Za górami, za lasami... albo granica jak niewidzialny mur. Endemizm zakarpackiego odcinka pogranicza ukraińsko-polskiego

The aim of the article is to introduce a neglected section of the Ukrainian-Polish borderland, Transcarpathia, within the area of the sociology of borderland. The author sheds some light on the ethnic, geographical and political peculiarity of this region, with special attention paid to its isolation from Poland, one of the oblast’s close neighbours. Apart from the relevant literature (rather poor), the article is based on the author’s own observations made in a few Transcarpathian villages in 2014 and 2015 as well as on their inhabitants’ opinions concerning the problems with opening up the border-crossing in Lubnya. The gist of the considerations is to show different shades of Transcarpathia’s isolation from Poland which results in the region’s inhabitants’ lack of contacts with Poles and lack of knowledge on Poland. Consequently, Lubnya and its Polish neighbour from over the mountains, Wołosate, being geographically very close, are socially and culturally quite distant, not to say – alien. The article concludes with a range theoretical conceptions that might be applied in order to understand better the reality of the Transcarpathian section of the Ukrainian-Polish borderland.