Since there is confusion, especially among Galicians in the emigration, about the English terms ‘Russia’ and ‘Carpatho-Russia’, not to mention the Russian terms ‘Rossiya’ and ‘Rus’, we have written this note in explanation.
Incidentally, we note that even the origin of the word ‘Slav’ is much disputed. Many believe that it comes from the Slavonic ‘slovo’, which means ‘word’. This would refer to those who speak a Slavonic language, the Slavs being ‘the people of the word’. On the other hand, Aryan racists and others believe that Slav means ‘slave’. For both ancient Romans and Germans of all periods, right up until 1945, the Slavs were simply destined to be slaves of ‘superior’ peoples.
Similarly, the origin of the word ‘Russia’ is much disputed. Some attribute it to the name of the Viking leader Rurik (Roerig), the founder of the Kievan State. Others point to a Slavic tribal name. Yet others, probably with more reason, prefer a word referring to hair colour, meaning reddish-brown (cf. the modern Russian word ‘rusy’/ the Finnish ‘ruotsi’/ the French ‘roux, rousse’ / the English ‘russet’).
The situation is further confused by the existence of the two words ‘Rossiya’ and ‘Rus’, both usually translated into English as ‘Russia’. ‘Rossiya’, the origin of the English word ‘Russia’, actually refers to ‘Great Russia’. Its territory today spreads across Siberia over one seventh of the planet’s land surface and encompasses over one hundred other peoples, and so ‘Rossiya’ actually refers to the whole of the Russian Federation. The much more ancient word ‘Rus’ is that which is used in the expression ‘Sviataya Rus’, usually translated into English as ‘Holy Russia’, which refers to all East Slavdom. This word ‘Rus’ is also found in the name of the country ‘Belorussia’ or White Russia, nowadays transliterated into English as ‘Belarus’. This explains why the title of the Patriarch of the Russian Church, ‘of Moscow and all Rus’, is often translated as ‘of Moscow and all the Russias’, since the words ‘of Russia’ alone are inadequate.
Whatever the origin of the word ‘Russia’, and we shall leave the hairsplitting to the academics, the fact is then that the term encompasses the four East Slavic peoples who have two things in common: they belong by tradition to the Orthodox Church and they use, in slightly varying forms, the Cyrillic alphabet. These four peoples are: Great Russians, Little Russians (nowadays called Ukrainians - a previously virtually unknown term popularised by imperialist Hungarians, Poles, Nazis and lately neocon Americans in the late 19th and 20th centuries), White Russians (Belorussians) and Carpatho-Russians (more correctly Subcarpathian Russians, but also known as Rusins or Rusyns or by the incorrect Latin term Ruthenians). The important point here is that the term ‘Russian’ simply means ‘East Slav’. ‘Russian’ should not be confused by modern Ukrainian nationalists with the concept of ‘Great Russian chauvinism’.
In terms of race Great Russia has been influenced by other peoples, notably Finnish tribes (1) in the north-west and also invading Tartars and Siberians from the east. Belorussia has been influenced mainly by fellow-Slavs from the eastern fringes of West Slav Poland, though also by the Baltic peoples, Lithuanians, Latvians and the Finnish Estonians.
The term ‘Ukraine’, meaning simply ‘the area near the border’, is extremely vague, as is the linguistic term ‘Ukrainian’. This refers to a great many rather polonised, East Slav dialects, spoken in towns and villages in the extreme west of the Ukraine, most of which is called Galicia. This quite small area near the Polish border was for centuries oppressed by Poland and was much Uniatised. Sadly, by 1945, when it was taken into the Soviet Ukraine, it had thus lost many of its native East Slav, Orthodox cultural roots. The modern language of Ukrainian has been formed from these dialects and is spoken by at least 20% of Ukrainians, although most of these also speak Russian, like the other 80% of the Ukrainian population. This explains why most Ukrainians, like most Belorussians, cannot understand the need for their countries to be politically separate from the Russian Federation.
For Carpatho-Russia, which is the normal English translation of ‘Karpatskaya Rus’, the situation is even more complex. This territory was for many centuries under Hungarian control, though today it is split between the Ukraine, Slovakia, Poland and small parts of Romania and Hungary. The bulk of Carpatho-Russia has since 1945 been under Ukrainian control and is, absurdly, known as ‘Transcarpathia’. This is an imperialistic term, since only those on the other side of the Carpathians (in Galicia or Galician-controlled Kiev) would think of Carpatho-Russia as ‘across the Carpathians’. In fact it is Galicia and Kiev which are in Transcarpathia, for they are ‘across the Carpathians’.
Carpatho-Russia is inhabited by East Slavs, most of whom have remained faithful to Orthodoxy despite over three and a half centuries of vicious Roman Catholic persecution and genocide. Their Carpatho-Russian language represents the most ancient Slavic language, for although East Slav, it also has many elements of West Slav and South Slav in it. The fact that Carpatho-Russia is on the very fringes of the Proto-Slav homeland explains its ancient forms. The fact that the Carpatho-Russians (as the name ‘Rusin’ proves) were the first Russians (i.e. East Slavs) to receive Orthodoxy also puts Carpatho-Russia in a very special situation. It means that Carpatho-Russia is the cradle both of East Slav (= ‘Russian’) identity and of East Slav (= ‘Russian’) Orthodoxy.
Elsewhere on this site, we have described how the present neocon-installed Galician regime in power in Kiev has cut itself off from Russia. Given this, there is little hope that Carpatho-Russia, lacking borders with Russia, can hope for support from Russia. We have suggested that it should therefore look to democratic Slovakia for help in its struggle against Ukrainian colonial tyranny and its secret police. Of course, if the Ukraine were at last to liberate itself from enslavement to the dollars of the Bush regime and EU euro bribery, then it is possible that Carpatho-Russia could receive help from Russia. Then, in the huge Orthodox Cathedral in Uzhgorod, the Carpatho-Russian capital, as during the visit of Patriarch Kyrill to Kiev in recent days, would be heard the cry: ‘Kyrill is our Patriarch!’.
The fact that Carpatho-Russia is in the geographical centre of Europe is also deeply significant. It signifies that Carpatho-Russia, and not Switzerland, is the nation which is at the heart of Europe. Around it could be formed a New Europe, the Europe which faithfully guards the Christian roots of European identity. It is our hope that in time the Russian Federation may yet be able to form a New European Confederation to replace the EU. Within such a Confederation could be grouped nations, especially those of Orthodox Europe, freed from the tyranny of anti-Christian Western European economics and political correctness.
15/28 July 2009 St Vladimir, Equal to the Apostles
Note:
1. Even the tern ‘Moscow’ is Finnish. The Finnish ‘moskva’ means ‘waterway’. The English term ‘Muscovy’ represents the actual pronunciation of the Russian. Presumably an English merchant from long ago asked a Muscovite where he was from and received the answer, in the genitive case, ‘from Moscow’. In Russian this is ‘iz Moskvy’, which in pronunciation has almost exactly the sound of ‘Muscovy’.