The Carpatho-Rusyn Heritage Museum in Parma, Ohio

Trophy awarded as first prize at Cleveland Rusin Day, 1923

This is something of a historic blog post now that the Carpatho-Rusyn Heritage Museum is no longer situated in St. John the Baptist Cathedral in Parma, Ohio. Nonetheless, here are a number of photos taken during a visit to the museum in the Spring of 2010 alongside some information about the Carpatho-Rusyns gleaned in the course of that visit. For more on the Carpatho-Rusyn Heritage Museum - which is in the process of relocating - visit the organization’s website and another great resource is the Carpatho-Rusyn Society’s blog.


Interpretation board at the Carpatho-Rusyn Museum, Parma

Entering the museum, visitors are greeted by a description of who exactly the Carpatho-Rusyns are. An extract from the text on the sign pictured above reads:

“Carpatho-Rusyns are linguistically and culturally an East Slavic people who settled along the northern and southern slopes of the Carpathian Mountains. Their homeland is situated in the area where Slovakia, Ukraine, and Poland meet. Aside from those countries, there are smaller numbers of Carpatho-Rusyns in parts of Romania, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Croatia, and Serbia.”


Map and flag from the Carpatho-Rusyn Museum, Parma

The museum’s website describes the institution’s holding as follows:

“The collection of artifacts includes historical costumes, photographs, documents, maps, folk art, needlework, videos, music and recordings, and a library.”

When Recording Voices & Documenting Memories visited the museum there was a special, seasonal, focus on pysanky (kraslice – painted eggs) and traditional foods prepared at Easter time by the Carpatho-Rusyns.


Pysanky (painted eggs) at different stages of completion, Carpatho-Rusyn Museum

The role of museum guide was played by Maryann Sivak, who came to America from Czechoslovakia in 1968 and co-founded the Carpatho-Rusyn Society here a quarter of a century later. In this clip from her interview with Recording Voices & Documenting Memories, she recalls the difficulty authorities had recognizing her Carpatho-Rusyn ethnicity growing up:



For more on Carpatho-Rusyn culture and news on meetings and events taking place here in the United States, visit the links posted above and the Carpatho-Rusyn Society’s website (http://c-rs.org/).