Headgear of the Russian Woman in the 15th-17th Centuries

Abstract

The integration of data from visual, written, and archaeological sources has let us delineate the general typology and line of evolution of Russian woman’s headgear in the 15th-17th centuries. Draped headgear in the 15th century developed toward the wrapped form with mounting turns and then toward volosnik. By the eve of the 15th-16th centuries, the component headgear (podubrusnik, cover, volosnik, kika) had formed, volosnik being the most rational part of it and becoming the base for different caps. Some forms of the 16th-17th-centuries solid headgear can be regarded as types of kokoshnik. In the 15th-17th centuries, there existed a kind of wedding headgear – kika – with toothed tier. The tradition of wearing the open toothed crown of the Byzantine and Old Russian type was interrupted in the 16th century. The open crenate crown remained in the suit of tsarist family girls. A new type of tsarina’s crown formed as a result of combining volosnik and kika.