Yes I've heard of Ruthenia, and no I don't think it's a sad thing at all when a culture dies out.

If something doesn't change then it dies out.

Trying to preserve the "traditional" culture anywhere is a pointless exercise - at what point do you want to "freeze" your culture? 10 yrs ago? 20? 100? 200?

Why bother? Culture exists to serve people, and if a culture cannot serve it's people then it needs to change or be replaced.

Get used to it - no-one mourns the passing of the culture that Ruthenians replaced, and we aer not worse off because that cultuer ded out - it gave whatever it had to us, and we moved on.

so it will be with Ruthenia and all the other little cultures whose partisans are feeling overwhelmed by the world.

C'est la vie