Embroidered Shirt as the Image of a Ukrainian Intelligent (On the Occasion of the 130th Anniversary of Maksym Rylskyi’s Birthday)

Author

Oliynyk Maryna

a Ph.D. in History, a senior research fellow at the Ukrainian Ethnological Centre Department of M. Rylskyi Institute of Art Studies, Folkloristics and Ethnology of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine (Kyiv, Ukraine).

ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2946-8243

Embroidered Shirt as the Image of a Ukrainian Intelligent (On the Occasion of the 130th Anniversary of Maksym Rylskyi’s Birthday)

Abstract

The article is devoted to the clothing culture of the outstanding Ukrainian poet, literary critic, translator, public figure and organizer of science M. Rylskyi (1895–1964). It is studied how Ukrainian intellectuals have treated the wearing of traditional Ukrainian shirts in the 1920s–1930s. Two conventional trends in the circles of Ukrainian figures are defined. «Industrialists» have avoided wearing embroidered shirts, they preferred a modern European image. «Traditionalists», to which M. Rylsky belonged, wore Ukrainian embroidered shirts in combination with contemporary European clothing.

The social circumstances under which M. Rylskyi has worn embroidered shirts are outlined after the study of his photographs. It is determined that embroidered shirts have been a part of his everyday and festive daily life. It is traced that M. Rylskyi has worn Ukrainian shirts from childhood to old age.

An information based on the poet’s memorial embroidered shirts is created on the base of the collection of funds of the Kyiv Literary and Memorial Museum of Maksym Rylskyi. The probable manufacture of shirts and the features of embroidery ornamentation from an ethnographic point of view is studied. M. Rylskyi has embroidered shirts represented the embroidery of various historical and ethnographic territories of Ukraine, in particular, the Middle Over Dnipro Lands, Slobozhanshchyna, Bukovyna, Hutsulshchyna. A journalistic article by M. Rylskyi is mentioned. He has expressed his attitude to the development of fashion for Ukrainian clothing and the national style in contemporary clothing.

Attention is drawn to the activities of the project «Embroidery in the Clothes of Prominent Ukrainians», popularizing the personal embroidery ornaments from the clothes of famous figures of Ukrainian culture. This project recreates in the material modern versions of three embroidered shirts of M. Rylskyi from the collection of the Kyiv Literary and Memorial Museum of Maksym Rylskyi. Modern personalized shirts of M. Rylskyi have been presented by ambassadors of M. Rylskyi (the poet’s grandson), S. Ismagilov (a religious figure, currently a serviceman of the Armed Forces of Ukraine), V. Haidukevych (a journalist and public figure). On August 23, 2021, M. Rylskyi’s great-grandson, Ukrainian journalist N. Rylskyi, has gifted four embroidered shirts from the family collection to the Museum, two of which are identified from photographs as memorial shirts of M. Rylskyi.

Keywords

embroidery, ornamentation, nominal embroidery ornament, embroidered shirt, industrial production of embroidered products, album of Ukrainian embroidery, Maksym Tadeiovych Rylskyi.

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