Hutsulshchyna Гуцульщина

The Hutsuls are Ukraine’s Highlanders. They are split up between two countries (Ukraine and Romania) and three oblasts (Zakarpattia, Chernivtsi and Ivano-Frankivsk). Hutsuls are known throughout Ukraine for their handcrafts and folk traditions. They are masters of woodworking, ceramics, leather-craft, weaving embroidery and pysankarstvo.

In the 1800s, during the rule of Austria Hungary, Hutsul began coming down from the hills to sell their folk crafts first in towns and cities locally, and then in cities throughout the Austrian empire. Their pysanky reflect this change; while their pysanky used to resemble those of the Pokuttians, their lowland cousins, when pysankarstvo became commercialized the patterns became more and more intricate. Kosmach was and is a center of market pysankarstvo; even now they provide pysanky for Easter baskets throughout Ukraine.

The pysanky in this “Hutsul” section will be those from IF oblast; the others can be found in the Bukovyna and Zakarpattia sections.

Hutsuls

About Pysanky

Hutsul pysanka pattern (“Hearts”)