Oh Ruthenia!
exonym or autonym
anthroponymy

If there is a period in history that attracts my attention it is 1939, that time when the British Government under Neville Chamberlain tried to keep Adolf Hitler under control through a policy that came to be known as appeasement.

You know, the plan that you keep giving in to Hitler’s demands in hopes that he will get tired and go away.

Mr. Chamberlain has come out on the short end of the history stick on this topic and in Britain few charges can damage a political career more than a charge of ‘Appeasement”.

But at the time it was popular and widely supported.

Down through history, the story of one man, Winston Churchill, holding the line against appeasement and preaching Nazi wickedness is one of the great stories.

It should be remembered though, that on one of the votes on the Government policy that Churchill called for [and in the House of Commons, Members of Parliament vote by leaving the House through the Yes or No door and then gather in the lobby outside ] Churchill found himself going through the YES door with but two other members.

I love this time and I love reading the accounts of how this all came down.

I have been reading the recently re-released diaries of Sir Henry ‘Chips’ Channon.

I have more to say about these diaries another time, but Sir Henry was “an upstart Chicagoan who’d unaccountably managed to marry the daughter of an exceedingly rich Anglo-Irish Earl, moved in vertiginously high circles.”

Sir Henry got into British politics and supported Prime Minister Chamberlain and the policy of appeasement.

And he kept a diary.

As the Munich Agreement came apart and Germany and Mr. Hitler moved to take over Czechoslovakia, Sir Henry recorded that on March, 14th, 1939, that Ruthenia was proclaimed independent.

Ruthenia?

Never heard of it.

Thank goodness for The Google.

I had to learn the who, where and what was Ruthenia.

I had a feeling it was made up but it wasn’t.

According to Wikipedia, Carpathian Ruthenia became part of the newly founded Hungarian Kingdom in 1000. In May 1919, it was incorporated with nominal autonomy into the provisional Czechoslovak state as Subcarpathian ‘Rus.

Pump the breaks for a minute.

I mean, lean on those breaks and stop right here.

Look at those two sentences.

… Hungarian Kingdom in 1000. In May 1919 …

Was a millennium of world history ever so easily dismissed?

If I write: Columbus came to the New World in 1492. Joseph R. Biden was elected President of the USA in 2020, the sentences would encompass some 500 years.

Hungarian Kingdom in 1000. In May 1919, covers 919 years.

And for the first time in my life I hear about Ruthenia?

THERE IS A LESSON HERE.

The wikipedia article on Ruthenia starts with the line:

Ruthenia is an exonym, originally used in Medieval Latin as one of several designations for East Slavic and Eastern Orthodox regions, and most commonly as a designation for the lands of Rus’.

That didn’t help me much.

Luckily the term exonym was linked for further examination.

According to wikipedia:

Exonyms are a type of Ethnonyms.

An exonym (from Greek: éxō, ‘outer’; also known as xenonym) is a common, external name for a geographical place, group of people, individual person, or a language/dialect, that is used only outside that particular place, group, or linguistic community. Exonyms exist not only for historico-geographical reasons, but also in consideration of difficulties when pronouncing foreign words.

Ethnonyms can be divided into two categories: exonyms (whose name of the ethnic group has been created by another group of people) and autonyms, or endonyms.

An ethnonym (from the Greek: ἔθνος éthnos ‘nation’ and ὄνομα ónoma ‘name’) is a name applied to a given ethnic group. Ethnonyms can be divided into two categories: exonyms (whose name of the ethnic group has been created by another group of people) and autonyms, or endonyms (whose name is created and used by the ethnic group itself).

As an example, the ethnically dominant group in Germany is the Germans. The ethnonym Germans is a Latin-derived exonym used in the English language. Conversely, the Germans call themselves the Deutsche, an endonym. The German people are identified by a variety of exonyms across Europe, such as Allemands (French), tedeschi (Italian), tyskar (Swedish) and Niemcy (Polish).

As a sub-field of anthroponymy, the study of ethnonyms is called ethnonymy or ethnonymics.

Ethnonyms should not be confused with demonyms, distinctive terms that designate all people related to a specific territory, regardless of any ethnic, religious, linguistic or some other distinctions that may exist within the population of that territory.

My head is spinning and I think I have to get back to bed.

The line, “Exonyms exist not only for historico-geographical reasons, but also in consideration of difficulties when pronouncing foreign words.” did catch my eye though.

I am reminded of the story of D Day and the paratroopers that were dropped over Normandy in the dark.

Those paratroopers had a special password and countersign to identify friend of foe in the dark.

The paratroopers were to call out, “Lightning?”

The proper response was “Thunder!”

Why?

Those continental Germanic peoples on the other side had problems pronouncing difficult foreign words, especially words with TH.

Them Germanic folks would have responded, TUNDER.

As for Ruthenia?

According to Wikipedia, “On 15 March 1939, the Ukrainophile president of Carpatho-Ruthenia, Avhustyn Voloshyn, declared its independence as Carpatho-Ukraine. On the same day, regular troops of the Royal Hungarian Army occupied and annexed the region. In 1944 the Soviet Army occupied the territory, and in 1945 it was annexed to the Ukrainian SSR. Rusyns were not an officially recognized ethnic group in the USSR, as the Soviet government considered them to be Ukrainian.”

As Frank Lloyd Wright might have said, “There you are.”

versions and values
here’s an oldie but goodie
deserve to be here

Has the last year, the last two years been stuck?

I would say have been stuck in neutral but neutral isn’t a word that comes to mind right now.

Everyone has an opinion.

Everyone is on one side or the other.

And, like the weather, everyone talks about it, but no one DOES anything about it.

If someone presents and argument and that argument is dismissed then the original argument is presented all over again but maybe with a different cast of characters or facts or whatever argument is based on nowadays.

Thinking this way, a scene from the old TV show MASH came to mind.

Neither the time nor place to rehash the show or get into a discussion about the merits of the show, the high points of the show, the low points of the show or if the show has stood the test of time.

Suffice it to say, I used to LOVE that show.

Today …. not so much.

But there was a time when me and my brothers would engage in endless discussions on show trivia and complete conversations that were made up of nothing but lines from the show.

One of my favorite questions was to list in order, both ways, of what Captain Pierce had to do to get a new pair of boots and how it all came undone.

But what came to mind was Corporal Klinger and his ongoing shtick of getting out of the army.

Klinger’s interaction’s with Colonel Henry Blake during the MASH early years were both funny AND witty.

I leave unsaid my feelings on the nonsense slap happy days of Colonel Potter and Klinger.

But thinking of arguments and facts and the last two years, it was this scene that came to mind.

Klinger marches in Col. Blake’s office and offers Blake a letter that Klinger just recieved bearing the news that his Father was dying and requests an emergency discharge.

Blake looks at Klinger and ask, “The Father dying, right?”

Klinger says, “Yes Sir!”

Blake leans over, opens a desk drawer and removes a file folder of letters.

Blake opens the folder and one at a time, removes each letter and delivers a short synopses of the letter.

Father dying last year.

Mother dying last year.

Mother AND father dying.

Mother, father, and older sister dying.

Mother dying and older sister pregnant.

Older sister dying and mother pregnant.

Younger sister pregnant and older sister dying.

Here’s an oldie but a goodie: Half of the family dying, other half pregnant.

Finishing the stack of letters, Blake looks at Klinger and says, “Klinger, aren’t you ashamed of yourself?”

Klinger, without shame or embarrassment says, “Yes, sir. I don’t DESERVE to be in the Army.“

Not sure what this has to do with anything to tell you the truth.

Except that for all the conflict and words and arguments we have all had, the last year …

BOY HOWDY!

do we deserve to be here!

• for the record and without the google …

Pierce needed boots from Supply Sgt,

Supply Sgt needed to see the Dentist

Dentist need a pass to Tokyo

Blake needed Houlihan off his case

Houlihan needed a party with cake for Burns

Radar needed a date with a nurse for the Cake

Nurse needed Klinger’s hair dryer

Klinger needed his crazy papers signed.

Pierce tries to get Burns, who has tears in his eye over his party to sign Klinger’s papers

Instead Burns rips up the papers

Klingler yells MY CRAZY PAPERS and goes and takes back his hair dryer

Radar shows up with flowers but the nurse, now without a hair dryer calls off the date

Radar returns to the party and slams his flowers onto the cake and takes the cake away just as Burns is set to blow out the candles

This causes Houlihan to scream at Blake that all this will be in her report to the General

At that moment the Dentist walks up to Blake to thank him for the three day pass which Blake grabs and rips up

Then the supply Sgt says to the Dentist, SEE YOU TOMORROW and the Dentist tells him to drop dead

And the supply Sgt refuses to delivers the boots to Pierce.