A story about Lemko resettlers

Talking to people who have nothing to do with the Lemko ethnic group, you discover that they either know nothing about them or have a vague idea. Meanwhile, the life of this westernmost branch of the Ukrainian people is amazingly eventful; its uniqueness has not been duly appreciated by historians. For thousands of years the Lemkos identified themselves with Kyivan Rus’, despite Polonization and Catholicization. Does not this fact inspire amazement and admiration?

The Old Rus’ chronicler Nestor’s Primary Chronicle (also known as The Tale of Bygone Years) first mentions people who lived in the mountains (where the Lemkos did live until recently). He writes about a Slavic tribe of white (western) Croatians ( horiany, or highlanders). Their language and culture were no different from those of the tribes that lived by the Dnipro. At the start of the 9th century they referred to themselves as Rusy or Rysyny [Ruthenians]. It was only in the 19th century, because they often used the word lem, meaning “only” or “except that,” they started being called Lemky (Lemkos) and the territory they inhabited became known as Lemkivshchyna.

All encyclopedias (ranging from “The Big General Encyclopedia,” Warsaw, 1910, to The Big Encyclopedia, Saint Petersburg, 1903, to the Der grosse Brockhaus, Munich, 1955) read that the Lemkos are part of the Ukrainian people.

Before 1945, the territory of Lemkivshchyna numbered over 10,000 km? After the war this ethnographic territory remained divided between three countries: the Galician part was annexed to Poland; the southern one, to Slovakia and to Zakarpatska (Transcarpathian) oblast. There are about one million Lemkos in the world and half of them live in Ukraine. They are all aware of being part of the Ukrainian people, except for a small group in Zakarpattia who, together with another small group abroad, consider themselves to be a “Carpatho-Ruthenian people.”

Ukrainians also inhabited Kholmshchyna (Chelm Land), Posiannia, and Podliachia even under Prince Danylo of Halych. There he was crowned, there were ancient Orthodox and later Greek Orthodox temples. Eventually they were either destroyed or converted into Roman Catholic cathedrals. Prince Danylo of Halych was buried in Kholm (Chelm).

Precisely these territories were annexed to the Ukrainian SSR after the Red Army crossed the river Zbruch on Sept. 17, 1939, as secretly agreed between Stalin and Hitler. Shortly afterward, however, these lands were returned to Hitler. Nikita Khrushchev meant precisely these territories when he raised the matter of annexing the age-old Ukrainian lands to the Ukrainian SSR. In a letter to Stalin (July 20, 1944) he proposed to set up Kholm oblast, but on July 27 a Polish-Soviet agreement on the Polish-Soviet boundary, approximately along the Curzon Line (named after the British prime minister of the Entente period), was signed in Moscow. Khrushchev must have been unaware of the oral agreement on the future boundary, made by Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill in Tehran.

Followed a large-scale and cruel deportation of 500,000 people from their native land to the Ukrainian SSR. The Poles prodded them along, saying that soon there wouldn’t be enough trees from which to hang Ukrainians. However, most people resisted. They were prepared to live in the Ukrainian SSR, but in their native lands, in their homes. The Polish side responded with acts of terror that were almost medievally cruel. Whole villages were destroyed and children, women, and elders slaughtered. The UPA rose in defense of its people, but deportation continued. Nov. 1946 saw 482,880 persons (122,622 families) evacuated.

In Western Ukraine there were not enough homes vacated by Poles who had resettled in former German territories, so Lemkos found shelter in their fellow countrymen’s homes. Often they were given the homes of local victims of repressions, but not all dared enter them seeing blood on the walls (the result of a big “clean-up” killing 500,000!). The resettlers were starving. The populace was not exactly in a Samaritan mood, driving Lemkos away from harvested fields where they were trying to find a couple of frozen potatoes.

A number of families were transported to the central and eastern regions. They were often settled in families that refused to accept them as fellow countrymen and called Poles. Some were given a room. Official reports dating from that period read that two families, 17 persons in all, lived in a 20 m 2 room; three families, 19 persons, lived in a 17.5 m 2 room; five families (24) had to make do with 25 square meters. There were often sick people among the roommates, many had no clothes because what they used to have was destroyed by dampness in the months of travels. Authorities promised that the resettlers would be provided with everything they needed. Well, there is another report on how local bureaucrats spent the money due resettlers on cars. Innocent people were dying of cold and hunger, unable to understand why they were being punished so severely. Luhansk oblast, for example, received 1,335 families. By the end of 1947 only 477 families had received compensations. True, many could stand it no longer stole back to Western Ukraine, closer to the border, but soon they realized that no one would let them get back to their native land.

Terrible ordeals awaited the Ukrainians who did not leave their native land. It was decided to get them assimilated. Wisla Action was carried out in April-August 1947 and what triggered it was the death of General Karol Swierczewski on March 28, 1947, at UPA hands. Incidentally, UPA units were active on the other side of the Curzon Line, defending Ukrainians, and even Poles said: “This isn’t a gang but an organized force, there are many scholars and intellectuals among them, something we’re lacking.”

There are documents to the effect that deportation was drafted in Nov. 1946. Those who resisted suffered a tragic lot. Despite all this, resettlers survived because they were hard-working, ready to help each other, open-hearted, believed in good, and were boundlessly patient.

In the late 1980s, Lemkos started organizing the Lemkivshchyna Society and in June 1992 the 1st All-Ukrainian Lemko Congress was held. That same year saw the 25th Festival of Lemko Culture in Zdynia (Poland). The All- Ukrainian Lemkivshchyna was created in 2001. This May Lviv hosted the 4th Congress of the World Federation of Ukrainian Lemko Associations that united seven countries and turned into a powerful international organization which is facilitating studies, progress, and popularization of Lemko Ruthenian culture and defended the rights of the deportees.

The Vatra Society was formed in Luhansk in 2005. The festival Stezhkamy Lemkivshchyny was held in the village of Peremozhne, the place of a compact Lemko community.