Myron Mykhaylovych Korduba (March 2, 1876 , Ostriv village (Ternopil oblast) - May 2, 1947, Lviv) - Ukrainian statesman, ethnographer, publicist, historian, and writer.  He became fascinated by pysanky, and in 1899 wrote and published and article titled “The Pysanky of Halytska Volyn.” It was included in Khvedir Vovk’s first volume of “Матеріали до Української Етнології” (“Materials for Ukrainian Ethnography”).

This article included some of the first thorough research devoted to pysanky. Despite the geographical location (Northern Halychyna, the region corresponding to modern ethnographic Sokal), the author approached the subject in a broad scientific context - both national/Ukrainian and European. Particularly interesting was his visual morphological analysis of pysanky, to which he applied scientific methods. There were plates of 154 pysanky, produced by the lithographer Andriy Andreichyn.

The pysanky included in this work are typical of 19th century Sokal pysanky--very similar to those produced in the neighboring areas of Halychyna and Volyn.  They use a simple color scheme (usually yellow, red and black) and mostly geometric motifs.  The floral pysanky for which Sokal is known today did not appear until the early 20th century.  We do see hints of the coming naturalism in the depiction of crayfish on two of the pysanky (II-3 and III-1), as well as the butterfly on III-1.

You can view the plates on the following pages.  You can download the entire tome, as scanned by Google, here. Korduba’s article is on pages 169-210, and the plates are on pages 290-310 of the pdf.

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