Exhibition highlights the colors and melodies of Christmas holidays (02/05/06)

Exhibition highlights the colors and melodies of Christmas holidays

by Larissa Babij
Special to the Weekly

KYIV - At the end of Khreschatyk, strung with festive holiday lights, vibrant banners over the entrance to the Ukrayinskyi Dim announce the exhibition "Rizdvo: Koliory I Melodii" (Christmas: Colors and Melodies). While the objects on display and the carols playing in the background may be familiar to diaspora Ukrainians, the exhibit presents a wide variety of holiday traditions and folk artifacts to a population that has greatly lost its sense of cultural heritage.

"Christmas was celebrated that way then in Ukraine as it is now in America," said Lidia Lykhach, one of the curators. "And now, unfortunately, through the 70 Soviet years, it's not so."

President Viktor Yushchenko, a long-time collector and champion of his nation's cultural history, approached Ms. Lykhach, who is an adviser to the Ministry of Culture, and the Rodovid Gallery to organize an exhibition showing the Ukrainian way of celebrating the holidays. Mr. Yuschenko writes in the foreword to the exhbition catalogue: "The Christmas traditions are the wisdom and faith of our people."

Drawing from the collections of President Yushchenko, Petro Honchar, Vasyl Vovkun and her own, Ms. Lykhach, together with co-curators Mr. Vovkun and Iryna Azizova, chose embroidered ritual cloths, pottery, icons of the winter saints, wooden crosses, 19th century church statuary, and a many-branched "didukh" to accompany detailed descriptions of how Christmas, the New Year and many lesser known winter holidays have historically been celebrated in various regions of Ukraine.

"The idea was to uphold the Ukrainian calendar, to show that holidays can be [celebrated] in a different manner," Ms. Lykhach explained. "People have become disaccustomed to celebrating. ... In Kyiv or somewhere further south, they don't even play Christmas songs as is normal throughout the world."

A group of 10-year-olds from the Specialized School of the Intellect in Kyiv came in to see firsthand the artifacts they study in their history and narodoznavstvo courses. Their teacher, Tatiana Bondarenko, said, "Unfortunately a lot [of the customs] have been forgotten. Therefore, the children only now are beginning to understand this."

Each artifact is labeled with a date and a region. An information table holds books for sale, including the catalogue. Friendly exhibition guides are available to answer questions about specific works and lead occasional tours.

The exhibition room, designed by Kyiv architects Larissa Merkulova and Vadim Zaplatnikov, is draped in black cloth to contrast with the bright colors of the objects, which also include "kylyms," intricately beaded and embroidered folk costumes, and handcrafted saddles and boots. "When we were thinking about the actual exhibit, it wasn't only to show Christmas," Ms. Lykhach explained."We thought to simply have an exhibit about the colors and melodies of Ukrainian holidays in general."

She continued, "We immediately conceived that this exhibit would travel all over Ukraine." Further destinations include Crimea, Kharkiv, possibly Donetsk and other southern and eastern locations. "Koliory i Melodii" may even reach The Ukrainian Museum in New York and Chicago.

President Yushchenko hopes this exhibition will encourage the preservation of Ukraine's cultural heritage and lead to discussions of how the attributes and symbolism of the Ukrainian holiday calendar can live on in the present. He sees these traditions as a force that could draw all Ukrainians, from residents of the center of Kyiv to the smallest villages, into one unified nation.

Since the exhibition first opened in Kyiv on December 29, 2005, on weekends it receives between 1,000 and 1,500 visitors daily. It was extended through January 28, and is sponsored by the Rodovid Gallery, Museum of Ivan Honchar and the international charitable fund "Ukraine 3000."

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