OOL Scholarship Award Application

The Organization for the Defense of Lemkivshchyna (OOL) is offering scholarship awards for the 2024-2025 academic year. Successful applicants will each receive a scholarship of $500. To qualify you must meet the following requirements: Be of Lemko ancestry. Be enrolled as a full-time student in any year (i.e., freshman through senior) of an undergraduate program…

ByDiana Howansky ReillyMarch 25, 20240Comments

Press Release

OOL Holds 32nd National Convention, Continuing 90 Years of Activism

Stamford, CT, USA – This past Saturday, October 28, the Organization for the Defense of Lemkivshchyna (Orhanizatsiia Oborony Lemkivshchyny, OOL) held its 32nd National Convention on the grounds of Saint Basil Seminary and the Ukrainian Catholic Eparchy of Stamford. This marks 90 years of activity for OOL, whose roots reach back to September 1933, when…

ByDiana Howansky ReillyNovember 1, 20230Comments

Past OOL Events

World Federation of Ukrainian Lemko Unions holds 7th International Congress in Serbia

The SFULO held its 7th International Congress from August 20 to 22 in Serbia. They elected a new president and presidium and more.

ByDiana Howansky ReillyDecember 6, 20220Comments

Past OOL Events

Organization for the Defense of Lemkivshchyna looks to the future at its 31st National Convention

YONKERS, NY – “Lemkivshchyna may have been destroyed as a geographic entity and others may have tried to stamp out the fire of the Lemkos, but what ended up happening was that sparks from that fire flew everywhere, so that Lemkos are now spread across the world and are stronger than ever,” said Mark Howansky…

ByDiana Howansky ReillyMarch 29, 20200Comments

Branch News

New OOL Branches in Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and Syracuse

PHILADELPHIA – It was back on September 9, 1933, that a small group of immigrants gathered on 13th Street in New York City with the goal of providing material and moral support to their homeland: Lemkivshchyna, or the Lemko region, a Ukrainian ethnographic area in southeastern Poland. They elected a committee, began activities such as…

ByDiana Howansky ReillyJuly 10, 20180Comments

Museum

What’s NEWS at the Ukrainian Lemko Museum? Summer 2017

Within two rooms of the Ukrainian Museum and Library in Stamford, Connecticut at St. Basil Seminary resides the Ukrainian Lemko Museum–a small, yet important collection of Lemko cultural artifacts. Many books, works of art, and various crafts representing Lemko heritage and traditional life are permanently on display at the Museum. The most unique item at…

ByDiana Howansky ReillyAugust 10, 20170Comments

Museum

Regarding the History of the Ukrainian Museum

ByDiana Howansky ReillyMay 17, 20170Comments

Photos from the Past

Collection of Diana Howansky-Reilly

ByDiana Howansky ReillyMay 13, 20170Comments

Museum

What’s NEWS at the Ukrainian Lemko Museum? Spring 2017

Ukrainian-American Youth Bring New Life to Museum Spring 2017 is an exciting time for the Ukrainian Lemko Museum – located within the Ukrainian Museum and Library in Stamford, Connecticut at St. Basil Seminary. As new life emerges in Nature with beautiful flora and wildlife, a resurrected spirit of cultural pride and beauty materializes within our…

ByDiana Howansky ReillyMarch 18, 20170Comments

Culture Today

The sound of sadness: The story of the Lemko women

Lemkos love art. Julia Doszna shows this in songs which, because of history, do not wish to be cheerful. It was hard work, every day digging up beets, spreading manure, milking cows. To kill the boredom and forget about her aching arms and swollen legs, Julia Doszna, only a few years old, listened to nature:…

ByDiana Howansky ReillyMay 20, 20160Comments