3.3 MILLION UKRAINIANS REPORTEDLY SUPPORT REFERENDUM PROPOSAL. Citing the Democratic Union Party, Interfax reported on 10 January that Ukraine's 218 initiative groups have collected nearly 3.3 million signatures in support of a nationwide referendum on changes to the constitution (see "RFE/RL Poland, Belarus, and Ukraine Report," 4 January 2000). The groups are proposing to ask questions on giving the president the right to disband the parliament, creating a bicameral legislature, lifting deputies' immunity, and adopting the constitution by a nationwide referendum. At least 3 million signatures are needed to launch a referendum in Ukraine as a popular initiative. JM

UKRAINIAN SPEAKER URGES DEPUTIES TO ADOPT 2000 BUDGET THIS WEEK. Supreme Council Chairman Oleksandr Tkachenko has called on all parliamentary caucuses to make every effort to pass the 2000 budget this week, Interfax reported on 10 January. Last week, the cabinet submitted a zero-deficit budget draft to the parliament for a second reading (see "RFE/RL Newsline," 7 January 2000). Meanwhile, the parliamentary Budget Committee has concluded that the submitted bill is in fact a surplus budget since it includes a spending item denoted as "payments to cover the basic debt sum," which amounts to 405.4 million hryvni ($78 million). The committee argued that according to the international practice of drafting budgets, debt repayment is categorized as an item to be financed from a budgetary surplus. JM

Q: And it resulted in the Belovezha accords on the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

But that was a crime, don't you understand? What right did the Ukrainian [Leonid] Kravchuk, the Belarusian [Stanislau] Shushkevich, and the Russian Yeltsin have to sign an agreement on the liquidation of a superpower? That did not conform to the law or democratic principles. Three drunkards met in a forest almost on the Polish border and signed a piece of paper. And Gorbachev, who was the head of state, didn't do anything. So who's guilty...? Gorbachev should have ordered the deployment of the paratroopers, and he should have had all three of them arrested as traitors.

Q: So the Western protests against the military operation are justified?

What business is it of the Americans? Why are they interfering in Russia's internal affairs? They say we don't have the right to bomb Chechnya.... War is not a political matter, but an economic matter. Politics only serves economics. Lenin correctly said that politics is just a concentrated expression of economics. Economic interests were also behind the disintegration of the USSR. And separatism was added into the mix. Western politicians had been preparing the situation for a long time. We knew it. But what were we supposed to do? Bomb the USA? The main goal of certain American politicians was to destroy the Soviet Union. Their radio stations did some 500 hours worth of broadcasts in the languages of all nations of the USSR. They induced people to get out of the evil empire, Ukraine to fight for its independence. But look at what their so-called freedom brought them! For a Ukrainian who worked in the mines, it means unemployment. Back then, he was not free according to you, but now he is free and has nothing. Many people became the presidents of sovereign states. That's the essence of the matter....

Q: And it resulted in the Belovezha accords on the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

Q: So the Western protests against the military operation are justified?

RADIO FREE EUROPE/RADIO LIBERTY, PRAGUE, CZECH REPUBLIC

RFE/RL Poland, Belarus, and Ukraine Report Vol. 2, No. 2, 11 January 2000

A Survey of Developments in Poland, Belarus, and Ukraine by the Regional Specialists of RFE/RL's Newsline Team

UKRAINE

HAS 'POLITICAL RUSYNISM' ENDED? After seven years of failing to gain recognition, the self-proclaimed government of Carpathian Ruthenia has suspended its work, ITAR-TASS reported on 3 January. "Ruthenians have appreciated the strategy and efforts of President Leonid Kuchma and his firm course toward democratic changes and the observance of human rights, the rights of ethnic minorities and their free cultural development," the agency quoted Ivan Turyanytsa, the "prime minister" of Carpathian Ruthenia, as saying in a statement circulated by "local media" on 3 January. In that statement, Turyanytsa also expressed the hope that Ukraine will finally recognize the Ruthenians as a nation, ITAR-TASS added.

For most readers in either the West or the East, this is certainly a mystifying piece of news. Who are the Ruthenians and where is their Ruthenia? Two interesting books, to which this article is heavily indebted, provide a fascinating introduction to the problem of the people denoted in English by some writers as Ruthenians: "A New Slavic Language Is Born" (1996, Columbia University Press, New York; edited by Paul Robert Magocsi) and "Focus on the Rusyns" (1999, The Danish Cultural Institute, Copenhagen). There is also an interesting Web site at http://www.tccweb.org/rusynback.htm, with a great deal of information on Carpatho-Rusyns--another name for Ruthenians.

Rusyns live in the Carpathian Mountains and are scattered across several international frontiers. In Ukraine, they inhabit Transcarpathian (Zakarpatska) Oblast, which borders on Romania, Hungary, Slovakia, and Poland. In Slovakia, they can be found mainly in the Presov region, and in Poland, they live in two separate regions in the southern part of the country. There is also a community of Ruthenians in Yugoslavia's Vojvodina (to where they emigrated in the 18th century), and groups in Romania and Hungary, while there is a large Rusyn diaspora in the U.S. and Canada, although its exact numerical strength is not known. According to some estimates, there may be as many as 1 million Ruthenians worldwide, including some 600,000 in Ukraine's Transcarpathia.

Linguists disagree as to whether the (Carpatho-) Rusyn language is a separate Slavic language or a dialect of Ukrainian. Professor Magocsi from the University of Toronto argues that it is a separate language, at least that version spoken by Rusyns in Slovakia, which was codified in Bratislava on 27 January 1995. Another version of the Rusyn language was standardized in Vojvodina in 1923 and has been used in schools among Yugoslavia's Rusyns (Rusnaci) since that time. A seminar on the Rusyn language held in Slovakia in 1992 --now known as the First Congress on the Rusyn Language --concluded that Rusyns should develop four linguistic standards based on the dialects in the countries where they live: Ukraine, Slovakia, Poland, and Yugoslavia. Poland's Rusyns (known as Lemkos) have already published several grammar books as well as a dictionary of their language.

In Ukraine, Rusyns are not recognized as a distinct national group. Consequently, their language is officially deemed a Ukrainian dialect. However, apart from a proUkrainian orientation among Ukraine's Rusyns, there is also a trend for developing the Rusyn language as separate from Ukrainian and promoting the idea of Rusyns as a separate nation. This trend is primarily championed by the Society of Carpatho-Rusyns in Uzhorod, which is headed by Ivan Turyanytsa. In December 1991, when Ukrainians overwhelmingly voted for an independent Ukraine, Transcarpathian Oblast residents simultaneously held a vote on their autonomous status in Ukraine. Some 78 percent of Transcarpathians supported the idea of regional autonomy, but Kyiv ignored that vote. Some Ukrainians argue that the question about the region's autonomy was included in one phrase with the question about Ukraine's independence and thus people in Transcapathia supported the independence of the state rather than their self-rule. Some Rusyns, of course, think otherwise.

Some Ukrainians branded the movement for promoting Rusyn nationhood as "political Rusynism," which they argue has no substantial linguistic, ethnographic, or historical foundations. However, as the example of Rusyns in Slovakia and Lemkos in Poland testifies (not to mention Yugoslavia's Rusnaci), under some circumstances the Rusyn linguistic and ethnic heritage can be cultivated.

Ukraine's disinclination to recognize its Rusyns as a distinct nationality can be understood to some extent. This recognition seems to be inextricably linked to the issue of Rusyn self-government in Transcarpathia. Faced with ethnic problems in other regions (not to mention Ukraine's 10 million Russians and Crimea with its Russian and Tatar problems), Kyiv is reluctant to open what seems to be a Pandora's box of ethnic demands for more rights and concessions.

However, the current practice of dismissing the Rusyn problem by passing over it in silence (there appears to be no mention of Rusyns in Ukrainian media) is no solution either. History provides ample evidence that non-recognition, disregard, or suppression of ethnic groups tends only to consolidate their struggle for more rights.

It is too early to say that Rusyns have already embarked on an irreversible path toward acquiring nationhood. (In the 20th century, only Belarusians, Macedonians, and, possibly, Bosnian Muslims among the Slavic groups have managed to organize themselves into nations.) Even more unclear are Rusyns' prospects for gaining some kind of regional autonomy in the countries in which they live, let alone statehood. However, the cultural and linguistic renaissance of Rusyns seems set to survive into the next millennium. Rusyn activists report that their ranks have recently been reinforced by considerable numbers of well-educated young Rusyn females (notably in Poland and Slovakia). This not only provides greater demographic balance within the movement but also gives the movement a boost and imparts attractiveness for the broader masses that it might otherwise have lacked.

The author of "RFE/RL's Poland, Belarus, and Ukraine Report" has come across only one mention of Ivan Turyanytsa's "Carpatho-Ruthenian government" in world literature--in Timothy Garton Ash's "Hail Ruthenia!" published in the 22 April 1999 issue of "The New York Review of Books." Garton Ash's presentation of the Rusyn question is rather a jocular one, and this author agrees with his conclusion that Turyanytsa and his ministers have had no power or opportunities to govern anything anywhere in a political sense. There are strong grounds to suppose that the government's recent self-dissolution, as announced by ITARTASS, has not been mourned by any significant part of the Rusyn population (in fact it is more likely that it went unnoticed by most Rusyns). However, as far as the future of Rusyns as a distinct Slavic nationality is concerned, this author is far more optimistic than Garton Ash.

"RFE/RL Poland, Belarus, and Ukraine Report" is prepared by Jan Maksymiuk on the basis of a variety of sources including reporting by "RFE/RL Newsline" and RFE/RL's broadcast services. It is distributed every Tuesday.