WRusyns, sometimes referred to as Rusnaks, also known as Ruthenians, Carpatho-Ruthenians or Carpatho-Russians, are an East Slavic people who speak the Rusyn language. They descend from an East Slavic population that inhabited the northern regions of the Eastern Carpathians from the Early Middle Ages. Together with other East Slavs from neighboring regions, they were often labeled by the common exonym Ruthenians, or by the regionally more specific designation Carpathian Ruthenians, with subgroup designations such as Dolinyans, Boykos, Hutsuls and Lemkos. Unlike their neighbors to the east, who adopted the use of the ethnonym Ukrainians in the early 20th century, Rusyns kept and preserved their original name. As residents of northeastern regions of the Carpathian Mountains, Rusyns are closely connected to, and also sometimes associated with, other Slavic communities in the region, like the West Slavic highlander community of Gorals.
WCarpathian Ruthenia, Carpatho-Ukraine or Zakarpattia is a historic region in the border between Central and Eastern Europe, mostly located in western Ukraine's Zakarpattia Oblast, with smaller parts in easternmost Slovakia and Lemkivshchyna in Poland. In the Middle Ages it was part of Kievan Rus. Before World War I most of this region was part of the Kingdom of Hungary. In the interwar period, it was part of the First and Second Czechoslovak Republic. During World War II, the region was annexed by the Kingdom of Hungary once again. After the war, it was occupied by the USSR and became part of Soviet Ukraine.
WThe contemporary administrative entities roughly corresponding the traditional territory of settlement of the Rusyns. Following areas have been included which still are or up to the World War II were inhabited by each of the Rusyn sub-ethnicities mentioned below:
WRusyns in Pannonia, or simply Rusyns, or Ruthenians, are a regional minority subgroup of the Rusyns, an Eastern Slavic people. They are located in the Central European region of Pannonia, which today covers almost all of Hungary, the southernmost parts of Slovakia, northeast Croatia, a tiny sliver portion of northeast Slovenia, and the northernmost part of Serbia (Vojvodina).
WRusyns and Ukrainians in Czechoslovakia during the period from 1918 to 1938, were ethnic Rusyns and ethnic Ukrainians of the First Czechoslovak Republic, representing two main ethnic communities in the most eastern region of Czechoslovakia, known during that period as the Subcarpathian Rus.
WThalerhof was an concentration camp created by the Austro-Hungarian authorities during 4.09.1914 — 10.05.1917, in a valley in foothills of the Alps, near Graz, the main city of the province of Styria
WYuriy Ivanovich Venelin was a Rusyn slavist, folklorist, ethnographer and philologist best known for his research on the language, history and culture of Bulgaria and its people.