‘They have so dismantled my orthodox church / As if they had dismantled my world’. Images of Orthodox churches in Lemko poetry by Władysław Graban and Jerzy Harasymowicz

Abstract

This paper aims to present and explain the relationship between the identities of Władysław Graban and Jerzy Harasymowicz and the history and culture of the Lemko community and selected aspects of the depiction of the Orthodox church in their Lemko poetry. In order to prove that the use of images of Orthodox churches in the poetry of both authors is the main means of building the poetic image of Lemkivshchyna in the times after 1947 and to show this relation, the importance of religion for the identity of the analysed poets was described and the images of Orthodox churches in their poetry were analysed. The research was conducted in the field of internal comparative literature, taking into account cultural theories of literature, history and religious studies.