The situation that prevailed in Czechoslovakia before November 1989 must never happen again! With this motto Rusyns today stand side by side with Czechs, Slovaks, and other nationalities in our beloved fatherland - free Czechoslovakia. Indeed, all honest Rusyns are standing up, those living in the Beskyd mountains in our unfortunate Makovyca that has been so cherished, praised and deplored by our national awakeners, as well as those dispersed by their Rusyn fate to live all over Czechoslovakia, from Aš in the far western tip of Bohemia to Čierna nad Tisou in the far southeastern corner of the country.
Rusyns, too, too part in the monumental protests and manifestations that marked our "velvet" November revolution. Rusyn voices were heard in Prague, Bratislava, Košice and Prešov. Together with Slovaks and Czechs they proclaimed: "We want to return to Europe!" For forty-one years we, together with the other nationalities of our fatherland, were cut off from Europe. But our suffering began earlier in this century.
Actually, it began together with the Czechs immediately after the disintegration of the first Czechoslovak Republic in 1938. Our Rusyn homeland entered the limelight and interests of the world powers for whom the Rusyns were little more than small change in their mutual dealings. The Carpatho-Rusyns, who had been the co-founders of the first Czechoslovak Republic, were now divided among several states. Nor did the post-war carving up of the map of Europe change anything in the division of our people. Hence, the present transition of our country in joining the ranks of the democratic states in Central Europe presents us with an opportunity to come to life again and to take up a respected place among the free nationalities of our fatherland - the new, democratic Czechoslovakia. To be ready for this renaissance, after so many years of social deformation, we must look back to the past and into our history in order to know what we should do and how we should shape our future.
We, the Rusyns of Czechoslovakia, declare ourselves kin to our East Slavic brethren - the Ukrainians, Russians, and Belorussians - but we do not identify ourselves with them. Our history is different because we were always geopolitically isolated from them. We belong to Central Europe, where, alongside our West Slavic neighbors, the Slovaks, we survived a thousand years of Hungarian dominance. Together with the Slovaks, we remained Slavs - specifically Rusyns. We preserved our ancestral name, Rusyn, which we received from Kievan Rus'. We realize with great pride how we are part of the heritage of Cyril and Methodius, the Apostles to the Slavs and co-patrons of Europe, from whom we received Christianity a hundred years before Kievan Rus' was baptized. Christianity has spread among our ancestors from our neighbors the Daco-Romanians, who received it first from the Romans and in final form as part of Byzantine political and religious-cultural expansion. The Byzantine character of Christianity from Romania spread among our ancestors through the Vlach migration and colonization through the entire Carpathian range. Trances of this colonization are still found as far west as Valašké Meziříčí in Moravia.
Our ancestors provided refuge to their East Slavic brethren from the northern slopes of the Carpathians, from the principality of Galicia, when it was being oppressed and pillaged by the Tataro-Mongol hordes. Considerable support for our ancestors came in the fourteenth century with the arrival into the Hungarian Kingdom of Prince Fedor Koriatovych of Podolia and his entire retinue. The arrival from Podolia of our brethren, the Boikos, was a milestone in the history of our people, because in view of the circumstances prevailing in those times, the administrative, ecclesiastical, and cultural aspects of our ancestors' life was improved substantially. Following the arrival of Prince Koriatovych south of the Carpathians, the Rusyns entered a centuries-long struggle for the preservation of their national identity. For Rusyns, a great support in this struggle was their Christian faith according to the Byzantine rite, which, thanks to its Church Slavonic liturgical language, was understandable to the people. The long-term proximity with the Catholic nations of Central Europe - the Slovaks, Hungarians, Poles - brought our ancestors into union with the Roman Church while at the same time preserving their Eastern rite and liturgical language. The possibility to draw from the spiritual culture of the western church and from the cultural heritage of neighboring peoples brought our own national enlighteners to the fore - Duchnovyc, Stavrovs'kyj-Popradov, Luchkai, Mitrak, Dobrians'kyi. And led by the best representatives of our people, we Rusyns made a truly correct decision in 1918: we established, together with the Czechs and Slovaks, the first Czechoslovak Republic. The territory on which most of the Rusyns were living was designated by the Rusyn co-founders of this new Slavic state in the heart of Europe - Subcarpathian Rus'. In this way, Rusyn revealed that they were East Slavs whose common cradle was Kievan Rus' of the grand duke Vladimir of the Rurykide dynasty. Through their loyalty to the spiritual heritage of Cyril and Methodius, teh Apostles to all the Slavs, the Rusyns proved that even under difficult circumstances they were able to preserve their faith and rite in the form they had received it from the saintly brothers from Salonika.
By the time Subcarpathian Rus' came into being, the Rusyns had their own literary language which they had perfected and in which Rusyn linguists and belletrists like Luchkai, Dovhovych, Stavrovs'kyi-Popradov, and Mitrak wrote. And so it seemed to all honest Rusyns that the words of challenge from the Rusyn national anthem would finally be realized: "Subcarpathian Rusyns, Arise from Your Deep Slumber..." Although Rusyns never had the opportunity for independence within the Hungarian Kingdom, they now hoped to gain for Subcarpathian Rus' full autonomy, which would serve as a guarantee for the improvement of the social status of all classes.
The democratic character of the first Czechoslovak Republic offered a real hope that the yearning of Rusyns for life as a free distinct people would materialize. Nobody would have thought at the time that history would grant only twenty years for this free life. In retrospect, we must admit that in the first Czechoslovak Republic several error were committed by the leadership of the young state. A short-sighted nationality policy was implemented concerning Rusyns. Part of this was related to humanitarian concerns, which allowed vast numbers of Ukrainians and Russian emigrés to settle within the Czechoslovak republic. These peoples sought ways to earn a living, and hence both groups were unleashed among the Rusyns whom they tried to attract to their respective sides. However, instead of a peaceful
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