Lemko language by its content and expression is a separate Russian dialect. Since Lemkos were neighbors to Poles, Slovaks and Hungarians, certain expressions from these languages have crept into the language spoken by the Lemkos, but its main development is based on the Old Slavonic, and became developed to such a degree, while self-sustaining itself, that this dialect is not only used by the peasants, but also by the Lemko intellectuals. In this dialect, in the middle of the last century are written and became published many books and periodicals. From the literary Russian and Ukrainian language it differs mainly by the stress, which similarly to the Polish language, occurs always on the second syllable from the end. An unusual property of this language is the fact that it can be understood by every Slav, and vise-versa.

In modem times many dictionaries have been published, even within the Slavic family of languages. For example Russian-Polish, Ukrainian-Polish, Czech-Polish, and so on. But no dictionary is needed for the Lemko language. It is understood by Big Russians and Little Russians, Poles and Czechs, and every other Slav. None of the Slavic languages survived and maintained the character of the original language, as has the Lemko language. If ever in the future, there was to arise a Big Slav nation, about which dream certain SlavopHes, then only on the foundation of the Lemko language, would this new Slavic language develop most faithfully. No wonder that over 50 years ago, in the monthly periodical "Slavic Age" which is published in Vianna, articles in the Lemko dialect were being published. The Lemko language has accumulated certain success. The Lemko literature, even though it finds itself in a very unfriendly position, grows daily. One should also mention that the Lemko language in Lemkivshchyna is not monolithic, there are regional sub-dialects, many expressions have different meanings, and this proves that this language is still developing. Take this for example, the word "potato" in Lemkivshchyna can be described with several different words. [bandurka, gruli, kartofli, barabola. The Lemko language is part of the southwestern group of Ukrainian dialects, which include Bojkian, Transcarpathian (Highlander or Verchovyna), Sjan (northeast of the Lemko Region), and Hutsul, commonly referred to (with the exception of the Sjan group) as 'Carpathian dialects'. The Lemko dialects are very similar to those on the southern slopes of the mountains (the Presov Region), also considered Lemko dialects. ..

The Lemko dialects are characterized (and distinguishable from most other Ukrainian dialects) by fixed stress on the penuitimate syllable of words (as in Polish and eastern Slovak dialects, in contrast to movable stress in A other East Slavic languages); retention of the distinct vowel bl (y). Some verb conjugations are of the Slovak and Polish forrns. Lemko dialects contain many unique forms, as words of Polish, Slovak, and even German or Hungarian origin.

In their stead, evil started to creep in, which celibate pnests could not successfully challenge, and as a result their faith started to shrink.

When a Lemko is starting to build a house, he must first inspect the site, where he intends to build his house, to determine suitability of the place, whether it will good and not hamiful. For this process he performs the following tasks at the point where the comers of the house will be located, he places a piece of bread for the night. If on the following day the bread is still there, then the site is fit for construction. Otherwise, if the bread is gone, then the site is unfit for construction, and another site would be selected. Afterwards the site is plowed around, to keep the evil spirits away. Performing this work, no shouting or cursing is permitted, since this would result in arguing in the new house, wife's lack of respect for her husband, and children's lack of respect for their parents. After plowing, he places heavy stones at the comers of the future house, as start of the foundation, and above them he places fir [trainy?]. After placement of [spodkov?], he invites a priest to bless the selected site and its foundations. At each comer the priest makes a cross, and inside of it a deep hole, within which he places one-fourth of a silver coin (for self sufficiency), leaves of "barvinok" [periwinkle] for girl's early marriage, flowers from "osika" [aspen tree] or "vuzhderevo" [?] , (so that no sin will find hospitality within this house), leaves from "topola" [poplar tree] (so that children will behave themselves, and will grow well), a "prosforka" wrapped up in cloth (so that God would took over the buildet's reliance for bread and earnings), a piece of glass (so that the evil spirits would never approach his house, and so that the help around the house would always stay healthy).

Early History

In the seventeenth century, Polish landlords tried to extend actual control over the Lemko Region, but their attempt to introduce serfdom and to increase taxes and other duties among the peasants and shepherds basically failed. This was due to the general inaccessibility of the highland region and, in part, to armed bands of mountaineers led by Robin Hood-type leaders, the most famous in the Lemko Region being Vas@l'Bajus from Leszczyny (Liseyny) and Andrij Savka from Dukla.

The seventeenth century also witnessed another kind of attempt to impose Polish or western influence on the Orthodox Rusyns. Already in 1596, several Orthodox Rus' bishops in Poland agreed to the provisions of the Union of Brest, which united them with Rome and brought into being the Uniate Church. It was not until the very end of the century (I 692) that the bishop of Przemyst, who was responsible for the Lemko Region, finally accepted the Union. But even this did not really effect the Rusyn masses, since they continued to practice the Byzantine rite (with its liturgy in Church Slavonic) and to use the Julian calendar (at that time 14 days ""behind" the western Gregorian calendar). Moreover, these cultural characteristics, together with their East Slavic language, was what distinguished Rusyns from the Poles living in the lowland villages.

The rather lax and ineffective aspects of Polish rule came to an end after 1772. In that year, the first partition of Poland took place (the whole country was to disappear from the map by 1795), whereby the Lemko Region was annexed by the Habsburg-ruled Austrian Empire. Now part of the Austrian province of Galicia, the Lemko Region became subject to Habsburg decrees issued from the imperial capital in Vienna. Whfle it is true that the peasants were liberated from serfdom in 1848, before then they had never been greatly burdened by feudal obligations to faraway landlords generally uninterested in unproductive mountainous lands. But the Austrian government prohibited free use of the forest and it carefully registered all land holdings in order to have a better control for assessing and collecting taxes.

The stability and order in Lemko life that prevailed under Austrian rule began to break down on the eve of World War 1. Austria-Hungary was especially suspicious of the Russian Empire and of the Orthodox movement that had begun to take hold in Galicia, in particular in the Carpathian region. Former Greek Catholic immigrants to the United States had returned home as Orthodox converts and they frequently encouraged the establishment of Orthodox churches in their native villages. For its

part, the Austrian government suspected Orthodox priests and parishioners to be supporters of Russia (indeed, some Orthodox believers did see the Russian tsar as their earthly saviour), and Habsburg authorities even brought some clergy and peasants to trial on charges of treason.

Polish government tried its best to undermine Ukrainian influence by supporting the idea of Lemko distinctiveness, allowing the Lemko Rusyn dialect to be taught in schools, and sometimes arguing that Lemkos were no more than an ethnographic branch of the Polish people. "le it is true that during the interwar years many Polish publications began to overemphasize the affinity of Lemko to Polish culture, some of the best scholarly research ever done on the Lemko Region was begun in the 1930s by the Polish ethnographer Roman Reinftiss and Polish linguist Zdislaw Stieber.

Ukrainian activists, on the other hand, argued that Lemkos were Ukrainians, and they were particularly successful in having a Ukrainian identity accepted by many inhabitants in the eastern Lemko Region (Sanok and Lisko districts). They made few inroads, however, in the western Lemko Region, and to counter the growing sense of Lemko distinctiveness there, pro-Ukrainian Lemkos established during the 1930s a Lemko Museum in Sanok and a Lemko Commission farther east in L'viv, which published a biweekly Ukrainian newspaper, Nas Lemko (1934-39) and helped to promote the belletristic and cultural writings of Franc Kokovs'kyj, Hryhorij Hanul-ak, and Julijan Tarnovyc (pseud. Julijan Beskyd).

With regard to religion, the movement to "return to Orthodoxy" that had begun before World War 1, now increased rapidly. This was, in part, because Lemko villagers resented the Ukrainian orientation of the Greek Catholic Church, and instead associated Orthodoxy with their own Rus' identity. Concerned that the Greek Catholic Church was tied too closely to the Ukrainian movement and afraid, therefore, that this would alienate further the Lemkos, the Vatican decided in 1934 to establish a separate Greek Catholic Lemko Apostolic Administration with a pro-Rusyn, even Russophile oriented hierarchy under the Reverends Vasylij Mascjuch and Jakov Medvec'kij.

As for the majority of Lemkos, they were struggling to survive economically. Interwar Poland remained an underdeveloped agrarian society and was unable to improve the economic situation. Not surprisingly, the poverty-stricken Lemkos were attracted to left-wing and pro-Soviet political parties that called for the establishment of a Communist society.

Lemko-American newspapers (Lemko, 1928-39, Karpatska Rus 1938-present) and permanent organizations, such as the Lemko Association (Lemko Sojuz) in 1929 and the Carpatho-Russian American Center in 1939. Pro-Ukrainian Lemko inu,nigrants founded their own Organization for the Defense of the Lemko Region in 1934. Besides trying to fulfill the sociaf and cultural needs of Lemko immigrants, these organizations also sent moral and financial help to the European homeland.

In the homeland, the question of national identity -whether Lemko Rusyn, Russian, Ukrainian, or P61ish - was still being fought over among the intelligentsia. For its part. the populace in general, whether Greek Catholic or Orthodox, was content to have its own language taught in schools (after 1933) and its own Greek Catholic administration (after 1934). Therefore, with the exception of the far eastern districts [Sanok and Lisko) where a Ukrainian orientation predominated, the majority of villagers in the Lemko Region continued to identify as Lemkos or Rusyns and to have reinforced a sense of national affinity with their Rusyn brethren south of the mountains in Czechoslovakia. The Lemko ideology was best represented at the time by Metodij Trochanovs'kyj, the author of Lemko language elementary school texts (a primer and two readers) and editor of the weekly newspaper Lemko (1934-39); Dr. Orest Hnatysak. the head of the Lemko Association (Lemko Sojuz) in Krynica (Nowy Sacz district); and the lyric poet Ivan Rusenko.

The outbreak of World War 11 in September 1939 changed the situation radically. Under the combined attack of Mtler's Nazi Germany and Stalin's Soviet Union, Poland was wiped off the map and the San River became an international border between the two countries. As for the Lemko Region, it fell into Nazi hands as part of the so-called Generalgouvemement, a colony of "Greater Germany." The new German regime welcomed Ukrainians from east of the San who were fleeing Soviet rule. A Ukrainian Central Conunittee was set up in Cracow to coordinate cultural and educational activity.

The German rulers accepted the view that Lemkos were Ukrainians, so that Ukrainian technical schools (in Sanok and Krynica), a teachei's college (Krjffica), and cooperatives were set up throughout the Lemko Region. The Lemko Apostolic Administration of the Greek Catholic Church also received a new administrator, the Reverend Oicksander Malynovs'k-)j, who in contrast to his predecessors was sympathetic to the Ukrainian orientation. Besides their serious cultural work, Ukrainians from east of the San also were given jobs as policemen and as local officials in the German regime. These elements were less sympathetic to the peculiarities of the Lemko Region, especially the continuing Riisyn or pro-Russian national orientation of the population, the strength of pro-Russian Orthodoxy, and the pro-Soviet sympathies (by 1940 as many as 4,000 Lemkos voluntarfly en3igrated to the Soviet-controlled territory east of the San River).