Chapter III - The Ukrainian national movement

Summary

The period immediately following the war furthered the development of the Ukrainian movement in the Lemko region. The collapse of the ZUNR (Western Ukrainian National Republic) in June 1919 caused migrations of the Ukrainian intelligentsia, mainly teachers, from Eastern Galicia to the western part of the region, where Polish-Ukrainian relations were not as strained. School authorities were eager to hire Ukrainians in Lemko schools, fearful of political provocations above all from the Moscophile intelligentsia. In these more favorable circumstances, the western Lemko region acquired great numbers of Ukrainian teachers, who were able to regenerate the pedagogical organization which had existed there before 1914.

The ranks of the secular intelligence were reinforced by military men. In autumn of 1918 a group of soldiers and officers from Ukrainian infantry regiments stationed in Nowy Sącz and Zakopane, which had been disarmed by the Polish authorities in the early days of November settled in the Lemko region. Furthermore, the postwar period was also characterized by an inflow of the younger generation of Greek Catholic clergymen, whose national consciousness had matured in confrontation with the Ukrainian struggle for nationhood. The secular and clergy intelligentsia shaped the substance of organizational work, took command of cultural, educational, and economic institutions, and represented the Ukrainian movement in the political life of the Polish nation.

The Prosvita Society and the Lemko Commission

The strongest Ukrainian cultural and educational organization in the Lemko region was the Prosvita Society.