by Nonna Skumanich (C-RS, Durham, NC)Published in New Rusyn Times 2006, Vol. 13, No. 2Prepared from the original by Peter Simkins Sluk (C-RS, Cleveland, OH) To any student of American music, Bill Evans (1929-1980) is a well-known figure-considered one of the greats in Jazz. He worked with a number of top jazz artists including Charles Mingus, Art Farmer, Stan Getz, and Miles Davis. He did a number of recordings building a vast discography. Described by many as the “fountainhead of modern jazz piano,” with a rich and lyrical improvisational and compositional style, his influence extended to artists such as Herbie Hancock, Keith Jarrett, and Lyle Mays to mention only a few. It is less widely known that Bill Evans was half Carpatho-Rusyn! And what’s most interesting about his music is the way in which he infused it with his ethnic sensibilities. I first learned of Bill Evans quite by accident. A friend of a friend played a recording of his when we were visiting and right then I noticed something quite special in the quality of his music. Years later I came across the biography, Bill Evans: How My Heart Sings by Peter Pettinger, and discovered that Bill Evans was actually half Rusyn and half Welsh and grew up surrounded by the music of his Rusyn immigrant family including the sacred music of the Orthodox Church. Interestingly, Pettinger missed the fact that Evans was part Carpatho-Rusyn, describing him as Russian, but when one reads in the book of Evans’s maternal grandparents, the fact is inescapable. His mother, Mary Soroka, wasn’t Russian but was in fact Rusyn. Mary’s parents had come from Galicia and settled in Old Forge, Pennsylvania. Her father, Ivan Soroka came from Brunary, a Lemko village in southeastern Poland, while her mother, Anna Matijcak, was born in Carna, at the foot of the Carpathian mountains. Carna was part of the Brunary parish. When Mary Soroka’s father was killed in a coal mine accident, she and her sister lived for several years in the nearby Orthodox orphanage where they spoke only Russian according to Pettinger. This must have been the orphanage established at St. Tikhon’s Monastery in South Canaan, Pa., just up the mountain from Scranton. Both of Bill Evans’s parents were musical. His father, Harry sang regularly in a barbershop choir, and often with his drinking buddies. His mother loved the music of the Orthodox Church and also […]
Remembering the Staryna villages destroyed by dam construction
by Roman Rokytka, Korzár (Prešov, Slovakia), 21 September 2004translated by Bohuslav Harvil’ak (C-RS, Bratislava, Slovakia)Published as “Expelled Residents of Staryna Valley Still Returning to Their Native Villages After Many Years”, New Rusyn Times 2005, Vol. 12, No. 2 Prepared from the original by Peter Simkins Sluk (C-RS, Cleveland, OH) Modern social development sometimes requires individuals to conform to the so-called public interest. Such a situation occurred in Slovakia with the construction of factories, huge water works, highways, etc. Such projects brought thousands of jobs, brought fresh drinking water to dozens of villages and cities, and improved infrastructure. On the other hand, these projects changed the lives of people who, though compensated, were forced to abandon their homes. One of the greatest forced resettlements in Slovakia’s history occurred during the construction of the Staryna Dam in the Snina district. Seven villages were destroyed From 1980 to 1986, seven Rusyn villages were removed from the area around the Bukovsky Highlands (Bukovsky Verchy). According to official data, 3,500 residents were displaced. The Staryna reservoir was then constructed and is now the largest source of drinking water in Slovakia and in all of central Europe, supplying drinking water to all of eastern Slovakia. Those who were displaced now live in other places, most in the cities of Snina and Humenne, the rest scattered throughout eastern Slovakia. New housing tracts were created for the displaced upon their arrival, and the people built their houses or moved into apartments allotted to them. In the city of Snina, the tract is called “Brehy”; the one in Humenne is called “Dubnik.” Although the people adjusted to their new surroundings and have associations and folklore ensembles, to this day they continue to remember their lost homes with a heavy heart. They still come back The abandoned villages come alive on summer weekends. Not wishing to forget their lost homes, the displaced people return to the area of their birth. About a hundred cars comethrough the gate every day, according to a security guard. People visit the places where theirhouses stood; they show their children who lived where, where the school was, a pub, a church… In over grown gardens they get their bearings from surviving fruit trees and the remains of building foundations. They visit the cemeteries where their close relatives are buried. The cemeteries did not have to be destroyed, except for the cemetery in the village of […]
Nicholas Holonyak Jr.: Modern-day Thomas Edison and Rusyn Inventor
Lighting the way.
