:RUTHENIA
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Ruthenia
has never been a country of its own. In 1772 it became a part of Austria and remained so for two centuries until 1919. This was the only time when Ruthenian was an official language, acknowledged as one of the many national languages under the Habsburg monarchy. In 1919 Ruthenia became a part of Poland and afterwards fell to the Soviet Union in accordance with the secret pact between Hitler and Stalin. |
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Today the Ruthenian territory is split between Slovakia, Poland and the Ukraine, and there are just a few schools at which Ruthenian is being taught. The Ruthenians are no aggressive people by nature, they love their privacy, and they are also very religious still: either orthodox or Greek Catholic. The genesis of the Greek Catholic church dates back directly to Maria Theresa who demanded from all her subjects recognition of the pope. Religion had been oppressed under communist rule for lengthy periods and became legal again only as late as 1968. |
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| In Ruthenia ideologies were always extremely pronounced and were being enforced with utter ruthlessness, be it feudalism, communism, or capitalism. The old communist structures and ways of thinking have survived in many places and, according to Bycko, won't vanish until his generation has ceased to exist, since only a new generation no longer shaped by communism can achieve a departure from obsolete thinking. | ||||||||||||||||||||||