Rushnik
Encyclopedia
East Slavs
The East Slavs are Slavic peoples speaking East Slavic languages. Formerly the main population of the medieval state of Kievan Rus, by the seventeenth century they evolved into the Russian, Ukrainian, and Belarusian peoples.-Sources:...
Slavic
Slavic peoples
The Slavic people are an Indo-European panethnicity living in Eastern Europe, Southeast Europe, North Asia and Central Asia. The term Slavic represents a broad ethno-linguistic group of people, who speak languages belonging to the Slavic language family and share, to varying degrees, certain...
towel
Towel
A towel is a piece of absorbent fabric or paper used for drying or wiping. It draws moisture through direct contact, often using a blotting or a rubbing motion. Common household textile towels are made from cotton, rayon, bamboo, nonwoven fibers or a few other materials.-Types of towels:* A bath...
s, highly decorated often with the ornamental pattern.
Decorated rushnyks are used for ceremonial events. An example of their use would be a host offering his guests bread and salt
Bread and salt
Bread and salt is a Slavic welcome greeting ceremony.The tradition, known by its local Slavic names , was also adopted by two non-Slavic nations — Lithuanians and Romanians — both of which culturally and historically close to their Slavic neighbours .When important, respected, or admired guests...
, which would then be served on a rushnyk. Rushnyks are also used at religious services, funeral
Funeral
A funeral is a ceremony for celebrating, sanctifying, or remembering the life of a person who has died. Funerary customs comprise the complex of beliefs and practices used by a culture to remember the dead, from interment itself, to various monuments, prayers, and rituals undertaken in their honor...
s, and other social functions. On each rushnyk, there is a decorative pattern, an ornament. The ornaments are commonly designed to show local plant
Plant
Plants are living organisms belonging to the kingdom Plantae. Precise definitions of the kingdom vary, but as the term is used here, plants include familiar organisms such as trees, flowers, herbs, bushes, grasses, vines, ferns, mosses, and green algae. The group is also called green plants or...
s and flower
Flower
A flower, sometimes known as a bloom or blossom, is the reproductive structure found in flowering plants . The biological function of a flower is to effect reproduction, usually by providing a mechanism for the union of sperm with eggs...
s. These patterns are also woven into outfits. An example of an ornament can be seen on the national flag of Belarus
Flag of Belarus
The current national flag of Belarus was formally adopted on June 7, 1995, following the result of a referendum voted on by the Belarusian people in the previous month. This new design replaced a historical flag used by the Belarusian People's Republic of 1918, before Belarus became a Soviet...
. They are made out of linen
Linen
Linen is a textile made from the fibers of the flax plant, Linum usitatissimum. Linen is labor-intensive to manufacture, but when it is made into garments, it is valued for its exceptional coolness and freshness in hot weather....
or hemp
Hemp
Hemp is mostly used as a name for low tetrahydrocannabinol strains of the plant Cannabis sativa, of fiber and/or oilseed varieties. In modern times, hemp has been used for industrial purposes including paper, textiles, biodegradable plastics, construction, health food and fuel with modest...
fabric.
The Rushnyk Museum is located in Pereiaslav-Khmelnytskyi
Pereiaslav-Khmelnytskyi
Pereiaslav-Khmelnytskyi is a town located where Alta River flows into Trubizh River in the Kiev Oblast in central Ukraine. Serving as the administrative center of the Pereiaslav-Khmelnytskyi Raion , the town itself is also designated as a separate raion within the oblast...
, Ukraine
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
as part of The Museum of Folk Architecture and Way of Life of Central Naddnipryanshchyna.
Uses
The way that a towel is used depends on their name. The very basic rushnik is colloquially called the utyralnyk or wiper. The utyralnyk is a basic towel that is used to clean up the home. The towel either has no designs on it or it has very narrow strip on the edges. In contrast, a nabozhnyk is a highly decorated towel composing of embroideryEmbroidery
Embroidery is the art or handicraft of decorating fabric or other materials with needle and thread or yarn. Embroidery may also incorporate other materials such as metal strips, pearls, beads, quills, and sequins....
and of lace
Lace
Lace is an openwork fabric, patterned with open holes in the work, made by machine or by hand. The holes can be formed via removal of threads or cloth from a previously woven fabric, but more often open spaces are created as part of the lace fabric. Lace-making is an ancient craft. True lace was...
. Nabozhnyks, also called nabraznyks or nakutnyks are used to decorate icons.
Rushnyks are widely used in rituals of the Slavic religion and many of these ancient customs have been incorporated into modern observances. The rushnyk is used during various ceremonies, including wedding
Wedding
A wedding is the ceremony in which two people are united in marriage or a similar institution. Wedding traditions and customs vary greatly between cultures, ethnic groups, religions, countries, and social classes...
s and funeral
Funeral
A funeral is a ceremony for celebrating, sanctifying, or remembering the life of a person who has died. Funerary customs comprise the complex of beliefs and practices used by a culture to remember the dead, from interment itself, to various monuments, prayers, and rituals undertaken in their honor...
s. During a wedding ceremony, the bride
Bride
A bride is a woman about to be married or newlywed.The word may come from the Proto-Germanic verb root *brū-, meaning 'to cook, brew, or make a broth' which was the role of the daughter-in-law in primitive families...
and groom are standing on a towel called a pidnozhnyk, which translates as step-on towel. What happens to the pidnozhnyk is that the bride will drag the towel behind her, and her bridesmaid
Bridesmaid
The bridesmaids are members of the bride's wedding party in a wedding. A bridesmaid is typically a young woman, and often a close friend or sister. She attends to the bride on the day of a wedding or marriage ceremony...
s follow behind her. Tradition has it that when the bridesmaids follow behind the pidnozhnyk, they are following the path of the bride and hopefully be married themselves. The rushnyks were widely used to dress an icon corner
Icon Corner
The Icon Corner is a small worship space prepared in the homes of Eastern Orthodox or Greek-Catholic Christians.The Book of Acts and the Epistles of the Apostle Paul record that in the early Church, Christians used to meet in the homes of the faithful. This tradition of the "House Church"...
in Ukrainian huts, which was called Krasny Kut (compare to the city of Krasny Kut
Krasny Kut
Krasny Kut is a town and the administrative center of Krasnokutsky District of Saratov Oblast, Russia, located on the right bank of the Yeruslan River , southeast of Saratov...
(Russia)).
Wedding rushnyks
Colour plays a very important symbolic role in traditional Slavic embroideryEmbroidery
Embroidery is the art or handicraft of decorating fabric or other materials with needle and thread or yarn. Embroidery may also incorporate other materials such as metal strips, pearls, beads, quills, and sequins....
. Red is the colour of life, the sun
Sun
The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is almost perfectly spherical and consists of hot plasma interwoven with magnetic fields...
, fertility and health
Health
Health is the level of functional or metabolic efficiency of a living being. In humans, it is the general condition of a person's mind, body and spirit, usually meaning to be free from illness, injury or pain...
. The most of rushnyks is embroidered with red threads. The very word "red" means "beautiful" and "splendid" in Russian: a red girl, a red sun or a red spring. The diamond-shaped design of the rushnyk is an ancient agricultural symbol, which means a sown field, or the sun, and expresses the idea of fertility and protection against anything evil. Duck
Duck
Duck is the common name for a large number of species in the Anatidae family of birds, which also includes swans and geese. The ducks are divided among several subfamilies in the Anatidae family; they do not represent a monophyletic group but a form taxon, since swans and geese are not considered...
s, in the centre of the rushnyk, symbolize the element of life-giving water. In wedding folklore
Folklore
Folklore consists of legends, music, oral history, proverbs, jokes, popular beliefs, fairy tales and customs that are the traditions of a culture, subculture, or group. It is also the set of practices through which those expressive genres are shared. The study of folklore is sometimes called...
a duck and a drake symbolize a bride and a groom, in other words a pair of ducks is a symbol of family life.
Etymology
The words are created with the common suffix "-nyk-nik
The English suffix -nik is of Slavic origin. It approximately corresponds to the suffix "-er" and nearly always denotes an agent noun...
" ("-nik") that indicates a general association of the new word with the base one.
- Rushnyk: from ruka, handHandA hand is a prehensile, multi-fingered extremity located at the end of an arm or forelimb of primates such as humans, chimpanzees, monkeys, and lemurs...
- Na-: a prefix meaning "on", i.e., the thing is supposed to be put onto something
- Nabozhnyk: from Boh, GodGodGod is the English name given to a singular being in theistic and deistic religions who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism....
- Nabraznyk: from obraz, literally "imageImageAn image is an artifact, for example a two-dimensional picture, that has a similar appearance to some subject—usually a physical object or a person.-Characteristics:...
", meaning "God's image", i.e., iconIconAn icon is a religious work of art, most commonly a painting, from Eastern Christianity and in certain Eastern Catholic churches... - Nakutnyk: from kut, cornerCornerA corner is the place where two lines meet at an angle, and a concave corner of intersecting walls is generally thought to be the least beneficial position to be in a life-or-death situation. From this notion was born the verb to corner, which is used to mean "to back into a corner" and usually...
, meaning the corner where an icon is hung (by East Slavic traditions).
- Nabozhnyk: from Boh, God
- Pidnozhnyk: from pid-= underUnder"Under" is a song by American R&B singer-songwriter Pleasure P. It was released as the third single off his first studio album The Introduction of Marcus Cooper. The song was co-written and produced by Tank and was released in May 2009...
and nohy = feet