The dissertation is devoted to an exceptional Ukrainian artistic culture phenomenon as carpet weaving in the Poltava region. For the first time, there is an attempt to provide a holistic conception of the above-mentioned art industry’s heritage.
We have defined the local artistic achievements of individual settlements in the field of carpet weaving in the region of the 18th and early 21st centuries. The article considers the sources, development trends, sources of inspiration, typology of items, specifics of processing techniques and stylistic remits of the carpet weaving craftspeople in the Poltava region according to the works that have persevered to this day. Historical aspects of the development of individual workshops, manufactories, and home-based workrooms are clearly revealed. We have designed the value of the region’s most famous craftspeople for the development of regional carpet weaving, particularly throughout the 20th and beginning of the 21st centuries.
For the first time, on the multi-method research of museum records, most of which are artefacts stored in museum depository, a general panorama of the exceptional phenomenon of Poltava carpet weaving has been recreated, starting from the Baroque era, when its formation took place. There is a general performance evaluation of individual training and show centres, cooperative craft societies, carpet enterprises of all-Soviet significance, which acted as all-union creative laboratories, thereby Poltava carpet weaving acquired the character of a perfect artistic phenomenon in the cultural life of Eastern Europe.
The dissertation consists of an introduction, four chapters that reveal the work highlights, conclusions, references, and appendices.
Through the arrangement of visual full-sized sources and factual materials from the books of introduction, stock books, passports of objects, listings and data collected in on-site research, in particular, in Reshetylivka, Zinkiv, Opishna, Dykanka, etc., it was possible to recreate a coherent picture of carpet weaving against the background of the artistic culture of the Poltava region of the late 18th and early 21st centuries and consider it in the context of regional artistic traditions.
The domestic textiles ties with the art of weaving in Europe, the Caucasus region, Iran, Byzantium and Turkey are outlined. There are ancient references to carpets and their functions in Ukraine. The evolution of this regional art from the time of the appearance of crafts and home production to the present day is considered. Special attention is paid to the centres in the early twentieth century in Dehtiari, Opishna, Poltava, Velyki Budyshchi, Velyki Sorochyntsi, Novi Sanzhary, Reshetylivka, whose goods gradually acquired local expressive features.
It is noted that in the region, the art of carpet weaving developed in accordance with the functional understanding of goods as funeral, wedding, dowry, ritual-church and decorative ones. Attention is paid to the carpets from Reshetylivka, which has become an experimental creative laboratory of republican and all-union significance since the second half of the twentieth century.
