« 2021. # 6 (162)

The Ethnology Notebooks. 2021. № 6 (162), 1483—1506

UDK [39:692.2](477.4/.5)”18/19″:930.2

DOI https://doi.org/10.15407/nz2021.06.1483

TECHNIQUE AND TECHNOLOGY OF CONSTRUCTION OF HOUSING WALLS IN ZOLOTONOSHA DISTRICT (in the context of housing culture of the left bank of the Middle Dnieper region)

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,
  • Svobody Avenue 15, 79000,
  • Lviv, Ukraine
  • Contacts: e-mail: radovychroman@gmail.com

Abstract. A number of issues concerning construction techniques and technologies have remained out of their attention, although the traditional housing of the Middle Dnieper region has repeatedly been the subject of research by scientists. In fact, this determines the relevance of our investigation. In the article the author aims to clarify the features of technique and technology of traditional housing in Zolotonosha and the left bank of Kaniv districts of Cherkasy region in the context of housing culture of the left bank of the Middle Dnieper. The object of research is folk housing, and the subject — the technique and technology of wall construction. The methodological basis of the study is the principle of historicism in combination with elements of structural and functional analysis and the use of basic methods of ethnological science: retrospective, typological, complex and analysis, historical reconstruction etc. The investigation area covers Zolotonosha and the left bank of Kaniv districts of Cherkasy region. Chronological boundaries of the study: the end of the XIX  — first half of the XX century. The source base of the work is the author’s field materials collected in the Zolotonosha (2010) and Kaniv (2009) districts of Cherkasy region. At the same time, a significant array of scientific literature and sources, including field research of modern Ukrainian ethnologists, concerning the folk construction of the left bank of the Middle Dnieper region, is involved to achieve the goal of the study.

In the late nineteenth — first half of the twentieth century in Zolotonosha district, as well as in the Middle Dnieper region in general, there were dwellings of two main constructive types: log houses and frame houses. In the middle of the twentieth century clay buildings («khata-lipka», «toptana khata», «byta khata») and, in some cases, with walls made of adobe also spread here. During this period, log houses were very rare here, mostly as relics of antiquity. The walls of the «chopped houses» were mostly made of pine wood, only the lower crown was made of oak. With regard to frame buildings, they were based on oak pillars dug into the ground («sokhy», «prysokhy», shuly»). On top of them was placed a pinch («oshchip») — a few wreaths tied at the corners in the lock. According to the material and method of filling the frame of the walls in Zolotonosha, a distinction was made between a «wooden house» («dereviana khata») and a «mazanka-khata» («mazka»). There were two ways to fill the walls of a «wooden house» with wood: vertically and horizontally. «Khata-mazanka» was called frame houses made of firewood («khata z lisy») or reeds («kulachtna khata»), coated on both sides with clay. The «reed house» («ocheretiana khata») to some extent existed in almost all of the settlements we examined, while the houses made of firewood occurred sporadically (mostly as relics of antiquity).

Keywords: Middle Dnieper region, Zolotonosha district, housing, construction equipment, log house, frame.

Received 14.07.2021

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