Ukrainian nationalists: Ukrainians are NOT Russians, we are a separate people!

Also Ukrainian nationalists: This is a UKRAINIAN folk song, Rusyns DON'T exist, they are just Ukrainians, by calling this song Rusyn you help the Asiatic Moskali divide the Ukrainian nation!

I'm not a fan of Rusyn nationalists either, especially in the American and Canadian diaspora communities. I used to be in a Facebook group called "Carpathian Rusyns Everywhere," and I decided to leave after a year because it was simply too toxic.

Some people who were just starting to learn about their Rusyn heritage, a position I was once in, sometimes posted things that were of Slovak, Hungarian, or other origin, because they didn't always know better. They would immediately get attacked by the nationalist purists.

It's ridiculous because Rusyn language and culture has influence from many nearby peoples like Slovaks, Hungarians, Poles, Romanians, and Ukrainians. Many of the surnames in the group sounded Slovak, Hungarian, or Romanian. The main nationalist purist had an Italian surname!

The Rusyns themselves have sub groups, like Lemkos in Slovakia and Poland, Boykos in Poland and Ukraine, Dolinyane in Ukraine, Hutsuls in Ukraine and Romania. Each have been influenced by their neighbors, because they've lived in a cross-cultural border region for centuries.

Then there were the people of Rusyn heritage who, for whichever reason, identify with Ukrainian and Russian (like me) culture. They were treated the worst. It was the combination of purist nationalism and Russophobia that caused me to leave.

For the most part, such people never made grand pronouncements that the Rusyns in general are simply Ukrainians or Russians. Like myself, they simply chose to identify with Russian or Ukrainian culture on a personal level, and didn't impose their identity on the others.

The irony is that the most revered figure for Rusyn nationalists, the awakener Alexander Dukhnovych, was a Russophile. He opposed Hungarization, believed that Rusyns should use the Russian literary language, and believed they were a part of a single united Russian people.

My opinion: whether someone of Rusyn background chooses to take up "pure" Rusyn, Russian, Ukrainian, Slovak etc. culture is up to them, as long as they don't claim to speak for everyone. Kiev doesn't allow Rusyns to decide how to identify, we can't deny that right to each other.

So I'm an American mutt, but I identify as Rusyn. That's what I put on the census, and I proudly have my grandma's Rusyn surname tattooed on my arm. Yet I speak Russian and am pretty Russified culturally, I haven't been to Carpathia but I've definitely spent some time in Russia.

I don't call myself русский either, and I don't use the word Russian to refer to Rusyns in general. Rusyns aren't very much on the Russian nationalist radar, but I get tired of the chauvinism of both Ukrainian and Rusyn nationalists. So I'm a sort of Rusyn-American sovok.