Ioannykij Bazylovyč (1742-1821)

Ioannykij Bazylovyč (1742-1821)

The nineteenth century is generally considered the age of nationalism.  This was a time, most especially in Europe,  when numerous peoples - whether or not they had their own states - formed national communities whose members were gradually taught to be aware of their common history, language, and ethnographic characteristics.  Once peoples acquired a sense of common identity, their leaders usually attempted through political (and sometimes military) means to obtain autonomy and even independent statehood for the territory considered to comprise the national homeland.

In effect, not only were states or political societies "invented," they often emerged from conflict and were maintained by a combination of physical force and a carefully nurtured myth of national identity.  This process of nation-building began for some peoples even before the nineteenth century.  For instance, Britain came into being as an "invented community" in the eighteenth century following the union in 1707, when England and Wales united with Scotland.

Stateless peoples also began the process of nation-building in the eighteenth century, and this included the Carpatho-Rusyns living in the heart of the European continent.  The early stages of nation-building among stateless peoples usually focused on what might be called heritage-gathering, that is a period when a small group of leaders were engaged in writing histories, preparing grammars and dictionaries, publishing poetry and prose in the "new" literary language, and describing the folk customs that were distinctive for a given people.  History writing was particularly important, because a properly crafted historical text could teach readers that a given stateless people may have had a glorious past, even independence, and that therefore such a people would be deserving of no less in the future.

It is interesting to observe that some of the earliest "national" histories were motivated by rather limited interests, in particular a need to prove that a people or perhaps an institution should be given certain rights because they had been guaranteed such rights at some point in the past.  It became, therefore, the task of the historian to justify present-day legal needs by uncovering "proofs" from the past.  This was precisely how Carpatho-Rusyn historiography (history writing) began, and the person responsible was the monk, Ioannykij Bazylovyč.

Ioannykij Bazylovyč was born in 1742 into a peasant family living in the Carpatho-Rusyn inhabited village of Hlivištia (former Už county in the Hungarian Kingdom) in what is today eastern Slovakia.  Despite the poverty of his parents, they managed to send the young Ioannykij to study for the priesthood in nearby Užhorod and Košice.  He entered the Greek Catholic Basilian Order and the Monastery of St. Nicholas on Monk's Hill (Černeča Hora), near Mukačevo.  In 1779, he was as appointed head (protoihumen) of the monastery, a position he held for the next 38 years until his death.

The Monastery of St. Nicholas near Mukačevo was at the time the most important religious and cultural center for Rusyns living south of the Carpathians, but in 1785 its prestige and legal status were challeneged.  A book appeared in that year claiming that the founding charter of the monastery dating back to 1360 was a forgery.  Bazylovyč felt obliged to prove the authenticity of the charter, supposedly drawn up by Prince Fedir Koriatovyč in 1360.  In response to this "legal" challenge", he began to write a three-volume work in Latin that eventually appeared in six parts between 1799 and 1805 under the title, A Short Description of the Donation of Fedir Koriatovyč, Prince of Mukačevo, for the Ruthenian Religious Order of St. Basil the Great on Monk's Hill in Mukačevo in the Year 1360.


In the end, Bazylovyč's work turned out to be much more than a treatise on the Koriatovyč donation.  It became what could be called the first national history of the Carpatho-Rusyns, covering the period from the earliest times to the last decade of the eighteenth century.  In the tradition of other contemporary and later national ideologists, Bazylovyč constructed a historical framework - some would say he created "an imagined political community" - that allowed readers to conclude that Rusyns were a people with their own distinct past and potential future.  His framework was based on five premises: (1) that Rusyns were the indigenous population in the Carpathians, that is, they inhabited the region before the coming of the Magyars in 896; (2) that in the early medieval period they had an independent state called the Marchia Ruthenorum (the Rus' Land), ruled by Rusyn princes as well as by Emerich, the son of Hungary's first king, St. Stephen; (3) that Rusyns were converted to Christianity in the wake of the Cyril-Methodian mission of 863; (4) that Rusyns subsequently fought against the Hungarians for independence; and (5) that the last independent Rusyn ruler was Prince Fedir Koriatovyč, who arrived in Mukačevo with 40,000 new Rusyn settlers from beyond the Carpathians and who founded the St. Nicholas Monastery on Monk's Hill in 1360.

Bazylovyč's historical framework was to influence several generations of Rusyn historians.  While it is true that some of his conclusions were later challenged by more comprehensive research, nonetheless his views have continued to this day to determine the popular understanding of early Rusyn history.  It is, therefore quite appropriate that already at the end of the nineteenth century, one Rusyn writer, aware that the profession of history writing began in ancient Greece, dubbed Ioannykij Bazylovyč "the Herodotus of Carpatho-Rusyn historiography."

Philip Michaels

MLA Citation: Michaels, Philip. "Ioannykij Bazylovyč (1742-1821)." Carpatho-Rusyn American XV, no. 4 (1992): 3

In Memorium: Andy Warhol (1928-1997)

Andy Warhol (1928-1987)

In the 1960s, Andy Warhol gained virtually instant fame as one of America's most innovative artists.  Although he came to be a most public figure, his natural shyness served to obscure the fact that he was of Carpatho-Rusyn background.  Most of his work was done in New York City, but he never left his Pittsburgh roots or his Carpatho-Rusyn heritage far behind.  His unique sensibility was shaped by Pittsburgh influences, including ethnocultural ties, religious life, Byzantine iconography, art classes at Schenley High School, Hornes department store display windows, and the artist and teacher Robert Lepper at the Carnegie Institute of Technology (now Carnegie Mellon University).

As an internationally recognized painter, photographic craftsman, film maker, and pop art celebrity, Warhol appeared reluctant to discuss his origins.  Once when asked about his background, he replied, "Why don't you make it up?"  In dealing with the media, he liked to be mysterious, provocative, and even something of a riddle.  Perhaps this is why a number of contradictory statements from reputable reference books and newspapers have appeared.

The facts of Andy Warhol's background were revealed through discussions between the Warhola family and Dr. Paul R. Magocsi who wrote: "Andy Warhol was born as Andrew Warhola in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1928.  Both his parents came from Miková, a tiny Carpatho-Rusyn mountain village just west of Medzilaborce in the Prešov Region of northeastern Slovakia." (Carpatho-Rusyn American, Vol. III, No. 2, 1980, p. 3)

Family ties were important, because brothers John, Paul and Andy had lived through some hard times.  Their family was always close to the church.  John Warhola commented on Andy: "When Andy was a boy, we thought he was going to be a priest.  Even under pressure, he never swore.  He believed in working hard." Paul and John Warhola vacationed with Andy nearly every year in New York City, where Andy attended church and was a supporting member of St. Mary's Byzantine Catholic parish on East 15th Street in Manhattan.  Among his New York staff it is common knowledge that at 1 p.m., for 15 minutes everyday, he stopped to pray at a nearby Roman Catholic Church, St. Vincent Ferrer.  Finally, we recall that in 1968, when Andy was shot, he called upon a Byzantine Catholic priest from Manhattan for annointing and the last rites.

After Andy Warhol died in a New York hospital on February 22, 1987, the older brothers, John and Paul Warhola, came to take his body home to Pittsburgh.

From listening to the family, one can easily gather that the Warhola clan would hope that Andy Warhol is rememebred as a creative sensibility whose art made a social commentary which was provocative and artistic enough to justify its existence.  They hope that his work will endure as a continuing influence.

As for being accused of indulgence in self flattery and being an elitist, Warhol had a sense of humor about the artist's image.  He gave an insight into his thinking when he said in a 1979 interview, "You can do anything you want, anytime."

A number of writers about contemporary art have used the fascinating expression "pop icon" to describe much of Warhol's art.  Perhaps Warhol's religious and ethnocultural roots can help to explain some of the energy behind the leap from Warhol's early commercial art to his pop iconography.  His idealization and interpretation of secular images from show biz selections, comic strips, ad pages, and television were prefigured in an ancient yet classic style of Eastern Christian art emanating from the Byzantine era.

Warhol was raised in a religious Carpatho-Rusyn family that practices Byzantine Rite Catholicism.  In his formative years from 1928 to 1949, he was exposed to the many icons which were so common in Rusyn-American homes, prayer-books and churches: icons depicting a matter-of-fact yet other worldly presence in just two dimensions de-emphasizing the flesh and pointing to the dominance of the spirit.  These were the images of Andy's youth.

On Thursday, February 26, 1987, Andy Warhol received a traditional Byzantine Catholic funeral service with a liturgy that hails back to the Christian centers of Byzantium.  The service was in English, but some Church Slavonic was also sung.  Internment was at St. John the Baptist Byzantine Catholic Cemetery in Castle Shannon, a suburb of Pittsburgh.  Andy was buried next to his parents.  There, at the gravesite, his associates from New York mourned together with family and friends over the passing of a great man whose personality, talent, energy and passion for work had inspired them.  The burial ended with the chanted prayer:
This grave is being sealed until the second coming of Christ, in the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen.  Grant eternal memory, O Lord, and give him blessed repose.  Vičnaja pamjať, blažennyj pokoj, vičnaja jemu pamjať, Andreju.

Jerry Jumba

MLA Citation: Jumba, Jerry. "In Memorium: Andy Warhol (1928-1987)." Carpatho-Rusyn American X, no. 1 (1987): 4

Adoľf Dobrianskij (1817-1901)

Adoľf I. Dobrianskij (1817-1901)

Adoľf Dobrianskij was the most important Carpatho-Rusyn political leader in the nineteenth century.  He was born in the Rusyn village of Rudlov (Zemplyn County) in the Prešov Region of what is today eastern Slovakia.  Trained as a civil engineer, he worked in the mining industry in Banská Štiavnica (central Slovakia) until 1848.

Dobrianskij's political activity is distinguished by two distinct phases.  Like many other contemporary Slavic leaders, he began as a supporter of the Austrian Hapsburg Monarchy.  When this policy proved unsuccessful, he set his sights on tsarist Russia, which he believed could provide the only salvation for his people.

Dobrianskij's Austrian phase is related to the revolutionary events which rocked Europe in 1848-1849.  All the national minorities in the Hapsburg Empire put forth demands for political and cultural autonomy, and Dobrianskij became the spokesman for the Carpatho-Rusyns.  He met several times with the highest government officials in Vienna, and in April 1849 was appointed liaison to the Russian army which Emperor Franz Joseph had invited to help the Austrians in their struggle against the Hungarian revolutionaries.  Dobrianskij also managed to gain a few concessions for his own people, including some amount of administrative and cultural autonomy for the "Rusyn" Užhorod District, which functioned from November 1848 to March 1849.  Dobrianskij was not successful, however, in achieving his other goal: unification of Carpatho-Rusyns in Galicia, Bukovina, and Subcarpathian Rus' into one political and administrative unit.

After the demise of the "Rusyn" District, Dobrianskij tried to push his idea for Rusyn autonomy in the Hungarian parliament to which he was elected in 1861 and again in 1865.  But Hungarian leaders were very suspicious of this "Pan-Slav agitator" who had helped the Austrian and Russian armies crush their own revolution.  Dobrianskij's project for dividing Hungary into five national districts came to nought.

He was somewhat more successful in the cultural realm.  After the death of Alexander Duchnovyč in 1865, Dobrianskij headed the first official Carpatho-Rusyn cultural society, the Society of St. Basil the Great, founded in Užhorod in 1866.  It was also during these years that Dobrianskij, in cooperation with other Rusyn leaders, succeeded in having Russian (or attempts to write in Russian) used as the literary language for Carpatho-Rusyn publications.  Because of his increasingly pro-Russian cultural and political stance, Dobrianskij's days in his homeland were numbered.  In 1871, he was forced to emigrate to Ľviv in neighboring Austrian Galicia, then in 1875 he went to live in Russia's capital, St. Petersburg, where he was greeted by tsarist officials as a friend and political ally.  When he finally returned to Austria and settled in Galicia in 1881, he was promptly put on trial for treason.  Although he was acquitted, Dobrianskij was forced to live in the farthest western part of Austria, in Innsbruck, until his death in 1901.  Only then could he return home to be buried in the family estate in the Prešov Region village of Čertižné (Zemplyn county).

Dobrianskij's political orientations caused him great personal difficulties.  Because of his early support of the Austrians, he alienated the Hungarians who ruled Subcarpathian Rus'.  Later, his pro-Russian stance not only complicated cultural developments in the homeland, but it also forced him to spend the last decades of his life in exile, far from the Carpathian Mountains he loved.  Nonetheless, in 1848-1849 he did gain political recognition for the Carpatho-Rusyn people who still remember the achievements of their countryman and their first brief experiment in political and cultural autonomy.

MLA Citation: "Adoľf I. Dobrianskij (1817-1901)." Carpatho-Rusyn American I, no. 2 (1978): 3

Fedor Vico (1944- )

Fedor Vico in 2007.  Photo: Michal Maňas

Since the Revolution of 1989, the Carpatho-Rusyns have experienced a veritable national revival in their European homeland.  Within less than two years, they have been officially recognized as a nationality in Czechoslovakia, and they have created organizations in that country as well as in Ukrainian Transcarpathia and the Lemko Region in Poland, where new organizations are working to improve the cultural and political status of Rusyns wherever they may live.  Not surprisingly, all this "political" activity has been carried out by self-appointed leaders who, perhaps more often than is necesssary, take themselves too seriously.  Fortunately, the Rusyn movement, most especially in Czechoslovakia, includes activists who know how to laugh at themselves and at others aroudn them.

Among the best-known of the present-day Rusyn cultural activists in Czechoslovakia is the artist and caricaturist Fedor Vico.  Vico was born in 1955 in Šapinec, a Carpatho-Rusyn village in the Prešov Region of northeastern Slovakia where both his parents functioned as village school teachers.  Although his paternal and maternal parents both came from Rusyn villages (Vyšné Čabiny and Krajná Bystra), their profession as teachers required that they move often.  Thus, Fedor and his older brother began their lives and schooling first in Rusyn villages, but they later moved to western Slovakia (Bratislava and Zvolen) and farther still to Prague.

As a young boy, Vico was always interested in drawing, and to perfect his natural talents he was trained at the School of Industrial Arts in Bratislava.  Another of his talents was a sense of irony and the ability to poke satirical fun at the contradictions between the claims of Communist propaganda and the harsh realities of life in Czechoslovakia.  His first political cartoons began to appear already in the early 1960s, and from 1965 through 1970, Vico became extremely popular through his series, "Dereš," which appeared in the Slovak magazine, Roháč.  This series featured the legendary Slovak Robin Hood figure, Janošík.  In Vico's hands, Janošík became an instrument to criticize the foibles of life in Slovakia.

Vico became best known among Rusyns through his series of political cartoons under the title "Iľko Sova z Bajusova" (Iľko the Owl from Bajusov - an imaginary Rusyn village), which appeared weekly from the mid-1960s to mid-1980s in Nove žyttja, the Ukrainian-language weekly newspaper published in Prešov.  In fact, Vico's cartoons were form many years the only texts in that newspaper which appeared in the Rusyn language.

After an early life of "wandering" with his teacher-parents, since the mid-1960s Vico has made his home in Prešov, where he works out of a modest ground-level studio located opposite the Rusyn Aleksander Duchnovyč Theatre.  From this base, Vico is known by his cartoons throughout Czechoslovakia and abroad.  Since the 1960s, his work has been exhibited in all the major cities of Czechoslovakia as well as several times abroad, in Turkey, Greece, Canada, Japan, Belgium and the Netherlands.  He has also won several awards at art competitons in Yugoslavia.  Since the Revolution of 1989, he has drawn political cartoons for the best Czech-language newspaper in the country, Prague's Lidové noviny, and in 1991 he founded with his brother a satirical magazine, Bumerang, published in Slovak by the Rusyn Renaissance Society (Русиньска Оброда) and distributed throughout the country in over 40,000 copies.

Despite his fame throughout Czechoslovakia and his widespread popularity in Prešov (there has even been talk that he should run in local elections because he would probably be elected mayor of the city), Vico remains a Rusyn patriot committed to the current national revival.  In a recent interview with a leading Czech magazine (MF Dnes Vikénd), Vico responded to a question about his Rusyn origins: "A lot of people in Slovakia don't even know what the word Rusyn means.  Until now it was thought that we were Ukrainians... however, there is a difference between Rusyns and Ukrainians.  They are by no means the same."

When in the summer of 1991, it was decided to publish a newspaper, Narodnŷ Novinkŷ (Народны Новинкы - The People's News), in the Rusyn language of the Prešov Region, it came as no surprise that the publisher, the Rusyn Renaissance Society, turned to Fedor Vico for the masthead design.  Nor did he disappoint them.  The Rusyn-language Narodnŷ Novinkŷ is one of the most attractive newspapers on stands in Czechoslovakia.  And, of course, each issue is graced with a cartoon that pokes fun at current problems that face Rusyns: inflation, unemployment, displeasure with post-Communist political life, and conflict with the local Ukrainian intelligentsia.  Through it all, Fedor Vico makes his readers laugh at themselves and thereby helps them get through another day.

Philip Michaels

MLA Citation: Michaels, Philip. "Fedor Vico (1944- )." Carpatho-Rusyn American XIV, no. 4 (1991): 3