by Father Jan Polansky, writing as "Ioann F. Lemkyn"

Jan Polansky (d. mid-1960s), a Lemko priest and the last head of the Lemko
Apostolic Administration, held pan-Slavic ("Russophile") political views
once common in Habsburg-era Lemkivshchyna. His manuscript history of the
Lemko people, written before his death, was published posthumously in 1969
by the Lemko-Soyuz of the USA and Canada (Yonkers, NY) under his pen name
"Ioann F. Lemkyn." Walter Maksimovich translated portions of it into
English and posted them, section by section, on his site "The Lemko Page"
(lemko.org) beginning in 1998 — the pages preserved here.

This is not the complete book. Maksimovich translated and posted only
some sections — Part One, Sections 12–14 and 16; all of Part Two,
Sections 24–30; and Part Three, Sections 10–14 — and the project
stopped there ("More to come…" reads the original page, apparently never
fulfilled). What follows is exactly that surviving fragment, in the order
the translator posted it, with nothing added and nothing invented to
bridge the gaps. Readers should understand this as a window into a larger,
otherwise unpublished-in-English work, not a finished history. Part Two,
Sections 24–27 additionally note that they first appeared in the Yonkers
newspaper "Karpatska Rus'" before being reposted online with the editor's
permission.

The translator's own occasional bracketed notes — marked "wm," "Editor's
Note," or "translator's note" — are preserved in place, as is one passage
in Part One, Section 12 where the translator visibly elided a sentence
about Ukrainian national identification among Lemkos (rendered here, as in
the source, as a run of dots) rather than render it himself. Numbered
source citations in Sections 25 and 26 are preserved as footnotes.

Contents

Part One

• Section 12 — Nationality
• Section 13 — Language
• Section 14 — Religion
• Section 16 — Beliefs and Customs

Part Two

• Section 24 — Lemkovina under Austria
• Section 25 — Galicia and Lemkovina under the Habsburg's Tyranny and Oppression
• Section 26 — The Agrarian Question in Galicia
• Section 27 — Emigration
• Section 28 — The Political Atmosphere in the Austrian State Before the First World War
• Section 29 — Nationality Question and Ukrainian Separatism
• Section 30 — Culture in Lemkovina

Part Three

• Section 10 — The Battle of Gorlice
• Section 11 — The Time After World War I
• Section 12 — Lemkos in Restoration (Senacyjna) Poland
• Section 13 — Lemkos Under Slovakia
• Section 14 — Socio-Political Relations in Transcarpathia

Part One

Section 12 — Nationality

Ethnically the Lemkos belong to the large Slavic-Russian family. The name Rus' [Roosh] was to them a sacred word, and the Slavic ideals always lay deeply within their hearts. Also they always remained on friendly terms with other Slavic nations, but Germans was always seen as enemies. They call themselves Rusyns, Russians, Rusnaks, and Lemkos.The name "Lemko" originates from the word "lem" which is used in their language, and is equivalent in English to mean "only". Even though lately attempts were made to call them "Ukrainians" in defining their nationality, and at the same time to change their political outlook ....................................... .......... so far Lemkos have not accepted this label, nor have they changed their political views.

Residents of the Carpathians are divided into three groups, known as: Lemkos, Boykos and Hutsuls, and this is due to significant linguistic differences. But these three groups taken together however are historically known as Carpatho-Rusyns or Carpathian Rusnaks., and the territory in which they reside as Carpathian Rus'. So the Lemkos are part of the Carpathian Rus'. In each one of these groups, over centuries, a separate language has developed, or a separate dialect. The reasons for these linguistic differences are due to geography and history of these groups. As was already mentioned the Carpathian Mountains are situated vertically on the map, so that the Carpathian roads run mostly North-South. For the Lemkos to reach Boykivshchyna or Hutsulshchyna, they would have to cross the mountains that reached to the sky, then descend from these mountains into the valleys, head east, and again start mountain climbing all over again. For these reasons, there was no permanent contact of Lemkos with Boykos or Hutsuls, and this prevented them from merging into a single entity. However contacts with Carpatho-Rusyns from north and south, due to positioning of these roads, was more favorable. This explains why there are no significant differences between Lemkos on both sides of the Carpathian Mountains, even though each side belongs to a different country, northern to Poland, and the southern part to Czechoslovakia. However differences did develop on the same side of the Carpathians between Lemkos, Boykos and Hutsuls, even though they all find themselves living in the same country [Poland]. Another reason is the fact that both Boykivshchyna and Hutsulshchyna find themselves living in the middle of the Russian population, but Lemkivshchyna lies between Poland and Slovakia. Boykos and Hutsuls were influenced by Galician and Zakarpatska Rus', and Lemkos by Poles and Slovaks.

Section 13 — Language

Lemko language by its content and expression is a separate Russian dialect. Since Lemkos were neighbors to Poles, Slovaks and Hungarians, certain expressions from these languages have crept into the language spoken by the Lemkos, but its main development is based on the Old Slavonic, and became developed to such a degree, while self-sustaining itself, that this dialect is not only used by the peasants, but also by the Lemko intellectuals. In this dialect, in the middle of the last century are written and became published many books and periodicals. From the literary Russian and Ukrainian language it differs mainly by the stress, which similarly to the Polish language, occurs always on the second syllable from the end. An unusual property of this language is the fact that it can be understood by every Slav, and vise-versa. In modern times many dictionaries have been published, even within the Slavic family of languages. For example Russian-Polish, Ukrainian-Polish, Czech-Polish, and so on. But no dictionary is needed for the Lemko language. It is understood by Big Russians and Little Russians, Poles and Czechs, and every other Slav. None of the Slavic languages survived and maintained the character of the original language, as has the Lemko language. If ever in the future, there was to arise a Big Slav nation, about which dream certain Slavophiles, then only on the foundation of the Lemko language, would this new Slavic language develop most faithfully. No wonder that over 50 years ago, in the monthly periodical "Slavic Age" which is published in Vienna, articles in the Lemko dialect were being published. The Lemko language has accumulated certain success. The Lemko literature, even though it finds itself in a very unfriendly position, grows daily. One should also mention that the Lemko language in Lemkivshchyna is not monolithic, there are regional sub-dialects, many expressions have different meanings, and this proves that this language is still developing. Take this for example, the word "potato" in Lemkivshchyna can be described with several different words. [bandurka, gruli, kartofli, barabola.....- wm]

Section 14 — Religion

Lemkos are of the Catholic and Orthodox faith, but of the Byzantine rite. They themselves call their religion Orthodox or Russian, regardless whether one is Catholic or Orthodox. The Christian faith was taken from missionaries St. Cyril and Methodius in the second half of the 9th century, from Moravia, i.e., 100 years prior to conversion of the Kiev Rus' to Christianity under prince Vladimir the Great. During the subsequent millennium a religious unity prevailed on Lemkovyna, and the Lemko mountains were out of reach to other cults or religions, and the pure teaching of the Christ have survived to this day, with its beautiful eastern ceremony, always vigorously guarded by the Lemkos. Lemkos never dug deep into the proclaimed dogmas of the faith, but believed in the true words of God, which were proclaimed by their priests, and which passed from generation to generation. Lemko nation, with respect to religion, religious observances and moral standards, always rated well................Lemko nation was characterized with high degree of humility, and being close to their church and its faith. During holiday masses, everybody hurried to a church, and only disabled elderly and small children remained at home. Of significant importance to preservation of their faith, nationality, and the ceremonies, was the fact that the Lemko priests were married, and many of them had large families. Lemko intellectuals were being replenished from families of priests. People had closer ties to the priest and his family. A parish formed a single family in faith, whose father, teacher, and advisor, was the priest, and a mother of the parish was his wife, from whom many women learned domestic skills. Sons of priests were organizers of choirs, clubs, reading circles, where they could deliver their readings, organize stage performances, concerts, and contribute to Lemko education and culture. Married priests contributed a lot to their people. One elderly Roman-Catholic priest in a conversation with a Lemko priest stated: "Your people have moral strength, because your priests are married and have their own families. Soon however, a celibacy will be introduced; soon we will take care of you, and we will weaken your moral strength." Fateful were the words of this priest, because as soon as the unmarried priests started arriving on Lemkivshchyna, people started loosing faith in them, started to further and further withdraw from them, not finding that family warmth, which was earlier found in the houses of married priests. Unmarried priests they started calling "parobok" [bachelors], because frequently these priests stood lower morally than an average Lemko bachelor. The family warmth was lacking, warmth which kept earlier all parishes warm. In their stead, evil started to creep in, which celibate priests could not successfully challenge, and as a result their faith started to shrink.

Section 16 — Beliefs and Customs

[Note: These are pre-WW II practices - wm]

When a Lemko is starting to build a house, he must first inspect the site, where he intends to build his house, to determine suitability of the place, whether it will good and not harmful. For this process he performs the following tasks: at the point where the corners of the house will be located, he places a piece of bread for the night. If on the following day the bread is still there, then the site is fit for construction. Otherwise, if the bread is gone, then the site is unfit for construction, and another site would be selected. Afterwards the site is plowed around, to keep the evil spirits away. Performing this work, no shouting or cursing is permitted, since this would result in arguing in the new house, wife's lack of respect for her husband, and children's lack of respect for their parents. After plowing, he places heavy stones at the corners of the future house, as start of the foundation, and above them he places fir [tramy?]. After placement of [spodkov?], he invites a priest to bless the selected site and its foundations. At each corner the priest makes a cross, and inside of it a deep hole, within which he places one-fourth of a silver coin (for self sufficiency), leaves of "barvinok" [periwinkle] for girl's early marriage, flowers from "osika" [aspen tree] or "vuzhderevo" [?] , (so that no sin will find hospitality within this house), leaves from "topola" [poplar tree] (so that children will behave themselves, and will grow well), a "prosforka" wrapped up in cloth (so that God would look over the builder's reliance for bread and earnings), a piece of glass (so that the evil spirits would never approach his house, and so that the help around the house would always stay healthy). Lemko wouldn't ever dare to chop down an old fruit tree, because this act would bring on him and his family a great misfortune: he could die within a year, the kids might remain sick, the cattle would start to die, hail would destroy his fields of grain, etc. For this kind of work he would usually hire a gypsy or a bum. When a homeowner heads out to sow oats for the first time, and when everything associated with planting is ready, the housewife puts on a sheepskin coat, turned inside out, walks three times (following the sun) around the horse drawn cart, loaded with the planting oats, in her hands she's holding the holy water and sprinkler, with bread on her bosom, and sprinkles the cart, grain, horses (oxen), the homeowner, while reciting words from the 50th Psalm. The bread she places in front of the oxen, over which the homeowner makes a sign of the holly cross, three times, and then rides over the bread with these horses (oxen). This bread is then taken into the field, in addition to a bag with another bread, cheese and eggs in it. After plowing the first furrow, he places the egg in it, and with the soil from the furrow, rubs it on the horses (oxen), for them to stay healthy and strong. If a crow sits down on a freshly plowed field, that is a sign for a plentiful harvest, but if it is "plishka" [wagtail], expect storms and lightning. Good luck is to see, while plowing, a man, bad luck if it's a woman. Just before planting the seeds, he sews up into the sock, or the pouch from which he intends to saw the grain, a piece of prosforka and some grain, for a good harvest. During a new moon, sowing of "yarets" [barley?], "orkish" [spelt], peas and beans is out of the question, because meals prepared afterwards from them would be harmful to ones health. The same goes for planting of clover, since it will be harmful to cows and calves. To prevent brownouts in a newly planted field, one places in it a piece of shining metal or sheetmetal, from which bad rays of heat will bounce off. During harvest time, no drinking of alcohol is allowed, to prevent formation of scabs on head and face. During loading of "snopy" [sheaves] on the cart, no talking is done, until the cart is full, otherwise expect misfortune. After delivery of sheaves into the "stodola" [barn], the farmer or his son "babka" [honing stone?] into his teeth, and walks around the cart with it, while sawing fine grain sand over the spot, where the grain will be stored, to keep the mice away. To buy oneself out of the mice, some "merva" [?] is left in the field.

Part Two

Section 24 — Lemkovina under Austria

Two years before Poland was divided, upon the order of Maria Theresa on July 19, 1770, the Austrian government took Speesh from Poland and in expanding its borders north, parts of Novy Targ, Chorstin and Novo-Sandetsky Districts. With the division of Poland which occurred in 1772, all of Galicia was made part of Austria, and this in turn, was divided into 19 circles in 1782, and then into 76 Districts in 1868. Lemkovina now consisted of Novo- Sandetsky, Gribow, Dukla, Jaslo, Krosno, S'ianok and Liski Districts. All legal, land and administrative questions, had to go to state representatives for resolution, and, with the introduction of the German language, people had difficulty in communicating. In addition to the German, the Rusyn and Polish languages were used for state business. The Austrian government immediately began reforms. The taxes that had gone to the Lords was diverted to a Religious Fund. They revised and abandoned some taxes while developing new forms of taxation such as rustikalni (?), chopovi (?), salt and tobacco. The number of Greek-Catholic churches decreased while the number of Latin rite churches increased to 995 in Galicia. The Latin clergy were granted pensions from the Religious Fund upon retirement and the government favored them. Complaints by the Greek-Catholic clergy were usually resolved in favor of the Latin clergy. The policy of the Austrian government was "deride et impera" (divide and rule). They divided the Poles into two hostile camps and, likewise, they divided Lemkos, instigating one group against another. Also, thanks to Joseph II and Maria Theresa, active German colonization began where all the more important and better positions were held by Germans. On the one hand, the government tried to weaken the Polish Shlakhti [landlords], but on the other hand, they gave them some important duties. Villages suffocated under the burden of high taxes and now, they were also obliged to serve in the army. In order to avoid paying taxes and being recruited to the army, villagers walked from village to village, leaving behind their households, finally settling in the forests. Demeaning serfdom, discrimination, oppression and compulsory army service caused the rebellion in 1846 during which, in an organized manner, the Polish villagers threw themselves on the large landowners (shlakhti) as revenge for their misfortune. Polish villagers from Krosno smashed lord Tito Torzhesisky and the poet Vincent Polya. Badly beaten, they were taken to Jaslo. Hearing about the rebellion, the owners of Grebov, Ferdinand and Jules Goshi, and the owners of Bialy and Poliany, Kiril and Amelian Zielinski also fled for their lives. Rebel chieftain, Shelya with his gang, was the most aggressive during the rebellion. In Lemkovina everything was relatively quiet and Lemkos did not participate in the rebellion. In 1848, serfdom was abolished by the Constitution, and compulsory army service was abolished in 1849 and 1851. To fully understand the economic, political and cultural life of Lemkovina's people we must examine the prevailing conditions of the entire Rusyn population in Galicia and Ugorshchina (the Hungarian section of the empire, now Ukrainian Transcarpathia: cities of Uzhgorod, Mukachevo, etc.)

Section 25 — Galicia and Lemkovina under the Habsburg's Tyranny and Oppression

Austria-Hungary was one of the least developed {at the turn of the century, Editor's Note.] of the European countries, and Galicia was one of its poorest provinces with agriculture its principal industry. The government of Galicia, represented by Sejm and regional department had no legislative bodies. They carried out the State government's instructions. The little latitude of District and Regional Departments was restricted to school and hospital business and road maintenance. All important decisions were made by the State government, which was represented by Namistnitstvo in Lviv and the delegation of Namistnitstvo in Cracow, supplemented by bailiffs. Bailiffs were powerful persons in each village. They had control of all administrative power and the police force. They issued money requisitions and arrest warrants and represented the villages in meetings of county authorities. Under the Hapburgs only Poles could be the administrators and bailiffs. They were the trustees of the Polish magnates. Galicia, a colony of the Habsburg empire, was governed by the Vienna bureaucracy with the help of the Polish magnates, proud of their titles as secret advisers to his Majesty and as Senators of the Polish House of Gentlemen in the Vienna Parliament.¹ In 1905, the Regional Sejm had 761 ambassadors; including 92 landowners, 6 Knights, 18 Lords and a Baron. In addition there were 18 attorneys, an interpreter, a merchant, an owner of oil wells, a bank director, 2 directors of credit firms, etc. and only 10 villagers, and no workers, craftsmen or teachers. Lord Andrew Pototski was the administrator. Lord Leon Pininski, Lord Kasemyr and Lord Evstahy Sangushko were the administrators preceding Pototski. Lord Stanislav Badeny was a Marshal and his substitute was archbishop Andrei Shiptitski. 90% of the village Marshals were Poles. The secretarial work of the villages was performed by landowners, attorneys, judges and notary publics. The village police force consisted of bankrupt landowners, military men and retired policemen. The region was completely run by magnates such as Pototski, Badenov, Lubomyrski, Chartoriski and others who owned land and real estate in the Kingdom of Galicia and Ukraine. Galicia was an exceptionally good agricultural province. Harvests from cultivated lands at lower elevations was not as good as harvests from the mountain lands. However, communications, trade and business was in a poor or non-existent state. The existing oil wells and forests were owned and controlled by foreign elements or absentee landlords. Lack of any industry made it difficult to find employment. The only livelihood that the poor people and villagers could seek was the use of their manual labor. Wages in Galicia were the lowest in the entire Austro-Hungarian empire. Unemployment was chronic. Millions of people had no work and little bread. At the beginning of the 20th century there were approximately 1,200,000 unemployed. They were ready to do any work for meager wages to survive. However, the state government was generous with Galicia's bureaucracy, politicians, policemen and others in authority. Due to poor living conditions and bad hygiene, epidemics such as plague, polio, small pox and cholera took the lives of many people. In one year, 1902, 47,000 people died from these diseases. Tuberculosis was another real disaster for the people. In hospitals primitive hygiene methods were used. Doctors and medicines were unaffordable to ordinary people. A unique hierarchic relationship of people oppression existed in Galicia: Austrians oppressed the Poles and the Poles, in their turn, oppressed the Carpatho-Rusyns in spite of the fact that the Austrian Constitution on August 21, 1967 recognized the equality of nationalities. Galicia was governed by a District and Central administration as a Province with the majority consisting of Poles and the minority consisting of Carpatho-Rusyns. In reality, Poles were not in the majority. Austrian statistics did not cover national or language surveys. According to the census of December 31, 1900, there were 3,932,033 Polish speaking people and 3,080,443 Rusyn speaking people. Out of 7,315,930 people 54.4% were Poles and 42% were Carpatho-Rusyns. If we take into consideration the fact that the Polish language was spoken not only by Poles, but also by Jews, some Carpatho-Rusyns and some Germans, the percentage of the Polish speaking population will decrease to 45%, and the percentage of Carpatho-Rusyns climbs to 43%. These numbers are still not accurate and need to be corrected in favor of the Carpatho-Rusyns because they were at a disadvantage thanks to the landowners, who defined the language of his peasants as Polish, even though it was Rusyn. The same situation happened with Polish landlords and his tenants. Besides this, the census lists went through the bailiff's hands and they were often altered in favor of the Polish language. Taking all this in consideration, we can see that the Poles in Galicia did not outnumber Carpatho-Rusyns. Therefore, the Poles had no right to call Galicia "Polish Territory".² The nationality statistics show vividly the debasement of the Rusyn population in the governmental and socio-political spheres. Poles occupied the top spots in industry, administration and the free professions, while Rusyns were in agriculture. Also debased was the Rusyn worker, who worked as an unskilled laborer, usually at a day rate, while the cadres of skilled workers were recruited exclusively from among the Poles. The landlord, who was the Rusyn peasant's contact, was a Pole and because of this the nationality question was inseparably linked with the agrarian question. At the beginning of the 20th century, Polish colonization was extensively developed. Colonists were transferred from western Galicia to the east onto lands that were purely Rusyn. In 1902 alone, several hundred Polish peasants were moved from Myslenitse District to Stryj District. The primary objective of the Polish landlords in this colonization was to set the Polish peasant against the Rusyn peasant, to foster hostility between them and to strengthen their own village mastery. The Rusyn populace was also no less debased in political and cultural affairs. Of 145 delegates to the Lviv Sejm scarcely 16 were Rusyns, among 72 warrants to the Vienna Parliament there were 10 Rusyn candidates while all the rest were Poles. In the entire region the official language, alongside German, was Polish. Only at the district and village levels might a little Rusyn be heard. In 1900, there were 5,449 Polish teachers in the schools, and only 2,284 Rusyns. There was not a single Rusyn teachers' seminary in the entire region. The school authorities assigned Rusyn teachers mainly to Polish villages, and instead placed Polish teachers, who did not know the language, in Rusyn villages. In 1904, there were 52 Polish high schools and only 5 Rusyn. Of 11 professional schools, not a single one was Rusyn. There were 20,664 Polish high school students and only 4,557 Rusyns. Establishment of a Rusyn high school required authorization from the provincial Sejm, while an ordinary warrant from the local school authorities was enough for a Polish school. Rusyns had no university of their own, and only at the University of Lviv were there 7 Rusyn chairs, which were shortly reduced to 2. The dominant religion was the Roman Catholic faith, although Roman Catholics did not constitute a majority (45.7%). Polish nationalists fanned the flames of ethnic hatred between the Polish and the Rusyn peasantry. In a speech in 1904, Professor Stanislav Glombinskiy, a candidate for delegate to the Sejm, proclaimed a program of conflict between Poles and Rusyns under the slogan "no yielding to Rusyns in politics, economics, or culture", while Wladyslaw Studnicki expounded a zoological chauvinism in respect to Rusyns that earned him the epithet of Polish hatchet man. ³

Toward the end of the 19th century, under conditions of a growing terror initiated by Badeni regarding spurious elections in 1897, relations between the two peoples in Galicia became very tense. lvan Franko exhibited great love toward the Polish people also, as he expressed it in his brochure in Polish⁴ , but he had some bitter experiences with Poles and Polish elections. Three times he was a candidate for delegate to the Parliament - in 1895, 1897 and 1898 - but each time the Polish reactionaries rejected his candidacy. Disappointed and discouraged, he parted from his Polish friends and never again cooperated with the publisher of any Polish newspaper. Polish nationalism was the poisoned arrow of the reactionaries. K. Marx' statement to the effect that a people who suppresses other peoples cannot itself be free acquired particular meaning as applied to Polish social conditions in Galicia.

Notes

Section 26 — The Agrarian Question in Galicia

In Galicia, 83% of the population earned their living from agriculture, forestry, or fishing, while 39.2% of the land belonged to nobles who often owned several thousands of hectares, [1 hectare = 2 1/2 acres], in scores of estates. ¹ For example, here are a few of them:

The masters of these great manors included not only Galician magnates but also foreign aristocrats headed by Archduke Karol Stefan. Among them were Poles, Germans, and Jews. Estates in Galicia were accumulated not only by Austro-German aristocrats but also by various merchants and speculators. Ownership of landed property made it easier to play a more important role in politics. Also among the large landholders was the Catholic Church. Ecclesiastical holdings reached the sum of 129,028 hectares. The Latin archbishopric in Lviv had 14,787 hectares, and the Greek Catholic archbishopric had 30,991. The Latin bishopric in Przemysl had 7,808 hectares, the Greek 1,000. The Latin rite chapter in Lviv owned 6,318 hectares. Some Latin parishes were also granted large holdings. For example, The Lord's Grave parish in Cracow owned 708 hectares, the parish in Oleska had 693, in Terebovlia 578, in Dolinia 1,592. As the landed gentry became richer, the peasantry grew poorer. In 1898 there was an average of 4 acres of land per peasant family. Because industry was poorly developed, work opportunities for the villagers were limited, and the land had to be divided into parcels. For 1,009,000 households there were 19,340,321 parcels listed. That means there were 19 scattered parcels for every 4-acre holding. Besides establishments of 3-4 acres, there were many dwarfed to 1-2 acres. There also were many peasants who did not have even a piece of land. These were the so-called cottagers and roomers. A cottager had his own hut set on somebody else's land, for which he had to pay the owner a rent payable in labor for the rest of his life. A roomer did not even have a hut of his own and had to work for a miserly wage on the fields of the lord or a wealthy peasant. Professor Napoleon Cybulski of the University of Lviv described these poor wretches of his time as being in a state of "near starvation". They make their bread by mixing flour with potatoes, cabbage, beans, peas, ground corn cobs, apples, etc. Instead of bread they often bake ash cakes and eat them half raw and covered with ashes, hot out of the stove, because the cakes would be inedible when dried out. To sustain life they resort to rotten potatoes, oil cake, bran, pigweed and other weeds, beet and cabbage greens. Often, 10% of the people do not have bread all year round. The poorest eat no bread for most of the year.² Attesting to the wretched state of the Galician peasantry was the fact that they were often unable to pay their taxes and had to pay a high rate of interest for late payment. In 1904, Galician peasants paid the state treasury 1,230,000 zloty [translator's note; Lemkin does not indicate what the monetary unit is here; I am assuming it should be zloty in interest for late payment of taxes. In 1900, there were 4,028 auction sales of peasant properties for nonpayment of taxes. In all these cases, the amount of the tax plus interest did not come to 100 zloty. In one such case, a peasant's property valued at 1,400 zloty was auctioned off for 8 zloty of unpaid tax, which sum had risen to 80 zloty when court costs were added. Another peasant had his eleven-acre homestead auctioned off to Count Lubomirskiy for 250 zloty, while in the Allotment Bank's report its value was listed at no less than 8,000 zloty. The poor were not allowed into local councils. And sometimes when one did manage to get in, neither the executive nor the members of the council paid much attention to him. They would often not notify him of meetings, would make it hard for him to get a look at the village books, etc. The executive would deny poor people their workbooks, which were necessary to get work outside, while the prefect would deny them passports to go over the border. A poor man would be denied a certificate of poverty, which he would need to be exempted from hospital costs, but a wealthy person could easily get such an exemption. To pasture a cow on public lands, a cottager or roomer had to pay a much higher fee than a rich landholder. In Chernitsa, Novy Sanch District, landholders paid nothing for public pasture, but the landless ones had to pay up to 10 kroner per cow. With such an interpretation of poverty, conflict often arose, and in such cases both the prefect and the policeman stood against the injured party. Peasants were deprived of field and pasture. Cattle were the salvation of poor peasants, but there wasn't enough forage. The owners of land took advantage of this and forced people to pay dearly in both money and labor for pasturing on their lands. Those who lacked pasture had to put their cattle on stubble or fallow, or graze them along roads, hedges, or yards. This practice often caused damage to the fields and brought heavy penalties. The peasantry in general suffered from lack of firewood. To gather brush (fagots) in the lords' forests, a person had to pay dearly or work off several, sometimes several score, days in the lords' fields. The manorial forest was a wellspring of constant conflict. The lord's servants dealt harshly with women and children caught gathering brush or picking mushrooms, with herders who moved their animals through roadside hedges, with those who dared to take a shortcut through the woods, with the farmer whose dog wandered in the woods. Every year, wounded and slain peasants fell in the forests of the lords. In Zhelekhova, a seventy-year old man was beaten nearly into unconsciousness, and his coat was taken, all because he was grazing his cow in a grove that marked the border between the lord's fields and the commons. On the property of Archduke Stefan, a forester who shot a peasant was sentenced to 7 days or 7 kronen. ³ Another forester who had raped a girl and then shot her with birdshot served only 8 months.⁴ A source of incessant conflict between the village and the manor were the hunting regulations. Only holders of no less than 115 hectares of combined lands could have a chance of getting hunting charters. Peasants could form hunting associations. In the management of such an association, each owner of 4 acres had one vote, an owner of 8 acres had two votes, etc. Those who had the most votes came out the best in this arrangement. Hunting charters were granted for a period of 6 years. The holder of such a charter also had to have a hunting license, which for ordinary country folk was impossible to get. In practice, the authorities would not allow peasants to keep firearms. The local council granted hunting charters in accordance with instructions from the prefecture. If it should happen that, despite pressure from the prefect and the manor, the council did issue a hunting license to someone else, then both the prefect and the lord would spare no effort to harass him and force him into submission. Such a person could not find work for hire, could not buy firewood or lumber, and would be fined stiff penalties for gathering brush in the forest. That's how Count Roman Potockiy took vengeance on peasants in his neighborhood. The fees charged for hunting on peasant lands were very low, while the peasants' losses from damage caused by wild life were very high. Peasants complained constantly: "Bears, deer, wild geese destroy our potatoes, oats, beans, and forage; wolves raise havoc in our sheep pens; foxes carry off our geese and our chickens." People would keep bonfires going all night, but that didn't help much. The animals would become accustomed to yells and fires and come right up to the dwellings. In practice, the damages were never paid for. In the first place, it was very hard to prove a hunter's guilt under the hunting laws. And even if guilt were proven, the hunter would have hundreds of ways to get out of it, supported by the prefect, who would

Equally harmful to the peasants was the fishing law of April 26, 1885. The rivers were divided into fishing reserves, each of 150 or more hectares of surface. A charter would be issued by the prefect without any consideration for the needs of the communities Involved and even without taking into account the value of the quit rent. On the San River near Sanok, fishing reserves on the territory of 8 communities were chartered for 40 kronen, which averaged out to 5 kronen yearly for each community. Another reserve on the San together with the tributaries and estuary of the Oslava River was chartered from 10 communities for 75 kronen, which came to 7 kronen yearly for each community. The community of Mrygolod tried to get its quit rent reduced by 13 kronen, 50 heller for a fishing reserve, but this amount was disputed. In short, landholders paid money for hunting and fishing reserves chartered from peasant communities, but paid nothing for damages incurred and also charged the peasants high quit rents for the land allotted to them. The manor brought ruin to the peasants by means of taverns. To be sure, the ancient right of propination had been purchased from the magnates in 1889 for a price of 134 million kronen, but the great overlords of the settlements did not give up these revenue sources that had proven themselves over centuries. They chartered propination districts from the regional authorities and then licensed individual inns to their henchmen for returns up to 50% higher than they had projected for themselves. Among the delegates to Lviv Se)m there were 84 propination holders. Their incomes from this must have been great, since they paid up to 100,000 kronen yearly into the treasury under the rubric of quit rent According to M. Bobrzhinskiy's account, there were 16 thousand inns in Galicia. The innkeepers, who were principally Jews, knew how to get people drunk and were also good motivators in providing cheap labor for the landholders.

The manor rapaciously defended its semi-feudal rights. Obviously force on the part of the lord was hard to withstand. On his side he had the prefect, the gendarme, and the judge. When the plaintiff was a peasant and the defendant a lord, the case was quashed.. No lawyer dared to come out in defense of the community of Zubazukha near Zakopane against Count Zarnoyskiy. The presiding judge in the Yaslo Maidzinskiy district court told a plaintiff: "It doesn't pay to bring a complaint against the Lord Count, best you withdraw." A peasant woman who wanted to enter a charge against Count Tyshkevich for destruction of her property was laughed out of the Kol'bushova court. When Count Stanislav Badeni's former steward wanted to bring a case against the Count and asked the magistrate for a poverty permit so he could be exempted from paying stamp taxes, the attending gendarme tore up the permit with the cry: "You scum, how do you get to sue the Lord Count." ⁵ A woman in Vola Senkova, who had been beaten into unconsciousness, was ridiculed when she wanted to enter a complaint against the overseer of the estate. ⁶ Going to the authorities could even be dangerous. When a forester tore the clothes off a woman he met in the lord's forest and then chased her naked on a public road, the prefecture sentenced, not the forester, but the woman to 2 days in jail⁷. Having clothes torn off and being chased naked to the village by the lord's lackeys was a matter of daily routine. When a forester in Bokhenskiy beat up a woman from Domushchitse, a widow and mother of five children, the woman was jailed while the attacker got off scot free. ⁸ When a peasant in Katslubisko tried to defend his meadow, which was being illegally ditched by the lord's servants, he was shot by a forester. It was not the forester who was arrested, but the injured villager and his brother.⁹ When a 12 year old boy led out of the manor his father's horses, which had been taken for damages, the father was sentenced to 8 days in jail and the son to a cudgeling, and while that was in progress the father had to hold his boy's feet. Entire volumes could be written about the harsh attitudes of the Austrian administrative authorities, the nobility and their servants, toward ordinary peasants, and about the atrocities that called to heaven for vengeance. But even from what has been written here we have a picture of the terrible oppression suffered by the peasantry. Manorial service in the fields and in the household was governed by the basic statute of the Austrian state, which guaranteed personal freedom to citizens. The worker was at the mercy, and mercilessness, of the landholder and the gendarme. The rules that governed the relationships between servant and master were established by an imperial edict of July 1857, which in Galicia was implemented by a decree of March 20, 1872. This law introduced into hired labor relations an order that placed the entire administrative and police apparatus at the disposal of the landholder. The police and the local authorities were required to provide servants for the manor. In practice, this meant a police escort. The servant had no rights and no defense. Here are a few examples from the instructions to a deputy governor. A servant who is not employed must be put to work in community or public service, furthermore, if he makes excuses that he is obligated to work for relatives, he is to be grabbed on sight. Housemaids who are not working and do not take advantage of offers to work are to be driven out of the community. A servant hired for a specific term could be fired without notice before the term was up. It was enough for a servant to get sick and he could be cast out without treatment or provender. As manager of a manorial estate, Prince Lubomirskiy wrote to a prefecture: "I respectfully request the honorable Ts. K. Prefecture to bring Maria Lianoska, as soon as possible, back to my service, which she has secretly run away from without any cause on my part." From the further content of this letter, it turns out that the girl was afraid of being raped by the petitioner, because he tries to vindicate himself by saying that when he called her to his room he "did not molest her". A worker could not readily leave his job because of the insecurity that would face him; he (or she) was supposed to give advance notice to the local authorities or the management of the manor. This meant that a young woman, beaten and molested by a lord and threatened with rape, would have to accuse him face to face and furnish proof by herself, something rarely possible for a frightened girl. Even if she could prove maltreatment and rape, the lord would not be punished with arrest but would only pay a small fine at most. When a maidservant would not give in to him, lording Mikhail Lukashevich ordered his grooms to unhinge the door to the room where the distraught girl had fled, to disrobe her naked and lash her unmercifully. This incident was published in the newspapers. Since his guilt was proven, the court perforce fined the accused 200 kronen for "disturbing the domestic peace". The cudgel, the horse whip, and the flail were common means of punishment, authorized by the regulations. Quitting service without permission was forbidden, even after marriage. Well known for torturing their servants were the Austrian chamberlain Gn'yevosh, Xavier Potocki's constables, squire Uznanskiy, Prilutskiy, and many others. ¹⁰ Slapping with a hand loaded with rings was not considered abuse. There were many cases of severe injury, disablement, and mental derangement brought about by beatings. ¹¹ Rarely did such incidents come to court, and when that could absolutely not be avoided, the punishment was very light. All disputes between worker and employer were decided by political authorities, primarily a prefect. A worker could not turn to the courts until at least 30 days had past. Another means of terrorizing workers and forcing them to accept service were the workbooks given to manorial servants. Retention of the workbook by the lord made it impossible to seek work elsewhere. Galician manors made very little use of permanent servants; they preferred to take advantage of day workers, to whom they had absolutely no obligation whatsoever. The wages of a day worker in Galicia were the lowest in the entire Austrian empire. ¹² A correspondent wrote in 1896: "Last year the prefect issued an order requiring peasants to dig potatoes at the manor for nothing." This was enforced by the magistrates ¹³. Even ten years later there were instances of forced labor. Vladislav Viktor, manager of an estate in Vola Senkowa, beat a peasant woman into unconsciousness because she would not go to work on the manor, saying that she had her own place to take care of.¹⁴ Manorial managers made certain of cheap labor by means of loans for fertilizer. The cost of this labor was reckoned to be considerably less than average. Workers were compelled to do something for nothing in exchange for work on the manor. For example, in order to get a job planting potatoes they would first have to work for free spreading manure; to be able to work at gleaning, they had to tie up to 30 shocks of grain for the field master or the head stockman. ¹⁵ The wife and children of a stable hand were a reserve of labor that did not have to be paid until they were needed. A family man working on a manor received produce, that is, payment in kind, which was enough for existence but not for a normal life. An unmarried lad [or girl] got leavings instead of produce. His value, either in money or in kind, was very low ¹⁶. As an example, in Baron Romashkan's household the servants did not get any breakfast at all; for dinner they were given potatoes or hulled barley gruel, for supper ground barley or cornmeal. Tardiness to work brought a fine of 4 kronen, which amounted to several day's wages. A bricklayer who worked for this lord discovered on payday that after his fines were deducted he not only had nothing left but even owed the baron 30 kronen. Argument could lead to beating or even torture. Deductions could be made for illness or even militia duty. Rozvadovskiy penalized a man 2 kronen for a half day's illness and 30 kronen for a week of military training, this while his pay for the whole year was only 60 kronen. ¹⁷ The average daily wage in manor households was 55 heller for men and 40 heller for women, which was barely enough to buy 2 kilograms of bread.¹⁸ Living conditions were simply catastrophic. Servants with families lived in communal dormitories, and often there were several families in each room. The adults slept on benches made of poles and planks that were lightly covered with straw, while the children slept on the ground with rags for cover. Young unmarried men (and women) slept in barns and sheds. A field worker's day lasted 14 to 18 hours. A stable hand had to be on his feet at 3 o'clock in the morning and could not lie down to sleep earlier than 10 o'clock. Hatred of the manor and its masters grew stronger from day to day. The most bitterly detested aspect of the system was the military levy. The term of service was three years. The Austrian army was foreign to both Rusyn and Pole. Between the officer, who was usually a German, and the ordinary soldier there was an impassable stone wall, not that anybody ever tried to get over it. Use of the Rusyn word "esm" or the Polish "yestem" or the Czech "zde" instead of the German "hier" meant 2-5 months in prison.¹⁹ The military courts did not recognize any due process. Justice was administered without witnesses, with no defense, and even without the presence of the defendant. Auditor, investigative judge, and plaintiff were all combined in one person, as was also the reviewer in the event of appeal. Sadism was rife among the officers. The common soldier was mercilessly beaten where he stood with whatever happened to be handy, beaten about the face, on the head, and over the entire body, beaten with fists, with sword, with rifle butt. Facial beatings were often so fierce that eardrums and noses were crushed. In 1903, an order was issued to shackle men to stakes or racks for many hours. Utter contempt for the man and his belongings was the rule.²⁰ It is not surprising that military service was regarded by the peasants as penal labor to be avoided at any cost: mutilation, prison, or even death. In the 10 army corps stationed at Przemysl, the following incidents were reported in 1901 alone: (1) 80 soldier suicides, (2) 10 officer suicides, (3) 70 cases of severe self mutilation by soldiers, (4) 400 desertions, (5) 13 fatal beatings, (6) 40 cases of madness with loss of speech and hearing, (7) 725 sentences at hard labor, (8) 4 cases of officer madness, (9) 3 cases of officer degradation. ²¹ Such was the fearsome nightmare prevalent in the Austrian military. To get away from starvation wages and unemployment, from the misery of life in village and manor, from the arbitrariness of the masters, and often from military service and the hated Austrian army, Galician peasants and workers fled to foreign lands. The oppression, exploitation and atrocities suffered by peasants, workers and manorial servants at the hands of the Polish magnates gave rise to agrarian strikes in Galicia that reverberated throughout Europe. Such strikes went on continuously from 1898 to 1904. They started in western Galicia and spread eastward to encompass principally the estates of Prince Adam Sapiega, County Roman Potocki, Count Liantskoronskiy, Count Semienskiy, Count Dziegushchinskiy, Count Baworowskiy, Count Kazimir Badeni, and others. Although these strikes caused many victims, nevertheless these disciplined peasant masses showed their great strength and solidarity, and they put pressure on the manorial system. Ivan Franko estimates that the participants in these strikes were 80% Rusyn and 20% Polish. ²²

Notes

Section 27 — Emigration

Lemkovina was the poorest region of Galicia. Lemkos had little land, because their plots were scattered and divided among individual family members. The plots up in the hills were stony and infertile, which in addition to making them hard to till, were not very productive. Even with the very primitive Lemko life style, the produce of the land could not meet their most basic requirements. There was almost no way to earn anything outside. A small cartload of brushwood for fuel required several days of work for the owner of the forest. But Lemkos are an enterprising people. He who had a horse would extricate himself from his misery by getting together with his neighbor, and with their carts they both earned a living. They would go to Cracow for their goods. This made for risky and strenuous earnings, but the tough Lemko character could overcome anything. Others would haul logs from the magnates' forests to the sawmill and then hauled the lumber to the city or the railroad. People from Losyeh and Kunkova traded in grease and oils for lubricating wagons and machinery. They shipped their goods all over Europe and made good money at it. He who didn't have a horse because he couldn't afford one would try something else. This is how the production of various hinds of wooden items came about in Lemkovina. Still others went to Hungary or Germany for seasonal work. Everyone did what he could to somehow provide for his family and not let the specter of death come near it. And then one day he would hear that somewhere far beyond the ocean there is a rich country called America that needs working hands and where nice money can be made. So began the emigration to America, which increased from year to year. The beginning of Lemko emigration to America dates from around 1865. The flow of emigrants to America and others overseas countries sprang up all over Galicia. The peak of this flow came between the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century. Here are some statistics on emigrants to America: 1903-1904 -- 9,415 Rusyns and 20,243 Poles; 1904-1905 -- 14,250 Rusyns and 50,785 Poles; 1901-1905 -- 46,516 Rusyns and 173,997 Poles: 1907-1908 -- 12,298 Rusyns and 26,423 Poles. The statistics do not show how many of these were Lemkos. However, it can be taken for a fact that the highest percentage came from Lemkovina, and that in Lemkovina the emigration assumed mass proportions. However, no one went to America with the idea of staying there forever, but merely to earn some money and return to his native land to improve his material situation there. On the average, half of the emigrants returned after 3-4 years. Prior to World War I, Lemko emigration to America, from both sides of the Carpathian Mountains, had grown to such proportions that out of 700 Lemko villages there was not a single Lemko family that had not sent abroad at least one of its members. There were cottages from which all the residents had gone to America. They locked up the house, boarded up the windows, and gave their plots of land to relatives or neighbors. Thanks to this emigration, the economic situation of the Lemkos improved. The emigrants sent dollars back to the old country, for which more land was purchased, cattle were added, and the whole situation was improved. Those who returned from abroad brought not only money but also new ideas about living. They knocked down their old smoke-blackened houses and built new ones that were nicer and more convenient. They also bought mineral fertilizers, and their land began to produce better. On the fertilized soil they sowed new species of grass, and thus their oxen grew fatter, their cows gave more milk, and their material situation and living conditions improved. Lemkos were so closely linked with America that some of them went there several times, always for just a short while, returning to their families and their mountains, which they loved above all. Some Lemkos also went to Prussia and Hungary. This, however, was only a seasonal emigration, only for periods of intense agricultural labor, such as grain harvesting, for example. Mikhail Bobrzhinskiy, governor of Galicia, stated that the export of human labor was the most important item in Galicia's balance of trade. In Lemkovina, this export of working hands was so significant that in some counties the population increased very little, and even decreased (For example, the counties of Gorlice, Krosno, Nowy Targ). The emigration had a significant effect on the labor market. It brought about improvement in working conditions and wages. The peasant's character changed, his independence and self confidence grew, the scope of his thinking expanded. The money sent and brought back by the emigrants not only improved the working and living conditions of the people but also played a significant role in the region's balance of payments. It is impossible to determine the total amount of money sent back to the Old country by Lemko emigrants, because Lemkos rarely took advantage of the services of banks or post offices in sending money back. They often sent back cash in registered letters, but these moneys usually disappeared in the Galician post offices. (Translator's note: I have personally read letters from the old country, dating to about this period, in which the writer complained that money sent to her was stolen at the post office). Large amounts were carried by the emigrants themselves or were sent through friends or relatives. The total annual revenue from emigration to America has been estimated, at 20 million kronen. Postal money orders sent from the United States to Galicia in 1904 amounted to 5,922,663 kronen. The emigres were inhumanly exploited. The attitude toward them was one of extreme contempt. It was expressed in an unceasing debasement of their personal worth and complete disregard of their most basic needs. Travel to Germany for seasonal work was a horrible journey in cram-packed, unheated railroad freight cars, standing or sitting on your own bundle all the way. From February to June, when seasonal workers were going out. and from November to January, when they were returning home, the travelers filled to overflowing the courtyards and compounds at Oswiecim, Myslowice, and Raciborg. It was even mentioned in the Sejm that these migrants are treated worse than cattle in cattle cars. Government officials introduced class IV cars for the migrants, to legalize the transfer of people as transfer of cattle or hogs. At the Oswiecim compound, a special police unit was organized, consisting of 4--5 police officials, 7--8 ordinary patrolmen, and 5 gendarmes. The migrant was controlled at every step, or rather he was exploited by a mob of all kinds of middlemen. These were special agents surrounded by a network of assistants. This role was often played by Jewish innkeepers in the villages. Hidden agents of the emigration and transportation firms were otherwise benevolent societies that were acting as protectors of the migrants, such as the societies of St. Rafael, Providence, Patrice, Columbus, and others. This was just ordinary trading in people. No better and no less unscrupulous was the situation with the emigrant going abroad. If he had bought a ticket for a Dutch ship, the German border guards would not let him cross. They recognized only tickets for German firms. When in 1904, the government established its own shipping line "Austro-Americana", the village prefects began to compel emigrants to ship out through Trieste. Emigrant diaries describe a terrible picture of the suffering of Rusyn peasants and workers thrust into the virgin forests of Brazil, without a roof over their heads, starved and deceived at every step. "We are beginning to forget that we are people", wrote one of them. Both the landholders and the authorities were displeased with the growing emigration. They were afraid that the wages of workers would go up, that there would be a shortage of cheap labor for the manors. Passport requirements were made more stringent, issuance of documents was dragged out, those leaving were terrorized. In a secret letter, Governor Andrei Potockiy issued an order to restrain the emigration of Russian peasants. Intense propaganda against the emigration was carried on through newspapers and brochures, playing on religious and patriotic sentiments. Some bishops put out pastoral letters in which they cautioned against emigrating. All of the land holders organizations tried to influence government officials against the emigrants through resolutions and petitions. Although the landholders made emigration more difficult, they nevertheless managed to gain from it. The savings our peasants managed to accumulate in a foreign country through hard labor he usually invested in land, buying it from the large estates. The owners of the land quadrupled the price above what it had been before this. According to a report of the Parcellation Bank in Lvov, the average price of a hectare of land rose from 700 to 1,150 kronen in 1901, and then jumped higher every year. It reached 4,000 - 5,000 kronen. The most expensive land was In western Galicia. Lemkos didn't gain much in buying land from the manors. to be continued....

Section 28 — The Political Atmosphere in the Austrian State Before the First World War

In the view of the Russian [Ruthenian] people, the political atmosphere in the Austrian state before World War I was oppressive and insufferable. The Austrian government was morbidly jealous of Russia and its people and regarded distrustfully all Slavic peoples living within its borders. Surrounding itself with all kinds of agents, spies, detectives and provocateurs, it terrorized the Lemkos. The most innocent show of cultural, educational, or economic life was considered an act against the Austrian state and was often brutally crushed. Rusyn institutions like reading rooms, cooperatives, student hostels, boarding schools were salt in the eyes of Austrian officials, who saw treason everywhere. Austrian gendarmes, loyal servants of the government, ran around like hound dogs through cities and villages sniffing out "Moscophiles" and stirring up provocations everywhere; they would then carry tales to the administrative authorities against completely innocent people. Under the cover of tradesmen selling holy icons, Ukrainian provocateurs would scamper through Lemko villages, go into people's homes and talk about political subjects, presenting themselves as friends of the Russian [Ruthenian] people and enemies of Austria. They would draw out a person's political inclinations, taking careful notes on everything, which they would then send, flagrantly edited, to the political authorities. In this way they compiled a list of "Moscophiles, who in the event of war will be ready to betray the most noble lord." On the basis of this list, all of the Lemko intelligentsia and hundreds of thinking peasants were arrested at the start of the war.

In such a political atmosphere, there were a number of arrests even before the war: the Orthodox priest Father Maksim Sandovich, born in Zhdynia, Gorlice County, just called to the parish in Gorbi, Yaslo County; Vasiliy Koldra, law student born in Sviatkova, organizer of reading rooms in Lemkovina; Father Mikhail Yurchakevich, curate in Chorneh; and many others. Their only crime was that they loved their people and worked for them. Father Maksim Sandovich and Vasiliy Koldra were sent to prison in Lviv, and in 1914 they were brought before the district court, together with Fathers Gudimiy and Bendiasuk, and were accused of treason against the Austrian state. This trial was known throughout Lemkovina, as hundreds of Lemkos testified as witnesses "and Ukrainian nationalists tried by all possible means to prove that the accused were guilty of treason. The trial lasted continuously for three months. Over a thousand witnesses were heard. The accused were defended by Dr. Vladimir Dudikevich of Kolomia, Dr. Mariian Glushkevich of Lviv, Dr. Kirill Cherliunchakevich of Peremyshl', and Dr. Aleksievich of Stanislavov (now Ivano-Frankivsk). All of the defendants were found innocent in the Lviv District Court and were freed. Relations in the religious sphere were also not promising. At the request of the Austrian authorities, the bishops would not accept seminary candidates of a Russian [Ruthenian] orientation. At an election held in Peremyshl' in 1911, only one of 40 Lemko candidates was accepted, while in the subsequent years prior to the War there was not a single one. In that same year, among 300 students at the general seminary of two eparchies there were only 11 Rusyns, of which two were Lemkos, although both the Rusyn clergy and the Rusyn peasantry were a majority over the Ukrainians. Rusyn students at the seminary in Lviv had a hard time and had to be strong willed to undergo all the humiliation brought on them fay their Ukrainian comrades, who were alter servers. They organized hunger strikes and demonstrations and used whatever means came to hand to terrorize their Rusyn comrades. In 1912, such a dangerous situation arose that the Rusyn students twice had to flee from the seminary in the dark of night to save their lives from their Ukrainian comrades. The late Father Botsian, rector of the seminary at that time, upon seeing this dangerous situation told the Rusyn students "run away, for I cannot vouch for your lives". This Gehenna that our students had to undergo at the theological seminary In Lviv at that time cannot be described by inert letters on paper or even orally. It was a nightmare that compromised both the Ukrainian clergy and the Austrian state. The Russian [Ruthenian] clergy was in no better position, either. On a secret order from the government, the bishops would not entertain a proposal to allow Russian [Ruthenian] priests to come into the country. Even if someone did manage to get nominated by a bishop for an entry permit, the Austrian government would not approve it. Some bishops frankly advised "Don't be Russian [Ruthenian], then you will get a parish." The worth of a priest was determined by his political views. Lemko peasants would sometimes approach heroism. Many of them deprived themselves of food to send their sons to school with the intent and conviction that the son would some day become a priest and the father would have a better lot in his old age. This was the dream of every father who sent his son to a gymazium. But to the great disillusionment and sorrow of the parents, the dream did not come to pass. The son would not be accepted into a seminary. Ruined materially, the father would be unabie to give his son even the most meager support to attend a university. For this reason, many Lemko youths, able and idealistic people, were wasted after graduating from gymnazium. Many of them left the country. If this array of youth had had the opportunity to finish university training, they would undoubtedly have played a great role in the history of Lemkovina. Yet, despite their difficult material situation, many of them went on to serve their people and work faithfully for its good, leaving a good memory in the hearts of the people.

Section 29 — Nationality Question and Ukrainian Separatism

Since the dawn of history, the population of Lemkovina has considered itself part of the great Slavic family, and it has always called its nationality Russian [rusky/Ruthenian]. The names Rus', Russian [rusky], Rusyn, Rusnak have to this day been closely associated with the Lemko people and have been defended as the highest holiness. Lemkovina is a tribal branch of the great Russian people, who occupy vast expanses of the Earth's globe. Throughout history, Lemkovina, like other residents of the Carpathian Mountains, has often gone under the name Karpatska Rus', or Sub-Karpatska Rus', designating both the nationality of the people and the territory they occupied. To protect the historic name Rus', Lemkos have often had to fight and even sacrifice their lives, because enemies have tried by various means to tear this name away from them and saddle them with another so as to break them away from other Russian [rusky] peoples. As for the origin of the name Rus', scholars have proposed various theories. It is commonly said that the word "Rus" was brought by the Varangians, while the word "Ross" comes from the Greeks. But some scientists claim that the word "Rus" existed in Russia as far back as the 8th century, that is, before the arrival of the Varangians. Still others hold to the hypothesis that the origin of Rus' lies in the Scandinavian word "dros", which meant "fraternity". They claim that the Normans, who appeared in Rus' in the 9th century, played a significant role in organizing the Russian [Rus'] tribes into a nation. One of those Normans, Rurik, played a guiding role in establishing a national center at Novogorod. Adherents of this theory maintain that at first Rus' was applied to the prince's family and retinue, later to the tribe, and finally to all eastern Slavic tribes and the territories where they lived. They cite the fact that even today, the Finns refer to Swedes as "Ruotsi", which means shore or coast. The name "Rus'", and with it the people called by that name, has been tried in fire and blood and has endured to this very day. The Polish gentry bathed it in blood and scorched it in fire: the Germans tried to wipe it off the face of the earth. But its most fearsome enemy has been its natural brother - the independence minded Ukrainian, who for a penny sold himself into the service of its enemies and used every means suggested to erase the name "Rus'" from the face of the earth, and with it, its people. In 1654, the great Cossack hetman and Russian [Ukrainian] patriot, Bogdan Zinovy Khmelnitsky, succeeded in uniting Little Russia [MaloRus'/Ukraine] with Great Russia. In 1709, to destroy this unity and split the Russian [rusky] people into two camps, another hetman, the Polish lordling, Ivan Mazepa, betrayed Peter the Great and, in the battle of Poltava, went over to the Swedish enemy with his entire Cossack army. The name "Ukraine" was a later and merely local name, just like our Lemkivshchyna, Hutsulshchyna, or Kholmshchyna. Ukraine is only a part of the Russian [rusky] lands. It is dear to us just as are other names of Russian [Rus'] lands. It is from there that the famous Cossacks were recruited, those champions of an oppressed people and its faith. The word "Ukraine" cannot be used for all Little Russian [Ukrainian] lands, but only for that portion that lies at the border, the edge of the nation to which it belongs. This name does not apply to an entire nation nor an entire people. But to the enemies of the Russian people, this is not important. What is important to them is their goal of breaking up the Russian [rusky] peoples, of creating strife and hatred among them so as to weaken and conquer them. To our sorrow and our misfortune, our enemies have been able to find among us some blinded, greedy, and ambitious people, who for a penny, like Mazepa, began to deny the name Rus', Russian [rusky], Rusyn; took up a bitter struggle against their natural brothers and, by the same token, against their own people. What was primary for our enemies was to change the name Ukraine, and Ukrainian, from its previous territorial designation to a nationality title, to call all Little Russian [MaloRus'] peoples Ukrainian, thereby dividing Rus' and creating a nationality fight, in other words "turn loose Rusyn on Rusyn". Our greatest enemies have proved to be: the Polish gentry, the Austrian government and Germany. As far back as 1848, the Galician governor, Stadion, changed the name of the Rusyns living in Austria from Russian [rusky] to Ruthenian (nicht Russe, russisch sondern Ruthenen, ruthenisch). In 1863, the Polish general Miroslawski called on Poles with these words: "Throw fire and bombs on the Dnieper and the Don in the very heart of Rus', let waste, ruin, and devastation fall on Rus'. Let us create argument and strife among the Russian [rusky] people themselves. Let them destroy each other with their own claws, while we increase in size and strength". Those bombs and flames soon did fall on Russian [Rus'] land. The Austrian government gave birth to the Ukrainian party in 1891. In 1892, it introduced phonetics into Russian [cyrillic] script and forcibly pushed it into schools and offices. It gradually changed the term Russian [rusky] into Ukrainian. And to give the latter a scholarly basis, it commissioned gimnazium Professor Mikhail Grushevskiy to write a history of Ukraine, promising him promotion to a university chair. Grushevskiy drudged away on this history and, after some time, brought it out in print. There is a characteristic story to this history. Grushevskiy originally issued it in the Russian language as "History of Rus' ", in which there was not a single mention of any Ukrainian people, only Russian [rusky]. That was the first edition of this history. After a while, a second edition was issued in the Little Russian [Ukraininian] language as "History of Rus'-Ukraine", in which the term Russian [rusky] was retained in respect to Little Russians [MaloRusiv], with Ukrainian in parenthesis. Finally, a third edition was published in 1898, now "History of Ukraine", in which the term Russian [rusky] was replaced by Ukrainian throughout. This was the conversion that Grushevskiy's history went through. Nevertheless, all historians criticized it sharply as being false. In the view of the Russian [Ruthenian] people, the political atmosphere in the Austrian state before World War I was oppressive and insufferable. The Austrian government was morbidly jealous of Russia and its people and regarded distrustfully all Slavic peoples living within its borders. Surrounding itself with all kinds of agents, spies, detectives and provocateurs, it terrorized the Lemkos. The most innocent show of cultural, educational, or economic life was considered an act against the Austrian state and was often brutally crushed. Rusyn institutions like reading rooms, cooperatives, student hostels, boarding schools were salt in the eyes of Austrian officials, who saw treason everywhere. Austrian gendarmes, loyal servants of the government, ran around like hound dogs through cities and villages sniffing out "Moscophiles" and stirring up provocations everywhere; they would then carry tales to the administrative authorities against completely innocent people. Under the cover of tradesmen selling holy icons, Ukrainian provocateurs would scamper through Lemko villages, go into people's homes and talk about political subjects, presenting themselves as friends of the Russian [Ruthenian] people and enemies of Austria. They would draw out a person's political inclinations, taking careful notes on everything, which they would then send, flagrantly edited, to the political authorities. In this way they compiled a list of "Moscophiles, who in the event of war will be ready to betray the most noble lord." On the basis of this list, all of the Lemko intelligentsia and hundreds of thinking peasants were arrested at the start of the war.

In such a political atmosphere, there were a number of arrests even before the war: the Orthodox priest Father Maksim Sandovich, born in Zhdynia, Gorlice County, just called to the parish in Gorbi, Yaslo County; Vasiliy Koldra, law student born in Sviatkova, organizer of reading rooms in Lemkovina; Father Mikhail Yurchakevich, curate in Chorneh; and many others. Their only crime was that they loved their people and worked for them. Father Maksim Sandovich and Vasiliy Koldra were sent to prison in Lviv, and in 1914 they were brought before the district court, together with Fathers Gudimiy and Bendiasuk, and were accused of treason against the Austrian state. This trial was known throughout Lemkovina, as hundreds of Lemkos testified as witnesses "and Ukrainian nationalists tried by all possible means to prove that the accused were guilty of treason. The trial lasted continuously for three months. Over a thousand witnesses were heard. The accused were defended by Dr. Vladimir Dudikevich of Kolomia, Dr. Mariian Glushkevich of Lviv, Dr. Kirill Cherliunchakevich of Peremyshl', and Dr. Aleksievich of Stanislavov (now Ivano-Frankivsk). All of the defendants were found innocent in the Lviv District Court and were freed. Relations in the religious sphere were also not promising. At the request of the Austrian authorities, the bishops would not accept seminary candidates of a Russian [Ruthenian] orientation. At an election held in Peremyshl' in 1911, only one of 40 Lemko candidates was accepted, while in the subsequent years prior to the War there was not a single one. In that same year, among 300 students at the general seminary of two eparchies there were only 11 Rusyns, of which two were Lemkos, although both the Rusyn clergy and the Rusyn peasantry were a majority over the Ukrainians. Rusyn students at the seminary in Lviv had a hard time and had to be strong willed to undergo all the humiliation brought on them fay their Ukrainian comrades, who were alter servers. They organized hunger strikes and demonstrations and used whatever means came to hand to terrorize their Rusyn comrades. In 1912, such a dangerous situation arose that the Rusyn students twice had to flee from the seminary in the dark of night to save their lives from their Ukrainian comrades. The late Father Botsian, rector of the seminary at that time, upon seeing this dangerous situation told the Rusyn students "run away, for I cannot vouch for your lives". This Gehenna that our students had to undergo at the theological seminary In Lviv at that time cannot be described by inert letters on paper or even orally. It was a nightmare that compromised both the Ukrainian clergy and the Austrian state. The Russian [Ruthenian] clergy was in no better position, either. On a secret order from the government, the bishops would not entertain a proposal to allow Russian [Ruthenian] priests to come into the country. Even if someone did manage to get nominated by a bishop for an entry permit, the Austrian government would not approve it. Some bishops frankly advised "Don't be Russian [Ruthenian], then you will get a parish." The worth of a priest was determined by his political views. Lemko peasants would sometimes approach heroism. Many of them deprived themselves of food to send their sons to school with the intent and conviction that the son would some day become a priest and the father would have a better lot in his old age. This was the dream of every father who sent his son to a gymazium. But to the great disillusionment and sorrow of the parents, the dream did not come to pass. The son would not be accepted into a seminary. Ruined materially, the father would be unabie to give his son even the most meager support to attend a university. For this reason, many Lemko youths, able and idealistic people, were wasted after graduating from gymnazium. Many of them left the country. If this array of youth had had the opportunity to finish university training, they would undoubtedly have played a great role in the history of Lemkovina. Yet, despite their difficult material situation, many of them went on to serve their people and work faithfully for its good, leaving a good memory in the hearts of the people. Alfred Rozenburg, a minister of the German parliament, called it the fairy tale of the 20th century, and V. Shul'gin, a member of the State Council, said: "This is the wildest falsification of the century". And indeed, Grushevskiy's history of Ukraine is a story of betrayal, deceit, discord, malevolence, and a great misfortune for his own people. Furthermore, the author himself admitted in one of the footnotes to this history: "Since we cannot accept the tales in the Kievan Chronicle, and we have no other source, the early history of Ukraine remains unknown". With this, Grushevskiy owned up to fabricating history. Grushevskiy did not live to get a university chair, and he atoned severely for his diabolical work. He died in prison after suffering brutal treatment. The governor of Galicia, Count Golukhovskiy, wrote in one of his administrative reports to Vienna: "It is necessary and imperative to contrive a difference between the language and script of the Little Russians [Ukrainians] in Galicia and that of the Russians in Russia". It is clear from these words that there was no such difference, since it had to be created. And, despite strong protest from the Russian [Ruthenian/Ukrainian] population of Galicia, in 1892 the Austrian government ordered the introduction of phonetics in all schools and government offices. They tried to show by this that the Galician tongue, as taught in the schools, is not Russian because it uses a different spelling, and the words are written and spoken differently than they are in the Russian literary language. By this means, the Austrians wanted to erase from the consciousness of the Galician Russians [Ruthenians/Ukrainians] their sense of kinship with the rest of the Russian [rusky/eastern Slavs] peoples and to make it easier to incline them toward separatism. The introduction of phonetics into Little Russian [Ukrainian] spelling brought undesirable consequences, because it differed from that in Russian books and literature and made it difficult to read church materials. The harm of this phonetics was perceived by P. A. Kulish, who was the first in Ukraine to use it, so that it later came to be called "Kulishovskiy's". In the Ukrainian newspaper "Pravda", published in Lviv, he made this announcement. "I declare that when the Poles begin to use my spelling to signify a break between us and Great Russia, when our phonetic spelling is displayed not as a people's aid to learning, but as a banner for our Russian [east Slavic] differences, then I shall go back to writing in the etymological spelling". Use of the phonetic spelling in the Little Russian [Ukrainian] lands within Russia was not harmful, because there the Russian literary language and etymological spelling were taught in the schools, and it was often even useful when practiced by ordinary people. In Galicia, however, it was harmful, because it served the enemy in destroying the Rusyn people. It was one of those bombs that General Miroslavskiy told the Poles to throw at the Russian entity. In the early days of the Russian revolution, the then Minister of Education in the Russian government, Manuyiov. an Armenian by birth, also introduced phonetics partially into Russian literary writing and abolished the letter (ee). The Soviet government went even further with these changes by ordering them to be used in schools everywhere. In those circumstances and in those difficult times, when a new era for mankind was developing, this was perhaps even necessary. Today, however, this matter requires correction, which must inevitably occur some day. In his commentary on this topic, Professor Bemadskiy wrote: "..... the old orthography (etymological writing) is a symbol of unity in the Russian [eastern Slav] culture of writing. Therein ties its greatest importance and, if only for this reason, it must be protected. The old orthography was adapted to the linguistic practice of the various tongues and dialects within the Russian language. The new orthography severely disturbs this equilibrium. It is adapted only to the Great Russian tongues, and by no means all of those. Therefore, the new spelling cannot properly be called Russian, and Great Russian only in part. Little Russians [Ukrainians] will have a new and serious reason to claim that the Russian graphic does not suit them......hidden behind such innocent changes in letters lie great daggers." All this brings to mind the thought of "some secret scheme against the unity of Russian [eastern Slav] culture". The reason why Prof. Bernadskiy was so set against giving Little Russians [Ukrainians] the new phonetics, and the spelling reform in the Soviet Union, is that the formerly single etymological spelling common to all Russians [eastern Slavs] has been broken up into many different spellings, leading to chaos and confusion. On terms similar to those offered Grushevskiy, the then Professor Yemiliyan Ogonovskiy was commissioned to compile a Ukrainian grammar, while Smal'-Stotskiy was directed to compose a reader and a textbook on Ukrainian literature. The words Ukraine and Ukrainian were introduced gradually into school textbooks. In the first edition, the term "Russo-Ukrainian" was used; in the second the order of this expression was changed to "Ukraine-Russian", while in the third only the term "Ukrainian" remained. As Grushevskiy had falsified history, so were alt schooibooks for learning falsified. Under the patronage of Austria and Germany, and under the leadership of the Polish gentry, the Ukrainian party grew We know of cases where the Austrians and Germans gathered Little Russian [Ukrainian] war prisoners into special camps where they were brainwashed and taught that they are not Russians but belong to a distinct Ukrainian people who should have their own separate nation. Such prisoners were better fed and better clothed in special uniforms, were trained as agitators, and were sent to Russia. The Austrians and Germans helped in every way to build an "independent" Ukraine, providing it with both a central council and Hetman Skoropadskiy. On this subject of Ukrainian separatism, I quote the words of the Galician Ukrainian A. Kaminskiy, who soberly and frankly analyzed and illuminated the Russo-Ukrainian topic in a brochure: "Those interested in Ukrainian separatism are primarily the Polish element in right-bank Ukraine and the leading forerunners in Ukrainian freedom. This seems a little odd, but that's the way it is. The right-bank Poles sense and understand that Poland cannot extend as far as the Dnieper and the Black Sea. If they should attempt to build a Poland in the right-bank region, even from afar, they would merely stir up anti-Polish sentiment. They, therefore, strive with all their might to build a Ukraine, working with Ukrainian patriots. They know that a Ukrainian state would strengthen Poland's position and ensure its existence. A Ukrainian state would have to enter into all kinds of intrigues and would subordinate itself to them so as to withstand Russia. He who, in this situation, yearns to build Ukraine beyond the boundaries of Russia is building, not Ukraine but Poland". Ukrainian separatism penetrated Lemkovina by way of Ukrainian priests, who were sent there not to proclaim the word of God, but rather to propagandize Ukrainian independence. The people quickly recognized this and, except for a few weak souls, have stood firmly on the ground of their Russianness, maintaining to this day their national honor and faithfulness to their heritage.

Section 30 — Culture in Lemkovina

Throughout its history, Lemkovina has been a source of many stories, legends, proverbs, poems and songs. Lemkos are very musical and love songs. Lemko songs are extraordinarily melodious. Many Lemko melodies have been appropriated by their Polish neighbors. The sensitivity and sentimental nature of the Lemko, the picturesque scenery of his mountains, and, in addition, his passionate love for his own people and faith, as well as his hills, have given rise in Lemkovina to some profound poetry and lovely melodies. Reflected in these songs are the Lemko's joys and sorrows, his dreams, his yearnings, his customs and, above all, his deep patriotism. It would be very desirable if some young Lemko would gather all these Lemko songs and publish them in print. Such a national treasure must not disappear. The first books in Lemkovino appeared with the adoption of Christianity. They were written in the Cyrillic alphabet and the Old Slavonic language. These were liturgical books, the two testaments of the Holy Scripture, which were published and printed in Krakow and Kyiv. To be continued

Part Three

Section 10 — The Battle of Gorlice

The Gorlice area of Lemkovina was a cauldron in which half the Russian forces fighting in Sub-Carpathia were caught. These units, numbering nearly 20,000 men, were being pursued by five divisions from the east through Krempna and Zhydowske, by two divisions and a brigade of cavalry from the Dukla pass, three divisions from the north on the Zmigorod-Iwlia-Dukla line, and a cavalry division from the east on the Yaslo-Cheremkha highway. In attempts to break through, the Russians became scattered and surrendered in small groups in the area between Dukla and Gyrow. The well known General Kornilov was captured. The last action of the fighting in Lemkovina was the formation of an 80 kilometer fronton a line from Harishny Wislok to Fryshtak on May 8 by twenty divisions, and counter attacks by the Russians on the following day. After this day, the Russians were no longer able to withstand the increasingly strong enemy forces. It must be realized, however, that the Germans and the Austrians had expected an easier victory. Despite excellent preparation and superb strategy, they found it hard to bring down the Russians, who fought with uncommon bravery. The battle of Gorlice opened up great possibilities for further action by the Central Powers. Important events now followed each other closely. Lviv fell on June 22, Warsaw on August 6, followed rapidly by Brest, Vilnius and Lutsk. By the fall of 1915, the Russians had lost, in addition to Galicia, all those parts of Poland they had previously controlled, plus Lithuania; they halted at the border of prewar Poland. The action between May 2 and May 12 that took place between the Dunaiets and San rivers was the turning point in the war between Russia and the Central Powers. The brutal plowshare of war had torn up Lemkovina from end to end. The name of almost every village there is a synonym for at least onebattle. The flames of war had scorched this formerly peaceful land and left memorials in the form of cemeteries all over Lemkovina. Even as late as 1938, church services were being held in temporary chapels in some Lemko villages, such as Gladyshow, Zhydowske, and others, because churches had not yet been rebuilt. Remnants of trenches dug during the great war can still be seen in the hills, and in many places there are roads paved with fir logs that were used for moving cannon into position. In all of Lemkovina there are 54 cemeteries where soldiers were buried. One of the most striking of these is close by the road from Gorlice to Konechna, while the largest is on Putski Hill near Gorlice. Others are spotted thickly all along the Ropa River and its tributaries, on both sides right up to the border. There are seven such cemeteries between Ropitsa Russka and Senkowa, indicating how fierce the fighting was there. Austria kept on fighting until 1918. Little by little the front lines of the Central Powers began breaking down, and in November 1918 World War I came to an end on both the eastern and southern fronts. Rebellious Austrian troops, seeing the futility of further fighting, threw down their arms and returned to their homes in chaotic disorder. New nations rose out of the ruins of the Austrian empire.

Wartime Cemeteries In Lemkovina

In World War I, Lemkovina was the theater of a long-standing Austro-Russian front. Fierce battles were fought there in the early days of May 1915, which resulted in defeat of the Russian forces and their withdrawal from Lemkovina. The land of the Lemkos was left scarred with trenches and cemeteries as memorials to those battles. Although much time has gone by since they were fought, military trenches, huts and a variety of other shelters, and roads made of poles that were used to move artillery into position can still be seen in the hills and forests. Most of the trenches were on Malastow Magura. Many men fell in those battles, on both one side and the other. Their bodies were buried hurriedly in shallow temporary graves in fields and woods, near cottages, and even close to wells. Villagers often found uncovered and decomposing bodies in the forests. The most elementary principles of hygiene were violated in those burials.To prevent a variety of epidemics, the Austrian government organized in Krakow a special unit called the "Kriegsgraberabteilung", whose task it was to build the needed number of cemeteries, dig up the bodies, and move them into the cemeteries. Austria was in a hurry to build these cemeteries so it could use Russian prisoners for the work before peace was signed. This special unit was divided into 12 crews, each of which was assigned a different Job. One was supposed to clean up the war's debris, another to establish the identities of the bodies, a third to find evidence of burials, and all the rest to do the technical work of building cemeteries. Among the officers in this unit there were architects, masons, painters, and all the other professions that are needed in this kind of work. To speed up the work as much as possible, it was decided to start building simultaneously over all the territory wherever the debris of war was found. To this end, 10 cemetery districts (Kriegsgrabbizirk) were established within the region from Zmigorod to Tymbarka and Shchutsina. Lemkovina was divided into three districts: (1) Zmigorod, (2) Gorlice, and (3) Limanow. On the territory of Lemkovina there are 54 wartime cemeteries containing 1,260 individual graves and 617 mass graves, with each of the latter holding several score bodies of soldiers, mostly Russians. Each district was headed by a "district chief". These chiefs were officers trained as architects or painters who designed the cemeteries for their districts. For some of the cemeteries, contests were held in which artists, painters, and architects from other districts took part. Because of this, all these burial grounds in Lemkovina look much alike. The most interesting of all the cemetery districts is the one at Zmigorod. The man in charge there was the welt known architect Dusan Yurkovich. He built his cemeteries in Old Slavonic style, and so they harmonize with the Lemko style and form. The most attractive of his cemeteries is the one on top of Malastowa Magura near the road from Gorlice to Konechna. This is in the form of an ellipse and is enclosed in a row of thick fir stumps topped with caps made of shingles, in the style of Lemko churches. Inside the cemetery are small wooden crosses, and on the back wall is an oratory (small chapel) also made of tree stumps. At the ends of the ellipse there are shingled caps, each carrying three crosses pined together with a copy of the Blessed Mother in between them. The whole gives the impression of being framed by the fir trees of the nearby forest. This cemetery reminds one of a small cozy Lemko village cemetery. Not far from there is another cemetery on a hill that can be seen from afar on the road to Gladyshow. This one is also built of wood and is remindful of the one on Magura, except that instead of an oratory it has a steeple in the center of a round cemetery. The steeple is 15 meters high and rests on a massive stone base. The upper part is made of wood covered with shingles. There are five such steeples in a cemetery on top of Randulna Hill, east of Regetow. These steeples are arranged so that the one in the center is the highest with the other four around it being a little lower. In Konechna, hard on the Slovak border, Is a third cemetery with a steeple built by Yurkovich similar to those on Randulna but made entirely of stone except for a cap of wood shingles. Among the cemeteries built by Yurkovich mention should also be made of one at Grab. It departs in style from the others, but by a happy combination of stone and wood it makes a strong impression. A stone roof capped with wood shingles covers the cemetery in the form of a rosette, while the gateway is in the form of an oratory, also of stone and with a steep roof of wood shingles. There also are two other oratories in the side walls. At the back wall there is an altar-like structure above which rises a 19 meter steeple. Not so good is Yurkovich's work where he built entirely of stone, for example, the cemetery in Krempna. In the center is a heavy memorial in the form of a round wreath of oak leaves, lying flat on four high pillars. If it were not for its overpowering massiveness, the whole thing would resemble a garden arbor. Around this memorial are circles of radially arranged graves, among which stand two large crosses. In addition to those described above, there is a large number of cemeteries in various localities around Zmigorod. In the southeast corner of Gorlice County,there is scarcely a single village without a wartime cemetery. These are in the form of a square with low walls and an iron gate. Within the walls are rows of graves marked by iron crosses. On the west wall is a stone structure shaped like a triangle or a throne from which rises a high wooden cross. In the third, the so-called Gorlice district, which lays north of the Zmigorod district, the work was directed by Hans Mayer, who put primary emphasis on strength and impressive facades. Mayer built with stone. The cemeteries he designed can be recognized by their thick stone walls covered with stone slabs. The front walls and the driveways are decorated with high pylons that can be seen from a distance. There is one such cemetery on a hill east of Malastow. Others are located between Malastow and Ropitsa Russka and in Senkowa. The ferocity of the fighting between the Austrians and the Russians can readily be discerned from the number of cemeteries. There are seven of them on the hills between Ropitsa Russka and Senkowa. There are mass graves in the fields in many places, e.g., in Biltsareva at the foot of Yawor Hill, in Waftsa on the side toward Kholm, as well as in Florinka beside the main road, and in other places. Johann Eger, the builder and director in the Yaslo district, showed some originality in his approach to the task. On the "walakhy" hill near Tseklin, he found over twenty mass graves scattered through the woods. He did not move them, but just walled them around where they were and left behind a crooked little road about four kilometers long. From a distance, the place where these graves are located looks like a steeple oratory at the edge of the forest. Similar to the Lemkovina wartime cemeteries are two large and prominent ones on Polish land, one in Gorlice and the other on Putski Hill near Luzhna. The Gorlice cemetery is situated on a high hill above the city and is visible from all directions. Leading up to it is a road lined with trees and some small benches. Its gateway is a large structure in the old style. This gigantic cemetery is traversed by little paths between which are stone crosses in straight rows. In all, there are 140 individual graves and 161 mass graves. In the center of the cemetery is a stone cross on top of a high steeple, designed by Gustav Ludwig; mortaredon to the cross are two tablets, one honoring the Poles who died for their native land and the other honoring Germans. Another cemetery notable for its tremendous size is located north of Luzhna on Putski Hill. This hill was the site of the most stubborn Russian defense. There was a furious baffle here. This cemetery on Putski is by far the largest of all. In separate clearings in the forest lie Russians, Austrians, Germans and Hungarians. Each group has its own section with a stone memorial and a forest of wooden crosses. Throughout each clearing, there are paths, stairs, steps, handrails and benches. On top of the hill is a wooden tower 24 meters high, decorated with shingled canopies. On the tower is an oratory with a carved figure of Christ carrying a cross. In this cemetery, there are 829 individual graves and 46 mass graves, each of the latter containing a few dozen or a few score bodies. The wartime cemeteries in Lemkovina are the fruits of fratricidal warfare among Slavic peoples fighting for the interests of dominating rulers - the old idiot Emperor Franz Joseph, the power-mad trickster Emperor Wilhelm, and the mystic Tsar Nicholas. The blood of the slaughtered soldiers cried to high heaven for revenge. And this revenge was not long in corning. Even before the final end of the war, the thrones of all three of these monarchs had crumbled to dust. The liberated people began a new life.

Section 11 — The Time After World War I

When the Austro-Hungarian monarchy and Kaiser Germany were left shattered, alt the Slavic peoples began building their own nations. Lemkos were gladdened by the prospect of a popular democratic state, some leaning toward Russia, others looking to America from where they expected aid and support. Russia was undergoing a revolution and civil war. there was little to hope for there. The chances for help were better in America, especially after President Wilson promised self-determination for all peoples. Lemkos put their trust in this concept of self-determination and began forming committees that created "national councils", on both sides of the demolished Austro-Hungarian border. The representatives of the old regime had fled from Lemkovina, and the people sensed freedom. The focal point of Lemko organizing was Pryashev. Convening there was the so-called Carpatho-Russian National Council, which was composed of representatives from the various local councils in all of Lemkovina, that is, all of western Carpathian Rus'. The chairman of this Council was Dr. Antoniy Beskid, former delegate to the Hungarian Parliament. He went to the Paris Peace Conference, to present the wishes of the Carpathian people. The principal desire of these people was to unite all of Carpathian Rus' into a single entity and gain autonomy. All these efforts came to naught, however. In the end, Carpathian Rus' was divided into three parts, with Lemkovina being divided in two, one part on the Polish side the other on the Slovak side. The American Lemko delegates to the Peace Conference at San Germane also achieved nothing. In the meantime, in that part of Lemkovina on the Polish side of the Carpathian Mountains there began organization of some Lemko republics, evidence of the strong desire of Lemko people for freedom and independence. Such republics sprang up in Florinka, Gribow County, in Gladyshow, Gorlice County, in Wislok Nizhny, Sanok County. At first, the Poles were favorably inclined toward these republics (for example. Dr. Ramolt in Gribow). But they soon strengthened their own organizational forces, and these republics were abolished, while the organizers and administrators were arrested and charged with treason to the Polish state. In his "Red Virgin" almanac, Fr. Kokovsky mentions other such republics (Peremyshl. Tarnobzheg).Soon to be published in Lviv [this history was printed 30 years ago and probably written years before] is a work by Peter Kohutov, from which the reader can learn more detail about this subject.

Section 12 — Lemkos in Restoration (Senacyjna) Poland

When, after the war, the Poles from all three previous partitions of the country were reunited into a single entity and a free and independent Polish state was declared, the Lemkos accepted this development with enthusiasm, because they had hopes that life would be easier in a Slavic state than it had been under the former Austro-Germanic rule. However, they were soon disappointed. Poland became a fascist state, antagonistically inclined toward all other Slavic peoples. It tried in every way possible to denationalize the Lemkos. As in the old days of aristocratic Poland, so now too the Polish prefects and their gendarmes persecuted the Lemkos and denigrated their faith, their nationality, and their mother tongue. The fascist authorities acted to remove all Lemko born teachers and other intellectuals from educational work among Lemkos, forcing them completely out of their profession or transferring them far away, to somewhere in Pomerania among Germans and Poles. School officials set up purely Polish schools in purely Lemko villages, and chose the most chauvinistic teachers for these schools. There were incidents where a Polish teacher who knew no Russian did not want to go to a Lemko village, explaining to the inspector that he could not communicate with the children since he did not know their language. 'They would not understand him and he could not understand them. The inspector replied: "In time, you wilt learn this language from the children, and that will be good enough." And so the unversed teacher went off to the Lemko village. Well known at the time was the case of a teacher in Skwirtne, Nikolai Yurkovsky, an admired Lemko activist, whom the authorities sent far out to Kielce province to do his teaching. When Yurkovsky was leaving the village to go to his new position, a crowd gathered from neighboring villages and tearfully escorted their beloved teacher to the village limits, where police with carbines dispersed them. The Skwirtne villagers stopped sending their children to school, which resulted In more terror, arrests, and heavy fines. Polish teachers tormented Lemko children. It often happened that a teacher would beat a child to insensibility merely for using a Lemko word. All kinds of protests and complaints were ignored. And if such complaints became frequent, then police would be sent to the village, or even troops for pacification. The police or soldiers would beat the most prominent villagers unmercifully and even plunder their property. There were even some Polish pseudo-scholars who maintained that Lemkos are not a Russian people but just "some lost Polish tribe". Even birth and death certificates had to be made out in Polish. To make it impossible for Lemko students to get into Polish universities, a so-called "numerous clausus" was put into effect, limiting the number of university admissions. Only Poles could be admitted to universities. This explains why there are so few Lemkos who completed university studies in restoration Poland. Our people could get into administrative work only by signing a declaration to convert to the Roman Catholic faith. This lactic was gradually applied to physical laborers also. Only Roman Catholics could eat bread in restoration Poland. Military promotion for Lemkos was limited. Only a Pole, and Roman Catholic at that, could become an officer. Russian professors at universities were relieved of their posts, which meant that they were fired. One of these was a Lemko, Dr. Tim Myshkovsky, born in Peregrimka, who was among the first rank of scholars at the University of Lviv. Restoration Poland tried by every means to destroy Lemko Rus', which was salt in its eyes. Noteworthy is the procedure followed in voting for Parliament and Sejm, as well as that in taking a census. All kinds of laws and rights were violated here. The local polling site was the school. The election was certified by the chairman of the elections commission or his deputy. The ballot urnlay on a table, guarded by two policemen. The chairman had the key to this urn. Voters made their selections on cards, which they then put into the urn. The voting took place before noon. At noon there was a lunch break, and the chairman went out to lunch, leaving his deputy and the policemen to watch the urn. While the chairman was gone, the policemen sent the deputy out for cigarettes, opened the urn with a duplicate key, and dumped out alt the cards, replacing them with their own prepared cards and relocking the urn. All of their replacement cards had the name of the government's candidate or the government number. At 9 o'clock in the evening the votes were counted. The urn was unlocked, the cards were pulled out, and counting began. All the votes turned out to be for the government candidate, despite the fact that not a single person there had actually voted for him. Also surprising was the fact that more cards were taken out of the urn than there were voters. Nobody protested or raised any objections. The prefect commended the chairman of the elections commission "for properly conducting the election". A similar honor was accorded the author of this farcical tale, despite a strong protest against such illegality and a demand to invalidate the election. In census taking, the entry on the "religion" line of the form was always "Roman Catholic", regardless of whether the person was Greek Catholic or Orthodox. The "nationality" line said "Polish", even if the individual was Russian. By such means, solidly Lemko villages appeared in census reports as Polish and Latinate. Data from these reports were used for various computations and statistics. It is thus no surprise that on the basis of such data the number of Lemkos did not increase but decreased. The officials and functionaries of restoration Poland were good at lying and deception.

Section 13 — Lemkos Under Slovakia

The position of Lemkos in Slovakia was even worse. The Slovaks absolutely recognized no rights for Lemkos. When they revised their statistics, they unceremoniously converted every Lemko into a Slovak, and there was no appeal. Teaching in schools was entirely In Slovak. Cyrillic was replaced by Latin script, even in church documents and private correspondence. The Slovaks recognized neither the faith, nor the language, nor the script of the Lemkos. "There are no Rusnaks In Slovakia, only Slovaks" proclaimed Slovak politicians. But the Slovaks learned the truth of a principle: He who oppresses other people loses his own independence".

Section 14 — Socio-Political Relations in Transcarpathia

During World War I, when Hungarian gendarmes arrested hundreds of Russian villagers and shipped them to concentration camps, the Uzhorod Bishop Chernokh called a conference of the clergy subordinate to him. At this conference it was decided to eliminate the Slavic alphabet in Transcarpathia and replace ft with Latin script and Magyar phonetics. Soon after that, the Mukachevo bishop, Antoniy Papi, a rabid magyarophile, followed Chernokh's example. The aim of this literary change was nothing less than to transform the Transcarpathian Rusyns Into Magyars and open up a deep chasm between Uzhorod and Mukachevo on the one hand, and Kiev and Moscow on the other. As a consequence of the decision to eliminate Russian script in Transcarpathia, the priest Avhustin Voloshyn, a teacher and pedagogue, published a whole series of textbooks in Magyar script for Russian schools. Budapest paid him handsomely for this. On November 19, 1918, when the Austro-Hungarian empire was hurtling into the abyss, its loyal followers, the Greek Catholic clergy headed by a bishop, announced the organization of a "Council of Rusyns in Magyarland", which issued the following manifesto: "The Rusnak people must support their old homeland (Magyarland) and protect its territorial inviolability. By the same token, they reject all attempts to tear the Rusyns from their Magyar homeland", and so on. Soon, however, the magyarophiles concluded that any hope of continuing Magyar domination was an empty dream, and they began to flirt with Prague. These traitors tried by every means to have Czechoslovakia take over Transcarpathia, since this was the only power that could save them from popular wrath. The compromised renegades faded into the shadows, and their place was taken by new figures, hitherto unknown. For these, it would have been more convenient to have Magyars in charge rather than Czechoslovakia, concerning which they had their doubts and which they regarded as only "a seasonal state". They soon linked up with Galician Ukrainians who believed strongly in a revival of the German empire. Under the influence of the latter, the magyarophiles came to the conclusion that this time best regime for them would be a German one, because only a German hand would keep a stranglehold on the throat of the people while treating the Magyars gently. Prague proved to be a treasure trove for Transcarpathian politicians. It established a Central Rusyn Council and appointed the American wealthy businessman Zhatkovich as governor of Transcarpathia. His assistants Beskid and Voloshyn each received two thousand acres of fertile land from the Prague government. Nor did others of their henchmen, especially the Greek Catholic clergy, go unrewarded. But the Czechoslovak authorities took a different tack in respect to the Transcarpathian poor. Now that the Hungarian gendarmes had left the country, the villagers could follow their own inclinations. Now that the Czechoslovak constitution had proclaimed "freedom of conscience", they felt that they couldget rid of their disliked priests. But when they tried to drive them out of their parishes, they were bitterly disillusioned. The arguments of the Greek Catholic hierarchy were more convincing to the Czech authorities than were those of ordinary people. The Prague government sent police, troops, and punitive expeditions against the rebellious villagers, who were dealt with harshly white the deposed priests were restored to their former positions. Despite the terror of 1930, however, about a third of the villagers broke with the Greek Catholic church and went over to Orthodoxy. Years went by. Germany got up on its feet again under the leadership of the demon Hitler. The Vatican concluded a concordat with Hitler. Under the black flag of fascism, Hitler went on the march to conquer the world. The reactionary forces of fascism began stirring in all corners of Europe, and they did not forget Transcarpathian Rus'. Of the principal organizers of "fifth columns" and agents of the fascist forces many were Greek Catholic priests. They ordered the parties subordinate to them to work for Germany, Poland and Hungary. Their main political support during the Czech domination was the so-called "Autonomous Agricultural Union". Operating under this benign symbol was a group of magyarophiles whose aim was to prepare the soil for a Magyar takeover of Transcarpathia. The leaders In this effort were Kurtyak and Brodiy. Brodiy was a cantor and teacher, as welt as a paid agent of Budapest. Until 1918, he published In Kosice a Magyar revisionist newspaper, thus earning himself appointment as secretary of the Autonomous Agricultural Union. Brodiy's party was subsidized by the Hungarian government, which every month sent him 50,000 Czech korunas through Bishop Stoyk under the guise of a "fund to defend the faith".Another "star" In the renegade effort was the above-mentioned Father Avgustin Voloshyn. In 1903, he was editor of a Monthly Word, in which he castigated Ukraine as "a frightful plague that alienates Rusyns from the church". Thirty years ago he published a series of schoolbooks in Magyar script in place of Cyrillic, which Budapest had ordered for Russian schools on the Initiative of church leaders. Then in the winter of 1919-1920, we find him in the position of president of a Directorium, which was led by Zhatkovich. Sensing how the political winds were blowing, FatherVoloshyn became one of the directors of a Czechophile Central Rusyn National Council, and for his efforts received from the government a large allotment of land. When the western winds brought news of the rise of the German fortress, he joined up with Galician Ukrainian nationalists like Konovalets. When Adolf Hitler became chancellor of Germany, Avgustin Voloshyn was appointed Gestapo resident in Transcarpathia. A third counterpart of these two was the Russian nationalist Stepan Fentsik. While Brodiy was serving in the Hungarian espionage apparatus and Voloshyn in the German, Fentsik at the same performed the functions of a secret agent for Hungary and Poland. He was an almost daily guest of the Polish consul in Uzhorod, Kalupchinsky. In the style of the Italian Mussolini, Fentsik organized young men and dressed them in black shirts. When the Magyars took over Transcarpathia, he put his Black Shirts at the disposition of the Magyar counter-espionage apparatus, which made use of them in dealing with the village people. All three of these "stars" and their parties operated under a single command and for a single purpose designed by Berlin and carried out by its satellites - Horthy in Hungary and Beck in Poland.

Colophon

Translated by Walter Maksimovich from Fr. Jan Polansky's ("Ioann F.
Lemkyn's") Istoria Lemkovyny (History of Lemkovyna), a five-part
Lemko-language manuscript published in 1969 by the Lemko-Soyuz of the USA
and Canada, Yonkers, NY. Captured 2026-08-05 from Maksimovich's site "The
Lemko Page" (lemko.org), where the translation was posted section by
section beginning 1998: history/lemkyn/index.html (contents page) and
sixteen section pages (112.html, 113.html, 114.html, 116.html,
24.html through 30.html, 310.html through 314.html), all under
lemko.org/history/lemkyn/. Source pages carry the notice "© 1998 LV
Productions. All Rights Reserved"; Part One's section pages additionally
credit the original 1969 publisher, and Part Two Sections 24–27 note prior
publication in the newspaper Karpatska Rus' (Yonkers, NY) by the editor's
permission.

Rights basis: published here under permission held by the Good Work
Library for lemko.org's content (recorded 2026-08-05). All rights to the
translation remain with the original rights-holders (Walter Maksimovich /
LV Productions); this edition reproduces it as a permitted reprint, not as
library-owned work.

Completeness: this is not the full book. Only the sections listed above
were ever translated and posted online, in this order, with gaps in the
numbering (Part One skips directly from Section 16 to Part Two's Section
24; Part Three begins at Section 10, not Section 1) that reflect what the
translator chose or was able to post, not any omission made in preparing
this edition. Nothing has been abridged from what exists online.

Editorial notes on this edition: paragraph and section structure follow
the source exactly. The tabular list of Galician landowners in Section 26
and the numbered source citations in Sections 25 and 26 (originally
represented as ASCII-art spacing and superscript numerals) have been
reformatted as a Markdown table and Markdown footnotes respectively, for
readability, with every figure and citation preserved unchanged. A run of
dots in Section 12, marking a sentence the translator chose not to render
into English, is preserved as in the source rather than silently closed
up or invented. Site navigation, mailing-address footers, and a decorative
image are the only material omitted from each page.

Prepared for the Good Work Library by the New Tianmu Anglican Church, with
AI-assisted research and preservation.

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