For Ukrainians in CT, Easter eggs now carry extra meaning
WESTPORT — Mark Yurkiw is no stranger to the art of Ukranian Easter eggs, or pysanky.
He’s spent countless hours etching intricate designs and symbols in beeswax on the outside of eggs and dipping them in dye, repeating the process until the colorful, intricate works of art remain. It’s just as his mother did it in Ukraine and her grandmother before her, a tradition passed on through the generations.
And just as each egg and the message shared through the symbols and colors used are unique, so is the significance of what each egg means to the person making them. Though many agree the centuriesold artform bears extra significance now as the war rages on in Ukraine.
“Ukraine is so much more than a country,” said Kim Mathias, who lives in Westport and has family in Ukraine. “It’s a culture. It’s a vibrant culture and these eggs are representative of that vibrant culture.
Yurkiw, who also lives in Westport, said it’s a tradition every Ukrainian child did in the Easter season.
For him, the eggs were always used to joyfully celebrate spring and the positive things that come with it, like nice weather.
But the social aspect is even more important than the message created, he said.
“It’s about people,” he said, adding social interaction and passing on culture is a foundation of the Ukrainian identity. “They were always a joyful, peaceful people.”
They’re also people who have faced hardship and oppression, the most recent episode of which is playing out on the global stage.
Yurkiw’s family is from western Ukraine and he said his grandmother lived in five different countries without ever moving. He said his mother was enslaved during World War II and forced to work in Germany. His relatives lost their freedoms under the Bolshevik regime in the 1920s. In 2014, Vladimir Putin took Crimea for Russia and now Russian troops are invading the bulk of the country.
Mathias is familiar with the oppression connected with her heritage. Her grandparents on both sides emigrated from western Ukraine in the early 1900s, just before the Russian Revolution. They eventually made their way to Canada, which has the largest Ukrainian population outside of Ukraine.
She said Ukrainian Canadians felt a responsibility to keep their heritage alive because those in Ukraine could not show their culture,
especially under the Soviet Union.
“They couldn’t fly the Ukrainian flag in Ukraine, so we flew it in Canada,” said Mathias, who grew up in Edmonton. “They couldn’t sing songs in Ukraine, so we sang them in Canada. They couldn’t do traditional dances in Ukraine, so we did them in Canada.”
She still has family in Ukraine and says preserving these eggs and other elements of her culture with the war now remind her of her childhood and the need to keep that flame burning.
“People in Ukraine right now aren’t thinking about decorating eggs,” Mathias said. “It reminds me of how I grew up.”
Some artists are even taking it a step further and selling their pysanky to raise money for Ukraine. Among them is Roz Chast, a cartoonist for the New Yorker and a Ridgefield resident who posted about the effort on her Instagram.
Mathias still had her mother’s collection, many of which have religious imagery, like churches or crosses. One even has the Lord’s Prayer.
The artform is believed to pre-date Christianity though, starting as a pagan tradition and evolving over time and differing within the regions of Ukraine. Parts of Poland are also connected to pysanky.
The eggs in general symbolize rebirth. Yurkiw said they’re also fragile, symbolizing how important it is to protect that fragility.
“It was a mindfulness about how life is,” Yurkiw said. “Over the centuries it took on different meanings.”
Each line, color and symbol has meaning and people would use them to share messages with the person gifting the egg. The eggs are either hard-boiled or holes are poked on either end and the inside is blown out, leaving the shell. The designs and colors are built on top of each other using hot beeswax and a kitska, or special scribe tool. The wax is removed at the end, leaving the finished design.
Wheat is also a popular symbol, which means wishes for good health or a good harvest. Ukraine is a very agrarian society, with
strong farming roots.
“They were very meaningful,” said Jane Pollak, who now lives in New York City, but spent 30 years making and selling these decorated eggs all over Fairfield County when she lived in Norwalk
Pollak also became an expert on the subject and wrote a book about it though she has no Ukrainian heritage.
She learned how to do it in 1973 when she was teaching at Westhill High School in Stamford. She’s since taken the traditional artform and adapted it to her style.
Her eggs have since appeared on the cover of magazines and at White House Easter Egg Rolls under the Reagan and Clinton administrations. Those now sit at the Smithsonian.
Yurkiw has also created an egg for the White House Easter Egg Roll, though his is a 5-foot tall sculpture that resembles the U.S. Capitol building. The White House had asked for large eggs that year. The plan was to have congressmen sign the egg and auction it off at a presidential breakfast to benefit children’s cancer, but 9/11 happened, canceling the breakfast. The egg still sits in his home, though it will also eventually go to the Smithsonian.
“To share my culture with others is a reminder to me about what kind and joyful people the Ukrainians are,” he said.
Sharing culture and stories is also a key part of the process with the stories differing throughout.
One of the legends says pysanky eggs prevent the spread of evil in the form of a serpent from taking over the world. It sends minions out each year to count how many people are making them. The more of these decorated eggs made, the stronger the creature’s bonds are that keep it chained to a mountain, preventing the spread of evil.
Pollak encourages others to make them, not just because of the legend, but because it will help spread happiness. She’s already taught her grandchildren how to do it this year.
“It’s a beautiful artform,” she said. “It causes comfort and serenity to do the craft.”