Folk costumes of Ukrainian Slobozhans as a component of cultural heritage

Abstract

Clothing in traditional society performed the function of a national, regional and local indicator, a kind of «passport» of a person. Ukrainians of Slobozhanshchyna wore Cossack clothing until the abolition of the Cossack system and Sloboda regiments in 1765, as they did everywhere else in Ukraine. However, at present, there are almost no material objects from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in regional museums of Ukraine. The abolition of Slobid-Ukrainian autonomy and the equating of the Ukrainian gentry and the Cossack nobility with the russian nobility led to fundamental changes in society. The upper classes began to adhere to European fashion, preferring English standards for men’s clothing and French standards for women’s clothing. Ancient forms of clothing, however, were conserved in the rural environment. During the 19th century the complex of clothing of Ukrainian Slobozhan of the peasant class was finally formed. List of basic women’s clothing of the 19th century included a shirt, a sheet, an apron, a belt, a corset, footwear (boots, shoes) and headgear (girls – braids and wreaths with ribbons, women’s caps, winter hats – various types of paid headgear: a scarf, a handkerchief, a shawl). Women’s outerwear was a jupka, girls – a white suite, in winter – kozushankas. In the 20th century to the list were added «Kohty-cotton jackets», which in the Southeast could be called «cuirass». Men’s clothing of the corresponding period consisted of a shirt, trousers, a belt, boots and a headdress (bril, cap, or hat). From the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, the traditional authentic folk costume, although gradually replaced by European dress, became a national symbol, which is connected with the revival and strengthening of the national movement for statehood. That is why museum collections (both physical and photographic documents) are so important today, helping to recreate the ancient folk system.