Русинська спільнота міжвоєнної Польщі у висвітленні "Нашого лемка"

Abstract

It was emphasized that the Second Commonwealth committed the unbearable pressure on the most western ethnic group of Ukrainians i.e. Lemkos. In official documentation, they were recognized as Polish who needed a «help» in finding their national identity. Lemkos' dispersion (due to the specific conditions of living), as well as mostly diversed ethnic environment, facilitated the assimilation of the eternal Ukrainian territories by the Polish invaders, as well as complicated the preservation of the historic memory by the Lemkos themselves. These processes have found quite a complete reflection on the pages of the two-weekly «Nash Lemko». This newspaper was the only Ukrainian magazine of the interwar twenty years, not only addressed to the Lemko reader, but also created by Lemkos themselves. Along with the implementation of the important task of internal mobilization of the Ruthenian environment itself, «Nash Lemko» also presented to the outside world of the Ruthenians as politically mature subnethnos, whose representatives, in spite of the national pressure of the occupying power, articulate their national self-perception in terms and concepts of Ukrainianity. Thus, an important tradition of Ukrainian self-identity of the Lemkos was established at a time when our people was in the process of overcoming complicated internal and external challenges.

It was investigated that, along with the implementation of important educational and informational functions, the newspaper also became a significant factor in the social maturing of the Lemkos movement, transforming it into a prominent phenomenon of the political life of the Polish state. This made it impossible to use the Lemkos ethnic factor by different occupants in their attempt to split the Ukrainian national front on the eve and during the Second World War. Therefore, it is no coincidence that the traditions of «Nash Lemko» proved to be extremely popular in the second half of the twentieth century.