The Rusyn question unexpectedly became a topic at an international gathering of world leaders held in Ukraine. On February 21, 2004, over 220 persons met in Kyiv to assess Ukraine's current political status at a conference entitled "Ukraine in Europe and the World." Among the participants were representatives from 27 countries, including 24 foreign ambassadors and a dozen deputies of Ukraine's parliament. President Leonid Kuchma sent eight officials to present his government's point of view. Among them were Ukraine's Prime Minister, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Minister of Justice, and two top presidential advisors. The main conference speakers were former U. S. Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright and former president of the Czech Republic Vaclav Havel.

"Ukraine in Europe and the World" was organized by Borys Tarasiuk, Chairman of Ukraine's parliamentary committee on European integration and a supporter of the reformist candidate for the presidency of Ukraine and its former prime minister, Viktor Yushchenko. Among the organizations that financed the international gathering was the Global Fairness Initiative in Washington, D.C., which sent to the conference as its scholarly guest, Professor Paul Robert Magocsi of the University of Toronto.

At a plenary session devoted to the topic, Ukraine and its Neighbors, Pavol Demeš of the German Marshall Fund in Bratislava and Slovakia's former minister of International Relations began his remarks by noting that Slovakia and Ukraine have traditionally enjoyed a broad range of interests, even if they "disagree on whether Andy Warhol was Slovak or Ukrainian." On a more serious note, Demeš claimed that despite Slovakia's entry into the European Union on May 1, his country was not trying to build a new Iron Curtain to keep out citizens of Ukraine.

In the presence of 173 members of the media from Ukraine and 15 other countries, Professor Magocsi openly challenged Demeš's remarks. He pointed out that in fact Slovakia was the first of the future EU countries to impose visas on travelers from Ukraine. While it is true that every Ukrainian citizen has the right to apply for a Slovak visa, the exorbitant cost makes it de facto very difficult if not impossible for Ukrainian citizens, like those from the neighboring Transcarpathian oblast, to cross what has effectively became a new "economic" Iron Curtain. The session's EU participants called on both Slovakia and Ukraine to make their common border more "user-friendly" and, most importantly, to allow border questions to be decided not by the central governments in Bratislava and Kyiv, but by the local regions and districts that are along the common border between the two countries.

Professor Magocsi also pointed out that "Andy Warhol was an American of Carpatho-Rusyn descent, that is, his heritage was that of a distinct Slavic nationality that is neither Slovak or Ukrainian." Moreover, said the professor, "there are in Slovakia three times more Rusyns than Ukrainians and nearly six times more Rusyn speakers than Ukrainian speakers." Participants at international forums have a responsibility "not to continue to propagate the mythology about a non-existing people like the Carpatho-Rusyns." "Such views are particularly inappropriate for members of the European Union, which remains deeply concerned about the protection of national minorities within and beyond its member states," continued Magocsi.

Demeš responded that he did not intend to raise the "Rusyn-Ukrainian controversy" and that Slovakia is "happy to have both Rusyns and Ukrainians within its borders." The public discussion did not end there, however. That is because the former Foreign Minister of Ukraine and former president of United Nations General Assembly, Gennadii Udovenko, seemed visibly upset and anxious to add his views. "The Rusyn question is not the topic of this conference," said Udovenko, "but I must say that in Ukraine Rusyns are treated very well. In the last census individuals could identify as Rusyns, although our position is that Rusyns form a sub-ethnos of the Ukrainian nation," concluded the former diplomat and current supporter of the anti-Kuchma reform faction in Ukrainian politics led by Viktor Yushchenko.

The unexpected discussion about Rusyns provoked interest among several EU diplomats and government officials as well as among the numerous reporters from the international and Ukrainian media who were unaware that such a distinct people lives within and just beyond the borders of Ukraine. Some were shocked about what they considered a violation of human rights (in this case the right of an individual to chose his or her own national identity). Ukraine's official position on the Rusyn issue was therefore seen as yet another example of the current government's authoritarian tendencies. Even more troubling was the fact that the reformist opposition seems to have similar undemocratic views on the Rusyn question.

Return to the 2004 News Archive index