Political Conditions of Transborder Contacts of Lemkos Living on Both Sides of the Carpathian Mountains

Abstract

Lemkos are the group of Ruthenian population that reach furthest to the west and that stand apart from the Polish and the Slovak populations as far as their culture, religion and language are concerned. From the 14th century until 1944, they had been densly inhabiting the territory that spread in a form of an elongated wedge on both, the Polish and the Slovakian sides of the Carpathians from the Solinka and the Laborec rivers in the east, up to the Poprad river in the west. Ethnically, it was a homogeneous Lemko region. The Polish and the Slovak populations occupied only a few towns. The territory on the Polish side of the Carpathians inhabited by the Lemkos is called the Lemkos lands (Łemkowszczyzna). It covers the eastern part of the Sądecki Beskid, the Lower Beskid and the western edge of the Bieszczady Mountains