Traditional neck jewelry of Boykivshchyna and Pidhirya ethnic regions in western Ukraine
Boykivshchyna ethno-region is located in the mountain system of the western part of the Ukrainian Carpathians.
Boyko people lived in Ivano-Frankivsk region - in the southwestern part of Rozhnyativ district and in Dolyna district (except for its northern part); in Lviv region - in Skole, Turka, southern strip of Stryi, Drohobych, Sambir and most of Starosambir districts (according to the location of districts before the administrative reform of 2020); in Transcarpathian region - in Volovets and in the north of Mizhhirya and Velyky Berezny districts.
The Pidhirya ethnoregion is located between the Dniester River and the foothills of the Carpathians in the Lviv and Ivano-Frankivsk regions. Administratively, Pidhirya covers the plain part of Starosambirsky district (except for the north-western outskirts belonging to Nadsyannya), the right bank of the Dniester in Sambir, Mykolaiv, Zhydachiv districts, the plain part of Drohobych and Stryi districts of Lviv region, the foothill part of Dolynsky, Rozhnyativ districts, almost all of Kalush and the north of the right bank of the Dniester in Galician districts of Ivano-Frankivsk region. On the territory of Pidhirya there are cities: Drohobych, Truskavets, Boryslav, Sambir, Stryi, Zhydachiv, Kalush, Dolyna, etc. However, some researchers interpret Pidhirya as the north-eastern part of Boykivshchyna.
In the complex of Boyko costumes (and the costumes of Pidhirya), the chest ornaments included coral beads and their imitations, colorful glass beads and copper crosses that were strung between the beads ("monista"). Large crosses were worn on a separate lace or ribbon. Necklaces of coral and its imitations consisted of 9-15 strings at a distance from each other.
In many villages of Boikivshchyna (the outskirts of Dolyna and Kalush in Ivano-Frankivsk region) in the second half of the XIX century, a beaded sylianka in the form of a ribbon ("drabynka", "shyshirka", "lanka") was a mandatory and often the only neck ornament. In the late XIX and early XX centuries, beaded jewelry in the form of wide collars, pelerines, which were worn over coral or glass beads, and toothed syllabuses were also widespread.
Double sylianka consisted of two parts - a ribbon and a collar, each of which had its own variant of stringing or weaving and ornament. Two-part syliankas were worn in Boykivshchyna.
In Boyko district, the syliankas were 7-14 cm wide. By color, syliankas either had a multicolored ornament placed on a white background (Western and Eastern Boikivshchyna), or the background was black or dark blue (Transcarpathian Boikivshchyna). Ochre, dark cherry, dark blue (blue), and green colors were distinctive for the ornamentation of ancient works. An important feature of the Boyko kryza was its coloring, built on combinations of colors and shades: yellow, orange, red, grassy green, blue, cornflower, black.
In the vicinity of the town of Turka in Lviv region, there were beaded ribbons with the ends connected on the chest ("lytsi"). The artistic and compositional solution of the Boyko kryza was based on openwork weaving, made using the "grid" technique with four beads on the rhombus side. In order to give the decoration a rounded shape (as in the performance of some one-part syliankas), Boyko masters often used the technique of pulling the upper edge of the braid.
The ribbon-tiered (mostly three-tiered) composition of the decoration also had peculiar features. A small ribbon ornament of the upper part of the kryza was marked by a rich variety of simple motifs. It could be small multicolored rhombuses, rectangles, triangles, eights, oblique crosses, or just a single-colored ribbon or a linear zigzag. The central ornamental tier of the Boyko kryza was most often dominated by the motif of a large rhombus, sometimes bordered by rays, or a hexagon (a rhombus with cut off vertices) with a smaller rhombus inside. However, there were exceptions, for example, the central motif of this decoration could also be a four-petal rosette. But the lower tier of the composition was usually formed by horizontally laid strips, sometimes divided by narrow ornamental ribbons with motifs - elements of a small rhombus, rectangle, cross or triangle.
The compositions of strung and woven gerdans of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were characterized by a metrical rhythm of simple motifs of a rhombus, hexagon, square, cross, four-petal rosette, which seemed to "float" against the background of the decoration. Compositions with motifs arranged in sections separated by vertical stripes (similar to the steps of a staircase) were also common on Boyko decorations.
The type of compositions of Boyko beaded jewelry is a ribbon composition of motifs of disconnected, separated by pauses of unoccupied background.
Zoriana Kuryliak