Sumy Oblast

The Sumy embroidery ornament took shape from the mid-17th century and absorbed features of the neighbouring Kharkiv, Chernihiv and Poltava regions. Researcher Oleksandra Holosna counted more than 70 techniques in the region's folk embroidery, and the most common pattern is the tree of life with birds and small flowers.

At the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century, the Sumy region had embroidery that not every family could afford. Such a piece existed in a single copy - and it was seen perhaps only on the clothing of the Cossack officer class and the clergy. This is where the story of Sumy embroidery ornament begins.

Embroidery for the few

Wealthy peasants could afford one-off work, so the Sumy vyshyvanka at its highest level existed as a single piece.

This sets the region apart from most others, where even the most complex technique was still repeated in dozens of variations. Here it was a status object rather than a mass practice, which is why the rare surviving pieces of Sumy embroidery from that period are so valuable to museums.

Sumy embroidery ornament: tambour stitch and the tree of life

Embroiderer Nataliia Babenko describes a typical Sumy vyshyvanka worked in traditional tambour chain stitch: according to her, this is how shirts were embroidered in the Lebedyn district, while in the Trostianets and Okhtyrka areas embroiderers used satin stitch over a grid. The most common pattern is the tree of life with little birds and flowers.

One shirt takes at least a month, and often much longer: the young embroiderer Uliana Kozina spent half a year on her third shirt - grey and minimalist, white on white in her first piece. Every such piece shows that vyshyvankas of Sumy Oblast remain slow handwork even today, when technology could long have sped up the process.

More than 70 embroidery techniques

Researcher Oleksandra Holosna, in her paper "The History of the Ukrainian Vyshyvanka in the Sumy Region" (2017), counted more than 70 techniques in the region's folk embroidery. In her view, Sumy embroidery ornament took shape from the mid-17th century, when the active settlement of the region began, and absorbed features of the neighbouring Kharkiv, Chernihiv and Poltava regions.

The neighbours show even on the map of techniques. Villages on the border with Chernihiv Oblast were famous for the "shabak" drawn-thread work, and villages near the border with Russia still use looped satin stitch. Among the common stitches on Sumy shirts the researcher names "chicken feet", "hare ears" and "little suns", and she interprets crosses and rhombuses as symbols of the heavenly bodies and fire.

Techniques district by district

Nataliia Babenko, head of the model art embroidery studio at the Sumy Palace of Children and Youth, broke the Sumy vyshyvanka down by district in an interview with Suspilne (2020). The "kachalochka" technique was found in the Nedryhailiv area, the "Starodub grid" in the Romny area. The studio has 75 pupils, and at competitions they deliberately embroider in local techniques: "this is our passport", Babenko says.

According to her, Slobozhanshchyna embroidery combines geometric and plant patterns, and the plant ones are more often worked in tambour and stem stitch. Tambour was also valued in the neighbouring Chernihiv region: the technique noticeably changes the style of an embroidered rushnyk. A shirt of medium complexity takes about a month, a rushnyk from six months to two years.

Kropyvnytsia and symbolism

One of the most common motifs in Sumy Oblast vyshyvankas is "kropyvnytsia" (nettle), a pattern that symbolises wealth, prosperity and health. The history of the vyshyvanka in the Sumy land is long: as early as the 17th century embroidered rushnyky were made here for church rituals and celebrations.

In the following centuries Sumy embroidery ornament grew ever more popular - first among the local population, then across Ukraine, gradually turning from a local practice into a recognisable regional style.

The Sumy region in Paris

Folk costumes created after the work of Sumy embroiderers were shown in Paris - not as originals but as reconstructions inspired by local embroidery. Cross-stitch as a technique also came from outside, so a Sumy vyshyvanka is defined by its motifs and colours rather than the stitch.

The Sumy library was given two copies of the book "Sloboda Embroidery of the Sumy Region: A Thread of Memory and Unity" - a book about Sumy embroidery ornament compiled by a team of like-minded people from authentic samples.

Colours in Sumy Oblast vyshyvankas

The palette of Sumy Oblast vyshyvankas depends on the district. According to Oleksandra Holosna, at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century shirts embroidered with white thread on unbleached homespun linen, white on white, with a light-and-shadow effect, were popular in the Lebedyn, Nedryhailiv, Okhtyrka and Trostianets districts. Such shirts are still embroidered in the central districts of the oblast.

Two-colour embroidery in red and black is just as widespread. On Okhtyrka shirts red is sometimes replaced by blue, in the Lebedyn district by yellow. Shirts from the Lypova Dolyna and Romny districts were worked in cutwork and counted satin stitch in white, grey and light brown. The Yampil district kept combinations of grey with red and white with black, and the Trostianets district held to pairs of black with red, black with grey and white with light brown.

In the north, in the Seredyna-Buda and Shostka districts, embroiderers used white or blue thread with touches of red and black, in stitches so fine that the embroidery resembles beadwork, as on Chernihiv shirts. And villages near the Kharkiv region have polychrome ornaments in cross-stitch or half cross-stitch in coarse thread that look almost three-dimensional.

The Sumy region between Poltava and Slobozhanshchyna

Administratively this is Slobozhanshchyna, together with the Kharkiv and Luhansk regions and the north of the Donetsk region. Ethnologist Liudmyla Ponomar, drawing on Yakiv Prylypko's clothing atlas, explains why embroidery in white thread came here: Slobozhanshchyna was settled by Cossack companies from the Poltava and Chernihiv regions. That is why the white line in the Sumy region is close to the Poltava one, while two-colour red and black embroidery lives alongside it, so Sumy Oblast embroidery ornament is hard to assign to a single group.

An honoured embroiderer and embroidered amulets

Olha Hulei, Honoured Master of Folk Art of Ukraine, presented the exhibition "Embroidered Amulets of the Native Land" at the Sumy Central Library - rushnyky and clothing gathered over many years of creative work: shirts, blouses and dresses.

Such personal exhibitions are common in the region: the Sumy vyshyvanka rests both on museum holdings and on the work of embroiderers whose names appear on the posters of libraries and community centres.

Frequently asked questions

Why does Sumy embroidery resemble Poltava embroidery?

Because Slobozhanshchyna was settled by people from the Poltava and Chernihiv regions, and embroidery in white thread came with them. White on white is still embroidered in the central districts of the oblast, but two-colour red and black embroidery is widespread too, and in the north white and blue.

How many embroidery techniques are known in the Sumy region?

Researcher Oleksandra Holosna counted more than 70. Local ones include the "shabak" drawn-thread work in villages near the Chernihiv region, "kachalochka" in the Nedryhailiv area, the "Starodub grid" in the Romny area, tambour in the Lebedyn area and satin stitch over a grid in the Trostianets and Okhtyrka areas.

What does kropyvnytsia mean?

It is the name of one of the most common motifs in Sumy vyshyvankas. It symbolises wealth, prosperity and health and often appears alongside the tree of life.

Were Sumy costumes really shown in Paris?

Yes, but they were not original historical pieces: they were reconstructions based on the work of Sumy craftswomen.

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