Vyshyvanka Day at the Holodomor Museum
On the occasion of the 20th anniversary of International Vyshyvanka Day, our ‘girl with ears of grain’ will once again be wearing an embroidered shirt. Through this initiative, launched four years ago, we wish to remind people that despite the Holodomor genocide, repression, Russification and the destruction of national culture, Ukrainians have preserved their identity. We also wish to pay tribute to the Ukrainian shirt, which saved many lives during the Holodomor. After all, it was used as a barter item in exchange for food.
‘No one in our family died. We lived in Zakotne, in Yurkivka, and often saw people rolling carts with the dead along the road down the hill, taking them to the cemetery to bury them themselves. My father would go to Voronezh, not to earn money, but to exchange clothes. There were embroidered shirts and towels, and my father took them away. My father was gone for a long time; we were already thinking he wouldn’t come back. Father returned and brought a bundle of millet. But the neighbour with whom he had travelled died on the way back,” recalled Mariia Ustymivna Bondar, born in 1924, from the village of Pisky in the Luhansk region.
We will begin dressing the sculpture «Bitter Memory of Childhood» at 10:00. Admission is free!
At 12.00, we invite you to a lecture by Volodymyr Shchybria, Director of the Centre for Folklore and Ethnography at the Institute of Philology of Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, PhD in Philology and collector, entitled ‘The Traditional Embroidered Shirt: Myths and Reality’. We will discuss how national clothing became a marker of identity; how to identify a particular region by its ornaments; and what myths exist around embroidery. Volodymyr Shchybria will also display embroidered shirts from his own collection. (Admission is included in the museum ticket price, 15–30 UAH; sign up here).
During the lecture, visitors will have the opportunity to meet the folk group ‘Stantsiia Syvash’. You will hear traditional songs from southern Ukraine performed in their authentic style.
Join us, it will be interesting!
If you have any questions, please email us at [email protected] or call (044) 254 45 12.