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14 WWW.UNWLA.ORG “НАШЕ ЖИТТЯ”, ЧЕ РВЕНЬ 2019 “ RUSHNYKY — RITUAL CLOTHS OF THE COSSACK LANDS OF UKRAINE” EXHIBIT by Yuri Mischenko & Natalie Pawlenko ( UNWLA Arts and Museum Chair) Curators Yuri Mischenko and Natalie Pawlenko at t he exhibit opening (Photo M . Andrec) Куратори Юрій Міщенко і Наталя Павленко на відкритті виставки (фото М. Андрець) The exhibit “Rushnyky — Ritual Cloths of the Cos- sack Lands of Ukraine” currently on display at the Ukrainian History & Education Center in South Bound Brook, New Jersey, featur es over 100 ex- quisite rushnyky from Ukraine. Th is exhibit is the result of a successful collaboration between the au- thors as curators ( Yuri Mischenko and Natalie Pawlenko ) and the Ukrainian History & Education Center. Below is the story of our own personal journey of discovery which le d to this exhibit. Some ten years ago, the two of us knew very little about rushnyky and were not even think- ing about collecting them. But one sultry summer day, during a vacation, as we travelled along the scenic but very po tholed roads exploring our an- c estral Central Ukraine, we badly damaged our rental car’s wheel by hitting one of those countless potholes. We had to stop at the nearest car service station for the repair. While waiting, we saw two young employees of the sta tion washing a car and were sh ocked to see that the rags they were using for the car wash were the tattered remnants of em- broidered rushnyky, which we had been taught to revere as sacred. The shock was so profound that it triggered our desire to rescue the se unique cultural artifacts a nd to know more about them. Fast forward ten years . W e acquired a wealth of knowledge, travelled to many museums and folk art workshops in Ukraine, and made lots of contacts among Ukrainian ethnographers, many of whom became our good friends. And most im- p ortantly, we ended up with a real treasure — a per- sonal collection of more than two hundred beauti- ful handmade rushnyky, the best of which are dis- played at the exhibit “Rushnyky − Ritual Cloths of the Cossack Lands of Ukraine . ” Bozhnyky are narrow rushnyky used to adorn icons (Photo Y . Mischenko) Божники - це вузькі рушники, які використовуються для оздоблення ікон (фото Ю. Міщенко) This exhibition features 100 handcrafted rushnyky from central Ukraine made from the end of the 19th to the middle of the 20t h centuries — the peak period of their popularity. During this period, rushnyky making and use expanded far beyond its original purpose as a sacred textile and began to be used as de corative folk art. The exhibit focuses pri- marily on rushnyky from the central Dnipro River valley of Ukraine and nearby areas that were part of the Ukrainian Cossack Het’manate of the 17th and 18th centuries: the Poltava, Cherkasy, Cher- nihiv, Kyiv, and Sumy regions .
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