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Doreen,
The problem is not yours! It is one of politics, a poor teaching of history in the US ... and of people coming to the US and working hard and not having much time to think about who they were and communicate that to those around them.
Rusyn and Russian, when said in their respective languages sound much the same. With much of the eastern part of old Galicy province falling into the hands of the Russian communists there was an effort to "turn" those folks into Russians and the Roosevelts were no help... after all FDR called Stalin Uncle Joe... and all the while he was massacreing people in Ukraine! That said let me direct you to some pages about Ruthenians aka Rusins, Rusyns, Lemkos (what they are called in SE Poland), Carpatho-Ruthenians. Some of the pages show the lovely folk dress of those people, which they wore on special church days and for weddings.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruthenians
http://www.halgal.com/ruthenian.html
Ruthenians in Eastern Slovakia
http://www.iarelative.com/slovakia.htm
http://www.carpathorusynsociety.org/
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/13278a.htm
http://www.carpatho-rusyn.org/indexgen.htm
Here is a link to a good map showing the area were Rusyns lived
http://carpatho-rusyn.org/where.htm
http://carpatho-rusyn.org/indexbgd.htm
And here is an interesting article about the religious history of the Ruthenians. Roman Catholic missionaries had converted many to the Greek Rite Church in old Rusyn areas, they could keep their church traditions but were in union with Rome, and not the Orthodox church (in Russia). It is my understanding that when many came to America they were Greek Rite Catholics aka Byzantine Catholics. This church even though a "branch" or the Roman Catholic Church has many of the traditions of the Orthodox Church, the way the make the cross, chants with no instruments used, and the priests were permitted to marry. HOWEVER when many came to America they found that some Roman Catholic Bishops did not agree with those practices and some converted to Orthodox religion. Here is an article that talks a bit about this
http://www.faswebdesign.com/ECPA/Byzantine/Ruthenian.html
In any case politics (Russian communist) and time have unfortunately blurred the lines between Ruysn and Russian But if you recall a year or so ago the Ukraine had elections and a popular "democratic" leader, who was from the part of Ukraine that was once part of Austria-Hungary (that part where Rusyn live) was give some poison which disfugured his face. I think he eventually won the election but he was running against someone from the eastern part of the Ukraine (someone backed by Russia) so you can see those old historical divisions. But rember those people did not decide to become part of the old communist Russia... England, France and America decided! But as one of Churchills aides said when Yugoslavia was being created again and someone brought up the fact that historically Slovenians and Croatians had little association with Serbs.... "what do we care they are only little countries" !
http://www.faswebdesign.com/ECPA/Byzantine/Ruthenian.html
Robert
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