Orest and Cheryl's Wedding costume - Boiko costume and embroidery of Turka county, Halychyna, Ukraine

Hello All,

Today i will talk about one of the Boiko costumes, that of Turka county, which is the best documented. The Boiko region covers three counties in L'viw Oblast, plus the mountainous part of Ivano-Frankiwsk Oblast, west of the Hutsul area, and the extreme southeast corner of Poland, east of the Lemko area. Drohobych and surrounding areas are also sometimes considered to be part of the Boiko region. Some Boiki do not like the term, preferring to call themselves 'Verkhovyntsi', or 'Highlanders'. Here again is our map of L'viw Oblast so you can orient yourselves.

 I should start with a photo giving a good view of the costume. When Orest and Cheryl got engaged, our dance group [the Omaha International Folk Dancers] decided to make them a set of costumes from this region, because Orest's father is from the village of Berezhok-Zhukotyn' in Turka county. I came up with the idea, researched the costume and organized the project, but everyone helped. Somehow we managed to [almost] complete the costumes in time for the wedding without them finding out. Here is a photo from the wedding reception.



The embroidery on her apron should extend all the way to the edge, which has since been rectified, but otherwise the costume was complete. Today i will show you their wedding costume, andin a later post  i will add some other material that they collected from his father's native village. Here is the chemise which we made for her.

Turn down collar, embroidered inset on top of body piece, smocking and embroidery on top of the sleeve. Smocking is very typical of this region, and forms part of the embroidery design. Here is a closeup of the inset [ustawka] embroidery.

Nyz, or darning stitch embroidery, which in this region is not necessarily filled in with other colors, with border in braid stitch and cross stitch. I got this design from Krawchuk.

The smocking and the bit of embroidery framing it are quite typical of this region as well. Here is a closeup of the lower sleeve and cuff. If i was doing it today, i would put a backstitch frame around the embroidery on the cuff.

Here is a a closeup of the embroidery on the collar.

You can see that the body of the shirt is smocked into the collar, front and back, but not on the ustawka. We had to guess at the collar measurement, and we made it too small, so she added a piece in back. In Krawchuk, this design was originally for a cuff, with smocking on the sleeve.

The skirt would be the maliovanka for every day, with a design more black than white, see the photos in the posting about the Drohobych costume. For festive occasions, the skirt was linen, made of four or five loom widths, the ones in back being embroidered and gathered and also smocked into the waistband, and the fourth left smooth and plain in front. Here is Cheryl's skirt. The opening is in the middle front, and the skirt was tied around the waist by cords pulled through buttonholes in the waistband.



Here is a closeup of the embroidery, cross stitch with some braid stitch which I also took from Krawchuk.

The graph shows this as the shoulder inset, with smocking embroidery on the upper sleeve shown at the bottom.

We put the same embroidery on the apron. The apron, as in other parts of Halychyna was made of two loom widths joined in the middle by a decorative stitch. I had wide material, so i made it in one piece, but put the joining stitch on the surface, so it would look traditional. And, as i promised, the embroidery is now complete. Cheryl took it and finished it.

I took the edge design and turned the corner with it to run on either side of the central joining stitch. I also put a row of merezhka hemstitching on either side, and of course to join the hem as well.  This is often done to finish embroidery compositions.

We made a second apron from challis cloth, just for variety, this was commonly done as well. The middle front of is smocked.

This is one of the few regions where the men's shirts are traditionally embroidered on the shoulder inset. Here is Orest's shirt. It is made with the same cut as the women's shirt, which is typical of Halychyna.

We made an attempt to choose embroidery designs that harmonized between the two. Here is a closeup of the shoulder inset and upper sleeve embroidery.

The embroidery is cross stitch, with a decorative joining stitch holding the pieces together. Here is another view. If i were making this today, i would have some small framing embroidery on the sides of the sleeve.

I picked shades that i thought would harmonize nicely. In Krawchuk, this design was originally drawn from a man's wedding shirt

I took the same design and altered it to make the embroidery on the cuffs, collar and front. The ties to close the shirt were sewn into the seam. I made the ties by twisting the same floss i embroidered with.

 Then we made the vests, very similar for both, except Orest's is short. Actually we had his made to order by a woman who did sewing, her company name was Folk Couture. We had our hands full finishing the embroidery. Both vests are finished with red and white cording, with loop and knot closures.

Cheryl's is longer, and is slit on the sides.

Just for verification, i would like to post two drawings by Kul'chytska.

Thank you for reading. I would like to thank everyone who participated in this project. If you would like to be mentioned by name, let me know. You know who you are. I decided to err on the side of privacy. I hope that this may inspire someone else to undertake such a project.

Feel free to contact me with requests for research. I hope to eventually cover all of Europe and the Former Russian Empire/Soviet Union. I also gratefully accept tips on source materials which i may not have. I also accept commissions to research/design, sew, and/or embroider costumes or other items for groups or individuals

Roman K.
Rkozakand@aol.com

Source Material:

The photos were taken by Orest Lechnowsky, and the costumes are obvioulsy part of his and his wife's private collection.

L. Krawchuk, 'Ukrajinski Narodni Vyshywky L'viws'ka Oblast' [Ukrainian Folk Embroidery of Lviw Oblast], Kyjiw [Kiev] 1961
K. Matejko, 'Ukrajinskyj Narodnyj Odiah' [Ukrainian Folk Clothing], Kyjiw [Kiev], 1977
O. Kul'chytska, 'Folk Costumes of the Western Regions of the Ukrainian SSR, 1959

Costume & Embroidery of Drohobych county and vicinity, Halychyna, Ukraine

Hello All,

Today we will continue our series on the costumes and embroidery of Halychyna. We will talk about Drohobych county. Here again is our map so we can orient ourselves.

This area is sometimes considered to be part of the Boiko Region, although in my opinion the Boiko Region properly speaking is in the mountains, and this area is just foothills. The Boiko region consists of Turka, Skole, Dobromyl, Perehinsk counties, and a piece of Poland east of the Sian river. The costume is similar, although an argument could be made that the costume is typical of Halychyna. Here is a woman wearing the Drohobych area costume from the village of Ripchytsi.

The outfit consists of a chemise with local embroidery on inset [ustawka], cuffs and collar, skirt, in this case of store bought cloth. apron of two loom widths of linen, embroidered on the bottom edge, with an ornamental joining in the middle. Kamizelka in cloth matching the skirt of standard Halychyna cut, fastening in front, ribbons around the bottom edge. Kybalka on the head [wooden ring covered with cloth], covered by a kerchief, and boots. Here is another photo of a somewhat older form of the costume; this one is from the village of Litynia.

Maliovanka type skirt, of linen with home printed design. In this region there was usually a white design on a black background, the same double width apron, kybalka and kerchief, sash, footcloths with khodaky, moccasin type footwear with straps, and a keptar, sheepskin vest similar to the Hutsuls, but with simpler ornamentation.

Here is a couple from the village of Hruxhiw, showing the men's costume, again typical for Halychyna. Shirt same cut as women's, but shorter, with embroidery on the front, collar, cuffs, and a narrow band around the shoulder inset. Linen pants, with either boots or khodaky and footcloths, and a sash, or in this case a leather belt, from which hangs a knife and other daily useful items. men would also wear a sheepskin vest when needed. As in other parts of Halychyna, a long linen overcoat was worn in warmer weather, and a wool or sheepskin one in colder. The linen 'hellgrauefruejahrsmantel' is called a polotnianka, and it had minimal embroidery, as in this photo showing another costume from the village of Hrushiw. This man seems to be wearing two of them.

Kul'chytska verifies this basic costume, here is a drawing she made of a woman in the village of Hrushiw, around 1930. She includes some examples of embroidery.

In contrast to the neighboring county of Rudky, where the embroidery is mostly red with some admixture of other colors, the embroidery of Drohobych county is mostly black, with some red. Some of the more recent designs resemble the designs of Rudky quite a bit, being rows of small roses with braid stitch in between. Here is an example of one such design. Change the colors and you would have a Rudky design.

The older embroidery designs were based on rows of braid stitch, herringbone and flat stitch in geometric designs, similar to Javoriw emboidery, and which are also still found to some extent in Horodok and Rudky counties, but in the same color scheme, mostly black with some red. Here is an example.

This is the embroidery on the shoulder inset of a woman's chemise. You can see the row of herringbone right on the seam turns up and forms a frame on the two sides of the ustawka. The small cross stitch design continues up the middle, as is typical of Halychyna. The several rows below are embroidered on the upper sleeve, and continue to the sides for a while. Later some cross stitch came to be incorporated in the designs, as in this example.

Again, you can see the design that frames the ustawka, and some of the rows on the bottom would have been on the upper sleeve. The more elaborate floral designs are the most recent to develop. Here is a graphing of the design from the ustawka and also the cuff of  woman's chemise.

The design for the cuff is at the top. The cuff is relatively wide, but not as wide as in the Sokal' region, and is overcast around the edge with alternating black and red thread. you can see the narrow design which frames the ustawa, and forms a line along the upper sleeve, but in this case, not below the ustawka embroidery. This design looks like it is meant for the shoulder inset and the sleeve to be cut in one piece. The cut of the chemise is the typical one for Halychyna. Approximate dimensions are shown in cm.

The chemise was not cut to be seen below the skirt in this region. If we look at some chemises, we see narrow designs embroidered not only along the sides of the shoulder insets, but along the top of the sleeve, and the sleeve seam as well. The sleeve on the right in this first photograph has embroidery very similar to the graphed one above which consistes only of braid sttich, herringbone and geometric flat stitching. The one on the left has a design similar to the one just above, including the narrow design that turns the corner and goes towards the seam of the sleeve.



Here is an embroidered shoulder inset from a woman's chemise, showing how the embroidery is distributed on the inset itself. It also includes part of the upper sleeve, the seam being the wide black line between the two rows of the rose design. This is made by means of a joining stitch different from that of the Sokal' region. Instructions can be found in Tanya Diakiw O'Niel's book, 'Ukrainian Embroidery Techniques', on page 127, under 'Boikian Joining'. [I think the 'woman's shirt' she has illustrated is actually a man's shirt, though].

The men's shirt has almost the same cut, except that there is wide embroidery on the collar and cuffs, and just the narrow frame on the shoulder pieces.

Here is a closeup of the embroidery on the collar and front of a man's shirt.

The cuffs are gathered into the cuffs, and sometimes the lower sleeve is smocked over the gathers, as in this example.

In some villages, the women wore a headpiece called a 'promychka' under the kerchief. The piece that showed in front on the forehead was embroidered and edged with buttonhole stitch. Here is an example of that embroidery.

Often you will see design typical of this region graphed in general books on Ukrainian Embroidery referred to as Boiko. There is, in fact a great deal of variety in Boiko embroidery, in color and technique. Here is one such example from Ruryk's 'Ukrainian Embroidery Designs and Stitches'.

This is the design embroidered on the disjointed shoulder inset shown above. That is enough for one posting i think, so i will give you just one more embroidery design and close.



Thank you for reading. I hope that you find this interesting, and will be able to use some of these ideas or designs in your own handiwork.

Feel free to contact me with requests for research. I hope to eventually cover all of Europe and the Former Russian Empire/Soviet Union. I also gratefully accept tips on source materials which i may not have. I also accept commissions to research/design, sew, and/or embroider costumes or other items for groups or individuals.

Roman K.
Rkozakand@aol.com

Source Material:

L. Krawchuk, 'Ukrajinski Narodni Vyshywky L'viws'ka Oblast' [Ukrainian Folk Embroidery of Lviw Oblast], Kyjiw [Kiev] 1961
Myroslava Kot, 'Vyshywka Drohobychyny, Tradytsiji i Suchasnist'' [Embroidery of Drohobych Region, Tradition and Present Day], L'viw, 1999
Nancy Ruryk, 'Ukrainian Embroidery Designs and Stitches', Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, 1958

Tania Diakiw O'Neill, 'Ukrainian Embroidery Techniques', Mountaintop, Pa, 1984.

O. Kul'chytska, 'Folk Costumes of the Western Regions of the Ukrainian SSR, 1959

Ukrainian Costume of Halychyna [Galicia] in the work of various Artists

Hello All,

Today i want to talk about the village costume of Halychyna [Galicia] in general. This is one of the areas that developed early, which is to say that the traditional costume gave way to western factory made fashions earlier than other areas which 'developed' later. This makes the local costume harder to trace. Some local regions, such as Javoriw, Sokal', Drohobych, Skoliw, have well attested costumes. Halychyna also includes part of the Hutsul lands and most of the Boiko lands, which are considered distinct from the costume of the lowlands. The areas most remote and difficult to reach retained their traditional costumes longer. In general, books which cover all of Ukraine, present the Javoriw costume as THE costume of Halychyna, because of lack of space.
Halychyna  is generally considered to include the oblasts of Lviw and Ivano-Frankiwsk [formerly Stanyslaviw], politically it included Ternopil' oblast as well as some territory which is now in Poland, up to the bank of the Sian [San] river. Halychyna was part of the Kieven state, more of a commonwealth of local rulers than an 'empire'. In 1199, Halych united with Volyn' to form the Pricipality of Halych-Volyn' [Galicia-Volhynia in Polish and in old documents]. This flourished as an independant state, especially under King Danylo Romanovych. The capitol was at first in the ancient town of Halych [Galich], which seems to indicate a Celtic presence in the area. I have found no more indication of such, just the bare name of the city. King Danylo founded the city of Lviw, which has been the capitol of Halychyna ever since. The area passed under the rule of Poland around 1400, when the area was considered to also include the Peremyshl, Sianik and Cholm [Chelm] districts. When the Polish Empire was partitioned, all of Halychyna came under Austria. The Austrians expanded the Province of Galicia with the addition of  Malopolska. Thus Austrian maps of that era show a large area named Galicia, the west half being Polish and the east half Ukrainian [Ruthenian]. After WWI, All of the Austrian Province of Galicia was included in the new Polish state, both the Ukrainian and the Polish sectors. The Soviets invaded the area on November 1, 1939, and after some
back and forth during the war, held most of Ukrainian Halychyna untill Ukrainian Independance in 1991.
And that is as much history as i am going to put in this article. Here is a map of the area which i will be speaking about.

As you can see, the north and west borders are controverted. The southern parts of this area, consisting of western Podillia south of the town of Chortkiw, Pokuttia, being south of the Dnister, Hutsul and Boiko lands in the mountains will not be included in this posting. The rest of the area had more or less the same costume. I will not be covering the Sokal' or Javoriw costumes, they will be for future postings. I am also excluding the 'town costume'.
The Halychyna costume belongs to the fourth group of Ukrainian costumes, which include an actual skirt. There are many local variations, the most important one being the style of embroidery, which varied quite a bit from place to place, some local embroidery styles being very unique. Here is a painting by Kul'chytska showing a woman from the area around the town of Rudky, west and somewhat south of Lviw, specifically from the village of Vyshnia.

This basic costume is worn over this area, and is mosty attested to by artists. The chemise is the basic ustawka cut.

With embroidery on the shoulder insets, always across the bottom edge, next to the sleeve, but often outlining the two side edges as well, and sometimes a stripe up the middle. This varied from county to county. You will notice a stripe of dense embroidery on the inset in this painting, and then small motifs scattered across the sleeve. This was often done by individual embroiderers who wanted to do more. 

The skirt was at first made of white linen with embroidered or woven ormament around the hem, or block printed by hand in black, often with fine designs or vertical stripes. The printed skirt is called 'maliovanka'. This was soon replaced by factory made cloth in most places, as in the above example. It was usually gathered on the sides and back, but left flat on the front, under the apron. Sometimes it was pleated.  The apron was made of linen, with embroidery across the bottom edge, sometimes of one width of linen, sometimes two were sewn side by side and gathered into the waistband, sometimes of bought cloth, as in the Kul'chytska painting above. Here is a painting by E. Kozak showing this costume.

This work is called 'Soyuz Ukrainok' [Association of Ukrainian Women]. It clearly shows the chemise, the skirt, the apron and the kerchief tied over a cap [chepets] or ring of wood covered with cloth [kybalka]. Notice the ribbons on the lower part of the skirt, these were also put on the apron if it was of factory cloth.

Kul'chytska also shows a vest which buttons down the front, with a hip length peplum. This is called kamizelka. Here are two more paintings of E. Kozak showing the kamizelka as well, front and back.

The top one is called 'happiness' [notice the tavern in the background, the Chassidic tavern keeper standing out front]. The bottom one is callled 'temptation' this guy evidently is very fond of smoked herring. Both are meant to be humerous, but also show a costume consistent with that painted by Kul'chytska. The men are shown in embroidered shirts, pants of linen or bought wool, boots, fur hat and decorated overcoat of heavy wool, the svyta, sometimes in summer made of linen, in which case it is called 'polotianka'.

Just to verify this costume from another direction, here are two paintings by a third artist, O. Kurylas. both were printed on postcards in Vienna in 1918, illustrating a popular humorous song about the WWI era attempt at Ukrainian Independence called 'Bo Vijna Vijnoju' [Because War is War].

 

Both of the men are shown in the military uniform of the UsUsUsy,  the Ukrainian Riflemen. You can see substantial agreement in the costumes depicted on the women with the previous artists.

Here is another depiction by an unkown artist. It was printed on a postcard in Germany in 1918, under the title 'Solitude'.

She is shown holding a sunflower head, a common symbol of Ukraine. She is wearing a blouse with cross-stitched roses in red and black, which is more common in Eastern Ukraine, a band on the lower ustawka [inset], and other on the upper sleeve. She is also wearing a 'wreath', open on the top, covered with cloth, and what appear to be flowers made of beadwork on the top edge. Her kamizelka is of blue cloth with black velvet edging, which from written sources, seems to have been very common.

 

This is a painting by A. Sytkovych, entitled 'Hore' or 'Grief'. It was printed on a postcard in Lviw in 1919.

This is clearly of an unmarried girl because her head is uncovered. The bottom of the inset is embroidered, as well as the top of the sleeve. The bulk of the embroidery being in red, as well as the narrow apron with stripes over most of it, which are possibly woven in, tends to indicate that this may be a costume from Volyn' which is north of Halychyna. The costume does not differ substantially, except in details. And one last painting, this one by another unkown artist, printed on a postcard in Sweden in 1914.

The girl standing on the left has a linen apron embroidered in red with white openwork. The seated woman has an apron in the same material as the skirt. edged with ribbon. There is an open design embroidered on the insets, which is repeated in a wider stripe on the upper sleeve. This indicates that this may be depicting a costume from further east. In Halychyna the embroidery designs are usually more dense. In the 20th century, many women in the areas which wore the plakhta or obhortka costume switched to regular skirts, which could be made from bought material, while both the plakhta and the obhortka had to be woven by hand.

Thank you for reading, as always. It did not occur to me until recently to put these paintings together in order to research a particular costume.

As always, feel free to contact me with requests for research, or commissions to research, design, sew or embroider costumes or other items for groups or individuals.

Feel free to contact me with requests for research. I hope to eventually cover all of Europe and the Former Russian Empire/Soviet Union. I also gratefully accept tips on source materials which i may not have. I also accept commissions to research/design, sew, and/or embroider costumes or other items for groups or individuals.

Roman K.
Rkozakand@aol.com

Source Material:

Konstantyn Szonk-Rusych, 'Ukraine in Postcards', New York, 1981

Edward Kozak, 'Na Khlops'kyj Rozum Hrytsia Zozuli', Hamtramck, Mich, 1982

O. Kul'chytska, 'Folk Costumes of the Western Regions of the Ukrainian SSR.

V. Kubijovych, editor, 'Encyclopedia of Ukraine' article 'Galicia', Toronto, 1988