Traditional Moravian Embroidery

Illustration: Moravian embroidery, end of bride's headscarf.

The modern Czech Republic is made up of three distinct regions that of Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia. Each area has their own traditional cultural distinctiveness in many aspects of life including craft. Although the region of the modern day Czech Republic was for centuries an integral part of the Austrian Empire and the three regions of Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia have common languages, customs and traditions, there are subtle differences throughout the region, whether on the larger scale between Moravia and Bohemia, or indeed on the much smaller and subtler scale between villages.

Illustration: Moravian embroidered cap.

Moravian embroidery tended to be floral based and was used extensively for both male and female costumes. Although similar in many respects to both Bohemia and to a lesser extent the eastern neighbouring Slovakia and even Hungary, Moravian embroiderers produced work that was intrinsically their own, with an emphasis on different elements of design work. For example embroiderers in Moravia had the tendency to outline at least part of their floral work giving it a slightly different appearance to that of their neighbours. It is these subtlelties that mark distinctiveness throughout the Central and Eastern European region and can often denote differences between ethnic regions, between rural and urban, and even on a community level.

Illustration: Moravian Embroidered cap.

Despite the fact that both Moravia and Bohemia have shared a more or less consistently joint history for the last one thousand years, Moravian decoration has made an impact on the decorative arts of Central Europe, particularly at the turn of the twentieth century. Within the Wiener Werkstatte which was founded in Vienna in 1903, at least eight of the designers who worked for the Werkstatte were born and raised in Moravia. These included some of the main instigators of the movement including Mathilde Flogl, Anton Hanak, Robert Obsieger, and most importantly Josef Hoffmann himself.

Hoffmann often talked about his personal connections with Moravia and how he felt that part of the traditions and cultural heritage of the region were reproduced, at least to a certain extent, through his interpretation of contemporary decorative art. That Hoffmann's influence on decoration also became a large part of the general appearance of the work produced by the Werkstatte, goes without saying. At least some of the examples of Moravian embroidery design shown in this article have fairly close connections to some of the contemporary decorative work produced in Vienna during the period of the Werkstatte.

Illustration: Moravian embroidery, christening shawl with lace broder.

It is sometimes difficult to separate the Viennese designers from Vienna itself. However, it is worth while tracing back their individual history to the different areas of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. While many were indeed native Viennese, many more were from Bohemia, Moravia, Hungary, Galicia, Dalmatia and other provinces of the Empire. All brought their individual and cultural distinctiveness to Vienna, which made Viennese design and decoration during this period inevitably richer and more complex for its multi-ethnicity.

Although there is no suggestion that the Wiener Werkstatte was a mere amalgam of ethnic styles from across Central Europe, it has to be born in mind that distinctive craft skills from across the Empire, such as Moravian embroidery, did have at least a partial influence on the styles and appearance of the decorative arts of Vienna and particularly that of the Wiener Werkstatte. That traditional craft skills and pattern work have had an influence on contemporary decorative arts, is a constant throughout most eras, but one that is often trivialised or ignored. The roots of an individual artist or designer often influence their work much more than is often assumed.

Illustration: Moravian embroidery, end of bride's headscarf.

Reference links:
Selection of native designs of embroidered work from Bohemia, Moravia and north-eastern Hungary
A World of Embroidery
Embroidered Textiles: A World Guide to Traditional Patterns
Peasant Art in Austria and Hungary
Treasures from the Embroiderers' Guild Collection
Wiener Werkstatte: 1903-1932 (Special Edition)
Wiener Werkstatte: Design in Vienna 1903-1932
Textiles of the Wiener Werkstatte: 1910-1932
Viennese Design and the Wiener Werkstatte
Josef Hoffmann: Interiors 1902-1913
Josef Hoffmann, 1870-1956: In the Realm of Beauty (Taschen Basic Architecture Series)
Josef Hoffmann: Autobiography

Traditional Moravian Wallachia Lace

Illustration: Moravian Wallachia cap lace, c1905.

The area Of Moravian Wallachia, not to be confused with the Wallachian region of Romania, today lies at the eastern edge of Moravia inside the Czech Republic on the border with Slovakia. Today it is perhaps better known by its Czech name - Valassko. It is said that the original name of Wallachia comes from the association with the word Vlach another name for Romanians who settled in fairly large numbers in the area between the fourteenth and seventeenth centuries. It is this influx of Romanians, their culture and their craft skills, which has inevitably blended and harmonised with the local indigenous Moravians, producing a defining cultural mix that in some respects separates the region from the rest of Moravia.

The textile crafts of embroidery and lace have always been strong in the area, though perhaps embroidery more than lace. In Moravian Wallachia lace work has often been a subservient craft to that of embroidery. Lace was often found as either panels between embroidery work or as decorative borders on the edge of embroidery. However lace did exist in its own right and although often playing a secondary role to that of embroidery in the region, it has been recognised firstly as particularly a fine example of Austrian, and then after the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, as Czech lace craft work.

Illustration: Moravian Wallachia lace panel in a Churching shawl or headress, 19th century.

Much if not all of the original lace work was produced by amateur women and was often produced for church services where women would wear lace veils over their heads as a sign of respect. Moravian Wallachia was a particularly traditional area of the then Austro-Hungarian Empire. Whereas many people within the empire began to reject national and regional costumes in favour of Western European dress codes, this particular area hung on to their traditions much longer than perhaps others around them. This does not imply that the people of Moravian Wallachia were backward or indeed timid of the contemporary world, but had more to do with the separate identity that the region had built up for itself over centuries. Factored into this were also the traditions of the Vlach segment of the population, who, although spread out across the Carpathian Mountains from Romania proper, through what was then Hungary and is now Slovakia, to Moravia itself, largely maintained the same or at least similar traditions throughout the region.

Illustration: Moravian Wallachia lace panel in a Churching shawl, 19th century.

Regional costumes are an interesting phenomenon and their discarding in favour of standard Western European dress codes is even more interesting and deserves an article in its own right. However, for now it is important to say that traditional costume, in Europe at least, signified a sense of belonging to a specific geographical area, but also to that of a continuation of a cultural journey that took place over many generations. It is this combination of being rooted in a specific landscape, connected to the ancestors that went before you and the continuation of that journey through present day descendents that marks out traditional regional costume as being a marker of confidence in a shared cultural heritage and also that of being a symbol of ownership of the landscape.

By relinquishing these markers of collective ownership and belonging, in favour of Western European standard clothing, the connection with regions began to falter. To some extent, with standard clothing came the standardization of humanity. This meant that the extremely complex nature of regional cultural societies in Central and Eastern Europe inevitably began to decline. Although there were indeed a number of other factors involved in the decline of regional costumes, it can be said that to a certain extent at least, the industrialisation of Europe also led to the industrialisation and downgrading of the individual.

Illustration: Moravian Wallachia cap lace, c1905.

As to lace production in Moravian Wallachia, much of it was produced on an amateur basis purely for domestic consumption and therefore managed to avoid the boom and bust cycles that affected so many of the traditional lace making areas of Europe. Because of their over dependence on the foibles of the fashion industry, lace makers could never really build up a substantial platform on which to base their craft. However, despite its boom and bust associations, the lace making craft in general has seen an inevitably gradual and long term decline through most of the twentieth century. What revivals their have been tended to be brief and generally lacking in impact. However, lace making in all its forms and across all the various regions of Europe are vital elements of both the craft tradition and perhaps more importantly still, that of the journey through so many succeeding generations of craft makers both professional and amateur. For us to lose the connection with those past generations would be a crime in itself, and a denial of the continuation of the journey for all those future generations that come after us.

Illustration: Moravian Wallachia cap lace.

Reference links:
Czech, Moravian and Slovak Costumes Paper Dolls
Peasant Art in Austria and Hungary. Edited by Charles Holme
Traditional lace making
Bobbin Lace: An Illustrated Guide to Traditional and Contemporary Techniques (Dover Books on Needlepoint, Embroidery)
Traditional cutwork made easy