RUTHENIANS
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RUTHENIANS
Italy and France, this same word was also used later
in describing them in their native land, where descrip-
tions came to be written by western writers who first
came in contact with them. Indeed the word " Ruthe-
nian " is considerably older than the word "Russian",
in describing Slavic nationality; for the term Russia
(Rossia), indicating the political state and govern-
ment, did not come into use until the fourteenth or
fifteenth century.
The Ruthenians may well claim to be the original Russians. Theirs was the land where Sts. Cyril and Methodius converted the Slavic peoples, and that land, with Kieff as the centre, became the starting point of Greco-Slavic Christianity, and for centuries that centre was the religious and political capital of the present Russia. Great Russia was then merely a conglomerate of Swedish, Finnish, and Slavic tribes, and although it has since become great and has sub- dued its weaker brethren, it does not represent the historic race as does the Ruthenian in the south. They were never so thoroughly under the rule of the con- quering Tatar as the Great Russians of Moiicow, Vladimir, and Kazan. Besides, Little Russia was separated from Great Russia and was for nearly five centuries subject to Poland and Lithuania. Yet Great Russia has become in Russia the norm of Russian nationality, and has succeeded largely in suppressing and arresting the development of the Little Russians within the empire. It is no wonder that the old dreams of Mazeppa, Chmielnicki, and Shevchonko of Little Russia, independent both of Russia and Poland, have found a lodgment in the hearts of the Southern Russians; the same feeling ha.s gained ground among the Ruthenians of Galicia and Hungary, surrounded as they are by the German, Polish, and Hungarian peoples. However, the milder and more equitable rule of Austria-Hungary has prevented direct political agitation, although there is occasional trouble. The resultant of such forces among the Ruthenians of Galicia and Hungary has been the formation of polit- ical parties, which they have brought to America with them. These may be divided into three large groups: the Ukraintzi, those who believe in and foster the development of the Ruthenians along their own lines, quite independent of Russia, the Poles or the Germans, and who actually look forward to the inde- pendence of Little Russia, almost analogous to the Home Rulers of Ireland; the Moscophiles, those who look to present Russia as the norm of the Russo- Slavic race and who are partisans of Panslavism; these may be likened to the Unionists of Ireland, in order to round out the comparison; the Ugro-Russki, Hungarian Ruthenians, who while objecting to Hun- gary, and particular phases of Hungarian rule, have no idea of losing their own peculiar nationality by taking present Russia as their standard; they hold themselves aloof from both the other parties, the ideas of the Ukraintzi being particularly distasteful to them. (See Greek Catholics in America.) In Russia all political agitation for Little Russia and for Little Russian customs and peculiarities is prohibited; it is only since 1905 that newspapers and other publica- tions in the Little Russian language have been per- mitted. It was Little Russia which united with the Holy See in 1595, in the great reunion of the Greek Church; and it was in Little Russia where the press- ure of the Russian Government was brought to bear in 1795, 1839, and 1875, whereby the Greek Catholics of Little Russia were utterly wiped out and some 7,000,000 of the Uniats there were compelled, partly by force and partly by deception, to become part of the Greek Orthodox Church.
In some indefinable manner the Ruthenian or Little Russian speech is considered as leading away from Russian unity, whether of State or Church; the prompt return of a quarter of a million of Little Rus- sians to Catholicism in 1905-06, at the time of the decree
of toleration, perhaps lends countenance to the belief
in Russian minds. The Ruthenian language is very
close to the Russian and both are descendants of the an-
cient Slavonic tongue which is still used in the Mass
and in the liturgical books. The Ruthenian, however,
in the form of its words, is much nearer the Church
Slavonic than the modern Russian language is. Still
it does not differ much from the modern Russian or
the so-called Great Russian language ; it bears some-
what the same relation to the latter as the Lowland
Scotch does to English or the Plattdeutsch to German.
The Ruthenians in Austria-Hungary and the Little
Russians in Russia use the Russian alphabet and wTite
their language in almost the same orthography as the
Great Russian, but in many cases they pronounce it
differently. It is almost like the case of an Englishman
and a Frenchman who write the word science exactly
alike, but each pronounces it in a different manner.
Many words are unlike in Ruthenian and Russian, for
example, bachiti, to see, in Ruthenian, becomes videt
in Russian; pershy, first, in Ruthenian, is perry in
Russian. All this tends to differentiate the two lan-
guages, or extreme dialects, as they might be called.
In late years a recession of the Russian alphabet in
Galicia and Bukowina has provoked much dissension.
For the purpose of more closely accommodating the
Russian alphabet to the Ruthenian, they added two
new letters and rejected three old ones, then spelled
all the Ruthenian or Little Russian words exactly
as thej' are pronounced. This "phonetic" alphabet
differentiates the Ruthenian more than ever from the
Russian. It has divided Ruthenian writers into two
great camps: the "etymological", which retains the
old system of spelling, and the "phonetic", which
advocates the new system. It has even been made a
basis of political action, and the phonetic system of
orthography is still strongly opposed, partly because
it was an Austrian governmental measure and partly
because it is regarded as an effort to detach the Ru-
thenians from the rest of the Russian race and in a
measure to Polonize them. The phonetic system of
wTiting has never been adopted among the Hungarian
Ruthenians, and it is only within the last two or three
years that anyone has dared to use it in Little Russian
publications issued in the Russian Empire. Yet in
many parts of Hvmgary the Ruthenian language is
printed in Roman letters so as to reach those who are
not acquainted with the Russian alphabet. The lan-
guage question has led to many debates in the Austrian
parliament and has been taken up by many Ruthenian
magazines and reviews. The Ruthenians have also
brought their language and political difficulties with
them to America (see Greek Catholics in America,
under snhtMe Ruthenian Greek Catholics), where they
encounter them as obstacles to racial progress. Not
only in history but in literature have the Ruthenians
or Little Russians held an honourable place. Their
chief city, Kieff, was the capital of the country before
Moscow was founded in the middle of the twelfth
century. A portion of them led the wild, stirring life
of the Cossacks, painted in Gogol's romance of "Taras
Bulba"; their revolt under Chmielnicki in 1648 is
pictured by Sienkiewicz in his historical romance
"With Fire and Sword"; that of half a century later
under Mazeppa is made known to most of us by
Byron's verse. They had free printing presses for
secular as well as religious literature in the sixteenth
century; still many of their best writers, such as
Gogol, have used the Great Russian language even
when their themes were Little Russian, just as so
much of the text of Scott's Scotch novels is pure
English. The Ruthenian language, however, has been
employed by authors of international repute, the
greatest of whom is the poet Shevchenko. Other
authors of widening reputation have followed in the
present century, and some like Gowda have trans-
ferred their literary efforts to American soil.
