RUTHENIANS

The Ruthenians are the national minority in Yugoslavia. That means that there are not many of them, comparing them with other nations (the Serbs and Montenegrins). The Ruthenians, as a national minority in Yugoslavia, have their own language, culture and customs, and a long time ago they had their own  country. Home land ancestors of Ruthenians come from, was the carpatian Ukraine and the east of Gallicia. It was situeted between the towns of Krakov and Peremislov. Now this area belongs to Ukraine and Poland and partly to Slovacia, Cheze and Hungary.  

The language of the Yugoslav Ruthenians is Ruthenian language. Officially it exists only in Yugoslavia. Since 1923. it has become literary too. This means that it is studied in schools, the books, the text books, magazines, newspapers are published, and radio and TV programs are broad casts.

            There were around 25000 Ruthenians in Yugoslavia, most of them in Vojvodina, around 20000 but in recent years their number is reduced because of moving of Ruthenians to the West.

RUSKI KRSTUR

     Ruski Krstur is the oldest ruthenian village it has around 6000 inhabitans. There are about 97% of ruthenians in it. It`s name used to be Bac Kerestur. The village was oficiallu,recognized in 1571 and there lived about 80 families.The first group of ruthenian arrived in 1745/46 from the villages Gornjica to Kosceljisko(that is barren area between Krstur  &Kula).  11 families settled here as it is written in old books. They left their country because of hard life. The polish authorities didn`t let them better life even though they were hard worning and worked a lot. The authorities in Kula received the ruthenians and sent them to  the waste land   (at that place where  once was waste and swampy land our village is situated now). The authorities were satisfied with the good work of the ruthenians, so they organised their relocatioin  once again from behind the carpation area. Many ruthenians arrived from Kosica, Usgorod, Miskolc... In 1753. the school began with work. 10 years later in 1763. the first group of ruthenians moved from Krstur and Kucura some returned back to their homeland, and some moved to nearby towns Kula, Vrbas, Novi Sad, Miklosevci, Petrovci, Vukovar... they moved because of the illness (cholera).      

     The ancestors of ruthenians brought with them their tradition: customs, culture and educational culture (educational culture means that the education was developed  in Gornjica especially the work of Jana Amosa Komenski). In the old homeland of ruthenians there was a school in Uzgorod. There was a school which prepared teachers for ruthenian language in primary school. The first teachers came from there to Backa & Srem.

PETRO KUZMJAK

Petro Kuzmjak was born in the village of Folvork (today Czecho-Slovakia) in 1816. He finished his primary education in his native town and he attended his secondary school Podolings and Debrecin. As he couldn't get his scholarship to continue his studies, he went to the monastery in Mukacevski. For a time he attended courses on pedagogy in Uzgorod. He run away from the monastery in 1838. He spent some time in the village Sabron, and since 1841, for 8 years he had  been a teacher in Jakubjani. During the revolution from 1848 - 1849, when the Russian army came , ”behind charpatian area” he was in prison.He came to Krstur to work as a teacher in May 1855. As an educated teacher he was responsible for the success of raising up of pedagogians and educational level. He spoke few languages Russian - Slavic, Latin, Hungariam and German. As a teacher and a pedagogue he was often praised by the church and state authoritites. But that was not enough to support his family. That is the reason why he tried to become the main cantor in Ruski Krstur, because this job was better paid. Having no success in this, he asked the bishop to ordain him as a priest in 1870. He stated that he had ten live children and that he could not support his family, with his solary, as a teacher. He also stated that for the duties of a priest he had the needed education: he had finished humanistic school, pedagogy and phylosophy courses and enough theology in order to became a monk in Mukacevski manastery. But his requests had been refused. After this, he had worked as a teacher another two decades in confession school in Ruski Krstur.

         He died on 13th January 1900 in R. Krstur, where he is buried too. The school in Ruski Krstur still carries his name.

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