TREASURES OF SLOVAKIA
Helene Baine Cincebeaux and Helen Baine
1993 Neographia Press, Martin, Slovakia
50 pp. Softbound with 100 full color plates.
Sorry this book is out of print and no longer available.
This glorious treasury of photographs has been assembled by Helene Cincebeaux and her mother Helen Baine from more than 30 years of travel and conducting tours in Slovakia. I have been privileged to travel with them to small Slovakian villages in 1993, across the borders of Slovkia into Ukraine in 1994, to the farthest reaches of Chuvashia, Russia in 1997 and with the Textile Treasures tour again in Slovakia in 1998. I hope they never stop traveling!
As always, they are troupers, bringing with them the joy of discovery and photographs that are smashing. If you have wished to travel to small out of the way places to see glorious folk-dress, this is the book for you. One hundred color photographs document the many changing moods of Slovakia. Notes and dedication prepare the reader for the delights within and a map explains the geography. Captions are in both Slovak and English. If you are considering a trip to Eastern Europe, this book is a MUST.
THE CHANGELESS CARPATHIANS: LIVING TRADITIONS OF THE HUTSUL PEOPLE
1995, Catalog of an Exhibition, The Ukrainian Museum, New York.
38 pp. Softbound with 8 color plates and many black and white photographs. Bibliography. In English and Ukrainian.
Unfortunately, this catalog is sold out.
This large format museum catalog features a full color cover and 8 color photos as well as 23 black and white photographs and illustrations. The theme of the photo exhibition is the changeless nature of the folk traditions in the Ukrainian Carpathian mountain villages. The photographs taken by Mary B. Kelly and Helene Cincebeaux in 1992 show beautiful embroideries and weavings. They also show, by comparison with ethnographic photographs owned by the Ukrainian Museum that costume details, wedding customs, methods of weaving, woodworking and other crafts have not changed throughout the long Communist occupation. They are living crafts today.
Helene, her mother and I crossed the Ukrainian border as soon as the Iron Curtain came down, to document these extrodinary survivals. We visited remote Hutsul tribal villages on mountain paths, as well as museum collections in the mountain areas. We attended weddings, church services and dances as well as summer festivals in which every member of the village was in folkdress. A year later, our photographs were featured at the Ukrainian Museum in New York City.
An Introduction by the museum curator, Lubow Wolynetz is followed by a description of the trip to Carpathian Ukraine by Helene Cincebeaux. Two articles on the meaning of the motifs shown on textiles included in the show follow. These texts, by scholars Mary B. Kelly and Tatiana Kara-Vasieleva (from the Academy of Sciences, Kiev, Ukraine) examine the prehistoric origin of the goddess figures, describe the exhibition textiles, rituals in Eastern Europe which use the textiles, and the current state of Hutsul embroidery.
Although a small book, this record of a great trip will make good winter reading as well as help the reader understand what life was like behind the Iron Curtain.
FOLK DRESS IN EUROPE AND ANATOLIA: BELIEFS ABOUT PROTECTION AND FERTILITY.
Edited by Linda Welters.
Chapter 9 "Living Textile Traditions of the Carpathians", by Mary B. Kelly.
1999, Berg Press, Oxford England, Softcover. 243 pages. 25 black and white photos, many illustrations and maps, Index.
ISBN# 1-85973 287 9.
No longer available from the publisher.
This recently published book contains articles by such well-known scholars as Elizabeth Barber and Linda Welters, as well as contributions on Macedonian folkdress by Vesna Mladenovich, Czech Rites by Paticia Williams, Anatolian Costume, by Marlene Breu, Norwegian Folkdress by Laurann Gilbertson and Lithuanian Costume by Ruta Salilkis.
My chapter details some of the textile traditions of embroidery, weaving, dyeing and leather applique that are still found in the Ukrainian and Romanian Carpathian mountains. Other authors take up the subject of how clothing in folk cultures operates to entice a mate, to protect children and new mothers, promote the fertility of the brides and indicate status of women. A fascinating look, from multiple perspectives , of the folklife from which folkdress drew its strength and meaning. Other authors draw from the past to examine the ancient string skirt, the ultra-long sleeve and the connection between the dress and myth, women's cults and rituals.
