Traditional neck jewelry of Western Podillya ethnic region in western Ukraine
The ethnoregion of Podillia is the territory between the Southern Bug and the Dniester: Vinnytsia region, southern Khmelnytsky and Zhytomyr regions, northern Odesa region, eastern parts of Chernihiv and Ternopil regions.
Ternopil oblast belongs to Western Podillia.
And Western Podillia is an ethnographic region covering the territory of the modern Ternopil region, except for the northwestern (settlements west of Zboriv and Berezhany) and northern territories (Kremenets, Shumsky, Lanivtsi districts and the northern part of Zboriv and Zbarazh districts, which existed before the administrative reform of 2020), which belong to Opillya and Volyn.
The neighborhood with Northern Bukovyna and Pokuttya - developed centers of the Ukrainian folk tradition of beaded clothing decoration in the XIX century - contributed to artistic interactions.
Neck ornaments were necklaces made of small corals ("patsyorky") - coral, imitation coral, glass, imitation pearls, coin necklaces, as well as beaded ornaments - monisto, ribbon gerdan, ribbon gerdan with pendants, corner gerdan and syliankas - grid collars-kryzas.
Coral beads were created from small cylindrical beads of the same size, consisting of several dozen strings. The necklace of coins, which were located close to each other without overlapping, had one or two rows. It was worn over the necklace. The cross was worn on a wide silk ribbon, and a coin, a dukach or a dukach sample was also worn on the ribbons as a pendant.
Monisto is several dozen beads of black, dark blue or dark green color or small blown beads worn around the neck. Syliankas in Podillia were single and double syliankas, 7-10 cm wide. A characteristic feature of the weaving was a sparse grid with a rhombus side of four beads. The two-part sylianka consisted of two parts - a ribbon and a collar, each of which had its own variant of stringing or weaving and ornamentation.
On of the most popular were the neck ribbon gerdans sewn with coins and the woven corner gerdan.
Beaded jewelry from Western Podillia demonstrates the tendency of local craftsmen to combine several techniques in one work - stringing, weaving, embroidery ("needle-forward") and sewing ("attached").
In the early XX century, syliankas of Western Podillia were inferior in width to similar products of Lemkos and Boikos, but the decor of Western Podillia sylianka-"kryza" was no less attractive and artistically thought out. Among the masterful monuments is a wide sylianka from the village of Horodnytsia, Husiatyn district, Ternopil region, in which the master applied the techniques of weaving and stringing and used beads with a multicoloured bright palette. The decor of the decoration combines a geometric motif of a small flowered branch (neck ribbon part) and a sprawling geometric motif of a rhombus with rays (breast collar).
In turn, the sylianka from Kopychynets, Husiatyn district, Ternopil region, is made in the upper part by stringing with a combination of "grid" and "cross" techniques, not woven. Both samples of syliankas from Husiatyn district contain suspensions at the bottom of the syliankas, made by a combination of "grid" and "cross" techniques. This type of suspensions is typical only for these areas of Western Podillia, there were no such suspensions in other ethnic regions of western Ukraine.
The composition of Podillia beaded jewelry is a ribbon of interconnected motifs.
Beaded kryza collars were worn under necklaces, only in the vicinity of Zalishchyky wide kryzas ("korolky") were worn over the necklace.
The most expressive regional peculiarity of beaded jewelry in the vicinity of Borshchiv and Zalishchyky was the color, the invariable black background of which somewhat muffled the sonorous sound of transparent beads of violet, cherry, green, as well as opaque corals of yellow and white colors.
The black background of beaded jewelry was formed under the influence of the prevailing black color of embroidery and weaving of Western Podillia, in particular the vicinity of Borshchiv. Podillia beaded jewelry had geometric or floral patterns.
Among the most common decorative motifs are a rhombus with linear outlines, a rhombus with linear outlines and a dotted border, a rhombus with a beveled cross or a smaller rhombus inside, as well as a beveled or straight cross with dotted or linear outlines.
Zoriana Kuryliak