On this New Year’s Eve, it’s a traditional time for reflection and resolution.
My primary reflection is that 2023 wasn’t really what I thought it would be. Overall that’s okay, because some unexpected opportunities arose and made for a more than worthwhile alternative use of my time (not to mention some helpful additions to my CV).
So what were the major events of the year?
May: I spent a day at the University of Pittsburgh’s Archives Service Center for one last session gathering information from membership applications and death claims of the United Russian Orthodox Brotherhood of America (UROBA). (past post on this resource and archive)
September: Through the good words of an old friend vouching for me, I was able to do long-anticipated research in the Saints Cyril & Methodius Ukrainian Catholic Church in Berwick (Columbia County), which as I suspected, had a fair number of Carpatho-Rusyn parishioners despite the thoroughly Carpatho-Rusyn community around the corner at Holy Annunciation Russian (originally "Ugro-Russian"/Uhro-Rusyn) Orthodox Church. And related, via the help of Ss. Cyril & Methodius’s pastor, I did a survey of any available materials at St. Nicholas Ukrainian Catholic Church in Glen Lyon (Luzerne County) and took some much-improved photos inside the church.
October: I successfully completed 7 days in the Pennsylvania State Archives Scholar-in-Residence program. Most of the time I focused on gathering naturalization documents from microfilmed records of various counties. (blog post on some of my findings) This will result in an article sometime in 2024, exact topic TBD, in the Pennsylvania History journal.
November: I attended the 2023 Assembly of the Byzantine (Ruthenian) Metropolitan Church, at St. Mary's Church in Hillsborough, New Jersey, at which there were a lot of thought-provoking and encouraging presentations. I hadn't been to any church-wide events (other than pilgrimages) in many years, and so I was able to reconnect with many old friends and others who have been very helpful to me in the past.
December: I was a member of a roundtable at the 55th Annual Convention of the Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies (ASEEES) in Philadelphia, a book discussion of the just-published 5th edition of Our People: Carpatho-Rusyns and Their Descendants in North America by Paul R. Magocsi. I joined fellow panelists Nick Kupensky (chair), Pat Krafcik, Bogdan Horbal, and Bob Zecker to evaluate the book from various perspectives (organizational, economic/social, cultural, etc.). My assignment was to reflect on the book’s treatment of Carpatho-Rusyn religious history. Our plan is to submit the entire set of essays to the journal Nationalities Papers in 2024.
Beyond the extra writing for journal articles and conference presentations, I didn’t have much time at home for computer work except for short, mostly late-night, bursts of data entry toward items I’ve mentioned in the past:
I finished more of the far-flung or early settlements pioneers lists, such as:
- Allentown, Catasauqua, and Northampton, Lehigh & Northampton Counties;
- Old Forge, Lackawanna County;
- Mount Carmel, Northumberland County;
- Minersville and Saint Clair, Schuylkill County;
- McAdoo, Schuylkill County;
- Lansford, Coaldale, and Nesquehoning, Carbon & Schuylkill Counties;
- Lopez and nearby towns, Sullivan County;
- Pittsburgh city (mostly South Side) and Carnegie, Allegheny County;
- McKees Rocks, Presston, and Moon Run, Allegheny County;
- Scottdale, Westmoreland County;
- Wilpen, Westmoreland County;
- Curtisville, Allegheny County.
I also made a dent in entering deceased members, where birthplaces were included (1926-1970s) for the Greek Catholic Union lodges that I had years ago compiled on paper – so far just for lodges in southeastern PA and the lower anthracite region. This leaves a lot more to do over the next few months for the rest of the state but in this form will be a much more useful resource, especially when integrated with the similar listings of other fraternals (in progress) like RBO, RNS/UNA, Providence, and Ukrainian National Aid Society. Now that I have a substantial body of such info from UROBA lodges (and the American Russian Brotherhood it absorbed), I will add those eventually.
Resolution:
Often when I’m attending events where I reconnect with old friends and acquaintances, they ask me when my book might be done – because they are eager to read it! While I doubt I will be able to give anyone a reasonable expected date for my book to appear even after the coming year and what I hope it holds, I genuinely commit to have all the digital materials in order and/or finished so that I can proceed with compiling and writing unencumbered by the excuse of “I just need to add the data to ____ and then I can start…”
That said, I expect to focus my research time on visiting a few key institutions:
- Eparchy of Passaic’s Heritage Museum and Library;
- Historical Society of Pennsylvania; and
- Immigration History Research Center Archives (maybe, maybe not).
And hopefully two or three final sweeps of a few parts of the state, for church and cemetery visits (photography, scanning, metrical record research):
- Chester and Philadelphia;
- Braddock, Duquesne and McKeesport;
- Brownsville and New Salem;
- Minersville, Shenandoah, and Saint Clair.
Otherwise, I’m going to focus on:
- Consolidation of existing digital files (images of archival documents, photo scans);
- Completion and correction of data files of fraternal lodge members (like from the RBO) and naturalization documents;
- Preparation of data files for mapping Rusyn and related points of interest in the major organized settlements;
- Completion of entry of data files on settlements and fraternal lodges;
- Printing microfilmed periodicals to digital images and photographing pages of disintegrating old newspapers from my own collection;
- Selection and scanning of photos from old church anniversary booklets and fraternal almanacs;
- Completion of the large essays for the book: notes, introduction, overview for each region, and glossary.
If those sound familiar, it’s no doubt because I had them on my to-finish list for 2023. I guess that may explain why the book isn’t ready yet… I trust that means I’m doing it right, even if it means more waiting. In any case, dear reader, thank you for continuing to wait, and to be interested in what I’m doing and to hang in there as the best aspects of the information about this topic bubbles to the top. A happy and healthy New Year to all!
Original material is © by the author, Richard D. Custer; all rights reserved.
Hello, my name is Constantine Rebroff. I am an ethnic Russian young man, US citizen. I am a software engineer. I love the Russian and Slavic traditional culture. I have been studying the language, culture, and history of "our people", the descendants of the Russian Empire and Austro-Hungarian Empire. What you are doing, recording the history and culture of the Carpatho-Rusyns is very impressive and much needed in this day and age. We have to preserve our traditions and our identity at all costs. And preserve our lineage/tribe physically. Or else we will be wiped from the history books in less than a century. I think that we need to embrace a kind of pan-Slavic identity. Unifying, not dividing our people. I have seen the Russian Old Believers and White Army Cossacks forming their own communities in the Americas and elsewhere, which would be beneficial for maintaining the ethnic or cultural identity in the long term.
ReplyDeleteConstantine, thanks for the kind words of encouragement. I appreciate your interest and hope you will find future posts of interest.
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