At various times in Guyana’s past, Europeans of Spanish, French, British and Dutch nationalities occupied this country, so they are integral to the subsequent formation of our unique nationhood, and traces of their occupation are reflected in various aspects of the unique Guyanese culture. Featured here are some of the ethnic wear of various European and Portuguese nationalities.
Spain (including Galician Celts):
The famous Spanish costumes are unique to the Iberian peninsula, expressing the Portuguese’ and Spaniards’ distinct heritage and sovereignty. It must be acknowledged that each sub-national identity in Spain has its own national costume and visual heritage. Andalusia, the Catalans, the Basques, and the “Celts” of Galicia have their own costumes. Galicia in the northwest, whose inhabitants consider themselves descendents of the Celtoiberians and not of the mainland Spaniards, have a unique costume shocking to many because it is almost identical to that of the Ku Klux Klan.

Portugal:
Portuguese costume reveals a cultural and ethnic link to their Spanish brothers, with slight divergences to reflect Portugal’s longer and distinct history. It is, interestingly, similar in many ways to Basque dress.

Basque Country:
The Basques of northern Spain attempt to use their bizarrely unique national dress as an outlet to express their independent history, customs, and tradition as the only surviving Spanish community free of Latin historic influence.

Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Iceland, Finland (includes Saami tribes)
All of Scandinavia wears a common or similar dress largely influenced by Denmark and Germany because of centuries of shared rule by the Danes (greatly influenced by their German relatives to the south). Finland’s dress is related to the Swedish a common heritage springing from nearly 600 years of Swedish rule.

The Saami tribes of northern Scandinavia have a very unique dress of their own because of their isolation from Germanic culture to the south. Their ethnicity is the same.

Greece:
The Greek costume is highly unique, with no other country similar to it. Greeks are very proud of their military tradition, and treat these costume-donning regulars on the public squares of Athens with great respect.

Italy:
Italy’s costumes are diverse, reflecting Italy’s history as a nation seldom unified throughout its history, though its regions retain the same ethnicity and culture.

Ireland, Scotland, Wales:
Irish, Welsh, and Scottish costumes are unique in their shared attempt to praise their common Celtic heritage. The Scottish costume has more northern English influence.

Scottish costumes are famous and unique from Irish ones.

Welsh costumes are unique as a Celtic-rooted uniform with a unique hat.

Slovenia:
Slovene costumes are unusual in their own, though very similar to their Slavic cousins in Croatia to the southeast. There is a presence of German influence in the male legging, a legacy of Austrian rule for five centuries.

Malta:
Maltese costumes are incredibly unique, reflecting the island nation’s distinct history as an independent people. They are largely believed to be related genetically to the Italians and Mediterannean peoples with a similar culture, though they speak a language related to Arabic that they inherited either from the ancient Phoenecians or from the conquering Muslim Arabs. We see some Italian, Greek, and Turkish influence in their dress.

Bosnia:
Bosnia’s costumes are very different due to their unusual history in the Balkans. They are a Slavic people speaking a Slavic language, though some 40% of their population is nominally Islamic due to nearly 500 years of Turkish rule and often forced conversion. Thus, we see a slight Turkish style in their clothing.

Albania:
As Europe’s sole Muslim-majority nation (Albania is 70% Muslim, though highly nominal), Albanian clothing is expresses blatant Turkish influences as a result of nearly 500 years of Ottoman rule following the victory of their jihad against Gjergj Skanderbeg. We see some Greek and Slavic influences also, preceding the Islamic assault.

Serbia, Montenegro:
Serbia as one of Europe’s proudest Slavic peoples has a distinctly Slavic traditional dress generally free of foreign influence, reflecting Serbs’ historic resilience to foreign conquest even during hundreds of years of Turkish Ottoman rule. Montenegrins, an independent nation yet again after 2006 after breaking from Serbia, have largely the same genetic, cultural, and linguistic heritage as the Serbs, but a distinct history and costume. Montenegro was one of the few Balkan states to remain free from the Ottoman orbit (typically called “Zeta”), but was included into Yugoslavia in 1918 and again under the socialist union after 1944.

Montenegrin costumes:
Macedonia:
Macedonia’s dress is very different from any other culture in Europe. As a very young social identity of Slavs that now retrojectively considers itself the descendants of the ancient Macedonians (and Alexander the Great in many Macedonians’ minds), Macedonians have created a dress reflecting their independence from Yugoslavia. Due to its geography, we see Greek, Albanian, and Turkish elements alongside their native Slavic heritage. It is among the most encumbering of European costumes.

Bulgaria:
Bulgarian traditional dress is unique in its own, but strongly Slavic like its people. There is a wide diversity in their costumes for men and women, reflecting a proud and long familial tradition in Europe’s oldest Slavic nation. Cities like Varna take great pride in their costumes, and many families still personally knit one for their weddings.

Romania, Moldova:
Romanian dresses are highly unique, presenting a variety of influences from the Turkish Muslims, Slavs, and even the Gypsies (Roma) throughout their long history. Moldovan costumes are highly similar (though also diverse) because of the common history, culture, and language Moldova and Romania (Wallachia) have shared. Many are quite regional, with Roma in certain regions possessing costumes that look dramatically different from those in another county. For more information, visit the following links:
http://www.romanianmuseum.com/Romania/RomaniaEthnoBANATses.htm and
http://www.portpopular.ro/catalog-costume.htm and here
http://www.muzeul-etnografic.ro/expozitia-permanenta/portul-popular.php
(thanks to Sasha-Liviu Stoianovici for his contribution)

Czech, Slovak:
Czech and Slovak costumes display regional variation due to these two peoples’ distinct political and geographic history, despite their almost identical genetic and linguistic heritage. The Czech and Bohemian people spent most of their history under German rule after centuries of proud independence, whilst the Slovaks were ruled by the Hungarians until the destruction of Austria-Hungary in 1918. Hungary was ceremonially under German (Habsburg) political and therefore cultural rule, since the Germans were the wealthiest component of the empire. As a result, both Czech and Slovak costumes demonstrate German influence, but there are still noticeable regional and Hungarian influences on Slovak costumes.

Poland:
Polish costumes are unique, though distinctly Slavic. Poland as one of the oldest and proudest Slavic countries delivered influence on many of the neighboring Slavic cultures. There is also significant regional variation in the different regions where ethnic Poles live, such as Ukraine (Galicia), Lithuania, and Silesia.

Lithuania:
Lithuanian costumes are unique and divergent from all other neighboring costumes in their historic effort to promote and create a distinct culture seeking freedom from Soviet and Polish influence. They are unusually simple.

Latvia:
Latvian costumes are relatively simple and warm due to their very cold climate. We see many influences in their national dress, including those reflecting historic occupant nations (Poland, Russia, Sweden, Germany), and also unique characteristics in their attempt to build a unique culture to encourage their independence from Russia.

Belarus:
Belarusian costumes are largely derived from Russian and other regional influences, reflecting their strong Slavic heritage. We see great similarities to Polish costumes due to the fact that the Slavs of the region (there was no Belarusian identity) were under Polish-Lithuanian rule for nearly 400 years.

Hungary:
Hungarian dress is unique because of the long history of Hungary as a major independent European power. During the eclipse of Hungary’s independence due to the devastating invasion of Hungary by the Ottoman jihad, and during 400 years of German rule in the Austrian Empire (1526-1918), Hungarian identity remained strongly independent. The Hungarians were given political and ethnic status second only to the Germans in this massive multi-ethnic empire, and thus the Hungarians spent most of their time as subjects to the Germans defining themselves as a separate community. Hungarians remain proud equestrians, harking back to their heritage as steppe riders who entered the Hungarian plain from the Ural Mountains over a millennium ago before settling to become one of the most magnificent powers of Eastern Europe.

Estonia:
Estonian dress is unique despite their cultural, religious (Lutheran), ethnic, and linguistic similarities with their Finnish brothers to the north. Their distinct features in their dress reflect Estonia’s struggle against foreign occupants (Russians, Poles, Lithuanians, etc.). Naturally, there is great Scandinavian/Germanic influence, but also evident influence from the Poles, likely proliferated through Polish-ruled Latvia/Livonia because the Poles never ruled Estonia.

Ukraine:
Ukrainian costumes, like their culture, are linked to other Slavic ones, particularly Russian, but their distinct historical hardships due to national, religious, and socioeconomic conflicts has caused the formation of a separate Ukrainian identity. Due to changing political boundaries and migration, ethnic Ukrainian minorities (Rus, Ruthenes, Rusyn) populate some of eastern Poland, Moldova, Romania, and Russia. There is blatant variation across these regional communities. The region of Galicia, straddling Poland and Ukraine and previously split between two bitter rival Ukrainian and Polish populations that mutually engaged in ethnic cleansing throughout the early 20th century, was mostly transferred to the Ukrainian SSR after 1939 and again in 1945 by the Soviet Union. Marked differences are present in this region, as well as Central Ukraine, that diverge from the standard.
(Thanks to Ms. Herasymenko for the picture corrections)

from the New York Ukrainian Festival
Russia:
Russian traditional dress are unique, but closely linked to other Slavic cultures’ national costumes. They are some of the most varied of all European costumes.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
James Mayfield is a historian and the Chairman of the European Heritage Library. I have a Cum Laude BA in History with a Minor in Germanic Studies (language and history), am presently working for my Masters in History, and plan to immediately progress to my PhD Doctorate. I have a special academic interest in Europe’s diverse ethnic identities, languages, and cultures, and the political struggles of native European and immigrant minority identities. See my staff entry for more information.

BIBLIOGRAPHY/SOURCES USED:
The images are scattered all throughout the internet, with many being from government sites about culture, with others being from blogs, and others from photographers. Due to the wide circulation of these images, it is almost impossible to give credit to the original sources of the works. None is the property of the European Heritage Library. If you find an image that is yours and you demand we give your website credit, feel free to notify us immediately.