Easter Cards

 

Easter cards are traditionally exchanged in the Ukrainian community, particularly among the diaspora.  A large percentage of Ukrainian Easter cards employ pysanky in their decorative motifs.  Commonly you will see also a paska (Easter bread) and pussy willows (blessed on Palm Sunday in Ukraine).  Also found are bits of embroidery, chicks, baskets and flower, particularly on cards from Ukraine.  On some cards you might find people in traditional costume, and churches, but this is less common.

Diasporan cards tend to stress Ukrainian-ness (with pysanky and embroidery), whereas modern-day Ukrainian cards are much more likely to have bouquets of flowers and images of Christ on them. Diasporan cards are the traditional Hallmark bi-folds, whereas Ukrainian cards are, more often than not, post cards, continuing an old tradition*.

The earliest cards in my collection are diasporan cards designed in the 1950s and 1960s.  These are usually reproductions of paintings, and the subject matter stresses the Ukrainian nature of the holiday. Later cards include photos of variable quality, and the newer ones are often cut and paste jobs done on the computer, as can be noted when looking closely. (Notice the chick which appears on two separate cards in these sets.)

I’ve collected an album full of these cards over the years.  My mothers saves hers for me and, in recent years, I have added those sent to me by family in Ukraine. I have included them on my site because they have pysanky on them, and thus can be a design resource.  Also, because I like them.

«Христос Воскрес» is the Ukrainian Easter greeting, and means “Christ has risen.” During Easter service (which, for the orthodox, is a midnight mass), the priest shouts this to the congregation, who answer «Воїстено Воскрес!» (“Indeed he has risen!”).  It is also how Ukrainian Christians greet each other during the Easter holiday (followed by three kisses on alternate cheeks).

I’ve divided the Easter cards into five categories, to aid in searching, and divided a few of these groups into multiple albums (so as to decrease the size of the pages and help them load more quickly).

Easter traditions: those cards that depict largely Ukrainian Easter traditions including “Pussy Willow” Sunday, the making of pysanky, the blessing of the baskets, haivky, pasky (Ukrainian Easter breads), krashanky (simple colored eggs) and more


Baskets and Flowers:  Easter baskets full of pasky, krashanky and pysanky, as well as bouquets of all sorts of native and exotic flowers


Religious Cards: those which depict the Christian aspects of Easter, with icons and even a “Veronica,” rather than the more pagan ones


Pysanky: those Easter cards which rely predominantly on pysanky as their central motif (a fair number of chicks are involved for some reason)


Modern: a series of newer cards (mostly from Ukraine) which use pysanky in an artistic and sometimes unusual manner.      


Click on any of the pictures on the following pages for a larger view. I’v also begun adding pages on an annual basis with the newest Easter cards for that year. These will be added in to the general collection as well.

2008 : Cards I received in 2008.  Something old, something new, something borrowed (from my mother) but nothing particularly blue.



To view my pysanka postcard collection, go to this page.



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  1. *The earliest greeting cards, the first Christmas cards, were post cards.  It was only later that they became fancier and required an envelope.  Similarly, Ukraine (or rather, Ukrainians, as Ukraine did not re-emerge as an independent state until 1992) has a tradition of post card greeting cards, as can be seen in the “Vintage” postcard section.







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