What Does “Success” in a Rusyn Context Look Like?
We dream of the space age while starting off in the stone age
The first month after the release of The New Rusyn Decade has been a rather positive one. Its total amount of readers when adding together Amazon sales, free copies, and other requests has already eclipsed my previous books. To give you an idea of the size, we just passed the 100-people mark for the book roughly a week ago. Many of the individuals in that first hundred are reading this article now, and to you, I want to again give my thanks.
These posts on Substack will serve as general updates for The New Rusyn Decade. I will strive to keep them to a reasonable length while also providing interesting information. With that in mind, the subject of this first update will be on the plan for the remainder of 2023. This last third of the year will be used to analyze each Rusyn region more closely in regard to its weaknesses, strengths, and Rusynness, along with some initial organization of SRE activities.
Everyone wants to skip to the good part like organizing politically, but when we look at attempting something like The New Rusyn Decade we have to be realistic when we assess our starting point. If we perceive ourselves to be more independently minded, better supported, or more nationalistic than what we actually are the strategies we employ will likely fail to live up to our hopes. Today, even after decades of activist work, we are still essentially at ground zero in building up Rusynness. We are not as a nation ready yet for the goals posed in The New Rusyn Decade. We have no substantial political will in either the diaspora or homeland, no concept of the need for Rusyn political power, and the majority of Rusyns still do not know they are one. I can say this is especially true for Subcarpathia where so few are nationalized in any way that it’s not even a question of whether to fight off the Ukrainian designation, but to get them to care at all. This means we do not have at present a culture of intellectual sovereignty.
The critical mass of people needed to do things like demand for Rusyn schools or to be taken seriously in politics is also missing. We say for example there are 800,000 Rusyns in Subcarpathia, but if only 5-10% identify as such and there are at most 25-50 intellectuals (and less than 10 people capable of leading in any capacity) how are we able to accomplish anything? We may be able to succeed disproportionately through individual projects, but creating institutions is nonviable. This is just for Subcarpathia, but they are applicable to different regions at varying degrees too.
Knowing that we have this problem of a lacking culture and shortage of human capital, our first step in these beginning couple of years, before any significant progress on the majority of the six goals, will be getting more people to identify as Rusyn and make it an important part of their lives. That increase in Rusynness cannot be aimless though like how most projects are right now in the community (my previous attempts included). We are making a bet that through a more substantial Rusyn population, we will be better equipped to accomplish our goals down the line, but that is not the only component of this. We have to create a political and philosophical ladder of sorts to lead people toward the path of The New Rusyn Decade. It is something like, first it is about getting the knowledge of who you are, then it is understanding the needs and interests that your group possesses. Slowly, we will introduce more advanced topics and try to put the goals of the decade at the forefront of the public consciousness as the question of whether Rusynness will survive recedes.
On a side note, the granularity needed to actually do most on-the-ground activism now that we have passed the goal creation stage is not something I could do on my own with ease before now nor has anyone else done it. It is much easier to capture the broad essence of an entire area versus looking to see if such-and-such successful strategy of helping people recognize they’re Rusyn in Uzhhorod will do the same in Tyachovo. What language is dominant in a certain village or what specific factors in a town are stopping it from being a stronghold of Rusynness? These are the types of operational questions my team and I will begin looking at over the next months as we plan for the future.
Instead of sticking to online formats of communication alone like SRE had done over the past three years, I also aim to bring about needed changes through the use of both physical and online strategies together. While I cannot at this time state exactly what this all entails, just know it is much more “real” in an in-person sense and more data-driven than what we ever did before. A few things are already in their early stages of formation, with the advertisement of some leadership positions for regions having been published today on SRE media channels. I have included it below so you can get an idea of what they will be doing. For those in North America interested in helping me begin to organize something here, you can reach out to starikpollock@protonmail.com. The next one of these updates will be at the end of December.
Director of Rusynness in Poland, Slovakia, or Romania
Pay: $200 - $400 per month
This position has three openings, one for each country. You will be tasked with the groundwork on establishing an SRE presence in the region. Your tasks will include communicating with book stores, the spread of Rusyn information materials to undernationalized Rusyns, writing reports on the state of Rusyn identity, and finally locating and helping to develop promising young Rusyns.
Applicants must either live in the country they wish to apply for or are moving to it in the near future.
Ведучый в ділах русинства (Польща, Словакія, Румунія)Плата: 200-400$ / місяць
Три довжности, по єдну на кажду країну. Задача: закласти основу роботы ОРР в свому реґіоні. Обовязкы: комунікація з книгарнями, ширеня русинськых інформаційных матеріалув меджи неусвідомленыма русинами, звіты за ситуацію з русинськов ідентичностьов, гляданя перспективної русинської молоджавы и помуч у єї розвою.
Кандидат мусит жити в туй країні або переселити ся до неї в куртум часі.