Podlasie surnames as carriers of regional cultural heritage

Podlasie is a borderland area that is inhabited by various ethnic and religious communities, permeating and strongly interacting with each other, forming – in the past and nowadays – a real ethnic, linguistic and cultural mosaic. Surnames of the Podlasie inhabitants reflect the coexistence of diverse languages and cultures, both in base forms and suffixes of Polish, East Slavonic, Lithuanian, German, Jewish and Tatar origins. Due to these features of the Podlasie surnames – as part of the intangible legacy of ethnic communities living in this area – they can be considered a carrier of cultural heritage and, consequently, an important element in maintaining the cultural identity of the region, which is worth preserving for future generations.Uniwersytet w Białymstoku556