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Novgorod, Constantinople, and Kiev in Old Russian Church Architecture

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 June 2017

Kenneth John Conant
Kenneth John Conant*
Affiliation:
Harvard University
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Extract

Russian ecclesiastical architecture presents a very interesting study in artistic geography, and its monuments typify, with unusual fidelity, the various episodes in the development of Russia itself. The lusty northern strength, the mystical Byzantine piety, and a haunting orientalism are all expressed in the church buildings, and the long development which brought them into organic architectural unity is a fascinating one to follow. Its theme is a curious counterchange of northern and southern elements, both affected (in varying degrees) by the East.

Christianity filtered into the old heart-land of Russia from the south, but the first churches of all, modest indeed, were doubtless built in the local northern “vernacular” architecture of shed-like units. Early evidence of various kinds indicates an underlying architecture of this sort in Ireland (seventh century), the Carolingian Empire (eighth century, figure 1), Britain (tenth century), and Scandinavia (eleventh century) — if not before, in each case.

Type
Research Article
Information
Slavonic and East European Review American Series , Volume 3 , Issue 2 , August 1944 , pp. 75 - 92
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies 1944

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References

1 They are well analyzed and illustrated with traditional basic units, in Krasovski, M., Kurs Istorii Russkoi Arkhiiectury (Petrograd, 1916)Google Scholar; more generally accessible in Buxton, D. R., Russian Mediaeval Architecture (Cambridge, 1934)Google Scholar.

2 Alpatov, M. and Brunov, N., Geschichte der Altrussischen Kunst (Leipzig, 1932) p. 3 Google Scholar.

3 Cross, S. H., Morgilevski, H. V., Conant, K. J., “The Earliest Mediaeval Churches of Kiev,” Speculum, XI (1936), No. 4, p. 477 ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar, hereinafter cited as EMCK.

4 Roth these beautiful buildings have been severely damaged in the present war, and the virtual destruction of the cathedral in Chernigov is certainly due to German vandalism.

5 EMCK, p. 484.

6 Conant, K. J., A Brief Commentary on Early Mediaeval Church Architecture (Baltimore, 1942), pp. 15 ffGoogle Scholar. and plates xvi to xxiv.

7 Demangel, R. and Mamboury, E., Le Quartier des Manganaes et la première Region de Constantinople (Paris, 1934), pp. s ffGoogle Scholar.

8 EMCK, pp. 479 ff.

9 Otčet Imp. Arkheologičeskoi Kommissii, 1908, pp. 132–158; 1911, pp. 48–62; 1918, pp. 167–168; also EMCK, p. 481.

10 E.g., in Ainalov, D., Geschichte der russischen Monumtalalkunst der vormoskovitischen Zeit (Berlin, 1932), p. 10 Google Scholar, and Alpatov-Brunov, op. cit., p. 1.

11 EMCK, p. 485.

12 KMCK, p. 496, with plates following. The church escaped serious damage in the fighting, though the famous Pecherskaya Lavra suffered gravely.

13 For this and the later buildings consult Buxton, Ainalov, and Alpatov-Brunov, opp. cit.

14 Illustration in Nekrasov, A. I., Drevnerusskoe izobrazitelnoe iskusstvo (Moscow, 1937), p. 99 Google Scholar.