Rola historii w legitymizacji aspiracji narodowych grup pogranicza kulturowego: casus Rusinów Karpackich
The Role of History in Legitimizing National Aspirations of Cultural Borderland Groups: The Case of Carpathian Rusyns

Summary/Abstract: In recent years, public discourse has seen a debate on historical policy implemented by nation-states. In this article, I aim to focus on a minority group that strives for national self-determination. Ethnic leaders of the Carpatho-Rusyn group – which will be the subject of my interest – as I will try to show, implement a specific historical policy, "using" history to legitimize their group's national aspirations. The mythical construction of the past, characteristic of ethnic groups and nations, is an important element of group identity. Factual accuracy is not the most important here; history and historical memory are important insofar as they fulfill an integrating function, maintain group cohesion, and sustain and strengthen its identity. Referring to history, ethnic myths, history, and tradition is also the basis of national and ethnic ideologies. The mythologized knowledge of the past describes the world as meaningful and coherent, thus being an important element of ethnic and national identity. The ideological, emotionally close-to-group members' image of the past is often the result of rediscovering one's own tradition – the "invention of tradition." Groups seeking justifications for their ethnic/national aspirations select and interpret historical facts, figures, and cultural elements in such a way that a desired mythical image of the world emerges, containing expected symbolic meanings. Therefore, some events and people, inconsistent with this desired world model, dysfunctional from the point of view of group interest, disappear from the arena of history, while others acquire disproportionately great significance. The article describes how ethnic leaders use history to justify the distinctiveness of the Rusyn and Ukrainian groups. The use of history to legitimize national aspirations is not a new phenomenon for the Rusyn group, which emerged with the last wave of ethnic revival in the 1980s. Already earlier, in the 19th and early 20th centuries, when the nationally indifferent Carpatho-Rusyn population entered the orbit of nation-forming processes, competitive interpretations of history emerged, aiming to justify the Rusyns' belonging to a specific nation. The article presents the key elements of the Carpatho-Rusyn vision of history, designed to legitimize the group's contemporary aspirations to be the fourth East Slavic nation: ethnogenesis (origin from White Croats); the legacy of Kievan Rus' (Rusyn territories never belonged to Kievan Rus'); the mission of Cyril and Methodius (they brought Christianity to Rusyns before St. Volodymyr); Rusyn distinctiveness as a result of belonging to Western states (Hungary, Austria, Czechoslovakia); national aspirations of Rusyns already in the mid-19th century; the Rusyn nation-forming process as part of similar processes among other Slavic nations of the Habsburg monarchy; political revival after World War I (self-governing organizations, attempts to unite Lemkovyna with territories south of the Carpathians); autonomy (Subcarpathian Rus' under Czechoslovakia); Communism – the tragedy of the Rusyn nation. The author emphasizes that Rusyn leaders consistently highlight the "beautiful history" of Carpatho-Rusyns, aiming to demonstrate it as longer and more significant than that of the Ukrainian nation.

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