ORAL HISTORY: MIGRATION AND LOCAL IDENTITIES - Academia

Migration and Identitya stick for them”. 3 My female interlocutors eagerly agreed to sing.Doing this, they have retained an archaic style of guttural singing,which is very characteristic of Kurpie.The second generation of interlocutors, born in Przytuły-Las, arepeople who either stayed in the village to run a farm or are educatedpeople, often graduates of advanced studies who have emigrated fromthe village. In both groups the definition of a Kurp (as an answer toHeather’s question) represented positive stereotypes and myths functioningin the culture: “A Kurp is brave and valiant”, “Kurpies didn’tknow serfdom”, “Kurpies were good shooters”, “Kurpies were good forestbeekeepers”. Use of the past tense is evidence of the fact that this isa “borrowed” definition, not one based on individual experience. However,they have also experienced “being a Kurp”. Here Mrs. Kamińskarecollects that in the 1950s, when she was attending a nearby elementaryschool, she was many times “nicknamed “a Kurp’”. 4 Another narratorremembered the linguistic errors that he used to make at school:by instinctively using a dialect, he exposed himself to the reprimandsof the teacher (who took care that the students used proper Polish language)and to the derisions of his classmates (who also used a local dialect,but different from the Kurpie dialect). This trauma is still insidehim today, along with a regret that he allowed a part of his identity tobe taken away from him—the identity that he now wants to nurtureby reading ethnographic literature about Kurpie, listening to recordingsof folk music, etc.155The second generation grew up under a communist regime,which, as we all know, licensed folk culture. Folkloristic groups anda national cooperative of craftsmanship and folk art were to retainsoothed folklore, adjusted to the needs of entertainment. Besidesthat, all displays of local cultural dissimilarity were destroyed. Forquite a long time the Kurpies—like the Podhale highlanders—resistedattempts to be uprooted from their culture. Unfortunately, in thecase of a lonely island like Przytuły-Las, there were additional circumstanceswhich caused the children of the migrant “strangers” to wantto quickly assimilate with the community. As far as after foundingthe village standard, the first generation participated in processions3Weronika Karolin, interview by author, August 2003.4Halina Kamińska, personal communication in May 2003.