The 1947 Operation Vistula in the Light of Oral Narratives of Ukrainian Settlers: A History of Studies and Themes

Author

KHALIUK LESIA

a Ph.D. in Philology, a junior research fellow at Ukrainian and Foreign Folklore Studies Department of the M. Rylskyi Institute of Art Studies, Folkloristics and Ethnology of the NAS of Ukraine

The 1947 Operation Vistula in the Light of Oral Narratives of Ukrainian Settlers: A History of Studies and Themes

Abstract

Ukrainian and foreign ethnographers are purposefully engaged in the study of the achievements of oral history and literature, which is a kind of artistic chronicle of historical events of the twentieth century. It is precisely for such events that the Ukrainians were relocated in 1947 from Lemkivshchyna, Kholmshchyna, Pidlyashshya and Nadsyany in the northwest lands of Poland , known as the "Wisla Action".Today, unjustly forgotten chronicle-documentary materials, bibliographical reference and fiction literature, little-known domestic and foreign archival sources, as well as oral histories of witnesses of this tragedy, are a source for the knowledge of the worldview of the Ukrainian people and its history.Among the Ukrainian printing presses of Poland, the weekly "Nashe Slowo", the edition «Watra», the two-month publishing "Besida" occupy an important place. Interestingly from a scientific point of view, there are also books and articles devoted to the history of individual villages in Lemkivshchyna, where the authors present the history of their villages, their families, tell about the course of resettlement and the future life of Ukrainians in new lands for them. They mostly have the character of author's memories. Similar writings about the history of Ukrainian villages and resettlement have also been published in Ukraine.The issue presents oral narratives of resettlement, which depicts the historical background of the above texts and the reasons for their occurrence and existence. It should be noted that the stories of former settlers do not coincide in many ways, and sometimes they are very different from the images and formulations approved by the official historiography.

Keywords

oral folk stories, narrative, memorate, the action Wisla, Ukrainians-migrants, Lemkіvshchynа, Holmshchуnа and Pіdljashja, the western and northern lands, national identity, small homeland.

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