Monday, September 3, 2012

Costumes and Embroidery of Ingria, part 4 with an insight to the origin of the sarafan


Hello all,
This is the last of my postings on the costumes of Ingria, with an insight to how the sarafan developed. 
In 1444, Vincke von Overbeg of the Teutonic Order attacked Ingria, and in 1445 carried off 3,000 Votic people as spoils of war. He settled them in the Latvian town of Bauska in the province of Zemgale to serve as laborers to build his castle, and afterwards they settled as farmers in the area. They managed to preserve their culture, language and costume for many centuries.  The Latvian people in the area came to call  them Krieviņi, or 'little Russians'. We have testimony to their existence and dress thanks to an expedition sent to the area headed by Anders Johan Sjögren in 1846. At this time the artist Georg Wilhelm Petzold made the above and other sketches of the Krieviņi which they met. They had almost completely lost the language, but still held on to their native dress, which to some extent influenced that of their neighbors, especially in the silver jewelry which continues to be worn here and nowhere else in Latvia.
The men had more or less taken up Latvian dress, except for the shirts which had embroidered cuffs and collars. The women wore a long chemise with embroidery on cuff, collar and hem, and a headcloth called 'sappan',  which you remember is a Votic term for an embroidered headdress. More uniquely, they wore a type of wrap-around skirt which was made of plaid cloth with a solid color cloth sewn onto the hem. This skirt did not wrap around the waist, but rather around the uppper body, and was held on to the shoulder on the side with the opening with one strap, as you can see in the sketch above, and also in this one. This skirt was then also belted at the waist.


The artist is showing this 'skirt' worn wrapped around different sides by the girl and by the woman, but I do not think this can be trusted, he may just have been wanting to show that part of the chemise was left uncovered.
The Krieviņi have since been completely assimilated, but a couple of garments have been preserved in Museums.
Here are some closeups of embroidery of shirts or chemises of the Krieviņi. 
Shoulder;


Collar;


and Cuff;


The embroidery is executed in Bargello or Brick stitch in the typically Latvian color scheme of red, yellow and green, or blue. A couple of sappans are also preserved.





For more information about the Krieviņi, see this article.

Skirts are generally considered to have developed from cloths wrapped around the waist. It is easy to see how this garment shown above could have developed into the sarafan, by being sewn shut, made fuller and having a second strap added.

Interestingly enough, a very similar type of garment has been preserved in Ingria, in the district of Hevaa, and possibly Kaprio.


This also consists of a plaid skirt which wraps around the body and has one shoulder strap.


It differs from the garment recorded as worn by the Krieviņi in that side panels [also plaid] have been added so that the garment is not open on the side, and a patchwork panel has been added to the bottom hem above the solid band. It is impossible to think that this garment does not have a common origin with those worn by the Krieviņi. 
This must be a proto-sarafan.
This garment is called 'hurstut'. The Finnish Museum online has these garments listed as being Izhorian, but they must be of the same origin as the garments worn by the Krieviņi.
A couple more examples.




There are a couple of  examples in the collection which are somewhat different, and they resemble a sarafan even more. This one is shown folded over and ready to wear.




The chemise that is worn with this costume has the same cut as the ones which I covered in part 2. The difference is that the rectangular pieces over the shoulders are covered with embroidery of the same type as that which is on the double aprons. Here is an example, front, back, and detail of the embroidery.




This is also the same stitch which is used on the Krieviņi chemises and shirts, although the colors are different. More evidence that these two costumes have a common origin.
A couple more examples.







 
A long headdress called again, sappano is worn with this costume. It has brick or bargello stitch embroidery on the forehead, and Holbein Stitch embroidery on the linen part which hangs in back. One specimen;




A second example;



 
And a third;





I have only been able to find one image of this costume being worn, and it is not very clear, but you can see the various pieces and how they are worn. In this image she is wearing the dark plain colored hurstut.


Thank you for reading, I hope you have found this interesting and inspiring. Make something of beauty for your house or wardrobe.


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.

email


Source Material:
Most of this material is from the Finnish Museums Online website.
http://suomenmuseotonline.fi/en
L. Molotova, 'Folk Art of the Russian Federation', Leningrad, 1981
Ildiko Lehtinen, 'The Finno-Ugric Collections at the National Museum of Finland', Forssa, Finland, 1990
 Vita Bandere et al, 'Latvian National Costumes, vol II', Riga, 2003

Sunday, September 2, 2012

Costumes and Embroidery of Ingria, part 3

Hello all,
Today I will present another Votic costume also from the western part of Ingria. This costume is simpler than the others, and has little in common with them except for the style of embroidery. It does have some resemblance to South Russian and Chuvash costume, which I find no explanation for.  Remember that Russia only annexed this area in about the year 1700.


 The specimens which I will show have been collected in the districts of Narvusi, Soikkola, and Kattila.
This costume consists of a sleeveless chemise with a shirt over it. This basic concept is quite widespread, being found in Estonia, Sweden, south Russia, and as far away as Moravia. Usually the shirt or blouse is quite short, leaving the chemise showing on the midriff, and the blouse ending just below the bust. The top garment is often simply called 'sleeves'.

The paita or chemise for this costume is quite plain. Here are a couple examples, front, back, and hem.. The hem is sometimes ornamented with hemstitch, but these  are usually very plain.




The upper garment is called päällyspaita, or sometimes peretnikka, this second term is derived from the Russian 'perednyk', which means 'that which hangs in front' or apron. Aprons with sleeves are common in Russian costumes south of Moscow, but they are not known from the north. I suspect that the garment was once common among the Finnic peoples, and as they became assimilated by the Russians, passed into the folk costumes of the Russians, but only survived among the Votes in this one area in the north, where the sarafan became the dominant garment of the Russians within the last 300 years or so. 

The päällyspaita has s straight cut, with long sleeves. There is minimal ornamentation around the neck opening and sleeve ends. The bulk of the ornament is concentrated on the bottom edge. For ease of movement, there is a slit up the back, ending in a keyhole shape. Sometimes there is a ribbon attached to the top of this opening. The overall length varies somewhat. Here is one example.





Here is a mannequin wearing this outfit, front and back.


The embroidery is that sort of Holbein stitch which has become typical of northwest Russia in general. Several more examples, some of which are longer.

 







These examples above have all been from the district of Kattila. Here are a couple from Soikkola. This first one has a ruffled cuff and ribbon ties front and back.












And a couple of examples from the district of Narvusi. This first one has darning stitch embroidery instead of the Holbein stitch.






Girls in this region wore caps covered with beads, metal plates and cowries, looking very similar to those worn by Chuvash girls.



Women wore a taller cone shaped cap with an opening on top, again reminiscent of Chuvash headgear. The symbolism of girls having a closed cap and women having an open one is obvious.

  

It appears that an embroidered cloth is wrapped around the women's cone shaped headdress. 
Take a look at the last photo in this article, and also these.



 
A red beaded ornament may be worn around the neck.

 
Some of my sources say that women also wear a skirt, but I have been unable to find more information than that. If anyone has more information about this costume, please let me know.

I have only been able to find a couple of photos of this costume being worn.



These girls are wearing yet another shorter sleeved blouse over the päällyspaita, but I question this, as most of the museum pieces have embroidery around the neck opening and cuff. 

If anyone has more information, please contact me. I feel like I have insufficient data, but I also felt that what I have been able to represent is very interesting as is.

Thank you for reading, I hope that you have enjoyed this, and that you may be able to use some of these designs or concepts in your creative life.


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.

email


Source Material:
Most of this material is from the Finnish Museums Online website.
http://suomenmuseotonline.fi/en
L. Molotova, 'Folk Art of the Russian Federation', Leningrad, 1981
Ildiko Lehtinen, 'The Finno-Ugric Collections at the National Museum of Finland', Forssa, Finland, 1990