Book overview
Beyond the San tells the story of the development of peasant national identity in the San River Valley of Subcarpathian Poland (Podkarpackie). Through the experiences of the extended Filipczak family, we see how in the mountain village of Liszna peasants held a mixture of pagan Slavic and Christian beliefs as they existed under a system of serfdom. Over the centuries, the people polonized, as the majority of families moved from Greek Catholicism to Roman Catholicism while a few families maintained the Eastern rite. Under Galician-Austrian rule in the 19th century, the peasants are liberated from serfdom, but face poverty, and many are forced to leave the village for the nearby city of Sanok. Others find opportunities in craftwork and education. Covering themes in education, music, industrialization, urbanization, antisemitism, and populist politics, Beyond the San covers the arrival of modern national identity in the San Valley as one branch of the Filipczaks becomes Ukrainian while another becomes Polish. The book traces the parallel careers of Iwan Filipczak a.k.a. Ivan Fylypchak (b. 1871), a teacher, author, museum worker and Ukrainian cultural activist, and Bronislaw Filipczak (b. 1877) a notary, choir director, museum worker, and Polish cultural activist. Through their own writings, we see how the two men navigated the Austrian education system, World War I, the Polish-Ukrainian War (1918-1919), Polish independence, emigration of relatives, and interwar ethnic strife between Poles, Jews, and Ukrainians, The work ends with World War II and its aftermath covering the Nazi and Soviet occupations of Poland, the Holocaust, the Volhynian massacres, partisan warfare, Siberian deportations, and Operation Vistula. The author, an American, uses his own attempts to understand the historical legacies of the region to frame the experiences of his European ancestors, creating a work that is not strictly a literary travelog, a genealogy, or a scholarly history, but combines elements of all three.
