Ethnographers began to take notice of the Ukrainian pysanka in the late 19th century. Anthropologist Khvedir Vovk was one of the first to take professional notice, and, in 1874,  spoke about the importance of pysanka design in the study of Ukrainian ornamentation.  Olena Pchilka, better known as the mother of poet Lesya Ukrainka, collected folk art from throughout Volyn', and published a book entitled "Ukrainian Folk Design" in 1876 which contained a plate with 23 colored pysanky. Pelahia Lytvyn was the first to publish instructions for the making of pysanky in a folk design book (1878).  And Serhiy Kul'zhyns'kyi published a catalog of 2219 pysanky (400 in color), with detailed information about each pysanka's name, place of origin, artist and age.

Pysankarstvo began to get more and more notice, and pysanka researchers arose.  Professor M. Sumtsov, the first Ukrainian pysanka researcher, published a book in 1881 called, simply, "Pysanka."  In the early 20th century, ethnographers collected or copied thousands of examples of traditional pysanky from throughout Ukraine, but especially from western areas of Ukraine, which were under the hegemony of the Austro-Hungarian empire and its successor states (particularly after WWI).

to be continued

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