DYLĄGÓWKA IN GMINA HYŻNE
My father's ancestral village is Dylągówka, which is located in the foothills of the Carpathian mountains of southeastern Poland. Nowadays around a thousand people live there. It isn't a remote village; it's only ten miles from the regional capital, Rzeszów, and sits on a good secondary paved road.
Dylągówka (Di-lon GOOF-ka) is located in the rural gmina (administrative district) of Hyżne (HIZH-neh), which covers 20 square miles and has a population of some 7,000.
There are around 2,500 gminas in Poland. Most are pretty ordinary places, but Hyzne has several claims to fame:
A VICTORY OVER SLAVING TATAR INVADERS
One of them, a 13th century victory over Turkic-speaking Mongol invaders known as Tatars, is symbolized in the coat of arms on its flag (at left). On either side of the cross are parts of a broken buńczuk, or horsetail ensign, a symbol carried into battle that was made of horsetail hair set on a wooden staff and topped, in this case, with a crescent moon.
A GREAT SOLDIER AND STATESMAN
Hyzne's second claim to fame is that it was the childhood home of Władysław Sikorski (1881-1943), a Polish soldier and statesman who led Poland’s government in exile during World War II. The school he attended is now the General Władysław Sikorski Primary School. Quotations:
- "One experienced minute sometimes teaches us more than a lifetime."
- "Today it is time for strong and courageous people because only they can achieve victory and rid the world of tyranny."
Sikorski
A CONNECTION TO THE POLISH ARMENIAN NOBILITY
An essay posted in 2026 on the government-sponsored website Culture.PL, Then and now: Armenians at home on Polish lands, goes into this in detail.
In 1785, an estate that included the site of Dylagówka was purchased by Jan Jędrzejewicz, a descendant of Polonized Armenian nobility. His descendants built an impressive manor house with farm buildings, a mill, a distillery, and a stud farm. By 1880, Dylągówka had some 800 residents, two inns, and a chapel.
The Jędrzejewicz family owned property in the town at least into the 1920s.
Bas relief on the building of an Armenian association in Gdansk