by Paul Robert Magocsi

Paul Robert Magocsi wrote this two-part introduction to the Lemko
Rusyns for Carpatho-Rusyn American in 1987, on the fortieth
anniversary of their forced deportation from the Lemko Region --
the northern-slope Carpathian homeland of the Lemko Rusyns, in what
had been Austrian Galicia and became part of Poland after 1918. Part
1 covers the region's geography and its history from Austrian rule
through the Second World War; Part 2 covers the 1947 Operation
Vistula deportation, the dispersed community's decades in exile, and
the Lemko cultural revival underway at the time of writing.

Part 1

The following article, authored by P.R. Magocsi, first appeared in Carpatho-Rusyn
American, Volume 10 #1, 1987
copyright © 1987 and is used here
with permission

During the past decade, many Americans have written the Carpatho-Rusyn
Research Center inquiring about their ethnic origins. Quite often these people
are parishioners in a Orthodox "Russian" church and they know that
their parents or grandparents came from the Carpathian mountain region of old
Austria. Sometimes they have more specific information- : that their ancestors
actually came from the province of Galicia, from mountain villages near the
towns of Sanok, Krosno, Gorlice, or Nowy Sacz that are today in Poland.

Russians, Austrians, Galicians, Poles - who are these people and where did
their forbears actually come from? What was it like in the old country and what
is it like today? To anticipate our story, here are some quick answers: (l) the
people in question are the people of Rus', who traditionally call themselves
Lemkos, Rusnaks, or Rusyns (rendered sometimes in English incorrectly as
Russians); (2) their European homeland is known as the Lemko Region, in the
historic province of Galicia, which was once part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire
and since 1918 is part of Poland; (3) today most of the Lemko Region has been
emptied of Lemko Rusyns, who were forcibly driven from their homeland forty
years ago.

Therefore, this year - 1987 - is the fortieth anniversary of the forced
deportation of Lemko Rusyns from their native land. [note - 1997 will mark the
50th anniversary]. On this occasion, the Carpatho-Rusyn American decided to
introduce the Lemko Region to its readers and at the same time to commemorate
this most tragic event of the recent past. The present article will provide some
geographic and historic background information for articles on various aspects
of the Lemko Region and Lemko Rusyns that will appear in the next several issues
of the Carpatho-Rusyn American.

Geographic Location

Like their brethren living south of the Carpathian crests, the Lemko Rusyns
traditionally inhabited the mountain valleys and foothills on the northern
slopes stretching from the Dunajec River in the west to the San River in the
east. This area is geographically marked by the gently rolling hills of the
Lower Beskyd range and the higher and more rugged Upper Beskyds (Bieszczady)
with peaks between 3000 and 4000 feet in the far east. Several passes in the
Lower Beskyds, the most famous known as the Dukla Pass, had at least before the
establishment of strictly controlled borders in the twentieth century afforded
easy access to the southern slopes of the mountains inhabited by fellow
Carpatho-Rusyns.

According to present-day political divisions, the Lemko Region is located
within the far southeastern corner of Poland, divided between two administrative
units known as the Nowy Sacz and Krosno palatinates (wojewodztwa). However, it
is the old administrative districts (povity) that are best remembered when
describing the various parts of the Lemko Region. These are named after the
district centers and from west to east they include: Nowy Targ (Rusyn: Novyj
Targ), Nowy Sacz (Novyj Sanc), Grybow (Grybov), Gorlice (Gorlyci), Jaslo,
Krosno, Sanok (Sjanok), and Lesko (Lisko). On the eve of World War II, there
were 178,000 Carpatho-Rusyns living in 303 villages located in the southern
sectors of the above-named eight districts.

Actually, most scholars consider that on linguistic and ethnographic grounds
the Lemko Rusyns extend only as far as the Oslawa and Solinka River valleys,
excluding therefore most of Lisko county, but Lemko writers and publicists both
in Europe and in the United States consider their homeland to extend as far as
the San River. Moreover, the Lemko Region, together with the Presov Region (now
in Slovakia) and Subcarpathian Rus' (now in Ukraine). forms the historic land of
Carpathian Rus`.

Early History

The Lemko Region seems to have been inhabited by the earliest Slavic tribes
known as the White Croats, who came to the area in the fifth and sixth centuries
A.D. For a long time, however, the mountains remained a sparsely settled
frontier region between three medieval states that were formed during the tenth
century - Kievan Rus' in the east, Poland in the west, and Hungary in the
south. The Lemko Region was actually divided between the Polish Kingdom and the
Galician principality of Kievan Rus' roughly along a line above the Dukla Pass
which was to remain the midpoint between the western and eastern portion of the
Lemko-inhabited lands. The most important event during these early centuries
was the coming of Christianity in its eastern or Byzantine form, which reached
the Carpathians via the west (the Cyril and Methodian mission in the late ninth
century) and the east (Kievan Rus' after 988). This meant that the Lemko Region
was to remain within the sphere of the Eastern Christian or Orthodox world.

With the fall of an independent Galicia in the mid-fourteenth century, the
whole Lemko Region came definitively under Poland. The Polish kings encouraged
settlement of the area, and in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries the
newcomers began to reach the mountainous areas. Most of these settlers were
Rusyns from the east as well as the so-called Vlachs from the south (actually
Rusyns and perhaps some Romanians designated as Vlachs because of their work as
shepherds). To attract settlers to the generally infertile mountainous area, the
Polish kings and landlords provided tax-free incentives, so that the small-scale
Rusyn farmers in the valleys and the shepherds in the mountains were generally
left alone by governmental authorities.

In the seventeenth century, Polish landlords tried to extend actual control
over the Lemko Region, but their attempt to introduce serfdom and to increase
taxes and other duties among the peasants and shepherds basically failed. This
was due to the general inaccessibility of the highland region and, in part, to
armed bands of mountaineers led by Robin Hood-type leaders, the most famous in
the Lemko Region being Vasyl' Bajus from Leszczyny (Liscyny) and Andrij Savka
from Dukla.

The seventeenth century also witnessed another kind of attempt to impose
Polish or western influence on the Orthodox Rusyns. Already in 1596, several
Orthodox Rus' bishops in Poland agreed to the provisions of the Union of Brest,
which united them with Rome and brought into being the Uniate Church. It was
not until the very end of the century (1692) that the bishop of Przemysl, who
was responsible for the Lemko Region, finally accepted the Union. But even this
did not really effect the Rusyn masses, since they continued to practice the
Byzantine rite (with its liturgy in Church Slavonic) and to use the Julian
calendar (at that time 14 days ""behind" the western Gregorian
calendar). Moreover, these cultural characteristics, together with their East
Slavic language, was what distinguished Rusyns from the Poles living in the
lowland villages.

Austrian Rule

The rather lax and ineffective aspects of Polish rule came to an end after
1772. In that year, the first partition of Poland took place (the whole country
was to disappear from the map by 1795), whereby the Lemko Region was annexed by
the Habsburg-ruled Austrian Empire. Now part of the Austrian province of
Galicia, the Lemko Region became subject to Habsburg decrees issued from the
imperial capital in Vienna. While it is true that the peasants were liberated
from serfdom in 1848, before then they had never been greatly burdened by feudal
obligations to faraway landlords generally uninterested in unproductive
mountainous lands. But the Austrian government prohibited free use of the
forest and it carefully registered all land holdings in order to have a better
control for assessing and collecting taxes.

By the end of the nineteenth century, the pastoral lands in the Lemko
Region had been taken over by farmers, although their plots were continually
subdivided and unable to support a growing population. In the absence of any
industry in nearby cities, the Lemko Rusyns began to seek extra income by
crossing the mountains each summer to do harvest work on the Hungarian plain.
Then, beginning in the 1870s, a few Rusyns from the Lemko Region began to go to
the United States, where they would work for a few years and then return home to
buy land - incidentally pushing up prices and driving fellow villagers into even
deeper poverty.

While it is true that extreme poverty seemed to be characteristic of the
Lemko Region in the decades before World War I, there were some benefits under
the benign rule of the Habsburg Emperor Franz Joseph (reigned 1848-1916).
Austria had a constitutional system governed by the rule of law, so that Lemko
Rusyns were not discriminated against because of their religion or ethnic
identity. In that regard, the second half of the nineteenth century also
allowed for the beginning of cultural activity.

Some Lemko Rusyns were even able to make distinguished careers, especially
in the ranks of the Uniate, or as it was renamed by the Austrians, the Greek
Catholic Church. Among these were two metropolitans: Josyf Sembratovyc:
(consecrated 1870) and Sylvester Sembratovyc (consecrated 1885): and three
bishops: Toma Poljans'kyj (consecrated 1864), Julijan Peles (consecrated 1885),
and Josafat Kocylovs'ky) (consecrated 1916).

With regard to the population as a whole, elementary schools were set up
in nearly two-thirds of the Lemko villages and gymnasia (high schools) were
opened in the nearby towns of Nowy Sacz, Gorlice, and Sanok. The region was
also exposed to the nationality question that faced all of Galician society;
namely, were the inhabitants who called themselves Rusyns part of the Russian
nationality or Ukrainian nationality, or perhaps did they form a distinct
Slavic group? In the Lemko Region, it was clear that the pro Russian
(Russophile) orientation was the strongest, and it was promoted by the 109
reading rooms established by the Kackovs'kyj Cultural Society.

It was also at this time that the name Lemko was first introduced. Until
then, the inhabitants had always called themselves Rusyns or Rusnaks, and
although the common folk continued to use their ancient name, local leaders
preferred to designate those Rusyns who lived north of the Carpathians and west
of the San River as Lemkos. (The term derives from the preposition "lem",
meaning "only", which is actually used in all Carpatho-Rusyn
dialects). The use of the new ethnic name was particularly evident in the
first newspaper published for the group and aptly called Lemko (1911-16).
Along with this cultural activity appeared the first modern Lemko writers like
Vladimir Chyljak (pseudonym leronym Anonym), Kljavdija Aleksovyc, and Dimitryj
Vysloc'kyj (pseudonym Van'o Hunjanka).

World War I

The stability and order in Lemko life that prevailed under Austrian
rule began to break down on the eve of World War I. Austria-Hungary was
especially suspicious of the Russian Empire and of the Orthodox movement that
had begun to take hold in Galicia, in particular in the Carpathian region.
Former Greek Catholic immigrants to the United States had returned home as
Orthodox converts and they frequently encouraged the establishment of Orthodox
churches in their native villages. For its part, the Austrian government
suspected Orthodox priests and parishioners to be supporters of Russia
(indeed, some Orthodox believers did see the Russian tsar as their earthly
saviour), and Habsburg authorities even brought some clergy and peasants to
trial on charges of treason.

This situation only worsened with the outbreak of World War I in August
1914. Within one month, tsarist Russia's armies had rolled into Galicia and
controlled the province as far as the San River. Then, by March 1915, they
moved farther west. bringing all of the Lemko Region under their control.
For many months during the winter of 1914-1915, the western Lemko Region in
particular was in the war zone and the scene of many bloody battles, the
fiercest being near Gorlice in May 1915.

During its presence in the area, the Russian military and civil
administration were friendly to the Orthodox and Russophile Lemkos, although
they persecuted pro-Ukrainian activists. On the other hand, many Lemkos
suffered at the hands of the Austrian administration both before the Russian
military advance that began in August 1914 and its retreat from Galicia in June
1915. During those months, the retreating and then returning Austro-Hungarian
forces summarily shot, hanged, or arrested priests and peasants simply because
they called themselves Rusyns, said they spoke Rusyn (rus'kyj, or because they
were Orthodox and suspected of being pro-Russian. This led to the first forced
deportation of Lemkos in 1914-1915, which brought several thousand innocent
peasants to Austrian concentration camps in the western part of the empire, the
most infamous of which was at Talerhof near Graz, where they remained for the
duration of the war. It is also from this time that the Ukrainian problem
became an issue for many Lemkos. Some had fought with Ukrainian units in the
Austro-Hungarian Army during World War I, and as a result became conscious
Ukrainian patriots. On the other hand, many who experienced the Talerhof
internment blamed pro-Ukrainians in Galicia for having cooperated with the
Austrian regime in "uncovering" Russian sympathizers or simply Rus'
patriots among the Lemkos.

The Interwar Years

With the end of World War I and the break-up of the Austro-Hungarian Empire
in the closing months of 1918, Carpatho-Rusyns in the Lemko Region like their
brethren south of the mountains formed several national councils to decide the
political fate of their homeland. On December 5, 1918, hundreds of Lemkos met
in the village of Florynka (Grybow district) where they formed a Rusyn Council
of the Lemko Region. Initial proposals to unite with Russia were rebuffed, and
spokesmen like Andrej Gagatko and Dmitrij Visloc'kyj proposed instead to
negotiate with fellow Rusyns south of the mountains who had just set up their
own national council in Presov. The goal was to have Lemko Rusyns join with
their brethren in the Presov Region to form a single Carpathian Rus' autonomous
state within the new republic of Czechoslovakia. To achieve this, a joint Lemko
and Presov Region Carpatho-Rusyn National Council was formed on December 21 ,
1918, which prepared several memoranda proposing a unified Carpathian Rus' "state"
within Czechoslovakia. These were submitted to the new Czechoslovak Government
and to the Paris Peace Conference which in early 1919 was redrawing the
boundaries of Europe.

While leaders in the western part of the Lemko Region were speaking of
Rusyn national unity and seeking to unite with Czechoslovakia, some other Lemkos
farther east under the leadership of the Greek Catholic priest Pantelejmon
Spil'ka, gathered at Komancza (Sanok district) to declare their loyalty to the
West Ukrainian People's Republic, which since November 1918 had been engaged in
a fierce battle with the Poles in an effort to establish an independent
Ukrainian state. However, the pro-Ukrainian Komancza initiative lasted only a
few weeks in February 1919, and four months later the Galician Ukrainian Army
and government were driven entirely out of Galicia which henceforth was
administered by the Poles.

The Poles were also able to block any efforts to have the Lemko Region
unite with Czechoslovakia. Left for a while on its own, the Rusyn National
Council in Florynka set up an administration headed by a local lawyer, Dr.
Jaroslav Kacmarcyk. Popularly known as the Lemko Republic, it administered the
western Lemko Region [Nowy Sacz, Grybow, and Gorlice districts) for nearly
sixteen months. But by March 1920, the Polish government brought an end to Lemko
"independence." Kacmarcyk was arrested (and later put on trial and
acquitted), while other Lemko Republic Leaders fled to Czechoslovakia. In
Poland, there was to be no question of a distinct Lemko political entity.

The interwar years in Poland were marked by a heightened political,
national, and religious struggle for the allegiance of the Lemko Rusyns. In the
political sphere, the Polish government tried its best to undermine Ukrainian
influence by supporting the idea of Lemko distinctiveness, allowing the Lemko
Rusyn dialect to be taught in schools, and sometimes arguing that Lemkos were no
more than an ethnographic branch of the Polish people. While it is true that
during the interwar years many Polish publications began to overemphasize the
affinity of Lemko to Polish culture, some of the best scholarly research ever
done on the Lemko Region was begun in the 1930s by the Polish ethnographer Roman
Reinfuss and Polish linguist Zdislaw Stieber.

Ukrainian activists, on the other hand, argued that Lemkos were Ukrainians,
and they were particularly successful in having a Ukrainian identity accepted by
many inhabitants in the eastern Lemko Region (Sanok and Lisko districts). They
made few inroads, however, in the western Lemko Region, and to counter the
growing sense of Lemko distinctiveness there, pro-Ukrainian Lemkos established
during the 1930s a Lemko Museum in Sanok and a Lemko Commission farther east in
L'viv, which published a biweekly Ukrainian newspaper, Nas Lemko (1934-39) and
helped to promote the belletristic and cultural writings of Franc Kokovs'kyj,
Hryhorij Hanul~ak, and Julijan Tarnovyc (pseud. Julijan Beskyd).

With regard to religion, the movement to "return to Orthodoxy"
that had begun before World War I, now increased rapidly. This was, in part,
because Lemko villagers resented the Ukrainian orientation of the Greek Catholic
Church, and instead associated Orthodoxy with their own Rus' identity.
Concerned that the Greek Catholic Church was tied too closely to the Ukrainian
movement and afraid, therefore, that this would alienate further the Lemkos, the
Vatican decided in 1934 to establish a separate Greek Catholic Lemko Apostolic
Administration with a pro-Rusyn, even Russophile oriented hierarchy under the
Reverends Vasylij Mascjuch and Jakov Medvec'kij.

As for the majority of Lemkos, they were struggling to survive
economically. Interwar Poland remained an underdeveloped agrarian society and
was unable to improve the economic situation. Not surprisingly, the
poverty-stricken Lemkos were attracted to left-wing and pro-Soviet political
parties that called for the establishment of a Communist society.

Lemkos also continued to emigrate abroad, to the United States and most
especially to Canada. This increase in the number of Lemkos abroad, including
national leaders like Dmitrij Visloc'kyj and Simeon Pysh, led to the
establishment of the first Lemko-American newspapers (Lemko, 1928-39, Karpatska
Rus: 1938-present) and permanent organizations, such as the Lemko Association
(Lemko Sojuz) in 1929 and the Carpatho-Russian American Center in 1939.
Pro-Ukrainian Lemko immigrants founded their own Organization for the Defense of
the Lemko Region in 1934. Besides trying to fulfill the social and cultural
needs of Lemko immigrants, these organizations also sent moral and financial
help to the European homeland.

In the homeland, the question of national identity -whether Lemko Rusyn,
Russian, Ukrainian, or Polish - was still being fought over among the
intelligentsia. For its part. the populace in general, whether Greek Catholic
or Orthodox, was content to have its own language taught in schools (after 1933)
and its own Greek Catholic administration (after 1934). Therefore, with the
exception of the far eastern districts [Sanok and Lisko) where a Ukrainian
orientation predominated, the majority of villagers in the Lemko Region
continued to identify as Lemkos or Rusyns and to have reinforced a sense of
national affinity with their Rusyn brethren south of the mountains in
Czechoslovakia. The Lemko ideology was best represented at the time by Metodij
Trochanovs'kyj, the author of Lemko language elementary school texts (a primer
and two readers) and editor of the weekly newspaper Lemko (1934-39); Dr. Orest
Hnatysak. the head of the Lemko Association (Lemko Sojuz) in Krynica (Nowy Sacz
district); and the lyric poet Ivan Rusenko.

World War II

The outbreak of World War II in September 1939 changed the situation
radically. Under the combined attack of Hitler's Nazi Germany and Stalin's
Soviet Union, Poland was wiped off the map and the San River became an
international border between the two countries. As for the Lemko Region, it
fell into Nazi hands as part of the so-called Generalgouvernement, a colony of "Greater
Germany." The new German regime welcomed Ukrainians from east of the San
who were fleeing Soviet rule. A Ukrainian Central Committee was set up in
Cracow to coordinate cultural and educational activity.

The German rulers accepted the view that Lemkos were Ukrainians, so that
Ukrainian technical schools (in Sanok and Krynica), a teacher's college
(Krynica), and cooperatives were set up throughout the Lemko Region. The Lemko
Apostolic Administration of the Greek Catholic Church also received a new
administrator, the Reverend Oleksander Malynovs`kyj, who in contrast to his
predecessors was sympathetic to the Ukrainian orientation. Besides their
serious cultural work, Ukrainians from east of the San also were given jobs as
policemen and as local officials in the German regime. These elements were less
sympathetic to the peculiarities of the Lemko Region, especially the continuing
Rusyn or pro-Russian national orientation of the population, the strength of
pro-Russian Orthodoxy, and the pro-Soviet sympathies (by 1940 as many as 4,000
Lemkos voluntarily emigrated to the Soviet-controlled territory east of the San
River).

The potential for friction increased after Hitler's Germany invaded the
Soviet Union in June 1941. In the Lemko Region, many Orthodox priests and other
suspected pro-Russian individuals were arrested as well as the families of Lemko
partisans (organized in a Subcarpathian Formation headed by Ivan and Michal
Dons'kyj), who in cooperation with Polish Communists were fighting against the
German regime and the local Ukrainian-dominated administration. Some Lemko
writers have subsequently blamed their suffering during World War II on the
excesses of Ukrainian "nationalists" working under the Germans.

Continue on to Part 2

Part 2: The Final Tragedy and Its Aftermath

The following article, authored by P.R. Magocsi, first appeared in Carpatho-Rusyn
American, Volume 10 #1, 1987
copyright © 1987 and is used here
with permission

The Final Tragedy

The clash of national orientations at the local level meant nothing,
however, in the face of international politics. In the closing months of World
War II, the Germans were driven out of the Carpathian region and for that matter
out of all of Eastern Europe by the Soviet Red Army. Poland was to be restored,
but its borders were changed radically: all its pre-war eastern territories
beyond the San River were annexed to the Soviet Union, while in the west and
north, lands formerly belonging to Germany (Silesia. Pomerania, Danzig, part of
East Prussia) became Polish. More ominous was the fact that Poland and the
Soviet Union-like many other countries at the time felt that the problem of
national minorities was a primary cause of the war, and that to avoid future
international conflict these minorities should be moved, or "repatriated."
in order to make lands within new boundaries ethnically homogeneous.

Thus, on September 9. 1944, Poland and the Soviet Union signed an
agreement on population transfers. According to this agreement. "people of
Ukrainian, Belorussian, Russian, and Rusyn nationality" living in
postwar-Poland should be "evacuated"' to the Soviet Ukraine and Soviet
Belorussia; in return, Poles and Jews in the Soviet Ukraine and Soviet
Belorussia should be repatriated to Poland. Although this movement was to be
voluntary, many people were strongly pressured and even forced to move eastward
by local Polish officials and armed vigilante groups still active in the
immediate postwar period.

As a result, between the spring of 1945 and early summer of 1946, an
estimated 130.000 inhabitants from the Lemko Region were settled in the Soviet
Ukraine. The highest percentage of these were from the eastern Sanok and Lisko
districts, where the population had generally come to identity itself as
Ukrainian, and from the Jaslo and Krosno districts (near the Dukla Pass) which
had suffered much destruction in the closing months of the war. This meant that
about 35.000 Lemkos-generally those who rejected identification as
Ukrainians-remained in their native villages, most especially in the western
Lemko Region.

However, even those remaining Lemkos were not left in peace for long, and
they got caught up in the ongoing Ukrainian problem. As the Soviet Red Army had
advanced westward across the Soviet Ukraine in late 1943 and 1944, Ukrainians
who opposed both German and Soviet rule organized a Ukrainian Revolutionary Army
(UPA). Against overwhelming odds, the anti-Communist UPA persisted even after
the end of World War II, fighting a guerrilla war against Soviet and Communist
Polish forces and hiding out in the Carpathian Mountain border region. The UPA
also tried-in vain-to stop the exodus of Lemkos and Ukrainians eastward to the
Soviet Union During one of their battles with Polish forces, the UPA killed in
March 1947 General Karol Swierczewski. This act prompted the Polish Communist
government, in full cooperation with the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia, to rid
the mountainous region not only of the UPA but of the remaining population as
well.

The plan was called the Vistula Operation (Acja Wisla), and it called for
the forced deportation of all Ukrainians from the eastern regions of Poland to
its new or "Recovered Lands" (Ziemie Odzyskane) in the western and
northern part of the country that were recently acquired from Germany. Thus,
from late April to July 1947, Lemkos were simply told to pack up their
belongings and to leave the homes that they and their ancestors had inhabited
for centuries. They were identified as Ukrainians and accused of helping the UPA
"bandits." even though the vast majority of Lemkos who had survived
the "voluntary" deportation of 1945-1946 actively rejected a Ukrainian
identity and gave no aid (nor in most cases were they even near) to the UPA.

But there was no choice. Sometimes given only a few hours to collect what
they could carry, the Lemkos were put on transports and resettled in the "Recovered
Lands" of western and northern Poland, that is in lowland areas that were
completely foreign to their mountainous ways. As for what they left behind.
some Lemko villages just died.

Houses and churches were left to decay, and after a decade they crumbled.
Others were resettled by Poles brought in by the government from other parts of
Poland or from among Poles who were repatriated from the Soviet Union, There
were even some Greeks and Macedonians who came as part of the program of aid
given by Poland to pro-Communist refugees fleeing the civil war in Greece.

Whatever their origin, these newcomers had no sense of pride or respect
for the Lemko villages they were given. They chose the best houses and land,
leaving the rest to decay. Moreover, during the long winters, it was easier to
gather firewood by tearing down a nearby house, barn, or church than by felling
trees in the forest. Thus, during the early 1950s, the material and cultural
vestiges of the Rus' past in the Lemko Region were (with the exception of
cemeteries) largely obliterated.

The Lemkos Since Their Dispersal

Without their Carpathian homeland, Lemkos were forced to survive as best
they could in the emigration. They are found in large numbers in three
countries: the United States. the Soviet Union, and ironically. Poland.

After World War II, there were a few thousand Lemkos who reached the
United States and to a lesser degree Canada. The vast majority of these were
pro-Ukrainian activists who fled in the face of the advancing Red Army, who
remained for a while in camps in Germany, and who then emigrated as "displaced
persons" (DPs) to North America. As anti-Communists and
nationally-conscious Ukrainians. these Lemkos were unable to interact with the
older established Carpatho-Russian and often pro-Soviet organizations like the
Lemko Association. Instead, they reactivated the Organization for the Defense of
the Lemko Region and founded new organizations like the World Lemko Federation
(1973] and Ukrainian-language publications like Lemkivs'ki visti (Lemko News,
1958-present). Lemkivscyna (The Lemko Land, 1979-present), and the scholarly
journal, Annals/Annaly(l 974-present). Among the more active leaders of the
Ukrainian Lemko orientation have been Mychajlo Dudra. Stepan Zenec'kyj, Ivan
Hvozda, and in Canada Julijan Tarnovyc (pseud. Julijan Beskyd).

Meanwhile, the older Lemko Association which had taken an active role in
sending financial aid as part of the American War Relief program to the Soviet
Union during World War II. continued to publish its weekly newspaper Karpatska
Rus in Lemko dialect and to adopt a pro-Soviet and anti-Ukrainian stance. They
also were able to expand their social activity by opening up in 1958 a resort.
Lemko Park, in Monroe, New York. Some of these older Lemko immigrants led by
Bridgeport. Connecticut industrialist. Peter S. Hardy, also established in 1946
a Lemko Relief Organization to aid the deported Lemkos in Poland. That group
even reached an agreement in 1957 with the Polish government to allow the
continuance of the American Lemko aid program to their brethren in Poland.

However, the vast majority of the post-World War II Lemko emigration
(about 130.000) went eastward to the Soviet Ukraine, where they were settled in
historic eastern Galicia, especially in the Ternopil', Sambir, and L'viv
regions. But life in the war-devastated and Soviet-regimented Ukraine was not
easy for anyone, let alone Lemko newcomers from Poland, who were often looked on
with suspicion by the local Ukrainian inhabitants. A few thousand Lemkos were
even permitted to return to Poland in the late 1950s.

As for the majority who remained in the Soviet Ukraine, most have become
assimilated to the larger Ukrainian society. However, it is ironic that even
after four decades of experience and education in Ukrainian society and schools,
some Soviet Lemkos still retain a sense of distance from the culture surrounding
them. Their only outlet for such feelings is to emphasize a regional identity,
and this is part of the reason for the enormous popularity of the choral
ensemble, Lemkovyna, founded in 1969, and the Bajko sisters vocal trio who
specialize in Lemko songs. Also, Lemko folk culture and architecture is well
represented at the outdoor ethnographic museum in L'viv The director of the
Lemko display there. Ivan Krasovs'kyj, is also the author of a multivolume Lemko
encyclopedia (unfortunately published only in serial form in Poland) and the
most prolific writer on Lemkos anywhere today.

Finally, there are the Lemkos who were resettled on the "Recovered
Lands" of western and northern Poland. By 1947, when the Lemkos arrived
there, they were given the less attractive homes and lands abandoned by the
Germans (themselves forcibly deported to what remained of Germany). In terms of
cultural identity, the Lemkos were officially designated as Ukrainians, and many
among the younger generations born far from the Lemko homeland of their
ancestors accepted this new identity. On the other hand, being a Ukrainian in
Poland was never an enviable thing (considering centuries of Polish-Ukrainian
antagonism), so many young Lemkos found it easier and certainly more socially
functional to remain at best crypto-Lemkos or simply to assimilate with Polish
culture.

Nonetheless, despite their deportation and the official pro-Ukrainian
policy regarding their national identity, older Lemkos raised and educated
before World War II continued to retain a distinct Lemko-Rusyn identity, and
some of them have passed on such attitudes to their children. Several attempts
were even made to set up Lemko cultural organizations in the areas where they
were resettled. But the Polish authorities did not permit this, arguing that
Lemkos like other Ukrainians should express their needs through the official
Ukrainian Social-Cultural Society (USKT), established in 1956. For a while there
was a Lemko section of that society and a Lemko-language supplement (Lemkivs'ke
slovo, 1957-64) in the society's Ukrainian weekly newspaper Nase slovo,
published since 1956 in Warsaw.

Of course, Lemkos really wanted only one thing: to be able to return to
their homeland. Several requests submitted to the Polish government for
permission to return were rejected. Nonetheless, some Lemkos could not be
deterred, and by the late 1950s about 3.000 managed to return to their beloved
Carpathian Mountains, a process that has continued slowly, so that today about
10.000 (out of an estimated 60,000 throughout Poland) live again in their native
villages.

The return has hardly been easy The Polish government has to this day never
denied the validity of the Vistula Operation that led to the forced deportations
in 1947, and since then it has placed numerous legal and administrative
hindrances to block Lemkos from returning. Nor could the Poles who took over
Lemko villages be enamored with the return of the real owners. The ultimate
irony for those Lemkos who did manage to return was that they had to buy back
from Poles the very homesteads they or their parents had built.

The Lemko Region Today

Against seemingly all odds, the Lemkos have persevered and present-day
Poland is witnessing a Lemko revival. In the early 1970s, the Lemkovyna Song and
Dance Ensemble was established to propagate Lemko folk music in towns and
villages where Lemkos live. The Lemko section of the regional outdoor
Ethnographic Museum in Nowy Sacz has drawn much attention to traditional Lemko
culture, and be- sides this state-supported institution Lemkos themselves have
taken the initiative in preserving their heritage. Two specifically Lemko
museums have been set up at private initiative in Bielanka (Gorlice district) by
the Lemko poet Pavel Stefanovs'kyj and in Zyndranowa (Krosno district) by Fedir
Goc. The best known Lemko activist today. Goc was also instrumental in building
the first Eastern Rite church (Orthodox) in the Lemko Region since World War II,
Since the completion of the Zyndranowa church in 1985, others have been rebuilt
(Rozdiele and Komancza) or are under construction (Krynica).

Most recently, annual Lemko folk and cultural festivals called Vatra (The
Hearth) have been held for two and three days each summer since 1983 in a
different Carpathian village to where Lemkos have returned in large numbers
(Krynica. Hanczowa, Bartne) The festivals have even prompted the appearance of
the first Lemko-language newspaper (if only an annual) to appear since the
interwar years-Holos Vatry(l 984-present). As many as 4,000 people have come
from various parts of Poland to attend the -Lemko Vatras. The majority are young
Lemkos living in western and northern Poland who are curious to see firsthand "their"'
Carpathian homeland and to learn about (through cultural "quiz" shows")
their ancestral heritage. Also among the Vatra audiences are Poles, who find
these displays of Lemko culture exotic or quaint, and Ukrainians who wish to be
assured that the Lemkos remain or become Ukrainian.

What is most remarkable is that all these aspects of the Lemko "revival's
have been carried out beyond official channels and often with great difficulty.
There are several reasons for this. The Polish government argues that Lemkos are
Ukrainians and should therefore not have their own organizations but seek
assistance from the government-supported Ukrainian Social-Cultural Society
(USKT). Lemko activists respond that they are discriminated against by the
official Ukrainian organization and are not allowed to preserve their distinct
cultural traditions.

For their part, the Ukrainians and pro-Ukrainian Lemkos are concerned with
a revival of what they call Lemko-Rusyn "separatism"' which they seem
to blame on Polish writers and cultural activists (Jerzy Harasymowicz. Antoni
Kroh. Andrzej Kwilecki, Tadeusz Olszanski), These Poles, the Ukrainians argue,
may pretend to be concerned with Lemkos but, in fact, they really wish to
separate them from Ukrainians and eventually to polonize them. (It is true that
in recent decades icons removed from Lemko churches and displayed in museums and
publications are generally called Polish art, as is the work of the popular
Lemko-born painter Nikifor Drovnjak of Krynica). To stop such efforts at "Lemko
separatism," Ukrainian publicists like Professor Volodymyr Mokryj of
Jagiellonian University have since the mid-1980s filled the pages of Polish
newspapers (especially in Cracow) with articles on the Ukrainianess of all
Rusyns and Lemkos.

Finally, the Roman Catholic Church has its own agenda. It accepted the
liquidation of the Greek Catholic Church between 1946 and 1950 throughout the
Carpathian Rus` homeland, and while it has permitted Greek Catholic priests to
serve liturgies in Roman Catholic churches, this "right" is dependent
on the cooperation of the local parish priest. In the Lemko Region, Polish Roman
Catholic priests have generally refused such permission to Greek Catholics and
they Orthodox parishes in those villages where Lemkos have returned.

So once again, the Lemkos are caught between conflicting political,
religious, and national struggles. For their part, the Lemkos who are active in
or are effected by the recent cultural revival and interest in them have no
desire to change the centuries-long reality of living in Poland. They do,
however, wish to be recognized neither as Polish nor Ukrainian. but simply as
Lemko Rusyns with the right to return to their native Carpathian homeland
(mainly of concern to the older generation), to set up their own distinct Lemko
cultural organizations, to build (or reacquire from Roman Catholics) Eastern
Rite churches, and eventually to have their own language taught in local
schools.

It is among a younger generation of Lemko activists like Petro
Murianka-Trochanovs'kyj. Jaroslav Trochanovs'kyj, Volodyslav Hraban, Olena Duc,
and Semen Madzelan that such efforts are being undertaken. These and other
educated Lemkos-all born after World War II-have begun to publish once again
poetry in their native tongue, to collect and perform folk and church music, to
complete a major anthology of Lemko literature (including writers as well from
the Presov Region), and even to begin work on a Lemko dictionary in order to
standardize the literary language that they use.

All things considered, these are remarkable achievements for a group of
Rusyns who forty years ago were thrown out of their homes and dispersed hundreds
of miles from their Carpathian homeland. Now, four decades later, the tide has
begun to turn and the Lemkos are once again beginning to reclaim that which is
rightfully theirs. Will all who wish to do so be able to return to their
Carpathian villages? Will Eastern-rite churches (whether Orthodox or Greek
Catholic) be built or reopened? Will the people at large continue to identify
themselves and their culture as distinctly Lemko Rusyn, will they adopt a
Ukrainian identity. or will they simply become assimilated Poles? These remain
unanswered questions and problems that only the future will resolve.

*Paul Robert Magocsi Toronto, Canada *

Index Page

Colophon

Paul Robert Magocsi's two-part article "The Lemko Rusyns: Their Past and
Present" (authored by P.R. Magocsi, first appeared in Carpatho-Rusyn
American, Volume 10, #1, 1987, copyright 1987, used with permission) is
hosted at carpatho-rusyn.org (Carpatho-Rusyn Knowledge Base). Captured
2026-08-05 from http://www.carpatho-rusyn.org/lemkos/lemkos.htm (Part 1)
and http://www.carpatho-rusyn.org/lemkos/lemkos2.htm (Part 2). Published
here under permission held by the New Tianmu Anglican Church for this
material, recorded 2026-08-05; all rights remain with the original
author, Paul Robert Magocsi, and Carpatho-Rusyn American. The source's
own subheadings (Geographic Location, Early History, Austrian Rule, World
War I, The Interwar Years, World War II, The Final Tragedy, The Lemkos
Since Their Dispersal, The Lemko Region Today) are preserved as
sub-sections.

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