The Memory of Our Fathers as the Dictate of Fidelity to the Homeland – Signs of the Cultural Identity of Kresowianie

Kresowianie (East Poles from behind the Bug river), who arrived in the so-called recoveredlands in 1945, are a focus of attention for many researchers representing various fields of socialsciences and humanities. The expatriates themselves try to consolidate the memory of the easternareas of the Second Polish Republic in various ways, to bring closer the history of those lands and,in this context, they reveal their own family histories. They care not only about items brought in theexpatriate luggage, but also about memories of their birthplace. Many of their stories and memoirs,which were collected by the author during her field studies in Silesia conducted continuouslysince 2009, have a heterogeneous character, constitute an original treasury of knowledge about thelocal borderland societies and thus provide the basis for theoretical thought. Researchers’ attentionfocuses on various ways of nurturing the memory of the “eastern borderland” by the inhabitants ofWicynia, a village left by them after the Second World War, a village in the East.