Traditional neck jewelry of Hutsul ethnic region in western Ukraine
Hutsulshchyna ethnic region covers the mountainous areas of Ivano-Frankivsk and Chernivtsi regions and Rakhiv district of Transcarpathia. That is, the Hutsuls lived in Ivano-Frankivsk region: in the south of Nadvirna, Kosiv and Verkhovyna districts; in Chernivtsi region: in Putyla and in the south of Vyzhnytsia districts; in Transcarpathian region - mainly in Rakhiv district.
In the scientific literature, there is a conditional division into Galician, Bukovinian and Transcarpathian Hutsul regions, which are respectively localized within Ivano-Frankivsk, Chernivtsi and Transcarpathian regions. Folk costumes and decorations of these territories have certain features.
The basis of the complex of jewelry were: metal beads (with cross-shaped pendants - "zgardas", with bells - "shelests", with coins - "ducats"), painted and inlaid smalt beads ("painted patsyorky"), coral and colored glass.
In the Hutsul region they also wore necklaces made of manganese glass, which imitated the color and size of pomegranates - "Czech pomegranates", because it was the creation of Czech masters. Such necklace consisted of several to several dozen laces of the same length. They also wore 5-7 threads of small diameter necklaces made of beads imitating pearls.
Zgardy - metal crosses, which were worn in Hutsul region, were not found anywhere else in Europe. Beaded necklaces were an important component of the Hutsul jewelry. The oldest area of Hutsul beaded jewelry was Bukovyna Hutsulshchyna. The appearance of the first beaded works with ornamental structure can be dated to the beginning of the XIX century. As for the Galician Hutsul region, folk beadwork appeared here in the first half - middle of the nineteenth century. It is believed that they got here through Pokuttya, which borrowed them from Northern Bukovina.
The most widespread were the ribbon gerdans - syliankas and woven gerdans in the form of a narrow ornamented ribbon. The ribbon gerdan with coins sewn to its lower edge was known in Galician and Bukovyna Hutsul regions and was worn near the neck. One of the rare artifacts of the nineteenth century is a ribbon gerdan with cheprags, illustrated by V. Shukhevych in the monograph "Hutsulshchyna". The motif of the beveled cross was made of corals of white, ocher, dark cherry, dark green colors.
For everyday clothes they wore narrow (up to 2 cm), and for festive ones - wider syliankas, more openwork, with loops or fringes on the bottom edge. In the villages of Richka, Yavoriv, Sokolivka, Brustury, Prokurava, Sheshory in Kosiv district, on the holiday, people wore two syliankas around their necks: a narrower one on the top and a wider one on the bottom, with the fringes falling on the chest.
Since the middle of the XIX century, beaded jewelry in the form of an openwork semicircular collar with beaded edges or loops along the bottom edge appeared.
In the villages of Galician Hutsul region there was a two-part sylianka - a decoration made of two harmoniously combined parts - a ribbon and a collar, each of which had its own variant of stringing or weaving and ornament. It was made by stringing with a "grid". The upper (ribbon) part of the decoration was most often woven with a "grid" with three beads on the rhombus side, while the chest (collar-shaped) part was woven with four beads on the rhombus side.
Hutsul craftswomen most often gave a one-part sylianka a rounded shape by stringing it with a "grid", the weave of which had smaller cells at the top (narrowing the upper edge to 1-2 corals and a "grid" with a rhombus side of 3 corals), and larger ones at the bottom ("grid" with a rhombus side of 4-5 corals). The collar strung with beads was usually also supplemented with pendants - "kutasiks", "darmovys", "kovtsykys", "tsembrykys", etc.
The ornamentation of Hutsul beaded jewelry in the nineteenth century was based on the motifs of geometric shapes, mostly rhombus, eight-petal rosette, cross, zigzag. The most common way of making beaded jewelry among the Hutsuls has long been the stringing of three or four beads with the "grid" technique in variants with the side of a rhombus, a little later bead weaving appeared.
The type of compositions in Hutsul beaded jewelry is a ribbon composition of interconnected motifs. In general, Hutsul syliankas and gerdans are characterized by compositions with small elements of ornament. The most common motif is a rhombus.
The colors of beaded jewelry varied depending on the area. Hutsul folk costumes were always multicolored, which merged into one common tone in the specific region - "cherry (villages of River, Yavoriv), green and brown (Verkhovyna), purple (Vorokhta), golden (Kosmach), blue (Yasinya), etc.
Wide, rich syliankas with a liquid openwork (strung with a grid with 4 beads on the side of a rhombus), where dark colors prevail, violet-blue, reminiscent of the beauty of the Carpathian night, are typical for Verkhovyna district. The range of colors was complemented by lilac, cherry, red, green and yellow.
In Kosiv district, the background of ancient gerdans was strung with white beads, which emphasized the colorfulness of individual elements of the pattern - rhombuses, handles, points, crosses, etc. Beaded decorations of villages are distinguished by the clarity of compositions of rather large motifs: River, Verbovets of Kosiv district. Blue colors were found in the decorations of the village of Sheshory, which is famous for its waterfalls - "huks". A similar range of colors is also in the villages of Prokurava, Brustury. In Verkhnyi Berezovy, gerdans and syliankas are darker.
The character of Kosmach village decorations is somewhat different. Patterns are composed of small rhombuses, small specks that cover the entire background. They were made in a warm golden-yellow range - dominated by red, yellow, orange, which were complemented by white, green, brown and blue colors - all the colors of golden autumn.
Usually, folk craftsmen of the first half of the twentieth century used beads of several grades - glossy (opaque and transparent) and mirror beads for the color solution of beaded decorations. Due to this, the number of color shades in the palette of beaded jewelry always exceeded the number of color shades of threads used in the consonant decor of an embroidered shirt. In particular, Kosmach craftswomen used beads of at least nine or even fourteen different colored shades for decorations, while in embroidery with threads - five or seven.
Zoriana Kuryliak