THE UKRAINIANLITHUANIAN RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT PROJECTS ON ETHNOGRAPHIC TEXTILE INVESTIGATION: ESTABLISHMENT OF INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION, STUDY OF SOURCES AND ARTIFACTS, EXCHANGE OF EXPERIENCE

Abstract

In the article, the cooperation of scientists from the Ethnology Institute of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine and the Kaunas University of Technology in the study of both countries ethnographic textiles as one of the components of cultural interaction that contributes to the European integration of Ukraine are clarified. The project «Ornamentation of West Ukrainian and Lithuanian Folk Textile: Universal and Unique Parameters» was implemented during 2018–2019, the continuation of which studies became the research & development (R&D) work «Unique Technologies of Ethnographic Textile: Experience of Preservation in Western Ukraine and Lithuania» (2022–2023). The first of them was aimed at establishing scientific contacts between scholars, studying and fixation Ukrainian and Lithuanian sources and artifacts, and researching specialized literature. The second one, however, aims to analyze and summarize the gathered material, as well as to discover how it is possible to preserve and introduce the ancient unique technologies of making and decorating ethnographic textiles in modern production. In the article, the main attention is paid to the prerequisites for the arise of the project, the main tasks that the scientists set before themselves when agreeing on it, the results of the first R&D, and the entry to a qualitatively new level in the second of them. The priority of the 2018–2019 project was the work with textile items for interior use, in particular, bedspreads and towels. Working in the museums of Western Ukraine and Lithuania, scientists have analyzed the universal and unique ornamentation parameters of these typological groups, and on the basis of a comparative analysis have found the artistic features of each of them. Special attention was given to the formation of both countries museum collections, the features of exhibiting ethnographic textiles, and their use in family and calendar rituals. As the most similarities in the items decoration are due to the weaving techniques, their research became the priority of the next project.