Pannonian Rusyns in the context of "Vukovar-Syrmia County"

Pannonian Rusyn (руски язик, romanized: ruski jazik), also historically referred to as Yugoslav Rusyn, is a variety of the Slovak language, spoken by the Pannonian Rusyns, primarily in the regions of Vojvodina (northern part of modern Serbia) and Slavonia (eastern part of modern Croatia), and also in the Pannonian Rusyn diaspora in the United States and Canada. Since Rusyns are officially recognized as a national minority both in Serbia and Croatia, their language is also recognized as a minority language, and in the provincial administration of Serbian province of Vojvodina is employed as one of six languages in official use.

There are several scholarly debates on various linguistic issues related to this language, including the question whether Pannonian Rusyn should be reclassified as a distinct microlanguage, a dialect of Eastern Slovak, or still considered to be just a specific variety of the common Rusyn language, that also has other varieties, spoken by Rusyns in northern (Carpathian) regions, mainly in southwestern Ukraine, northeastern Slovakia, southeastern Poland, and northern Romania.

The Constitution of Croatia in its preamble defines Croatia as a nation state of ethnic Croats, a country of traditionally present communities that the constitution recognizes as national minorities and a country of all its citizens. National minorities explicitly enumerated and recognized in the Constitution are Serbs, Czechs, Slovaks, Italians, Hungarians, Jews, Germans, Austrians, Ukrainians, Rusyns, Bosniaks, Slovenes, Montenegrins, Macedonians, Russians, Bulgarians, Poles, Romani, Romanians, Istro-Romanians ("Vlachs"), Turks and Albanians. Article 12 of the constitution states that the official language in Croatia is Croatian, but also states that in some local governments another language and Cyrillic or some other script can be introduced in official use.

The official use of minority languages is defined by relevant national legislation and international conventions and agreements which Croatia signed. The most important national laws are Constitutional Act on the Rights of National Minorities, Law on Use of Languages and Scripts of National Minorities and Law on Education in Language and Script of National Minorities. Relevant international agreements are European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages and Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities. Certain rights were achieved through bilateral agreements and international agreements such as Treaty of Osimo and Erdut Agreement.