Ukrainians. Culture of Ukraine in the 17th century: History of Ukraine How Ukrainians lived in the 17th century

Ukrainians, as well as Russians and Belarusians, belong to the Eastern Slavs. Ukrainians include Carpathian (Boikos, Hutsuls, Lemkos) and Polissya (Litvins, Polishchuks) ethnographic groups. The formation of the Ukrainian people took place in the XII-XV centuries on the basis of a part of the population that had previously been part of Kievan Rus.

During the period of political fragmentation, due to the existing local features of the language, culture and way of life, conditions were created for the formation of three East Slavic peoples (Ukrainians and Russians). The main historical centers of the formation of the Ukrainian nationality were Kiev region, Pereyaslav region, Chernihiv region. In addition to the constant raids of the Mongol-Tatars, which lasted until the 15th century, from the 13th century, Ukrainians were subjected to Hungarian, Polish and Moldavian invasions. However, the constant resistance to the invaders contributed to the unification of the Ukrainians. Not the last role in the formation of the Ukrainian state belongs to the Cossacks who formed the Zaporozhian Sich, which became the political stronghold of the Ukrainians.

In the 16th century, the ancient Ukrainian language was formed. The modern Ukrainian literary language was formed at the turn of the XVIII-XIX centuries.

In the XVII century, as a result of the war of liberation, under the leadership of Bogdan Khmelnitsky, the Hetmanate was formed, which in 1654 became part of Russia as an autonomous state. Historians consider this event a prerequisite for the unification of Ukrainian lands.

Although the word "Ukraine" was known as early as the 12th century, it was then used only to refer to the "extreme" southern and southwestern parts of the Old Russian lands. Until the end of the century before last, the inhabitants of modern Ukraine were called Little Russians and considered one of the ethnographic groups of Russians.

The traditional occupation of Ukrainians, which determined their place of residence (fertile southern lands), was agriculture. They grew rye, wheat, barley, millet, buckwheat, oats, hemp, flax, corn, tobacco, sunflowers, potatoes, cucumbers, beets, turnips, onions and other crops.

Agriculture, as usual, was accompanied by cattle breeding (cattle, sheep, horses, pigs, poultry). Beekeeping and fishing were less developed. Along with this, various trades and crafts were widespread - weaving, glass production, pottery, woodworking, leatherworking and others.

The national dwelling of the Ukrainians: huts (huts), adobe or log cabins, whitewashed inside and out, were quite close to the Russians. The roof was usually made of four-pitched straw, as well as reeds or shingles. In a number of areas, until the beginning of the last century, the dwelling remained smoky or semi-smoky. The interior, even in different districts, was of the same type: at the entrance to the right or left in the corner there was a stove, turned by the mouth to the long side of the house. Diagonally from it in the other corner (front) painted with embroidered towels, flowers, icons hung, there was a dining table. There were benches along the walls. The flooring for sleeping was adjacent to the stove. The peasant house consisted, depending on the prosperity of the owner, of one or more outbuildings. Wealthy Ukrainians lived in brick or stone houses, with several rooms with a porch or veranda.

The culture of Russians and Ukrainians has much in common. Often foreigners cannot distinguish them from each other. If we remember that for many centuries these two peoples were actually one, this is not surprising.

Women's traditional clothing of Ukrainians consists of an embroidered shirt and non-sewn clothing: dergi, spares, plakhty. Girls usually let go of long hair, which they braided into braids, laying them around their heads and decorating them with ribbons and flowers. Women wore various caps, later - scarves. The men's costume consisted of a shirt tucked into wide trousers (harem pants), a sleeveless jacket and a belt. Straw hats were the headdress in summer, caps in winter. The most common shoes were postols made of rawhide, and in Polissya - lychaks (bast shoes), among the wealthy - boots. In the autumn-winter period, both men and women wore a retinue and opancha - varieties of caftan.

The basis of the nutrition of Ukrainians in view of their occupation was vegetable and flour foods. National Ukrainian dishes: borsch, soup with dumplings, dumplings with cherries, cottage cheese and potatoes, cereals (especially millet and buckwheat), donuts with garlic. Meat food was available to the peasantry only on holidays, but lard was often used. Traditional drinks: varenukha, sirivets, various liqueurs and vodka with pepper (vodka).

Various songs have always been and remain the most striking feature of the national folk art of Ukrainians. There are still well preserved (especially in rural areas) ancient traditions and rituals. As well as in Russia, in some places they continue to celebrate semi-pagan holidays: Maslenitsa, Ivan Kupala and others.

They speak the Ukrainian language of the Slavic group, in which several dialects are distinguished: northern, southwestern and southeastern. Writing based on Cyrillic.

Believing Ukrainians are mostly Orthodox. In Western Ukraine there are also. There is Protestantism in the form of Pentecostalism, Baptism, Adventism.

In the XIV century, the territory of Southern Rus' came under the control of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Poland and Hungary. Crimea, previously under the influence of Byzantium and Rus', fell into the hands of the Tatars. In the XVI-XVII centuries, a confrontation for Ukrainian lands unfolded between the Polish-Lithuanian state, the Grand Duchy of Moscow and the Turkish-Tatar forces. The conquest by Moscow in 1500-1503 of the northern principalities belonging to Lithuania, with the center in Chernigov, increased the attraction of a part of the Orthodox Ukrainian population to Muscovy.

Since the time of the Union of Lublin (1569), Ukraine has been almost entirely under the administrative control of the Commonwealth. At the same time, significant differences remained between Galicia, located in the west of Ukraine, which already belonged to Poland in the 14th century, and the regions in the east and south, which were part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, but to a greater extent retained their originality, and above all adherence to Orthodoxy. While the nobility was gradually incorporated into the ranks of the gentry of the Kingdom of Poland and converted to Catholicism, the peasant population everywhere retained its Orthodox faith and language. Part of the peasantry was enslaved. Significant changes took place among the urban population, which was partially forced out by Poles, Germans, Jews and Armenians. Left its mark on the political history of Ukraine and the European Reformation, which was defeated in the Polish-Lithuanian state. The Catholic elite tried to solve the problem of the Orthodox population with the help of the Union of Brest in 1596, which subordinated the Orthodox Church of Ukraine to the Pope. As a result, the Uniate Church arose, which also has a number of differences from Orthodoxy in ritual. Along with Uniatism and Catholicism, Orthodoxy is preserved. The Kyiv Collegium (higher theological educational institution) becomes the center of the revival of Ukrainian culture.

The growing oppression of the gentry forced the Ukrainian peasant masses to flee to the south and southeast of the region. In the lower reaches of the Dnieper, beyond the Dnieper rapids, at the beginning of the 16th century, a Cossack community arose, which was in relative dependence on the Polish-Lithuanian kingdom. In terms of its socio-political organization, this community was similar to the formations of Russian Cossacks on the Don, Volga, Yaik and Terek; between the military organization of the Dnieper Cossacks - the Zaporozhian Sich (established in 1556) - and the Russian Cossack formations, there was a relationship of brotherhood in arms, and all of them, including the Zaporozhian Sich, were the most important political and military factor on the border with the Steppe. It was this Ukrainian Cossack society that played a decisive role in the political development of Ukraine in the middle of the 17th century. At the beginning of the 17th century, under the leadership of Hetman Sahaydachny (hetmanship intermittently in 1605-1622), the Sich turned into a powerful military-political center, generally acting in line with Polish politics. The Sich was a republic headed by a hetman, who relied on the Cossack foremen (the upper ranks opposed to the "bad").

In the 16th-17th centuries, the Cossacks responded to the desire of the Poles to establish more complete control over the Sich with a series of powerful uprisings against the gentry and the Catholic clergy. In 1648, the uprising was led by Bogdan Khmelnitsky. As a result of several successful campaigns, the army of B. Khmelnytsky managed to spread the influence of the Zaporozhian Sich to most of Ukraine. However, the emerging Ukrainian state formation was weak and could not stand against Poland alone. Before B. Khmelnitsky and officers of the highest Cossack circle, the question arose of choosing allies. The initial rate of B. Khmelnitsky on the Crimean Khanate (1648) did not materialize, since the Crimean Tatars were inclined to separate negotiations with the Poles.

The union with the Moscow state after several years of hesitation of Tsar Alexei (unwillingness to enter into a new conflict with the Commonwealth) was concluded in 1654 in Pereyaslavl (Pereyaslav Rada). The Cossack army, as the main military-political institution of Ukraine, was guaranteed its privileges, its own right and legal proceedings, self-government with free elections of the hetman, and limited foreign policy activity. The privileges and rights of self-government were guaranteed to the Ukrainian nobility, metropolitan and cities of Ukraine who swore allegiance to the Russian Tsar.

The war between Russia and the Polish-Lithuanian state that began in 1654 had a negative impact on the alliance of the Dnieper Cossacks with the Russian Tsar. In the conditions of the armistice between Moscow and the Polish-Lithuanian state, B. Khmelnitsky went to rapprochement with Sweden, Brandenburg and Transylvania, which entered into an armed struggle with the Poles. At the same time, the role of the Cossacks of B. Khmelnitsky was very significant. So, at the beginning of 1657, the 30,000th army of the Kyiv foreman Zhdanovich, uniting with the army of the Transylvanian prince Gyorgy II Rakoczi, reached Warsaw. However, this success could not be consolidated.

In the middle of the 17th century, a fierce struggle for the territory of the Sich between Russia, Poland and the Ottoman Empire unfolded. In this struggle, the hetmans occupied various positions, sometimes acting independently. Hetman I. Vyhovsky (1657-1659) concluded an alliance with Sweden, which dominated Poland at that time (anticipating the policy of Mazepa). Having defeated the pro-Russian forces near Poltava in 1658, Vyhovsky concluded the Treaty of Godiach with Poland, which assumed the return of Ukraine under the rule of the Polish king as the Grand Duchy of Russia. Near Konotop, Vyhovsky's troops in 1659 defeated the troops of the Muscovite kingdom and its allies. However, the next Rada supported the pro-Russian Y. Khmelnitsky (1659-1663), who replaced Vyhovsky and concluded a new Pereyaslav Treaty with Russia. Under this treaty, Ukraine became an autonomous part of the Muscovite kingdom.

However, after failures in the war with Poland in 1660, the Slobodischensky Treaty of 1660 was concluded, which turned Ukraine into an autonomous part of the Commonwealth. Left-bank Ukraine did not recognize the agreement and swore allegiance to the tsar. Not wanting to continue the civil war, Y. Khmelnitsky took the monastic vows, and P. Teterya (1663-1665) was elected hetman of the Right Bank, and I. Bryukhovetsky (1663-1668), who was replaced by D. Mnogoreshny (1669-1672) years).

The uprising of 1648-1654 and the subsequent period of unrest (“Ruin”) is sometimes interpreted in historiography as an early bourgeois or national revolution (by analogy with other revolutions of the 16th-17th centuries).

The Andrusovo truce between Moscow and the Poles (1667) institutionalized the split of Ukraine: the regions on the left bank of the Dnieper were ceded to the Muscovite state, and the right-bank ones again fell under the political and administrative control of the Poles. This division, as well as the protectorate of both powers established over the Zaporozhian Sich under the Andrusov Treaty, caused numerous uprisings of the Cossacks, who unsuccessfully tried to achieve the unification of both parts of Ukraine.

In the 1660s-1670s, a fierce civil war was going on in Ukraine, in which Poland, Russia, and then the Ottoman Empire took part, under the protection of which the right-bank hetman P. Doroshenko (1665-1676) passed. This struggle ravaged the Right Bank, caused great damage to the left bank and ended with the division of Ukraine under the Treaty of Bakhchisaray in 1681 between Russia and Turkey and the Crimean Khanate and the “Eternal Peace” of Russia with Poland in 1686. The territories of the three states converged in the region of Kyiv, which remained with Russia and the Hetman Ukraine, which was part of it (hetman I. Samoylovich, 1672-1687).

Ukraine was divided into a number of territories:

1) the left-bank Hetmanship, which retained significant autonomy within Russia;

2) Zaporizhzhya Sich, which retained autonomy in relation to the hetman;

3) the right-bank Hetmanate, which retained autonomy within the Commonwealth (by the 1680s, it was actually divided between Poland and Turkey);

4) Galicia, integrated into the Kingdom of Poland from the end of the 14th century;

5) Hungarian Carpathian Ukraine;

6) Bukovina and Podolia, which belonged to the Ottoman Empire (until 1699);

7) areas of the Steppe and neutral territories cleared of the Ukrainian population, up to the Kiev region;

8) Sloboda Ukraine - the eastern regions of the left-bank Hetmanate, whose regiments were directly subordinate to the Moscow governors in Belgorod.

The institutions of Moscow control over the left-bank Hetmanate and Sloboda Ukraine, which retained significant autonomy, were: the Little Russian Order established in 1663, small Russian garrisons in individual Ukrainian cities. Between the Hetmanate and the Muscovite state (in the pre-Petrine period) there was a customs border.

A more rigid institutional consolidation of the Left Bank and Sloboda Ukraine, and then part of the Right-Bank Ukraine, occurs in the reign of Peter I. In 1708, the Ukrainian hetman Ivan Mazepa entered into an alliance with Peter's military and political opponent, King Charles XII of Sweden. In response, the Russian army burned down the hetman's capital, Baturyn. The victory of Peter I over the Swedes near Poltava (1709) meant a significant limitation of the broad political autonomy of Ukraine. Institutionally, this was expressed in the expansion of the administrative and legal competence of the Little Russian Collegium, which managed affairs in Ukraine, the elimination of the customs border, the growth of economic withdrawals of surplus product from Ukrainian territories for the needs of the expanding Russian Empire.

The stabilization of the institution of hetmanship under Empress Elizaveta Petrovna gave way to a sharp policy of centralization during the reign of Catherine II. In 1765, Sloboda Ukraine became an ordinary province of the Russian Empire. In 1764, the institute of hetmanship was liquidated, and in the early 1780s, the Russian system of administration and tax collection was introduced. In 1775, Russian troops destroyed the Zaporizhzhya Sich, part of the Zaporizhzhya Cossacks moved to the Kuban, and part of the Cossacks in the more northern regions passed into the category of state peasants. Simultaneously with the distribution of land to Russian landowners, a part of the Cossack elite was included in the Russian nobility. The territory of Ukraine became known as Little Russia. In 1783, the Crimean Khanate was annexed to Russia.

As a result of the three divisions of the Commonwealth (1772, 1793 and 1795), almost the entire territory of Ukraine became part of the Russian Empire. Galicia, Transcarpathia and Bukovina became parts of the Austrian Empire.

Modern Ukraine occupies the territories of a number of principalities into which Kievan Rus broke up in the 12th century - Kyiv, Volyn, Galicia, Pereyaslav, Chernigov, Novgorod-Seversky, as well as part of the Polovtsian Wild Field.

The name "Ukraine" appears in written sources at the end of the 12th century and is applied to the outskirts of a number of named principalities bordering on the Wild Field. In the 14th century, their lands became part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and also became "Ukrainian" in relation to it (and after the Polish-Lithuanian Union of 1569 - in relation to the Commonwealth). Chronicles of the XV-XVI centuries. “Ukrainians” are known not only in present-day Ukraine. There were, for example, Ryazan Ukraine, Pskov Ukraine, etc.

For a long time the words "Ukraine", "Ukrainian" had not an ethnic, but a purely geographical meaning. The Orthodox inhabitants of Ukraine continued to call themselves Rusyns until at least the 18th century, and in Western Ukraine until the beginning of the 20th century. In the treaty between Hetman Vyhovsky and Poland dated 1658, according to which Ukraine became an independent state in union with the Commonwealth, the Ukrainian state was officially called the "Russian Ukrainian Hetmanate".

In the 14th century, the term “Little Rus'” arose in Byzantium, by which the patriarchs of Constantinople designated, to distinguish from the Moscow metropolis, a new metropolis with a center in Galich, created for the Orthodox on the lands of present-day Ukraine. The name "Little Rus'" is used from time to time in their title by the last independent Galician princes ("Kings of Rus'" or "Little Rus'"). Subsequently, the opposition between Little and Great Rus' received a political justification: the first was under the rule of Poland and Lithuania, and the second was independent. However, these names came from the fact that Little Rus' was the historical core of Kievan Rus, and Great Rus' was the territory of the later settlement of the Old Russian people (cf. in antiquity: Little Greece - Greece proper, Great Greece - southern Italy and Sicily).

The name "Little Rus'" (in the Russian Empire - Little Russia) for the present Ukraine was also adopted by the tsars. At the same time, the inhabitants of Ukraine themselves never called themselves Little Russians. This was the definition given to them by the Russian administration. They coexisted with two self-names - Rusyns and Ukrainians (over time, they began to give preference to the second), although in the 19th century the government actively propagated the opinion that they were part of a single Russian people.

There was another name for part of the Ukrainians - Cherkasy. There are conflicting hypotheses about its origin. It did not apply to all Ukrainians, but only to the Cossacks. The first information about Ukrainian Cossacks dates back to the end of the 15th century. These were free people who did not obey the masters and settled in the territories of the Wild Field. Cherkasy raided the camps of the Tatars in the steppe, and sometimes they themselves were attacked by them. But the steppe freemen attracted more and more people from the estates of the Polish and Lithuanian lords to the ranks of the Cossacks. Not any Cossacks were called Cherkasy, but only the Dnieper Cossacks (then the Ryazan Cossacks were known, and in the 16th century - the Don, Terek, etc.).

Ukrainian historiography made the Cossacks the basis of the national myth. However, in fact, for a long time the Cossacks did not care who to rob. In the 16th century, both the Crimean Khanate and the cities of the Commonwealth, where Orthodox Ukrainians lived, were subjected to their invasions. Only from the beginning of the 17th century did glimpses of aspirations for independence for the whole of Ukraine begin to appear in the movement of the Cossacks against the Commonwealth.

The Cossacks often and willingly put up with the Polish kings if they provided them with more benefits. The bulk of the Polish-Lithuanian troops that flooded the Muscovite state in the Time of Troubles at the beginning of the 17th century were Cherkasy. Poland sought to put the Cossacks under its control and included part of the Cossacks in the so-called. a registry, to which she paid a salary for service on the border with the lands of the Crimean Tatars. At the same time, most of the Cossacks were outlawed, which did not stop those who wanted to "Cossack" in an independent military republic based in the Zaporozhian Sich.

Bogdan Khmelnitsky, who raised the Cossacks in the middle of the 17th century to the war of liberation, was not up to his historical task. He counted more on an agreement with the king than on the Ukrainian peasantry, who were ready to oppose the Polish pans, but did not wait for support from the Cossacks of Khmelnytsky. As a result, Bogdan was unable to retain most of the Ukrainian lands and asked for patronage from the Muscovite tsar.

The difference in the political concepts of the two parts of Rus' was revealed immediately, as soon as the Moscow government took Khmelnitsky (1653) under its control. The Cossacks understood the alliance with Moscow as a bilateral alliance, in which Ukraine not only retains its governing bodies, finances and troops, but also the freedom of external relations, and Moscow does not have the right to appoint its governors and governors in Ukraine. In addition, the Cossacks insisted that the tsar personally swear an oath to fulfill the contract, just as Khmelnitsky swore allegiance to the tsar.

But the boyars answered that they did not have it for the tsar to swear to someone. They considered Khmelnytsky's move only as a transition to the autocrat's allegiance, and some autonomous rights left to Ukraine as a favor bestowed on her. After that, taking advantage of the war with Poland, Moscow appointed its governors to the main cities of Ukraine, who began to carry out justice and reprisals, and placed garrisons there. This cooled the zeal of the Cossacks for the same faith in Moscow. Already Bohdan Khmelnitsky himself has actually deviated from Moscow, establishing relations with Sweden and the Crimea against both Poland and Russia. Under his successors, the betrayal of part of the Cossack elite to Moscow became obvious.

For many years, Ukraine became the arena of struggle between Russia and Poland, as well as the Cossacks themselves, who supported one side or the other. This time has received the name Ruin in the history of Ukraine. Finally, in 1667, a truce was signed between Russia and Poland, according to which the Left-Bank Ukraine and Kyiv retreated to Russia.

In the era of the Ruins, hundreds of thousands of people fled from the Right-Bank Ukraine to the Russian bank of the Dnieper. Right-bank Ukraine, which remained behind Poland, lost any shadow of autonomy. Things were different in Left-bank Ukraine. The Little Russian Hetmanate was an autonomy within Russia until the betrayal of Mazepa in 1708. They had their own laws and courts (in the cities, self-government was preserved according to Magdeburg law), the hetmanate had its own treasury and departments. In peacetime, the tsars had no right to send Cossacks to serve outside Ukraine.

In 1727, the government of the princes Dolgoruky, under the young Tsar Peter II, restored the hetmanate, but in 1737, during the period of Bironism, it was again abolished. The hetmanship was revived again by Elizaveta Petrovna in 1750, and in 1764 Catherine II finally liquidated it.

A people living "against the sun, head to the Chumat cart, feet to the blue sea," as the old song says. Whitewashed huts surrounded by gardens, beautiful stove tiles and earthenware, bright, cheerful fairs - all these are recognizable signs of the rich traditional culture of Ukrainians...

Settlement and formation of an ethnos

A group of girls and married women in festive attire

In the south-west of Eastern Europe, "against the sun, head to the Chumatsky cart (Big Bear), feet to the blue sea," as the people sang, the ancient Slavic land of Ukraine is located.

The origin of the name in the meaning of "land, extreme" dates back to the time of the existence of the ancient Russian state - Kievan Rus. So in the XII-XIII centuries. called it the southern and southwestern lands - the right-bank Dnieper region: Kiev region, Pereyaslav region, Chernihiv-Severshchina, which became the center of the formation of the Ukrainian nationality. Subsequently, the name Ukraine was assigned to the entire ethnic territory.

Main occupation

The main occupation of Ukrainians - agriculture regulated the way of life of the peasant family and the community as a whole. Grain and products prepared from it (porridge, kutya, loaf) were present as attributes in almost all rituals of the calendar cycle and rituals associated with the human life cycle. Bread among Ukrainians, like many other peoples, was a symbol of hospitality. There was always bread and salt on the table in the hut. Eyewitnesses noted that the Ukrainians welcomed guests cordially and kindly, sparing nothing for the dear guest. Cattle breeding prevailed in the mountainous regions of the Carpathians.

Settlements and housing

Ukrainian villages were located near rivers, occupying land not suitable for arable land. Farm settlements were built in the steppe regions.

"Towel" - a towel. End of the 19th century. Kharkov province, Zmeevsky district

The main dwelling of the Ukrainians was a whitewashed adobe hut with a high hipped roof covered with straw or reeds, the edges of which protruded significantly above the walls, protecting the inhabitants of the hut from the cold in winter and from the heat in summer. For additional insulation in winter, the walls of the hut were lined with straw. Clean, whitewashed huts were almost always surrounded by gardens, and a light wattle fence and solid gates knocked together from poles made it possible to see the yard and its inhabitants.

The hostess and her daughters whitewashed the hut after each rainstorm, and also three times during the year: for Easter, Trinity and Intercession.

The interior of the house

Painted stove and painting on the wall near the stove

The stove occupied almost a quarter of the hut and was located in the left corner from the entrance. This corner was called "baking", and the empty place under the stove - "pidpiccha" - served to store fuel or a chicken cage was placed there - "heap".

Opposite the stove corner was a red corner - "pokuttya". Here on the shelves - goddesses stood icons called blessed, as they blessed the owner, mistress and their sons before the wedding. The icons were covered with patterned towels - "gods".

The corner to the right of the door, called "deaf", had an exclusively economic purpose. The space above the door and the upper part of the blind corner was occupied by a shelf - "police", on which stood spare pots, turned upside down. Closer to the corner, numerous women's jewelry was stored in earthenware. Below were shelves with the best tableware placed in a conspicuous place: painted glazed clay and wooden bowls, spoons, plates and flasks.

Hutsul ceramics

Ceramic bowls. Poltava province, Zenkovsky district, metro station Opashnya.

The natural and geographical conditions of the Carpathian region predetermined the originality of the culture of its population, known as the Rusyns, or Hutsuls. Despite the fact that this group of the Ukrainian people lived apart from it due to territorial and political alienation, it did not lose cultural and historical unity with its ethnic group. The Hutsul region was famous for its ceramic products.

A special impression on entering the Hutsul hut was made by a stove, the inner part of the chimney of which - a fireplace - was lined with tiles - "kahls". The fireplace consists of two or three tiers of tiles, closed in the upper and lower parts by rows of narrow cornices. The upper edge of the fireplace was completed by two or three pediments - "concealed" and "bumps" at an angle. The tiles depicted scenes from the life of the Hutsuls, churches, crosses, faces of saints, the Austrian coat of arms, and flowers.

Vessel. Eastern Galicia, p. Pistyn. End of the 19th century. Ukrainians are Hutsuls

The decoration of the stove fireplace was consonant with the "mysnik" - a cabinet of three or four shelves, placed in the wall between the door to the hut and the side wall, and the "mysnik" - a shelf above the door where there were pottery: "gleks" ("dzbanks"), "chersaki" (pots), bathhouses, vessels for drinks - kalachi, "splashing", bowls, etc. The most elegant bowls, serving exclusively as interior decoration, were placed on the "namysnik", which, for the same reason, was decorated with carvings and burnt patterns.

Clay products attracted attention with the perfection of forms, variety of decor and colors - brown, yellow and green. All products were covered with glaze, which shone, creating an atmosphere of festivity and elegance in the hut even on cloudy days.

Ceramics were made by Hutsul potters from Kosovo and Pistyn. The most famous of them are: I. Baranbk, O. Bakhmatyuk, P. Tsvilyk, P. Koshak. As a rule, all of them were hereditary potters who embodied in their products not only the best achievements of their predecessors, but, of course, revealed their individuality.

Despite the fact that the main occupations of the Hutsuls were cattle breeding and, first of all, sheep breeding, as well as harvesting and rafting of timber, many of them were also engaged in crafts, especially those that lived in towns and had neither land nor livestock. For a Hutsul girl, there was nothing more honorable than to marry an artisan.

Ukrainian fair

Fair in the village of Yankovtsy. Poltava province, Lubensky district. Ukrainians.

Fairs were held in most Ukrainian villages on major church holidays. The busiest of them took place in autumn, after the harvest. The marketplace was located on the temple square or on a pasture outside the village.

The fair for the peasants was a kind of "club" where social connections and acquaintances were maintained. The fair rows were located in strict sequence: pottery, factory utensils and icons were sold in one row, grocery and tea shops were also located here; in another row - manufactory, haberdashery, caps, women's scarves, shoes; in the next - wood products - wheels, arcs, chests, etc.; in the latter - tar and fish.

Separately, there were places where cattle and horses were sold. Gypsies acted as mediators here. After a successful sale and purchase, it was common to drink magarych: “The beggars changed crutches, and even then they drank magarych for three days,” as the people said.

At fairs, wandering gymnasts or comedians amused the people, but more often performers of folk songs to the accompaniment of a lyre or blind musicians who played the harmonium. The trade lasted three or four hours, then everything was cleaned up, and by evening there was not a trace left of the motley noisy crowd and crowds, except for the fair's rubbish. The big fair lasted two or three days.