New dossier on Lemko-Rusyn in education in Poland

With the Regional Dossiers, the Mercator European Research Centre on Multilingualism and Language Learning, part of the Fryske Akademy, focuses on the education system in European regions that have an autochthonous lesser-used language, and on how the lesser-used language is embedded in this system.

The latest dossier was compiled in collaboration with the Mercator editorial team by Joanna Dolińska, PhD, assistant professor at the University of Warsaw, and Olena Duć-Fajfer, PhD, head of the Department of Literature at the Institute of East Slavonic Philology of the Jagiellonian University, and founder of the Lemko philology department at the Pedagogical University in Krakow.

About Lemko-Rusyn

The Lemko-Rusyn language belongs to the East-Slavonic branch of Slavic languages and is an indigenous language spoken on a daily basis by the community that has inhabited the Carpathian region since at least the Middle Ages. Lemko-Rusyn people have been officially recognised as an ethnic minority and their language as one of the 15 minority languages in Poland.

In the school year 2023/24, the Lemko-Rusyn language was taught in two pre-schools, 23 primary schools, as well as in several general secondary schools and one technical secondary school in the Lesser Poland, Lower Silesian, and Lubuskie Voivodeships in southern and western Poland.

More information and the free downloadable Regional Dossier The Lemko-Rusyn language in education in Poland (1st Edition), including summary translations in Lemko-Rusyn and Polish, can be found on our special Lemko-Rusyn webpage.