Sources of Ukrainian culture Lecture 2 Lecturer Galyna

Sources of Ukrainian culture Lecture 2 Lecturer: Galyna Miasoid

Syncretism (integrity) of primitive culture The forms of consciousness, household activities, social life and art are not separated or opposed to each other. All kinds of activity were mutually related.

Upper Palaeolithic Art types l Cave paintings - the images painted or engraved on the walls of caves and rock shelters l Portable art - small-sized figurines or objects made of bone, horn, soft rock, stone with painted or engraved pictures on them

Petroglyphs of Stone Tomb, near Melitopol Curved and painted on the grottoes and caves plates. Crossed straight and curved lines are scratched on the ceiling.

Upper Palaeolithic art forms: l petroglyphs, l engraving or prints on the bones and horns, l reliefs, l drawings, l clay and stone sculptures and statuettes or other three-dimensional objects cut of soft stone or other materials (like mammoth’s tusk)

Slavonic Makosh, or Palaeolithic Venus l Gagarin Upper Paleolithic site, the Don river

Female Figurine, Kostenky settlement This figurine represents the Palaeolithic 'Venus', with overlarge breasts and belly. The faceless head bends towards the chest while the arms are pressed to the body with hands on the belly. Covering the surface of the head are rows of incisions indicating a hair style or cap. Relief work in the form of a tight plait convey a breast ornament tied up at the back. There are bracelets on the arms. This figurine may possibly personify the goddess of fertility, motherancestor, or guardian of the home.

Yelisevichi site, a figurine of a woman

“Palaeolithic Venus” Palaeolithic women’s statuettes differ in details, with enormously large abdomens , their limbs and facial features are just indicated. They represent pregnant women. Scientists interpret them as cultic subjects, amulets, idols etc, reflecting the idea of maternity and fertility. The cult of Foremother – an ancestress, progenitress, or genetrix in tribal communities, where kinship was conducted maternally.

Stylized women statuettes Mizyn site, Chernihiv region

Bracelet of mammoth (ivory) tusk from the 18 th century B. C. (20, 000 B. C. found in Ukraine) Mizyn and Mezhirich sites

The oldest known house in the world made of mammoth bones and built about 15, 000 years ago in Mezhirich, near Kyiv

The oldest known house in the world Mizyn site, Chernihiv region

Mesolithic period ancient people practiced not only primitive cults associated with hunting and foraging, but also a more developed cult – the worship of ancestors, which at that time was associated with the idea of motherhood, family and its progenitor, and corresponded to matriarchal principles of social relations

Mesolithic art l General nature of art remained. l The leading role in Mesolithic paintings belongs to a man and his activities. l Compositions differ by their plot: hunting, dance, etc.

Neolithic Age culture l Productive forms of labour deepened a man’s knowledge about nature, which resulted in appearance of generalizing notions and new world order understanding.

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Slavonic symbols l Belobog l Veles l Mara’s waters l A sown field l Linkage Dyi and Mara

Slavonic symbols l Gromovnic l Garuda l Dunia l Zhyva

l Rod l Thunder l Khors wheel

Slavonic symbol “a sown field” 1 – Slavonic symbol “a sown field” consists of rhombuses with dots; Slavonic religious symbol of the Earth, giving food, fruit-bearing, female fertility symbol, a symbol of human neonatal unit sown with New Life of four elements - body, soul, spirit, and conscience; 2 – symbol “a sown field” in a Slavonic pendant ornament; 3 – засеянное поле со всходами; 4 – check pattern; 5, 6 – symbol “a sown field” on bellies of Trypillian statuettes of goddess Makosh (4 th century B. C. ).

Megaliths Megalithic architecture (“megalith” from the Greek "a big stone") Types of Megalithic structures: l menhir; l dolmen; l cromlech.

Menhir a vertical stone, sometimes up to 20 m height Menhir alley, Nechayivka villidge

Dolmen a stone box, its simplest variant – two vertically placed flat stones, covered with a third one; dolmens usually served as a burial place of family members

Cromlech stone slabs or pillars, arranged in a circle; some of numerous mounds (kurgans) found in Ukraine, are surrounded by cromlechs. Khortytsya Island, Zaporizhzhya

Mariupol burial mound, Donetsk region

Stone Tomb near Melitopol, Zaporizhzhya region

Eneolithic culture Military leaders and a leader cult appeared. The special treatment of the leader as a hero remained after his death. l Metal processing required great skill and expertise, that is why so casting became an independent branch as well as pottery and weaving. l Types of metal art: smith (forging), casting, chasing, and engraving on metal l

Economic areas on territories of modern Ukraine The Right Bank was the cradle of Trypillia arable farming culture. The steppe south was the centre of cattle breeding, associated with the tribes of the socalled Yamna Culture, who led a nomadic way of life in the steppes from the Dnestr to the Trans-Urals in Russia. Stockbreeders also lived alongside with hunters and fishermen in the forests and foreststeppes (Sredneostogovskaya Culture 4 -3 B. C. ).

Trypillian culture “culture of painted ceramics”

Trypillian female statuettes

Trypillian houses, clay items Trypillian people lived in big settlements which are usually named proto-cities (first cities).

Monastyrok temple, Ternopil region 9 -12 th B. C. a cross-shaped altar

Trypillian Sanctuary or Temple It was brightly painted, ornamented, had high arches, a cross-shaped altar and a kapala (a sacrificial bowl). Home altars always had clay statuettes of Higher Powers, they worshipped: Mother Goddess – the symbol of motherhood and fertility, a bull – a symbol of wealth and cultivation, a snake – a symbol of cunning, a dove – a symbol of the sky. Sacred Trypillian views are embodied both in clays tatuettes and in ornamental patterns on ceramics – images of the sun, spirals, crosss, circles, waves an “all-seeing eye of Providence”

Third Eye “all-seeing eye of Providence” Real Handmade Trypillian Neolithic Ukrainian Chicken Egg

Trypillian calendar Trypillian ceramics with symbols of solar signs – Moon, the Sun, stars and depiction of calendar cycles with types of farming activities according to months of the year

Cimmerian-Scythian-Sarmatian cultural symbiosis Cimmerians were the most ancient people at Ukrainian territory. Cimmerians had nomadic stock-raising, high culture of bronze and ceramics with colourful inlays. l Scythian culture is a culture of many nomadic, semi-nomadic and agricultural tribes l The Scythians piled up burial mounds of considerable size, sometimes putting stone sculptures of male warriors on the top. l

Scythian Pectoral, 4 th century B. C. Found in the burial mound (kurgan) "Tovsta Mohyla", Dnepropetrovsk region a specific animalistic style

Animalistic style in Scythian art

Scythian religion was polytheistic Tabiti – a goddess of the hearth (home fire) – was the main among Scythian gods. Golden plaques, mound Chertomlyk, 4 century B. C.

Greek colonization Chersonese (Sevastopol)

Zarubynetska culture Settlements and burial grounds were the main categories of Zarubynetska culture: settlements had no precise plan of building; wooden houses were clayed, sometimes houses were rebuilt; people of this culture were settled peasants and had domestic animals; they were skillful in handicrafts; they knew fusing of iron and blacksmith’s affair; had loom and produced linen and woolen clothes; they made earthenware with the help of potter’s wheel.

Chernyahivska culture Representatives of Chernyahivska culture were also peasants, stock-raising and handicrafts were among their everyday activities. Before the burial ceremony they usually cremated a dead person Kyivska culture existed at that time as well.

Co-existence of cultures In the second half of 1 st millennium in different regions of Ukraine there coexisted such cultures as Volynska (7 -8 th centuries), Luka-Raikovetska (8 -9 th centuries), Romenska (8 -10 th centuries) and others. People here united in tribal unities.

Old Slavonic tribes Duliby, Volynyany, Drevlyany, Polyany, Dregovychy, Ulychy, Tyvertsi, White Croatians, Siveryany, etc. The name “Rus” was first applied to their territory, people and culture in the 7 th century A. D. Among all the tribes Polyany started to play the leading role with their center in Kyiv.

Gods of Eastern Slavs Perun (God of thunder and lightning) was the main God of Eastern Slavs Dazhbog – a solar god, cared of the harvest Strybog – a god of wind and weather Svarog – was blackmith’s god Lado – godess of home fire Veles – god of animals Yarylo and Kolyada The basis of heathen was worshipping to nature, the Sun was accepted like a source of life, land like wet-nurse of all alive organisms. Perun

Vedic culture, not pagan / heathen The ancient Slavs were the people of Vedic culture, therefore, it is more correct to call the ancient religion not paganism, but Vedism. The word "Veda" is corresponding to the modern Russian words "to manage", "to know. " It is a peaceful religion of highly cultured people, akin to other religions, having common Vedic roots – that of Ancient India, Iran and Ancient Greece.

Written symbols on birch bark long before the christianity appeared in the territory of Rus

Practical class / Seminar 2 1. Early cultural forms in Ukrainian lands: l 1. 1. in Upper Palaeolithic age l 1. 2. in Neolithic age l 1. 3. in Mesolithic age l 1. 4. Megaliths 2. Trypillian culture. 3. Culture of Cimmerian-Scythian-Sarmatian cultural symbiosis 4. Early Slavonic culture. 5. Vedic culture.