LESYA UKRAINKA AND HER RUSHNYKS IN «TARASOV GORNITSA»

Abstract

The article is devoted to the first and only visit to the grave of the Ukrainian writer and artist, academician of engraving of the St. Petersburg Imperial Academy of Arts Taras Shevchenko in Kanev in 1891, then still a young, and later outstanding Ukrainian poetess, writer Lesa Ukrainka. The story of the rushnyk – an embroidered towel typically made from linen and used for ceremonial purposes – made in 1889 by Lesya Ukrainskaya and Margarita Komarova, brought and presented by M. Komarova to the first Shevchenko Museum «Tarasov Gornitsa», which was built near the poet's grave in 1884, is revealed. The history of its exhibition in the museum, its disappearance and return in 2010 has been studied. Special attention is paid to the ornament of the towel, its color scheme, semiotics and semantics. The embroidered lines from Taras Shevchenko's poems are also indicated. The history of replenishment of the stock collection of the reserve with two copies of the above-mentioned towel by Lesa Ukrainka and Margarita Komarova, which were embroidered by two Ukrainian masters – Galina Bondarenko (Kanev) in 1989 and Tamila Yaremenko (Zhytomyr region) in 2009, and which were exhibited until 2022 in «Tarasov Gornitsa».