Krynytsia (Krynica)

Krynytsia (Krynica) [Криниця; Krynycja; Polish: Krynica-Zdrój]. Map: IV-1. Town (2006 pop 11,243) in the western Lemko region, today in Little Polish voivodeship, Poland. From the 19th century it had a large spa that in the interwar years attracted 60,000 visitors annually to its six therapeutic mineral springs. At one time Krynytsia was inhabited exclusively by Ukrainians; in 1860 they constituted 92 percent of its 1,100 inhabitants. With time its population became mixed, and in 1939 there were 2,900 Ukrainians, 4,300 Poles, and 1,600 Jews in the town. From 1940 to 1944 it was an important Ukrainian center; a Ukrainian teachers' seminary and various Ukrainian cultural and economic institutions were located there. After the war the Polish authorities forcibly resettled the Ukrainian population in western and northern Poland (see Operation Wisła). The Lemko naive painter Nykyfor lived and worked in Krynytsia.

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 2 (1989).]