Six Lemko Lives — Olena Duc and Bogdan Horbal

biographical sketches by Olena Duc and Bogdan Horbal

These six short biographies, all originally published in
Carpatho-Rusyn American between 1987 and 1996, sketch the lives of
six figures central to Lemko Rusyn cultural, religious, and political
life: three by the scholar Olena Duc -- the priest and philologist
Volodymyr Chyljak, the self-taught primitivist painter Nykyfor
Drovnjak, and the poet Ivan Rusenko -- and three by the bibliographer
Bogdan Horbal -- the community organizer Viktor P. Hladyk, the
political activist Jaroslav Kaczmarczyk, and the educator Metodyj
Trochanovskij.

Volodymyr Chyljak — by Olena Duc

Volodymyr Chyljak (1843-1893)

American**, Volume 10 #3, 1987
with permission*

A salient characteristic of nineteenth-century Lemko culture was that its creators were from the clergy. The possibility to obtain an education and then to work within Lemko culture became synonymous with graduating from a theological seminary and either becoming a parish priest or continuing with university studies. An indication of the great need for scholarly activity among the Lemkos was the significant number of academics from the Lemko Region holding doctorates and professorial titles, whose contribution to the development of learning, especially theology, is significant.

Nonetheless, for many among this Lemko intelligentsia, the need for a wider range of Lemko activities -- social, literary, educational, and political -- became evident. In fact, the educated clergy was to play a key role in determining the ideological and political profile of the Lemko Region. Priests attempted to direct the development of Lemko national consciousness both through their pastoral activity and through the printed word. As a result, a political, historical, didactic, and moralizing literature arose. Besides such "practical" works, there were also examples of literary texts born out of an authentic aesthetic gift and creative need.

One of the best known and talented Lemko writers was Volodymyr Chyljak. He was born and worked in the Lemko Region, and his prolific pen left for posterity a large number of literary works. A four-volume edition of his complete works appeared already in L'viv between 1881 and 1881, and his writings even came to the attention of the leading Russian Slavist of the time, Aleksandr Pypin.

Volodymyr Chyljak was born on July 15, 1848 in Wirchomla Wielka (Virchovnja Velyka), a Lemko Rusyn village (Nowy Sacz district) in the former Habsburg Austrian province of Galicia, where his father Ignatyj was a Greek Catholic priest. The young Volodymyr finished primary school and six grades of gymnasium in the nearby town of Nowy Sacz, after which he was sent across the Carpathians to Presov, where he received his gymnasium diploma. He remained in Presov and completed his studies at the Greek Catholic Seminary there. In 1866 he married Angelika Durkot from the Lemko village of Izby and soon after was ordained a Greek Catholic priest. For the rest of his life, Chyljak served as a parish priest in the Lemko villages of Dolyny (Gorlice district), Izby (Grybow district), and Bartne/Bortne (Gorlice district); then he was sent farther east to Lityn (Drohobych district), where he remained until his death in 1893.

For most of his life -- 22 years - he lived in Bartne. It was in that Lemko village where Chyljak began his literary career and where he wrote almost all of his works, some of which were published under his own name, others under pseudonyms such as Jeronim Anonym, V. Neljach, Ja sam, Lemko Semko, Nikyj, and Quidam russkij. Chyljak's corpus consists of about fifty works -- novels, tales, short stories -- all of which are closely related to life in the Lemko Region. He quickly became popular among Lemko readers as well as among readers in the Russian Empire.

Among Chyljak's best works are the short stories and novels: "Shbenychnyj verch"(1883), "Pol'skij patriot"(1872), "Vlechenie serdec" (1874), "Supruzhestvo i chetyre fakultety" (1880), "Velykij perekinchyk v malom rozmiri" (1881), "Poslidnaja charka" (1888), "Shchastja ne v hroshach" (1889), "Persha ljubov" (1891), and "Ne sudyte i ne sudymy bud'te" (1893).

He also wrote humorous anecdotal tales that are full of life ("Ryba," "Poznal svoju zhenu"), satires ("Na shcho russkij ochy dyvljatsja," "O rosti chelovicheskom"), and feuilletons ("Ja I ona," "Kumedija i chudasja," "Pojedynok," "Vody v Vysovi").

Most of Chyljak's works first appeared in the Galician Rus' newspaper Slovoas well as in journals in the Russian Empire such as *Slavjanskij vek *and Russkij vestnik.

Chyljak's prose reveals his excellent familiarity with Lemko problems and it brings to light happy as well as difficult moments in the lives of individual Lemkos. Because they are marked by emotional engagement with their subject, Chyljak's writings are imbued throughout with expressiveness and authenticity. The narratives are clear, the plots are uncomplicated, and there are frequent references to Lemko customs. Chyljak's great sensitivity to the beauty of nature must also be mentioned. He often provided rich descriptions of the Lemko landscape that revealed a love of this native land and his closeness to it. As for philosophical and moralistic elements, they are introduced in the form of digressions and reflections about life and man's fate.

The Reverend Chyljak was a historian and ethnographer as well as a belletrist. Besides historical novels, often based on actual events in the Lemko past, he wrote scholarly articles on ethnography, in particular on Lemko wedding rites and related customs. Volodymyr Chyljak's contribution to Lemko cultural development is outstanding, and through his writings readers from many lands can gain an insight into Lemko life in a direct and all encompassing manner.

Olena Duc'

Uscie Gorlickie, Poland

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Index

Nykyfor Drovnjak — Famous Lemko Artist — by Olena Duc

Nykyfor Drovnjak - Famous
Lemko Artist (1895-1968)

American**, Volume 9 #2, 1987
permission*

The life of Nykyfor Drovnjak is truly the stuff of fairy tales.

From a foolish and outcast beggar there developed a world renowned artist
whose name remains a source of pride among the people from whom he derived. Yet
it is precisely here that the great absurdity begins.

Nykyfor, who did not even know how to speak Polish, who from beginning to
end developed artistically under the influence of the wonder of eastern
Christian icons, who was three times deported to western Poland, who returned
three times to his native Lemko Region. who was isolated from foreign influences

It is this same Nykyfor whose works have had subjective and objective "Polishness"
thrust upon them. Falsified (acts from his life, tendentious interpretations
regarding his creative motivations, and a lack of feeling and understanding for
the complicated psychology of this unfortunate artist all serve the cause of "proving"
his ostensible Polishness. Despite the Polishness accredited to Nykyfor, one
can detect the full gamut of Lemko life and symbolism both in his career and in
his outstanding creative works.

Nykyfor Drovnjak was born on May 21, 1895 in the small town of Krynica
(Nowy Sacz district) in what is today south-central Poland. His mother was
Jevdokija Drovnjak, the daughter of Hryhorij and Tatjana Krenyc`kyj from the
nearby village of Powroznik/Povoroznyk; his father was unknown. Baptized in the
local Greek Catholic Church, he was given the name Jepyfan. This name was
uncommon in the Lemko Region, although a priest would often give a child of an
unwed mother a strange name which would by itself distinguish the child from
others. The name Nykyfor, by which the artist from Krynica is so well known, is
actually a nickname that is much more understandable and normal for Lemkos.

Nykyfor came into the world in particularly unfortunate circumstances. The
question of his actual father was and remains uncertain. His mother, who until
the end of her days was a servant. lived in poverty. The youngster never
finished school and he did not even know how to write. At best he could scribe
large printed letters, as is evident on his paintings. But in place of these
shortcomings, nature endowed Nykyfor with a great talent. And despite a career
clouded with legends created by people who never will be able to understand all
the contradictions and conflicts of his life, there existed beyond the normal
concept of happiness a solidly-founded existence directed by its own logic and
creative power in a word, he lived in his own manner.

Nykyfor remained in his native Krynica among fellow Lemkos. His favorite
spot was the wall near the health clinic, where he loved to sit the whole day
and paint, and where he sold or gave away his paintings. Although from time to
time he wandered throughout the Lemko Region, he soon returned to the spot along
the wall where he felt best. Strongly tied to the atmosphere of the town of
Krynica and the Lemko Region as a whole, Nykyfor considered his paintings to be
something natural and obvious. He created for himself, because creativity was
a part of his being - it was his very life.

In fact, in the paintings of Nykyfor we can touch the depths of an open,
simple. and free spirit, who created with brush and color a world of his own.
His paintings are described as naive and primitive in the positive sense of
those words. The world which Nykyfor created in works which number about 30,000
has nothing to do with a realistic depiction of nature. Here it is the icon
which is the source of the profound variety and particular characteristics or
his paintings.

There is a great similarity in the creative principles of Nykyfor's works
and the canon of Byzantine iconography. As in the icons, so too in Nykyfor's
work is there magic. The icon is not only an image, it is a picture which
directs one through pictorial form to the presence of God and itself embodies in
part that presence. Similar are the paintings of Nykyfor. They not only
reflect the world, they are in part the world they reflect. Even if that world
should vanish, it will survive precisely there where Nykyfor created it - in his
art.

Nykyfor depicted the Lemko Region - its wondrous, clear, and refreshing
sun, its numerous churches, its brightly colored houses, its fairy tales and
symbols. These were to remain forever. He also depicted himself as he wished
he could be and how he would like to feel - young, distinguished, respected. He
painted himself like the saints on icons, seen always with gigantic eyes,
seriousness, and grandeur. He also rendered other people in the same way, if
he felt they merited such treatment. All his paintings are in fact triumphal
and solemn in which a strong internal force is ever present.

It is the power and greatness of Nykyfor's talent which today attracts the
world's art critics. Yet while he was outstanding, he still remains a
misunderstood phenomenon. This is because it is not possible to understand an
individual without knowing the life of the people from whom he or she derived.
Nykyfor lived and created as a Lemko, and first and foremost it is necessary to
understand his work as an homage to the Lemko Region - a homage in which
everything there would remain just as he saw and felt it.

Olena Duc - Uscie Gorlickie, Poland

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Ivan Rusenko — Rusyn National Awakener — by Olena Duc

Ivan Rusenko (1890-1960)

**Ivan Rusenko **

Lemkos still call him "the teacher," and indeed he was a teacher of the people, an ideological leader, and an awakener of Lemko patriotism and self identity. He was also the "most Lemko"' of poets, who used superbly the simple Lemko language that blossomed from his pen. Rusenko fully expressed the problems of Lemko life, describing "what hurts" and "what cheers." He could warm the Lemko heart or chide it for misbehavior like a good and wise teacher.

Ivan Rusenko was born on August 15. 1890, into a poor peasant family in the Lemko Region village of Krasna (Krosno district) in the historic Austro-Hungarian province of Galicia. After finishing secondary school (gymnasium) at Nowy Sacz in 1913, he was conscripted into the Austrian imperial army During World War I, he fought on the Serbian and Italian fronts, then in 1918 returned to his native village in what by then was Poland. After trying unsuccessfully for many years to obtain a position as a teacher to Lemko children, he finally had to accept a post in the Polish village of Lutczy where he lived for 21 years. At the close of World War I, and the initial phase of the resettlement of Lemkos that began in 1945, Rusenko was forced to emigrate to
Soviet Ukraine, settling in the village of Korolivka in the far southeastern corner of the old province of Galicia. There he continued to teach in elementary school. However, he was deeply affected by the separation from his native Lemko Region as evident in the tragic and nostalgic tone of his poetry written until the time of his death on August 10, 1960. Rusenko's main contribution to Lemko culture was based on his ability to reach the common Lemko whom he knew would be sensitive to the sincerity and simplicity with which such emotions are expressed in his poetry. He wrote exclusively in Lemko dialect and created poetic images of a homeland toward which he felt a deep filial attachment. His poetry helped to teach his fellow Lemkos similar attitudes.

*Ja rodyvsja tvoim synom - dolja moja bidna

Y ljublju tja Lemkovyno, moja maty ridna

Bo cym hoden pozabyty nasu hirsku krasu

Y smereky y poljany, de sja uci pasut.*

I was born your son and my fate is to be poor

Yet I love you, oh Lemko region, my motherland

For how can I forget the beauty of our mountains

The evergreen trees, and the pastures where the sheep graze.

Throughout his writings Rusenkos main purpose was to teach Lemkos the value of their native heritage from which they could draw to become honest, industrious, good-natured, educated, and well-integrated individuals. The poet was also not averse to using satire, often in the form of caricature. Like his lyrical verses, his satire was presented in a manner that clearly characterized the subject, expressed personal inter-relations, and mocked typical traits. Rusenkos fine character types - the grandfather, the head of the household, the herdsman, the priest - all seem to be taken directly from a pre-World War I Lemko environment. Such satire not only poked fun at negative phenomena in Lemko
life, it also went directly to the heart of the matter:

*Pan kerovnyk skoly

Ucyt nasy dity

Pol'sku sanuvaty

Rus' nenavydity*

The school director

Teaches our children

To praise Poland

And hate Rus'.

Anxious about the fate of his people and tireless in revealing life's truths, Rusenko reacted bitterly to the injustice suffered by the Lemkos and to Polish prejudice which he personally experienced many times. Yet, as a teacher and spiritual leader he could not become pessimistic - he had to remain both a consoler and an awakener:

*Ne vydusyly nas vsich katy

Y ne vyssaly nam krov!

Jak byly nasy Karpaty

Tak budut vo vik-vikov!*

The executioners have not crushed all of us

Nor sucked out all of our blood

Just as our Carpathians have been

So will they remain forever and ever!

The sadness of Rusenko's last poems reflect a dampening of the strength and vigor that had earlier characterized this tireless agitator. In the end, he saw how his hopes had come to naught, how his people were driven from their homes, and how they were scattered throughout the world:

*Moja Otcyzna Lemkovyna zaraz za Sanom, jak za plotom

Lem nja ne pustjat bez pasportu, zahorodyly bramu drotom*

My Lemko fatherland is beyond the San river, as if on the
other side of a fence

Only they don't let me go there without a passport, having closed the gate with barbed wire

While Rusenko may have met a melancholic and unhappy ending, his verse still lives. For Lemkos in Poland today, as for Lemkos during his lifetime, Rusenko's message continues to be both relevant and inspiring

*Olena Duc

Uscie Gorlickie, Poland*

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Viktor P. Hladyk (1873-1947) — by Bogdan Horbal

Viktor Hladyk was a Lemko
activist notable for his remarkable half century of dedicated work on behalf
of the Rusyn community in North America. Hladyk was born in 1873 into an
impoverished peasant family in the Lemko village of Kunkowa, in present-day
southeastern Poland. He attended elementary school in his native village
and high school in the near-by town of Jaslo. Because his parents were
unable to provide him with money to further his education, the twenty-year-old
Hladyk was forced to emigrate to the United States.

At first, Hladyk found work as a miner in eastern Pennsylvania. From
the very outset, he became active within the Rusyn community and, following
the example of many other Russophile-oriented Lemkos in America, he left
the Greek Catholic church and became Orthodox. By the beginning of the
twentieth century. Hladyk was working as a typesetter for the newspaper
Svit. He was not satisfied, however, with the politics of *Svit's
*editors, and that led him to publish a new Rusyn newspaper, Pravda,
whose first issue appeared in New York City on March 24, 1902. A year after
its establishment, Pravdawas adopted by the Russian Brotherhood
Organization which continues to publish the newspaper to this day.

While editor-in-chief of Pravda, Hladyk honed his skills as a
journalist and took part in the Congress of Slavic Journalists held in
1903 in St. Louis. A decade later he had moved to Canada and in 1913 founded
in Winnipeg, Manitoba another newspaper, Russkij narod, serving
as its editor until 1918. It was also in Winnipeg where Hladyk established
the Orthodox-oriented newspaper, *Kanadijskaja pravoslavnaja Rus' *(1914).
As a long-time supporter of the church, he visited numerous Rusyn settlements
throughout North America and helped to establish new Orthodox parishes.

The end of the World War I brought Rusyns in Europe an opportunity to
decide their political future. Already in 1917 Hladyk was among the organizers
of the Congress of Russian People in Winnipeg, which appointed him a member
of the Carpatho-Rusyn delegation to the Paris Peace Conference. He was
also chosen (along with three others) to represent in Paris the New York
City-based League for the Liberation of Carpatho-Russia. Both the Winnipeg-based
Congress and New York-based League consisted primarily of Russophiles from
former Austrian Galicia who acted separately from Rusyn immigrants south
of the Carpathians. In Paris, Hladyk spoke before the Peace Conference
commission for Eastern Galicia, where he discussed the religious situation
in the European homeland.

From Paris, Hladyk went to the Lemko Region, where he met with leading
Lemko political activists, including the Kacamarcyks (see the two previous
issues of Carpatho-Rusyn American soon to be online).
He also travelled twice to Warsaw, in order to make sure that Lemkos would
not be drafted into Polish army and that food and clothes from abroad would
reach Lemko villages. During a special meeting of Lemko political leaders
held on March 20, 1920 in the village of Florynka, he strongly advised
that a Lemko Political Committee be organized to represent the Rusyn population
north of the Carpathians in its dealings with the Polish government. Shortly
after that, the Polish secret police arrested Hladyk. Due to the fact that
he held American citizenship, he was released but forced to leave Poland.
He then travelled to Geneva, where at the first session of the League of
Nations he, together with another Galician Russophile, Dmitrij Markov,
presented a statement describing Polish brutalities in Eastern Galicia
and the Lemko Region. A similar document was sent to the Paris Peace Conference.

Although the Lemko efforts to obtain independence did not succeed, Hladyk
continued to work for his people. Upon returning to the United States,
he once again edited Pravda (1921-1923), and founded another newspaper
called Lemkovshchyna. Viewed as his mouthpiece. Lemkovshchyna
called for the creation of Lemko Committees throughout America, a movement
that eventually led to the establishment of the Lemko Association in 1929.
For a number of years, however. Hladyk did not participate in the activity
of the Lemko Association because of its leftist orientation. Instead, during
the 1930s, he and his long time friend, the popular Lemko activist Stefan
Skymba, organized the Carpatho-Russian National Committee, which published
the newspaper Karpato-russkoe slovo. In contrast to the leftist
Lemko Association, the Carpatho-Russian Committee emphasized Christian
values and recognized the leading role of the Orthodox church in the community.

World War II brought new challenges. Hladyk had always believed that
the Germans were the greatest enemy of all Slavic peoples. Consequently,
when the Nazis turned against the Soviet Union, he began to support the
pro-Soviet Lemko Association and the atheistic Soviet Union. He even went
so far as to argue that the Lemko Region (together with all of Carpathian
Rus') should become a part of the Soviet Union. This goal was publicly
announced during the All-National Russian Carpatho-Russian Liberation Congress,
held in Philadelphia in 1944. In the last year of his life, at age 73,
Hladyk became a founding member and director of the Lemko Relief Committee,
but he died just a few weeks before it became obvious that the new organization
would not be able to help Lemkos in Europe. Fortunately, he did not live
long enough to witness the 1947 destruction of Lemko villages north of
the Carpathians, and he was spared news of the suffering imposed on the
region and people to whom he had devoted his entire life.

Bogdan Horbal

New York, New York

Base

Jaroslav Kaczmarczyk (1885-194?) — by Bogdan Horbal

Jaroslav Kaczmarczyk is regarded by Lemkos in much the same way as Americans
view George Washington. While Kaczmarczyk's efforts at attaining self-determination
for Lemkos did not succeed, he is nonetheless credited as one of the few
who successfully drew international attention to the rights and aspirations
of Carpatho-Rusyns in the Lemko Region of historic Galicia.

Jaroslav Kaczmarczyk was born in 1884 in the Lemko village of Binczarowa.
His father was the renowned priest and Rusyn community activist, the Reverend
Teofil Kaczmarczyk (see C-RA, Vol. XVIII, No. 1, 1995, p. 3 [online soon]).
Teofil served as a model and inspiration to the young Jaroslav, who devoted
most of his early years studying hard and eventually earning a PhD in law
from the University of L'viv. During World War I, Jaroslav served in the
Austro-Hungarian army. Following the end of the war and the collapse of
Austria-Hungary, Lemkos together with their Carpatho-Rusyn brethren south
of the mountains, and like many other peoples in east-central Europe, saw
the fluid postwar international environment as an opportunity to decide
their own political fate. Consequently, Kaczmarczyk and other Lemko activists
(primarily Greek Catholic priests, teachers, lawyers, and peasants) started
an organized Lemko political movement in the Carpathians. The result was
a large meeting in the Lemko village of Florynka on December 5, 1918. Kaczmarczyk
and other Rusyn leaders from both sides of the Carpathians declared: "We
want neither Hungarians nor Poles, and we do not recognize any Ukraine."
Instead, they decided to create their own Rusyn councils in order to govern
and administer the region. Within weeks, several councils sprang up throughout
the Lemko Region.

During this period Kaczmarczyk headed the Rusyn Council (Russka Rada)
in his native village of Binczarowa. Like many Lemkos of his day, he felt
a strong cultural affinity toward Russians and he advocated political union
with Russia. Since at the time this was politically unrealistic, Kaczmarczyk
and others supported instead union with Czechoslovakia as a temporary political
expedient until such time as they could unite with Russia. In January 1919,
Kaczmarczyk assumed control of the Grybow county Rusyn Council. Before
long, however, he became leader of the entire Lemko Region and eventually
president of the Lemko Republic. The Grybow Rusyn Council that he headed
was recognized by Lemkos as the governing authority of the region.

The government of the newly-independent state of Poland had other plans,
however, and it decided to take control of the Lemko Region. This led to
numerous conflicts. Hundreds of Lemkos who were called to serve in the
Polish army fled abroad with the army in pursuit. Lemkos were also expected
to provide material support to the Polish military in the form of clothing
and food. Kaczmarczyk's Council refused such demands and advised the Lemko
population to follow suit. In attempting to address and mediate this increasingly
difficult situation, Kaczmarczyk met in March 1919 with both Lemkos and
Poles. As a result of his efforts, in June the Polish military command
in Tarnow ordered that Lemkos be exempted from service in the army.

By the fall of 1919, however, Lemkos were again being drafted into the
Polish army. Together with the Rusyn-American immigrant, Victor P. Hladyk,
Kaczmarczyk travelled to Warsaw to discuss this matter with Polish military
officials. Another promise to cease drafting Lemkos was offered, but again
it was not kept. Lemkos were with increasing frequency being beaten or
even killed for resisting the draft. As the situation deteriorated, the
Polish secret police placed Lemko activists under surveillance. In early
1920, Kaczmarczyk publicly declared in Gorlice that the Lemkos had a right
to self-determination in their national affairs. He raised this issue in
Florynka in March 1920, but this turned out to be an exercise in futility.
Lemkos simply had neither the political nor military power necessary to
implement their self-declared rights. Finally, in September 1920, the Polish
military command formally ordered the full integration of Lemkos into the
Polish Army. At first many Lemkos were reluctant to join, but with time
more and more did so.

The fate of the Lemko Republic was decided at the outset of 1921. On
January 8, Kaczmarczyk was arrested and put on trial six months later.
Kaczmarczykdefended himself and his activities by emphasizing that he was
following the wishes of the Lemko people; was attempting to uphold Wilson's
principle of self-determination for all peoples; and was working to live
in friendly relations with Poles. In the end, he was acquitted of all charges
and set free.

After his release, Kaczmarczyk opened a legal practice in the Lemko
Region town of Muszyna. From this point on, he ceased to be a force in
Lemko community life. He did resurface briefly during a visit to the United
States in 1923, but he turned down an invitation to head the Lemko Congress
in New York. Kaczmarczyk's departure from public life dismayed many Lemkos.
It is likely that he was disillusioned and exhausted after the intense
and disappointing events of 1918-1921. After 1923, not much is known about
Kaczmarczykother than that he continued to be active in the legal profession
at least until the outbreak of World War II in 1939. Despite his early
retirement from political life, Kaczmarczyk and his patriotic activity
on behalf of Lemkos at the close of World War I continue to be remembered
and held in high regard.

Bogdan Horbal

New York, New York

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Knowledge Base

Metodyj Trochanovskij (1885-1947) — by Bogdan Horbal

Metodyj Trochanovskij was born on May 5, 1885 in the Lemko Region village
of Binczarowa (Rusyn: Bil'careva). After receiving his pedagogical education
at the Teacher's Seminary in Krosno, he taught at the elementary school
in the Lemko village of Uhryn. In 1913, he married Konstancija Durkot,
daughter of a prominent Lemko priest and civil activist, Father Ioann Chrysostom
Durkot, and became involved in Lemko-Rusyn educational and social concerns.
World War I put a stop to these activities, however. Together with dozens
of Lemko leaders Trochanovskij was arrested, accused of treason against
Austria-Hungary, and sentenced to death during the Second Vienna Trial
of 1916. Fortunately, the execution was stayed, and he was in 1917 released
from the Talerhof internment camp where he was sent.

The fall of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy gave Lemkos an opportunity
to try to decide their own political fate. Trochanovskij found himself
at the very heart of the movement for the establishment of the Rusyn National
Republic of Lemkos and was a founding member of the *Russka Rada *(Rusyn
Council) in Krynica. His support for Lemko teachers who refused to swear
an oath of loyalty to the Polish state was well known to his own people
and was even admired by some Poles. Although such political activity ultimately
proved to be fruitless, the effort nevertheless helped to unify and galvanize
the Lemko population.

In 1930, Trochanovskij and others organized in Krynica a festival called
the Days of Rusyn Culture. Over two thousand Lemkos participated in a procession,
which concluded with the raising and blessing of a memorial Talerhof Cross.
During this same year, several political meetings also took place in Krynica.
On these occasions Trochanovskilj advised Lemkos to organize stores and
credit unions in the region. He also underlined the danger of ukrainianization
in the Lemko Region and advocated resistance against it. This matter was
discussed at length at a meeting in Gorlice, where in October 1932 Lemko
Region activists declared they should work to preserve and develop their
own distinct Lemko culture and language. Trochanovskij advocated that this
could be best achieved by introducing into Lemko schools a primer and readers
written in the Lemko-Rusyn vernacular. Shortly thereafter, on December
8, 1933, the first ever Rusynophile oriented Lemko organization, the Lemko
Sojuz (Lemko Association), was established in Sanok.

Trochanovskij became one of the most influential leaders in the Lemko
Association. As part of his on-going cultural activity, he wrote the Lemkivskyj
bukvar (Lemko Primer) and Persa knyzecka (First Reader), both
of which would subsequently be introduced into Lemko Region schools. In
order to provide the schools with professional teachers, Trochanovskij
organized courses in the Lemko language at the Teacher's Seminary in Stary
Sacz. He also became editor-in-chief of the Lemko vernacular newspaper,
*Lemko *(1934-1939). Before long, the Krynica-based Lemko Association
started successfully lobbying in Warsaw for financial support for Lemko-Rusyn
interests and also expanded its horizons by corresponding with the Lemko
Association of the United States and Canada.

Despite the Lemko Association's declared and proven loyalty to the Polish
state, in 1936 a major shift in the Polish government's attitude toward
the organization took place. Government financial support for Lemko-Rusyn
activities was systematically cut back. Ethnic Lemko teachers were systematically
removed and replaced by ethnic Poles. Beginning in 1938, Trochanovskij's
primer was banned. These negative developments forced Trochanovskij and
other Lemko leaders to lodge protests in Warsaw, where despite promises
they were unable to attain an audience with the Polish Prime Minister.
Finally, the outbreak of World War II in September 1939 interrupted the
decade-long struggle for the free expression of a Lemko-Rusyn identity,
and it marked the start of a decade of physical and cultural devastation
throughout the Lemko Region which was incorporated into Nazi Germany's
Third Reich.

The Ukrainophiles, who had made considerable advances in the Lemko Region
in the late 1930s, were able to promote further their cause during the
Nazi occupation. Dozens of Ukrainian refugees from Soviet-controlled eastern
Galicia settled in the Lemko Region after 1939 and worked to strengthen
the Ukrainian national movement. Ukrainian activists provided lists of
Russophile and Rusynophile Lemkos to the Nazis, who viewed them as a potential
pro-Soviet fifth column in occupied Poland. Among those on the list was
Trochanovskij, who was arrested on June 21, 1941 and imprisoned in Kielce
until the last months of the war. When Soviet troops entered the Lemko
Region in 1944, he was arrested again, this time by the NKVD during a general
sweep of Poland's intelligentsia. Upon his release, the entire Trochanovskij
family was resettled to Wroclaw, where Metodyj died a few months later.

After Trochanovskilj death, Lemkos were dispersed to the Soviet Ukraine
and to the far western regions of Poland. They were subjected to national
assimilation and paralyzed by fear and apathy during the worse years of
Stalinist terror. Any manifestation of Rusyn identity were considered illegal
and counter-revolutionary. Despite the tragic times when Trochanovskij
died, the traditions which he upheld are since 1989 in the post-communist
era once again being manifested openly and with pride.

Bogdan Horbal

New York, New York

Knowledge Base

Colophon

Six biographical sketches, hosted at carpatho-rusyn.org (Carpatho-Rusyn
Knowledge Base): "Volodymyr Chyljak," by Olena Duc' (Carpatho-Rusyn
American, Vol. 10 #3, 1987); "Nykyfor Drovnjak — Famous Lemko Artist,"
by Olena Duc (Carpatho-Rusyn American, Vol. 9 #2, 1987); "Ivan
Rusenko — Rusyn National Awakener," by Olena Duc (Carpatho-Rusyn
American, Vol. 10 #4, 1987); "Viktor P. Hladyk (1873-1947)," copyright
Bogdan Horbal and Carpatho-Rusyn American; "Jaroslav Kaczmarczyk
(1885-194?)," copyright 1995 Bogdan Horbal and Carpatho-Rusyn American;
and "Metodyj Trochanovskij (1885-1947)," copyright Bogdan Horbal and
Carpatho-Rusyn American, Vol. XIX, No. 2, Summer 1996. Captured
2026-08-05 from http://www.carpatho-rusyn.org/lemkos/chyl.htm,
nykyfor.htm, rusenko.htm, hladyk.htm, kach.htm, and metodyj.htm.
Published here under permission held by the New Tianmu Anglican Church
for this material, recorded 2026-08-05; all rights remain with the
original authors, Olena Duc and Bogdan Horbal, and Carpatho-Rusyn
American.

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