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Rushnyky
Links
Introduction
Tree-of-life
Motif
Ritual
Uses
Variation
Glossary
Some
Major Categories
"Rushnyk
Maker"
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Ukrainian Village Project
Rushnyky - Variation
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Variation: Rushnyky,
like all folklore, exist in variants. Some modifications
are minor and the variations are slight.
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variations are more extreme. As designs pass from one person
to the next and each person modifies them to suit her tastes,
her skills, her needs, changes can be anywhere from subtle to
extensive. Wreaths can flatten and become more like bouquets
than like wreaths, especially since wedding towels, where wreaths
are obligatory, will be used as icon towels, where bouquets
are the dominant motif. Flower colors can change, especially
as new materials become available. Red and black were traditional
rushnyk colors and it is said that they represent the necessary
extremes of life, with red standing for joy and black for sorrow.
At some point after the Second World War, colored threads were
introduced and many rushnyky, especially those with flowers,
came to be embroidered in colors that tried to imitate nature.
As mentioned above, the most recent color innovation is synthetic
fiber and vibrant hues. Color aside, motif shapes and combinations
are fluid. No two rushnyky are alike. The rushnyky groupings
used here follow the information provided by the embroiderers
and their families as closely as possible. They are, nonetheless,
conditional and not the only groupings possible. |
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Certainly it was
not always possible to distinguish one flower type from another
and it was not always possible to tell if a flower grouping
was intended as a wreath or a bouquet. |
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The degree to which the
women who embroidered the rushnyky made them their own
can be seen from the towels with letters, numbers, and
text. Women would "sign" towels with their
initials and sometimes their names. On wedding towels,
they would sew their own initial and the initial of
the groom. They would date their towels. Some towels
have relatively lengthy texts. The texts express traditional
sentiments, as on the towels that were used to bring
peace to men killed in battle. The texts can also make
very personal statements, such as the one about the
luckless fate (below left) and the towel expressing
the pain of being an orphan (below center). A village
schoolteacher embroidered a book under the vase of her
bouquet/tree of life towel (below right).
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