Straddling Borders: Literature and Identity in Subcarpathian Rus' by Elaine s> Rusinko (review)

Abstract

REVIEWS 12 I may lament the loss of these sources, thisworkdoes clear the ground of many misapprehensions. In this new-hewn clearing, historians are now obliged to devise a researchagenda to recover the lost world ofJews in Rus'. Department ofHebrewandJewish Studies JOHN D. KLIER University College London Rusinko, Elaine. Straddling Borders. Literature andIdentityin Subcarpathian Rus'. University of Toronto Press, Toronto, Buffalo, NY and London, 2003. xii + 560 pp. Table. Map. Notes. Bibliography.Index. $I25.00: /8o.oo. THISmassive tome, which appeared simultaneouslywith a similarlyvoluminous book by Marc Stegherr(DasRussinische, Munich, 2003), signalsa growing scholarly interest in Rusyn literature and language. Rusinko's study was inspired by Paul Robert Magosci, who guided the author in her quest of Rusyn identity through the prism of literature (p. 8). To prove that Rusyns constitute an ethnic group with all necessary characteristics to become potentially a distinct nationality (p. 9), Rusinko tackles the question of their identity from the perspective of cultural studies, especially postcolonialism (P. 15). The postcolonial experience of Rusyns is indiscriminatelycompared by Rusinkowith oppressedculturesinAfrica,the Caribbeanregion,Australia, New Zealand, India and Arab countries(pp. i6, i i6, 234, 239, 248ff.), hence her neologism 'the Subcarpathian creole' in reference to the local literary standard(p. 292). The volume is provided with a transliterationtable, indispensable for the multi-lingualnature of this study, and a map of 'the CarpathianRus', 2000', representing the Rusyn territories in Ukraine, Slovakia, Romania and Hungary. There are six chapters in the book with numerous sections which, unfortunately, are not reflected in the table of contents. Yet one reads the study with keen interest, for the chronological and well-detailed account of the Rusyn identity formation through literature and language, viewed as 'a social and culturalconstruction'(p. 9). Rusinko's main claim is a unique 'in-between' national narrative between East and West, Orthodoxy and Catholicism, Slavonic and Latin, Hungarian and Rusyn dialect (p. i8). This 'in-between' cultural essence, based on the concept of the 'other',leads her to claim that both Russophilism and Ukrainophilism were counterdiscourses to Magyar domination and Czech colonialismrespectively(pp. I7, 277). However, only Rusyn populism, which firstemerged in Rusyn literature (Sabov, Voloshyn, Vrabel', et al.) at the beginning of the twentieth century, could resist 'Ukrainian cultural hegemony' and 'colonialism'(pp. 362, 452). This iswhy Rusinkosympathizes with contemporary Rusyn writers(e. g., Petrovtsiiand Fedynyshynets')who, despite their radical calls for the disintegrationof Ukraine as a unitary state, might allegedly produce 'a distinct European-level literature,hybrid in form and language, but united in resistance to Ukrainian cultural hegemony' (p. 452). Rusinko is somewhat inconsistent in her argumentation. While speaking about Rusynophilism, the author eschews explaining why this populist strain 122 SEER, 84, I, 2006 was endorsed by the Hungarian government (p. 280), which in I939 started promoting 'apatrioticRusyn orientation'and convincing the people that they were not Ukrainian, but Rusyn (p. 426). A similar language policy was pursued by the Czechoslovak authorities, and later the Slovak government, which supportedaratherhastilypreparedcodificationofthe Rusynvernacular in I995. Rusinko'sdiscussionof languagematterscastsseriousdoubt on the cogency of her pro-Rusyn arguments. The author maintains that the Rusyns speak 'several East Slavic dialects' (p. 8). Yet the three-volumeAtlasukrains'koi movy (I984-2001) convincingly showsthattheyareUkrainian dialects.It hasalso been established(see, for example, George Y. Shevelov, A Historical Phonology of theUkrainian Language, Heidelberg, I979) that the said dialects have been developing in an all-Ukrainian context which produced the Subcarpathian standardof the Ukrainian literarylanguage, as well as Galician, Bukovynian and Bachka-SremRusyn. Rusinko believes that the Gherlakhovinterpretiveepistle and the Tereblia prologue were written in the Russian recension of Church Slavonic (p. 38) ratherthan in the Ukrainian(Ruthenian)recension.The authoralsoidentifies Church Slavonic used by HryhoriiTarkovych(I 754-184 1) as Slaveno-Rusyn (p. go). However, the firstgrammarof the Slaveno-Rusynlanguageby Arsenii Korsak(I 788) was modelled on the Slavonic grammarof Meletii Smotryts'kyi (p. 9I), who introduced the new (Ruthenian) version of Church Slavonic, accepted by Moscow. Leaning heavily on Magosci, Rusinko is too hasty to assert that the first Rusyn printed book is the Catechism (in fact, primer) of Joseph de Camillis(i 64I- I706), publishedin i 698. One legitimatelywonders to what extent the language of the Catechism was Carpatho-Rusyn, inasmuch as...