DATELINE ZDYNIA: Poland's Lemkos hold 14th annual Vatra (09/15/96)

DATELINE ZDYNIA: Poland's Lemkos hold 14th annual Vatra

by Helen Smindak

ZDYNIA, Poland - The Lemko people are a hardy lot. They are accustomed to eking out a living in the rather stringent farming conditions of southeastern Poland, and to walking long distances on hilly terrain in any weather.

When the 14th annual Lemko Vatra blossomed here for three days in July in a natural amphitheater site, they did not flinch during two days of cloudbursts and pouring rain. Sheltered by umbrellas or huddled inside pup-tents on the hillside facing the covered stage, they applauded festival performances by entertainers from Poland, Slovakia and Ukraine.

The third day - Sunday - brought welcome sunshine and a stream of cars and buses to fill acres of meadowland on the periphery of the Vatra (literally, bonfire, figuratively, festival). Local residents, both Polish and Lemko, came on foot, swelling the crowds into the thousands.

Delores Sheptak, who hails from the Canadian province of Manitoba, made a spur-of-the-moment visit from Ukraine with relatives who live in Lviv. The occasion brought a family reunion as Ms. Sheptak and a cousin from Mississauga, Ontario, gathered with their Ukrainian kinfolk at the Lemko home of the Fil family, to whom she is also related.

A 40-something Lemko from Ivano-Frankivske, Ukraine, brought his Ukrainian wife and teenage son to see the land where his parents had lived all their lives.

Among festival attendees were many visitors from Ukraine, some from the United States, and at least one family from Australia.

Festival organizers estimated the overall attendance at 5,000 to 6,000,

As the warm sun dried muddy roads on Sunday, people gathered around small campfires or sat in the shade of two huge parachute-like canopies, catching up on family and clan news. Good-humored banter and group singing held sway in the daytime, while revelry and dancing took over in the evening.

Though the over-all tenor of the festival was merry, there were recollections in many minds of the bitter post-war years, when the Lemkos experienced imprisonment in concentration camps and resettlement to Ukraine and other parts of Poland.

The Polish government's attempt to wipe out this minority group culminated in the infamous Akcja Visla of 1947, when all remaining Lemkos were forcibly resettled, with only minutes to pack before being hustled aboard freight cars headed for western Poland or Ukraine.

Until 1945, this picturesque northern fringe of the Carpathian mountain chain had been 99 percent Lemko, with Poles, Jews and Gypsies making up the remaining 1 percent of the population.

With the festival now in its sixth year at Zdynia, the grounds include permanent office quarters for the festival organizers, the Association of Ukrainian Lemkos of Poland; an exchange center (for currency exchanging); refreshment and vendors' booths; the covered stage; and concrete flooring for the nylon-roofed outdoor dining pavilions. Still to be completed is a Lemko-style log cabin, with dressing rooms and other facilities for performers and production assistants.

Vendors offering handicrafts, art work and foods set up shop in makeshift stalls along the fair's central road, while ordinary citizens from Ukraine hawked glassware, vodka and second-hand items from blankets spread on the grass outside the main entrance.

Andriy Khomyk, a 1986 graduate of the Lviv State Institute of Applied and Decorative Arts, displayed his unique reverse paintings on glass at a stand not far from the stage. The framed art depicted rites and customs that comprise a traditional Ukrainian wedding.

Folk ensembles abound

There was plenty to buy, and much to see, especially on stage, as one performing group followed another. With folk dress differing from village to village, a variety of colorful costumes appeared before the spectators.

Sports events, competitions such as log-sawing, and contests for best housewife, best mayor and Miss Vatra XIV added variety and humor to the non-stop stage program. Youngsters were included in festival events with competitions in art work, recitation and singing.

From Ukraine came such Lemko folk ensembles as Yavorina of Chortkiv, Studenka of Kalush, the children's group Kalynonka of Drohobych, Lemkivska Studenka of Boryslav, and Lemkovyna of Lviv/Rudno, as well as the Vertep ensemble of Ternopil.

Local ensembles included the Oslavliany group from Mokre, Potochok from Potoky, Lemkovyna from Bilianka and Mriya from Horlytsia. Performances by the popular Kuchera song-and-dance ensemble from Legnica in western Poland were enthusiastically received.

Slovakia contributed the Reviliak family of Bardiyev and the Kurivchany folk ensemble led by Dr. Mykola Mushynka of Presov. Dr. Mushynka, a native of the village of Kuriv, where the ensemble is based, selects a different cycle of the years and a specific family event for each performance; this year, a traditional welcome to spring and a christening were re-enacted.

A folklorist and a member of Safarik University's Chair of Ukrainian Studies faculty, Dr. Mushynka donned a heavy "chuha" (long, embroidery-trimmed wool cloak) and carried a shepherd's staff as he appeared with the Kuriv ensemble. (His long, drooping Shevchenko-sstyle whiskers brought him the festival's "longest whiskers" award.)

Other contest winners included Dorata Klopach of Horlytsia - Miss Vatra XIV; Maria Gudzowska, Ternopil, Ukraine - best housewife; and Jan Swiatkowski of Yahoda, Poland - best mayor.

Sunday's program was preceded by early morning liturgies. Greek-Catholic Lemkos congregated at a temporary outdoor chapel set on a hillside near the Vatra, while Lemkos of the Orthodox faith gathered in Zdynia's 18th-century wooden church.

The Orthodox services included a procession of priests and worshippers to the cemetery for special ceremonies at the grave of the Rev. Maksym Sandovycz, an Orthodox priest executed by the Austrians in 1915.

The final day of the festival also included the laying of memorial wreaths at the village of Novytsia, in memory of the Lemko patriot Bohdan Ihor Antonych; at Losye, for Yakiw Dudra; at Ustia Ruske, for Lemkos who died in the struggle for freedom; and at Bortne, for victims of the Talerhoff concentration camp.

Commemorative events honoring two famous Lemkos scheduled for the Thursday before the festival did not take place. One was the 140th anniversary of the birth of the Rev. Nikifor Leshchyshak, a folklore enthusiast who collected Lemko folk songs, tales, legends and proverbs.

The other was the 100th anniversary of the birth of the primitive painter, Nikifor Epiphany Dvorniak. A memorial plaque intended for the Nikifor Museum in the resort town of Krynica could not be installed because the Ukrainian inscription had been placed above the Polish, instead of vice-versa, as Polish law dictates.

Lemkos know about the two Nikifors, but few if any may know another celebrated name that belongs to Lemko ranks: Plishka. The paternal grandparents of New York's Metropolitan Opera star Paul Plishka lived in the village of Vyzhny Yablinky, in the Lisko district of southeastern Poland.

Most Lemkos acknowledge that they are part of the Ukrainian ethnic grouping, although some insist that the Lemko people are a separate "nation" with no ties to any Eastern European state.

The name Lemko drives from the term "lem" (meaning just or only), frequently used in Lemko conversation.

Vasyl Shlanta, president of the Association of Ukrainian Lemkos in Poland, which publishes the quarterly bulletin Vatra, said the festival was organized by a committee that included himself, Alexander Maslij, Petro Shafran, Stefan Hladyk and Petro Chukhta. Sponsors included the regional office of the Polish Ministry of Culture and Events, the Organization in Defense of Lemkivshchyna, and a number of private firms and individuals from Horlytsia, where many Lemkos now reside.