www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall Rusyns are Ukrainians :( ?

Whilst we're talking about food, I have Baba's Pelmeni recipe if anyone's interested. A staple further East, but impossible to find in Pittsburgh!

WARNING!!! Feeds an army! But that's Baba for ya!

3 1/2 litres white flour
40 eggs
1.2 litres water
10 kg ground pork
40 medium onions, chopped fine
100 cc coarse salt
50 cc coarse salt
50 cc black pepper
25 cloves garlic

To make the dough, combine the flour, eggs, water and 50cc salt. Knead mixture. Let rest for 30 minutes. Mix the ground pork, onions, 100cc salt, pepper and garlic together. Cut the dough into about 60 equally sized pieces and roll each one into a cylinder the diameter of a finger. Cut each cylinder into pieces the size of a walnut, then roll each piece into a very thin flat cake with a diameter of about 2 inches. Put some of the ground meat mixture in the center of each flat cake (quite a lot, but not so much that you can't then seal up the dough). Then fold the dough in half and join up the edges to seal them. Pinch the corners together: you should now have a ravioli-shaped "flying saucer." Take what you don't plan on using and you can store them all winter in a snow bank, wrapped in oil paper. Boil the pelmeni in salted water for seven minutes, or until they float to the surface. Serve hot, with horseradish mustard, pickles and iced vodka.

Alexandr

I guess now everyone is going to tell me she's allergic to Pelmini as well?
Once I get better I'm going to make this recipe Sasha. Thank you for sharing.

Belongs in Pyrohy thread...

Wait a minute here! That dough recipe is exactly the same as for pyrohy dough!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Is your baba really a Ukrainian?

Rusyns are Ukrainians, and Ukrainians are Rusyns. You see when Peter the 1st artificially renamed Muscowy into "Russia", which is a Greek abbreviation of the word Rus.
The true Rusyns (modern Ukrainians and Belarusyns) had to adopt in order to survive as a separate nation and culture, because what Moscow wanted to do is to take control of their lands, assimilate them whole into Moscowian "nation", destroy the Ruthenian language and replace it with the Moscowian dialect of Church Slavonic which is Russian and then call it "Historic culture and language of Rus".Ukraine is an ancient term that was used to describe Rus lands since the 12th century, it was especially widely used in the Ukrainian/Ruthenian Hetmanate state. There is a reason why the Rusyn people who reside in the center and core of Kieven Rus, started using the Ukrainian terminology more widely then their historic name stemming from Rus.The first Political Party in Western Ukraine formed in the 1870's was called the " Ruthenian Ukrainian radical party", the words were interchangeable. I do know that some people in the far west Ukraine who have not list their old terminology are claiming that they are a separate nation, while im happy they saved this part of Ukraine's culture, they are no separate nation. Their language is 98.9% Ukrainian, so is their culture and ethnicity.

Historically Rusins or Ruthenians are Russians. Eastern Slavs are all Russian Slavs. They include Belorussians (historically "Litvins"), Black Ruthenians (Volynians), Red Ruthenians (Galicians), Little Russians ("Ukrainians"), Bukovinans and Bessarabians, Carpatho or Ugro Rusins or Russians. Russians and Ruthenians are the same people with the same history descending from Kievan Rus'. They represent a linguistic, cultural and religious continuum from the Carpathians to Sakhalin Island. From the Arctic to the borders of Afghanistan. There are four distinct branches of the Russian people: 1). Russians or Great Russians. 2). "Ukrainians" or Little Russians. 3). Belorussians. 4). Carpatho or Ugro Rusins. Carpatho Rusins are as distinct from "Ukrainians" as are Belorussians and Russians

No, not all Rusins or "Rusyns" are "Ukrainians", but most "Ukrainians" residing in the West and center of that territory are Rusins or Ruthenians (most residing in the East and South are actually Russians or Russo-Ruthenians), and this is the historically proper ethnonym to apply to them. The term "Ukrainian" historically meant a regional identity, not a national identity. In Kievan times, in The CHRONICLES, the term "Ukraine" or "Ukrainian" was applied to peoples living in the borderlands or marches of Kievan Rus' and not to those living in either Galicia or Volynia or Novgorod or Kiev or Smolensk or Vladimir or Polotsk or their environs, not to the territories which would become Carpatho or Ugro Rus' but at that time to northern, Finno-Ugric territories. After the Mongols sacked Kiev and a mass exodus moved populations North and East and West, Kiev was mostly depopulated for over a century. During that time, the area between the Dnieper and Dniester, north of the lands of the Crimean Tartars, came to be known as "The Ukraine". It was claimed by Lithuania in its pretensions of being a successor to Kievan Rus'. Then it was subjugated to recz pospolita, Poland. To the East of Cherkassk and Poltava, was the Principality of Chernigov. It and lands South of it, Slobodskaya Ukraina, were tributary territories of Moscow or Rus' as the state continued to be known. Russians maintained/maintain their heritage, language, the patrimony of Rus' from St. Alexander Nevsky to Vladimir Putin, ie a direct link with Rus' and their Russian identity uninterruptedly. They never relied on foreign intelligence agencies to concoct an ethnicity for them which deliberately excises all mention of the name "Rus'". From St. Alexander Nevsky to Vladimir Putin, Russia and Rus' are the same nation. Rurik, the founder of Rus' established his capitol at Novgorod and not in Kiev. Both St. Vladimir and St. Yaroslav the Wise were princes of Novgorod before becoming Grand Princes of Kiev. Novgorod most certainly is Russia and never fell to foreign conquest. Most of the territory of Kievan Rus' is part of Great Russia even today. Novgorod most definitely was never a Ruthenian territory. It has maintained the patrimony of Rus', its letters/language/culture/religion since the founding of the nation of Rus'. St. Alexander Nevsky's grandson founded the Principality of Moscow. Moscow solely maintained the Rurikid dynasty: Rus' was solely preserved as a state by Russia. The Kievan Metropolia was transferred to Moscow and safeguarded and maintained by Russia, cf. St. Peter of Volynia. Russian language and letters were maintained in Russia and not suppressed by polonizing and magyarizing landlords as in the Ruthenias. The Ruthenian brotherhoods from Lvov, Kiev, Vilna, Ostrogh, et al recognized this: they did not recognize a literary "mova" ever. The Russian language is as much Slavonic in its old, middle and modern forms as Serbian or any of the Ruthenian tongues are. Truthfully, Church Slavonic as it survives today has actually undergone over 800 years of Russification, and not the other way around.

Thus, certain "Ukrainian" agitprop is nothing but fraudulent, ahistorical "historiography" supporting a foreign, political agenda.

This is an important point that Ukrainian nationalists (both Orthodox and Catholic) routinely ignore. Instead they pretend that their current Kiev sees are the real successors of the original Kiev metropolis, when actually they were founded by the EP in the 15th century.

Those founded by the EP where viewed as "Little Russian" (as opposed to "Great Russian"), ie newer and representing less of the Russian Orthodox faithful, Russian Orthodox faithful within the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. That entire ecclesiastical organization, aside from the Lvov Metropolia, left the Orthodox Church with the Brest Unia in 1596. Later, irregular kheiritonias and a makeshift hierarchy was reestablished at the initiative of the Patriarch of Jerusalem, who was starved to death by the Poles as a consequence, but this hierarchy was not fully regularized until after Pereyaslavl.

There is some, fraudulent agitprop which states the Moscow Patriarchate somehow illicitly subjugated the Little Russian Metropolia under its omophorion, but such propaganda ignores the fact that the Ruthenian brotherhoods, the Kiev Caves Lavra, exercising influence on the Zaporozhian Cossacks promoted this very idea for decades. The propagandists put forward lists of furs and monetary gifts and whatnot to try and state it was some sort of bribery. But by that time, the Russian church had been giving those same types of gifts to the Eastern Patriarchs for centuries. No strings attached. As a Christian obligation to persecuted coreligionists. The Eastern Patriarchs had already for centuries travelled to Russia to secure such aid for their churches suffering under the Ottoman yoke.

So when one reads the ridiculous propaganda that the Ukraine needs its "own native, local (nationalist) church", one is forced to bat it away with one simple question: how is the church founded by St. Vladimir in Kiev in 988 AD not the native, local church of Kiev? How is her primate having direct Apostolic Succession from the Metropolitans of Kiev (their direct successor) from the era of Kievan Rus' not the legitimate Patriarch of that Church? How is that church not ones own, native, local church? Only if one isn't Orthodox. How is a primatial see founded by St. Vladimir foreign and not the primatial see of the Mother Church of all the Russias? Only if one rejects the patrimony of Kievan Rus'. How can any schismatic rebellion founded on a dubious, nineteenth century "nationalism" (the heresy of ethnophyletism) in any way be a legitimate successor/replacement to the church founded by St. Vladimir? Only if it is a Reformed, non-Orthodox, nationalist, religious organization of a nation which apostatizes from Orthodox Catholicism. But that still wouldn't make it legitimate: it would just make it Protestant.

I'd also note that Moscow's jurisdiction of Kiev is far from one-sided domination. Whether in theology, music, spirituality, etc, and for better or for worse, currents of thought from Kiev and Ukraine were immensely powerful in Russia. I don't think someone could really look at big figures like Feofan Prokopovich and come away with the impression that Moscow was oppressing the Ukrainian church.

And I'm not saying all this to promote the contemporary MP line either. I can understand nowadays why Orthodox Christians in Ukraine might not all want to be ruled from Moscow. And I hope Ukrainian Orthodox can understand Rusyns' reluctance to be subsumed into the Ukrainian identity.

The Ukrainian Church is autonomous and not ruled from Moscow, quite independent. Done canonically, the emergence of a legitimate, Orthodox Kievan autocephaly would mean the emergence of an additional, Russian Orthodox autocephalous see to avoid condemnations of ethnophyletism. That's something Istanbul will not abide. Istanbul is perfectly comfortable with having five Greek, autocephalous local churches. But it is uncomfortable with the Russian church having multiple Russian local churches, viz. the OCA (my church), which is even loathe to acknowledge its Russian heritage these days. So in cases of the Polish, Finnish, Estonian churches, churches clearly, uncanonically detached from the Russian mother church, Istanbul is fine with their ethnophyletist foundations. Had these churches have been Russian Orthodox, autocephalous sees for the peoples in question, Istanbul would have not recognized them.

So the issue is ecclesiastical gerrymandering. The Russian church I believe should be divided into five to nine, twelve to thirteen eventually, autocephalous sees acting in a patriarchal college where the Patriarch of Moscow is the first among equals or even given the title of "pope". But that would totally diminish the relevance of Istanbul at the conciliar level and end the shanninigans that have been going on there for at least a century. Thus, the Greeks would try to never let it happen or at least fight it for decades. However, they would sponsor ethnophyletist sees breaking off from the canonical Moscow Patriarchate if said sees tow the Istanbul line. That's where the issue of autocephaly finds itself today. Definitely not a matter of Russian domination: that's the presumption of another player here.

Most Orthodox in the Ukraine are not opposed to the canonical church, despite the fact the current government discriminates against it and encourages schism. While the canonical church even offered, with Moscow acting as a guarantor, for the UAOC to be canonically regularized on Ukrainian territory as an independent, autonomous church: what derailed it is "Ukrainian" nationalism batting it down in russophobic and schismatic rhetoric. Even in regions like Rovno and Khmelnitsky, staunchly "Ukrainian" in orientation, the canonical church maintains a considerable presence because the people acknowledge it as their historical church: in the face of blatent persecution and open violence, frequent pogroms. Peoples of the Ukraine who understand their history are not ashamed of the Patrimony of Rus'. To them it is a standard of authenticity vs. foreign ideological and religious subjugation, degradation, reformation.

Indeed, Carpatho Rus' must be an independent republic recognized as a distinct, ethnic branch of the Russian people, as distinct as Belarus', Russia, or the Ukraine.