I was watching the new authorities destroying our Rusyn literature, our cultural heritage…
I was watching burning books piled in a heap, and tears were streaming down my face…
Stephan Bendas
If we want not only to be relevant to our future, but also to control it, we need to know our past, and know it for what it was, without bias and distortion…
Each person needs to know his history, the history of his people, the history of his village or town, the history of his family…
After the Second World War, here at the foot of the Carpathian Mountains, on the orders of the new government, all school, urban and rural libraries were cleaned up of all Rusyn and so-called “anti-Soviet” publications.
Huge efforts have been made to present Rusyns and Rusyn language as non-existent.
All rural, municipal and secondary schools in one day turned from the Rusyn into the Ukrainian-speaking.
Property of the “Subcarpathian Society of Sciences” was nationalized – the management building, printing office, library, etc…
On the 7th of May 1945, all the Rusyn scientific activities were eliminated…
“I was a witness to how the special commission has selected all the Rusyn and “anti-Soviet” literature, newspapers and magazines, and carried it into the Episcopal Park (where at present is a laboratory of UzhNU), and then the resulting pile of several cubic meters was doused with gasoline and set on fire…
I stood in the street, tears streaming down my face … With deep pain in my heart, I watched the new authorities destroying our Rusyn literature, our cultural heritage… ” –
Fr. Stephan Bendas.
Father Stephan Bendas was born in August 3, 1903, in the village Bobovische, Mukachevo district.
He received his primary education in several languages – in English in Stratton, PA, USA; then in Hungarian – in Mukachevo, and finally, in Rusyn, in the village Grushevo.
After graduating from gymnasium and seminary, in February 12, 1928, he was ordained to the priesthood.
At the seminary, he was the chairman of the literary circle of the Dukhnovich Society.
In July 18, 1949, as the Greek Catholic priest he was sentenced for anti-Soviet activities under Articles 54-4 and 54-10 part 2 of the Criminal Code of the USSR for 25 years in labour camps.
He spent five years behind barbed wire in the Gulag.
After his release, until the end of his life he secretly re-created library collections of the destroyed Rusyn literary heritage.
Today, thanks to the invaluable efforts of Fr. Stephan Bendas, as well as his family, and his son, Fr. Daniel Bendas, who worthily continues the work of his father, “Rusyn Library” presents section of digitized literature from the book collection, “Library of Stephan Bendas.”
