Historical and cultural heritage of Ukrainians of the Republic of Bashkortostan: according to the funds of the Yumatov Ethnographic Museum

Pylypak Maksym ORCID: 0000-0003-0087-5889 PhD in History Senior Researcher, Institute for Strategic Studies of the Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Bashkortostan 450008, Russia, Republic of Bashkortostan, Ufa, Kirova str., 15 pilipakma@isi-rb.ru

The article was prepared as part of the fulfillment of the state task of the ISI of the Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Belarus

The modern ethnocultural image of Bashkortostan has been formed over a long historical period. The main enclaves of settlement of the majority of the peoples of the studied region were formed by the first quarter of the last century. However, even at the present stage, the conditions of social realities determine the dynamism of ethnocultural processes, in which the multinational nature of the republic plays a leading role. 

For a thorough study of the historical and cultural heritage of the peoples inhabiting the Republic of Bashkortostan, it is necessary to know all kinds of their spiritual and material cultures. In the study of the latter, the leading role is given to the materials of museum collections, and, in particular, ethnographic objects, which are an important component of the characteristics of an ethnic group and the definition of its identity.

This publication presents the results of the analysis of the main fund of the museum collection of the Yumatov Ethnographic Museum of the Ufa district of the Republic of Bashkortostan (the full name of the institution is the Municipal Budgetary Institution "Yumatov Ethnographic Museum of the municipal district of the Ufa district of the Republic of Bashkortostan"). Special attention is paid to subjects related to representatives of Slavic ethnic groups, namely Ukrainians, who have been permanently residing within the study area since the 40s of the XVIII century ^[1].

The bibliographic list devoted to the study of Ukrainians of the region has more than 500 items. The most famous are the works of historians and ethnologists – Babenko V.Ya. ^[2.], Cherniyenko D.A. ^[3;4], folklorists ^[5] – Karpukhin I.E. ^[6], Galiev F.G. ^[7] and dialectologists ^[8-10].

Also, a number of publications devoted to this issue have been prepared by the author ^{[11; 12]}.

However, special studies devoted to the study of the historical and cultural heritage of Ukrainians of the Republic of Bashkortostan, based on the materials of museum collections, have not been conducted before.

The idea of creating a museum in the village of Yumatovo, as a private museum collection, belongs to the spouses Zyryanov – Sergey Alekseevich and Natalia Sergeevna. The photographs on display indicate that its construction was started in August 1972 ^[13]. It is worth noting that the work on the formation of individual expositions, in particular "Spinning and Weaving", was carried out back in 1970 ^[14] and, accordingly, we can assume that expedition trips to search for exhibits were carried out even earlier. The new museum building was opened to visitors in 1975, until that time all the previously collected exhibits were stored in a small room.

The modern Yumatov Ethnographic Museum has 14 sections of the exposition, which represent information about the culture and life of the Turkic (Bashkirs, Tatars, Chuvash), Finnovolgian (Mari, Udmurts, Mordvins) and Slavic (Russians, Belarusians, Ukrainians) peoples inhabiting the Republic of Bashkortostan. There are more than 7 thousand exhibits in permanent storage in the museum ^[15] of which 4872 are publicly available. This number of storage units was considered by us during the preparation of the publication.

The geography of the museum's collection is quite wide and is represented not only by settlements in the districts of Bashkortostan, but also by a number of regions of the Russian Federation.

At the same time, according to the results of the analysis, it was revealed that the main part of the exhibits related to the Ukrainian population were transferred from the settlements of Chishminsky and Ufa districts, which is directly related to the proximity to the museum itself and, accordingly, more frequent expeditions in order to fill the main expositions. According to the 1920 population census and the 1925 household census, Ukrainians lived in 41 settlements in the Chishminsky district, and in Ufa – in 21 ^[16]. The maximum number of Ukrainians in the designated areas was recorded in 1939 and amounted to 7,144 people in Chishminsky and 3,392 people in Ufa districts ^{[17, p. 60]}.

It is quite natural that for such a long residence of Ukrainians, within the territory under study, samples of their traditional material culture were reflected in the collection of the museum of S. Yumatovo. When determining their nationality, the following factors were taken into account: firstly, the existence in villages founded by immigrants from Ukraine and recorded in written sources ^[16] as Ukrainian; secondly, people with Ukrainian surnames acted as donors. Thus, 306 items were identified. In addition, 41 more exhibits are classified by us as conditionally Ukrainian, since the design style (cut, ornaments, embroidery colors, etc.) resemble those. This list includes items not from the Ukrainian settlements of Alkino ^[18], Ufa ^{[19, 20]}, Yumatovo ^[21-25], while some of the donors bear Ukrainian surnames.  The other part are not Ukrainians and the exhibits were previously in Chishma ^{[26, 27]}, Tuymazakh ^[28], Yumatovo ^[29-31], Russian Yurmash ^[32], Berkadak ^[33-35]. The conditionally Ukrainian group also includes exhibits that were donated to the museum by donors with Ukrainian surnames, but the territory of their existence is unknown. There are 6 such items in total ^[36-41]. 17 items are also included here, the place of existence and the donor of which are unknown.  

To clarify the data on the national composition of the settlements under consideration, the materials of the National Archive of the Republic of Bashkortostan were also involved. In particular, information was rechecked on the presence of the names of the donors in the list of residents of the settlement and the nationality of the owner of the household ^[42].

Thus, all 347 exhibits of the main fund of the museum are classified by us into the following groups:

- tools and devices for performing certain types of work (47);

- interior and household items, kitchen utensils (33);

- samples of decorative and applied art and materials for their production (153);

- clothes and shoes (114).

It is worth noting that in our work we did not consider modern exhibits, even if they were presented from Ukrainian villages ^[43].

Figure 1. The distribution area of the Ukrainian exhibits of the Yumatov Ethnographic Museum

Figure 1 shows the distribution area and the number of objects transferred to the Yumatov Ethnographic Museum from Ukrainian (and not only – see conditionally Ukrainian) settlements. The largest number of them comes from the village of Chernihiv, Chishminsky district. This fact is not accidental, since it was here that the co–founder of the museum, N.S. Zyryanova (nee – Khayenok) was born ^{[44, l. 12]}.

It should be noted that Chernihiv was founded in 1904 by Ukrainian immigrants from Boroznyansky district of Chernihiv province ^[45].

After conducting a comparative analysis of the objects, their time of manufacture and existence, the following pattern was revealed: older exhibits - belonging to the end of the XIX and the first years of the XX century., include tools, their elements, devices for performing certain types of work, as well as interior and household items, kitchen utensils. Clothes can be attributed to the same time frame. Most of the samples of decorative and applied art, with the exception of a few, date back to a later period of creation – starting in 1905.

This fact indicates that the settlers, moving to new territories, brought with them only basic necessities, and began to engage in traditional crafts (weaving, embroidery) only after the development of the land and the arrangement of the main economy. However, the largest number of museum exhibits – 153 belong precisely to the category of decorative and applied art. This is due, first of all, to the attitude towards them as objects of symbolic significance, secondly, their use in the rituals of family and calendar cycles, and thirdly, transmission from generation to generation, as a family heirloom.

So, the oldest exhibits that existed in Chernihiv include a towel from 1820 ^[46], a device for winding threads – a reel from 1896 ^[47], a clay pot in the form of a jug from 1898 ^[48]. It can be assumed that they were brought by the first settlers from the territory of Ukraine.

During the analysis, it was noted that the donors were close relatives of N.S. Zyryanova – Khayenok E.S. (7 items), Khayenok A.G. (4) and fellow villagers. Thus, the largest number of objects were transferred by representatives of the Peshko family (18) and, judging by the different patronymics of the donors and the time of existence of the exhibits, by different generations of this family. Also, quite a lot of museum specimens were presented by Chueva A.Z. (14), Bebko M.S. (9), Lapaukh A.I. (7), Drabkov V.F. (5); Kopertech M.T. (5) and others.

 To date, it is difficult to determine whether all of them belonged to specific families or were collected for the museum among other villagers. However, given the fact that each family provided themselves with clothes and other necessary interior items, it is possible to assume that the museum's fund contains entire family collections.

Special attention should be paid to the exhibits from the disappeared village of Berkadak, founded in the early 19th century. ^[49]  Its name is uncharacteristic for Slavic toponymy, however, due to the existence of objects related to Ukrainian culture in it, it aroused our interest. It should be noted that at the present stage of the study there is a settlement called Novy Berkadak ^[50], however, unlike the first, the second was founded as a farm only a century later.

 Based on the materials of field records, information was clarified that the first Ukrainian settlers were based near Berkadak and the new settlement was named after the territory of their origin - Chernihiv province. During the Soviet period, Berkadak became part of Chernihiv, and the local toponym, Old Berkadak, has been preserved in the memory of local residents ^[51]. This information is confirmed by the map of 1912, which shows both settlements located near each other. That is, in this case, the existence of the Ukrainian exhibit in the village of Berkadak can be explained by the territorial proximity with Chernihiv. In addition, it is not necessary to exclude the change of permanent residence, as well as the presence of interethnic marriages between residents of these settlements. This fact, in our opinion, is fundamental in the case of other villages where Ukrainians did not live at all (Russian Yurmash) ^[52] or made up an insignificant percentage of the total population, but objects related to Ukrainian culture existed in them. For example, in the village of Yumatovo, according to the population census of 1917, only three households of Ukrainians were recorded ^{[53, l. 8,15; 54, L. 8]}.

It is interesting, from a scientific point of view, to determine the territories of origin of immigrants, which will allow us to identify the areas of distribution of their culture in Bashkortostan. It is possible to identify the region of Ukrainians by a special kind of art, the style of performance of which is characteristic only of a certain ethnographic region of Ukraine. A striking example of this is the red and white woven Krolevets towels (towels) stored in the Yumatov Ethnographic Museum, which received their name from the place of their production - the city of Krolevets in the modern Sumy region. In addition to the traditional color scheme, towels are characterized by geometric ornament and its symmetry horizontally and vertically. The geography of their existence in the studied region is represented by the villages of Bogolyubovka ^[55], Mikhaylovka ^[56] Chishminsky and Yumatovo ^[57] Ufa districts. Also, one of the storage units corresponding to the specified properties of the Krolevets weaving manufactory was classified by us as conditionally Ukrainian due to the lack of information about its place of origin and the donor ^[58].

Special attention should be paid to the period of creation of the towels in question. So one of them dates back to 1899, that is, it was probably brought from Ukraine, and the second one dates back to 1916 and was made in compliance with traditional techniques and style already outside the mainland territory. Their presence in other Ukrainian villages of the Chishminsky district is confirmed by our materials of expedition trips in 2022. In particular, Levchenko M.I. told about the existence of "royal" towels at her grandparents in the disappeared village of Bereznyak ^[59]. Also, as a family heirloom, part of the Krolevetsky towel, is kept by a resident of D. Kakhnovka – Kurilyak (Kozlovskaya) L.N. ^[60].  

It should be noted that in addition to towels, the museum's collection records the presence of woven shawls that previously existed in the villages of Chernihiv, ^[61-64] and Mikhaylovka ^{[65; 66]}, made in the style characteristic of Krolevetsky.

53 items were transferred from the village of Bogolyubovka, Chishminsky district, to the collection of the Yumatov Museum. Among them, samples of decorative and applied art with original inscriptions aroused particular interest. For example, on the towel presented by G.T. Purik, the inscription in Ukrainian "MY ROBOT" is embroidered with threads of gray and red colors ^[67]. In addition to the inscription, the combination of plant and zoomorphic ornaments is interesting.

Special attention should be paid to the traditional clothing of Ukrainians, which, in addition to its direct purpose, reflects the peculiarities of everyday life, festive and ceremonial life and social status of a person. As in Ukraine, among the Ukrainians of Bashkortostan, the traditional women's costume included undergarments (shirt), waist (skirt and apron), chest (tank top) and upper (retinue, jacket) clothes. Headscarves were used as a headdress.

Men wore shirts, trousers, tank tops, retinues, jackets and sheepskin coats, and hats, caps and caps on their heads.

According to the materials of the museum collection, casual and festive clothes can be distinguished, in addition, several exhibits belong to the category of ceremonial. The first of them is a wreath ^[68], the traditional headdress of an unmarried girl, and the second is a cap ^[69], the headdress of a married woman.

 Thus, in the course of the performed research, an analysis of objects representing information about the Ukrainian culture of the region is presented. The classification of the considered exhibits is carried out, the geography of their existence is indicated. A pattern has been revealed in the periodization of the existence of museum objects related to the priority and necessity of their use in everyday life and economy. Regional peculiarities of traditional weaving are traced on the example of Krolevets towels.