Hierarchy and Pluralism Living Religious Difference in Catholic Poland

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CONTEMPORARY ANTHROPOLOGY OF RELIGION

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Hierarchy and Pluralism: Living Religious Difference in Catholic Poland By Agnieszka Pasieka This page intentionally left blank Hierarchy and Pluralism Living Religious Difference in Catholic Poland

All rights reserved. First published in 2015 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN® in the United States— a division of St. Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Where this book is distributed in the UK, Europe and the rest of the world, this is by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN 978-1-349-50549-4 ISBN 978-1-137-48286-0 (eBook) DOI 10.1057/9781137482860

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Pasieka, Agnieszka, 1983– Hierarchy and pluralism : living religious difference in Catholic Poland / Agnieszka Pasieka. pages cm. — (Contemporary anthropology of religion) Includes bibliographical references and index.

1. Religious pluralism—Poland. 2. Poland—Religion. 3. Religions— Relations. 4. Catholic Church—Poland. 5. Catholic Church—Relations. I. Title. BL980.P6P37 2015 201.509438—dc23 2014036590 A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library. Design by Newgen Knowledge Works (P) Ltd., Chennai, India. First edition: March 2015 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 For Dave This page intentionally left blank Contents

List of Illustrations xi Pronunciation Key xiii Inhabitants of the District of Rozstaje xv Acknowledgments xvii

Introduction: Seven Ways to God 1

Part I Mapping Religious Pluralism Chapter 1 Poland: A History of Pluralism 35 Chapter 2 Making Pluralism: The People and the Place 59

Part II Pluralizing the Past Chapter 3 Caroling History: Heteroglossic Narratives and Religious Boundaries 95 Chapter 4 Religion and Memories of Socialism 119

Part III Acting Upon Locality Chapter 5 The Different and the Common: About Multireligious Neighborhoods 147 x CONTENTS

Chapter 6 Debating Pluralism 177 Conclusions: Challenging Hierarchical Pluralism 211 Epilogue 219

Notes 221 Bibliography 237 Index 253 Illustrations

Maps 0.1 Fieldsite 13 1.1 Border changes in the history of Poland 37

Figures 0.1 Local landscape 14 0.2 A local church 18 0.3 An Orthodox procession 21 0.4 Buddhist meditations 21 2.1–2.4 Scans of students’ pictures 73–75 2.5–2.6 An abandoned village and one of its past inhabitants 89 3.1 Carol singers 99 5.1 An ecumenical cemetery 151 6.1 A stand from the folkloric fair 199 This page intentionally left blank Pronunciation Key

a as in ‘avocado’ ą nasalized ‘a’ c as /ts/ in ‘cats’ and k as /c/ in ‘carrot’ ch and h as /h/ in ‘herbs’ * ć, ci, and cz as /ch/ in ‘chard’ e as in ‘bed’ ę nasalized ‘e’ i as in ‘ski’ j as /y/ in ‘year’ ł as /w/ and w as /v/ ń, ni as /n/ in ‘onion’ o as in ‘toe’ u and ó as /oo/ in ‘moon’ s as in ‘sun’ * ś, si, and sz as /sh/ y as in ‘myth’ z as in ‘zoo’ ż, rz as /z/ in ‘azure’ * There is a distinction in Polish between cz and ć and between sz and ś, but it is hard to render in English. This page intentionally left blank Inhabitants of the District of Rozstaje

This list of people who appear in the book more than once, together with religious affiliations, as declared by them, is meant as a guide for the readers and it by no means aims to simplify the complexity of people’s religious identities, as evinced throughout the book. The names (of people and localities alike) are anonymized. In order to facilitate following family trajectories, members of the same family unit were given names starting with the same letter.

Inhabitants of Rozstaje (the district capital) Jakub, pastor, and Janka, Pentecostals, former owners of the petrol station Tadek and Tekla, Jehovah’s Witnesses, former workers of the mineral water industry Władek, Greek Catholic, retired farmer Inhabitants of Krasne Hanna and Henek, farmers, and their daughter Hela, high school student, Orthodox Matylda, Adventist Mira, Orthodox Wasyl, Orthodox, the village’s chronicler Teodor, his son Tymko, and his daughter-in-law Tola, Greek Catholics, farmers Zenon and Zofia, Orthodox, cheese and offal producers Inhabitants of Leśna Izydor and Ida, members of the Orthodox parish, owners of a farm tourism Michalina, Orthodox, member of the Circle of Rural Housewives Franek, Roman Catholic, school director xvi INHABITANTS OF THE DISTRICT OF ROZSTAJE

Inhabitants of Ciche Ala and Adam, Greek Catholics, farmers Bea, Roman Catholic, herbalist Bronek, village leader, and his wife Basia, Roman Catholics, farmers From other villages Bartek, son of the Orthodox priest Kaja and Kamil, heads of the Buddhist meditation center Leon, Jehovah Witnesses’ elder Metody, Bible reader Michał, Pentecostal pastor Miron, Orthodox, the district’s leader Szymon, retired professor Acknowledgments

A s far back as my early student years, I have greatly enjoyed reading acknowledgments to scholarly books. Reading acknowledgments means tracing life and professional trajectories, recognizing a multi- tude of inspirations, and discovering connections and mutual influences between different people—“discoveries” sometimes similar to those we make and are fascinated by in the course of our fieldwork. There is, then, something specifically anthropological in acknowledgments, in both the way they are written and the way we may read them. In the main, it is the recognition of the value of human encounters and a gratitude to all those people who share with us their stories, knowledge, and lives; who not only enable our work but also make diverse academic endeavors and the very process of writing less lonely. This book would have not come into being without a number of people whom I had the privilege to get to know in course of my fieldwork in Southern Poland. In the interest to preserve their privacy, I do not list their names, yet I very much hope that if they happen to read this book one day, they will recognize themselves and their voices in the message conveyed throughout the text. Their contribution meant much more than friendship, hospitality, and fascinating research material. Meeting them enabled me to realize what it means to be a minority in Poland and this awareness came to shape my life far beyond the academic realm. My work on the book had several steps. It started with a Ph.D. dissertation, written at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology in Halle, where I very much benefited from stimulating conversations with scholars and friends. My supervisor, Chris Hann, provided me with suggestions, insights, and support well beyond the dissertation phase. The scholarship of my second supervisor, Michał Buchowski, strongly shaped my own work and his critical comments were instru- mental in transforming the dissertation into a book. The members of my research team, Kinga Sekerdej, Ingo Schröder, and Lina Pranaityte, were wonderful coworkers, careful readers, and irreplaceable backers. xviii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Nathan Light, Patrice Ladwig, Hans Steinmüller and Oliver Tappe helped me make the first steps in the anthropological writing, providing me with critical readings and humorvoll comments. Numerous other colleagues and friends—Viorel Anastasoaie, Nino Aivazishvili, Milena Baghdasaryan, Irene Becci, Friedrich Binder, Christoph Brumann, Jennifer Cash, Stephan Dudeck, Carolien Jacobs, Kirsten Endres, Otto Habeck, Miladina Monova, Gosia Rajtar, Michaela Schäuble, Detelina Tocheva, Bea Vidacs, Vladislava Vladimirova— offered a much appreciated feedback and collegial aid. I would also like to thank Jutta Turner for providing me with maps; Anja Neuner and Anett Kirchhof for library assistance; Elizabeth Arweck for a careful editing of my dissertation; Bettina Mann, Anke Meyer, Nadine Wagenbrett, Berit Westwood, and other members of the MPI for their manifold help during my stay at the Institute. I would like to thank all of them for making my stay in Halle a very rewarding and enjoyable phase of my academic journey. Conversations with Pamela Ballinger, Janina Brutt-Griffler, Wojciech Burszta, John Comaroff, Anna Engelking, Marcin Lubaś, Robert Hefner, John Hutschinson, Rebecca Kay, Jan Kubik, Paul Robert Magocsi, Jacek Nowak, Frances Pine, Robert Rothstein, Justyna Straczuk, Catherine Wanner, Bernadetta Wójtowicz-Huber and Geneviève Zubrzycki brought about many turning points in the writing of the book. In offering new perspectives and sharing with me their ideas, they challenged me and encouraged to clarify my arguments. Our discussions left a mark on numerous pages of this book. Very special thanks go to Grażyna Kubica-Heller, a long-term men- tor and friend, and to Agnieszka Halemba for long conversations on anthropology of/and religion. In transforming the manuscript into a book, I benefited from the help of Kim Greenwell, whose linguistic tips and sense of humor made the never-ending rewriting of the manuscript so much more enjoyable. I have been privileged to work with a great team from Palgrave Macmillan. Don Seeman has strongly supported the project throughout, offering invaluable comments and giving me confidence in moments of doubt. I would also like to thank Robyn Curtis, Mark Rinaldi, Erica Buchmann and Mara Berkoff for their help and patience with my frequent emails and questions. Finally, I am extremely grateful to the reviewers who provided me with insightful suggestions on how to improve the manuscript, encouraging me to probe deeper into some issues and better expound the intricacies of the local religious landscape. Furthermore, I would like to acknowledge all the institutions and people who enabled me to carry out and complete my research. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS xix

My Ph.D. scholarship was cofunded by the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology and the Volkswagen Foundation (Research project: “The Catholic Church and Religious Pluralism in Lithuania and Poland”). Completing the dissertation was made possible by the “Abschlusshilfe” grant from the Martin-Luther University Halle- Wittenberg. Teaching and project coordination opportunities were provided by Tatjana Thelen, Keebet von Benda-Beckmann, Richard Rottenburg, Katharina Schramm, and Conny Heimann. The work on the book manuscript was possible thanks to a fellowship at the Institute for Human Sciences, Vienna, and a postdoctoral grant at the Institute of Slavic Studies, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, sponsored by the National Science Center. I would like to thank the staff of the Institute of Human Sciences and the Institute for Slavic Studies for making me feel at home and facilitating my work on the book. Needless to say, this book owes a great deal to my family and friends who sustained and encouraged me at the different stages of my work. Many thanks for being along the way go to Basia Balmas, Anita Bielańska, Ozlem Biner, Kasia Borowiecka, Łukasz Borowiecki, Kuba Blycharz, Sherry Conrad and Joseph Petruccelli, Magda and Franek Czech, Ania and Bartek Drozd, Nicole Dołowy-Rybińska, Kalia Kinser and Chris Petruccelli, Karolina Komorowska, Sevi Lenart, Agata and Paweł Ładykowscy, Basia Montauk, Marzena Maksym, Ola Migalska, Agata Młodawska, Johanna Mugler, my aunt Agnieszka Pasieka, Agata Piasecka, Francesca Petricca, Tri Phuong, Nicole Pulcino and Jon Petruccelli, Ania Ratecka and Michał Urbański, Elizabeth Robinson, Edyta Roszko, Markus Rudolf, Friederike Stahlmann, Katja Seidel, Kerstin Tiefenbacher, Larissa Vetters, Lisa Wiesenthal, Katarzyna Zielińska, and Roberta Zavoretti. Some of these friendships are much older than the book, some came about in the midst of it or towards the very end, and still, they all left a mark on my writing, through a common walk in my fieldsite, a cup of tea brought to my desk, or a patient ear for my stories. I am especially indebted to my parents, Maria and Dariusz Pasieka, and my sister Ania, for their unconditioned support and love, as well as their efforts in keeping up my Polish. My deepest gratitude goes to Dave Petruccelli without whom I would have written a different book. This book is what it is and has such a meaning to me thanks to his engagement in the story I wanted to tell; his patience with my anthropological jargon, long Polish-style sentences, and dislike of (the) definite articles; his sense of humor, which kept me laughing while writing, and his confidence in me, which persistently made me go forward. Thank you for being a wonderful reader and life companion. Introduction: Seven Ways to God

Several months after beginning my fieldwork in Southern Poland, I visited the house of a Pentecostal pastor, Michał, who had agreed to talk to me about his community. We sat in his dark office filled with books, journals, and papers. To help my note-taking, the pastor des- perately tried to clear a space on his desk, moving piles of papers and putting books into stacks while trying not to knock over half-empty coffee cups. His efforts were in vain. As we talked, more and more objects gathered on the desk as he pulled down collections of pictures, files filled with notes, and Bible translations from the shelves. Sitting on opposite sides of the desk, we combed through dusty papers and yellowed press articles. Paired with the vivid descriptions the pastor provided, the materials painted a rich picture of local history. Over several hours of conversation, this cheerful, middle-aged man with smiling, ironic eyes gave me a colorful account of the Pentecostal community, deftly interweaving details about sociopolitical context with stories of miraculous events that the community had experienced. I listened, enthralled, asking questions only when the pastor would pause and say, “So what else do you want to know, girl?” The only interruptions were the dogs barking and the pastor’s two grandchildren, who repeatedly plunged into the room and climbed onto their grandfather’s chair. One of the questions I was interested in was that of the plight of religious minorities, among them the Pentecostal community, in a predominantly Roman Catholic society. Yet, unlike other clergymen in minority churches I had spoken to, this pastor was reluctant to complain about the Catholic Church’s dominance. Instead, he was eager to talk about the ways diversity is experienced and managed on an everyday basis. He would emphasize: “Well, we live side by side, we have to, we have to strive to achieve an agreement, to look for those . . . positive relations. And the fact one goes to one church and the other to a different church is a completely, completely . . . not a 2 HIERARCHY AND PLURALISM priority at all.” As an engaged community worker and charity activ- ist, he was more interested in relationships at the local level—the cooperation among actual priests and actual institutions—than the ways in which the Catholic Church maintained its dominance at the national level. Eventually, he stated that the activities of the latter did not surprise him at all. “We would do the same,” he asserted, “Why not try to force through your beliefs and norms, if you are invited to do so?” My conversation with the Pentecostal pastor was one of those “revelatory incidents” (Fernandez 1992) that demonstrated that the question I had attempted to answer needed to be turned around: instead of asking how the Roman Catholic Church attempts to influence the politics of the Polish state, I realized I should be asking why the state permits, or even encourages, the Church to do so. Although both questions attempt to shed light on the same phenomenon—the shape of the religious-national landscape in contemporary Poland—the latter one is of fundamental importance, as it foregrounds the ways in which Catholicism has become a politicized religion and a constituent of national identity. Following this path, this book goes beyond the prevalent focus in the study of Catholicism in Poland, which seeks to explain the persistence of the idea of “Pole-Catholic” in Polish history and which ends up reproducing the image of a religiously monolithic society. In contrast, what is of interest here is not so much “the history” as its reading and interpretation in studies of Polish Catholicism, not “the statistics” but the lived experiences of religion. Taking as its main protagonists the inhabitants of a peripheral, multireligious rural area, this study demonstrates that such a marginal context is well placed to elucidate the actual religious landscape in contemporary Poland. By doing so, it shows that pluralism is better explained if we examine how it is actually lived and experienced within a society that today is largely homogeneous. Therefore, this book is about neither the state nor the Church, but about the people who, in their everyday practices, respond to state and Church policies. Through an ethnographic study of the rural community of Rozstaje, inhabited by seven religious denominations and two ethnic groups, I highlight the importance of “pluralism from below” as a means to rethink the challenges of religious pluralism in Poland and beyond. The study of pluralism thus conceived means the exploration of the ways in which people live and use religion in their everyday lives and, in this way, engage with religious diversity; it means scrutinizing an array of local institutions, practices, and discourses that form the local religious landscape; and, it SEVEN WAYS TO GOD 3 means a careful investigation of the relation between grassroots and top-down pluralism. More specifically, the book examines the ways in which members of religious and ethnic minorities respond to the dominant narrative that identifies Polishness with Catholicism. This narrative, I will show, allows plurality while affirming the dominance of Catholic Poles, and thereby inscribing hierarchy into pluralism. However, rather than simply drawing a picture of uneven relations, I explore people’s actual practices and discourses as they question existing hierarchies, highlighting the intricate and mutable character of local religious landscapes. In short, this study unveils different faces of pluralism and the different ways in which the inhabitants of a peripheral rural area in Poland respond to them.

The Route

Lived Religion, Practiced Religion The idea of “lived religion” was first introduced by French sociologists of religion (see Desroche and Le Bras 1970) who aimed to address actual religious experiences as opposed to prescribed, insti- tutionally defined beliefs and rituals (McGuire 2008). Arguably, such an approach has always been at the heart of anthropological investigations. Numerous examples can be drawn from anthropological studies of popular religion that, as David Hall observes (2009), have long sought to scrutinize the ways that social actors fashion and refashion religious practices in response to local circumstances (e.g., Badone et al. 1990; Christian 1989, 1981;1 Pina-Cabral 1986). The approach I propose here is more specific, however: it studies religion in its everyday manifestations by taking into account the complexities of people’s religious experiences, understandings, and practices. This means focusing on the ways in which local inhabitants use religion in their everyday lives—as a means of identification, a marker of difference, a basis for collective action, a sphere of sociability, and a cultural costume— and thus to study religion through the social, paying attention to a variety of social institutions and practices and highlighting the importance of religion in shaping them. Such an approach echoes Robert Orsi’s (2003) call for a greater focus on lived experiences of religion, situated “among the ordinary concerns of life, at the junctures of self and culture, family and social world” (2003: 172). Moreover, this approach connects the exploration of popular religiosity with recent developments in the field of anthropology of Christianity, such as Joel Robbins’s proposal (2009) to study religion 4 HIERARCHY AND PLURALISM as a social life rather than a set of beliefs and to inquire into religion’s contribution to “emerging forms of sociality” (2009: 63). Exploring religion in this way, I draw on the insights of Max Weber (1978 [1922], 1981 [1913]), Pierre Bourdieu (1977, 1992, 1994), and Sherry Ortner (1992, 1996, 2006). Taken together, I argue that their complementary contributions suggest that religion is not only a background, but rather the background—a powerful force shaping people’s actions, in direct or indirect, explicit or implicit, ways. This, in turn, enables us to approach religious practices as embedded in “specific forms of sociality, regimes of power, historical struggles, and modes of production” (Lambek 2002: 5), and thus to perceive them both as determined by sociohistorical conditions and a key to reading this context. Weber’s importance for understanding “lived religion” lies, I argue, in his emphasis on people’s motivations, a fundamental element of his understanding of social action (Weber 1978).2 His typol- ogy of social actions3 is particularly useful in studying religiously related action, as it indicates the different functions religion may have in people’s lives, providing them with different kinds of motivation. Throughout his writings, Weber emphasizes the role of religion as a driving force that provides people with “meanings” that become part of their interactions. Even when people are not able to explicate them, such meanings, Weber reminds us, are helpful for understanding what prompts human action (Kippenberg 2009:71). Further, actions generated by religious doctrines and questions of salvation have the power to regulate and direct people’s behavior, to prevail over other kinds of action (which are driven by other factors, such as economic or legal concerns), and to rationalize people’s activities (Kalberg 1990: 58–9). These two observations are probably enough to explain why David Gellner (2009) contends that all the theoretical advances Ortner claims for practice theory “are already there in Weber” (2009:59). If Weber paved the way toward practice theory, he did so mainly through his explication of different types of motivations behind people’s actions, his insistence that religion entails both constraints and possibilities in individuals’ lives (Kalberg 1990), and his emphasis on the sociohistorical context of different religious systems (see, e.g., Weber 1964). These aspects of Weber’s work resonate in the scholarship of Bourdieu, who established his position in religious studies with his concepts of “religious capital” and the “religious field” (Bourdieu 1971a, 1971b; see also Dianteill 2004; Rey 2004; Swartz 1996; Urban 2003; Verter 2003). Of even greater value for approaching SEVEN WAYS TO GOD 5 lived religion, however, is Bourdieu’s notion of “habitus,”4 understood as the “product of history, [which] produces individual and collective practices” (1992:54), and, at the same time, “exists in, through and because of the practices of actors and their interactions with each other and with the rest of their environment” (Jenkins 2001:75). By defining habitus as a system of dispositions (1977:72), Bourdieu highlights the importance of “ways of being,” “habitual states,” “inclinations,” and “propensities” (1977: 214) that point to very different phenomena: feelings, thoughts, tastes, and bodily pos- tures (Reed-Danahay 2005:107). Constituting embodied knowledge, they strongly influence and direct people’s actions; as Kate Crehan observes (2011:279), they are “simply lived.” Hence, religion may be perceived as a “disposition-generating phenomenon” that brings about habitual activities and ways of doing things, but at the same time “exists in, through and because of” their constant enactment. Habitus denotes a set of dispositions, but “being a product of history, it is an open system of dispositions” (Bourdieu 1994:133). Stressing this aspect, Bourdieu explains that he speaks about “durable” and not “eternal” dispositions; he recognizes the possibility of the transformation of habitus and, more generally, of social transformation. Despite his emphasis on the reproduction of social practices and habitus, he sees social actors as capable of producing a variety of actions by combining embodied knowledge and insight into a given situation (cf. Eisenberg 2011). Although Bourdieu provides a framework for addressing changes, he himself is hesitant about using it. This drawback in his scholarship is discussed in detail by Ortner, who is more inclined to see practices in terms of potential change (1996: 4) and focuses on the inten- tionality of the subject (which brings us back to Weber’s question of motivation).5 Ortner places great emphasis on the dual character of practice, which she understands as action and structure (1992: 17), and stresses that practice is never neutral for it occurs in a context of inequality, domination, and asymmetry. Furthermore, advocating the study of both the constraints on people’s agency and the ways that people deal with these constraints, she prefers (1996) to speak of how people “make” the social world rather than “construct” it. “To make” points to the ways in which people “enact,” “resist,” and “negotiate” the world and denotes more than a linguistic preference. In reject- ing the idea of “constructing” the world, Ortner distances herself from the Foucauldian framework and its emphasis on the power of (world-constructing) discourses and the pervasiveness of power and instead highlights the mutuality of the way power and agency relate to 6 HIERARCHY AND PLURALISM one another (see also Ortner 1997, 2006). Applying approach to the study of religion—and of religious pluralism in particular—permits us to demonstrate how people experience, challenge, and negotiate the social order, and, in this way, “make pluralism.” Ortner is also more successful than Bourdieu in demonstrating people’s improvisations and creative use of available resources. Her ideas allow us to approach religion as one such resource that people employ in their practices and that enables them to deal with hierarchy and inequalities. However, Ortner’s focus on agency is a source of both strength and weakness for her theory. Although she convincingly identifies the interdependency between agency and structure, she falls into a trap of her own making when she defines them. First, she dismisses the idea that one person’s agency may condition and limit the action of others and that others perceive agency as structure (Zenker 2008:51). Secondly, as James Laidlaw convincingly demonstrates (2010) in reference to different “practice theorists,” the concept of agency is charged with presumptions of what people’s aims and desires should be. Agency is thus discussed in the context of a struggle for equality, empowerment, or liberation, as if agency that reinforces the status quo were unthinkable. Laidlaw’s remark is crucial to keep in mind in studies of religious practices, where certain kinds of action all too easily pass for “contestation” or “resistance,” while others are labeled as “subordination.” In light of the above, I propose to study religion as manifested in people’s practices, as it induces them to act and drives their actions, but also it is used creatively by people and, in turn, transformed by them. The idea of lived religion invites us to explore the different motivations and dispositions that direct people’s actions, both their habitual ways of doing things and the strategies that they consciously deploy. In this way, it also enables us to examine what people define as religious and how this definition has changed over time. Most of all, by demonstrating the ways inhabitants of Rozstaje live and use religion in their everyday life, it reveals the intricacies of local religious pluralism and the multiplicity of, often antithetical, practices that help to shape it.

On Pluralism Given my focus on the multifaceted nature of religious practice, my approach to pluralism is informed by those ethnographic studies that reveal the interplay of commonalities and differences in pluralism’s operation. I take up Ann G. Gold’s (2014) suggestion to study SEVEN WAYS TO GOD 7 pluralism both as “shared imaginaries and grammars rooted in the everyday perception of being in the world” and as “conditions of set- tings in which diversity is accorded legitimacy” (cf. Mayaram 2008; Peletz 2009). In her ethnography of an Indian locality, Gold convincingly demonstrates that it is the recognition of different forms of religious celebration and shared religious expressions that shape pluralistic consciousness. Her reflections on “ordinary pluralism” come close to Johannes Fabian’s plea for considering “pluralism from below” (1995: 144, 159) in that both recognize the delicate fabric of social relations on which pluralism is built, as well as the fact that pluralism often constitutes a means of masking inequalities (139). With regard to the latter, numerous anthropological works highlight pluralism’s power to naturalize: the fact that the discourse and practice of pluralism may end up reifying both religious difference and its arrangement (Klassen and Bender 2010; Scott 1992; Verdery 2000). Consequently, in my attempt to understand “pluralism from below,” I find it important to inquire into how local people engage with the contradictions that pluralism brings; whether they accept, reinforce or challenge them. A key to investigating people’s responses lies, in my view, in the very exploration of how pluralism becomes hierarchical. In his explication of the Indian caste system, Louis Dumont defines hierarchy as “the principle by which the elements of a whole are ranked in relation to the whole” (1980:86). Hierarchy, thus conceived, is not understood as a chain of commands or a ranked body of people, but as “a relation that can succinctly be called ‘the encompassing of the contrary’” (1980:239). Perceiving hierarchy as a relationship between what is encompassing and what is encompassed, Dumont considers it to be separate from power and inequality and instead studies its religious and cosmological foundation and its relation to values (Smedal and Rio 2009:8–10, 20–27). Moreover, his comparison of Indian and Western ideologies makes it clear that both systems—based on, respectively, hierarchy and power—result in opposite conceptions of society: the first denotes “ordered diversity,” the second appears as a homogenized field of individuals (Iteanu 2009: 333). By contrasting hierarchy with power, he underlines the vital difference between “superior” and “dominant,” between “encompassing” and “eliminat- ing” differences. Still, what is most important here is the mutable nature of this order: the constant (un)making of hierarchy and an exploration of structural dynamics as proposed by Edmund Leach (1997 [1954]). In his work on the political system in Burma, Leach analyzes the 8 HIERARCHY AND PLURALISM changes of the sociopolitical order that oscillates between two opposite types: gumlao and gumsa. He describes in detail differentiating elements of both systems, but most important here is that in the gumlao system “equality of status between the elements of any local community is a crucial dogma” (1997: 207), while gumsa is the system of hierarchy, built on network-ranked lineages. Leach stresses that the two ideal types are always interrelated: the oscillation between the two models is a recurring pattern and in practice they usually overlap. Therefore, the question whether a particular community realizes the egalitarian or hierarchical model “is a question, in part at any rate, of the attitudes and ideas of particular individuals at a particular time” (1997: 286). Although rituals and myths represent particular ideas of how a society should be organized, this does not mean that the same ideals are put into practice and are striven for, because the ambiguous character of myths and rituals leaves them open to interpretation and manipulation. Leach thus shows how people make use of this ambiguity, by employing narratives and practices to confirm either the gumlao or gumsa ideology6. In addition, he underscores that only external observers see the changes resulting from the oscillation between the two systems as “of shattering significance”; for the locals, such changes may pass unnoted (1997: 287). All these points account for some of the fundamental features of a pluralistic society: they demonstrate the changeable nature of social relations, the discrepancy between ideal and practice, and how this seeming contradiction is accommodated in one system. In other words, Leach helps us to see how hierarchy is inscribed into pluralism. Analytically speaking, hierarchical pluralism actually swings between pluralism and hierarchy. Leach suggests that there are people who creatively use resources to reinforce and promote one or the other. Indeed, Fuller and Parry (1989) recognize in Leach a precursor of practice theory, praising him not only for a cogent critique of structural objectivism but also for providing an intelligi- bility that Bourdieu’s theory lacks.7 Nonetheless, it is worth wres- tling with Bourdieu’s abstruse style and returning to his concept of habitus in order to explore the dynamics of hierarchy and pluralism in more detail. As mentioned above, Bourdieu perceives dispositions as closely linked to social stratification, and thus determining what people strive for, expect, or see as accessible to them. While not excluding the possibility of dispositions changing, he stresses that their reproduction is “likely.” In his seminal work (1992), Bourdieu explains this reproduction as the result of “symbolic violence,” which aims to establish order and meaning in the social world and influence SEVEN WAYS TO GOD 9 people’s worldviews and practices; a “gentle, disguised form of violence” (1992: 133) that is powerful because it is located in the least “suspicious” spheres, such as religion. In one of his key explications of religious power, Bourdieu (1971a: 328–9) describes how religious and political authorities attempt to dominate people’s perceptions, by legitimizing and “naturalizing” the existing social order. This process is evident, for example, in the distinction between “true religion” and “heresy” (Furseth 2009: 102), which establishes what is “correct” and “normal” and what is “wrong” and “abnormal.” Domination of perceptions is crucial for Bourdieu, as it leads to a situation in which dominated groups diminish themselves and start to see their own positions through the eyes of the dominant group and in accordance with the established order. Underpinning this order are doxa, taken-for-granted views that make the social order self-evident and provide people with an understanding of what is appropriate for their positions (1977: 1964). Hence, the hierarchy—of people, norms, and beliefs—is established through the naturalization of the arbitrary and the imposition of the existing social order as “normal.” In the Polish context, doxa is the conviction that (a good or “true”) Pole is Catholic and that Catholicism is the “normal” religion in Poland. This view is imposed by different means of symbolic violence, such as educational policies, cultural productions, and religious teachings, many of which Bourdieu discusses in detail (Bourdieu and Passeron 2000), and which are deeply internalized by the people who perceive the link between Polishness and Catholicism as natural and proper. Nevertheless, Bourdieu does indicate the possibility of alternative and antagonistic beliefs—heterodox views or opinions—that propose an alternative reading of social reality and open a sphere in which established norms can be contested and discourses compete. The struggle occurs, therefore, on the frontline between doxa and opinions and this frontline is constantly negotiated: while the less powerful attempt to challenge doxa and expose the arbitrariness of the “taken- for-granted,” those in power strive to maintain its integrity (Bourdieu 1977:169). Hierarchical pluralism can thus be understood as a changeable configuration of social relations that both allows for and acknowledges diversity, while simultaneously making it clear which (ethnic/ religious) group is dominant and norm-defining. Understood in this way, hierarchical order does not eliminate or oppose difference but rather accepts and encompasses it. At the same time, the very act of accepting or encompassing displays who has the power to accept and who seeks to be accepted. Given the constant tension between 10 HIERARCHY AND PLURALISM pluralism and hierarchy, understanding hierarchical pluralism demands not only focusing on the two dimensions of the horizontal and the vertical but also on the processes of their accommodation into one system. In the main, it requires examining which practices push toward pluralism rather than toward hierarchy.

Challenging Hierarchical Pluralism The normativity of being “Polish-Catholic”—promoted in various ways by the discourses of the Polish state and the Catholic Church and grounded in local perceptions—suggests that the people who are most likely to reject this kind of claim are those who find themselves outside this normative frame. Referring to Bourdieu, it is possible to identify different possible responses that range between compli- ance with and resistance to the normative order. Studies of the latter frequently draw on the influential works of James Scott (1985, 1990) and his investigation of “offstage voices and practices”—the everyday conversations, jokes, folklore that have power to contradict and inflect what appears in the public transcript (Scott 1990: 4–5). The idea of a “hidden transcript” enables Scott to engage critically with Bourdieu’s theory of misrecognition (1977) and to prove that mystification is never total or complete.8 However, while opening space for opposition, Scott seems to fall into the same trap as Bourdieu; both end up presenting a very rigid picture of social relations. Bourdieu overemphasizes “the homogeneity of conditions of existence”: highlighting possible generational clashes within a group’s habitus, he indicates the transformation of one class, one community, while excluding the question of inter-group dynamics and neglect- ing the complex matrix of people’s ways of belonging. Scott, in turn, tends to reify the distinction between the dominant and the subal- tern whose conflicting relations and interests are somehow taken for granted and which stand for two sets of meanings, related either to conformity or protest. Thus, although Bourdieu addresses the tension between doxa and heterodoxy, and Scott discusses in detail the dynamics of the struggle between dominant and subordinate discourses, both seem to brush off the question of what these two kinds of discourses have in common. These remarks encourage us to rethink the very definition of resistance and to remap the sites of opposition. In reference to the latter, it is important to emphasize the contextuality of the notions of “dominate” and “subordinate,” “majority” and “minority.” In the local realm, a Roman Catholic neighbor may be perceived as a SEVEN WAYS TO GOD 11 representative of the dominant group in one context, yet in another as one who shares the experience of marginality of Rozstaje’s inhabitants. Similarly, it is necessary to speak about minorities rather than about a minority and to highlight possible configurations of power relations among them; notably, while the minority communities complain about the Roman Catholics’ dismissive attitudes, they themselves tend to disregard the Jehovah’s Witnesses.9 Therefore, it seems necessary to take into account those activities that go beyond group boundaries and to note that local minorities may not be the only social groups using different tactics against the state’s or the Church’s discourses; that the minorities’ claims may sometimes be addressed more explicitly by the majority’s representatives; that both intra- and inter-group boundaries and dynamics need to be addressed; and that the division between minorities and the majority may not be so much rigid as contextual. These points underscore a criticism made earlier about Bourdieu’s insistence on “homogenized group habitus” (1992): his approach permits the analysis of the historical conditions and life trajectories that formed the habitus of the Orthodox or the Pentecostals, but disregards the extent to which people share similar experiences across different groups, communities, and classes. At the same time, these points lead us back to the concept of resistance and its usefulness as an analytical tool. In his critical engagement with resistance studies, Michael Brown warns that the focus on resistance translates into a “totalizing focus on power” (1996:733) and consequently leads to biased accounts that see hegemony and counterhegemony in every dimension of social life, a sort of a “new functionalism” wherein the most trivial becomes political (1996:729). His sound critique echoes contributions by Ortner, in which she expresses her concern about the one-sided nature of studies on domination and inequality, particularly the neglect of “patterns of cooperation, reciprocity, and solidarity [that] constitute the other side of the coin of social being” (1984: 157), and the “thinness” of ethnographic accounts. In Ortner’s view, this “thinness” is manifested in a superficial treatment of the internal politics of the dominated groups, their cultural richness, and the actors’ subjectivity (1995: 190). She especially emphasizes that the relation between religion and resistance remains unexplored (1995: 180–1) and that accounts of resistance need to be closely related to local views on morality, justice, and the role ascribed to the subject (1997: 145–6).10 In a similar vein, in her study of rural France, Deborah Reed- Danahay (1993) analyzes the complexity of the concept “débrouil- lardise” (resourcefulness), which denotes an artful combination of 12 HIERARCHY AND PLURALISM resistance and accommodation. Rather than being centered on the act of resistance, this notion highlights the importance of “coping strategies in everyday life” (1993: 224–6). Reed-Danahay demonstrates that in the local perception agency becomes meaningful when it indicates a creative ability to “make do” and to “make out”: managing with what is available in a given situation by skillfully using available resources, taking advantage of the situation, and “simply” acting for the benefit of the local community. Such practices and discourses are, in her view, characteristic of the inhabitants of rural, mountainous, and historically poor regions. Clearly, a greater focus on how people creatively and resourcefully inhabit social reality may be very consequential for a redefinition of minority-majority relations. A study of inhabitants’ “coping strategies” and “patterns of cooperation and reciprocity” encourages an exploration of the common and different experiences and resources people draw on while addressing everyday life challenges. Recalling Gold’s reflections on pluralism, it is important to remember that it is the recognition of not only others’ right to be different but also everyday commonalities that provide the founda- tions for ordinary pluralism (Gold 2013). To conclude, I ask why horizontal and vertical relations both coexist and alternate. I inquire, to use Scott’s metaphor (1999), why “geographies of trust” built on mutuality and joint actions do not eradicate “geographies of hierarchy”; why the undermining of hierarchical relations lead to establishing new ones and why the demand- ing of recognition may easily turn into performing exclusion. I seek an explanation for this process, common to many societies grappling with the problem of diversity, in a multireligious community on the margins of a religiously homogenous Poland. Before we consider geographies of trust and hierarchy, we have to look at the physical and social geographies of the area.

On the Road

Introducing Rozstaje The district (gmina) of Rozstaje, which shares its name with its largest village and capital,11 is situated in Southern Poland, close to the border with Slovakia. Though it constitutes one of the largest districts in the country territorially, it is also one of the least populous. The district’s 6,500 inhabitants live in over a dozen villages. I focus mainly on three of these villages: Krasne, which is the most religiously diverse locality; Leśna, inhabited by representatives of three confessions; and

Map 0.1 Fieldsite 14 HIERARCHY AND PLURALISM

Figure 0.1 Local landscape. Photo: Karolina Komorowska a nearly homogenous Ciche. A few other villages (such as the district’s capital) are referred to at times, yet I avoid precise descriptions or data in order to preserve the anonymity of the studied localities. Situated in the mountainous area called Lower Beskid (Beskid Niski) and deprived of either big urban centers or industry, the region is known for its tranquility and isolation. The gentle hills are covered by forests, with pastures and arable land filling the extensive valleys between them. Most villages are situated along one main road and are separated by a mountain or a forest line. The edifices of the villages paint a picture of architectural diversity: alongside old wooden dwellings one finds cube-shaped, poorly made breezeblock houses—a rem- nant of socialist times—as well as signs of present-day prosperity in the form of villa-type residences, adorned with Greek-like columns and several satellite receivers. Larger villages are equipped with a school, a grocery shop, a village room (świetlica wiejska), a bar, and, last but not least, churches and houses of prayer. Not only the latter but also numerous roadside crosses, small chapels, and war cemeteries scattered on the hills around villages contribute to the area’s particular religious character. Historically, the region was inhabited by an East Slavic group, called the Rusyns (Ruthenians). Due to the national movements of the nineteenth century, some of the Rusyns came to identify themselves as Ukrainian, while others preserved their Rusyn identity, SEVEN WAYS TO GOD 15 and since the early decades of the twentieth century they have been referred to as “Lemkos.” Primarily, the ethnonym “Lemko” was used in reference to the group by their neighbors, due to their frequent use of the word lem (meaning “only” or “but”), yet there is no agreement about when was it actually adopted by the group itself. The subject of Lemko language is also a controversial one, yet most linguists consider it a dialect of Ukrainian, which borrows heavily from Slovakian and Polish and uses the Cyrillic alphabet (cf. Trzeszczyńska 2013: 67). As demonstrated throughout the book, the question of Lemko-Rusyns’ identity has been highly politicized and manipulated by different political regimes.12 Being aware of the controversies and their political implications, I refer to “Rusyns” when describing the period before the Second World War13 and to “Lemkos” when speaking about the decades thereafter. Rusyns were Christians of the Eastern rite and they were a predominantly rural population. The region they inhabited had always been relatively poor and marginalized, whether under Polish (until 1772 and from 1914) or Habsburg (1772–1914) rule. The infertile soil and difficult living conditions forced the local people to look for other ways to earn a living besides their farms, whether by working in forests or different kinds of rural crafts, or, since the mid-nineteenth century, by pursuing overseas migration. The events of the Second World War and its aftermath brought an end to the Rusyn presence in the area. Resettlements of the local population to the USSR carried out by the occupying Soviet forces were completed in 1947 by the Polish communist government, which decided to expel the remaining people and disperse them in Western and Northern Poland, in order to assimilate them into Polish society. Abandoned villages were taken over by Polish settlers and large stretches of land came under the control of state-owned farms (PGRs). However, after a political thaw in the 1950s, some Lemkos managed to return and settled again in Rozstaje, buying back their former houses from the Polish owners or building new dwellings. Although the number of those who returned is far below the number of prewar inhabitants, the district has the largest Lemko population in Poland, amounting to around 30 percent of the total population.14 Today, the number of people making a living from agriculture is in decline. As in the past, people search for additional sources of income, whether in the form of temporary migration, work in a neighboring town, or trying one’s fortune at opening a small business. In fact, a combination of different forms of employment is most beneficial. Within a household, it is common for one person to work outside the 16 HIERARCHY AND PLURALISM home while the other takes care of a small farm. Generally, the socioeconomic landscape of Rozstaje is shaped by the legacy of the socialist system—detectable in the attempts to render usable the remains of state-owned farms—and the changes brought by Poland’s accession to the European Union in 2004, comprising both farm subsidies and a variety of regulations regarding ecological agriculture. Combined with the increasing importance of tourism in the area, the latter process is also responsible for the introduction of new policies endorsing “regional heritage” and “multiculturalism.” Promoting this multiethnic and multireligious area as rather unique in the overall homogenous Polish context is meant to attract visitors and preserve “local culture.” Inhabitants of Rozstaje often say that they live in “a place where the devil says goodnight” (i.e., is in the middle of nowhere) and that nobody cares about. Their attitude toward the locality is quite ambiguous. While complaining about the state’s policies and the district’s marginalization, they also tend to frame the region’s marginal position into an advantage, emphasizing the quietness and beauty of the area or the fact that the socialist regime’s policies and controls had little impact on such a peripheral place. Similarly, although the inhabitants miss the sociability they remember from “old times,” they also admit that the district’s social life is lively and diverse due to fairs, festivals, and other meetings organized thanks to a joint effort of village leaders, teachers, groups of rural housewives, priests, and local musi- cians. And, if there is one thing that the inhabitants are unanimous about it is the view that the presence of a number of different religious groups is the district’s most important characteristic. They might not agree about the number of confessions, which varies according to each person’s knowledge, personal experiences, and definitions, but they concur that it is the multiplicity of religious communities that makes their region special.

Seven Religious Communities The complexity of the local religious landscape and the confessional identities therein is perhaps best reflected in the relationship between two Eastern Christian churches, Greek Catholicism and Orthodoxy (Eastern Orthodox Church)15; both creeds are considered to be the “Lemko” faith. This religious dualism goes back to the seventeenth century, when the Rusyn Orthodox accepted, or were made to accept, the decisions of the Union of Brest (1596). The newly established Uniate Church (renamed the Greek Catholic Church in SEVEN WAYS TO GOD 17 the late eighteenth century) came under the jurisdiction of the Pope and accepted Roman Catholic dogma while retaining the Byzantine liturgy. Yet, it was not until two centuries later that the distinction between the two confessions gained importance. The first decades of the twentieth century saw substantial number of people (re)con- vert16 to Orthodoxy and violent struggles between the two creeds as religious belonging was politicized by national activists: Ukrainian orientation was traditionally connected to the Greek Catholic Church and being Rusyn was associated with being Orthodox. In Rozstaje, several villages turned Orthodox in the 1930s. The closure of the Greek Catholic Church in communist Poland resulted in more people joining the Orthodox community or the Roman Catholic Church, and the restoration of Greek Catholicism after 1989 brought further changes. Today, one is likely to find both Greek Catholics and Orthodox within one family and one is also very likely to find different attitudes toward this religious division. Some Lemkos not only consider their confessional identity to be very important but also perceive “others” (the Greek Catholics or the Orthodox, respectively) as “traitors.” Other Lemkos do not find this distinction important, for what matters to them is the Eastern rite, common for both communities: among them there are individuals who have changed their religious identification several times, attend whichever church happens to be in their village or closer to their homes, or opt for either church on the basis of the clergyman’s personality. Both communities use the Julian calendar for ecclesiastic purposes.17 There are three Greek Catholic and three Orthodox parishes in the district that account for, respectively, six and nine shrines, which are referred to as cerkiew18. Each parish has a priest who lives next to the church, either alone or, in the case of the Orthodox,19 with his family. The Orthodox community (around 750 members) outnumbers the Greek Catholic one (around 150 members)20 and is more active in the public sphere; in recent years, it managed to establish an Orthodox monastery and a charity center and to build a new church. The Orthodox community cited this numerical strength in a conflict with the Greek Catholics over the ownership of some churches, which the Orthodox have used since communist times, but which had not officially become their property. The Orthodox were not the only ones to appropriate Greek Catholic churches—most were actually taken over by the Roman Catholics. Roman Catholicism established itself in the region after the first Poles settled there in the late 1940s. The few ethnic Poles who inhabited 18 HIERARCHY AND PLURALISM

Figure 0.2 A local church (cerkiew): in the past a Greek Catholic shrine, nowadays used by Roman Catholics. Photo: Karolina Komorowska the Rusyn region before the war attended Greek Catholic churches or went on Sundays to the closest Roman Catholic shrine. Today, the Roman Catholics are not only the largest religious community (approximately 75 percent of the population), but also the richest: they own seven (previously) Greek Catholic churches, six newly built shrines, and considerable lands. Larger parishes are run by two priests, and smaller parishes by one. Clergymen are supported by parish councils and groups of male inhabitants (altar boys and sacristans) who assist them during religious services. It is difficult to generalize about the Roman Catholic communities in terms of the relationship between priest and parishioners, or lay people’s engagement, since every village has its own church and the situation differs from village to village. However, it is worth noting that church attendance is high,21 religious rituals are very important, and priests are influential figures in the villages. At the same time, anticlericalism is very strong and people’s attitudes toward clergymen are ambivalent. Influences from the US and Canada helped to popularize Pentecostalism (Ruch Zielonoświątkowy) in Lower Beskid. In the SEVEN WAYS TO GOD 19 interwar period, growing conflict between the Greek Catholics and the Orthodox also facilitated acceptance of this alternative. Indeed, the stronger the conflict between the Greek Catholics and the Orthodox, the more dynamic the Pentecostal movement became. It had two main currents: the “Baptists” and the “Bible researchers.” The latter developed into the Pentecostal movement that established itself in Rozstaje. Evangelization began in 1939 and, despite difficulties and obstacles, continued throughout the war. In 1947, many members were resettled in Western Poland and some of those who remained were detained in prison. The Pentecostals who were expelled continued to evangelize in their new settlements, while those who remained and a further four families who managed to return continued to gather for prayers. In the 1980s, the congregation was registered as the “Christian Community of Pentecostals” and bought a building, which became its “House of Prayers.” The community has about sev- enty adult members (approximately 100 if including children). They meet on Sundays for a two-hour service and young people have an additional meeting on Saturdays (discussions of religious matters and choir rehearsals). The community is led by a pastor, who is supported by a deacon and the Congregation’s Council. The Christian Community of Pentecostals is not the only Pentecostal congregation in Rozstaje. In the 1970s, a group of Pentecostals split from the original group and formed a community called the pięćdziesiątnicy,22 contemptuously referred to as the “bumpkins” (prostaczkowie). These are the most conservative Pentecostals, as they are skeptical about any institutionalized activity, do not use any modern equipment or technology, live in isolation, reject the celebration of any festivities, and promote very strict moral rules (Pasek 1992). They claim to have forty members in Rozstaje, but it is hard to estimate precise numbers given the group’s fragmentation, internal fac- tions, and unwillingness to talk about their community. During my research, I had only a few opportunities to engage with them, one of which was a joint meeting of zielonoświątkowcy and pięćdziesiątnicy, which aimed to bring the two Pentecostal groups together. Yet another group of Pentecostals abandoned their community to join the Seventh-day Adventists in the mid-1970s, as a result of the activities of a missionary who visited the district. As their services take place on Saturdays, they are also known as Sobotnicy or “Sabbatarians.” In Rozstaje, there are only a few Adventist families, but a dozen other members who live in neighboring districts and towns join them for prayers. Because they are dispersed over the area, the Adventists alternate the location of their religious services, meeting 20 HIERARCHY AND PLURALISM in members’ homes or in the small Adventist church in a nearby city. Both the setting and the size of the group make for a familial and democratic atmosphere during the services; people are eager to take part in the discussions of Bible passages and easily converse with the pastor. Members share a meal after the meetings and spend a good deal of every Saturday together. Adventists do not proselytize among the local population, but some members distribute Adventist pam- phlets and books on healthy, kosher food. It is this pamphlet distribution that leads some people to mistake Adventists for Jehovah’s Witnesses, who are known for their active door-to-door preaching. The latter first came to the region in the 1930s and their membership has increased gradually since then. Apart from difficult periods during the 1950s, when some members were imprisoned, the Jehovah’s Witnesses did not recall any persecution or obstruction by the communist authorities. Today, they claim to have approximately fifty adult members, though more join the community temporarily during holidays. On average, there are two or three Jehovah’s Witnesses families in every village. The community is led by male elders who are assisted by ministerial servants. Members meet twice a week in the Kingdom Hall in the district’s capital. On Fridays, they join the so-called “theocratic school,” where they read together and discuss practical matters such as how to conduct door-to-door preaching or how to deal with non-believers in one’s family. On Sundays, there are lectures by the elders, discussions of Bible verses, and readings of materials from the Watch Tower Society press. Buddhism has adherents among people who have abandoned city life for life in a rural district. At the time of my fieldwork, there were three families who met once or twice a week for meditation. The meditation center of the Buddhist Union (Diamond Way Buddhism of the Karma Kagyu lineage) was established in 1999 by Ole Nydahl, a Danish Lama who actively propagates Buddhism in Europe and the United States. The center is run by a couple who fell in love with the area when they were students and scouts. They seek to make Buddhism known in the area by organizing meetings and seminars in neighboring cities and by producing information about the Buddhist faith and community. Once a year, the center hosts actual and potential Buddhists from all over the country for a multiday course in meditation. In attending to the stories of Rozstaje’s inhabitants, one can also learn about yet another religious minority, albeit one no longer present in the region: Jews. Although most of Rozstaje’s Jews perished in the concentration camps and none live there today, they continue SEVEN WAYS TO GOD 21 to occupy an important symbolic place in the social imaginary. Jews figure in moral narratives and are essential protagonists of the stories of the past (Chapter 2 and 3), while their “otherness” constitutes a point of reference for situating today’s religious “others” (Chapter 3).

Figures 0.3 and 0.4 Two of the seven ways: An Orthodox procession and Buddhist meditations. Photos: Agnieszka Pasieka 22 HIERARCHY AND PLURALISM

Moreover, in placing the multireligious Rozstaje in a broader sociohistorical context, the book depicts peculiar ways in which the plights of different minorities crossed; how the discriminatory legislation against Jews was used against Orthodox and Greek Catholics and how different communities reached for conversion to Roman Catholicism in order to avoid persecution. The relations among these religious communities are difficult to describe or even demarcate absolutely as they are characterized by dynamics of not just divergence but also crossing, convergence, inter- section, and overlap. Even the numerical strength of the different confessions is often difficult to establish. Some communities only count adult members and members who are actively engaged in the congregation’s life, while others count all those baptized, no matter whether they ever set foot in the church. Mixed families often opt to attend the husband’s church one Sunday and the wife’s church the next. Conversions undoubtedly play an important role, but many of them are temporary rather than permanent, and the very understanding of conversion is debatable. Religious practices change over time— some increase, others decrease in importance—and a community’s membership varies according to circumstances such as the attitude of religious leaders or family situation. Finally, the focus on communities should not obscure people’s idiosyncratic approach to religion, which is shaped by their exchanges with neighbors and friends of different religious backgrounds. Recognition of this makes it hard to speak of seven clearly delineated religious communities or seven ways of performing religious identity, as each is a compound of multiple individual ways. Nonetheless, the interplay of these religious and ethnic identities is pivotal to the dynamics of local pluralism. Religion is a vehicle for ethnic identities, sustaining the bond between being Polish and being Roman Catholic and the bond between the Lemko identity and the two Eastern rites: Orthodoxy and Greek Catholicism. These bonds are asserted by both “Poles” and “Lemkos,” though members of both communities are also members of other confessions. Throughout the book, I use the notions of “Poles” or “Lemkos” to invoke people’s “categories of practice” (Brubaker and Cooper 2000: 4) and to refer to their own—highly contextual—understandings of who is a (“proper”) Pole or who counts as a (“true”) Lemko. The lack of quotation marks should not suggest I treat Lemkos and Poles as bounded, homogenous groups (“groups”) nor presume their equation with the “categories of analysis.”23 As I demonstrate in the book, SEVEN WAYS TO GOD 23 the local realm is shaped by constant negotiations and redefinitions of the categorization of ethnic and religious “others” which, depending on the context, may be defined as “Poles” or “non-Poles.” To further complicate matters, ethnic and religious categories are often used interchangeably: when talking to the inhabitants, one may hear about a “Lemko church,” about the fact that the “Orthodox are a closed off nation,” or about neighbors of “Polish faith.”24 In other words, it is assumed that a “normal” Pole is Roman Catholic and that “one cannot be Lemko without cerkiew.” These observations are of fundamental importance, for they demonstrate the role “lived religion” plays in defining more than just religious belonging and show that local pluralism involves tangled practices of exclusion and inclusion, discrimination and recognition.

Approaching Religious Pluralism in the Field My stay25 in Rozstaje was arranged with the generous help of a young employee of the local council, Klara. After my request for help, Klara made inquiries and found me a small flat, situated in the apartment block26 in one of the bigger villages. The flat was owned by a family of Lemkos, who had moved away from the village but kept the apartment, partly because they could come for holidays and partly because they were attached to their (grand)parents’ inheritance. Initially, I agreed on a short-term lease. I had reservations about living alone and considered staying with a family, but the first two months in the flat proved this idea wrong; living alone was a good basis for studying different religious communities, as it gave me an aura of impartiality, which was crucial for my engagement with minority communities in particular. Apart from helping with accommodation, Klara facilitated my entry into the field. She sketched for me a picture of local initiatives and important events; she explained to me how the local government functions; finally, she arranged numerous meetings for me and provided important contacts. Although we did not always agree, Klara played a very important role in my research. Thanks to her, I discovered how important it was to have at my side a critical, skeptical, and at times even cynical “native” who sometimes tempered my enthusiasm and prevented me from drawing far-fetched conclusions:

Agnieszka: Klara, people told me today that there are nine religious communities here! Klara: Nine? They must have counted tourists by mistake. 24 HIERARCHY AND PLURALISM

Thanks to Klara’s contacts, my research was quickly set in motion. I started by meeting locally important figures: village leaders, priests, and heads of different associations who presented me with a picture of their villages and communities, and advised me about whom to meet and which events to attend. I soon realized that it was impossible to limit my case study to one village. First, villages do not equate with parishes, as a parish usually comprises several villages. Therefore, people from one village would talk to me about their close neighbors, but they would also talk about coparishioners who lived in a different location. Second, villages are interrelated through family ties; people frequently marry into a neighboring village or simply move there. Third, because the larger villages offer more employment, people from smaller villages commute to those locations every day. Thus, people’s perception of “locality”—what the notion of “here” references—was contextual and encouraged me to focus on various scales of meaning: at the level of neighborhood, village, parish, and district. What I perceive today as the real beginning of my fieldwork came roughly two months after my arrival to the field. That day, I bicycled to the neighboring village of Krasne to meet the family of Hanna and Henek on the suggestion of the Orthodox priest. I spent the afternoon and evening talking to three women: Hanna, her mother- in-law, and her daughter. Our conversation was not only very vivid, joyful, and relaxed, but it also made me feel at home, in every sense of the word. There is no space here for all the details of that meeting, but I want to emphasize that such encounters and ways of gaining knowledge, mediated mainly by my female informants, had the most profound influence on my study. I want to acknowledge here how much I learned from my informants, the knowledge I received from them, not only about religion but also about doing ethnography. In fact, I believe that they enabled me to both “do” and appreciate ethnography anew as a special kind of hospitality, by which I mean sharing experiences, stories, opening one’s life—and one’s home—to the guest. The notions of “hospitality” and “knowledge” converge in the notion of “familiarity,” which denotes both “friendly and informal behavior”’ and “a good knowledge of something.” Lila Abu-Lughod (1991) regards this idea as fundamental, arguing that only a focus on capturing specific lived experiences makes it possible to provide broader generalizations. Similar experiences of hospitality accompanied my research in three local schools and two circles of rural housewives, my participation in village and district meetings, and my attendance at various social events with young people. Although these were quite heterogeneous SEVEN WAYS TO GOD 25 activities, involving different degrees of agency on my side and different definitions of my role, I point them out because, first, they were the most important sites of my observations and, secondly, in all these cases I was not only welcomed and never treated as a stranger, but my presence was also readily accepted as something “natural.” Understandably, the various religious institutions and meetings were places and events of key importance. I sought to attend weekly services regularly, although this proved to be quite hard, because most of the prayers in the different villages take place at the same time on Sunday (only the Adventists hold their prayers on Saturday and the Buddhists meet for meditation during the week). Through the rosy glasses of hindsight, it is easy to forget how difficult this was. It is only when I revisit my notes that I remember how exhausting such days were, prompting me at one point to write simply: “I really detest Sundays.” As my fieldwork advanced, however, I became less concerned about the Sunday marathon. At the beginning, my interest in the services centered on two aspects: the social dimension of prayers and the content of the clergymen’s teaching. These topics were meant to correspond with my idea of “lived religion” and its importance in shaping and defining other spheres of life. Eventually, I stopped paying so much attention to the services because I realized that the sites of “lived religion” were to be found elsewhere: in public institutions, organizations, and neighborly encounters. Two other issues need to be mentioned here. The first is how these religious communities’ reacted to my presence. While most of the people I talked to were glad to see me at their prayers, they also developed concrete expectations. This was most obvious in the case of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, who answered questions regarding who I was by saying: “This is not yet a sister.” Hopes for my conversion were not spelled out quite as clearly by the Pentecostals or the Adventists, but they similarly implied that I would learn from them and write that Protestant traditions were “more true” because they adhered more closely to the letter of the Bible. Likewise, I felt that the Greek Catholics and the Orthodox expected me to judge what the “true” Lemko religion was and to represent their claims and the injustices inflicted upon them by the “other church.” Only the Roman Catholics conveyed no such expectations; instead, it was simply taken for granted that I was already a (devout) Roman Catholic. As a result, a sort of competition emerged among the various congregations for my presence (“Next week you should come to us”) and an assumption that the more time I spent with one group, the more favorable things I would write about them. This leads to a related point, the 26 HIERARCHY AND PLURALISM fact that the time I spent with each religious community mirrors, to a certain extent, its numerical strength. I want to make clear that I did not intend to attribute varying amounts of importance to any community—I didn’t want to inadvertently reinforce “hierarchical pluralism” in my own way—but the meetings of the larger and more active communities were simply more relevant for my understanding of the dynamics of local life. Therefore, I participated in only one three-day meditation session of the Buddhists, but attended several meetings of the Adventists and numerous meetings of the Orthodox. Second, the nature of my relationships with the different religious communities was mediated by other factors, such as people’s social background or the sensitivity of the issues I discussed with them. My discussions with a young Buddhist couple regarding women’s repro- ductive rights in Poland or Church-state relations resembled discussions I have had with my university friends, while meetings with the Jehovah’s Witnesses made me more aware of my role as a researcher and required, for example, a skillful rejection of offers of conversion while trying to maintain friendly relations. Again, I do not mean to favor some groups over others, but it would be dishonest and simply untrue to claim that my relationships with different people and different groups were identical or that my own convictions and experiences did not count (no matter how much I tried to “suspend” them). To echo Timothy Jenkins (1994), different fieldwork encounters required me to undergo a “series of apprenticeships.” Speaking of people’s expectations, I must also note people’s initial conviction that I was one of those “researchers of Lemkos,” a cat- egory of researchers with which local people have become familiar. When I entered a house, I was often asked: “Shall we start with a Lemko wedding?” or, as one old lady instructed me: “Now ask me about the resettlements.” Many people were surprised that I was not that interested in “customs” or traditional songs, but that I wanted to hear about socialist times or local initiatives. For the same reason, middle-aged people were astonished that I wanted to speak to them rather than the “elders” they kept trying to send me to. And there were many Polish people who, regardless of their age, claimed that they had nothing to say and suggested I speak to the Lemkos because “they know something about the local culture.” These examples point to the problem of ethnographic practice in relation to present-day discourse on “culture” and “multiculturalism”: the latter’s influence on people’s perceptions of what culture is and what counts as culture has the power to obscure other important aspects of social life. SEVEN WAYS TO GOD 27

The perception of locally relevant people and issues as confined to “Lemkos” and “Lemko culture” had important consequences for my position in the field. Once people realized that I was interested in “local matters,” broadly understood, I changed from being a “researcher of Lemkos” to “a girl from the city who is too young to remember socialism and who has no clue what rural life is about.” People suddenly recognized they had special knowledge, and they were proud to share it with me, teaching me, for example, how to cook, prepare medicines, and make herbal liqueurs. Many anthropological endeavors have shown that the ethnographer’s apparent incompetence enhances both the hosts’ sense of value and their appreciation of the researcher’s attempts (Okely 2007). For me, this transformation was crucial, for it had two consequences. On the one hand, I sometimes had the feeling that people did not take me seriously. Far from being bothered by this, I discovered that this made them more likely to share all kinds of information, such as details about priests and local authorities. They did not find my questions trivial or stupid, but they assessed the relevance of my questions and the information they gave me in a completely different way than I did. I recall a conversation in which a man told me some gossips about a local priest, and his wife admonished him for wasting my time with “such stories.” To which the husband answered: “She will erase such unnecessary parts from the recording” and continued the story, much to my satisfaction. Also, my spending a whole year in the countryside to do my research seemed strange to many of the inhabitants— they wondered how it was that I wanted to spend a year in such a remote place. My neighbors in the apartment block kept asking me whether I had found a job yet, since simply talking to people surely did not count as one. However, people generally appreciated my approach. They liked that I spoke to people of different confessions and that I was interested in discovering a variety of realities around me by travelling from village to village. They joked that I was “the most ecumenical person in the district.” They especially appreciated that, despite owning a car, I used my bicycle when moving around the villages, which they considered a real effort on my part (given the long distances and the mountainous terrain). Indeed, I learned to use this as a “softening” strategy, as people rarely refused to talk to somebody who bicycled in the rain and appeared at their door soaking wet. I would like to conclude with a few words about the long debated problem of “anthropology at home” or applying an anthropological lens to one’s own context—in this case, Poland, my country of birth and upbringing. The discussion of this subject has been polyphonic, 28 HIERARCHY AND PLURALISM with numerous arguments “for” and “against” being put forward, and the various subtleties of the problem discussed (Jackson 1987; Peirano 1998). My own research illustrates some of these pros and cons, but at the same time proves that it is hard to define certain aspects of native ethnography as decisively favorable or disadvantageous. A good example is one of the major challenges of my work, namely people’s expectations toward me with regard to being a (devout, “good”) Roman Catholic—a “normal Pole.” When I attempted to avoid explicit questions of whether I was a Roman Catholic or not, by replying with my own question, “Why do you think I’m a Roman Catholic?,” people would either answer with a surprised “What else could you be?” or a frightened “Don’t tell us you’re an atheist!,” accompanied by them making the sign of the cross. Such comments would not have been made if I was a foreigner, a “real outsider.” They certainly wouldn’t have spoken to me about Roman Catholic dogma or teaching as they did, namely assuming that such things were already understood and natural to me. But at the same time, it was precisely because of these assumptions about my Polish-Catholic identity that I realized the power of this doxa and investigated the normativity of state/Church discourses. My ability to speak the language yielded similar observations. Being able to speak Polish no doubt facilitated my entry into the field. The Lemko inhabitants always spoke to me in Polish and even if they switched to Lemko, I had little difficulty understanding them. Hence, it could be claimed that as a native I missed an important element of the fieldwork apprenticeship, namely polishing my knowledge of a foreign language or the discussion with local people of how to translate particular concepts. But, again, the issue is not that simple because my stay in the field did mean the discovery of a language: both local expressions and a particular re-discovery of Polish. In fact, soon after arriving in the field, I began taking notes about the “local language,” in which I wrote down the most interesting expressions. I was fascinated by local catchphrases, ways of using certain words, and the humor and bluntness of people’s sayings. In many cases, I knew that I could not render the richness of the way people spoke in my writings, not only because of the limits of translation but also because such expressions are closely linked to the local context. And, despite being a native anthropologist, I still also encountered problems with understanding.27 Many factors define the researcher’s position in the field. In my interactions with people during my research, I sometimes felt “Polish,” but I also often felt (and was made to feel) at various times SEVEN WAYS TO GOD 29 like “a young person,” “a woman,” “a student from Germany,” and/ or “a person from the city.” While acknowledging that “anthropology at home” has its drawbacks and advantages then, I would also question whether we should put so much emphasis on this particular aspect of ethnographic practice. Rather, it seems more productive to note instead the ways in which, close or far, practicing anthropology in a “second home” may help us feel at home in the discipline of anthropology (Bowman 2008). And, no matter whether carried out in a foreign tongue or a native language, the aim is to write an ethnography in which people speak in their own voices. That has been my aim throughout this book.

The Map Chapter 1 presents the historical roots of hierarchical pluralism and discusses how past events and narratives shape contemporary diversity. As it relates how Poland moved from being a diverse state to one of the world’s most ethnically and religiously homogenous nation- states, this chapter challenges some widespread assumptions regarding the taken-for-grantedness of the connection between religion and nationhood in Poland on the one hand, and the idealized view of past diversity on the other. It also shows how both of these assumptions lead to the exclusion of religious and ethnic minorities from mainstream historical narratives. Chapter 2 then shifts attention toward the present-day local context, examining the pluralistic realm of Rozstaje through the lens of several moments and perspectives: a school day, a women’s gathering, and a party. By exploring the different ways in which local people “make pluralism,” the chapter highlights local communities’ constant negotiation between the ideas of sameness and difference, as well as the equivocal outcomes of this process. It shows that, despite numerous joint activities and local policies that question the importance of religious and ethnic division, the system of “living together” is very fragile; and that, despite an array of ethnic, religious, and ethno-religious identities, a “proper” Pole is always a Catholic. Chapter 3 presents diverse and often contradictory narratives about the past of one of the villages and asks how they relate to the problem of religious and ethnic boundaries. Related as both a walk through the village with a group of carol singers and as a series of stops in people’s houses, the chapter shares different stages of the village history as narrated by local people. It examines divergent memories and conflicting historical interpretations and suggests that oral 30 HIERARCHY AND PLURALISM histories can be approached as a means whereby people challenge certain dominant views on history. It also asks whether different (conflicting) historical interpretations necessarily reinforce boundaries or whether it is the boundaries that produce diverse narratives. Continuing this discussion, Chapter 4 focuses on people’s nostalgic memories of socialism and investigates the role of religion in shaping people’s remembrances. Analyzing the ways in which members of different religious communities think about socialism, the chapter highlights both common tropes in their remembrances and varying assessments of that period. Taken together, Chapters 3 and 4 reveal a compound relationship between religion, memory and the (re)production of historical narratives. They show not only that religion is crucial in the very process of memory’s transmission, but that the relationship between memories and religion may strongly influence local construction of boundaries and—depending on the context—downplay or emphasize differences. Chapter 5 sheds light on the institution of “neighborhood” in the context of interreligious conviviality. Tying the problem of neighborhood with that of intermarriage, both of which represent local modes of negotiating religious diversity, the chapter examines the complex links between faith, family, and friendship. Exploring different facets of religion and studying neighborhood as a setting of “ordinary pluralism,” it asks how the dynamics of difference and commonality can trigger a shift from tolerance to xenophobia, exposing the ambiguous nature of multireligious conviviality. It sets out a general description of neighborly life, demonstrating a set of commonly recognized neighborly obligations and prerogatives, and then discusses them with respect to different religious communities and different ways of living religion. By describing two kinds of village meetings, Chapter 6 returns to many of the issues discussed in the previous sections. The first meeting examines people’s care and interest in village and community matters, as displayed in debates regarding how to best ensure the common good of the community. The second example concerns a vote on double-naming that leads to the division of the local population. Inquiring into the reasons for the vote against the introduction of the Lemko name, it emphasizes, on the one hand, the persistence of memories of past conflicts and the connections between ethnicity and religion, and, on the other hand, it argues that the failure of the vote lay in the failure to address the politics of naming as a communal matter. The chapter reveals a range of contradictions within the activities of local government and the attitudes of religious communities: SEVEN WAYS TO GOD 31 it demonstrates how apparently positive politics of multiculturalism can serve to reinforce the Polish-Catholic bond, and how religious communities’ demands of recognition may perpetuate the discourse of exclusion. The conclusion revisits the themes and concepts discussed throughout the book and examines them in the context of the core notion of “hierarchical pluralism.” It foregrounds the multifaceted character of “lived religion” and discusses the study’s broader implications for the understanding of religion, pluralism, relations between religious and secular regimes, and the negotiation of social identities. Part I

Mapping Religious Pluralism Chapter 1

Poland: A History of Pluralism

Commenting on how history is taught in Poland today, historian Marcin Kula observes that the history of Poland is inevitably presented as the history of (ethnic) Poles (1996: 32). The fact that Polish historiography leaves little room for diversity might seem surprising given that for most of its history, Poland was an ethnically and religiously diverse state. Poland’s transformation from one of Europe’s most heterogeneous states into one of the homogenous nation-states in the world paralleled the increasing importance of both the Roman Catholic Church and the idea of the Polish-Catholic connection. Likewise, the state’s concern shifted from a focus on “religious others” to the issue of national and ethnic minorities, often perceived as bearers of religious difference. Understanding this transformation demands a processual approach in the scrutiny of historical events, policies, ideologies, and myths that contributed to the present-day status quo; a focus on a homogenizing rather than homogenous state and the practices that delegitimize diversity rather than a pure account of heterogeneity; and, finally, attention to the very process of making “Catholic Poland.” Of fundamental importance is the ambiguity of successive political regimes’ attitudes toward minorities, in particular their oscillation between rejection and retention of the previous systems, which challenges a number of widespread assumptions regarding religion, nationalism, and the respective regimes. Analyzing the historical background of Rozstaje renders compre- hensible the region’s present-day ethno-religious mosaic and sheds light on the roots of “hierarchical pluralism.” First and foremost, Rozstaje’s history epitomizes the ambiguities of state policies and political regimes’ manipulation of religious and ethnic identities. Brought together, a general account of events in Poland and of more 36 HIERARCHY AND PLURALISM specific developments in the region of Rozstaje casts light on broader questions regarding the accommodation of religious and ethnic diversity within nation-states, the role of intellectuals as myth-creators and myth-keepers, and the ambiguity inscribed into the discourse of multiculturalism.

Some Notes on “Polish Tolerance” The history of ethnic and religious diversity in Poland dates to the first alliances between the Kingdom of Poland and the Duchy of Lithuania (fourteenth–fifteenth centuries), which resulted in the creation of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1569. The Commonwealth is often referred to as the First Republic, since the executive power belonged to a king and the legislative power to an elected assembly of the nobility. Although the Lithuanian and Polish components of the union were formally equal, the dominance of Polish nobility and magnates was discernible. Due to the country’s expansionist policies, in the seventeenth century it occupied Royal Prussia, Ruthenia, Livonia, and Courland—that is, the territories that today form Kaliningrad, Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, and Estonia—becoming one of the largest political entities in early modern Europe. Among its three main ethnic groups, two, Polish and Lithuanian, adhered to the Catholic Church, while the third, Ruthenians, practiced Orthodoxy. Several other ethnic communities settled in the country, either for economic (Germans) or sociopolitical (Armenians) reasons. The biggest population influx was caused by religious persecutions in Western Europe. The first to settle were the Jews, who, expelled from Spain, France, and Germany, migrated to the Polish kingdom from the twelfth century onwards. They were granted a number of privileges, as the monarchs saw in their settlement a potential for developing trade and the economy. Over time, they formed a separate class, and the First Republic became a center for the Jewish world, in terms of both demography and sociocultural developments. It must be noted, however, that despite the fact that some contemporaries referred to Poland as the paradisus Iudaeorum, such privileges did not always hold and pogroms did occur. The second wave of religious refugees arrived in the period of the Protestant Reformation, making the Commonwealth “the shelter of heretics.” Subsequent monarchs guaranteed religious freedom not only to the main currents of the Reformation (Lutherans and Calvinists) but also to minority congregations.

Map 1.1 Border changes in the history of Poland 38 HIERARCHY AND PLURALISM

The cornerstone of those policies was the signing of the “Warsaw Confederation” in 1573, which legislated the statutory protection of religious tolerance, guaranteeing equal rights in public and private life to the nobility and the royal burghers, regardless of their confession. Due to the fact that the confederation was signed in the period of the Counter-Reformation and religious wars in France and Germany, it is interpreted today as an attempt to prevent conflicts and a sign of the maturity of the contemporary politics. Historian Janusz Tazbir calls it “the great card of Polish tolerance” and highlights the admiration for the act among foreigners, quoting the entry in Diderot’s “Grand Encyclopedia”: “Poland [ . . . ] is a country where the least people were burnt for the fact that they made a mistake in the dogma” (1997: 32). What scholars do not often mention (e.g., Kopczyński 2010; Walczak 2011), however, is the fact that the resolution was not always observed and that the situation of religious minorities depended on the circumstances of the time and the outlook of the ruling king. Some confessions, such as Arianism, were eventually banned, while only the most powerful persuasions, namely Lutheranism and Calvinism, maintained their rights. Besides, praise for “Polish tolerance” tends to overlook the fact that no matter how outstanding such tolerance was at the time and no matter how impressive the range of civic and political rights, all this was limited to one estate (Walicki 1999: 263). Also, even if the dominant ideology was that of the “nation of noblemen”— people tied together not by ethnicity or religion but by membership in the nobility (szlachta)—it still involved a distinct hierarchy. As sociologist Antonina Kłoskowska points out, the Commonwealth was “a sociologically very interesting example of cultural polymor- phism, but subordinated to the dominant Polish culture and not only the Polish state,” where nonethnic Poles recognized a hierarchical arrangement of ethnic and national elements, exemplified in the expression gente Ruthenes, natione Polonus [of Polish nationality and Ruthenian origins] (2001: 51). Open to newcomers, the nobility encouraged cultural assimilation, which led to the “Polonization” of Lithuanian and Ruthenian gentry and delayed their national developments (Kieniewicz 2009: 53; Walicki 1999: 266). Yet another significant moment in the politics of religious diversity was the Union of Brest (signed in 1595, declared in 1596), which brought about the administrative and jurisdictional subordination of the Orthodox in the Commonwealth to the Vatican, although they maintained the Greek (Byzantine) rite. The main reasons for the Union were the Counter-Reformation, the Roman Catholic POLAND: A HISTORY OF PLURALISM 39

Church’s attempt to reinforce its position, and the poor status of the Orthodox clergy who hoped to be granted the same privileges as the Roman Catholic priests (Magocsi and Pop 2002: 480). However, the Union should be seen as the outcome of long-standing social, theological, and political processes.1 The idea of the Union was opposed by some Orthodox ecclesiastics, and the Ruthenian Church divided into the Uniate and the Orthodox Church. The process of ratifying the Union was protracted; in some regions, it extended until the turn of the eighteenth century (Himka 1999: 38). Eventually, there were two Eastern Rite churches, but their status varied over time. Despite promises and formal guarantees of equal status, Uniates’ position was lower than that of the Roman Catholics. This led many Ruthenian noblemen to convert to the Latin rite, which led, in turn to the Uniate Church being considered as the church for peasants, while the Roman Catholic Church was seen as the church for the nobility (Kłoczowski 2000: 133). The political crisis of the Commonwealth in the eighteenth century coincided with a worsening social situation for non-Catholics. Accused of having sympathies with neighboring countries, non- Catholics were excluded from parliament, and apostasy from Roman Catholicism was banned and punished with exile. In the East, the war against Orthodoxy and the campaign for the acceptance of Union continued. According to estimates, at the time, 50 percent of the population were Roman Catholic, 30 percent Greek Catholic, 10 percent Jewish, 3.5 percent Orthodox, and 1.5 percent Protestant (Kuklo 2009: 222). All of these factors contributed to an increased influence and strength, albeit neither intellectual nor moral,2 of the Roman Catholic Church. The Counter-Reform offensive brought about the strong position of Jesuits, who, described by non-Cath- olics as “Spanish locust,” promoted the connection between being Polish and being Catholic, and, more generally, equated confession and language (Greek Catholicism and Orthodoxy with Ruthenian, Protestantism with German) (Tazbir 1967: 65). Clergymen enriched themselves and gained political influence; in the time of the “inter- regnum,” it was the cardinal who performed the functions of the interrex,3 often acting against the country’s interests. An ambitious reform program proposed by a group of enlightened and farsighted political leaders (of different religious backgrounds, among them clergymen) did not manage to save the country and, in 1795, the Polish- Lithuanian Commonwealth ceased to exist, partitioned by Prussia, Russia, and Austria. 40 HIERARCHY AND PLURALISM

Partitions Analyzing the period of the partitions (1795–1918) requires particular care, as the situation in the three regions differed substantially. Prussia and Russia pursued a policy of Germanization/Russification, to which the population responded with a defense of the Polish language and the defense of Roman Catholicism against Protestantism and Orthodoxy. Austria’s regime was comparatively more lenient, enabling cultural, political, and religious activities among the Polish, Ruthenian, and Jewish population and furthering the Ukrainian national movement.4 The latter was closely connected with the affirmative politics of the Habsburgs toward the Uniate Church, which, renamed as the Greek Catholic Church (1774) and provided with material resources, became the vehicle of Ukrainian national identity. The phenomenon of a flourishing Greek Catholic Church under the Habsburgs was even more remarkable, considering that the Uniates who found themselves under tsarist rule were forced to (re)join the Orthodox or the Roman Catholics (Magocsi 2008: 41). Generally speaking, Galicia—as the territory under Austrian rule came to be known5—was characterized by civic and political activities and a boom in educational, artistic, and literary endeavors in various languages (Magocsi 2005: 10), despite the fact that the political and cultural dominance of the Poles was asserted by the introduction of the so-called Galician Autonomy, which partly restored the Polish administration (1860). At the same time, due to widespread poverty and an undeveloped economy, the region also saw a large peasant uprising (1846)6 and significant out-migration, as people took their Galician identity and religious creeds to the United States and Canada. In brief, as many scholars who continue to explore “the idea of Galicia” demonstrate (Hann and Magocsi 2005; Wolff 2010; Zięba 2009), the region was a site of both interreligious and interethnic conviviality and fervent nationalisms, which, over subsequent decades, became mutually exclusive. These observations invite us to address the situation in the part of Galicia known as Lower Beskid, the focus of this book.7 Lower Beskid was inhabited at the time almost exclusively by Rusyn population, who differed from ethnic Poles in language, material and symbolic culture, economy,8 and above all religion, since they practiced Eastern Christianity. Orthodoxy was maintained there for a relatively long time: the administrative structure of the Uniate Church was not fully developed until the middle of the eighteenth century (Horbal 2010: 244–5). The peripheral position of the region and the close network of parish churches fostered traditional, village-oriented POLAND: A HISTORY OF PLURALISM 41 life. But by the nineteenth century, the local population became a target of different national movements. The conflict between the “Russophile” and “Ukrainian” movements, associated with the parallel conflict between Orthodoxy and Greek Catholicism, was the most significant.9 The Austro-Hungarian rulers supported both the Greek Catholic Church and the Ukrainian national movement, perceiving them as counterweights to both Russian and Polish influences. At the same time, they were hostile toward the Russophile movement, which was in turn supported by migrants from America, who had converted there to Orthodoxy. Returning to the question of the three different partitions of Poland, it must be added that, despite well-pronounced differences in terms of sociocultural activities, economic development, infrastruc- ture, and levels of literacy, what was common to all was the “nationalization” of the consciousness of the Polish-speaking population, a process that occurred—albeit at different rates (e.g. Stauter-Halsted 2001)—across state borders and different strata of the population. Analyses of the role of literature and the press in this process tend to highlight the role of Romantic writers, who supposedly reinforced the connection between Polishness and Catholicism and encouraged the population to undertake several uprisings for independence (cf. Morawska 1984). The most frequently quoted author is Adam Mickiewicz, who, as it is often emphasized, defined Poland as the “Christ of the nations” and claimed that the sacrifice was a condition for its resurrection as a sovereign country (Mickiewicz 1952 [1832]). Not only does such a selective reading simplify the idea of Polish Romanticism10 but it also overlooks the fact that the presumed relation between Catholicism and Polishness in Romantic reflections was arti- ficially strengthened in later decades. The frequently quoted work by Brian Porter (2001) provides a cogent deconstruction of that process, explicating the ambiguous role of the Catholic hierarchy toward the Poles at the time of the partitions and the no less ambiguous connection between religion and insurrectional activities. As Porter writes, “there were not very many ‘fervent Christians’ among patriotic activists” (2001: 295). While there is no doubt that Roman Catholicism— understood as religious devotion, habitual practices, and communal activities—played an important integrating role in Polish society, the relation between the institutional Church and society was different from what is often assumed today. As a matter of fact, it was Positivism rather than Romanticism that brought about a new understanding of the “Polish nation.” The defeat of the last unsuccessful uprising for independence (1864) 42 HIERARCHY AND PLURALISM resulted in a positivist turn in thinking about the nation, leading to the reconfiguration of “nation as action” into “social nation” (Porter 2000) and new processes of “social deepening” and “ethnic narrowing” (Brubaker 1996: 417). Intellectuals and activists began to define nation in ethno-linguistic terms, suppressing class differences and striving to reach the working class and peasantry alike. Explaining these processes, Andrzej Walicki (1999) highlights the difference between “elite nationalism,” which argued in favor of a multiethnic state and patriotic citizenship, and “popular nationalism,” which led to the nationalization of the masses, stressed common ethno-linguistic base, and was closely connected with socioeconomic moderniza- tion11 (281). This new definition of nationhood, which now included all social classes but excluded the nonethnic Polish population, was to shape the politics of the Second Republic.

The Interwar Period The Second Polish Republic, born after the First World War, was a multiethnic and multireligious state. According to the constitution of 1921, all citizens were granted equal rights regardless of their nationality or confession, though in practice the (ethnic) Poles were a privileged group.12 The number of minorities13 was assessed in two national censuses (in 1921 and 1931), yet both sets of statistics need to be analyzed with caution, given the instability of the country’s borders in 1921, and then the politicization of the 1931 census.14 Taking all these factors into account, Chałupczak and Browarek cite the following figures: among 32 million citizens, there were 68.9 percent Poles and 35.1 percent people of different national backgrounds (11 million) (1998: 21–5). The largest minorities were Ukrainians (15.7 percent), Jews (9.7 percent), Belarusians (5.9 percent), and Germans (2.6 percent). As for the religious landscape, the special position of the Roman Catholic Church was guaranteed by the constitution and the concordat (1925),15 but the actual shape of relations between the Church and the State at the time is debatable. Some scholars stress that there were tensions between state and Church authorities at both the national and local levels (Bender 1992: 545), and that state authorities did not need the Church to implement their policies. They also emphasize that the position of the Church in Poland was weak in comparison with countries like Italy or Spain. But others claim that Church-state relations evolved over time. Although “the Catholic Church was pushed to the fringes of . . . political life” in the first years of the Second Republic, the last POLAND: A HISTORY OF PLURALISM 43 years brought a “rapprochement” between the two (Davies 2005b: 299, 31).16 Nonetheless, the country continued to be religiously diverse: though the Roman Catholics dominated (62 percent), there were also Greek Catholics (12 percent), Orthodox (11 percent), Jews (11 percent), and Protestants (3 percent). At the outset, the politics of “re-born Poland” were shaped by the conflict between two orientations: the nationalist Endecja (from the acronym ND for National Democrats) and led by Roman Dmowski, and the federational, promoted by socialists and headed by Józef Piłsudski. The first group promoted the Polonization of some minorities, but not of others. They regarded the Ukrainians and Belarusians as an “ethnographic mass” that needed to be assimilated into Polish society; they feared and fought against the Germans’ role in political life; they were hostile toward the Jews whom they wanted to deprive of their civic rights and resettle (Chałupczak and Browarek 1998: 244–5); and they perceived national identity as being rooted in Catholicism (Zubrzycki 2006: 57). Contrary to Endecja, the federational model of socialists posited that it was necessary to help the Ukrainians and Belarusians to create their own states, and envisioned a federation of Poland, the Baltic States, Ukraine, and Belarus. They promoted an idea of “state assimilation” that would involve full civic rights and cultural autonomy. After the Polish-Ukrainian (1918–1919), Polish-Bolshevik (1919–1920), and Polish-Lithuanian (1920) conflicts, however, it became clear that the idea of a federation could not be realized and, although the various majority-minority relations had different dynamics, the country’s politics came to exemplify what Roger Brubaker defines as the politics of a nationalizing state (1996: 411–2). Minorities had considerable power in the Polish parliament (in the Block of National Minorities) in the first years of the Second Republic, but subsequent (especially right-wing) governments attempted to limit their influences. The coup d’état in 1926, which turned the parliamentary republic into a presidential-authoritarian system (the so- called Sanacja)17 was welcomed by the minorities, who saw it as an act against nationalist politicians (Chałupczak and Browarek 1998: 268). Sanacja’s minority politics shifted over time and varied in its approach to different minorities; nevertheless, it eventually developed further assimilation policies, limited cultural and educational activities, and instituted a numerus clausus for Jews in some professional and educational sectors. Contemporary historians explain some of these policies by referring to the minorities’ hostility to and subver- sive activities against the state (Roszkowski 2003) and the fact that a key concern for the Second Republic was the young state’s defense 44 HIERARCHY AND PLURALISM and integrity in the face of imminent war (Tomaszewski 1997). As Zdzisław Mach (2007: 55–56) puts it, the “unity of nation was the main theme of state-controlled education, and was strongly present in literature, art, state rituals, and the symbolically constructed public landscape,” and any voices questioning the idea of the “united nation” were perceived as anti-Polish. Although such policies strove to control national groups, in practice they often affected religious communities. What reinforced this process was a strong link between ethnicity, social background, and religious confession. This was especially true for Ukrainian Greek Catholics who were a predominantly peasant population and inhabited the poorest and least developed areas of the country. Hence, limiting the rights of one national group often meant limiting religious education and practices (especially if these were seen as a vehicle of a national message) and xenophobic reactions often had economic underpinnings. The “Ukrainian question” was one of the central subjects of the minority policies. In 1919, after a Polish-Ukrainian war, Poland gained control over eastern Galicia, but the conflict over the rights to this territory shaped events over the next three decades. Soon after the victory, the Polish authorities initiated an intense colonization of the eastern borderlands by awarding distinguished countrymen land ownership in the area, Polonizing offices and educational institutions, and reinforcing the role of the Roman Catholic Church (Moklak 1997: 151). Not accepting Polish rule, groups of Ukrainian militants waged an underground war throughout the interwar period—a series of ter- rorist attacks on Polish institutions and estates—to which the Polish authorities responded with brutal measures of village repressions, arrests, the destruction of religious sites, and forced conversion to Catholicism (Motyka 2011: 29–35). Polish voices proposing different policies regarding the Ukrainians and promoting regional autonomy and cooperation with Ukrainian politicians went unheeded. Among the Ukrainian population, the parties calling for cooperation with the Poles were less powerful than the uncompromising radical fac- tions, such as the UVO (the Ukrainian Military Organization), later transformed into the OUN (Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists), and its military wing, the UPA (Ukrainian Insurgent Army). The problem of discrimination against Ukrainians brings us back to the situation in the “Lemko land.” In the interwar period, both pro-Ukrainian and pro-Rusyn orientations continued their political and educational-cultural activities and strove to establish political parties (Moklak 1997). It was also in the interwar period that the question of the group’s name became highly politicized and the POLAND: A HISTORY OF PLURALISM 45 term “Lemko” began to be used more frequently in place of “Rusyn.” Most importantly, the name was appropriated by the state authorities, who promoted the idea of the Lemkos as an ethnographic group, aiming to reinforce their attachment to the Polish state, weaken their ties with the Ukrainians, and eventually Polonize them. This initial support for Lemko cultural and educational activities, however, was replaced with nationalization policies during the 1930s: the removal of Lemko teachers, the ban of Lemko textbooks, attempts to replace Cyrillic with the Latin alphabet, and cuts to financial support—in short, policies similar to those which only a decade earlier had been implemented against the Ukrainians. Economic investment in the region’s developments and social assistance were tied to the results of Polonization (Przybylski 2006: 19, 131). Scholars—mainly ethnographers, geographers, and linguists— gathered at the Jagiellonian University in the so-called Lemko Section played a ver y sign if ica nt role in t h is process, debat ing t he et hnograph ic borders that would delineate the region’s eastern frontier and supposedly separate the Lemkos from other ethnographic groups. Albeit to different extents and with varying levels of influence, their work (e.g., Pieradzka 1939) reveals scholars’ role in reinforcing the image of the Lemkos as an “ethnographic group,” promoting Polonizing policies, and spreading “Lemkos” as an ethnonym. Their research was used to oppose competing Ukrainian conceptions of Lemko identity (Moklak 1997: 8) and was employed in the fight for “Lemko souls” between the Polish authorities and Ukrainians (Zięba 1997: 33). The state policies influenced the religious field, too. In the first years of the Second Republic, the authorities were very favorable toward the Orthodox Church, which became an autocephaly, financially dependent on the state, and an instrument of Polish politics (Moklak 1997: 171). This enabled missionary activities of the Orthodox clergy, also in the Lemko region. Due to Orthodox proselytizing and the overseas influences mentioned earlier, the Greek Catholics began to convert to Orthodoxy.18 Yet, the authorities soon realized that conversions to Orthodoxy could also strengthen pro-Russian sympathies among Rusyns. Hence, the wave of conversions to Orthodoxy was countered by the state with the establishment of the Lemko Apostolic Administration, which included nine deaneries of the Greek Catholic Church in the Lemko region and, it was hoped, would weaken the Ukrainian influence inside Greek Catholicism. Dependent on the Polish state, the Administration pursue anti-Ukrainian policies and, in the last years of the Second Republic, contributed to the Rusyns’ assimilation (Moklak 1997: 120). Furthermore, violent 46 HIERARCHY AND PLURALISM

Orthodox-Greek Catholic conflicts prepared the ground for the activities of evangelicals and Jehovah’s Witnesses, both of whom began to attract people tired of religious conflict. Certainly, knowledge of state policies alone reveals only a partial picture of majority-minority relations in everyday life. Historical works provide different narratives, ranging from images of peaceful coexistence in multireligious localities to accounts of growing tensions, as revealed in the boycott of Jewish shops, and conflicts between Polish and Ukrainian peasants or between German and Polish burghers. Such contradictory examples can be found in the literature dealing with the region of “Little Poland”—former Galicia—which was inhabited by Poles, Jews, and Ukrainians. Historian Rosa Lehmann argues that social ties between Poles and Jews were “widespread and real” and stresses the importance of contact between children in state schools and on the playground in overcoming interreligious barriers (2001: 96–7). Juraj Buzalka likewise suggests that the high degree of intermarriage between Roman and Greek Catholics is evidence that “local people were less engaged in struggles between religious-national camps than the national history books lead one to expect” (2007: 36–7). In his account of Poles, Ukrainians, and Jews “living side by side,” however, Simon Redlich’s claims that people of different backgrounds only became close in periods of stability, while political tensions quickly led to the disintegration of the community. Redlich adds that both anti-Semitic incidents and anti-Ukrainians acts of repressions were “a far cry from subsequent confrontations” (2002: 164), namely the ethnic clashes during the war. The evidence from my own ethnographic research further complicates the picture, demonstrating the weight of conflicts within one ethnic or religious community. The significant point highlighted by almost all accounts, however, is that social relations depended not only on people’s ethno-religious identities but also on their social backgrounds, which made some contacts and alliances more likely than others. The strength of these alliances and contacts in resisting ethnic and religious divisions was tested by the dramatic events of the Second World War, which brought an end to mixed communities. There is no space here to provide details about the Nazi and Soviet regimes in the occupied territories. Suffice it to say that these regimes sought to annihilate entire ethnic and social groups, transforming, long before war even officially began, vast stretches of Europe into what Timothy Snyder (2010) recently named “bloodlands.” Importantly, interwar politics played a significant role in this process. In an important article, writer and public intellectual Jan Józef Lipski asked (1981) whether POLAND: A HISTORY OF PLURALISM 47 more Jews would have been saved by their neighbors had there not been an anti-Semitic campaign in the Second Republic. Similarly, scholars debate whether different policies toward Ukrainians might have prevented the ethnic cleansing that took place in Volhynia and Galicia.19 Both Poles and Ukrainians saw these regions as legitimate parts of Poland/Ukraine and the occupiers’ policies “offered hor- rible temptations” to resolve the problem “for good” (Snyder 1999). Snyder (1999, 2003a) lucidly traces the escalation of violence that eventually caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of civilians and the resettlement of millions of people. He identifies the deportation and annihilation of Polish and Ukrainian elites by Soviet and Nazi occupiers as a major cause of conflict between Poles and Ukrainians (2003a: 163), and, striving to understand both sides of the conflict, demonstrates their mutually exclusive aspirations.20 The following section explores how the new communist government used the memories and events of the war in pursuing its own policies.

The (Polish) People’s Poland “Postwar Poland was crushingly Polish,” observes Snyder (2003a: 202), adding that “perhaps 97 percent of its citizens would have self- identified as Poles.” This ethnically homogenous country was an outcome of the war and its immediate consequences: the extermination of the Jews and the Roma population by the Nazis, the move of the border to the West,21 and the “relocation” of millions of people— specifically, the displacement of Germans, the “repatriation” (or the “im-patriation”) of Poles from the USSR, and the resettlement of the Ukrainian and Belarusian population in the USSR. Renamed the People’s Republic of Poland (Polska Rzeczpospolita Ludowa, PRL) in 1952, the country was a satellite state of the Soviet Union. The communists (the PZPR or Polish Union Workers’ Party) falsified the results of the referendum in 1946 and the “free” elections in 1947, and seized upon ethnicity as a means to legitimize the new socialist order and carry out various forms of expulsion and assimilation. Some minorities, such as the Kashubians, Mazurians, and Silesians, were defined as “autochthonous” and targeted for Polonization, while the vast majority of Jews who survived the Holocaust emigrated to Israel or North America. Following several pogroms (the most consequential being the Kielce pogrom in 1946) and the government’s anti- Semitic campaign, Jewish emigration reached its peak in 1968. As Snyder notes (2001: 13), such policies revealed that “Polish leaders desired a clean break with the multinational past, that the 48 HIERARCHY AND PLURALISM

‘national state’ was the endpoint of the proletarian revolution.” In state propaganda, the few minority groups that remained were labeled as ex-collaborators with the “German fascists” or “UPA (Ukrainian Partisans) bands,” and many found themselves in prison alongside Polish anti-communist activists, as they were all perceived to be “enemies of the People’s Republic.” Ultimately, minorities were not just discriminated against and deprived of cultural-educational institutions, but they were also erased from public discourse, and their presence and importance in Polish history was obliterated. In order to justify the resettlements and the new borders, many “historical” and “educational” works were produced. The names of the territories that had been previously inhabited by Germans and Ukrainians were changed and signs of the “non-Polish” past, in the form of monuments or inscriptions on gravestones, were removed. Cinema productions and obligatory readings presented the activities of the UPA in black-and-white colors and depicted the strength of the Polish-Russian friendship in the fight against Nazi occupation. The task given to historians was to prove the “eternal” connection of the formerly German territories with Polish statehood. The communist policies against Lemkos and Ukrainians exemplify these processes and can only be understood against the backdrop of wartime experiences. Between 1939 and 1944, the Lemko- Rusyn region was under German occupation. The Nazis favored the Ukrainians over both Poles and Lemkos: they were put in charge of the education system, they had the right to run cooperatives and cultural-educational activities, and they could join the ranks of the militia and the army. The reason for this was the Germans’ attempt to prevent an alliance between Ukrainians and Poles; in the first years of the war, the Germans used Ukrainians efforts to create a state to realize their own aims.22 By the end of 1944, the region was occupied by the Soviets, who mobilized approximately 3,000 Lemkos for the Red Army (Misiło 1993: 100). A period of brutal deportations followed, carried out first by the Soviet occupation forces and then by the Polish communist authorities. In the period of 1944–1946, around 60 to 70 percent of the prewar population was moved to the Soviet Union in accordance with Soviet policies that sought to make the conquered states “nationally pure” (Reinfuss 1990: 129). Lemkos’ attempts to prevent deportation by converting to the Latin rite23 and sending petitions to the authorities remained unsuccessful. The communist authorities justified the deportations by referring to prewar legislation. For example, they resettled the Lemkos who had “voluntarily” served in the Red Army on the basis of the law of 1938, POLAND: A HISTORY OF PLURALISM 49 which stated that inhabitants who lived abroad and served a foreign army could be deprived of their citizenship, or they used against them laws that had applied to the Jews and communists in prewar Poland (Misiło 2002: 78, 80). People who avoided the first wave of deportations remained on their farms only a little longer. In 1947, with the consent of the Soviet authorities, the Polish government resettled the remaining Ukrainian and Lemko population. The official reason was to deprive Ukrainian partisans, who continued an underground war in both Poland and the Soviet Union, of the support of the local population. Today, there is wide consensus among scholars that there was little support for UPA action in the Lemko region and that the reasons for their brutal repression were not military but political: the ultimate aim was the assimilation of the Ukrainians and Lemkos (Motyka 2011; Snyder 2003b). The Lemkos’ lack of support for the UPA has been shown not only by scholars (Motyka 2002; Horbal 2002) but also by the reports of UPA members (Motyka 1999: 297–9).24 Given that the operation employed Stalinist methods to relocate an entire population and given the principle of collective responsibility, scholars argue that the deportations were a communist crime and constituted a form of ethnocide (Motyka 2011: 461). Before taking their final decision, the authorities consulted an “expert,” a professor from the Polish Academy of Science who described the Lemkos as a disloyal, opportu- nistic, passive population, who had little to do with the Polish nation (Best and Moklak 2002: 170). “Operation Vistula” took place between April and August 1947. Twenty thousand Polish soldiers and militiamen were charged with carrying out the deportation of about 140,000–150,000 people, among them 50,000–60,000 Lemkos. People were given very little time to pack their belongings, which they were forced to carry to one of the gathering points. Their journey to the “recovered lands” (territory gained by Poland from Germany) would take several weeks, and both before and during the journey, the authorities carried out inter- rogations. Some 4,000 people were arrested and over 450 Lemkos were detained (and several died) in Jaworzno, which had previously been part of the Auschwitz-Birkenau complex of camps. Those who were dispersed in the new territory faced many difficulties, both from the authorities who discriminated against them, and from the Poles who were there, themselves deportees from Ukraine and Belarus. Not only were the Poles the first to settle there, but they also brought with them a fund of memories and stories of UPA crimes in Volhynia.25 Furthermore, the Greek Catholic Church was proscribed. 50 HIERARCHY AND PLURALISM

The communists arrested the Church authorities, nationalized the Church’s properties (in 1947), and promoted the Orthodox Church instead (Stępień 2008: 86–7). Therefore, although the communist government aimed to build a “new socialist Poland” in opposition to its “bourgeois” predecessor, it actually preserved a good deal of the prewar policies. The calls of prewar national democrats for a “Poland for the Poles” and the total assimilation or the expulsion of minorities were, ultimately, realized by the communists (while many people who did not accept the communist rule and hoped for the restoration of the Second Republic, engaged critically with its heritage26). Although the situation of the minorities improved after the political thaw of 1956 (allowing, for instance, some Lemkos and Ukrainians to return to their original set- tlements27), minorities still had no political representation and were considered to be only part of the country’s “folklore.”28 Not only were the nationalist arguments used to legitimize the new communist regime, but they also meant a transformation of the communist ideology, with the ideas of patriotism and national unity dominat- ing over class issues (Zaremba 2005). The integration of an ethnic- defensive ideology into the communist doctrine was common in other Soviet-bloc countries (Verdery 1996), but the Polish case is special in that the teachings of Catholic hierarchy accompanied this process29. As Jan Kubik points out, the Church’s vision of an ethnically and religiously homogeneous Poland, with Catholicism as its religion, was “an image of Poland that mirrored the state’s vision” and was thus problematic for non-Catholic anticommunists (1994: 122). In short, both the state and the Church30 were promoting the idea of a “Poland for the Poles.” Redrawing the ethnic map of Poland also meant changing the religious landscape. After the war, a vast majority of the population was Roman Catholic (90–95 percent)—this included those for whom being Catholic meant being in opposition to the dominant communist ideology (Chrypinski 1990: 126). A diachronic analysis of the statistics shows that the number of Poles declaring themselves to be Catholic has always been higher than the number of people declaring their belief in God; communism furthered this process, even if only indirectly, leading to the reinforcement of ritualistic aspects of Polish Catholicism.31 The importance of the Catholic Church increased due to a number of factors: the exceptional independence of the Church in Poland in comparison with other countries of the former Soviet bloc (cf. Ramet et al. 1990); the Church’s opposition to the state and defense of dissidents (Dudek and Gryz 2003); the Church’s self-representation as “both victim of the communist system and POLAND: A HISTORY OF PLURALISM 51 timeless heroic defender of the nation” (Zubrzycki 2006: 205); and finally, the communist state’s failure to create a socialist national identity (Kubik 1994). Taken together, scholars argue that all of these factors strengthened the bond between Catholicism and Polishness (e.g., Casanova 2001). While it is hard to question the role of the Church as a platform of independent activities or the impact of the pontificate of John Paul II (Kubik 1994), the interpretation of the Polish-Catholic identity is more problematic. For instance, James Bjork’s (2010) remarkable contribution challenges the idea that Catholicism was important for maintaining national identity. Highlighting the differences between “regional Catholicisms,” Bjork suggests that the relation between Catholicism and Polishness was not that strong in the postwar period and that it was created rather than reinforced through “an ideological project: a mystically unified Catholic Poland moving through history” (2010: 148). Moreover, the communist authorities quickly realized that winning against the Church was impossible and that the Church had to be taken seriously. Thus, after some initial tensions, the Church and the state worked out a form of coexistence: every time the state needed the Church’s support, it would negotiate privileges and concessions with the episcopacy in exchange for the “proper” content of pastoral sermons and letters.32 To give some examples: in 1950, the condemnation of anticommunist partisans was exchanged for safe-guarding the Church’s properties and religious education; in 1956 and 1970, sermons to calm protesting workers were promised in exchange for relaxing censorship policies; and in the 1980s, the Church’s reluctance to support Solidarity’s protests or the voices that invited society to accept martial law turned into a boom of sacral buildings. Therefore, given that the Church’s support for the opposition was somewhat ambiguous,33 it was rather the particular way in which the two systems coexisted which resulted in reinforcing the Church’s position. Finally, as to oppositional activities, general participation in religious practices did not necessarily deepen faith but reinforced—or created (Bjork 2010)—social-national ties, with religion providing a “cultural schema” for action (Kubik 1994: 128). The communist state’s policies on religious minorities took different forms, ranging from attempts to limit or even destroy religious institutions to using minority confessions as instruments against the Roman Catholic Church. Kazimierz Urban (1994) distinguishes four phases of confessional policies: 1945–1949/50, characterized by relatively liberal policies and equal treatment of the different confessions; the complete reversal of this approach in the period of 1950–1956, with the state essentially declaring war on religion, confiscating 52 HIERARCHY AND PLURALISM churches’ property, and engaging in various forms of repression; the policies of 1956–1975, which strove to make religious congregations similar to secular associations; and finally, the last decade of communism, which marked a definite liberalization. The 1980s brought about the registration of new religious communities (such as Buddhists), the legalization of previously persecuted groups (such as the Jehovah’s Witnesses), and the division of large congregations into smaller units (various Evangelical movements) (Urban 1994: 100–1). All these policies were implemented in different ways at the local level, as the evidence from my field research shows (Chapter 4). It is beyond question that minority issues were less relevant for the state than its relations with the Roman Catholic Church. And, it is beyond question that, unlike in other countries of the Soviet bloc, where churches regained their social positions as a result of the postcommunist transformation, the Catholic Church in Poland had gained most of its privileges before the communist regime ended (Dudek and Gryz 2003: 437). In 1989, the communist authorities, who hoped for the Church’s neutrality in the forthcoming elections, granted the Church a variety of rights and after 1989, most of the democratically elected governments of the left and right adopted a similar practice.

Poland after 1989 The situation for minorities began to change at the end of the communist period, when the opposition included the question of minorities in the list of their proposals. Among the most important changes were the creation of a funding system for minorities’ social, cultural, and educational initiatives, depoliticization of minorities’ issues, and the inclusion of their representatives in the parliament. Minorities’ rights are declared in the Polish Constitution (1997), which guarantees (Art. 35) Polish citizens who belong to national or ethnic minorities the freedom to maintain and develop their own languages, to maintain their customs and traditions, and to develop their own cultures; it also gives them the right to establish their own cultural and educational institutions to protect their religious identities, and the right to participate in resolving issues which relate to their cultural identities. Since the constitution does not specify what national means and what an ethnic minority is, it was complemented by the “Act of 6 January 2005 on national and ethnic minorities and on the regional languages,”34 which provides a closed list of minorities: nine are defined as national (Belarus, Czech, Lithuanians, Germans, Armenians, Russians, Slovaks, Ukrainians, Jews) and four as ethnic POLAND: A HISTORY OF PLURALISM 53

(Karaims, Lemkos, Roma, Tatars), that is, as minorities that do not identify with a national state. The legislation is the outcome of thirteen years of fierce debates characterized by xenophobic comments, the fear of granting minorities too much power, and arguments that minorities in Poland are better off than Poles abroad (Kirpsza 2008: 17–8). The final regulations, especially the division of minorities into “national” and “ethnic” categories, have been severely criticized.35 Once again, the situation of Ukrainians and Lemkos is illustrative. The new political system provided the possibility of establishing associations, organizing cultural activities, and introducing Ukrainian and Lemko languages into the school curriculum. However, a vast majority of the new policies concern “culture” (broadly understood) and do not translate into improvements in other areas. In 1990, the parliament condemned “Operation Vistula,” but this was not followed by any material compensation.36 Many Lemkos had hoped to get back the forests that were nationalized in the 1950s, but the authorities have created a range of obstacles; to the best of my knowledge, all the people who have gone to court regarding this issue were as of yet unsuccessful. Some Lemkos suggest that one of the reasons for their weak position is the division between themselves and Ukrainians and the two communities’ adherence to both the Orthodox and the Greek Catholic Church. They claim that, if Lemkos and Ukrainians would only join forces, their chances of getting their shared interests addressed would be better. But instead, the developments of last two decades have only sharpened the conflict between the two, forcing people to choose between attending Lemko or Ukrainian language classes or supporting pro-Ukrainian or pro-Lemko associations. Recent state legislation has been in a milestone in this process. It has been shown that in the interwar period the Rusyn population was defined as “Lemko” in order distinguish it from the Ukrainians; in the communist period, the Lemkos were considered “Ukrainian” in order to justify their resettlement; and the act of 2005 defined Lemkos as an “ethnic minority,” in contrast to Ukrainians who are regarded to be a “national minority.” Ukrainians objected to this decision (as well as to the decision recognizing the Lemko language as distinct from Ukrainian), perceiving it as interference in Ukrainian- Lemko matters, while many Lemkos welcomed it as finally settling the debate about Lemko identity (Kirpsza 2008: 20). Certainly, a solution satisfying all sides was impossible to reach and the decision needs to be seen as the consequence of long-term processes. In addition, both Ukrainians and Lemkos have faced assimilation- ist policies. In the 2002 national census, which was controversial for a 54 HIERARCHY AND PLURALISM number of reasons,37 the number of Ukrainians was nearly ten times smaller than earlier studies had suggested (Babiński 2004: 145) and a similar discrepancy was cited in reference to the Lemko population (Barwiński 2009: 20). Scholars argue that the bad design of the ques- tionnaire is not enough to explain this enormous discrepancy: what needs to be highlighted is the success of assimilation and Polonization policies and the persistence of negative stereotypes, mediated by particular representations of past conflicts and historical occurrences, all of which make it more likely that Ukrainians and Lemkos will conceal their identities. In fact, many press publications in the period preceding the census predicted that, ironically, in the typically Ukrainian settlements, there might be no declarations of Ukrainian identity. Further indirect evidence of minorities concealing their identities is found in the data measuring adherence to the Greek Catholic Church, for which the figure is a multiple of that for national belonging, and which simultaneously accounts for the importance of religion as a marker of ethnic identity. The most recent and methodologically per- fected38 census (2011), presents higher, yet, in the eyes of minority activists, still nonrepresentative figures.39 The aforementioned acts grant minorities the right to preserve and promote their “traditions” and “cultures,” which are often related to religious activities. The data presented by the Ministry of the Interior and Administration also highlight the connection between national and religious identification.40 Nonetheless, the relations between the state and religious congregations are regulated by separate acts. The basis for these regulations is the constitution, which guarantees freedom of expression and beliefs (Art. 15), the equality of churches and religious congregations, and the state’s impartiality in religious matters (Art. 25). At this moment in time, there are fifteen churches that enjoy the position of “historical churches.” Their relationship with the state is regulated by separate acts; among them are the Orthodox, Greek Catholic, and several Protestant churches. As to numeric strength, the largest communities today are the Orthodox (500,000), the Jehovah’s Witnesses (120,000), the Lutherans (80,000), the Greek Catholics (50,000), and the Pentecostals (23,000). Despite the protests of the other churches about religious education or the financial regulations, the legislation guaranteeing the Catholic Church’s privileged role has been upheld since the late 1980s (Urban 1994: 124–5). Already in 1989, all the goods under the Church’s surveillance were transformed into its property; in this way, many Orthodox and Protestant churches (taken up in 1945) fell into the Catholic Church’s ownership, before their original owners managed POLAND: A HISTORY OF PLURALISM 55 to claim them. The apex of this process of privileging the Church was the concordat between Poland and the Vatican (signed in 1993, rati- fied in 1998), which granted the Catholic Church special status and confirmed its privileges.41 Most importantly, the Catholic hierarchy “left churches and entered the public forum” (Marody and Mandes 2006: 58) as, itself, a political player striving to influence state legislation. Evidence of this can be seen, for instance, in the introduction of religion into the school curriculum,42 debates on abortion law, the Church’s contribution to shaping the Polish constitution, and the law regulating broadcast media in the 1990s—the latter of which aimed only to “protect” Christian values and Polish Catholics, according to the Church, but sought to “impose” such values on all citizens, according to its critics (Burdziej 2005; Eberts 1998, Ramet 1998; Zubrzycki 2001). All this would not have been possible without the state’s permission, which leads to the question of the Polish state’s reluctance to use its own prerogatives. In the face of Church pressure, the government abandoned the idea of a referendum on abortion (in 1991); withdrew the proposal to refund the costs association with “in-vitro” fertility treatments (in 2008); and persistently blocks discussion regarding the legitimacy of religion as a school subject. It must be observed that the state has often acted in favor of the Church’s position, defending the latter’s position in the public sphere, without having been asked to do so; the fact that the Polish parliament has a special commission tasked with counter- ing atheisation in Poland is but one proof of this.43 Further illustrative examples have been gathered by Zbigniew Pasek (2006), who observes that many politicians,44 at both the national and the local level, have gone far beyond existing legislation to act in favor of the Church. He cites, for examples, instances in which politicians forbade a Pentecostal meeting in Częstochowa (the main Catholic center in Poland), because they perceived it as an “activity based on rivalry”; they put obstacles in the way of the Jehovah’s Witnesses building Kingdom Halls; they excluded the Hare Krishna from participating in educational activities; and they have, in general, treated all new religious movements with suspicion, seeing them as dangerous sects45 (2006: 189–191). Pasek’s examples prove that “religious others” are perceived as threats to the Church’s position and they indicate that Catholicism is considered a “traditional” religion, while other religious communities—no matter how long their history in Poland—are seen as a new (and threatening) phenomenon. This, in turn, serves as justification for the pervasiveness of Church and Catholic symbols in the public sphere; they are not (only) Catholic but (also) traditional, and hence “normal.” 56 HIERARCHY AND PLURALISM

The historical account above is provided to illustrate the processes that have led to the Poland of today—a country in which 97 percent of its inhabitants are ethnic Poles (GUS 2002) and 95 percent declare46 themselves as Roman Catholics (CBOS 2009). The legislation of contemporary Poland opens the field for pluralism, providing religious and national/ethnic minorities with the freedom to perform their identities, establish associations, and be present in the political life. However, many different factors—above all, the realization of state policies—lead to a narrowing of pluralism, and the promotion of the Polish-Catholic connection to the exclusion of both religious and national “others.” Present-day historiography too plays a role in this process.

A Multicultural Poland? In Poland, as elsewhere in Central-Eastern Europe, the period of postcommunist transformation meant the rewriting of recent history, which often involved radical changes in historical interpretation. It entailed, among other things, bearing witness to events that had been taboo subjects in the People’s Poland and a return to the traditions of prewar Poland—to a “normal” history (Verdery 1999: 40)—which led once again to the removal of monuments and the changing of names. At the same time, it brought with it a clash between two different ways of thinking about Polish history: one which promotes the vision of a “polarized world [ . . . an] essentialist concept of national identity, ethnic nationalism, and the close link between Polishness and Catholicism,” and one which calls for a “more open, more inclusive and tolerant” view (Mach 2007: 60–1; cf. Zubrzycki 2006: 78). The latter approach has opened debates regarding the history of Polish-Ukrainian conflicts and Polish co-responsibility for the Holocaust (Engelking 2011; Motyka 2011), spurred discussion of the complex heritage of the Second Republic, and problematized the view of the communist period as one of constant struggle between society and the state. Yet, this approach has also become marginal in Polish history-writing. Instead, a Polish-centric view of history tends to dominate, enshrining the idea of an eternal and exceptional Polish- Catholic connection, avoiding comparisons, and failing to recognize that there were numerous “bulwarks of Christendom”47 and numerous “nations on the cross.”48 A detailed analysis of educational policies, cultural works, and ways of allocating public funds in Poland—all of which plays part in (re)producing different national mythologies and reinforcing the normalcy of the Polish-Catholic bond—is beyond the POLAND: A HISTORY OF PLURALISM 57 scope of this analysis; I thus limit myself to saying a few words about one particular phenomenon, namely a peculiar use of minorities in promoting the doxa of Catholic Poland. One of the new and increasingly popular readings of Polish history recasts the legacy of the First and the Second Republics in multicultural terms. The fact that the two republics came to an end because of foreign powers (partitions in the first case, the war in the second) constitutes the basis for a narrative that highlights the role of outside factors in destroying the tradition of “Polish tolerance” and the model of “multicultural coexistence,” which is depicted as a Polish invention. Such a view is especially pronounced in reference to the Polish- Lithuanian Commonwealth, in which the model of multiculturalism was “harmoniously and consequently realized” (Siewierski 2010: 10) and was possible due to an exceptional Polish tolerance (Rykała 2011: 338). As such, Poland is presented as not only compatible with the aims of the present-day European Union but as, in fact, preceding and exceeding them: the EU is an artificial and bureaucratic entity while the Commonwealth was a “natural” creation (Siewierski 2010: 10; Kopczyński 2010). According to this narrative, the role of Poland in the EU lies in both serving as a reminder of Christian values and as a lesson in multicultural coexistence. In many Polish scholars’ eyes, the past experience of multiculturalism has an impact on the present- day society as it “( . . . ) constitutes a solid element of the collective imagination” (Kempny et al. 1997: 9; cf. Golka 2010; Kopczyński and Tygielski 2010; Kowalska et al. 2011). The problem with defining the Poland of the past as a multicultural one lies not only in the misapplication of the term “multiculturalism”49 but also in the fact that framing the then ethnic and religious diversity in terms of “different cultures” is meaningless. Questioning the sense of using the concept in reference to the early modern period, Urszula Augustyniak emphasizes that in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth there was an idea of two cultures: Christian and non-Christian ones (2009: 88). Other scholars underline that the “nation of nobles” embraced the idea of a homogenous Polish culture and was far from a proponent of multiculturalism (Kieniewicz 2009: 53; Walicki 1999: 265). The latter observation applies to interwar Poland, too: at that time, given the context of national awaking, modernization, and the establishment of nation-states, the means of transmitting a dominant national culture were even more powerful and widespread, as were the means of excluding “unwanted” groups and individuals. Hence, the idea of the past “multicultural Poland” conflates multiculturalism with the mere presence of different ethnic 58 HIERARCHY AND PLURALISM and religious groups, while glossing over the question of different understandings of “nation,” “culture,” or “citizen” and ignoring the problem of the dominant Polish cultural context of religious and ethnic diversity. What is most important in this new reading of Polish history is the fact that the narrative of multicultural Poland in the past and present has a similar effect to that of scholarly works that highlight an intrinsic, “natural,” and “by all means special,” connection between Catholicism and Polishness (e.g., Żaba 1991). It is similar because the discourse on multicultural Poland highlights the separateness of ethnic and religious “others” from the core of Polish-Catholic culture; their contributions to Polish socio-cultural history are framed as non-Polish, as there can be diversity in the nation but not of the nation (Porter 2001: 292). Such a discourse allows the presence of “others” but underlines that this presence is owed to Polish tolerance and ensures that “others” do not infringe on the idea of the Polish- Catholic bond as natural and special. Far from serving minorities, then, this discourse of a timelessly multicultural Poland constitutes yet another means of promoting an exclusively Polish-centered historical narrative. And its effects are discernible beyond scholarly discourse since multiculturalism constitutes an important element of regional policies and marketing strategies, which would willingly transform most Polish localities into open-air museums of multiculturalism. Although a growing interest in local history is no doubt positive, it often leads to further “othering” of minorities, presenting them as cultural and folkloric attractions that have contributed no more than culinary specialities and folksongs to the country’s history. This background—the mechanisms of imposing the Polish- Catholic bond as natural and a peculiar promotion of diversity—is crucial, yet not sufficient, for understanding the arguments presented in this study. The present-day mechanisms of religious/ethnic minorities’ exclusion (carried out under the label of “inclusion”) need to be analyzed in the context of other discriminatory discourses, for example, whether and how they relate to a social class,50 a sexual minority, and/or political opponents (cf. Mucha 1996). The Polish-Catholic narrative promotes but also assumes uniformity: the very same reading of national history,51 identical experiences of communist times, and, last but not least, a singular understanding and experience of religion. In the next several chapters, I present these histories, experiences, and understandings as multivocal, and in so doing, I provide a more complex picture of Polish multiculturalism. Chapter 2

Making Pluralism: The People and the Place

Fieldnotes, January 30, 2009 ( . . . ) Visit at Józek’s house. We sit in the kitchen, in a very vibrant setting: a big tile stove, an ensemble of old and new household devices, plastic toys all around the floor. Józek and his wife sit next to me at the table. Their daughter-in-law leans against the stove, keeping the youngest son on her lap. Two other kids run around the kitchen or crawl on the floor. From time to time, one of the adults goes to the stable to feed the cattle. When I arrive, the hosts ask me if I want to eat a plate of tomato soup and potato dumplings; it feels good. The daughter-in-law is mostly silent, while Józek’s wife tries to outshout her husband. Józek settled in the village when most other Poles did, in 1947. His wife, of Lemko origins, was born in the village; her father was Polish so the family was allowed to stay. Despite this fact, Józek believes he knows the local history much better than she does. For instance, he makes fun of the alleged cooperation of Lemkos with the UPA as the reason for Operation Vistula, seeing it as illogical: “Ukrainians? Here? We are so far from Ukraine!” At the same time, he says that in 1947 “real” Poles were brought to the area. All in all, the couple’s account conforms to a now familiar narrative: first a discussion of resettlements; then a debate on whether communism was bad or good; then an account about ex-communists who today occupy the first benches in the church; then the argument that Roman Catholic priests should be allowed to have wives. Eventually, they begin to tell me about the different denominations that inhabit the district: “There is us, that is Roman Catholics. There are Ruthenians (Rusini), i.e., Lemkos, i.e., Orthodox . . . Then there are Greek Catholics, you know: neither fish nor fowl . . . There are Jehovah’s Witnesses (Jehowi)—in our peasant way we call them ‘tomcats’ (kociarze)1 . . . Then 60 HIERARCHY AND PLURALISM

there are Baptists or Pentecostals, God only knows . . . And there are Buddhists—those would not even kill a fly!” ( . . . )

In my notes following this encounter, I entered a short comment: “counting religious communities is undoubtedly the most popular local sport.” Indeed, most of inhabitants I talked to wanted to share with me their knowledge about local religious denominations. They often disagreed, providing an overstated number of different religious confessions and citing examples of communities that they presume settled in the district. Although some of the descriptions had a derogatory undertone, these were often used in a nonreflective way; I witnessed very few conversations in which a pejorative term was employed consciously. Usually, the aim of providing me with the list of all the religious communities laid in highlighting both the uniqueness of the area and the distinctiveness of its inhabitants, who were presented as having developed their own “ecumenism.” However, my conversation with Józek and his wife, above, also provides a glimpse of the ambiguities inscribed in the discourse on and the practice of diversity. The different ways in which local people “make pluralism” demonstrate communities’ constant balancing between the ideas of sameness and difference, as well as the equivocal outcomes of this process. Despite the activities of numerous inhabitants and policies of local leaders that downplay religious and ethnic divisions, local ecumenism turns out to be very fragile. For all the variations of ethnic, religious, and ethno- religious identities, a Lemko is still always expected to be a cerkiew member and a “real” Pole is still always a Catholic. Concurrently, a religious conversion, frequent in this religiously dynamic area, often entails an ethnic conversion as well. This phenomenon of the ethnicization of religion and the relation between religion and ethnicity2 more broadly have been addressed by numerous scholars, who compare the importance of religion with that of language (Lockwood 1981), highlight the role of clergymen as ethnic communities’ leaders (Verdery 1985), and discuss the function of religious institutions in the life of ethnic communities (Enloe 1980).3 Their studies demonstrate that religion is a powerful vehicle for expressing ethnicity, given religion’s normative, community- building, and institutional aspects. In light of above remarks on religious-ethnic conversions, it is worth referring these observations to Fredrik Barth’s landmark theory of ethnic boundaries (1969). Engaging critically with Barth’s conception and two analytical trends that developed out of his work—“circumstantial/situational” and “constructionist” approaches—Eriksen (1991) and Cornell (1996) MAKING PLURALISM 61 contend that at the center of an analysis of intergroup relations should be—to paraphrase Barth—the ethnic boundaries that define the group and the cultural “stuff” that the boundaries enclose. Cornell observes that a focus on ethnic identity as a “contingent, volitional, negotiated phenomenon,” should not disregard the fact that “identity, however produced, is both prism and tool through which people interpret and conceptually construct the world” (1996: 267). Distinguishing three types of ethnic attachments—related to interests, institutions, and culture—he argues that these factors interact with external conditions and ultimately influence the patterns of ethnic persistence and change (1996: 268). Religion can be thus perceived as the “tie that binds” ethnic groups: allows them to perpetuate their ethnic identities and encompasses all three dimensions identified by Cornell. These observations highlight the role of lived religion as a means of expressing ethnic identity4 but they fail to explain how religion and ethnicity became so normatively entangled in the first place, such that it is expected that a Pole must be a Roman Catholic. Indeed, the bond between Polishness and Catholicism is imbued with so much normative meaning that this “tie” appears natural even to non-Catholics. Henceforth, scrutinizing the complex entanglements between ethnic and religious identities must constitute the first step in getting familiar with the local religious landscape. I take this step by, first, describing the village of Leśna, inhabited “only” by Roman Catholics and two Eastern Christian denominations. Nonetheless, this focus does not mean leaving aside other religious communities inhabiting the area. Quite the contrary, only by examining the relationship between Catholicism and Polishness and that between Eastern Christianity and Lemko identity is it possible to understand why the idea of “Pentecostal Lemkos” or “Buddhist Poles” gains little trac- tion in the area and to make sense of the impact of religious-ethnic bonds on the shape of pluralism.

Mapping Pluralism Leśna, by local standards a middle-size village (around 400 people), is inhabited by Roman Catholics, Orthodox, and Greek Catholics. The latter accounts for only a few families, while the number of Roman Catholics slightly exceeds the number of Orthodox. Most of the inhabitants work in agriculture. Other sources of income include work in the stud horse farms and the rapidly growing area of farm tourism. The village has a grammar school with a public library, a health center, two shops, and a village room where official meetings 62 HIERARCHY AND PLURALISM and cultural activities take place. Inhabitants of all denominations bury their dead in the common village cemetery, but they pray in two different shrines: the Orthodox community uses a small chapel while Greek Catholics and Roman Catholics share a cerkiew. Since the mid-1960s, the social life of the village has been organized by a thriving Circle of Rural Housewives, which cooperates closely with the local school, parishes, and two men’s associations: the Voluntary Fire Brigade and the Hunters’ Club. Leśna is considered to be a well-organized village community that socializes, cooperates, and works across ethno-religious divisions. Although no Pentecostals or Jehovah’s Witnesses live in the village, both groups are well known by the inhabitants, and the Witnesses praise the inhabitants of Leśna as the most hospitable of the local villages. Leśna’s hospitality is also praised by recent newcomers, who, enchanted by the tranquility of the area and accessibility of the plots,5 have built summerhouses there. As in Marilyn Strathern’s account of rural England, newcomers are surprised to find that there is little public life in the village and that it lacks a well-delineated “open forum” (1984: 53). In fact, public life in Leśna, as in all the localities in Rozstaje, takes the form of microscale encounters among neighbors, school visitors, or people who gather outside the shop for a beer. In discussing interreligious conviviality, inhabitants emphasize that the Roman Catholic and the Orthodox priest, both of whom live in the village, are very close friends, and set a good example. The priests in question echo this sentiment, emphasizing that they don’t just strive to be present at each other’s important religious celebrations, they also socialize in private. They are both in their early forties and share many interests. The Orthodox priest’s sons refer to the Roman Catholic priest as “uncle,” and he often joins the Orthodox priest’s family for dinner. During the religious festivities I attended, the priests often reminded their parishioners about the other parish’s festivities or holidays (which, by the way, seemed unnecessary given that familiarity with both religious calendars is deeply ingrained in the local knowledge). In contrast, apart from the village events and ecumenical services that involve all three clergymen, the Greek Catholic priest is virtually absent from village life. This can be attributed to neither the small number of Greek Catholics nor the fact that the priest resides in a neighboring village. Rather, the crucial factor is the specific configuration of relations between the three creeds. Although both Orthodoxy and Greek Catholicism are considered “Lemko churches,” the position of the latter in Rozstaje is much weaker. The religious history, or, more precisely, histories of Leśna illustrate this MAKING PLURALISM 63 point, accounting for the observation of Agnieszka Halemba (in press) that the specific ways of practicing Christianity have more to do with local histories than with characteristics of “Orthodoxy” or “Catholicism” as some kind of theological ideal. Data regarding the population of Leśna at the outbreak of the Second World War vary; although the registers from the late 1930s recorded only Greek Catholics and a few Roman Catholic and Jewish families, the village chronicler observed that “some people deep down belonged to the Orthodox.”6 No Orthodox shrine had been built in the village at that point, but the village was undoubtedly a site of clashes between “pro-Ukrainian” and “pro-Rusyn” leaders, the latter associated with the Orthodox creed. The original Greek Catholic cerkiew burned down in 1915 and was rebuilt in 1938. While the church was being rebuilt, the Greek Catholics had prayers in a small chapel. After Operation Vistula, the rebuilt church was taken over by the Roman Catholics, with the eventual return of some Greek Catholic Lemkos in the 1950s. Over the next two decades, fierce conflicts revealed the complexity of religious and ethnic identifications and the clash of very different understandings of “tradition” and “religious belonging.” The first disagreement arose in the early 1970s. At that time, a Greek Catholic priest, who avoided imprisonment and resided in a neighboring village, would come sporadically to the village to say mass in the Eastern rite. On Good Friday (according to the Julian calendar), he was arrested by communist security service when he came to Leśna for a service, and the Greek Catholics’ setting of the Holy Sepulcher was demolished. While Roman Catholics explain the event in terms of communists’ fight against Greek Catholicism, Greek Catholics assign the fault to local Roman Catholics who, as they recall, shouted “we do not want to have Ukraine here!” while destroying the Holy Sepulcher. They also blame the then Roman Catholic priest, a very influential and hateful clergyman, who went so far as to forbid his parishioners to speak to Lemkos. Afterwards, the Orthodox priest from a neighboring village came to say mass for the local Lemkos. Thanks, in part, to the support of the authorities, who used Orthodoxy to counter the remaining Greek Catholic influences, and the Lemkos’ wish to worship according to the Eastern rite, Orthodoxy was established in the village, attracting most of local Lemkos. The Lemkos renovated the old wooden chapel, which had been repurposed as a storehouse after the war, decorated it with icons from a museum and used for their prayers the ornamental Bible that used to belong to Greek Catholics. 64 HIERARCHY AND PLURALISM

The second conflict took place at the beginning of the 1980s. After a morning mass, Roman Catholics and Greek Catholics (i.e., those who did not join the Orthodox church) locked themselves in the church as it was surrounded by the Orthodox population. The reason for the “siege” was the demand of the Orthodox to be able to worship in the cerkiew, too, as the small wooden chapel turned out to be insufficient for the community’s needs. Apart from a few nursing mothers, the people inside the church remained there all day, until the Orthodox priest finally sent his parishioners home. The clash proved unsuccessful, and the Orthodox continued to pray in the wooden chapel. Once again, however, retellings of the event vary, with some people arguing that the issue was really one of communist security services trying to disturb religious practices. There have also been conflicts between the two Catholic communities. In 1985, the Greek Catholic parish was reactivated and in 2004 the shrine was officially given back to its original owners. The decision was controversial, with conflict fuelled by the two respective priests at the time. Both communities claim rights to the shrine, either as rightful owners or as the largest congregation. Today, the shrine continues to be used by both confessions, and though the small Greek Catholic community is now the exclusive “owner,” it struggles financially to maintain the shrine. Finally, the last conflict occurred between Roman Catholics on one side and the Orthodox and Greek Catholics on the other. In this case, the disagreement centered around the introduction of the village sign in the Lemko language.7 The idea was met with hostility by the Roman Catholics, provoking animosities among people who were otherwise close neighbors and friends. Even though the conflict regarded an ethnic issue—the rights of an ethnic minority and recognition of its language—it was framed in religious terms; Greek Catholic and Orthodox Lemkos spoke about Roman Catholics’ deceitfulness and hypocrisy and emphasized the Roman Catholic clergy’s opposition to the sign. Present-day relations between Greek Catholics, Orthodox, and Roman Catholics continue to be ambiguous. They can be seen, alternately, as illustrating the unquestionable similarities and closeness of the three creeds, or the hostility and competition that continues to divide them. But while the local realm is marked by changeable “alliances,” the position of Greek Catholics often turns out to be most precarious, precisely given their intermediary position between Roman Catholics, with whom they share the dogmas, and the Orthodox, with whom they share the liturgy. At the level of church MAKING PLURALISM 65 authorities, this status of being “neither fish nor fowl” translates into lack of support from either of the other churches; Orthodox priests perceive Greek Catholics as traitors or dissenters, while local Roman Catholic clergymen are often unaware of the fact that Greek Catholics are members of the same church. Relations between the three creeds are much less straightforward at the level of the faithful, illustrating the tension between dogmatic and practical aspects of religious creeds as well as the dynamics between local religious and ethnic identities, which requires a more detailed elaboration. In his discussion of “Christianity’s internal frontier,” Chris Hann (1988) notes that “‘ethnicity’ in South-East Poland cannot be reduced to any simple theory of national identity [ . . . ] it is quite possible to be a ‘Lemkian’ at one level, a Ukrainian at another, an Orthodox Slav at another, and a loyal Polish citizen in yet other contexts” (12). The local people’s identifications are indeed multilayered; not only do they vary in importance but they are also differentially activated according to context through “situation selection” (Evans-Pritchard 1963 [1940]). Unlike in other biethnic and bireligious contexts (e.g., Driessen 1991; Cecil 1993; Pelkmans 2003), in Rozstaje ethnicity can rarely be ascribed to a particular religious identification and even a purely analytical presentation turns out to be quite problematic. Taking “Poles” and “Lemkos” as two ideal-types, it is possible to describe the local mosaic as follows. In general, the Lemkos belong to either the Greek Catholic or the Orthodox Church, both churches are perceived by Lemkos and by other religious communities as “Lemko churches.” Among the Lemkos, there are also numerous Pentecostals, some Adventists, and some Jehovah’s Witnesses. While the members of the former (Pentecostals) tend to highlight their Lemko identity, the latter (Jehovah’s Witnesses) rarely do so as it is seen as diverging from their creed. As for the Poles, the majority belong to the Roman Catholic Church, but they can also be found among the other religious congregations: Pentecostals, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Adventists, and Buddhists. There are also Poles who attend the Orthodox or the Greek Catholic Church because of family ties, usually marriage; this is even more common among Lemkos who joined the Roman Catholic community. Further, the description of ethnic and religious identities needs to be supplemented by the Polish civic identity, which also opens a wide field of possibilities. Some Lemkos consider themselves to be simultaneously Lemko and Polish, expressing their attachment to two traditions and two identities. Others clearly distinguish between their ethnic Lemko identity and their Polish citizenship, and still others are hostile toward the Polish identification and 66 HIERARCHY AND PLURALISM stress either their Ukrainian identity or claim that the Lemkos are a separate nation (see Michna 1995). And then there are the Buddhists or Pentecostals who, although “ethnically” Polish, may perceive their Polishness quite differently from the way Polish Catholics understand it and, by the same token, their Polishness may be questioned by the Polish majority. This last observation highlights the problem of self-definition versus the ascription of ethnic difference (Jenkins 1997: 53), and hence the question who and on what basis someone can be defined as Polish or Lemko. The view of Pentecostals who consider themselves to be Lemkos has to be understood in relation to the opinions of the Orthodox and Greek Catholic Lemkos who do not consider them to be Lemkos. Indeed, for many Eastern Christian Lemkos, a Lemko who does not attend a cerkiew is an oxymoron, a contradiction in terms. A similar relation, albeit one that involves even more charged emotions and is highly dependent on the sociohistorical circumstances, exists between Orthodox and Greek Catholics in places like Leśna, where Lemkos can choose to participate in either Orthodox or Greek Catholic services and then claim one of the churches to be “truly Lemko.” Another example of the complexity of these identifications is the local perception of the small group of Buddhists: the inhabitants who had never met them often suggested to me that “they must be foreigners” or asked me whether the Buddhists know Polish. All these examples demonstrates a paradoxical composition of religious and ethnic differences: on the one hand, it is impossible to attribute one religious denomination to one ethnic group, but, on the other hand, there are clear expectations and assumptions regarding how these forms of identity map onto one another. Thanks to this widespread “ethnicization of religion,” there are many circumstances in which self-ascription and categorization by others collide. Further complicating this picture is the prevalence of religious (and ethnic) conversion. Though the act itself means different things to different people and varies widely in terms of “degree,” conversion is part of numerous family biographies. In the case of Lemkos, either their parents or they themselves left the Greek Catholic Church for the Orthodox or began to attend the Roman Catholic Church. To all this must be added conversions (albeit often temporary) to Pentecostalism, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Adventism. The process of conversion continues, and it does so in various “directions.” It is, perhaps, most perceptible in the case of Roman Catholicism, a denomination that gains new members thanks to assimilatory tendencies MAKING PLURALISM 67 but also loses members who become disheartened by Catholic priests’ attitudes and/or Church-related scandals. In short, apart from Polish people who inhabit predominantly Roman Catholic villages, it is hard to find any family that has not undergone a religious change of some sort and has not experienced at least some extent of religious diversity under its own roof. Furthermore, people often consider as “conversion” the attendance of Roman Catholic Church by Greek Catholics (and vice versa) even though these denominations are a part of one Church. However, due to the ethnic aspect involved, in the local realm such a step may be even defined in terms of “treason.” Explaining their religious choices, Orthodox and Greek Catholics usually reach for the notions of “return to father’s faith”8 or state that they “began attending” a different church, while members of evangelical communities assert that they “discovered” God, “got to know” the truth, or “realized” what was the right way. These different understandings and experiences of conversion highlight the anthropological wisdom of studying the “movement” that conversion entails rather than its “content” (Pelkmans 2009: 12). Such an approach enables one to acknowledge the diversity of religious crossings, while emphasizing the significance of the crossing itself. It is worth reiterating that what is special about such “movements” in Rozstaje is the fact that a religious conversion often entails an ethnic one. To conclude this description of the local ethno-religious mosaic, it is useful to briefly sketch the ways in which the various religious communities regard one another. Despite their numerous conflicts, Catholics and Orthodox generally perceive their religious creeds as strikingly similar. Even one of the Roman Catholics priests admits: “In fact . . . we differ mostly in the length of services . . . Whether the Holy Spirit comes from the Father and Son or only from the Father . . . it is like debating the difference between yellow and canary yellow . . . ” To Orthodox and Catholics, Protestant communities differ mainly in terms of their organization of religious life, which is perceived as individualistic and not very formalized, and where priests are given “surprisingly little authority.” Jehovah’s Witnesses are sometimes distinguished through their proselytizing activity and sometimes mixed up with Adventists and Pentecostals; only those who are well-versed in the Bible enter into debates regarding the precise differences in denominations’ religious teaching. For their part, Adventists and Pentecostals are extremely critical of Jehovah’s Witnesses, whom they do not hesitate to call a sect, 68 HIERARCHY AND PLURALISM questioning whether that group deserves to be called Christians given that they reject Christ’s deity. In reference to Catholics and Orthodox, they pinpoint different misconceptions, listing the adora- tion of icons, cult of saints and Mary, ways of performing sacraments, and the role given to the priests. At the same time, they are likely to note that the Orthodox “at least” allow priests to marry. Talking about each other, Pentecostals point out Adventists’ heavy reliance on the Old Testament (manifested, for instance, in the celebration of Saturdays), while Adventists view Pentecostals as unduly disregarding it; overall, however, they rarely challenge the closeness of the two denominations which, depending on the context, may be perceived as an advantage or as a hindrance. Jehovah’s Witnesses approach all other religious communities in a similar way, namely, through an effort to proselytize them. This is not to say that Witnesses do not recognize the differences among other groups, but that in proselytizing—which constitutes their main concern—they do not pay attention to a potential convert’s religious belonging. Finally, the community of Buddhists is the least known locally; what people frequently underline is the fact that, “as far as they know,” Buddhists do not have any rituals, sacraments, or even religious community as such. “They must address God differently,” inhabitants commonly observe; notably, a religion deprived of faith in God is inconceivable. The reference to the community of Buddhists—so small that its presence appears barely relevant to the dynamics of the area’s religious life—is actually extremely important for comprehending the nature of local pluralism. The perception and reception of Buddhists demonstrates that “religious others” are transformed into partners in interreligious dialogue and are perceived as rightful subjects in the process of “making pluralism” as long as they belong to a religious community and express a commitment to a religious creed. In short, as long as they are intelligible as a religious group, even seemingly strange and foreign others can and will be mapped onto the landscape of local pluralism. One Pentecostal man’s statement, “There is one God, there are just different ways of getting to Him,” exemplifies the widespread approach to local diversity, even if this assertion may be marked by different shades and tonalities. For some inhabitants, it is enough to simply recognize other faiths; for others, recognition is tempered by implicit or even explicit ranking, an understanding that some ways are better than others. All of these different views are reflected in local usage of the notion of “ecumenism.” MAKING PLURALISM 69

Talking Pluralism In describing the dynamics of local life, local people frequently draw on the notion of “ecumenism” (ekumenizm or ekumenia). The ways in which they use this term do not necessarily correlate with the actual meaning of “ecumenism” (i.e., promoting the cooperation of different Christian denominations). Rather, most of the villagers use this notion to denote the multiplicity of religions and (desired) attitudes toward diversity. The villagers got the term from the church teach- ing9 and adopted it for their own use, transforming it into a polyva- lent concept denoting the different experiences of “living together.” Depending on the speaker’s assessment of current developments, the term can be invoked proudly, affirmatively, bitterly, critically, or even cynically. Asked about relationships with her neighbors, one elderly Adventist woman stated: “They are good, we all strive to act in the spirit of, you know . . . ecumenism.” Recognizing the ambiguous nature of interreligious conviviality, an Orthodox woman sighed deeply and remarked: “So, you see, that’s how this ecumenism is!” And a Buddhist woman, recounting how a Roman Catholic priest tried to convince her to buy her daughter a necklace with a cross so that the girl would not feel “different,” laughed and concluded: “That sort of ecumenism the priest thought up.” The point is not that some people view ecumenism positively and others negatively, or that some place hope in it, while others are completely disillusioned. Rather, it is important to understand that, given a different situation or in order to relay a different kind of anecdote, these same speakers might express a completely different assessment of local pluralism while still using the discourse of ecumenism. In the local understanding, ecumenism is not “either-or,” “good” or “bad”; it is multivocal. Approaching local diversity in this way, people demonstrate their awareness that multireligious coexistence needs to be continuously evaluated in terms of specific positive and negative experiences. Moreover, they demonstrate their awareness that only such an approach permits the local community to “carry on.” The following extract from an interview with Michał, the Pentecostal pastor, illustrates this point:

( . . . ) And as to “ecumenism”, at the beginning of the 21st century journalists would come constantly here. One day, a team of journalists came and here . . . [They stopped] an elderly lady (babinka) . . . [and told her]: “Ma’am, it is really great here, with all these Lemkos, and all these . . . these . . . these twelve confessions you’ve got here. You’ve 70 HIERARCHY AND PLURALISM

got such a great ecumenism here!” [The old lady answered:] “Indeed, ma’am, we have ecumenism. We do have it! Over there, at the cemetery—one lies next to another.” ( . . . ) She really made a point, and another old lady standing next to her added: “We also have ecumenism at the local petrol station. Everyone goes to buy petrol there” ( . . . ) And this is the way people perceive it . . . people really don’t see problems, while journalists look for sensation, [they ask:] “what kind of recipes do you have that . . . confessions live together.” Well, we live side by side, we have to, we have to strive to achieve an agreement, to look for those . . . positive relations. And the fact one goes to one church and the other to a different church is a completely, completely . . . not a priority at all. If this was the most important thing, then we would have problems and conflicts.

In his description of ecumenism, the pastor contrasts the outsiders’ perspective with the local understanding diversity. He makes fun of journalists who wonder about the possibility of coexistence of different religious creeds and perceive it as something extraordinary. The contrast between the journalists’ and inhabitants’ views illustrates the widespread tendency to prioritize ethnic/religious forms of identity, as if no other factors, such as political views, neighborly and family bonds, or professional relations, shaped social relations. In other words, the incredulity that accompanies the question “how do you manage to live together?” reveals the assumption that ethnic and religious coexistence must bring with it conflicts, tensions, and problems. During my fieldwork, I witnessed an exemplary case of this approach with a “Workshop for Tolerance” that was organized by a woman who had recently settled in the area, in cooperation with a Warsaw NGO. The workshop was addressed to local inhabitants, particularly local leaders (such as teachers and priests), and aimed to help them develop better communication skills and attitudes of openness and to promote the idea of multiculturalism. When I asked a teacher who participated in the workshop her opinion about it, she answered, annoyed: “I do not have anything against such workshops. But I have a feeling that we live fine here, until somebody comes and tells us we need to learn to be tolerant!” Generally, discourses heralding multiculturalism translate either into some sort of educational policy or some form of regional promotion that seizes upon “Lemkos” as the icons of local multiculturalism. Completely foreign to the local realm, the concept of multiculturalism is used by local inhabitants either in a purely strategic way— e.g., on websites promoting farm tourism or in grant applications for EU funds—or with a hint of irony, as when inhabitants comment, MAKING PLURALISM 71 winking, on the life in the “multicultural” district: “It is obviously good—we’ve got multiculturalism today!” People’s mockery of mul- ticulturalist discourse as well as their own conceptualizations of interreligious coexistence show that “demotic” discourses are capable of deconstructing “dominant” discourses that impose ethnic and/or sectarian divisions (Baumann 1996), and challenging “statist multiculturalism” (Mayaram 2008). However, the difference between indigenous and outsiders’ approaches should not be overstated; describing attempts to promote tolerance “from above” as destructive or superficial risks idealizing the local discourse and overlooking what Ortner labels as people’s own politics (1995; cf. Buzalka 2006: 310). Opinions about interreligious life that prioritize local knowledge and local practices need to be critically analyzed themselves. Whether they speak of ecumenism, the country’s politics, or national history, local discourses challenge the views of “outsiders,” but they also tend to construct locals as smart, cunning, and able to outfox strangers. While opposition to “artificial” external policies may lead to a valuable reconstitution of majority-minority relations—a phenomenon of great importance in shaping pluralism—it also risks pet- rifying the configuration of local relations. Put differently, to say that we live “fine” and want to keep living this way can become a powerful justification for the status quo and the taken-for-grantedness of the majority’s dominance. Ecumenical practices and stands are possible as long as they do not transgress the established order or preclude the reinforcement and reproduction of that order. The experiences of three generations of Leśna inhabitants make this fact evident.

Forging pluralism

A school day A group of seven- and eight-year-old pupils of Leśna grammar school take their task very seriously: bending over their desks, with their noses nearly touching white pieces of paper, they make drawings with colored pencils. I walk between the benches, trying to peek over their shoulders and look at their works. A few minutes earlier, I asked them to draw for me a scene from the village life or a place they consider precious; basically whatever they wanted and found important. Their teacher, a serious lady in her fifties, follows me and keeps talking to me about how difficult today’s children are: they do not want to study, they do not read, if they could they would play computer games all day long, parents spoil them buying expensive toys. All this destroys 72 HIERARCHY AND PLURALISM their creativity and imagination, she sighs, disheartened. When we approach a girl who draws passionately in a hurry and smiles to us widely, the teacher asks her, reproachfully: “What is this?” The girl answers proudly: “My home and my animals and . . . ,” but the teacher interrupts her: “So you think that your house is so interesting?,” and commands: “Draw a church or a cerkiew instead!” Terrified, the girl turns the paper over and starts a new drawing. I try to point out politely that the kids were supposed to draw whatever they wanted. My intervention annoys the teacher but at least she leaves the other kids in peace. A few months after arriving in Rozstaje, I came to realize that if I did not attempt to reach a younger generation of inhabitants, I would capture only a limited set of experiences. I considered the use of pictures and photos to be a good way of attracting children’s attention and inviting them to share their life experiences and perspectives with me. This idea came to my mind on the occasion of my first visit to Leśna’s grammar school, attended by around one hundred children, a third of whom are Orthodox and Greek Catholic. During that visit, I got to know the school’s headmaster, a cheerful and outgoing man in his early forties, named Franek, who also serves as the school’s physical education teacher and is passionate about sports and history. After a short conversation, the headmaster gathered all the students in the gymnasium and gave me the chance to become acquainted with them. I pretended that I knew nothing about the region and asked them which places and events they considered important. A small boy raised his hand promptly and said enthusiastically: “In our river, there have been beavers for some days now!” His classmates cor- roborated, saying that they managed to take a picture and describing what the beavers look like. After the beaver revelation, the conversation continued. I learned from the students about the abandoned Lemko villages, about the places in the forest where one can still see the trenches from the Second World War, and about the best spots for picking mushrooms. They also mentioned churches and cerkwie, describing the differences between the two. Franek stayed with me and provided clarification and additional explanations. He smiled all the time and seemed proud of his charges. After that rich and engaging conversation, it occurred to me to ask the children to draw and take pictures of village life. The youngest children made drawings and about sixty children joined the pho- tographic workshop, working in groups of two or three people.10 We agreed that they would photograph three kinds of places in their villages: places important to them, places important to their parents/ MAKING PLURALISM 73 grandparents/relatives, and places important to the village inhabitants in general. These assignments aimed to address the importance of intergenerational transmission, patterns of the social life of the village, as well as the children’s awareness of diversity. In addition to taking pictures, the children were asked to keep a diary of their work, recording their ideas and descriptions of the places they photographed (see Figures 2.1, 2.2, 2.3, and 2.4, accompanied by the quotes from the diaries). The children had roughly one month for this task; all went very smoothly and on the agreed day they all brought the cameras back to the school. In the next stage of the process, I brought the developed pictures to the school, which again led to a discussion of their content. Having seen the result of their work and exchanged their impressions about them, the children were asked to choose one or two pictures for an exhibition for the children’s relatives and other teachers during one of the village’s festivities, called “Grandparents’ Day.” The workshop produced valuable material, allowing me to understand children’s relations to the place they inhabit and their perceptions of diversity. First, the students took a lot of pictures of places that were important to them as children: a hill where they go by bike, a meadow where they play soccer, a favorite path in the forest. They frequently focused on nature, photographing plants as well

Figure 2.1 “It [the camera] captured part of the house, but I meant to photograph that spruce which is forty years old. It was planted by my grandfather.” 74 HIERARCHY AND PLURALISM

Figure 2.2 “Figures by Mr. Sculptor [a Lemko artist].” as domestic and wild animals. Describing the pictures, they commonly expressed their attachment to the village/landscape by using the notions of “my” or “our” (“our mountains,” “our bridge,” “my way to school”). Second, they paid attention to what was old, photographing old monuments, chapels, and trees and attempting to guess (more or less accurately) their ages: “an old well,” “an old granary,” “the oldest tree in the village,” “the domes of the cerkiew, they are about 200 years old,” “a linden tree which is about 100 years old.” Some also explained the importance of such old places for their families (“An old chapel where our grandmas used to pray,” “the Peasants’ Circle where my grandfather used to work”) and expressed their feelings about the heritage of the village (“This is what is left of an old dairy. It is such a pity it got destroyed”). Some children documented how work had been done in the old days, by photographing “old- fashioned” appliances, for instance washtubs or choppers. They also attempted to document historically important facts; most of them photographed one of the many war cemeteries (“buried soldiers”). At the same time, they focused on what was happening now, on ongoing changes and problems; for instance, they took pictures of the founda- tions of a new Orthodox shrine in a neighboring village (“founda- tions of our new cerkiew”) and of an overfilled rubbish container which, in their opinion, proved a lack of care for the environment. MAKING PLURALISM 75

Figures 2.3 and 2.4 “The consecrated bell [in an abandoned Lemko village].”

Third, the children’s photos showed their awareness of local diversity and their familiarity with the Lemko past of the village. Although mainly Lemko children photographed Orthodox or Greek Catholic monuments, memories of “Operation Vistula,” and old villages, 76 HIERARCHY AND PLURALISM

Polish children also documented Lemko roadside crosses and chapels. Everyone who took a picture of Leśna’s church, which is used by both Greek and Roman Catholics, emphasized in their description that it belonged to two communities (“cerkiew in Leśna/Church.” “Roman Catholic—Greek Catholic Church”). Not only did the pictures offer a novel and enriching perspective, they also showed a surprising level of artistry. All in all, the project gave me access to the often overlooked perspective of children and their understandings of village and the school life. The quickest way to get an idea of the pluralism in the school is to look at the timetable, which is displayed next to Franek’s office. The school offers three optional religion classes—Roman Catholicism, Greek Catholicism, and Orthodoxy—and four supplemental language classes: English, German, Lemko, and Ukrainian. Not only is this a remarkably rich program for a grammar school but it contrasts significantly from that of other schools in the district, which offer only Lemko or Ukrainian classes.11 The issue of languages is particularly memorable for me as it was one of things about the school that Franek shared. During our first conversation, he said proudly: “In our school, we teach five languages: Lemko, Ukrainian, German, English, and Polish.”12 He added that the school was the first in the region to introduce Lemko and Ukrainian; both languages have been taught since the 1980s, first as after-school classes and then, when the new legislation allowed for it, during regular school hours. Likewise, he proudly mentioned the three religion classes and emphasized an exemplary cooperation between the priests who even substitute for each other in case of one’s absence. Although the presence of Roman Catholicism in the school curriculum is now a subject of growing controversy (among parents, teachers, and children) and is seen as a violation of the separation between Church and state, such criticism is rarely directed towards non-Catholic religion classes. The presence of different religion classes could be simply explained as a sign that the confessions are treated equally, yet there is also a practical reason: Orthodox and Greek Catholic parish members often live in different villages, and it is much easier for the priests to gather all the students at school than in one of the churches. In the months following my first visit to the school, I had more opportunities to become familiar with the practices of “making pluralism” there. I was able to observe that the Christmas atmosphere in the school lasts a whole month, a period when both Roman Catholic and Orthodox/Greek Catholic festivities take place. I learnt that on the first of November (All Saints’ Day), teachers and students go to MAKING PLURALISM 77 the cemeteries dating from the First World War to clean the graves and light candles on the graves of soldiers of different nationalities. Visits to the cemeteries and frequently organized historical hikes are key elements in the schools’ curriculum, which aim to develop children’s attachment to the region and its history. I also observed a range of school policies stressing “sameness,” in particular the sameness of rights and obligations, related, for instance, to the respect for the food children receive at school or care of the environment. On the last day before Christmas, the children come to school in festive clothes to have a meal with their classmates, teachers, and parents; they sing Christmas carols and exchange Christmas greetings. Afterwards, the whole school community gathers in the gymnasium for a special program. The year I attended this event, the oldest students performed a humorous play in German, about a Polish girl who goes to Germany for Christmas (a translation into Polish was provided). She is very surprised to find Christmas trees and carols there that she knows well from her own context and defines as “Polish.” At the same time, she discovers traditions that are new to her, such as the four Advent candles that are placed on the dining- room table. The performance was followed by two speeches. Taking the floor, the headmaster explained how he understood the moral of the story: first, “others” are not necessarily different from “us” and, secondly, it is worth discovering their culture. Next, a timid student representative said a few words about Christmas as the time of peace and respect. Afterwards, there was a group competition in which the children answered questions about Christmas, and then a short carol singing performance. At the very end, the headmaster wished everyone “Merry Christmas” and gave every child a bar of chocolate. Many students hear such greetings twice: the Orthodox and Greek Catholic children celebrate Christmas on January 7, and they are not expected to come to school on these days. After the children went home, Franek invited the teachers, clean- ing ladies, and guests for a meal. He himself had cooked the borsch and other employees brought fish, salads, and sweets. This final part was also attended by a group of retired teachers who are invited for the Christmas meeting every year (“It is a school tradition,” Franek proudly told me). Currently employed teachers rewarded the headmaster with a gift, thanking him for his work devoted to the school and the village. Indeed, together with local priests, Franek is often mentioned as a person who, through his work at the school, does much to foster good relations in the village. Continuing the work of his predecessors 78 HIERARCHY AND PLURALISM who made the school a common good of the village,13 Franek has striven to transform the school into a platform for various kind of interactions among inhabitants, and not just on special occasions, such as the Christmas celebration. In fact, whenever I happened to be at school, I found the headmaster’s office packed with people: a talkative bus driver who stopped for a cup of coffee and joked with the librarian, two priests chatting, a retired teacher engaged in conversation with cleanings ladies, an inhabitant who came to borrow a piece of school equipment or needed to scan a document and, while there, exchanged “newest news.” Such seemingly banal meetings and conversations are very important in the life of the village, making the school a sort of public sphere that the village otherwise lacks. The importance assigned to the school invites a more detailed inquiry into the relation between different institutions responsible for socialization. In her work on a French rural school, Deborah Reed- Danahay (1996) remarks that the interplay between the influence of the family and the school is crucial for understanding the outcome of educational policies. In her view, the lack of such an analysis is a drawback in Bourdieu’s theory of education, because it results in a deterministic view of the power of the dominant culture (1996: 26). My observations account for the importance of different factors, yet their role in shaping the local context appears to be more complex. Whereas in Reed-Danahay’s view, it is parents who teach children about the importance of regional identity and local life and challenge the homogenizing discourse of the national institution, in Leśna many teachers perform this task also. The importance of such under- takings is even greater given the religiously and ethnically diverse context and the burden of past conflicts. Franek, himself Roman Catholic, is one of the closest friends of the Orthodox priest. He is very proud of the friendly relations in his mixed neighborhood, the mutual respect and the close relations between the Orthodox and the Roman and Greek Catholics. He stresses that he grew up and went to school with children of different religious backgrounds, and that these experiences help him in design- ing school policies. For Franek, tolerance does not mean “to bow to each other,” but rather, having “a selfless respect for others,” and this is what he wants to teach the children:

We teach: he has these convictions and you have others, he speaks one language and you a different one, this is a private matter, but there are certain values which we have in common ( . . . ) The worst is when somebody from outside comes, then the frictions start, when [that MAKING PLURALISM 79

person] does not know the local circumstances, then even in the mixed families conflicts arise. The worst is if somebody who is “too clever” comes from outside.

In most of our talks, Franek put emphasis on both common values and respect for difference as constituting the basis of good social relations. His words also illustrate an aforementioned tendency to foreground the importance of locally developed “ways of doing,” and to contrast these ways with those of outsiders14 who lack knowledge about the local context. Indeed, Franek rarely talks about Lemkos and Poles, Orthodox or Catholics; he is much more likely to refer to locals as farmers, villagers, or the community in general. He strives to transmit to students his passion for local history, which, in his understanding, is a common history; what makes it common is the fact that it belongs to all the people who inhabit the village and aim to embrace religious and ethnic diversity. Do students’ families also speak of this common history? The pictures taken by the students demonstrate the importance of intergenerational transmission and the value assigned to one’s family home as an element of the local landscape. In their diaries, children made notes about walks with their parents and stories learnt from grandfathers. The question is, to what extent do such family stories and practices connect with those of neighbors and coinhabitants? The Roman Catholic priest, who works at the Leśna school, comments on this in the following way:

There was a day . . . As far as I remember it was the last or the first day of school year. The Orthodox priest did not hold a religious service on this occasion while I did and [Catholic] students had to come to school earlier. One [Orthodox] boy for some reason came to school too early, and he says: “Oh, Poles came already?” [He is] the fourth grade student [but he asks:] “Oh, Poles came already?” And he sits with Poles on one bench. He sits with a Pole, I know it, because sometimes when the Orthodox priest is absent I take over his duties, discussing a subject which is good for both [denominations]. But no. Simply, he’ll say that he sits with a Pole. They are taught to think this way at home [my emphasis].

In the priest’s view, the efforts of Franek, the Orthodox priest, and himself to bring the inhabitants of the village together are wrecked by family milieus in which the memories of past conflicts and divisions are preserved. It is due to such memories, the priest suggests, that a neighbor, a coinhabitant, a classmate is, after all, a Pole or a Lemko. I 80 HIERARCHY AND PLURALISM don’t necessarily agree with the priest’s assessment that family ambience reinforces ethno-religious boundaries more than, for instance, local churches do. To me, the Orthodox boy’s expression may as well reflect a widespread equation of religion and ethnicity. But I quote the priest’s words here because a few months after our conversation this same clergyman strongly encouraged local Poles to oppose the idea of adding a town sign in the Lemko language, thereby reaffirming the division of “Lemko” and “Polish” inhabitants and the opposition of their rights, in short—underlining that ecumenism has limits.

A Women’s Gathering The house of one of Franek’s closest neighbors, Michalina, is probably one of the most frequently and eagerly visited homesteads in Leśna. Living near the main road that connects the village with other localities, Michalina often hosts people who are on their way to the shop, waiting for the bus, or simply dropping by with news. The mother of seven children, she was widowed young and worked hard to make ends meet. Today she is in her late fifties and enjoys taking care of her grandchildren and running a small farm tourism. Michalina is a member of the Orthodox Church, yet she persistently plays down the differences between different denominations. She sometimes attends Roman Catholic services, too, and asserts that she does not see any important differences. She holds a high reverence for clergymen, seeing them as spiritual guides: she provides the Orthodox priest with homemade bread and from time to time invites the “wife-less” Catholic priest for lunch. The practices of Michalina’s family also call into question the weight of confessional divisions. Since one of her sons-in-law is Roman Catholic, the family celebrates Christmas and Easter twice, and her grandsons serve as altar boys in both Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches. Talking about the importance of ecumenism, Michalina always highlights the importance of the Circle of Rural Housewives, a group whose activity is closely connected to the religious life of the village. Usually, the Circle, the school, and local priests join forces to organize a feast and collect money for a charitable purpose, yet the organization of the event itself is charged to the Circle. During one of my visits to her house, Michalina related the history of the Harvest festival to me. Before the Circle “took things into its hands,” the inhabitants of Leśna used to celebrate the Harvest separately, in three different parishes. A few years ago, the members of the Circle came to the conclusion that an event of such importance should be celebrated MAKING PLURALISM 81 together and went to the three priests with the idea of a joint festivity. In order to stress the equality of all the confessions, they planned to place the Harvest wreath into the hands of a different priest every year.15 Not only did the priests agree to the proposal, but they also negotiated with their superiors and gained permission to celebrate a joint service. Since then, the Harvest festival has become one of the largest and merriest festivities in the village. It starts with the procession of the Circle’s members, who are dressed in traditional folk costumes and carry the wreath and a bas- ket with fruits as symbols of a good harvest. The inhabitants stand along the road that leads to one of the churches and gradually join in the procession. At the entrance to the shrine, the three clergymen wait to welcome the procession and bless the gathered people. A solemn service is then celebrated, followed by refreshments, music, and dancing. Usually, the Circle’s members enrich this part of the festival with a short singing performance. The performance I observed was a mix of folk songs and cabaret. The women had prepared a very funny spectacle, transforming a traditional Polish chant into a story about marriage problems. They made the audience laugh by recounting the women’s sexual dissatisfaction and the men’s failures in making their wives happy. Although presented in a humorous way and “veiling sentiments” (Abu-Lughod 1988), it projected the image of strong women who know what they want from life. Indeed, through the organization of the Harvest, the Circle members prove that they are actors in the local religious scene, shaping the form and content of this event, and working out new forms of ecumenical activity. Following their example, the men decided to celebrate a traditional male festivity, the day of Saint Hubert (the patron saint of hunters), with all three priests. The Harvest and the Circle’s other initiatives were one of the main topics of the celebration of Women’s Day (March 8). On that occasion, the members of the Circle (about twenty women, whose average age is forty) met in the village room to eat dinner, plan new activities, and gossip about current matters. Apart from the usual participants, there were two very old ladies, honorary members of the Circle, and two men—a village leader who brought a flower for every woman and then quickly disappeared, and “Mr. Tadeusz,” the traditional brand of Polish vodka (which also quickly disappeared). Although the meeting was intended as a festive get-together, the Circle’s head, Teresa, used the opportunity to discuss urgent issues, such as the need to provide young people with a place to meet and the suggestion to organize a picnic and collect money to pay for a 82 HIERARCHY AND PLURALISM holiday camp for the poorest children. The gathered women spent quite a long time exchanging ideas, reflecting on possible solutions, and thinking about other people in the village whom they could involve in these joint ventures. It was a very joyful evening, full of laughter and jokes, many of which regarded women’s relations with men. Gossiping about their husbands and mocking their sexual abili- ties, the women stressed that they let the men believe that it was they who ruled the home, although everyone knew it was the woman who was the head of the household. Similar approaches characterized their assertions about the priests. The women stressed that although the priests were the heads of the churches, they needed to take the women into account. “Thanks to our presence and singing we give character to the religious services”; “We take care of the parish shrine”; “We are the main organizers of the social life in the villages”—in providing such examples, the women demonstrated not only that they are perceived to be important by others but that they considered themselves to be so also.16 The fact that the members of the Circle belong to different religious congregations makes their role in the village’s integration even more important. While discussing possible dates for envisioned events, the women took the religious calendar of the different confessions into consideration, trying to find a day that would not collide with any fasting periods. They always make sure to learn both Polish and Lemko songs and pay justice to all religious communities. The significance of such female gatherings is highlighted by many ethnographers, for example, in Tone Bringa’s (1995) discussion of “coffee meetings” of Catholic and Muslim women in Bosnia. Bringa recounts how her female informants compared the differences and similarities between the two creeds (1995: 65). I observed similar situations, listening to Circle’s members discuss the developments and problems in different parishes. Given their exchanges with Orthodox women (and their everyday observations), most of my Roman Catholic interlocutors were very critical of celibacy and stressed that priests should have families. For the gathered women, the Woman’s Day’s celebration was also an opportunity to reflect on the Circle’s future. In the past, the Circle played an important modernizing function, filling the gap left by the incapable socialist state (see Pasieka 2013). Today, women continue to be active in the public sphere, yet they fail to attract young women who would join the Circle and be willing to take over their duties. The Circle’s members also fear an increasing folklorization17 of their MAKING PLURALISM 83 activities, and the transformation of the Circle into nothing more than a folk-singing group. Sharing with me their doubts, the gathered women told me about a recent district’s initiative, sponsored and framed as a European Union program promoting local traditions, rural heritage, and organic food. The Circle’s members were asked to dig up old recipes and perform a culinary show, which was supposed to be recorded and distributed on DVD. Dressed in Lemko and Polish costumes, they cooked potato dumplings and sang songs in two languages. Although they evaluated the overall initiative as enjoyable, they were deeply irritated by two things. The first was the attitude of one of the show’s directors, who asked women to express themselves in “less correct” Polish. “My children told me I was ridic- ulous,” concluded Teresa, who recovered for that purpose some old “peasant” expressions her parents used to say. The second thing that bothered women was the fact they were not allowed to cook in the village’s club, i.e., the place where they usually cook together and which is a major source of collective pride as it was thanks to their work that the kitchen was equipped with appliances and cookware. Instead, the Circle’s members were gathered in the newly built house of a newcomer and a fan of Lemko culture, who recreated in his house a “traditional” Lemko kitchen. On the occasion of my last visit to Michalina’s house, she gave me a DVD as a “souvenir” from my research. Handing it to me, she said that in her view references to Lemko traditions, no matter if somewhat artificial, were good and that at least Lemko heritage was acknowledged. A few months before our last talk, many Polish neighbors had turned against Lemkos in the vote on double-naming and some went so far as to challenge the Lemko history of the village. One of the Circle’s members and a big enthusiast of Lemko songs had a leading role in that. The official Harvest festival that year was followed by another, separate one, organized by and for the offended Lemko community.

A Party The Circle’s members often complain that teenagers and young women are not interested in joining them. “They are either too busy with work and school or they do not like music,” asserts Teresa. Only the first explanation is plausible as the young inhabitants, and especially young Lemkos, are in fact very keen on singing and dancing (even if in a different mode than that of the Circle). Different sorts of 84 HIERARCHY AND PLURALISM parties, usually around fireplaces or involving simple dances, provide a very important context for young people’s interactions. Bartek, a son of the Orthodox priest from neighboring Krasne, asserts:

Parties are extremely important. I think . . . I actually think that there would be no Lemkos without parties [ . . . ] One day, during a party, I met a guy who goes with me to the secondary school. I had not known before that he was Lemko because at the school people are often ashamed to say who they are.

Both grammar school students’ and the Circle’s members’ experiences provide examples of local practices, which, while not unequivo- cal, involve crossing and “blurring” religious and ethnic boundaries. Instead, young adults who attend secondary school or college in one of the neighboring cities find themselves in a position of being the only non-Catholic among their new classmates and face all sorts of queries, ranging from genuine interest in their religion to questions about their ethnic origins that imply that a non-Catholic cannot be Polish. This explains the weight and value given to gatherings at which one does not have to “justify” his or her strangeness. Leśna is one of the favorite spots for organizing Lemko parties. These are usually held on the farm of an elderly couple, Izydor and Ida, who kindly offer their grandchildren the space for youth gatherings. The parties gather Lemko people from all neighboring villages; it could be said that rather than being “by invitation only,” such events are open to all those who either declare themselves Lemkos or express interest in the Lemko culture. The few young Poles who join them usually switch to the Lemko language, emphasizing both their familiarity with the language and respect for their hosts. During these parties, on Izydor’s farm, singers, guitar players, and harmonica players gather around a big bonfire. Once they tire of singing, the guests move inside a shed where a dance floor and a table with drinks and snacks are set. The evening I attended the first of such parties, I was mesmerized by the amount of things that were going on at once and the number of people I had never met before. The party gathered several dozens of young people who sang, danced, ate, drank, and made loud toasts with vodka. Couples flirted and made out in seclusion, while a few young activists got into politics, ardently debating the difference between Lemkos and Ukrainians. The presence of Izydor and his son, who brought a supply of wood for the fire, did not discourage any of this. Upon seeing me, Izydor leaned toward me MAKING PLURALISM 85 and said he was happy to see that young people were having such a great time. As a matter of fact, Orthodox and Greek Catholic parents are very supportive of their children attending such parties. They turn a blind eye on the fact their teenage children consume alcohol and return home nearly at dawn, hoping that their offspring get to know a potential Lemko spouse there. Lemko parties are perceived as a mean of preserving Lemko language, songs, and dances, and, more broadly, celebrating preferred modes of socializing.18 I remember a girl turning off the CD player after somebody put on the album of a Polish band. “There is no place for Polish songs here,” she asserted in Lemko and played a CD of a local band instead. Young people also tend to emphasize that Lemko parties are worlds apart from “boring” Polish gatherings and that their parties arouse envy among Poles. In this way, youth gatherings can be seen as both maintaining and crossing boundaries. While certain cultural practices are delineated, the parties simultaneously dis- solve other boundaries that cut across the Lemko community, namely that between Orthodox and Greek Catholics. Contrary to their parents and, especially, grandparents who tend to differentiate between the two creeds, young people hardly ever do so. For them, religion equates with a set of practices related to one of the cerkiew. Their attitudes attest to the importance of “religion as practiced” in relation to the performance of ethnicity, as well as the multilayered process of boundary (de)construction; what weakens some boundaries may at the same time reinforce others. To me, the most interesting part of the parties was often the jour- neys to and from them. Sitting behind the wheel, I was involved in conversations that covered everything from salad recipes and newest clothing tips to accounts of school life and visions of future life. Due to the great distances between different villages where my Lemko friends live, the trip could take up to two hours. On the way to the party, the passengers, usually a few Orthodox and Greek Catholic high school or college students, would often share their experiences of school life. “What luck it is to attend the school named after John Paul II,” Hela would laugh, “The pope’s birthday—a mass and no class. The pope’s death anniversary—the same. A new movie about the pope—a trip to the cinema and no classes.” Accounts of this sort were usually supplemented by others who grumbled about Roman Catholics’ ignorance. “Oh, Jesus! A classmate asked me today why Orthodox do not believe in Mary,” Gosia would complain. Her brother would recount: “During my Roman Catholic class, the 86 HIERARCHY AND PLURALISM priest depicted on the blackboard the theory of salvation, drawing several circles around the figure of Jesus. Roman Catholics were the closest to Jesus, Greek Catholics followed, then Orthodox, then Protestants . . . What an idiot! Greek Catholics are a part of the same Church!” In the young people’s view, the problem with Roman Catholics is not limited to their ignorance about “religious others.” As Bartek would observe: “It is quite obvious that we [the minorities] know more about Catholics than they know about us. But the thing is we know more than they know about themselves!” Conversations about Roman Catholicism are not the only moment when religion enters into young people’s discussions; they speak even more frequently about the life of their cerkiew, a subject that comes up in all possible contexts. For young Lemkos, religion constitutes a means of sociability and relatedness. “We should help to clean the cerkiew next week,” they would agree on the return from the party, “Young people’s aid is needed and besides we can go for a beer afterwards.” Given that the parties usually took place on Saturday, my passengers were predicting that they would fall asleep during the service to be held a few hours later. When I asked, curious, whether in their view it made sense to attend the mass half asleep, they would say that cerkiew gives them the sense of time. Once, one of the girls elaborated on that saying that going to the church is not a question of obligation or sin but a chance to meet people and a sort of time-marker. “Sunday without cerkiew is simply inconceivable, it is like . . . not Sunday,” she said. As Bourdieu frequently noted, a religious habitus, constituting a set of “inclinations” and “propensities” may “set the rhythm” of people’s life (1977: 214). Generally, I was struck by the naturalness with which young Lemkos intertwined religion into their conversations, no matter what they spoke about. “Girls talk about Mary and saints as if they were their good bud- dies,” I wrote in one set of fieldnotes, referring to one of the long rides home with my female friends.19 My travels with female passengers were special also for a different reason, namely, the fact that in the absence of brothers and male friends the girls talked about boyfriends, fiancés, and potential husbands. Usually, the subject would come up in relation to a wedding one of them attended or a recently announced engagement. “Two hundred fifty guests, a bit too much,” Gosia would complain loudly, “But well, what can I do if I had one hundred fifty guests on the occasion of my First Communion?” Hela, in constant search of an ideal partner, would comfort herself and other single girls: “Oh, Heavenly Lord! Have you seen her boyfriend? I’d rather be on my MAKING PLURALISM 87 own . . . We might be alone but not lonely. We might always become feminists.”20 Given their emphasis on wedding dresses, preferred wedding locations, and funny discussions about women’s independence and feminism, I initially found these “wedding talks” to be no more than an enjoyable accompaniment of our trip home. With time, however, I came to realize that these discussions about present, future, and imagined husbands constituted one of most profound, albeit veiled, expressions of the wish to be accepted by the “majority.” Contrary to their parents, the girls did not necessarily see themselves wedded to a Lemko man. They highlighted the fact that religious or ethnic background of their future spouse did not matter to them; yet they were less sure whether their own background would not matter to a potential significant other. I was reminded of Bourdieu’s point that religion is not only a “rhythm-provider,” a religious habitus also helps people make sense of their position in the social order (Rey 2007: 57).

Placing Pluralism Featured in many of the students’ photographs were the war cemeteries and abandoned villages situated near Leśna. According to records dating from 1950, the region lost 70 percent of its prewar inhabitants as a result of Operation Vistula: that year, only a quarter of the villages were inhabited and, all in all, some thirty villages never returned to life (Kłos 2010). The number of Poles who were settled in formerly Lemko villages was on average two times smaller than the number of prewar inhabitants. Although Lemkos have been settling in the region again, Lower Beskid remains one of the least populated areas in the country. Indeed, it is this emptiness of the area, the tranquility and charm of the abandoned villages, that attracted many of the people who discovered the area and eventually settled there. The Lemkos, however, perceived the return and the repopulation of (at least some of the) areas as a kind of moral obligation, commonly expressed in notions such as “father’s land” and the “need for roots” (Malkki 1997). In numerous conversations, people stressed that they could not find their place in Western Poland, although living conditions were objectively much better there. Upon their return, however, in the eyes of Lemkos, empty villages were not fascinating, but upset- ting, the remains of basements, stone crosses, neglected cemeteries, and fruit trees in the middle of the forest standing as clear reminders of the brutal events that occurred in the area. Today, however, abandoned villages have a “second life”; they are the favorite destinations 88 HIERARCHY AND PLURALISM of the enthusiastic explorers of the region, sites of community action, such as the renovation of and care for old cemeteries, and cultural- educational projects, such as the recreation of the villages’ histories. They are continuously visited by Lemkos from Western Poland who come to see the places from which their parents or grandparents originated. Is the experience of “place”21 different for Lemkos, who continuously assert their status as “autochthones,” and for Poles, who, no matter how many decades they have been living in Rozstaje, are often still perceived as “newcomers”? How does the “sense of place”— understood in terms of the subjective and emotional attachment to place (Cresswell 2004: 7)—influence local pluralism, and more precisely, how do the ideas of rootedness and belonging relate to religious and ethnic boundaries and religious and ethnic hierarchies? Recent scholarship on “place” and “space” demonstrates their role in both representing and challenging the social order, constituting the realm of the majority’s dominance, but also a potential tool for minorities’ contestation (see Cresswell 1996). I shall return to this argument throughout, but I want to emphasize here that most of the stories I collected, whether related to neighborly relations, farming, or parish life—spoke first and foremost to people’s bonds with the places they inhabit. Most of the inhabitants of Rozstaje expressed a strong sense of attachment to the village, parish church, or one’s farm. They articulated this sense of attachment in various ways: some talked about tranquility of the area, or the fact they have very good neighbors, while others talked about their love for their piece of land and their cows despite all the difficulties the life of a farmer entails. Expressions of attachment are not limited to verbal declarations either, but are manifested in people’s care for the locality and mutual commitments characterizing neighborly relations. They are conveyed in students’ pictures, school policies, the Circle’s activities, and young people’s efforts to maintain traditions. Places are rendered meaningful through people’s presence and practices. Although local relations are no doubt marked by tensions between “autochthonous” Lemkos and Polish “newcomers,” such divisions are offset by the shared experiences of place that emphasize all inhabitants’ belonging to and duties towards the inhabited place. Counter scholarly works that decouple connections between place and community (see Gupta and Ferguson 1997), my research revealed the inextricability of community and place: a sense of place provides the foundation for a community able to embrace religious and ethnic diversity. This view corresponds with the argument advanced by scholars who decry the overemphasis on

Figures 2.5 and 2.6 An abandoned village (above). One of its prewar inhabitants, who nowadays lives in a traditional wooden house in Leśna (below), presented me with a story of a colorful, highly visited farmers’ market that used to take place there before the Second World War. Too sick to walk there, she asked me to bring some pictures. “Why do you say it is beautiful there?,” she asked me after seeing them, “How can a place, which is empty of people, be beautiful?” Photos: Agnieszka Pasieka 90 HIERARCHY AND PLURALISM the “difference” in community studies (Gray 2002; Kempny 2002). In Rozstaje, attachment to place constitutes one of the most meaningful manifestations of “sameness” and as such may lead to a temporary reconfiguration of majority-minority relations. This attachment relates to the sacralization of the local space, evident in the material culture and in people’s narratives. The most eye-catching elements of the sacred landscape are roadside crosses and small chapels, crafted by local artisan stoneworkers between the mid-nineteenth century and the 1940s (Stachowiak 2002: 6).22 Today, the crosses are often the only remaining part of a former household; Polish settlers often dismantled houses to use the wood, but the crosses were left untouched. In all the villages where I did my research, the cemeteries occupied a central position that people passed every day. They are sites still used by all the communities, and they constitute a sphere of community-building practices.23 People also express respect for sacred objects such as crosses, chapels, and shrines in their moral narratives. For example, Lemko families from Krasne told me the story of the man who occupied a Jewish house after the original inhabitants had been taken to the ghetto. He soon died and his family was unhappy. Many Poles from Ciche condemned the militiaman who demolished an Orthodox chapel and used the material to construct his own house. And in Leśna, Greek Catholics recalled a Roman Catholic priest who disturbed the members of their community while they were trying to renovate the cerkiew. He is now dying of cancer: “the hand of God has reached him.” However, the opposition against destruction goes beyond the preservation of local religious heritage. Throughout my research, I noted strong criticism of any kind of demolition of buildings, removal of symbols, and changes of names, whenever it was done in the name of a new political system. No matter how critical of or favorable toward the communist system they were, people opposed the “mindless destruction” of state-owned-farms, not because of the farms’ effectiveness (which could hardly be claimed) but because of the work and effort that had gone into constructing them. Similarly, they tapped their foreheads while hearing about the proposal to remove a monument of communist partisans who are no longer perceived as heroes in postsocialist Poland. These observations about local inhabitants’ sense of place permit us to return to the reflections on contemporary politics and historical narratives. Local inhabitants do not simply agree with top-down versions of history, but attempt to coauthor them, making their own claims and transmitting their memories to the younger generations. MAKING PLURALISM 91

The narratives of the region’s history and the interplay of diverse memories are crucial for understanding interreligious relations. Therefore, it is with these diverse narratives in mind that I continue my discussion of the dynamics of religious diversity, suggesting that the present-day pluralism results from and results in the pluralized past. Part II

Pluralizing the Past Chapter 3

Caroling History: Heteroglossic

Narratives and Religious Boundaries

Some time ago, in a poor village in the mountains, there lived a Jew and a parish priest. One day, the Jewish man came to the clergyman and said, “Listen, we are both poor, why don’t we think about a way to make some money?” “How?” asked the priest, intrigued. “Let’s put a figure of the Virgin Mary into the well and people will believe that there was an apparition,” suggested the man. The priest embraced this idea, and they did just that. Not only did the village people believe in the apparitions, but the news start to spread, and with time the village became a popular destination of pilgrimages. As a result, both men prospered; the priest could collect generous donations and the Jewish inn enjoyed frequent visits. One day, the Jew was passing next to the well where two pilgrims were talking while having a rest. “I’m wondering whether this water is really helpful?” one of them pondered. “Oh yes, I know at least two men whom this water definitely helped,” replied the Jew with a smile.

After Metody told me this story, I asked him, still laughing, whether it was an anecdote about one of the neighboring pilgrimage sites where there is indeed a mountain with a well and “holy water” and where the Greek Catholics and Orthodox continue to commemo- rate apparitions. According to local legend, Mary appeared there to a pious woman and asked her to build a chapel. My storyteller, a cheerful elderly man with a constant smile on his face, answered that he could not reveal the location but that he was convinced there was a grain of truth in the story. Having said that, Metody went back to his work. He had come to the house I was renting in order to fix a broken door lock. Thanks to a fully equipped toolbox and Metody’s 96 HIERARCHY AND PLURALISM years of experience as a watchmaker, the task was soon completed and we could sit in the kitchen over a cup of a hot tea. I asked him how much I owed him for his work, which I appreciated all the more given the raging snowstorm outside. “I cannot take any money from you,” Metody replied. “It is Friday evening. I celebrate Saturdays, and Friday evening counts as Saturday. So if I work, I do it free of charge, only to help others,” he added with a smile. Metody was born into a mixed family; his mother was Rusyn and his father was Polish. He used to be a Pentecostal, then he joined the Seventh-day Adventists for a time, and now he does not belong to any religious community. He just reads the Bible, or, to be more precise, various bibles. He has the classical Roman Catholic translation,1 which he got as a gift from a close friend, a Roman Catholic priest, as well as the versions used by the Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Pentecostals. He always spoke to me with great interest about the differences he finds in the various editions and shared with me his knowledge about the different traditions. Living in a district inhabited by seven religious communities, he has a unique opportunity to confront the theory with practice. In their everyday lives, people like Metody prove that just as there are numerous translations and understandings of the Bible, so are there many ways of being Catholic, Orthodox or Protestant, a Lemko or/and a Pole. Their lives and the stories they tell convey a nuanced picture of irony towards religious beliefs, the fluidity of religious boundaries and religious identities, the rich diversity of interpretations of historical events, and the continuous process by which boundaries shift. As in Metody’s story, some religious alliances prove useful in one context, while inimical in another. Two religious groups may compete over the faithful, but given the presence of a third group, they are likely to join forces (even if only temporarily). Shifts in religious identification occur frequently and, along with “spiritual” reasons, people refer to more earthly motivations for conversion: one’s decision could be prompted by a dream with a message from above or something as a simple as wanting a church that is closer to one’s home. But such attitudes coexist with a deep preoccupation with one’s religious creed, with how boundaries and identities become fixed and rigid, and with the means whereby certain narratives and interpretations become dominant and exclusive. Although the meaning of “other” and the definitions of “us” and “them” vary, at the end of the day certain boundaries remain resilient, and thus the price of CAROLING HISTORY 97 one’s conversion can be very high. The realm of Rozstaje is far from a “religious market” in which individuals freely choose their religious identifications (cf. Pelkmans 2009). The high number of religious conversions should obscure neither the various constraints that the inhabitants face, such as pressures from one’s family and/or the long, complicated history of the ethnic communities in the region, nor the hierarchy that still characterizes local pluralism. Narratives of local history encapsulate all these processes, eluci- dating why certain practices produce boundaries that are alternately “bright” and “blurred” (Alba 2005). Metody’s story is a good example of this. The story is part of the regional folklore and a remembrance of the past sociocultural landscape—a landscape that disappeared after World War II.2 Piecing together this history through the accounts of local people, reveals not only the plurality of voices but also their inherently heteroglossic character. I refer to Mikhail Bakhtin (1981), for whom the concept of heteroglossia is crucial for comprehending the social life of language. His understanding of heteroglossia means much more than acknowledging the multiplicity of voices and the competing views of the world contained therein; he also highlights the connections between people’s speaking (1981:263). In Bakhtin’s view, people always, consciously or not, refer to the words, opinions, and views of others, which makes each utterance dialogical (1981:280). This point is particularly relevant when inquiring into whether and how the interconnectedness of speech crosses social boundaries. Further, Bakhtin’s findings are helpful in analyzing the hierarchy of speakers and speeches. His reflections on the “authoritative utterance” (1986:88)—a dominant narrative represented by a powerful group or individual—invites us to consider how such authoritative voices shape other people’s views of the past and to what extent heteroglossic narratives can be understood as a strategy of contestation. Given my interest in the multivocality of local narratives and the very practice of “story-telling,” I adhere to James Young’s proposal (1993) to speak about “collected” rather than “collective memory.”3 I also contend that understanding the role of religion in the process of storytelling and memory-collecting demands more than recognizing the connection between religion and cultural memory or tradition (Assmann 2006: Hervieu-Léger 2000).4 Pointing to different ways in which lived religion influences memory “work,”5 permits us to approach religious practices and identities as habitual and strategic, and thus pivotal in both reproducing and refashioning memories for current purposes. 98 HIERARCHY AND PLURALISM

Caroling history The day of January 7, 2009, is sunny and freezing. The village of Krasne is completely covered by snow: the roofs of wooden houses are laden with snowdrifts and the windows are decorated with rime-made ornaments. It is hard to spot a human being on the narrow roads that, at this point, look more like tunnels than streets. The only sign that people are present is the smoke coming from the chimneys and a few inhabitants going to visit their neighbors. When I arrive at the house of Hanna and Henek, I am welcomed by the latter, clearing snow. Upon my arrival, he leans on the shovel and indicates a parking spot in the corner of the plot. “You won’t have a chance to go back this night anyway, believe me,” he explains, amused. I enter the house and find the rest of the family in the warm kitchen. We gathered only the day before, as the family had invited me to spend the Orthodox Christmas Eve with them (see Chapter 5). Hanna hurries to prepare a cup of tea, while her twenty-years old daughter, Hela, urges me to try some Christmas sweets. While all three of us warm ourselves leaning against the kitchen stove, the grandmother rummages in the wardrobe, looking for traditional scarves that Hela and I could use this afternoon. An hour later, we are fully prepared; in long patterned skirts and sheepskin coats, with colorful bandanas covering our heads and gaudy makeup on our faces, we go to one of the neighboring houses to join the group of carol singers. We are supposed to be Gypsy6 fortune-tellers, traditional figures in the local folklore. Hela’s brother, dressed up as a shepherd, joins us, and we walk together along the snowy paths. We gather at the house of the Orthodox priest. He is absent, but he has let his son host the young people at the presbytery. Initially, there are eleven of us: Gypsies, shepherds, an angel, a devil, King Herod, and a Jew. Most of the people belong to the Orthodox parish of Krasne, but there are also some members of the Greek Catholic and Roman Catholic communities from the neighboring villages. Hela, the main organizer of the event, distributes sheets with the words to several carols. They are in the Lemko language, written in Latin characters; this allows those unfamil- iar with Cyrillic to learn the words easily. We have a brief music lesson, trying to learn the melody and to avoid singing off-key. Afterwards, Hela transforms herself into a theater director and makes her friends perform a short play about the birth of Jesus. The performance is quite humorous; it is about the biblical King Herod who wants to capture Jesus, but is stopped by the joint CAROLING HISTORY 99

Figure 3.1 Carol singers, dressed up as traditional folk figures. Photo: Agnieszka Pasieka forces of the angel and the devil. We have a lot of fun, dressing up, trying handmade instruments (such as a can with beans) and practicing the play. When the last people join, we decide to leave; we are aware that it is going to be a long evening. We have twenty houses to visit and we decide to start at the very end of the village. First, we walk on the asphalt road and are greeted by the passengers of a few cars passing through the village. Later, we have no choice but to walk through the high snow, including when we arrive at our first destination, the old wooden dwelling of Wasyl, situated next to a large sawmill. Before we enter his house, I shall say a few words about the host. Wasyl was born in 1932 into a Greek Catholic family. He had four siblings, and he lost his father as a little boy. Like most of the Rusyn population, he was resettled in Western Poland (1947), where he learned to do woodwork, served in the army, and married an Orthodox girl. They came back to Krasne in 1956. Today, Wasyl is a widower and lives with an unmarried son, while his other children and grandchildren live in neighboring villages. Without telling his family, he has been writing the story of the entire clan, starting with the day of his parents’ marriage. At the time of our last conversation, he had written forty pages and had not even reached the postwar period yet. His chronicle will no doubt be fascinating, as Wasyl is a 100 HIERARCHY AND PLURALISM great storyteller: he remembers the tiniest details of the village’s history, and he presents them in a colorful way. Although he was a small child at the time, he remembers the prewar years very well. He depicts them as a period when people respected and helped each other. Most of the inhabitants were Greek Catholics, and the few Poles who lived in the village attended Greek Catholic religious services, too. Indeed, joint attendance of religious services was the main reason why Roman Catholic Poles were included in the local community; the boundary between them and the locals quickly blurred. Wasyl also recalls that people were very sociable and after the work of the day was completed, they would gather in one of the houses to play instruments and sing. The religious and work calendars were connected; most parish festivities and religious festivals took place in the autumn, once the main work in the field was finished. Despite the poor quality of the soil, people cultivated lots of land. As Wasyl recalls, people were very industrious and did their best to make a living. He emphasizes that they loved their land and their forests; he even claims that the inhabitants used to give personal names to every tree they owned. Similarly, many parts of the village used to have a separate name, such as Kowalowe (“of the forger”) or Liskowe (“of the fox”). In Wasyl’s narratives, as in numerous other Lemkos’, the prewar period is presented as an idyllic time, made even more so when contrasted with the tragic events that followed. Wasyl gets very emotional when he recounts the dramatic events of his family history. He is also very moved when he sees our group— wet and frozen, but laughing and singing loudly. Wasyl and his son invite us into the kitchen and they both remain standing while the actors give a humorous performance of a part of the story of Jesus’s birth. In the end, Hela the Gypsy approaches Wasyl’s son and, looking into her magic ball, foretells his wedding in the forthcoming spring, which all those gathered welcome with a burst of laughter: the “groom” in question is known as a confirmed bachelor who expresses neither the hope nor the desire to marry. Next, Bartek who plays a Jew gets closer to the hosts and tries to do business with them; he pulls out various small objects from his leather bag and encourages the men to buy them. This game is intended to invite the hosts to make a donation; the hosts enter into the game, try to negotiate the price, question the value of the offered objects, and eventually make a generous donation. The presence of Jews in the play is a reference not only to a common folk representation but also to the region’s history. Wasyl remembers CAROLING HISTORY 101 the Jews who used to live in Krasne before Second World War. He recalls three Jewish families and remembers that one of the Jews had a shop and that another ran an inn. They were rich enough to be able to afford maids who worked for them on the Sabbath. Above all, the Jews are remembered as the ones who “prayed so so much.” Although people observed Jews praying, they did not understand or attempt to understand their practices; the religious boundary was very clear and there was no wish to transgress it. Not only Wasyl, but most of the old inhabitants assert that the Jews lived well, like the rest of the village population, and they were respected. Yet, they also recall that many women were angry with the Jews for turning their men into drunkards by selling them alcohol on credit. Some people claim that the practice was not widespread, while others tell of men who drank away the lands they owned. Such accounts, and the performance during the carol singing described above, account for the archetypal image of the Jews as shopkeepers who did not always make honest offers (cf. Cała 2005). At the same time, the ambivalent picture of prewar relations with Jews point to nostalgia’s role in recasting relations that were merely “neutral” as “positive” or “exemplary.” Other similarities with traditional folk representations are accounts of Jewish wisdom and the Jews’ capacity to predict the future: “One Jew said to my father: they will start [the killing] with us and they will finish with you.”7 Further, accounts of the Jews’ mysterious powers are a pattern in morality tales. Wasyl remembers, for instance, that after the Jews were carried away by the Nazi occupiers, the inn was dismantled for wood. After the war, a man built a house at the place where the inn used to be, but he was unhappy; he, his children, and grandchildren always complained that it was not a fortunate place. The idea of “haunted land” and building one’s life on somebody’s tragedy is a recurrent theme in the local narratives. Before we leave the first house, Wasyl’s son serves each of us a glass of sweet red wine. He asks which other houses we are going to visit. The young people explain that we plan to visit the houses of Greek Catholics and Orthodox who celebrate Christmas at this time. Here, it is important to mention that the Jews were not the only “others” who lived in the region before World War II. Some of Wasyl’s relatives and also his neighbors are Pentecostals. I recall their history with the words of one of the present pastors, Michał, who settled in the region only in the 1980s and learnt the local history from the oldest Pentecostals. The Protestant movement came to the region with returnee migrants (in the 1930s) and in 1936 split into “Baptists” and 102 HIERARCHY AND PLURALISM so-called researchers of the Gospel, who then became Pentecostals. The latter’s “myth of origins” dates back to the outbreak of war:

. . . a miracle happened in 1939. At that time, Protestant prayers were already said in N. and the news about them were spreading . . . One Sunday, some Lemkos decided to go there, out of curiosity. On the way back, three women were visited by the Spirit and started to speak in different languages ( . . . ) [Soon] all the Lemko land was inflamed with the word of the Gospel.

Michał claims that even the outbreak of the war did not prevent the development of Pentecostalism. People used to meet at night in the forests and spread the Gospel from village to village. He even recalls the day when German soldiers entered a house where Pentecostals were praying and attempted to arrest them, but the Holy Spirit came to a woman. She started to speak German and apparently convinced the soldiers that they should leave the community in peace (she said: “Baptists gut!”). In general, the Pentecostals’ stories are filled with accounts of miracles and people’s ability to speak different languages (which makes them, indeed, heteroglossic). Michał’s narratives are distinctive in their heterogeneity; in addition to transcendental interpretations, he also provided very down-to-earth explanations, which, in his view, did not contradict the more spiritual narratives:

[In the interwar period] there was a . . . religious war here, you know . . . Lemkos are not saints! [ . . . ] As you might know, the Catholic Church battled regularly with the Orthodox one. It was a total war. And suddenly, in the 1930s, in the midst of the Orthodox-Catholic battle, a vibrant, well-organized Protestant community sprang up, attacking both those churches . . . So those two fighting churches had to join forces and start to battle with the Protestant one. And they speculated, and used Protestants in their own struggle [ . . . ] It was a dirty struggle, very dirty struggle. They would stop at nothing.

Such accounts challenge more idyllic pictures of the prewar period, such as the one presented by Wasyl. In order to understand the foundation of idyllic narratives, we need to shed light on the events of the war and its aftermath. During the Second World War, the region was under Nazi occupation until the Soviets arrived in 1944. Inhabitants’ accounts of the war period are very diverse. Many of the people I spoke to claimed that the war was not particularly felt in the village. They mention obligatory work, like digging trenches and food restrictions, but CAROLING HISTORY 103 otherwise, they pass over this period. What they do foreground, however, is a comparison between the German and Russian occupiers. The German soldiers “would not take our last cow,” while the Soviet soldiers would take everything; the Germans paid for work, while the Russians forced people to work without pay. In such accounts the Germans are depicted as civil, but the Soviets as barbaric. Complementing these accounts is a contrast between organized violence, in the form of work camps and army service, and wild violence, represented by women being raped:

All my family were working in the field and I stayed at home to bake bread. Suddenly, a Soviet soldier came into the house and I could not call for help. He raped my neighbor, too. The Russians . . . I think they were far from Russia because they were like animals. Like wild animals! Like animals. Ugly. The Russians were ugly [ . . . ] We, the women, we would hide from the Russians. Horrid people . . . you know, simply wild.

Such comparisons between Germans and Russians are present not only in ordinary people’s depictions of the war but also form a common pattern in both Polish historiography and literature. The discourses contrasting a civilized West with a barbaric “far” East went far beyond war narratives and can still be found today (cf. Lipski 1984). They were no doubt reinforced after 1989 when the debate about Russian crimes was no longer taboo and narratives of the Soviet “liberation” were transformed into narratives about “occupation.” Yet, accounts of the war are also very diverse; other people would not agree with the opinion that the war did not make itself felt when the region was under Nazi occupation. They might, for example, recall the work camps:

. . . the Germans? Well, we had to do different work, everyone had to document where and how he or she worked . . . I . . . I was in a work camp here [in the region] for a year, it . . . was not much different from Auschwitz, only the crematorium was missing.

They might also recall wartime poverty:

All domestic animals were marked, cows, pigs . . . if a man butch- ered an animal and they [Germans] found out, he would be taken to Auschwitz [ . . . ] So people tried to cross the mountains to Slovakia and trade something. But they were stopped by Germans, captured . . . and here . . . and people were beaten, from head to toe. 104 HIERARCHY AND PLURALISM

Or the risk involved in helping the Polish partisans:

At my sister’s house, there was a Polish partisan. I was asked to bring him shaving utensils and his hat [ . . . ] I went, it was about one kilometer on foot [ . . . ] I’m walking and suddenly I see Germans who butcher a cow outside a house. One of them looks at me and shouts: “Halt! Halt!,” pointing his gun and saying to others: “This is a ban- dit,” because they called the partisans bandits. I was only thirteen but quite tall. I only managed to say: “Ich bin kleine.” He looked at me and said in a low voice: “Raus kommen!” I escaped . . . If he had opened my bag, he would have guessed I was taking this to the “bandits.” [my emphasis]

Accounts of the war differ, both in terms of how people evaluate the hardship of this period, but also their attitudes toward different groups of people. Alongside “bad” occupiers, we find examples of “good” Germans who saved people’s lives or prevented families from dying of hunger (“My brother was taken to Germany and worked for a woman; he milked her cow. She respected him, he says it was like a fairy tale”). Besides, in crafting their own accounts, people don’t rely solely on their individual experiences, but draw on those of others as well. In the narratives I collected, people give voice to others: quoting them, presenting different opinions, referring to and appropriating other people’s expressions. All of which relates to Bakhtin’s findings of the interconnectedness of people’s reports, that people incorporate— even if they do not necessarily agree with—the discourse of others (“Many people say that the Russians were worse than the Germans, but the truth is that both were torturers”). In short, it is not the ethnographer who puts informants in dialogue with one another; they do this themselves in the very moment they tell their stories. For the current inhabitants of the region, it was neither the Holocaust nor the difficult experiences of the Second World War that had the most profound influence on local remembrances but rather the trauma of the deportations between 1944 and 1947. Indeed, many consider the war episode almost irrelevant when set against the expulsion that followed the war. In Krasne, the first resettlements were considered to be voluntary, at least to a certain extent. As people recall, in 1944, Soviet agents appeared in the villages and encouraged the locals to abandon their land and move to the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. They promised them plenty of arable land, rich food, comfortable living conditions—in short, a paradise on earth: “They told us that Ukraine was so rich that the sausages were hang- ing on the fences around people’s houses.” Some people claim that CAROLING HISTORY 105 the agents just encouraged people to leave, while others recall the agents as more threatening. But whether people decided to move or to stay, the decision was very consequential, often leading to disagree- ments and splits within families. In order to convey the complexity of this situation, I turn again to the memories of Wasyl. According to Wasyl, about 40 percent of the inhabitants decided to leave. His own family split: two sisters and a brother with his fiancée left for Ukraine, while Wasyl, his mother, and a married sister remained in the village. Wasyl’s brother was forced to leave by the authorities; as a soldier of the Soviet army, who fought in the war, he had to set a good example for the local population. When I asked Wasyl whether they heard anything from the people who had left, he answered:

They wrote letters . . . nothing bad. After half a year . . . [they wrote] that everything was perfect. One neighbor wrote: “I am doing very well, I have a cow, she is as good as Maryśka’s one.” But Maryśka was the poorest inhabitant and she had a goat . . . [laughs] That’s the kind . . . the kind of information we had.

Quoting this letter, he illustrated how resettled people strove to evade censorship and smuggle back messages that would prevent further decisions to migrate. After 1945, the inhabitants who remained in Krasne were encouraged to cultivate the land, including the land abandoned by the people who had left for Ukraine. They were promised that there would be no more resettlements. Yet, in 1947,

10th June . . . Tuesday . . . cars come, soldiers enter the houses . . . they say: “You have two hours to pack your things and be ready to leave.

Although some people present Operation Vistula as a completely unexpected event, Wasyl claims that rumors had been circulat- ing and some of the neighboring villages had been emptied before Krasne. Either way, leaving was extremely difficult. People could only take what belongings they were able to carry on a cart and domestic animals. They were taken to a neighboring city and from there to Western Poland. All together, the journey took a week. People remember it as horrifying, not only because of the hardship of travel in cattle carriages but also because of a stop in Jaworzno, a part of the Auschwitz network of concentration camps (reinstated by the communists.) There, the Polish soldiers took a number of men who were accused of having acted against the Polish state—mainly those 106 HIERARCHY AND PLURALISM accused of collaboration with Ukrainian partisans—and placed them in the prison camp. After the train arrived in Western Poland, people were allocated to different villages and to houses that, until 1945, had been owned by Germans. However, the Lemkos were not the first to come to the region; long before they arrived, Polish people from Ukraine had been taken there to repopulate the territory, defined by the communist propaganda as “recovered lands.” Only two or three Lemko families were settled together in each village, in order to force the Lemkos to assimilate into Polish society. For the Lemko community, the events of 1947 constitute a collective trauma that is continually recalled and narrated, even by people who did not experience the resettlement themselves. Such narratives exemplify what Charlotte Linde defines (2001) as the “acquisition of a speaker by a story,” the process by which people approach the stories of others as relevant to their own. Building on Linde’s remarks, it is possible to show how supposedly heteroglossic narratives, composed of various experiences, became woven together in almost indistin- guishable ways in the process of constructing the collective trauma. People’s accounts of Operation Vistula are extremely detailed, but also exceptionally homogenous; in my analysis, I was able to gather many identical narratives and label them according to recurring key words—for instance, lunch on the table:

The Poles came just after the Germans had been expelled; they found wardrobes full of clothes and lunch still warm on the table. door:

The Poles took the best, the richest German houses. They also robbed the ones they did not need. In our house, the door was missing. One day, a Polish neighbor comes and says: “Do you want to buy this door?” The door fitted the frame perfectly. or hatchet:

The Poles felt so threatened by the communists, they were convinced that we, “Ukrainian partisans,” were dangerous. They slept with hatchets under their pillows for months. . . .

At the same time, most of the Lemkos admitted that after initial difficulties, the relations with the Poles became much better. They did not blame the Poles for their initial hostility, but spoke instead about the communist propaganda meant to stir people up. They described CAROLING HISTORY 107 in detail how they overcame stereotypes and established relations with the Poles, a process that involved discovery on both sides that they shared the fate of having been expelled and the simple recognition that “they were people like us.” No doubt, the recurring themes and similarity of the stories may simply result from the actual repeti- tion of certain experiences; yet, this phenomenon may also be seen as an outcome of the collective process of “narrating trauma,” which made people’s memories similar and refined some patterns, resulting in “paradigmatic stories” (Linde 2001). Moreover, this represents the interconnectedness of people’s utterances mentioned earlier, as evi- denced in the ways the stories both resonate and even sometimes conflict. The latter is apparent in stories about returning, as illustrated through the next stop of my walk with the carol singers. The next house the group of carol singers visits is inhabited by Mira. Mira was born in 1922 and lived in this house with her husband until 1947. Her accounts are a good example of what Bakhtin defines as “hybrid utterance”; she tends to switch from Polish to Lemko, to use old expressions, and even change grammatical constructions.8 Furthermore, she often contradicts herself; the period before the war is sometimes presented as idyllic, sometimes as a time of terrible hardship. The same said can be said of her narratives about return. On the one hand, she declares that life in Western Poland was not bad at all, as people could work on the collective farms and cultivate their own land—the quality of which was much better than in the mountains. Relations among Lemkos and Poles were not difficult either. On the other hand, she repeats that she and her husband felt the need to come back to their fathers’ land, “to ours,” to the “good land.” They did not want to live in the house of Germans who had suffered as expelled Lemkos had. Eventually, in the late 1950s, they came back to Krasne. They paid a lot of money to a Polish settler who had taken over their abandoned house, which stood in ruins. Mira became so emotional while speaking about it that her narrative lost some of its logic:

Mira: The roof was so leaky that it was raining into the soup plate [ . . . ] The window was broken and when the wind was blowing, the leaves and the cold came into the house. A divine punishment . . I cried so much that I escaped back to the West. Agnieszka: You escaped? Mira: Well . . . I mean . . . I meant to escape.

But here again, inhabitants’ stories about returning also differ. Some people admit that they were quite lucky and managed to buy back 108 HIERARCHY AND PLURALISM their old houses for very small sums of money; in some cases, the Polish settlers just gave them back without asking for any money. Still others complain about long-standing conflicts with Poles. This is the point when the narrative needs to be enriched by the “Polish side.” It is worth contrasting the two kinds of narratives, for they relate to the very diverse history of the period between 1947 and the years when the last Lemkos returned (the early 1960s). Actually, calling them diverse is putting it mildly, for it is hard to find any points in common. According to Polish settlers, upon seeing the poor condition of the abandoned farms, they realized that Lemkos were in fact lucky to be resettled to the “recovered lands” and become owners of well-preserved German houses. In their view, the prewar inhabitants must have been very primitive people who lived with animals and did not know much about agriculture. Poles did their best to repair and develop the farms, but many of them had to give up and leave in search of a better place to live. For the Lemkos, such a narrative is simply unacceptable. They claim that many of the houses had been robbed and destroyed before Poles settled there, and that Poles took part in the destruction of abandoned buildings as they were too lazy to collect wood in the forest. For them, the Poles who settled in Rozstaje were “the worst sort of people”—people who had nothing and came into possession of a house only through someone else’s mis- fortune. And in an imagined “re-enactment of events” already narrated in another context (Burke 1989: 103), some Lemkos argue that Poles not only appropriated many Lemko belongings and well-kept houses but they also found warm “lunch on the table.” In such stories, there is little preoccupation with historical accuracy or logic, nor is there much effort to empathize across ethnic boundaries. While Poles undermine the brutality of resettlements and ignore the fact that Lemkos were treated as second-class citizens in the “recovered lands,” Lemkos do not recognize that among Polish settlers there were people returning from work camps in Germany and those had also lost everything during the war. At the root of the problem are the different understandings of Operation Vistula. Many Polish settlers assert that they were told that they had the right to occupy the Lemkos’ houses. They were told that the resettlement of the local population was the Lemkos’ punishment for supporting the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) at the end of war. It is therefore worth asking:

Agnieszka: Were there any partisans here? Mira: Sure! CAROLING HISTORY 109

Agnieszka: Polish or Ukrainian? Mira: I have no clue . . . They came in the night and stole some food. How can I know who that was?

Few inhabitants can provide any exact information about the partisans’ actions. Some people claim that there were indeed some Ukrainians partisans, but that local people did not support them; or, if they did, they did so because they had no choice. Others suggest instead that there were Polish partisans who had dressed as Ukrainians in order to provide a pretext for the expulsions. Many people were convinced that the partisans must have been Russians, which matches their rep- utation as the “wild robbers.” According to most of my interlocutors, the partisans’ demands for food or clothes were simply part of the war and were thus obeyed, no matter who made them. Such narratives challenge the historical interpretation, promoted, and widespread in the socialist period, which aimed to justify Operation Vistula with the Lemkos’ alleged support for the “UPA bands.” Crucially, despite a proliferation of historical works on the subject that belie such opinions, the idea of the local population’s shared responsibility and of Operation Vistula as “the only solution” continues to be reproduced in Poland (See also: Trzeszczyńska 2013: 353–4). And yet, in order to disclose the complex landscape of local memory, it is also important to examine why one of Mira’s closest neighbors, Jacek, is able to describe in the tiniest detail what happened in the aftermath of the war. Jacek’s parents—his Greek Catholic mother and Roman Catholic father—were among the few people who were not resettled in 1947. When I asked Jacek about the presence of partisans, he said, “Sure!” but he also provided a description of brutal UPA assaults on Polish soldiers and militia. His accounts of the barbaric methods that Ukrainian partisans supposedly used resembled the descriptions found in the state-sponsored narratives I referred to in Chapter 1. My point is not to question Jacek’s perspective, but to highlight the role of “paradigmatic stories” and official historical interpretations in shaping people’s remembrances. A focus on how ethno-religious boundaries relate to memory work needs to take into account top-down historical discourses, but it also needs to examine the various responses provoked by this discourse. Back to caroling: we continue our walk through the village, laughing and gossiping about the inhabitants. The evening has given me a great opportunity to learn about the inhabitants of different dwellings, about their life trajectories and about how they are perceived: who is rich and successful; who is a “real” 110 HIERARCHY AND PLURALISM

Lemko and who “has lost his/her identity.” One of the houses we pass belongs to Wasyl’s cousin, Matylda, a hearty woman in her early sixties. I had the opportunity to get to know her well, having listened to her story several times. Before the war, her Greek Catholic family converted to Pentecostalism. Like other Lemkos, they were expelled to Western Poland, where Matylda was born. A few years after they came back, the family joined the Seventh- day Adventists. Matylda recalls a nice man who came to Krasne and started to spread the Adventist Gospel. She remembers that her parents hosted the newcomer and were very happy to discuss biblical matters with him. The man convinced them that the Adventists’ reading was closer to the original letter of the Bible and they decided to change their confession. Matylda’s neighbors, however, are skeptical of this account and claim that the family converted because of frictions within the Pentecostal community. Today, Matylda has an Adventist husband and they maintain their beliefs, although this has never been easy. During communist times, nasty rumors about the Adventists circulated. One of the most recurrent was an anecdote suggesting that Adventists jump on Mary’s image while praying. Matylda recalls this now, laughing, and claims she did not care. She also adds that some people changed their attitudes once she invited them to join a meeting of the Adventist community. Today, difficulties arise from the fact that the number of Adventists is so small, forcing them to meet in a different village every Saturday. Moreover, Matylda’s son married a Pentecostal girl and Matylda worries that he might convert. In our conversations, Matylda emphasized only religious matters. Her Lemko identity did not seem that relevant to her—something no doubt influenced by the fact that other Adventists are Polish, and the fact that the Lemko identity is mostly defined in terms of belonging to an Orthodox or Greek Catholic parish. Because some Adventist practices are similar to the Jewish ones— most notably Saturday prayers and food restrictions—the Adventists seem to have taken the place of disappeared Jews as the local “strangers.” Remarkably, few people use the name “Adventists,” preferring instead to use the term “Sabbatarians” (Sobotnicy), which references the community’s Saturday practices. Some of the rumors and stereotypical presentations of Adventists resemble those of Jews, and the religious boundary set by the village community seems to be quite rigid, as was the case vis-à-vis Jewish inhabitants. Clearly, a conversion does not only involve the act of boundaries’ crossing but also the act of creating new boundaries (Pelkmans 2009:13). CAROLING HISTORY 111

Another opinion about “losing one’s identity” is offered when we arrive at the next dwelling: a modern, well-kept brick house. The carol singers hesitate for a moment, but finally we go in. I learn that the man who welcomes us is a Greek Catholic Lemko and his wife is a Roman Catholic Pole; they are one of many mixed couples in the village, and, like most such couples, they celebrate Christmas twice. When we ring the bell, they welcome us very warmly, and their oldest son, the twenty-five-year-old Grzesiek, goes around with a bottle of vodka and a small glass from which we partake in turn. We give our performance and receive a generous donation. Afterwards, my friends encourage Grzesiek to join our singing. At first, he seems a bit reluctant, but after a while he dresses and leaves with us. I note Grzesiek’s hesitation because it provides an important part of his portrait. During my fieldwork, I had the opportunity to observe his ongoing transformation. As a child from a mixed family, Grzesiek has been exposed to different influences. His Roman Catholic grandmother never accepted his father and used to speak about him with disdain. Until recently, Grzesiek’s family attended Roman Catholic services. However, after a new Polish priest came to the village and started to spread the idea of “Poland [only] for the Poles,” their attendance at the masses became difficult. In addition, Grzesiek’s brother married and had a child with an Orthodox woman, and, after the child was born, the family (minus the grandmother) decided to attend the Orthodox services. At that time, Grzesiek got a job in the district office and his attitude began to change from feeling indifferent, to becoming more engaged in the Lemko community and with minority issues in general. Not all of his colleagues knew about his mixed background and they often made nasty comments or told mean jokes about the Lemkos in his presence, which only strengthened Grzesiek’s convictions and brought him closer to the local Lemko community. His story exemplifies how a complex mix of voluntary and coercive, inclusive and exclusive factors can shape one’s choices and forms of identification, reminding us of the dangers of equating local pluralism with a free competition in the “religious market.” Walking to the next house, I discuss with Grzesiek and other carol singers the importance of the “land,” one of most common tropes in local accounts. Both in their narratives about prewar times and in their stories of return, Lemkos recall two important images: the lands cultivated by their ancestors, and the beloved mountains. The young carol singers agree with these observations, yet at the same time approach the narratives of their grandparents and parents in a 112 HIERARCHY AND PLURALISM slightly ironic way. “Hory, hory, hory!” (“Mountains, mountains, mountains!”), says one of the young carol singers, laughing and mim- icking a strong Lemko accent, and one of her friends adds, frowning: “My grandma serves ‘Operation Vistula’ every Sunday for lunch. I really have enough of it.” Such comments point to a generational difference. Although for many adolescent Lemkos being a member of a cerkiew, participating in cultural initiatives, and maintaining local traditions such as the carol singing is of key importance, this does not prevent them from expressing critical views about how to best address the community’s interests. Tired of constant brooding on the traumatic past, they do not hesitate to intervene in their grandparents’ narratives. In her research on Crimean Tatar deportees, Greta Uehling (2004) highlights this process by which older generations’ “feelings of homeland” are replaced with a younger generation’s “new structures of feelings with ties to the present problems of existence” (247). Ueling’s work also speaks to the attitudes of young Orthodox and Greek Catholics. Their habitus is influenced by a range of factors— not least, the post-1989 transformation of the educational system, growing mobility, and new spheres for activities for minorities, as well as a stark contrast between “declared” equality and “factual” inequality. I suggest that it is precisely this contradiction that today shapes young people’s sense of “being Lemko.” For them, claiming their identity by organizing carol singing, making their presence felt in the village, and demonstrating their attachment to local traditions is more important than dwelling on the “difficult past.” The carol singing is not simply a habitual ritual, but a consciously employed practice. As we walk and talk, Grzesiek notes that the Lemkos are not the only ones who appreciate the region. He indicates the path on the right, leading to a small village, formerly a part of Krasne. The village of Borki is inhabited by only a few families, most of whom moved there in order to escape city life. Apart from the Buddhist couple that runs the meditation center and a Lemko-Polish family that owns a well-known farm tourism enterprise, there are also some freelance workers from Warsaw and Cracow. The carol singers express regret that we do not have time to make a detour and visit some houses in Borki; it is already late, and the distance is too great. Yet, saying a few words about its inhabitants is important for completing the picture of the local religious landscape. Kaja and Kamil came to the region for the first time, indepen- dently, as scouts. When they were at university, they would come CAROLING HISTORY 113 to hike in the mountains and they happened to meet during one such excursion. Upon discovering that they were both interested in Buddhism, they decided to buy a house and open a meditation center, which they managed to do in the mid-1990s thanks to the help of their families and the Polish Buddhist Center. Today, they gather the few Buddhists living in the region for weekly meditations. Their religious beliefs and practices evoke much curiosity among the inhabitants. Many people from Krasne encouraged me to investigate “these strange people who do not perform any rituals: no communion, no baptism, no mass.” The unique blend of religious and spatial boundaries—the “unusualness” of Buddhist practices, as well as the meditation center’s secluded location “behind a mountain”—has made a strong impression on local inhabitants’ perceptions of them. First, rumors circulated that the Buddhists might be in fact “Hindu” or “Muslims.” Second, inhabitants come up with their own explanation for the Buddhists’ presence. One of Borki’s inhabitants told me the story of a young innocent man who met a tempting woman in the mountains and she converted him. Presenting this innovative adaptation of the Adam and Eve story, she expressed her concern for the Buddhist couple’s salvation. Kaja and Kamil are good friends with a retired professor of gyne- cology, Szymon, who moved to Borki from Warsaw and is supposedly the only declared atheist in the district. He visited the area for the first time as the head of a student trip and has been developing close bonds with the place ever since. Today, Szymon lives in an isolated wooden house, decorated with a handmade plate that reads “In memory of Lemkos”—a commemoration of the prewar inhabitants. When free from other obligations, he studies local history and listens to operas. These two passions have brought him close to the Orthodox and Greek Catholics; he sometimes goes to a cerkiew just to listen to sacral music or invites a Lemko choir to perform in his house. Szymon has friends among the Pentecostals and Adventists, too; as a matter of fact, the only people he prefers to avoid are Roman Catholic priests and devout Roman Catholics. Discussions of church-state relations in Poland are the only moments when this even-tempered elderly man loses his patience and grumbles about the destructive effects of Church teachings, particularly their sexual ethics. “I’m telling you, girl!” he would repeat, “One day this Church and these popes will have to answer for the Holocaust in Africa.” The presence of people like Szymon reminds us of the contextuality of majority-minority relations and the variety of standpoints among the Polish majority. 114 HIERARCHY AND PLURALISM

Back on the main road, our singing group continues its walk. It is late, and the performance and songs are a bit worse for wear, but our hosts continue to happily welcome us into their homes. In each house, whether poor or wealthy, people are waiting for us with sweets, wine, or homemade liqueurs. Such is the case with Teodor’s family. Teodor, the eighty-six-year-old head of the house, makes a donation to the Jew, although he is aware that the money will be used for the Orthodox parish that he is not particularly fond of. Not only is his family one of the few Greek Catholic families in the village but it is also the only family that maintained its faith after the abolition of the Greek Catholic Church in Poland. Contrary to other Greek Catholic Lemkos from Krasne who converted to Orthodoxy in the 1950s, Teodor preferred to attend Roman Catholic masses and rejoined the Greek Catholic community in the 1990s. Since the Greek Catholic Church in Krasne was adopted by the Orthodox community in the late 1950s, Teodor’s family attends the mass in one of neighboring villages. He is very proud of his Greek Catholic identity and often stresses the weaknesses of the Orthodox Church, reminding people of its collaboration with the communist regime and arguing that it is dependent on Moscow.9 The family also notes that all their Orthodox neighbors used to be Greek Catholics before the war, to which the Orthodox answer that in the past all the Rusyns had been Orthodox.10 In my earlier discussion of the Rusyns’ religious trajectory, I emphasized both a multiplicity of sociopolitical factors that shaped their religious identification and the variety of ways in which belonging to two religious congregations is interpreted. While for some people it is the cerkiew and the Eastern rite which matter, for others belonging to one of the two churches is fundamental. Yet these interpretations are highly contextual; while expressing disdain toward the Orthodox Church, Teodor observes that his Orthodox neighbor is, after all, in many ways closer to him than a Roman Catholic neighbor. It is with his Orthodox neighbor that Teodor can discuss the importance of introducing the Lemko naming in the village or perform a ritual which is common for both creeds by going to bless water on the Day of Epiphany. His lived religious experience—lived as an ethnic identity, as a source of rituals, as a “chain of memory”— equips him with tools that can both harden and transgress religious boundaries. However, staying in the warm kitchen of Teodor’s house, we feel no differences or conflicts. Orthodox, Greek Catholics, and Roman Catholics sing, laugh, and make jokes, performing a traditional ritual CAROLING HISTORY 115 and celebrating a part of Christmas together. We are still sitting at the table in Teodor’s huge kitchen when his son, Tymko, goes around with a bottle of vodka; we are all supposed to “drink to somebody,” making a toast to the person sitting next to us. “I drink to our new carol singer,” says Tymko’s wife, Tola, who looks at me with a smile and then tells the others: “She manages well, nearly like our people.” Upon hearing this, Hela nods: “For Agnieszka is nearly ours.” The expression “to be like our people” implied that I was sensitive and aimed to comprehend minorities’ situation. Yet it was only a few days earlier that I heard from one of Teodor’s co-parishioners that I “stink of Pole”; he was suspicious about the use of the material I was collecting and suggested that I sided with “the majority.” What these diverse comments highlight are the tensions and paradoxes underlying ethnographers’ wish to “give voice to the people.” First, they remind us that attending to and recounting accounts of traumatic experiences and injustices may too easily become what Pamela Ballinger describes as “ethnography of complicity” (2003: 7) and which Amy Shuman argues destabilizes the association between individuals and their stories, the personal and the allegorical (2005: 4). Second, they remind us that boundaries are slippery things: seemingly crossed in one moment, they reassert themselves in the next. I was made at times to feel like I belonged, but then reminded that I was an outsider at other times. To emphasize this point, I share one more moment of the carol singers’ walk. As we trek toward the last dwellings, one of the shepherds—who is hardly able to stand, thanks to the liquid hospitality of all the houses we have visited—tells me about the inhabitants of the houses we pass. At one point, he says: “There is a mixed couple here. He is Orthodox and she is normal.” It is not the first time that I hear such a comment, but nevertheless, I play the fool: “Normal? What do you mean by saying that she is normal?” The shepherd glances up at me from under his hat and declares: “Normal? Like you!” As I have already indicated, to “be normal” in the local discourse means to be a Roman Catholic and a Pole; that the researcher of Polish origins must be Roman Catholic was taken for granted by local people. In the account of the local history, it is also important that the doxa of the Pole-Catholic does not exclusively relate to the national-religious sphere but also affects other dimensions of social life, including the practice of history making. The normativity of the idea of the Pole- Catholic, which constitutes the foundation of hierarchical pluralism, may also translate into a “hierarchy of memories” and a “hierarchy of histories,” making some memories and histories more appropriate 116 HIERARCHY AND PLURALISM and acceptable than others. Many local people felt their stories to be less important and to be unheard in the narrative of the Polish history. Some, like Wasyl, would say it bluntly and express their distrust of the official historical discourse:

You know, young lady, historians . . . I will say it directly, bru- tally . . . that I don’t believe contemporary historians any more. I don’t believe them at all. I don’t believe them because regarding the times I lived through . . . there are so many lies. And a historian has the right because . . . he writes the history . . . and whatever he finds nice, whatever fits his vision . . . he embellishes it and makes it more important while omitting unpleasant facts.

Wasyl’s protest against such “embellished” interpretations is his own attempt to write the family history and his attempts to share his knowledge with others. In Chapter 1, I discussed the various processes that exclude minorities’ voices from the discourse on Polish history. In this chapter, by citing the stories of Wasyl and his neighbors, I have sought to “restore” their voices and experiences through oral history. This is not to say that oral histories are necessarily “more true” than official history or to fall into the trap of romanticizing “subordinate voices” (cf. Scott 1990). As Alessandro Portelli points out (1981: 100), such personal narratives involve distortion and confabula- tion, but the peculiarity and merit of oral history lie in the fact that “untrue claims continue to be true psychologically, and ‘mistakes’ reveal more than those relations which are in accordance with the facts.” Otherwise stated, it is through such emotional, “hybrid,” and contradictory stories—comprised of accounts of historical and miraculous events, folktales, jokes, and imaginaries—that we come closest to understanding both “history from below” and its relation to mainstream narratives.

Conclusions This chapter was conceived as both a walk through the village with the group of carol singers and as a series of stops in the inhabitants’ houses—in short, a journey that would enable us to listen to people’s stories and learn more about the village history. Yet, as I hope is now clear, it is quite difficult to speak of “village history” or “local memory” in the singular; what we find instead is a mosaic of stories, CAROLING HISTORY 117 personal and group experiences and recollections, which are sometimes congruent but more often contradictory. Again, it would be too simplistic to claim that this is an issue of Roman Catholics’ memories versus religious minorities’ memories, or of Lemkos versus Poles. A religious or an ethnic community’s accounts are quite heterogeneous with regard to the evaluation of the past, the understanding of the different events or the way people assume responsibility. The accounts might be homogenized in some contexts, as in the case of recalling a collective trauma, but in general, they are “dialogical” and make sense only in relation to one another and as much through their differences as their similarities. In discussing heteroglossic narratives, I have also related them to the issue of boundaries. The evening of caroling itself exemplifies boundary maintenance; the singing group visited only Greek Catholic and Orthodox houses, omitting the Lemkos who belong to other denominations and most of the Polish inhabitants. At the same time, if we approach carol singing, which evokes the village’s past diversity, as a strategy used by young people to “pluralize the past” (and through that the present), it appears to be a request for change rather than a conservative force. Additionally, what people’s narratives often display is the recognition that the “blurring” of boundaries is advantageous at times; in the carol singers’ story, even the angel and the devil join forces to save Jesus. And, although “bright” boundaries tend to create different historical interpretations, people’s narratives manage to cross borders; local inhabitants relate to the narratives of others, even if they do not agree with them or challenge them, as they relate to top-down interpretations of history. The last point brings me back to oral history as a potential tool of resistance against dominant narratives. In my earlier discussion of resistance, I gave some examples of why it is important to go beyond the division of “majority” and “minority,” “dominant” and “subordinate.” A historical perspective makes evident that all these notions are contextual; a narrative of one individual or community, recounted in opposition to a dominant one, may be easily contested by yet other people and yet other memories. The past that was idyllic for some was not so for others and the understanding of dominant narratives and counternarratives shifts according to who tells them. At the same time, remembrances that divide the community may be challenged and weakened by the memories of common experiences. This process will be discussed in the following chapter, which is dedicated to the local narratives on socialism. They demonstrate one thing that is 118 HIERARCHY AND PLURALISM grounded in the local folk knowledge, namely that is better to be able to cooperate and transgress boundaries than not:

[ . . . ] I give you one example, when I lay in hospital, many years ago. A man from S., from a village near S. was lying next to me, and . . . you know, we were talking, as peasants talk, you know, and he told me the story of a church that was built there before the war: a big, nice, stone church. And it was hard [financially]. But there was a Jew there and he said, he says: “I will build this church for you, but I would like my name to be written above the door, saying who . . who was the founder of this church. I will build it with my own money.” But the parishioners did not agree and then . . . they kicked themselves [laughs]. So, you see, sometimes people reason in this way and then they regret it. And that’s how we were talking, like peasants do, eh? Chapter 4

Religion and Memories of Socialism

“ Was it possible to attend the church under socialism?” I asked Zosia and Zenek, members of the Orthodox Church, over dinner at their house in Krasne. Sitting at a table filled with homemade products—smoked sausages, pickles, and delicious cheese for which Zosia is known all around the village—we chatted about this and that. Upon hearing my question, Zosia shook her head and said she did not recall any problems. “Sometimes, when a policeman or an official came to the church, older people would comment on it, but otherwise nobody cared,” she asserted. Zenek agreed, explaining that the only people who were of interest to the authorities were those who occupied a relatively important function and that the communist1 authorities tried to force them to join the Party.2 One such person was Zenek’s brother, Miron, who worked at the time for the agricultural service. After several unsuccessful attempts to convince him to join the Party, the authorities sent a security service agent to the village—a short man who spoke in a faltering voice and tried to hide his timidity behind the Party card. The agent asked Miron—a tall, well-built, and outspoken man—to go with him to a secluded place and have a talk. So they began to wander through the village and the surroundings. Every time they entered a bar or stopped in a retreat, Miron would say: “This is not safe enough,” and they would continue walking. After an hour or so, they were up on the mountain where a deep forest begins. The agent got scared, asked Miron to bring him back to the village, and never came back to bother him again. This was not the end of Miron’s troubles, however. He was called several times to the county office and reprimanded for not using the official language while performing his job. One of Miron’s duties was to go from house to house within different villages, “distributing” calves. The policy of distribution meant that the villagers were 120 HIERARCHY AND PLURALISM supposed to buy a calf and accept a state loan to pay for it. “I will not sell a single calf if I cannot speak the Lemko language,” Miron insisted. He tried to defend people and help them during farm controls—for example, covering up the disappearances of calves and pigs. Zenek’s and Zofia’s eyes sparkled with humor when they recounted how the villagers joined forces in order to overcome the difficulties of the socialist times, usually by finding ways to keep their pigs, rather than being forced to sell them. They stressed that the villagers played with the number of pigs not only for their own benefit, but also to support neighbors and friends, especially on the occasion of religious festivities and family events. They hid the animals in the forest or in barns and would tell the state controllers that the pigs had become ill and had to be slaughtered. As a result, some pigs were “slaughtered” several times and miraculously resurrected afterwards. “They were better than Jesus!” the couple concluded, laughing. Vivid, detailed, humorous, light-hearted, sometimes embellished, but always mediated through personal experiences—people’s memories of socialism constitute a particularly fertile ground for inquiring into the relationship between social memory, history, and religious boundaries. In presenting the positive aspects of social life and work in the times of People’s Poland, local people offer an alternative reading of socialism. Rather than talking about “society against the state,” they indicate multiple entanglements between the local community, state, and church authorities. Speaking of faith and religious practices, they paint a vivid picture of religious life, showing the local narrative to be at odds with the conventional account of communist policies toward religion. They foreground the importance of common concerns against confessional or ethnic divisions across religious groups that translate into shared memories and assessments of socialist times. In all these accounts, the villagers mix religious and mundane language, proving religion to be a constituent of their everyday experiences. Brought together, the remembrances of different episodes during the socialist period provide insights into the ways religious beliefs and experiences of rural life intertwine in shaping local people’s remembrances and providing them with an understanding of what a “good life,” “faithfulness,” and “respect” mean. This understanding, in turn, plays a pivotal role in shaping social relations, such as the relations between neighbors, mates, and friends of different creeds. Apart from shedding light on the dynamics of religious diversity in relation to history and memory, this chapter seeks to place the “Polish case” within the literature on religion in postsocialism, which sprang up after the collapse of the communist regimes in Central-Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. In assessing the outcomes of the events RELIGION AND MEMORIES OF SOCIALISM 121 of 1989–1991, a period that marks a watershed in many respects, scholars addressed, among other issues, new religious movements and conversions (Pelkmans 2009; Wanner 2007), constellations of church- state relations (Borowik 1999; Ramet 1998), religion, and ethnicity (Hann 1997; Humphrey 1999) (for an overview, see Rogers 2006). A more general question underlying all of this research was whether postsocialist changes would lead to the deprivatization of religion (or its dedomestication; cf. Dragadze 1993) and its increased visibility in the public realm or, conversely, to further secularization (Zubrzycki 2006). Given the immense diversity that has characterized (post) socialist countries, it is impossible to speak of one sequence of developments; there are multiple “postsocialist questions” (Hann 2006). The specificity of the “Polish postsocialist question” lies in the fact that no significant or dramatic changes have been identified there (Boguszewski 2009; Mariański 2006). Neither the reestablishment of the churches banned during communist times nor the emergence of new religious movements has altered the Polish religious landscape substantially. The frequency and character of religious practices have remained relatively stable, too, and the only remarkable shift concerns people’s increasingly critical attitudes toward the Catholic Church’s influence on state politics. Likewise, given the relatively stable character of religiosity in Poland, the debates on the “remaking [of] self and society” (Wanner 2007) or the “recycling” of identities (Luehrmann 2005) has not found fertile ground in the Polish context. Certainly, understanding a particular postsocialist development indicates the necessity of a thorough investigation of specific socialist paths; an investigation that would “flesh out the complexities and subtleties of the church-state relations” and tackle the differences “between the implacability of the official rhetoric (on both sides) and the day-to-day cooperation between clergy and local authorities” (Porter-Szűcs 2010: 21), as well as foreground lived religious experiences in the context of socialist policies (see Wanner 2012). In addressing these issues, the chapter opens with a discussion of the experiences of a Roman Catholic community followed by an account of other religious denominations and, most importantly, a reflection on the moments when their paths crossed.

Social and Religious Life under Socialism: The Case of Ciche Bounded by a range of gentle hills and situated only a few kilometers from the Slovakian border, the village of Ciche is one of the most remote localities in the district. The village’s inhabitants say that their 122 HIERARCHY AND PLURALISM village is so remote that even “the crows turn back.” Due to a peculiar village endogamy, most of the 160 village inhabitants are related and belong to one of four extended families. As in most of the localities in this area, the village is located along one main road, which, on one side, connects the village with other localities and, on the other side, runs through neighboring forests to an abandoned village. A first glance at the village instills in the visitor a sense of remoteness and abandonment; apart from a tall stone church, a cemetery and a village club, its landscape is marked by empty buildings, idle bus stops, and vast fields that lie fallow. The village of Ciche was a sort of discovery during my fieldwork. People from other localities discouraged me from going to that “godforsaken hole,” stressing that only Roman Catholics lived there and that I would not find anything interesting to study. I soon realized that the village was quite different from what I was “supposed” to find there. Instead of a passive, disorganized, and depressed community, I got to know closely related people, who are eager to socialize and express a strong attachment to the place they inhabit. And perhaps most interestingly, I learned that one can learn a great deal about diversity in a place where it is essentially absent. The Lemko inhabitants were forced to leave Ciche in June 1947. New settlers moved to the village several months later, occupying only one-fifth of the prewar dwellings.3 Recalling their arrival to the village, the eldest inhabitants speak of loafs of bread in the ovens, hard like stones, and fields with planted potatoes. They assert unanimously that the resettlement of Lemkos was a brutal, unjust, and disgraceful action carried out by the state. A Polish couple that bought a plot and settled in Ciche already in 1945 helped establish a link between Lemko and Polish villagers. In a conversation with one of their daughters, Bea, a village herbalist, I learned that Ukrainian partisans were present in the area after the war, yet most Lemkos refused to cooperate with them or did so only under duress. Her own father miraculously escaped death at the hands of the UPA: after he refused to give them the livestock, they wanted to hang him but a group of Lemko neighbors managed to secure his release. Bea’s parents were much respected by the Polish population and their attitudes toward Lemkos undoubtedly influenced people’s stand toward them. Although only four Lemko families settled back in the village, Poles have had contacts with many other Lemkos due to the frequent visits of past inhabitants, returning to see the place of their birth. Due to the closeness of a rich and well-supplied health resort, the postwar years were relatively easier for the inhabitants of Ciche than for other inhabitants of the district. No matter if summer or RELIGION AND MEMORIES OF SOCIALISM 123 winter, women would undertake 10-kilometer walks through a hilly path leading to the resort in order to sell milk, eggs, and cheese or exchange them for other products, such as sugar, flour, and bread. In the summer, children picked berries and mushrooms and joined their mothers on their walks. Some people recall catching trout and crayfish, which they sold directly to the restaurants in the town. Most of the men found employment in the state-owned farm, which was founded in the mid-1950s after an unsuccessful attempt to turn the area into a kolkhoz. Apart from that, every family farmed its plot of land, kept cattle, and grew flax. In winter, men would undertake additional jobs in the forest while women would do handicrafts at home. Due to the combination of all these activities, people were able to make ends meet. Inhabitants say that by the 1970s most people had managed to truly settle down. Along with state-promoted “social deeds,”4 thanks to which the village was equipped with electricity and a beaten road (in the early 1960s), the inhabitants were able to carry out extensive renovations on the local church, the cemetery, and the small chapel in the adjacent abandoned village. The stone Greek Catholic church was adapted to the needs of the Roman Catholic population, and the chapel was used on special occasions. Due to the small number of inhabitants, the church in Ciche could not count as an independent parish church, but was “attached” to other churches. Since the 1980s, it has been a sister church of the parish of neighboring village, where the parish priest resides. Inhabitants’ accounts of the first postwar decades vary by generation. People in their sixties and seventies commonly describe them as “good times.” They are nostalgic for past sociability, mutual help among neighbors, and the stability of work places and agriculture. They smile as they recall spontaneously organized Saturday dances and everyday neighborly visits. Younger generations, people in their forties and fifties, do not necessarily dispute such images but tend to present a more nuanced view and seek to explain ongoing changes. They suggest that “mutual help” meant, in fact, “mutual dependence” resulting from the lack of modern equipment and tools. Similarly, while they agree that unemployment was rare, they assert that some positions were simply fictional and that “hidden unemployment”5 was a fact. They complicate their parents’ and grandparents’ memories of stability and security by reminding them about annoying state controls and absurd top-down writs. And with regard to the narrative of declining sociability, they either disagree or point to new ways of spending free time. Still, this comparison is not to suggest that elder inhabitants’ memories ought to read as an idealized view on one’s 124 HIERARCHY AND PLURALISM youth and, as such, refuted. As scholars of postsocialism suggest, nostalgia is a tool that people employ in order to express disapproval of present-day reality and, at the same time, shape it with images of a “good past”; it is more about “the production of a present rather than the reproduction of the past” (Berdahl 1999: 202). Indeed, both generations’ views meet in the assertion that the present-day is far from ideal. Today, only four out of forty-four households still own and make a living from a big farm; in other households, men work in the sawmill or in the construction business, while the women take care of the household, run a small farm, or work in the developing tourist sector. Contrary to what is often assumed, the reason for this decline in large farm ownership is not the “postsocialist transformation,” which brought about the closure of PGRs and the restructuring of agriculture, but Poland’s accession to the European Union in 2004. Initially, the accession meant an influx of structural funds that helped to modernize farms and equip them with new devices and machinery. Gradually, however, farmers’ attention turned to the drawbacks of the accession, such as agricultural product quotas and ecology-friendly regulations, which, in their view, are unnecessary burdens that simply hinder farmers’ work and resemble some of the absurd socialist regulations. Explaining to me the direc- tives on the preservation of “local nature,” the village leader observed: “Now, everything has a right to reproduce, grasshoppers . . . Simply everything! This is nature, simply nature. One cannot disturb grasshoppers!” Likewise, his wife questioned the regulations by invoking a higher force: “God created nature . . . but He left and has never come back since then!” One of the biggest problems facing the inhabitants is the scarcity of public transport. At the time of my fieldwork, there was no bus connecting the village with the center of the district or with any other locality. The state-owned bus company justifies this with the unprof- itability of bus connections in a sparsely populated area, while the inhabitants claim that drivers do not issue tickets to passengers and thus the buses are thought to be unprofitable. Although every household owns a car, many see their lives limited to the village, and the lack of public transport increases the inhabitants’ sense of being marginal and peripheral. They see in it a proof that corruption is even worse today than it was in communist times and that, rather than improving, the village is undergoing a form of reverse modernization. Not one to mince his words, the village leader comments: “Civilization, fucking civilization. We’re going back to the Stone Age instead, I’d rather buy a horse again to ride to city!” The village leader’s views RELIGION AND MEMORIES OF SOCIALISM 125 resonate with scholarly observations of “decreasing modernism”6 as a characteristic of postsocialism (Pine 2007: 195). Frances Pine argues that rural inhabitants perceive themselves as having “always been modern” (2007: 198) and all the more so nowadays (see also Creed 1998). As such, it is state policies and not their own activities that inhabitants see as antimodern. As we shall see, the observations from Ciche demonstrate that the ideas of “civilization” and “modernity” are very consequential for people’s perception of religion.

Socialism and Faith(fulness) The first family I got to know in Ciche was the village leader quoted above, Bronek, and his wife Basia, whom he jokingly calls his best personal secretary. Both are Roman Catholic and forty years old, and with the help of their twin sons, they run a big dairy farm. Understanding this couple can be challenging, as almost every other word out of Bronek’s mouth is a curse word, while Basia likes to mix Italian words learnt during seasonal work in the South into her speech. Our first conversation began, like so many of my fieldwork conversations, with the couple highlighting the region’s uniqueness:

Basia: I think it was written in a newspaper that we’re the biggest [center of diversity] in Poland...... Agnieszka: Do you meet any other believers? Basia: Well, Jehovah’s Witnesses come with newspapers. Agnieszka: Do you talk to them? Basia: Recently usually [ . . . Bronek: [One should not condemn them; their faith is as good as ours is. Who knows whose faith . . . better . . . I mean . . . let them believe what they want and we believe in what we want, we don’t send them away, goddammit, we don’t condemn. They are as anyone else [ . . . ] What’s the problem that they don’t eat blood? [It is] His problem, isn’t it? For instance, I would never eat a snail! [ . . . ] Basia: Apparently what’s the most important is that one practices a faith, that one believes in something.

Apart from exemplifying a locally widespread approach to “religious others,” namely, tolerance in the strict term of the word, this opening conversation constitutes a good entry point for the discussion of the “(post)socialist religious question.” As I realized while talking to Basia and Bronek, as well as with other inhabitants (usually one of their more or less distant relatives), the dynamics of local religious life 126 HIERARCHY AND PLURALISM are shaped not by a specific (Roman Catholic, Christian) notion of “faith” or even an understanding of faith as an institutionalized religious life influence. Speaking of the importance of “a faith,” inhabitants of Ciche highlight that what counts most is that people “believe in something” and adhere to a religious tradition; in short, what matters is to be on a path, regardless of which path that may be. Generally, they assume that all the people believe in one God, and they seem to be less concerned with other, diverging aspects of religious doctrines. Whereas highlighting the significance of “faith,” Roman Catholics from Ciche juxtapose their religious beliefs and experiences with the Church’s imperatives (cf. Freeman 1968: 43; Orsi 1985: xvii). This is not to say that they do not see themselves as needing the church or priest at all; rather, they see the priest as serving their needs and the parish church as a sphere of communal life and a bond that ties them to the village. In their accounts of religious life under socialism, inhabitants of Ciche first and foremost emphasize their attachment to the parish and the local inhabitants’ care for the church. Apart from mentioning various kind of work carried out voluntarily by the inhabitants, such as fencing the cemetery or draining the church plot, they also emphasize that they always managed to persuade the local party members to support the church with fuel or materials for repairs. Having given me such examples, Bronek’s older relatives would sigh and say that, unfortunately, “then ‘Solidarity’ came,” and it was not easy any more to get wood or money for the church: Solidarity members were neither efficient nor eager in their support. Not only in Ciche but also in different neighboring localities, this picture of local communist authorities as Church-friendly complicates the mainstream Polish narrative that depicts Solidarity members as the Church’s biggest allies.7 Although Roman Catholic priests are outraged at such claims and thunder about the Church’s persecution, clergymen from other congregations agree with the villagers’ statements and observe that it was under communism that the Catholic Church experienced a construction boom and accumulated many assets (cf. Dudek and Gryz 2003). All this attests to the earlier observations regarding the peculiar coexistence and favors exchanged between the state and church authorities. Similarly, evidence from other socialist countries, such as Romania, indicates that allowing and supporting the construction of new churches was a part of political agenda of local communist authorities (Sincan 2010). On a related note, inhabitants of Ciche also challenge the idea of “suppressed” religious practices. Asked whether there were periods RELIGION AND MEMORIES OF SOCIALISM 127 when attending church was not seen in a good light, they looked at me, surprised, and answered: “Well, we should rather say that in the communist times we really went to church.” I can hardly imagine that they could attend church even more than they do today, but if they say that this was the case, it means that religious practice in socialist times was, indeed, high. Most of the priests to whom I spoke confirmed such opinions. In short, it would be hard to speak about the “domestication of religion” in the Polish case (Dragadze 1993). And this evidence from rural areas is increasingly supported by more general scholarly explorations that testify to the intensification of religious life during socialism, especially in its last stages (Bjork 2010; Grabowska 2001). The inhabitants of Ciche gave me examples of servicemen or policemen who came to their villages to marry in church or have their children baptized. Actually, they seemed to pity “those poor officials who could not go to church openly.” I also learned the story of an old man who was a Party member and a sacristan at the same time. According to Bronek, people suggested to the man that it was perhaps improper to combine these two roles, but he answered that no power could pull him away from the church. Although neither villagers nor church chronicles report the fact that there was a man filling both roles simultaneously, the very existence of such an account is itself important, as it sheds light not only on people’s ambiguous attitude toward the communist system, but also on their complex relation to religion and religious institutions. For local inhabitants, participating in religious rituals is a habitual, traditional way of expressing and living religion. Whether such rituals are connected with observance of the Catholic dogmas and morality is a different issue, negotiated individually by the faithful; what shapes the local public sphere, the patterns of sociability, and community life is joint attendance of religious services.8 This social aspect of religious life makes the institution of the parish central. Inhabitants of Ciche would frequently say that “These are people to make up the parish,” “We are responsible for the parish,” or “We need to take for the parish since it is ours.” Asked if the priest takes care of the parish, an old Roman Catholic corrected me: “These are the people who care for it!” Undoubtedly bolstering such sentiments is the fact that the parish priest does not actually reside in Ciche and that the church has been subject to numerous administrative changes. People’s attachment to the parish is closely related to their attitude to the clergymen, which is characterized by a peculiar combination of esteem, criticism, and distance. Bea stated that “‘priest’ is just a 128 HIERARCHY AND PLURALISM profession,” besides “not even a difficult one.” In her view, men who opt for this “job” choose an easy life: they study for a few years and then get a cushy job in a parish and a teaching position in a grammar school. At the same time, she acknowledged that priests are needed and perform an important function. She and many others inhabitants would agree that the priest is a special person—but only while at the altar. Locals tend to turn a blind eye to the priest’s life outside the parish; they do gossip about priests’ affairs but separate their private lives from the performance of religious services. Despite the fact that the vast majority of the priests in Ciche were said to have had love affairs,9 people never used this as a reason to rebel against them. Instead, they proudly recall an incident from the 1980s when they blocked another priest from entering the church because he was not, in their view, a good parish administrator. The story reveals the importance people give to the parish, but it also shows why priests, themselves, often vary in their opinions about parishioners’ engagement. The issue is not that parishioners are unin- volved, but that their involvement may not come in the form the priests would prefer. The incumbent priest today complains about his parishioners meanness and meager donations. Showing me parish chronicles, he pointed out those passages in which his predecessors made similar remarks. The villagers, in turn, state that it is thanks to the work of caring parishioners that the church and the cemetery were well kept, indirectly pointing to the difference between contributing physical work versus financial donations—the latter of which may end up in the priest’s pocket. Although priest-parishioner relations are no doubt shaped by the village’s history, the Ciche locals’ attitudes toward the priests resemble those in many other Catholic contexts. Ruth Behar describes the Spanish parishioners’ perception of priests as functionaries, “a career like any other” (1990: 90–1), while Jõao de Pina-Cabral stresses that in the Portuguese village, priests’ greed and incompetence are perceived as worse than lack of chastity (1986: 211). In short, clergymen are seen as important and potent in their role as mediators of the sacred and presiding over rituals, but they are also perceived to be human, with all the weaknesses and faults of human- kind. People view them as officials or clerks who perform their duties and obligations in a more or less satisfactory way. But even when their performance is critiqued, they are, nonetheless, respected. My conversations with Bronek and Basia were very helpful in understanding this. I especially remember our discussion during the solemn breakfast on Easter Sunday, which I spent with them and their children. As the breakfast took place just after the mass, the conversation that RELIGION AND MEMORIES OF SOCIALISM 129 followed “naturally” was about different “religious matters.” My hosts did not mince their words while describing previous parish priests and recounting their love affairs. They were extremely critical of the Church’s financial power and its constant efforts to “milk” money out of the parishioners. Still, after about two hours of criticism and mockery, Bronek asked Basia what the time was and suggested that it was high time to invite the priest for a glass of vodka. “An authority is an authority” (Władza jest władzą), he remarked, just as he would comment on the need to be on a good footing with the district’s leader and the members of the local council. Similar findings were presented in a study carried out in the 1960s in several Polish villages that revealed the important social role of priests (Piwowarski 1968). Arguably, this sort of attitude toward clergymen—that they are but one of many authorities one has to deal with—facilitated the coexistence of religious practices and the communist system at the local level.10 Indeed, inhabitants perceive socialism as the period when people’s religiosity, particularly their approach to priests, began to alter dramatically. Elderly inhabitants admit that in the past—by which they mean mainly the prewar and immediate postwar period—priests used to treat their parishioners as fools; they could get anything into villagers’ heads, demand complete obedience, or even assign physical work for the priest as a form of penance. But with the “arrival of civilization” into villages, priests had to give up such behavior. Bea associates these changes with the period of her youth (1960s/1970s). She recalls that socialist policies brought the opportunity to attend a school and provided support for youth from rural, peripheral areas. Thanks to these educational opportunities, even men of limited means could think about becoming a priest.11 But once people learned to read and gained access to TV and news from the outside world, priests had to stop giving commands and reprimanding parishioners:

People won’t let [the priest] control them. Now everyone can read, knows what the Bible says, and thus knows what the priest can and cannot do, what is from the Bible and what is from the priest. There are no benighted people today.

In a similar vein, Basia’s sister compares generational changes and observes:

The faith in young people is not the same as it is in us. One could say metaphorically that our parents went to the church on their knees, we go on foot, but they [young people]—they go by car. 130 HIERARCHY AND PLURALISM

Inhabitants of Ciche today see themselves as modern, knowledgeable, and aware of their rights. The fact that they associate the changes in their attitude with socialism points to the often unrecognized spheres of interaction between socialist policies in rural areas and patterns of religious life that belie claims about the conservation of religious practices under socialism. Telling the story of the church’s “siege” in the 1980s, the inhabitants contrast it with an event from the 1950s, a memory that continues to upset them. The event relates to the role Ciche supposedly played in Polish history. According to historical accounts—which over the course of time have become local legends—prayers before the miraculous image of the Virgin Mary rescued a Polish general. The memory of that event was transmitted to generations of Ciche’s inhabitants (both Lemkos and ethnic Poles), even though the presence of the general and his soldiers in the village was not well remembered. What was important was the act of “divine intervention,” which reinforced the cult of the image and transformed Ciche into a pilgrimage site. After the Lemkos were expelled and Poles had settled in Ciche, the church building was in decay and the image was its only precious property. However, because it was so precious and because it was located in a very marginal village, the priest from a neighboring village took it away in the mid-1950s. He placed the image in another church located in a much larger and wealthier parish, situated about twenty kilometers from Ciche, while the church in Ciche was given a copy—“only a copy,” as the inhabitants put it. Once the icon had been removed, the cult surrounding it ceased. The removal of the icon continues to outrage also the current parish priest who told me that the “priest-thief” managed to legalize his indecent act due to the close relations with the bishop at the time, but that he probably “burns in the purgatory” now.12 As for the parishioners, while recounting the case they emphasize that it could have happened only in the 1950s, shortly after their settlement, when people were neither powerful nor organized enough. They repeat that they would have never let the priest steal the icon today. Generally, people consider the local church to be very beautiful and precious. Bea observes that praying in an ex-Eastern Christian shrine, in the front of an impressive iconostasis,13 people can better experience the Bible’s content: “In a way a church is a church. Jesus is everywhere. But when you look at the iconostas—the Testament is depicted there—you look at the icons and you see it all.” These villagers’ independent conviction and their reflective approach to their creed is at odds with widespread views of “popular” RELIGION AND MEMORIES OF SOCIALISM 131 or “folk” religion as conformist, naïve, unreflective, and superficial. In this way, as others have noted, “popular religion” often stands for the religion of “others,” representing the distinction between “black” immigrants and WASPs (cf. Orsi 1985), Eastern and Western Europeans (cf. Porter-Szűcs 2010), elites and the folk (cf. Badone 1990). Despite many attempts to restore the concept of popular religion by “abandoning the underlying value laden and ethnocentric distinctions, not just the term” (McGuire 2008: 46), its negative stamp persists, especially when it resonates with and is reinforced by other discriminatory discourses. In the Polish context, the idea of “popular religion” constitutes a central trope in the discourse that divides “urban” and “rural,” “modern” and “backward” society, “intelligentsia” and “peasants.” The latter terms of these binaries are the “losers” of postsocialist transformation, who, nostalgic for the communist system and unable to adapt to new conditions, look for a refuge in religion. Notwithstanding the well-researched role of religion in moments of crisis, it is important to recognize the orientalist overtones of this discourse (see Buchowski 2006), as well as its simplistic understanding of religion, which implicitly takes for granted what a “proper” (read: non-popular) religion is. What then are the actual dynamics of the “popular religion” manifested in Ciche? People go to the church because of their faith, variably understood, and due to their attachment to the parish, invariably important. This emphasis put on individual approaches to and understandings of faith does not mean that people question the importance of mass attendance, rituals and, last but not least, the need for figures of authority to perform those rituals (cf. Freeman 1968). At the same time, however, people do not hesitate to say “no” and (temporarily) suspend their church attendance when there are cases of conflict or dissatisfaction with the priest. Their lived religion is shaped by their individual choices, convictions, and experiences but also by broader patterns of Catholic religiosity, in particular, the importance of rituals and “anticlericalism as religious belief” (Brettell 1990: 64), and by the complexities of local history, which led to the development of a strong sense of responsibility for the parish and a strong attachment to the inhabited territory. As such, their religious practices exemplify perfectly the tension between practices-as-dispositions and practices-as-choices, demonstrating that what we tend to perceive as a habitual practice may in fact be a deliberate statement; lived religion induces people to act and drives their actions, but it is also used creatively by people and, in turn, transformed by them. 132 HIERARCHY AND PLURALISM

Finally, lived religion is also a mode of relating to other people. While talking about their faith (wiara) and changes of religiosity, local people turn to the subject of faithfulness (wierność):

You’re asking me about faith? Well, under socialism people were . . . how to say that . . . they were very faithful, they respected each other, they would never denounce each other, they were more . . . faithful.

The idea of “faithfulness” relates to the view of socialism as a time when people were equal: they were all poor together, whereas today inhabitants occupy various economic statuses. Displays of wealth by some and envy on the side of others is what people now perceive as the biggest threat to the well-being of the local community as it may undermine solidarity, mutual help, and respect—the very values that make people “good Christians.” Such preoccupations, expressed not only by elder people but also by younger generations, are yet another reason to evoke safe memories of socialist “sameness.” And it is in this longing for and experience of sameness that the Roman Catholics’ and religious minorities’ remembrances intersect.

Plural and Local: Remembrances of Socialism As indicated in Chapter 1, the situations of different religious congregations under socialism varied significantly. This discrepancy resulted from the shifting policies of the communist regime, which officially opposed any religion, yet, in practice, mainly repressed religious practices outside the mainstream churches, the latter of which they sought to control. While discussing these various relations, it is also important to bear in mind that talking about “religion under socialism” entails talking about four extremely different decades. The Greek Catholic Church was banned until the 1980s and its members were expected to join the Orthodox Church, which was approved of by the communist authorities. The Pentecostals were oppressed in the 1950s, but in the following decades, the local authorities often turned a blind eye to their practices. In the 1980s, the Pentecostals managed to register as a religious association and establish a house of prayers. The Jehovah’s Witnesses could not function as a congregation, yet they also found ways to practice their faith meetings in the forests and in private houses. The Adventists do not recall any difficulties with the authorities, but they were present in Rozstaje only from the 1970s, by which time the regime had already grown more lenient. RELIGION AND MEMORIES OF SOCIALISM 133

Though specific experiences varied across religious communities, it is also possible to trace a common phenomenon: the disparity between top-down regulations and how policies were actually implemented locally. Officially, neither religious practices nor religious communities were permitted, yet local authorities would often give tacit consent or refrain from disturbing religious gatherings (and not only closed ones but also those held in public, such as Pentecostal baptisms performed in the river). Recounting such situations, the inhabitants often referred to the notion of “periphery” and claimed that, due to the district’s geographical position and relative separateness, there was not much official control in the region. Similar opinions characterize people’s remembrances of other aspects of social life, as recounted by inhabitants of the district’s capital. Władek, a Lemko in his late fifties, lives in the central part of the village. In socialist times he worked on his farm and supplied milk; after the transition, he found employment as a seasonal construction worker in big cities in Poland and Germany. He is now retired and helps his wife run their small farm tourism company, and he actively engages in the life of his Greek Catholic parish, acting as a lector. Still, his major occupation seems to be standing next to the district’s office and remarking on everything that goes on in the village and beyond. A radio and newspapers addict, he always provides people with news and his commentary. Although he has quite a sharp tongue and always speaks his mind, thanks to his cheerful disposition, the other inhabitants like him and he is arguably one of the most interesting local figures. When I visited his home for the first time, he actually refused to talk to me. He sat in the kitchen, doing a crossword, while his wife hosted me in the adjacent room, telling me the history of the Greek Catholic parish. From time to time, Władek’s annoyed shouts would interject from the kitchen: “It was the other way round!” or “You’re not telling things properly!” After a quarter of an hour or so, he finally entered the room, first admonishing his wife and then saying to me: “Girl, you say that you are writing your PhD, but you know nothing about life!” Władek’s proceeded to give me a “life lesson,” which entailed him asking me questions and then answering them himself. His aim was to convince me that “things” are very different from what is usually thought. In short, he presented me with his own reading of Polish history, emphasizing the discrimination against minorities, the Roman Catholic Church’s influences, and Poles’ obsession with heroism, virtuousness, and (their own) sufferings. Talking about Poles and Poland, he constantly switched from “they” to “we.” He used “they” 134 HIERARCHY AND PLURALISM while talking about Poles who resettled Lemkos (“us”) or present-day politicians he is not particularly fond of, but he used “we” when talking about things that the Polish people should improve and work on. This tension between ethnic and civic understandings of Polishness is worth highlighting, as it constitutes an important, and often unrecognized, element of local pluralism:

Oh, what a lament, that Poles were taken to Siberia by cars, stock cars . . . and what about Poles towards us? . . . how did they transport us? Perhaps by planes?! [ . . . ] My lady, why am I saying that there’ll never be order in Poland and we’ll never be humans? Do you know why? Because nobody tells us that we are pigs, but everyone tells us that we are the best nation. So there is nothing to improve. In the church they tell us we’re ok, fine, ah! We are such a hospitable nation, the most hospitable nation of Europe, you must have heard it, haven’t you? So we’ve got nothing to improve on if we’re perfect.

Władek also speaks in the first-person plural while describing life under socialism. Like his peers in Ciche, he is very critical of the present-day situation and expresses nostalgia for certain aspects of the People’s Republic. He describes that period as more “human,” stressing that people helped each other in the field and that joint work and neighborly meetings were the key components of the “good past.” He also emphasizes strongly that people helped each other, regardless of ethnic or religious background, in a common effort to meet the difficulties. But when we say that people like Władek are “nostalgic for People’s Poland,” it is imperative to recognize the complexity of that postsocialist nostalgia; what people miss are some of “by-products” of the socialist system—certain institutions and patterns of rural life— and not the system as such. Władek also recalls that in socialist times the inhabitants developed a variety of skills and looked for additional sources of income wherever they could. One such place was the forest, where people went, for example, to steal wood to produce things like wooden spoons or pal- ettes. The forest was the property of the state, but, as Władek emphasizes, “good foresters” also developed particular skills: they learnt not to see and not to hear. Such survival strategies were, as Władek put it, ways of “fixing things.” And although he admits that the “fixing” was not always legal or honest, he confesses that he misses this repertoire of inventions and inventiveness. His accounts resonate with Reed-Danahay’s (1993) remarks on “resourcefulness” and “ways of operating,” which in village reality translate into being clever and RELIGION AND MEMORIES OF SOCIALISM 135 making artful use of natural resources. Reed-Danahay observes that such acts do not necessarily entail an open confrontation with those in power but rather a skillful combination of persistence, resistance, and coexistence. In Władek’s view, it was very effective, even necessary, for a family to have a brother working for the state forest, because he could make sure that the other brother would get wood when needed without any problems. In other words, people often viewed cooperation with the authorities as a strategy to survive during difficult times, and they stress that many people who were connected with the powers of the state helped not only themselves but also other villagers. These opinions, in turn, bring to mind the observations of Alexei Yurchak (2003), who, in his study of the Soviet Konsomol, demonstrated people’s ability to render the communist ideology meaningful by using it to support each other. Tadek and Tekla, who live just next door to Władek, would not agree with him. They are both Jehovah’s Witnesses, in their late fifties. Tekla was born in a Lemko family but she does not feel connected with the Lemko ethnic community. Like Władek, the couple has been living in the village for several decades. That is the point where the similarities end; Tadek and Tekla are probably the most quiet and reserved people in the entire village. The only times when their presence is noticed are the days when they go from house to house, to spread their faith by supplying people with religious maga- zines and by discussing the Bible. Although others sometimes treat them in disrespectful way, the couple never complains about it. “They might have had a bad day” or “Maybe a fox ate his hens again” are typical justifications for people’s impolite behavior. The couple explains that some people are “combative by nature” and they would mistreat anyone, whether or not he or she is a Jehovah’s Witness. They also claim to have obliging, reliable neighbors who would not hesitate to help them. They express understanding and liking even for Władek, despite the fact he welcomes them at home with his own Bible, indicates a passage and tells them: “Jesus said: ‘Beware of sly wolves which will enter among you’ . . . Oh look, this Bible passage speaks about you!” Similarly, Tadeusz and Tekla never complained about their job. In socialist times they both worked first on a state-owned farm and then in the mineral water industry. Tadeusz says that in both places the directors were confirmed communists, but the couple never had any problems and never concealed their faith. Tadek emphasized that this was because the directors saw them, above all, as good workers and 136 HIERARCHY AND PLURALISM appreciated Jehovah’s Witnesses’ truthfulness. To prove the directors’ attitude, he related two personal exchanges with his employers. In the early 1970s, Tadek was imprisoned for two and a half years because he refused to do the obligatory military service. Despite the fact that he did not conceal the reason for his detainment while applying for the job, he did not encounter any obstacles. Then, in 1981, he and his wife planned to go to Austria for a worldwide gathering of Jehovah’s Witnesses. However, the meeting was planned for August, the busi- est month in the state-owned farm. Without much hope, they went to the director and told him the truth about the reason why they wanted to travel abroad; the director listened and granted them a week’s vacation, which was really exceptional in the harvest season. Tadek and Tekla thus assert that it was possible to live as one wanted to in communist times; you just had to work hard and be honest. They conclude this story in the same way they conclude most of their conversations, namely, with a quote from the Bible: “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s.” 14 Jakub and Janka, both in their late sixties, live in the same neighborhood. In the past they had various jobs, combining these with work on a small farm and raising six children. Jakub has also been the pastor of the Pentecostal community for fifteen years, and his wife has always been his invaluable right hand, supporting him in his priestly work. Whenever I talked to them, they spoke together, seemingly unanimously—probably the result of sharing both their professional and their private lives for over forty years. Until the late 1990s, they ran the only petrol station in the district. The petrol station was crucial for two reasons: first, getting petrol at the time of the People’s Poland was, at times, close to a miracle, and secondly, the petrol station was jokingly called the most ecumenical place in the entire multi- confessional district, as all the religious leaders would meet there to fill their cars. Many inhabitants recall the place, emphasizing that they could always rely on Jakub’s honesty and that they were always sure to get good quality petrol, because “the petrol there was not baptized” (meaning, that nothing had been added to it). When asked why they relied on Jakub, people often answered that Pentecostals do not believe in purgatory, so it was better for them not to cheat: “They have no ‘third option’, [it’s] either hell or heaven.” The ecumenical petrol station became a platform for important meetings, gossips, and dramatic events, something Jakub and Janka emphasized as they shared their stories with me. RELIGION AND MEMORIES OF SOCIALISM 137

One such story regarded an episode from the 1980s when the petrol was distributed through ration coupons. It was a severe winter day, and people queued for hours, hoping to get a few liters of petrol. Since the arrival of the petrol supply was totally unpredictable, Janka promised to tip off a Roman Catholic priest when it arrived. When the fuel tank eventually came and she phoned him, the priest said some serious obligations kept him in the church and asked her to fill a container for him. Upon hearing this, Janka faced two problems: how to put some petrol aside in front of the waiting crowd and how to avoid being caught by a controller, who would never allow such a favor:

I was thinking: how will I explain it to the people who were waiting there? I was pondering over it and . . . I decided to tell them, ‘You are his parishioners, I’m not but I’m trying to help the priest since I know he needs the car to get to the church and perform services for you.’ Luckily nobody objected. ( . . . ) But then a controller came and . . . well, the Bible says: if you don’t want to be afraid of the authorities, do the right thing.

In Janka’s and Jakub’s view, “doing the right thing” means unconditional support for others. If one does the right thing, one is supported by God; therefore, Janka explains, God helped her to get away in one piece from her encounter with the controller. The couple’s accounts reflect a sharp conviction about what is right and what is wrong, which often make them very critical of other believers—particularly Roman Catholics, whom they perceive as hypocritical and two-faced. Commenting on Roman Catholics’ ambiguous behavior toward priests and ill-mannered life, exemplified by swearing and alcohol abuse, they sigh deeply: “There’s not so queer as folk . . . and as Poles” (Są ludzie i ludziska . . . i Polacy). Similar to Władek, the couple alternates between using the terms “them” and “us” when speaking about Poles; for example, they talk about their Roman Catholic duplicity but our Polish struggle for democratic rights. Importantly, though, criticizing others is not the same as con- demning them; something Janka and Jakub refuse to do. First, they argue, people do not deserve to be condemned as long as they are alive and they still have a chance to change, and second, it is for God to judge what people do. For this reason, they strongly oppose the “politics of decommunization,” something that reached a climax during the time of my fieldwork in 2008. The radio and press were filled with accounts of public figures who were accused of having 138 HIERARCHY AND PLURALISM cooperated with communist secret services. Commenting on such revelations, Janka and Jakub would shake their heads and repeat that the “supposed agents” should be left in peace. Their views of work and everyday life are also clearly shaped by their Protestant background. The pastor and his wife put a strong emphasis on the work ethic, how important it is to work hard to achieve something. This was something they appreciated during the socialist period; though it was hard, at least people had to struggle, not like today when so many things are given free of charge. It is unthinkable for them that children receive free meals at school and that many inhabitants rely on the support by the state. In their opinion, in the Polish People’s Republic, things like that did not happen.

* * *

Stories from a religiously diverse neighborhood demonstrate an interplay of common and divergent experiences in shaping the memories of the socialist past (and the past in general). Some of the differences may result from particular religious beliefs as well as trajectories of one’s religious community. Religious habitus gives people the criteria with which to evaluate what is to be considered “honest,” “merited,” or “fixed” and a particular language that—as comments about “resurrected pigs” and “baptized petrol” display—goes well beyond sacred contexts. At the same time, religious convictions interact with, and may be weakened or reinforced by, certain facets of rural life. For example, the reluctance to judge others’ past behavior is something that many rural inhabitants have in common. Due to the closeness and intensity of social relations, they have a holistic view of the person; they thus recognize that a man could be a party or police member, but he was also a neighbor, a friend, and the godfa- ther of their son. Similarly, people’s attitudes toward local communist authorities—their perception of them as “us” rather than “them” and a view of a “negotiated” rather than “imposed” patterns of everyday life—owes a lot to the peripheral character of the area. Local inhabitants emphasize the relations of togetherness, mutuality, and social trust that used to characterize social life in the village. Such accounts are strikingly similar in both the nearly homogenous village of Ciche and the very heterogeneous district’s capital; in both cases the inhabitants speak of a vivid social life, and people’s “sameness” and “faithfulness” as a thing of the past. Yet, the act of reimagining the past often entails the idealization of the past in the process of contrasting it with the present. Indirect evidence of this tendency RELIGION AND MEMORIES OF SOCIALISM 139 can be found in ethnographic research undertaken in the socialist period, which shows a picture of everyday realities that is quite different from the neighborly coexistence remembered by the inhabitants of the Rozstaje district. In his monograph A Village without Solidarity, based on research in the area not far from Rozstaje, Hann (1985) draws a picture of the tense relations and distrust that characterized the area in the 1980s. Accounts of rural sites in other socialist countries paint a similar picture (e.g., Kideckel 1993), proving both the erosion of social relations and the success of the communist authorities in undermining collective values. According to Katherine Verdery (1993), this was especially true to ethnically diverse contexts. Discussing a socialist “economy of shortage,” she demonstrates how goods and resources were allocated according to an ethnic key, leading to the preferential treatment of “our people” over neighbors and colleagues of different ethnic backgrounds. Should these ethnographic insights lead to a reexamination of the picture of friendly relations under socialism? Or rather to an assumption that people idealize the past and foreground the positive memories rather than the negative ones? Arguably, the answer lies somewhere in between the two. On the one hand, Verdery’s understanding of interethnic relations would find little resonance in Rozstaje. Due to the series of (re)settlements, it was precisely in the socialist period that neighborly relations between different ethnic and religious groups actually came into being. Consequently, people commonly perceive socialism as the period that brought inhabitants of different backgrounds together, recalling only the first years of coexistence as difficult. Asked about their attitudes toward their Polish neighbors, the Lemkos often said: “Honestly, many of them were better than our Lemko mates,” while the Poles praised their Lemko neighbors, saying they were industrious and obliging. Analogous comments are made with reference to neighbors’ religious backgrounds. Inhabitants persistently emphasize that common “coping strategies” helped them to get to know each other and challenged stereotypical views that they had held about each other. It was also a time of “true respect,” exemplified in fre- quents visits and sociability that are contrasted today with “all those telephones, TVs and internets [sic] [that] are ruining social life.” Under socialism, some basic rules of neighborly coexistence, such as refraining from work on days when others celebrate religious festivals, were introduced. Further, analysis of the reports of the village leaders about the reasons for conflicts between neighbors during this period does not point to ethnic or religious factors either. 140 HIERARCHY AND PLURALISM

On the other hand, such images of the ideal past tend to be contested in certain circumstances, mainly by non-Poles and non-Ro- man Catholics. Situations of conflict tend to awaken and revive bad memories, challenging unanimously positive narratives of socialism. Also, numerous minority members would argue that people are now more open to diversity than they used to be in the past. They contend that thanks to increasing mobility, ease of travel, and access to the Internet, inhabitants are now more aware of the pluralism of beliefs, viewpoints, and worldviews and do not perceive it as anomalous or threatening. Such opinions are sometimes expressed by the same people who praise the communist era, revealing the conflicting nature of their accounts, which sometimes stress that relations in the past were perfect and at other times emphasize how much better they now are. In order to reconcile seemingly contradictory accounts of past and present relations, it is necessary to reflect on the very idea of “openness.” Socialism gave rise to experiences of commonality (in the wider sense) and downplayed differences, but the reasons for this process were twofold: cooperation across boundaries in the face of hardship and difficulties was no doubt welcomed by the inhabitants, and, at the same time, the official discourse and policies were favorable neither to pluralism nor to close neighborly ties (cf. Luehrmann 2011: 28). Any acknowledgement of diversity was limited to the sphere of “respectful” neighborly relations in the period of religious festivities, as it could not be manifested in the local public sphere and institutions. Today, however imperfect the realization of minorities’ civic rights may still be, their presence in the public realm is far better facilitated and accepted. Thus, these two different tendencies result in two different understandings of “openness”: the idyllic image of past sociability and of the doors of people’s houses always being open, which is persistently contrasted with the seclusion of the inhabitants within the four walls of their homes today, and the perception of openness as people’s favorable stance toward pluralism, which is often compared with the past lack of comprehension of diversity. As a result, the “Internets” and other advances may well be simultaneously praised for making people more open and respectful, and blamed as a cause of decreasing sociability—and thus disrespectfulness. Certainly, this is not a clear-cut picture, and neither past nor present pluralism precluded relations of antagonism and dominance. Nevertheless, it is precisely the dynamics of “what is held in common” and “what is different” that molds local pluralism and con- tests its hierarchical component. Hence, the question of how the “commonality” experienced in the socialist times has contributed to RELIGION AND MEMORIES OF SOCIALISM 141 the configuration of diversity is of great importance. The evidence presented in the following chapters will demonstrate the two-sided nature of this process: that “commonality” and “togetherness” may enhance tolerance for diversity but may also mean papering over unresolved conflicts.

Memories of Socialism and Religious Pluralism Chapter 3 inquired whether the memories of different religious communities could challenge mainstream narratives of history. It showed that in bringing their and their families’ life experiences into the picture, the local inhabitants demonstrate the complexity of diverse historical occurrences, such as the events of the Second World War or the reasons and responsibility for the resettlements. Yet, although this kind of oral history is undoubtedly meaningful for the storytellers, they are perfectly aware that their reading and experience of historical events is rarely reflected in the dominant historical discourse. Villagers’ memories of socialism, presented in this chapter, account for a similar phenomenon, albeit in a different way: they illustrate that in order to comprehend the relations between majority and minority, it is necessary, first, to perceive both notions as contextual, and, second, to focus on those instances when the interests, practices, and convictions of the different communities meet. Accounts of socialism often exemplify a situation in which the local population positions itself as a minority, perceives its own narratives as unheard, and con- tests top-down interpretations. People of different religious/ethnic backgrounds and very different political outlooks voice a shared criticism regarding the practice of rewriting history. No matter how supportive of the post-1989 transformation inhabitants are, they do not fully approve of what it brought about—or what it took away. Far from idealizing the socialist system, they oppose the policy of erasing any remains, monuments, or memories of the socialist past. This is not only because they perceive socialism as a part of the village’s history (Creed 1998) but also because of their experiences of “decreasing modernism,” as related in the accounts of the inhabitants of Ciche. They strongly criticize the hectic policy of changing historical interpretations and simplifying the complexity of people’s trajectories in order to provide a black- and-white picture of state-society relations. In local memories, state functionaries and employers are usually remembered as the ones who supported the church, appreciated honesty and knew how to repay it, and were reliable and just. They were people to negotiate and 142 HIERARCHY AND PLURALISM cooperate with, rather than simply people to oppose. Importantly, such opinions do not only regard local authorities whom people knew personally as neighbors or friends. Less favorable opinions are less frequent but present and usually take the form of mocking the few “engaged” functionaries who sought to eliminate religion15 and Party “agents” who tried to coerce inhabitants and were outfoxed by locals. Without taking into account the complexity of local experiences, rural inhabitants are persistently described—especially in the political discourse and in the mass media, but also by the Catholic Church authorities—as either not understanding the dynamics of change and/or not being the ones who “really” fought against the regime or suffered under communism as other Polish citizens did. The opinion of one of the Roman Catholic priests who moved to one of the villages after having lived in a big city illustrates this point:

[Local] People are nostalgic about the PGRs, about communism, because here there was no communism, there was no bludgeoning, no pouring of cold water [ . . . ] these are people who have no clue about what happened in Cracow, in Warsaw, in Łódź, or elsewhere. Bludgeoning, intercepting of conversations, opening of letters, stealing of packages, somebody disappearing in unexplained circumstances . . . all this simply did not take place here. And so, when Christmas came . . . came, something had to be done, so a ram was killed, and it was claimed that it was sick, and the meat was parceled out among the people who were close, and the same [was done] with bulls or horses [ . . . ] And that’s why some people say that it was better under communism, because they have this kind of understanding of communism. Well, if somebody doesn’t want to look at the sun, it doesn’t mean that the sun doesn’t exist.

None of the inhabitants I met ever questioned “the existence of the sun,” denied the crimes of the communist regime, or claimed that the regime was good. Few of them would say that life was better during communism; they might list specific things that worked better or that they long for in hindsight, but they would not make such a claim about the system as a whole. They refute the accusation that they lack an understanding of what communism was, highlighting that it meant many different things to many different people and entailed many different kinds of challenges. Indeed, the above quote exemplifies how to ridicule people’s memories by simplifying their motivations and stressing the futility of their everyday concerns. At the same time, the priest’s opinion accounts for the tendency discussed earlier RELIGION AND MEMORIES OF SOCIALISM 143 to present the period of communism as a constant struggle of society against the authorities—the heroic view of history that Władek paro- dies so persistently. Władek and his peers are aware that simplistic views of rural inhabitants’ situation and attitudes during socialism have been relocated into the postsocialist reality. He attacks the opinions of the “center” in his own polemic way, once again reconfiguring the notion of “us”:

Today at 6 a.m. they said on the radio that . . . the city is so appalled to hear that the countryside is getting rich. We are getting rich? In the morning they usually speak about agriculture, and they speak this way . . . Warsaw, the first radio program. They just can’t stand it and they do not have a clue what sort of [how heavy] work farmers’ work is . . . ”

Local inhabitants may see on TV and read in the newspapers that “peasants are redundant,” that they do not deserve the state’s support, and that they “have to disappear” as “the Polish countryside is not as poor as people tend to describe it, does not represent anything valuable in terms of customs, culture, or morality. Quite the contrary, it is the arena of moral decay and lumpenproletarization” (quoted in Fedyszak-Radziejowska 2010). Such views of the countryside revive slogans once prevalent in communist propaganda against individual farmers. Authors of such statements misinterpret the very direction of the changes in the postsocialist economy, framing rural areas as indebted to the rest of the country, while one could argue precisely the opposite, that rural areas are in fact the creditors for the rest of society (Bukraba-Rylska 2009). Furthermore, informed by an elitist approach to civil society, such statements overlook the fact that civic capital and readiness to engage in community matters prove to be highest in the peasant districts characterized by conditions that are generally unfavorable to development (Mikiewicz and Szafraniec 2009: 119; Pasieka 2013). Finally, they ignore the tremen- dous inequalities and discrimination that rural inhabitants encounter in relation to the urban population. To this must be added dismissive commentaries about “folk religion” that depict the countryside as a realm frozen in time.16 Much more could be said about the stigmatization of rural inhabitants,17 but what matters most are their responses. They are bothered by simplistic commentaries about the amounts of money they receive from EU funds, which do not take into consideration 144 HIERARCHY AND PLURALISM the amount of work and the changes which they and their farms are facing. Likewise, they are very annoyed when they hear about their backwardness, incivility, and narrow-mindedness, which they juxtapose with their traditions of self-organization, civic activities, and local ecumenism. They feel that their social realm is ignored and neglected; the way that they cope with this is by mocking current policies and transforming the experience of marginality into a positive experience. The local inhabitants thus contest the opinions about the countryside cited above in both discourse and practice. The latter involves engagement in local activities, which proves people’s ability to transgress religious and ethnic boundaries and their willingness to cooperate for the local community. As for discourse, nostalgia for socialism is a common strategy of contestation, whereby people not only recall the examples of “good life,” “faithfulness,” and “respect” derived from a blend of religious convictions and life experiences, but also insist upon the complexity of the history of their villages and of inhabitants’ life trajectories. Common memories and shared attitudes toward the present-day reality—shaped by memories of socialism—influence the way that local ecumenism develops, leading to a reconfiguration of majority-minority relations. This process is an important contribution to the development of interreligious relations, since the recognition of common convictions and interests may, in turn, lead to agreement about the needs and rights of different communities. However, the remembrances of socialism presented here coexist with conflicting memories of other past events. Ultimately, “collected” memories and local history play an ambiguous role in the dynamics of hierarchical pluralism: some memories may reinforce the hierarchical aspect of social relations, while others lead to the pluralization of the local sphere. Importantly, divergent memories often contribute to the former, while common remembrances favor the latter. Part III

Acting Upon Locality Chapter 5

The Different and the Common: About Multireligious Neighborhoods

Traveling between different villages, I often passed the house of Mira, one of Krasne’s storytellers. If I had a chance to stop by a shop first, I would buy tangerines, Mira’s favorite fruit, and drop them off with the elderly lady. As I entered the modest chamber in which she spends most of her days, Mira would watch me carefully from beneath a flowery headscarf. Once she recognized me, she would smile and ask me to stay. Our meetings usually followed a similar script. After I sat myself on a wooden stool, my host, laying on an old sofa, would ask me the same series of questions: “Have you found a husband yet?” she would invariably begin, keenly interested. Very disappointed with my reply, she would add with a frisky smile: “Lonely nights are wasted!” Then, without giving up her inquiry, she would go on: “Have you found a job at least?” When I reminded her that I was carrying out research, she jumped to guessing that I must have become a student of a local agricultural school. Listening to my description of what anthropologists do, she would carefully repeat “anthropology,” as if pronouncing a mysterious, sacred word. In the end, she would sigh deeply and tell me it was a pity I knew nothing about farming and milking cows: if only I knew that, I could definitely find a good husband among Lemkos. Due to worsening rheumatism, Mira can hardly walk and is totally dependent on others’ assistance. However, she does not complain about her situation and claims to have great people around her. She always praises her closest relatives, “the beautiful family” of her only son. She is particularly fond of her daughter-in-law, a Roman Catholic whom Mira describes as “a golden woman” who has supported Mira’s son in moments of difficulty (severe illness and risk of alcoholism), 148 HIERARCHY AND PLURALISM is a great mother, and a very industrious housekeeper. The family lives in a neighboring district, in a predominantly Polish village, and attends the Roman Catholic services there. However, the couple and their children visit Mira frequently and celebrate the Orthodox festivities in Krasne. When I asked Mira if she minded that her son and grandchildren were not active in the Orthodox community, she stated firmly: “Two religions don’t sleep well under one blanket [pod jedną pierzyną]. It is better to abandon one’s faith and pray together with your spouse than to be divided by religion.” To Mira, religion is second to a stable family life. Mira’s son and “golden” daughter-in-law recently recognized that the elderly woman could not live alone and asked their oldest son, a truck driver, to move in with his grandmother. Within a short period of time, he became one of the most active members of the local Orthodox parish. During her grandson’s absences, Mira can count on the support of her neighbors, an Orthodox man and his Roman Catholic wife, who own an apiary. They drop by her home several times a day, providing Mira with milk, eggs, and, when the season comes, homemade honey. Similar to Mira’s children, these neighbors celebrate Christmas and other festivities twice, striving to maintain both Orthodox and Roman Catholic traditions, and attend the two churches interchangeably. Mira describes her neighbors as kind and obliging people she is lucky to know, yet at the same time she emphasizes that that’s how a (good) neighbor ought to be. Attending to Mira’s and other inhabitants’ stories as well as scrutinizing an array of neighborly interactions, this chapter sheds light on the figure of “neighbor” and the institution of “neighborhood” in the context of interreligious conviviality. It connects the phenomenon of neighborhood with that of intermarriage, demonstrating how both represent local modes of negotiating religious diversity and exhibit complex links between faith, family, and friendship. The seemingly simple question of “how a good neighbor ought to be” reveals in this context a complex intertwining of local history, patterns of rural life, rules of reciprocity, and religious beliefs. These observations come close to Cornelia Sorabji’s (2008) reflections on mixed neighborhoods, in which she calls for redrawing the point of attention from “mixed” to “neighborhood.” Sorabji argues that no matter whether it is mixed or homogenous, a neighborhood always involves both “pros” and “cons” and that neighborly relations of various sorts—obligations, expectations, habits—can be both enjoyed and detested, regardless of religious or ethnic identity (2008: 104–7).1 An overemphasis of ethno-religious factors leads to the perception of neighborhood as THE DIFFERENT AND THE COMMON 149

“a determining force able either to prevent or create a war” (2008: 98). This view of neighborhood’s “magic potency” is further reinforced by the assumption that coexistence of different groups means, by default, a positive stand toward diversity and peaceful relations. Consequently, many scholarly illustrations of mixed neighborhoods exemplify a fusion of purely descriptive considerations with prescrip- tive models and normative interpretations (cf. Hayden 2002). Reflections on the politicized usage of the notion of neighborhood point to yet another problem, namely, the perception of religion as a force that enters into play only in moments of conflict—a factor that hardens divisions within a community and exacerbates differences expressed in ethnic or cultural terms—while “normal” conditions of neighborly interactions supposedly set religion aside. Depicting religion as a cause of conflict and its absence as a condition of civility reinforces the view of a secularized, religion-free world as the only truly civil, nonviolent, and democratic one (Casanova 2009).2 Engaging critically with such an approach means shifting our attention to the role of religion in everyday life, not just during moments of crisis. The power of religion is manifested in the fact that it both unites and divides, undermines and consolidates difference, gener- ates dispositions, embodies knowledge, and intentionally and unintentionally informs action. Only by exploring these different facets of religion and studying neighborhood as a setting of “ordinary pluralism” (Gold 2014) is it possible to comprehend how the dynamics of differences and commonalities may trigger a shift from tolerance into xenophobia (Bowman 1997: 48), and to grasp the ambiguous nature of multireligious conviviality.

Discovering the Importance of Neighborhood I became aware of the relevance of “neighborhood” shortly after I started my fieldwork. This important theme first came to my attention during walks through the villages at the beginning of my stay. I began my research in the early spring, and, striving to become more familiar with my fieldsite, I often walked or bicycled from village to village. My initial observations, scrupulously and enthusiastically recorded in my field diary, talk of permanently open doors, women chatting while standing next to fences, or enjoying first warm evenings at the table outside the house, a group of men repairing a mower and conversing over a beer. They describe joyful conversations after the mass, friendly exchanges in a local shop, and care for others’ well-being expressed in conversations overheard on local buses. Newly 150 HIERARCHY AND PLURALISM discovered places and social gatherings conveyed togetherness and intimacy. Although today I read in some of these preliminary remarks an early enchantment with my fieldsite, they were very important for realizing the importance of neighborhood; even more so in light of the disenchantment that came later. My appreciation for the significance of “neighborhood” deepened during my first visits to people’s houses, which often began with me looking for (nonexistent) doorbells and then knocking loudly on the doorframes, striving to draw the attention of household members. When one of them, usually a woman, eventually came to the door, she would give me a surprised look and ask: “For God’s sake, why didn’t you come in?” In some cases, when I was still waiting at the door, it was actually a neighbor to let me in, as she or he was just about to pay a visit to the same house. During the conversations that took place after I finally set foot in the houses, the notion of neighbors was ever present, enabling me to understand that neighborhood was, in fact, “all around.” Local people’s understanding of neighborhood is quite broad; the villagers define as neighbors even those people who do not live in their immediate proximity. Speaking about their neighbors, people usually say that they live “next door.” While this broad understanding may suggest that the closeness of relations exceeds the spatial distance, it also illustrates a specific, wide-ranging spatial perception of the notions of “here,” “near,” and “close by,” accounting for an overall familiarity with the village’s space. As such, people’s talk about neighbors may constitute a challenge for an ethnographer and lead to confusion. Whenever people mentioned something with regard to “neighbors” and I asked for clarification about who those neighbors were, my hosts replied that they meant neighbors who live “just here” or “right next to” them—phrases that could have referred to several different homesteads. And when, in a second attempt to discover where those neighbors actually lived, I asked what the neighbors’ house looked like, I was usually informed that their house is wooden—a far from helpful distinction. As a result, I often found myself in a very different house from the one I envisioned visiting or even from the ones that villagers meant to send me to; often, I would find myself talking, for example, to Jehovah’s Witnesses who “turned out” to be Roman Catholics. Such mistakes could easily occur as villages in Rozstaje are never religiously or ethnically segregated. In all the villages, the concentration of any one religious or ethnic group in a certain part of the village is accidental rather than intentional. The lack of clear-cut THE DIFFERENT AND THE COMMON 151

Figure 5.1 An ecumenical cemetery. Photo: Agnieszka Pasieka ethnic/religious divisions makes this area different from many other pluralistic localities in which religious/ethnic divisions often run side by side with other differentiating factors, such as social class, wealth, and education (e.g., Harris 1972). In Rozstaje, it is hard to speak about richer and poorer areas, although individual inhabitants do differ in terms of economic resources. While not denying the obvious differences between the inhabitants’ status, people tend to emphasize their equality as neighbors; this kind of egalitarianism indicates a recognition of common identity and the importance of communally defined goals (Pina-Cabral 1986: 150–1). Neighbors are presented in people’s conversation in many different contexts: as central characters in their daily activities, as sources of information, as the subjects of rumors. Despite people’s complaints about declining sociability, during my visits a neighbor often dropped in or phoned “with news.” As nostalgic as people may be for past “togetherness,” there is no apparent lack of help and assistance today. For example, due to the scarcity of public transport, neighbors take each other shopping, provide elderly inhabitants with medicines, and organize shifts to take the children to the kindergarten. Farmers who keep cows assist each other during calving season, aid each other with milking, and provide help during times of trouble. The obligation to help others is understood, on the one hand, as a way of respecting neighbors and, on the other hand, as a norm of reciprocity, a form of 152 HIERARCHY AND PLURALISM mutual obligation. During my first talk with Hanna, she explained her husband Henek’s absence by saying:

My man, he is . . . gregarious. Everyone comes to him to ask for something. Sometimes I am angry, because he helps everyone else and the work at home lies fallow. But . . . when our roof was burning the entire village was here to help us.

Similarly, Bronek and Basia explain:

Bronek: Yes, yes, neighbors do help each other. Here, the phone rings at 2 a.m. and . . . and . . . usually it is a cow calving . . . And well, one has to go to the cow. Basia: Once a neighbor phoned us from a wedding party to say that . . . there was such a heavy snow that they could not get back home and needed help. But I picked up the phone and said: “All right, he’s coming!” Because I was sure it was about the cows.

As mentioned earlier, the ideas of “equality” and “respect” appear recurrently in the narratives on socialism, which, it was suggested, provide a glimpse of the kind of community people want to experience today. As in the case of memories of socialism, local inhabitants persistently emphasize that close neighborly relations do not depend on one’s religious or ethnic background. Two sentences constitute the leitmotifs of the discourse on neighborliness. “We are like one family” is often cited in order to stress not only the degree of intimacy, but also the fact that neighbors are the people one can rely and count on (cf. Freeman 1968; Straczuk 2006); while the expression “First of all he is my neighbor, and then he is an Orthodox, a Lemko, a Pentecostal” is meant to emphasize the greater importance of social bonds than religious and ethnic categorizations, that what is common (being inhabitants of a village community) is more important than what makes them different. Both sentences closely relate to the ways in which local people respect other people’s religion. First, while inhabitants rarely establish ties of kinship with neighbors of different creeds by naming them godfathers or godmothers for their children, they do invite each other for family festivities, religious celebrations, and life-cycle rituals. Second, the inhabitants refrain from work when neighbors who belong to another religious community celebrate a religious festival. Every single inhabitant refers to this rule, expound- ing it with pride, but also a sense of obviousness. Put differently, while inhabitants perceive the rule as an exceptional achievement of the community, they also emphasize that they treat it as something THE DIFFERENT AND THE COMMON 153

“normal” since they are an open-minded, tolerant, and civil community. Refraining from work is thus the foundation of local coexistence, an illustration of their locally developed ecumenism, and a sign of civility, which finds its reflection in the respect for neighbors-dissenters. As such, the recognition of others’ right to celebrate and one’s obligation to duly acknowledge this fact serves as a shared grammar of conviviality and a local means of legitimizing pluralism (Gold 2014: 133). Explaining the rule’s importance, people usually begin by stating that their neighbors deserve to celebrate in peace. More elaborated clarifications of the rule reveal certain differences between the religious communities. Evangelical communities and Jehovah’s Witnesses find Biblical passages that refer to the need to respect one’s neighbors, even if they disagree with the form or the very idea of religious holidays. Orthodox and Catholics often add an explanation that sounds not unlike Pascal’s Wager: who knows which festivities are the “right” ones, at the “right” time, so it is best to refrain from work “just in case.” While talking about the importance of respect and equality, they stress that when attending to these values people “act like Christians” or are “real Christians.” To say that a neighbor is a “good Christian” means that he or she is a kind and honest person, which may, but may not, have to do with his/her religious devotion. Unlike members of Protestant denominations, Orthodox and Catholics rarely refer explicitly to religious commandments.3 Emphasizing the value of hospitality, they are more likely to cite a well-known saying or proverb, such as “Guest at home, God at home” (Gość w dom, Bóg w dom), which points to the importance of the guest (who is compared to God) and the fact that the house, which knows how to respect others, is blessed (it is visited by God). Hence, while religious norms, or sanctions (Freeman 1968), undoubtedly underpin the configuration of neighborly relations, they do not always mean a reference to concrete, officially prescribed principles, but rather point to a generalized understanding of “Christian” behavior and the way of “living righteously” (po bożemu, literally: “to live as God says”). Notably, although both types of neighborly practices—accentu- ating or minimizing difference—are important, they relate to social boundary maintenance in different ways, leading to either “bright” or “blurred” boundaries (Alba 2005). The common recognition of neighbors’ rituals accounts for “blurred” boundaries, while respecting different festivities simultaneously underlines the “brightness” of boundaries. Given people’s emphasis on both, it is important to note that these process are not mutually exclusive but complementary and 154 HIERARCHY AND PLURALISM beneficial for multireligious coexistence. At the same time, it needs to be emphasized that the rules regulating the sphere of commonalities and differences do not “apply” evenly to all religious persuasions. A relative similarity of dogmas and practices among Roman Catholics and Eastern Christians makes a joint celebration of Christmas possible, but the rejection of “earthly feasts” by Adventists or Jehovah’s Witnesses precludes it. Additionally, syncretic practices and rituals are not only dependent on the possibility of reconciling different religious traditions and the willingness of a religious community to join mutually intelligible practices, but are also a product of hierarchical relations and hierarchical encompassment, which make certain “alliances” and “encounters” more acceptable than others. In short, the process of blurring the boundaries between two neighbors may simultaneously reinforce the fence separating them from a third. Parallel observations can be made with reference to mixed marriages. Studies of interreligious and interethnic neighborhoods have often focused on the issue of intermarriage (Botev 1994). One of the reasons is the assumed and often observed link between the extent of neighborly contacts and the likeliness of intermarriage. However, an even more important reason in Rozstaje, with its virtual lack of endogamy and a rich record of conversion, is the similarity of rules underpinning the institutions of both neighborhood and marriage. This similarity puts this particular region at odds with most of the multireligious communities studied by anthropologists. What is generally common in multireligious contexts is an antithetical relation between neighborhood and intermarriage; members of different religious groups may, or even are supposed to, interact and support each other as neighbors, but the marriage between them is forbidden (e.g., Lubaś 2011). In others, intermarriage might not be forbidden but it is strictly regulated with regard to children’s upbringing and family’s religious life (Kubica 2011: 208). Crucially, the evidence from Rozstaje differs also from case studies in the Polish-Ukrainian and Polish-Czech borderland, which demonstrate mixed marriages to be powerful tools of assimilation and equate conversion to Roman Catholicism with conversion to the Polish nationality (e.g., Babiński 2004). In Rozstaje, uniquely, spouses tend to negotiate both domains of religious life and strive to continue practicing each partner’s creed, even if not on equal terms. The influences of Roman Catholicism are counterbalanced by the defensive and community-oriented policy adopted by the smaller denominations, as well as by the emphasis on religion as a corollary of ethnic identity in the case of Orthodox and Greek Catholic Lemkos. The cases of conversion that have resulted THE DIFFERENT AND THE COMMON 155 from intermarriage are rarely defined in terms of coercion; what spouses emphasize is the freedom of their choice, and a common agreement regarding what is better and easier for the family, especially in the case of children. For all these reasons, by placing neighborhood in the context of intermarriage (and vice versa), it is possible to identify a set of factors that shape the relations of proximity and intimacy—not least of which is the importance of being rooted in a local (village/parish) community, which affects neighborhood and marriage alike. Yet, the parallel between neighborhood and intermarriage lies also in the fact that just as some neighborly encounters are more likely than others, so some forms of intermarriage occur more frequently than others, reflecting the multilayered configuration of the local religious landscape.

* * *

The above observations might suggest that the neighborly relations in the district are exemplary: people live “like a family,” respect each other, interact on an everyday basis, and create a village community beyond ethno-religious identifications. Moreover, these exemplary relations seem to be based on a system of unwritten rules that organize and familiarize diversity. Hence, the moment an interneighborly conflict occurs, the question that comes to one’s mind is “How is that possible here?” This is the question Bringa (1995) asked herself when the multireligious Bosnian village she had studied turned into a war zone. In the introduction to her ethnography, she shares with readers the difficulties regarding the use of the grammatical tense. While she was writing down her observations, collected during fieldwork in the Balkans in 1988–1989, the Bosnian war broke out and many of her findings seemed to lose validity. Although my experience in the field is not comparable to that of Bringa, nor are the consequences involved, I found myself asking similar questions. After an initial period of discovery in which I heard only about “good neighbors,” “respect,” and “equality,” I was ill-prepared at first to understand what was going on when, five months after I began my fieldwork, many Polish neighbors turned against the Lemko inhabitants in a vote regarding the introduction of village signs in the Lemko language. The initiative, which aimed to acknowledge the rights of an ethnic minority, met with the hostility of the Roman Catholic majority and revealed the contextual, revocable validity of the idea of equal rights and the recognition of diversity. The dynamics of the event overwhelmed Lemkos and Poles alike. The following extract from a 156 HIERARCHY AND PLURALISM conversation with Tymko’s family from Krasne illustrates the general feeling:

Tymko: But I will tell you that neighbors are . . . there are mixed families here . . . there are Polish ones, there are Rusyn ones and we usually consider each other . . . to be very good neighbors, friends, but when it comes to the situations like, for instance, the name of the village or something . . . Tola: Yes! Then it turns out! Tymko: Then, you see, it turns out immediately. It turns out immediately that one is very much against the other one, and he will tell him: “What, do you want a revolution, if you want one, we will give it to you, this revolution.” You know, this is like a warning that we cannot fraternize with everyone. We are . . . Tymko’s mother: We thought we are like one family. Tymko: As one family, that this is one village, but it is not so at all. ( . . . ) Tola: They [the Poles] grew up here, with us. Grew up [here], since they were born here. Tymko: I have known him since he was like this [he shows how tall with his hand], “from the cradle”, and I know . . . and I know him very well and . . . and . . . now I’m very disappointed by him . . . very much. [my emphasis]

I discuss the conflict in detail in the next chapter, presenting the voices of both supporters and opponents of the idea. What I aim to stress here is the importance of the vote for understanding the neighborly relations and, conversely, the importance of ideas of “neighborhood” and “neighborliness” for understanding the vote’s outcome. At first glance, the conflict that erupted as a result of the vote might seem to suggest that neighborly tensions are overlooked, underestimated, or hidden beneath everyday gentle and respectful relations. However, despite the feelings of disillusionment and shock, expressed—as in Bringa’s study—in the sentence “We would never have expected it,” a deeper analysis of the conflict may lead to the opposite conclusion— the recognition that people did anticipate it. In my conversations with Lemko families, disappointment and discouragement were expressed alongside acknowledgements that the outcome could not have been different, in some cases leading to self-contradictory statements about Polish neighbors who behaved in a terribly disappointing, yet totally predictable, way. The above quoted exchange perfectly captures this ambiguity, reflected in the idea of the village community as “one THE DIFFERENT AND THE COMMON 157 family,” “good neighbors,” “friends,” but also the implicit inevitability suggested in the language of how things “turn out.” In considering this ambiguity, I wish to highlight once again the dynamic nature of local pluralism and the multifaceted nature of lived religion, which sometimes pushes toward pluralism and sometimes toward hierarchy. This kind of approach requires not only analyzing neighborly relations through the lens of conflict, but also scrutinizing the seemingly unambiguous and unconditional idea of “respect,” which inhabitants define and conjugate in all possible ways.

On the Normality of Respect

Krasne The Orthodox and Greek Catholic inhabitants of the district celebrate Christmas according to the Julian calendar. Christmas Eve takes place on January 6 and is followed by two days of festivities. I spent Christmas Eve with the Orthodox family of Hanna and Henek. Apart from the regular inhabitants of the house—the married couple, Henek’s elderly mother, and their five children—there was also Hanna’s brother Andrzej who joined the family that day. Shortly after I arrived and was introduced to Andrzej, he explained to me that he lived in a city in Southeastern Poland. His wife and daughters are Roman Catholics, and so he celebrates Christmas twice: first at his home and the second time with his fellow Lemkos. It was after Andrzej presented himself as Greek Catholic that I learned that Hanna, a practicing Orthodox, converted from Greek Catholicism. I had not been told about this before, not because it was kept secret on purpose, but simply because it was not considered relevant. Today, forty-year-old Hanna is one of the most active and devoted members of the local Orthodox parish, but when she visits her village of origin, she joins the Greek Catholic service. This practice and attitude is revealing not only of the importance of rite and doctrine (and, conversely, the ease with which people switch from the Greek Catholic to the Orthodox Church, given similar circumstances), but also of the importance of the local parish as a site that connects people to the local community. Hanna, like many other inhabitants, relates to and engages in the life of the local parish wherever she happens to be- whether this means the Greek Catholic church in her village of origin or the Orthodox church in her husband’s village. The dinner started shortly after it got dark, around 5 p.m. We sat in a small living room, gathered around a rectangular wooden 158 HIERARCHY AND PLURALISM table that was modestly decorated for the purpose of the festivities. The children were seated on the couch and the rest of us occupied chairs, tightly packed. Hanna and grandma sat close to the door, keeping their watchful eye on the pots of food bubbling in the adjacent kitchen. Worrying about the guests’ comfort, Hanna sighed and said it was hopefully the last Christmas Eve in the old dwelling. The family had recently begun the construction of a new, three- story house, equipped with a modern kitchen and a bedroom for each family member. Despite the fact that the house was nearly ready, the family hardly ever stayed there, opting for the familiar ambience of the old house. Seeing Hanna troubled, Henek remarked that if this two-room house was able to host over 100 hundred people during their wedding twenty years ago, it was more than enough for a tiny Christmas gathering. Having said that, he made a first toast with sweet red wine, winking at his wife: “To your health, my wedded lady!” According to the Eastern tradition, the supper on Christmas Eve is composed of several courses, which are eaten with family members from one plate. Hanna and the grandmother did not allow anyone to help them and brought from the kitchen one bowl after another while the rest of us sat and chatted at the table. Before commencing the supper, the grandmother intoned the “Lord’s Prayer” and asked for a blessing for the entire family—all of her children and their families who live in Krasne, in Western Poland, and in the United States. We ate simple, fasting (i.e., meatless) dishes—homemade dumplings, cab- bage stuffed with rice and mushrooms, and a soup from fermented flour—all of which are prepared and served only on Christmas eve and thus considered special. We also ate bread with garlic, which sym- bolizes health, and drank wine, passing the glass to the person next to us after taking a sip and making wishes for him or her. Around 6 p.m., somebody knocked at the door. Henek went to open and found one of the Roman Catholic neighbors outside, a village drunkard called Rysiek. Entering the house, Rysiek said he wanted to pay his respects to the neighbors’ festivities and present his wishes. He also added that Henek had invited him to celebrate the Orthodox Christmas with the family. Seeing that he was drunk, Hanna winked at her husband and said that Rysiek probably needed to drop in somewhere on the way home. Nevertheless, the newcomer was invited to join the gathering. He talked a lot, making guests laugh, and spilling everything he ate on his clothes. He wanted to drink the soup directly from the plate, so he was given a separate bowl. At some point, he asked Hela, the only daughter of the hosts, THE DIFFERENT AND THE COMMON 159 to marry him and insisted on this for a good half an hour. Trying to act as if he was sober, Rysiek presented Hela with an image of their happy future life and praised her beauty, while the rest of us roared with laughter. He mistook her name, addressing her instead as “my sweet Henrietta.” In an effort to switch the topic, Hela proposed that we all sing Christmas carols together. Listening to both Orthodox and Roman Catholic songs, I realized that my hosts knew the latter perfectly. Rysiek also joined the singing and, quite tired, went home after about an hour. It is a Christian tradition in Poland to leave one plate empty during Christmas Eve, in case a needy person knocks on the door and wants to join the supper. For most people, this act is purely symbolic. My hosts proved that they take such a moral obligation seriously; they did not hesitate to invite their neighbor into their home, although he was drunk and might have misbehaved. They shared their Christmas dinner with him, included him in the family circle, and made him feel at home. Rysiek, in turn, stressed several times that he wanted to “pay his respects” to his neighbors by offering his good wishes on the day of their festivity. Although Hanna and Henek seemed fine with his visit, the example demonstrates that the idea of “respect” refers not only to reciprocity but can also include something more akin to an obligation. After the neighbor had left, we looked through photo albums that document the most important Eastern Christian churches in the Lemko territory. Then Hanna and Henek went to the stable to look after the cows, while the grandmother and I washed the dishes and prepared a salad for the next day. Shortly before 9 p.m., some family members, including their Greek Catholic relative, went to attend an Orthodox service, the so-called Great Compline (powieczerze; “after- supper” prayer), composed of prayers and the singing of psalms. The atmosphere, with the light of candles and the scent of incense, was very solemn and festive. People joined the singing and praying, but many were also chatting in the side benches. Despite all my most sincere attempts to listen and observe, I could not focus on anything but the fact that it was freezing cold. To my surprise, I was the only woman in the church dressed in a skirt, which, I was told, is expected from women on important church festivities. Once the liturgy was over, despite temperatures of minus 20 Celsius, a lot of people remained outside to exchange Christmas wishes and chat. Such meetings are of crucial importance to the Orthodox community, since only some of its members live in Krasne and others come to the shrine from the neighboring villages. 160 HIERARCHY AND PLURALISM

Back at home, we warmed ourselves in the kitchen with hot tea. The grandmother made me lean against the big stove, reproaching Hela: “Next time you should tell Aga there is no need to listen to everything the priest says.” She considered the idea of wearing a skirt on such a cold night stupid and stated that sometimes one needs to be pragmatic about religion. Hanna was reproaching her husband for the fact that he gabbed through the entire service, while Henek defended himself saying that other men had talked to him first. Shortly before leaving, I asked my hosts whether their Catholic neighbors had refrained from work that day. Henek admitted that Roman Catholic neighbors observed the rule, but he also said that in winter not much work was done outside. Therefore, respect for the others’ festivities (or lack thereof) is more visible in the spring and summer. “You must come back to check at Easter,” 4 he concluded, smiling, while Hanna stood up and said: “Speaking of neighbors, we should bring them some Christmas cakes. They always do that.”

Ciche Of the four Lemko families living in Ciche, only one is now present in the village’s social life. (The others withdrew due to serious illness and old age.) Adam’s family is not only very active but also liked and respected. Sixty-five years old, Adam lives with his wife Ala, their son, daughter-in-law, and a grandson. They moved to Ciche in the 1950s, but none of them were born in the village. Adam is Greek Catholic, and Ala used to be Orthodox, but after they married she agreed to raise the children in her husband’s faith. They both consider themselves Greek Catholics now, but on Sunday they usually go to the local Roman Catholic church. They have four children, all of whom are married; one son married a Roman Catholic, two daughters married Greek Catholics, and another daughter married an Orthodox. One of the Greek Catholic husbands has Pentecostals and Jehovah’s Witnesses in his immediate family. The grandchildren who were born from mixed marriages usually attend both kinds of services, depending on the occasion. Adam and Ala celebrate Christmas and Easter twice—the Roman Catholic version, which they celebrate with the rest of the village and when all the children and grandchildren come to visit, and the Greek Catholic version, for which the couple usually visits one of their daughters. Similar to my friends from Krasne, Adam and Ala claim that the neighbors respect their festivities and do not work on that day. This opinion contrasts with their overall critical assessment of the local THE DIFFERENT AND THE COMMON 161 population, whom they criticize for their quarrelsome character. They recall that their first years in the village were not easy and that some time was needed to work out their relations with the local Roman Catholics. The latter ones also stress their respect for Lemko festivities. I was a guest of the village leader on such a day and all the family members did, indeed, stay at home, refraining from work in the fields. As he and his wife explained to me:

Bronek: . . . Adam and Ala, they . . . there is no problem . . . Basia: They go normally . . . [to church] Bronek: . . . Pole or not Pole . . . They live normally, like everyone. Basia: We’ve Christmas, or Easter . . . Bronek: Yes, for example, when they’ve Christmas and we’ve Christmas . . . Basia: . . . then [people] don’t go to the field, when it is their first day [of festivities], because they also respect ours. Bronek: It is like this, when Christmas comes then . . . then you don’t go to work because . . . it’s unbecoming of a neighbor—after all— your neighbor has Christmas! [my emphasis]

This short exchange is very informative about neighborly relations. On the one hand, the inhabitants stress how important it is to respect their neighbors’ festivities, simply because they are neighbors. They also say that this rule is based on mutual recognition and exchange; it is “respect for respect” (a similar observation was made by Hanna, who sees the importance of sharing Christmas sweets in the mutuality of the customary act). On the other hand, however, they note that the Lemkos’ ways of worship generally differ from Roman Catholic ways, while the Lemkos from their village live “normally,” namely participate in the life of the Roman Catholic parish. Assessing the situation in Ciche, people from neighboring villages welcome such an attitude with surprise—only one Lemko family and so much respect!—while others comment that it is so because the only Lemko family is integrated in the local religious life and does not demand any special recognition. Drawing on the latter comment, it is worth saying a few words about the couple’s activities in the local parish. As mentioned in Chapter 4, in the mid-1950s a priest from a neighboring, richer village deprived the church in Ciche of the icon of the Virgin Mary and substituted it with a copy. The icon was considered to have miraculous powers since the middle of the eighteenth century, however, after it was placed in a different church, its cult ceased. Numerous attempts to regain the icon by Ciche’s inhabitants 162 HIERARCHY AND PLURALISM proved unsuccessful. Apart from an active parish priest, who spent over twenty years in Ciche, the person who has been most engaged in the icon matter has been Adam. For him, the act of moving the icon was not only illegal but also meant depriving the village and its inhabitants of their property. For years, he has been advocating actions that would bring the icon back to its proper place. It is hard to describe the emotions that accompany his words about the image; one senses a mix of anger and a sense of injustice, but also a streak of mischief. Once Adam realized that it was impossible to win this battle by legal means, he came to the conclusion that there was only one option: to swap the images. In his opinion, the inhabitants of the other village would not notice the difference, since they neither appreciate nor venerate the icon. He has made several trips there, in order to observe the place and think of possible ways of achieving his goal. He shared with me some of his ideas when I was a guest in his home, describing how the icon is protected and pondering possible ways of swapping the images. Other inhabitants were aware of Adam’s ideas and were very pleased about them. Their conversations about the icon often finished with the statement: “Our neighbor Adam even plans to swap it out with another!” By the time I left my fieldsite I had not heard anything about the plan being realized. What is relevant and important, here, is Adam’s desire and need to rectify a wrong and ensure that “things are as they should be.” There are many reasons that Adam is a respected member of the local community, yet the case of the icon is particularly revealing. The Polish inhabitants see his (planned) act as furthering the interests of the local community and the church, which is now Roman Catholic. Neither the elderly Polish inhabitants nor Adam were born in Ciche, but they have all developed a strong attachment to the place. For years, Adam fulfilled the function of village leader and promoted the village’s interests. He has always been very engaged in all kinds of work for the parish, such as the renovation of buildings and the maintenance of the cemetery. Adam’s and his family’s attitude proves that what matters for them is not just the Lemko past of the village (which was their initial reason for settling here), but the interests of the community as a whole. At the same time, it would be too simplistic to claim that they are accepted and respected only because of their engagement in local matters. Their “boundary crossing,” manifested here in attending Roman Catholic services, has a paradoxical result; the fact that they are different is familiarized and therefore respected. In a way, it is again an element of exchanging “respect for respect”; if you come to our church, we shall learn to respect your festivities. THE DIFFERENT AND THE COMMON 163

Lastly, it is important to highlight that it was Adam and his family who had to gain the respect of the community through his work for the village. Such a configuration of social relations makes clear who bestows recognition and who seeks to be recognized.

Leśna Izydor and Ida, an elderly yet spirited couple, were born in Leśna into Greek Catholic families and used to be neighbors before the war. Talking about prewar life, Izydor recalls with a tender smile that as a boy he used to rock weeping Ida in a cradle. Like other Lemko families, they were resettled and came back to Leśna as a married couple in the late 1950s. They managed to buy back Izydor’s family home and moved there, between Polish settlers. One could not imagine better neighbors than they ones they had, the couple emphasizes. To prove that, they talk about joint celebrations of Christmas, Sunday get-togethers, and the fact that their neighbors always shared with them meat of the slaughtered pork. Due to the postwar state policy on Greek Catholicism, in the 1970s their families joined the Orthodox Church. However, Ida underlines that “Nobody converted to Orthodoxy, people felt they were Greek Catholics, but attended the Orthodox Church [ . . . ] They wanted [to worship] in their own language, in their culture.” When asked why they did not rejoin the Greek Catholic Church after it was restored, Ida asks rhetorically: “And what would we have done with the Orthodox priest?” Far from being dogmatic or convinced about the superiority of one faith over another, the couple stresses the importance of being related to and rooted in a community and realizing one’s faith through that community. Ida likes to repeat that Rozstaje resembles a meadow full of flowers: all the flowers are different but the sun shines on all of them. I remember the amused expression on Izydor’s face when I met him in the church during a solemn Easter celebration and asked about his wife’s absence. “She could not find her spring shoes,” Izydor answered laughing, “You know how women are!” Yet another time, I visited them on the day of an Orthodox holiday and, in the midst of the chat, I asked them to tell me something about the feast’s meaning. At first, my hosts exchanged surprised glances, and after a while Izydor observed that they did not know anything about the festivity because no religious service was taking place in their church.5 When Ida got upset that she did washing on a festive day, Izydor exclaimed: “Now I understand why our [Roman Catholic] neighbors are so quiet today.” These examples permit me to reiterate some 164 HIERARCHY AND PLURALISM observations made earlier. Church attendance appears to be meaningful as a communal activity, in this specific context meaning a service attended by Orthodox people from Leśna. Further, religious services structure both domestic time and the work calendar and they do so for both the community that celebrates and the one that does not. Evidently, it might be the behavior of “dissenters” that reminds one about a date in the religious calendar. Due to the emphasis put on shared experience of religion, Izydor and Ida are very troubled by the fact that their Greek Catholic daughter-in-law, Inka, does not attend their religious services. They claim to be the only family in the village who does not attend the church jointly. On Sunday, their son (who lives next door) takes his parents to the Orthodox shrine, while his wife and daughters go to the Greek Catholic mass. Once again, it is not the conviction of the rightness or superiority of the Orthodox faith that makes them feel sorry about Inka’s decision, but the fact that the family goes to church separately. Ida says that there was a time when she would cry every Sunday because of this and that her son and his wife are the only mixed couple in the village that attends religious services separately. She blames the family’s disruption on Inka’s mother—a woman who, Ida recounts with anger, would rather be hanged than set a foot in the Orthodox shrine and who perceives the Orthodox as Greek Catholics’ biggest enemies. Remarkably, in their respective stands toward the Orthodox Church—“pragmatic” in Ida’s case, inimical in the case of her oppo- nent—both women consider themselves Greek Catholics. Izydor and Ida own quite a lot of land, parts of which already belong to their children, a farm tourism company, and a small ski lift, situated on a hill behind their house. They are seen as very hard- working and honest people, who have achieved a lot through their own work and who share what they have. For instance, every winter, the couple makes the ski lift available for the “ecumenical sports competitions,” which are coorganized by the grammar school and the Orthodox parish. Thanks to their helpfulness and their activity in village life, the couple is well known and respected among the local population; this is especially true for Izydor, who is perceived as resourceful and sparkling with wit. He has many acquaintances among the “newcomers,” namely the people who have more recently bought a piece of land, built a house, and come to Leśna either for holidays or with a plan to settle there eventually. These are, therefore, new neighbors or neighbors “to-be.”6 The majority are middle-class, relatively wealthy and educated people who used to come to the village THE DIFFERENT AND THE COMMON 165 for holidays, became enchanted with the landscape, and decided to build their own houses. Their relations with the local inhabitants, both Lemkos and Poles, are usually very good. In some cases, there is a strong bond between the newcomers and the people from whom they bought land. Because selling one’s “father’s land” (ojcowizna) is problematic for many locals, adopting the new owners as good neighbors and friends makes this decision easier. Different kinds of exchanges are common: the newcomers get milk, eggs, and cheese from the inhabitants and they ask the inhabitants to look after their houses while they are away; in turn, the inhabitants ask the newcomers to bring them things from “the city” or benefit from the latter’s networks and professional skills.7 Many of the newcomers are very interested in the local history, especially different aspects of Lemko cultural heritage: in fact, some local people joke that the newcomers “become more Lemko than the Lemkos themselves,” strongly supporting or even initiating all kinds of activities which are thought to help preserve the local heritage. Unsurprisingly, the role of the “newcomers” was to be taken into consideration when the referendum for the two names on the village sign was organized. Izydor says that the attitude of the “city-people” (miastowi) went beyond his expectations. On the occasion of a visit, he commented on the vote, noting that there was no chance to introduce the second name due to the fact Lemkos are less numerous. (Observably, there was no hope that “respectful” Roman Catholic neighbors might vote in favor of the Lemko sign). The newcomers took this issue and their support of the Lemkos to heart and several went to register in the district’s office as temporary residents, in order to be able vote. One of the new residents decided to try to convince the local people to support the second sign and, as Izydor recounts, went from house to house, explaining its symbolic importance. Such acts divided the local population. People who had voted against using both names claimed that the newcomers’ participation was inappropriate: these people were not “from here,” they did not live here permanently, and thus could not understand the village’s dynamics. People (like Izydor and Ida), on the other hand, who voted in favor of the second sign were very proud of the newcomers’ support; it proved how well the newcomers had integrated into the local life. Thus, the symbolic boundaries of neighborhood, usually quite broad, began to shrink and the understanding of neighborhood shifted; for some, the newcomers were no longer equal and respectful neighbors. Justifying their opinions, both groups of inhabitants referred to the notions of 166 HIERARCHY AND PLURALISM

“local” and “from here,” challenging or confirming the possibility of integration.

* * *

Although different, the case studies of neighborly relations discussed above address similar issues but do so in two ways. First, interactions between Roman Catholics, Greek Catholics, and Orthodox neighbors are, at the same time, also between Polish and Lemko neighbors.8 More precisely, these are interactions in which neither religious nor ethnic identities alone are decisive but rather the complex entanglement of both shapes people’s experience. These ethno- religious bonds account for why a conflict over language is expressed in religious terms, Poles’ religious practices are labeled “normal,” and the fiercest divisions often emerge not between Poles and Lemkos, but within these communities, as the case of Orthodox and Greek Catholic debates illustrates. The second similarity regards the fact that, however consequential the divisions might be and no matter how seriously people take their religious belonging, Orthodox and Catholics rarely claim superiority for their faith in strictly religious terms. Lemkos may debate whether Greek Catholicism or Orthodoxy constitutes their “traditional” religion and better fulfills the needs of their ethnic community, but at the end of the day they rarely deny the similarities between the two faiths. Similarly, Roman Catholics and Orthodox may argue about dogmas or ways of performing sacraments, but they are likely to justify the decision to join the services of one or another church by pointing to such mundane factors as the length of the mass (shorter in the Roman Catholic Church), the importance of singing (famous in the Orthodox Church), or the priest’s personality. This is even more so in the case of Roman Catholicism and Greek Catholicism, which are, after all, part of the same church. Ultimately, many subscribe to Hela’s grandma’s statement that “sometimes one has to be pragmatic about religion.” The mixed couples who attend two churches alternately and/ or whose church attendance depends on the circumstances (as basic as the presence of a church in the village)9 illustrate a propen- sity to foreground the importance of being rooted in a community and avoiding disruptions within the family over ecclesiastical divisions. Still, while there is general agreement about the importance of “the community”—communal attendance and communal practices—the very idea of “community” can be variably understood. For Hanna, a Greek Catholic, the decision to join the Orthodox THE DIFFERENT AND THE COMMON 167

Church makes her close to other Lemkos from Krasne, most of whom are Orthodox. Inka, by attending Greek Catholic Church, relates herself to other Greek Catholic Lemkos from Leśna and, more broadly, to other Lemkos who opt for Greek Catholicism against Orthodoxy. Meanwhile Adam and Ada, also Greek Catholics, regularly attend Roman Catholic services, as they want to attend the local church together with their neighbors. Community is thus defined in many different ways, in terms of ethnic, religious, or regional identity, sometimes in reference to a concrete place, sometimes in reference to an imagined community. While these different understandings tend to be contextual and unfixed, this is not the case for other religious communities inhabiting Rozstaje.

(How to) Love Thy Neighbor At first glance Evangelical communities’ approach to neighbors and intermarriage do not seem different from the approaches of the Roman Catholics, Greek Catholics, and Orthodox. Most of the Pentecostals and Adventists I talked with stated that their neighbors are kind and helpful people. While discussing unpleasant events from the past, they also cited examples of how they eventually managed to establish friendly contact and win respect. Pentecostals usually said that their neighbors saw them as very laborious and honest people, while the Adventists spoke of female neighbors who were impressed by the tranquility of their homesteads—the higher degree of partner- ship therein, as well as the fact that nobody drank, smoke, or cursed there (cf. Bartkowski 2007; Robbins 2007). Yet, these latter factors are also cited by Protestants and their neighbors alike to indicate the limits of interreligious socializing:

Janka: No, no, they, they [neighbors] are nice to us. They don’t tease us. Jakub: Yes, they respect us. The only thing is that . . . we do not drink. This is the biggest obstacle, that we cannot have a drink with them, we won’t have a drink with them . . . Janka: And here people like it, yup! And the friendships are established . . . Jakub: . . . friendships over a drink.

Alcohol constitutes an important element of religious feasts, which gather together Orthodox and Catholic fellows and automatically exclude their nondrinking neighbors. During the period of Christmas, for example, while local Pentecostals celebrate it in a much more modest 168 HIERARCHY AND PLURALISM form than their Catholic and Orthodox neighbors, Adventists reject it, and all holidays for that matter, altogether; as one Adventist man put it, “Jesus promised a big party once he returns.” Nondrinking stands not only as an impediment to socializing but also as an indica- tion of one’s moral behavior. And this idea of what constitutes a life lived in accordance with Godly rules is an important variable shaping neighborly relations. Consequently, evangelicals often express pity for neighbors who fail to live “decently,” pray “in a wrong way,” assign to priests competences “that only God has,” “misinterpret” the Bible or hardly ever read it; in short, they pity those whom they see as lacking “the truest truths.” These remarks should not suggest that the different emphasis given to personal experience and Bible discussion, as exemplified in Protestant traditions, and the concern with rituals and liturgy, as epitomized in the case of Catholics and Eastern Christians, is the key to understanding relations between these groups. Such a perspective risks setting intellectually or cognitively oriented religious traditions against performative and ritual-centered ones in a simplistic way, seeing the former as more “intellectual” and “reflective” and the latter as “naïve” and “unthoughtful.” Rather, at the root of people’s various approaches toward religious others are their respective understandings of the relationship between religion and life. While other groups are seen as “only” living religiously, evangelicals claim that for them, religion is life. The centrality of religion in the lives of two evangelical communities is revealed not only in their frequent references to the Bible and Bible-prescribed religious principles, but in the way their members speak of God. “God fixed this for me in this way,” says Matylda, an Adventist, relating a story of how God convinced the Ministry of Labor to change legislation in a way that benefited her. As she tells this story and others, she emphasizes that God does things for people, as the Book of Daniel describes. When describing neighbors’ being helpful or kind, she does not praise their qualities as men, but rather, emphasizes that they were tools in God’s hand and that God inspired them to act as they did. Conversely, when neighbors show dislike or hostility, Matylda stresses their distance from God and the truth. Generally, Adventists underline that Jesus gave people moral guidelines and one is obliged to follow them. Similarly, Pentecostals cite multiple examples of what God said (often through other people inspired by the Holy Spirit), what solution to a problem He indicated, or how He guided people’s actions. Speaking about her congregation, one Pentecostal woman stated: “God decided to implant a charismatic community here . . . So He sent Holy Spirit, He told people THE DIFFERENT AND THE COMMON 169 how to adjust their actions, He said: do this, this and that.” Robbins summarizes this point well when he notes that, for Pentecostals, “the Christian life, when it does not consist in talking to God in prayer, very often consists in talking about what God has said so that in can be heard and followed” (2001:904). Likewise, Pentecostals refer to God when commenting on the religious practices of their Catholic neighbors. As a young woman told me:

My neighbor lost the keys to her house, she was desperate and prayed to St. Antonius. She told me that the prayers did not work . . . Of course it didn’t! She should have prayed to God directly.

This is not to suggest that Catholics or Orthodox do not mention God’s will or God’s presence, but they seem to allow themselves a higher degree of latitude, generalizing about proper “Christian” behaviors and the life “as God likes it,” often doing so in a comparatively light-hearted way. Furthermore, the subject of “God”10 leads to yet another important distinction. Without reinforcing an essentialist distinction between “religions of the altar” and “religions of the script,” it must be remarked that, given the blurring of ethnic and religious identities in this context, it is possible to be an Orthodox or Catholic atheist, but the idea of a Pentecostal non-believer is literally incomprehensible. Convictions about the “properness” of one’s faith sometimes translate into pity for neighbors who wander, but may also be invoked in the context of difficulties accepting “dissenters.” Evangelicals would admit, more or less explicitly, that in light of Jesus’s imperative to love others, the sentiment of dislike constitutes a source of personal tension. These were observable during the Adventist services I attended. One of the common prayers, expressed in the moment of common supplications and confessions of weaknesses, was an emotional request: “Lord, please, help me to love my Catholic neighbors.” The words were followed by different explanations stating, for example, that Catholics’ acts were not their “fault,” that they were manipulated and “beguiled by the pope,” and that it was for those reasons that they did not live in accordance with the Bible. Pentecostals, for their part, did not make such prayers—at least not in my hearing—but they did seek and offer other explanations for why neighbors, usually Catholics, do not practice faith in the “right” way:

There are so many people who would like to join our gatherings, but they can’t because [they think:] what will my neighbor say? People 170 HIERARCHY AND PLURALISM

don’t like when diversity is manifested, so [they ask:] why do you go to them? It should stay as it is, “normally.”

While this comment is very informative about the local perception of what is “proper” and “normal,” it should not obscure the fact that evangelical denominations share with the Catholics the aspiration to maintain the integrity of their congregations. This goal is perhaps best reflected in the perception of mixed marriages, which do occur but are generally discouraged. For instance, two of Janka’s and Jakub’s sons have Roman Catholic wives but, as the couple emphasizes, both women are “soft” Catholics. To be a soft Catholic means to be far from the Church and, at the same time, be a likely candidate for conversion. Both women happen to attend Pentecostal meetings and they are close to the Pentecostal community due to a variety of activities that the leaders propose to their faithful. Apart from religious services, they organize a variety of social gatherings, sport activities, singing and Bible discussions, which aim to bring Pentecostals from different villages together. All of this foregrounds the importance of the fellowship of the believers and, simultaneously, weakens Pentecostals’ bonds with their (non-Pentecostal) village community, coworkers, and schoolmates. As these examples demonstrate, religious traditions that place an emphasis on an individual’s relation to God may at the same time be “deeply social and tightly intertwined with ideas of belonging” (Pelkmans 2007: 896). The same is true for the Adventists who count the days to Saturday service and devote much time during the week to preparing for their Saturday discussion of the Bible. The Adventists also appear to be very skeptical about the meaningfulness of intermarriage. One of Matylda’s friends puts it bluntly: “I do not believe in intermarriage.” She goes on to enumerate all the problems that such a marriage would face and stresses the difficulty in observing religious rules. Matylda, whose son married a Pentecostal girl, says with sad- ness: “She takes him to the Pentecostal service, then they go to have lunch with her [Pentecostal] family, and so all his Sunday is lost.” A few words are necessary about the approach to neighbors manifested in Jehovah’s Witnesses’ discourses and practices. “I really don’t understand,” declares Tekla, shaking her head. “Everyone wants the Celestial Kingdom to come, right? And we just went to people to help them to be able to enjoy it [when it comes], so why don’t they listen to us?” For Tekla and her fellow Jehovah’s Witnesses, the task is quite simple: to love God means to act as God wants and match one’s behavior with God’s prescriptions, all of which are clearly outlined THE DIFFERENT AND THE COMMON 171 in the Bible. While similar comments may be heard from members of the other religious communities, Jehovah Witnesses are the most active in encouraging others to join them and they do so regardless of how they are received. Contrary to Adventists who “sermonize” (Poewe 1978), Jehovah Witnesses actively “proselytize,” visiting people’s houses and distributing Watch Tower publications. For one of the local elders of the Witnesses, Leon, the period of Christmas, celebrated by most of his neighbors, is the time:

. . . free of work, so we can go the people and talk with them on Biblical subjects. Of course, we don’t want to disturb them too much during such festivities, but we go to those who invite us or who let us in . . . We don’t follow traditions [like Christmas] and this is where the difference lies and . . . we believe in very simple things, very . . . reasonable ones.

Comparing other religious confessions with Jehovah’s Witnesses, Leon points to various “unreasonable” beliefs, such as the idea of purgatory or cults of saints, which do not correspond with the letter of the Bible, and he emphasizes that Witnesses simply aim to explain this fact to others. During the meetings I attended, gathered Witnesses spent a great deal of time studying how to talk to and live with “dissenters.” Such lessons usually took the form of a performance in which two people demonstrated a dialogue between two neighbors (one of them Jehovah’s Witness) or two spouses (again, one of them a Jehovah Witness). In both cases, the dialogue was supposed to lead to the conversion of the non-Witness. Although intermarriage is not forbidden, Jehovah Witnesses describe it as very difficult and full of suffering. Parents are thought to be children’s main instruc- tors and thus intermarriage makes this task very hard. They also emphasize that the time spent in Kingdom Hall is family time, where one is among brothers and sisters. Unsurprisingly, such an approach ranks bonds with religious community above others, diminishing the importance of other social contacts: “After all, faith in God is more important than neighbors, isn’t it?”

* * *

The general picture of “respectful” neighborly relations, described in terms of “equality” and prioritizing one’s neighborly identity over religious or ethnic categorizations, changes dramatically when abstract neighbor-to-neighbor relations take on more concrete form. Put another way, the quality of neighborly relations depends, in large 172 HIERARCHY AND PLURALISM part, on how often they are tested, the frequency with which neighbors’ paths cross, both literally and metaphorically. For this reason, Catholic-Orthodox relations are likely to be closer than Catholic- Adventist or Orthodox-Pentecostal ones, although all inhabitants agree that they share basic rules of reciprocity and helpfulness. But there is also a different reason, which may suggest that knowledge about “religious others”—so often emphasized as a condition of pluralism and recognition of diversity (e.g., Wuthnow 2005)—often constitutes an obstacle rather than a benefit and that tolerance and toleration11 may result from lack of such knowledge. Quite unsurprisingly, Adventists and Pentecostals happen to be most critical of Jehovah Witnesses, accusing them of questioning Jesus’s deity or mistranslation of the Bible, which they themselves know very well. Catholics tend to express the annoyance with Jehovah Witnesses’ visits at home but not so much with the content of their teaching. Similarly, the Orthodox will judge Pentecostal individualized prayers as awkward but seldom will they be aware of or pay attention to the fact that the latter reject the cult of Mary. On the contrary, in light of my research experience, Pentecostals prove more likely to point out Orthodoxy’s “unreasonable” beliefs and misconceptions. There is nothing new in observing that an all-encompassing religious way of life and a practice-without-believing one may produce different effects on social relations, even if on the surface they are just correct: respectful and polite. Only by going deeper can one realize that while “respect” for one group may mean directing one’s neighbor on the path to salvation, for another group it may translate into “live and let live.” In highlighting these differences, I aim neither to assign different communities distinctive propensities to “tolerate” or “criticize,” nor to reproduce a distinction between intellectually oriented religious traditions and ritual-centered ones. I do recognize that, after all, the categories of “Orthodox” and “Pentecostal” embrace a plentitude of deeply personal ways of being religious. What I do want to emphasize, however, are the different possible uses of categories of faith and religious knowledge and their consequences for neighborly relations and neighbors’ perception. The above examples highlight the difficulty in discussing pluralism when the actors involved seem to discuss it at different levels, seeing in a neighbor a good sport, a tool in God’s hand, or a co-religionist in spe. Drawing on practice theory, I advocate an approach that understands lived religion as both shaping people’s actions, but also being creatively and strategically shaped by them. The evidence presented in this chapter indicates that lived religion can be employed both to cross bridges and to build THE DIFFERENT AND THE COMMON 173

(new) boundaries; I purposely speak of lived religion in the singular as it is within one religious tradition, within one religious community, that these different potentials coexist. Using the language of practice theory and embracing Ortner’s metaphor of social life as a “serious game” (1996), it can be observed that depicting the field of neighborly interactions and interrelations is complicated when participants play the game not just with different types of “skills” and knowledge, but also with different understandings of the rules and goals themselves. In concluding, it is worth citing one of the Buddhist neighbors who pointed to the potential dangers of asking too much about the details of other people’s religious practices:

Here, people do not want to go into details too much and learn about you; what will they do with this knowledge later? Nobody goes into details here . . . Nobody goes into details because the details cause conflict. It is [safer] on the level . . . on the external surface.

In his seminal, albeit widely debated, discussion of antagonistic tolerance, Hayden proposes to understand “negative tolerance” as noninterference and pragmatic adaptation and “positive tolerance” as an attitude of those who recognize and respect while disagreeing with others’ beliefs and practices (2002: 205, 219). In the multireligious realm of Rozstaje, some people adhere to the first form of tolerance, trying not to cross paths with each other; while some strive for the latter, often seeing the “embrace of the Other” as a moral quality and duty; and still others recognize and respect by deliberately avoiding knowing too much about others’ beliefs and practices. The difference between various modes of tolerance is thus perhaps less sharp than Hayden would have us believe, and all may well be connected with respect, variously conceived. Last but not least, the question of knowledge points to a different issue, namely the problem of the uneven distribution of knowledge about religious others—a problem that is hard to ignore in the Polish context, where familiarity with Roman Catholic carols, the Roman Catholic service, and the main Roman Catholic dogmas simply cannot be avoided. Living in Poland, one does not necessarily know about Roman Catholicism because one wants to know about it; rather, knowledge of Roman Catholicism “goes without saying because it comes without saying” (Bourdieu 1977: 167). Taking into account a broader context that equates religion and culture and in which the public life is infused with Catholic symbols casts light on different defensive mechanisms and community-building practices 174 HIERARCHY AND PLURALISM undertaken by religious communities, as well as possible motivations behind minorities’ unwillingness to integrate into the broader, majority-dominated community. Ortner aptly notes that the “serious game” involves inequality and domination and that stakes in the game are often high (1996: 12): for some religious actors, the continued existence of their religious community is at stake.

Neighborhood and Hierarchical Pluralism Expressing a respectful opinion about Lemko neighbors who attend Roman Catholic church, the inhabitants of Ciche say: “They live normally, like everyone.” To live “like everyone” means to live like the majority (the Poles, the Roman Catholics). Neighborly coexistence that acknowledges plurality does not exclude the possibility that plurality is organized in a hierarchical way, making clear what is considered (and thus privileged) as “normal” among the plurality of lifestyles, beliefs, and practices. People’s descriptions of the vote on double-naming displayed their awareness of this ambiguity: the fact that their desire for change and recognition coincided with a deeply internalized view of the status quo and “sense of limits.” The status of neighbor—meaning, in some instances, just a neighbor, but meaning, in other instances, a dissenter, a rival, the other—encapsulates the tension between egalitarian and hierarchical reading of social relations. In fact, the multilayered and dynamic concept of neighborhood may be the best illustration of “hierarchical pluralism” and, more specifically, hierarchical pluralism’s constant tension between the factors that reinforce it and the factors that challenge it. Indeed, the simultaneously permanent and contingent nature of neighborly obligations and prerogatives makes efforts to frame interreligious relations in dichotomous terms seem quixotic. In studies of mixed neighborhoods, an example of such an approach is the idea of “the dual code,” which alternately activates the factors that maintain peaceful coexistence and the factors that make conflicts erupt (Georgieva 1999: 78–80). The problem with identifying sets of such oppositional factors lies in the difficulty of establishing the impact of local practices, habits, or communal traditions as decisively “positive” or “negative.” Religion, and more precisely “lived religion,” manifests in diverse ways, with diverse effects: it may heighten conflict, provide a basis for neighborly integration, or serve as a source of moral obligations toward neighbors. “Respect” for diversity is a double-edged tool, too: it helps to maintain courteous, attentive relations, but it also maintains awareness of difference. Knowledge about religious THE DIFFERENT AND THE COMMON 175 others may bring admiration and contempt alike, helping to highlight affinities or reinscribe distance. Recognition of this fact brings to mind the questions posed earlier in the chapter regarding how to explain shifts between tolerance and aversion. Woven into the jokes, humorous comments, and opinions that ostensibly prove one’s openness and pragmatism regarding religious difference is a complex fabric of close and fragile relations among neighbors and family members. The line between talk about “soft” dissenters and efforts to proselytize, between criticism and condemnation, or between reciprocity and demands for respect appears, after all, to be quite thin. Similarly, along with frequent conversions and multiple ways of negotiating the relation between individual faith and religious belonging, there come clear expectations to obey the rules set by the majority and different practices of exclusion. The price for one conversion may be very high, leading to a break-up of different social ties, and so may be the entrance fee to a community, which demands conformity, devotion and carrying out an outstanding action as proof of one’s commitment. Nevertheless, to borrow Gold’s formulation (2014), the “dark” face of pluralism does not necessarily eclipse the “bright” one. It is important to acknowledge the significant communal achievements and ongoing negotiations of religious boundaries that occur within neighborhoods, families, and individuals alike, and through which people demonstrate their ability to overcome or suspend formally inscribed divisions. The idea of “community” is an important context of such negotiations, even when religious, ethnic, parish, and village communities refer to different, sometimes complementary but sometimes exclusive, levels of belonging. Henceforth, what remains to be asked is whether and how a community defined in broader terms—not a supra-ethnic or a supra-religious, but one which encompasses and draws on diversity—shapes local pluralism. The discussion of local memories and local historical narratives demonstrated that experiences of marginality and exclusion were an important factor in reconfiguring majority-minority relations. It remains to be seen whether similar mechanisms are at play in present-day endeavors. Chapter 6

Debating Pluralism

On a warm June morning, I attended the inauguration of a new soccer field at one of the local grammar schools, with a match between two classes as the main attraction. The inauguration gathered the school students, roughly sixty boys and girls, several teachers and a group of parents who volunteered to prepare a warm meal for the kids. The school headmaster, a very energetic but also stern woman, seemed to be the most concerned person in the crowd. Running among the gathered people, she would admonish kids who were keener on playing games on their mobiles than supporting their classmates and she kept close watch on the grill to ensure that gossiping mothers did not burn the sausages. The teachers, most of them women, winked at each other to signal that they should not worry about their superior and sat on the benches to take in the sun and chat. One of them, a young, carefully dressed woman, sat next to me and presented herself as the English teacher. Having heard a few words about my research, she said that she and her husband run a Buddhist Meditation Center and added with a smile that she is one of the mysterious Hindus or Muslims about whom I must have been told. Despite the fact that we were surrounded by other teachers and shouting kids, Kaja did not mind sharing her views on, as she put it, “local coexistence.” Indeed, she quickly made clear her view that it is hard to speak about interreligious “coexistence”; rather than living together, people try not to cross each others’ paths. Local tolerance, she continued, means indifference rather than a positive attitude toward religious others. Besides, all this “tolerance” and “coexistence” could easily explode if non-Catholics were to demand their constitutionally guaranteed rights. One such right is, in her view, the possibility of choice between “ethics” and “religion” as a school 178 HIERARCHY AND PLURALISM subject. At the moment,1 few schools offer “ethics,” justifying the decision by citing the lack of funds to employ an additional teacher for only a few students. Such a justification is based on the presump- tion that few students would choose “ethics” instead of “religion,” and takes for granted which subject is the more relevant one. This example is but one of the issues in the heated debates regarding the church-state division—a debate that has seen, since the 1990s, the gradual surrender of the state in the face of the Catholic Church’s demands. Nonetheless, Kaja remarked that the situation in schools in Rozstaje is, at least on the surface, different from the situation of most schools in the country. Along with Roman Catholic classes, there are Greek Catholic and Orthodox ones, while other children are entitled to bring a paper that states that they receive religious education elsewhere (for example, through Pentecostal or Adventist religious classes organized in the parishes). In other words, children have the opportunity to realize that one need not to be Catholic, she observed. “For example, this priest is all right,” she stated, following with her eyes the Orthodox priest who had just joined the school festivity and sat nearby, nib- bling a sausage. “He doesn’t wear a cassock,2 he has a wife, so one looks at him in a different way.” Kaja contrasted him with Roman Catholic priests, whom she dislikes due to their pretentious behavior. What upsets her even more is the fact that the bond between being Polish and being Catholic is reinforced beyond religious classes, in the schedule of school trips, the organization of school events, and the content of history or literature teaching, all of which transmit a clear message: (Roman) Catholicism constitutes the core of Polishness. Thus, although one might recognize the possibility of being something other than Catholic, little about that possibility is made to seem normal, natural, or easy. It is also not easy to be an atheist: “There used to be quite many of them, but they all disappeared somewhere,” Kaja remarked with a note of sarcasm. Using Hayden’s vocabulary (2002), we can translate Kaja’s observations as describing noninterference and indifference as conditions of interreligious cohabitation. She put into words what other minority representatives may feel, experience, and recognize, yet may not express in such a blunt way, simply because they are happy to have any rights and prefer to keep their heads down; they know their place and have a sense of that place’s limits (Bourdieu 1977:164). But Kaja’s talk complicates the picture of local, and perhaps any, pluralism in a different way. Once the match was over and the winners were decorated DEBATING PLURALISM 179 with chocolate-made medals, Kaja leaned toward me and asserted: “It’s fortunate, though, that there are no Muslims here.” Muslims, she emphasized, are very conservative and have a black-and-white picture of the world; some people need this and thus find Muslims’s ideas appealing. Who knows, she concluded, perhaps some Roman Catholics will even join their ranks if they decide the Church is not firm enough.

* * *

The following, concluding reflections on the dynamics of religious pluralism in Rozstaje demonstrate what happens in the very moment a subordinate group undertakes an initiative which, in Bourdieu’s words, risks exposing the arbitrariness of the “taken-for-granted” (Bourdieu 1977: 169). The attempt to “pluralize” the local landscape by means of an additional sign exemplifies a transgression that calls into question all that is normally taken for granted, as ideas about what is “appropriate,” “right,” “normal” are often transmitted through space and place (Cresswell 1996: 8). The story of the vote on double-naming, its complex background, and disturbing consequences, can easily be read as evidence of the pervasiveness and power of symbolic violence as well as the temporary nature of transgression. Yet this account also invites us to ask what could have led the vote to a more successful result, namely a decision that would reflect the inhabitants’ respect for their neighbors, friends, and workmates of different religious and ethnic backgrounds and the acknowledgment of their rights as coinhabitants. Hence, the story demonstrates the various ways in which habitus—which provides people with an understanding of their place—is reproduced, but it also questions the idea of habitus’s homogeneity. Consequently, observations, reflections, and, first and foremost, people’s own explanations on why and how “hatred come to the village,” lead to some fundamental questions regarding the social relations constituting pluralism. Does the undermining of hierarchical relations lead to establishing the new ones? Why do demands of recognition translate into performing exclusion? What is the role of local society, state, and church actors in (de)legitimizing pluralism? And why does pluralism produce effects contrary to those that it promises? Striving to answer these questions evinces that we can best understand certain aspects of pluralism if we examine how it is negotiated, legiti- mized, and contested within a largely homogenous society. 180 HIERARCHY AND PLURALISM

A Village Meeting

Fieldnotes, August 11, 2008 [ . . . ] The meeting took place in the gymnasium in Rozstaje (a very nice, renovated building like all the other schools in the district) [ . . . ] There were about sixty people in the room. The men sat at the front and the women occupied the chairs at the back. Not only were the men more numerous, but they were also the only ones to take the floor. The women commented on what was discussed among themselves and complained a bit that they could not hear everything [ . . . ] The first point discussed at the meeting was the problem of sorting rubbish, introduced by a representative of the public utility company. Arguing the need to separate the rubbish, he spoke about the district’s “common good.” His talk was followed by Miron [the district’s leader] who said that not sorting meant self-deception—fines were paid from the district’s budget and the district’s budget was the inhabitants’ money, which should be used for the roads, repairs, etc. [ . . . ] It was decided that the day of the rubbish collection would be announced so that people would know when to put the separated rubbish outside their houses. It was also said that this information would be announced in the church by the priest, to which somebody said jokingly that a mass for this purpose [successful sorting] could be requested. (The Roman Catholic priest was mentioned several times, but other priests were not mentioned at all.) What followed was the discussion of the district’s budget [ . . . ]. Then, the problem of new roads and sidewalks was discussed. People reacted strongly to the question of the new waterworks—at the moment, preparation work was done by the land surveyors who, according to the inhabitants, were so rude that they sometimes did not even say “good morning” ( . . . ). Afterwards, less urgent matters were discussed, for instance, clearing a poplar and a larch (followed by a vote on the matter!) and the proposal to build a new road which would be beneficial for the school children as well as for the tourists staying in one of the leisure centers. The latter issue was also followed by a vote and Miron remarked that the person taking the minutes should make it clear that it was the “community’s will” (an expression used several times), as he did not want to be accused of making the road “for anybody” [ . . . ]. Then, the problem of young people being noisy in the night was raised. An elderly woman said that because of them she could not go to sleep before midnight. Miron answered jokingly that instead of complaining about the youngsters she could change her habits and go to sleep at 1 a.m. ( . . . ) The last points regarded investment plans: creating a “Marriage House” (as a setting for wedding parties), which was supported, according to Miron, DEBATING PLURALISM 181

even by the parish priest (he said it acridly), and re-opening an historic Lemko inn (which is abandoned at the moment). [ . . . ] In the end, a man who is taking care of the cemetery took the floor and said that there was no need to build a new chapel for funerals, since the parish priest promised that it would be possible to use the existing chapel near the church. The man emphasized that it would be made available for a token sum, for it was unthinkable that this would become yet another source of income for the priest ( . . . ). Other remarks about the meeting: everyone knows each other; Miron speaks to everyone using their first names. Also place is described by a reference to the people who inhabit it: “The road will run next to Kowalski’s house,” “you know, near the Kowalski’s household. . . . ” The atmosphere was quite cheerful, people joked quite a lot, and especially Miron did so (there were some serious moments, which were, however, quickly turned into a joke). [ . . . ] Males dominate; there are jokes about women and sex. [ . . . ] Religious elements: the parish priest was mentioned several times, often in an ironic way; Miron’s comment that Divine Providence watches over “us” [the district]: during a downpour the roads were destroyed and thanks to that there will be funding for the repairs [ . . . ]. [In the end] Miron mentioned the request of a Lemko association, which proposed to introduce the Lemko names of the villages—together with the Polish ones. He himself does not want to participate in the consultation meetings because he does not want people to think that he campaigns for this (as a Lemko). Anyway, the vote will take place in the next days—some villages have voted already and others will do so soon [ . . . ]

The village meetings were among the few democratic gatherings I attended in course of my research; other collective activities I joined were various religious ceremonies or school activities, both of them involving a clear hierarchy. Lively and rich in commentaries and discussions, they constituted a great illustration of local relations, demonstrating little distance between the authorities and the inhabitants, the picture of gender hierarchy in the public realm, a mixture of consideration and playfulness in the talk about religious leaders. They constituted a great introduction into the local language, its commonly used expressions, the tone of conversations (jokes, irony), points of reference (numerous religious and sexual connotations), and ways of expressing the locality (“peopled places”). The meetings reflected the form and characteristics of the local leadership and its dependence on the knowledge of the wider locality. Lastly, they were very informative about people’s perceptions of the district’s life, common problems, and concerns as well as the ideas of how best to handle them. 182 HIERARCHY AND PLURALISM

The notions of the “common good,” the “community’s will,” and “common responsibility” were frequently referred to, in reference to everyday concerns such as the quality of the water, the condition of the roads, or children’s safety, by both the district’s leaders and the inhabitants. The discussions about the shape of the village prove that these were taken quite literally; the inhabitants were supposed to vote on the fate of trees and were invited to express their opinions on how to adapt an old building. They were also encouraged to present their priorities and needs, even if this could easily lead to discussions and clashes. Such an approach to the community’s good resonates with the idea of “common good” as discussed by William Rehg (2007). Addressing the contributions of Charles Taylor and Alasdair MacIntyre, Rehg emphasizes the role of both “shared culture and tradition” and individuals’ “contributions, ongoing criticism, and innovations” in establishing what is to be perceived and pursued as “common good” (2007: 13). He proposes a dynamic approach to the common good that does not preclude negotiations and disagree- ments and that perceives common values and interests as products— not preconditions—of joint endeavors. Combining these observations with Gerald Creed’s reconsideration of the notion of community “in which conflict is not antithetical to community but, rather, a constitutive elements of community commitment and sentiment” (2004: 57), it is possible to recognize the contestable nature of common concerns and interests as constructive. The question is, in what way do the debates on the common good and recognition of its negotiable nature shed light on the dynamics of the debates on double-naming that emerged in Rozstaje?3 Although it may seem at first glance that the controversial vote proved the notions of the “common good” and “common decisions” to be utopian or caricatures of actual reality, this question is much more complex. As my notes demonstrate, the issue of the vote was pushed into the background during the meeting’s debates and it did not provoke any comments, perhaps reflecting the hierarchy of local problems and the issues that were considered to be relevant. There is no doubt that the second name was of great importance for many Lemkos, but many of them criticized the vote and said that instead of the sign with the Lemko name they wanted to find a solution for repairing the roof of their cerkiew or improving the condition of the road running through their villages. Although these issues need not be seen as questions of “either-or,” they were often perceived as such by the local population. For all these reasons, the perception of common concerns and ways DEBATING PLURALISM 183 to handle them constitutes an important point of reference for the analysis of the vote.

The Village Meeting According to Polish legislation4 since 2005, it is possible to introduce geographic names in the language of a national or ethnic minority. In the case of locations where the minority constitutes more than 20 percent of the total population, the decision can be taken by the district’s council, while in cases where the minority is below this percentage, the decision needs to be preceded by so-called social consultations. In the latter case, the second name can be introduced if more than 50 percent of the inhabitants are in favor. Lemko names are the least represented among the villages in Poland, which have two names on their village signs; before the vote in Rozstaje and surroundings districts, there was only one Lemko village with two names (while, for example, 310 localities have Polish and German names). The proposal to add the Lemko names in several villages of Rozstaje (and in three neighboring districts) was put forward by the students of a Lemko association. Born in the region, the members of the association are now university students and most of them live outside of Rozstaje. The vote took place in the first two weeks of August 2008. The inhabitants were informed in advance about the date of the vote in their respective village. In several localities, two female members of the association attended the meetings where the votes were held and, together with the district’s secretary and a representative of the district’s council, presented the issue to the inhabitants. The inhabitants were informed about the procedure (a secret ballot) and the effects of using two names on the signs, or rather reassured about the lack of substantial change; it was emphasized that the two names did not mean a change of the name but only an additional sign at the entrance to the village, which would not require any changes to ID cards or other documents. The proposed Lemko names sounded very similar to the Polish ones and the only substantial difference was the fact they were to be written in Cyrillic. The dynamics of the vote differed between the villages. In the case of the villages inhabited mainly by Lemkos, the decision in favor of the name was taken unanimously. In other cases the deliberations grew much more intense, as the following conversation demonstrates. The conversation took place in the house of Adam’s and Ala’s forty- five-year-old daughter, Stasia, who lives today outside of Ciche5 with 184 HIERARCHY AND PLURALISM her three children and parents-in-law. It occurred during a dinner I was invited to and which was attended by Stasia, her mother-in-law Stefania, and her two teenage children, Szymek and Sara. Due to both the intensity of the meeting and the time that had passed since the vote, the conversation was, on the one hand, very revelatory and, on the other hand, confirmed many of the issues I had heard in the previous months. Equally important were the narrators of the story, who represented not only different generations but also a range of characters: an audacious grandmother, her calmer but equally determined daughter-in-law, her engaged and mature granddaughter, and her jok- ing grandson. I remember this conversation well. It is reduced here to a few lines, but the process of capturing it took several precious hours of sitting in my friends’ dining room, trying to listen to four people talking—often all at once, memorizing their facial expressions, asking questions, taking notes, and protecting my plate all the while from yet another huge portion of food. What I remember more than anything else is the fact that Sara and Szymek kept going to the kitchen to make hot drinks, as their grandmother was so absorbed with and emotional about the recounted events that the tea in her cup kept getting cold before she managed to have a sip.

Recorded interview, April 27, 2009 [ . . . ] Stasia: You know, Agnieszka, we had a referendum6 in our village. Sara: Yes, ask grandma, what kind of trials she had with her best friend . . . Stasia: And imagine that in our village, too, the Poles started to rebel . . . The Poles were seething because one was born here and he does not wish to have the second name. Another added something to that, but our grandma, brave woman, immediately stopped him. [Everyone is laughing.] Stefania: Of course, if I disapprove of something, and I see such a rude person, I scream: “You, be quiet! Why do you open your trap?” And he immediately became quiet. And as to the one who was screaming that he was born and had grown up here, I wanted to tell him: “Because you did not have another place. Because your family was so poor that they were lucky that they could find a house here!” But she, she [Stasia] prodded me, and said: “Silence!” Stasia: But the district’s representative was very diplomatic. He was explaining: “Why do you bother about a few additional letters? You will have a big sign in Polish and beneath it there will be small letters.” But no, full stop. No! DEBATING PLURALISM 185

Agnieszka: So the district’s representative was in favor? Stasia: Both the district’s representative and the district’s secretary. But listen to what happened afterwards. Then there were various comments and our closest neighbor . . . Sara: Let grandma speak . . . Stasia [continues]: . . . yes, [she said] if they want the second sign, they should go to Ukraine, she says. You understand, she dares drive the Lemkos out of their native lands! ( . . . ) You know, it hurts, but we decided to give up [discussing it], because it makes one nervous and one gets angry, this would turn into a war, because of the emotions that enter into play. And knowing our grandma’s temperament, she would swear, she would hurl insults at them, she would say something that she should not have, so we better leave it. Still, it hurts. Stefania: You know, if there is a village meeting [a regular one], perhaps 20–30 people come. But that time, everyone who is alive, [the oldest] grandmothers, grandfathers . . . Stasia: They brought them . . . Stefania: They brought them by car. I would have not gone either, I am old and I do not need such things. But a neighbor was passing and says: “Come into the car, sometimes one vote matters.” Eh, you see, it did [says this sarcastically]. Agnieszka: And among those votes [in favor], were there any Poles? Stefania: No, no . . . you know what? No wise Pole went . . . Neither did the school director nor . . . Stasia: They did not come at all. Szymek: But the N. family came? Stefania: The N. came, they voted for us . . . Stasia: Yes, and they spoke loudly . . . Stefania: The daughter and the son are graduates . . . Stasia: And the parents were teachers . . . Stefania: And the daughter says: “There is no country where there are no Poles. And they have rights everywhere. And this is their [Lemkos’] land and we do not grant them rights.” But others jumped at her: “Because you know most, you know most.” And she: “I know, I know.” These kinds of discussions were there . . . Stasia: Terrifying. Sara: Aga, take more food. Stefania: And one teacher, not only did she vote [against], so did her husband, but she was insisting that she should have the right to vote on her son’s behalf since he is abroad but registered here. ( . . . ) Agnieszka: And did you expect such a result? [Everyone]: We did! Stefania: Because there are few Lemkos here, maybe a quarter . . . Agnieszka: But a Pole could vote in favor . . . ? 186 HIERARCHY AND PLURALISM

[Everyone]: No, no . . . Stefania: Those closest [to the Lemkos] and the wisest people did not go, the school director did not go, another good teacher did not go. Wiser people did not go. Stasia: . . . [while others] came with their entire families, you understand? Those who don’t go to vote in elections! Entire families, whoever was able to vote. Our neighbor’s daughter came from the UK and she did not go to the meeting. He called her from the meeting, screaming at her that she must come immediately, so she dashed. Stefania: And professor [says this pejoratively] (profesorek) went out, took out his mobile and says: “Get into the car immediately and come to vote”—because his wife and son were at home—“Come at once!” There were so many of them and they were so afraid to lose . . . [ . . . ] Stefania: And one Lemko stood up, and when the Poles started to scream, he told them: “You are not disturbed by the Lemko cerkiew, which you use for praying. Neither Lemko houses nor Lemko fields bother you. But those few letters bother you.” But they do not want it, full stop. Stasia: And the priests [Roman Catholic ones], they do, they do under- handed scheming (krecia robota). Stefania: I think that they, too, sow the hostility. [There are comments about other confessions in the village: Pentecostals and Jehovah’s Witnesses]. Agnieszka: And what about other religious groups, did they go to vote? Stefania: They never vote. Stasia: You mean, Jehovah’s Witnesses, right? Stefania: They do not vote on anything, neither the government nor anything . . . Calm people, they do not vote. Szymek: But there are some Lemkos who are Poles. [Silence] Agnieszka: Does that mean they are Roman Catholics? Szymek [nodding]: It means that they polonized themselves [speaks pejoratively] (spolaczyli się). Sara: Or that they consider themselves to be Poles. Stasia: They do not go to cerkiew. Stefania: They do not go to cerkiew. [ . . . ]

This emotional account of Stasia’s family vividly describes the process by which the village community—in which all are “thought to be neighbors and friends,” or are even thought of “like a family”—broke DEBATING PLURALISM 187 into “us” and “them.” My Lemko friends all admit that they expected the double-name to be rejected, but they were still very disappointed by the behavior of their closest neighbors. Likewise, they were surprised by Poles who “dare drive the Lemkos out of their native lands,” but in their own accounts, they also highlighted long-term patterns of Polish-Lemko relations and recalled various conflicts from the past. In explaining the vote’s failure, the speakers turned to history and started to recall that the village is the Lemkos’ “native land,” that the Poles came here as paupers and took over their houses, and that they are now either afraid of being forced to give the houses back or have a bad conscience. They described in detail how poor, lazy, and helpless the Polish settlers were when they settled in the region. They attributed equally negative epithets to today’s inhabitants, emphasizing their ignorance and lack of character, and frequently stressing the massive turnout of the Poles to the vote as a show of hostility. At the same time, they differentiated between different cohorts of the local population. People who are educated, who went to university and saw a bit of world were perceived to be the most likely to vote in favor of the name, whereas the negative response to the second name was usually attributed to a person’s ignorance. At the same time, my friends were critical of the people who, in their view, pretended to be knowledgeable or had a title without actually deserving it. And most of all, the attitude of the local leaders and their closest neighbors who, by refraining to vote, did not use the opportunity to support the Lemkos’ claim was the most difficult to comprehend and the most painful. As stated above, they had expected a bad result, but they had not expected that their closest neighbors would have a hand in it. Stefania could not come to terms with the fact that one of her closest friends, with whom she used to meet every day to chat in the garden, drink a cup of tea, and listen to radio, would turn against her and suggest she move to Ukraine. Other important details regarded the attitude of religious and secular authorities. The family accentuated the role of the Roman Catholic priests in stirring people up and encouraging Poles to vote against the second name. As they talked about this, they recalled many stories from the past that differentiated between open-minded and hostile clergymen. Telling stories about the love affairs of Roman Catholic priests, they mocked Poles who blindly obey immoral clergymen. Their interpretation of the priests’ role in the vote accounted for a widespread (albeit not always explicitly expressed) conviction regarding the connection between the Roman Catholic Church and Polishness, with the former perceived as defending and promoting 188 HIERARCHY AND PLURALISM

Polish interests. The bond between Polishness and Catholicism was most markedly displayed in Szymek’s statement about the Lemkos who are Poles. In his view, Lemkos who stop going to cerkiew and join the Roman Catholic mass “automatically” become Poles, which also accounts for the connection between being Lemko and attending a cerkiew (i.e., being Orthodox or Greek Catholic). Szymek’s pejorative evaluation (spolaczyć się7) of such a conversion hints at how such an act is judged, while Stefania’s and Stasia’s final comments about the cerkiew attendance clearly indicate that religion is a “tie that binds” Lemkos to their ethnic identity (Cornell 1996). Finally, my friends’ account of the attitude of the district’s representatives hit the nail on the head, as it proved that, already during the vote, the authorities attempted to downplay the importance of the second sign and stressed that the Polish sign was to be the “main” one. In that way, by emphasizing that the second sign would be small and not “disturbing” (in Polish eyes), they diminished its symbolic value. In other words, instead of emphasizing the equality of the inhabitants’ rights, they perhaps assumed that by reminding people which group was dominant they would get a favorable response. In short, they assured the Poles that this act of acknowledging pluralism would not undermine the existing hierarchy. The account provided by this family reflects widespread feelings among the Lemko population, to the extent that some of the recalled evidence was repeated in other contexts and by different people, but in strikingly similar form. The narrative that dominated was one of conflict with “ignorant” Polish neighbors and “false” intellectuals, the Poles’ hostility toward the very idea of the Lemko sign, and threats of another resettlement. Still, it is worth inquiring what the reasons were for the intensity of this conflict: was the issue one of Poles’ fervent nationalism, a fear of losing property, and/or simply people’s ignorance? Likewise, one must ask why other Lemkos simply did not care about the vote or were even against the sign. In order to explore these issues, I turn now turn to the examples from Krasne and Leśna, which put some of the abovementioned assumptions into question and demonstrate that even the votes in favor of the name were in fact far from being triumphant.

In Search of Good Neighbors In the village of Krasne, only one-third of people voted in favor of the double-naming. According to the estimate of local Lemkos, based on the number of Poles and Lemkos present, only a few Poles voted in DEBATING PLURALISM 189 favor. As the conversations with Tymko and his family demonstrated (Chapter 5), the Lemkos were shocked and deeply disappointed by their Polish neighbors’ stance, but they simultaneously spoke of the vote as one of those situations of inevitability, when “everything turns,” and recalled other unpleasant experiences from the past. Similar feelings and opinions were expressed by other Lemkos from the village. Zosia and Zenek, crushed by the result, told me that they realized that if Poles present at the meeting were asked to sign a decision about the second resettlement, they would do it without thinking twice. Speaking of the Poles who attended the vote, Zosia described them as drunkards and ignorant; one young man supposedly did not even know the number of his own house. However, there were also many Lemkos who asserted that they themselves did not care very much about the vote and had not gone to the meeting. When I asked Hanna about her viewpoint, she said that one of the cows was sick and she could not go to vote, while Henek added that nobody expected so many Poles to turn out; usually one family representative attends the meeting, but that day “entire families, including the people who can hardly walk and write, were brought to vote.”8 Their daughter Hela shrugged her shoulders and asked rhetorically: “And what do I need this name for? I do not need it to be Lemko.” At the same time, even those Lemkos who criticized their Polish neighbors, emphasized that the sign’ opponents felt very uncomfort- able after the vote and that, as Zosia put it, “someone must have egged them on.” According to many, that “someone” was the Roman Catholic priest, who had addressed the vote in one of his sermons,9 speaking about the “defense of the Polishness of the territory,” which the second sign would supposedly call into question. This opinion was confirmed by some Poles, who told me that they had agreed on how to vote while gossiping outside the church after the mass. Some of them explained to me why they had done this and some actually regretted it or diminished the “anti-Lemko” aspect of their act. For example, a young man told me that he and his mates “simply” wanted to cause a “little brawl,” and a young woman said she was not aware of the village’s history and thus did not understand what was the point of having a sign in a “foreign” language. Another frequent explanation was that the sign would cost too much money, despite the district’s assurances to the contrary. Finally, most of the people claimed that those who voted against the sign were “uneducated” and “ignorant” former workers of the state-owned farms. Lemkos, for example, stressed this lack of education and knowledge among the “Poles from the PGRs,” yet it is important to highlight another factor—namely, that most of 190 HIERARCHY AND PLURALISM these people do not own any land or a house, but live in one of the rundown blocks of flats. As the earlier discussion of people’s “sense of place” (Crasswell 1996) suggested, people’s relation to the place they inhabit—which also means their relation to property—influences their stance toward diversity and other people. The landless people from Krasne I spoke to are generally very negative about the village, do not see any future, and do not express any attachment to it. This may partly explain the hostile attitude of some inhabitants, whether this hostility was intended to express anger, resentment, or the wish to “cause a little brawl.” Many disappointed inhabitants of Krasne stressed that the residents of neighboring Borki voted in favor of the second name: “[Think about] Borki, there are Poles there and they were able to agree and voted and . . . Borki! There is only one Rusyn family there.” In Lemkos’ accounts, the open-minded and educated inhabitants of Borki, many of whom are relatively recent newcomers from big cities, were contrasted with their Polish neighbors from Krasne. The Lemkos outside of Borki may well have romanticized the outcome there, however, as matters looked quite different from within the village of Borki itself. The only Lemko woman who lives there, Ola, was crushed by the vote, despite its overall positive result:

For me this moment was . . . a kind of test how things really are . . . and I was extremely upset because . . . there were eight votes [ . . . ] Yyy . . . so out of wight votes, four were in favor, one person abstained, and three were against. I was convinced that I knew our small community so well, [but] I was shocked that something of this kind . . . Because in fact . . . yyy . . . all these people . . . have some kind of consciousness . . . in fact all these people have some higher education, [contrary to] those people from the PGRs, those, those two families did not come [to vote] . . . and we talked it over before, and it seemed that everyone was in favor.

Given that there were only eight people who voted, it was quite easy to guess who was in favor and who was against. Not only Ola, but also the Buddhist couple who were very disappointed by the vote’s result, emphasized the influence of Roman Catholic priests on the local Poles and, more generally, the pervasiveness of the “national- istic Polish patriotism, this [assumption of the] Pole=Catholic, and only Pole, and only Catholic.” Still, they were very surprised by the stance of their “well-educated” and “open-minded” neighbors from whom they had expected a favorable answer. The assumption that DEBATING PLURALISM 191 the (“uneducated” and “ignorant”) “families from the PGRs” would vote against if they showed up was also very telling. Recounting the dynamics of the vote in both Borki and Krasne, Ola, in turn, mentioned the example of the vote in Leśna, which “is a different village ( . . . ). It is a different village and a completely different level. People there are simple but not uncouth (prości ale nie prostacy).” Indeed, Leśna was frequently contrasted with Krasne as a place in which the “correct” relations between different religious persuasions were reflected in the positive outcome of the vote. But once again, it seemed that the view from within the village itself was less rosy. The Lemkos I talked to in Leśna said that, in fact, none or very few local Poles had voted in favor of the name, even though several local Poles claimed that they had done so. In Leśna, the favorable decision was a result of the mobilization of the Lemkos and the votes of the temporary residents or newcomers: people “from outside,” in the eyes of some, and “new neighbors,” in the view of Izydor and those like him. Still, the outcome of the vote did not make any of the inhabitants happy: despite the favorable decision, the Lemko people were disappointed by their fellow inhabitants’ stances. Like the inhabitants of Krasne, they asked how it was possible that people who lived together, as neighbors and as members of mixed families, were able to stand on opposite sides and spread rumors about the Lemkos taking back fields and houses from the Poles. The rules of interreligious conviviality were put into question: everyday politeness and respect were no longer seen as signs of civility but as façades, concealing feelings of aversion and tension and obscuring the superficiality of the local ecumenism:

Do you know how unpleasant it is [the result]? But the neighbor continues to sit outside the house and to drink coffee with her neighbor, and says: “It is all the same to me. It is all the same, but anyway I voted no.” It is like with “this ecumenism” [expresses cynism]: everything is good, everything is hunky-dory, but when one has to take a stand on the left or on the right side, then it is not “all the same,” then it is “no.” In other words, [such people say]: “I am for ecumenism, but the ecumenism as I define it.”

The Lemkos’ awareness of the limits of local ecumenism was matched by the opinions of the Poles who—however unintentionally—also revealed its superficiality when they stressed that: “Everything was fine, civil, we had peace and . . . they [Lemkos] stirred up a hornets’ nest!” Such opinions took for granted that the people responsible for 192 HIERARCHY AND PLURALISM

“disturbing” the social relations are those who wanted the vote and the additional sign. Yet these statements also invite us to ask whether understanding “peace” as a “hornets’ nest” is simply contradictory or helps to understand the ambiguous nature of local pluralism. It was precisely this artificial appropriateness and politeness of social relations that was later criticized by those who felt betrayed and who saw such congeniality in hindsight as a mask for hostility and unresolved tensions. In contrast, true social relations remained idealized as relations that involve neighborly bonds, mutual help, and cooperation.10 Other Polish inhabitants used more down-to-earth arguments to justify their negative stance toward the second name, for example, by speaking about the high cost of the signs and expressing doubts about the local authorities’ assurances. Moreover, they even questioned whether it was possible to add the second name, pointing to the ownership of this territory. This issue is best illustrated by the local Roman Catholic priest:

[The village] was the property of the counts, and it has always been here, and . . . and giving an argument that . . . in, in, in Lviv11, in Lviv there are two names, yes, but Lviv was ours, Polish, that’s why there are two names. Here, instead, there was nothing of this kind, it never was, Leśna was the property of the Polish counts, full stop. [my emphasis]

The priest’s explanation is clear: people who “own” the territory have rights to decide about its shape, and in his view the owners are the Poles. Moreover, the Poles have “always been here,” and their power lies in their social position and their property rights. In other words, the social stratification of the past is supposed to provide “guidelines” for today’s ethnic relations. The priest’s explanation, however, not only completely distorts the history of the region, but also exemplifies the assumed leading role of Poles among ethnic and religious others. In a conversation following the vote, the priest admitted to me that he had encouraged his parishioners to vote against the double name, “in order not to lose.” What is striking here is that it is taken for granted what “to lose” means; it was not even considered that the Polish inhabitants might vote in favor of the double name, indeed, it was obvious to the priest that the Poles should vote against it. He identified himself with this viewpoint, constantly referring to “we” (the Roman Catholic/Polish inhabitants): “we could have won against them’” but “we lost.” What is also very important here is that the Roman Catholic priest is a very good friend of the Orthodox priest and throughout my research I observed many examples of the DEBATING PLURALISM 193

Roman Catholic priest’s respectful behavior toward other religious communities. Once again, these observations confirm that diversity is accepted as long as the minorities do not attempt to redefine the relations defined by the majority or claim their constitutionally guaranteed rights. If there was anything that the Lemkos and Poles from Leśna agreed on, it was the conviction that the conflicts over the name lay in the fact that the initiative had come from outside the community. A Lemko suggested that “if it hadn’t been the two girls who came from outside, if it had been [done] locally, the village leader, the district’s councilors would have presented the issue, perhaps it would have gone differently and we [the inhabitants] wouldn’t be at variance.” It is worth repeating here that Leśna is viewed as a village with exemplary neighborly relations. Although this is seen as a great achievement, those who live within the village are also very aware of this achievement’s fragility. Two close neighbors, the school director, Franek, and the Orthodox priest, told me that they were not overly pleased about vote for precisely this reason. Although the Lemkos’ right to have the name on the sign was obvious to them, they would have preferred to relinquish a minority’s aspirations for the sake of good neighborly relations. They expressed conviction that local people are not yet ready for such a vote. Franek specified that, first of all, in order to be successful, it should have been a grassroots initiative, and secondly, there should have been a “real debate” on what the two names meant and why it was important to have them. What was offered instead was confusing information and the impression that the decision had already been taken. In other words, he attempted to defend, or at least to explain, the reaction of those who were negatively inclined toward the vote. For this reason, he was also quite skeptical about the examples from other villages where the vote had proceeded in a peaceful way and a decision had been reached unanimously and he was skeptical about contrasting them with the “bad” neighbors from Leśna. Franek commented on this in his own way, as usual, referring to his two biggest passions—teaching and sports:

Well, in some other village everyone was in favor, but what about the turnout, who came to vote? In some villages, only people who feel themselves to be Lemkos came to vote and others were not interested; one would have to do a proper analysis and ask: who voted, why they voted, etc. It is like [ . . . ] the evaluation of the schools’ quality on the basis of exam results—what is given is dry data and not information about what kinds of homes the students come from. What is their 194 HIERARCHY AND PLURALISM

background? What values are promoted in their homes? Or like a sports competition: there were two competitors, so you can say that one won and the other came second—or last.

In his comment, Franek referred to the situation in the neighboring village of Trawno, where the inhabitants supposedly supported the initiative in unison; in the same way in which the small community of Borki was compared with Krasne, Trawno was held up as an example for Leśna’s community. And, as in Borki, the context of the vote in Trawno was, in actuality, quite complex. The village is praised for its model neighborly relations, which are attributed to a variety of factors, such as the high number of mixed marriages, its lively social life, and the community-building activities of the local leader. A recent proof of interreligious and interethnic cooperation was the financial support which the Roman Catholic parishioners gave to the Orthodox community for the construction of a new cerkiew. All these factors notwithstanding (after all, in every village, people claimed that they had model relations with their neighbors, only to see them upset by the vote), it is worth recounting the course the vote took. Some important facts were highlighted by Petro, one of the oldest and most respected Lemkos from Trawno:

Petro: [Here,] even the Poles voted [in favor]. Agnieszka: It means that here . . . Petro: . . . there are no squabbles. Agnieszka: Right. So no Pole hesitated? Everyone was in favor? Petro: Well, not that many showed up during the vote, but . . . those who were there, voted in favor and all right . . . ( . . . ) Agnieszka: I’m wondering how one can explain different results in different villages. Petro: Well, I don’t know. We’ve here, I’ve a son-in-law, a Pole from Warsaw . . . and he also went to vote and he even encouraged other Poles to go and vote.

Petro’s words reveal that the positive result of the vote did not necessarily indicate wholehearted support for the Lemko sign; it could just as easily mean that many Poles were simply indifferent and/or abstained from voting. This observation echoes Franek’s earlier opinion, when he argued against simplistic and rash evaluations of the outcome of the vote. In addition, not only Petro but also a large number of the district’s inhabitants highlighted the decisive role of Petro’s son-in-law, Paweł, regarding the outcome of the debate. Having fallen in love with the region and with Petro’s daughter, DEBATING PLURALISM 195

Paweł moved to Trawno several years ago and opened a farm tourism company. He quickly developed a strong attachment to the village community, which is reflected in his interest in shaping the local relations. During a conversation I later had with him, Paweł admitted his role in the referendum, telling me how he had gone from house to house or tried to talk things over with people over a glass of beer. And importantly, even he asserts his success was primarily convincing Poles who were against the sign to refrain from voting; real success, by contrast, would have been actually convincing more Polish people to vote in favor. In conclusion, as we compare these various understandings of the vote in the different villages, the distinctions begin to blur between “educated” and “uneducated” Poles, between urban newcomers and former workers of state-owned farms, and even that between Polish opponents and Lemko proponents. Among the people who voted in favor of the Lemko signs were “simple” people who did so out of respect for their neighbors; well-educated people who were convinced about the importance of the local heritage; local leaders who perceived the sign as an important gesture toward the Lemko community; and pragmatic inhabitants who hoped that the second name would attract more tourists and increase investment in the village. Among the people who voted against the Lemko signs were, likewise, “simple” people who did not see any meaning in the second name or who were misin- formed or manipulated; well-educated people who used the referendum strategically to promote a Polish version of the region’s history; local leaders who were afraid that the sign would bring more trouble than benefit; and pragmatic inhabitants who expressed their concern that tourists might be puzzled by the “foreign” name at the entrance to the village. And then there were the people who simply abstained from voting—a stance that was hardly interpreted as “neutral” by others. Furthermore, the very idea of the vote came to be questioned by both opponents and advocates. While some people opposed the idea of the Lemko sign, others criticized the organization of the consultations and claimed that the result could have been different. This observation takes us back to the account of the village meeting that opened this chapter and that aimed to account for people’s concern with the common good and their endeavors to improve the quality of local life, even in the situations when only few inhabitants benefit from undertaken decisions. Discussing the negative result of the vote in Krasne, the village leader contrasted it with a decision a few years earlier, when the inhabitants unanimously decided to allocate funds for the construction of a new bridge next to the cerkiew—a project 196 HIERARCHY AND PLURALISM that was important mostly for the Lemko community. I would argue that the failure of the sign vote can be, at least partly, explained by the failure of the authorities to promote the sign as a community matter and the lack of grassroots or more informal discussions about what the sign would mean. At the same time, none of these arguments should underestimate the role played by the Polish-Catholic discourse in erasing memories and preventing the commemoration of diversity.

State, Church, and Minorities The hostility against the second name and negative repercussions of the vote upset many more people than Lemkos. Some Pentecostals, among them people who identify themselves as Lemkos, were enthu- siasts of the initiative. The Buddhists, also in favor of the name, strongly criticized the two-faced behavior of their “enlightened” coinhabitants. Although the vote addressed the rights of an ethnic minority, the Lemkos (often referred to simply as “Orthodox” and “Greek Catholic”), religious minorities saw in it yet another example of how minorities of any sort are perceived locally. Members of minority religious groups frequently extrapolated broader conclusions from the example of the vote. Many of the people I talked to expressed opinions similar to the Pentecostal man who described the vote in Krasne thusly:

Yes, it is said that there is tolerance. There is tolerance until somebody sticks his neck out. If one wants to do something differently, then all of a sudden they stop to respect you. When a problem comes, then the easiest way [of addressing it] is to say: “Because you are of a different creed.”

However, the importance of the vote as a point of reference lies not only in the fact that it reveals the attitude of Roman Catholic majority, but also in the fact that it points out the importance of local government as a social actor whose role in legitimizing diversity cannot be overlooked. Its status is actually quite special given its intermediary position: local government represents the state, but is composed of local people familiar with the area’s specific socioreligious context. Recall, for example, the description of the vote provided by Stasia’s family, in which some local officials tried to promote the idea of the second name by emphasizing how secondary and nonsymbolically significant it would actually be. A tendency to guard the majority’s position and privilege the Catholic Church characterizes many of local DEBATING PLURALISM 197 events and initiatives, and it is usually justified through reference to the “taken-for-grantedness” of the Polish-Catholic connection. A comparison of Jehovah Witnesses’ and Pentecostals’ experiences is very informative in this regard. Depicting present-day relations with the local authorities, Leon, who takes care of the Witnesses’ organizational matters, told me that he could not recall any problems. Even more so, local officials are, in his view, very efficient and strive to address the needs of all the communities. To prove his claim he told me about his recent intervention in the district’s office. Due to newly introduced cost-cutting measures, the power industry decided to keep on only every second lamp on the street. Unluckily, among the lamps switched off under this policy was the one next to the Kingdom Hall. As a result, witnesses coming to evening meetings could not see their way. The district’s leader, Miron, reacted immediately; he picked up the phone and con- tacted the power industry. The next day, the lamp was turned on. Concluding the story, Leon repeated that the relationships with the authorities do not constitute a big concern for the Witnesses. He said instead what most Jehovah’s Witnesses repeatedly emphasize, namely, that one should render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s. Wojtek, who fulfills an organizational function in the Pentecostal community, recounts very different experiences, and he asserts that the attitude of local government is far from impartial. As proof of this, he recounted the story of his congregation’s attempt to organize a concert in the park, in the district’s touristic center. The council representatives expressed fear that the concert would promote Pentecostalism and argued that the promotion of religion in the public sphere is inconceivable. Only after long negotiations did they grant the congregation permission to organize the concert, but, remarkably, they forbade the organizers to speak during the performance. They strictly controlled the entire course of the preparations, interfering even in the appearance of the posters; they forbade, for instance, including a quote from the Bible. Wojtek emphasized that the authorities allowed the concert only after setting limits, stressing what a minority can and cannot do. He also added that the arguments of the council seem quite bizarre if one takes into account the rights that Roman Catholics are granted and that nobody would dare to question. Roman Catholics do not need to ask for permission to organize the procession of the Corpus Christi, which takes places each year, forty days after Easter. The procession walks through the entire village, blocking roads and inhabitants’ garage exits for several hours 198 HIERARCHY AND PLURALISM and nobody protests against it. Wojtek noted, however, that the troubles with the concert came from council members, not the district’s leader. The latter, Wojtek observed, is also a minority member (an Orthodox Lemko) and thus he is definitely more sympathetic, while other officials are very much concerned with the voice of the local Catholic Church. My talks with local officials confirmed this view: what was striking was their shared and unquestioned perception of religious minorities as the ones who “demand” and Roman Catholics as those who are (naturally) “entitled.” The difference between the Pentecostal concert and the Corpus Christi procession lies in the fact that the latter is perceived as something “normal” and “natural” in the Polish context. Its presence in the public sphere is not perceived as a violation of neutrality but as an element of national “culture” or “tradition,”12 the role of which is crucial in establishing and internalizing social norms (Williams 1977: 110–111). Paradoxically, discrimination against minorities proceeds through reference to equal rights, i.e., the rule of neutrality. This example also illustrates a broader tendency in Poland, where, as Pasek observes (2006:190), it is often the state authorities who block “competitors” and “rivals” of the Church and present non-Catholic communities as awkward and “new,” nonindigenous phenomena. In turn, the difference between Witnesses’ and Pentecostals’ experiences with local authorities lies in the fact that the first group’s request did not contravene established rules: fulfilling Witnesses’ wish did not inter- fere with the position of Roman Catholics in the public sphere. The Witnesses were not requesting their own share of public space per se; rather, they asked only to light space that belongs to the whole community and just happens to be used frequently by members of their congregation. The Witnesses’ actual practices of worship, it is worth emphasizing, remained firmly ensconced inside of Kingdom Hall. This comparison reveals a more widespread phenomenon, too, namely that of visibility of “culture” as a test for pluralism. Susan Lees (2006) tackles this problem in her discussion of the opposition against Orthodox Jews’ public rituals in suburban New Jersey. In her view, once religious expressions leave the private sphere, they push the limits of tolerance and diversity and reveal the fragility of a civil community (2006: 195). Recounting the case of the concert, Wojtek noted that the Pentecostals did not encounter such obstacles when they wanted to organized a concert in a closed room, specifically, in a pump room in the very same park. When they inquired about the reasons for this difference in response, they were told that many tourists visit the park. DEBATING PLURALISM 199

Figure 6.1 A stand from the folkloric fair. Wooden spoons and icons are presented as traditional products of the “magic land of Lemkos.” Photo: Agnieszka Pasieka

Evidently, the council’s assumption was that the tourists would not enjoy Pentecostal music. In contrast, the local government happily offers tourists the concerts of Lemko choirs (both Orthodox and Greek Catholic), which are organized in the spring and summer. Lemko performances often accompany the annual “folkloric fair,” which gathers artisans, circles of rural housewives, food producers, and farmers who demonstrate local traditions and sell products: both objects and groceries that have characterized the region for decades and those which have been recently reinvented or rebranded for the purpose of present-day regional promotion. It appears, then, that not only are Roman Catholic Poles “more equal” than others, but also some minorities are “more equal” than other minorities. On the one hand, this can be explained as a legitimate attempt to acknowledge the cultural heritage of the Lemko population, which has inhabited the region for centuries. It is also worth noting, however, that Lemko ethnic-religious traditions are simply more easily presented in the palatable form of folkloric representations, which are celebrated only occasionally and generally presented as quaint remnants of the past. As such, Lemko ethnic-religious culture constitutes a much more suitable candidate for the icon of local diversity than Pentecostals. If the only diversity that is acceptable is that which “sells well” and attracts visitors, then minority groups fare 200 HIERARCHY AND PLURALISM better whose practices can be presented more easily as a “culture.” This point brings us back to the earlier discussion of the pitfalls of multiculturalism: the idea of the recognition of different “cultures” as a sole means of building a more egalitarian society. The label of “multiculturalism” is fairly successful as a tool of regional promotion and fundraising yet it is highly contested by local inhabitants. Many inhabitants, Lemkos and Poles alike, buy into it for purely pragmatic reasons—defining their farm tourism companies as “multicultural” and taking part in the (re)invention of “multicultural” traditions—but they approach the idea of multiculturalism as completely transparent, as a commercial slogan and a foreign expression that has nothing to do with local coexistence. Asked to describe their actual relations and understandings of diversity, they turn to the notion of ecumenism—and, thus, it is to this concept that I return in the concluding section.

In Search of a Good Religion On a windy afternoon, I stood next to the post office, talking to a young Adventist, Janek, who came to the village to distribute books— publications explaining Adventist thought, but also recommendations on healthy cuisine and natural pharmaceutics. After we exchanged a few words, he complained to me that people often take him for a Witness, just because he goes around the villages and speaks—to those who want to listen to him—about the importance of seeking the truth in God’s words. Not everyone has a gift to sermonize, Janek observed, some are called to do it and others are not. Witnesses’ mistake is that they impose this obligation on everyone and dishearten people with their obtrusiveness. While we were talking, the retired professor, Szymon, also on his way to the post office, approached us and stopped to ask me how the things were going. When I presented him to Janek, the professor exclaimed, very pleased: “Great, great, more non-Catholics!” At first, Janek welcomed this comment with a smile, but as the professor continued his speech, Janek’s face began to pale. “Screw these Catholics!” shouted professor, “Enough of this dominance!” He went on elaborating on his favorite subject, namely the Catholic Church’s obsession with people’s sexual lives. After a while, he turned and left us, leaving a shocked expression on Janek’s face. As a person who strongly condemns cursing, the Adventist must have found it hard to listen to a stream of swearwords, even if addressed against the Church that he too considers to be a hegemonic institution. DEBATING PLURALISM 201

Yet, other than the professor’s use of profanity, much of his speech actually resonated with Janek’s own convictions. In explaining to me Adventists’ view on abortion or euthanasia—issues of key concern for the Catholic Church in Poland—he emphasized that such delicate and dramatic choices are personal ones and that the people who face them need to pray to God and ask God to give them a sign. Then again, had he known that the professor is a declared atheist, he might have felt a close connection with the Jehovah’s Witnesses community instead, whom he tends to criticize but who are, after all, believers. In the multireligious realm of Rozstaje, having a faith and belonging to one of the religious communities is a condition of recognizing others as partners in the process of making pluralism: “while seeing that people pray differently, they recognize that they all pray” (Luehrmann 2011: 28), even if they do not necessarily comprehend or approve of others’ way of praying. As for the professor, his enthusiasm for non-Catholics, expressed during most of the conversations I had with him, reveals a tendency to reduce all minority religions to that which they are not (Catholic), thus ignoring the deep similarities and strict norms (albeit of varying kinds) connecting various Christian creeds. In this way, this short episode points to an issue of vital importance for comprehending the nature of “pluralism from below,” referred to locally as “ecumenism.” It has already been emphasized that people recognize its ambivalence—the fact that ecumenism is not “good” or “bad” but that it is both—and that it is precisely this approach that permits the local community to carry on. Here, it must be added that the social order thus conceived is not (exclusively) a product of relations between the Roman Catholic majority and minority communities, but rather, is better understood as a set of interreligious alliances, rapprochements, conflicts, and divisions. Listening carefully to local discourse on religion, it becomes clear that the communities who demand recognition for themselves often do not grant it to others. A young Greek Catholic woman, concluding her litany of complaints against the Roman Catholic Church, says:

What I mean is that there should be no dominance of one group [Roman Catholics] we should really strive for a real ecumenism. Although . . . of course it would be good to say to Jehovah’s Witnesses that they are senseless.

Similarly, a Pentecostal man, commenting on the differences between different Evangelical communities, describes certain “brothers in Christ” as “the most backward people on the earth.” And in a talk 202 HIERARCHY AND PLURALISM in the Buddhist meditation center, Kamil echoes an earlier comment made by Kaja, observing that:

There are neither good nor bad religions. Every religion is good for specific type of people. ( . . . ) But I’m glad there are no Muslims here. I’m really glad of that. You know what’s their approach to women, to the people who have different opinions. Generally, every religion but Muslims has something positive, valuable. But Islam seems terrifying to me.

To all this, one can add the complex ethno-religious landscape and deep divisions within the Lemko community, and the mutual prejudices between Orthodox and Greek Catholics. A representative of the first group observes with a tinge of disdain:

Greek Catholicism? It is neither fish nor fowl. It is a freak of . . . spiritual nature; an institution that left one church but did not really enter the other. It cannot be a partner in dialogue. [When it comes to Catholics] Only the dialogue with the Roman Catholic Church is rational and normal.

A Greek Catholic, meanwhile, states reproachfully:

Our big brother [Roman Catholicism] ignores us and the Orthodox would rather celebrate a mass with Pentecostals than with us.

Some of these comments relate to the discourse on neighbors, which is often carried out in different registers. While some inhabitants express their annoyance with a religious community’s attitude or express a generalized knowledge about them, others find it hard to accept that others’ beliefs or dogmas undermine their own. Still, no matter the background of such comments, the result is a multireligious field marked by multiple hierarchies, practices, and discourses of exclusion. And the act of setting limits and establishing what kind of interreligious relations are to be considered “normal” or “sensible” is not the exclusive domain of the majority; often, minority discourse aims not only to legitimize pluralism but also to delegitimize other religious actors. Speaking of the means of legitimizing diversity, it is necessary to say a few more words about minorities’ attitude toward the Roman Catholic Church and state authorities—namely, that the latter are often referred to as “Catholics,” especially if the speaker wants to DEBATING PLURALISM 203 highlight his or her disagreement or criticism. The local discourse about Roman Catholics may refer either to coinhabitants and neighbors or to national religious and state authorities, hence it is critical to distinguish between these two levels in order to understand the contextuality of majority-minority relations. The minorities’ concerns with the country’s authorities are first and foremost related to the Church’s influence on the country’s politics—the country that, as one of Orthodox put it, “is after all our country, too.” The minorities are quite unanimous in describing this influence as detrimental and improper. “If Jesus did not advise Herod why should the Church advise the authorities?” one Adventist asks rhetorically. A Pentecostal corroborates: “Instead [of advising politicians], bishops should pray for the authorities so that they are better Christians.” An Orthodox priest observes bluntly that the Catholic Church mistakes parliamentary sessions for the Vatican Councils, and a Greek Catholic clergyman observes that, despite being a part of one church with Roman Catholics, his community is much less dogmatic and authoritarian. By and large, there are two leitmotifs in these views of church-state relations. The first is the observation that the state has nothing to do with matters of conscience and that such issues—for instance, fiercely debated questions of abortion or in-vitro treatment—should not be regulated by state laws. The second regards the widely discussed hypocrisy of the Church and its followers, particularly financial abuses and the fictitiousness of celibacy. The following quote captures the views that I heard daily during my research:

Abortion is a matter of one’s conscience and not of the state law; there is no Church that would approve of abortion as such and no woman likes it either! So let’s better focus on improving people’s life conditions . . . But if a woman decides to do it [to abort], she should not be put at the tribunal because it is God to be the judge; not a public pros- ecutor and first of all not a priest who spends half of his salary on abor- tions of his lovers, sending them to Slovakia or Czech Republic where abortion is legal. Why won’t he worry about his own salvation?

I heard numerous similar opinions about both local and national clergymen throughout my fieldwork. They were directed not only against Catholic Church functionaries but also against the Church’s lay members, who are perceived as blindly obedient and weak. What is both bewildering and condemnable in the eyes of minorities is the situation in the district’s capital. Despite the priest’s widely known love affairs and affronts against both Roman Catholics and other 204 HIERARCHY AND PLURALISM religious communities, his parishioners continue to attend the church and the priest still has a major influence on local matters. Indeed, in the account of the “regular” village meeting, the priest in question was mentioned, albeit in an ironic way, as a person to reckon with: he was seen as helpful in informing inhabitants about village matters, but he was also judged to be a powerful and wealthy person who cares for his own interests and does not always facilitate community life. It would likely surprise some minority representatives to learn, however, that Roman Catholics express equally critical opinions about their own leaders. Indeed, Roman Catholic parishioners from the district’s capital are often the first to raise such critiques, as it is they who have borne the financial abuses and insults of one parish priest for over twenty years. In the various Roman Catholic masses I attended, people around me would often started to laugh when, for example, the priest leading the mass would frame all social problems in terms of patriotism (or lack thereof) or complain about the fact that TV does not sufficiently promote Catholic values. The conversations after masses were often full of criticism about the priest due to the payments he requested or the content of sermons that had more to do with politics than the Bible. At the same time, while the critiques of these Roman Catholic “insiders” correspond with those voiced by minorities, it is precisely this sort of “backstage talk” that is perceived by the latter as evidence of the former’s duplicity, and as an obstacle for change. As for Roman Catholics, most of them deal with this contradiction in the same way that inhabitants of Ciche do, that is, by saying it is the faith and the religious community that matters, not its representatives. For many, attendance of church services is a social habit, a weekly ritual whose performance and meaning does not hinge on the clergyman’s character and attitude. Yet, contrary to Roman Catholics from Ciche who claim to be the ones who rule in their parish, Roman Catholics from the ill-famed parish of the district’s center express their helplessness in dealing with the parish priest; they claim to have sent numerous letters of protest, which have not brought any result due to the priest’s friendship with the bishop. They go as far as to speak about the priest’s “psychological terror” and explain their obedience by their need for rituals and sacraments (Pasieka forth. 2). All these explanations make the picture of local Catholicism even more puz- zling and make one wonder how it is possible that such unpopular priests remain influential in shaping people’s choices and, in the case of elections, votes. The case of the sign vote showed the significant DEBATING PLURALISM 205 role of the Roman Catholic priests, whose message appealed to at least some of their parishioners. This question regarding the Church’s political influence goes well beyond the realm of Rozstaje. The question of why, despite critique of the Church’s preelectoral propaganda, people’s approach to the Church and Catholic values remains a key factor shaping their political standpoints continues to preoccupy sociologists of religion. Commonly cited explanations speak of the ritualistic character of Polish religiosity and the underdevelopment of secular rituals (Grabowska 2001: 178; Marody and Mandes 2006: 60–1). The pluralistic context of Rozstaje offers new perspectives on this question. Local Roman Catholic priests are very careless and do not engage in local community life, unlike other clergymen who are engaged in charity, organize youth sports activities, and contribute to the lively social life of their parishes. When compared to the Orthodox, Greek Catholic, or Pentecostal leaders, the Roman Catholic priests appear very passive, limiting themselves to performing services, and inadvertently reinforcing people’s view that being a priest is “just a profession.” This observation poses a very important question: if there were no alternatives to Roman Catholicism, priests might not care, but why do they show so little concern given that people have not one but (at least) six different religious communities to choose from, and could easily search for a “better religion” (or a better religious leader)? The question here is not why don’t more people convert, but why are the Roman Catholic clergymen so indifferent. Is their behavior informed by a conviction that the Church’s position is powerful and unquestioned? That people are attached to well-known rituals and the “beaten track”? Or is it simply the conviction that a Pole is Catholic, which automatically “reduces” the possibility of conversion? For one or all of these reasons, Roman Catholic priests see their position as unquestioned and the attitudes of most of their parishioners reinforce this feeling. In this context at least, anticlerical comments, backstage talk, rumors and jokes—Scott’s “weapons of the weak” (1985)—turn out to be rather weak weapons. In conclusion, people’s criticism of Roman Catholicism often resembles the evaluation of the vote on double-naming—namely, inhabitants remain convinced that the neighbors in other villages behaved better. By criticizing the Roman Catholic Church, minorities express certainty that they or other religious communities would do better as a majority. They tend to stress that they would show the importance of the Christian message, pray for politicians rather 206 HIERARCHY AND PLURALISM than putting pressure on them, or promote the belief in human reason. Even though they are voicing the issues, which would win over numerous people who wish for a solid division between politics and religion, their criticism may easily turn against them. While constituting sources of empowerment and contestation, religion may also act as a conservative force that reinforces the status quo. In particular, underlining the merits of one’s religious tradition against another may result in turning a blind eye to the problems in one’s own religious community for the sake of preserving the group’s unity and overlooking one’s own exclusionary practices and discourses. “Hidden tran- scripts” (Scott 1990) are far from unambiguous and are locked in a mutually reinforcing relationship with the “public” ones. Certain characteristics of Roman Catholicism and peculiar social-historical developments make up a mixture that no doubt facilities the Church’s dominance in Poland. Yet, is also worth asking whether it is a specific religion and specific conditions that are decisive in forming doxa, or if there is something specific in the very condition of being a dominant religion. My study began after all with a Pentecostal pastor who told me in reference to the problem of Roman Catholic dominance: “We would do the same.”

Church-State Relations: A Postscript One of the people I had the most difficulty accessing during my fieldwork was the district’s leader, Miron. Whenever I saw him, he promised to find time for me “soon,” but I quickly realized that “soon” would never come. In the two weeks before leaving the field, I started to visit the district’s office every morning, hoping for a conversation with him. At that time my car had broken down and thus going to Rozstaje meant nearly an hour’s bike ride, which made me, of course, even more determined to convince Miron to talk to me. Finally, on the last day, he came to the office of the district’s secretary where I was waiting for him and stated that the secretary (a nice and approachable man in his mid-30s) knew everything I needed to know. He just said, “I have no time, and besides I am sure you already have sufficient information about the district,” and turned to leave. I was both so sorry and so angry that, without thinking, I replied that I had enough material to write a thesis about the controversial Roman Catholic priest from the district’s center, since that was the only topic the inhabitants spoke about. Hearing that, Miron blushed, closed the door, and approached me, shouting: “Don’t even touch this issue!” Then he sat down at the table with me and the secretary and started DEBATING PLURALISM 207 to speak about the complexity of the relations in that village: yes, it was true that the priest was not an exemplary person, but everyone had his failings and weaknesses; yes, he had lovers and fathered children, but why did those stupid women go to bed with him?; yes, his methods, the psychological terror, and getting money out of people was condemnable, but shouldn’t people blame themselves for agree- ing to that and being obedient? And he stressed again and again that I should not write about “all those things.” The situation in that village was already messy enough and, moreover, there was no point in standing against this powerful priest. (Doubtless, Miron’s request that I not write about the problem can be seen as his effort to protect not only the priest but also the “good name” of the district). Then I learned that Miron himself attended the priest’s masses sometimes; of course, there would be nothing surprising about his attendance were he not Orthodox. He did not say it explicitly, but it was obvious that his reason for maintaining good relations with the priest was the latter’s influence on the result of next elections (Miron, a Lemko and an Orthodox, cannot be elected only on the strength of the votes of the minorities). I even had the opportunity to observe this relation “in action,” so to speak: during our conversation, which lasted nearly two hours (Miron miraculously found this amount of time for me, thanks to the magic word “priest”), the priest in question phoned Miron to ask about the bricks he needed for the ground around the church. Miron replied that the bricks would be taken to him immediately. The priest also said that he would go to the regional office to apply for some funds for the church; in exchange, he received a detailed description of who to go to and who to mention in order to “arrange things.” It was not the content of the conversation that was surprising—after all, one can argue that Miron was simply helping the priest with something that was of benefit to the whole village—but the polite, nearly submissive tone in which both the secretary and Miron spoke with the priest. We then talked about many other issues; Miron spoke at length about life during socialism, and he told me about local ways of “making do” in those times of shortage. He spoke with fascination about machines and agricultural technologies, asking me from time to time: “What do you think, how many pigs could eat from such a feeder?” and was generally very content to show me his expertise. He also dwelled on the differences and similarities between the various villages and said that what he liked about his job was that people were very grateful and happy with everything that was done in and for their 208 HIERARCHY AND PLURALISM locality. Shortly before I left, Kamil, who dropped by for a moment, joined our conversation and Miron asked him, among other things, whether the Buddhists had any religious authority in their congregation. After a short discussion of religious matters, Miron noted: “Who knows, life without priests could be easier.”

Limits of Transgression What are the conditions in which a community of local inhabitants is able to transgress religious and ethnic divisions in order to act for the common good, taking into account the interest of religious others? The emphasis on the importance of the local debate as a constitutive element of communal life and alternative scenario of the unsuccessful vote may be read as a post-factum rationalization, an idealization of indigenous practices or an evidence of Poles’ guilty consciousness. However, it was Lemkos who suggested most explicitly the importance of “grassroots ways.” They talked, simultaneously, about their disappointment with the vote but also its predictability. They indicated their awareness of local hierarchy, but despite their disillusionment with their neighbors’ behavior, it was precisely to neighborly relations that they pointed in order to imagine how a different outcome might have been possible: “If a neighbor talked to a neighbor . . . instead, there was a top-down action.” This emphasis on local practices brings back the question of the potential of a community’s shared experiences and actions to pave the way for the recognition of minorities. The ethnographic evidence suggests there is, indeed, space for this possibility, but it remains strictly limited: even if we presume conflict and opposition as potentially constitutive of the community (Creed 2006: 38–9), clashes and debates are permitted only as long as they do not contravene established order. Besides, local debates on pluralism display a range of contradictions within the activities of local government and the attitudes of religious communities. Apart from revealing clearly discriminatory policies, the content and structure of such debates demonstrate how even apparently positive politics of multiculturalism can serve to reinforce the Polish-Catholic connection and produce new means of discrimination, and how religious communities’ demands for recognition may inadvertently perpetuate the discourse of exclusion. Tim Cresswell observes that “[t]he power of transgression lies in its ability to reveal topographies of power that surround us” (1996: 176). Rather than bringing about a long-term change of status, it has two effects: a transgressive act shakes the established order, but at the DEBATING PLURALISM 209 same time reveals just what that order is with added clarity. Minorities’ brief bids for public recognition—whether by means of a sign in their language or the performance of religious songs—exemplify these kind of transgressive acts. At the same time, this discussion brings to mind Leach’s remark (1997 [1954]: 287) that changes in the social system more often appear to be “of shattering significance” to observers, while passing virtually unnoticed in the lives of the people actually affected. It would be hard to claim that the vote on the two village signs “passed unnoticed” by the local inhabitants, but for all the relative conflict caused, inhabitants still tend to view the episode as either simply a confirmation of things “they have always known” or, some months later, already “an old story.” Indeed, I could not capture the overall impact of the vote better than one of the inhabitants did: “Things went back to normal.” Conclusions: Challenging Hierarchical Pluralism

I started this book by recalling a conversation with Michał, a Pentecostal pastor, emphasizing his reluctance to speak about the position of the Catholic Church and his willingness to discuss, instead, local ways of “making pluralism.” During the same meeting, Michał told me the story of a charitable initiative that he coordinated in the mid-1990s. Thanks to transnational Pentecostal networks, gifts from Switzerland—mainly school equipment, toys, clothes, and sweets for children—were sent to Rozstaje, where they were supposed to be distributed among the needy inhabitants. Aware that he only knew of such inhabitants in his own congregation, Michał asked some of the Roman Catholic priests to help him out. “You know best who needs the aid most,” he explained in his conversations with the priests, but this argument was often unsuccessful. Some priests refused to assist him and even warned their parishioners against accepting “suspicious” gifts from Pentecostals. Others asked Michał where the help had come from, a question that he himself found difficult to answer; although the charity network was run by the Pentecostal community, the donors of the gifts might have been people of different religious backgrounds. Eventually, the head of the Rozstaje parish accepted his invitation and the two clergymen went through the villages together, distributing the gifts to school children and visiting the poorest houses. The Roman Catholic priest who welcomed the pastor’s proposal was the same person who had created many problems for the local Greek Catholic community in the past and who is strongly criticized by his own parishioners for alleged financial abuses and improper conduct (cf. Chapter 6). Despite many bitter experiences, Michał has devoted his time and energy to establishing and maintaining interreligious dialogue and cooperation in the district. Some of his attempts have failed, but none of these experiences have led him to give up his work or to turn to 212 HIERARCHY AND PLURALISM generalizations about the nature of relations with other religious leaders. Instead of criticizing others for what he could easily perceive as refusal to cooperate, religious prejudice, or intolerance, Michał continues to seek out partners in dialogue as long as there is a chance of finding any. If anything, he tends to be more critical of his own parishioners and does not hesitate to point out the weaknesses and mistakes of the Pentecostal community or to admit his admiration and respect for the merits of other confessions. The pastor repeats that it is important to believe in people (including the Roman Catholic priest of the district, apparently). He pins his hopes on ecumenical initiatives and, instead of being preoccupied with national debates or the dominance of the Catholic Church in Poland, he devotes his energy to trying to make such initiatives succeed in his own locality. In one way or another and to varying degrees, many of the inhabitants of the multireligious district of Rozstaje share Michał’s philosophy of life. This philosophy manifests in everyday practices of social conviviality that reach across religious boundaries and transform “religious others” into neighbors, friends, and partners in locally undertaken activities. An awareness of diversity, which is respected and safeguarded, simultaneously facilitates the recognition of similarities and the development of ecumenical activities at the grassroots level—be it a common celebration of the harvest in the village or neighbors inviting each other over for Christmas. It is this dynamic interplay of differences and commonalities that constitutes the system of “living together” and provides a means of legitimizing diversity. Needless to say, local leaders like Michał play a very important role in these processes, enhancing local cooperation through their practical works in schools, activities in local organizations or, simply, by being a “model” neighbor. Finally, like Michał, none of the local leaders sees local pluralism as easy or firmly established, but rather as a long process developing through everyday activities that requires persever- ance and good will. In the multireligious realm of Rozstaje, religious boundaries are maintained and religion continues to serve as a marker of difference, but this does not preclude a continuous process that might be described as “blurring” boundaries. Blurred boundaries are both a product and a condition of everyday, collaborative activities that constitute local ways of “making do,” developed and pursued over decades by the inhabitants of this peripheral region. Crucially, the process of making the boundaries less “bright”—highlighting what is common instead of what is different—blurs difference, but does not dispel it. Everyday practices of boundary crossing are characterized CHALLENGING HIERARCHICAL PLURALISM 213 by tensions, contradictions, and inconsistencies, which cut across villages, parishes, families, and individuals. The local conceptualization of pluralism, expressed in the notion of ecumenism, comes in many different shades, so to speak. It can be understood as an affirmation of good social relations and respect for others’ beliefs and practices, but also as a cover for inequalities and dominance. In short, ecumenism, as understood and experienced locally, embraces both positive and negative experiences. I define this phenomenon as hierarchical pluralism, emphasizing the constant tension between pluralism and horizontal relations, on the one hand, and hierarchy and the vertical relations, on the other. There are various factors that can lead to the foregrounding of equality rather than hierarchy, thus reconfiguring of majority-minority relations: the weight of social activities and the role of local leaders; the role of the common (memories, experiences) in recognizing the different (rights, convictions); and the centrality of ideas such as the local community’s good and as sense of attachment to place. Yet, while these factors are necessary, they are not sufficient to shift existing hierarchies on their own. Hence, the question remains: why is it so difficult to challenge hierarchical pluralism? One of the answers to this question lies in identifying the various ways in which religion is present in people’s lives. Lived religion, a term I use to denote religion as manifested in people’s practices, shapes people’s actions and functions as a tool that they can purpose- fully employ. The concept is indispensable to capture the complexities of “ordinary pluralism” in my fieldsite and is offered in order to extend our understanding of religion beyond the sphere of beliefs. In developing it, I heed Weber’s insistence on religion as a source of meaning; I refer to Bourdieu in order to emphasize the importance of studying people’s “habitual ways of doing” and “propensities”; and I draw on Ortner’s proposal to study how people “make the world”—how they experience, challenge, and negotiate the social order. Understood in these terms, lived religion reveals how people “make pluralism,” in the process sometimes enabling, sometimes precluding interreligious conviviality. Religious festivities play an important role in integrating some inhabitants while excluding others; religious norms may well be a source of moral obligations toward neighbors or provide a means of their marginalization; knowledge of others’ religious beliefs may lead to friendship and hostility alike. The power of religion manifests itself best in the fact that it both unites and divides, transgresses and reinforces boundaries, functioning as an embodied form of knowledge, but also at times as an intentionally deployed mode of acting. In short, 214 HIERARCHY AND PLURALISM the idea of lived religion captures the complex and ambiguous role of religion in shaping people’s lives. For, as Orsi compellingly demonstrates, “[a] lived religion approach identifies what is urgent and pressing in a religious culture—what doctrines, rituals, or signs have taken on special and pointed immediacy—and it knows this because these are doctrines, rituals, or signs that men and women have picked up to engage their immediate world [ . . . ]” (2003: 172–3). The second, closely related, answer lies in the relation between “pluralism from below” and “top-down pluralism.” Even though I frequently contrasted the discourse on multiculturalism with local people’s idea of ecumenism and demonstrated the role of the Polish state in imposing the norm of “Polish-Catholic” and hindering the visibility of non-Catholics in the public sphere, I find it mislead- ing to suggest that there is a causal relation, in which top-down pluralism is detrimental. To use Baumann’s vocabulary (1996), the demotic discourse of multireligious community may be able to deconstruct the dominant one, but it may also reconstruct it for its own purposes, perpetuating, albeit in different ways, discrimination and exclusion. Oppositional discourses are built around the categories provided by the dominant ones; whether they question Roman Catholic domination or express their views on other religious communities, minorities reach for the vocabulary of the dominant discourse, inadvertently reproducing it. Furthermore, both the grassroots and the top-down discourse on religious pluralism are no doubt consequential in making some religious encounters and some religions normal and natural (Klassen and Bender 2010: 3). What is crucial here is the fact that not only do some identities/ norms/beliefs become perceived as “normal” but that the relationship between different identities, beliefs, or traditions comes to be taken for granted and thereby reinforces hierarchy and undermines pluralism. The power of hierarchical pluralism thus rests not only on the hierarchies it introduces and reproduces but also on pluralism’s capacity to naturalize religious phenomena. Exploring how hierarchies are established and perpetuated is not meant to diminish the capacities of individuals to challenge and reshape them. Focusing on the dynamics of village life, relations between different religious denominations, and interconfessional conflicts, it is easy to disregard or lose track of individual trajectories that shape the course of events and, instead, analyze the ways in which sociohistorical circumstances influence people’s lives. Throughout the book, I have insisted on the need to study individual people’s practices, their creative use of given resources, and their capacity to cope CHALLENGING HIERARCHICAL PLURALISM 215 with everyday constraints. What I want to emphasize now, however, is not people’s ability to devise strategies, but the sometimes decisive significance of individuals’ will, motivation, and determination. It may be impossible to establish all the reasons why some inhabitants turned against their neighbors in the vote on the village signs, but it is possible to observe that the willpower of one man, who went to all the houses in the village, did influence the result. The changing nature of interreligious relations may be hard to interpret, but the effort of two clergymen, in bringing people together and distributing gifts, is eventually acknowledged and fruitful. The tension between homogenization and diversity may be constantly present, but the school endures as a sphere of pluralism thanks to the work of devoted teachers. In short, even failures of “ecumenical” projects do not can- cel out the significance of their attempt. As Douglas Rogers observes (2009: 32), “for our understanding of human social and cultural life, striving matters.” Similar consideration regarding the importance of human will and determination can be drawn from people’s memories and histories. In their accounts of the war, people certainly emphasized everyday struggles and difficulties, but what they found most important to describe in great detail were incidents such as a German soldier giving them own food provisions. As much as the Lemkos emphasized the trauma of the expulsion, their narratives foregrounded the attitude of the Polish neighbors who went back and forth with their carts helping them to move their belongings. And, while recalling the moment when they arrived in the place where they were supposed to settle, the Lemkos again dwelt on the Poles who were the first to offer a helping hand and convince their fellow Poles that “these are people like us” (tożto są takie same ludy jako i my), recognizing the humanity they all shared. In saying this, I do not wish to diminish people’s traumatic experiences or suggest that they suffered less because of a few people who did not hesitate to go against the tide. I simply contend that the presence of such individuals was crucial in allowing otherwise trau- matized communities to reconstruct their lives and rebuild trust, as it is still fundamental to spread or build “geographies of trust” against “geographies of hierarchy” (Scott 1999). Perhaps such an approach to others—the ability to see the man in the ethnic garb, across religious boundaries and beyond inscribed identities—is one of the moments when anthropology can gain most from local everyday practice. As it enables us to pursue what Joel Robbins has beautifully termed (2013) the “anthropology of the good,” such practices remind us not to “dismiss people’s investments in realizing the good in time” and help us 216 HIERARCHY AND PLURALISM to “do justice to the different ways people live for the good,” and find “ways to let their efforts inform our own.” (2013: 458–9). Through such local practices we can also better understand global phenomena. The world has an abundance of multireligious and multiethnic areas that demonstrate the weight of memories of conflicts and homogenizing and discriminatory policies but at the same time reveal people’s ability to look across and beyond difference. The concept of hierarchical pluralism sheds light on many such cases. I do not mean here only countries such as Greece (Hirschon 2010) or Italy (Pace 2007) where the presumed link between national and religious identity—and, as a consequence, the close relations between state and church—makes them similar to the Polish case. Drawing comparisons between different cases such as long-term mixed settlements and contemporary effects of migrations, it is possible to observe that the situation described in this book is neither specific nor new. In discussions of “multiculturalism” (e.g., Parekh 2000) and even in the debates regarding “civility” that preceded them (e.g., Shils 1995), the concept of civic equality is countered with the importance of a core to which individuals are supposed to adapt. The foundation of hierarchical pluralism may differ—it can be defined by “cultural” or “economic” rather than “ethnic” or “religious” factors—but its normative aspects can be as powerful as in the case described here; hierarchical pluralism might well be as a global phenomenon that manifests locally in multiple ways. Pertaining to the example of religion, it should be noted that the “normality” of certain practices and symbols, which used to be religious before they were reconfigured as “cultural,” is discernible in many different societies, even those that promote secularist ideology and are proud of “laicitè” and the separation of church and state. Examples from France, Italy, and Quebec illustrate the continuous importance of Catholicism and other Christian denominations as a point of reference and the power and the normativity of discourse that imposes religion as “tradition” or “culture” (Bowen 2009). They also demonstrate societies’ difficult relation with their own traditions and religious pasts (Zubrzycki 2013) and problema- tize the role of secular and religious authorities in accommodating pluralism (Fetzer and Soper 2005). The last comment brings me to what the case of Rozstaje may reveal about Poland more broadly. In my analysis of the present-day historical discourse, I posed some questions with regard to Poland’s “multicultural past,” which is so readily invoked in current political debates, scholarly studies, and cultural initiatives. In a country CHALLENGING HIERARCHICAL PLURALISM 217 featuring religious and ethnic homogeneity like Poland, the act of recalling past diversity may be thought to do justice to history and to be a scholarly duty, but it may also easily become folklorization and contribute to processes of “othering” the minorities. Many recent developments prove the latter. It seems that in order to find a place in the social imaginary, minorities have to be dressed in traditional costumes and presented as craftsmen, farmers, and practitioners of an exotic rite. In fact, the more “other” they are, the better—this fact is true today as it was true in the past (Kula 2012; Tazbir 2000). Whether one speaks about diverse populations that used to inhabit the Polish territory or their few descendants who still live there, the people in question are always “others” and, crucially, this is so not because they are not Poles or not Catholic, but because they are not Poles and not Catholic. In his deconstruction of the discourse on the “Catholic nation,” Porter gives a telling example of this process, showing that to write about the history of the “Protestants in Poland” is somehow more acceptable than to speak about “Polish Protestants” (2001). “Confessional nationalism,” as identified by Stefan Czarnowski (1958) in the Polish countryside in the 1930s, continues to be practiced far beyond the rural realm. The pervasiveness of such an approach promotes seeing the history of religious and ethnic “others” through a Polish lens, which reinforces Polish dominance and simultaneously precludes seeing ethnic and religious minorities as people who have equal rights within and claims to being “at home” in Poland. Additionally, Polish-centric interpretations run alongside other discriminatory discourses, namely, an elitist view of history that makes “others” of not only minorities but also rural inhabitants and disadvantaged social classes. In short, hierarchical pluralism is not limited to the few multireligious and multiethnic areas in Poland, but can be observed in many other dimensions of social and political life. The normality and normativity of the “Polish-Catholic” bond affects not only religious and ethnic others but also numerous individuals and groups (among them Poles and Catholics) who disagree with or feel they do not fit within this model. After all, pluralism does not just entail the presence of different religious groups, it also entails an acknowledgement of the plurality of standpoints and beliefs, not all of which necessarily stem from religion, and a commitment to recognize others across these differences (Klassen and Bender 2010). At the same time, like the minorities in my research site, other people tend to internalize the Polish-Catholic norm and reproduce it; although contested on the 218 HIERARCHY AND PLURALISM discursive level, the connection between Polishness and Catholicism is often reinforced in practice. This may partly explain some features of Polish Catholicism, which is characterized by a strong ritualism and emphasis on habitual practices, and shed light on people’s eagerness to define themselves as “cultural Catholics.” Marody and Mandes (2006) explain the popu- larity of church rituals by pointing to the weakness of secular ones, contending that due to the specific path that formation of the modern nation state has taken, the Polish state did not colonize the public sphere—not in the nineteenth century, not during the communist regime, and not (yet?) today (60–61). Their argument may also serve to explain the strong relation between the Catholic Church and the state, more precisely, the political efforts to ensure the Church’s legitimization by accommodating the Church’s requirements in the state’s legislation. Recognizing the state as the center of gravity in the development of the church-state relations, it is thus necessary to remark upon its role in building and reinforcing hierarchical pluralism, which on the state level indicates a process wherein the observance of constitutionally guaranteed equal civic rights is put to the test by the tendency to prioritize the Catholics. Seen in this light, challenging hierarchical pluralism demands rethinking a range of “taken-for-granted” and “commonsensical” ideas regarding the role of religion in the public sphere, the very understanding of “national values” and “national culture,” and the shared ways of life of citizens inhabiting one country. Precisely because of their “obviousness” and “naturalness,” such norms, convictions, and established practices are hard to recognize. If symbolic violence is disguised, so are its effects. For most representatives of the majority, the struggles that being a minority entail are hard to imagine. Even in the multireligious context of Rozstaje, Catholic Poles have difficulty grasping the experiences of their Lemko, Pentecostal, Orthodox neighbors. The fact that they speak of their identities in terms of shame, fear, or as an admission of difference seems simply inconceivable. Yet, it is at the periphery—on the margins of the country and at the edge of the national identity—that one can see the boundaries of the “taken-for-granted” and therefore see beyond them. Epilogue

No matter how much time passes between fieldwork and the com- pletion of a book, it is hard not to wonder how the people we got to know (and, if lucky, befriended) are doing. And also: to what extent have the phenomena we observed and wrote about changed in this period of time? One of the—in my view unquestionable—privileges of being an “anthropologist at home” is the relative ease with which one can keep in touch and maintain ties with people from the field. Four years after concluding my original research, I came to Krasne to visit Hanna’s and Henek’s family. I hardly recognized their sons who had grown quickly over the course of a few years, but at the same time I was also glad to recognize so many things—objects, scents, ways of talking. Obviously, I had heard many rumors and bits of news in the intervening time: about the additional signs with Lemko names, which were scribbled from time to time; about new “adventures” of the local Roman Catholic priest; about the growing availability of Lemko and Ukrainian classes, the introduction of which turned out to be a good way of attracting funds for schools. The family told me how they cried for the politicians who died in the crash of the Polish president’s plane in Smolensk in 2010, and they complained about one of local Lemko leaders. Late in the afternoon, I drove with Hela to the cemetery to light a candle at her grandmother’s grave. On our way, we went past the newly renovated Orthodox church; we greeted Zosia, who still produces the best cheese in the village; we passed next to the house of a neighbor who went carol singing with us and today is a proud mother; and we slipped by the village drunk whose house is now in complete ruin. “So many things have changed,” I observed. “So many people passed away,” added Hela, as we climbed a small hill and entered the village cemetery. We walked from grave to grave, looking at the pictures of the deceased inhabitants placed on the tombstones. Looking at Wasyl’s picture, I wondered whether he managed to complete the 220 HIERARCHY AND PLURALISM story of his family, and I was thinking how privileged I was being able to record his voice in my book. Seeing the photograph of Teodor’s, one of the few Greek Catholics inhabiting the village, surrounded by graves of the Orthodox Lemkos, I wondered whether he made peace with the Orthodox Church. I smiled looking at the picture of Hela’s grandmother, recalling her admonition to be pragmatic about religion. Further ahead, there were new graves with Catholic crosses, those with only simple inscriptions and those with none. Local people’s ironic commentary that they have ecumenism at the cemetery finds perfect expression in Krasne’s graveyard, a place of exceptional tranquility and beauty. Before we began to walk downhill, we stood for a while admiring the view of the wooden dwellings and green hills bathed in sunlight. Hela remarked that a person who decided to place the cemetery on a hill must have been very smart. “What a great view our dead have!” she exclaimed. On the way back, Hela confessed that she had fallen in love. The boy is very nice, she said, very smart and funny. He lives in a nearby city. At the beginning, Hela continued, she did not know how to tell him that she was different, she was afraid to own up. Eventually, he guessed it but he said it was all right that she was Orthodox; it was actually interesting. He is very open, Hela emphasized, and told me about how the boy expressed his interest in the Orthodox music and the Lemko language. But then, gradually, the tone of her voice changed. Hela told me that the relationship became important for both of them and the boy decided to present her to his parents. Unfortunately, the parents turned out to be less open; not only did they refuse to meet Hela but they told their son to stop dating her. The boy said he would not let his parents make his decision, but he and Hela had not met in two months. “I kept repeating to him,” said Hela, very saddened, “tell your parents that I can go to the church, that I went with you to the church when we went for a weekend trip.” She went on, giving several examples of how she could adapt to the Catholic demands. Apparently it didn’t work, she concluded. “Oh well, what can I do,” she sighed and after a short while she added with a wan smile: “When one thinks about it, here in Rozstaje our [minorities’] life is not so bad!” And she said we should no longer talk about her, but talk instead about my life and work. She wanted to know if my book had a happy ending. Notes

Introduction: Seven Ways to God

1. Christian comes close to the concept of “lived religion” when he defines “popular religion as practiced” (1981). 2. “Social action” denotes action that is oriented toward “the past, present, or expected behaviors of others” and accounts not only for actually realized action but also for the “failure to act” or “passive acquiescence” (Weber 1978:22; 1981:159). 3. Weber speaks of “traditional,” “emotional,” “instrumentally- rational,” and “value-rational” action (1978:24–26). 4. Bourdieu coined the term in order to overcome the opposition between the objective and the subjective or between structure and agency. His theory met with mixed responses from fellow scholars: according to some, he failed to propose a dialectic view of people’s practices and provided instead a deterministic and reductionist view of social actors, while others praised him for having devised a dynamic and anti-structuralist theory (for an overview, see Bourdieu and Wacquant 1994:132). It should be pointed out that Bourdieu’s theory makes different readings possible and that his conceptualization of habitus has shifted over time. 5. For Ortner, the question is how to approach social actors as intentional subjects without falling into the trap of free agency and volun- tarism (1996:19; see also Keane 2003). Her solution is to approach social reality as a “game,” which indicates, on the one hand, defined categories of actors, rules, and goals, and, on the other hand, skills, knowledge, and intelligence on the part of the players. What Ortner means is a “serious game” in which the stakes are often high and which involves inequality and domination (1996: 12–13). Surprisingly, Ortner does not acknowledge Bourdieu’s use of the concept of game, for example, his idea that strategies driven by habitus imply having a “feel for the game” (1994: 128)—a mastery which is acquired by having experience of playing the game (Bourdieu 1990, quoted in Jenkins 2001: 70). 222 NOTES

6. Leach describes in detail differentiating elements of both systems (e.g., lineage and marriage patterns, rituals, establishment of authority) (1997: 204–7). The gumlao system tends to be anarchical, while the gumsa resembles a feudal organization. Both systems are in fact “structurally defective” and the only possible way to comprehend the logic of each is by contrasting it with the opposite type (1997: 9, 204). 7. Bourdieu, too, acknowledges Leach’s scholarship (e.g. 1992). It is important to note that at the time of its publication Leach’s theory provided not only a rejection of (then dominant) functionalist analysis, but also an attempt to historicize ethnographic studies (Leach 1997:7; see also, Fuller and Parry 1989: 13; Kuper 1986: 378). 8. Bourdieu (1977) understands misrecognition (denial) as a set of strategies for concealing actual intentions and motivations. An example is the struggle of religious authorities for political power, which is hidden behind the labels of “care of the faithful” or “concern with morality” (Furseth 2009). 9. Positioning the Jehovah’s Witnesses in this way seems to be widespread. John Anderson (2002: 24) describes a similar situation in Bulgaria where the Orthodox dismiss the Baptists, while the Baptists dismiss the Jehovah’s Witnesses. 10. All these factors are very important for understanding minorities’ experience of hierarchical pluralism, for instance, their rejection of contestation as nonsensical or as diverging from their religious convictions. In my study, the Buddhists and Jehovah’s Witnesses both questioned, albeit for different reasons, the meaning of contestation. 11. Throughout the text, I mean the entire district when using the name “Rozstaje.” When referring to Rozstaje as village, I speak about the district capital or district center. 12. Some scholars claim that the name had already appeared in textbooks in the 1820s and that the Rusyn population accepted it in the early twentieth century. Others argue that “politically conscious” people called themselves, depending on their outlook, either Ukrainians or Lemkos, while the rest stuck to the name “Rusyn” (Reinfuss 1998: 18–9; Wójtowicz-Huber 1987). The people I talked to would challenge this view and say that it was only after the war that they started to define themselves as Lemkos. Due to the growth of transnational Rusyn movement, which promote the idea of a distinct East Slavic nationality, Carpatho-Rusyns (see Magocsi 1999), some Lemkos return to the name “Rusyn.” I use the term “Lemko” for the sake of brevity; it is not my aim to ignore the fact that some Lemkos consider themselves to be Ukrainians, Lemko-Ukrainians, or Lemko-Rusyns. 13. Using the local convention, throughout the book I use “prewar” to refer to the period before the Second World War and “postwar” to refer to the period after it. NOTES 223

14. In 2002, of the 6,232 surveyed inhabitants, 725 inhabitants declared themselves as Lemkos and 62 as Ukrainians. However, both Lemko activists and representatives of the local council estimate these numbers to be much higher, and explain the discrepancies with a poor design of the survey (cf. Babiński 2004). 15. Throughout the text, I use the term “Orthodox” in reference to the Polish Autocephalous Orthodox Church, which is one of the local churches of the global structure of the Orthodox Church (Hann and Goltz 2010: 3). As Agnieszka Halemba notes (in press), in discussing the relationship between Catholicism and Orthodoxy it is important to remember that both these churches regard their teachings as orthodox (conforming to the traditional doctrine) and catholic (universalist). 16. The Greek Catholics and the Orthodox interpret this process differently. The former claim that by converting to Orthodoxy, Rusyns abandoned their fathers’ religion, which had shaped Rusyn culture and identity for centuries. The response of the Orthodox is that Orthodoxy is the true creed of the fathers, as the first Rusyns were Orthodox, and they point to tendencies of latinization within the Greek Catholic Church. 17. Roman Catholics and Protestants use the Gregorian calendar. 18. Cerkiew (pronounced as ‘tserkyev’) refers to an Eastern Christian (Greek Catholic or Orthodox) shrine, in Rozstaje usually wooden and equipped with elaborated domes. 19. In theory, Greek Catholic priests should be allowed to marry. In practice, under the pressure of Roman Catholic authorities, this opportunity is often blocked by their supervisors. 20. Due to the fact that many families attend both churches, it is very hard to come up with precise numbers; some families are counted as parishioners by both Orthodox and Greek Catholic clergymen. 21. Church attendance in the dioceses in question is the highest in Poland. Sixty-nine percent of parishioners regularly attend Sunday mass, while the average for Poland is 39 percent. (http://episkopat.pl/kosciol /kosciol_w_polsce/statystyki/6013.1,Zestawienie_dominicantes_i _communicantes_2013.html) [Last accessed: 27.08.2014]. 22. Both names—“Ruch Zielonoświątkowy” and “Pięćdziesiątnicy”— translate into English as “Pentecostalism.” In Polish, the first name relates to the festival of Pentecost, known in Poland as “Zielone Świątki” (literally “Green Feast”), while the second name derives from the numeral “pięćdziesiąt” (“Pentecost”). 23. As for the “categories of analysis,” depending on the context I explain when I refer to “Poles” as Polish citizens, inhabitants of Poland, ethnic Poles, etc. 24. The notion of “nation” (naród) in this context resembles the use of the notion of “nacija,” understood as ethno-religious identity, 224 NOTES

present for instance in the Balkans (Bringa 1995: 21–2) and Belarus (Engelking 1996). 25. I spent thirteen months (April 2008–April 2009) in Rozstaje, followed by several short-term visits. 26. Blocks of flats are common in Polish villages which used to have state-owned farms. 27. I shall illustrate the last point with one conversation, although I am aware of the limits of its translatability. One afternoon, I was having coffee with an old lady called Melania. Telling me about the inhabitants’ occupations, she mentioned that some of them used to deal with łowcowanie. I assumed that this was a local expression for łowiectwo meaning “hunting,” and so I started to inquire what people actually hunted. Seeing her astonished face, I listed various animals of the local forests, but Melania answered that she had referred to a place with “two hundred or even more łowce.” Only then did I realize that by ł-owce she meant owce, i.e., sheep; the additional ‘ł’ is characteristic for some dialects in the mountain regions in Poland. We laughed about it until the end of my fieldwork; I laughed when I recalled Melania’s face and her wonderful way of speaking and Melania laughed at me, when she recounted to her neighbors that the PhD student who came from “the big world” and “studied so much” but did not know what łowcowanie was. In her interpretation of our conversation, Melania did not emphasize my Polish origins but my education and the place I came from.

1 Poland: A History of Pluralism

1. The political reasons involved the Polish monarchs’ preoccupation with the influence of the pro-tsarist Russian Orthodox on the Ruthenian population and the concern of the Polish laity and the Polish clergymen about the possible rise of Orthodox power (Horbal 2010: 242). As to religious reasons, noteworthy are earlier attempts to connect the Catholic and Orthodox Churches (Magocsi 2008: 38–9) and a lack of interest regarding the matters of the Ruthenian Church on the part of the patriarch of Constantinople. Social reasons refer mainly to the discrimination of the Orthodox noblemen and burghers in public life. 2. Scholars describe eighteenth-century Catholicism as nationalized, fanatical, ostentatious, and highly ritualized (e.g., Müller 1992; Rostworowski 1980). 3. The interrex was a “temporary king.” He represented the country after the death of a king until a new monarch was elected. 4. In all three cases, the national movements occurred, however, as John-Paul Himka observes, “the Jews never got as far as the Ruthenians, and the Poles had started from a more advanced point” (2006: 206). NOTES 225

5. For the trajectory of the concept and the difference between historic Galicia and the Habsburg province, see Magocsi 2005. 6. Known also as the “Galician Slaughter,” the uprising was directed against the Polish nobility, protesting increased serfdom; it was used by the Austrian authorities to thwart the nobility’s plans for a joint uprising in the three partitioned areas. 7. The region, which was to be defined later as “Lemko land,” refers to an area encompassing approximately 250 villages, situated mainly (80 percent) in Lower Beskid (Beskid Niski) and partly in Beskid Sądecki and in the Bieszczady mountains. 8. A mix of pastures and agriculture in contrast to the predominantly agricultural Polish areas. 9. Initially, there were three different orientations: “Old Rus” (staro- ruska), “Russophile”, and “Ukrainian.” The first orientation stressed the tradition of old Rus, the second highlighted the connection of the Rusyns with Russia, and the third promoted the idea of Rusyns as members of the Ukrainian nation. The first two (Old Ruthenian and Russophile) were sometimes taken to be one and the same and were thus hard to distinguish at the local level (Moklak 1997: 190). After the First World War, the local population made several attempts to establish their own state, going so far as sending a Rusyn delegation to the Peace Conference in Paris (1919) and establishing short-lived republics (abolished by the Polish authorities), a pro-Ukrainian and pro-Rusyn one. A detailed description of these developments goes beyond the scope of this book. 10. Romanticism was essentially a “philosophy of action,” whose main aim was to achieve spiritual perfection (cf. Walicki 1982). Nonetheless, in their works, the Romantics presented practical political projects (cf. Górski 1989) and sharp criticism of ill-judged actions, anticipating the positivist idea of “organic work.” Besides, romantic literature was not only ironic but often also blasphemous and had little to do with the orthodox religion. 11. These processes paralleled a shift from an estate-based society to a class-based one, which theoretically eliminated legal distinctions but ingrained them instead in socioeconomic status. 12. For instance, none of the minority representatives ever became the head of any national, regional, or local government (Motyka 2011: 18). 13. The criteria for considering a group a national minority were that the group had lived on a territory “forever,” had cultivated a different identity, and belonged to a nation which had its own country. 14. For instance, the number of Ukrainians and Belarusians was reduced. 15. The 1925 concordat refers to the agreement between the Vatican and the Polish authorities, which provided the Catholic Church with a variety of privileges. 226 NOTES

16. Equally controversial is the assessment of the social classes. Some scholars speak of the rise of anticlerical strands in the different strata of the population; the liberal intelligentsia spoke out against Catholic morality, while peasants and workers were very critical of the clergy’s privileged financial situation (Chrypinski 1990: 125–6; Majka 1968: 203). Other scholars highlight the growing moral prestige of the Roman Catholic Church and decreasing anticlericalism (Lukowski and Zawadzki 2001: 218). 17. According to Lukowski and Zawadzki (2001: 216), “[t]he Sanacja under Piłsudski was a secular authoritarian system of government of a non-fascist type.” 18. Many inhabitants recall neither the religious nor the political reasons of that process, but tend to highlight different personal factors, such as dislike of a Greek Catholic priest or that the Orthodox clergy demanded smaller payments for religious services. 19. The crimes in Volhynia refer to the ethnic cleansing of the Polish civil population by Ukrainian nationalists in the period 1943–1945, followed by similar events in Galicia. 20. The Polish government-in-exile and partisans (AK, Home Army) continued to claim Polish rights over the territories inhabited by Ukrainians. They aimed to restore Poland within its prewar borders and failed to recognize Ukrainian aspirations to their own statehood. 21. In accordance with the peace conferences of Teheran (1943) and Potsdam (1945), the new Polish-German border was the Oder-Neisse and the border with the Soviet Union was the so-called Curzon Line. 22. This fact had a very complex background. Apart from divide and con- quer logic, the Nazis introduced racial hierarchies seeing Ukrainians as more “Aryan,” resented Poles for having refused to surrender like the Czechs did, had longstanding prejudices against Poles (at least in Prussian parts), lacked direct territorial disputes with Ukrainians, and saw the Ukrainians as potential allies against Poles and Russians. However, the situation differed in different parts inhabited by Poles and Ukrainians. Poles too had a role in German administration (Snyder 2003a: 157). 23. This is further evidence that religion was a marker of ethnic/national identity. During the war, a similar strategy was used by the Catholic Church in relation to Jews who could be saved thanks to certificates of baptism. 24. “Operation Vistula” could not be “justified” in the Ukrainian region, either. Even if there was more support for the UPA there, the partisan forces were incomparably weak and—if the aim really had been to destroy the UPA—could have been easily defeated by the Polish army (Motyka 2011: 423, 433). NOTES 227

25. The resonance of the Volhynian crimes in Poland was not only caused by the scale of the mass murder (c. 100,000 Poles; 20,000 Ukrainians), but also by the brutality of the methods used. The communist propaganda invested a lot of energy in connecting the events in Volhynia with “Operation Vistula.” 26. A new, critical thinking about both the Polish “multinational” past and the Poles’ shared responsibility for past conflicts became promi- nent among some émigré circles, such as Paris Kultura, articulated in the publications by Jerzy Giedroyc and Juliusz Mieroszewski. Their ideas influenced the political opposition, the intelligentsia, and the clergymen in the country. 27. It was possible to return to selected localities (e.g. Rozstaje). Overall, in the period 1956–1958, approximately 2,000 Lemkos came back, and in the following decades, another 3,000 (Barwiński 2009:19). The decision to stay in Western Poland was not only made in light of the difficulties created by the authorities or the Polish inhabitants but also in light of the higher standard of living and the better conditions for agriculture in the “recovered lands.” 28. The folklorization of religion and the promotion of the religious identity as a cultural one were widespread in many socialist countries (Pelkmans 2009: 6). 29. For a compelling account on the relationship between nationalism, Catholicism, and communism in Poland, see Kunicki 2012. 30. With remarkable exceptions on the Church’s side. 31. One of reasons was the failure of the communist “rites de passage,” which encouraged people to stick to the religious ones (cf. Kubik 1994; Buchowski 2001). Another example of the indirect impact was the Church’s “defensive policies,” for instance, the Church authorities’ reluctance to adopt the reforms of the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965). The reasons were the Polish primate’s view that authoritarian, rather than conciliatory, ways of Church governance were needed and the Polish Church’s criticism of the Council’s reservations about popular devotion (Casanova 2001: 103; Ramet 1998: 289–90). 32. This does not mean, however, that promises were always kept. Once a critical situation had passed, the state often withdrew promises and sharpened its policies; the best example is the three-year imprisonment of the primate Stefan Wyszyński (1955–1956). Likewise, the clergy’s positions varied; there were more or less conciliatory priests, with the latter often ignoring the orders of the church hierarchy and challenging the state at the local level (see, e.g., Dudek and Gryz 2003: 98, 393, 403). 33. Society also perceived it to be ambiguous. As an opinion poll of the 1980s shows, 24 percent of Poles claimed that the Church supported the state; 6 percent saw it as an ally of the opposition, and 29 percent 228 NOTES

said that it sometimes supported the state and sometimes the opposition (Darczewska 1989:162). 34. Ustawa o mniejszościach narodowych i etnicznych oraz o jezyku region- alnym http://isap.sejm.gov.pl/DetailsServlet?id=WDU2005017014 1 [Last accessed: August 28, 2014]. 35. The act defines a national minority as a group: which is numerically smaller than the rest of the population of the Republic of Poland; which significantly differs from the majority in language, culture or tradition; which strives to preserve its language, culture, or tradition; which is aware of its own historical national community and seeks to express and protect this awareness; whose ancestors have been living in the present territory of the Republic of Poland for at least 100 years; which identifies itself with a nation that is organized in its own state. An ethnic minority must fulfill all except the last condition, which means it is assumed that ethnic minorities do not identify with a national state. Each point of this legislation triggered controversies. Only some of these are listed here: the use of concepts such as “culture” or “tradition” was questioned; the stress on the “present territory” was seen to be absurd, considering that the countries’ borders had changed and that Poland had not existed as a country 100 years ago; the closed list of minorities was criticized, since it meant that new minorities (for example, migrants from Vietnam and China, whose number is greater than many of the listed minorities) were not protected. Further, the minorities presented their own reservations and the list of ethnic minorities was perceived to be arbitrary; due to sociopolitical reasons, it did not include the Silesians whose size, according to the national census, was a multiple of that of any other ethnic or national group. 36. In 2013, a parliamentary resolution concerning Operation Vistula was blocked by right-wing circles who expressed the fear that Ukrainians and Lemkos would attempt to reclaim confiscated properties. 37. In order to establish the number of minorities in Poland, the following question was asked: “To what nationality do you belong?” The form of question referred to the census of 1921 and it was in accordance with European standards, yet it had “a very high, if not maximal, power of rejection” (Babiński 2004: 140, 146). Since it was impossible to name more than one identity, the choice of many people with doubts about where they belong, those who identify with more than one nation or identify with different nations to different degrees could not be captured in the census, so it is likely that the data only reflect the minimal numbers of minorities. 38. It contained two questions about nationality: “What is your nationality?” and “Do you feel that you are also a member of a different nation or ethnic community?” NOTES 229

39. In 2002, nearly 6,000 people declared themselves Lemkos and some 27,000 as Ukrainians; in 2011, 11,000 declared Lemkos and 51,000 as Ukrainians. 40. See http://mniejszosci.narodowe.mac.gov.pl/mne/mniejszosci /charakterystyka-mniejs/6480,Charakterystyka-mniejszosci- narodowych-i-etnicznych-w-Polsce.html [Last accessed: August 28, 2014]. 41. For example: exemption from property tax, insurance for clergy provided by the state, the maintenance of Catholic universities and other schools by the state, possibility of establishing radio and TV stations. 42. Religion is taught at schools and religious teachers (priests, nuns, and rarely secular theologians) receive a salary. 43. :http//www.sejm.gov.pl/SQL2.nsf/skladzesp?OpenAgent&150 [Last accessed: August 28, 2014]. 44. Pasek (2006) emphasizes that the political outlook plays a role here: right-wing parties are more likely to see minorities as a threat, while left-wing parties are more likely to defend their rights. However, many of abovementioned Church-friendly policies were put forward by right- and left-wing politicians alike. 45. For a discussion of the “sect problem” and “anti-cult” centers, see Zielińska 2006. 46. The number of people who declare themselves as Catholics is higher than both the number people who declare belief in God and the Church’s own statistics, which states that there are c. 89 percent Catholics in Poland. 47. In the seventeenth century, the image of the Commonwealth as the antemurale Christianitis or “bulwark of Christendom,” whose role was to defend Europe from Tatar and Ottoman invasions, was promoted inside and outside of Poland and served European monarchs and the Vatican to realize their political aims. Although a lot of research has been carried out to dispel this myth, proving that the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was not more antemurale than Hungary or Venice was (Tazbir 1987), the idea was preserved for centuries and has been kept alive by some circles to this day (Zubrzycki 2006: 41). 48. The idea of the “nation’s crucifixion” has been important in Ireland (Aretxaga 1997), Hungary (Christian and Krasznai 2009), and Serbia (Sells 1996). 49. I mean here the adoption of the contemporary notion of multiculturalism, proposed by scholars and policymakers in Canada and Australia and later adopted in other countries, which, generally speaking, relates to “the terms of relationship” and “open and equal dialogue” between representatives of different cultures (see Parekh 230 NOTES

2002). This is not to question the manifold different understandings of multiculturalism (see Vertovec and Wessendorf 2009). 50. This problem relates to the underdevelopment of social history in Poland. It is especially true for the history of interwar Poland, which tends to be presented through the prism of the élites of the time, while the scale of social inequalities, the rigidity of class structure, and the poverty-stricken areas in both the rural areas and the cities, are often neglected. Similarly, in the case of the Second World War, the bad deeds are ascribed to the “social others”: the peasants, the underclass, and the communists. 51. Sociologists Józef Chałasiński and Józef Obrębski provide fascinating examples of different readings of Polish history and national myths in Polish-German and Polish-Belarusian borderlands in interwar Poland (Chałasiński 1984[1938]; Obrębski 2007[1943]). Bjork (2010) discusses different reception of Church-promoted discourses of the Catholic nation. For more general remarks on “nationality of culture” and dreams about homogenization of national culture, see Jedlicki 1999.

2 Making Pluralism: The People and the Place

1. This usually derogatory term refers to Jehovah’s Witnesses’ proselytizing activities. 2. Building on a generally accepted definition of ethnicity (see, e.g., Cornell 1996; Eriksen 2002; Jenkins 1997; Weber 1978 [1922]), I understand ethnicity as a form of identification that assumes bonds of (real or fictive) kinship or descent from a common homeland and that asserts a common history or a common culture. Therefore, the notion of “ethnic group” refers here to “a social group distinguished by a claim to common descent or some approximation of it and the assertion of either a history or a present of shared culture” (Cornell 1996: 269). 3. I leave aside the discussion regarding the complex relation between religion and nationality (with nation understood as a politicized, organized ethnic community), which involves, for example, the similarities between two phenomena (Hayes 1960), the sacralization of ethnic/national identities (Smith 2003), and religious-national mythology (Hastings 1999). Consult Zubrzycki 2006. 4. In other words, a focus on “religion as practiced” indicates a focus on “ethnicity as practiced.” Such an approach has been advocated by Roger Brubaker, who observes that it is more apt to speak about people “doing” ethnicity than “having” it, “becoming” rather than “being” (2006: 208). 5. Today’s Leśna is two times smaller than the prewar village. 6. Leśna school chronicle (manuscript). 7. Discussed in detail in Chapter 6. NOTES 231

8. This expression is employed by both communities. Lemkos’ “return” to Greek Catholicism after 1989 means for them a return to the faith practiced by their (grand)parents before Greek Catholicism was prescribed. To those who joined Orthodoxy, “return” denotes a re-embrace of the original Rusyn religion practiced by Rusyns before the forceful introduction of the Union of Brest. 9. Inf luenced by different ecumenical initiatives, such as the World Council of Churches and the pontificate of John Paul II, in recent decades priests began to talk about “ecumenism” in their sermons and introduced prayers for “the unity of Christians.” However, the priests’ discourse is also far from unambiguous. Clergymen also use the concept as a means of assessing the condition of local pluralism and they do not hesitate to use it either to criticize or to praise other religious leaders. 10. The children took pictures with twenty single-use cameras. The workshop included all the children of the school’s second level (fourth– sixth grade). 11. This depends on many factors: the number of children who want to attend the classes, the parents’ wishes, the availability of teachers, and, not infrequently, the relations between the “Ukrainian” and the “Lemko” influences in a given village. Many schools in the area are small and cannot afford to employ two teachers. Also, Orthodox/ Greek Catholic priests are often in charge of language classes. 12. Polish is obviously the language of instruction. 13. As I demonstrate elsewhere (Pasieka forth. 1), in prewar Poland the school played an integrating role in the village life. In the period of socialism, inhabitants carried out a lot of voluntary works for the school what in certain periods enabled the very functioning of the institution. As to the teachers, not only did they take a good care of the school but, against the diversity-hostile state policies, strove to accommodate diversity. 14. Franek refers here, for instance, to the organizers of the “Workshop for Tolerance.” 15. During our last talk, Michalina told me that the Circle decided that the following year the wreath would be given to Franek in order to emphasize his role in the local community. 16. These observations may constitute a side comment to the stereotypical representations of folk religion, as I will show in Chapter 4. The ideas of women’s subordination to patriarchal Church institution play an important part in such representations. The herein presented evidence account for the observation that not only clergymen attempt to influence the society via women but “women make just as much use of clergy to reinforce their own influence in society” (Bax 1993:18). 17. By folklorization I mean here a celebration of material and nonmate- rial local traditions, customs, and cultural expressions which leads to their alienation from their contexts and their creators. The problematic aspect of folklorization lies not only in its marketing/economic 232 NOTES

dimension but in its focus on and overemphasis of what is different from the “main” culture. 18. The annual Lemko meeting, which gathers Lemkos from all around the world, is called “Watra,” which literally means “A big bonfire.” The official opening of “Watra” is signaled by setting the fire. 19. I observed a similar attitude among young Pentecostals, who demonstrate an even greater ease in interspersing religious matters into their talks on all sorts of things. 20. Hela’s comments reflects the influence of the widespread discourse on feminism in Poland, which tends to stereotype feminists as single women. 21. Following John Agnew (1987), I understand place as a “meaningful location.” In his view, there are three fundamental aspects of “place”: location, locale, and sense of place. Cf. Cresswell 2004. 22. Such crosses were placed next to houses for various reasons: to com- memorate a dead person, to express gratitude for somebody recover- ing from illness, or to offer a votive. 23. Each village has only one cemetery and inhabitants of all confessions have the right to be buried there. People participate in funerals regardless of one’s religious or ethnic belonging. Inhabitants commonly stress that it is a sign of respect to participate in the funeral practices of their neighbors, paying respect to the deceased and confronting the mourners. In some cases, especially when the person was an important figure in the village, all the clergymen from that village conduct the funeral.

3 Caroling History: Heteroglossic Narratives and Religious Boundaries

1. So called Biblia Wujka, which appeared in Polish translation in 1599. 2. Even those religious communities that are no longer present may have an impact on people’s perceptions and imaginaries. Since no Jews live in Rozstaje today, they are referenced mainly through archetypes and stereotypes. 3. What also implies the study of “oral history” as “narrated history” (Kurkowska-Budzan 2009: 32). 4. Assmann defines (2006: 37) religion as “the totality of forms in which a comprehensive symbolic world of meaning can be commu- nicated and handed down,” while Harvieu-Léger (2000) provides a comparison with cultural tradition and defines religion as a chain of memory that makes individual believers members of a community. 5. Referring to Greta Uehling (2004), I understand memory “work” as a process of creating representations of the past that inform the ongoing process of social remembering and forgetting. NOTES 233

6. The term “Gypsy” is the closest translation of the Polish word “Cygan,” used by my informants in the context of carol signing. It does not have pejorative connotations, but does convey certain stereotypical images (e.g., clothing style, love for music). 7. This is a reference to the deportation of the local population after the war and the Holocaust. 8. For instance, she uses the plural form while referring to the third- person singular, which in Polish is an old-fashioned form meant to show respect. 9. The Polish Orthodox Church has been autocephalous since 1924. The argument about its dependence on Moscow was, indeed, raised by many Greek Catholics, who claimed that the patriarch in Constantinople did not matter and that it was Moscow that was now the “headquarters” of the Orthodox world. 10. “The past” relates here to the period before the establishment of the Greek Catholic Church.

4 Religion and Memories of Socialism

1. I use the notions of “socialism” and “communism” interchangeably. “Socialism”/“Socialist” is the term more commonly used in the anthropological literature, while local inhabitants tend to speak about “communism”/“communist.” 2. The “Party” refers to the Polish United Workers’ Party (PZPR), which governed in Poland from 1948 through 1989. 3. By 1950, the village was inhabited by sixty-eight people who took over twenty-two houses. For comparison, in the interwar period the village counted 100 households and approximately 800 inhabitants. 4. “Social deeds” denote physical works carried out for the benefit of the society, usually on free days. In People’s Poland, they were organized by local authorities, schools, and employers. While in the cities such works were often ridiculed and approached as purely ideological, village inhabitants often remember them as community-building and improving the quality of local life. 5. “Hidden unemployment” is a term often used to describe the situation in socialist countries and denotes artificial amplification of work positions. 6. Pine argues the following: “The irony is that the economy has developed since socialism not within a context of increasing capitalist industrialization and market relations, but rather one of decreasing modernism and contracting markets [ . . . ] This is often experienced as a giant step ‘backwards’, away from the time when farming was a modern economic enterprise, facilitated by the highly mechanized cooperative” (2007:195). 234 NOTES

7. Many locals are critical of the Solidarity movement. This is not because they were against the dissident movement in principle or because they were fond of the communist system, but because, in the case of Ciche people changed their membership from the communist party to Solidarity at a moment’s notice. According to Bronek, these are the people who “behave like pigs and always try to be as close as possible to the trough.” 8. This is especially true for villages like Ciche, where the entire population follows Roman Catholic practice. 9. The history of the parish as recounted by inhabitants usually included the history of priests and their lovers. 10. In this way, local narratives of religious life also differ from general narratives of clergymen as spiritual and national leaders in the period of socialism. 11. Władysław Piwowarski observes that by abolishing some of church’s privileges (big estates, no taxation) the communist regime eradicated the causes of prewar anticlericalism and concludes: “Thus Socialism is favorable in this sense for religiosity in Poland” (1971:317). A similar point is made by José Casanova (2001: 103). 12. The most common expression is, of course, to “burn in hell.” 13. Iconostasis refers to a screen or wall that separates the nave from the sanctuary and that is decorated with icons. 14. Mark 12:17. 15. In this context, inhabitants speak about M. who organized the lessons of Marxism and Leninism and threatened school kids with punishment in case of church attendance. Today, he is the best friend of the Roman Catholic priest and occupies the first bench in the church. Due to this change of colors, he is jokingly referred to as the “dyed fox.” 16. Actually, it is quite ironic that the idea of popular religion is assigned to “backward peasants” by urban intelligentsia, who are themselves “cultural Catholics” whose practices can be also defined in terms of conformism and superficiality. 17. Another interesting example is the recent discussion of the Polish share of responsibility for the Holocaust. Once it became clear that the cooperation of Polish inhabitants with the Nazi occupants in killing Jews was an undeniable fact, some scholars and intellectuals had the idea to attribute those crimes to the peasants and to look for explanations in the prewar and wartime poverty of the rural areas (see Zaremba 2010). Such a strategy often serves to present (poor) peasants as a marginal stratum of society, as “social others” who differ from the rest of the “nation.” Although many crimes against Jews did take place in the countryside, the above argument is challenged by reports which show that among the persecutors of Jews were people of different class backgrounds, levels of education, and economic status. Moreover, an understanding of attitudes toward Jews needs to NOTES 235

take into account prewar anti-Semitic propaganda, promoted by local clergy and local elites.

5 The Different and the Common: About Multireligious Neighborhoods

1. Lack of attention to this fact results in a tendency to confuse two different meanings of neighborhood: a grassroots understanding and a metaphorical and often politicized one (Sorabji 2008: 99–100). 2. In her cogent discussion on anthropology of secularism, Fenella Cannell (2010) demonstrates a continuous reproduction of uncritical oppositions between religion and secularism and the perception of the political as being “more real” than the religious. 3. The Biblical commandment “love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:40) is translated into Polish as Miłuj bliźniego swego jak siebie samego, but the word bliźni is not equivalent to “neighbor” (pol. sąsiad). 4. I was in the village during Easter and remember how quiet it was that day. 5. The Orthodox chapel in Leśna is one of four churches that make up one parish. The priest is not always able to perform the service in each locality. 6. I speak here about more or less ten families (at the time of my fieldwork, several houses were under construction). 7. Such as medical prescriptions and advice about children’s education. 8. Obviously, members of other confessions are also Lemkos or Poles, yet they rarely discuss their faith in relation to ethnic belonging. 9. These are some examples of people describing their practices: “I attend Orthodox Church when I’m in my husband’s village and Greek Catholic when visiting my own family”; “Normally we go to the Orthodox church but we took all the sacraments in the Greek Catholic one”; “One Sunday we pray with Roman Catholics and one Sunday with Greek Catholics”; “We used to go to the Orthodox church but now we are old, the Roman Catholic one is closer.” 10. Also, Evangelical congregations are more likely to speak about Jesus Christ. 11. I follow Hayden’s (2002: 205) understanding of tolerance as an attitude and toleration as a set of practices.

6 Debating Pluralism

1. According to Polish law, schools are obliged to offer students the opportunity to choose between “religion” and “ethics.” In practice, the second subject is rarely offered, often on a pretense that the school lacks the funds to employ an additional teacher. Recent years saw many nationwide debates, protests, and petitions on the matter. 236 NOTES

2. Most Catholic priests wear a soutane (a type of cassock). 3. I attended other meetings in different villages, and the dynamic was very similar to the one I have just described. 4. Ustawa o mniejszościach narodowych i etnicznych oraz języku region- alnym http://isap.sejm.gov.pl/DetailsServlet?id=WDU2005017014 1 [Last accessed: August 28, 2014]. 5. Respecting the request of my interlocutors, I purposely do not provide any details about the village. 6. Inhabitants often referred to the vote as a “referendum.” 7. A neutral form would be spolonizować. 8. As the village leader (an ethnic Pole) told me later, she was surprised to see not only a multiple of the number of people who usually attended but also those who never showed up and did not care about the issues discussed in the village meetings. The elevated numbers were even more surprising considering that shortly before the vote, there was a heavy downpour. 9. I did not hear this sermon myself. However, I received the information about it from Lemkos and Poles. 10. It is worth recalling the words of the school director, Franek, here: “Tolerance is not about bowing to each other, but about a selfless respect for others and that is what we are trying to teach in school.” 11. Lviv, today in Ukraine, was a predominantly Polish city until the end of the Second World War. 12. Similar arguments are used in different European countries (e.g., Italy) or regions (e.g., Bayern) in reference to presence of crosses in public institutions. Bibliography

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abandoned villages, 15, 72, 75, Bible 87–9, 122, 123 knowledge of, 20, 25, 67, 96, Abu-Lughod, Lila, 24, 81 129, 130, 135, 168–72 agency, 5–6, 12, 25, 221n4 references to, 136, 137, 197 agriculture, 15–16, 61, 108, 123–5, Bjork, James, 51, 127, 230n51 143, 225n8, 227n27 Boguszewski, Rafał, 121 Alba, Richard, 97, 153 Borki (village), 112–13, 190–1, 194 anthropology at home, 27–9, 115 Borowik, Irena, 121 anticlericalism, 18, 131, 205, Botev, Nikolai, 154 226n16, 234n11 boundaries. See religious boundaries anti-Semitism, 36, 43, 46–7, 49, Bourdieu, Pierre, 4–6, 8–11, 78, 234–5n17 86–7, 173, 178–9, 213, Aretxaga, Begoña, 229n48 221n4–5, 222n7–8 assimilation. See Polonization Bowen, John, 216 Assmann, Jan, 97, 232n4 Bowman, Glenn, 29, 149 atheism, 28, 55, 113, 169, Brettell, Caroline, 131 178, 201 Bringa, Tone, 82, 155–6, 223n24 Augustyniak, Urszula, 57 Browarek, Tomasz, 42, 43 Brown, Michael, 11 Babiński, Grzegorz, 54, 154, Brubaker, Roger, 22, 42, 43, 230 223n14, 228n37 Buchowski, Michał, 131, 227n31 Badone, Ellen, 3, 131 Buddhism, 20, 21, 25, 52, 60–1, Bakhtin, Mikhail, 97, 104, 107 65–8, 112–13, 177–9, Ballinger, Pamela, 115 202, 222n10 Barth, Fredrik, 60–1 Bukraba-Rylska, Izabela, 143 Bartkowski, John, 167 Burdziej, Stanisław, 55 Barwiński, Marek, 54, 227n27 Burke, Peter, 108 Baumann, Gerd, 71, 214 Buzalka, Juraj, 46, 71 Bax, Mart, 231n16 Byzantine liturgy. See Eastern rite Behar, Ruth, 128 Cała, Alina, 101 Bender, Courtney, 7, 214, 217 Cannell, Fenella, 235n2 Bender, Ryszard, 42 Catholic Church. See Greek Catholic Berdahl, Daphne, 124 Church; Roman Catholic Best, Paul, 49 Church 254 INDEX

“Catholic Poland”, 35, 51, 57 community Catholicism. See Greek Catholicism; competing understandings of, Roman Catholicism 166–7, 170–1, 175 Casanova, José, 51, 149, multireligious, 69, 149, 214 227n31, 234n11 parish, congregation: 157, 159, Cecil, Rosanne, 65 163–4, 166–7, 170–1, 206 cemetery, 62, 151, 219–20, 232n23 religious, comparisons between, cerkiew 16–22, 166–74 as Eastern Christian shrine, 17, village, 79, 122, 127, 132, 143–4, 18, 62–4, 74, 76, 90, 182, 152, 155–7, 162–3, 175, 186, 194, 223n18 180–2, 186, 190, 193–6, importance for Lemkos of 208, 213 (see Lemkos and Eastern concordat, 42, 55, 225n15 Christianity) confessional nationalism, 217 Chałasiński, Józef, 230n51 conflicts Chałupczak, Henryk, 42, 43 interreligious, 17, 19, 63–5, 70, children 78–9, 149, 155, 174, 201 perception of diversity among, over double-naming (see double- 72–6, 79–80 naming) religious upbringing of, 80, 148, past, memories of, 78, 107–9, 154–5, 160, 171 139–41, 216 as school students, 71–80 conversions Christ, 41, 68, 201, 235n10 and proselytizing, 25, 26, 68, 171 Christian, William, 3, 221n1, reasons behind, 22, 96–7, 121, 229n48 170, 175 Christianity, 63, 65, 169, 201, 216, religious as ethnic, 60, 67, 154, 229n47, 231 188, 205 anthropology of, 3–4 understandings of, 66–7 local references to, 68, 126, 132, see also Greek Catholicism and 153, 159, 169, 203, 205 Orthodoxy; Polonization Chrypinski, Vincent, 50, 226n16 Cooper, Frederick, 22 church-state relations, 126, 216 Cornell, Stephen, 60–1, 188, 230n2 in Poland (see Roman Catholic Counter-Reformation, 38–9 Church and Polish state) Creed, Gerald, 125, 182, 208 Ciche (village), 14, 90, 121–32, Crehan, Kate, 5 134, 138, 140, 160–3, 174, Cresswell, Tim, 88, 179, 208, 183, 204, 233n3, 234n7–9 232n21 circles of rural housewives, 24, 62, Cyrillic alphabet, 15, 45, 98, 183 80–4, 88, 199, 231n15 clergyman. See priest and pastor Darczewska, Krystyna, 227n33 common good, 30, 78, 180, 182, Davies, Norman, 42–3 195, 208 deportations, 48–9, 104. See also commonalities, 12, 141 Operation Vistula and differences, 6, 30, 78–9, 82, Desroche, Henri, 3 140, 149, 154, 212 dialogue, interreligious: 68, 202, communism. See socialism 211, 212 INDEX 255

Dianteill, Erwan, 4 ethnic cleansing in Volhynia, 47, dispositions, 5, 8. See also habitus 226n19, 227n25 religion as provider of, 6, 131, ethnicity, 230n2 149 and religion (see religion and diversity. See pluralism ethnicity) domination, 5–6, 9, 78, 174, ethnocide, 49 209, 214. See also majority- European Union minority relations farming regulations, 16, 124 double-naming Poland’s role in, 57 legislation, 183, 236n4 promotion of cultural heritage, vote on, 30, 83, 174, 179, 181, 70, 83 182, 183–96 evangelical communities, 46, 52, 67, doxa, 9–10, 28, 57, 115, 206 153, 167–70, 201, 235n10. Dragadze, Tamara, 121, 127 See also Pentecostalism; Driessen, Henk, 65 Seventh-day Adventism Dudek, Antoni, 50, 52, Evans-Pritchard, Edmund, 65 126, 227n32 Dumont, Louis, 7 Fabian, Johannes, 7 faith Eastern Christianity. See Greek understanding of, 68, 125–6, Catholicism; Orthodoxy 129, 131–2, 163, 166, Eastern rite, 15, 17, 38, 22, 39, 40, 201, 204 63, 114, 158 Fedyszak-Radziejowska, Eberts, Mirella, 55 Barbara, 143 ecumenism, 231n9 Ferguson, James, 88 as pluralism, local understanding Fernandez, James, 2 of, 60, 68–71, 144, Fetzer, Joel, 216 153, 192, 200–1, First World War, 42, 77, 225n9 212–14, 220 folklorization, 82, 199 limits of, 80, 191, 201 of minorities, 50, 58, 217, Eisenberg, Anne, 5 227n28, 231n17 endogamy, 122, 154. See also Freeman, Susan, 126, 131, 152–3 intermarriage friendship Engelking, Anna, 223n24 and religious pluralism, 22, 62, Engelking, Barbara, 56 78, 148, 157, 167, 212, 213 Enloe, Cynthia, 60 see also neighborhood; respect equality Fuller, Christopher, 8, 222n7 as local value, 81, 151–3, 155, Furseth, Inger, 9, 222n8 171, 188 Eriksen, Thomas Hylland, 60–1, Galicia, 40, 44, 46, 47, 225n5–6, 230n2 226n19 ethnic and national minorities Gellner, David, 4 as bearers of religious difference, gender relations, 81–2, 124, 181 35, 54, 217 Georgieva, Cvetana, 174 legislation, 42–3, 47, 52–3, 56, Germans, 36, 42, 43, 47–8, 52, 228n35 103–4, 106–7 256 INDEX

God historiography, 103 belief in, 50, 126, 169, 229n46 and discourse on diversity, 35, judge, 90, 137, 203 56–8, 217 references to, 67, 68, 90, 124, Horbal, Bogdan, 40, 49, 224n1 136, 137, 153, 168–71, households, 15–16, 82, 124 197, 201 Humphrey, Caroline, 121 Gold, Ann, 6–7, 12, 149, 153, 175 Goltz, Herman, 223n15 iconostasis, 130, 234n13 Górski, Konrad, 225n10 identity Grabowska, Mirosława, 127, 205 other than religious or ethnic, 70, Gray, John, 90 79, 167 Greek Catholic Church intermarriage, 30, 87, 111, 148, establishment of, 38–40 154–5, 166–7, 170–1. See persecution of, 44–5, 49–50, 132 also endogamy Greek Catholicism, 16–18 Iteanu, Andre, 7 and Orthodoxy, 16–17, 166–7, 223n20 Jackson, Anthony, 28 conflicts between, 19, 25, 41, Jedlicki, Jerzy, 230n51 45–6, 63–4, 114, 164, 202 Jehovah’s Witnesses, 20, 52, 54, conversions between, 67, 114, 55, 59, 65–8, 132, 135–6, 163, 223n16, 231n8 153–4, 170–2, 197 and Roman Catholicism, 22, Jenkins, Richard, 5, 66, 221n5, 46, 64–5, 67, 86, 154, 230n2 166–7, 203 Jenkins, Timothy, 26 Gregorian calendar, 223n17 Jews Gryz, Ryszard, 50, 52, 126, 227n32 folk representations of, 100–1, Gupta, Akhil, 88 232n2 and Holocaust, 20, 47, habitus, 5, 8, 10–11, 86–7, 112, 226n23, 235n17 138, 179, 221n4–5 memories of, 20–1, 46, Halemba, Agnieszka, 63, 223n15 100–1, 110 Hall, David, 3 in Polish history, 22, 36, 42–3, Hann, Chris, 40, 65, 121, 139, 49, 52, 224n4 223n15 John Paul II, 51, 85, 231n9 Harris, Rosemary, 151 Julian calendar, 17, 62, 157 Harvieu-Léger, Danièle, 232n4 Hastings, Adrian, 230n3 Kalberg, Stephen, 4 Hayden, Robert, 149, 173, 178, Kempny, Marian, 57, 90 235n11 Kideckel, David, 139 Hayes, Carlton, 230n3 Kieniewicz, Stefan, 38, 57 hierarchy Kippenberg, Hans, 4 theories of, 7–8 Kirpsza, Adam, 53 see also pluralism, hierarchical Klassen, Pamela, 7, 214, 217 Himka, John-Paul, 39, 224n4 Kłoczowski, Jerzy, 39 Hirschon, Renée, 216 Kłos, Stanisław, 87 INDEX 257

Kłoskowka, Antonina, 38 (see also Operation Vistula; knowledge Polonization) of religious others, 60, 96, and Ukrainians, 14–15, 44, 53, 172–5, 213 65, 66, 84, 223n14, 229n39, Krasne (village), 12, 24, 84, 90, 231n11 98–116, 119, 147–8, 156, Leśna (village), 12, 61–6, 71–87, 157–60, 167, 188–91, 194, 89, 90, 163–7, 188, 191–4, 195, 196, 219 230n5–6 Kubica-Heller, Grażyna, 154 Linde, Charlotte, 106–7 Kubik, Jan, 50–1, 227n31 Lipski, Jan Józef, 46, 103 Kuklo, Cezary, 39 lived religion, 3–6, 25, 85–6, Kula, Marcin, 35, 217 131–2, 164, 168, 221n1 Kunicki, Mikołaj Stanisław, and pluralism, 23, 114, 149, 157, 227n29 172–4, 213–14 Kuper, Adam, 222n7 local government, 30, 180–3, 185, Kurkowska-Budzan, Marta, 232n3 188, 196–9, 206–8 locality, 16, 24, 87, 181 Laidlaw, James, 6 Lockwood, William, 60 Lambek, Michael, 4 Lubaś, Marcin, 154 land. See place; Lemkos Luehrmann, Sonja, 121, 140, 201 language Lukowski, Jerzy, 226n16–17 and religion, 39, 40, 60, 64, 102, 138, 163, 166, 231n11 Mach, Zbigniew, 44, 56 Le Bras, Gabriel, 3 MacIntyre, Alasdair, 182 Leach, Edmund, 7–8, 209, 222n6–7 Magocsi, Paul Robert, 39, 40, Lees, Susan, 198 222n12, 224n1, 225n5 Lehmann, Rosa, 46 Majka, Józef, 226n16 “Lemko culture”, 26–7, 53, 70, 83, majority-minority relations, 10–12, 71, 199–200 90, 113, 117, 141, 144, 174, Lemkos 193, 201–3, 205, 213, 218 and Eastern Christianity: 23, Malkki, Liisa, 87 16–17, 22–3, 60–2, 65–7, Mandes, Sławomir, 55, 205, 218 53, 85–6, 112, 114, 154, Mariański, Janusz, 121 166–7, 188 Marody, Mirosława, 55, 205, 218 as an ethnic minority, 53–4, Mayaram, Shail, 7, 71 223n14, 229n39 McGuire, Meredith, 3, 131 ethnonym, 15, 45, 222n12 memories land, perception among, 87–8, and pluralism, 79–80, 115–18, 90, 107, 185, 199 141, 144, 175, 213, 215 language of, 15, 28, 53, 120 (see Michna, Ewa, 66 also double-naming) Mickiewicz, Adam, 41 generational differences among, Mikiewicz, Piotr, 143 84–7, 111–12 minorities. See majority-minority policies towards, 44–5, 48–50, relations; ethnic and national 53–4, 223n14, 229n39 minorities 258 INDEX

Misiło, Eugeniusz, 48, 49 Orsi, Robert, 3, 126, 131, 214 Moklak, Jarosław, 44–5, 49, 225n9 Orthodox Church, 38–9, 45, 50, Morawska, Ewa, 41 54, 132, 223n15, 224n1, Motyka, Grzegorz, 44, 49, 56, 233n9 225n12 Orthodoxy, 16–17, 21, 36 Mucha, Janusz, 58 and Greek Catholicism (see Greek Müller, Wiesław, 224n2 Catholicism and Orthodoxy) multiculturalism, 229n49 and Roman Catholicism, 22, 40, local approaches to, 70–1, 200 63–5, 154, 203, 207 policies of, 16, 26, 200, 208, Ortner, Sherry, 4–6, 11, 71, 173–4, 214, 216 213, 221n5 in Polish historiography, 56–8 Muslims, 82, 113, 178, 179, 202 Pace, Enzo, 216 Parekh, Bhikhu, 216, 229n49 nation Parry, Jonathan, 8, 222n7 of noblemen, 38, 57 partitions of Poland, 40–2, 57 Polish, 41–2, 44, 57–8, 134, 217 Pasek, Zbigniew, 19, 55, 198, 229n44 (see also Poles and Roman Passeron, Jean-Claude, 9 Catholicism) pastor, 1, 2, 19, 20, 69, 70, 101, -state, 35, 48–8, 50, 56, 218 136, 138, 206, 211, 212 national minorities. See ethnic and peasants, 39, 40, 42, 44, 46, 118, national minorities 131, 143, 226n16, 230n50, Nazis, 226n22 234n16–17 neighborhood Peirano, Mariza, 28 discourse on, 135, 139, 150–3, Peletz, Michael, 7 155–7, 167–8, 170–3, Pelkmans, Mathijs, 65, 67, 97, 110, 188–95, 205, 208 121, 170, 227n28 and religious difference, 139, Pentecostalism, 18–19, 54, 55, 61, 171–3, 174–5, 212 65–8, 101–2, 132, 136, 137, and rules of conviviality, 152–4, 167–70, 172, 197–9 159, 160–1, 163, 212 People’s Republic of Poland, 47. See spatial configuration of, 150–1 also socialism see also respect PGRs. See state-owned farms nobility, 36, 38, 39, 225n6 Pieradzka, Krystyna, 45 “normality” pilgrimage site, 95, 130 of Polish-Catholic bond, 23, 28, Pina-Cabral, Jõao de, 3, 128, 151 55, 115, 166, 178, 198, 217 Pine, Frances, 125, 233n6 and pluralism, 179, 202, 214, 216 Piwowarski, Władysław, 129, 234n11 place Obrębski, Józef, 230n51 and community, 88, 167, 181 Okely, Judith, 27 sense of, 71–6, 87–90, 122, 165, Operation Vistula, 49, 53, 60, 63, 190, 213 75, 87, 105–9, 112, 226n24, pluralism 227n25, 228n36 hierarchical, 7–12, 23, 97, 115, oral history, 29, 116–17, 141, 144, 157, 174–5, 213, 232n3 216–18 INDEX 259

legitimization of, 153, 193, 198, see also anticlericalism 201–2 Protestantism local understandings of (see in Poland, 36, 39, 40, 43, 54, ecumenism) 101, 217 theories of, 6–7, 111, 214 see also Pentecostalism; Seventh- Poewe, Karla, 171 day Adventism; evangelical Poles communities minorities’ identification as, 65–6, Przybylski, Paweł, 45 134, 137, 203 and Roman Catholicism, 2–3, 9, Ramet, Sabina, 50, 55, 121, 227n31 22–3, 28, 41, 50, 60, 61, 65, reciprocity, 148, 151–2, 159, 160, 137, 188, 190, 192, 205, 161, 172, 175 217–18 recognition see also nation of others’ rights, 7, 12, 64, 68, 153, Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, 155, 161, 163, 201, 208–9 36–9, 57 “recovered lands”, 49, 106, 108, Polonization, 15, 38, 43–5, 47, 227n27 49–50, 53–4, 106 Redlich, Simon, 46 religious component of, 44, 66, Reed-Danahay, Deborah, 5, 11–12, 154, 186 78, 134–5 Pop, Ivan, 39 Rehg, William, 182 Portelli, Alessandro, 116 Reinfuss, Roman, 48, 222n12 Porter, Brian, 41–2, 58, 121, religion 131, 217 as culture, 54, 55, 57, 97, 198, 216 positivisism, 41 and ethnicity, 22–3, 60–1, 66, postsocialism 80, 154, 166, 188 (see as experienced by rural also Lemkos and Eastern inhabitants, 90, 124–5, Christianity; Poles and 138, 141 Roman Catholicism; and historiography, 56–7 Ukrainians and Greek and religion, 54–6, 120–1 Catholicism) power. See domination; hierarchy; lived (see lived religion) symbolic violence popular, folk, 3, 130–1, 143, priests 221n1, 227n31, 231n16, and female parishioners, 234n16 81–2, 207 as a school subject, 55, 76, importance of, 67, 68, 128–9, 177–8, 229n42 137, 160, 180–1, 204, religious boundaries, 11, 95–7, 206–8 110, 113, 118, 172–3, 175, influence on pluralism of, 62–5, 212–13, 215 69, 76–80, 86, 90, 111, 186, as “blurred” and “bright”, 84–5, 187, 189, 190, 192–3, 205, 97, 117, 153–4 211, 231n9 and ethnic boundaries, 60–1, 80, in priest-parishioners relations, 84–5, 88 18, 27, 126, 128–31, 204–5, and social memories, 97, 109, 234n9 117, 120 260 INDEX religious festivals, 80–1, 83, 100, stigmatization of, 142–4, 217, 139, 152 234n16–17 (see also popular religious market, 97, 111 religion; postsocialism) religious pluralism. See pluralism Russians, 52, 103–4, 109, 226n22 religious rituals Rusyns, 14–15, 43, 114, 222n12, in Catholicism, 18, 50, 127, 128, 223n16, 225n9, 231n8. See 131, 168, 204–5, 218 also Lemkos common, 114, 153, 154 Ruthenians. See Rusyns lack of, 68, 113 Rykała, Andrzej, 57 resistance, 6, 10–12, 117, 135 respect salvation, 4, 86, 113, 172, 203 among neighbors, 139–40, sameness, 29, 60, 77, 90, 132. See 151–66, 167, 171–5, 191, also commonalities 195, 232n23 school, grammar: 24, 61, 62, in reference to the past, 80, 100, 71–80, 84, 88, 128, 138, 101, 104, 120, 132, 139–40, 164, 177–8, 181, 193, 212 144, 233n8 Scott, James, 10, 12, 116, 205, for religious others, 78–9, 101, 206, 215 152–4, 161, 167, 172–5, Scott, Joan, 7 193, 196, 212, 213, 232n23 Second Polish Republic, 42–7, 50, 57 Rey, Timothy, 4, 87 Second World War, 15, 46, 63, Rio, Knut, 7 72, 89, 101, 102–4, 141, rituals. See religious rituals 222n12–13, 230n50 Robbins, Joel, 3, 167, 169, 215 secularism, 216, 235n2 Rogers, Douglas, 121, 215 secularization, 121, 149 Roman Catholic Church Sells, Michael, 229n48 as a local institution, 17–18, Seventh-day Adventism, 19–20, 127, 161 25, 65–8, 110, 132, 154, and Polish state, 2, 35, 52, 54–5, 167–72, 178, 200–1 203, 205 Shils, Edward, 216 and politics, 142, 203, 204 Shuman, Amy, 115 privileges of, 42, 197–8, 229n41 Sincan, Anca, 126 under socialism, 50–2, 126 (see Smedal, Olaf, 7 also socialism) Smith, Anthony, 230n3 Roman Catholicism Snyder, Timothy, 46–9, 226n22 and Greek Catholicism, 17, 22, social order, 6, 9–10, 71, 87, 38–9, 40, 46, 62–5, 114, 88, 213 154, 166–7, 223n19 socialism, 233n1 and Orthodoxy, 22, 38–9, 40, memories of, 30, 117, 133–44, 62–5, 154, 166–7 152, 207 and Polish identity (see Poles and and nationalism, 47–8, 50, Roman Catholicism) 227n29 romanticism, 41, 225 policies towards religion, 50–2, Rostworowski, Emanuel, 224n2 126, 132–3, 142, 234n11 Roszkowski, Wojciech, 43 religious practices under, 119–21, rural inhabitants 125–32 INDEX 261

Solidarity (movement), 51, national movement of, 14, 17, 126, 234n7 40–1, 44, 63, 222n12, Soper, J. Christopher, 216 225n9 Sorabji, Cornelia, 148–9, 235n1 Union of Brest, 38–9, 231n8 Stachowiak, Andrzej, 90 UPA (Ukrainian Insurgent Army), state-owned farms, 15–16, 90, 44, 48–9, 59, 106, 108–9, 123–4, 142, 224n26 122, 226n19, n24 former workers of, 135, Urban, Hugh, 4 189–91, 195 Urban, Kazimierz, 51–2, 54 Stauter-Halstedt, Keely, 41 Stępień, Stanisław, 50 Verdery, Katherine, 7, 50, 56, Straczuk, Justyna, 152 60, 139 Strathern, Marilyn, 62 Verter, Bradford, 4 Swartz, David, 4 Vertovec, Steven, 230n49 symbolic violence, 8–9, 179, 218 village. See community Szafraniec, Krystyna, 143 Virgin Mary, 95, 130, 161

Taylor, Charles, 182 Wacquant, Loïc, 221n4 Tazbir, Janusz, 38, 39, 217, 229n47 Walczak, Marian, 38 tolerance, 235n11 Walicki, Andrzej, 38, 42, 57, and pluralism, 78, 125, 141, 149, 225n10 172–3, 175, 177, 196, 198, Wanner, Catherine, 121 236n10 Wessendorf, Susanne, in Polish-Lithuanian 230n49 Commonwealth, 36–9, 57–8 Williams, Raymond, 198 Tomaszewski, Jan, 44 Wójtowicz-Huber, Bernadetta, transformation, postsocialist: 52, 56, 222n12 112, 124, 131, 141. See also Wolff, Larry, 40 postsocialism Wuthnow, Robert, 172 transgression, 179, 208 Trawno (village), 194–5 xenophobia, 30, 149 trust, 12, 138, 215 Trzeszczyńska, Patrycja, 67, 109 Yurchak, Alexei, 135

Uehling, Greta, 112, 232n5 Żaba, Kazimierz, 58 Ukrainians Zaremba, Marcin, 50, deportations of, 49 (see also 234n17 Operation Vistula) Zawadzki, Hubert, discrimination of, 43, 44, 46, 48 226n16–17 (see also Polonization) Zenker, Olaf, 6 and Greek Catholicism, 40–1, Zięba, Andrzej, 40 44, 53 Zielińska, Katarzyna, 229n45 and Lemkos (see Lemkos and Zoltán Krasznai, 229n48 Ukrainians) Zubrzycki, Geneviève, 43, as a national minority, 42, 50, 52–4, 51, 55, 56, 121, 216, 223n14, 225n14, 229n39 229n47, 230n3