Summary:
22nd Lemko “Vatra in Exile”

The 22nd festival of Lemko culture “Vatra na Chuzhŷni,” has just taken place in the village of Michałów near Lubin in Poland. It began on Friday, 2 August and continued throughout the early morning of Sunday, 4 August. Entertainment included ensembles from Poland, Ukraine, Croatia, Slovakia, Romania, as well as exotic musicians from Japan (“Drums from Japan") and Mexico (“Tonalli Ambar”), invited by the Lemko folk ensemble “Kŷchera.” There were poetic and visual arts competitions for children and the youth, as well as promotion of a new book by Olena Duć-Fajfer on Lemko literature of the late 19th and the early 20th century, and a poetic evening of Piotr Trochanowski/Murianka, the 2002 laureate of the Aleksander Dukhnovych Prize in Rusyn Literature. A screening of portions of a movie on Operation “Vistula” that is being produced this summer was not possible due to technical difficulties. While the organizers offered a lot of activities that took place on and near the stage, many participants spent a considerable amount of time socializing near their tents, treating the festival as a unique opportunity to meet with their relatives and friends spread across the western and northern territories of Poland.

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The Vatra’s program in Lemko and Polish is here.

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