« 2019. #1 (145)

The Ethnology Notebooks. 2019, 1 (145), 48—56

UDK [746.4 + 391.4]:687.4(476.704 + 477.804)
DOI https://doi.org/10.15407/nz2019.01.048

HEADDRESSES WITH AN «OPOYASKA» IN THE TRADITIONAL FEMALE COSTUME OF THE EASTERN BELARUSIAN-UKRAINIAN BORDERLAND

VINNIKOVA Mariya

ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1379-3922

Ph.D. in Art criticism

Senior Researcher,

The State Scientific Institution «The Centre for Belarusian culture, language and literature. Research of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus»,

Minsk, the Republic of Belarus.

Contacts: e-mail: marya_vinnikova@tut.by

Abstract. The article is devoted to the study of traditional girls’ and women’s head wear that existed in the border areas of the Gomel district of the Mogilev province (Belarus) and the Chernigov district of the Chernigov province (Ukraine) in the late XIX up to early XX century. The girl’s version of the head wear was a «girdle» («opoyaska»), a narrow strip of canvas richly ornamented at the ends and at the forehead area. It was tied around the head without covering the top of the head. The female version of the head wear was meant to wear a «girdle» with a cap of a special shape and the way of wearing it was also different. This head wear was a bright decorative addition to the traditional girls’ and women’s costumes, but a century ago it passed out of use. Currently, its single copies are situated in the collections of Saint Petersburg museums: the Russian Museum of Ethnography and the Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography (Kunstkamera) of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The head wear from the Belarusian collections of these museums became the object of this study. For the comparative analysis we also used the published archival photos from the Ukrainian collections of these museums. As a result, we draw a conclusion on the similarity of the women’s head wear with a girdle that existed in the border areas of Belarus and Ukraine.

On the basis of the study of museum objects, we revealed the constructive and artistic features of the traditional head wear with a girdle. The comparative art history analysis of girls’ and women’s girdles revealed a significant similarity between these kinds of head wear, which was manifested in the similarity of their size and design, in the composition of the decor, as well as in the choice of ornamental motifs and techniques of their performance. The article provides the schemes of ornamental decoration of girdles, three of which are published for the first time. For the first time, a graphic reconstruction of wearing of the women’s head wear with a girdle way is published. The presented materials can be used for further scientific researches and for reconstruction materials of the lost versions of the head wear.

Keywords: traditional costumе, head-dress, «opojaska», embroidery, ornament, reconstruction, Belarusian-Ukrainian borderland.

Received 6.12.2018

REFERENCES

RME № 876212110.
RME № 876212114.
RME № 876212115.
RME № 876212116.
RME № 876212117.
RME № 876212119 /1, 2.
MAE № 41514 /а, в.
RME 151424.
RME № 1388.
RME № 138825 /а, в.
RME № 138826 /а, в.
RME № 1363.
Zelenin, D.K. (1926). The women’s headdresses of Eastern (Russian) Slavs. Slavia, V (1), 305—307 [in Russian].
Svjatskij, D. (1910). Peasant costumes in the area of contact of Orjol, Kursk and Chernigov Governorates. Zivaja Starina, I—II, 3—17 [in Russian].
Zhabinskaja, M.P. (1976). The art of the village of Neglyubka. Minsk: Byelarus [in Belarussian, in Russian].
Vinnikava, M.M. (1999). The traditional female dress of the Usokhskaja Buda village of Dobrush district of Homel region. Ethnography of the Belarussian Padniaprowe (Proceedings of the Scientific Conferens). Mahiljow [in Belarussian].
Stelmashchuk, G.G. (1993). Traditional headdresses of Ukrainians. Kyiv: Naukova dumka [in Ukrainian].
Vinnikova, M.N. (2013). Reconstruction of local variants of the traditional Belarussian costume on the basis of artefacts of museum collections of Russia and Belarus. European cultural area in MAE collections; almanac of the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography, LVIII, 325—359 [in Russian].
Vinnikava, M.M., & Bogdan, P.A. (2016). Traditional Belarusian costume. Minsk: Belaruskaja navuka [in Belarussian, in Russian].
Lobachevskaja, O.A., & Zimina, Z.I. (2009). Belorussian folk costume: fashion, embroidery, decorative seams. Minsk: Belaruskaja navuka [in Russian].
Prokop’eva, N.N. (2010). Preparation of «the death clothes»: the ways of coding of gender and age status of East Slavs’ olds. Ethnographic material, III (Peoples of Belorussija, Ukraina, Moldavija, pp. 97—122) [in Russian].
Kalashnikova, N.M. (2012). «Shapochnoe znakomstvo»: The collection of headdresses of the Russian Museum of Ethnography. Moscow: Severnyj palomnik [in Russian].

Read»

Our authors
Daily bread baking of ukrainians in the south-western ethnographical region at the late XIX to early XXI cc.
The paper has dealt with analytic study in prescriptions, signs, customs, methods, ways of selection, procurement and some peculiarities in usage of subsidiary means — water, firewood and leaves in bread baking. The final aim of the mentioned actions had been (and still is) selection of the means and ingredients fit, by their characteristics, for the backing of bread. The paper has demonstrated dependence of bread backing subsi­diary means criteria from the folk nutritional standards and world outlook stereotypes as well as from regional social and economic, natural and geographical factors and peculiarities of material culture.
Read »

Boikos’ pandemonium: categories of evil deceased
In the article have been presented some research-work on peculiarities of Boikos’ traditional demonological notions as for so-called evil deceased; on the basis of field records and ethnological literary sources quite a number of scum categories have been defined as well as essential habits, modes of behavior and functions of these personages of people’s demonology.
Read »

Wax candle as ukrainian Christmas and epiphany ritualistic text
For the first time in native ethnology the article has brought some results of special study in sign functionality of a wax candle under the context of Ukrainian Christmas and Epiphany ritualistic text (ritualism of Christmas Eve, New Year, Epiphany Eve and Feast of Epiphany). The study has stated extremely high semiotic position of a wax candle as projection of Sun, mediator between the spheres of sacral and prophane elements, symbolic analogue of human existence, apotropy, cultural symbol re-establishing borders of acculturated space.
Read »

On bessarabian and moldavian ukrainians in the studies of historical ethnography
The article has thrown some light upon a sum of scientific findings got during XIX to XXI cc. in historio-ethnographic studies of Bessarabia and Moldavian Ukrainians. In the pre­sent paper has been given author’s answer to the problem of lacking progress as for the numerous themes concerning Ukrainians. State and achievements of the research-works in Ukrainians’ material and spiritual culture by the scientists of Moldavia and Ukraine through the years of independence has been exposed.
Read »