The Scholar as Nation-Builder, or as Advisor and Advocate: Remarks Delivered by Paul Robert Magocsi (Chair of Ukrainian Studies, University of Toronto) for the Special Panel “Paul Robert Magocsi on the Scholar as a Nation-Builder” at the ASN 2007 World Convention, Columbia University

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Notes

As it turns out I was luckier than others in my educational cohort, many of whom with their newly minted Ph.D.s were forced to survive by pumping gas or waiting on tables. Instead, beginning in 1971, I was awarded no less than 10 years of post-doctoral research appointments at Harvard University in that institution's Centre for Middle Eastern Studies, its Society of Fellows, and its newly established Ukrainian program, where I was a Senior Research Fellow until 1980. During that decade I managed to teach only two courses at Harvard as a lecturer in the Department of Government.

Magocsi, “Carpathian Rus'.”

Magocsi, “In Search of Security.”

Thernstrom, Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups, 401–03, 686–89, 694–95; Magocsi, Encyclopedia of Canada's Peoples, 270–73; idem, “Monégasque Nationalism,” 83–94.

I witnessed the Soviet intervention in August 1968 while undertaking research in Prešov, Slovakia, and the crackdown on protests in Prague in August 1969 against the “Soviet occupation,” described in Magocsi,“Eyewitness Account of the Crackdown in Czechoslovakia,” 23–27.

The book in question was The Shaping of a National Identity: Subcarpathian Rus', 1848–1948, which was reviewed in 52 journals worldwide and was reprinted within a year of its appearance.

On the impact of the Roots phenomenon, see Magocsi, “Made or Re-Made in America?,” 467–82.

On the impact of this organization, see Krafcik and Rusinko, Carpatho-Rusyn Research Center.

The two printings of The Shaping of a National Identity sold nearly 2,000 copies. The phrasebook Let's Speak Rusyn was initially published in two editions. The edition based on the language spoken in the Prešov Region of Slovakia, entitled Bisidujme po-rus'kŷ (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Transworld, 1976), was reprinted twice (1978 and 1989) and sold over 4,400 copies; the edition based on the language spoken in the Transcarpathian region of Ukraine, Hovorimn po-rus'kŷ (Fairview, NJ: Carpatho-Rusyn Research Center, 1979), sold over 1,600 copies. Even more successful was Our People: Carpatho-Rusyns and Their Descendants in North America (Toronto: Multicultural History Society of Ontario, 1984), which has appeared in three subsequent editions (1985, 1994, 2005) and has sold over 6,500 copies.

The controversy surrounding The Shaping of a National Identity was prompted by an extensive review by the Ukrainian-oriented political scientist from Transcarpathia, Vasyl Markus, and an otherwise rare response by Magocsi, both of which appeared in the Ukrainian émigré journal edited at the time by the distinguished linguist George Shevelov, Suchasnist', XX, no. 6 (1980): 105–22 and XXI, no. 9 (1981): 65–82. The Markus–Magocsi debate was also published in English, and among the scholars who participated in the debate were Kevin J. Hannan, George Y. Shevelov, Frank Sysyn, Edward Kasinec, Bohdan P. Procko, and Michael Lacko, SJ. The entire debate and commentaries are found in Magocsi, Of the Making of Nationalities There is No End, Vol. II, 39–112.

On the impact of Magocsi's writings on the post-1989 Rusyn national revival and its activists in the European homeland, see Hann, “Intellectuals, Ethnic Groups and Nations,” 106–28; Fedynyshynets, Istorychna metafora profesora Magochiia; Nowak, Zaginiony świta?, esp. 175–96; Choma, “Renesancia rusínstva a Paul Robert Magocsi,” 117–23; Michna, Kwestie etniczno-narodowościowe na pograniczu słowiańszczyzny wschodniej i zachodniej, 264–320 passim; and Medieshi, “Akademik Magochi popravdze.”

Just in the year 1991 I was invited to speak at the Slovak Academy of Sciences (Bratislava), the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (Keszthély conference), the School of Slavonic and East European Studies (London), the Institute for East–West Security Studies (Stiřín, Czechoslovakia conference), and the European Cultural Foundation Amsterdam (Bratislava conference).

I first spelled out this viewpoint in 1990 in a keynote address given in French at a conference sponsored by the International Association for the Defense of Threatened Languages and Cultures, held in Nice, France. I was subsequently able to share its contents with (not always receptive) audiences in Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Canada, the USA, and Denmark. The text was published in several Central European languages and is reprinted under its original title, “The End of the Nation-State: The Revolution of 1989 and the Future of Europe,” in Magocsi, Of the Making of Nationalities, Vol. II, 306–20.

The advice was given primarily through speeches I delivered at the World Congress of Rusyns beginning in 1991 and held every two years since then. All speeches were published in the Rusyn-language press and some appeared in English translation in Magocsi, Of the Making of Nationalities, Vol. II, 249–97 and in the original in “Ia rusyn bŷl, iesm y budu.”

It is true that I was largely responsible not only for encouraging the idea of holding language congresses but also for proposing the Romansch principle (four regional standards and a koiné) as the basis of language planning in the region. See Magocsi and Fishman. “Small Languages and Small Communities,” 119–25.

Magocsi, A New Slavic Language is Born.

The 14-volume series was published in Poland under the general editorship of the Slavic linguist Stanisław Gajda. The specific volume Rusyn'skŷi iazŷk was under the editorship of Magocsi.

The situation in Ukraine was particularly complex, with officials from the State Bureau of Statistics in the months before the December 2001 census changing their views as to whether a person could designate his/her nationality as Rusyn and, if so, whether the data would be recorded and published. In the end, Rusyns were recorded, but not listed in the published data on Ukraine's nationalities. One statistical publication from Transcarpathia reported on the presence of 10,090 persons who identified as Rusyns, listing them among data on “the number of distinct ethnographic groups of the Ukrainian ethnos.” For details on Ukraine's changing position on the Rusyn question leading up to the census, see Arel, “Interpreting ‘Nationality’ and ‘Language’ in the 2001 Ukrainian Census,” 229–31.

For a comprehensive comparative analysis of funding for cultural preservation among all the peoples (“minorities”) in Slovakia, see Dohányos et al., Národnostné menšiny na Slovensku 2004.

The small-scale map which has appeared in all my publications has become best known through its appearance in the popular brochure Carpatho-Rusyns (see note 23 below). The large-scale map entitled Carpatho-Rusyn Settlement Map (1:355,000) has appeared in two editions (1996 and 1998), together with the study “Mapping Stateless Peoples,” 301–31, with over 3,400 copies distributed in North America and Europe.

Magocsi and Pop, Encyclopedia of Rusyn History and Culture. A fully illustrated version of this encyclopedia is to appear in Ukraine (in Ukrainian translation) in 2008.

I outlined the conceptual problems and issues surrounding inclusion and exclusion in a paper at the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies in Pittsburgh (November 2002), entitled “Descriptive or Prescriptive Scholarship: The Making of the Encyclopedia of Rusyn History and Culture.”

The original version appeared as Carpatho-Rusyns. The fact that several language editions (English, Slovak, Rusyn) have been revised and reprinted more than once and that certain editions are out of print suggests that the brochure is in the hands of tens of thousands of people.

Magocsi, The People From Nowhere. The English, Rusyn, and Ukrainian editions were sponsored by the president of the World Academy of Rusyns, the Canadian philanthropist Steven W. Chepa, who has assured that the book is distributed widely by providing gratis to readers in Slovakia, Poland, Hungary, and Ukraine nearly 5,500 copies of the Rusyn edition and 2,000 copies of the Ukrainian edition. The Romanian edition (3,000 copies) was funded by an NGO, the Cultural Society of Rusyns in Romania; the Slovak edition (3,000 copies) was funded by the Ministry of Culture of the Slovak Republic.

For details, see Požun, “Internet,” 212–15.

Known as the “Sunday School Program,” the classes do not take place on Sunday but for the most part during the week and in state schools, where teachers conduct extracurricular Rusyn classes at the behest of the parents and with the agreement of the school authorities. A five-member Rusyn School Board oversees the program and its curriculum.

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Paul Robert Magocsi

Paul Robert Magocsi, Chair of Ukranian Studies, University of Toronto, 100 St. George Street, Toronto, Ontario M5S 3G3 Canada.