Skip to content
Call Us Today! 212-533-4646 | MON-FRI 12PM - 4PM (EST)
DONATE
SUBSCRIBE
Search for:
About Us
Publications
FAQ
Annual Report 2023
Annual Report 2022
Annual Report 2021
Initiatives
Advocate
Educate
Cultivate
Care
News
Newsletters
Sign Up For Our Newsletter
Join UNWLA
Become a Member
Volunteer With Us
Donate to UNWLA
Members Portal
Calendar
Shop to Support Ukraine
Search for:
Print
Print Page
Download
Download Page
Download Right Page
Open
1
2-3
4-5
6-7
8-9
10-11
12-13
14-15
16-17
18-19
20-21
22-23
24-25
26-27
28-29
30-31
32-33
34-35
36-37
38-39
40
walked past drying haystacks that changed color with every passing morning moment, a phenomenon that makes the great Impressionist canvases seem static by comparison. We lugged our equipment through a corn field, past the beanstalks and over a stream. Behind a row of poplars we saw a huge army tent with a great wooden floor. Decorated to the hilt with branches, bal loons and streamers, it would alternately serve as the banquet hall and dance floor for the night's festivities. There were several smaller tents and shelters set up throughout the yard. In one, a group of neighborhood women were making the "varenyky" and "pelmeni" for the feast. The best discussions al ways happen over this kind of work and I decided to join them. I asked the women about their wedding rituals and customs. In turn, they asked me a lot of questions about our lives in America. They were par ticularly interested in how Andrea and I had learned to speak Ukrainian. Apparently, the few people that pre viously had come to their village from America were either old or couldn’t really speak Ukrainian. I told them about our Ridna Shkola, the Ukrainian Saturday School I attended for twelve years in Newark, as well as the various other Ukrainian activities, such as danc ing, embroidery and scouting that we were all in volved in when I was a child. Soon Andrea joined us as the table and told her own stories about her Ukrain ian school in Philadelphia and her experiences dancing with the renowned Voloshky Dance Troupe. Then the musicians arrived. The group in cluded Dmytro Pavliuk, the flutist we had met the pre vious day, and Yaroslav Yakovenkchuk who played the saxophone and the accordion. There was also a young key-broad player and a drummer who could play the accordion and bass guitar and who could really "call" a great "Holubka," a traditional dance that proved the highlight of the party that night. The musicians gathered at the door of the room where the bride was dressing. They started play ing and the parents came out to greet them. "Pan Gazda" treated each to a hefty shot and the music started. The musicians were a hearty lot; they would play till the next morning taking very few breaks. Music is an essential part of every wedding ritual. A group of elder women sings the traditional wedding songs that accompany every moment of the preparation. There are songs for the moment when the veil is put on the korovai (wedding bread), when the veil is attached to the bride's headdress and when the bride parts with her mother. Every village has its own wedding songs. We had first heard wedding songs in Kryachkivka in the The bride and wedding party dance around the "viltse " in the tree Poltava region. There the women sang the wedding songs so we could record them and in between takes quickly related the events that took place with each song. The songs were beautiful and I loved them, but I didn't really grasp their significance. In Utoropy, I saw for the first time the events with the songs. I started to realize that the songs were not merely pretty accompa niment, but were actually instructions on how each moment of the ritual was to be performed. A ritual must be performed correctly to have the desired result. The songs helped the participants remember the cor rect actions. The groom, Ivan, was a local Utoropy boy who worked in Eastern Ukraine, where he had met his bride, Svitlana who was from Mykolaiv. Svitlana was a pretty blond who wore a big hoop white wedding dress. She did not speak Ukrainian well, and neither did the family members who had come with her to the wedding. Their idea of wedding traditions included champagne, two crystal glasses for the couple and a beautiful, but store-bought, korovai (wedding bread) shaped like a wreath. Svitlana's mother proudly showed me all these items which she had brought with her from Mykolaiv. But a wedding in Pokuttia today retains many of the elements of traditional weddings from days gone by. Svitlana's family members proved surprisingly willing participants in the complex local wedding traditions. However, they didn't know the correct pattern of action. Local people would often have to run up to them and whisper instructions. At other times, they would get their clues from the songs. Видання C оюзу Українок A мерики - перевидано в електронному форматі в 2012 році . A рхів C У A - Ню Йорк , Н . Й . C Ш A.
Page load link
Go to Top
1 
2-3 
4-5 
6-7 
8-9 
10-11 
12-13 
14-15 
16-17 
18-19 
20-21 
22-23 
24-25 
26-27 
28-29 
30-31 
32-33 
34-35 
36-37 
38-39 
40 
