How the Ukrainian tradition of painting Easter eggs conquers New York
'19.04.2022'
Nadezhda Verbitskaya
As the war in Ukraine continues into the Easter season—Catholic and Protestant churches celebrate Easter on April 17, while Orthodox Easter, celebrated by many Ukrainians, falls on April 24—the focus is on the Ukrainian Easter egg decorating tradition known as pysanky. Decorating eggs became a gesture of peace as the war gave new meaning to an old tradition dating back to pre-Christian times, shares time.com.
The artists organize a fundraiser and sell these eggs to raise money for humanitarian aid to Ukraine. For example, in New York, the Ukrainian Institute of America invited members of the public to donate decorated eggs and put them on public display.
The name of these Easter eggs - pysanka in the singular and pysanka in the plural - comes from the Ukrainian verb pysaty, which means "to write" or write in Ukrainian. In this case, the word refers to the inscription on the eggs. While many Christians are familiar with Easter eggs in solid colors, Ukrainian Easter eggs often feature intricate geometric and floral designs.
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No one knows exactly when this tradition began. There are many different origin stories, some of which date back to when they were associated with the Easter holiday. One of these stories says that the ritual is meant to symbolize the return of sunlight after a long winter. And eggs are used because the yellow yolk resembles the sun, according to Sophika Zylyk, a New York-based ethnographer and pysanka artist. Another pre-Christian legend tells of a monster, the personification of evil, in the Carpathian mountains. According to this legend, the more Easter eggs people make, the tighter the chains wrap around the monster, keeping it at a distance so that it does not destroy the world.
Zylyk, who curates an exhibition of pysanky at the Ukrainian Institute of America, says the monster story inspired her: it presents Russian President Vladimir Putin as a monster in this case, and the many pysankas symbolize his curbing.
