Ukrainian industrial carpet weaving in 1940-1980s. in terms of the so called “folk handicrafts industry”: between folk art, artistic quality and economic efficiency

Abstract

Background. Program of development of industrial carpet weaving in sub-Soviet Ukraine is considered. In this connection, influence of folk arts crafts on the the Ukrainian carpet weaving of a mass sample are analyzed: stylistics, artistic quality, production economy. Methodological approaches to the subject of folk crafts in the Soviet system are highlighted and the expediency of their revision from the standpoint of the present day is emphasized. Objectives. The Ukrainian Soviet carpet weaving as economic branch was a component of art industry in the segment of folk arts crafts. This direction implied production of artistic products with use of creative manual labor on the basis of folk art tradition. According to this principle, the carpet-making of republics in the USSR was developed where appropriate traditions were preserved. Today, in Ukraine there are fundamentally different socio-economic conditions that dictate new requirements including for carpet weaving. At the same time, in the national art history there is a need to revision the current approaches to the study of carpet weaving in the system of folk art, handicraft - industrial production and author's artistic textiles. The purpose of the paper is to raise the problem of rethinking and formulating modern approaches to the analysis of Ukrainian carpet weaving according to different systems of its production practices. "Neo-folklore" practice of industrial carpet weaving in Ukraine in the Soviet period generally established the meaning about Ukrainian Soviet carpet as a new phenomenon of Ukrainian folk art. The stylistic range here was determined "ethnographically", so production was concentrated in historically formed cells in Lviv region, Ivano-Frankivsk region, Transcarpathia, Chernivtsi region, Kyiv region, Poltava region, Vinnytsia region, Chernihiv region, Kirovograd region. The basis of products, in accordance with the traditions of national weaving, was made by hand-made ornamental smooth-wool carpet of vegetative and geometric types. Conclusion. Industrial carpet weaving from "living tradition" varied by a number of features, caused primarily by considerations of the economy of production. The economy of industrial carpeting is due to the pace of scheduled production. Therefore, for mass production, drawings with simpler compositions and larger forms of ornamentation were chosen. This worsened the artistic quality of the carpets, and consequently the demand for them sharply decreased. Changing the methodology of Soviet folk arts crafts - an analysis of them as an object of factory production, corresponds to the real practice of its time and relevant to study in the XXI century.