Exhibits as a model of the attitude to the world

The founder of the museum, Ph.D. in culturology Svitlana Kytova has been “deciphering” the embroidered towels armed with the deep knowledge of ethnography, literature, psychology and philosophy for several decades now. She knows why the Ukrainian women used to embroider spiders, how they created embroidered charms and assures that every towel is a real work of art. However, she says that there are a lot of unrevealed mysteries left.

WHAT IS IN YOUR ORNAMENT?

The museum opened 20 years ago in Bohdan Khmelnytsky National University in Cherkasy. However, long before that Svitlana Kytova started collecting the antiquities. When she lived and worked in Rivne she met the famous art historian Pavlo Zheltovsky. She still keeps a small towel with the unusual embroidery.

“In the corner of the church in the village of Ostrivtsy in Volodymyretsky raion Zheltovsky noticed a small rag used to wipe the wax. He smoothed it, gave it to me and said: “Take it, maybe when you get wiser you will tell me what it means,” Svitlana recalls and explains that the towel depicted the women with the hair up to the sky, pleiads (zarnitsy or volosozhary).”

When the researcher moved to Cherkasy she started collecting towels. She is quite neutral about the embroidering techniques but she is interested in the ornaments.

“Every time I just fell in love with the next towel and thought it was the best. However, all the towels differ only by the amount and quality of the information they have just like any other art. The more I studied them the more I understood that it is absolutely unacceptable to consider our towels just a craft. They have accumulated the people’s world-view, their attitude to the world,” the founder of the museum describes this amazing art.

By the way, she is the author of the book Polotniany litopys Ukrainy [The Linen Chronicle of Ukraine. – Ed.]. In the unique scientific study she committed to paper all her ideas and guesses, supported by other scientists telling about the peculiarities of embroidered towels.

“A FROG ON A BICYCLE” AND THE SPIDERS-“FOUNDERS”

The museum collection mainly has the towels dated to the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century. According to the scientist, the Ukrainian women embroidered old ornaments up to 1950s and then stopped. For example, at the end of the 19th century appeared the topics: “ponds, mills and cherry gardens.” They depicted everything people wanted to have. The letter “Zh” meant life, health and wedding. Thus one can come up with a conclusion that such towels were embroidered by unmarried young women.

“Look, these are the letters theta and izhitsa. They were cancelled back under Peter I. In 1927 a woman decided to embroider them on her towel. They embroidered lots of things! There is a towel with the swards in the ground (only their handles are out), two earth signs and a kind of turtle near them. I just cannot understand what it means so I call this ornament “a frog on a bike,” Svitlana laughs.

She showed another towel created as a certain charm. The sign says that it was embroidered in 1909 by a woman called Zinaida. “She embroidered it or someone did it for her since there is letter “Z” [the first letter of the name Zinaida. – Ed.] and then a lot of letters “Zh” meaning “Zina, live!” Then there are small men, the first one holding a cross and the second one of the yellow color. They say “one got yellow, one’s eyes got yellow” meaning that someone is sick. This Zina was sick and asked God for help: “God, help! People, help!” This towel is just shouting for help. A woman called Zina felt very bad at the beginning of the last century,” the scientist assures.

One more towel is dated to 1928. It depicts spiders. Svitlana says that women started embroidering spiders when they heard from everywhere that Lenin and Stalin are the founders, etc. Thus the Ukrainian towels got the “spiders” spinning their “webs.” Every ornament has its explanation that is confirmed by the facts. Svitlana Kytova is skeptical about tales and legends. She showed a towel found in the Chyhyryn raion. It has letter “A” and an anchor: “They say that Queen Catherine liked the guys from Chyhyryn a lot and sent them to the fleet. But if you take any book on the Christianity history, all of them read that “Az” [Slavonic name of letter A. – Ed.] means the first. The anchor means that the religion is a ship, an anchor is stability and rest,” remarks Svitlana.

IN GOOD HOUSES THEY KEEP EVERY THREAD

Today the museum has over a thousand items: 800 towels, shirts and skirts… Except clothes the visitors can also see ceramic tableware, wooden collars, yokes, spinning wheels, the painted chest that is over 400 years old and other utensils. Every exhibit has its history how Svitlana found it.

“I have become wise and resourceful with years. When I was going to a village I already knew what I wanted and what to ask about. I searched the specific proves for my assumptions. I knew that something had to be in the other end of the village. Since I recorded the folklore I knew that I should not have listened to those who told me to go to the poor houses. One should go to good houses where they keep every thread. Our people throw nothing away,” assures Svitlana. Sometimes she bought antiquities, sometimes people gave her something. Once she received a letter from the village of Liubymivka of Dnipropetrovsk oblast from 84-year-old woman called Maria who had read Svitlana’s book and decided to give her four towels. However, sometimes she was unlucky. Once in the village of Khudiaky of Cherkasy raion the researcher saw an enormous white clay bowl.

Today Svitlana Kytova regrets that she rarely has a chance to go to a village and visit the houses. Meanwhile, the museum has its regular visitors. For example, embroideresses, interested in the towels (not only from Cherkasy oblast but from other regions of Ukraine) come to copy the ornaments in order to give them the second life. Thus, the number of people using the “embroidered information” increases. Svitlana appreciated Den’s historical site as a means to spread the invaluable knowledge.

“The project ‘Ukraine Incognita’ is very useful. This is Ukrainian history: the modern one and the stratum of our common history, so the project is just indispensable. I would like our museum to be presented on the Internet in the rubric ‘On-Line Museums.’ It is interesting and promising,” Kytova remarked. Besides, my book The Linen Chronicle of Ukraine. The Meaning of the Ukrainian Towels Ornaments should probably be used as well. In my scientific work I use the Internet all the time. My grand-son helped me to master it and got interested in my towels, so now he helps me study the ornaments.”