Crowdsourcing Rusyn places in the US

Rusyns may not be a well-known ethnic group, but we have quite a presence if you know where to look. This is especially evident in the Northeastern US, where many onion-domed churches were founded by Rusyn immigrants in the late 1800s or early 1900s.

I always look for Rusyn sites when I'm traveling, and have seen quite a few Facebook posts asking for Rusyn points of interest in Northeastern Pennsylvania (NEPA), for example. After a quick poll to gauge interest and participation, I started a collaborative Google Map that we could use to map Rusyn places in the US. In under a week, we already had an impressive collection of points on the map!


Data in this map is organized into several layers:

• Rusyn Places in the US - This is the layer most people will view and/or edit. 
• Blue points indicate a Rusyn place of interest
• Brown points indicate a Rusyn-style wooden church (more on that later)
• Former Rusyn Places in the US - This layer contains places that have a Rusyn history and have been repurposed, closed, or demolished.  
• Gray points indicate a place that is no longer used by Rusyns, but still has significance (architectural, cornerstone, etc.)
• Black points indicate a place that no longer has any Rusyn significance or has been demolished. These points still provide context for the extent of a former Rusyn community 
• Needs More Info - This layer includes places that are too vague to be useful or may be Rusyn but aren't confirmed (by sources or colloquial knowledge). 
• Red points were identified either during my review of newly added points or in my own research, and require additional digging. 
• Rusyn Places in Canada - This layer includes two Rusyn-style wooden churches in Canada because they were too interesting to leave off the map, and are very close to the Northeastern US.
• Russian Brotherhood Organization Lodges (-1959) - This layer includes towns that had a RBO lodge before 1959, as listed on the Rusyns of PA blog. This layer provides places for me to investigate for additional Rusyn communities and places that I may not have found otherwise.
• Green points are placed on the town, as these lodges often didn't have addresses of their own and met in churches or other businesses.
  

Findings

Not surprisingly, churches and cemeteries are most of the mark we've left on the US over the past 136 years*. I did find some fun things though:

• Monuments (a giant Campbell's Soup can signed by Andy Warhol, a statue of baseball player Stan Musial)
• Roads named for individuals or an entire group of people (Lemko Way, Olyphant, PA)
• A park (named for former Manville, NJ mayor George Papawick)

Of course, Rusyns need their pirogi, so I included a number of Eastern European restaurants in Rusyn areas, along with the famously Rusyn Baba's Pirogies in Brooklyn, and a future Rusyn restaurant in Johnstown, PA.

Take one look at the map and you'll notice that most of the Rusyn places in PA are in NEPA or near Pittsburgh. There are a significant amount of Rusyn places in NJ and OH as well. I also learned more about a number of Rusyn outposts in less likely places, like Hartshorne, OK and Brookside, AL. Rusyns migrated from the Northeastern US to Hartshorne and Brookside for job opportunities in the mines.

The most exciting find though, is a number of Rusyn-style wooden churches in the US and Ontario, Canada! Who knew?!? Here's the list, so far:

If you know of any that I missed, please comment below!

Idea for a Road Trip

I'm still stuck at home, trying to stay safe during a global pandemic. I'm not sure when I'll get to do this road trip, but I can dream... I used MapQuest's route planner again and came up with this route. I can visit all of the Rusyn-style wooden churches in the Northeast in 26 hours of driving!


I excluded the two in Ontario, Canada, since Canada is not letting Americans (or any other foreign nationals) in during the pandemic**. I also excluded the church in Georgia, because it is so far from the rest of the churches. I'll have to save that for another trip.

Sources

I cited my sources in each point on the map. If there's no comment in the map point, it was a suggestion by someone in the Facebook group, or was added by a user. For further reading, check out these links:

• Rusyns of Pennsylvania blog
• Kubek Project blog
• Carpatho-Rusyns Everywhere Facebook Group  
• Lemko Rusyns and Friends (Лемкы-Русины з приятелями) Facebook Group

* St Michael's in Shenandoah was the first Rusyn church in the US. It was built in 1884 and demolished in 2015. The congregation still exists, and has a newer church building that they've used for many years.
** I don't blame them. The US has some work to do, as infection numbers are skyrocketing again.

Interpreting History of Rusyn Villages based on Church Schematismus Data

Have I mentioned how much I love Archive.org lately? It's so good! There's so much incredible information for those willing to sift through it. I don't remember how, but I found a number of Schematismus books for the Diocese of Munkacs, Hungary. The Diocese of Munkacs is now known as the Greek Catholic Eparchy of Mukachevo, and is in today's Ukraine. It used to include parts of eastern Slovakia, but today only includes Zakarpattia Oblast, Ukraine. These books detail information on each of the Greek Catholic churches, the village, etc.

Research Subjects

Both of my Rusyn ancestors attended churches in that diocese, in the late 1800s and early 1900s. I thought it would be interesting to see what I could learn about their villages from these church records.The villages are 50km apart (approximately 30 miles):

• Kalna Roztoka, Slovakia - Current population: 615 ^[1]
• Lyuta, Ukraine - Current population: 2412 ^[2]

Data Collection

In total, I found 32 books on Archive.org, ranging from 1814 to 1915. On average, there were 3 years between each book. I set up a spreadsheet to collect data for each village, including the following:

• Year
• Link
• Village Name
• Page #
• Priest's Name
• Administrator's Name
• Cantor's Name
• Church Name
• # of People 
• # of People in Other Branches
• Total # of People
• Church Name (Other Branch)
• # of School Children
• Other Notes
• District

This is the majority of what can be found in the books. A comprehensive look would want to translate the descriptions and capture additional data, such as whether the village had a train station or post office. Amenities like these were identified with a symbol.

Results

I found it interesting to learn the names of the priests in each village. The priest in Kalna Roztoka in 1915 was Basilius Lyachovics. I have a 1933 letter from him to my great-grandmother, providing the birth and death dates for my great-great-grandparents, and asking her to send money to help care for her sister. In a separate post, I might look into the average length of time priests stayed at these two villages.

One of the most interesting, quantifiable changes over this 100 year period is the population of each village. This chart highlights the largest changes. The image below has the population colorized on a scale of red-yellow-green, where red is lowest and green is highest.

This raises the question: what happened circa 1856, that Kalna Roztoka lost 50% of their village population, and Lyuta lost 17%, in the prior 9 years. Or in 1836 when Kalna Roztoka lost 28% of their village population, and Lyuta lost 25%, in just 1 year.

Here's another view of the population changes:

Data on European Epidemics, Famines, and Weather

I'm writing this blog post while under a Stay At Home order for the COVID-19 pandemic, but I started work on this post in Fall 2019, before the virus was on anyone's radar. At that time I found it interesting how much information there is on historical climate-related disasters, pandemics, and famines. Now I have a different perspective, as we are living through a modern-day pandemic. The situation is eerie.

While I was unable to find any documentation of specific disasters, famines, or epidemics in either Kalna Roztoka or Lyuta, I did find some related information.

Lyuta is on the other side of the mountain crest from Austrian Galicia. It seems logical that a famine in Galicia could indicate difficult times on the other side of the mountains as well. The Wikipedia article on Famines in Austrian Galicia ^{[3, 4]} notes famines in 1832, 1853-1855.

The Wikipedia List of Epidemics ^[5] shows a global epidemic from 1855-1860: the 3rd (Bubonic) plague pandemic.

I looked into potential climate-related disasters, but had a hard time finding specific data. This website has some interesting climate observations: https://www.tambora.org/index.php/grouping/event/list?g%5Bqt%5D=&t%5Byb%5D=1800&t%5Bye%5D=1954&s%5Bcn%5D=9934&sort=t.begin&mode=search&page=14 If anyone has climate data for the 1800s, let me know!

Sources

1. Kalna Roztoka Wikipedia Article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaln%C3%A1_Roztoka
2. Lyuta Wikipedia Article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liuta
3. Famines in Austrian Galicia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Famines_in_Austrian_Galicia#Chronological_occurrences
4. Excerpt from "Oil Empire" by Alison Fleig Frank mentioning Galician famines: https://books.google.com/books?id=jNaFc1OdN-QC&pg=PA45#v=onepage&q&f=false
5. List of epidemics: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_epidemics