“Our children must know who their ancestors were, what are their roots, their people’s history and its customs. It is only by having preserved the people’s culture that we will be able to preserve the people itself, and as a result, the nation,” Kolo’s co-founder Natalia Sentemon replied at once when asked about the organization’s principal objective. “It was the people’s culture that enabled Ukrainians to self-identify, to understand that they were a distinct people. It was like that in various periods. The Ukrainian people’s culture is older and more sovereign than the people itself. In this difficult time, when there is a war in the country, values are being mixed and priorities changed, our principal task is to save the people’s culture, to preserve, augment, and pass it as legacy to our posterity. This idea is the basic purpose of our ethnic art workshop Kolo.”
Each of these Podillia mavkas [female forest spirits of the Ukrainian folk mythology. – Ed.] has a specific role in the workshop. Natalia Sentemon works as editor at Vinnytsia Regional Center of Folk Art, where she studies the traditional Easter egg art, revives Easter egg painting, and has lately turned to weaving as well. Viktoria Nikolaieva holds degrees in engineering and education; while working with children, she began to make clay musical instruments, and it happened so that clay art just would not let go of her. Anastasia Filinska graduated from a technical university, but the love of folk art won over, and she creates unique huge vytynanky (decorative cut paper pieces). Inna Yermakova is a senior lecturer at Donetsk National University and a photographer, but she and her husband Andrii have been studying Podillia nyz embroidery technique for many years as well. Yulia Vasiuk is a musicologist, teacher of folk singing, leader of the Makoshy folk group and maker of motanka rag dolls and wax garlands worn by Ukrainian girls in the past. In fact, out of the five friends, Vasiuk is the only one to have a classical music education, but it does not stop the ladies from playing Ukrainian folk instruments, singing old songs and promoting Ukrainian traditions and customs. In fact, customs were the foundation of the Kolo.
“The idea to come together as an NGO emerged past year. We had gathered together and decided to go caroling. We wanted simply to please our families. Having put on ancient costumes, we went from house to house,” Vasiuk recalled. “People’s response impressed us. We were greeted with smiles and tears. Then we realized that it was not only we who needed to express ourselves, but society, too, wanted to live in the Ukrainian cultural environment. Our idea has grown into a powerful cause which has become an inspiration and breathing air for all of us.”
The Kolo ethnic art workshop was registered as an NGO on September 6, 2016. The ladies have been working together for over a year, though. Over that time, they have grown popular not only in Vinnytsia and elsewhere in Ukraine, but also abroad. The workshop presented its folk artworks at the Tantsiura Authentic Performing Groups Contest and the Zhyvotoky Festival, and also participated in the Rudenines Festival of Folk Culture which took place in Lithuania.
“People like diversity of our skills which enables us to sing songs as well as deliver lectures on folk art. But we have lots and lots of work still to be done. We want to revive Ukrainianness in Ukrainians, because if we only admire foreign things, we will become strangers to one another and lose our own traditions,” Yermakova said. “When we visited Lithuania, people asked us whether we were really from Ukraine, for costumes we wore looked different from colorful traditional Ukrainian embroidered clothes. In fact, they were Podillia shirts, made in the style which is over a century old. This technique is unknown to some residents of Podillia itself even. So we have taken it upon us to not only promote what we have, but also to revive, search for, and document forgotten traditions.”
Members of the Kolo ethnic art workshop have lately been conducting master classes in embroidery, Easter egg painting, pottery, weaving, and arts of making motanka dolls and vytynanky, all according to ancient techniques. The Podillia mavkas’ shared dream is to open a museum of eastern Podillia folk art with workshops for children and adults. Then, all things they have studied and revived will not disappear, but will enter the public domain instead.
