Posted on 08/08/2005 3:39:35 PM PDT by jb6
PASSAIC - There are few Lemkos left, and even fewer who speak their original Slavic dialect.
Most of those who do remember have gray hair. But over dill chicken soup in the meeting room of Saints Peter and Paul Russian Orthodox Cathedral on Sunday morning, the dozen or so members of the Lemko Association agreed on one thing:
They were proud to be Lemkos, even if they always have to explain themselves.
"We're a people without a country," said Maryann Bacsik, 53, of Little Falls, whose grandfather came here from Eastern Europe in 1907. "Many people my age have no idea what their nationality is."
The Lemkos are a Russian Orthodox minority who lived in the Carpathian Mountains, which run through what is now Ukraine, Poland, Romania and Slovakia. Their people were persecuted during World War I by the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and again in 1947, when they were displaced after the Soviet Communists took over Poland. Although estimates on the number of Lemkos remaining differ, about 60,000 are said to live in Poland today.
On Sunday, the members came together in Passaic to commemorate relatives who died during World War I. At the Divine Liturgy service, candles burned and the Rev. Andrey Kovalev said a blessing in honor of these victims of years ago.
Afterward, over a hearty lunch, a few members spoke about the cruel ways their relatives were treated.
Alex Heranchak's grandmother was shot because the Roman Catholic Hapsburg dynasty ruling the Austro-Hungarian Empire suppressed the Russian Orthodox. Mary Dubowchik said her grandfather was interned for months in a camp in Graz, now a part of Austria.
At one time, there were more than 10,000 Lemko Association members throughout the United States who would attend such commemorations. Now, only a few hundred are left.
Still, the remaining members of the American diaspora continue to celebrate their heritage. Some grew up thinking they were Russian or Czech. They later traced their roots to the mountains and learned about the dialect and the culture. Some, like Larry Garrahan, 69, made trips to the home villages of their Lemko forebears.
"I wanted the sense of knowing about my ancestors," he said. "I walked on the dirt streets my grandparents walked on."
Victoria Windish, 76, the Lemko Association's treasurer, was told as a girl that the Lemkos' dialect was "low Russian."
Now she calls it po naszomu - "our language." When she said the words, even the non-Lemko speakers in the room laughed. Everyone understood.
E-mail: kremenm@northjersey.com
"but the Metropolitan went where the new Rus power center was: Moscow."
Yes and several hundred years later, Moscow payed homage to its "roots" in Ukraine by committing unprecedented Genocide in 1921, 1932, and 1947 - 15 million dead Ukrainians.
So jb6, what do you think of the Yahoo report that the Kremlin was going to let the submariners die rather than get help from the west.
That it was an anonymous call to a news station that forced the Kremlin to concede.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/russiamilitary
Can't imagine how bad its going to be when oil gets off of its 10 year high.
"They HATE the fact that ukraine doesnt want to be part of russia and that it broke away."
Agreed
Try again, the Tsar freed Kiev from Polish-Lithuanian rule and then rebuilt the city that was barely a village of some 10,000 souls.
Lets not forget that the massacre was carried out by the likes of Stalin and Baria, both Georgians, and Krushchov, a Ukrainian or Felix a Pole. Yes there were Russians involved, like Molotov, but to you, your hatred blinds you to these facts. Nay, it doesn't blind you, you know them, but in your obessive all consuming hate, you ignore and lie about the facts so that you can drop everything upon the Russians alone. How convinient of you.
Can't imagine how bad its going to be when oil gets off of its 10 year high.
Unless we, the Chinese, the Indians and the EU suddenly cut our oil consumption by a massive stint, I highly doubt that will ever happen.
Back to support your socialist pals in office? Or maybe you can go hang with Yushchenko Jr and ride in his $130K Beemer? Nothing like making money off of all the symbols of your own revolution. Wow, no corruption there. /sarcasm
"Translation"
man, it bugs you so much that they had a free election, doesnt it? it bugs you so much you cant even argue the points.
making money is corruption? interesting. point of view. hey, at least the journalists are allowed to question the president, cuz when the russians were in charge, journalists who questioned the president wound up with their heads cut off, right?
socialist, hater you forgot hitler and fascist. it must be a slow day for you.
Niemen.
and the fact that russians were in charge of the soviet union, simply escapes you, how convinient. your communist apologies are amazing.
just in case you just formulated the official response.
Very different thing. Poland was a separate culture, state and nationality for several centuries. But 1000 years ago the Poles and Czechs were so closely related that border was fluid and they could have become one nation. But they differentiated and went separate ways.
The Ukrainians as a separate nation started to differentiate in XIX century not without Austrian/German involvement. Ukrainian statehood was created by the Soviets who wanted to divide and rule and so called Eastern Ukraine which is ethnically Russian was joined to make the new state more viable.
Of course there were regional differences for the whole history of Rus so the Ukrainians/Malorusy were real subgroup. What is wrong is to falsify history of Rus and creating a myth of evil Muscovy enslaving the noble Ukraine. It is wrong to project XIX/XXc ambitions into remote past.
It is very unhealthy and poisonous to create false past. Americans became a separate nation from the British, but they do not deny their English roots and culture. They know that their nation was born at the end of XVIII century and they do not need to butress their identity by lies and denigration of the English nation. Opposite - they are proud of their origin!
The "Moscow" you mention was not Russia it was the internationalist Bolshevik center of power which killed even more Russian than Ukrainians (BTW 15 million number is an exageration but I am not willing to get dragged into it).
These deaths were caused by the insane experiment with the collectivization which was done all over Russia and Ukraine. It was not anti-Ukrainian plot of Russians.
Yeah, I figured you'd see nothing wrong with Yushchenko Jr owning the patents of the "revolution" and making millions off of them. Some how I'm not surprised. It's not about capitalism, its about corruption. Making money off of your own political movement (making millions that is) is pure corruption, but some who are already corrupt (I'm talking about present company) obviously don't have issues, probably kicking themselves for not having thought of it themselves.
Which Russians? Lenin? Iron Felix? Trotsky? Stalin? Beria? Krushchov? I love your typical revisionism. As usual to be dismissed with the facts. Very few Russians were in power in the SU until the later third of the period, where it was eventually dismantled by Russians.
As for oil, don't expect to see oil ever drop past the $45 mark again. We've built the China juggernaut quite well thanks to the neocon(artists) and its a thirsty giant.
"The Ukrainians as a separate nation started to differentiate in XIX century not without Austrian/German involvement. Ukrainian statehood was created by the Soviets who wanted to divide and rule and so called Eastern Ukraine which is ethnically Russian was joined to make the new state more viable."
Spoken like a true Communist!
Its amazing that the Genocide Famine conveniently ended right at the Ruyssian/Ukrainian Border.
http://www.faminegenocide.com/resources/famine_map.html
Yes, with help like that from the Russians, who needs enemies.
I doubt that Communists would be so blunt in admitting their true motives. Rather they would say and like to believe that they are restoring the ethnic identities supressed by the "evil tsarism".
Its amazing that the Genocide Famine conveniently ended right at the Ruyssian/Ukrainian Border.
http://www.faminegenocide.com/resources/famine_map.html
[you guys save this map - it is very informative]
Dear Spanalot. You seem to have problems with reading this map. This map (pointed by YOU) shows clearly that the deaths caused by the famine were spread all over southern Russia and that in addition the eastern (ethnically Russian) parts of today's Ukraine were not less affected than the central/western parts (core ethnic Ukraine). The westernmost parts (where the Ukrainian separatist nationalism had its main base were very little affected).
Please, could you think harder?
To help you I include another map, which contains the borders of Ukraine and which shows the areas of Ukraine which either are ethnically Russian or gravitate toward Moscow: http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/ukraine/images/041124-election.gif. If you compare both maps you will see that the famine was present far beyond Ukrainian borders and that within these borders it affected the areas which are pro-Moscow.
To compare use Sea of Azov for orientation. Ukrainian state is to the west and north-west from this sea. All around (west, north, east) this sea the population is ethnically Russian.
Nice map, guess you can't read maps to well since Krasnador, Stavrapol, Rostov, Volgograd, Saratov are all in Russia proper, not to mention that Voroshilovgrad (Lughansk built by Catherine the Great as a factory town to build canons vs the Turks), Dnepepitrovsk, Kharkov, Donets, Belograd, Crimea, and Sumy are all majority Russian areas. Man, thanks for proving our point and showing yours to be the revisions crap that we've always stated. Thank you again. I'm sure this map was a Freudian Slip by you but hay, it's the truth and it shatters your lies, thanks again. :P
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