DIVERSIONS : Eggs Hatch Rebirth of Ukraine Culture

Which came first, the chocolate chicken or the colored egg? Hardly a subject of international importance--unless the eggs are pysanky.

A pysanka is an intricately painted egg, filled with Ukrainian tradition. For centuries Ukrainians have designed the eggs--using scalpel-like tools and a keen eye--to represent aspects of life. The pysanky are traditionally blessed on Easter morning and shared on special occasions--weddings, the birth of a child, when friends visit.

But the craft--along with just about everything else that distinguishes one culture from another in the former Soviet Union--was banned under Soviet rule.

“When Ukraine was under Soviet domination, a lot of stuff was not allowed, especially the eggs because they have a religious meaning,” says Zenovia Wrzesniewski, master craftsperson.

At the annual open house and Pysanka Exhibition next Sunday, Ukrainian immigrants will demonstrate how they have perpetuated their heritage in such traditions as embroidery, fancy bread making, glass ceramics, fine art, folk music and dance and, of course, pysanka. All will be displayed and demonstrated in the cavernous Ukrainian Art Center on Melrose Avenue.

“Pysanka kind of embodies the idea of the rebirth of our culture in Los Angeles,” says Daria Chaikovsky, president and founder of the nonprofit Ukrainian Art Center.

Chaikovsky, who fled her home with her mother at the end of World War II, operates a gift shop of Ukrainian artifacts at the center. She is proud, she says, to see young people show an interest in their heritage--especially since Ukraine declared its independence in December.

Maria Oharenko, who teaches Ukrainian language and history to Ukrainian-American children, grew up attending Ukrainian language and folk art classes the way other children took piano lessons. She says folk arts are “very much a part of Ukrainian life.”

Luba Dmytryk, a filmmaker and first-generation Ukrainian-American, remembers going to public school during the week and Ukrainian school on Saturdays. “Every (Ukrainian) kid in every city I’ve ever heard of had it,” Dmytryk recalls. “It was hard-core training--Ukrainian history, arts, geography, culture, language . . . all about Ukrainian theater and cinema.”

And when she turned 18, “my parents took me down to the polling station . . . they understood what it meant (to be able) to cast a vote.”

Oharenko says the parents who came to the United States “felt they were keepers of the flame” and that, with the knowledge that “relatives back in Ukraine were not allowed to practice folk arts or speak their language,” believed it was their duty to teach Ukrainian-American children here about their heritage.

Painting designs on eggs goes back to cave dwellers, says Wrzesniewski, a U.S. resident for more than 40 years. A symbolic part of Ukrainian culture since pagan times, the eggs were tied to Easter after Christianity was introduced in Ukraine in AD 988.

After World War II, Poland claimed portions of western Ukraine while the Soviet Union claimed the rest. For about 70 years, Ukrainian folk arts were “directly suppressed or neglected,” says Oharenko, and the churches closed. Some churches were destroyed or recruited for other uses. One of the most famous examples is St. Sophia’s church in Kiev. “It was preserved by the Soviet Union as an example of Middle Ages art, but there are no active services held there.”

Since Ukrainians officially declared their independence, Oharenko adds, they have retaken churches, returning them to active use and restoring the “artistic beauty they had before they went through years of neglect.”

Ukrainian immigrants are drawn to the Hollywood area not only for a good dose of Ukrainian culture, but also to attend Sunday services at one of three Ukrainian churches in Los Angeles. “There’s a sense of community here,” Wrzesniewski says, “a sense of belonging.”

The art center is housed in a former vaudeville theater-turned-community center purchased by Ukrainians in 1952. It is a gathering place for 20,000 or so Ukrainians who travel from all over Southern California, from Oxnard to San Bernardino.

The desire to pass on their heritage is what motivated immigrants to found the art center in 1986. They hope eventually that it will become a Ukrainian museum, says Chaikovsky.

Another goal of the center is to introduce the culture to others.

“It’s not only an outlet for people of European extraction,” Chaikovsky says. “The whole idea is to show our culture to everyone.”

The board has been busy for months preparing for just that at the open house, where fancy kolach (a three-tiered egg bread, symbolic of the Holy Trinity for Christmastime) and babka (cylindrical sweet bread with raisins for Easter) will be available. Displays of wedding cakes, called korozar, will tie in with the theme of the open house: “Wedding Traditions, Then and Now.”

A fine arts exhibit will include glass art from Kiev and an exhibit and sale of paintings by Odessa artist Oleh Nedoshytko, who will attend. Craftspeople will also demonstrate folk crafts, including pysanky, baking and embroidery, and play the bandura, an 68-string guitar-like instrument.

Though many of the crafts are also traditions in other parts of the world, pysanka is identified with Ukrainians.

“It’s not just a folk art because it’s used in so many aspects of life,” Wrzesniewski says. “They are given to a bride and groom . . . who are probably starting out as farmers. For luck, you paint on a horse; a lion for strength, a rake for good husbandry. For the wife, white is for purity, red for love and a hen for fertility.”

Red is the most prevalent color in most Ukrainian arts, Wrzesniewski says with a broad smile, “because Ukrainians are a passionate people.”

With Ukraine recently declaring its independence from the former Soviet Union, it’s a time of great excitement, but also “very frightening” for the Ukrainian people, says Chaikovsky.

For new immigrants, the building is a haven where they get help translating and filling out forms and find a sense of community in an extremely foreign environment.

“They don’t know about borrowing or saving, they don’t know how to shop,” Wrzesniewski says. But new immigrants, Chaikovsky adds, are “very quick learners.”

Open House and Pysanka Exhibition, April 5, noon-5 p.m.. Ukrainian Art Center, 4315 Melrose Ave., Los Angeles. Free. Donations accepted, (213) 668-0172.