by Patricia A. Krafcik, Ph.D.
It is with great sadness that the Carpatho-Rusyn Research Center and the other organizations of the Carpatho-Rusyn Consortium of North America learn of the passing of Dr. Vasyl’ Yabur. Born in the Carpatho-Rusyn village of Stakčín in then interwar Czechoslovakia, Yabur was educated at the Russian gymnasium in Humenné and the Ukrainian middle school in Snina, receiving university degrees at the Advanced School of Russian Language and Literature in Prague and at Comenius University in Bratislava. He taught at institutions of higher learning in Slovakia, including the School of Pedagogy in Prešov, Šafárik University in Košice, and the Advanced School of Education in Nitra. Most recently he taught at the Institute of Rusyn Language and Culture at Prešov University.
Yabur specialized in comparative and functional linguistics, and when it became crucial for Carpatho-Rusyns in Slovakia to possess their own standard form of the Rusyn language after the Revolutions of 1989, he threw his expertise and energy into achieving that task. Together with linguist Yurii Panko and others, that goal was achieved in 1995. He authored and co-authored articles and significant books on the linguistic rules of the language. These included a text on the contemporary Rusyn literary standard replete with useful descriptions and charts, all from a modern linguistic perspective.
For his work, Yabur was recognized with a number of awards, one of which was especially significant, and that was a high state award for his Rusyn-language codifying work presented to him in June 2021 by then President of the Slovak Republic Zuzanna Čaputová. Prešov University also honored him in 2024 with its highest award, a Gold Medal for his scholarly and pedagogical work and his contribution to the development of Prešov University’s Institute of Rusyn Language and Culture. Through all of this, Yabur remained his authentic unassuming and quiet and reserved self. Among others who knew him, I will always remember the kindness and warmth he conveyed in conversation, as well as his brilliant and subtle sense of humor. He served his people with his stellar work. He will be missed but not forgotten.
Eternal Memory! Вічная память!