As part of the educational platform ZERNO, we have developed the project "Thank you for the language!", the purpose of which is to transfer the historical experience of the Ukrainian elite into modern practices. Our goal is to fill mass culture with quality Ukrainian content. Through visual images on such a democratic product as a T-shirt, create a new urban culture and create an image of Ukraine as intelligent, educated and wealthy. Portraits of people who did invaluable things for the preservation of Ukrainian culture in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and their statements, which are relevant today, will encourage people to act and think that we are proud to be Ukrainians! After all, language and national clothes are the most important factors that define a nation!
Expert scientists are involved in the implementation of the project, in particular, Maryna Oliynyk, a junior researcher at the IMFE named after M.T. Rylsky National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, candidate of historical sciences)
and we are gradually learning and spreading valuable information about outstanding Ukrainians! We are open to ideas regarding cooperation and popularization of the project - comment, share, suggest! Together we are a force!
Manifesto photos of Ukrainian culture
In the presented photos, the persons outwardly present the Ukrainian image. It is necessary to determine which internal driving forces guided the beginning of this process. There was a great distance between the accepted European costume and folk clothes. Overcoming it in the conditions of a polarized social structure required time and a mechanism of gradual rapprochement. One of the formats of its status-content adaptation was the symbolic wearing of the clothes of ordinary people by representatives of the highest levels of society - aristocracy and nobility, progressive students and intelligentsia. The internal motives for this were the awareness of Ukrainian identification, the understanding of which on a spiritual level required a designation on a material level.
The very fact of wearing Ukrainian clothes should be considered as a certain dedication to Ukrainianness. Photographing in folk dress became a demonstration act - a visualization that was needed by the human psyche to construct a new format of self-interpretation.
Photo 1. Olga Drahomanova (after marriage Kosach, alias Olena Pchilka). Kyiv, 1867
The very fact of wearing Ukrainian clothes should be considered as a certain dedication to Ukrainianness. Photographing in folk dress became a demonstration act - a visualization that was needed by the human psyche to construct a new format of self-interpretation.
Photo 2. Olga Kosach (née Drahomanova, alias Olena Pchilka). Kyiv, 1875
Considering the fact that 90% of information a person receives through the organs of vision, the creation of an external model that carries the basic principles and means of shaping reality is of great importance. Any socio-cultural phenomenon, when it goes beyond the existing canons, provokes the creation of a new external image.
Photo 3. Lesya Ukrainka, Mykhailo Kosach, Margarita Komarova. Odesa, 1889
The movement from an eclectic to a canonical form of clothing can be traced in the photographs, which aim to demonstrate national self-awareness. This is most clearly visible in female images. So, Olga Petrivna Kosach combines Ukrainian clothing and European clothing adopted among the nobility in at least 3 photos. The Ukrainian part is represented by the most iconic and ancient parts of the outfit: a headdress, an embroidered shirt, a necklace, and a more recent element - a corset. The waist part is a crinoline skirt fashionable at that time. A lush hairstyle with curled hair, a method of fixing a crown and tying a handkerchief and a scarf indicate a high, non-commoner social status. The natural grace and aristocratic manner in the pose is shown along with the observance of social-normative gradation. A wreath is a sign of an unmarried girl, a handkerchief and a scarf are headdresses of a young woman. Photos of Olga Petrivna wearing a headscarf should be dated after 1868, when she married Pyotr Antonovych Kosach.
Photo 4. Olga Kosach (Olena Pchilka). Vienna, 1891
Photo 5. Olga Kosach. Warsaw, 1896
Photo 6. Larisa Kosach (Lesya Ukrainka). Crimea, Chukurlar, 1897
Photos in Ukrainian clothing were of great importance for Kosachi, as the geography of the places where they were taken is very wide. We had to think in advance about the need for such a photo session, especially for this purpose, we had to take all the components of the national costume with us on the road. Such sets took up a lot of space and weight. In addition to Kyiv, the photos were taken in Odesa, Vienna, Warsaw, and Crimea.
Maryna Oliynyk (junior researcher
IMFE named after M.T. Rila National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine,
candidate of historical sciences)