Podillia
A historical and ethnographic region in south-western Ukraine covering almost all of Vinnytsia Oblast, the south of Khmelnytskyi and Ternopil oblasts and the north of Odesa Oblast, with distinctive traditions of nyz embroidery, carpet weaving and pottery.
Podillia covers almost all of present-day Vinnytsia Oblast, the southern parts of Khmelnytskyi and Ternopil oblasts and the north of Odesa Oblast. The name came into use in the mid-fourteenth century for Ponyzzia, the south-eastern part of the Principality of Galicia–Volhynia centred on Bakota on the Dniester. Podillia Voivodeship, centred on Kamianets, was created in 1434 and Bratslav Voivodeship in 1566; after the partitions of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth most of the region passed to the Romanov Empire (Podolia Governorate, 1797), while the lands west of the Zbruch went to Austria.
The long-standing state border along the Zbruch divided the region into two ethnographic sub-regions, Western and Eastern Podillia, and this shows in folk art. Eastern Podillia is known for nyz embroidery in black or black and red with geometric motifs. Shirts of Western Podillia are dark: black is combined with dark cherry or yellow, and the pattern covers the whole sleeve. Podillia carpets were woven on a horizontal loom; common motifs are geometric (serrated rhombuses, octagons, stars, rosettes) together with the «vazon», a flowerpot motif.
Local traditions of the region include Bubnivka ceramics painted on an orange ground, the Klembivka shirt «with a flower» and Borshchiv embroidery. Ukraine's National Inventory of Intangible Cultural Heritage lists «The tradition of ornamental painting of Bubnivka ceramics» (2018), «The technology of making the Klembivka shirt with a flower» (2020) and «Borshchiv folk embroidery» (2020). Podillia as a historical region does not coincide with any single present-day oblast.
