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« 2021. # 3 (159)

The Ethnology Notebooks. 2021. № 3 (159), 555—562

UDK 392.10 (477.88) 394.2″18/19″

DOI https://doi.org/10.15407/nz2021.03.555

FOLK CLOTHING OF UKRAINIANS OF TRANSCARPATHIA IN RITUAL CULTURE AND TRADITIONAL BELIEFS

KOROL Vasil

  • ORCID https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0471-2115
  • Ph.D. of Sciences in History, Senior Researcher
  • Of the Municipal Institution «Transcarpathian Museum
  • of Folk Architecture and Life»
  • of the Transcarpathian Regional Administration,
  • Kapitulna 33a, 88000, Uzhgorod, Ukraine
  • Contacts: e-mail: anshamach@gmail.com

KOTSAN Vasil

  • ORCID https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0644-9725
  • Candidate of Historical Sciences, Director of the Transcarpathian
  • Museum of Folk Architecture and Life ZOR,
  • Associate Professor of Archeology, Ethnology and Cultural Studies
  • Uzhhorod National University,
  • Contacts: e-mail: vasilkotsan@ukr.net

Abstract. The article deals with the use of certain components of traditional folk costumes in the ritual culture and traditional beliefs of Ukrainians in Transcarpathia. The authors consider magical and ritual functions of clothing, such as its formal features as the method of manufacture and wearing, belonging and purpose, nudity. The study, based on the source material and available literature, outlines the features of the use of folk costumes in rituals associated with the birth of a child, weddings, funerals, as well as individual holidays of the annual calendar cycle. Prospects for further research are to clarify and refine a number of iconic functions of clothing, outlining the ritual functions of such components of folk costumes as skirts, outerwear, men’s and women’s hats, jewelry, complementary elements of folk costume.

The main purpose of presented research is an attempt to consider relatively poorly studied features of clothing as a magical (serves as a human substitute, using as safety tools, disaster sending) and a ritual (marks certain ritual roles and features) symbol. Additionally, the authors pay attention to a number of significant clothing features with a set of formal indication (the material and its processing, the method of producing and wearing, nakedness, the color, new-old, appliance and mission).

The main sources for research of present problems served the authors filed materials, collected at the ethnographical expeditions and scientific business trips.

The ritual nakedness deserves a special attention which folk tradition attributed to «the not simple». Going to the place of magical actions where some important divination were performed, herbs harvesting, bewitching, the healers participated in them naked.

The main raw material for the clothes manufacturing in Transcarpathia as well as in other regions of Ukraine was home  — made hempen, flaxen fabric, the hand-spinning broadcloth from sheep’s wool, worked out sheep skins. All kinds of home-made fabrics go through a well-known final processing. In the folk worldview of Ukrainians of Transcarpathia have been preserved a number of beliefs regarding to the method of clothes making and wearing.

Keywords: folk clothes, rituals, beliefs, customs, method of making and wearing, family and calendar rituals, shirt, belt, scarf, wreath, trousers, hunia.

Received  4.06.2021

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