Sources

Introduction

In order to craft my folk dress, I needed to do a lot of research and find a lot of resources. Here, I have collected information about the sources used to guide my crafting and self-reflection.

To these resources, I added my own research. During July 2023, I conducted fieldwork in Western Ukraine. This project is thanks in part to the curators of the textile collections held at:

The experience and knowledge gained from these museum visits have been an invaluable and integral part of my development as a Ukrainian craftswoman. Select photos from these visits to the museums will be shared (and credited) on this site for reference.

Textile Books

Ukrainian Embroidery by Kmit, Luciow, & Luciow, 1979. Oldie but a goldie! For English-speakers, this is the most comprehensive introduction to Ukrainian embroidery, even decades later. The book covers the different types of Ukrainian embroidery, how to embroider the different stitches, and how to make a vyshyvanka. Of course, the photos are pretty dated and there isn’t much information on specific regions, but if you’re trying to learn about the different embroidery stitches, this is the most beginner-friendly and accurate book you’ll find.

Ukrainian Folk Embroidery: Techniques, Methodology, Methods by Susak & Stefyuk, 2006. While not as beginner-friendly as the above source, Susak & Stefyuk have provided a very thorough encyclopedia of Ukrainian embroidery, complete with more recent photos in color. The book covers several different stitch types, including those that are no longer practiced today and those used to make the silyanka necklace. For every entry, information and instructions are given in both Ukrainian and English. For those interested, the Ukrainian electronic library does offer a free download of the book at this link.

Історія українського костюма by Тамара Ніколаєва (Tamara Nikolayeva), 1996. In English: History of Ukrainian costume. Bit old, but it’s a really good overview of several different folk regions in Ukraine and the primary components of their historical folk costumes. Complete with a good number of illustrations and descriptions for reference. It doesn’t delve into absolutely every detail, but still a classic reference source for a wide variety of Ukrainian folk costumes. It’s available on the Internet Archive for anyone interested.

Українська народна вишивка. Західні області УРСР by Раїса Захарчук-Чугай (Raisa Zakharchuk-Chugai), 1988. In English: Ukrainian folk embroidery. Western regions of the Ukrainian SSR. I will be upfront: this book is more general than the next two, rather old, and entirely in Ukrainian. I didn’t reference it very much during my project. However, it still does contain photos of some really interesting folk embroidery from Western Ukraine, so there’s value here. For those interested, the book is available for free download thanks to the Ukrainian electronic library; see the link above for the download.

Покутські Вишивки Прикарпаття: Мистецтво Геометричного Орнаменту і Колориту by Ірина Свйонтек (Iryna Sviontek), 2018. In English: Pokuttia Embroideries of Prykarpattia: Art of Geometric Ornament and Color. For anyone researching more about Pokuttia embroidery specifically, this is a really great resource. A basic understanding of Ukrainian will get you pretty far with this book. Sviontek, a renowned researcher of Prykarpattia and Hutsul culture, thoroughly documented several examples of embroidery. For each sample, she gives the village and era it was embroidered in, a pattern of the work, and even the DMC thread colors when available. I highly recommend her work for others interested in the region’s embroidery.

Hutsul Embroideries by Myroslava Shandro, 2022. I was lucky enough to pick up a copy of this book in Lviv. The book is written in Ukrainian, Romanian, and English. Shandro was a dedicated folklorist of all aspects of Hutsul culture, especially embroidery. The book covers Shandro’s life and work, different aspects of Hutsul textiles, and ends with ~600 embroidery patterns in table and photo form. I especially appreciate Shandro’s final note, which encourages future embroiderers to use the patterns as they like and to be creative. While the book is about the Hutsuls, considering the influence that Hutsul culture has had on neighboring regions, I still recommend it for those interested in Prykarpattia.

Hutsul Embroidery, edited by Олена Никорак (Olena Nykorak), 2010. I was able to view this book while visiting Kosiv. It is an album of Hutsul textiles in the collection of the National Museum of Hutsulshchyna & Pokuttya Folk Art Named after Yosaphat Kobrynsky. The book is a wealth of photos as well as information about Hutsul culture and the embroidery stitches used. It was also published in English and in French, though it was printed in limited stock and is quite difficult to find today.

Євгенія Геник. Вишивка. Ткацтво. Альбом, 2007. In English: Yevheniya Genik. Embroidery. Weaving. Album. I was lucky enough to view this book while visiting Kosiv. Yevheniya Genik was a renowned Ukrainian embroiderer from the Ivano-Frankivsk oblast. She embroidered several rushnyky (ceremonial towels) and other textiles with patterns from the Hutsuls, Pokuttia, and Bukovyna. The book is an album of her various works, including the reverse sides of her nyz’ (reversible) embroidery. The book even includes a brief forward in English about her contribution to safeguarding Ukrainian embroidery. Unfortunately, it looks like the book is out-of-print and not readily available.

Навчально-Етнографічна Практика, 2019. This is another book that I viewed while visiting Kosiv, specifically at the Kosiv Institute of Applied and Decorative Arts, which published this little book. It was organized by the students at the institute and consists of various patterns and textiles made around the Kosiv region. An excerpt of the full book can be seen at the link above. It was never sold publicly, but I have found inspiration from this book and will likely revisit it in the future, so I am listing it here regardless.

Textile Websites

Folk Costume and Embroidery by Roman K. This blog is an intensely useful resource for anyone interested in folk costumes, regardless of region. Since 2011, Roman has been writing about folk clothing across Europe and beyond. He’s amassed a wealth of notes and resources not just about Ukrainian textiles, but also Austrian, Udmurt, Burmese, Crimean Tatar, Achang, Chuvash, and so on. And after all of his notes and photos, Roman ends his posts with further resources. If you’re looking to make a folk dress, Roman’s blog is a natural first stop for getting an overview and finding further sources. He’s especially helpful for anyone interested in Ukrainian embroidery; Roman himself is Ukrainian and has written extensively about different folk regions in Ukraine. I can’t express my appreciation for Roman’s work enough and highly recommend him to anyone interested in textiles.

Відкрита скриня. This is a digital ethnographic collection of archival photos and components of regional Ukrainian folk dresses. The site is in Ukrainian, but some basic Ukrainian skills will be enough to find specific oblasts and regions within their collection. Items catalogued on the site are accompanied by quite a few high-quality photographs and information about where and when the item was crafted. For anyone looking for specific regional dresses in Ukraine, this is a great reference.

Self-Reflection Resources

Black Metal, Trauma, Subjectivity and Sound: Screaming the Abyss by Jasmine Hazel Shadrack, 2021. While Shadrack’s work on trauma is quite a bit different from my own project, we have both found use in Norman Denzin’s methodology of interpretive performance autoethnography. In this autoethnography, the researcher analyzes different turning points in their life, then performs the conclusion as a way of embodying the experience. Shadrack’s book is an intensely fascinating, though very heavy, application of this methodology to contextualize her trauma and the role of black metal in her recovery. Her work has been very influential in how I have approached my own self-reflection process, and I recommend it to anyone remotely interested in the topics she covers.

“Doing-it-yourself: Autoethnography of manual work” by Billy Ehn, 2010. In this short article, Ehn discusses the usefulness of writing out the process of doing manual work as a part of a researcher’s fieldwork and cultural analysis. Ehn discusses the benefits of autoethnography for cultural researchers, as it allows them to be more consciously observant. He also uses the space to try out a few different writing styles for accomplishing this. Ehn’s reflections on how to document manual work while conducting research have influenced my approach to writing entries for this blog.

Museum Resources

As noted above, I will be sharing a few photos from my visits to the Ukrainian museums in my blog posts. These photos are shared as references for how I researched and constructed my folk dress. When used, these photos are captioned with information on where they were taken and, thereby, where the textiles are kept.

I do not claim any ownership over these objects, nor are these photos monetized in any way. I am sharing them here for educational purposes. For reference on my rights to share these museum photos, the American Duchess blog has published a useful breakdown on whether museum photos may be taken and shared online. Since this post was written in the American context, I have also consulted Ukrainian copyright law to ensure that I am not in any violation. To the best of my knowledge, I am legally allowed to share these photos on this blog.

That said, I kindly ask anyone who might wish to share these photos elsewhere to include acknowledgement of the museum. These museums have been doing a great job under difficult circumstances, and I do want to ensure that they (and their collections) are treated with the utmost respect.