SOMERSET, N.J. – The Ukrainian History and Education Center (UHEC) recently opened an exhibit titled “Rushnyky: Ritual Cloths of the Cossack Lands of Ukraine” featuring over 100 handcrafted rushnyky made between the end of the 19th and middle of the 20th centuries. The exhibit showcases rushnyky from Central Ukraine and nearby areas that were part of the Ukrainian Kozak Hetman State of the 17th and 18th centuries: the Poltava, Cherkasy, Chernihiv, Kyiv and Sumy regions.
The exhibit is dedicated to the fifth anniversary of the Revolution of Dignity in Ukraine, to the memory of those who lost their lives in that protest, and to those who have perished in the current war against Russian aggression in eastern Ukraine and Crimea. UHEC Director Natalia Honcha-renko noted that “many of the young men and women who sacrificed their lives for a free Ukraine never had the opportunity to make use of a wedding rushnyk, but instead were buried with one.”
The rushnyky in this exhibition, which are being exhibited for the first time in the United States, were assembled by curators Yuri Mischenko and Natalie Pawlenko. They traveled extensively throughout Ukraine, particularly their ancestral region of central Ukraine, where they became fascinated with the beauty of the land and its folk art. “Witnessing the use of embroidered rushnyk remnants for a car wash during a trip to Ukraine was one of the triggers for our interest in preserving this beautiful folk art form,” said Mr. Mischenko during the exhibit opening.
“Over the course of the past decade, and with the help of ethnographers and collectors in Ukraine, we have been able to assemble this unique personal collection and – together with the UHEC – are very happy to be able to share it with a broader audience.”
The most common use of rushnyky today is during the wedding ceremony. Traditionally, rushnyky played a major role in both the matchmaking ritual and the wedding itself. The betrothed couple would stand on a rushnyk while being blessed by their parents. They would again stand on a rushnyk during the sacrament of matrimony, and one would be used to bind their arms during the “Dance of Isaiah.”
In many locations of central Ukraine, especially in the Cherkasy and Poltava regions, a bride-to-be was expected to embroider up to 20 rushnyky for her own wedding. This regional tradition of using numerous richly decorated rushnyky was the major driving force for the large variety of styles and richness of decoration in central Ukraine. Since wedding rushnyky were the most numerous and exuberantly decorated, they are the ones most commonly found in museums and private collections.
The exhibit features a wide variety of rarely seen rushnyky, and viewers have an opportunity to see and learn more about the ancient Tree of Life symbol, and the two-headed eagle symbol, which represents the Byzantine stylized representation of the Trinity. The latter is sometimes mistakenly assumed to be derived from the two-headed eagle of the Russian coat of arms, but this image has a much older origin in Ukraine. For example, the ancient towns of Chernihiv and Novhorod-Siversky (both of which existed long before the establishment of the state of Muscovy) had such eagles in their coats of arms.
The exhibit also features rushnyky with the lush designs that had been influenced by the floral decorative ornamentation of the Kozak-Baroque, which adorned the textiles of the Kozak elite and Orthodox clergy of the 17th and 18th centuries. The Kozak-Baroque also provided the impetus for the transformation of rushnyky from utilitarian ritual objects to masterpieces of decorative folk art.
Those appreciating hand embroidery techniques will be impressed with the unusual class of rushnyky in the exhibit: those that use drawn thread work, or “merezhka.” Made by removing threads from the warp and/or weft and bundling the remaining threads into elaborate lace-like patterns, and traditionally done in white thread on white fabric, these were mostly seen in the Poltava region and adjacent parts of the Cherkasy, Chernihiv and Sumy regions. The exhibit aso contains several fine examples of the so-called “obmanka” (literally, deception), where the illusion of merezhka was created using embroidery with grey and black threads.
“The exhibit also contains the exceptionally rare Kumach rushnyky from the Sumy region. The name comes from the term for their distinctive red fabric, which is covered in dense white embroidery,” explained Ms. Pawlenko.“Equally distinctive are the ‘monastery’ rushnyky, which get their name from the women’s monastery of St. Matrona near Chyhyryn, Cherkasy region, where this type of rushnyk adorned the church and its icons.”
At the turn of the 19th century, a new style of embroidery using cross-stitching was introduced to Ukraine from Western Europe. In central and eastern Ukraine it became widespread, mostly due to reprints of Western European embroidery albums and local publications featuring floral embroidery designs. But the most significant impact on the proliferation of cross-stitch was made by French entrepreneur Henri Brocard and his Belgian wife Sharlotte Reve, who in 1864 established a soap-making and perfume business in what was then the Russian Empire. They wrapped their soaps in paper with cross-stitch patterns as a promotional technique, and provided free embroidery designs along with their products. This style entered the folk vernacular, and became known as Brokarivka (from the French “Brocard”). Although the needlepoint technique itself was borrowed, folk embroiderers almost always ended up using traditional symbols of rushnyk imagery – the Tree of Life, grapevines, wreaths, birds and so forth. Particularly interesting are derivatives of the Brokarivka style where it is combined with other traditional embroidery styles, such as merezhka and obmanka.
Despite the many years of Soviet repression of Ukrainian folk art, the tradition of embroidered and hand-woven rushnyk-making survived in Ukraine until the 1960s, mostly due to the widespread use of rushnyky in traditional wedding rituals. It was only during the last three decades of the 20th century that embroidered and hand-woven rushnyky underwent a gradual decline. While machine-made embroidery certainly had a negative impact, the prime factor was the sharp economic decline associated with the stagnation and demise of the Soviet Union and the resulting hardship for the Ukrainian people.
Fortunately, embroiderers, ethnographers, museums, and private collectors have helped to preserve this art for future generations. Rich collections of embroidered and hand-woven rushnyky from central and northeast Ukraine are preserved at the Ivan Honchar Museum and the State Museum of Ukrainian Decorative Folk Art in Kyiv, at the Poltava and Cherkasy Ethnographic Museums, the Chernihiv Historical Museum, the Museum of the Ukrainian Rushnyk in Pereyaslav-Khmelnytsky, the Kozelets and Krolevets Weaving Museums (Chernihiv and Sumy regions), and at the Museum of the Kozak Lands of Ukraine in Veremiyivka (Cherkasy region).
The exhibit runs until August 31 at the Ukrainian History and Education Center’s Library Gallery located at 135 Davidson Ave., Somerset, NJ, 08873 during the hours of 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday, and noon to 4 p.m. on the first Saturday of every month. For additional information call 732-356-0132 or e-mail [email protected].