index 497n.40, 499n.49; biography of, 11721, 473n.8, 478nn.2, 3, 479n.lO; Franko on, 232; in 1860s, 183-6; and Galician Rusyns, 204-6, 316; influence of, in the 20th century, 303, 350; and language, 205-12, 225-6, 292, 321,483nn.l5, 17, 19, 487nn.44, 45, 47; and pan-Slavism, 240-3; and Pavlovych, 187-8, 192, 196, 199; postmodern aspects of, 17, 178-9; and Presov Literary Society, 129-30, 143, 149, 156-7, 173-6, 81; in Russophile treatments, 313-17; and Rusyn identity, 482n.l4; on Rusyn influence on Magyar culture, 23; and the Rusyn national awakening, 111-17,121-69, 341, 443; on Rusyns in Kievan Rus', 36; on Slavic unity, 114-17; in Ukrainophile treatments, 313-17, 325, 444, 490n.71, 490-1 n.73, 4934n. 11; and women, 169, 171; Autobiography, 314; 'Dedication,' 111-12; 'Dukhnovych's Last Song,' 184-5; 'Eagle,' 150-1; 'Eternity,' 146-7; 'Farewell to 1849,' 140-1; 'Greetings,' 132^2; 'Greetings 1851,' 149-50; Greetings to the Rusyns, 130, 132-3, 142-73, 186, 208; The Life of Man,' 183; 'The Life of a Rusyn,' 124-7, 158, 192; 'Life's Happiness,' 171; 'Lost Freedom,' 164; 'Love for My Dear One, and the Fatherland,' 169; 'Memory of Scavnyk,' 144, 158; 'Milen andLiubytsia,' 157-62; 'New Year,' 166; 'Ode on the Seizure of Varna,' 146; 'Orphan in Confinement,' 154-5; Primer for Beginners, 121-7, 149, 158, 167, 207,448,483n.l5; The Temple of Love,' 144; Thoughts

541

on God,' 152-3; To My Slanderers,' 182; Virtue Is More Important than Riches, 127, 130, 136, 162, 167-9, 199-200, 205, 207, 314, 404, 441 Dukhnovych Society, 308, 306, 316, 339, 345, 349,406; established, 304; and levmenii Sabov, 312, 318, 335, 426,493n. 10; and 'language question,' 320, 322-3, 329,496-7n.33; and reading rooms, 496n.29; re-established, 493n.6; and Rusyn nationality, 30910; and Rusyn people, 313; Shtefan Fentsyk and, 493n.7; and theatre, 502n.75; vs. Ukrainophiles, 305, 312 Dzendzelivs'kyi, losyf, 168 Ecclesiastical script: in Church Slavonic monuments, 290; in Dodatok, 229, 333-4; in Dukhnovych's Primer, 124; in Nauka and Nedilia, 282. See also Alphabet, Language, Orthography Education: Barbareum and Studium Ruthenum, 65, 68, 76, 93, 475n.20; under Bishop Bachyns'kyi, 67; in Czechoslovak period, 300; Dukhnovych and, 121, 162,470n.8; language in, 67-8, 279,485n.31; during Second World War, 410-11; Society of St Basil the Great and, 184 Efrem (the Hungarian), 37 Egan,Ede,488n.56 Eger, 65, 68, 292; diocese of, 66 Elizabeth II (empress of Russia), 84 Emigration, 201-3,273 Emin, Fedor, 107 Erdeli,Adal'bert,506n.l6 Erenburg,Il'ia,331-2,346 Esenin, Sergei, 421

542

Index

Fanon, Frantz: and evolution of native intellectuals, 119-20,139,385; and nationalism, 116-17,177,180; and 'pitfalls of national consciousness,' 86,217; and psychology of subject peoples, 126,136; and resistance, 392 Farynych, Aleksei [pseud. Alesha Makovichanin], 387,404-5; 'In the Land of Slaves,' 404; 'The Shooting,' 387 Fedor, Pavel, 319,404,488n.57, 497n.35; on 'national pathos,' 263; and survey of Rusyn literature, 339, 387, 498n.42; Fedynyshynets', Volodymyr, 448,450-7; We Are But a Teardrop on the Earth, 452-7 Feerchak, Petr, 224,288-90, 338 Felvideki Sion,2%Q

Feminist approach to literature, 31, 462-3 Fentsyk, levhenni, 249, 308, 322, 493n.7; as editor ofListok, 228-9, 231, 247, 273, 333, 490n.70; on Fedor Koriatovych, 27, 35; novel by, 488n.57; 'Kor'iatovych,' 27,35;'Modern Verse,' 254—5; 'Poor in Spirit,' 491n.74; 'Return to My Homeland,' 251; 'The Russian People,' 250; on Rusyns in Hungary, 226, 261, 266; on 'Ruthenians,' 221; The Subjugation ofUzhhowd, 251; To the Slavs,' 260-1 Fentsyk, Shtefan: and autonomous government, 408,493n.7; on Birchak's literary history, 498n.41; and Dukhnovych Society, 304; on Magyar culture and Rusyns, 487n.50,488n.56; on Russian soldiers in Hungary, 486n.37; on Russophiles, 246

First World War, 297, 300 Fogorashii-Berezhanyn, Ivan, 93-4,342 Folk art and customs, 33,43, 52, 372, 440; in Dukhnovych's work, 122; and dvoeverie, 42; and ethnographic realism, 398-406,429; in GrendzhaDons'kyi's work, 364, 367-9, 374, 377, 379,381-3,500n.57; in interpretive gospels and miscellanies, 40-2; in Pavlovych's work, 194, 196; Russophiles and, 274-5,413; in Rusyn literature, 166,254,271-2,286-7, 391-2,423,453; in Rusynophile movement, 280,429; in Rusyn periodicals, 247,275, 281,490n.70; in Sabov's Anthology, 291; in Tarkovych's work, 80, 86, 474n.l6; in virshi, 53-8, 61-2 Fonvizin, Denis, 115 Foucault, Michel, 13-14,276-8 Fowler, Roger, 13 Francis I (emperor of Austria), 77 Franko, Ivan, 52, 231, 223, 306-7, 338, 429, 487n.44; on Dukhnovych, 232, 316; influence on Rusyn literature, 370-1, 392; on Russophiles, 275; on Sabov's Anthology, 293-5; on songbooks, 62-3; on Subcarpathian interpretive gospels, 39-41; on Tarkovych, 80-1, 84-7, 473n.l 1, 476n.24 Frantsev, V.A., 320 Franz Joseph (emperor of Austria), 128, 137,146,480n.23 Freemasonry, 103 Futurism (Russian), 381, 430, 501n.65, 506n.l5 Gaganets', losyf (bishop of Presov), 175-6 Gaj, Ljudevit, 205

Index Galiatovs'kyi, loanniki, 50 Galicia, 6,7, 35,53,69; cultural life in, 32, 95, 114, 139,475-6n.23; influence on Subcarpathian Rus', 303, 307-8, 343; language in, 233, 321, 324, 327, 483n. 19; Subcarpathian divergence from, 204-6, 232-3, 300, 341-2, 486-7n.43; Subcarpathian ties to, 6, 26, 65, 68, 128, 178, 281, 326, 383-4; Ukrainophiles in, 182, 205, 233, 282, 295, 303, 306, 337 Gates, Henry Louis, 300 Gellner, Ernest, 63, 180-1 Gerard, Albert S., 487n.52 Gerbel', Nikolai, 338,481n.2,491n.74 Gerlakhov interpretive epistle, 38-9 German language, 78,124 Gerovskii, Georgii: on Chopei, 219, 485n.28; on Church Slavonic, 222-3; on language of 17th-century texts, 327; on Russian language in Subcarpathia, 329; on Rusyn language, 330-1, 496n.25; on Rusyn literature, 355, 498n.46; on Subcarpathian recension of Russian, 224 Gesta Hungarorum, 489n.63 Gleb, Prince (of Kiev), 36-7 Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, 103, 346, 430, 432 Gogol, Nikolai, 103, 250, 305, 399, 496n.27; influence on Rusyn literature, 399, 490n.73; and language, 106-8, 324; and Orlai, 105-9, 477-8n.41; works of, published in Subcarpathia, 246-7, 329; Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka, 105; Mirgorod, 105; 'A Terrible Vengeance,' 105-6 Goldsmith, Oliver, 160; The Vicar of Wakefleld, 160 Golitsyn, A.N., 102

543

Goremyka, V., 420; 'Autumn Motif,' 420 Gorianin, I.S. See Liavinets Gorky, Maksim, 362, 370, 388, 413, 502n.69 GdrdgkathoUkus Szemle, 280 Grabar', Oleg, 411,419, 424, 504n.6, 505n.7,507n.l9; on political implications of Rusynophile literature, 442, 506n.l2; on Potushniak, 439, 507n.l8 Grabowicz, George, 211 Greek Catholic church, 349; and magyarization, 215-16,484n.25; in Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth, 43; and Rusyn national awakening, 175-6; in Soviet Ukraine, 409, 444; and Union of Uzhhorod, 43-5 Greetings to the Rusyns (Pozdravlenie Rusynov, 1850-2), 130, 132-3, 14273, 186,208 Gregory XVI, Pope, 216, 484n.25 Grendzha-Dons'kyi, Vasyl', 363-87, 395, 400, 424, 500n.59; biography of, 363, 384-5; and colonialism, 393-4,400; and communism, 368-9, 372, 377-8, 382, 384, 500n.56; on Dukhnovych, 314-16; early Rusyn history in works of, 28, 33; and folklore, 364, 367-9, 374, 377, 379, 381-3, 500n.57; language of, 363, 367-9, 372, 374, 380, 391; and modernism, 380; and romanticism, 374, 376, 382, 385; 'Arise!' 369; The Arrest of A. Dukhnovych,' 314; 'Christmas Eve,' 372; Flowers with Thorns, 363^, 367-8; 'From the Summit of the Carpathians,' 365; Golden Keys, 364; 'Grandpa,' 366; 'Here a Mountain,' 364; 'If You Are Real, God,' 372; 'In Memory of the Renaissance of 1918,' 372; 'In Mukachevo Castle,' 28; 'I Stand and

544

Index

Marvel at the Beauty,' 380; 'Let the Accursed Walls Topple,'378; 'Love Your Native Language,' 366; 'Luckless Mother,' 366; The Mountains Send Warm Greetings to the Steppes,' 378; 'My Song,' 364-5; 'Olia,' 374; 'On the Borzhava River,' 382; On a Thorny Path, 368, 371, 378, 380; 'Our Land Is Rich,' 378-9; Petro Petrovych, 367, 383,470n.ll; 'Play, play, bloody strings,' 371; 'Prince Laborets',' 28; Red Cliff, 383^, 501n.67; 'Rusyn,' 365; 'Sabre and Fetters,' 366; 'Shepherd of the High Plains,' 382; 'Song of the Magyar Mogul,' 366; Stories from the Carpathian High Plains, 374; Tears Flow,' 365; They Divided the Land,' 374-6; They Partitioned Ukraine among Her Enemies,' 379-80; Threshing,' 381; Through Fields and Forests,' 373; To a Prodigal Son,' 366-7; To the Prophet, the Great Kobzar," 373-4; To You, Native Land, 382; 'We Are Ragged, Barefoot, Homeless,' 380; 'We Are Ukrainians,' 378; 'We Create a Needle Culture,' 382; 'When the Slaughter Begins,' 378; 'Wind,' 365; 'You Are in the Grave, Father,' 365 Gudzii, Nikolai, 36 Gumilev, Nikolai, 388,501n.65 Hadzhega, lulii [pseud. lulii Rusak], 498n.41 Hadzhega, lulii, 498n.41 Hadzhega, Vasyl', 281,332 Halas, Kyrylo, 432 Halchak, Anna, 445 Hall, Stuart, 299-300 Hamsen, Knut, 432

Hannan, Kevin, 483n.l6 Hapsburg empire: restrictions on printing, 69; revolts against, 43, 55; Rusyn intelligentsia in, 98; Rusyns ruled by, 25; struggle for throne, 42. See also Austro-Hungarian empire, Hungarian Kingdom and Hungary Haraida, Ivan, 426,439,506n.l3; Rusyn grammar of, 427-8 Harris, Wilson, 28 Hartl, Antonfn, 318, 343, 363 Hattinger-Klebashko, Gabrel, 446-7 Hazeta narodova (Popular Gazette), 270, 489n.67 Hegemony: as concept, 13. See also Ukraine, cultural hegemony of Herder, Johann Gottfried, 114, 125, 178, 493n.8 Himka, John Paul, 199 History: interpretations of Rusyn history, 24-5; and myth, 33,383; and national consciousness, 156-7,161; 'rewriting' of, 22, 26-30 Hnatiuk, Volodymyr, 232, 338, 399, 485n.27,486n.43,491n.73 Hobsbawm, Eric, 63 Holovats'kyi, lakov, 173^4, 204, 210, 213, 240,477n.34 Holovats'kyi, Ivan, 143 Homichkov, Aleksander, 251 Homichkov, Nikolai, 227 Horiachko, Olena, 483n.l5 Hostyniak, Stepan, 445 Hrushevo monastery, 38 Hukly vyi chronicle, 326,329 Hungarian Catholic church, 43 Hungarian Kingdom and Hungary: and anti-Hapsburg revolution, 128,137, 187,204,292; language policy of, 221, 231, 279, 282, 292; invades

Index Carpatho-Ukraine, 16, 19,299,408; living conditions and emigration from, 201-3, 273,280; relation to Austria, 183-4; ties with Kievan Rus', 35. See also Ausgleich, Austro-Hungarian empire, Hapsburg empire Hungarian language: in Andrella's work, 47-50; in Dukhnovych's work, 124, 206; in education, 117, 230-31, 279, 487n.50; and Greek Catholic church, 228, 269; as official language, 9,18, 90, 121, 214, 231, 279-80,426; and Rusyn language, 487n.50; and Rusyn literature, 168,404; revival of, 78; in Svft,214 Hungarian literature: and Rusynophile movement, 429; translations from, 281 Hus'nai, Ihor, 324, 329, 496n.27, 497n.34 Hvozda, Nykolai, 445 Hybridity: of Andrella's works, 49; and mimicry, 73, 87, 398; in postcolonial cultures, 446,464; of Rusyn literature, 4-5, 42, 55, 133, 165, 386, 395, 398, 404-6,443,451-2,465 lankura, A., 166; 'A Rusyn's Sorrow,' 166 lanovych, Petro, 160, 165; 'Life,' 165 laroslav, Prince (of Kiev), 35 lavorskii, lul'ian, 4,46, 340, 342, 498n.43, 503-4n.5 lavorskii, Stefan, 74 lazychie: described, 223-4; new reading strategies for, 234-9; in 20th century, 332, 346; in Ukrainophile literature, 324 lazykov, Nikolai, 499n.49 Ibsen, Henrik, 505n.7 Identity: in cultural studies, 11-12; and

545

literary criticism, 288-9; and postmodernism, 12; as social construct, 387-8; Soviet policy of, 409. See also Rusyn identity Il'nyts'kyi, Aleksander, 441 'Imagined community,' 19,63,69,289, 294,305,312 India, 11,16,201 Innocent, Pope, 35 Interpretive gospels (postilly), 38-40 Intertextuality, 413-25 Ireland: compared to Verkhovyna, 16, 258; literature of, 26, 159; in Rusyn literature, 201,382 luhasevych,Ivan, 54 lur'ev, Panteleimon, 497n.40 Ivanchov, Fedor, 404-5,445 Ivanov, losyf. See losyf Arkhii Jakobson, Roman, 4, 503-4n.5 Jesuits (Society of Jesus), 43-4, 50, 65, 70,484n.20. See also Roman Catholic church Jews, 198-9, 257, 274, 482n.l 1, 489n.62 Joseph, Archduke (palatine of Hungary), 77-9,84-5,88, 134 Joseph II (emperor of Austria), 68,75, 78 Kachkovskii Society, 304 Kafka, Franz: on literary history, 340-1, 343; on literatures of small nations, 131-2,143,148, 165,344,367 Kalman, King (of Hungary), 35 Kaminskii, losif, 497nn.36, 37 Karabelesh, Andrii, 395,421,424, 499n.49; biography of, 345-6, 362-3; compared with Grendza-Dons'kyi, 366-8, 371-2, 386; on Dukhnovych,

546 Index 315-16; Marxist criticism of, 351-2, 499nn.50, 51; Na smertel'nom rubezhe, 362; and nature, 355-7; and pessimism, 353-4; and religion, 349-52; and Rusyn identity, 360; and Rusyn life, 357-9; and Slavic unity, 346-9; 'Autumn in the Carpathians,' 362; 'Ave Maria,' 350; 'By the Fire,' 355; 'Calm', 359; 'Dissatisfaction,' 353; 'Evening,' 357; 'Fading,' 352; 'Farewell,' 360; 'Fatherland,' 345; The First of January,' 358-9; 'From Me,' 353; 'Haymaking,' 356-7; 'I Sometimes Dream,' 360; 'In Crimson Rays,' 356; 'In the Homeland,' 357; 'In the Mountains,' 355; 'InMukachevo Castle,' 28; 'In My Native Village,' 361; In the Rays of Dawn, 345-6; 'In the Rays of Dawn,' 347-8; 'Life of a Hunter,' 358; 'May Night,' 357; 'My People,' 357; 'My Prayer,' 347; 'Our Age,' 352; 'The People Sleep,' 355; 'Pessimism,' 353; 'Poetry,' 350, 353; 'Powerful Force,' 350; 'The Russian Language,' 346; 'Russian Oak,' 348-9, 499n.50; Selected Verses, 345; 'A Sigh for Home,' 360; "The Sky,' 350; 'Stars,' 355; There Are Days,' 352; There Is Power in the Sun,' 354; Thoughts of My Brothers,' 361; To Dukhnovych,' 315; To My Dear Ones,' 361; Trembita,' 358; Two Camps,' 351-2; 'Under a Starry Sky,' 350-1; 'Visiting,' 361; VKarpatakh, 362; 'Where Is Happiness?' 352; 'A Worker's Day Off,' 362 Karadzic, Vuk, 95,115 Karamzin, Nikolai, 95,107,115,158, 342,47 In. 15; and Orlai, 100,103, 477n.40 Karlgof,V.I.,480n.22 Karolyi, Mihaly, 297

Karpat, 217, 227-8, 230, 244, 247 Karpatalja, 408 Karpatorusskii golos, 410, 493n.7 Karpats'ka nedilia, 427 Karpats'ka pravda, 320, 369-70, 494n.l5,495n.l7 Karpatskii krai, 304, 308, 312, 345, 381, 501n.65 Karpatskii sviet, 304, 309-10, 316 Kasenchak, Petro, 286-8; 'Why I Am Sad,'286-7 Kavoulis, Vytautas, 143, 179 Kazinczy, Ferenc, 429 Kelet, 273,280 Kellner, Peter, 143 Keppen, Petr, 103 Kercha, Ivan [pseud. Georgii Kercha, Gor'koust, Tania Verkhovynka], 41112,421,423; Tip,'421 Kerekesh, lurii, 432,435; 'Autumn,' 435 Khapko, M., 386 Kheraskov, Mikhail, 71, 82,107, 160; TheRossiad,ll Khomiakov, A.S., 109, 239-40, 246, 499n.49 Kievan Crypt Paterikon, 37 Kievan Rus': achievements of, claimed for Ukraine, 326; conquered by Mongols, 29; Rusyn ties to, 7, 25, 34-8, 503n.2 Kimball, Stanley, 113 Kindia, Ivan, 445 Kireevskii, Ivan, 239 Kolcsey, Ferenc, 119 Kollar, Jan, 31,95; and characteristics of Slavs, 125-6,176; and Slav unity, 114-17,143; Daughter ofSlava, 31, 95, 117,169,470n.9 Kollonich, Cardinal Leopold, 68 Kolomyika, 56-7,256, 367, 382-3, 391; defined, 52-3

Index Kol'tsov, Aleksei, 499n.49 Kolynchak, lurko, 445 Kontratovych, Irynei, 501n.68 Kopitar, Jernej, 65,93,473n.lO Koriatovych, Prince Fedor, 23-4, 27, 34, 38,470n.l2 Kornyts'kyi, Ivan, 45, 48, 51 Korolevo gospel, 71 Kossuth, Lajos, 128 Kostomarov, Mykola, 212 Kotliarevs'kyi, Ivan, 96, 211, 305, 307 Kotradov, Mykhail, 230 Kotsak, Arsenii, 91-3; Grammatika russkaia, 92 Kozma, Miklos, 413 Kralyts'kyi, Anatolii, 28, 30, 32, 229, 249,491n.73; 'Prince Laborets',' 2833, 383; 'Prometheus,' 270-2, 274, 489nn.67, 69; satire of, 270-2, 274 Krasny Brod monastery, 67, 338, 472n.2 Kryher-Dobrians'ka, Anna, 169, 171-2; 'Love,'171-2 Krylov, Ivan, 247 Kucharszki, Roman, 95 Kuchma, Leonid, 448-9 Kukol'nyk, Nestor, 103, 478n.41, 480n.22 Kukol'nyk, Vasyl', 101-3, 105 Kun, Bela, 297 Kurzbek, Joseph, 69, 70 Kuruc and 'Kuruc songs,' 56 Kustodiev, Konstantin, 242-3 Kutka, Ivan, 93, 95 Kuzmiak, Petro, 286; 'Sing, Lark,' 286-7 Kvitka-Osnov'ianenko, Hryhorii, 160, 399,490n.73; 'Marusia,' 160 Kymak, Viktor, 485n.30 Labanc, 56 Labants, Aleksandr, 166; 'Renewed Love,' 166

547

Laborets', Prince (of Uzhhorod): as historical figure, 23,27; as literary figure, 28-33, 251 Lamanskii, Vladimir, 240-1,243 Language and dialects: development of literary language, 290-1,483n. 19; in Dukhnovych's work, 205-8, 212, 483n.l6; in education, 117,329-30, 345,485n.31; in Grendzha-Dons'kyi's work, 363, 367-9, 372, 374, 380; 'nativist' vs. 'integrative' view of, 451; Ngugi wa Thiong'o on, 209, 238,485n.31; postcolonial approaches to, 234-9,487nn.46,49; variance in Andrella's work, 47-50,471n.24; as a weapon, 272. See also Alphabet, Hungarian language, Latin language, Orthography, Russian language, Rusyn language, Ukrainian language 'Language question': in the Czechoslovak period, 319-38, 395-6; Marxist interpretation of, 301; satire of, 269, 319; as topic of dispute, 8. See also Russophiles, Ukrainophiles Latinization of Orthodox faith, 43-4,51, 65-6 Latin language: in Andrella's work, 47-9; in correspondence with bishop, 231; documents in Subcarpathian Rus', 38; in Dovhovych's work, 97; in education, 118; as official language, 9, 18,74,78,90,95, 121; in Svit, 214 Lazoryk, Fedor, 445 Legeza, Irinei, 287 Lelekach, Mykola, 286-7,439^*0, 496n.30 Lemkos: as descriptive term, 7; language codified, 8. See also Rusyns Leo XIII, Pope, 484n.25 Lermontov, Mikhail, 145,247,499n.49;

548 Index influence of, on Rusyn writers, 160, 346, 350, 353, 362,421 Lev,Vasyl',231 Levyts'kyi, losyf, 114,473n.l 1 Levyts'kyi, Volodymyr [pseud. Vasyl' Lukych], 338 Liavinets, I. [pseud. I.S. Gorianin], 418, 420 Lintur, Pavel, 349 Listok, 291,333; editorial statements, 221,231; language of, 213,228-9, 292, 329; Magyars in, 488n.56; number of subscribers to, 273, 328; Russian literature in, 247 Literaturnyi al'manakh, 503n.4, 505n.7 'Little Russia,' 'Little Russians.' See Ukraine, Ukrainians Lodii, Petro, 101-3,244,475n.20 Lomonosov, Mikhail, 107, 326, 342; influence on Rusyn writers, 92,94, 115,146,210,475n.20; and language, 88-90; work of, available in Subcarpathian Rus1,70; 'Congratulation on the Ascension to the Throne of the Empress Elizaveta Petrovna,' 71; 'Ode on the Seizure of Khotyn,' 146 Longinovic, Tomislav, 41,54—5,96 Luchkai-Pop, Mykhailo: and history, 26, 469n.6; influence on Rusyn writers, 116,342; and literary language, 94-5, 233; mentioned in Kollar's Daughter ofSlava, 477n.35; and Slaveno-Rusyn grammar, 93,97,272,325 Luckyj, George S.N., 107-8 Lukovich, Antonii, 309 Lukych, Vasyl'. See Levyts'kyi, Volodymyr Lyteraturna nedilia, 427-8,431-2,441, 507n.l7

'Magical realism,' 462 Magocsi, Paul Robert: and bibliography of Carpatho-Rusyn studies, 4; and history of Subcarpathian Rus1, 6, 33, 53,503n. 1; and Rusyn nationality, 910, 482n.l4; on Union of Uzhhorod, 44-5 Magyar Kdrpdt, 227 Magyarones and magyarization: Dukhnovych and, 115,163; in 19th century, 214-18, 241, 274, 288, 297,484n.23, 485n.30, 486n.41 Magyars: in Austro-Hungarian empire, 128,137,182,184; defined, 470n. 14; as depicted in Rusyn literature, 29-32, 185, 259, 387; early history of, 23, 25; Slavophiles on, 244 Maikov, Valerian, 499n.49 Makovei, Osyp, 231 Makovichanin, Alesha. See Farynych Mal'tsovska, Mariia, 457; and feminism, 462-3;and language, 461;and 'magical realism,' 462; postmodern aspects of, 460; Heavenly Sweetness and Bitterness, 460-4 Mansvietov-Bezdomnyi, Lev, 419-20; 'Song about the Sun,' 419 Marchia Ruthenorwn, 24 Maria Theresa, empress of Austria, 44, 66 Markush, Aleksander: editor of Nash rodnyi krai, 284,400; during Second World War, 507n. 17; 'Aristocratic Silliness,' 401-2; 'Oxen or Horses,' 403; 'They Apportioned the Land,' 400 Marxism: in literature and literary criticism, 371,377,388,394,413, 482n. 10. See also Rusyn literature, Marxist interpretations of

Index 549 Masaryk, Tomas G., 311, 457 Matezonskii, Konstantin, 115 Maticas (scholarly-patriotic institutions), 113, 129-30,143 Matsyns'kyi, Ivan, 445 Maupassant, Guy de, 432 Medve, Zoltan, 488n.56 Methodius, St. See Cyril and Methodius, Saints Michael III (emperor of Byzantium), 25 Mickiewicz, Adam, 115 Miller, O.F., 488n.57 Miscellanies (sbornyky), 39-41 Modernism, 381-2; in GrendzhaDons'kyi, 380 Mohacs: Hungarian army defeated at, 42 Mohyla, Petro, 50 Moisei (the Hungarian), 37 Mol'nar, Mykhailo, 376, 385, 500n.57 Moloda muza, 307, 339 Monomakh, Vladimir, 35 Moore-Gilbert, Bart, 15, 87, 300 Moravefk, Jan, 143 Moscow (Muscovy, Muscovite), 53^4, 326; Carpatho-Russian museum in, 338,497n.40; and 'muscophilism,' 311,370, 485n.26 Moscow gospel, 38 Mukachevo: eparchy of, 42, 44, 65-6, 68, 74, 76, 79, 121, 484n.25; gymnasium of, 345, 422 Mukarovsky, Jan, 414, 503^4n.5 Mulhern, Francis, 289, 293 Munich Pact, 408 Muranii, Ivan, 507n.l7 Muscovy. See Moscow Myhalka,Ivan,287,501n.68 Myhalych, Mykola [pseud. Orel Tatranskyi], 146,480n.23

Mykytas', Vasyl', 236, 489-90n.69, 490n.73, 498n.44 Myshanych, Oleksa, 55, 57, 385, Mytrak, Aleksander, 248-9, 288, 299, 355; dictionary of, 220, 485n.29; and folklore, 275, 423; Hnatiuk on, 232; language of, 292; 'It Is Good for the Rich Man,' 248; 'Love Our People,' 260; 'Mountains, our mountains,' 253-4; 'My Awakening, '263; 'Travel Notes on Verkhovyna,' 256-8, 261 , 489nn.60-4 Nadezhdin, N.I., 23, 475n.l9 Nakanunie, 432, 440, 503n.4 Naipaul, V.S., 80 Narodnaia biblioteka, 304, 323, 333 Narodnyi yliustrovanyi kalendar', 306 Narodny novynky, 445 Narodovets'ke Uchytel's'ke Tovarystvo (Populist Teacher's Society), 320 Nasha zemlia, 369-71, 373^, 377-8, 380, 382, 385, 500-1 n.60 Nashi stremleniia, 346, 422 Nash rodnyi krai/Nash ridnyi krai, 284-5, 304 Nationalism and nationalists: Hungarian, 184, 212; postmodern, 179; Rusyn, 138, 143; Ukrainian, 19, 204, 382. See also Russophiles, Rusynophiles, Ukrainians, Ukrainophiles 'National pathos,' 263-6 Nauka, 28 1 , 290, 426, 429; and ecclesiastical script, 334; language of, 282, 284, 491n.75, 492n.76; literature in, 284, 287, 399; number of subscribers to, 328

550 Index Naukovyi bornyk Tovarystva 'Prosvita,' 304, 307, 332, 492n.4,495n.20 Nedflia, 281,426,429; language of, 282, 284,428,492n.76; literature in, 399 Nedziel'skii, Evgenii [pseud. lurii Vir]: on denationalization and denationalized writers, 65, 98, 280; on Dukhnovych, 206; as editor ofRusskii narodnyi golos, 386; on 18th-century Rusyn literature, 61; on Grendzha-Dons'kyi, 377; and history of Rusyn literature, 341-3,498nn.44,45; on Karabelesh, 345, 354,499-500n.52; on language, 329,405-6,425; 'Rat-catcher,' 41516; on Rusyn literature in Czechoslovakia, 398-400,403,405-6, 501n.68; on Rusyn literature during Second World War, 411; on Rusyn periodicals, 217; on Rusyn theatre, 502-3n.75; on Sabov, 290; on Voloshyn's grammar, 284 Nekrasov, Nikolai, 243, 389,499n.49 Neo-classicism, 72, 80, 86, 89,119, 210 Neva river, 79, 81, 140 Nevyts'ka, Mariia, 169, 172-3; 'Rusyn Woman,' 173 Ngugi wa Thiong'o, 209, 238,485n.31 Niagovo interpretive gospel, 39-40,327 Nicholas I (emperor of Russia), 128 Nieritz, Karl Gustav, 160,480n.25 Nizhyn Institute, 101,103-7 Nod', Nikolai, 165-6,204,480n.23; 'Hunger and Thirst,' 165-6; Rusyn Nightingale, 165,170 Nosak, Bohumil, 143 Nosak, Timotej Ignac [pseud. Bonus Nosak-Nezabudov], 30, 115, 143 Nova svoboda, 382 Novikov, Nikolai, 71,82 Novfi svit, 216-17, 226-7, 247

Nymph of the Dniester (Rusalka Dnistrovaia), 114,476n.23,477n.34. See also 'Ruthenian Triad' Obradovic, Dosifej, 95,115 Obshchestvo podkarpatskykh Rusynov (Society of Subcarpathian Rusyns), 445,447 Okara, Gabriel, 238 Olbracht, Ivan, 391; Nikolai Suhaj the Bandit, 391 Oleg, Grand Prince (of Kiev), 29 Oles', Oleksandr, 371 Ol'shavs'kyi, Mykhail (bishop of Mukachevo), 70,74 'On the Nameday of... Joseph, Palatine of Hungary' (Tarkovych), 77-88, 474n.l4,476n.24 Orality. See Folk art Orlai, Ivan, 99-105, 244, 310, 477nn.40, 41 Orthodoxy: defence of in Andrella's work, 50-1; and Russophiles, 32, 33; in Subcarpathian Rus', 25, 35; as treason against Hungary, 280; and Union of Uzhhorod, 43-4 Orthography: defined, 494-5n.l6; etymological, 282,285,319,321-2, 325, 332-5, 427-8,495n.l7,497n.34; phonetic, 282, 284-5, 304, 321-3, 333-5, 368-9. See also Alphabet, Ecclesiastical script, Language Ostroh bible, 50,54,68 Ostromir gospel, 290 Ostrovskii, Aleksandr, 305, 362 'Other' and 'otherness': as concept, 12, 309; in Primary Chronicle, 36; Rusyns as, 121, 136, 288; Rusyns define their own, 114 Ovsianiko-Kulikovskii, Dmitrii, 108

Index Pachovs'kyi, Vasyl1, 303, 307, 367-8, 371 Padal'skyi, Aleksander, 59-60; 'Of what am I guilty,' 61; 'Song of the Vanity of the World,'59-60 Pan'kevych, Ivan: as editor ofNaukovyi zbornyk TP, 332-3,492n.4; and ethnography, 496n.32; Grammar of, 321-3, 325, 328, 428, 495n.l8; reviews of, on Rusyn literature and literary scholarship, 314, 316, 496n.25, 498nn.42, 45 Pan'ko, Simeon, 418-19,423; 'Credo,' 418-19; My Path, 423 Pankovych, Stepan (bishop of Mukachevo): as proponent of magyarization, 216-17, 220, 243, 268, 270-1, 484n.25; on Rusyn national identity, 485n.26; satirized, 268,270-1, 489n.69; and Society of St Basil the Great, 229 Pannonia, 28-9 Pan-Slavism: Hungary and, 32, 280, 488n.53; and literary language, 94, 168, 228; originators of, 65; Orlai and, 108; Russia and, 81, 360; Russophiles and, 276, 280, 360, 505n.7; and Slavic unity, 109, 114-15, 117, 152, 169, 240, 452; in Svit, 226. See also Russophiles, Slavophiles and slavophilism Pasichnyk, F. See Potushniak Patrus-Karpats'kyi, Andrii, 388-9, 502n.69; 'My Life,' 388; 'Song about Fate,' 388; Tramp,' 388; A Whip to the Conscience, 388 Paul I (emperor of Russia), 78 Pavlovych, Aleksander, 229,497n.40; on abolition of serfdom, 162-4,198; biography of, 156, 186-9; on Chopei, 219-20; and emigration, 201-3; and

551

Greetings to the Rusyns, 165-6; influence on other writers, 350,422; on Jewish exploitation, 198-9; language of, 222, 481n.3, 482n.5, 501n.68; on magyarization, 217-18; Marxist interpretation of, 482n.lO; and postcolonialism, 16, 200-1, 379; and Rusyn history, 156-7; on Rusyn life, 189-92; and Slavophilism, 188, 240,243, 481n.4; women, 170,191; 'Appeal to the Motherland,' 162-3; 'Friend to Friend,' 191; 'An Honest Old Father Marries Off His Son,' 191; 'Joy of Freedom,' 164; 'Maiden Awaiting Her Beloved,' 170; 'Meditations of Rusyn Beauties,' 191; 'Memorial,' 156-7; The Plight of a Poor Peasant, 193-7,2578; 'Reflections of an Honest Rusnak from Makovytsia in America,' 202; 'Vasyl' Betrayed His People and Defiled the Russian Alphabet,' 219 Pcholka, 304 Pearse, Padraic H., 159 Pekar, Athanasius, 43-4, 216,484n.25 Pered skhodom, 432, 441-2, 503n.4 Peter I (emperor of Russia), 43, 81, 89, 91 Peter II (emperor of Russia), 91 Petofi, Sandor, 307, 363,429, 432, 488nn.55, 56 Petrov, Aleksei L., 34-5 Petrovai, Istvan, 119 Petrovtsii, Ivan, 448-51,453,507-8n.5; Dialektarii, abo zh myla knyzhochka rusyns'koi by sidy u virshakh, 448; Nashi spivanky, 448-9 Petrovych, Petro, 23 Pidhirianka, Mariika, 371 Pletnev, P.A., 103 The Plight of a Poor Peasant (Pavlovych), 193-7, 257-8

552

Index

Pochaiv monastery, 54 Podhaets'ka, Tereza, 169,172; 'Lament over an Escaped Falcon,' 172 Podkarpats'ka Rus', 445 Podolia, 6,23,24 Poe, Edgar Allan, 432 Pogodin, Mikhail, 109, 240, 243 Poland: as ancestral homeland of Rusyns, 3, 7; and Poles, Pavlovych on, 200, 481n.4; Rusyn literature in, 4,7 Polishchuk, Klym, 306 Polish language: in Andrella's works, 47; and Pavlovych, 187 Political Rusynism: charges of, 6,9, 468-9n.8 Polivka, Ivan, 282, 333 Polfvka, Jiff, 322 Polonskii, lakov, 499n.49 Polotskii, Simeon, 74, 88 Polovtsy (Polovtsians), 29-30 Popov, Aleksander, 206, 293 Popov, A.V., 316 Popovic, Michal, 24 Popovych, Mikhail, 394-8,494n.l5; 'Gloves,' 395; 'Shatna,' 396; 'Strategic Measures,' 397; 'Without a Title,' 395 Popovych, Vasylii (bishop of Mukachevo), 114, 174-5 Populism: Rusyn, 279-81, 284-7, 411, 491n.75; Ukrainian, 32. See also Folk art, Rusynophiles and Rusynophilism Postcolonialism: as concept, 14-18, 468n. 12; and cultural studies, 11; and Eastern Europe, 16; and education, 118; and language, 234-9, 334,487nn.46, 49; and post-Soviet literatures, 468n.l3; in Russophile literature, 273; and Rusyn literature, 15-18,20,113, 136-7, 161, 273, 394, 398,458, 460, 465; and settler culture, 245,248

Postmodernism: and identity, 12; and Marxism, 394; and Rusyn literature, 20,458,460,463 Potebnia, Aleksandr, 52 Potushniak, Fedor [pseud. F. Pasichnyk], 430, 435^0, 445, 453, 503n.4, 506n. 15,507n. 18;'Dove-day,'435-6; 'Green Strings,' 436; 'On White Cliffs,' 438; Possibilities, 437; Secret Evenings, 437; 'Threshing,' 437 Prague Linguistic Circle, 503-4n.5 Pratt, Mary Louise, 100 Pravoslavnoe obozrenie, 242 Presov, eparchy of, 76, 79,474n.l5, 484n.25 Presov Literary Society, 129-30,143, 149, 156-7, 173-5, 186 Presov region: literary scholarship in, 4, 444; Rusyn identity in, 5,444; Rusyn language in, 331; Rusyn literature in, 19,444-45; Rusyn revival in, 445; as site of Rusyn culture, 8; Ukrainianization in, 444. See also Slovakia Primary Chronicle, 35-6 Primer for Beginners (Dukhnovych), 121-7,149,158,167,207,448, 483n.l5 Press, printing and publishing: and colonial oppression, 16,69,177; and failure of Rusyn national awakening, 174-5; history in Subcarpathia, 482n.l3; in 16-17th centuries, 68-9, 292,472n.4; in 20th century, 281,336 Prodan, Petr, 414,422; 'We,' 414 Prokopovich, Feofan, 70, 74; 'Sermon on the Interment of Peter the Great,' 70 Prosvita Society (Enlightenment Society of Subcarpathian Rus'), 332, 363,410; and Dukhnovych, 314, 316,494n.l2; vs. Dukhnovych Society, 305; estab-

Index lished, 303; and 'language question,' 320; publications of, 303-4, 306-7, 313, 386,406; and reading rooms, 304; re-established, 492n.4; in Slovakia, 331; and theatre, 502-3n.75 Prosvita Society (L'viv), 304 Protestantism, 44, 292,484n.20; in Transylvania, 42-3 Pushkin, Aleksandr, 145, 243, 253, 324, 422,499n.49; influence on Rusyn literature, 115,134, 345-6,421-2; publication of works by, in Carpathian Rus', 240, 246-7; Subcarpathian Rusyns present at examination of, 103 Pypin, Aleksandr, 338 Raevksii, Mikhail, 242-3,488n.54 Rakoczi II, Prince Ferenc, 43,45, 56,68 Rakoshyn miscellany, 41 Rakovs'kyi, loann, 291,488n.54, 497n.40; and Dukhnovych, 314; on literary language, 212-14; on Presov Literary Society, 130; and Russian language, 222, 224-5, 227, 237, 484n.21; and Society of St Basil the Great, 184; and Tserkovnaia gazeta, 486n.34; and Vistnyk, 204 Razgulov, Valerii, 449 Realism in Rusyn literature, 398-406, 429-30 Reformation, 39,42, 62, 291,484n.20 Ripa, Ivan, 54, 165, 167; 'Song on the Abolition of Serfdom,' 165 Roman Catholic church: in Andrella's work, 49; assimilationist pressure from, 65; Hapsburgs and, 42^4; Rusyn culture and, 18, 292 Romania: as ancestral homeland of Rusyns, 3 Romanticism: and 18th-century lyrics,

553

61; as international movement, 113; Grendzha-Dons'kyi and, 374, 376, 382, 385; Karabelesh and, 346,349, 355, 377; in Rusyn national awakening, 149, 160, 164, 210-11; in Tarkovych's work, 80; in Ukraine, 211 Roshkovych, Emmanuil(?), 291 Rostovskii, Dimitrii, 74,475n.l7 Rozniichuk, Ivan [pseud. Marko Barabolia], 319-20, 355, 500n.53 Rubii, Anton, 166; 'Heart,' 166 Rudlovchak, Olena, 160,489n.67, 507n.l8 Rukh, 9,447 Rurik dynasty, 35 Rusak, lulii. See Hadzhega, lulii Rushdie, Salman, 16, 179 Rus'ka Kraina, 172, 297-8 Rusnaks: as descriptive term, 7. See also Rusyns Russia: books imported from, 69; Rusyn ties to, 7, 18, 26, 101, 154-5, 309-10, 343, 347-48. See also Russophiles Russian language, 486n.32,496n.23; in Andrella's work, 47; in Czechoslovakia, 322; in education, 228,486n.31; Gogol on, 107; as literary language of Rusyns, 17, 208, 213-14, 220, 225-6, 231, 234-9, 279, 285, 323-4, 326, 336, 395, 404-6,481n.l, 484n.21; as official language, 9; Orlai on, 107; Russophiles and, 308, 328, 334; Rusynophiles on, 428; and Rusyn people, 329, 335,486n.38,4967n.33; Subcarpathian recension of, 214, 221-39, 249, 291-2, 321, 329, 335,410,492n.77; in virshi, 57. See also Russian literature, Russophiles and russophilism Russian literature: influence on Rusyn

554 Index literature, 74, 353, 399-400; Rusyn dependence on, 147-8, 346-7, 355-6, 360, 377; subtexts from, in Rusyn literature, 415-22; translations from, 145-6, 281. See also Russian language, Russophiles and russophilism Russkaia besieda, 242 Russkaia my si', 241 Russkoe slovo, 410-11, 507n.l7 Russophiles and russophilism (Russophile orientation): accused of elitism, 274-6, 313, 325, 328, 333-4, 337, 368,429; adulation of Russian culture, 278,313,491n.74; and Bolshevik Russia, 308, 348, 387; in Czechoslovak period, 299,302, 305-6, 308-13, 344-6, 349, 355, 362, 366, 386-91, 394,403^1,495n.l8; and discourse, 13,276-9; failure of move-ment, 280; ideology in literature, 32,250,273, 347; interpretation of Rusyn history, 26,323; interpretation of Rusyn literature, 288-9, 338, 341,411; and language, 220-7, 231-9,288, 323-4, 327, 332-7, 398, 405-6, 487nn47, 50,496n.24,497nn.36, 37; Marxist criticism of, 275-6,377; as resistance to Hungary, 245, 276; and Rusyn culture, 244-5, 247; and Rusyn identity, 309-11, 323^, 387,490n.72; and Rusyn people, 313; in Rusyn periodicals, 226-7; during Second World War, 408,411-25, 505n.7; on Sabov's Anthology, 293; as 'spiritual exiles,' 246,250; vs. Ukrainophiles, 5, 19, 28,109, 230, 233, 275-6, 285, 297, 300, 302, 308-20, 328,406,413; under Voloshyn regime, 408. See also Pan-Slavism, Slavophiles and slavophilism

Rusyn, 445 Rusyn identity: asserted in literature, 153, 386, 394,448,452; and assimilation, 3,444; in Czechoslovak period, 321, 406; denied in Ukraine, 9,444,447; in Russophile interpretation, 317; in Ukrainophile interpretation, 12,17, 317, 374,482n.l4,490n.72, 493n.lO; during Second World War, 408,410; satire of, 269 Rusyn language (dialect, vernacular), 330; banned in Soviet Ukraine, 444; and Church Slavonic, 476n.27; classified as Ukrainian, 8; codified, 3, 8,18,457; in Czechoslovak period, 298, 307, 321-2, 332-7, 391, 395-6; after 1989,449-55,457-8,461, 483n.l8; in Dovhovych's work, 97-8; in Dukhnovych's work, 121-4, 2068, 292,483n.l7; Grendzha-Dons'kyi and, 363-^4,367-8; as literary language, 19,93^, 167-8, 226, 248, 274, 285, 399^06, 426-8,445-6; in Listok, 229; in Nauka and Nedllia, 282-3, 330,491n.75; in Novyi svit, 227; promoted by Hungarian government, 221, 280,495n.21; in Russophile literature, 256,275,336,358, 423-4,429; in the Rusyn national awakening, 174;inRusynophile literature, 280,281-4,439; in Sabov's Anthology, 291; in 16th- and 17thcentury texts, 39-40,281,326, 473n.6; in Svit, 225; in Tarkovych's work, 88,91; in Ukrainophile literature, 405,429, 502n.74; in virshi, 54, 58. See also Rusynophiles Rusyn literature: as distinct culture, 281, 291, 294, 339^0, 342,426,440, 446-65; hybridity of, 4-5,42,446,

Index 555 451-2,464-5; Marxist interpretation of, 5, 36, 160-1, 196-7, 274-5, 301, 343, 351-2, 377, 386, 388, 390, 393, 425, 482n.lO, 488n.59, 499n.50, 502n.68; and nationality building, 10, 20; pan-Slav interpretation of, 5; as part of Russian literature, 5,245-9, 278, 294, 338-42, 425; as part of Ukrainian literature, 5,294,338-40, 342-3,445,498n.45; populism in, 279-80,284-7; and postcolonial theory, 15, 20, 446, 458,460,465; Soviet/Ukrainian interpretation of, 33, 490-ln.73; in Western scholarship, 5-6 Rusyn national awakening, 17,143, 161-81; in 1860s, 183 Rusyn Nightingale, 165,170 Rusynophiles and rusynophilism (Rusynophile orientation): defined, 280; in Czechoslovak period, 299, 317; literature criticized, 286; populists, 279-84; vs. Russophiles and Ukrainophiles, 19, 317,413,427-9, 440-1; Sabov's interpretation of, 292; during Second World War, 408,410, 413,456 Rusyns: as descriptive term, 7; early history of, 24-5; as 'new Slavic nationality,' 4; as official minority, 3,9; origins of, 6-7, 22; in Russia, 99-104, 310,323; as 'settler culture,' 245. See also Carpatho-Russians, CarpathoUkrainians, Lemkos, Ruthenians, Ugro-/Uhro-Rusyns Rusyns 'ka bysida, 445 Rusyn'ska Obroda (Rusyn Renaissance Society), 445 Rusynskyi zhyvot, 445 Ruthenian: as descriptive term, 7; as

designated by Hungarian government, 221,280; interpretation of Rusyn literature, 343; satirized, 485n.30. See also Rusyns 'Ruthenian Triad,' 95,477n.34 Rylskyi, Maksym, 371 Sabov, levmenii, 329,491n.75; on Andrella, 290-1,492n.78; assassination attempt on, 493n. 10; on Church Slavonic, 211,484n.20; on Dodatok, 230; and Dukhnovych Society, 304-5, 312-14, 318; Grammar of, 292, 322-3, 328,428,495nn.l8, 19; Khristomatiia (Anthology) of, 28895, 339,492n.79; and language, 235, 335-6; on Luchkai, 95; on Rusyn literature, 273; and Rusynophile movement, 280, 335,426 Sabov, Kyryl, 223, 229, 246, 491n.75 Safarik, Pavel Jozef, 75,114-15, 125 Said, Edward, 14, 29, 104, 106,452; quoted, 17, 34, 108, 178-9, 191, 302, 451 St Germain, Treaty of, 298 St Nicholas monastery (Mukachevo), 24 Saunders, David, 109 Schmid, Christopher von, 160,480n.25 Sentimentalism, 119,144,157-8,161, 210 Serbia and Serbs: books printed for, 69; in Hungary, 78 Shakespeare, William, 272,432; The Tempest, 272 Shaliapin, Ivan, 70 Shashkevych, Markiian, 477n.34 Shevchenko, Taras, 429; and Dukhnovych, 315-16,490n.73; influence on Rusyn literature, 160, 305-7, 371, 373-4, 392, 490n.73, 500n.59; and

556 Index Ukrainian nationalism, 107-8; works of, published in Subcarpathian Rus', 370; 'Kobzar,' 160; Testament,' 306 Shevchenko Society (Galicia), 232,304, 329 Shishkov, A.S., 109 Shlepets'kyi, Andrii, 481n.3,490n.72 Shmaida, Mykhailo, 445 Sil'vai, Ivan, 249, 322,488n.55, 505n.7; and ethnography, 275; on Fedor Koriatovych, 27,251; and language, 222-3, 230, 327, 329; on the Rusyn intelligentsia, 272-3; Sabov on, 288, 292; satire of, 268-70; 'Fedor Kor'atovych,' 27; 'Kreuzer Comedy,' 270; 'Mother and Daughter-in-law,' 251; 'People in Iron Hats,' 268-70; 'The Sun among the Stars,' 251 Sil'vai, Sion, 404 Simovych, Vasyl', 325 Slaveno-Rusyn: defined, 9,90-1; in Dukhnovych's work, 206; in education, 118,231; as literary language, 93-4, 167-8, 207, 209. See also Church Slavonic Slavonic. See Church Slavonic, SlavenoRusyn Slavophiles and slavophilism: Dukhnovychand, 114-16, 128-9, 138-9, 155,177-80,207, 316, 347; interpretation of Carpathian culture, 23,53—4, 104,475n.l9; and 19th-century Rusyn writers, 19, 239-45, 252; Pavlovych and, 156,188; in Sabov's Anthology, 290; in 20th century, 308, 346-8, 387, 394, 403-4, 505n.7. See also Russophiles and russophilism, Pan-Slavism Slovakia: as ancestral homeland of Rusyns, 3, 7; Rusyn culture in, 8;

Rusyn language codified in, 8. See also Presov region Slovak language: codification of, 205; in Dukhnovych's work, 124, 206; in early Subcarpathian documents, 37; as official language, 9; in virshi, 57 Slovene: codification of, 205 Slovenske pohl'ady, 175 Slovesnost', 230 Smidikas, Gabriel, 143 Smotryts'kyi, Meletii, 89,91,95 Smyth, Gerry, 288-9 Sochka-Borzhavyn, Vasyl', 423-5, 505n. 11; 'Fate,' 423^; Mountains and Fate, 423 Socialist Realism, 19,362,393, 399, 409, 445, 457,462 Society of St Basil the Great, 280-1, 290-2,491n.75; and Bishop Pankovych, 485n.26; as centre of Rusyn national life, 228; established, 184; and language, 481 n. 1; number of members, 273; publications of, 204, 214, 217, 226-7; and Rusyn people, 229 Society of St John the Baptist, 183, 241 Songbooks (pesenniki), 54-5, 62 'Song about Rusyns,' 58, 160 'SongofBudyn,'57 'Song of Evil Landlords,' 58-9 'Song of the Icon of Klokochevo,' 55-7 'Song of Terrible Years,'55 'Song of the Warrior Stefan,' 52 'Song of Worldly Vanity,' 58 Sosiura, Volodymyr, 371 Sova, 217,268,485n.30 Soviet Union: cultural policies of, 349, 362, 393,440,442; criticism of Rusyn literature, 86,359,377,385,499n.50; fall of, 394,459; literature of, in Sub-

Index carpathia, 370, 392; nationality policy of, 409,444; Rusyn literature published in, 382, 389, 501n.64; in Rusyn publications, 370. See also Communism, Marxism, Marxist interpretation of Rusyn literature, Socialist Realism Soyinka, Wole, 209 Sozans'kyi, Ivan, 210 Spasovich, Vladimir, 338 Speranskii, Mikhail, 99, 101, 103 Spivak, Gayatri, 14, 26 Sreznevs'kyi, Izmail, 115 Stavrovs'kyi-Popradov, lulii, 243, 268, 355; biography, 249; on language, 232, 237-8,486nn.38, 39; in 20th century, 308, 322, 345,422,499n.49; on Ukrainian writers, 490n.73; 'A Fair in Szepes County,' 261; 'Homeland,' 253; 'I Am a Russian,' 263; 'Lasciate ogni speranza,' 262, 264-5; 'Reply to the Enemy of the Slavs,' 259-60; 'The Suffering of the Slavs,' 258-9; 'Szepes County,' 253; 'To My Countrymen in the New Year,' 264; 'To the Ugro-Rusyns,' 263-^; 'Winter Evening,' 253 Stic, Petr, 143 Strindberg, August, 432 Stryps'kyi, Hiiador: and language, 2812, 325-6, 506n.l2; and Rusynophile movement, 280,428-9,440 Studyns'kyi, Kyrylo, 231, 316 Stiir, L'udevit, 205 Subaltern, 26, 72, 112, 317 Subcarpathian Barbizon, 433,506n.l6 'Subcarpathian document,' 38 Subcarpathian Rus': colonization of, 288; depicted in Rusyn literature, 357,364, 433-35; as geographic location, 8, 20,

557

34, 142; as palimpsest of cultures, 38; and postcolonialism, 16; as province of Czechoslovakia, 16, 370, 378-9, 391; as terra incognita, 3, 6; unification with Soviet Ukraine, 5, 369,409, 444, 503n.2. See also Presov region, Transcarpathia Subcarpathian Society of Sciences, 4267,439, 442, 507n. 17 Sue, Eugene, 160; The Wandering Jew, 160 Sukhyi, Shtefan, 457-60; Rusyn'skyi spivnyk, 458-9 Sumarokov, Aleksandr, 107; influence of, on Rusyn writers, 75, 81^4, 115, 131, 222, 246; on language, 88-9,91; work of, available in Subcarpathian Rus', 71; Eclogues, 11 Surrealism, 430,435^12 Svlt, 256, 268-9, 271, 273, 284-5; and language, 225, 228, 274,492n.77; and Russian literature, 247; and Russophilism, 226,246; on Rusyn identity, 214, 216, 327; and Rusyn people, 229; Sabov on, 291-3 Sviatopolk, Prince (of Kiev), 36 Syllabic verse, 24, 53, 62, 74, 88 Symbolist movement in literature (Russian), 431; influence on Rusyn literature, 351,417-22 Sysak, Myron, 458-9 Szechenyi, Ferenc, 77-9, 84-5,474n.l3 Szechenyi, Istvan, 77 Tale of Igor's Campaign, 326 Tarkovych, Hryhorii, 293,475nn.l8, 19,477n.40; accused of sycophancy, 84-7, 474n.l4, 476n.24; as bishop of Presov, 473n.8, 474n.l5, 475n.23;

558 Index description of, 76-7; and Dukhnovych, 119,140, 314,480n.241; influence on Rusyn literature, 116,134,437,154, 412,477n.34; and language, 88-91, 98,233; and mimicry, 87; and Sumarokov, 81-3,88,246; 'On the Nameday of... Joseph, Palatine of Hungary,' 77-88, 474n. 14, 476n.24 Tatranskyi, Orel. See Myhalych Terebliapra/og, 38-9,471n.l8 Tereshchenko, Mykola, 371 Terlets'kyi,Ostap,231 Terlets'kyi, Volodymyr, 338 Thokoly, Imre, 55,56 Tichy, Frantisek: on Dukhnovych, 206, 313,493-4n. 11; on language, 210, 331,486nn.35; 496n.30; on Rusyn literature, 343; on Tarkovych, 90, 476n.24 Tikhonov, Nikolai, 370 Tiutchev, Fedor, 145, 246, 345-6, 355, 499n.49 Todorov, Tsvetan, 16, 69, 87-8, 177 Tolstoy, Lev, 229, 329, 353 Tomchanii, Mykhailo, 404,445; 'Blind One,' 404 Torun miscellany, 41 Transcarpathia (Transcarpathian Ukraine), 19; as Ukrainian designation of Rusyn homeland, 8,503n.2; Soviet annexation of, 5,409. See also Presov region, Subcarpathian Rus' Transcarpathian oblast', 19,447 Transylvania, 6,42-3 'Travel Notes on Verkhovyna' (Mytrak), 256-8, 26l,489nn.60-4 Trediakovskii, Vasilii, 88; and trediakovshchina, 119 Trembita, 386, 369 Trnava, 65,187,292; printing house in, 68

Troshchyns'kyi, D.P., 105, 108, 478n.41 Tsaptsara, Andrii, 445 Tserkovnaia gazeta, 213, 224,486n.34 Tserkovnye viedomosti, 488n.57 Tserkovnyi vistnyk, 224,237 Tsimbolinets,N.,316 Turgenev, Ivan, 246-7,308, 346 Turian, 175,177 Turkey: and Ottoman Turks in Hungarian Kingdom, 42, 55-6, 62, 119 Tuteshniaki. See Rusynophiles Tyblevich, Lev, 387; Rifmy, 387 Tychyna, Pavlo, 371,392, 502n.72 Uglia miscellany, 41 Ugrin, Georgii (George the Hungarian), 36 Ugro-/Uhro-Rus'. See Subcarpathian Rus1 Ugro-/Uhro-Rusyns: as descriptive term, 7; Hungarian designation for Rusyns, 408,410. See also Rusynophiles, Rusyns Ukraine: as ancestral homeland of Rusyns, 3, 7; books imported from, 69; criticism of Rusyn literature in, 86; cultural hegemony of, 12,19,452; culture dominated by Russia, 41,63; depicted in Rusyn literature, 365,374, 378-9, 382,456; Rusyn language in, 8,448; Rusyn literature in, 4,7, 19, 448-57; Rusyn movement in, 9,4478; statehood of, 337,363,369,447; and Ukrainophiles, 306. See also Soviet Union, Ukrainophiles and ukrainophilism Ukrainianization: in Slovakia, 384,444; of Subcarpathia, 362,369-70, 377; under Voloshyn regime, 408 Ukrainian language, 9,220, 324-5, 486n.38,487n.51; codification of,

Index 232; criticized in Nauka, 282-3; criticized by Russophiles, 497nn.36, 37; in Czechoslovakia, 322,337, 495n.21; Dukhnovych and, 206; in early Subcarpathian documents, 37; Galician dialect of, 209-11,230,233, 282; as official language, 9,337; and Russian language, 334-5; Russophiles on, 221, 334; in Rusyn literature, 363, 368, 392-3, 403-5, 451; Rusynophiles on, 428; during Second World War, 408, 410,425; Stryps'kyi on, 281; in Subcarpathian periodicals, 369; in Ukrainian literature, 96,231,233, 307. See also Ukrainophiles and ukrainophilism Ukrainian literature, 5; Dukhnovych on, 209-10; kotliarevshchyna in, 98, 211-12; Rusyn dependence on, 377, 392-3; in Subcarpathian Rus', 370-1, 399-400, 490n.73 Ukrainians, 7; and criticism of Rusyn literature, 160, 278-9, 301, 344, 356, 413,425; and criticism of Rusynophile populism, 281; and 'Little Russians,' 496n.27; and Russians, 108, 311; and Rusyn identity, 311, 370. See also Ukrainophiles and ukrainophilism Ukramka, Lesia, 392 Ukrainophiles and ukrainophilism (Ukrainian orientation): criticism of Rusyn literature, 41, 359-60; in Czechoslovak period, 299, 302, 3048, 362, 369, 377, 385-94, 403, 426, 492n.4,495nn. 18, 20; and discourse, 13; in education, 330; in Galicia, 182, 205, 209,228,294; interpretation of Rusyn history, 325-6; interpretation of Rusyn literature, 5, 294, 325, 341; and language, 324-9, 331-7; vs. Russophiles, 5, 19, 28, 109, 223, 275-6,

559

297, 300, 302-5, 308-20, 328, 349, 353,385,406,413,503n.l;and Rusyn identity, 310,426; during Second World War, 408, 425; under Voloshyn regime, 408,409-10 Ukrams'ke slovo, 382 Uniate church. See Greek Catholic church Union of Brest, 43 Union of Slovak Writers (Ukrainian section), 362, 384 Union of Uzhhorod, 43-5, 66,484n.25. See also Greek Catholic church Unio Publishing Company, 281, 290 Ustych, Vasyl', 449 Uzhhorodpolustav, 38 Uzh river, 77, 298,474n.l2 Vahylevych, Ivan, 477n.34 Vaida, Mykola, 387,494n.l2; 'Ukrainian Blood,' 387 Vakarov, Dymytrii, 419, 505n.8; 'I came to bow to the people,' 419 Vakurov, Mikhail, 70 Val'kovs'kyi, Andrii, 75, 89 Varga, Mykhail, 422; 'I Am the Son of a Peasant,'422-3 Venelin, lurii, 109, 244 Vergun, Dmitrii, 339, 381, 387, 391, 488n.57; 'Mitriun bezrodnyi,' 387, 391; 'To the Moscow Futurists,' 381 Verkhovynka, Tania. See Ivan Kercha Verkhovynskii, Georgii, 403—4; 'lurko Rusyn and His Granddaughter,' 403-4 Vinochok, 304 Vintz,Shtefan,71 Virshi, 54-7 Virtue Is More Important than Riches (Dukhnovych), 127, 130, 136, 162, 167-9, 199-200, 205, 207, 314, 404, 441

560 Index Vistnyk posviashchennoie Rusynov Avstriiskoi derzhavy, 204,282 Vladimir, Prince (of Kievan Rus'), 25 Voloshin, Maksimilian, 501n.65; 'Na dnie preispodnei,' 501n.65 Voloshyn, Avhustyn, 337, 365,495n.l8; and autonomous government, 299, 388,393,408-10; as editor ofNauka, 281; Grammar of, 283, 321, 323, 428; on language, 322,325-7,329; on national identity, 283-4; and Rusynophile movement, 280; on Shevchenko, 307 Vojvodina: literary scholarship in, 4; Rusyn culture in, 8. See also Yugoslavia Von Geldern, James, 85 Voron, Andrii, 386 Vovchok, Marko, 247,490-1 n.73 Vozniak, Mykhailo, 231 Vozrozhdenie (Renaissance Association of Carpatho-Rusyn Students), 318, 386-7 Vozrozhedenie, 310 Vrabel', Mykhail: as editor of Nedilia, 281-2; and Rusynophile movement, 280 Vynnychenko, Volodymyr, 324 Vyshens'kyi, Ivan, 46 Vyshnia, Ostap, 371 Vyslobots'kyi, lulii, 143

Vyslots'kyi, Ivan, 166-7, 170; The Fortress on the Poprad,' 166-7, 170 Whitlock, Gillian, 248 Wilson, Woodrow, 297 Women: in the Rusyn national awakening, 169-73. See also Feminist approach to literature Young, Edward, 152 Yugoslavia, 3; Rusyns in, 8, 444. See also Vojvodina Zabus, Chantal, 239 Za ridne slovo, 311, 326, 328, 332, 495n.21 Zeikan, Ivan A., 91,476n.28 Zerov, Mykola, 211 Zhak, Ivan, 445 Zhivaia mysi', 318 Zhivaia starina, 275 Zhukovskii, Vasilii, 107,145,247, 499n.49 Zhytie i slovo, 293 Zlots'kyi, Feodosii: on folk tales, 291; on language, 285,492n.77; and Rusynophile movement, 280; Collected Poetry, 284 Zoria-Hajnal, 427 Zoria Halyts'ka, 128, 205 Zozuliak, Vasyl', 445 Zvonar, T., 435; 'Village at Night,' 435