Kokoshnik. beauty traditions Automatic translate

On April 12, the Kolomenskoye Museum-Reserve opens the exhibition Kokoshnik. beauty traditions. The exposition in the Palace of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich will present Russian festive and everyday, women’s and girl’s headdresses of the mid-18th - late 19th centuries.

Headwear is an integral part of the Russian folk costume. They were passed down in peasant and merchant families from generation to generation, which makes them valuable for studying and understanding the material culture of Russia.

Russian folk costume itself is very conservative and traditional. The decrees of Peter I made fundamental changes in the appearance of urban residents, banning the wearing of the old Russian costume, but these innovations did not affect the peasants. Thus, the peasant costume became the basis of the national traditional costume, while maintaining ethnic identity. The same applies to headwear. Moreover, the women’s costume turned out to be less subject to external changes, since women were less mobile compared to men, who could go to work in the city, where they adopted some elements of the urban costume. In addition, the superstition associated with the idea that the elements of a certain type of costume, cut and finishes protected their mistress from the negative impact of evil people and evil spirits. After all, it was the woman, as the keeper of traditions and the hearth, the mother who bears and educates the future successors of the family, who needed this protection to a greater extent.

Later, local traditional forms of folk costume developed, containing elements of clothing that are characteristic only for a given area. This also applies to headwear. For example, the so-called one-horned kokoshniki with a convex part above the forehead were characteristic of the Olonets province. High pointed kokoshniks indicate that their owners were women living in Kostroma or Yaroslavl. Two-horned kokoshniks in the form of a crescent existed in the Vladimir-Nizhny Novgorod region, from where they spread throughout the Middle Volga region, etc.

In the Middle Volga region, due to the ethno-cultural peculiarities of the settlement of the region, in the Russian-speaking environment there were elements of both the North Russian (sarafan and kokoshnik) and the South Russian (ponyova and kika) traditional costume complexes. Thus, in the collection of the museums of the Republic of Tatarstan there was a large number of items of Russian folk costume, diverse in typology and origin, which are of unconditional interest due to their diversity. The geography of the origin of the headwear presented at the exhibition is extensive: Arkhangelsk, Olonets, Yaroslavl, Kostroma, Galich, Tver, Moscow, Tula, Ryazan, Voronezh, Vladimir, Nizhny Novgorod, the Volga region, Kazan, Sviyazhsk, Ufa.

The kokoshnik is rightfully considered the most elegant Russian headdress. It derives its name from the old Russian word "kokosh", which means "chicken". Literally - “chicken” on the head, but it was meant that the kokoshnik looks like a chicken comb crowning the head of a chicken, like the kokoshnik - the head of a woman. Kokoshnik - a headdress of a married woman, completely covering her hair. To be bareheaded in front of strangers or on the street was considered a shame for a married woman.

The front part of the kokoshniks was richly decorated with pearls, mother-of-pearl, colored glass or real precious stones, braid, embroidery, inserts of patterned silk fabric or colored foil. The back of the head was made of silk or velvet and decorated with a pattern of gold threads. At the same time, despite the common characteristic features of the finish, the same cut and shape in each particular region, it is impossible to find at least two kokoshniks that would be completely identical.

In addition to kokoshniks, there were a variety of types of women’s headdresses, which can also be seen at the exhibition: kicks and magpies, warriors and hairdressers, as well as girlish headdresses - bandages and crowns.

The exhibition of elements of Russian folk costume would not be complete without the costume itself. Therefore, the exposition will feature festive women’s dresses from the Arkhangelsk, Voronezh and Kazan provinces. And silk gold-woven scarves, popular prints and paintings will complement the story.

The project is organized jointly with the National Museum of the Republic of Tatarstan, the State Museum of Fine Arts of the Republic of Tatarstan, the Ethnographic Museum of the Kazan Federal University and the New Jerusalem State Historical and Art Museum.

As part of the exhibition Kokoshnik. Traditions of Beauty” includes excursions and museum classes. At the master class "Where the needle goes, there the thread!" children will learn what items were adorned with embroidery, what techniques and tools the craftswomen worked with, and then they will be able to try to create an embroidered souvenir with their own hands. Classes will be held on Saturdays at the Palace of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich.

From April 15 to August 26, the lecture hall "The History of the Museum - in Persons" dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the museum-reserve will be open at the Palace of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich. Listeners of the lecture "Queens and Princesses of the Romanov Dynasty in the First Half of the 17th Century" will learn what role women played in the end of the Time of Troubles, as well as about the lifestyle and occupations of the Empress and her daughters. You can get acquainted with the nuances of medieval fashion in the upper class and dress up a doll in an old Russian outfit at the lecture “But she herself is majestic, she acts like a peahen…” How Russian noble women dressed up in the 17th century. Classes will be held on Saturdays at the Palace of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich.