Something from the history of the region.

 Hutsulshchyna (Polish Huculszczyzna, Slovak Huculsko) is a Ukrainian ethnocultural region, the land of Ukrainian highlanders, Hutsuls, located in the south-eastern part of the Ukrainian Carpathians.

Location 

Hutsulshchyna occupies part of Galicia, Bukovina, and Zakarpattia in the south-eastern part of the Ukrainian Carpathians, in the catchment area of the Prut River with the Cheremosh and Seret, the upper Suceava, the upper Nadvirnianska Bistritsa, and the upper Tysa.

The southern and northern boundaries of Hutsulshchyna are formed by the first higher ridges and sharply narrowed river valleys. The southern boundary passes through the Gorgany, Chornohora, and northern slopes of the Chyvchynskyi Mountains; the northern ethnographic boundary runs along the line of Zelena - Delyatin - Yabluniv - Pistyn - Kosiv - Kuty (Kosiv district) - Vyzhnytsia, sometimes the boundaries of Hutsulshchyna extend as far as Kolomyia, Nadvirna, Solotvyn, and Monastyryska; in the west, Hutsuls inhabit the entire Tysa valley up to Rakhiv; the eastern boundary of Hutsulshchyna is the line of Vyzhnytsia - Berehomet - Myhove - Banyliv-Pidhirnyi. Several Hutsul villages (the village of Poliana and its surroundings) are located in Romanian Maramuresh.

 History

Until 1770, Hutsulshchyna was part of the Ottoman Empire-Moldavia, Poland, and Hungary; later it belonged to Austria and Hungary; from 1920 to 1939, it belonged to Romania, Poland, and Czechoslovakia. Despite artificial administrative management, Hutsuls have created their own traditional orders, mountain conditions, way of life, Wallachian shepherd law, pastoral animal husbandry, common material and spiritual culture, and dialects. The location deep in the mountains, far from communication routes, contributed to mutual exchange among Hutsuls. Now all of Hutsulshchyna, except for 8 villages in Romanian Bukovina and several villages in Maramuresh, is located in Ukraine. The first historical information about Hutsulshchyna appeared in Polish sources in the 14th - early 15th century.

The originality of Hutsul culture has led to hypotheses about their origin from Caucasians who mixed with Ukrainians. Volodymyr Sichynsky finds many common features between Hutsul architecture and the heritage of ancient Etruscans. The archaism of ancient Hutsul buildings lies primarily in the typical enclosed courtyard - a kind of fortress with only gates and a porch. Each Hutsul house resembles a kind of museum of folk art: all everyday items (dishes, furniture, carpets, clothing, weapons) are decorated with various patterns, carvings, embroidery, artistic painting, etc.

The gray Carpathians are probably the most charming place in Western Ukraine, a land shrouded in ancient myths and legends, lulled by the sound of trembitas - a real treasure trove of ancient customs, rituals, traditions, and centuries-old cultural heritage of Boykos, Lemkos, and Hutsuls. It seems that almost every person here is an artist, a bright creative personality. Only such people could build amazing Hutsul wooden churches in the mountains, the walls of which are erected without a single nail... Their decoration often became such unique icons painted on glass. Many of them are now kept in museum collections, as are images on wood, which are now considered excellent examples of naive painting.

Their works have glorified their homeland and European-level artists, primarily icon painters, such as the famous painter Yov Kondzelevych, the author of the iconostasis of the Church of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross of the Skete of Maniava, and his predecessor Ivan Rutkovych, the author of the icon painting of the