The Boikos are a Slavic people currently living in Transcarpathia, that is, the Carpathian Mountains and surrounding regions. Their homeland in southwestern ukraine is known as Boikivshchyna; their East Slavic dialect is known as Boiko. To their west are the Lemkos, and to the east, the Hutsuls. All three groups of Slavs, who speak distinct dialects, are among the people known as Rusyns, or Carpartho-Rusyns.
Boikos refer to themselves as Verkhovyntsi for “mountain people,” a name that distinguishes them from a branch tribe to the south, the Dolyniany, the “valley people”; both are agricultural people who typically made their homes in Carpathian valleys. The Tukhol’tsi are a Boikian subtribe who live around present-day Skole. Slavs lived in the region as early as the late fifth century c. e.; the exact time the Boikos assumed a distinct identity is not known.
All three groups, isolated from other peoples, have preserved ukrainian traditional agricultural culture in terms of rituals, tools, architecture, and clothing. They still make use of kadovby, clay receptacles for grain. Their wooden homes typically share the same roof as the farm buildings. The Dolyniany typically live in two-room houses, with an entranceway and a single room. The Boikos are known as cattle breeders; the Tukhol’tsi, as merchants.
See also Ukrainians: nationality.
World History
