Rusyn Institutions

Today I was at the Museum of Rusyn Culture and at the cathedra (oh how I love the terminology of European academe) of Rusyn Language and Culture at Prešov University.

I'm about to write an entire thesis about the museum, so I'll hold off on that, but a quick and interesting note about the academic department:

When the department was first established, it was in the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures. Then, it was renamed/reorganized into the Department of Regional Languages and Literatures, and now it is finally its own independent Department of Rusyn Language and Culture. The point being that a group of people who are indigenous were included in the category of foreign.

The coolest thing though is that today, and basically just by walking across the street, I was in two of the most important Rusyn institutions in the world, both of which are basically brand-new. It's time for such things -- we humans need institutions, if only to have something tangible to attempt to represent that which is certainly intangible.