Traditional neck jewelry of Northern Bukovyna ethnic region in western Ukraine
Northern Bukovyna is mainly the territory of Chernivtsi region. Southern Bukovyna now belongs to Suceava county in Romania.
Northern Bukovyna is the territory between the middle reaches of the Dniester and the main Carpathian ridge in the valleys of the upper reaches of the Prut and Seret rivers.
Folk clothes and decorations of Northern Bukovyna differ in the context of four local complexes: Bukovynian Podillia (the territory of modern Zastavna and the western part of Khotyn districts of Chernivtsi region), Bukovynian Poprutia (the territory of modern Novoselytsia and most of Kitsman district of Chernivtsi region), Bukovinian Prykarpattya or Piedmont (the territory of modern Hlyboka, Storozhynets, southwestern part of Kitsman and northern part of Vyzhnytsia districts of Chernivtsi region) and Bukovinian Hutsulshchyna (the territory of modern Putyla and part of Vyzhnytsia districts of Chernivtsi region).
In Northern Bukovyna, the main components were necklaces made of coral, glass - "pysany patsyorky", silver coin ornaments - "salby" and beaded jewelry. Zgardas and silver dukachs were also widespread in some places.
"Salba" is a decoration in the form of rows of coins (mostly silver) sewn on fabric (velvet or homespun cloth), caused by Turkish influence. The weight of salba could reach 5 kg.
An ancient and very popular decoration among Ukrainian women was monisto. Usually, Bukovynian women used to name this decoration by the name of the material, such as "patsyorky", "patsierky", "tsiatky" (beads), "grustaly", "khrustaly" (glass beads).
Beaded ornaments of Bukovyna mostly looked like an ornamented strip worn around the neck, or a round collar-cap or a one-color openwork grid kryza. A separate type of beaded jewelry was a ribbon gerdan with coins sewn on the bottom edge.
Since the XVIII century, beads were made in Bavaria - now the Czech Republic. In the late nineteenth century, the Czechs mechanized the process of bead production, which significantly reduced its cost. From 1919 to 1940, the territory of Northern Bukovyna was part of Romania, which was a corridor for the supply of beads from the Czech Republic. It became available to the general population, which led to the widespread use of this material for creating jewelry in Bukovyna in the late XIX - early XX century.
At first, ribbon gerdanyks were made only in the form of a narrow ribbon, and later there were also single and toothed gerdanyks and volumetric braids. With the introduction of a new technique - weaving - the list of jewelry was replenished with new products: ribbon gerdans with pendants and rosette gerdans.
In the XIX century, the double-collar sylianka was also widespread in Northern Bukovyna, but it practically disappeared in the twentieth century. The creation of products in the technique of stringing was carried out using the techniques "rhombic grid", "honeycomb", "cross" and a combination of techniques "grid" and "cross".
The ribbon gerdans were decorated with geometric ornaments, among the main symbols of which were a rhombus with varieties, cross and star-shaped elements, eight-petal rosette, triangle, straight and broken lines, meander and S-shaped elements. Sometimes geometric floral ornaments were used in woven products. The dominant colors are red, white, various shades of blue, terracotta, dark red, various shades of green, yellow, interspersed with pink-lilac, pink and black.
Craftswomen in Hutsul Bukovyna used black as the basis for their works, under the influence of the prevailing color of embroidery and weaving of Western Podillya, in particular the vicinity of Borshchiv.
Zoriana Kuryliak