PODHALE and GÓRALE
Podhale -- the Tatra foot hills, beging to the south of Nowy Targ - is a sparsely populated region villages. The inhabitans of Podhale, the
górale,
are fiercely independent mountain farmers, know trough-out Poland for their folk traditions. The region was “discovered” by the Polish intelligentsia in the late nineteenth century and the górale rapidly emerged as symbols of the struggle for independence, the links forged between intellectuals and local peasants preaging the anticipated national unity of the past- independence era. As in other reguleced areas of the country, the poverty of rural life led thousards of górale the imigrate to the United States in the 1920s and 1930s.