Pani Anna Buriak

06/14/2012 09:59

Pani Anna Buriak is the lady whom we will visit in Polany. She’s a wonderful woman with an amazing story. I first met her back in 1991(?), when I visited our “home town” of Polany in search of any information on the Ardans. She told me where some of the Ardan family had lived before WWII, and also said that she is distantly related to some of them.

There are many things that I love about pani Anna. She has a gleam in her eye, and smiles quite easily. I don’t know if she ever lived more than a few miles from Polany, where she was born. She’s ninety years old, a Lemko woman, or “łemkinja” who is very proud of her heritage, and speaks Lemko with her family and friends. She is known locally for her painting of pysanki, or Easter eggs. In fact, some of her eggs are displayed at a local museum. Her husband, who is now deceased, was also a Lemko. He was once taken away by the authorities and spent time in a concentration camp set up to persecute Lemkos. Pani Buriak once told me that she passed him on the street when he was returning from the camp, and didn’t even recognize who he was because he had lost so much weight during the time he spent there.

One of the reasons that I used to love visiting pani Buriak is the fact that she lives in an old-style Lemko home. While her daughter and family stay in a more modern house on the property, pani Buriak lives in the traditional “chata,” or as the Lemkos call it “chyża.” This is a one-story building with a barn on the left side, a hallway in the middle, a kitchen/living area on the other side, and finally, a second room to the rear. The middle hallway is used for things like churning butter and other chores. The barn houses chickens and cows. The kitchen door is left open in summer, and the chickens wander freely in and out. Everything is very traditional in the house, including the icons that hang at the point on the walls where they meet the ceiling. Also, right next to her house is the church where our grandpa used to attend before he moved to the States. Pani Buriak has the keys, so we will be able to get inside for a look around.

I have written to pani Anna to tell her that we’ll be coming for a visit. I have asked her to get in touch with Ewa in Krakow, just to make sure that she will be around and that it’s okay for us to pop in to see her. She is really a special person, and I’m very glad that you’ll have a chance to meet her.

It's amazing what you can find on the Internet. I didn't have a picture of pani Anna on hand as I write this, so I decided just for fun to do a search for her online, not thinking that anything would come up. Luckily, I was wrong. Although it's in Polish, I found an article that talks about her. In two of the photos, she's seen decorating eggs. A third one shows her finished eggs. The last picture shows her traditional Lemko house.

https://regionjasielski.w.interia.pl/sztuka.html