Dear Friends of The Carpatho-Rusyn Society, The Board of Directors of The Carpatho-Rusyn Society is implementing a special offer to acquire new members. A discount of $10 is being offered for all membership types. Membership Types (Annual Dues Before Discount) NOTE: This offer will ONLY be available from September 1st, through December 6th, of this year. It may not seem like much, but $10 is a 33% discount. But that’s not why you should consider joining. Increasing membership is vital to the future of our Carpatho-Rusyn Society and our mission “of preserving the distinct culture, history, language and heritage of the Carpatho-Rusyn people”. Through increased membership, we can ensure the continued existence of our society and—even more importantly—we can capture the attention of younger, future generations and hopefully inspire them to carry on the task of keeping “the beauty and life affirming values of a living Rusyn heritage” alive. The Carpatho-Rusyn Society is a volunteer run organization. That means that we rely on memberships to sustain our mission of preserving, promoting, and celebrating Carpatho-Rusyn culture and heritage. Sustained memberships provide the financial support that makes the opportunities listed below, along with other important initiatives possible: The Carpatho-Rusyn Society is now 32 years old! Your ongoing support will help strengthen our community and expand awareness of our shared Rusyn identity. Will you take a few moments now to invest pennies a day for a discounted Annual Membership? Your ancestors sacrificed so much to seize the opportunity to immigrate to America—your opportunity to become a member of the Carpatho-Rusyn Society is one great way for you to demonstrate to those ancestors just how grateful you are! Let’s keep our Rusyn culture alive! Click here to join us! Enter Code: C-RS26 to receive the $10 discount. With warm regards, Mary Ann Sromoski President, Carpatho-Rusyn Society NOTE: If you’re not sure whether you’re a member, please go visit the website at www.c-rs.org and login. If you need help, please email: membership@c-rs.org
Coach Bob Chesney, a Rusyn who grew up in Kulpont, Pennsylvania
Another Carpatho-Rusyn is finding great success in the college sports world. Bob Chesney is the new Head Football Coach at UCLA, coming off a spectacular two-year stint at James Madison University. Following Curt Cignetti’s departure from the JMU Dukes to coach Indiana University to a NCAA National Championship, taking the top 13 players with him, Chesney recruited a whole new roster and still recorded a 21-5 record. The Dukes won their first bowl game in Bob’s first year and then the Sun Belt Championship in his second year, including a record setting appearance in the College Football Playoffs. Even before UCLA’s first game has been played, Chesney has infused the Bruins program with an energy and winning attitude. Chesney grew up in Kulpmont, Pennsylvania in the heart of the Anthracite Coal Region. His Polish American father, Bob Sr., was a well-known and successful high school football coach and now acts as an unpaid UCLA defensive assistant for his son. His mother, Claudia Yonkovig Chesney, is the paternal great-granddaughter of Lemko immigrants from Swiatkowa Wielke and the maternal granddaughter of a Ukrainian grandfather and a Lemko grandmother. John Yonkovig, Bob’s paternal 2nd great-grandfather, was one of the founders of Transfiguration Catholic Church in Shamokin, Pennsylvania, which was first a Ruthenian parish which shifted to the Ukrainian fold under circumstances that Carpatho-Rusyns know too well. Coach Chesney graduated from Transfiguration Elementary School along with his brothers Vincent and Nicholas as well as his mother, his Aunt Alexa, his Uncle Mike, and his Great Uncle Zen. Please follow UCLA college football to watch a Carpatho-Rusyn coach of a major university build a program based on winning with honor, integrity, commitment and values. His proud Godfather is Dr. Mike Yonkovig, a Carpatho-Rusyn Society member and 2025 alumnus of the C-RS Studium at Presov University. Photo: Kenneth C. Zirkel, “Holy Cross head football coach Bob Chesney closeup,” via Wikimedia Commons, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
Rusyn Pop Music – An Interview with Myter Erdeli, Creator of Rusyn Music Playlists on YouTube
Christine HrichakPublished: July 29, 2026 The Carpatho-Rusyn Society is pleased to share information about a creative endeavor by a Rusyn from Ukraine, Myter Erdeli. His YouTube channel features Rusyn music playlists in various genres. C-RS: Welcome! Please introduce yourself to the Carpatho-Rusyn Society. Myter: First of all, thank you for the opportunity to speak on such an interesting topic. I am Myter Erdeli, a Carpatho-Rusyn from Subcarpathia. I was born and raised in a Rusyn village Bilky in the Old Country, so Rusyn is my mother tongue. However, I came to my Carpatho-Rusyn identity on my own through literature, music, and social media. At home, a sort of national indifference prevailed, caused by decades of the Rusyn identity being banned. In this sense, I share something in common with the diaspora, as I discovered and rebuilded my Rusyn heritage practically from scratch. C-RS: You have a number of playlists containing remixes of Rusyn music, categorized by genre. What inspired you to create these playlists? Myter: If you ask how many Rusyns read books, the answer will be quite pessimistic. But if you ask how many listen to music, that would be the absolute majority. Nevertheless, there is a deep-seated stereotype that Rusyn music, or music in the Rusyn language, is nothing but folk or something trivial. I love music myself, both folk and contemporary, and I am always looking for modern Rusyn music. I realized very quickly that Rusyn music does exist and is even represented across various modern genres, but it is typically amateur and scattered across different platforms. Most importantly, up to two-thirds of these tracks are unavailable or unlicensed on streaming platforms like Spotify or Apple Music, which is where young people usually spend their time. My first impulse was to gather Rusyn music in one place just for myself. Very quickly, this evolved into building a library of modern Rusyn music on my channel, including curated playlists so that people can discover this phenomenon for themselves without spending hours searching for it, the way I did. C-RS: How long have you been creating playlists like this, whether on YouTube or elsewhere? Myter: I launched my YouTube channel back in 2016, and that was around the time I uploaded first Rusyn songs. For me personally, this interest in Rusyn music and the search for something new within it has been ongoing for a decade. The creation of […]
