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Ethno-Nationalism and the Socialist Heritage the Case of the Lemkos in Poland*

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Ethno-Nationalism and the Socialist Heritage the Case of the Lemkos in Poland* UvA-DARE (Digital Academic Repository) Struggling for peace : understanding Polish-Ukrainian coexistence in southeast Poland (1943-2007) Lehmann, R.N.M. Publication date 2009 Document Version Final published version Link to publication Citation for published version (APA): Lehmann, R. N. M. (2009). Struggling for peace : understanding Polish-Ukrainian coexistence in southeast Poland (1943-2007). General rights It is not permitted to download or to forward/distribute the text or part of it without the consent of the author(s) and/or copyright holder(s), other than for strictly personal, individual use, unless the work is under an open content license (like Creative Commons). Disclaimer/Complaints regulations If you believe that digital publication of certain material infringes any of your rights or (privacy) interests, please let the Library know, stating your reasons. In case of a legitimate complaint, the Library will make the material inaccessible and/or remove it from the website. Please Ask the Library: https://uba.uva.nl/en/contact, or a letter to: Library of the University of Amsterdam, Secretariat, Singel 425, 1012 WP Amsterdam, The Netherlands. You will be contacted as soon as possible. UvA-DARE is a service provided by the library of the University of Amsterdam (https://dare.uva.nl) Download date:28 Sep 2021 6 Ethno-nationalism and the socialist heritage * The case of the Lemkos in Poland Introduction From a recent Polish newspaper clipping: The regional court in Gorlice, civic department, the third floor. Witnesses enter and leave the courtroom as they are called up to testify in the case at hand. The plaintiff is the Union of Lemkos in Poland. The defendant is the Regional Museum of Nowy Scz. At stake is the identity of Nikifor Krynicki, an artist who lived and worked in Krynica and who died more than thirty years ago. The Union of Lemkos calls for a post-mortem change of Nikifor’s name Krynicki into his supposed real name Drowniak in the exhibit information, as the latter name reveals that the artist was of Lemko descent. For an outsider this news item is as curious as it is incomprehensible. Who are the Lemkos and why did they start a case at court? Why bother at all about the name of a dead artist who does not even have a chance to speak up in the case at hand? On closer investigation, the attempt by the Union of Lemkos to rehabilitate the late artist Nikifor Krynicki, an artist who, perhaps more than anyone else, symbolizes Poland’s Lemko cultural heritage, coincides with the quest for emancipation by the Lemko minority in Poland since the 1990 election of Poland's first postwar democratic government. The introduction of new political liberties has inspired Lemko activists to bring to the fore their political and cultural claims. What makes these claims interesting is that they are formulated in direct response to decades of political and cultural suppression by the Polish socialist state. Moreover, they reflect the political divisions not just between Poles and Lemkos, but also, and especially, within the Lemko minority group. The chapter begins with a short introduction of the Lemko minority in Poland and discusses the origin of the group and the problem of ethno-national identity. The subsequent two sections explore how socialism set the conditions that shaped current relations within the Lemko community. Two types of conditions will be distinguished: the infra-structural conditions (including changes in demography, habitat, and social cohesion) * This is a revised version of an article published in Focaal no 33, 1999: pp. 59-73. 98 Struggling for peace and the economy of shortage in socialist systems. Following Verdery’s (1993) analysis for post-socialist Romania, it is argued that the strong emphasis on nationalist ideologies by Poland’s Lemko activists, rather than a mere revival of ancient, pre-socialist political traditions, can partly be explained as a remnant of (good old) socialist rhetoric. The final section discusses the implications of the socialist heritage for the current position of the Lemko minority in Poland. Introducing the Lemkos The Lemkos form a tiny minority in Poland. Their numbers are estimated to be between 50,000 and 100,000 (Rieger 1995; odziski 1999).1 The native territory of the Lemkos is situated in southeast Poland (see Map 6.1), but the most numerous concentrations of Lemkos today are in the northeast (Olsztyn and Elblg), northwest (Supsk and Koszalin) and southwest of Poland (Legnica and Wrocaw) (odziski 1999). There are little visible criteria that distinguish the Lemkos from the Poles: they dress the same, visit the same schools and are active in a wide variety of professions. But there are also differences: Lemkos and Poles visit different churches (respectively Greek Catholic/Orthodox and Roman Catholic), they speak a different native tongue (respectively Lemko and Polish), and they maintain different networks of social and cultural communication through clubs, festivals, newspapers, and historical memory. In other words, there is a clear perception of cultural distinctiveness among Lemkos and Poles, as they perceive of themselves and each other as people with different origins and backgrounds. In this chapter the term Lemko is used in much the same way that it is presently used by the Lemko inhabitants of Poland and in the current Polish public debates: as a term identifying geographic origin and cultural heritage. It should be noted that the term Lemko bears certain assumptions that are present in most writings about the group. One such assumption is the idea of a pre-existing localized community with a more or less fixed culture. The ethnographic maps assigning to the Lemko people a Lemko homeland (Lemkovina, in Polish emkowszczyzna) are examples of this kind of thinking (cf. Czajkowski 1994; Reinfuss 1998). Another assumption is the idea of a consolidated identity that is commonly accepted and agreed upon. However, the fact that the term Lemko is used complementary with other terms that make explicit statements of a particular national identity (for example, Rusyn, Ukrainian, or Pole) points to the situation 1 Nationality and language did not figure in Poland’s postwar censuses. Although since the 1990s Poland’s Central Statistical Office published several works on religious and ethnic groups in Poland, the variables nationality and language have as yet not been included in the national censuses (cf. Adamczuk and Zdaniewicz 1994; Adamczuk 1995, 1997). Ethno-nationalism and the socialist heritage 99 Map 6.1 Southeast Poland where identity is essentially a contested category that is uncertain and in flux.2 Consider the following statement by a contemporary Lemko ethnographer and historian from the Presóv region (Slovakia): My roots are in Ukraine […] I am a Rusyn, but the language I speak belongs to the Lemko people, Therefore, I can say that I am a Lemko [...] I am a Rusyn, but this does not stop me from being an outspoken Ukrainian as well (Mykoaj Muszynka quoted in Kowalczyk 1997: 9). It goes beyond the scope of this chapter to discuss the origins of the Lemko people at length, but it is useful to address a few key issues in the debate. Twentieth-century scholarship has advanced two alternative hypotheses concerning the origins of the Lemkos. The first hypothesis, advocated mostly by Ukrainian academics (including those based in North American universities), link Lemko settlement in the southwest Carpathians (modern southeast Poland) with the initial settlement of Rus enclaves (remnants of the former Kievan Rus federation) during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The second hypothesis, supported mostly by Polish scholars, links Lemko 2 For an extensive enumeration of ethnic names that over the past two centuries have been used to address the ‘Eastern Slavs’ inhabiting the Carpathian mountain range (stretching from present- day Poland, to Ukraine and Romania) see the work of Magocsi (1978). For a discussion on the processes of identity formation of the Lemkos in socialist and post-socialist Poland see Michna (1995b; 1995a) and Duc-Fajfer (1993). 100 Struggling for peace settlement with the early migrations of the Vlachs (pastoral nomads originating from the Balkan) in the Middle Ages (Mach 1993). While the first hypothesis establishes the Eastern Slav origin of the Lemko population, the second hypothesis establishes the Western Slav origin (albeit mixed with undeniable Eastern Slav influences) of the group (Hann 1985). The two theories are as much historical as they are political and ideological in content. While some use the first hypothesis to claim Ukrainian national identity for the Lemkos, others use it to claim Rusyn national identity. The mixed Wallachian-Polish thesis establishes a non-Ukrainian identity (that is, a Polish or Rusyn identity) for the Lemkos. It is no coincidence that the current name of the people discussed in this chapter (Lemko) and their assumed homeland (Lemkovina) was in fact a “Polish academic invention”, to quote Hann (1985: 29). Polish ethnographers carried out comprehensive academic research on Poland’s Rus populations in the early twentieth century (cf. Falkowski and Pasznycki 1935; Reinfuss 1936; Pieradzka 1939). By demarcating the linguistic and ethnographic boundaries of the Lemkos and other Rus subgroups on Polish territory (such as the Boikos and Hutsuls) the ethnographic studies conveniently served the political objective set by the interwar Polish government: the nominal ‘de-Ukrainization’ of the Eastern Slav populations in the western and eastern territories of southern Poland (cf. Hann 1995). Consistent with this objective, the terms ‘Ukraine’ and ‘Ukrainian’ were entirely banned from Polish bureaucratic language during the interwar period. Poland’s eastern territories, inhabited largely by Ukrainians, were referred to as Little Poland (Mao Polska) and the official name given to its inhabitants was Rusyns (Rusini). Accordingly, the 1921 census (GUS 1924) registered four main “nationalities” in the Lwów voivodeship, which included parts of the Lemko, Boiko, and Hutsul territories: Poles, Rusyns, Jews, and Germans.
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