Post by kaima on Jul 4, 2020 9:46:26 GMT -7
AN INTERVIEW WITH BOGDAN GAMBAL, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF OF THE LEMKO RADIO LEM.FM
JUNE 10, 2019 Tomasz Plaskota
Currently, reading and writing in Lemko is rare. We run the LEM.FM radio so that our language does not disappear - says Bogdan Gambal, editor-in-chief of the station in an interview with Tomasz Plaskota.
Before we talk about the Lemko radio LEM.FM I would like to ask who the Lemkos are, how numerous are the community and where they live?
The Lemkos is the proper name of an ethnic group recognized in Poland, it is an ethnonym. In addition to this one own name popular in Poland, members of the group speak of themselves as Ruthenians, Ruthenians, or the Carpathian Ruthenians. Today, it is believed that the subjective criteria for determining group identity are the subjective declarations of members. That is why it was only the Lemkos themselves, the activities of national "awakers" - Greek Catholic clergy, intelligentsia and politicians, and the marked by the Carpathian Ruthenians of differences and distance from other Ruthenian groups visible from the mid-nineteenth century that resulted in the creation of an ideological, linguistic, cultural and religious community in the Carpathian area and among the diaspora. The Lemkos emphasize that they are indigenous peoples living in their historic lands: in Poland in the Lemko region and in the historical lands of the crown of St. Stefan, in today's Hungary (mainly in the Borszod and Sabolcz counties), Slovakia in the Prešov Region, Vojvodina in Serbia and Ukraine in the Transcarpathian Oblast. Smaller groups of Lemkos live in Romanian Maramures, near Vukovar in Croatia and western Bohemia. In addition, the Lemkos live in a diaspora in many countries, but most in the United States. According to the results of the 2011 National Census, about 10,000 people live in Poland who have declared their Lemko ethnicity. The census also identified a marginal group of people of Lemkos origin who defined their nationality as Ukrainians. This group has 283 people. in Slovakia in the Prešov Region, in Vojvodina in Serbia and in Ukraine in the Transcarpathian Oblast. Smaller groups of Lemkos live in Romanian Maramures, near Vukovar in Croatia and western Bohemia. In addition, the Lemkos live in a diaspora in many countries, but most in the United States. According to the results of the 2011 National Census, about 10,000 people live in Poland who have declared their Lemko ethnicity. The census also identified a marginal group of people of Lemkos origin who defined their nationality as Ukrainians. This group has 283 people. in Slovakia in the Prešov Region, in Vojvodina in Serbia and in Ukraine in the Transcarpathian Oblast. Smaller groups of Lemkos live in Romanian Maramures, near Vukovar in Croatia and western Bohemia. In addition, the Lemkos live in a diaspora in many countries, but most in the United States. According to the results of the 2011 National Census, about 10,000 people live in Poland who have declared their Lemko ethnicity. The census also identified a marginal group of people of Lemkos origin who defined their nationality as Ukrainians. This group has 283 people. In addition, the Lemkos live in a diaspora in many countries, but most in the United States. According to the results of the 2011 National Census, about 10,000 people live in Poland who have declared their Lemko ethnicity. The census also identified a marginal group of people of Lemkos origin who defined their nationality as Ukrainians. This group has 283 people. In addition, the Lemkos live in a diaspora in many countries, but most in the United States. According to the results of the 2011 National Census, about 10,000 people live in Poland who have declared their Lemko ethnicity. The census also identified a marginal group of people of Lemkos origin who defined their nationality as Ukrainians. This group has 283 people.
LEM.FM is one of the few radio stations in Poland broadcasting for the ethnic minority and the only Lemko radio in our country. Do you often broadcast? Where can you listen to you?
You can listen to us 24 hours a day on the internet. We have been broadcasting the program for eight years, since June 2011. You can hear news and literary programs from abroad, correspondence programs, commentaries as well as reports from cultural and patriotic events. We have a block of religious programs and even radio plays. We broadcast most broadcasts in our native language - in Lemko (Ruthenian). We also run the information portal www.lem.fm. You can find information, announcements of ceremonies, cultural events, games as well as information about new publications. There are comments, a corner of humor, texts of the old Lemko press. Initially, we were just an internet radio, but we are called LEM.FM, so "FM" obliges. From the beginning these two letters were a signpost clearly showing our strategic goal, i.e. broadcast in the ether. Thanks to a subsidy from the Ministry of the Interior and administration, since August 2017 our station has been broadcasting the program from two of its own FM transmitters. In Polkowice (in the Dolnośląskie Voivodship), where the most Lemkos live in Poland, you can hear us on 103.8 MHz. The headquarters of the station and the radio studio are located in Gorlice, a symbolic place that for centuries was one of the centers of social and educational life of the former Lemko region. That region is our small homeland, to which we constantly refer. Even if the Lemkos do not live there anymore, they still feel connected with 'Nasz Góry', that is with the Low Beskids and the Beskid Sądecki. In Gorlice and the surrounding area you can hear us on 106.6 MHz. We broadcast experimentally in Wroclaw and the surrounding area in the DAB + digital system.
Why is traditional radio broadcasting so important to you?
Because of a few reasons. But one of them, probably the most important is that we did not want to be a medium of special care, a medium run by a minority, a bit strange, amateur. It was important to us that we would not be told about a curiosity or curiosity. We wanted to be a normal radio and a professional means of providing information.
What do you understand by normality?
Keeping the information and journalistic band. We didn't want to broadcast only the music from the machine. We wanted to develop a living Lemko language. We want to achieve this by creating our own content that will go to listeners. Thanks to the fact that a radio with its own message was created, we even organized a music festival of the author's song entitled "Young Lemkos". Our goal was to create new cultural content so as not to enclose ourselves in folklore, in ethnic music reproduced hundreds of times, in old literary works. We wanted to create new musical and literary forms. We record programs whose texts are commissioned by radio. We broadcast radio plays, bedtime stories for children. Identical groups of us are Carpathian Rusin ethnic groups in Slovakia, Hungary, Croatia and Serbian Vojvodina were surprised, that we can make our own radio, even though there are so few of us. They have access to public media. The Russian editors of Czechoslovak radio broadcast continuously since 1934. Their experience and archive resources are incomparably greater than ours. But we are doing well.
Are LEM.FM radio programs broadcast only in Lemko?
Lemko is the basis for us. Most of the programs are in our version of the Lemko language, which is standardized and is valid on Polish territory. The Lemko language was used in the media before the First World War. The first Lemko newspaper was published in Lviv in 1911. After a few issues, the editorial office moved to Nowy Sącz and then to Gorlice. The language standard of those publishing houses is little changed to this day, which allows us to use those texts because they are still understandable. Anecdotes, journalism, letters to the editor have been kept up to date. We've had fantastic journalists in our history, so we have where to draw examples from.
The most important goal of your radio mission is probably to keep the Lemko language?
Yes. I was a month ago with a meeting with the Minister of the Interior and Administration. I received the question: what does it mean to be a Lemko intellectual today? I answered perhaps provocatively, which I would expose to many, that it is enough to be able to write and read in Lemko. To which the minister sadly replied: it is very little, this threshold is low. Unfortunately, we have lived to see these times. Currently, reading and writing in Lemko is rare. This is not optimistic, but we do not give up and fight for our language. We run the LEM.FM radio so that our language does not disappear and that we can say what we have to say.
Young Lemkos listen to LEM.FM radio?
I hope so. Unfortunately, we do not have audibility studies of large radio stations. But we plan to carry them out.
Donations from private persons, public collections, grants from state institutions, subsidies from non-governmental organizations? What do you keep the radio from?
We operate mainly thanks to annual grants received from the Minister of Interior and Administration. Subsidies are possible thanks to the provisions of the Act on National and Ethnic Minorities from 2005. assistance from state bodies for maintaining and developing the cultural identity of minorities. The Lemkos, by virtue of the Act of the Seym of the Republic of Poland of 2005, were recognized for the first time as an ethnic group and received legal personality.
Do these grants cover entirely the costs of LEM.FM radio? Does the "Ruska Bursa" association have to solicit additional funds?
We are able to cover the costs of our business, but we also apply for other funds. We were able to obtain a Visegrad grant. We also received support from the Marshal's Office of the Lesser Poland Voivodeship.
Where did the idea for establishing the Lemko radio come from?
The aforementioned Act on Minorities, in addition to granting grants and regulations regarding the use of minority languages, established a collegiate body, i.e. a joint commission of the government and national and ethnic minorities. I have never been a member of this committee, but I have often appeared at its meetings and at the meetings of the parliamentary committee of national minorities and listened to the ongoing discussions. Most often, minorities complained that they were hurt and that a number of cases were badly solved. Votes about insufficient funding Minority organizations have been and are widely distributed. It seemed a bit strange to me and did not correspond to reality. I thought, that perhaps representatives of ethnic and religious minorities are trying to talk about their real and alleged wrongs to put pressure on government representatives and important offices, e.g. a representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of National Education, the Institute of National Remembrance and the Central Statistical Office. When the discussion on the topics of the media conducted by ethnic and national minorities was ongoing, their representatives complained that they did not have adequate resources to develop their own media. They also indicated that they did not have access to public media. One of the minorities complained that if she has access to public media, her program is broadcast at a time that does not suit her. that there is not enough money to develop their own media. They also indicated that they did not have access to public media. One of the minorities complained that if she has access to public media, her program is broadcast at a time that does not suit her. that there is not enough money to develop their own media. They also indicated that they did not have access to public media. One of the minorities complained that if she has access to public media, her program is broadcast at a time that does not suit her.
Lemkos had access to public media?
There are no programs broadcast by public media in Lemko. So we decided to fill this gap. We could, like other minorities, make one radio or TV program broadcast cyclically every week or two. However, there was a thought that this is not a good idea. And we've made media that works 24 hours a day. Perhaps we have shown other ethnic minorities in Poland how to develop their own media. But I must mention that before the Lemkos Kashubians founded their radio. Some minorities claim that their difficulties in developing their own media are due to historical events. The Ukrainian minority raised the effects of Operation Wisła. She pointed out that because of this her representatives live in disperse, they are nowhere in the majority constituting a majority and therefore she has a problem with reaching the majority of the group in the media. We live in the 21st century and there is a means of communication for which the fact that the minority lives dispersed does not matter. This medium is of course the internet. Our radio started broadcasting in the network to reach everywhere.
Did you model yourself?
The inspiration and certain model was Radio Kaszëbë, which broadcasts from many transmitters in the Pomeranian Voivodeship. It is estimated that they are the most popular local radio station in Pomerania. They helped us with good advice, kindly noticed mistakes and laughed that at the beginning of their activity they had made identical mishaps. They approach us with great affection. we have constant contact with them. They have a different business profile than us, they are strictly commercial radio, they have a lot of advertising revenue. We, however, try to fulfill our mission. Speak and play music in Lemko. You can't make money on it, but you can feel great satisfaction.
When I think about the music of an ethnic group, folk or folk songs come to my mind.
It's too simplistic. We play different music. Of course, we broadcast a lot of ethnic music from around the world. But we also play Lemko jazz and classical music. On Sunday we have a block of church music. We try to fill the playlist with all sorts of music so that each listener can find something suitable for them.
Poles also listen to LEM.FM radio?
Yes. They are still helping us. Not only listeners but also officials. When we applied for a license in the National Broadcasting Council, we met with sympathy and above-standard help everywhere. I don't know why, but it was very nice. There are nice situations. A Polish-language listener writes to us and asks for the title of the song that flew on our air, e.g. on Thursday after 11 am. We are pleased to answer our listeners.
In addition to the radio, you also run a portal.
On our daily updated portal there are interesting news. The most understandable is messages from Lemkos (Ruthenians) from Slovakia from Prešov region. Why from them? Because only in Slovakia Lemkos (Ruthenians) have their own professional cultural institutions: the theater of Aleksandra Duchnowicz, the artistic team of PULS, the Museum of Russian Culture, which is part of the Slovak National Museum, and the Institute of Russian Language and Culture at the University of Presov. There are also news from other countries. We inform you about political events, cultural and sporting events as well as festivals.
How many journalists do you employ?
Over a dozen journalists cooperate with our radio and portal. They prepare programs, make reports or write texts on the portal. Shorter or longer journalistic materials appear on the website after a detailed language correction, which are prepared in a professional manner. We try to maintain a high enough level. We don't want to give the impression of being an amateur medium. We also have foreign correspondents. Every day he performs on air and a journalist from Slovakian Presov uses the language standard closest to us. In their language there are few verbal singularities that could be incomprehensible to Lemkos living in Poland. There are regular correspondence and programs from Ukraine from a reporter who lives permanently in Ivanofrankowsk, i.e. in Stanisławów. He reaches the Lemkos, who in the 1940s Of the twentieth century, they moved to the Soviets. They form a diaspora there, but most often they are already very assimilated. Among them live even older people who remember the time when they lived before the war in Poland, in the Lemko region. In Poland they went to school. They remember Polish and have good memories of Poland. They often ask themselves why their parents and grandparents were deceived by communist propaganda and moved to the Soviets? Later, there was no chance that they would return to Poland. We get information, relationships, photos and memories from our compatriots living all over the world, which we use in broadcasts and articles. When we started our radio business, a gentleman from South America wrote to us in Spanish. He sent us photos of his great ancestors from Galicia. The photo depicted Lemkos on a steamer sailing from Hamburg to Uruguay. They set out for bread and have remained in South America forever.
What is the most difficult in your business? What are the biggest barriers for the radio it broadcasts to the ethnic minority?
Today it's high broadcasting costs. Thank God, for several years radio equipment that once cost a lot, mixers, decent headphones, microphones, has rapidly diminished. We began to afford him. We have a dozen or so journalists, but the problem with journalists who know the Lemko language is invariably the biggest. There are no professional journalists or graduates of journalism studies in our group. But among them there are professionals in the Lemko language, graduates of the Lemko philology at the Pedagogical University in Krakow. Unfortunately, for several years a new recruitment for Lemko philology is no longer carried out. But there are a dozen or so dozens of graduates of this philology who are competent enough to work in the Lemko-language media.
Tomasz Plaskota was talking
Bogdan Gambal
A graduate of ethnology at the Jagiellonian University. He began publishing in Lemko at the end of the eighties in a one-day "Holos Watry". He was one of the co-founders of the Lemk Association (1989) and the initiator of reactivation and for many years chairman of the board of the Ruska Bursa Association in Gorlice (1991). He was a co-founder of the Lemko radio Lem.fm. He runs daily radio broadcasts and publishes on the website www.lem.fm, the Almanac "Ruska Bursy Yearbook", the bimonthly "Besida" the press body of the Lemk Association and the bi-weekly "Info Rusin" the press body of Rusin Obrody in Slovakia.
sdp.pl/nie-chcemy-byc-medium-specjalnej-troski-rozmowa-z-bogdanem-gambalem-redaktorem-naczelnym-lemkowskiego-radia-lem-fm?fbclid=IwAR2q_9UkVYkZwMKvqASqBdkAM-hskV16UYPm9t4z_-KIp19niSYL6Llf3Ck
JUNE 10, 2019 Tomasz Plaskota
Currently, reading and writing in Lemko is rare. We run the LEM.FM radio so that our language does not disappear - says Bogdan Gambal, editor-in-chief of the station in an interview with Tomasz Plaskota.
Before we talk about the Lemko radio LEM.FM I would like to ask who the Lemkos are, how numerous are the community and where they live?
The Lemkos is the proper name of an ethnic group recognized in Poland, it is an ethnonym. In addition to this one own name popular in Poland, members of the group speak of themselves as Ruthenians, Ruthenians, or the Carpathian Ruthenians. Today, it is believed that the subjective criteria for determining group identity are the subjective declarations of members. That is why it was only the Lemkos themselves, the activities of national "awakers" - Greek Catholic clergy, intelligentsia and politicians, and the marked by the Carpathian Ruthenians of differences and distance from other Ruthenian groups visible from the mid-nineteenth century that resulted in the creation of an ideological, linguistic, cultural and religious community in the Carpathian area and among the diaspora. The Lemkos emphasize that they are indigenous peoples living in their historic lands: in Poland in the Lemko region and in the historical lands of the crown of St. Stefan, in today's Hungary (mainly in the Borszod and Sabolcz counties), Slovakia in the Prešov Region, Vojvodina in Serbia and Ukraine in the Transcarpathian Oblast. Smaller groups of Lemkos live in Romanian Maramures, near Vukovar in Croatia and western Bohemia. In addition, the Lemkos live in a diaspora in many countries, but most in the United States. According to the results of the 2011 National Census, about 10,000 people live in Poland who have declared their Lemko ethnicity. The census also identified a marginal group of people of Lemkos origin who defined their nationality as Ukrainians. This group has 283 people. in Slovakia in the Prešov Region, in Vojvodina in Serbia and in Ukraine in the Transcarpathian Oblast. Smaller groups of Lemkos live in Romanian Maramures, near Vukovar in Croatia and western Bohemia. In addition, the Lemkos live in a diaspora in many countries, but most in the United States. According to the results of the 2011 National Census, about 10,000 people live in Poland who have declared their Lemko ethnicity. The census also identified a marginal group of people of Lemkos origin who defined their nationality as Ukrainians. This group has 283 people. in Slovakia in the Prešov Region, in Vojvodina in Serbia and in Ukraine in the Transcarpathian Oblast. Smaller groups of Lemkos live in Romanian Maramures, near Vukovar in Croatia and western Bohemia. In addition, the Lemkos live in a diaspora in many countries, but most in the United States. According to the results of the 2011 National Census, about 10,000 people live in Poland who have declared their Lemko ethnicity. The census also identified a marginal group of people of Lemkos origin who defined their nationality as Ukrainians. This group has 283 people. In addition, the Lemkos live in a diaspora in many countries, but most in the United States. According to the results of the 2011 National Census, about 10,000 people live in Poland who have declared their Lemko ethnicity. The census also identified a marginal group of people of Lemkos origin who defined their nationality as Ukrainians. This group has 283 people. In addition, the Lemkos live in a diaspora in many countries, but most in the United States. According to the results of the 2011 National Census, about 10,000 people live in Poland who have declared their Lemko ethnicity. The census also identified a marginal group of people of Lemkos origin who defined their nationality as Ukrainians. This group has 283 people.
LEM.FM is one of the few radio stations in Poland broadcasting for the ethnic minority and the only Lemko radio in our country. Do you often broadcast? Where can you listen to you?
You can listen to us 24 hours a day on the internet. We have been broadcasting the program for eight years, since June 2011. You can hear news and literary programs from abroad, correspondence programs, commentaries as well as reports from cultural and patriotic events. We have a block of religious programs and even radio plays. We broadcast most broadcasts in our native language - in Lemko (Ruthenian). We also run the information portal www.lem.fm. You can find information, announcements of ceremonies, cultural events, games as well as information about new publications. There are comments, a corner of humor, texts of the old Lemko press. Initially, we were just an internet radio, but we are called LEM.FM, so "FM" obliges. From the beginning these two letters were a signpost clearly showing our strategic goal, i.e. broadcast in the ether. Thanks to a subsidy from the Ministry of the Interior and administration, since August 2017 our station has been broadcasting the program from two of its own FM transmitters. In Polkowice (in the Dolnośląskie Voivodship), where the most Lemkos live in Poland, you can hear us on 103.8 MHz. The headquarters of the station and the radio studio are located in Gorlice, a symbolic place that for centuries was one of the centers of social and educational life of the former Lemko region. That region is our small homeland, to which we constantly refer. Even if the Lemkos do not live there anymore, they still feel connected with 'Nasz Góry', that is with the Low Beskids and the Beskid Sądecki. In Gorlice and the surrounding area you can hear us on 106.6 MHz. We broadcast experimentally in Wroclaw and the surrounding area in the DAB + digital system.
Why is traditional radio broadcasting so important to you?
Because of a few reasons. But one of them, probably the most important is that we did not want to be a medium of special care, a medium run by a minority, a bit strange, amateur. It was important to us that we would not be told about a curiosity or curiosity. We wanted to be a normal radio and a professional means of providing information.
What do you understand by normality?
Keeping the information and journalistic band. We didn't want to broadcast only the music from the machine. We wanted to develop a living Lemko language. We want to achieve this by creating our own content that will go to listeners. Thanks to the fact that a radio with its own message was created, we even organized a music festival of the author's song entitled "Young Lemkos". Our goal was to create new cultural content so as not to enclose ourselves in folklore, in ethnic music reproduced hundreds of times, in old literary works. We wanted to create new musical and literary forms. We record programs whose texts are commissioned by radio. We broadcast radio plays, bedtime stories for children. Identical groups of us are Carpathian Rusin ethnic groups in Slovakia, Hungary, Croatia and Serbian Vojvodina were surprised, that we can make our own radio, even though there are so few of us. They have access to public media. The Russian editors of Czechoslovak radio broadcast continuously since 1934. Their experience and archive resources are incomparably greater than ours. But we are doing well.
Are LEM.FM radio programs broadcast only in Lemko?
Lemko is the basis for us. Most of the programs are in our version of the Lemko language, which is standardized and is valid on Polish territory. The Lemko language was used in the media before the First World War. The first Lemko newspaper was published in Lviv in 1911. After a few issues, the editorial office moved to Nowy Sącz and then to Gorlice. The language standard of those publishing houses is little changed to this day, which allows us to use those texts because they are still understandable. Anecdotes, journalism, letters to the editor have been kept up to date. We've had fantastic journalists in our history, so we have where to draw examples from.
The most important goal of your radio mission is probably to keep the Lemko language?
Yes. I was a month ago with a meeting with the Minister of the Interior and Administration. I received the question: what does it mean to be a Lemko intellectual today? I answered perhaps provocatively, which I would expose to many, that it is enough to be able to write and read in Lemko. To which the minister sadly replied: it is very little, this threshold is low. Unfortunately, we have lived to see these times. Currently, reading and writing in Lemko is rare. This is not optimistic, but we do not give up and fight for our language. We run the LEM.FM radio so that our language does not disappear and that we can say what we have to say.
Young Lemkos listen to LEM.FM radio?
I hope so. Unfortunately, we do not have audibility studies of large radio stations. But we plan to carry them out.
Donations from private persons, public collections, grants from state institutions, subsidies from non-governmental organizations? What do you keep the radio from?
We operate mainly thanks to annual grants received from the Minister of Interior and Administration. Subsidies are possible thanks to the provisions of the Act on National and Ethnic Minorities from 2005. assistance from state bodies for maintaining and developing the cultural identity of minorities. The Lemkos, by virtue of the Act of the Seym of the Republic of Poland of 2005, were recognized for the first time as an ethnic group and received legal personality.
Do these grants cover entirely the costs of LEM.FM radio? Does the "Ruska Bursa" association have to solicit additional funds?
We are able to cover the costs of our business, but we also apply for other funds. We were able to obtain a Visegrad grant. We also received support from the Marshal's Office of the Lesser Poland Voivodeship.
Where did the idea for establishing the Lemko radio come from?
The aforementioned Act on Minorities, in addition to granting grants and regulations regarding the use of minority languages, established a collegiate body, i.e. a joint commission of the government and national and ethnic minorities. I have never been a member of this committee, but I have often appeared at its meetings and at the meetings of the parliamentary committee of national minorities and listened to the ongoing discussions. Most often, minorities complained that they were hurt and that a number of cases were badly solved. Votes about insufficient funding Minority organizations have been and are widely distributed. It seemed a bit strange to me and did not correspond to reality. I thought, that perhaps representatives of ethnic and religious minorities are trying to talk about their real and alleged wrongs to put pressure on government representatives and important offices, e.g. a representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of National Education, the Institute of National Remembrance and the Central Statistical Office. When the discussion on the topics of the media conducted by ethnic and national minorities was ongoing, their representatives complained that they did not have adequate resources to develop their own media. They also indicated that they did not have access to public media. One of the minorities complained that if she has access to public media, her program is broadcast at a time that does not suit her. that there is not enough money to develop their own media. They also indicated that they did not have access to public media. One of the minorities complained that if she has access to public media, her program is broadcast at a time that does not suit her. that there is not enough money to develop their own media. They also indicated that they did not have access to public media. One of the minorities complained that if she has access to public media, her program is broadcast at a time that does not suit her.
Lemkos had access to public media?
There are no programs broadcast by public media in Lemko. So we decided to fill this gap. We could, like other minorities, make one radio or TV program broadcast cyclically every week or two. However, there was a thought that this is not a good idea. And we've made media that works 24 hours a day. Perhaps we have shown other ethnic minorities in Poland how to develop their own media. But I must mention that before the Lemkos Kashubians founded their radio. Some minorities claim that their difficulties in developing their own media are due to historical events. The Ukrainian minority raised the effects of Operation Wisła. She pointed out that because of this her representatives live in disperse, they are nowhere in the majority constituting a majority and therefore she has a problem with reaching the majority of the group in the media. We live in the 21st century and there is a means of communication for which the fact that the minority lives dispersed does not matter. This medium is of course the internet. Our radio started broadcasting in the network to reach everywhere.
Did you model yourself?
The inspiration and certain model was Radio Kaszëbë, which broadcasts from many transmitters in the Pomeranian Voivodeship. It is estimated that they are the most popular local radio station in Pomerania. They helped us with good advice, kindly noticed mistakes and laughed that at the beginning of their activity they had made identical mishaps. They approach us with great affection. we have constant contact with them. They have a different business profile than us, they are strictly commercial radio, they have a lot of advertising revenue. We, however, try to fulfill our mission. Speak and play music in Lemko. You can't make money on it, but you can feel great satisfaction.
When I think about the music of an ethnic group, folk or folk songs come to my mind.
It's too simplistic. We play different music. Of course, we broadcast a lot of ethnic music from around the world. But we also play Lemko jazz and classical music. On Sunday we have a block of church music. We try to fill the playlist with all sorts of music so that each listener can find something suitable for them.
Poles also listen to LEM.FM radio?
Yes. They are still helping us. Not only listeners but also officials. When we applied for a license in the National Broadcasting Council, we met with sympathy and above-standard help everywhere. I don't know why, but it was very nice. There are nice situations. A Polish-language listener writes to us and asks for the title of the song that flew on our air, e.g. on Thursday after 11 am. We are pleased to answer our listeners.
In addition to the radio, you also run a portal.
On our daily updated portal there are interesting news. The most understandable is messages from Lemkos (Ruthenians) from Slovakia from Prešov region. Why from them? Because only in Slovakia Lemkos (Ruthenians) have their own professional cultural institutions: the theater of Aleksandra Duchnowicz, the artistic team of PULS, the Museum of Russian Culture, which is part of the Slovak National Museum, and the Institute of Russian Language and Culture at the University of Presov. There are also news from other countries. We inform you about political events, cultural and sporting events as well as festivals.
How many journalists do you employ?
Over a dozen journalists cooperate with our radio and portal. They prepare programs, make reports or write texts on the portal. Shorter or longer journalistic materials appear on the website after a detailed language correction, which are prepared in a professional manner. We try to maintain a high enough level. We don't want to give the impression of being an amateur medium. We also have foreign correspondents. Every day he performs on air and a journalist from Slovakian Presov uses the language standard closest to us. In their language there are few verbal singularities that could be incomprehensible to Lemkos living in Poland. There are regular correspondence and programs from Ukraine from a reporter who lives permanently in Ivanofrankowsk, i.e. in Stanisławów. He reaches the Lemkos, who in the 1940s Of the twentieth century, they moved to the Soviets. They form a diaspora there, but most often they are already very assimilated. Among them live even older people who remember the time when they lived before the war in Poland, in the Lemko region. In Poland they went to school. They remember Polish and have good memories of Poland. They often ask themselves why their parents and grandparents were deceived by communist propaganda and moved to the Soviets? Later, there was no chance that they would return to Poland. We get information, relationships, photos and memories from our compatriots living all over the world, which we use in broadcasts and articles. When we started our radio business, a gentleman from South America wrote to us in Spanish. He sent us photos of his great ancestors from Galicia. The photo depicted Lemkos on a steamer sailing from Hamburg to Uruguay. They set out for bread and have remained in South America forever.
What is the most difficult in your business? What are the biggest barriers for the radio it broadcasts to the ethnic minority?
Today it's high broadcasting costs. Thank God, for several years radio equipment that once cost a lot, mixers, decent headphones, microphones, has rapidly diminished. We began to afford him. We have a dozen or so journalists, but the problem with journalists who know the Lemko language is invariably the biggest. There are no professional journalists or graduates of journalism studies in our group. But among them there are professionals in the Lemko language, graduates of the Lemko philology at the Pedagogical University in Krakow. Unfortunately, for several years a new recruitment for Lemko philology is no longer carried out. But there are a dozen or so dozens of graduates of this philology who are competent enough to work in the Lemko-language media.
Tomasz Plaskota was talking
Bogdan Gambal
A graduate of ethnology at the Jagiellonian University. He began publishing in Lemko at the end of the eighties in a one-day "Holos Watry". He was one of the co-founders of the Lemk Association (1989) and the initiator of reactivation and for many years chairman of the board of the Ruska Bursa Association in Gorlice (1991). He was a co-founder of the Lemko radio Lem.fm. He runs daily radio broadcasts and publishes on the website www.lem.fm, the Almanac "Ruska Bursy Yearbook", the bimonthly "Besida" the press body of the Lemk Association and the bi-weekly "Info Rusin" the press body of Rusin Obrody in Slovakia.
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