Minorities breathe easier

During the Milošević period, national minorities in Vojvodina were constantly convinced that the rights they had were on par with the highest international standards, but the authorities never explained exactly what that meant. On the other hand, members of a minority – even while they may not have been personally threatened – could not feel at ease in the atmosphere of nationalist euphoria and suspicions of insufficient loyalty to the Serbian state. Did 5 October 2000 bring at least a little change?

Members of the Union of Rusyns and Ukrainians, an organization which has about 400 members, are certain that the worst is behind them. This is was author and long-time leader of the Union, Julijan Tamaš, member of the Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, said at their annual meeting, held in Kurcura near Vrbas on 17 March 2002. He noted that the Union of Rusyns and Ukrainians, because of its principled stances, was declared an opposition organization by the authorities and was thereby not respected as a relevant partner. The Union’s ten years of principled work in an extremely negative environment countered the thesis that minorities must always be in bed with the government. Minorities are always forced to cooperate with the current government, but that does not mean that they must take on the value system which that government suggests or understands, Tamaš said.

Reporting on the work of the past year, president of the Union of Rusyns and Ukrainians Marija Sakač said that above all, they worked well with state organs both in the Vojvodina and on the level of Yugoslavia. She evaluated the week-long seminar for youth in Ruski Krstur, in the course of which 60 students from a dozen towns got the opportunity to study their mother language and to get acquainted with the national culture and history, as being especially meaningful. We remember that the Milošević regime did not allow the holding of such seminars.

Ana Tertična, attaché for culture at the Ukrainian embassy in Belgrade spoke about the essentially changing environment. According to her, in the course of meetings with Ukrainian authorities and with the new Ukrainian ambassador Anatolij Šostak, the Yugoslav government has shown much more understanding concerning the problems and needs of the Rusyn and Ukrainian minority which in the census ten years ago numbered around 20,000 mostly in the Vojvodina.

The upcoming census in Serbia, which will take place from 1 to 15 April, will most likely be a cold shower for both Rusyns and Ukrainians. The number of these (two) minorities in the course of the past decade has certainly fallen (emigration, assimilation) from the aforementioned 20,000, which means a lessening of opportunities for the care and development of their culture and preservation of their national identity. Little help is even the statement of Slaven Dulić, assistant regional secretary for national minorities: that Rusyns and Ukrainians are percentage-wise the most highly educated in Serbia, in other words, that per 1000 people, they have the most with high or higher education.

Ed. note: The Union of Rusyns and Ukrainians of Yugoslavia (Sojuz) is the country’s primary Ukrainian-oriented organization; the primary Rusyn-oriented organization is Ruska Matka. Throughout the 1990s, the Milošević regime favored Ruska Matka over Sojuz, thus continuing the traditional Yugoslav practice of supporting the Rusyn identity which dates from the end of World War One.

Sojuz, however, maintains that it fell out of favor with the Milošević regime because it spoke out against war crimes being committed against Rusyns and Ukrainians in Eastern Slavonia, a region in Croatia which borders the Vojvodina and which was were the war between the Yugoslav People’s Army and the newly independent Republic of Croatia began in 1991. Thus, the references to Sojuz’s “principled stances.”

With the collapse of the Milošević regime on 5 October 2000, Sojuz accused Ruska Matka of collaborating with the old regime. Under the new regime led by Yugoslav President Vojislav Koštunica, the two organizations are seemingly being dealt with in a more even-handed manner, which has led to an escalation of the rivalry between activists of the Rusyn and Ukrainian orientations.

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