Museum conference focuses on Ukrainian folk life and "culture keepers" (10/22/06)

Museum conference focuses on Ukrainian folk life and "culture keepers"

by Helen Smindak

NEW YORK - Who devotes more attention to the preservation of Ukrainian folk art, folklore and folk life? Ukrainians in the old country or Ukrainians in the diaspora?

The answer's easy, you say - Ukrainians in Ukraine. Their ancestors began age-old rituals and customs, the decorating of colorful Easter eggs, the welcoming of honored guests with bread and salt on an embroidered ritual cloth, the summer festival of Ivan Kupalo, etc.

That answer will not earn an A - or even a B - from Ukrainian folklore expert Natalie Kononenko. Speaking at a daylong conference at The Ukrainian Museum last month, she said that both groups have tradition keepers - she prefers to call them "culture keepers" - who lead the way in preserving traditions and rituals for the collective whole.

Once considered to be a group product, where everyone knew songs, rituals, embroidery patterns and pysanka designs, folklore is now understood to be a phenomenon where by a group enjoys and appreciates the folklore but not everyone is equally adept at its production. In this setting, says Prof. Kononenko, traditions are carried on by special, active individuals - tradition bearers, or culture keepers - who produce for others.

Prof. Kononenko, professor and Kule Chair of Ukrainian Ethnography at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, was the keynote speaker at the museum's "Ukrainian Living Heritage" conference, held in conjunction with a yearlong exhibit featuring symbolic motifs in Ukrainian folk art.

During the day, participants were given the opportunity to try their hand at Ukrainian folk crafts, from the making of ritual bread ornaments to pysanka decorating and weaving. They also had a chance to view the folk art exhibit, as well as an exhibit of woodcuts and paintings by distinguished artist Jacques Hnizdovsky.

Prof. Kononenko believes the term "culture keepers" is especially appropriate for the Ukrainian situation. When Ukrainian culture is under assault - be it from a system that seeks to annihilate it, like Soviet rule, or pressure from living as a minority within a very powerful dominant mass culture, as is true of America - there are always individuals who are determined to preserve their culture, she said.

This category might include an embroidery master whose work other people will copy or a person at a traditional wedding who knows what to do next and how to do it. "Certain people are more zealous about a tradition; they maintain knowledge and are sought out for their knowledge, and receive honors and other rewards for what they do," Prof. Kononenko explained.

In Ukraine, Oksana Fedorivna Kryvorih (known to other villagers as Baba Sianka) is a culture bearer who "maintained a lovely home and garden, executed exquisite embroidery, was a wonderful singer and a great teller of folk tales and legends."

Prof. Kononenko called attention to several other examples in her slides-and-commentary presentation, among them Motria Perepechai, an expert embroiderer and song preservationist, and schoolteacher Mykhailo Koval, who started and ran a school choir and later a village choir, played bandura and accordion, made straw hats, embroidered, and revived the art of woven belts and other types of weaving.

"Pretty well everywhere you go (in Ukraine), people know who the culture keepers are and will assemble them for the folklorist," she said. Prof. Kononenko has traveled to Ukraine several times to research Ukrainian folklore.

She noted that rituals, in particular, require the help of culture keepers, since "not everyone knows instinctively what to do and how to do it." At weddings, culture keepers guide the proceedings, prepare the "korovai," (traditional wedding bread) negotiate at the door of the bride's home and perform other functions. The role of culture keepers is especially clear at funerals and baptisms. At a funeral, for instance, they perform an important role of speaking on behalf of the deceased, and sing psalms while individuals sing the lament.

Prof. Kononenko said that culture keepers resisted Russification and extreme Soviet guidelines (which outlined specific ways to do things, including how to fold a wedding invitation) by preserving traditional customs. They held secret baptisms and shifted the age of baptism, used hidden crosses, kept icons in their homes and maintained the "klub" (village social club) so that young people had a safe place to socialize.

Facing many challenges

While the advent of Ukrainian independence brought a tremendous religious revival, with rebuilding of churches, singing and other religious activities, and the return of folk activities like pysanka-decorating, embroidery and Ivan Kupalo festivities, folklore in Ukraine is faced with many challenges: the maintenance or restoration of culture in the special post-Soviet situation, the threat of increasing globalization and the incursion of global pop culture. "We can find a Barbie Doll clone in every village now," said Prof. Kononenko.

The preservation of culture in the diaspora, specifically the Ukrainian diaspora in North America, has also been faced with challenges, particularly that of assimilation. While the first generation, the immigrants, continued old ways, the second generation rejected traditions in its desire to assimilate. Language was lost, people changed names and intermarried with people from other ethnic groups or the dominant culture. However, the second generation, Prof. Kononenko stressed, managed to found museums and collect materials from the old country, as well as new items produced by Ukrainians in North America.

Prof. Kononenko said that interest in ethnic heritage was rekindled by the third generation, which led the process of revival, and has continued through subsequent generations, often due to the efforts of culture keepers. With a new outlook, the third generation adapted to the lack of Ukrainian language skills, employing new technologies and appeals to those outside the Ukrainian community in order to present a positive image of Ukrainians to the dominant culture.

Traditions that can be understood by everyone - folk dancing, pysanka decorating and embroidery, the use of the korovai and rushnyk in wedding celebrations - are used to appeal to Ukrainians who do not know the language and to non-Ukrainians.

Prof. Kononenko pointed out that various ways are used in the diaspora to reach out beyond the Ukrainian commmunity - staging public events, utilizing high-tech methods such as the craft lathe, using pysanka stands and electric needles (for pysanka decorating), sanctioning such new cultural expressions as the blessing of Easter baskets inside the church rather than on the church lawn, and offering instruction and literature on Ukrainian crafts.

She noted that Chester Kuc, whose collection of Easter eggs was recently exhibited at the Alberta Provincial Museum, is one of many Canadian culture keepers. Instrumental in founding the Shumka dance group (later the Cheremosh dance group) in Edmonton, Mr. Kuc also embroiders and collects embroidery designs, which he charts and sells.

A break in tradition usually causes radical changes and initiates new needs, as seen in ritual cloths (rushnyky) used in weddings in Ukraine, Prof. Kononenko noted. Women in Ukraine now use DMC thread to produce bright, geometric designs on rushnyky that contrast dramatically with traditional towels.

Another innovation is "text" ritual cloths that employ words to duplicate the meaning of ornamental motifs for anyone who cannot "read" motifs and needs words to be able to understand. Analogous to the books of symbols and patterns produced in North America, text rushnyky are a folk way to provide information, in the same way that books of pysanka and embroidery symbols and motifs, produced by the elite in Ukraine, serve urban dwellers.

While text rushnyky and other new customs may not be welcome to diaspora Ukrainians, who want to preserve traditional folk ways for succeeding generations, "we can't change what's happening over there," Prof. Kononenko asserted.

Conference organizer Lubow Wolynetz, the museum's curator of folk art, introduced participating folk artists Larysa Zielyk (ritual baking) and Sofiyka Zielyk (pysanka artist, ceramicist), both of New York, and Philadelphia area residents Evdokia Sorokhaniuk (weaver, embroiderer), Olha Kolodij (collector, instructor and specialist in gerdany - seeded bead necklaces), Vira Nakonechna (weaver, embroiderer), and Marichka Panczak (embroiderer, folk costume specialist).

In concluding remarks, Ms. Wolynetz pointed out that, just as there are special individuals in society who assume the role and burden of culture keepers, an institution such as a museum is a culture keeper in a wider sense - it not only collects and preserves culture in the form of cultural artifacts but also exhibits and interprets, sparks interest, teaches something new and deepens knowledge of something known.

Early in the day, Olha Hnateyko, president of The Ukrainian Museum's board of trustees, welcomed participants, and Museum Director Maria Shust spoke to the gathering. In presenting the conference, Ms. Shust said, the museum paid tribute to "all those who have been the keepers and preservers of Ukrainian culture for thousands of years; in preserving our culture, they have also preserved the Ukrainian identity as a nation that has its own rich heritage."

Ms. Shust said the museum was grateful to generations of members of the Ukrainian National Women's League of America, who purchased the first folk art collection and eventually founded the museum, and to individual donors "who have entrusted cherished artifacts to the museum's care."

She said the conference was funded in part through a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services, a federal grant-making agency dedicated to helping libraries and museums serve their communities.

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