Mike: Nice photos.
Thank you very much for posting this portfolio and the great explanation of the Lemko people and their sad fate. "Lemko" or "Lemk" is the Polish name for the Rusyn ethnic group. Rusyns never had a nation of their own, and lived in eastern Slovakia, Western Ukraine and Southern Poland, in the foothills of the Carpathian Mountains. They are, therefore, often called Carpatho-Rusyns or Carpathian Russians. My father's parents were Rusyns who fled Hungarian occupied Slovakia in the 1890s. The area they came from was seized by the Soviet Union during WW II, and now is the Zakarpakskaya region of western Ukraine. Poland relocated all of the Rusyns (Lemkos) in Poland out of their native villages to distant part of Poland, virtually eradicating their culture. Rusyns in Ukraine have mostly been forced to assimilate into the Ukrainian culture. Only in Eastern Slovakia does the Rusyn way of life survive to some extent. Today, more people who identify themselves a Rusyns life in North America than in all of Europe. Here, the culture is largely kept alive by their churches, Eastern Orthodox or Byzantine Rite Roman Catholic. Rusyn-American that you may be familiar with include: Sandra Dee, Tom Ridge (Rusyn mother), Tom Selleck (Rusyn mother), Sergeant Michael Strank (the leader of the Iwo Jima flag raisers), Robert Urich, Andy Warhol, and band leader Peter Wilhousky. For information on the Rusyns, the People without a Country, see: http://www.carpatho-rusyn.org/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rusyns On 10/27/06, mike wilson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > The Lemk (pronounced Wemk in Polish) is an ethnic group from Central > Europe, specifically south eastern Poland and south western Ukraine. As > with so many of that ilk, they were hounded from their homes by both the > Nazis and the Soviets, never to return. > http://www.lemko.org/ > > On a recent visit, I stumbled across a Lemko restaurant and spent a > wonderful evening being regaled with the folk music of the region. At > first by a trio of musicians then, later in the evening, by a group of > students that came in to drink and sing along. The friend that was with > me ended up dancing with the waiter. 8-) > > The pictures are not of the best quality (it was much darker than it > appears) but I hope they give an impression of the enjoyment I had that > evening. > > http://home.fotocommunity.com/mike.a.wilson/index.php?id=529253&g=242560 > > DL/2, A50/1.7 mostly > > mike > > -- > PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List > [email protected] > http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net > -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
