Marie's Magic Eggs: How Marie Procai Kept the Ukrainian Art of Pysanky Alive

Illustrator Evan Turk’s exquisite, brilliant artwork and author Sandra Neil Wallace’s poignant, historically relevant narrative capture the extraordinary life of a Ukrainian girl who grew up in anonymity, yet became the driving force to keep the Ukrainian art of pysanky alive throughout the world.

As a young girl, Marie’s favorite tradition at Easter was making pysanky, beautifully decorated eggs, with Baba, her grandmother, in the same way Ukrainians had been doing for centuries. Baba had taught Marie everything she needed to know about drawing designs on the eggs, creating colorful dyes, dipping the eggs in different colors, and about the legend that claimed that “as long as pysanky are decorated, there will be good in the world.” Intently, Marie “sketched a story, a wish, a prayer, a gift. Symbols of swirling, golden wheat. Blue flowers for beauty. Rays of sunshine, streaming bright. Roosters clucking at the sky.”

Marie was sure she and Baba would always be together to make pysanky. But her hopes were dashed a few years later when fighting and famine plagued her village and country. Marie, then 13, traveled to America alone, following in her brothers’ footsteps. Eventually settling in Minneapolis, Marie worked hard and learned English, but the yearning to make pysanky pursued her.

Through times of deprivation, Marie’s efforts to preserve the art of pysanky “took root in America.” Marie found her place in the Ukrainian community in Minneapolis, helped to build a Ukrainian church, met her future husband, and raised a family. During the chaos of WWI, in which her son was killed, and while she worked to resettle Ukrainian refugees after the war in her American hometown, Marie taught people how to make pysanky. Starting at home, her business soon expanded as Marie and her daughters invented the first pysanky kits. They eventually established the Ukrainian Gift Shop. In an author’s note, Sandra Neil Wallace writes, “The shop has never closed. During Russia's attempts to erase Ukrainian identity by bombing cultural sites and artifacts, Marie’s grandchildren and great-grandchildren continued to share the love of pysanky with people around the world using the same techniques that Marie taught their parents and grandparents.”

In 1994, Marie died at the age of 96. Her legacy lives on.

(Calkins Creek)