By Dr. Pavlo Leno
The Grassroots Institute has supported and participated in the Carpathian Rural Expeditions, facilitated by Dr. Pavlo Leno, and coordinated by Faculty of History and International Relations at Uzhhorod National University. The Carpathian Ethnographic Expedition was undertaken for 3 months (May to July 2025). According to the working curriculum, orders of the Rector and agreements on practice bases, summer ethnographic expeditions were organized in the Dubrynych-Maly Bereznyi, Bilky and Batiovo territorial hromadas of the Transcarpathian region of Ukraine. During the expeditions, the youth participants visited 15 settlements: Smerekove, Bukivtsovo, Chornoholova, Mircha, Bilky, Imstychovo, Velykyi Rakovets, Lukovo, Batiovo, Serne, Hornhlab, Batrad, Danylivka, Barkasovo, Bakosh, Svoboda.
About 25 youths/students who took part were from various educational programs, such as: History and Civic Education, Archeology and Ethnology, and Cultural Studies. In addition to the youths/students, there were teachers of Uzhhorod National University: ethnographers-historians Dr. Pavlo Leno, Dr. Vasyl Kotsan, Dr. Oksana Kychak and colleagues from other scientific and museum institutions. Among them, sociologist Dr. Mykola Gomaniuk (Kherson State University), Dr. John Swanson (University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, USA), Dr. Roman Rudenko (Institute of Management of Non-Profit Organizations, Vienna University of Economics).
The subject of interest was the “material and spiritual culture” of ethnographic groups of local Ukrainians, such as Lemkos, Boykos, and Dolynians. In addition, different ethnic groups living in Transcarpathian border were studied: Hungarians, Roma, Wallachians, and Slovaks.
During field ethnographic research, youths/students and scientists recorded interviews on various topics using questionnaires. The expedition group was interested in the issues of tolerance and multiculturalism and multifaith of the local population. Other topics included traditional and modern farming, crafts, livestock keeping, beekeeping, and agriculture in the context of modern climate change. In particular, it was interesting to visit the farm in Batiovo, where the owners successfully breed new animals for this place: alpacas, dorpers, humpback-nosed goats. It was interesting to see how the new is combined with the traditional. In particular, in the village of Lukovo there is still a working water mill, which is fully functional; thanks to its owners.
In addition, in the context of oral history studies, the group recorded the narrators’ memories of the Holocaust in Transcarpathia, World War II, and Sovietization. Separately, group members talked to IDPs (internally displaced persons) in Transcarpathia. Among the interlocutors were IDPs who fled the war from different regions of Ukraine: Sumy region, Kharkiv region, Luhansk region, Donetsk region, Zaporizhzhia, etc. Paying attention to autobiographical (in-depth) interviews, expedition members also focused on collecting factual visual and audio material. The ethnographic and oral-historical material was collected and processed by youths/ students (including more than 200 interviews, thousands of photographs and dozens of videos) replenished the funds of the Laboratory of Ethnography and Local History. All the gathered information and material are deposited with Faculty of History and International Relations.
Click to see full description: https://tgi.org.ua/training-capacity-building/#expedition
