The international festival “Berehynia” will take place in Lutsk

According to the Regulations, the "Berehynia" festival is held once every three years with the aim of preserving the traditional folk culture of Ukrainians, expanding creative ties, exchanging experience and information in the field of folk art with Ukrainian communities abroad. Its tasks are: affirming Ukrainian folk traditions in the everyday life of Ukrainians, popularizing rites and customs, drawing the attention of broad circles of the public, state authorities, and mass media to the status of authentic and contemporary folklore groups and masters of folk crafts, identifying distinctive authentic and contemporary folklore groups, and strengthening the influence of traditional folk culture on the formation of the worldview and spirituality of the younger generation of Ukrainians.

The Fifth International Festival of Ukrainian Folklore "Berehynia" will take place in the city of Lutsk on May 26-28, 2007, and is being held in accordance with the State Program for the Protection and Preservation of Intangible Cultural Heritage for 2004-2008 and the order of the head of the regional state administration Volodymyr Bondar dated February 21, 2007 No. 66, with the financial support of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism of Ukraine. The regional council and the Lutsk city council are assisting in the preparation and conduct of the festival events. The main organizers are the Department of Culture and Tourism of the Volyn Regional State Administration, the Educational and Methodological Center of Culture of Volyn, and the Institute of Cultural Anthropology.

The festival organizing committee is headed by the deputy head of the regional state administration, Sviatoslav Kravchuk. The director-manager of the festival has been appointed as the head of the Department of Culture and Tourism of the Regional State Administration, Volodymyr Lysiuk.

As in previous years (1993, 1998, 2004), the chief director of the festival has been invited as a director well known in Ukraine and abroad who works successfully in the field of folklore, Honored Art Worker of Ukraine Vasyl Vovkun. Also in the director-staging group are Volyn residents Bohdan Bereza, Leonid Mykhailovskyi, Iryna Khmilevska, Petro Klekotsiuk and others. The chief artist of the festival is Sofiia Pasiuk.

We invite all Volyn mass media to become information sponsors; the organizers have addressed the same request to the National Radio Company of Ukraine, the National Television Company of Ukraine, and the newspaper "Culture and Life."

The authors of the concept of the Fifth International Festival of Ukrainian Folklore "Berehynia" are Doctor of Sciences, Director of the Institute of Cultural Anthropology Viktor Davydiuk, Head of the Department of Culture and Tourism of the Regional State Administration Volodymyr Lysiuk, Deputy Director of the Educational and Methodological Center of Culture of Volyn Petro Klekotsiuk, and Honored Art Worker of Ukraine Vasyl Vovkun.

Since the time of the festival coincides with one of the greatest Orthodox holidays - Trinity or Pentecost, or, as people call it, Klechalna Sunday, Green Week, Ukrainian cosmogony, myth and archetype, customary ritualism, oral-poetic and song creativity of the green holidays will be the core that unites the folklore-ethnographic events at the wedding of Spring and Summer.

On all squares and stages these days there will be the scent of lovage and living greenery, which is characteristic of the entire Ukrainian tradition. There will be many spring rites with corresponding girls' round dances and songs, Easter events with pysanky and children's games, Yuriivski amusements, field feasts, walking and rolling on young spring crops. Summer means trips for berries and mushrooms, fishing, swimming, shepherd adventures, competitions of mowers, and the beginning of the harvest. These are the holidays revered in the Ukrainian people: Peter and Paul, John the Baptist and Kupailo, the Makovei martyrs and Honey Savior. Accordingly, women's berry songs and men's mower songs, Petrivka and Kupalo songs will be heard. There will be many ritual scenes - weddings, christenings, peasant communal work, youth street gatherings. Authentic music will be heard performed by trio musicians, and almost all traditional crafts and handicrafts will be represented, along with colorful folk summer clothing and the lush blooming of Ukrainian embroidered shirts.

Among the "Berehynia" events are: the opening of the exhibitions "Volyn Pysanka of the Third Millennium" and Vasyl Parakhin's painting school from the village of Zhuravnyky of Horokhiv district "The Ray of Resurrection," evenings of Polissian and Volyn folklore "Bless, Mother, to Call the Spring," concerts of Ukrainian and foreign groups "We Will Weave a Wreath, Fair Family," "Hukovytsia," a concert of children's folklore groups "Children's Klechannia," and reviews of folk musicians "Play, Musicians."

Districts and cities of Volyn region will recreate a potter's homestead, a forge, a forester's hut, an old tavern, a mill, a distillery, a fisherman's yard... Beekeepers promise to treat visitors to real bee honey from apiaries of Ukraine. There will also be a joint prayer in the Holy Trinity Cathedral, the traditional festive procession of festival participants to Lutsk Castle, a meeting of guests with the regional leadership, and a Ukrainian disco in the Lesia Ukrainka Park of Culture and Recreation. The town of masters will operate, as always.

During previous festival events, diasporas of near and far abroad sent their representatives to Lutsk - from Australia, Great Britain, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Moldova, Poland, the Baltic countries, Russia, Romania, Slovakia, the USA, France, Yugoslavia, all regions of Ukraine and, of course, Volyn and Volyn Polissia. "The collective memory of Ukrainians about the past" left neither spectators nor scholars indifferent. Everyone realized that the creativity of our people needs immediate support and protection. The most singing people in the world, the Ukrainian people, may be left without their phenomenal relic songs if they are not entered into a kind of "Red Book." The same can be said about calendar-ritual and customary, oral-poetic creativity, and crafts.

Participants of the V International Festival "Berehynia" will be: folklore groups "Zorianytsia" of the Mahdalyn rural house of culture of Kobryn district of Brest region (Belarus), "Zhuravushka" from the village of Ferapontivka of Komrat district of the Autonomous Territorial Unit of Gagauzia (Moldova), "Leleky" of the National-Cultural Autonomy of Ukrainians (Murmansk, Russia), "Pokut" of the Center of Ukrainian Culture of Lazarevsky district of Krasnodar Krai (Sochi, Russia), "Zoria" of the Union of Ukrainians of Romania (Bucharest, Romania), "Dnipro" of the Association of Ukrainian Societies of Latvia (Riga, Latvia), the song and dance ensemble "Kalyna" of the Community of Ukrainians of Lithuania from Vilnius, and the song and dance ensemble of Lemkos "Kychera" (Legnica, Poland).

From the regions of Ukraine the following will arrive at the festival:

Kyiv city Folklore group "Pervotsvit" of the city palace of children and youth,

Folklore group "Roksolaniia" of the palace of culture of the National University named after T.H. Shevchenko.

Vinnytsia region

Dariia Zakharova, Haisyn city (soloist),

People's amateur folklore-ethnographic collective "Borshchivchanka," village of Borshchivtsi of Mohyliv-Podilskyi district.

Dnipropetrovsk region

Folklore collective "Chumatskyi Shliakh" of the Dnipropetrovsk district house of culture.

Donetsk region

People's theater of folklore song "Dyvyna" of Donetsk National University.

Ivano-Frankivsk region

People's amateur dance ensemble "Hutsuly," village of Vipche of Verkhovyna district.

Zhytomyr region People's amateur folklore ensemble "Molodychky" of Andrushivka district house of culture. Zaporizhzhia region

Exemplary children's ensemble of folk instruments "Rosianochka" of the palace of culture of the Zaporizhzhia Aluminum Plant.

Lviv region Folklore trio "Rodovid" of the Lviv regional state center of folk art,

Folklore collective "Boikivski Perespivy" of Turka district people's house.

Luhansk region

People's amateur folklore ensemble "Biloluchanka" of Bilolutsk rural house of culture of Novopskov district.

Odesa region

People's amateur ensemble of folk music "Veselka" of Bilhorod-Dnistrovskyi city center of culture and leisure.

Poltava region

Folklore collective "Horlytsia," village of Davydivka of Pyriatyn district.

Rivne region People's amateur group "Vesnianka" of Rivne city palace of children and youth. Sumy region

People's amateur folklore group "Krynychenka" of Dukhanivka rural house of culture of Konotop district.

Ternopil region

Ensemble of Ukrainian music "Kapeliukhy" of Ternopil district house of culture.

Kharkiv region

Folklore group "Muravskyi Shliakh" of Kharkiv city theater of folk music.

Cherkasy region

Sholudko Anatolii Yevhenovych, village of Velykyi Khutir of Drabiv district (soloist).

Chernivtsi region

Folklore ensemble "Veseli Molodychky," village of Zveniachyn of Zastavna district.

Folk masters have been invited to participate in the festival: Tetiana Lystopad,

Zinaida Rokosovska, Oleksandr Vilchynskyi (Zaporizhzhia), Serhii Ivashkiv, Taras Prybylskyi (Lviv region, Chervonohrad city), Svitlana Piskova (Kirovohrad region), Raisa Pavlenko, Viktor Nakonechnyi (Vinnytsia region), Volodymyr Rak, Svitlana Rak, Iryna Sadova, Heorhii Sadovyi (Kyiv city), Raisa Koriakina, Yevhen Shevchenko, Ihor Bilevych (Kyiv region).

The Volyn region will be represented by more than 50 folklore collectives, trio musicians and folk music ensembles, and leading masters of folk art from all districts and cities.

The "Berehynia" festival has always been in the field of the closest attention of leading scholars. And this year, within the framework of the festival, a scholarly conference will be held: "NEW LIFE OF OLD TRADITIONS" (TRADITIONAL UKRAINIAN CULTURE IN CONTEMPORARY ART AND EVERYDAY LIFE).

The preparation of the conference is being handled by the Institute of Cultural Anthropology headed by Doctor of Philological Sciences, Professor of Lesia Ukrainka Volyn State University, author of the monograph "Primitive Mythology" and the book "The Stepping Wheel" Viktor Davydiuk. The conference materials are being published in the professional journal "Folklore Studies Notebooks."

The first two days of work will be devoted to plenary sessions, at which presentations are planned by Viktor DAVYDIUK (The Ethnological Revolution of Vasyl Skurativskyi), Oleksandr BOICHUK (The Ethnographic Component of Design), Ihor MATSIIEVSKYI (Problems of Marginal Ukrainian Ethno-Historical Massifs of the Contemporary Diaspora), Roman KYRCHIV (The Folk Anecdote in the System of Traditional-Everyday Culture of Ukrainians),

Halyna STELMASHCHUK (Folk Art in the Creativity of Ukrainian Professional Artists: Historical Experience, New Realities), Volodymyr BURIAK (Mythological and Folklore Thinking in the Context of the Conscious Evolution of the Ethnos), Volodymyr KACHKAN (The Atlantis of the Hordynskyis (An Ethnocultural Cut)), Volodymyr POHREBENNYK (Traditional Ukrainian Culture in the Works of Oleksa Storozhenko), Oksana MALANCHUK-RYBAK (Ethnopsychological Studies of Ivan Mirchuk: Historical and Scholarly Context), Vasyl SOKIL (The Traditional Everyday Life of Lviv Residents in New Editions of Song Folklore), Rostyslav STUDNYTSKYI (The Concept of Artistic Synthesis in the Sacred Architecture of Eastern Galicia of the Late 19th - Early 20th Centuries), Olena NYKORAK (Directions of Transformation of Folk Traditions in Carpathian Weaving), Yaroslav POLISHCHUK (Traditional Culture as a Point of Reference: On Maryna Levytska's Novel "The History of Tractors in Ukrainian"). On the third day, scholars will work in sections: "FOLKLORE STUDIES" (Heads: Prof. Roman Kyrchiv, Prof. Volodymyr Buriak, Prof. Vasyl Sokil), "ETHNOLOGY" (Heads: Prof. Oksana Malanchuk-Rybak, Assoc. Prof. Rostyslav Studnytskyi), "LITERARY STUDIES" (Heads: Prof. Volodymyr Pohrebennyk, Prof. Volodymyr Kachkan, Prof. Yaroslav Polishchuk) and "ART STUDIES" (Heads: Prof. Ihor Matsiievskyi, Prof. Oleksandr Boichuk, Prof. Halyna Stelmashchuk). The following are to speak with papers: Iryna KOSTIUK (Mythology in the Contemporary World: Principles of Actualization), Larysa SAZANOVYCH (Stereotypization as a System of the Folklore Work), Mariia KOSTIV (The Genesis and Development of Plast Song Tradition), Uliana KRUK (Moral-Ethical Problematics of Ukrainian Folk Family-Everyday Humorous Songs (Traditions and Contemporaneity), Yaroslav HARASYM (Ethnoaesthetics as a Subject of Folklore Studies), Hanna SOKIL (Song New Creations: The Question of Tradition and Innovation (A Contemporary View of the Research of Galician Folklorists of the Late 19th - Early 20th Centuries), Halyna KOVAL (The Folklore Type of the Mother of God: Contemporary Interpretation of the Image), Liliia PIDHORNA (The Folk Ballad "Bondarivna": Problems of Textology in a Diachronic Cut), Svitlana PODOLIUK (The Image of the Mother-in-Law in Ukrainian Wedding Folklore (On the Question of Transformation and Desemantization), Oksana KUZMENKO (Actualization of the Image of the "Grave" in the Contemporary Folklore Tradition about the Sich Riflemen), Nadiia PASTUKH (Refrains in the Wedding Ritual Song Tradition of Ukrainians: Movement in Space and Time), Olena BILYK (The Dynamics of the Existence of Summer Calendar-Ritual Folklore of Western Polissia: The Synchronic Aspect), Tetiana SHEMBERKO (The Astral Cult and Its Transformation in the Contemporary Calendar-Ritual Folklore of Western Volyn), Larysa SEMENIUK (Tendencies of Contemporary Changes in the Poetics of West Polissian Ballad Songs), Nadiia KRAVCHUK (Research on the Spring Calendar Ritualism of Western Polissia at the Turn of the 20th - 21st Centuries), Olena OSTAPIUK (Dance Songs: The Specifics of Contemporary Functioning), Olena TSVYD-HROM (The Primitive Semantics of Certain Song Symbols in the Wedding Folklore of Western Polissia), Iryna FEDUN (Innovative Processes in the Training of Musician-Ensemble Players of Western Polissia), Kostiantyn RAKHNO (The Integration of New Pottery into the Space of the Home: A Bosnian-Ukrainian Parallel), Zh. CHECHEL (Clay Zoomorphic Pottery as the Embodiment of the Sacrificial Animal), L. METKA (The Pot in the Family Ritualism of Ukrainians (Second Half of the 19th - Beginning of the 21st Century), Oleh BELKO (The Building of the Poltava Provincial Zemstvo: Problems of Preservation and Reproduction (From the Experience of the Zemstvo's Work on the Use of Natural Resources of the Region), Nataliia KHIBEBA (Boiko-Polissian Ethnocultural Areas Based on the Material of the Names of the Stages of the Wedding Action), Olha KHARCHYSHYN (Folk Drama and Its Elements in Student Everyday Life (Preservation and Development of Ethnotraditions), Yurii SILETSKYI (The Stereotype of the Jew in the Traditional Worldview of Ukrainians), Sviatoslav PYLYPCHYK (The Principle of Genetic Analysis of Paremias in I. Franko's Collection "Galician-Ruthenian Folk Proverbs"), Natalia ADAMCHUK (The Female Role: "Temptress" or "Guardian of the Clan"? (The Works of Valerii Shevchuk and Folk Mythology), Taras PASTUKH (Problems of Tradition in Culture), Ruslan MARKIV (The Mythologism of "The Forest Song" (Mavka: A Neoromantic Conception of the Mythological Character), Viktor DAVYDIUK (Archaeological Archetypes in Regional Traditions of Ornamentation of Ukrainian Folk Costumes), Anna HABRUK (Kobzar Art: The Problem of Authenticity), Vasyl KOVAL (Waltz Character in Ritual Folk Vocal Creativity (Based on Materials from the Outskirts Northwest of Gorgany), Milena CHORNA (The Ukrainian Folk Painting "Cossack Mamai": The Synergy of the System of Symbols), Levko DAVYDIUK (Ethno-Historical Archetypes in Contemporary Design of Architectural Forms).

The festival is timed to the release of various printed products - invitations, posters, programs, booklets, the already mentioned "Folklore Studies Notebooks," the books "Folk Dances of Volyn and Volyn Polissia" (compiled by Mykola Poliatykin), "Lokachska Vuika" (authors-compilers Yaroslav Matulko and Mykola Poliatykin), and folklore books by Oleksandra Kondratovych.

All collectives will be presented with compact discs featuring musical and song pearls of Volyn and Volyn Polissia performed by folklore collectives, a video film by the folk amateur film studio "Volyn" based on materials from previous "Berehynias," folklore publications, and souvenirs.