The paper concerns the collective and cultural memory of the Lemko community, members of which identify themselves as Ukrainians or as Russians (Carpathorussians). As a consequence of deportations the group experienced at the end of the Second World War in communist Poland (1944-1947), most Lemkos now live scattered in western Poland and western Ukraine. The members of the group are unusually focused on the past and still build their identity on this historic reversal, which re-defined the meaning of being the Lemko. In the late 1980s, they began intensive commemorative practices. I have explored the discourses of the Lemkos' past shown in written and oral narrations, which I gathered in Poland and Ukraine. The results of ethnographic field research and the analysis of documentary literature show the variety of memory discourse strategies which often lead to conflict, and which the Lemkos apply in their discussions of contemporary ethnic identity.