HISTORICAL MEMORY AND THE NATIONAL AND POLITICAL IDENTIFICATION OF RUSINS in 1914-1920

The role of collective historical memory in the nation-building process and the political identification in the context of global social upheavals - the World War I and the Russian Civil War - is considered through the example of the national movement of the Rusins which developed in the acute confrontation of two national and political movements - the Ukrainophiles and the Russophiles (Muscophiles). Based on the analysis of archival materials it is shown how the political elite of the Rusins movement, oriented towards Russia, used the discourse of historical memory (the allRussian historical past) for the purpose of "reunification" of Carpathian Rus with the 'bearer of all-Russian values' - Russia. In the case of a successful accomplishment of that goal, the result could have been the transformation of the Rusins movement into a local version of an all Russian political nation - one of the possible, yet unrealized prospects of development of the Eastern Slavic population in Galician Rus.