DATELINE NEW YORK: Spotlight on paska and pysanky (04/30/00)

DATELINE NEW YORK: Spotlight on paska and pysanky

by Helen Smindak

Martha Stewart, the famous doyenne of domesticity, featured Ukrainian Easter breads on her CBS-TV morning show on April 17, giving countless viewers a close look at the art of making an Easter paska - a round bread she described as a "symbolic bread" and "a very tasty bread, light and airy, yet firm so it doesn't fall apart, with a little bit of lemon and orange in it."

Ms. Stewart's guest for the 20-minute paska segment was New York's Ukrainian culinary expert Lubow Wolynetz, folk-art curator at The Ukrainian Museum in New York and curator of the Ukrainian Museum and Library at the Stamford Diocese of the Ukrainian Catholic Church in Connecticut. Mrs. Wolynetz has been teaching workshops on traditional Ukrainian bread baking, including holiday breads and traditions, for several years, as well as embroidery courses that explore the history and evolution of regional stitchery styles and techniques.

Ms. Stewart, known for her amiable and friendly personality, and Mrs. Wolynetz, an equally genial personage, worked side by side in Ms. Stewart's attractive studio kitchen, preparing a yeast mixture for a starter dough and mixing another set of ingredients that included grated orange and lemon rind, as well as a few ounces of rum and a half-cup of oil. (The oil is one of the secrets," Mrs. Wolynetz confessed with a smile, "that nobody tells you about.") Many cups flour, milk and butter were added, producing a large round of dough.

Previously prepared elements were used at various steps to accommodate the time restrictions of television. As bowls of starter dough or bread dough were set aside for the dough to rise, for instance other bowls with already-risen dough took their place.

Curious to know why special breads were baked for the Easter holiday Ms. Stewart received this answer from her guest: "It has to do with very ancient traditions. Ukrainians felt that nature needed a little help in the springtime for the sun to warm the earth quickly. They believed that the rituals of specific baked breads, the dances and songs which were performed and the incantations which were proclaimed helped the rebirth of nature and springtime. Now we serve these breads as special food at Eastertime."

While Cecilia Daciuk, a former student of Mrs. Wolynetz and a catechist who cooks at the Stamford Seminary, showed how the dough is kneaded (the baker must hold the end of the dough and really stretch it out), Mrs. Wolynetz pointed out that this procedure was extremely important to achieve the right texture - "you'll have difficulty making the decoration if you don't get the dough very, very smooth."

With the finished product divided into three equal parts, two portions were placed in tall butter-brushed pans lined with high "collars" of waxed paper. Mrs. Wolynetz turned her attention to rolling out the remaining portion of dough into long thin strands. Two strands were braided and formed into a circle for the rim of a loaf; two others, gently shaped so that the ends curled into spirals, were placed atop the bread at right angles to each other to form a symbolic sun. A small rosette or acorn decoration, symbolizing fertility, was placed in the center of the sun motif.

"The final result is utterly beautiful," Ms. Stewart exulted as the paska loaves were brushed with an egg wash and placed in a 350-degree oven.

"It's very important that the paska turn out well, because it's taken to church to be blessed and everyone will see it," responded Mrs. Wolynetz.

For a tasting of freshly baked paska, the TV hostess used slices of paska to create a liverwurst sandwich with filling of liverwurst and a semi-sweet mayonnaise concocted on the spot by Mrs. Wolynetz from hard-boiled egg yolks, freshly ground horseradish, sour cream and a few other ingredients.

Ms. Stewart told viewers at the start of her hourlong show that she learned about Ukrainian Easter breads from Iryna Kurowycky, president of the Ukrainian National Women's League of America. She said she has been going to Kurowycky's meat market in the East Village for many years to buy their hams and other meats, but did not realize Ukrainians produced such lovely breads until her recent chat with Mrs. Kurowycky.

Ukrainian pysanky

This year's Easter egg exhibition at The Ukrainian Museum, dedicated to contemporary artisans who have been instrumental in preserving, revitalizing and popularizing the decorated egg which is such an important facet of our Easter celebrations - the Ukrainian pysanka - displays the work of six American and three Canadian artists. "Keepers of the Hearth and Their Offspring" will remain on view through the end of June.

Foremost attention in the exhibition catalogue is given to Yaroslava Surmach Mills of West Nyack, N.Y. Growing up in the Old World atmosphere of her father's book store in the East Village - the Surma Book and Music Co. - she heard many stories and reminiscences about life in her parents' native land and learned how to decorate Ukrainian pysanky. Mrs. Mills has used Ukrainian stories and themes for children's book illustrations and charming reverse paintings on glass, has produced exquisite pysanky for the Surma shop and taught the egg-decorating art to hundreds of eager students.

Exhibit curator Lubow Wolynetz credits the "first gentle stirs of interest in the pysanka" to Mrs. Mills' father, Myron Surmach, who founded his bookstore in 1918 and began displaying and selling pysanky a few years later. A chance discovery of the shop by H. Ross of the New Yorker in 1948 inspired a story on Ukrainians and their Easter traditions and pysanky in the magazine, heralding the beginning of intense public interest in pysanky. Mr. Surmach passed away at the age of 99; his son Myron continues to run the shop with the help of his wife, Magda.

The elaborate pysanky created by Luba Perchyshyn, owner of the thriving Ukrainian Gift Shop in Minneapolis, have been featured extensively in the media and in Slavko Nowytski's award-winning film "Pysanka." Zenon Elyjiw of Rochester, N.Y., who began to experiment with egg decorating as a World War II refugee in Austria, got into the habit of collecting Ukrainian designs and copying them in a notebook; his research and collection led to the publication of a book "Sixty Score of Easter Eggs" (1994) containing 1,200 pysanky designs, the largest full-color album of pysanky yet published.

Mr. Elyjiw's niece, Tania Osadca of Parma, Ohio, has been passionately fond of intricate Hutsul designs since age 12, when she first spied Hutsul pysanky during a family vacation in the Ternopil region. Later, as a young mother in the United States, she began making pysanky for Easter and initiated research that has led her to museum and achives in Ukraine during the past several years.

Native New Yorker Sofia Zielyk, a pysanka decorator from age 6, published a bilingual book "The Art of the Pysanka" in Ukraine (1993) and was the first American of Ukrainian descent to mount a traveling exhibition of pysanky in Ukraine. Ms. Zielyk was recently accepted as a full-fledged member of the Association of Folk Artists of Ukraine.

Ihor Slabitsky of Rhode Island, who says he drew his first pysanky in 1980, vividly recalls an Easter in his early childhood when he watched his mother decorating a pysanka, using ordinary candle wax and an old kistka. For Yaroslava Bachynsky of Montreal, decorating pysanky is a family activity that has taken her and her two daughters, Romana and Natalka, to various art contests and New York's Ukrainian street festival. The three women have demonstrated the art in municipal facilities and in stores, and organized a successful exhibition of Ukrainian folk crafts for Montreal's Ukrainian Museum in 1996.

Showcased against black velvet in acrylic cases, the pysanky reveal a treasure trove of colors and designs that range from Ms. Perchyshyn's bold Trypillian motifs and Mr. Slabitsky's strong geometric element (swirls and stripes) to Ms. Zielyk's finely decorated Hutsul designs on ostrich and hen eggs.

Ms. Zielyk, who recently appeared on ABC-TV's 10 p.m. news program and demonstrated her craft at the American Craft Museum, was one of three experts who demonstrated pysanka decorating at the museum on April 22. With her were Anna Gbur and Emily Robbins, who learned the art from her mother, Nina Prosen Robbins, and has been passing on her knowledge to others at The Ukrainian Museum and for the third year in a row to an enthusiastic workshop group at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. Museum director Maria Shust and pysanka decorator Yaryna Ferencevych taught the Ukrainian decorating techniques to adults and youngsters during workshops held on two April weekends.

Manhattan delights

Several interesting events most of them located on or close to Manhattan's famous Fifth Avenue, deserve to be marked on your calendar and enjoyed before they close in May (details will be given in a future "Dateline New York" column).

Five luminous paintings by the 19th century Ukrainian artist Maria Bashkirtseva (1860-1884), a member of the Ukrainian aristocracy who studied at the Académie Julian in Paris, are included in a major exhibition at the small, jewel-box Dahesh Museum, situated at 601 Fifth Ave. (at 48th Street). The exhibit, "Overcoming All Obstacles: The Women of the Académie Julian," closes on May 13. The museum is open from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., Tuesday through Saturday.
The Versace store and showroom on Fifth Avenue between 51st and 52nd streets is presently displaying photos of its favorite male model, Richard Gladys, recently selected as No. 5 of the 25 Top Male Models by models.com. Of Ukrainian-Polish ancestry, the blond, blue-eyed 6'2" model is the son of Tamara Dyba Gladys of Lake George, N.Y., and the grandson of the late Stephania and Osyp Dyba, who ran the Cosmos Parcel Agency in the East Village.
Ukrainian actor Bohdan Stupka plays the role of Col. Boiko, director of the Ukrainian Army Song and Dance Ensemble, in "East-West," the French-made movie that was among nominees for Best Foreign Film at this year's Academy Award ceremonies. Playing in the Paris Theater, located on 58th Street just west of Fifth Avenue, the film stars Sandrine Bonnaire, Oleg Menchikov and Catherine Deneuve. Although the story deals with Russian émigrés in the West who are enticed by the Soviet government to return home, the action is set mostly in Kyiv, where the émigré family at the center of "East-West" has been allocated a communal apartment.
Steel works by artist Christina Shmigel, using traditional blacksmithing techniques in non-traditional applications, are included in a group show at the John Elder Gallery, 529 W. 20th St. (seventh floor), until May 23. Ms. Shmigel, a resident of St. Louis is the daughter of Myroslaw Shmigel, chairman of the board of the Selfreliance (NY) Federal Credit Union, and Nadia Shmigel. Gallery hours are 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., Tuesday to Saturday.

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