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« 2025. # 3 (183)

The Ethnology Notebooks. 2025. № 3 (183), 597—612

UDK 398.1:[728.011.26:691](477.86-12=161.2)(09):930.2″19/20″

DOI https://doi.org/10.15407/nz2025.03.597

TRADITIONAL CONSTRUCTION IN POKUTTYA: BUILDING MATERIALS, SELECTION AND PREPARATION OF WOOD

RADOVYCH Roman

  • ORCID ID: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1900-8948
  • Doctor of Sciences in History, Senior Researcher 
  • of the Institute of Ethnology
  • of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine,
  • in the Department of Historical Ethnology,
  • 15, Svobody Avenue, 79000, Lviv, Ukraine,
  • Contacts: e-mail: radovychroman@gmail.com

Abstract. In the folk construction practices of various ethnographic groups, building materials play one of the key roles, significantly influencing the structural features of local dwellings. Given that the topic of construction in Pokuttya has scarcely been addressed in ethnological literature, this study is undoubtedly relevant.

The author’s aim in this work is to identify the range of buil ding materials used in the traditional construction of Pokuttya, as well as the specifics of their selection and preparation. The object of the research is traditional construction, while the subject is building materials, their procurement, and the ritualistic and technological aspects of their selection.

The methodological basis of the research is the principle of historicism. The work employs field ethnographic research methods, as well as general scientific (analysis and synthesis, induction and deduction) and specialized scientific methods (retrospective, comparative-historical, statistical methods, typological analysis, and others). The research area covers the historical and ethnographic region of Pokuttya. The chronological scope is defined by source materials covering the 20th to the early 21st century.

While the characteristics of building materials, and the selection and preparation of construction timber in other ethnographic regions of the Carpathian area (Boykivshchyna, Hutsulshchyna, Lemkivshchyna) have to some extent been examined in specialized ethnological publications, researchers have barely touched on these topics in studies concerning Pokuttya. Therefore, this publication is primarily based on the author’s personal fieldwork.

Keywords: Pokuttya, folk housing, construction techni ques, building materials, wood, clay, stone.

Received 8.05.2025

REFERENCES

  • Radovych, R. (2015). National architecture Staryi Sambir district in the nineteenth — first half of the twentienth century (housing and economic complex). Kyiv [in Ukrainian].
  • Radovych, R. (2020). Folk Architecture (settlements, homesteads, dwellings, household and highland buildings, industrial and public village buildings). Ethnographic groups of Ukrainians in the Carpathians: The Hutsuls (Pp. 34—55). Kharkiv: Folio [in Ukrainian]. 
  • Kravchenko, Ya. (1997). Building materials and tools for constructing wooden buildings in the Ukrainian Carpathians. The Ethnology notebooks, 5, 292—299 [in Ukrainian]. 
  • Sopolyha, M. (2016). Folk architecture of Ukrainians in Slovakia [in Ukrainian].
  • Yakymovych, A. (1998). Traditional folk dwelling of Pokuttya of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Proceedings. Museum of Folk Architecture and Life in Lviv, I, 58—63 [in Ukrainian]. 
  • Yakymovych A.I. Report on the scientific expedition to Pokuttya; 17.06— 25.06.1976. In: The Archive of LMNAP. F. Materials of expeditions. Exp. ЗВ—17. 41 arcs. [in Ukrainian].
  • Radovych, R. (1996). Rural housing of the late 19 — early 20 centuries in the south of Podillya (based on materials from Borshchiv district). Chronicle of Borshchivschyna: Historical and Local Studies Collection (Issue VІІІ, pp. 58—66). Borschiv: Source [in Ukrainian]. 
  • Siletskyi R. (2011). Traditional building rituals of Ukrainians [in Ukrainian].
  • Falkowski, J. (1938). The north-eastern border of the Hutsul region. Ethnographic work, 4 [in Polish]. 
  • Radovych, R. (2017). Polissya dweling: cultural and genetic origins and evolutionary processes. Lviv [in Ukrainian].
  • Andriievska, T. (1998). Folk construction in the village of Kosmach. Scientific Notes. Museum of Folk Architecture and Life in Lviv (Issue I, pp. 37—42) Lviv [in Ukrainian].
  • Perelygin, M.N. (1957). Wood Science. Moscow: Soviet Science [in Russian].
  • Yakymovych, A.I. Report on the scientific expedition to Pokuttya; 7.06— 15.06.1978. In: The Archive of LMNAP. F. Materials of expeditions. Exp. ЗВ—11. 45 arcs. [in Ukrainian].
  • Radovych, R. (2002). The Hutsul Grazhda in Rakhivshchyna. Stanisław Vincenz — Humanist of the 20th Century (Vol. 234, pp. 229—239). Lublin [in Ukrainian].
  • Yakymovych A.I. Report on the scientific expedition to Pokuttya. 1984. In: The Archive of LMNAP. F. Materials of expeditions. Exp. ЗВ—53. 24 arcs. [in Ukrainian].
  • Kolberg, O. (1882). Penetration: ethnographic picture (Vol. 1). Krakow: In the printing house of the Jagellonian university [in Polish].

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