PolishOrigins(TM) Forum

Re: The term Rusky

sirdan — Sun Oct 25, 2015 11:08 am

Author: sirdan

Posted: Sun Oct 25, 2015 11:08 am

What Elżbieta said, if your Dziadek considered himself polish, then he was Russian nationality was probably written by officers, when Poland was nonexisted on maps.

Khabuzna is quite far, even farer than Lwów. There is high possibility your Dziadek had eastern accent. And usually eastern people were called "Ruskie", even those who lived on today Ukraine, since ukrainian is relatively new therm. So, i see it, that Your Babcia wanted point out the place of birth.

Interesting note about vodka and drinking. Every Pole, he wants it or not, has to deal with heritage of drinking vodka on any occasion. We here in Poland consider Russians the heaviest drinkers But we have also long history of drinking. Here is absolutely funny and hilarious but at the same time historically correct article about how it was in old Poland: http://historykon.pl/wiesz-rzeczpospolitej-ucztach-gosci-zmuszano-picia/ Imagine, you went to banquet and was forced to drink to the end. And there were service boys that "helped", you had no place to hide. Boys were always staying behind and eagerly pouring an alcohol, even under the table filling your glass, hehe. This "custom" was called przynuka.

Re: The term Rusky

singingfalls — Sun Oct 25, 2015 9:55 am

Author: singingfalls

Posted: Sun Oct 25, 2015 9:55 am

Thank you Elzbieta.

I am reading the book, The Nation in the Village by Halsted. In it she describes the mandatory consumption of vodka by villagers serfs as a rule establish by the landlords.

From my own experience once I attended an international forester's conference. Big corporation timber companies were discussing getting timber contracts from Russia. With one accord in all seriousness they declared that if you wanted the contract you had to be the last one standing after drinking vodka all night.

I say this as a sort of anecdotal confirmation of your thoughts.

Re: The term Rusky

Elzbieta Porteneuve — Sun Oct 25, 2015 4:17 am

Author: Elzbieta Porteneuve

Posted: Sun Oct 25, 2015 4:17 am

singingfalls wrote:

I loved Babush and Dzjadek. They lived only seven Philadelphia city blocks away from my home in the "Fishtown"/"Kensington" neighborhood I grew up in. They were hard working people above the norm. They also held very strong traditional Polish lifestyles in spite of the urban confines of a huge American city. (Philadelphia had 5.5 million people in it when I grew up in the '47-60's era.) Very rarely did Babush and Dzjadek argue in front of us kids. When they did it was always in Polish.(Dzjadek never spoke English but Babush always did.) On rare occasion Babush would call Dzjadek "You Rusky!" in a slightly derogatory tone . He did have a propensity to drink over his share of vodka each evening after work. )

Dzjadek claimed to be Polish according to official documents but he lived in what is now an area of the Ukraine. Khrabuzna - village in Ukraine, Polonsky district of Khmelnitsky. lat - long 49°55'53.28"N - 27°29'22.47"E

His immigration records declare that he was of the Polish 'race' and of Russian 'nationality'. My question is this. Did she call him a Rusky because he was from under the Czar or because in fact he was a Ruthenian?

Is someone able to assist me in deciphering this?

My own, non authoritative opinion, based on what you wrote above, is that "You Rusky", said by your Babush (Babcia) was in no way related to any ethnicity or Czar or today concepts, but was about character traits, good or bad, which are considered typical for some nationalities. Your Dziadek claimed to be Polish, so he was, you shall trust him.

For exemple there is a French saying "saoul comme un Polonais", https://fr.wiktionary.org/wiki/saoul_comme_un_Polonais, reported as being said by Napoleon. The Napoleon story makes it clear it is not about Poles but about French, who were not brave: French generals, jealous and wanting to minimize the role of the Poles, indicated that they were drunk. The Emperor replied, "So gentlemen, you shoud know to be drunk Poles!" Some Poles consider that Napoleon saying as excuse to drink and get drunk.
Russians are known to be terrible drunk, worst than Poles. Russians are also known to make people drunk in obliging them to drink tens of glasses of vodka under the pretext to not offend the host (which is one of political strategies seen in some movies), that always made me scary.
I guess your Babush was refering to her husband drinking vodka. "You Rusky" meaning "You drinking vodka like Russian".

Elzbieta

The term Rusky

singingfalls — Sat Oct 24, 2015 10:03 pm

Author: singingfalls

Posted: Sat Oct 24, 2015 10:03 pm

I loved Babush and Dzjadek. They lived only seven Philadelphia city blocks away from my home in the "Fishtown"/"Kensington" neighborhood I grew up in. They were hard working people above the norm. They also held very strong traditional Polish lifestyles in spite of the urban confines of a huge American city. (Philadelphia had 5.5 million people in it when I grew up in the '47-60's era.) Very rarely did Babush and Dzjadek argue in front of us kids. When they did it was always in Polish.(Dzjadek never spoke English but Babush always did.) On rare occasion Babush would call Dzjadek "You Rusky!" in a slightly derogatory tone . He did have a propensity to drink over his share of vodka each evening after work. )

Dzjadek claimed to be Polish according to official documents but he lived in what is now an area of the Ukraine. Khrabuzna - village in Ukraine, Polonsky district of Khmelnitsky. lat - long 49°55'53.28"N - 27°29'22.47"E

His immigration records declare that he was of the Polish 'race' and of Russian 'nationality'. My question is this. Did she call him a Rusky because he was from under the Czar or because in fact he was a Ruthenian?

Is someone able to assist me in deciphering this?