« 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

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