TORBADJA
AUTHENTIC UKRAINIAN CERAMICS
MATERIAL CULTURE · SENSORY RESEARCH
POTTERY CENTRES IN UKRAINE:
HOW THEY EMERGED, WORKED
AND CHANGED OVER TIME
Teachers and students of the pottery school, 1891. At the centre is V. B. Krytsinsky, drawing instructor and later director of the school for four years.
Pottery Centres
The location of a pottery centre depended largely on local conditions. Clay deposits were an important factor, but access to markets, fairs, and trade routes, as well as demand for pottery, was equally significant. As a result, pottery-producing areas developed in different parts of Ukraine: the Middle Dnieper region, Poltava region, Chernihiv region, Podillia, Slobozhanshchyna, Volhynia, Galicia, the Carpathian foothills, and Transcarpathia.
One centre differed from another not only in its geographical location. Local raw materials, working methods, firing techniques, vessel forms, and decorative practices gradually gave the products their own distinctive character. This is why simple domestic pottery from different parts of Ukraine can differ noticeably even when the vessels serve the same purpose. The Ivan Honchar Museum, for example, notes that regional characteristics depended on the natural properties of raw materials, the technological level of production, and local traditions.
Most of these centres flourished from the 19th century through the first third of the 20th century. By the late 19th century, industrially manufactured metalware, faience, and porcelain had begun to displace some traditional pottery production, and many local centres gradually declined. At the same time, certain centres maintained production and developed schools whose distinctive styles still make Ukrainian ceramics recognisable today.
Potter’s House, 1908. Oleshnia
What Is a Pottery Centre?
The term “pottery centre” sounds as though it simply refers to a settlement where potters once worked. In reality, that is not enough. One potter in a village does not make it a pottery centre.
A pottery centre can be defined as a settlement or a group of neighbouring settlements where pottery became an established occupation and, over time, developed its own system of production: the extraction and preparation of clay, the making of vessels, the establishment of workshops and kilns, the transmission of skills, and the sale of finished products. Such a system could be small, consisting of several families with home workshops, or much larger, with dozens of craftspeople, hired workers, a guild-like organisation or, later, cooperative and factory-based production.
Local raw materials played an important role. Deposits of suitable red, reddish-brown, and light-grey clays were significant for the development of many Ukrainian pottery centres. However, the mere presence of clay did not make a settlement a pottery centre. There also had to be demand for the products, opportunities to sell them, accumulated experience, and the transmission of the craft from one generation of potters to the next.
As a result, a certain degree of specialisation gradually emerged within each centre. Some craftspeople might make ordinary domestic pottery, while others produced bowls, stove tiles, or decorative objects. Potters worked in families, while larger workshops could employ additional craftspeople. Different stages of production could also be divided among several people. In Vasylkiv, for example, sources specifically mention female decorators. Sales took place not only locally: potters transported their wares to villages, bazaars, and fairs.
For this reason, it is better to imagine a pottery centre not as a dot on a map, but as a small local production system. It had its own craftspeople, raw materials, working methods, product range, customers, and distribution routes. In some places, this system lasted for several generations; in others, it endured for a century or more.
It was these systems that created the extensive network of pottery production that once existed across Ukrainian lands. The next step is to look more closely at where these centres emerged, why some places became renowned pottery centres, and why neighbouring settlements did not.
Clay Extraction, 19th Century. Photograph, National Museum-Reserve of Ukrainian Pottery in Opishnia.
Geography and the Formation of Pottery Centres
When Ukrainian pottery centres are plotted on a map, the names are not distributed evenly. In some areas, they are densely concentrated, sometimes forming entire clusters of settlements, while in others, considerable distances separate them. This is no coincidence.
Local raw materials formed the foundation of Ukrainian pottery. The educational handbook of Kharkiv National University of Municipal Economy directly states that the widespread availability of high-quality red, reddish-brown, and light-grey clays contributed to the emergence of major centres of ceramic production. Well-known centres have been documented in the Kyiv, Poltava, Chernihiv, Podillia, Volhynia, and Kharkiv regions, as well as in western Ukraine.
However, these centres are unevenly distributed across the map. In some areas, they form entire groups of settlements; in others, only individual centres are known. Alongside large pottery towns, there were small villages where the craft was practised by just a few families. In some places, guilds, large workshops, or enterprises eventually emerged, extending beyond the boundaries of household production.
For this reason, the geography of Ukrainian pottery should not be reduced to a list of administrative regions. Behind the names of settlements lie centres of different sizes and character, shaped by specific local conditions.
Poltava Region
The Poltava region was one of the areas with the highest concentration of pottery centres. Opishnia, Misky Mlyny, Khomutets, Komyshnia, Popivka, Velyka Hremiacha, and other centres are known from this region.
Opishnia is a particularly illustrative example. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, more than half of all potters in the Poltava region lived there, and approximately one in every three families was engaged in pottery. In 1885, the town held regular markets twice a week and four fairs a year. This clearly demonstrates that a major centre developed not only because of its craftspeople and clay deposits, but also because it offered opportunities for the regular sale of finished products.
Smaller centres with their own specialisations existed nearby. In Khomutets, for example, potters produced terracotta and glazed vessels and used burnishing, scratching, and painted decoration. Komyshnia was known for burnished pottery, as well as household wares and sculpture.
Kyiv Region and the Middle Dnieper Region
In the Middle Dnieper region, pottery centres formed an entire belt of settlements: Dybyntsi, Vasylkiv, Kaniv, Novi Petrivtsi, Moryntsi, Hnylets, Holovkivka, and others. The extended list found in the sources is considerably longer.
This area clearly demonstrates how a local craft could develop into a more complex production centre. By the late 17th century, Dybyntsi already had a potters' brotherhood or guild that included craftspeople from neighbouring villages. In the 19th century, the Branicki faience factory also operated there, employing a large workforce. Thus, traditional pottery could coexist with industrial-scale production in the same place.
Chernihiv Region
Known pottery settlements in the Chernihiv region include Ich nia, Horodnia, Korop, Nizhyn, Oleshnia, Krolevets, Shatryshche, and others.
This region is also important because its local differences cannot be reduced to a single, generalised category of “Chernihiv ceramics”. In some centres, plain pottery predominated; in others, distinctive decorative techniques developed. This is precisely why a map of pottery should be read not through large administrative territories, but by moving gradually from the region to the individual settlement.
Podillia
Podillia is one of the most extensive areas of Ukrainian pottery production. The research dossier documents a broad network of centres: Bubnivka, Bar, Smotrych, Haisyn, Kiblich, Zherdenivka, Kryshchyntsi, Maidan-Bobryk, Shura-Bondurivska, Sharhorod, Mynkivtsi, and many others.
At the turn of the 20th century, publications cited estimates of more than 200 pottery centres in Podillia. Their products could differ even in terms of specialisation: some centres focused on bowls, others produced plain terracotta or glazed pottery, while still others combined several types of production.
This region clearly demonstrates that geographical proximity did not imply uniformity. Skills, vessel forms, decorative techniques, and even the names of particular methods could become established within a very small area.
Volhynia and Polissia
The Volhynian and Polissian areas are much less extensively documented in the sources, although they also had numerous pottery centres, including Rokyta, Dubrovytsia, Troianiv, Velyka Kletska, and others. Some centres are known, in particular, for their dark burnished and smoked pottery.
An important problem with this part of the map is the uneven availability of modern literature. Some information survives in older statistical descriptions and archival materials rather than in popular publications. For example, the research dossier records a specialised description of pottery in the Shepetivka district of Volhynia dating from 1927.
Galicia
In Galicia, pottery was practised in both towns and villages. Known centres include Sokal, Havarechchyna, Shpykolosy, Berezhany, Kopychyntsi, Tovste, and others.
The importance of local markets and fair trade is particularly evident here. In Berezhany, for example, sources document craft production as early as the early modern period, followed later by guilds and the sale of goods at local fairs.
Some centres maintained a highly distinctive technological specialisation. Havarechchyna became known for its black-smoked ceramics: more than a hundred craftspeople worked there in the 19th century, while at the beginning of the 20th century there were approximately forty potters working with seventy kilns.
Bukovyna
Pottery in Bukovyna was also diverse. Researchers distinguish two main production zones: a lowland zone in the northern part, in the Prut–Dniester interfluve, and a foothill zone in the south. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, a group of major centres existed here, including Sadgora, Kobolchyn, Vashkivtsi, Klishkivtsi, Khotyn, Hertsa, Malintsi, Storozhynets, Zastavna, and others.
Kobolchyn demonstrates just how large a rural pottery centre could become: approximately 200 potters were recorded there in the first third of the 20th century. The centre was known for its black-burnished pottery with simple geometric decoration.
Transcarpathia
Known pottery centres in Transcarpathia include Uzhhorod, Khust, Berehove, Myrcha, Vilkhivka, and others.
Vilkhivka is particularly interesting because of the longevity of its family tradition. Sources trace several generations of potters there and document the distinctive character of the local painted decoration. In the 20th century, traditional production continued in the form of cooperatives and workshops supplying inexpensive pottery to the local population.
Slobozhanshchyna
Slobozhanshchyna also had its own network of pottery centres: Nova Vodolaha, Izium, Valky, Pisky, Budy, Prosiane, Topolske, and Kharkiv. This historical region was also connected with individual centres in what is now Sumy region.
As with Podillia and the Middle Dnieper region, it would be misleading to look for a single “typical” product of Slobozhanshchyna. The sources document a variety of local forms and decorative techniques. It is precisely these local differences that make a map of pottery centres more informative than a simple list of administrative regions.
Why Here, Specifically?
If we reduce the different regions to their common denominator, the first essential condition was suitable raw material. But other factors cannot be explained by a single cause. There had to be sufficient demand for pottery, opportunities to sell it regularly at local markets and fairs, and, over time, accumulated experience, the transmission of the craft within families, specialisation among craftspeople, and a certain degree of production organisation. Where these conditions persisted long enough, pottery ceased to be merely one of several occupations practised by individuals and became a defining characteristic of the settlement itself.
The map of Ukrainian pottery is therefore, in effect, a map of local production systems. Major centres emerged where the craft could reproduce itself from one generation to the next. Only then did each place develop its own distinctive features: a particular product range, vessel forms, decorative methods, craftspeople, and customers.
At the same time, present-day administrative regions do not always correspond precisely to the historical geography of pottery. Many sources describe former counties, gubernias, historical and ethnographic regions, or local production zones.
How a Pottery Centre Operated
A pottery centre was more than just a place where many people knew how to work at the potter’s wheel. Behind the term lay a very concrete production system: where raw materials were obtained, where the work was carried out, where vessels were dried, how the kiln was loaded, who assisted the potter, and how the finished goods eventually reached the buyer.
In most traditional centres, clay was extracted nearby, from local clay pits. It could not simply be brought into the workshop and used immediately. The clay was left to mature, moistened, mixed, and cleaned of impurities. When necessary, different types of clay were blended to obtain a material with the required properties. Once prepared, the clay was divided into portions for individual pieces of work. A description of the pottery workshop in Holovkivka even identifies a specific clay extraction site: the Shkatulivka tract.
Workshops could also vary considerably in appearance. They were not necessarily separate, large buildings. In Holovkivka, a workshop is described as a structure partially sunk into the ground, with clay walls, two windows, and an iron roof. Inside were a kiln, potter’s wheels, and storage areas for finished pieces. The heat from the kiln also warmed the premises. In other words, the workshop combined a working space, storage area, and, in part, a production kiln within a single structure.
The scale of this production could be surprisingly large for a rural craft. In Holovkivka, 19 pottery workshops and 70 craftspeople were recorded in 1912. Owners of individual workshops employed four or five potters each. In Hnylets, 58 potters were counted in the same year. In Kobolchyn, Bukovyna, there were approximately 200 in the first third of the 20th century. These were no longer just a few people occasionally making pottery for their neighbours, but a significant part of the local economy.
At the same time, the word “potter” did not mean that one person performed every task from beginning to end. Traditionally, the principal craftsperson was a man, but production required numerous supporting operations. His wife and daughters might carry vessels, bring them to the kiln, and assist with drying and preparation for firing. Sources also document women who independently extracted and prepared clay, dried finished pieces, and sold them. In Vasylkiv during the first third of the 20th century, female decorators are mentioned separately.
Once shaped, the vessels had to be dried. In traditional home workshops, boards were installed beneath the ceiling for this purpose. The pieces could then be painted, glazed, or left unglazed, depending on local traditions and their intended use. After drying sufficiently, the vessels were loaded into the kiln and fired. Firing was itself a separate and demanding stage of production: a mistake at this point could ruin an entire batch.
The product range depended on what people needed to buy, and some centres developed specialised production. Potters made cooking pots, bowls, jugs, makitras, gourd-shaped vessels, small barrels, mugs, and other domestic wares. Some craftspeople specialised in bowls, while others produced particular types of decorative or utilitarian ceramics. In Hnylets, for example, a distinct group of potters specialising in bowls can be identified.
Selling the products was inseparable from the craft itself. In the simplest arrangement, the potter loaded the finished vessels and travelled to neighbouring villages. One source records the characteristic cry “Pots for sale!”, used by the seller to announce his arrival. Pottery was also taken to bazaars and fairs, where potters traded in designated rows.
Transporting large quantities of ceramics required specially adapted vehicles. In the Poltava region, potters used special carts with high wooden sides, known as oshchep, which increased the cart’s capacity and protected the goods from falling out. In Volhynia, a different system has been documented: wholesale intermediaries could collect fired pottery directly from the kiln. They arrived with their own horses, loaded the goods, and distributed them to other towns and townships.
Trade could be conducted both at retail and wholesale levels. In the second half of the 19th century, sources from Slobozhanshchyna record the growing importance of middlemen. A potter sold a batch of vessels to a dealer, who then took responsibility for further transport and sales at various bazaars and fairs. A special unit of wholesale accounting, known as the “potter’s hundred”, is also documented. It consisted of one hundred items, although the composition of the batch varied from one centre to another.
Money was not the only form of payment. In the Kharkiv and Chernihiv regions, sales “by measure” were well established: pottery was exchanged for grain or other agricultural produce. The quantity could be determined by the capacity of the vessel itself. Glazed wares could command a larger payment. Thus, within this system, a pot was not merely a commodity with a monetary price; its capacity effectively became a unit of exchange.
There is another detail that rarely appears in brief accounts of pottery. A sale did not always mean that all the goods were sold immediately. In Slobozhanshchyna, there are documented cases of potters leaving unsold wares in specially rented sheds near bazaars rather than continually transporting them back home. In Okhtyrka and Kotelva, even the amounts paid by craftspeople for such storage space are known.
Over time, the methods of distribution also changed. As markets expanded, it became uneconomical for a potter to travel from village to village with a small batch of goods. Middlemen took over part of this work: they purchased pottery from producers in bulk, transported it elsewhere, and sold it there. Some pottery centres thus effectively began serving not just customers near their workshops, but a much wider area.
A typical pottery centre is therefore best understood not as a few houses with potter’s wheels, but as a small economic system. It had designated areas for raw materials, working premises, kilns, people with different responsibilities, a product range, transport arrangements, and several distribution channels. In some places, the entire system remained within a single family; elsewhere, it developed into a workshop employing hired workers; and in larger centres, production could evolve into a guild-based, cooperative, or factory system.
Specific examples best demonstrate just how varied these systems could be. The Holovkivka workshop allows us to visualise the production space itself; Hnylets reveals the relationship between the number of craftspeople and their specialisations; Dybyntsi illustrates guild organisation and archival records; and Slobozhanshchyna reveals a more complex system of fair trading, storage, and intermediaries.
Ukrainian Potter at Work, Photograph from the Second Half of the 19th Century. Khv. Vovk, Studies in Ukrainian Anthropology and Ethnography, Prague, 1928
Regional Systems
When discussing the differences between pottery-producing regions, the easiest approach is to look at the pottery itself: one area has certain ornamental patterns, another has different ones; one uses glazing, another smoking. But to understand pottery centres, something else is more important — how production itself was organised.
The same domestic need could give rise to systems of entirely different scales. In some places, dozens of families worked in their own workshops and transported their goods to fairs themselves. Elsewhere, large workshops with hired workers emerged. In some areas, the craft relied primarily on family labour; in others, it was sustained by guilds, schools, cooperatives, or enterprises. Specialisation, sales methods, and the distance over which pottery was distributed also varied.
Poltava Region
The Poltava region provides an example of an area with a very dense network of pottery production. Opishnia, Khomutets, Komyshnia, Popivka, Velyka Hremiacha, and other centres existed not in isolation, but in connection with one another.
Production reached a particularly large scale in Opishnia. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, most of the potters in the Poltava region lived there, and approximately one in every three families was engaged in pottery. In 1885, the town held markets twice a week and four fairs a year. Pottery production was therefore integrated into an established local trading system.
Another characteristic of the Poltava region was the gradual development of more complex labour organisation. In the late 19th century, a model pottery training workshop established by the local zemstvo appeared in Opishnia. Throughout the 20th century, it successively developed into a school, workshop, cooperative, and factory.
The neighbouring settlement of Mali Budyshcha provides another revealing example. In 1893, it had 63 potters; in 1910, 76; and in 1926, pottery was practised in 73 households. A significant proportion of local craftspeople worked at enterprises in Opishnia. This was no longer simply a neighbouring settlement producing similar pottery, but effectively part of a broader production system.
Podillia
Podillia stands out for the scale and extensive reach of its pottery network. Sources refer to more than 200 centres at the turn of the 20th century. There was no single centre that could stand in for all the others. Bubnivka, Bar, Smotrych, Haisyn, Kiblich, Kryshchyntsi, Zherdenivka, Maidan-Bobryk, and many smaller settlements formed an extensive network.
One important characteristic of this system was the distribution of specialisations. In some centres, ordinary kitchenware predominated; in others, bowls were the main product; elsewhere, painted or glazed pottery developed. Specialisation could therefore be a characteristic not only of an individual craftsperson, but also of an entire settlement.
The Podillian network was also quite dynamic. Craftspeople trained in other centres, and techniques passed from one centre to another. For example, sources trace connections between Kiblich and Bubnivka through craftspeople and apprentices. Meanwhile, Smotrych maintained a very old guild tradition, documented as far back as the 16th century and continuing into the 20th century.
Podillia should therefore be viewed not as a single “Podillian style”, but as a large network of small production schools and specialised centres connected through people and trade.
Volhynia
The Volhynian system is considerably less well documented in current research. Rokyta, Dubrovytsia, Troianiv, Velyka Kletska, and other centres are known, but the sources currently available do not yet provide a complete picture of how their production was organised.
There are, however, some interesting details. Rokyta belongs to a group of centres where dark burnished or smoked pottery was produced. Certain archival descriptions from the early 20th century suggest that Volhynian pottery was part of a broader trading system in which goods could travel far beyond the village where they were made.
Trade is a particularly important subject for further research into Volhynia. Available materials mention wholesale dealers who travelled directly to producers with their horses, purchased pottery, and transported it elsewhere. This was a different model from potters making their own trips to local markets: the craftsperson sold a batch of goods, while an intermediary took responsibility for its further distribution.
There is still much to investigate here, especially in older ethnographic and statistical descriptions of Volhynia. These may provide a far more precise picture than contemporary popular publications.
Galicia
Galicia reveals yet another combination of production models. Urban craft centres, rural pottery settlements, and specialised production facilities existed simultaneously.
Potters are documented in Sokal as early as the 16th century. In 1784, seven potters were recorded among the town's 155 craftspeople, and in 1811, a pottery workshop employing seven workers was mentioned separately.
A very different scale of production can be seen in Havarechchyna. More than 100 craftspeople worked there in the 19th century, while at the beginning of the 20th century there were approximately 40 potters operating 70 kilns. The centre specialised in black-smoked ceramics.
Thus, within a single region, an urban craft-based model, a small workshop, and a large rural production centre with dozens of kilns could coexist. Galician pottery had no single organisational model.
Bukovyna
For Bukovyna, the geographical grouping of pottery centres is as important as the list of settlements itself. Research identifies two major zones: the northern lowland zone and the southern foothill zone. Known centres include Kobolchyn, Malintsi, Khotyn, Klishkivtsi, and others.
Kobolchyn provides a particularly striking example of large-scale rural craft production. In the first third of the 20th century, approximately 200 potters were counted there — roughly one in every three households. The main products were cooking pots, jugs, and bowls. Sources also mention numerous pottery families with several generations of craftspeople, as well as the participation of women in the trade.
Technological diversity was another characteristic of Bukovyna. Alongside terracotta and glazed pottery, black-smoked and black-burnished ceramics were also produced. This makes it possible to trace not merely separate “styles”, but the distribution of different production traditions across distinct parts of the region.
Transcarpathia
In the available sources, the pottery system of Transcarpathia is most clearly documented through individual families and local centres. Known centres include Uzhhorod, Khust, Berehove, Myrcha, and Vilkhivka.
Vilkhivka illustrates a model in which the craft was sustained for a long time through hereditary transmission. Sources identify several generations of local craftspeople, including the Halas family. In the 20th century, production continued through cooperatives and workshops making affordable domestic pottery for the local population.
This region clearly demonstrates how the organisational form of a tradition could change without the tradition itself disappearing immediately. First came the family workshop, followed by collective production, while local skills and product ranges continued to be used, at least in part.
What This Comparison Reveals
Looking at these regions together makes it clear why simply dividing Ukraine into “zones with different ceramics” is not enough.
The Poltava region demonstrates the concentration of large-scale production around a strong centre and the gradual transition towards educational and industrial forms.
Podillia reveals an extensive network of numerous centres with pronounced internal specialisation.
Volhynia is currently best understood through individual accounts of trade and technology, but requires further archival research.
Galicia demonstrates the coexistence of urban craft workshops and large, specialised rural centres.
Bukovyna illustrates extensive family-based production systems and the geographical division of different pottery traditions between distinct zones.
Transcarpathia highlights the strong role of hereditary transmission and the subsequent adaptation of local production to the cooperative model.
aThe overall picture of Ukrainian pottery is clearly visible on a map. But a map does not show how a particular village or town actually operated. For that, it is more useful to select several centres and examine them closely: how many craftspeople worked there, where they worked, how their workshops were organised, what they produced, how they sold their goods, and what eventually happened to this production.
I would deliberately avoid creating identical “portraits” of every centre. Each of the examples below has its own reason for being included.
Dybyntsi: When Documents Tell the Story of a Craft
Dybyntsi in the Kyiv region is particularly valuable because an unusually rich documentary record has survived. By the late 17th century, a potters’ brotherhood or guild had formed in the village, bringing together not only local craftspeople but also potters from neighbouring villages. The centre had therefore already extended beyond a handful of individual households.
The most interesting discovery came much later. In 2016, researcher Oksana Kovalenko discovered documents belonging to the Dybyntsi potters’ guild in the Manuscript Institute of the Vernadsky National Library of Ukraine. Ceramics researchers had not previously known that these documents existed. They include guild registers from 1744–1770 and 1779–1817. In 2019, the materials were published in a separate 496-page volume.
This case is particularly important for our subject: it allows us to investigate not only the objects themselves, but also the organisation of the craft — the people involved, guild regulations, documentary records, and connections with the surrounding area. Moreover, industrial production later emerged in the same centre: between 1811 and 1828, the Branicki faience factory operated there, with the source recording 105 serf workers.
Dybyntsi therefore offers a rare opportunity to trace the long history of a single place — from guild-based craft production to large-scale manufacturing, and eventually to the modern study of the centre itself.
Holovkivka: A Workshop We Can Literally Picture
Holovkivka in the Cherkasy region is interesting for an entirely different reason. Here, we have a description not of a general “tradition”, but of a specific workshop.
One workshop is described as a structure partially sunk into the ground, with clay walls, two windows, and an iron roof. Inside were a kiln, potter’s wheels, and storage areas for finished pieces. The location where the clay was extracted is also identified: the Shkatulivka tract.
By local standards, these workshops could be quite large. Owners employed four or five potters each. In 1912, Holovkivka had 19 pottery workshops and 70 craftspeople.
This challenges the widespread image of traditional rural pottery as a single craftsperson sitting at a wheel in their own home. In some places, small enterprises had already emerged, with an owner organising the work of several people.
Another small detail reveals the practical nature of these premises: the kiln provided heat, allowing the workshop to be used for work throughout different seasons.
Hnylets: A Centre That Can Be Measured
Hnylets is particularly valuable because of its statistics. In 1912, there were 58 potters working there. By the 1930s, their number had fallen to around 30; by the late 1960s, only six remained; and by the early 1980s, there was just one.
These figures reveal not merely the decline of the craft, but a change in its role within village life. At its peak, pottery was a significant part of the local economy. The product range consisted mainly of domestic wares — cooking pots, jugs, makitras, gourd-shaped vessels, and bowls. Specialisation also existed within the centre, with some craftspeople concentrating on bowls.
It is also worth examining not only the number of potters but the character of their products. Plain pottery was decorated with opyska, a technique involving the application of slip, while painted pottery featured underglaze decoration. Floral and geometric motifs, as well as images of birds, were used.
Hnylets illustrates a simple but important point: a centre can disappear even when the objects it produced do not become obsolete. Cooking pots, bowls, and jugs remain useful, but when fewer people can earn a living making them, the production system can contract very rapidly.
Smotrych: When a Guild Tradition Lasts for Centuries
Smotrych in Podillia offers a different kind of history. The town received Magdeburg rights in 1448, and a potter was already mentioned in tax records from the first half of the 16th century. A guild organisation later existed there, and the tradition of guild customs can be traced into the 1980s.
Here, it is particularly important not to confuse the long survival of a craft with the unchanging nature of its form. Pottery could continue in the same settlement while the organisation of work, product range, tools, and economics changed.
Smotrych is therefore interesting not simply as a “very old centre”, but as a place where the continuity of a professional community can be traced across different historical periods.
Sokal: A Small Workshop and a Possible Local School
Potters are documented in Sokal, Galicia, as early as the 16th century. In 1784, seven potters were recorded among the town’s 155 craftspeople. In 1811, a source mentions a separate pottery workshop employing seven people.
This represents an interesting intermediate scale. We are dealing with more than a single craftsperson, but not yet a large enterprise. A separate workshop with several workers demonstrates how pottery could be organised as a small production unit.
The researcher also presents arguments supporting the existence of a local Sokal school associated with several generations of craftspeople. This is a case where the term “school” should be used cautiously: not as the name of a formal educational institution, but as a hypothesis about a stable local tradition transmitted between craftspeople.
Vilkhivka: The Craft as a Family Enterprise
In Vilkhivka, Transcarpathia, the sources allow us to trace several generations of potters. They include Vasyl Demchyk, Mykhailo Kailo, Ivan Borotkanych, and several generations of the Halas family. Among the known craftspeople were Vasyl Halas (1893–1943), as well as Mykhailo, Ivan, and Vasyl Halas.
This centre clearly demonstrates another foundation of pottery production: the transmission of the profession within families. Craftsmanship did not have to be reinvented by each individual artisan; it was passed down through successive generations.
In the 20th century, this system changed its form. During the Soviet period, cooperatives and workshops were established in Vilkhivka, producing inexpensive domestic pottery for the local population.
An old centre, therefore, did not necessarily disappear when the home workshop ceased to be the primary unit of production. Some of the local knowledge could be transferred into a new organisational structure.
Kobolchyn: When Pottery Becomes a Village-Wide Occupation
Kobolchyn in Bukovyna perhaps offers the clearest picture of the scale a rural pottery system could reach. In the first third of the 20th century, approximately 200 potters were counted there — roughly one in every three households.
Cooking pots, jugs, and bowls were the main products in demand. Production was associated with black-burnished pottery and simple geometric decoration. Sources also document numerous pottery dynasties and the participation of women in the craft.
At this level of concentration, pottery effectively became part of the economic structure of the entire village. This is an important distinction from the idea of a craft as a specialised occupation practised by just a handful of professionals.
At the same time, Kobolchyn illustrates the vulnerability of such a system. When the younger generation stops entering the craft, it is not just one craftsperson who disappears — an entire network of families, kilns, skills, and local demand begins to break down.
These seven stories are deliberately not reduced to a single conclusion. Dybyntsi illustrates guild organisation and a documented professional community; Holovkivka reveals the physical space of the workshop and the use of hired labour; Hnylets shows numerical change and specialisation; Smotrych demonstrates long-term guild continuity; Sokal offers an example of a small workshop and a possible local school; Vilkhivka highlights hereditary transmission; and Kobolchyn reveals the scale of rural craft production.
Together, they demonstrate the essential point: a pottery centre had no single standard size or organisational model. For this reason, the next logical step is to examine separately what happened to these systems during the 20th century — why some adapted to new conditions while others disappeared.
Fair, 1897–1900. City of Chernihiv. Photograph by Mykola Mohyliansky
What Remains of the Pottery Centres
On an old map of pottery centres, hundreds of dots could be marked. On a modern map, some of them would appear only as names in an encyclopaedia, museum attributions, or references in old ethnographic descriptions. This is a natural outcome for a craft that was once part of a village’s everyday economy but later lost a substantial part of its domestic market.
Until the 20th century, ordinary clay pottery was a mass-market commodity. As it was increasingly replaced by factory-made faience, porcelain, metalware, and other industrial products, the very foundations of many small centres began to disappear. Further changes followed in the organisation of rural life, access to raw materials and fuel, the dismantling of private production, and the transition of some craftspeople to cooperatives and factories. By the 1970s–1990s, only a few individual potters remained in many former centres.
The figures illustrate this particularly clearly. Hnylets had 58 potters in 1912, around 30 in the 1930s, six in the late 1960s, and one in the early 1980s. In Havarechchyna, the number of craftspeople fell from more than a hundred in the 19th century to just four in the 1980s.
But the disappearance of mass production did not automatically mean the disappearance of everything associated with a pottery centre.
In some places, individual craftspeople and families remained, continuing to work within local traditions. This is particularly evident in Kosiv. UNESCO describes contemporary Kosiv ceramics as a tradition sustained in family-run and small craft workshops. Knowledge is passed on within families, through training, museum activities, and workshops; Kosiv Professional College plays a distinct role in transmitting skills to the next generation. The tradition of Kosiv painted ceramics was inscribed on UNESCO’s Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2019.
Another path was the transition from utilitarian pottery to artistic ceramics. Where an ordinary household pot could no longer provide work for dozens of families, some centres adapted to new forms of demand. Product ranges changed, the proportion of decorative objects increased, and cooperatives, enterprises, and arts and crafts schools emerged. This was the path followed, in particular, by Opishnia and Kosiv during the 20th century.
Opishnia is a particularly illustrative example today. Not only museum collections and the houses of former craftspeople have survived there. The National Museum-Reserve continues to offer educational programmes: in 2026, Opishnia hosted the International E-Summer Academy of Pottery, featuring practical work, workshops, potter’s wheels, and firing kilns.
Alongside the living practice, another important layer has survived: the environment of memory. Memorial homesteads of craftspeople have been preserved in Opishnia, including those of the Poshyvailo family and Oleksandra Seliuchenko. These are more than collections of museum objects. Together with the houses, workshops, tools, and personal belongings, they reveal the environment in which pottery was practised.
The production histories of individual settlements are also beginning to be preserved. Dybyntsi has published guild documentation from the 18th–19th centuries; a description of a specific workshop survives for Holovkivka; and Hnylets has statistical records showing the number of craftspeople in different decades.
For many other centres, such records are not yet available. This, too, is part of the present situation. We know that these centres existed; sometimes their products, the names of craftspeople, or individual descriptions have survived, but we still lack a complete history of production. Significant gaps remain, particularly for Volhynia, parts of Transcarpathia, Bukovyna, and numerous small centres in Podillia and Galicia. The research dossier explicitly points to the need to consult older statistics, archives, regional publications, and museum catalogues.
There is one important point to remember when looking at old domestic pottery: the place where an object has survived or was acquired is not necessarily the place where it was made.
At first glance, the procedure might seem straightforward: pottery is found in a particular village, so the village is recorded and marked on the map. But a potter might have sold the vessels far from their village, a dealer might have transported them even farther, and a museum might have acquired an object many years later, without its original context. Therefore, a modern list of pottery centres cannot be compiled solely on the basis of where museum objects are now located.
Many different things have survived from the old network. In some places, workshops are still operating; elsewhere, individual craftspeople or families preserve the craft. There are training centres, museums, archival documents, and surviving technologies. The pottery itself has also survived, sometimes in considerable quantities. Yet for some villages, too little is currently known to reconstruct their pottery history adequately.
A map of former centres therefore shows more than just where potters once worked. It can reveal what survived the disappearance of the craft’s former economic system: an object, a technology, a family, a workshop, a school, or a document.
The distinction is quite significant. A few surviving objects can provide material for reconstructing a history. A craftsperson or family can preserve part of a tradition. A village name alone tells us much less, but it still indicates where to look next.
Sometimes, therefore, what remains on the map is not a complete history, but merely its trace. That is not enough to draw a conclusion, but it is quite enough to know where to continue the search.
Fair in Pochaiv
Sorochynsky Fair, 1920s. Photographs from the collections of the V. H. Zabolotny State Scientific Architectural and Construction Library
Sorochynsky Fair, 1920s. Photographs from the collections of the V. H. Zabolotny State Scientific Architectural and Construction Library