Reasons and Consequences of Depopulation in Lower Beskid (the Carpathian Mountains) in the Years 1944-1947

Abstract

Lemkos` displacement damaged the specific ethnic and cultural appearance of the region irreversibly. A complete change in ethnic composition which in this region had been practically unaltered from the turn of the 15th and 16th centuries, followed. As the result of the displacement, people who had been living in the area 140 kilometres long and under 20-30 kilometres wide for a few centuries, got divided between two countries stretching from the Dnepr to the Oder. The displacements have changed ethnic and religious structure both in the Carpathians and in western and northern Poland. Nevertheless, the assimilation of Ukrainian and Lemko population which was main political goal of Polish communist authorities has never been achieved. In spite of circumstances favouring assimilation such as: spatial dispersion, education in Polish schools, intermarriages, over 40-years-long political pressure, difficult contacts with native culture, the Lemkos are neither socially nor culturally assimilated. The questionnaire survey has confirmed that the Lemkos keep very strongly their national identity, religious, linguistic and cultural distinctness