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

Foreign Embroidery in the Ukrainian Tradition

Hello all. I intend to continue my series on the Volga region costumes, i have yet to cover the Moksh-Erzya, [Mordvin], and the Chuvash, i am waiting for the arrival of a couple of books that will provide more information on this topic.
Today i want to talk about two particular embroidery designs that have come from outside Ukraine but have become very important in Ukrainian Culture. This is the first one.

This piece was embroidered by my late grandmother, Maria Kozak. Believe it or not, this image is a bit larger than life-sized. The original piece has about 20 cross-stitches to the inch. Originally it was made for a shirt that she embroidered for my father, some time in the 1930's. After he outgrew it, she took the embroidered pieces and made them into a cover for a sofa pillow. This is very typical. In any Ukrainian home where someone embroiders, you will find several decorative pillows lined up on top of the back of the sofa.

The image on the left is a photograph of my grandmother taken in 1935, about the time that she embroidered this piece. She is the one on the right. This photograph was taken in the city of Lviw, during an event that was called a "Folk Costume Fashion Show". Many photographs exist of this event. I admit to wishing fervently that i could go back and visit it with a high-resolution color digital camera. The image on the left shows my grandparent's flat in the 1950's. The admittedly cheap couch is covered with a cloth woven in crosswise stripes and many embroidered pillows. I always remember her house and that of all of her friends being full of embroidery in this manner. That is my mother sitting on the couch. This image was remastered from an old slide, which explains the scratches. On the wall is one of my grandfather's paintings and a woven shoulder bag from Ukraine.

Here is a graph of the design shown at the top of the posting. The green circles indicate that the area should be embroidered in blue cross stitch. This graph is taken from the book 'Ukrainian Embroidery Stitches Designs and Stitches' which was published by the Ukrainian Women's Association of Canada' in 1958. It was not unusual to graph designs with symbols representing various colors. Blue is rare in Ukrainian Embroidery, and adding an extra ink color would substantially increase the cost of printing. This design is universally referred to as 'Polubotok'. It is definitely not a design that fits into the Ukrainian embroidery tradition, especially not the northeast region, which it is associated with. The name refers to Het'man Pavlo Polubotok, from the Chernyhiw region, who lived from about 1660 to 1724. He was an important figure in Ukrainian History. You can read more about him in Wikipedia here. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pavlo_Polubotok

I half-remember a story my grandmother told me that Het'man Polubotok obtained a shirt embroidered with this design, whether as loot or ransom or a gift  I have read in other sources that he married a foreign woman who wore this design on her chemise. In any case, according to my grandmother, the design was copied far and wide by embroiderers because of its connection to this important person, and because it was different from what they were used to. The design is more reminiscent of the embroidery of the Volga region or of the Balkans, [which have a historical connection through the Bolgar tribe] than of Ukrainian embroidery.But because Het'man Polubotok stood up to the Romanov Tsar, fighting for the rights of Ukraine, this design has become almost a symbol of Ukrainian Identity. In more recent years the design has often been embroidered in sky blue and gold, which are the Ukrainian National Colors. It is also widely embroidered because its various components lend themselves to being rearranged, so being able to form many compositions. Here is one example.

This piece was embroidered by Nina Ipatiy. She is a very accomplished Ukrainian embroiderer who makes her work available online. She is very skilled, and her website is worth a visit.

Embroidery by Nina Ipatiy 

Here is yet another example in another color scheme.

(c) 2006 D. Dmytrykiw Ukrainian Ethnographic Collection, Archives, & Library of Avon Lake, Ohio; used by permission.

 This item is part of Danylo Dmytrykiw's collection of Ukrainian Costumes and Embroidery. You can see this and other items from his collection at the Website of the Ukrainian Museum of Cleveland.

Their website is also well worth visiting, with many wonderful examples of Ukrainian embroidery and other folk arts. http://www.umacleveland.org/embroidery.htm

The polubotok image is on the bottom right. You can click on it to see a larger image.

The second design i wish to talk about it this one.

I noticed this design appearing in Ukrainian households all over the place a couple decades ago.

I was very mystified, as it does not  resemble traditional Ukrainian designs at all. I found out that this image had been published in the book.

Invincible Spirit"...
"Art And Poetry Of Ukrainian Women
Political Prisoners In The U.S.S.R."
Smoloskyp Publishers, 1977
Baltimore-Chicago-Toronto-Paris
This book published poetry and photographs of embroidery created by women who were being held in Soviet camps for political prisoners. These women were standing up to the Soviet government, asking for basic human rights, and for their speech, writings, and participation in demonstrations were locked up for years in concentration camps. These embroideries were made by these women while in camps in the Mordovian Autonomous Republic.
 It was then that the source of this design became clear. If you compare this design to the ones in my previous blogs on Mari and Udmurt embroidery and costume, it is clear that it is from the same basic tradition. The biggest difference is the replacement of the slant stitch with cross stitch. One of these women must have picked up the design, or the idea for the design from the local Mordvin women. Once it was published, many Ukrainian women copied the design as a sign of solidarity with their sisters suffering in the concentration camps in the Soviet Union. So this foreign design has now become an integral part of Ukrainian Culture and history. I wish to stress that the imprisonment was the work of the Soviet Government, and has no reflection on the Mordovian People. The Soviets made a habit of transporting political prisoners out of their homelands to hold them among people foreign to them. [I also apologize to any Moksha or Erzya who might read this for use of the term Mordovian, i do know better, and i will do a posting on this issue in the future, but it is simpler for the sake of the item under discussion.]
For a fuller explanation of this book, and its contents see this website.
http://www.artukraine.com/old/embroidery/mordovian.htm

These two small glimpses into history show how art and design become part of the fabric of our lives,
and how they can have very strong significance to a nation and to individuals.

As always, thank you for reading. I welcome your input, and corrections.

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. I also choreograph and teach folk dance.

Roman K.

Rkozakand@aol.com


Roman K

Ukrainian Plakhta costume, by request from Anna

Hello All, I am going to interrupt my series on the Volga area costumes at the request of my niece, Anna.

She is an artist, as most of the members of our family are. She has a cutout that my grandfather was going to paint, but never had the chance to finish. It is a girl in Ukrainian Plakhta costume dancing. So i am going to detail this costume. For those of you who are interested, here is Anna with the cutout, which has only the simplest of sketching in. She might let me show you the finished product.

This is one of the five major types of Ukrainian costume. It is sometimes called the Poltava costume, but in fact, it is much more widespread. The Poltava is just one version of this costume. I will describe a generalized version of this form of dress. This is what one generally sees presented as the national costume  of Ukraine.

 On this map, this is the costume of the light green, orange and dark yellow areas of this map, the central, eastern and southern regions of Ukraine.

 Like Most costumes of eastern Europe, the base of the costume is the chemise, in Ukrainian called Sorochka. The basic cut is this one.

This is the most common and widespread cut for Slavic Chemises. You will notice that there is a piece sewn on top of each shoulder, this is called the Ustawka, or inset. The sleeve is sewn to both the ustawka and the body of the shirt at right angles, in contrast to the Obhortka costume, of which i have already written, in which the sleeve was sewn on parallel to the body. The edge of the inset is always embroidered with a band of embroidery, which shows on the upper arm, just above the shoulder seam. There is a huge range of designs which Ukrainians use. I dont have time to show more than one here, on the right. The most common colors used are red and black. The sleeve is sometimes sewn smoothly onto the inset, and is sometimes made fuller and gathered at the seam with the inset, as shown in the photograph on the right. Sometimes the same design is embroidered in a second band below the seam,

and sometimes there are designs scattered over the lower sleeve, or forming a vertical line down the body of the sleeve. But the one band across the inset is always embroidered, even for everyday wear, there is at least a narrow band. The sorochka is also embroidered along the bottom hem, and sometimes along the neck and wrist  bands.

This costume is named after the type of overskirt worn, the Plakhta.This is made of two pieces of cloth woven in an intricate design composed of squares, with a design woven in each of the squares. It might be described as a checkerboard, but NOT a plaid. i will do a posting showing some of the designs later. The pieces of cloth are narrow because of the limitations of hand looms. These two pieces are sewn together with an ornamental stitch somewhat more than halfway in what will be a vertical seam. This is shown in the drawing on the left. The edges are bound, and the 6 corners are often decorated with pompoms. The top half is folded over a sash, and hangs over the bottom half. The sash is then tied around the waist, and tied so that the plakhta is secure, and centered on the back. Typically it does not meet in front. Here is a photo of a plakha folded and ready to put on. This is what will become the back side.

Here is a photo of a woman wearing the Plakhta. She is wearing a chemise with white on white embroidery. The apron is a simple rectangle, made of one width of material, either of linen with a horizontal embroidered band towards the bottom edge, or of a colored material, with woven designs, ribbon sewn in horizontal bands, or embroidery, again towards the bottom edge. A second sash is tied around the waist over the apron. The outfit is often worn like this, but over this may be worn the Kersetka.

This is a type of vest which hangs to the hips or below, hangs smoothly in front, and has pleats in the back for fullness below the waist. It can be made of any material, but not linen, is closed in front up to the neck, and is usually decorated with trim or applique along the bottom edge and the front edge, which overlaps right over left. This is a more recent garment, apparently based on the cut brought in by the Tatars.

 This is finished off with red coral beads, amber or other type of necklaces, and for unmarried girls, a crown with flowers and long many colored ribbons hanging down in back. This is the costume shown in the cutout. Here are a couple of examples of this costume.

You will notice that the hemlines of these photos are much longer than that in the cutout. Starting in the 1950's there was a  tendency to shorten the entire ensemble, the sorochka, the plakhta and the apron, to a position just below the knees. This was perhaps to make the outfit easier to dance in, but more likely was motivated by the fashion of the day, and the idea that bare female legs would be appreciated by the audience. This sometimes reached rediculous proportions. Here are some examples of the shortened version of the costume. Some performing groups are bringing back the longer hemline, especially for choirs.

Thank you again for reading. I am open to researching and/or making costumes or costume pieces for interested individuals or groups, or to provide information so that others can sew or embroider folk art item. This is something i enjoy and would like to make into a career, as unlikely as that may be. I am also available to teach folk dances.
As always, be creative, make something by hand, make an heirloom, make something that you can show off on your self or in your home.
Roman K

Rkozakand@aol.com

Source Material:
K. Matejko, 'Ukraijinskyj Narodnyj Odiah', [Ukrainian Folk Clothing] Kyjiw, [Kiev] 1977
T Nikolaieva, 'Ukrainskaia Narodnaja Odezhda Srednee Podneprove' [Ukrainian Folk Clothing of the Central Dnipro Region] Kyjiw [Kiev] 1988
V. Bilozub et al. 'Ukrajins'ke Narodne Mystetsvo - Tkanyny i Vyshywky' [Ukrainian Folk Art - Weaving and Embroidery] Kyjiw, [Kiev] 1960
V. Bilozub et al. 'Urajins'ke Narodne Mystetsvo - Vbrannia' [Ukrainian Folk Art - Clothing] Kyjiw, [Kiev] 1961
N. Maruchanova et al. 'Ukrajins'ke Narodne Dekoratywne Mystetsvo' [Ukrainian Decorative Folk Art]
Kyjiw, [Kiev] 1956
O. Dmytriw et al. 'Ukrainian Arts' New York, 1955

Pillow embroidered with Podillia chemise design, Ukrainian

I decided in my first blog to talk about the piece that i chose as the background of my screen. This is the piece in full.

It is a case for a decorative sofa pillow, embroidered in cross stitch with herringbone stitch for the edges. It was embroidered by my mother in 1957, and she finished it about the same time as i was born. Embroidery is extremely important in Ukrainian culture, even today. You can see the detail of the stitching at the edges of this page. Here is a graph of the design.
There is a Ukrainian Women's Magazine called 'Our Life' out of Philadelphia to which many people subscribe partly because they feature an embroidery design on the back cover of each issue.
This design was originally used as part of a rectangular shaped piece of embroidery done on the top of  woman's sleeve, on the shoulder-upper arm area in Podillia. Traditionally, a design such as this one is repeated horizontally, seperated by embroidered lines, and also edged on the vertical sides with lines and often a small embroidered motif such as that at the top of this one. The main ground color is usually black, and the design is usually very densely worked, if not covering the entire ground of the cloth. here are a couple other examples of such designs. The ones i have chosen for today are done in cross stitch, but other stitches are also used.

Under this patch of embroidery, there is most typically a wide horizontal stripe of embroidery in a different design, most commonly in a completely contrasting color, and often in a completely different stitch or stitches. this hangs on the sleeve somewhat above the elbow. The rest of the lower sleeve is covered with embroidered stripes, either vertical or diagonal. Here are just a couple examples.

The sleeves for this chemise are cut in one piece, which is unusual for Ukrainian Women's Costume.
The shoulder pieces are usually cut out seperately, and are almost always the focus of the embroidery.
The cut for Podillia is this.
The seams shown on the body of the garment are
determined by the width of the looms in the peasant houses. If one is making such a garment today there is no reason to be restricted in the placement of the vertical seams on the body. The chemise, or Sorochka, is the base garment for all Ukrainian costumes. As you can see, the garment covers the body roughly to the ankles or somewhat above. Unusually for Ukrainian costumes the bottom hem is not embroidered. Starting around the 1950's or so, women would often make the chemises in two pieces, to make the equivalent of a blouse and a slip, so that it could be worn with modern skirts or even pants, but originally it was one long garment. The cuffs are often finished by gathering into a wristband, rather than gathered into a frill, as shown.
This is one of the 5 main types of Ukrainian costumes, [about which i will compose a blog later], the costume with the Obhortka. The Obhortka is one of the overskirt types used in Ukrainian costume. The word Obhortka means 'that which is wrapped around' It consists of a rectangular piece of cloth, woven from wool,
heavy and stiff with narrow stripes or designs at both ends, and a border, like so.
It is wrapped around the hips so that the ends overlap in front, and secured with a wide wool sash, wrapping twice or more around, the ends of which hang down in back. This costume is most unusual in that it is not normally worn with an apron.The garment is also called the Horbotka, as a result of dyslexia, i assume, or the Fota, which is the Rumanian word for the garment.

This basic costume is worn in Podillia, Pokuttia, and Bukovina, and the same basic costume is also worn in Moldova, the Romanian province of Moldova, and Wallachia. There are differences in the colors and designs of the embroidery, the designs woven into the obhortka, the overall length, and other details.
Most commonly, one of the front corners is lifted and tucked in at the waist, for ease of walking. Sometimes both corners are tucked up. The completed outfit is worn like this.

For the benefit of those who are wondering where Podillia is, here is a map of the western part of Ukraine.
Podillia comprises the two areas labelled as II-4.
 This map is from a new book called "Traditional Ukrainian Clothing" vol 1 by O. Kosmina, printed by Baltia Druk in 2008. A wonderful and useful book.

This completes my first blog. I am open to what people would like to find out, and i am always willing to do research on a specific topic. Thank you for reading and please give me feedback.

Roman K.
Rkozakand@aol.com


Source Material:
K. Mateyko, 'Ukrainian Folk Costume', Kiev, 1977
L. Dachenko, 'Ukrainian Folk Art' Leningrad 1982
O. Kubayevych, the chapter 'Embroidery' in 'The State Ethnographic Museum Applied Art of the Ukrainian SSR', Kiev 1976
T. Kara-Vasylieva, 'Ukrainian Embroidery' Kiev, 1993
V. Bilozub et al. 'Ukrainian Folk Art - Weaving and Embroidery', Kiev 1960
V. Bilozub et al. 'Ukrainian Folk Art - Clothing', Kiev 1961
Also images from my  personal collection.