We are in Przemyśl which plays host to the Narodniy Dim – the National House – which is run by the Association of Ukrainians in Poland. A number of families which were deported from this area in 1947 as part of Operation Vistula have since returned and are cultivating their regional traditions, language and music.

We take a look at some of these stories as part of a project which aims to draw attention to Ukrainian cultural heritage and its rekindling after years of neglect.

In the episode, the Hub’s John Beauchamp and Katarzyna Jagodzińska are in Przemyśl to meet a number of Ukrainian activists,including:

• Igor Horków – director of the Narodniy Dim in Przemyśl who underlines that the house open “for everyone”
• Maria Tucka – a local educator who promotes regional costumes and the ‘Pearls of the Borderland’ ethnographic collection
• Maria Mryczko – a local artist who works with papercutting as part of the Narodniy Dim’s activities
• Tatiana Czarna-Nakonieczna – a local activist who runs the ‘Krajka’ and ‘Krajeczka’ folk music groups

In the podcast we also hear from Tatiana Harasym and Aleksandra Steć from Krajka. Daria Pulkovska joins them for the vocal pieces presented in the podcast. Maksym Nakonieczny (Tatiana’s son) also makes an appearance as the frontman of the Hraybery folk ensemble, which also accompanies Krajeczka.

This podcast was made as part of the academic research project “Intangible Cultural Heritage of Ukrainians in Poland: Mapping and Dissemination”. The project is funded by the Jagiellonian University as part of its Strategic Programme Excellence Initiative.

For this episode we are in Lviv and visiting the Jam Factory Art Center. This new space in an old and run-down suburb of Ukraine’s western city has been in the making for years. Now it has become Lviv’s most fashionable centre for contemporary artists both from Ukraine and beyond, and has the ambition to become the country’s premier exhibition space.

Creating such a massive area for visual and performative art in an old industrial space has proven to be a challenge. However, for the Jam Factory team, nothing seems to be impossible, especially when they have the help of founder and Swiss cultural entrepreneur Harald Binder.

John Beauchamp and Katarzyna Jagodzińska, head of the Europa Nostra Heritage Hub for Central and Eastern Europe, meet the Jam Factory’s Executive Director Bozhena Pelenska in Lviv. Artur Wabik from Kraków’s Comics Museum also joins us for this episode.

Throughout the episode we’ll be finding out more on the Jam Factory as well as take a tour of this new state-of-the-art centre.

We’re in the centre of Lviv to visit UA Comix – a comic book store, as you might have guessed from the name. But it’s so much more than that. In fact, you could say that comics are now helping the Ukranian war effort against Russia.

Bohdan Kordoba is the founder and CEO of UA Comix. Even though it has always published comics and graphic novels, the full-scale invasion by Russia has meant that more and more publications are geared towards Ukrainian language and culture. We also hear from Ruslana Koropatka, Editor-in-Chief of UA Comix, as well as artists Lyudmila Samus and Khrystyna Koropetska.

Presented by John Beauchamp and Katarzyna Jagodzińska, head of the Europa Nostra Heritage Hub in Kraków.