Pannonian Rusyns

Pannonian Rusyns
Панонски Руснаци
Панонски Русини
Total population
16,583 (2011)
Regions with significant populations
 Serbia14,246 (2011)
 Croatia2,337 (2011)
Languages
Pannonian Rusyn
Religion
Eastern Catholicism
Eastern Orthodoxy
Related ethnic groups
Slovaks, other East Slavs
Especially Ukrainians, Boykos, Hutsuls, Lemkos, and other Rusyns

Pannonian Rusyns (Rusyn: Русини, romanized: Rusynŷ), also known as Pannonian Rusnaks (Rusyn: Руснаци, romanized: Rusnat͡sŷ), and formerly known as Yugoslav Rusyns (during the existence of former Yugoslavia), are ethnic Rusyns from the southern regions of the Pannonian Plain (hence, Pannonian Rusyns). Their communities are located mainly in Vojvodina, Serbia, and Slavonia, Croatia. In both of those countries, they are officially recognized as a national minority, and have several minority institutions and organizations.[1][2]

In some non-Slavic languages, they are sometimes also referred to by certain archaic exonyms, such as Pannonian Ruthenes or Pannonian Ruthenians,[3] but those terms are not used in the native Rusyn language.[4] Such terms are also imprecise, since Ruthenian and related exonyms have several broader meanings, both in terms of their historical uses and ethnic scopes, that are encompassing various East Slavic groups.[5][6]

Geographical Pannonian adjective is used as a neutral term of convenience, since the previous geographical ethnonym (Yugoslav Rusyns) became significantly reduced in scope after the breakup of major Yugoslavia (1991–1992),[7] and also obsolete when the reduced Federal Republic of Yugoslavia changed its name to Serbia and Montenegro (2003). In order to avoid confusion, the term Pannonian Rusyns is used in modern English terminology as a descriptive regional ethnonym for Rusyn communities in all of those regions,[8] similar to the way the term North American Rusyns is used to refer to the Rusyn diasporas in the United States and Canada.

Pannonian Rusyns are descendants of 18th-century migrant communities, that came from northeastern (Carpathian) regions,[9] still inhabited today by other groups of (Carpathian) Rusyns, who live in southwestern Ukraine, northeastern Slovakia, southeastern Poland, northern Romania, and northeastern Hungary.[10]