The distinct smell of melting beeswax and dye transports a classroom of Ukrainian Easter egg design students at the University of Alberta back to a simpler era of plows and sickles.
Leading the class is culture-keeper Dr. Natalie Kononenko, Kule Chair in Ukrainian Ethnography. Confident of her academic knowledge and deeply proud of her heritage, she is passionate about keeping alive egg writing, Ukraine’s national pastime.
An academic who knows what she wants and works at it, Kononenko is protective of her students, much like a hen over her chicks. When students ask questions, she smiles, eager to share the wisdom passed down from generation to generation.
Throughout much of history, the pysanky, as the artistic eggs are called, were magical talismans that morphed into a religious icon. An intricate and stunning national art form, it was nearly eradicated during the Soviet government’s 20th century reign.
The Soviets’ atheistic policy viewed the writing of eggs as a religious practice, unlike folk painting, embroidery and woodworking. The art was actively suppressed even as Ukrainians rebelled in quiet ways.
Kononenko remembers visiting a village where the oval shaped icons were on display.
“Anything associated with the egg depended on the village. In some villages it was not enforced. In different villages there were horror stories of what people did.”
When Ukrainian independence was achieved in 1991, citizens who had stashed and preserved pysanky in covert ways reintroduced them to the public.
“Eventually people were at the core of it being revived. But people have forgotten how to do it. A lot of new arrivals have no idea how to do it.”
Ironically, it was the diaspora or migration of Ukrainians to the Americas in the past 150 years that kept the art form from disappearing. Many pockets of North America have not only kept it alive, but as in Alberta, pysanky are deeply rooted in our culture.
Myroslava Uniat, a student from Kiev studying contemporary political folklore at the university, is a typical twenty-something visiting Edmonton to examine the migration of Ukrainians to Canada. Like many of her generation, she has little practice writing pysanky.
“They were not popular where I would live. We would colour our eggs,” says Uniat.
A pysanky is decorated with elegant, often intricate designs, bold colours and perfect lines. It requires patience and a steady hand to convert those oval palettes into breathtaking art.
“Dentists are really good at this. They have fine motor skills. Every year when I’ve done workshops, people with fine motor skills and a good sense of colour can knock them off quickly,” Kononenko says. She has taught Easter egg writing workshops for 40 years.
The process changed very little in the last millennium. Similar to a batik wax resist method, a pysanky craftsman writes designs with melted beeswax to parts of the egg that are to remain uncoloured. He/she then dips the egg in a dye. When the right colour is attained, the egg is dried, more wax designs are written and the egg is dipped into another colour.
To write on the egg, a kystka is used. It is a small reedy stick with a mini-funnel attached at one end. Fastened to the mini-funnel is a stylus. The funnel end is heated over a candle flame and placed in soft wax. The liquid wax is scooped up. Much like ink, the melted wax dribbles through a hole into the stylus allowing the artist to write on the egg’s surface.
Once the designs are complete, the egg is held over a flame. The wax melts and slowly the design reveals itself. While in ancient times, an artist might rub pork fat on the egg to make it shine, today’s creators add gloss with a coat of varnish.
While the technique sounds fairly easy, Heather Simonsmeier, 20, a 2009 Bellerose graduate now studying design history of folklore, discovered that even writing a simple, eight-sided starburst pattern on a rounded, symmetrical surface had its challenges.
“To get a straight line was difficult. And if you heat the wax too much you get a blob,” she laughs. “The most exciting part is melting the wax and seeing the end. When you’re writing it you have no idea what it will look like. I did have fun though, and when I finished the class, I wanted to go and buy the equipment.”
Not only is the class full of chatter, but students also take photographs of their handiwork. Suggestions are swapped back and forth and Kononenko explains that the tradition of egg writing is older than the Christian era.
“Historically they found eggs back as far as 2000 BC,” Kononenko says. She explains no actual eggs were found because they are too fragile to survive. However, ceramic eggs were discovered in excavations near the village of Luka Vrublivets’ka during excavations of a Trypillian site (fifth to third millennium BC).
Not only is the egg one of the most beautiful shapes in nature, it is an ancient universal symbol for life, fertility and good health. It figures prominently in creation myths where it symbolizes the beginning of world and enfolds the mystery of life within.
Ancient Ukrainians worshipped the sun god Dazhboh, one of the main deities of the Slavic pantheon. The sun was important to them. It warmed the earth and made crops grow. Eggs decorated with symbols of nature became an important part of this agricultural society’s spring rituals signalling a rebirth of life.
Scholars believe ancient Ukrainians used the decorated eggs as talismans to protect against the evil eye, to cure illness, and ward off lightning and fire.
“They put talismans in doorways and under beehives. If a farmer had a withering fruit tree, they would bury an egg under a tree,” says Kononenko.
As a benevolent talisman, it was a superstition that encompassed all aspects of agrarian life. It was said that if a woman cracked an egg with a double yolk, fertility and good luck would result.
When Ukraine officially accepted Christianity in 988, the pysanky’s symbolism was changed to represent the rebirth of man instead of the rebirth of nature.
In recent years, a surge of interest has followed the pysanky. What once started as an offering to the gods is now a collectible art cherished by millions.
