A unique museum devoted to the pysanka seeks input (04/28/02)

A unique museum devoted to the pysanka seeks input

by Orysia Paszczak Tracz

WINNIPEG - In the fall of 2001 I received a letter from Yaroslava Tkachuk, director of the Kolomyia Museum of Hutsul and Pokuttia Folk Art. She asked that I share the letter with anyone interested. My translation follows.

* * *

The administration of the Hutsul and Pokuttia Museum of Folk Art in Kolomyia sends its best wishes of health and success to you in all your endeavors.

Last year [2000], for the 10th International Hutsul Festival, a new pysanka department of our museum was built and opened. In its own building, today it is the world's only separate museum devoted to the pysanka. We have an abundant collection of pysanky, over 6,000 examples of this unique folk art, practically from every region of Ukraine and abroad.

A separate exhibit presents the pysanky of the Ukrainian diaspora in the United States, Canada and Australia. We are so gratified that the fire of enthusiasm for pysanky still burns among our people whom, for various reasons, fate had torn from their homeland. This enthusiasm is so exemplary of the unifying spirit of our nation. At present, negotiations are being carried on in embassies and consulates around the world to include in our museum collection decorated egg miniatures from Japan, India and Sri-Lanka. ...

We have been informed that you also continue this ancient tradition of pysanka writing. For this reason, we are very interested in having for our collection at least a few examples of your pysanky. We intend to contact as many Ukrainians abroad as possible [for their inclusion in the collection].

We commend you for your contribution in the promotion of Ukrainian culture on the world stage, and are so proud of our talented countrymen and women. Enclosed is a photograph of our Pysanka Museum. We hope to include your pysanka gift in our collection, if you reply positively to our request. We will be grateful for this, and for autobiographical data about the donor.

Also, we are sending such letters of request to our countrymen and women in France, Belgium, Germany. ... We ask you, if possible, to assist us in publicizing this blessed project, to let others know about it, in the hope that they also will join us.

We wish you, your family and those close to you the Lord's blessing and God's grace for all things good to come to you.

- Yaroslava Tkachuk, director, Kolomyia Museum of Hutsul and Pokuttia Folk Art, Teatralna Vul. 25, Kolomyia 78200, Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast, Ukraine; telephone, (380 3433) 23912; e-mail, [email protected].

* * *

This brand-new museum (located at Prospekt Vidrozhennia 43B in Kolomyia) is spectacular. The exterior is original, elegant and striking. The interior exhibition halls are exquisitely designed. I hope that the excellent pysanka writers from around the world will support this request. Keep in mind the purpose of the exhibit - to show the best of pysanky as they are written around the world. If you send your pysanka or pysanky, please include your biography.

And, although the director did not ask, I am are sure that financial support of the museum would be most welcome. In addition to the new Pysanka Museum, the main Hutsul and Pokuttia Museum was also completely renovated for the annual Hutsul festival in 2000 (as was all of downtown Kolomyia).

| Home Page |