University of Toronto Press publishes three books by Magocsi (02/23/03)

University of Toronto Press publishes three books by Magocsi

by Oksana Zakydalsky

TORONTO - At the end of 2002, the University of Toronto Press published three books by Prof. Paul Robert Magocsi. One of the books - the "Encyclopedia of Rusyn History and Culture," co-edited by Prof. Magocsi and Prof. Ivan Pop - is a new venture and the culmination of a five-year effort. The large size book has 1,070 alphabetically arranged entries and, although there is no index, there are 1,400 cross references in alphabetical arrangement with the main entries, which is handy for the reader who does not have to flip back and forth between two lists.

More than half of the entries are biographies of individuals, but Prof. Magocsi explained that "the work is not an encyclopedia of Rusyns, but an encyclopedia about Rusyn history and culture and so the criterion for inclusion was not that a person was of Rusyn descent, but rather that a person has made a contribution to Rusyn historical or cultural development."

Other entries cover a variety of topics - organizations, political parties, publications, historical terms, etc. There are also a dozen thematic entries such as archeology, architecture, historiography, history, language, etc. However, there are no entries or even cross referencing on some topics one would expect to find in such a reference work, for example entries on Canada, USA or Religion.

Although the encyclopedia involved 17 authors and 24 advisors in nine countries, about 90 percent of the entries were written by three authors, all historians - Bogdan Horbal (born in Poland, living in the United States since 1990), Prof. Magocsi, (who holds the Chair of Ukrainian Studies, University of Toronto) and Ivan Pop (born in Czecho-Slovakia and now living in the Czech Republic).

The introduction states that "this is the first encyclopedia to deal with the historical past and culture of Rusyns in all countries where they live. It is intended to serve as a reference tool for specialists in Carpatho-Rusyn studies and for those in need of introductory information about one of the many peoples who live in central and eastern Europe ... Because the Rusyns are and have been a stateless people ... the first problem faced by the editors of this encyclopedia was to define the subject and its parameters."

In a paper on the encyclopedia presented last spring to the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies (AAASS), Prof. Magocsi's answer to "who are the Rusyns" was that "the criterion for determining who was a Rusyn in these settlements was self-ascription, namely persons who answered on decennial censuses (1900, 1910, 1920) that their mother tongue or their nationality was Rusyn."

In the introduction to the encyclopedia, Prof. Magocsi writes, "This is the first such volume about a people called by various names - Rusyns, Ruthenians, Carpatho-Ukrainians, Russians, Lemkos - the encyclopedia uses the term 'Rusyn' to cover all of the above names of people living in or coming from the territory defined as Carpathian Rus - territory inhabited by East Slavs along the southern and in part northern slopes of the Eastern Carpathians." According to present-day boundaries, the territory is divided among Poland, Slovakia, Ukraine and Romania - the Lemko Region in Poland, the Presov Region in Slovakia, Subcarpathian Rus (Zakarpatska Oblast) in Ukraine, and the Maramures Region in Romania.

Thus, it becomes quite confusing to pin down who exactly are the Rusyns. In his review of Prof. Magocsi's seminal work on Carpatho-Rusyn history, "The Shaping of National Identity," historian Ivan Lysiak Rudnytsky criticized Prof. Magocsi's selection of the term Rusyn to be synonymous with "Ruthenian," as "Ruthenian" was a wider term and was the commonly used name in English to describe East Slavic inhabitants of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and Ukrainian subjects of the Habsburg Empire. Prof. Rudnytsky also pointed out that Prof. Magocsi ignored the dynamics of the post World War I nation-building process in the region of Carpathian Rus where the self-ascription of eastern Slavs underwent a significant change from Rusyn to Ukrainian.

Although one would like to "get on with it," accept that there exists an entity "Rusyn" and use the encyclopedia to learn more about them, the book's persistent labeling - Rusyn national orientation, Russian national orientation, Ukrainian national orientation - makes this hard to do. Thus a person born in the territory that has been designated Carpathian Rus is not described as Ukrainian (even if that was what he called himself) but as being of "Ukrainian national orientation." The term of designation Ukrainian is used for persons or groups that originate outside Carpathian Rus, obscuring the fact that a large number of persons coming from Carpathian Rus or living there (particularly in the interwar period) called themselves Ukrainian.

"Ukrainian national orientation" is used for Stepan Rosokha and Vasyl Grendzha-Donsky, while Avhustyn Voloshyn is labeled a "supporter of Ukrainian national orientation." Although Ivan Franko is called a Ukrainian, Volodymyr Kubiiovych is a Galician-Ukrainian (referred to as Volodymyr Mykhailovych, something a Galician would not call himself).

Prof. Magocsi pointed out, "This book is not written for Ukrainians nor is it written as an alternative for a Ukrainian or for that matter a Russian understanding of this part of the world, but rather from the perspective of this world itself. Much of what one sees in this book is how Rusyns themselves perceived themselves. If it coincides or differs from how others perceive them - Ukrainians being only one of the groups looking at them from the outside - then so be it. There is no active attempt to either deny or question or undermine how others may look at this part of the world."

Throughout the Encyclopedia "Ukrainianism" is seen as something imposed, either by the nationalists from Galicia in the inter-war period or the post-war Communist regime which incorporated Carpathian Rus into Soviet Ukraine. From the entry on Ukrainians: "Students from Subcarpathian Rus attending schools in Prague were also 'transformed' [quotes used in the original] into Ukrainians as a result of propaganda undertaken by the numerous Ukrainian émigré organizations."

When one wants to familiarize oneself with a new reference-type of book, it is natural for the reader to turn to entries on topics he is familiar with in order to get a feel for the approach adopted in the work. In spite of the fact that Prof. Magocsi has said that the encyclopedia was "not written for Ukrainians," the Ukrainian reader will turn to the Ukrainian topics, if only because he can put them into some sort of familiar context.

Many of the entries on such Ukrainian-related topics were authored by the book's co-editor, Prof. Pop (born in 1938), who has a biographical entry in the encyclopedia which states that he is a historian, professor and editor of "Rusyn national orientation" and says that he spent the greater part of his working years (1963-1992) in Moscow at the Institute of Slavic and Balkan Studies of the Soviet Academy of Sciences. After a two-year stay at the Institute of Carpathian Studies in Uzhhorod (1992-1994), his biography says that he was asked to leave because he lobbied for a federal structure for the Ukrainian state. He has lived in the Czech Republic since 1994. Although there is no mention of any association with Moscow State University in his biographical entry, the book jacket describes him as a "retired professor of history at Moscow State University."

Prof. Magocsi has pointed out that "in a book such as this, there are facts, interpretation of facts and tone" and admitted that there is a difference in tone in the entries signed by him and those signed by Prof. Pop, but he explained that Prof. Pop is a distinguished diplomatic historian on the 20th century and familiar with the archives and "does bring to light certain aspects of a story that in general terms is known to Ukrainian readers but that has a part that they have not heard of. Every historical tradition has its own mythology. And it becomes a question of how much should an encyclopedia be at the same type of tone without the specific interpretive statements of the author. All the entries are signed. All entries are the responsibility of the author."

It is what Prof. Magocsi calls "the tone" of the Pop-authored articles that will bother the Ukrainian reader. It sometimes reminds one of "the tone" encountered in Soviet writings on Ukrainian history topics, including the use of Soviet phraseology.

In the entry on the Carpathian Sich, Mr. Pop writes, "Following the example of Nazi German stormtroopers... the Carpathian Sich terrorized that portion of the Subcarpathian population it considered politically unreliable, in particular Russophiles and Jews."

Under the entry on Carpatho-Ukraine, Prof. Pop says "The pro-Ukrainian government that was formed in autonomous Subcarpathian Rus on October 26, 1938, under the leadership of Avhustyn Voloshyn came into being on instructions from Nazi German authorities in Berlin. The governing system of Carpatho-Ukraine was greatly influenced by members of OUN, who in turn, were closely linked to Nazi Germany..."

The entry on Avhustyn Voloshyn includes this new information: "at the recommendation of Nazi Germany, the Czechoslovak government appointed him [Voloshyn] prime minister of the second government of Subcarpathian Rus ... he systematically did away with parliamentary-style rule and informed governing circles in Nazi Germany that he would create an authoritative regime in the province." The entry on Iulian Revai refers to "the Ukrainian National Union, which in many ways modeled itself on the methods employed by Germany's Nazi Party"; while the entry on Stepan Rosokha notes that "Throughout his career Rosokha was a typical nationalist demagogue who did whatever possible to maintain a leading position in the circles within which he operated." (One wonders where Prof. Pop obtained such an intimate portrait of Mr. Rosokha who immigrated to Canada in 1949 and died in Toronto in 1986). In the entry on Optanty (the return of Ukrainians to the Volyn region in 1946-1947), Prof. Pop writes about "nightly raids by Banderite forces of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA)." However, there is no entry under Banderite or Bandera in the encyclopedia to clarify this statement.

There are entries which include explanations that contradict those of established historians. Writing on Mykhailo Drahomanov (who not only visited Hungarian Subcarpathian Rus in the 1870's but was extremely shocked by the condition of the people whom he called "the wounded brother") Mr. Pop's entry states, "[Drahomanov] provided an objective analysis of the Russophile movement in the region, which he viewed as the only means for the local Rusyn intelligentsia to defend itself against the reactionary Magyarization policies of the Hungarian government." Ivan Rudnytsky, however, wrote. "In his [Drahomanov's] interpretation, Russophilism represented a natural reaction against overwhelming Hungarian pressure ... Drahomanov concluded that Russophilism was self-defeating because it deprived the Russophiles of the ability to resist Magyarization effectively by alienating the intelligensia from the common people." ("Modern Ukrainian History," p. 362).

Prof. Magocsi explained: "Why should an encyclopedia be boring. My view is that the facts should be there, those cannot be missing, and if they are interpreted one way or another, if it takes a stance and if it provokes in the reader a reaction - I think it is an interesting encyclopedia. The generalized standard of an encyclopedia giving the facts and not taking a stand - that's one way of looking at an encyclopedia, but it does not necessarily have to be the only way - if some of these entries provoke thought and reflection, satisfaction or anger, I personally think that in itself is OK."

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