Kontush belt ("kontusz sash" or the ''Slutsk sash''; lt, kontušo juosta, be, слуцкi пояс) was a cloth

sash A sash is a large and usually colorful ribbon or band of material worn around the body, either draping from one shoulder to the opposing hip and back up, or else running around the waist. The sash around the waist may be worn in daily attire, bu ...

used for girding a kontusz (a robe-like garment). It was one of the most distinctive items of male dress of Polish and Lithuanian nobility ('' szlachta'') from about 17th through the 19th centuries. In an earlier period, sometimes narrower sashes of fine cloth or silk net were worn, but the wide kontusz sash is specific to the later period.

Origins

Like the rest of Polish national dress, the kontusz sash was of eastern origin. It comprised a 3- to 4.5-meter-long strip of fabric covered with varied designs, around 40 cm wide. Luxurious sashes were made with

silk Silk is a natural protein fiber, some forms of which can be woven into textiles. The protein fiber of silk is composed mainly of fibroin and is produced by certain insect larvae to form cocoons. The best-known silk is obtained from the ...

and

gold Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile me ...

. Depending on the sash's width, it might be folded a number of ways so as to reveal various designs on various occasions, the most ornate sashes were considered to have four sides. Initially such sashes were imported from

Persia Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...

and

Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with a small portion on the Balkan Peninsula in ...

. In the 17th century several sash

manufactories A factory, manufacturing plant or a production plant is an industrial facility, often a complex consisting of several buildings filled with machinery, where workers manufacture items or operate machines which process each item into another. ...

were founded at places all over ''

Rzeczpospolita () is the official name of Poland and a traditional name for some of its predecessor states. It is a compound of "thing, matter" and "common", a calque of Latin ''rés pública'' ( "thing" + "public, common"), i.e. ''republic'', in Engli ...

'', such as Kobyłka, Lipków,

Hrodna Grodno (russian: Гродно, pl, Grodno; lt, Gardinas) or Hrodna ( be, Гродна ), is a city in western Belarus. The city is located on the Neman River, 300 km (186 mi) from Minsk, about 15 km (9 mi) from the Polish b ...

Kraków Kraków (), or Cracow, is the second-largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in Lesser Poland Voivodeship, the city dates back to the seventh century. Kraków was the official capital of Poland until 1596 ...

and Gdańsk. The largest and most notable manufacturies, however, were at

Slutsk Slutsk ( officially transliterated as Sluck, be, Слуцк; russian: Слуцк; pl, Słuck, lt, Sluckas, Yiddish/Hebrew: סלוצק ''Slutsk'') is a city in Belarus, located on the Sluch River south of Minsk. As of 2022, its population i ...

. Sashes produced there were considered the most desirable and were also the most expensive. Because of the popularity of the ''pas kontuszowy'' produced there, it was sometimes called ''pas słucki'' (Slutsk sash), regardless of the actual place of origin. Slutsk (city of

) sashes had two different color patterns on each side. A modern Polish poet and a singer,

Jacek Kaczmarski Jacek Marcin Kaczmarski (22 March 1957 – 10 April 2004) was a Polish singer, songwriter, poet and author. Life He was the son of painter Anna Trojanowska-Kaczmarska, a Pole of Jewish background, and the artist Janusz Kaczmarski. Kaczmarski ...

, has sung about those sashes in one of his ballads, ''Z pasa słuckiego pożytek'' (The uses of a Slutsk sash). Slutsk sash is declared to be a

cultural heritage of Belarus The cultural heritage of Belarus includes both material and immaterial assets (valuables), in accordance with the Law on Protection of Historical and Cultural Heritage of the Republic of Belarus (2006). Material historical and cultural assets, mo ...

. Kontush Sash an Attribute of a Nobleman. The Kontush Sash (belt) has an oriental provenance rooted in Persian and Turkish tradition. Continual contact between the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and Persia and even more with Turkey developed vast trade roots and raised popular interest in oriental art and decoration all over “Eastern” Europe. The Ideology of Sarmathism created in the XVIc a wide super-ethnos embracing many Central European nations. The Kontush Belt was a visual manifestation of Sarmathian identity and was widely popular in Lithuania and Belarus, in Poland, Ukraine, Hungary, Saxony, Moldavia, Besarabia and some parts of Russia. Kontush belts were worn by the Nobility, Cossack elders and high municipal officials. The time of prosperity during the period of XVI – XVIIIc created surplus financial resources often channeled into culture, art and decoration. Polish Armenian merchants imported objects of luxury: oriental carpets, weapons decorated with gold and stones, expensive fabrics. Kontush belts especially emphasized the status of the bearer and were unusually expensive. At a certain moment the demand for Kontush belts became so large that it was necessary to open local manufacturing on the territory of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. The workshops producing Kontush Belts in Slutsk, Grodno, Lvov, Vilnius, Buchach, Kobylki, Kraków, Gdansk, Lipkow were opened mostly by Polish–Lithuanian Armenians. The belts that were made there still had a lot of oriental ornamentation, but had their own distinct character – different from the belts formerly imported from Persia and Turkey. There was a practical aspect to the belt as well. Folded in half and wrapped around the body, it served as a pocket for money and documents. Most belts are about 30 cm wide and around 3,5m long. As a result of the weaving technique – one side of the belt was a negative of the other. This way it was possible for the belt to have two different color schemes (so called two-sided belt). Further division of the belt allowed for four color compositions (four-sided belt). The price of the belt depended on the materials used (sometimes they added silver and gold thread). The complexity of the design raised the price even more since it required more complicated manufacturing machinery, higher qualifications of the craftsmen and a longer production cycle. The four-sided belts were the most expensive. They were meant to be worn on different occasions: bright side – for weddings, dark side for funerals, green side for the green kontush etc. Very often the belt served as a table decoration – it was placed on the center atop the table cloth.

References

External links

;Pictures *https://web.archive.org/web/20060306184828/http://www.mnw.art.pl/Zbiory/stefan%20for%20web/pas%20kontuszowy.html *https://web.archive.org/web/20070311022045/http://www.muzeum.slupsk.pl/grafika/galeria/duze/s751.jpg *http://img.interia.pl/encyklopedia/nimg/kontusz15.jpg *https://web.archive.org/web/20080512064601/http://monika.univ.gda.pl/~literat/kitowic/pas.htm *https://web.archive.org/web/20070310214025/http://www.nova-polska.pl/fr/site/program/wy_in_splendor_poloniae/fo_dijon_pas_kontuszowy.jpg

Origins

See also

References

External links

Further reading