,
Janusz Radwański
https://doi.org/10.31261/SEIA.2025.25.01.02
This article examines cultural identity among the inhabitants of the Polish-Ukrainian border region near Leżajsk prior to 1945. The analysis is based on field interviews conducted by staff of the Museum of Folk Culture in Kolbuszowa with individuals born in the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s who, as children, experienced life in mixed Polish-Ukrainian villages as well as the events of World War II and the immediate postwar years. Analysis of these accounts indicates that before the war, national differences were often barely noticeable in everyday life, and the main determinants of identity were language and religion. Mixed families and bilingualism were common in the studied area, and residents participated in the feast days and religious practices of both communities. It was only the experiences of German occupation, violence, and postwar displacement that led to a clear polarization of identity and the emergence of strategies to conceal Ukrainian roots. The informants’ testimonies allows us to grasp the fluidity of national and religious categories and the complexity of social relations in the borderland, and consequently challenges simplified, binary interpretations of Polish-Ukrainian relations in the Nadsanie region.
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2025
Published: 2021-07-20
10.31261/SEIA
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
English
Język Polski