Hutsulshchyna
An ethnographic region in the Ukrainian Carpathians, the land of the Hutsuls, with a distinctive pastoral culture and highly developed crafts: wood carving, weaving, embroidery, pysanka painting, metalwork, leatherwork and pottery.
Hutsulshchyna covers the southern parts of Nadvirna and Kosiv districts and Verkhovyna district of Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast, the south of Vyzhnytsia and Putyla districts of Chernivtsi Oblast, and Rakhiv district of Zakarpattia Oblast (by the administrative division in force when the encyclopedia was compiled). Its area is about 6,000 square kilometres. There is no sharp boundary with neighbouring lands: Kosiv, Kuty, Yabluniv and Vyzhnytsia lie in a transitional belt towards Pokuttia. The earliest documented settlements date from the fourteenth century.
The economy rested on herding, above all transhumant sheep farming on the mountain pastures (polonynas), with arable farming secondary. This shaped the culture: homesteads scattered across the slopes, the enclosed yard known as a grazhda, seasonal herders' shelters, rites connected with livestock and fire, the trembita horn and kolomyika songs. Traditional dress includes a shirt, the wide leather belt (cheres), the sleeveless fur keptar, the serdak coat, leather postoly and, for men, the kresania hat.
Hutsul crafts are wood carving, weaving and carpet making, embroidery, pysanka painting, brass and metalwork (mosiazhnytstvo), leatherwork and ceramics. Geometry dominates the ornament: rhombuses, rosettes, triangles. Embroidery varies markedly from place to place: in Kosmach, for example, it is fine cross-stitch in orange-yellow tones, while in Verkhovyna black prevails. The main centres are Kosiv, Kosmach, Yavoriv, Richka, Brustury and Verkhovyna; craftspeople are trained at the Kosiv Institute of Applied and Decorative Art and the Vyzhnytsia College of Applied Art. The foundational study of the region is Volodymyr Shukhevych's five-volume «Hutsulshchyna» (1899–1908).
Ukraine's National Inventory of Intangible Cultural Heritage includes a number of Hutsul elements: the tradition of the Hutsul pysanka (2018), the Hutsul koliada and pliesy of Verkhovyna district (2019), Carpathian lizhnyk weaving (2020), Hutsul bryndzia cheese (2022), the tradition of Hutsul artistic wood carving (2023) and Hutsul cheese sculpture (2024); Kosiv painted ceramics are also on the UNESCO list (2019). Hutsulshchyna is part of the Carpathian region but not identical with it: Boikivshchyna, Lemkivshchyna, Pokuttia, Bukovyna and Zakarpattia lie alongside.
