Bukovyna’s pysanka therapy

Oleksandra Hubchyn, Natalia Surundzhy and Svitlana Krasovska, pysanka painters from Chernivtsi and members of the women’s organization Slavia, held trainings on Bukovyna pysanka painting at the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy. All three painters are practicing psychologists at various educational establishments in Chernivtsi and have been actively applying pysanka therapy for over eight years. Though anyone can learn to paint pysankas, it is just like handwriting — no two pysankas are ever the same.

Pysanka painting is a process like meditation. You need about three hours to paint one pysanka. At the Kyiv workshop complete strangers were able to overcome interpersonal estrangement, a modern problem.

“Kyiv-Mohyla Academy is an energetically powerful, ancient and charismatic place. It is pleasant that a lot of students, professors and visitors were interested in our workshop,” underlined Hubchyn, who is also a member of the Prosvita society and a psychologist at the Chernivtsi National University, “The topic of our meeting was very interesting: it was about pysankas, their sacred meaning, and pysanka therapy. Everyone could try to paint their first pysanka, believe in one’s power, raise one’s self-esteem and escape depression. It is very nice that the people responded to our proposition and we had a positive psycho-emotional atmosphere. Through the little art of creating a pysanka everyone can feel a bit happier.”

“Easter is coming and according to the Ukrainian tradition we need to paint a pysanka,” said Surundzhy, who is a psychologist and doctor, “Pysankas are a traditional Easter attribute. People bless them, bring home and put them in a pure place (near an icon) so that the pysanka would be the home’s amulet. Now hardly anyone knows what to do with the pysanka as it is not just a simple painted egg. A pysanka is a painted raw egg, which is covered with figures-amulets that bring happiness, health, peace and welfare. Don’t eat pysankas! If it breaks, the shell cannot be thrown away! You cannot throw an icon or a pysanka away. According to Ukrainian tradition, a broken pysanka should be buried or put into water, which means that you returned it to the nature.”

We are witnesses of a decay of pysanka art in Ukraine. That is why we put much effort to restore the tradition and want more girls and women to paint pysankas for Easter. Hnat Khotkevych recorded a legend in the Carpathian mountains: if people paint pysankas and set fires on Yurii’s day, the world will live on. If they stop doing that, the world will die and there will be no memory of it.

“There are no accidents in life,” Krasovska, who is also a psychologist at the Chernivtsi Commercial College, says, “Each pysanka is unique like each person. About 30-40 people come to our workshop and we teach everyone to paint pysankas with the symbols of the octagonal star. We show the principle of graphic netting and using a special painting pen (kyrstka). At the classes we say that everyone is unique. We talk about the value of love towards yourself and self-sufficiency. As psychologists we see a lot of things on people’s pysankas and in the process of their creation. The art of pysankas is a special field of psychology, which is not recorded in official science yet, but it will. Pysanka therapy is one of those types of psychotherapy, and I would say that it is a solely Ukrainian national type of art therapy.”