Mazurzy na Podolu Wschodnim: pamięć, tożsamość i dziedzictwo
Masurians in the East Podolia: memory, identity and heritage

Summary/Abstract: The theme of this article is specific identity and memory of the Polish population in the selected villages of Khmelnytskyi Raion of Ukraine, with the second most numerous Polish population in Ukraine. The specificity of this Polish population results from a long habitation in the same territory. From the moment they arrived on Podolia until their deportations to Kazakhstan and Siberia in the 1930s, this group did not migrate at all. The article is based on research conducted in three the so-called “Masurian” villages. The inhabitants of these areas are defined as Masurians – they are descendants of Polish peasants who settled therein the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The text shows the identity of the ethnic community of “Masurian” villages and the memory of their Polish peasant roots. Hundreds years of living together in one region and endogamy rules in force since the Second World War have contributed to the fact that these local communities have preserved memory of their Polish and peasant origin, as well as their specific dialect and religion.

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