Somebody Else’s Past – Our Memory: About Practicing Memory in the Bieszczady Region

The article concerns the problem of cultural memory in this particular case when the memory relates to the past, “belonging” to another person rather than the community of those who remember. It is in the Bieszczady Mountains, settled again after the Second World War and the displacements of the Boyko (Ukrainian) population, where one can now observe cultural practices used to reach for someone else’s past, a kind of “development” and adjustment of this past with contemporary needs of residents and tourists. The postwar and post-displacement Bieszczady region also has its new mytho-history, their own pioneering and hoodlum-like narratives of memory, which coexist with the memory of not-your past, still a little bit uncomfortable, but already recognised as a characteristic of the place. The author tries to show both the idea of the past as well as activities focused on memory, creating memory that is defined as practising memory. What is significant here is the transition from the ideas of the past to practising memory, which stems from the belief of the author that the ideas of the past of the Bieszczady have the potential to activate people.

 

Phantom Pain, or about Greek Catholic Churches Demolition and Divine Justice in the Bieszczady Region after 1947

After the year 1947, as a result of displacements of Ukrainian population, cultural landscape of the Bieszczady Mountains has undergone major transformation. They left behind their homesteads and temples of foreign ceremonies, which represented and labeled unfamiliar values, without giving the new area a chance for complete customization. Thus its demolition or transformation into churches was for Communist authority, and new residents of those lands, psychologically needed to create the Bieszczady world from the beginning. Since the devastation of the Sanctuary often contradicted with Christian values, thus very often people from outside were employed to perform those tasks. Everything was taking place to the ambient reaction of the people, according to the principle of not mixing in the Will of God. Inscribed by me records from several Bieszczady town residents show however that phantom pain resulting from deeply hidden sense of guilt is not alien to them, and the story of a penalty of God, which affected the perpetrators, adopted the “absolving” function.
 

Poles and Jews from the Bieszczady and Pogórze Przemyskie in the Biographical Narratives of People Displaced in the Operation Vistula. Research Report

The article focuses on showing the representations of Poles and Jews in bibliographic narratives of people of Ukrainian origin displaced from areas of the Bieszczady and Pogórze Przemyskie within the Operation Vistula. Using the method of oral history, the author conducted several interviews. In each of them there appeared the “others” from the immediate neighbourhood, which are remembered as the participants of shared fun, family members, or the neighbours, with whom the most important holidays were celebrated. The author does not assess whether the remembered images correspond to contemporary reality, which ultimately, due to the war and ethnic cleansing, ceased to exist. He believes, however, that the strong presence of Poles and Jews in the memories of his interlocutors proves that these “others” were an important fragment of the lost world.

 

Human Beings – Animals and Animals as Human Beings. Tar Makers in Relation to the Nature

The article discusses the question of human-nature relation among the group of tar makers and their families, living in Bieszczady mountains. Tar makers are the forestry workers making charcoal in resorts. This profession is traditional for this region and the neighbouring. The main consequences of working as a tar maker are the specific isolation from the society and living surrounded by forest. Based on a results of a fieldwork carried out in Bieszczady in January 2014, author tries to answer the question, whether the specifity of the tar maker profession influences the vision of nature, flora and fauna, and the relation between man and nature. By analysing the language used to describe the forest and generally the nature and by asking about the personal feelings and stories about work, forest, plants, pets and wild animals, the author is trying to discover the key used to conceptualize the place of humans in the natural world and to place it in the wider context of the nature – culture and human - animal relation present in the European culture.

Bieszczady: At Source of Rebelion

The article presents the results of field studies carried out in the Bieszczady (2015) during which I was concerned with the alternative culture(s) of the 70s and the 80s. Within my research interests three main themes can be identified: history of the punk movement and the hippie movement in the Bieszczady Mountains and recognition of the „zakapior” as a rebel and outsider. During my stay in the field I tried to get from the subjects their definitions and views on the nature of the rebellion, as well as learn how the events associated with these phenomena have been preserved in the memory of their participants.