Portraits of Ukraine. 1882
These photos were made more than about one century ago. It’s amazing that they have preserved till the our time. Did those people know, that we would look at them via the Internet after 100 years?
submitted by Ogurtsov
| Tags: 19-century, historical-photos, old russia, old-ukraine, russian-types, ukraine, ukrainian-types, XIX-century |
Tip: To get daily entertaiment news like this one, bookmark englishrussia.com or get 
if it's more convinient for you.
if it's more convinient for you.
Our friends publish:Bloggers, send your links! |
Back to English Russia Main Page for more articles like this
11:07 am
Loading ...
Those guys on the last picture were definitely aware of this. They seem to know we were going to see them on the internet, they have this attitude all over them.
In the future, we’ll all be dead. Think about it.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=IZ6iwdDhIt4
It’s quite hard to even think that some photos of you can be watched longly after you’r dead, even nowadays. Those photos are really preserved in really good condition.
A fascinating look at village life. Look at the size or that jack rabbit in photo 12! Does anyone know what the men in photo 17 doing?
It’s not a rabbit but wild hare.
Almost the same anyway.
There are some women wearing party clothes (e.g. the one on the picture 34).
Nr 17 is making fire. Certainly staged as most of those pictures.
Maybe you’ll be interested in a bit of background. At this time there was a kind of fashion in Russian Empire to gather national traditions, folklore etc. Most of mythology of the former USSR folks has been written down in 1880s. This was a period of national awakening due to a little more liberal policy of the Czar.
Yes, you are right. The animal is properly called a hare. The jack rabbits we have are much smaller. Thank you for the information. It is fortunate that there was an effort to preserve these traditions.
That’s the biggest rabbit I have ever seen. I see them sometimes from the trains but it’s hard to get a idea of their size.
The men in photo 17 are practising the now lost ancient Ukrainiane ritual knwon as “Making Love To The Potato”. Once each fortnight, during high noon, the wisest men in the village would drink many gallons of potato vodka and select the most mis-shapen of the potatoes they could find around the viallage. Placing this in the middle of the village square, they would poke it with sticks, in a bid to wake the Potato into consciousness. Once they were drunk enough, the Potato would gain life and intelligence. They would then consult it and communicate to the Potato God through it. This communication to the form of hurling insults at the potato (potatos are well know for their ability to not fight back when insulted)
Theoreticly, the ritual would end with the potato dying and talking out the entire world in a deranged Apocalypse involving a van full of crack babies on laughing gas and Mr Putins belly button lint. Fortunately this never happened because the wise men always passed out drunk before they could complete the ritual.
The practice was abolished by Soviet authorities in 1927
Are you related to Bruce McCall?
Nope. Who is he? I hope he’s not some insufferable twat (the comments section of this site has a large number of those), because then I’ll have to be insulted.
That would suck, cuz your on the short list of non ass-helmets here and seem like a sensible, decent human being.
McCall is a talented Canadian illustrator who mixes historical details with outrageously whimsical stories. Your story has an almost identical structure to McCalls style. Run him through your search engine.
Ahhh. I see. Thank you for the education
He’s really good, I like his stuff. (no surprise there) Oddly enough I’m both a Canadian and an artist. Should have recognized the name.
Great to meet a Canadian and another artist.
some kind of “babki” game on 17th pic
astragalus in ancient greece or tali in latin
game with pig’s anklebone
i guess
The connect the village to the Internet :d
first bitches!
dammit!
No, I’m first!
http://youtube.com/watch?v=IZ6iwdDhIt4
Not much has changed.
O.T.
If the Ukraine was part of the USSR back during the second world war, why did they ally with the Germans when the USSR was their (the Germans) enemy?
Ukrainians hated Russians because of the great famine Stalin and the communists caused late 1920’s/early 30’s. Literally millions died. Gruesome stories are known - like cannibalism. This episode is known as ‘Holodomor’. After that, 2 waves of purges eliminated almost 4/5 of the Ukranian cultural elite, basically kicking the whole country back to a medieval state of existence. Check Wikipedia for more background. No, the Russians were not popular.
Another related thing, the Russians started spreading gossips that the Jews were in fact responsible for the famines. Since Ukraine had a huge Jewish population at that time, they were an easy target. This, combined with a latent anti-semitism resulted during WWII in the notorious Ukranian SS divisions, which were known to be the most cruel and brutal of all.
You the fool! As Russian could extend gossips that hunger was caused by Jews if the USSR positioned itself whereas the defender of Jews from the nazi of Germany, and thousand Jews ran therefrom in the USSR. And in a management of the USSR there was a large quantity of Jews. (They of it never would admit!)
And as then the Jewish pogroms arranged with Ukrainians in the end of 19 and in the beginning of 20 centuries. They were provoked too by Russian?
By the way wrongly it is considered, that pogroms passed in Russia, however practically all pogroms have passed in territory of modern Ukraine!
__You the fool! As Russian could extend gossips that hunger was caused by Jews if the USSR positioned itself whereas the defender of Jews from the nazi of Germany, and thousand Jews ran therefrom in the USSR. And in a management of the USSR there was a large quantity of Jews. (They of it never would admit!)
And as then the Jewish pogroms arranged with Ukrainians in the end of 19 and in the beginning of 20 centuries. They were provoked too by Russian?
By the way wrongly it is considered, that pogroms passed in Russia, however practically all pogroms have passed in territory of modern Ukraine!
You the fool! As Russian could extend gossips that hunger was caused by Jews if the USSR positioned itself whereas the defender of Jews from the nazi of Germany, and thousand Jews ran therefrom in the USSR. And in a management of the USSR there was a large quantity of Jews. (They of it never would admit!)
And as then the Jewish pogroms arranged with Ukrainians in the end of 19 and in the beginning of 20 centuries. They were provoked too by Russian?
By the way wrongly it is considered, that pogroms passed in Russia, however practically all pogroms have passed in territory of modern Ukraine!!
You are fools! As Russian could extend gossips that hunger was caused by Jews if the USSR positioned itself whereas the defender of Jews from the nazi of Germany, and thousand Jews ran therefrom in the USSR. And in a management of the USSR there was a large quantity of Jews. (They of it never would admit!)
And as then the Jewish pogroms arranged with Ukrainians in the end of 19 and in the beginning of 20 centuries. They were provoked too by Russian?
By the way wrongly it is considered, that pogroms passed in Russia, however practically all pogroms have passed in territory of modern Ukraine!
Foolish Ukrainians always wanted to bring down the guilt on other. For pogroms began 20 ages and anti-semitic cleanings responsibility during of World War2 Ukrainians carry only. Russians do not have no relation to them.
___You the fool! As Russian could extend gossips that hunger was caused by Jews if the USSR positioned itself whereas the defender of Jews from the nazi of Germany, and thousand Jews ran therefrom in the USSR. And in a management of the USSR there was a large quantity of Jews. (They of it never would admit!)
And as then the Jewish pogroms arranged with Ukrainians in the end of 19 and in the beginning of 20 centuries. They were provoked too by Russian?
By the way wrongly it is considered, that pogroms passed in Russia, however practically all pogroms have passed in territory of modern Ukraine!
Just wondering how long it will take before some well known Nazi like pld, Hannu, ornoxus and others, will make some sick anti-Semitic statments about the Jewish fellow in picture 24.
Lets wait and see what these baltic racists can produce next..
Wow! I didn’t even notice those pancake things on their heads. I had to go back and take a second look.
Why don’t you take your ABC-book and go practise your reading-skills.. Flaming and making false accusations you already know too well.
Here, practice (for the umpteenth time) on the last word of this post and see if it’s a baltic country.
Hannu,
Finland
Firstly, my racist friend, the “last words” of your post could just as well be: “Hannu, form Mars ” not that it would make much difference. Also, its seems quite ironic to me, that a person claiming to be from Finland, doesn’t know that his country boarders with the Baltic see. Yes, ironic, to say the least
Secondly, I travel to “Levi” Finland quite often for my skiing holidays, and all the finns I have met are tolerant and open minded people - wish I could say the same about Latvians and Estonians. From this, you should see why I have made the most probably assumption that you are not in fact from finland, but a pittyful racist form Estonina or Latvia i.e Ornixus.
PS: next time before you claim to be from any civilised country, I strongly encourage you to learn the basic geography of that particular country.
Good day.
*kröhm*
Bordering the Baltic sea doesn’t make a country a baltic country.. So does Germany and it’s not a baltic country.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baltic_countries
You level of intelligence never ceases to amaze me.. All you ever do is flame me.
P.S. Levi is nice. Got that right
Hannu,
Finland
Don’t you think it all depends on one’s interpretation of what is ment by Baltic country? (note, I did not say Baltic State) There is no genralisation and never has been. Some consider only Estonia Latvia and Lithuania to be baltic countries, others do not.
One interpretation of what is a “Baltic country” (the most common interpretation in western europe) - are all the countries that “board” or have some connection with the Baltic sea. Even with my humble geographical knowledge, I know that Finland is one of these states. Shame you do not.
hehehehehe….
Finland is not a baltic country. And *no*, it does not depend on interpretation. There are only the informed, and the misinformed. Baltic countries (and baltic people) are only Estonia, Lativia and Lithuania.
I don’t think - and seriously, neither do you - that russians, germans and the polish are baltic.
Yarr,
Humble it is, mate.
“Baltic countries (and baltic people) are only Estonia, Lativia and Lithuania” - to be technical, the countries you named are considered to be “Baltic States” not Baltic countries. There is a literal difference. But I won’t argue with you, because like I said, there are interpretational variations so you and me could both be right.
Boris,
from Antarctica
The difference between states and countries is a linguistical one related to the english language. *Not* to real-life things. In many languages country/state is a single word.
Now would be a very good time time for you to stop embarassing yourself further.
I think with your narrominded anti-Semitic racist rants, you have done enough embarrassing for both of us.
Boris,
Antarctica
There you go again..
Listen to yourself a little. Where did you get that idea in the first place?
When looking into people’s eyes in these pictures , isn’t it amazing how thoughtful, deep and peaceful they look? If you look at the modern day pictures, people’s eyes seem generally more destructed, hollow, naive and lost. Why could that be? Could it be that our way of thinking and comprehension, not only way of life, has changed so dramatically?
There’s both imaginative and unimaginative answers to your question.
The unimaginative one is quite simple and it goes like this: The exposure times required for a decent photo back then were WAY longer, so people had to hold real still for a minute and even several minutes. So thats why the look peaceful.
The other answer..or rather contribution to the discussion:
I think our sense of time has profoundly changed since then. Half those people didn’t even have clocks, let alone watches.
Our way of thinking and comprehension has certainly changed. Mass media didn’t exist back then, there wasn’t the sense of urgency to every damn thing going on like we have now.
That look of peace certainly makes one question the ways our lives have improved are worth what we’ve lost in exchange.
When exposure times were very long, sitters had to have their heads clamped: you can’t hold still long enough. Those photographs were taken outside in good light and while I expect that sitters had to hold still, it wouldn’t have been for very long. Exposures of minutes in daylight were only ever needed for very primitive photographic techniques.
Very profound observations guys.
Cool photos. Thanks to Ogurtsov for the share.
Very interesting photos with nice people. Unfortunately they are all dead. Only one is still alive and is a very interested people on this matter! He is more than 163 years old!!!
I would like to see the “Today” version of this same village.
Photoshop, of course
In WWII Ukrainians fought for the Russians against the Germans, For the Germans against the Russians, and some fought agains BOTH Russians and Germans at the same time..
As to why they fot for the Germans, less than 10 years earlier the Russians tried to wipe out Ukrainians with the man made famine, where they confiscated all the food and seed stock, then posted armed guards around the villages to prevent people from leaving to look for food. While they failed to wipe out the Ukrainians, they did enormous damage to Ukraine and Ukrainian culture that is still felt to this day.
Why is Eastern Ukraine so heavily russified ?? Because after the Russians killed the 6 to 10 million Ukrainians by starvation, they repopulated the land with Russian ’settlers’
Same as they did for the baltic countries. We’ll never know for sure how many perished there, but estimates run in hundreds of thousands deported, murdered or simply disappeared. Half a million Russians were brought in as replacement. Russification was clearly used in an effort to wipe out the baltic cultures. Even today, nearly 400 000 Russians (versus a million Estonians) are in Estonia as a consequence (Not to mention the situation in the other baltic countries).
Many of these form a subculture of their own, not even wishing to integrate into the society, gain a citizenship or learn the language of the country. Statistics show that a strong majority (!) of Russians in Estonia actually believe that Estonia voluntarily joined the Soviet Union!
So you can see, Russians are not popular in Estonia either. And I don’t see anything fascist about that.
Hannu,
Finland
Russians are not popular in any country which was invaded by them. Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Germany (especially east side), Czech and Slovak Republic, Hungary, Ukraine (partially - huge russification on east side of country), Romania and many, many other countries/nations fore sure know what I mean.
Jarek,
Poland
PS. Hope to see soon Belarus and Chechnya among free and sovereign countries!
The Ukrainian culture-part of the Russian culture, and in 19 century practically there was no difference between Russian and the Ukrainian. The majority of inhabitants of east Ukraine feel itself as Russian and consequently are Prorussian. In the western Ukraine the majority of Ukrainians consider itself more as Poles, than Russian. As to russification no special russification in the USSR existed, simply the majority learnt Russian (now the majority learns English) at school. Many the Russian came to Estonia, but even more Estonians came to Russia (and till now there live). If Stalin needed to destroy Estonians, it simply would move them from Estonia, as for example the Crimean Tatars from Crimea.
And the huge number of Russian (my grandmother lived on Kuban and has died there) has in the thirties died of hunger also. Therefore, if you say, that Russian killed Ukrainians, you simply idiot.
P.S. Belarus already independent country and if the Chechen Republic receives independence it преведет to creation of the Fashistko-Islamic state on border with Russia. It is not necessary for us. And in general, it not your business.
Stalin also killed millions of Germans that immigrated all thought-out the Black Sea area. I know this because my German Family lived near Odessa for three generations before leaving in 1907 to come to America. We had one part stay behind and my Uncle was killed (in 1927) for not giving up ALL of his fall harvest.
Wonderful photos. Thanks for posting them.
Those are awesome
Эх, Хохляндия!
These photos are wonderful. The oldest thing that my family has is from about the same year.. It’s a bible, and shows what the language was like then. But photos are so much more interesting.
It’s a great boon that they are presented here in the internet for all to see.
Hannu,
Finland
Go to hell Hannu bitch
While I’m there, may I borrow your ice-cold heart to keep me cool with?
Wow, these are so cool! I wonder if I’m related to any of them? My whole family is from the Ukraine, but I’m pretty sure that my Grandpa’s side of the family lived there at that time. Ooh, wouldn’t that be interesting?!
Ogurtsov, do you know what region of Ukraine these photos are from?
wonderful and facinating photos of the ‘old world’ before politics and industrialization invaded the simple art of living.
In picture 25, are they waithing for the bus to arrive?, presumably the village is having a day out to the sea side
“why did they ally with the Germans when the USSR was their (the Germans) enemy?”
you are mistaken - it is the russians that were the nazi allies when russia and germany invaded Poland to start World War II.
Ukrainians and Poles suffered the most - nearly 16 million dead vs only a few million russians.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkP58FsQGls&feature=related
http://www.infoukes.com/history/ww2/page-29.html
Excellent work boys
Haha
guys u nothing understand here)))))
photos are ghm ahuennie as we says. what can i say.. last time of normal life for those people…
ukraine 4ever!!!!!!!!!!!
Aha, so that’s what things looked like before the Holodomor.
There are photos of the same era of Russian farmers..
These Ukrainians look better than their russian counterparts. They look cleaner, they don’t have those long greasy beards and their clothes look better..