Video: Kokoshnik - the forgotten crown of Russian beauties
2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55
It is not known when exactly the kokoshnik appeared in the Russian women's costume. The very name "kokoshnik" comes from the word "kokosh" - a rooster, a chicken. They paid fabulous sums for it and passed it down from generation to generation. He was banned and revived again. In our review, a story about the history of the Russian kokoshnik.
An old Russian headdress in the form of a rounded shield around the head or a fan is called a kokoshnik. The use of this word was first recorded in the 17th century. There are several versions of how the kokoshnik came to the Russian folk costume.
One of the popular versions of the appearance of the kokoshnik is the Byzantine one. Even in antiquity, noble Greek women adorned their hairstyles with tiaras, which were attached with ribbons. True, such crowns could only be worn by unmarried girls. Married women had to throw a special veil over their heads. It is highly probable that during the period of active trade between Russia and Byzantium, the daughters of the princes could get acquainted with Byzantine fashion. And so the tradition of high women's headdresses began.
Other strata of the population also began to imitate the upper class, and after a while the costume of the Russian beauty could not do without a kokoshnik embroidered with beads, gold or pearls. Kokoshniks were girls, not covering their hair, and women. The custom of covering the hair of a married woman has been known since ancient times to all Slavic peoples of Eastern and Western Europe and is associated with pre-Christian religious beliefs. In the Russian countryside, it was believed that a woman with an uncovered head could bring misfortune to the house: cause crop failure, death of livestock, diseases of people, etc.
True, there is also a Mongolian version of the origin of the kokoshnik, whose adherents claim that Mongolian women had a similar headdress. One way or another, but the kokoshnik became an organic part of the Russian costume of married rich women.
The main feature of the kokoshnik is the comb. In different Russian provinces, its form was different. For example, in Kostroma, Pskov, Saratov, Nizhegorodskaya and Vladimirskaya kokoshniks resembled an arrowhead in shape. In the Simbirsk province, kokoshniks-crescents were worn. In other areas, there were "gold-domes", "heels", "bends", "kokui" and "magpies".
The kokoshnik fit snugly to the head and covered the hair in braids. In fact, the kokoshnik was a kind of fan made of a dense base that was sewn to the cap. Ribbons descended behind him. The kokoshnik was considered a festive and even wedding headdress. On weekdays, they were limited to wearing a warrior.
Particular attention was paid to the ornament that adorned the kokoshnik. In the middle, as a rule, there was a stylized "frog" - a symbol of fertility. on the sides - S-shaped figures of swans - symbols of marital fidelity. The back was especially rich. A stylized bush was traditionally embroidered on it, which symbolized the tree of life, each branch of which is a new generation. And on this "bush" were birds, fruits with seeds, and many other symbolic signs. Thus, the kokoshnik was also a talisman worn by luxurious Russian beauties in national costumes.
Kokoshniks were made in large villages, in cities or at monasteries by the kokoshnitsa craftswomen. First, they embroidered expensive fabric with gold and silver, and then pulled it over a birch bark base. Quite often, kokoshniks were embroidered with pearls. The price of some products reached 300 rubles.banknotes, so the kokoshniks were carefully kept in the family and passed on by inheritance, they were often used for several generations.
Peter I forbade the hawthorns to wear this headdress, but the kokoshnik remained in Russian fashion as a wedding attribute. And under Catherine, when interest in Russian antiquities and Russian history was revived, a kind of kokoshnik returned along with the traditional sarafans.
Nicholas I in 1834 issued a decree that introduced a new court dress with a kokoshnik. It consisted of an open narrow bodice with long sleeves "a la boyars" and a long skirt with a train. The order of wearing these dresses remained in Russia until February 1917.
Already in the 1920s, they came into vogue adorable cloche hats, which our great-grandmothers used as a tool to seduce gentlemen.
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