The role of Vyshyvanka in contemporary Ukrainian culture, particularly focusing on developments during the War

Folklore Lunch: The role of Vyshyvanka in contemporary Ukrainian culture, particularly focusing on developments during the War

Presented by Winter Greet - Graduate Student, University of Melbourne!

September 20, 2024 | 12pm MST | ZOOM from Australia (Online-only presentation)

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The brightly coloured and delicately detailed “vyshyvanka”, the traditional Ukrainian embroidered shirt, has long been a marker of Ukrainian ethnic and cultural identity. In recent years, the vyshyvanka has become an internationally recognized symbol of “Ukrainianness”, representing a “spiritual armour” protecting family, nation, and legacy against threats and reimagined trauma inherited from a pervasive and long-running Russian colonisation effort. Yet, despite its importance in Ukrainian identity-building and independence movements, remarkably little scholarship exists on this topic. This lack of academic engagement stems in part from twin forms of domination – colonial domination and gendered domination. In this paper, Winter examines how and why the uses of vyshyvanky have evolved over time, charting differences in how vyshyvanky have been made, worn, depicted, and used, both by Ukrainians seeking to preserve their cultural lineage, and by those seeking to deny the existence of the Ukrainian nation. Winter focuses in particular on the explosion of digital images featuring vyshyvanky, circulating since the Euromaidan (2013-14), and on the history of the creation of World Vyshyvanka Day, and serving as a vehicle for mobilizing solidarity with Ukraine internationally, particularly since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

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