Testimony to a Vanishing Heritage

Helena Krasowska, Magdalena Pokrzyńska and
Olexiy Sukhomlynov

Testimony to a Vanishing Heritage

The Polish Language in Bukovina

Translated by Maria Fengler and Piotr Styk
Maps by Barbara Grunwald-Hajdasz

Berlin · Bruxelles · Chennai · Lausanne · New York · Oxford

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Krasowska, Helena, author. | Pokrzyńska, Magdalena, author. | Sukhomlynov, Oleksiĭ, author. | Fengler, Maria, translator. | Styk, Piotr, translator.

Title: Testimony to a vanishing heritage : The Polish language in Bukovina / Helena Krasowska, Magdalena Pokrzyńska, Olexiy Sukhomlynov. Translated by Maria Fengler and Piotr Styk.

Other titles: Świadectwo zanikającego dziedzictwa. English

Description: Oxford ; New York : Peter Lang, 2025. | Series: Sprach- und Kulturkontakte in Europas Mitte. Studien zur Slawistik und Germanistik, 2192-7170 ; 20 | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2025002333 (print) | LCCN 2025002334 (ebook) | ISBN 9783631879610 (hardback) | ISBN 9783631929681 (ebook) | ISBN 9783631935736 (epub)

Subjects: LCSH: Polish language--Bukovina (Romania and Ukraine)--Spoken Polish. | Polish people--Bukovina (Romania and Ukraine)--Languages. | Bukovina (Romania and Ukraine)--Society.

Classification: LCC PG6791 .K7213 2025 (print) | LCC PG6791 (ebook) | DDC 491.8/7094779--dc23/eng/20250210

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2025002333

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2025002334

Bibliographic Information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek

The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data is available in the internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de.

Cover Image:

© Barbara Grunwald-Hajdasz | Map

The Publication is funded by Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Republic of Poland as a part of the National Programme for the Development of the Humanities, project no. NPRH/U21/SP/507307/2021/11.

ISSN 2192-7170

ISBN 978-3-631-87961-0 (Print)

ISBN 978-3-631-92968-1 (ePDF)

ISBN 978-3-631-93573-6 (ePUB)

DOI 10.3726/b22770

© 2025 Peter Lang Group AG, Lausanne (Switzerland)

Published by Peter Lang GmbH, Berlin (Germany)

info@peterlang.com

All rights reserved.

All parts of this publication are protected by copyright.

Any utilization outside the strict limits of the copyright law, without the permission of the publisher, is forbidden and liable to prosecution.

This applies in particular to reproductions, translations, microfilming, and storage and processing in electronic retrieval systems.

This publication has been peer reviewed.

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Contents

Introduction

Review of Research on the Language and Culture of Bukovinian Poles

Aim and Scope of the Book

Methods of the Study

Map of Localities Included in the Study

1. Bukovina: The Region and the People

1.1 A Historical and Cultural Picture of Bukovina

1.2 Demographic Characteristics of the Study Area

1.3 Poles in Bukovina

2. The People and the Language

2.1 Characteristics of the Polish Language in Bukovina

2.1.1 The Dialect of Polish Highlanders in Bukovina

2.1.2 Spoken Bukovinian Polish

2.1.3 Spoken Polish in Vicșani

2.1.4 Spoken Polish in Cacica

2.1.5 Spoken Polish in Bulai

2.1.6 Common Features of Polish in Bukovina

2.1.7 Varieties of Polish in Bukovina

2.2 Changes in the Functions of the Polish Language in Bukovina

2.2.1 Polish in Daily Communication

2.2.2 The Choice of Language and Religion in Mixed Families

2.2.3 Opportunities for Learning Polish

2.2.4 Reading and Writing Skills

2.2.5 Language as Cultural Heritage: Preservation and Loss

3. Language and Traditions

3.1 Language as a Guide to the Life and Culture of Bukovinian Poles

3.2 Texts: Annual Feasts and Festivals in Bukovina

3.2.1 Autumn and Winter

3.2.2 Spring

3.2.3 Summer

Conclusion

Streszczenie

List of Localities Included in the Study

List of Interviewees

List of Tables

Bibliography

Index of Names

Introduction

Bukovina is a geographical and historical region stretching between the Carpathians and the middle Dniester River. The Habsburg Empire, which acquired the territory in the late eighteenth century, pursued the policy of settlement of these densely forested and sparsely populated areas, creating advantageous legal and institutional conditions for the newcomers. As a result, settlers began to arrive in Bukovina from the entire Habsburg realm, including its Polish territories. This process resulted in the emergence of a multi-ethnic and multi-religious community of the province. In the interwar period, Bukovina was part of Romania. Since the Second World War, the region has been divided between two countries: the north – with Chernivtsi (Rom. Cernăuți, the historical regional capital), which was taken over by Stalin and became part of the Soviet Union – is in Ukraine; the south, with the town of Suceava – in Romania.

This book documents the spoken Polish language in Bukovina. It is a result of the research project entitled The Polish Language in Carpathian Bukovina: Documenting a Vanishing National Heritage (Mowa polska na Bukowinie Karpackiej: Dokumentacja zanikającego dziedzictwa narodowego), conducted in 2015–2018 under the National Programme for the Development of Humanities, funded by the Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education. The book presents selected results of research among the oldest generation of the inhabitants of the region. Importantly, the study was carried out using the same method and research tools both in the Romanian and Ukrainian part of Bukovina, which makes it the first successfully accomplished systematic and methodologically coherent project of this kind in the entire historical province.

The volume consists of three parts. The first one, “Bukovina: The Region and the People”, was prepared for translation by Helena Krasowska and Olexiy Sukhomlynov. This part presents the history of the multicultural and multilingual region of Bukovina, focusing on the local Poles, their settlement, growing population, and activities of Polish organisations. It is the Poles of Bukovina, who still live in this region, that are the protagonists of this book: they provide a testimony of Polish culture in the region.

The second part, “The People and the Language”, written by Helena Krasowska, is divided into two chapters. The first one considers the diversity of the Polish language in Bukovina as well as its features common to all speakers in the region. The author proposes an innovative typology of the local dialects of Polish in Bukovina and describes their grammatical characteristics, which she compares to the grammatical features of General Polish. The second chapter is devoted to the social environment in which local Polish evolved and the external conditions influencing this process. Taking into account the regional peculiarities of Bukovina, the religious context, and the shifts of political borders, the author analyses the language choices of the Polish community and the opportunities for learning and communicating in Polish. She also diagnoses the reasons for the preservation or loss of linguistic continuity in the localities under study.

The third part, “Language and Traditions”, authored and compiled by Magdalena Pokrzyńska, aims mainly to provide the reader with a variety of examples of the living speech of Bukovinian Poles. This part contains excerpts from interviews recorded in a number of localities in the region, in which the participants of the study talk about the annual cycle of feasts and festivals. The excerpts are preceded by a commentary introducing issues of the relationship between language and culture and social life, and indicating the main traditions and feasts celebrated by Poles in Bukovina as part of the annual cycle. The author also considers the historical context of their socio-cultural life and their traditional customs, noting the processes and phenomena that can be observed in this respect. This part of the book is designed in such a way that dialectal texts, in which the participants talk about their traditions, constitute an independent whole, and are not only an illustration and basis for analysis. They are arranged according to the seasons of the year, the part of the region (northern and southern Bukovina), and the localities where they were recorded. Considering that the preceding commentary has a supplementary function, the excerpts can be read independently. In this way, the reader can gain an insight into the world of Bukovinian Poles and their annual feasts and festivals.

The Introduction and Conclusion were written jointly by all three authors. The book also includes a list of interviewees, a list of tables, and a bibliography.

This volume has been written with a broad readership in mind: not only scholars, who can find here material for their studies, but also the general reading public, namely people interested in the Polish cultural heritage, social memory, language, ethnography, changes in collective life, and so on. It is a record of Polish culture abroad, which has been shaped by different historical processes, both global and those characteristic of this part of Europe. Reading this book provides an opportunity to make a mental journey along the paths once taken by Poles leaving the country for foreign lands, with Bukovina as one of their destinations. It was there, in the land on the Prut and Seret Rivers, that some of them began their new life a long time ago. Since then, they have created their own culture, which we can now explore thanks to their descendants, who offer us their guidance using their own Bukovinian dialects of Polish. We hope that this volume, which presents a fragment of their reality, will contribute to preserving their heritage for future generations.