Dukachs
In the eastern part of Ukraine and Volyn, starting in the 17th century, dukachs, or minted medallions or gold coins, which hung on chains, were suspended from a brooch-bow, or framed with decorative elements, played a major role in the decorative complex of jewelry.
The custom of wearing a necklace with a dukach was more typical on the Left Coast of Ukraine: it was worn in Chernihiv, Poltava, and Slobozhanshchyna. A few examples of dukachs are also found on the Right Coast, west of Kyiv, and in the south of Ukraine.
According to the types of brooches, dukachs were called wicker, horned, Veremiyivsky, etc. They were made of copper, silver, or white alloy by casting or stamping.
The coins and medals were of Western European or Russian manufacture or copies of them. The medallions depicted scenes from local Orthodox iconography. The coins, medals, and medallion icons were carefully framed by installing spirals of metal strips and thinly woven braids of several wires around the perimeter, which together formed a light, almost lace-like frame. Coins in dukachs were also braided with intricate metal details: leaves, flowers, lace “bows” and chains.
To hang the dukach, one or three ears were soldered to it. Dukachs with one ear were worn on a chain, ribbon, or among beads. Those with three ears were attached with three short chains to a large one.
From the second half of the 18th century, special brooches (“bows,” “lattices,” “motiles”) were made in the form of openwork ornamental plates depicting baskets of flowers, birds, leaves, branches, rosettes, crowns, cherubs, decorated with colored glass and stones.
Dukachs with bows were worn as a single pendant on a red ribbon. In this version, the dukach occupied a central, ceremonial place as an organizing detail in a set of breast jewelry.
The female branch of the military officers and ordinary Cossacks of the Middle Naddniprianshchyna adopted the custom of the unpolished Orthodox gentry to wear a necklace with a dukach, which became a kind of expression of claims to a special position in society. There were not enough European religious and household medals and large commemorative dukachs as jewelry for everyone, so to meet the demand, Ukrainian goldsmiths began to produce replicas on a commercial scale.
Thus, the nobility, wives and daughters of Cossack officers wore dukachs on chains.
At the same time, rural women and girls wore a dukach suspended in the center of a red necklace, threaded with silver or copper hollow beads - “reefs” or “ pugvitsyas”. One chest set could have two dukachs, each hanging from a separate string, marking the axis of symmetry of the oval lines of the necklace.
In Ukraine, there was also a custom according to which a godfather gave his goddaughter a dukach on the first anniversary of her christening. The best gift was considered to be a gold medallion with an engraved image of the saint whose name the goddaughter bore. A similar dukach with the image of the patron saint was a kind of talisman and was always worn next to the cross, serving as a lucky charm.
According to the nature of the design scheme, dukachs are conventionally divided into three types.
The first type includes dukachs, the simplest in structure, consisting only of a round medal-like pendant with an eyelet without complementary elements. These dukachs were without polychrome decoration and their decorative imagery was determined by the nature of the relief of the plot image and the frame, which was most often cast together with the medallion. Dukachs of this type, having a simple round shape, not burdened with decorative details, were worn on a red ribbon, hanging freely, and were different from other such jewelry because of their particular ease of movement. They were most popular in the north of Chernihiv region, and were also worn in Kyiv, Volyn, and Lviv regions.
The second type includes dukachs, in which a round pendant (medallion or coin) is complemented by a decorative element in the form of a rosette, crown, heart, cherub's head, cross, etc. soldered to the ear. Dukachs of the second type with a minimum of decoration were used in Kyiv, Poltava, Volyn, and Lviv regions.
The third type includes dukachs, in which a lace ornamental lattice of oval-elongated, triangular or round shape with wavy outlines (bow, motif, buckle) was movably attached to a round pendant with three chains or an eyelet. They are characterized by a kind of monumentality, polychrome decoration, and a certain static nature in relation to other jewelry.
Bows, to which dukach medallions were suspended, were closely connected with Ukrainian folk ornamentation. They often used the composition of the “tree of life” with two symmetrically placed birds.
In the Poltava and Kharkiv regions, they made lattices that looked like a basket with flowers and leaves. Their structure fit into an oval. Small rosettes of flowers were placed around the perimeter. Moreover, the basket lattices from Poltava region differed from those made by goldsmiths in Lebedyn, Kharkiv region. The products of Poltava craftsmen are less lacy, with massive leaves and several flowers extending to the right and left of the baskets, and an image of a head with rays in the middle between the leaves. Lebedyn baskets are more lacy, lighter, with branches with leaves and flowers flexibly and naturally spreading to the sides and upwards, and a rosette with a large glass in the center between the leaves.
Along with the above-mentioned lattice compositions, others were widespread, consisting of various ribbon weaves combined with elements such as a crown, heart, rosette, etc. Among them, the most characteristic for Nizhyn goldsmiths is a bow made of a metal strip in four loops with two small branches coming from the center. The bow was decorated with one or three glasses. However, most of the dukachs grilles that have survived to this day do not have a single motif in their structure, but consist of ornamental elements - leaves, curls, rosettes decorated with colored glasses, combined into complete symmetrical lace compositions.
In Volyn, the dukach was worn on a ribbon or a series of beads. Volyn dukachs were made from coins, medallions, or men's award medals. In the dukachs of the 19th and early 20th centuries, there were thalers of the Austro-Hungarian Empress Maria Theresa, thalers of Maximilian of Bavaria, Polish coins, and coins of the Russian Empire. The centerpiece was the medallion, and the bow only visually complemented it or was absent altogether. Often, Volyn dukach resembled a lace brooch with a medallion in the center.
At the end of the 19th century, factory-made stamped copper plaques similar to dukachs began to spread, but they did not catch on and quickly fell out of use.
In the early 20th century, artistic dukachs with frames and lattices remained a festive, ceremonial decoration in the complex of Ukrainian folk women's jewelry.
After the revolution, the mass wearing of coin beads and dukachs in Ukraine stopped altogether, as many jewelry pieces featured images of coats of arms and crowned persons, reminiscent of tsarist times; later, most of the ancient jewelry was melted down or exchanged for bread during the wars and famines.
During the Soviet era, the production of dukachs in Ukraine almost completely ceased and resumed in the early 60s and 90s of the 20th century and again in the 21st century.
Ducats
On the Right Coast of Ukraine, in the Eastern Carpathians - in the Hutsul and Pokuttya regions (Ivano-Frankivsk oblast), and in Western Podillia (Ternopil oblast), people created necklaces (including coral necklaces) from a number of coins without any decoration.
In Galicia, such necklaces were called ducats, probably in reference to the ducato, a gold coin minted in Venice since 1284. In Poland and Ukraine until the 17th century, all gold coins were called ducats, and from the beginning of the 18th century the name ducats was preserved for medal pendants and coin jewelry in the form of necklaces with whole or twisted coins strung together. However, among 19th-century ethnographers, there was serious confusion between the two concepts of ducats and dukachs; this led to the fact that since then all coins that were part of a necklace were often called dukachs.
A necklace made of coins of different sizes, from smaller ones at the edges of the necklace to larger ones in the middle part and the largest in diameter in the center of the row, was particularly ceremonial. Coins were suspended from a chain, thread, braid, ribbon, strung on a thread between beads of Venetian glass, coral, smalt, or garnet (in Poltava, Kharkiv, and Hutsul regions), connected with metal tubes or springs, like zgardas (in Hutsul region), and sewn onto beaded gerdans (in Pokuttia, Bukovyna, Hutsul region, and Western Podillia).
In western Podillia, a necklace of coins, which were placed closely together without overlapping, had one or two rows and was worn over the necklace. Coins were also worn on ribbons as a pendant. In addition, a beaded ribbon gerdan laced with coins was popular.
A beaded ribbon gerdan with coins sewn to its lower edge, worn around the neck, was popular in the Galician and Bukovinian Hutsul regions.
A single coin pendant on a chain or lace, placed in the center of the chest jewelry, was also worn in Pokuttia. In some places, coin jewelry was worn on top of other jewelry, such as a row of ducats on a chain (“talars,” “rynsks,” “cheshks,” “ducats”) or several coins suspended from a necklace in the middle of the row.
In Bukovyna, a ribbon gerdan made of beads with coins sewn along the bottom edge and a special decoration influenced by Turkey, the salba, in the form of rows of coins (mostly silver) sewn onto fabric (velvet or homespun cloth), were also popular.
Salbas
In Northern Bukovyna, a special decoration called “salba” was widespread in the form of rows of coins (mostly silver), medallions from medals, or round plaques sewn onto fabric (velvet or homespun cloth).
Many scholars trace the origin of the Bukovyna salba to its Turkic roots, more specifically to the period of Ottoman rule.
Some researchers of neck ornaments classify salbas by their structure: single-row (in other regions they are called dukats, monist, and forties) and multi-row (they can be sewn on a felt or velvet base, or attached to metal rods). In the past, several types of necklaces were combined, so a single-row salba could be worn over a multi-row one to cover the neck and complete the look.
As for the multi-row salba, the shape of its base resembles a semicircular apron made of fabric with ties, but the salba was tied around the neck, not the waist. Coins (medallions, plaques) with holes in them were sewn onto the salba fabric in horizontal or vertical rows. The salbas could have 25-60 or more coins sewn on them, and the total weight of the jewelry could reach up to 5 kg.
There are several principles of coin placement on multi-row salbas.
The first is to place the coins in horizontal or vertical rows so that each coin is clearly legible and does not overlap. In this case, coins of smaller denominations were often placed in a semicircle along the bottom edge, while larger coins were placed in the center of the salba.
Another principle is to place the coins densely, so that they cover each other, with coins of different diameters mixed together.
Salbes, in which the pendant coins are arranged according to the first principle, have a smooth plastic rhythm, and the relief formed by the rows is almost flat. There were gaps between the coins, through which the fabric was visible, which enhances the picturesqueness of the product, gives it lightness and openwork.
The second principle of the arrangement gives a higher relief to the mass of coins, a dense texture, creates the impression of weight, as if the salba is sagging under the weight of the pendants.
From the second half of the 19th century, Bukovyna craftsmen combined the salba with a beaded necklace, the pattern of which consisted of simple geometric motifs.
The special purpose of the salba was to be a talisman for its wearer. After all, the clothing prescription advised our ancestors to cover the neck and sinuses as places energetically vulnerable to prying eyes. Therefore, the metal salba- breastplate seemed to dress its wearer in silver armor and hide her from prying eyes. Because everyone will look at the shiny jewelry and not look beyond it - into the soul...