Athlete Mihail Dudaš, swimmer Ivan Lenđer, Serbian and Yugoslav football player and coach Silvester Takač, pre-war Yugoslav Olympian Jaša Bakov, Serbian actress Danijela Steinfeld and Yugoslav actress Irena Kolesar are just some of the famous people who the majority of the public does not know belong to Ruthenians. minority people who, according to the 2022 census, number 11.483 in Serbia (of which the largest part is in Vojvodina) members.
NOVI SAD
In the center of Novi Sad, every Sunday morning I am awakened by the bells of churches of exactly five denominations, which, along with the Jewish synagogue, bear witness to the city's multicultural past and present. One of them is the Greek Catholic Church of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul, which is traditionally visited by local Ruthenians, and in the past two years, a large number of Ukrainians and Russians who have sought refuge in Novi Sad due to the war between their two countries have been noticeable. The church was built in 1820 and was the only one in the city center that survived the bombing from the Petrovaradin fortress during the Revolution of 1848/49. Legend has it that it was spared because the head of the Hungarian garrison at the fortress was Rusin Pavle Kish. In addition to the church, this minority people in Novi Sad also has a cultural center "Ruska matka", which organizes a large number of concerts, forums and other programs in Ruthenian as well as in other languages spoken in Vojvodina.
RUSSIAN CROSSROADS
"I am waiting for you in front of the cross" - I read the message of Željko Kovač from the National Council of Ruthenians in Serbia as we enter the Russian Cross. We remove the bicycles from the car and together with our host we head towards the spacious and green gate of the cathedral. Russian Krstur is the center of the Greek Catholic Apostolic Exarchate, which in 2018 was elevated to the level of the Krstur Eparchy, with which the Church of Saint Nicholas became a cathedral (congregational church). The Ruthenian Greek Catholic church was built in 1784, and it got its present appearance in the renovation in 1836. It has five bells, and the largest weighs 1.500 kilograms.
During Mirjana Marković's visit to the Russian Cross in 1997, a storm started and the cross fell from the church tower. Locals and some others believed that this was a sign of the imminent departure of the Milosevic family from power.
The kind priest unlocked the entrance to the "choir", the balcony part of the church from which the stairs lead to the tower from which huge bells call the faithful of this predominantly Ruthenian place to liturgies. After climbing the tower, we sit in the parish office, books and magazines in Ruthenian everywhere. The priest tells me that Dr. Juraj Pavić, the grandfather of my friend Nino Pavić, a well-known publisher from Croatia, was a priest in Russki Krstur and was involved in the translation of holy books into Ruthenian.
According to the 2011 census, the Russian Krstur had 4.585 inhabitants, 85 percent of whom are members of the Ruthenian nationality. Unlike Hungarians, Slovaks, Croats, Bulgarians, Germans and Czechs, whose home countries are EU member states, Ruthenians, along with Roma, Montenegrins and Macedonians, are the only minority whose members do not easily obtain EU passports. However, according to the priest, about 30 percent of young people went to Canada in the past 20 years, which greatly affected the birth rate in the village. Two decades ago, a Greek Catholic priest went to the Canadian province of Saskatchewan and took a large number of locals with him.
Everyone in the village attends classes in the Ruthenian language from preschool to high school. After that, they have the opportunity to enroll in Ruthenian language studies at the Faculty of Philosophy in Novi Sad...
In the house belonging to the monastery, which is located behind the church gate, my colleague Dragan and I were welcomed by Željko with two local women, housewives who prepared typical Ruthenian specialties for us: tomato soup (tomato soup with ramen) and kapušćenjki (dough filled with cabbage). finally figs! They tell us about the "Red Rose" festival, which will be organized for the 64th time this year in August.
We agree to go to the Vodice sanctuary, which is located two kilometers from the village. As we leave their yard, I notice the roof of what looks like a castle.
What is in front of us is actually a school building from 1913, which has an interesting story. Namely, the construction of the Castle was ordered by the then Austria-Hungary, but on the way to Krstur, the construction plans got mixed up, so the plan for the construction of a building that was planned for construction somewhere in the mountainous regions of Transylvania, which was also part of the same state, arrived in Krstur. This is why this building still deviates from the authentic construction in the surrounding area.
In the courtyard of the Castle is a monument to Havril Kosteljnik, a doctor of philosophy and a priest who published a grammar of the Ruthenian language in 1923, as the youngest written language in the world ("Vuk Karadžić and Dositej Obradović in one man"). He was killed in 1948 in Stalin's USSR.
In the area of the Castle, next to the "Petro Kuzmjak" elementary and secondary schools, is the seat of the National Council of Rusyns, and there is also a small ethnographic collection - a display of photographs, tools for old crafts - hemp processing, tapestry and breeding of red babura.
In Vodica, the place where, according to tradition, the Virgin Mary appeared to two girls from Ruski Krstur in 1817, today there is a church and a shrine that is visited by many because of the water from the well, which is believed to be healing. Here is a stone that was brought from Lourdes, probably the most famous place of apparitions of the Virgin. In front of the church is a statue erected in 1902 by Filip Gerber from Kula, whose daughter was healed after visiting Vodica.
We climb the church tower, a local woman shows us how to ring the bell properly - when the rope is pulled, hold for a few seconds so that the bell "works", and only then let it go. He also tells us that the man who takes care of the shrine does not have one hand, and that with one hand he recently painted the whole church.
photo: Robert ChobanFROM THE EXHIBITION OF PAVEL SUROV: Ruthenian costume
IMMIGRATION
The earliest known connections between the Rusyns and the Serbs date back to the time when parts of both peoples lived within the borders of the medieval Kingdom of Hungary. Although the Ruthenians lived in the northeastern and the Serbs in the southern regions of Hungary, both peoples were connected at that time by belonging to Orthodox Christianity. The Kingdom of Hungary was a Roman Catholic state, but the religious freedom of Orthodox Ruthenians and Serbs was tolerated in certain periods for political reasons, which was confirmed by the 45th legal article of the Hungarian Parliament from 1495, which mentions both Orthodox peoples. The process of organized Ruthenian immigration to Vojvodina began in the spring of 1745, when the state authorities concluded a contract with the first group of Ruthenian settlers who arrived in Kula, i.e. on the Kostelj wasteland, so that the mentioned year is marked among the Ruthenians as the beginning of their immigration to Vojvodina. Immigration intensified during the following years, which led to the creation of new Ruthenian settlements in Bačka, such as Krstur and Kucura. At the same time, Ruthenians settled in some other places in Bač (Đurđevo, Vrbas, Novi Sad), and the immigration process also spread to some places in Srem: Šid, Bačinci, Petrovci and Mikluševci. Immediately after the end of the First World War, in the autumn of 1918, the Rusyns of Bač played an active role during the unification of Vojvodina with Serbia, and twenty of their elected representatives participated in the work of the Great National Assembly, which was sitting in Novi Sad.
DIVISION
During the interwar period, during the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, two currents were formed among Ruthenians: pro-Russian and pro-Ukrainian. Among them were supporters of the preservation of Ruthenian national distinctiveness. In the middle of 1919, the Ruthenian National Educational Society (RNPD) was founded in Novi Sad, in whose work the influences of the national and pro-Ukrainian currents were intertwined. Under the influence of the Greek-Catholic bishop of Križević Dionysiy Njaradi, who was an open supporter of the Ukrainization of all Rusyns, local Rusyns were gradually removed from the leading positions in the RNPD, and emigrants from Ukraine were appointed in their place, who began to carry out radical pro-Ukrainian propaganda.
In a similar way, but from reversed positions, the rival, pro-Russian current, which founded the Cultural and Educational Union of Yugoslav Ruthenians (KPSJR) in 1933, acted as well. Relying on the influential Russian emigration in Yugoslavia, the aforementioned organization was transformed in 1936 into the Cultural and National Union of Yugoslav Ruthenians (KNSJR). Under the auspices of that organization, open pro-Russian propaganda was carried out, with a distinctly anti-Ukrainian orientation.
The biggest victim in the conflict between the aforementioned currents was the native language of the native Rusyns, which one side wanted to Ukrainize, and the other to Russify. Finding themselves in a gap between two radicalized and mutually conflicting currents, the moderate representatives of the native Ruthenians, who prioritized the progress of their own national community in Yugoslavia, failed to use the interwar period for the full affirmation of their native heritage, embodied in cultural, historical and linguistic traditions. Rusyns from Bac and Srem.
Immediately after the end of the Second World War, the newspaper and publishing company "Ruske slovo" was formed in Yugoslavia, and then Matica Rusinska was founded, which was dissolved after only three years, under the pressure of the then communist authorities. The constitutional recognition of Ruthenians and the Ruthenian language in the highest acts of Serbia and Vojvodina caused alarm among the representatives of the pro-Ukrainian movement, which is also evidenced by the later attitude towards the mentioned historical decisions.
A significant turning point in the development of the Ruthenian community occurred in 1990, when the pro-Ukrainian part reached an agreement with representatives of the native Ukrainian community, which led to the creation of the Union of Ruthenians and Ukrainians. Part of the Yugoslav Ruthenians who advocated for the preservation of the Ruthenian national identity formed their own organization at the end of the same year - Matica Ruthenska. It was the beginning of a new phase in the process of differentiation within the Ruthenian community into two currents: national and pro-Ukrainian.
Disputes between the two currents came to full expression at the end of 2005, when prof. Dr. Julijan Tamaš, as one of the most prominent representatives of the pro-Ukrainian current and the then president of VANU (Vojvodina Academy of Sciences and Arts), pointed out the appearance of alleged "Rusyn fascism", which caused indignation among the representatives of the Rusyn community in Serbia, and the protest against such insinuations was officially expressed by the leadership of Matica Rusinska. During the following years, the differences between the national and pro-Ukrainian streams deepened. In 2007, the pro-Ukrainian part changed its name to the Union of Ruthenian Ukrainians of Serbia, which made official the existence of a specific community of Ruthenian-Ukrainians, whose members identify themselves as Ukrainians, but continue to cherish a special form of Ruthenian identity, considering themselves a branch of the Ukrainian people. National Ruthenism is still nurtured among members of the Ruthenian people who are gathered around the Ruthenian Motherland and other Ruthenian organizations that have remained committed to their original national identity.
Today in Vojvodina and Serbia, Ruthenians make up the largest part of the population in Rusk Krstur, Kucur and Bikića Dol. There are also significant numbers of Rusyns in Novi Sad, Đurđevo, Vrbas, Šida, Berkasovo and Bačinci.
photo: Robert Choban...
Rusin, Olympian in Berlin in 1936.
In front of the Ruthenian Museum in Đurđevo is a bust of Jason Jaša Bakov (1906–1974), on which the Olympic rings are also located. Bakov was a member of the Yugoslav athletics team from 1934 to 1948. He competed in the pole vault. He was born in 1906 in Đurđevo in a Ruthenian family. At the persuasion of his mother and grandfather, who was a priest, he entered the Faculty of Theology in Rome, and graduated from the Faculty of Philosophy in Belgrade. He was three times champion of Yugoslavia in the pole vault in 1934 (3,30 m), 1937 (3,50 m) and 1947 (3,70 m). He participated in the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, where he set a national record with a jump of 3,70 m, but failed to qualify for the finals. He shared the 26th place. He achieved a personal record of 3,75 m in 1937.
Jaša Bakov is one of the pioneers of athletics in Russian Krstur, where, after finishing his competitive career, he transferred his experiences to the younger generation as a coach. After Yasha's death, the traditional sports games of Rusyns bear his name.
