ABSTRACT
The article is dedicated to the codification of the Rusyn/Ruthenian language in Serbia in 1923. The people calling themselves ‘Rusnaci’ started arriving in Vojvodina from eastern Slovakia and northeastern Hungary in 1746. They formed a compact majority in several villages in Vojvodina. Their language was codified in the early 1920s. By the time of codification, they possessed the developed feeling of the BSR (Bačka-Srem Rusnak/Ruthenian) ethnic identity. Many BSR intellectuals of the time considered BSR part of the Ukrainian nation. However, the feeling of BSR ethnic identity was the reason why BSR and not Ukrainian were picked as the future literary language of BSRs. The codification of the BSR language, in accordance with, and corroborating the theoretical findings of Benedict Anderson and Ernest Gellner, contributed to the consolidation of the BSR ethnicity.
