In Novgorod, Smolensk, Polotsk, Grodno, a new social force is forming early - the urban population. People's assemblies - veche - had special power in Polotsk and Smolensk, limiting the power of the princes. In the 12th century, the princely courts were located outside the main urban area. It is quite natural that construction cooperatives interpreted generally accepted types of religious buildings in a more independent and original manner.

Polotsk architecture. The features of Polotsk architecture include: The contrast of the vertical development of the volumes of the temple with the longitudinal composition of its plan The contrast of upwardly directed masses with the monumental base The dynamism of semi-columns and rods The contrast of the impression of tightness, compression of the side naves and the freedom, airiness of the under-dome space The listed features of the composition are a consequence of the rethinking of the Byzantine cross-dome system under the influence of local aesthetic ideals, formed in the process of interaction between folk wooden architecture, stone ancient Russian architecture and elements of Romanesque architecture.

Using Kyiv building traditions, local craftsmen are developing their own system and slightly changing the cross-dome system of the temple. They narrow the side naves, lay out the outer apses in the thickness of the wall, strengthen the compositional role of the east-west axis, introducing elements of basilica construction. Plan of the Boris and Gleb Church, Polotsk, (XII century)

The only well-preserved monument of the Polotsk school. The creator of this temple is the architect John. He, like the northern “tree makers,” clearly delineated the volumetric-spatial components of the building. The narthex with choirs was made lower, the central apse was greatly extended, and the side apses were hidden in the thickness of the wall, focusing on the main square volume in plan.

Smolensk school By the end of the 12th century, the characteristic features of Smolensk architecture were emerging: Forms similar to those in Polotsk can be traced. Side apses begin to be built in the thickness of the wall. The main volume was supplemented by vestibules, forming a symmetrical stable spatial structure developing upward. The desire for centric, dynamic compositions is complemented by strongly dissected tufts of blades.

The centric composition of the court temple with three lowered limits and side apses. Volume-spatial unity and concentration of masses around the central axis were facilitated by covering the corner parts of the temple with semi-cylindrical vaults. Like flying buttresses, curvilinear corner coverings transferred thrust from the upper vaults to the lower sections of the walls, forming a structurally justified and expressive three-lobed completion. The form of the ceiling of the central part of the temple was also justified from a functional point of view, since it improved the removal of precipitation from the roof.

A special place in Smolensk architecture is occupied by religious buildings on the verge of the 13th century, with a rectangular slightly extended apse, which has analogues only in Polotsk. The plans of such four-pillar churches are close to a square, which suggests that their composition was centric and developed vertically, like the Church of the Archangel Michael.

Grodno school The meager remains of architectural works of Grodno masters allow us to express only general considerations. Everything speaks of the sufficient originality and independence of the Grodno architectural school, as well as a wide range of sources. The architects of Grodno, apparently, were familiar with the architectural monuments of Polotsk, the Dnieper region, Northern Europe and even the Balkan countries, and the level of their skill allowed them to artistically comprehend the achievements of other peoples.

A distinctive feature of the partially preserved Lower Church (mid-12th century) in Detinets and Borisoglebskaya (80s of the 12th century) on Kolzhsky Hill is the polychrome nature of their facades. Huge granite boulders of various shades, polished to a shine, were inserted into the lower part of the outer walls of these temples, made of brick using the technique of ordinal masonry; above, crosses and ornamental inserts made of colored majolica tiles sparkled like gems. The sections of the walls between the stones and majolica were covered with a thin layer of plaster. The coloristic richness of the facades (far from the asceticism of medieval religious buildings) introduced a folk flavor into the architecture of Grodno churches.

The interior of the Boris and Gleb Church had a hall character, which is not typical for cross-domed buildings, thanks to round multifaceted internal pillars and a wooden balcony stretching along three walls from the northern apse to the southern one, and the entrance to these peculiar choirs was built not on the western side, but in the thickness of the walls of the side apses. The treatment of the interior walls with small niches and the large number of voice boxes inserted into the walls were also unusual.

Galicia-Volyn Rus' Galicia-Volyn lands separated from Kyiv in the middle of the 12th century. They were associated with states of both Northwestern and Southern Europe. Volyn masters took their first steps in the field of stone architecture with the help of Dnieper architects. However, when Prince Roman Mstislavich united the Galicia-Volyn lands into a single principality, their architecture acquired peculiar features.

Vladimir-Volynsky is the capital of the Galicia-Volyn principality. It was one of the largest cities with powerful fortifications. In 1160, the Assumption Cathedral, which has survived to this day, was built there.

The Assumption Cathedral in Vladimir-Volynsky is not inferior in size to Kyiv churches. Reminiscent of the churches of the Chernigov school of the 12th century.

Galich is an important political and cultural center of the early 13th century. The Galician architectural school was formed in close contact with Western European art, which naturally left its mark on the appearance of the buildings. The creative development of Romanesque forms was also facilitated by the presence of dense, fine-grained limestone, which made it possible to perform fine ornamental carvings.

Assumption Cathedral in Galich In 1157, the city Assumption Cathedral was built, surrounded by a gallery. This building, which once adorned Galich, has common features with the buildings of the era of Yaroslav the Wise - the time of the power of the Old Russian state. Unfortunately, it is difficult to judge the appearance of this monument, since only its foundations and fragments of external decoration have been preserved. However, this also gives an idea of ​​its features. The Assumption Cathedral was built of white limestone on rubble foundations. The masonry was made from well-hewn and carefully fitted stone blocks with backfilling of the space between the outer surfaces using limestone mortar. The facades of the cathedral were decorated with carved details: stone capitals completed the columns of the portals, and masks apparently complemented the frieze. The nature of the hewn masonry of the carved parts indicates that Galician craftsmen were familiar with the artistic culture of neighboring countries - Poland and Hungary.

Church of Panteleimon The usual four-pillar structure of the Church of Panteleimon has acquired a unique embodiment: the blades on the northern and southern facades do not coincide with the internal pillars, they are moved apart in the middle, forming a large plane on which a carved perspective portal stands out as a colorful spot. A particularly strong contrast between the geometrically strict surface of the wall with simple arched window openings and the multi-step portal with columns and archivolts covered with carvings was created on the western façade. The transformation of portals into the main element of the facade, which is not typical for churches of Ancient Rus', the structure of the plinth, the profiling of which is reminiscent of Attic bases, the nature of the capitals and carved ornaments, which preserved traces of the influence of Hellenistic art, indicate that the architects of Galich combined the structure of the Old Russian temple with Romanesque decorative forms . Time has not preserved the upper parts of Panteleimon's church, which most likely corresponded to the cross-domed structure.

Hill Founded in the second quarter of the 13th century. , the city was distinguished by its expressive architectural appearance, which we mainly know from chronicles. The picturesque silhouette of the city with the expressive outlines of white-stone churches was successfully complemented by a tall “vezha” - a defensive tower made of wood on a stone foundation, dominating the entire building. Numerous artisans from neighboring devastated principalities flocked to Kholm, which was almost unaffected by the invasion of the Mongol-Tatar yoke, and contributed to the construction of the capital city. Different architectural schools interacted in Kholm, the skills of Galician craftsmen intertwined with the techniques of Vladimir-Suzdal stone makers, the principles of the Dnieper masters with the traditions of the artistic culture of the Romanesque world.

Church of St. John Chrysostom and St. George's Cathedral As is clear from the Ipatiev Chronicle, in the Church of St. John Chrysostom the vaults rested on four-faced capitals; similar capitals crowned St. George's Cathedral (1230-1234) in Yuryev. Polish. Multicolor carved portals with gilded details were made by the “cunning Avdey” from white Galician and green Kholm stone. The tympanums were decorated with reliefs of “The Savior” and “John”. The windows of this temple, which aroused universal admiration, displayed amazing “Roman glass” - stained glass windows, unusual for Rus'.

Features of the palaces in Przemysl, Zvenigorod and Lvov Of particular interest are the remains of the princely stone palaces in Przemysl, Zvenigorod and Lvov that have survived to this day. Fragments of these unique civil buildings, supplemented by a description by the chronicler of the princely court in Galich, make it possible to recreate in general terms the appearance of the ancient Russian palace complex of the period of feudal fragmentation. The formation of small appanage principalities, constant civil strife and military attacks from outside gave rise to a type of fortified princely court, which had some common features with the medieval castles of Western Europe. The princely palaces on the Galician land were made not only in wood, as in other principalities, but also in stone. The complex of the stone palace in Przemysl included a church.

Defensive towers Construction in the XIII-XIV centuries. stone defensive towers (towers) in the western lands of Ancient Rus' are associated with a constant military threat, both from the Mongol-Tatars and neighboring states. A remarkable monument of military art is the grandiose, 29 m high White Vezha in Kamenets-Litovsky, built in 1271 -1289. Prince Vladimir Vasilkovich.

Dictionary Archivolt - a frame for an arched opening that separates the arc of the arch from the plane of the wall. Serves as an element for decorating facades and interiors. Vezha is a defensive tower. Golosniks are small ceramic vessels or chambers used in the masonry of walls or vaults, with their necks facing the interior of the building. Narthex - vestibule (late Greek Narthex, from Greek narqhx casket, casket) entrance room, usually adjacent to the western side of a Christian church. Intended for persons who did not have the right to enter the main premises. Tympanum – the inner field of the pediment, gables, zakomari. Can be triangular, semicircular or other shape. Frieze is a decorative composition in the form of a horizontal stripe or ribbon crowning or framing one or another part of an architectural structure.

In almost all new feudal principalities, which by the middle of the 12th century. finally freed from the tutelage of Kyiv, grandiose stone construction was carried out. Many capitals of the new Russian principalities competed with each other, trying with all their might and means to emphasize either the power and importance of their prince rulers, or the political and economic power of their boyar clans.

It should be especially noted that Russian architecture of the second half of the 12th - first third of the 13th centuries. in general, it retained the common features that were inherent in the previous period, since almost all religious buildings of that time had a traditional cross-dome composition, apses, powerful light drums and domes. At the same time, during this period, the local architectural style began to emerge more and more clearly, which gradually acquired a stable character and determined the appearance of many Russian cities for several decades and even centuries to come. For example, Novgorod buildings were distinguished by strict proportions and the absence of any external decorations. The Rostov-Suzdal architectural school, on the contrary, was characterized by elegant decorative expressiveness in the form of various arcature belts and stone carvings. And in the cult monuments of the southern Russian lands, there was a noticeable desire to partially rework the cross-dome composition and find a tower-shaped solution for the upper part of the temple buildings.

Architectural style of the second half of the 12th - first third of the 13th centuries. differed from the architecture of Kievan Rus:

The significantly smaller scale of the religious buildings themselves,

The search for simpler, but at the same time more elegant architectural forms and

More restrained and less pretentious decoration of the interior decoration of stone cathedrals, temples and churches.

Moreover, the most typical buildings of that time gradually became single-domed cubic temples with a roof covering, a massive central drum and only one dome.

At that time, grandiose stone construction of religious and civil buildings was carried out in almost all Russian lands, but especially in the Novgorod land and in the Vladimir-Suzdal principality.

In the Novgorod lands in that period, as a rule, cubic four-pillar, single-domed churches with three apses and wooden choirs were built, which were distinguished by their particular northern severity, monumentality and simplicity of form. Such characteristic buildings that have survived to this day include the Church of the Annunciation in Arkazhi (1179), the Church of Peter and Paul on Sinichya Mountain (1185-1192), the Church of the Savior on Nereditsa (1198) and the Church of Paraskeva Pyatnitsa on Yaroslav’s Dvorishche (1207) .

In addition to Novgorod and its environs, many monuments of Russian architecture were created in Pskov and Staraya Ladoga. The oldest monuments of Pskov architecture were the Transfiguration Cathedral of the Mirozh Monastery (1156), built on the orders of the Novgorod Archbishop Nifont, and the Cathedral of John the Baptist of the Ivan Monastery (1173), which in its architecture and interior decoration became the forerunner of the famous Novgorod Church of the Savior on Nereditsa (1198 ). Of the Old Ladoga buildings, the most interesting religious monuments were the Church of St. George (1160) and the Church of the Assumption (1172), which in their style were close to the Novgorod religious buildings: the same cubic four-pillar temple with three apses and one massive dome in the center of the light drum.

Stone architecture gained no less wide scope in Vladimir-Suzdal principality. The most famous early buildings of that time were the Spassky Cathedral on the Trubezh River in Pereyaslavl-Zalessky (1152–1160) and the Church of Boris and Gleb in the village of Kideksha near Suzdal (1152). It should be emphasized that almost all Zalessk churches and temples were built from local white limestone, which gave religious buildings a particularly light and elegant appearance.

As a rule, during the construction of all religious and civil buildings, local craftsmen adhered to strict construction skills and techniques: first, the internal and external walls of the building itself were laid out of hewn white stones, then the space between them was filled with scrap stone and boulders, and only after the construction of the lower frame of the building the edges The walls were held together with a special mortar made from liquid limestone. In terms of its technique, this masonry was very reminiscent of the buildings of Galician-Volyn Rus, since, as established by Professor N.N. Voronin, people from southern Russian lands took an active part in the construction of many local churches.

The architecture of Vladimir-Suzdal Rus' reached its greatest flourishing in the second half of the 12th - early 13th centuries, when the white-stone Golden Gate with the gateway Church of the Deposition of the Robe (1158-1164), crowned with a massive golden dome, was built in Vladimir, and on the territory of the Vladimir detinets itself two outstanding monuments of Russian architecture - the Assumption and Dmitrovsky Cathedrals.

The Assumption Cathedral was erected by order of Andrei Bogolyubsky in 1158-1161, who then moved the capital of his principality to Vladimir. During the time of Vsevolod the Big Nest, after a great fire in 1185, this cathedral was partially rebuilt, and as a result, the initially one-domed, six-pillar, three-nave temple became five-nave and five-domed. The external and internal decoration of the Assumption Cathedral amazed contemporaries and descendants with its beauty and luxury: thin and graceful pillars inside the temple created the impression of significantly greater height and wider space, and the richly decorated arcature-columnar belt that adorned the external facade of the building gave it an unusually festive and bright appearance appearance The façade of the cathedral itself, thanks to its division by pilasters, seemed much more elegant and wider than it actually was. Between the columns of the waist decoration there were fresco images of saints, and in the altar part of the temple there was a very beautiful and elegant iconostasis, the central place of which was occupied by the famous icon of “Our Lady of Vladimir”, taken by Andrei Bogolyubsky from Kyiv in 1169.

No less magnificent was the Dmitrovsky Cathedral, built in 1194-1197. by order of Vsevolod the Big Nest. Significantly inferior in size to the Assumption Cathedral, it was built in the style of ordinary four-pillar, single-domed churches and served as a princely house church in the sovereign (princely) courtyard. Reminiscent in its size and proportions of the Spassky Cathedral of Pereyaslavl-Zalessky, the Dmitrovsky Cathedral stood out for its exceptionally rich decoration. Horizontally, the entire façade of the temple was divided into three tiers. The lowest tier of the building, almost devoid of decorations, in its western part was cut through by a richly processed portal, i.e. entrance to the temple. The middle tier was a decorated columnar or arched belt with rich stone carvings. And the upper tier, including the domed drum and zakomari, was also decorated with rich and elegant carvings on white stone.

In this rich and elegant ornament, Russian stone carvers not only depicted many Orthodox saints, including the noble princes Boris and Gleb, but also decorated the facade of the building with images of various plants, birds and biblical animals. In addition, in the central (portal) part of the cathedral, three figures of the biblical King David were carved from stone, and in one of the zakomars the Grand Duke Vsevolod the Big Nest was depicted surrounded by his sons.

The cult of the Mother of God, highly revered in the North-East of Rus', was associated with the construction of a number of parish churches and grandiose cathedrals and cathedrals. Among these numerous buildings, the Church of the Intercession on the Nerl near the princely village of Bogolyubov, which was built in 1165 in honor of the victory of Russian weapons over neighboring Volga Bulgaria, is rightfully considered a true masterpiece of Russian architecture. This church was built in the tradition of a four-pillar, single-domed temple and is decorated with a small but very expressive arcature belt and beautiful stone carvings depicting the biblical King David and many figures of biblical birds, lions and griffins.

The construction of a grandiose palace complex in the village of Bogolyubovo on the Klyazma River near Vladimir, which became the main princely residence of Andrei Bogolyubsky, dates back to the time of the creation of the Church of the Intercession on the Nerl. According to Professor N.N. Voronin, who carried out excavations of this palace complex, the Grand Duke's castle was a well-fortified stone fort with high earthen ramparts and many wooden and stone buildings inside. In the center of the castle there was a one-domed stone cathedral and a two-story stone palace, which, alas, was completely destroyed during the Batu invasion.

At the beginning of the 13th century. In the North-East of Rus', new centers of stone architecture emerge, in particular Rostov the Great, Suzdal, Yaroslavl, Yuryev-Polsky, Pereyaslavl-Zalessky and many other cities. Among the religious buildings of that time, the most interesting monuments were:

Cathedral of the Nativity of the Virgin Mary in Suzdal, erected in 1222-1225. made of white cut stone and decorated with an arcature belt and stone carvings. This cathedral was decorated with fresco paintings with elements of the new “floral ornament”. A special attraction of this cathedral was the so-called “Korsun Gate”, which was an outstanding example of the jewelry art of Russian artisans of the late 12th - early 13th centuries;

St. George's Cathedral of Yuryev-Polsky, built in 1230-1234. at the direction of the local prince Svyatoslav Vsevolodovich (1212–1246). It was a single-domed, four-pillar temple, richly decorated with the so-called “carpet pattern,” where religious subjects and images of saints were closely intertwined with ornamental carvings, richly stylized with plant motifs and images of fantastic monsters. Unfortunately, this cathedral has not been preserved in its original form, because after the collapse of the upper vaults and the domed drum in 1471, it was incorrectly rebuilt by the Moscow architect Vasily Ermolin, and due to this sad circumstance, it lost its original appearance.

Architecture Southern, Southwestern and Western Rus', due to a number of objective reasons and, above all, the destructive consequences of the Mongol invasion and constant border wars with neighbors, it was preserved much worse than in the Novgorod and Vladimir-Suzdal lands. At present, only a few religious buildings created in that era have survived, in particular the Kirillovskaya (1146), Vasilkovskaya (1183) and Three Saints (1183) churches in Kiev, the Vasilyevskaya Church in Ovruch (1197), the Church of the Apostles in Belgorod (1197) and the Church of Paraskeva Pyatnitsa in Chernigov (1198-1202), erected by the famous Russian architect Pyotr Miloneg, the Transfiguration Cathedral of the St. Euphrosyne Monastery in Polotsk (1161), the Assumption Cathedral in Vladimir-Volynsky (1160), the Church of Boris and Gleb (Kolozha Church) in Grodno (1166-1170) and the Church of St. Panteleimon in Galich (1200).

/ State Committee for Civil Engineering and Architecture under the USSR State Construction Committee, Research Institute of Theory, History and Perspective Problems of Soviet Architecture. - Leningrad; Moscow: Construction Literature Publishing House, 1966-1977.

• Volume 3: Architecture of Eastern Europe. Middle Ages / Edited by Yu. S. Yaralov (executive editor), N. N. Voronin, P. N. Maksimov, Yu. A. Nelgovsky. - 1966. - 687 p., ill.
  • Chapter 10. ARCHITECTURE OF SOUTHERN AND WESTERN Rus' IN THE XII-XIII centuries. / Yu. S. Aseev. - pp. 562-597.

ARCHITECTURE OF SOUTHERN AND WESTERN Rus' IN THE XII-XIII centuries.

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I. ARCHITECTURE OF THE Dnieper REGION IN THE XII - BEGINNING OF THE XIII centuries.

From the second quarter of the 12th century. a new period began in the history of ancient Russian architecture. Back in the second half of the 11th century. in certain regions of ancient Rus' their own economic and political centers developed. The growth of productive forces determined the intensive development of handicraft production and trade, and this in turn led to the rapid growth of ancient Russian cities. As historical conditions changed, old trade routes moved. The great route “from the Varangians to the Greeks” - from north to south - gradually lost its significance. But the routes that led to the west, southwest and northwest, as well as the routes to the east and the Caucasus, became especially busy. With the movement of trade routes, old ones often lost their importance, and new cities, craft and trade settlements arose and grew.

The economic and political growth of the regions of ancient Rus' was accompanied by an ever-deepening process of feudal fragmentation of the country. In the 12th century. this process was especially intense in the central lands of ancient Rus' - Kyiv, Pereyaslavl, Chernigov and Smolensk.

Since the 30s of the 12th century, the importance of Kyiv as an all-Russian political and cultural center has dropped significantly. After the death of Mstislav Vladimirovich (1132), Kyiv often changed hands. For power over Kiev, which continued to be the largest trade, craft and cultural center in Rus', where enormous wealth was concentrated, there was a fierce struggle between the princely dynasties of the Olgovich and Monomakhovich. Kyiv was repeatedly crushed and set on fire by the troops of the pretending princes, who often brought with them hordes of steppe Polovtsians. As a result of military operations, Kyiv was often devastated by fires. The Kiev land itself was divided into separate fiefdoms. For example, even the suburban Kiev fortress of Vyshgorod sometimes turned into the residence of an individual prince.

In the 12th century. The growth of cities continued in the Kyiv land. Numerous small feudal centers and fortresses arose - Kanev, Boguslav, etc. Due to changes in historical conditions, such old cities as Belgorod, Yuryev, Vitichev, Iskorosten lost their importance. In the Pereyaslavl land, for which the XII century. was an extremely turbulent time due to the intensified onslaught of steppe nomads, large defensive construction was carried out along the river. Sula, where the fortresses Voin, Gorshin, Luben and others were built.

The growth of cities in the 12th century was very significant. in Chernigov and Smolensk lands. The role of Chernigov and Smolensk in the political and economic life of the Dnieper region was in the 12th century. very big. Chernigov at this time became the center of a large feudal principality, whose possessions extended from the Dnieper to the Don and from the Vyatic forests to the southern steppes. Cherni-

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The Gov princes claimed a leading role in the Dnieper region; they more than once managed to capture Kyiv and sometimes retain it for a long time. In Chernigov land in the 12th century. Numerous new cities appeared - Vshchizh, Krom, Kozelsk, Gomiy, etc. Under the protectorate of Chernigov were the principalities of Murom-Ryazanskoye and Novgorod-Severskoye, where in the 12th century. The cities of Putivl, Glukhov, Sevsk, and Trubech arose.

Smolensk, one of the oldest cities in Eastern Europe, was in the 12th century, along with Kiev and Chernigov, the largest center of the Dnieper region. The most important trade routes from south to north and from east to west crossed in Smolensk, since it was located almost in the geometric center of ancient Russian lands. Here were the most important portages connecting the basins of the Dnieper, Western Dvina and Volga. From here, through Lovat, there was a path to Novgorod, the ancient path “from the Varangians to the Greeks.” Of great importance for ancient Russian architecture of the 12th century. had routes to the west that went through Smolensk. Numerous cities arose on the waterways in the Smolensk land - Toropets, Dorogobuzh, Vyazma, Krichev, Orsha, Lugin, Elna, etc. The process of growth of ancient Russian cities became especially intense in the last quarter of the 12th century.

1. CONSTRUCTION EQUIPMENT

Rapid development of handicraft production in ancient Russian cities of the 12th century. contributed to the development of construction technology. Construction crafts continued to be separated into separate industries. The artel form of labor for builders became increasingly common. Along with the free city artisans, craftsmen who were feudally dependent on the prince, boyar, and church also worked on construction.

A characteristic feature of ancient Russian construction technology in the 12th century. there was a transition to local building materials. In the Dnieper region, where there were no stone deposits near large cities, brick became the main material for stone construction. In this regard, the technique of bricklaying developed everywhere here; the mixed method of masonry, characteristic of the construction of the era of the ancient Russian state, disappears. Brick, so-called equal-layer, row, masonry (“opus isodos”) was carried out in rows of plinth bricks on a lime mortar mixed with cement. Mortar joints reached 2-3 cm with a brick thickness of 4-5 cm. The walls of the buildings were not plastered (sometimes they were rubbed over with a thin layer of mortar in places); the mortar seams were trimmed with edges that emphasized the texture of the brick walls and created a certain artistic effect.

The transition to a new construction technique entailed the intensive development of ceramic production, and in the field of architectural creativity - the use of a variety of structural and decorative ceramic parts and decorations: brackets, curved parts of the archway, figured bricks for the curb, semi-columns and profiled pilasters, ceramic glazed tiles of various shapes and sizes for floors, etc.

With the development of bricklaying technology, new structures associated with it also appear. A number of achievements of Kyiv masters in construction techniques date back to this time: the introduction of certain rules for bandaging masonry seams and the use of bricks of various sizes, mastering the technique of laying cross vaults, and the use of numerous types of ceramic parts. At the same time, the quality of the bricks of Kyiv buildings is somewhat deteriorating, as well as the care of their masonry is deteriorating, in contrast to the exceptionally masterful masonry of Chernigov buildings of that time.

The masonry techniques and construction techniques (cross vaults, laying of pattern parts, etc.) of the Old Russian masters of the Dnieper region undoubtedly reveal their familiarity with the construction techniques of Romanesque, and later Gothic architecture of Central Europe. Byzantine traditions are gradually being forgotten, such as mixed masonry, which in the Dnieper region after the first quarter of the 12th century. known as a decorative device in only one monument - the Archangel Michael (Svir) Church in Smolensk.

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2. URBAN PLANNING

In the development of ancient Russian cities of the Dnieper region in the 12th century. The traditions of urban planning of the ancient Russian state are developing, but at the same time a number of new distinctive features are observed.

In Kyiv, the difficult historical situation did not facilitate large-scale construction work, although as before, each prince tried to build his own “patrimonial” monastery, his own feudal court, both in the city and in its environs. In addition to the prince, construction in Kyiv is now carried out by boyars, monasteries, and merchants. Thus, under 1147, the chronicle mentions the St. Michael’s Shrine on Podol, built by Novgorod merchants. In the 12th century. Posads, “ends”, Podol, Kozyrev end, Shchekovitsa, etc. are being built up in Kyiv. Construction is especially intensive in Podol. Merchants' farmsteads, goods warehouses, dwellings and workshops of artisans are built there. In the 12th century. The chronicle mentions the construction of a number of courtyards in Podol.

On the “mountain”, in the old city, the construction of princely and boyar courts and monasteries continues, but their scale is much smaller than before. Princely and boyar households acquire the character of a city feudal estate, owned by one or another princely or boyar family. The chronicles mention it in the 12th century. (in addition to the old ones) in Kyiv there are princely courts - Mstislavov, Krasny, Novy, country courtyards - “under Ugorsky”, “Red” and “Paradise” beyond the Dnieper, boyar courts - Glebov, Borislavov, Radislavov. In the character of princely courts in the 12th century. significant changes are observed. So, in the 12th century. The construction of princely grids, so characteristic of the 10th-11th centuries, ceases. Princely receptions take place “in the entryway” of the princely choir.

The dwellings of citizens and the urban development of Kyiv have changed little compared to previous times. The one-room semi-dugout with adobe walls and a gable roof remains the common type of home for craftsmen. True, it should be noted here that half-dugout dwellings are better studied due to the fact that after a fire they provide enough data for their study, while above-ground wooden buildings burned almost without a trace. As one can assume, the dwellings of more prosperous artisans, merchants, and warriors were multi-room and, possibly, two- and three-story. Remains of a multi-room residential building of the 12th-13th centuries. were found in Podol. In two half-dugout dwellings, destroyed during the Tatar-Mongol invasion in 1240, stoves made of square bricks with grooves were discovered. This is the earliest known case of the use of a new type of brick, which became characteristic of the architecture of Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania in the 14th-17th centuries.

The second largest city of the Dnieper region, Chernigov, was intensively built up. In the 12th century. it has grown significantly, Okolny Gorod, Tretyak and Predgradye have been built up. On the outskirts of Chernigov, as in Kyiv, construction was carried out in monasteries - Eletsk on the western outskirts of the city, Ilyinsky - on the Boldin Mountains. The Chernigov princes continued the construction of temples and palaces in Detinets. Chronicles often mention Chernigov palaces. Not far from the Spassky Cathedral, excavations discovered the remains of palace buildings from the 12th century.

The construction of princely and boyar courts and churches took place not only in Chernigov, but also in numerous cities of the Seversk and Murom-Ryazan lands, which were the centers of small principalities, but were politically dependent on Chernigov (Novgorod-Seversky, Putivl, Kursk, Trubchevsk, Ryazan and etc.). All these cities were fortified with ramparts, walls and ditches. They had their own administrative centers.

A vivid picture of a small appanage town of the Chernigov principality was given by the Vshchizhskoe settlement, studied by B. A. Rybakov, located on a cape on the high bank of the Desna (50 km above Bryansk). In the middle of the 12th century. Vshchizh, which was a small princely estate, became the residence of a small appanage prince. At this time, there was a significant expansion of the city center and the strengthening of the city with new defensive structures. The Vshchizhsky child occupied territory 1.2 ha,

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City Posad - about 2.7 ha. The city was surrounded by wooden walls, cut by “gorodni” (cage size 3x5 m), with octagonal towers at the corners. A tall, polygonal tower-donjon stood in the middle of the detinets. It is possible that during the construction of the Vshchizh fortifications, the builders used a new technique of defensive architecture, designed for crossbow combat (the gear of a fortress crossbow - a “rotary crossbow” - was found during excavations). The new defensive technology required high towers with a large firing radius. In front of the donjon tower in the middle of the castle square there were hitching posts (obviously, this was a meeting place for the squad), and there were houses around the square. An internal rampart and ditch separated the detinets from the settlement. Not far from this rampart there was a princely palace. In the center of the settlement, possibly on the shopping area, there was a church.

Excavations at Vshchizh yielded interesting data about ancient Russian housing of that time. All Vshchizh houses were above ground, log houses, usually two (or more) private. The houses of the princely and boyar's servants in Detinets were narrow two-part huts pressed against each other with vestibules facing the square. In the second type of two-part houses (village house), the entrance was on the long side. The large princely or boyar's house discovered by excavations was two-story and had a high tower in the middle part, the roof of which was covered with copper sheets (the tradition of “golden-domed towers”). The facade of this house had 14 m in length. All houses had ovens inside, the foundations of which were installed on wooden frames. Of particular interest are the chimneys of these stoves, first discovered in ancient Russian architecture. They were made of rectangular and triangular bricks in clay mortar and placed above the roofs of houses. Like many other ancient Russian cities, Vshchizh died in 1238 during the Tatar invasion.

Important materials about ancient Russian urban planning were provided by studies of Old Ryazan. In the 12th century. Ryazan was one of the largest cities of ancient Rus'. The geographical location of the city, connected by waterways with the Volga and Don basins, contributed to the development of crafts and trade in it. The ancient settlement of Old Ryazan (at 50 km from the modern city of Ryazan) stands on the high right bank of the Oka. Powerful ramparts surround the vast plateau on which the city was located, covering an area of ​​up to 50 ha. On a wide cape, on the northern side of the settlement, there was a detinets with an area of ​​7.6 ha. In the 12th century. the urban center was already located in the expanded Okolny town on the southern side of the settlement, and the former Detinets was inhabited by artisans.

The main buildings of the city consisted of above-ground log houses or frame (with wattle and clay coating or wooden filling) semi-dugouts.

The houses of Old Ryazan had wooden floors and adobe stoves, most of them tetrahedral in shape, placed on log platforms. Usually the stoves were located in the middle of the hut.

The ancient buildings of Smolensk have been studied less than other cities, although numerous remains of stone structures of the 12th century, far exceeding the number of stone buildings known to us in other ancient Russian cities, indicate very intensive urban planning activity in Smolensk in the 12th century. Smolensk is located on the hilly left bank of the Dnieper. The city occupied a vast territory on very rough terrain. The center of the urban settlement was located at the foot of the Cathedral Hill, not far from the Dnieper bank. Several ancient streets converged there, dating back to the 11th century. paved with wooden pavements. There was a shopping area in this area. The princely court is believed to have been located on Voznesenskaya Hill inside the city. Next door is Cathedral Hill, where in 1101-1103. Vladimir Monomakh built the Assumption Cathedral.

In the second quarter of the 12th century. Smolensk became the center of an independent principality, which reached its peak during the reign of Prince Rostislav Mstislavich (1127-1159). At this time, extensive urban planning work was carried out. In 1136, the Smolensk bishop's courtyard was built, and new city fortifications were erected. The low parts where the

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Trade and craft settlements were established - Pyatnitsky and Kryloshevsky ends. The trading settlement in the Trans-Dnieper region, the “Merchant Hundred” on Teterevnik, was especially intensively built up. Numerous monasteries arose near the city - Borisoglebsky, Trinity, Pechersky and others. Princely and episcopal estates and villages appeared around the city.

In the middle of the 12th century. The Smolensk princes founded their residence outside the city, on Smyadynsky Hill on the western outskirts of Smolensk. The vast territory of Smyadyn, which included, in addition to the princely residence, the Spassky, Kosmodemyansky and Borisoglebsky monasteries, was also surrounded by fortifications. Some of the monasteries had stone fences. In many places in the low-lying part of the city, in particular, at the trade and craft ends - Pyatnitsky and Kryloshevsky, wooden pavements were found made from logs from 20 cm in diameter or more. To the features of Smolensk urban development of the 12th century. It should be noted that stone construction was widespread in comparison with other ancient Russian cities.

3. DEFENSE CONSTRUCTION

In the 12th century. The defensive construction of the Dnieper region has undergone significant changes. The state defensive lines and fortresses that protected the borders of Russian lands were replaced by numerous feudal castles that guarded the approaches to the possessions of one or another prince (Ostersky Town on the Desna, Gorodets near Kiev, etc.). Individual patrimonial cities are fortified with walls, towers, ditches with drawbridges (Vruchai - Ovruch). The trade and craft centers of Kyiv are also being strengthened. Thus, under 1161, the chronicle reports: “Podolia was then blocked by a pillar from Mount Olya to the Dnieper.”

In the 80s of the XII century. powerful brick walls were built around the Pechersky Monastery, the thickness of which was equal to 2 m at a height of up to 5-6 m. In terms of masonry technique, these walls differed significantly from the stone walls of the 11th century. metropolitan courts in Kyiv and Pereyaslavl. They were much thicker than the latter and consisted of two parallel brick walls with one plinth with the inner part of the wall backfilled with lime concrete. The construction of the stone walls of the Pechersk Monastery is the only case known to date of the construction of stone defensive fortifications in the Dnieper region in the 12th century.

Examples of small feudal fortresses of the 12th century. The well-researched Raikovetskoye and Kolodyazhenskoye fortifications, which were destroyed during the Tatar invasion in 1241, can serve as a reference. The Raikovetskoye fortification, round in plan, with a diameter of about 150 m was surrounded by wooden cages - “gorodnyi”, covered with earth, with slopes of earth forming ramparts, with fences running over the wooden-earth walls (Fig. 1). On the inside, the cages were adapted for household needs and housing, probably to accommodate a garrison. Wooden walls were coated with clay to prevent fire during hostilities. The settlement is surrounded by two rings of ditches. The fortifications of the Voin and Vyr fortresses were similar.

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And others. Very interesting are the fortifications of the Svyatopolch-city fortress with several rows of walls, ramparts and ditches, terraces going down to the bottom of the hill.

From the 11th-12th centuries. feudal fortresses, castles, estates are often built without taking into account the terrain, and their plan is either round (Gorodishche at the mouth of the Trubezh, Ksnyatin on the Sula River, Miropol on the Sluch River) or semicircular (Vigurovshchina near Kiev, Grigorovka on the Dnieper) form.

4. MONUMENTAL ARCHITECTURE OF THE Dnieper region of the 30-80s of the 12th century.

In the monumental stone architecture of the Kyiv, Chernigov and Smolensk lands in the 12th and 13th centuries. Two stylistic stages can be traced. The first covers the period from the 30s to the 80s of the 12th century. The second stage, which began at the end of the 12th century, was interrupted by the Tatar-Mongol invasion of 1238-1240. The stylistic direction of the first stage took shape in the Dnieper region in the 30s of the 12th century. For all lands of the Dnieper region it is characterized by common types of buildings, common construction methods and very similar architectural forms. Local differences during this period are expressed only in particular features of type, forms and compositional techniques.

In all the lands of the Dnieper region (as well as in the 12th century and Volyn), the first stage was characterized by the type of six-pillar (and from the middle of the 12th century, four-pillar) cross-domed church, which goes back to the type of the cathedral of the Pechersk Monastery in Kyiv. A common feature of the architecture of this time for the entire Dnieper region is the brick construction technique (equal-layer masonry). When laying out the building plan on the ground, the architects of the Dnieper region used the same method, which was based on certain proportional relationships developed in previous times. The scheme of proportional dependencies of a six-pillar cross-domed church like the Assumption Cathedral of the Pechersk Monastery has become especially widespread.

The architecture of the Dnieper churches of this time is simple and monumental. The parallelepiped of the central volume ends with a cylindrical drum with a hemispherical dome. The facades of the buildings are divided by pilasters with powerful semi-columns, which are a characteristic feature of all these structures. The surfaces of the walls are divided by narrow windows with a semi-circular end. The facades are sparsely decorated with ornamental stripes of arcature and curb.

The architecture of the Dnieper region of this period is also characterized by a number of features that bring it closer to Romanesque architecture. These features are characteristic not only of some elements of architectural decoration (curb, arcature, half-columns on facades) and constructive techniques (cross vault), but also of the very nature of the architecture of this stage. Severe monastery cathedrals, princely palace churches of feudal Rus' of the 12th century. have much in common with the feudal architecture of European countries, Byzantium, and the Balkans. At the same time, the architecture of ancient Rus' of the 12th century. both in the types of buildings, and in construction techniques, and in compositional techniques, developing the traditions of the previous period, it is distinguished by deep originality. The similarities between ancient Russian architecture of this stage and Romanesque architecture can be explained not only by the close cultural ties with the West, which ancient Rus' had established by this time, but also by the commonality of historical and socio-economic conditions.

As one might assume, the new stylistic direction first emerged in the architecture of Kyiv. The construction of stone churches was carried out in the 12th century. in Kyiv no less intensely than in the previous time. Chronicles repeatedly mention this construction. So, in 1121, the Church of St. John was built at the Kopyrevo end, in 1129 - the Feodorov “patrimony” monastery, etc. Stone churches and cathedrals were built at this time in Kanev, Belgorod and other cities of the Kyiv land.

The first monument known to us of the stylistic trend under consideration was the Church of the Virgin Pirogoshcha on Podil (Fig. 2). The church was founded in 1132 by Prince Mstislav Vladimirovich; its construction was completed

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In 1136, information from the chronicle about the beginning and end of the construction of the temple makes it possible to conclude that buildings of this type were built in Rus' over 3-4 construction seasons. The size of the Church of the Virgin Pirogoshchi is relatively small. The type is a six-pillar, cross-domed, three-apse temple with one dome and a narrow narthex. The facades were divided by pilasters with half-columns. No decorative elements of the facades were identified during the research of the monument (the church has not survived to this day). The texture of the brickwork was emphasized by careful trimming of the seams. The plan of the building is somewhat skewed, which indicates imperfect methods of layout. The Mother of God of Pirogoshcha is a typical temple of a trade and craft settlement, which does not claim to be of great importance in the overall ensemble of the city.

The most famous monument of Kyiv architecture of the 12th century. is the Cathedral of the Kirillov Monastery (Fig. 3 and 4). It is very successfully placed on a hill overlooking the northern outskirts of Kyiv. The Kirillovsky Monastery was an ordinary “patrimonial” monastery of the Chernigov princes of the Olgovichs, and the cathedral served as their tomb. In terms of its type, it is also a six-pillar cross-domed church, crowned with one dome, somewhat larger than the Church of the Virgin Pirogoshcha. As there, the planes of the walls are divided by pilasters with powerful half-columns. The surface of the wall was decorated only at the top with an arcature belt made of patterned bricks and a small curb ornament. Thin semi-columns divided the powerful semi-cylinders of the apses. The entrances to the church were framed by two-stage portals. In Nar-

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The tex contains arcosolia for princely burials, and in the southern part of the narthex a small baptismal chapel was built. From the narthex, a narrow staircase in the thickness of the northern wall leads to the choir. Above the narthex there are wide and bright choirs, extending over the side naves to the western dome pillars (Fig. 5). In the southern part of the choir there is a small chapel. The pillars separating the choir from the interior of the temple are decorated with thin semi-columns.

The remarkable fresco painting of the cathedral is of exceptional interest as the most complete complex of ancient Russian temple painting of the 12th century. The theme of the paintings in the Cathedral of the Kirillov Monastery corresponds to the canon established by the church. The tones are light and bright, the patterns are colorful. Russian clothing of warriors and saints, as well as Russian inscriptions, testify to the work of local craftsmen. Of great interest in the painting of the cathedral are the huge images of soldiers in full armor. The compositions in the narthex and in the southern apse, depicting scenes from the life of Cyril of Alexandria, were executed with great skill. Very

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The inside of the temple was decorated with colorful floors made of ceramic glazed tiles and slate slabs with mosaic inlay.

The Yuryevsky (Uspensky) Cathedral in Kanev, built by the Kyiv prince Vsevolod Olgovich in 1144, has been well preserved to this day (Fig. 3 and 6). The Kanevsky Cathedral repeats the type of building described above in everything; only the facades of the cathedral are more richly decorated with rows of flat decorative niches, which may have contained paintings. The choirs, like the choirs of the Church of the Virgin Pirogoshcha, are less formal than in the Cyril Church.

In the second half of the 12th century. In the Kyiv land, the type of four-pillar cubic temple, characteristic of all ancient Russian architecture of that time, also became widespread. This type includes the small Vasilyevskaya (Three Saints) Church in Kyiv, built in 1183 in the Great Court by Prince Svyatoslav Vsevolodovich (see Fig. 2, 2 ). In its architecture, Vasilyevskaya Church is very close to the Church of the Virgin Mary Pirogoshchi. The facades are also divided by pilasters with semicircular columns, the walls are sparsely cut with narrow window openings. It is interesting to note the new form of window slopes (socket), which replaced in the second half of the 12th century. rectangular slopes. Like other buildings in Kyiv, the church was not plastered, as evidenced by the decorative ornamentation of bricks on the facade. As one must assume, the church building was compositionally connected with the ensemble of buildings of the Great (Yaroslav) Court, which was the state center of Kyiv.

Little information has been preserved about the Pereyaslav stone architecture of this period. In the 12th century. Construction in Pereyaslavl was greatly reduced due to the extremely difficult situation in which the Pereyaslavl land was located. Continuous raids of the steppes and incessant feudal wars led to the departure of a significant part of the population to the northern and western regions. During this period of the chronicle nothing was reported

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Jut about construction in Pereyaslavl land.

Archaeological research in Pereyaslavl and its environs revealed the remains of several buildings of the 12th century, which allow us to express some thoughts about the monumental stone Pereyaslavl architecture of this time. This primarily applies to a small church, the remains of which were discovered at the end of the 19th century. on the site of the modern Assumption Cathedral, on the territory of the ancient Pereyaslavsky detinets. In terms of its type, it is adjacent to the monuments of the Pereyaslav school of the late 11th century; This is a rectangular, pillarless, single-nave temple. Its covering was not the same as in cross-domed churches. It is possible that it was carried out using two longitudinal arches, on which two transverse arches were placed in such a way that a domed square was obtained in the middle. The covering was carried out in a similar way in some Pskov and Moldavian churches of the 15th-16th centuries. The architecture of this church shows the traditions of Pereyaslav architecture of the late 11th century. Like all the buildings of the Dnieper region of this time, the building was erected in rows of plinth bricks on lime mortar with an admixture of cement. Its facades were divided by pilasters with half-columns, similar to the monuments of Kyiv and Chernigov in the 12th century.

In 1953, on the territory of the ancient Pereyaslavl settlement, a large six-pillar cross-domed temple was excavated (see Fig. 2, 3 ). It is also very close in architecture to Kyiv architecture. Its plan is very similar to the plans of the St. Cyril Church in Kyiv or the Kanev Cathedral, but the facades of the building did not have semi-columns on pilasters. There were no blades on the interior walls. The western pair of pillars of the dome square is not cross-shaped, but octagonal in plan. It is possible that these features expressed local, Pereyaslavl characteristics. The surviving remains of fresco painting also indicate the closeness of Pereyaslav painting to the art of Kyiv and Chernigov of that time.

6. Kanev. Yuryevskaya (Assumption) Church, 1144 General view from the east and internal view

Outstanding monuments of ancient Russian architecture of the 12th century. have survived to this day in Chernigov. For Chernigov XII century. was characterized by high construction

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A culture expressed in exceptionally careful production of bricks and ceramic parts, perfection of designs and a high level of construction work. An example is the extraordinary care of the masonry of the cathedral of the Yelets Monastery, the Elias Church and other buildings in Chernigov.

In a number of buildings in Chernigov, carved white stone details were introduced into the brickwork (such as the capitals of columns and pilasters in the Boris and Gleb and Annunciation Cathedrals). It is possible that local tastes were also reflected in the use of bright colors both in interior painting and in paintings on facades - on portals, in niches. Local features include the use of different colors of brick, as well as a unique method of plastering the facades of buildings, in which the plaster was lined to resemble square stone masonry (Ilyinskaya Church, Boris and Gleb Cathedral, Assumption Cathedral of the Yelets Monastery).

Chernigov craftsmen usually carved their marks on the side surfaces of brick forms. The marks of Chernigov bricks are very diverse and indicate that the brick was made both by free artisans and by craftsmen who were feudally dependent on the prince or church. Similar signs were placed on bricks by craftsmen in Smolensk, Novgorod-Seversk, Putivl and a number of other cities. Chernigov architects mainly developed the types of buildings that developed in Kyiv. A feature of Chernigov architecture was a tendency towards some complication of architectural volumes.

The most striking features of Chernigov architecture of the 12th century. expressed in two buildings that have survived to this day: Boris and Gleb Cathedral (Fig. 7) and the Assumption Cathedral of the Yelets Monastery. The construction of the Boris and Gleb Cathedral is usually attributed to 1120-1121, although reasonable assumptions have been made about a later date of its construction. Remains of some buildings from the late 11th - early 12th centuries. (probably the original St. Boris and Gleb Cathedral) were discovered under an existing building, which most likely was built in the 70s of the 12th century. during the reconstruction of the princely court complex by the Chernigov princes Davydovich. Boris and Gleb Cathedral, located in the Chernigov Kremlin, was the church of the princely court and also served as the tomb of the Chernigov princes. This is evidenced by six burial arcosolium niches located in the northern and southern walls. The type of cathedral is a six-pillar, single-domed cross-domed church, very close to the St. Cyril Church in Kyiv (Fig. 8). The wide choirs, extending over the side naves, as there, are led from the nar-

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Texa staircase in the thickness of the western wall. The facades are divided by powerful semi-columns and decorated with arcature belts with a curb and rows of flat semi-circular niches. The drum and apses are divided by thin pilasters. After the construction of the cathedral, vestibules were added to it on three sides. The vestibules had profiled portals; their floors were made of colored ceramic tiles.

Of great interest for the history of ancient Russian art are the white stone carved details discovered at different times during excavations in the cathedral - capitals and bases, including the famous “Chernigov capital” (Fig. 9). In a number of these details, stylized figures of animals and birds are introduced with great skill into the ornamental composition of the so-called “braid” (the interweaving of stylized plant stems). In their forms, they have much in common with the artistic handicrafts of the Eastern Slavs, dating back to the 6th-7th centuries. (Fig. 10). The inside of the cathedral was decorated with frescoes. Mosaic and colored tiled floors complemented the rich and ornate decoration of the palace temple.

Assumption Cathedral of the Yelets Monastery, the construction of which can be attributed to the second

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Roy or the third quarter of the 12th century, is very close in type to the Boris and Gleb Cathedral, but its composition is somewhat more complex (Fig. 11, 12, 2 , 13, 1 ). Low porches and porches adjoined the temple on three sides; the central apse rose significantly above the side ones. There is an assumption that the cathedral had two more side chapters. The facades of the building are divided by pilasters with half-columns and are decorated not with a number of decorative niches, as in the Boris and Gleb Cathedral, but only with arcature belts. Unlike the Boris and Gleb Cathedral, the choirs of the Assumption Cathedral are located only above the narthex, and the narthex itself is separated from the central internal space of the temple by walls in the side naves. On the right side of the narthex there is a small baptismal chamber with an apse opening into the temple. The apse is decorated with a very finely executed arched cornice with a curb (see Fig. 11).

An example of a small church building of Chernigov architecture of the 12th century. the Elias Church can serve (see Fig. 12, 1 and 13, 2 ). This is a small monastery, single-nave, single-apse church, well preserved to this day. The central part of the temple is covered with a dome on a cylindrical drum. The dome with a drum, with the help of four arches, rests on four pillars hidden in the thickness of the walls. The northern and southern walls are adjacent to the cheeks of the girth arches, which increases the space under the dome and preserves the principle of the cross-dome system. A similar covering system is known in a number of buildings in Byzantium, Bulgaria and the Dnieper region (for example, in the Boyana Church of the 12th century in Bulgaria). There is one apse on the eastern side and a narthex on the western side. The drum was decorated with thin pilasters. The masonry of the walls and the marks on the bricks are close to the Boris and Gleb and Assumption Cathedrals. On the northern facade of the Ilyinskaya Church, an ancient cornice and pilaster capital have been preserved - an extremely rare case for ancient Russian architecture.

The first stage in the development of Chernigov architecture during the period of feudal fragmentation is completed by two churches built in the Chernigov Detinets in the second half of the 12th century. These are St. Michael's Church (1173) and the Annunciation Cathedral, built in 1186 by Prince Svyatoslav Vsevolodovich¹.

____________

¹ Both structures are known from archaeological excavations.

The Annunciation Cathedral in its size and decoration was one of the most majestic churches in Chernigov. It was based on a six-pillar cross-domed type of building with galleries on three sides. It is possible that the cathedral ended with five domes. Arcature belts and possibly carved white stone details were used to decorate the facades. The excavations revealed the remains of carved columns from a frieze similar to the friezes of Vladimir-Suzdal architecture. Of great interest is the two-color masonry of the facades: the half-columns on the facades were made of light yellow patterned brick, and the wall field was made of dark red. The picturesqueness of the facades corresponds to

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The rich interior decoration of the cathedral was celebrated: the walls and vaults were covered with paintings, and the floors were covered with multi-colored mosaics. In the side rooms, the floors were made of glazed and green ceramic tiles.

12. Chernigov

1 - Elias Church, XII century. (southern façade and plan); 2 - Assumption Cathedral of the Yelets Monastery, mid-12th century. (western façade, longitudinal section and plan)

It was close to Chernigov in the 12th century. architecture of Old Ryazan¹. Politically and culturally, the Ryazan land in the first half of the 12th century. depended on Chernigov, in the second half of the 12th century. it fell under the rule of the Vladimir-Suzdal principality. This affected Ryazan architecture until the end of the 12th century. developed under the influence of Chernigov architecture, to which from the second half of the 12th century. there was a significant influence of white stone Vladimir-Suzdal architecture.

____________

¹ All buildings of Old Ryazan are known only from archaeological excavations.

The main churches of Old Ryazan - the Assumption and Borisoglebsky - were located in the southern part of the city, where, probably in the 12th century. there were shopping areas and the rich

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At home. The earliest stone building in Old Ryazan was obviously the Assumption Cathedral (Fig. 14, 2 ). Its plan is very close to the plan of the Assumption Cathedral of the Yelets Monastery in Chernigov and goes back to the type of the Assumption Cathedral of the Kiev-Pechersk Monastery. Like the Chernigov Cathedral, the Assumption Cathedral in Old Ryazan has porches in front of three entrances and a baptismal chapel on the right side in the narthex. Unlike the Cathedral of the Yeletsky Monastery, the pilasters on the facades of the Ryazan Cathedral do not have semi-columns. Basically, the cathedral is built of brick, with marks on the edges, like Chernigov bricks, with the marks of the masters. Some parts of the cathedral walls were built from white rough stone. The floors of the cathedral were made of yellow and green ceramic tiles.

13. Chernigov

Assumption Cathedral of the Yelets Monastery (general view from the east); Elias Church (general view from the southeast)

Not far from the Assumption Cathedral, in the same southern part of the settlement, there was the Boris and Gleb Cathedral, the construction of which can be dated back to the third quarter of the 12th century. The type of this building is very close to the Boris and Gleb Cathedral in Chernigov. One inscription on a brick from the Ryazan Boris and Gleb Cathedral is curious: “Jacob created.”

The third temple of Old Ryazan - the Spassky Cathedral - was located in the northern part of the Okolny town, near the entrance to Detinets. By type it was a four-pillar cross-domed church with three porches, of which the northern and southern ones had an apse on the eastern side. The shape of the internal pillars has not been definitively established; it is possible that they were round in plan.

The most important center of ancient Russian architecture of the 12th century. was Smolensk. In the present

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Today, including the existing ancient Russian buildings, in Smolensk there are remains of more than 40 brick buildings of the 12th - early 13th centuries. Of all the buildings, only three survived; from most of the rest, only ruins and foundations remain, most of them still insufficiently studied.

Construction techniques of Smolensk buildings of the 12th century. did not differ from the technology used throughout the Dnieper region. This is a regular “equal-layer” masonry of plinth bricks on a lime mortar mixed with cement. Unlike Chernigov and Kyiv, Smolensk craftsmen did not cut the seams in the masonry, but rubbed them smoothly. The quality of Smolensk brick is somewhat inferior to that of Chernigov. Numerous marks and signs of free princely and church craftsmen have been preserved on the bricks of Smolensk buildings. In the ruins of ancient buildings, multi-colored ceramic facing tiles and remains of fresco painting are found.

The earliest building of the stylistic trend under consideration in Smolensk was the Boris and Gleb Cathedral of the Smyadyn Monastery (1145), very close in plan to the Boris and Gleb Cathedral in Chernigov (see Fig. 14, 1 ). This is a six-pillar cross-domed church, the facades of which were dissected by pilasters with half-columns common at that time in the Dnieper region. The apses were decorated with thin pilasters, the same as in the Chernigov Cathedral. Even the shape of the vestibules with semicircular apses on the eastern side, added somewhat later, is close to the vestibules of the Boris and Gleb Cathedral in Chernigov.

The two Smolensk churches of the 12th century that have survived to this day belong to the same direction.

The first of them - the Peter and Paul Church on Gorodenka (1146) - was the town's temple of the Trans-Dnieper trading suburb of Teterevnik (see Fig. 14, 3 ). The type is a four-pillar cross-domed church with ordinary half-columns on the facades. Narthexes were added to the side facades. The arcature belts decorating the facades with a curb made of molded bricks are well preserved. The inside of the church was decorated with fresco paintings, like the rest of the churches in Smolensk. The floors were made of glazed ceramic tiles.

The second church - St. John the Evangelist in Vrazhka, is believed to have been built in 1173 at the Churilovskaya crossing of the Dnieper (Fig. 15). It probably relates to the construction activities of Prince Roman Rostislavich, since a number of stone buildings were discovered in the surroundings of the church, which gave rise to the assumption that the courtyard of Prince Roman may have been located here. It is possible that a school organized by Roman was located in this yard. The church is very similar to the Peter and Paul Church and differs from it only in the details of the plan. There were also vestibules adjacent to its side facades.

Another monument of Smolensk of this period was the Vasilievskaya Church of the Boris and Gleb Smyadyn Monastery (1184), known from excavations. In terms of type, it is a four-pillar cross-domed church, very close to the Peter and Paul and Theological churches, as well as to the Vasilievskaya (Trehsvyatitelskaya) Church in Kyiv, built in the same 1184. Despite all the typicality of the Smolensk architecture

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Vasilievskaya Church for the entire direction under consideration shows some features characteristic of the new stage of Smolensk architecture. Firstly, the extreme pilasters on the western facade have a complicated profile, as in the Peter and Paul Church on Gorodenka. Secondly, judging by the drawing of the 17th century. (on the Hondius plan), then we can assume that the facades of the church had not a three-lobed, but a three-lobed end.

The architecture of ancient Smolensk also includes a large, round building, unusual for ancient Rus', that stood not far from the Church of St. John the Evangelist. Building diameter - 18.66 m. Walls preserved to a height of up to 1.5 m, made of plinth with cement mortar. On the edges of plinth bricks, as in all other buildings in Smolensk, there are a large number of marks of masters. The masonry is typical of the 12th century. and is close to the masonry of the Church of St. John the Evangelist (70s of the 12th century). The entrance to the building was on the north side. In the lower tier there were narrow (about 20 cm in width) embrasure windows.

5. MONUMENTAL ARCHITECTURE OF THE Dnieper region at the end of the 12th - beginning of the 13th centuries.

In the second half of the 12th century. in the Dnieper region, as in other regions of ancient Rus', there was an intensive growth of cities, becoming not only economic, but also political and cultural centers. This is also associated with the wider construction of stone churches, which become smaller in size, but more complex in composition and with richer decorative decoration of the facades.

The formation of a new stylistic direction occurs in the last quarter of the 12th century, although it obviously originated earlier. The architecture of the new stage is characterized, first of all, by a significant change in compositional techniques. Instead of the static forms of the cross-domed cathedrals of the previous time, which represented, as it were, a certain architectural standard of a religious building, a complex, upwardly growing volumetric composition of churches is becoming widespread, in which, one might think, the folk techniques of ancient Russian wooden architecture find expression. If the building of the previous stage was characterized by the fact that the main attention of the architect was paid to the artistic decoration of the interior, now the main attention of the architect switches to the external appearance of the building. The facades of the temple are covered with numerous decorations; profiled pilasters emphasize its height and tower-like composition.

The character of the interior of buildings also changes dramatically. The large height of the building allows for a large number of windows, as a result of which the church inside is well lit. In this way, the churches of this direction differ from the dimly lit interiors of monastery cathedrals of previous times.

At the end of the 12th century. Construction in posads, “ends”, and market squares acquired a special scope, and the architecture of this time largely corresponded to the tastes

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New customers - city residents. The new stylistic direction is spreading not only in the Dnieper region (Smolensk, Kyiv, Chernigov) and western regions (Polotsk, Grodno). It penetrates into Veliky Novgorod (Pyatnitskaya Church), and even into distant Vladimir on Klyazma (the original cathedral of the Princess Monastery).

If at the previous stage in the architecture of the Dnieper region there were noticeable features that brought it closer to Romanesque architecture, then at the second stage the emergence and development of a new stylistic direction have some analogies with the Gothic architecture emerging in Western Europe during this period.

In the architecture of the Kyiv and Smolensk lands, the development of a new stylistic direction is largely associated with the construction activities of the Smolensk princes Rurik and David Rostislavich. This activity was especially intense in Kyiv after Rurik Rostislavich, who, according to the chronicle, “had an insatiable love for buildings,” became the prince of Kyiv. In the second half of the 12th century. Prince Rurik Rostislavich builds St. Basil's Church¹ in his city of Ovruch (on the northwestern outskirts of the Kyiv land).

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¹ Vasilyevskaya Church was restored in 1908 to its supposed original form by Acad. A. Shchusev, and the reliability of the reconstruction of the top of the building is questionable.

Vasilievskaya Church is a four-pillar, three-apse, cross-domed, single-domed church (Fig. 16). Two round towers adjoin the western façade. The facades of the towers and apses are decorated with profiled vertical rods. The facades of the temple are divided by beam pilasters of complex profile, emphasizing the verticality of the volume composition, and are decorated with rows of curbs and arcature belts. The brickwork of the walls is very decorated with large stones inserted into the walls, hewn and polished from the front surface. The architectural and artistic image of the building, with its complex composition and rich decoration of the facades, differs significantly from the simple and strict-shaped cubic cross-domed churches of the previous time (Fig. 17).

As can be assumed based on the text of the Kyiv Chronicle, one of the leading architects of this period was the court architect of Rurik Rostislavich - Peter

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Miloneg, who built a retaining wall in the Vydubitsky monastery and was, apparently, the author of most of the buildings carried out by princely order. Built by Peter Milonegos in 1199-1200. the grandiose retaining wall was one of the largest civil engineering structures of the time. Perhaps Pyotr Miloneg also carried out another order from Rurik Rostislavich - the construction of the churches of Vasily on the New Court and the Apostles in Belgorod (both in 1197). The chronicle wrote about the Church of the Apostles that it was “studded with height and grandeur and adornment in every way.”

Excavations of the Belgorod Church confirmed its closeness to the stylistic direction under consideration. It also includes a small four-pillar, single-apse church, excavated in 1947 in the estate of the Kyiv Art Institute [like the Polotsk churches and the St. Michael's (Svirskaya) Church in Smolensk], the facades of which were decorated with beam pilasters.

At the end of the 12th century. the new direction is spreading everywhere in Chernigov land. A remarkable monument of Chernigov architecture is the Pyatnitskaya Church belonging to this direction (Fig. 18, 19). The year of construction of the Pyatnitskaya Church is unknown. Analysis of the architectural forms and construction techniques of the building allows us to attribute the construction to the end of the 12th - beginning of the 13th century, possibly to the time of the reign of Igor Svyatoslavich in Chernigov. There is an assumption that its builder could have been the architect Petr Miloneg. The Pyatnitskaya Church was built in the Okolny town at a auction.

The type of the temple is a four-pillar cross-domed building, but its entire composition is far from the static form of the cross-domed churches of the previous time. The side parts are covered with semi-cylindrical vaults, which, together with the vaults of the branches of the architectural cross, form three-lobed completions of the walls. The slender drum is placed on girth arches, raised above the adjacent vaults. This imparts greater harmony to the interior and promotes more uniform illumination. On the outside, the second tier of zakomari corresponds to the girth arches, and above them rises their third tier, not connected with the structures, but giving the masses of the building upward direction, emphasized by the pointed outline of the zakomari and the figure of eight at the base of the drum.

Numerous craftsmen's marks on the bricks give reason to believe that the brick was made by local townsman craftsmen. The walls are made of a system of “boxes”, the inside of which is filled with lime concrete. There were narrow passages inside the walls of the second tier.

The architectural forms of the Pyatnitskaya Church are organically connected with the properties, texture and scale of the material - brick. Beam rods and pilasters, the nature of the decorative treatment of facades with arcature belts, a mesh frieze, decorative niches, complex and subtle designs of the upper parts of the monument - all this goes well with the technical and decorative properties of the material. The main element of facade decoration is

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Complex profile beam pilasters and thin vertical rods on the apses, emphasizing the dynamic nature of the composition directed upwards. Perspective portals of a complex profile are reminiscent of the portals of Romanesque buildings. Very interesting are the peculiar “edges” above the triple windows on the facades, consisting of white stripes of complex ornamentation made using the sgraffito technique. Crosses made of ceramic glazed tiles and flat niches with paintings enhanced the colorfulness of the facades. An interesting mesh ornament made of bricks fills the semi-closed spaces of the side vaults. It emphasizes the ease of filling the wall and creates the impression of openwork of the side ceiling structures.¹

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¹ Pyatnitskaya Church was partially destroyed by the Nazi invaders and has now been restored to its original form by P. D. Baranovsky.

19. Chernigov. Pyatnitskaya Church.

View from the southwest after restoration

Excavations uncovered the foundations of three more buildings of this stylistic trend in Chernigov land. These were churches in Vshchizh, Novgorod-Seversk and Putivl. Vshchizhskaya Church was a four-pillar cross-domed building, possibly

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It can be surrounded by porches or galleries. Its architecture is not entirely clear. It is believed that its facades were decorated with profiled pilasters, and the entrances had perspective profiled portals.

20. Churches of the 12th century.

1 - Novgorod-Seversky. Spassky Cathedral, end of the 12th century. (plan); 2 - Smolensk. Church of the Archangel Michael (Svirskaya), 1191-1194. (plan, western facade, cross section); 3 - Smolensk. Spasskaya Church, 2nd half of the 12th century. (plan)

The four-pillar Spassky Cathedral in Novgorod-Seversk had vestibules on three sides (Fig. 20, 1 ). Its facades were decorated with beam pilasters, even more complex in profile than the pilasters of the Chernigov Pyatnitskaya Church; in plan these pilasters had a three-lobed shape.

The most interesting of all three buildings was the Spassky Cathedral in Putivl. It was a relatively small four-pillar temple with three apses on the east and a western porch. From the north and south, the central part of the building was adjoined by still wide semicircular apses, which enhanced the centricity of the building’s composition. Such side apses are not found anywhere else in ancient Russian architecture and have analogies only in the medieval architecture of the Balkans and the Caucasus. The internal pillars of the Putivl Cathedral are octagonal, with interesting profile plinths. Like the Novgorod-Seversky Cathedral, the building was richly decorated with complex profile beam pilasters.

The new direction has become widespread in the Smolensk land. The only firmly dated and well-preserved monument to this day is the Church of the Archangel Michael (Svirskaya) - was built in 1191-1194. (see Fig. 20, 2 ). Of the other buildings of this

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Two directions known from the foundations discovered in recent years have been more or less sufficiently studied: the Pyatnitskaya Church on Maly Torg, the date of construction of which is unknown, and the church on Chernushki, which is identified with the Church of the Savior (see Fig. 20, 3 ). Other buildings, including the church on Rachevka, very typical of the entire movement as a whole, have been discovered by excavations, but have not yet been sufficiently studied. In any case, they indicate that this trend was widespread in Smolensk at the end of the 12th - beginning of the 13th century.

The Church of the Archangel Michael (Svirskaya) is one of the outstanding monuments of ancient Russian architecture (Fig. 21). Reporting its construction in 1191-1194, the chronicle adds that there was nothing like it “in midnight countries” and many foreigners came to look at it. Built by the Smolensk prince David Rostislavich, the church was the court temple of the Smyadyn princely residence. Placed on the top of a hill, the temple is visible from a great distance and fits perfectly into the landscape of the Dnieper valley. As in the Pyatnitskaya Church in Chernigov, a strictly centered volumetric pyramidal composition is used here.

21. Smolensk. Church of the Archangel Michael.

General view from the southwest

In contrast to the elegant and elegant Pyatnitskaya Church in Chernigov, the St. Michael's Church in Smolensk was majestic and austere. The building plan is based on a four-pillar version of a cross-domed church. The church inside makes an exceptionally strong impression. The pillars extending upward to a great height create a spectacular vertical perspective. The main apse protrudes on the eastern facade; the side apses are inscribed in a square. The volume of the central apse corresponds on three sides of the building to the volumes of high vestibules, creating a cross-shaped plan and pyramidal volume. Above the facades there may have been three-lobed pediments, replacing the side-by-side finishing of the temples of the previous time. The building is completed by a tall drum with a hemispherical dome. The facades are divided by pilasters of a complex beam profile, especially developed at the corners. The facades are also decorated with an arcature belt, flat decorative niches and peculiar “edges” above the openings. On the side porches there are small niches in two tiers, similar in proportion to the windows and with their understated scale emphasizing the size of the building. Decorative niches on the sides of the portals serve the same purpose. According to Western Russian tradition, the church had a low base. The peculiarities of the building include striped masonry with recessed rows, reproducing the Kiev “opus mixtum” of the 11th century, which had not been used in the Dnieper region for about a hundred years. This masonry was only partially used in the Church of the Archangel Michael. It is possible that this was influenced by Western Polotsk-Vitebsk architecture, which preserved in the 12th century. mixed masonry. This influence was reflected in the compositional structure of the volume, close to the composition of the Spassky Cathedral of the St. Euphrosyne Monastery in Polotsk, and in the single-apse type of plan.

Close in architecture to the St. Michael's Church was the single-apse Pyatnitskaya Church on Maly Torg. In Pyatnitskaya Church

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There was only one porch, and therefore its type was closer to Polotsk architecture, with its characteristic elongated plans. The facades of the building were decorated with beam pilasters, similar to the pilasters of the Church of the Archangel Michael.

The small church on Chernushki is much more compact in plan and is close to the type of cubic temple (see Fig. 20, 3 ). Like St. Michael's Church, it had a semicircular central apse protruding from the facade and side ones inscribed in a square. From the west, the volume of the apse corresponded to the narthex. Judging by the nature of the plan, it can be assumed that the volumetric construction of the church on Chernushki was close to the composition of the Church of the Archangel Michael. On the other hand, its plan is extremely close to the small church of the late 12th - early 13th centuries. in the estate of the Kyiv Art Institute. As in all other buildings of this type, the facades of the Chernushkin church were decorated with vertical rods of beam pilasters. It should be noted that the pilasters in the last two buildings considered consisted of rectangular projections and did not have rounded or semicircular rods made of patterned bricks, which may indicate a slightly earlier date of their construction.

Very close in architecture to the Smolensk St. Michael's Church was the Pyatnitskaya Church in Novgorod, built in 1207 by Novgorod merchants trading with foreign countries. Judging by the remains of profiled pilasters, the Cathedral of the Princess Monastery in Vladimir on Klyazma (1200-1201) belonged to the same direction. The possibility of its construction by Dnieper architects by order of Prince Vsevolod Yuryevich cannot be ruled out. Obviously, the original Trinity Cathedral in Pskov (late 12th century) also belonged to the same stylistic trend.

Features of architectural schools of individual lands of the Dnieper region in the 12th - early 13th centuries. sometimes they are barely distinguishable, and sometimes they are so intertwined that they cannot be traced. This becomes quite understandable if we take into account the close proximity of the economic, cultural and political life of the Dnieper regions, as well as the fact that the architects of one city could work in another. All architecture of the Dnieper region is characterized by the same construction methods, the same use of brick as the main building material and the same constructive and artistic techniques, characteristic of each of the two stages of development of Dnieper architecture in the 12th - early 13th centuries.

In the second and third quarters of the 12th century. The architects of Kyiv, Chernigov and Smolensk, based on the architecture of the ancient Russian state, developed a type of building with a certain system of composition and decoration. The architecture of the Dnieper region of this period greatly influences other local architectural schools. Thus, a new trend of ancient Russian architecture from the Dnieper region at the end of the 12th - beginning of the 13th century. extends to Pskov, Novgorod and even Vladimir-Suzdal land.

The last stage in the development of architecture in the Dnieper region provided brilliant examples of the creative skill of ancient Russian architects, deeply original, closely related to the techniques of folk architecture, and possessing a pronounced East Slavic specificity of architectural and artistic image. The further development of this architecture was interrupted by the Tatar-Mongol invasion, which suspended monumental construction in these lands for a long time.

II. ARCHITECTURE OF THE WESTERN REGIONS OF ANCIENT Rus' IN THE XII century.

To the west of the Smolensk principality, on the low-lying plains of the Berezina and Western Dvina basins, stood the cities of Polotsk land - Polotsk, Vitebsk, Mensk, Logozhsk, Borisov, Lukoml, Golotichesk, Dryutesk. These cities played a significant role in

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Economic and political life of ancient Rus'. The Principality of Polotsk maintained close ties with the peoples of the Baltic states.

The capital of the Principality of Polotsk - one of the oldest cities in Rus', Polotsk stands on the hilly right bank of the Western Dvina. On a high cape at the mouth of the Polota River there was an ancient village with an area of ​​4.5 ha. In the center of Detinets stands the 11th century St. Sophia Cathedral. On the unprotected eastern side, the detynets is fortified with a powerful rampart. To the east of Detinets, on the adjacent low-lying area, there is the territory of the so-called Lower Castle, surrounded by ramparts, where the Okolny City was located. The craft and trading settlements of Polotsk also spread over a large area beyond Polota. These quarters were also surrounded by powerful earthen ramparts that ran from the bank of the Western Dvina to the bank of the Polota in the place where the Spaso-Euphrosyne Monastery is located. The monastery protected the approaches to the city from the north.

On the other bank of the Western Dvina there was the Belchitsky Monastery. Here in the first half of the 12th century. the Polotsk princes, limited in their power by veche liberties, moved their residence. Stone princely temples, towers and defensive structures were built on Belchitsa.

A number of buildings on Belchitsa that have not survived to this day characterize the first stage of the development of Polotsk architecture in the 12th century.

The earliest stone structure is the 12th century. there was a cathedral of the Belchitsky monastery, the construction of which dates back to the 20-30s of the 12th century. This is a six-pillar cross-domed church with cross-shaped pillars inside, flat blades on the facades and three vestibules. In type it is close to the Church of the Savior on Berestov in Kyiv and is only somewhat simplified: it does not have a narthex, and there is no tower with a baptismal sanctuary. The construction technique is similar to Spas on Berestov - brickwork with recessed rows. This Kiev tradition turns out to be extremely tenacious in Polotsk architecture. It remained there throughout the 12th century, when in other regions of ancient Rus' architects everywhere switched to either ordinary brick or stone masonry. The bricks of Belchitsa buildings bear the marks of craftsmen.

The traditions of Dnieper architecture are also evidenced by the found details of the arcature frieze and patterned bricks from half-columns.

Not far from the Belchitsky Cathedral there was a small Pyatnitskaya Church (first half of the 12th century), the architecture of which was of great importance for the further development of Polotsk architecture. It was a one-nave temple, apparently covered with a box vault, with a small porch - a narthex and a rectangular apse, which is an exception in ancient Russian architecture. In the very type of Pyatnitskaya Church on Belchitsa, the type of wooden three-framed temple, which later became so characteristic of the wooden and stone architecture of Russia, Belarus and Ukraine, was for the first time reproduced in stone. As one might assume, the completion of the Pyatnitskaya Church was made of wood.

The third Belchitsky temple - Boris and Gleb Church - is an already fully established type of temple of the Polotsk school. The time of its construction is also the first half of the 12th century. It is believed that it was built somewhat later than the Pyatnitskaya Church. By type, the Boris and Gleb Church is a six-pillar cross-domed church with very narrow side naves, one apse strongly protruding on the eastern side (the side apses are in the thickness of the eastern wall) and with a clearly defined narthex. The internal pillars had a cross shape, the facades were divided by flat blades. The top of the building has not been preserved, but it can be imagined by its closest analogy - the cathedral of the Spaso-Evfrosinevsky Monastery, built by the Belchitsa architect Ivan in the 50s of the 12th century. It is believed that the same Ivan was the builder of the Pyatnitskaya and Ascension churches of the Belchitsky Monastery.

The Cathedral of the Spaso-Euphrosyne Monastery in Polotsk is one of the outstanding buildings of ancient Russian architecture, in which the architect for the first time moved away from the type of conventional cross-domed church, creating a stepped tower-like composition

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Top and thereby marking the beginning of a new stylistic direction (Fig. 22).

The plan of the small cathedral of the Spaso-Evfrosinevsky Monastery is similar to the plan of the Boris and Gleb Church on Belchitsa. Only the internal pillars in it are not cross-shaped, but square and octagonal. The narthex and the choir located above it, as well as the central apse strongly protruding to the east, are lowered in comparison with the cube of the central volume of the temple. The domed quadrangle is developed into a separate volume, consisting of four three-lobed pediments (Fig. 23, 2 ). This form of the top of the temple is reminiscent of the “crossed barrel” of some later (XVII-XVIII centuries) Russian wooden buildings, which was probably used earlier both in wooden buildings and in the “hewn tops” of stone buildings. This is probably how the Pyatnitskaya Church on Belchitsa ended. As a result of this technique, the cathedral of the Spaso-Euphrosyne Monastery received a complex stepped composition, close in character to the images of Russian wooden architecture and far from the static forms of the cross-domed churches of the previous period.

Unlike the Belchitsa buildings, the facades of the Cathedral of the Spaso-Euphrosyne Monastery are divided not by flat blades, but by pilasters with semi-columns (incomplete semicircle). Inside the cathedral, an interesting fresco painting has been preserved, different from the paintings of the Kyiv school and in many ways close to the Novgorod art school.

An interesting monument of Polotsk architecture is the Church of the Annunciation in Vitebsk, the second largest and most important city in the Principality of Polotsk (Fig. 24). The church stands on the banks of the Western Dvina, where the trading post of Vitebsk was located. The year of its construction is not known, but all the features of its architecture indicate that it was built around the same time as the Polotsk churches, that is, around the middle of the 12th century. The masonry technique of the Vitebsk church differs from the Polotsk buildings of the 12th century. The walls of the building were built using a mixed method, similar in nature to Byzantine masonry of the 10th-13th centuries. (for example, to the masonry of the Church of John the Baptist in Kerch). Rows of plinth bricks (from one to four) are interspersed with rows of masonry made from well-hewn sandstone blocks. The walls of the building were plastered, and decorative quadratization was applied to the plaster.

According to the plan, the Church of the Annunciation is close to the type of the cathedral of the St. Euphrosyne Monastery in Polotsk: it has one protruding apse and narrow side naves (see Fig. 23, 4 ). The whole plan is even more elongated than that of the Polotsk churches. The dome of the church was assigned to the western part, while the side portals were located not in the wide divisions of the facade, corresponding to the branches of the architectural cross, but in narrower divisions adjacent to the apse part. The shape of window openings with bells is characteristic of Old Russian architecture of the second half of the 12th century.

Archaeological research on the territory of the monastery revealed the remains of another temple, characteristic of Polotsk architecture.

Polotsk architecture should include

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There is also a church on Zamchishche in Minsk¹. The castle - the ancient Russian deity of Minsk - was located on a small hill among a flat area with low hills in a bend of the Svisloch River (now the central region of Minsk). The territory of the Castle in the XII-XIII centuries. was densely built up with wooden log buildings with wooden pavement decks.

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¹ The monument is known from archaeological excavations.

23. Churches of the 12th century.

1 - Grodno. Boris and Gleb Church on Kolozha, 12th century. (northern façade and plan); 2 - Polotsk. Cathedral of the Euphrosyne Monastery, mid-12th century, architect Ivan (western facade, longitudinal section and plan); 3 - Minsk. Church on Zamchishche, XII century. (plan); 4 - Vitebsk. Church of the Annunciation, XII century. (plan); 5 - Grodno. Lower Church, XII century. (plan)

Among these buildings there was a small stone church, which was a type of four-pillar, three-apse temple. The building construction technique is unusual for Polotsk architecture. Its walls were built from hewn limestone blocks (on average 40×12 cm) with internal backfill. The mortar on which the foundations and walls are built is purely limestone without the addition of crushed brick - cement. The church dates from the second half of the 12th century. (see Fig. 23, 3 ).

Based on the heritage of the architecture of the ancient Russian state, Polotsk architecture throughout the 12th century. developed its own construction techniques and types of buildings. Basically, this is a type of elongated temple with one protruding and two hidden inside apses, in which the cross-domed system undergoes more and more changes until a type of temple with a stepped composition is created, which found its completion in the Cathedral of the Spaso-Euphrosyne Monastery.

Close in character to Polotsk architecture, but very original in construction methods and architectural decoration, was the architecture of ancient Grodno. Grodno land was the extreme western ru-

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Bejom of ancient Rus'. Here, on the upper and middle reaches of the Neman and its tributaries, the cities of the Grodno land were located - Grodno, Novgorodok, Volkoviysk, Slonim, Zditov. Separated from the Polotsk and Volyn lands by impassable swamps, the Grodno land in the 12th century. became a small principality, politically most often dependent on Kyiv.

24. Vitebsk. Church of the Annunciation, XII century.

General view from the northeast

Grodno is located on the hills of the right bank of the Neman. Detinets of the city was located on a high cape at the confluence of the small river Gorodnichanka into the Neman. On the plateau adjacent to Detinets (“New Castle”) and in the surrounding area to the east and southeast, urban craft and trading areas were located. According to ancient Russian custom, the coastal part was called Podol.

The relatively small Grodno castle-Detinets, as one can assume, had stone towers in its defensive fortification system, which were probably connected to each other by an earthen rampart and gorodnyi. The towers are identified with the remains of two brick buildings on the western and southern edges of the castle. Only part of the wall has survived from the western building, while the southern one has been partially preserved to a height of up to 2.5 m. It was a fairly large building, square (10x10 m) in plan, with the entrance on the north side. It is possible that this building was intended for housing and at the same time was adapted for defense. The walls of both buildings are made of plinth brick on pure lime mortar, without any admixture of cement, in a row masonry system. On the usual for the 12th century. The shape of the plinth bricks has preserved many signs of the masters. Brickwork every 60-70 cm interspersed with rows of masonry made of boulders and rough stones.

In addition to the remains of two civil buildings, the architecture of Grodno of the 12th century. It is represented by two temples - the so-called Lower Church, the ruins of which are located in the center of the ancient Dytinets, and the Boris and Gleb Church on Kolozhsky Hill, located across the Gorodyanka River opposite Dytinets. The architecture of both buildings is so original and, in particular, the means of artistic expression used by Grodno architects are so original that this makes it possible to distinguish the architecture of Grodno into an independent architectural school.

The earliest of these buildings was the Lower Church (second quarter of the 12th century). The type of church was a six-pillar cross-domed building (see Fig. 23, 5 ). It is difficult to judge how the building was completed, since its walls have been preserved along the perimeter to a height of up to 3.5 m. The building plan is rectangular with an incomplete semicircle of the central apse protruding on the eastern facade. The side apses are built into the thickness of the eastern wall. This feature brings the Grodno church closer to the Polotsk architectural tradition. The six internal pillars have a square plan with beveled corners. The dome square is located on the western side of the temple, similar to the Annunciation Church in Vitebsk, which is the closest analogue to the Lower Church in Grodno. The facades of the church are divided by flat blades, a type dating back to the traditions of the 11th century. Features of the building include chamfered western corners without blades. It is possible that the side parts of the facades did not end with zakomaras, and the entire top had a shape unusual for ancient

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Russian buildings. Apparently, the side naves were covered with a pitched roof. A staircase in the southwest corner led to the choir.

The system of architectural decoration of facades in the Grodno church is extremely interesting. Huge blocks of irregularly shaped stone and boulders, hewn and polished on the facades, are inserted into the masonry of the walls, made of brick according to the row system. Along the perimeter of the cut, the stones have low beveled edges, which gives them the appearance of precious stones. The stones (granites and gneisses) are selected by color: gray-pink, gray-green, as well as brownish-gray, brown, reddish-violet and almost black. The brickwork on the facades between the stones was covered with a thin layer of plaster. In the upper parts of the facades, where there was a row of narrow arched windows, majolica was used. Large bowls covered with green glaze were built into the walls between the windows. Above them were inserts of green and brown majolica tiles placed at an angle of 45°. Numerous decorative crosses and ornaments were made from the same tiles. The inside of the temple was not painted with frescoes, which rarely happened in Rus'. A great artistic effect was created by the floor made of multi-colored (yellow, red and green) majolica tiles of various shapes. A complex pattern was laid out of these tiles in the central part of the building.

Borisoglebskaya Church on Kolozha (Fig. 25) was the church of a small princely monastery. The year of its construction is unknown; most likely it should be attributed to the 80s of the 12th century. By type, it is an eight-pillar, three-apse cross-domed church with tetrahedral pillars with cuts close to the walls of the apse and six free-standing round pillars, of which the four eastern ones formed an under-dome square, and the two western, thicker ones supported the choir (see Fig. 23, 1 ). Round pillars give the interior a hall-like character. The head of the temple is placed at its geometric center. The top of the building has not survived and the nature of its completion is unknown. Inside the church, along the second floor there was a wooden balcony on three sides, on which the choir was located. The exit to the balcony was from stairs laid in the thickness of the walls of the southern and northern apses. Numerous openings of voice boxes, located in the walls in a checkerboard pattern, open into the interior of the temple. Along the bottom there is a series of small niches.

25. Grodno. Boris and Gleb Church on Kolozha, 12th century.

Apse masonry detail

Of great interest is the nature of the decoration of the facades of the Kolozha Church. They are divided by pilasters of complex profile, characteristic of the stylistic direction of the Dnieper region at the end of the 12th century. and similar in shape to the pilasters of the Vasilyevskaya Church in Ovruch. As in the Lower Church, the facades (especially in the lower parts) are decorated with blocks of multi-colored stones with a polished front surface inserted into the brickwork. Even more than in the Lower Church, the facades of the Kolozhskaya Church are decorated with colored majolica. Inserts of glazed yellow, green and brown tiles of various shapes (16 types in total) and multi-colored majolica created an exceptional artistic effect.

In the earlier Lower Church there are no features that bring it closer to the architecture of the Dnieper region of the mid-12th century. It belongs to the circle of monuments of the western regions and, in particular, is close to Polotsk architecture. At the same time, the character of its architecture has a number of deeply original features (decoration of facades, shape of apses,

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Possible sloping covering of the side naves).

There are no features in the Kolozha Church that bring this monument closer to Polotsk architecture, but one can note its closeness to the stylistic direction of the Dnieper region of the late 12th century. (profiled pilasters) and, in particular, to the architecture of the Church of Vasily in Ovruch, which also used the decorative properties of stones in brickwork. At the same time, the Kolozha church has many original features. These are stones and ceramics on the facades, voice boxes in the walls, round pillars, wooden choir-balconies, niches on the first tier, and a variety of majolica slabs.

The type of the Lower Church in Grodno is almost completely repeated by the church discovered in the city of Volkovysk. It was only large in size, and a tower with a square plan was adjacent to its southwestern corner. The Volkovysk church was not completed. Near it, stacks of plinths, a limestone pit, and stones with polished surfaces prepared for decorating the facades were discovered.

III. ARCHITECTURE OF THE SOUTH-WESTERN REGIONS OF ANCIENT Rus' IN THE XII-XIII centuries.

The southwestern regions of ancient Rus' - the Galician-Volyn lands - were closely connected with the economic and political life of the Dnieper region and other Russian lands. In the 12th century. Numerous cities appeared in the Galicia-Volyn land, the capitals of the principalities were built up, and crafts developed.

From the middle of the 12th century. Volyn, which has always played an important role in the historical and political life of ancient Rus', becomes an independent principality. During this period, there was a significant revival of trade routes going through Volyn from the west to the Dnieper region. The architectural connections of ancient Russian lands with the countries of Western Europe also follow these paths. The constant threat of attack from the west forced the Volyn princes to take vigorous measures to build defensive fortifications in their cities. The capital of Volyn, Vladimir-Volynsky, which was in the 12th century, was especially strongly fortified. one of the largest Russian cities.

No information has been preserved about the civil architecture of Vladimir-Volynsky. Among the monumental buildings, the city Assumption Cathedral (“Mstislav’s Temple”), built in 1160, has survived to this day. Volyn prince Mstislav Mstislavich¹ (Fig. 26). In its type, construction technology and architectural forms, the cathedral is close to the architecture of the Dnieper region and, in particular, to the Kyiv architecture of the 12th century. (Cyril Church). Its type also goes back to the Assumption Cathedral of the Kiev Pechersk Lavra. This is a six-pillar cross-domed temple, crowned with one dome (Fig. 27, 1 ). The proportions of its plan are somewhat more elongated than those of the Dnieper monuments. The walls and ceilings are made of plinth in rows of masonry on lime mortar with an admixture of cement. The facades are divided by pilasters with powerful semi-columns and decorated with arcature belts. Remains of fresco painting have been preserved, similar in style to the paintings of Kyiv and Chernigov in the 12th century.

____________

¹ The cathedral was extensively rebuilt in the 18th century. and restored to its supposed original form at the end of the 19th century.

Even closer to Dnieper architecture is the so-called Fedorovskaya Church, the foundations of which were discovered at the end of the 19th century. over the river Meadow (see Fig. 27, 2 ). The church was apparently the cathedral of a country monastery. Its plan almost exactly repeats the types of Dnieper six-pillar churches of the 12th century. The construction technique is also very similar. As in Chernigov architecture, the marks of masters can be seen on the bricks of the Fedorovskaya Church.

Both monuments, dating back to the second half of the 12th century, represent that period of Volyn architecture when it was strongly influenced by pre-Dnieper architecture.

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Volyn architecture of subsequent times (end of the 12th century - 13th century) was unknown until recently. As a result of recent research, not far from the Vasilyevskaya rotunda of the 14th century. a four-pillar cross-domed church was discovered (presumably the St. Basil's Church) with powerful internal pillars, narrow side naves and narrow blades on the facades. The building's construction technique is close to the Dnieper technique of the late 12th century. Like the Pyatnitskaya Church in Chernigov, its walls are built using a system of “boxes” with the middle filled with lime concrete. Close to the Dnieper style of the late 12th - early 13th centuries. and decoration of the apses with pilasters with thin vertical rods. Local features include the tetrahedral shape of the internal pillars and the peculiar outlines in terms of the corners of the building with ledges and roundings.

The next stage in the development of Volyn architecture is represented by the Mikhailovsky Rotunda, also recently discovered by research. As it should be assumed, it was built in the second half of the 13th century. and perhaps refers to the construction activities of the Volyn prince Vladimir Vasilkovich. Unlike all ancient Russian buildings of the previous time, the building was erected from square bricks. The mortar on which the walls of St. Michael's Church were built was lime with cement, common in ancient Russian architecture. St. Michael's rotunda was a building of the central-dome type, which has long existed in Christian architecture both in the West (Church of San Stefano Rotondo in Rome, etc.) and in the East (Zvartnots in Armenia, Bana in Georgia, Lekit in Azerbaijan, etc.). In the X-XII centuries. this type was known both in the countries of Southern and Central Europe, and in Rus' (rotunda in Smolensk in the 12th century).

The rotundal type of building, rare for ancient Russian architecture, could be used in church buildings in exceptional cases. It is possible that these were memorial temples or tomb temples. The external walls of the Mikhailovskaya rotunda formed a ring with three semicircular apse niches in the thickness of the eastern wall, with two pilasters on the eastern facade. The inner ring consisted of octagonal and round brick pillars, on which, as can be assumed, the arches supporting the drum and dome rested.

26. Vladimir-Volynsky. Assumption Cathedral, 1160

General view from the west

The Tatar-Mongol invasion did not stop construction in Volyn. Under the influence of the military threat from both the Tatars and the West, in the second half of the 13th - early 14th centuries. Intensive stone defensive construction was carried out there. Several monuments of this construction have survived to this day. These are the famous stone Volyn towers, located in the southwestern part of the Volyn land - in the areas of Kholm and Kamenets-Litovsky. The construction of these towers was caused by significant changes that took place in military affairs. With the spread of crossbows and throwing machines - “vices” - they began to build high towers with a large firing radius in the system of defensive fortifications. Similar towers are repeatedly mentioned in chronicles of the second half of the 13th century. So, about the castle in the Hill it is said: “The tower in the middle of the city is high, as if it were to be beaten from it around the city, it is built up with a stone to a height of 15 lakotas, creating

See close to the brick of the Mikhailovskaya rotunda in Vladimir-Volynsky. The tower, round in plan, had five tiers. Its outer diameter is 13.5 m with wall thickness up to 2.5 m. The tiers were connected by wooden stairs. In the lower parts of the four floors there are loophole windows with interesting pointed three-lobed arches, indicating a certain influence of forms of Gothic architecture. The top of the tower was crowned with tall rectangular battlements.

The remains of a tower similar to the Kamenets one were discovered in the city of Chertorysk.

There are two more such towers in the Kholm area. The first of them in the village. Belavino - rectangular in plan (11.8×12.4 m), preserved to a height of 16.6 m(see Fig. 28, 3 ). The tower originally had three tiers and was covered with vaults. It is built from well-hewn blocks of local limestone with lime mortar with a wall thickness of up to 1.7 m. The narrow loophole windows were decorated with carved frames made from local Kholm stone. The second tower, tetrahedral on the outside and round on the inside, also made of limestone blocks, is located in the village. Stolpie (see Fig. 28, 2 ). Its dimensions in plan are 5.8×6.3 m. The tower has been preserved to a height of up to 19.5 m. As studies have shown, at an altitude of 10.3 m it was surrounded by a wooden gallery intended for shooting at the enemy.

The remains of a third similar tower, also located in the Kholm area, in the village. Spas, were later converted into a church. This monument has not yet been studied. In terms of construction techniques, the Kholm towers are close to Galician architecture.

Castle construction in Volyn in the 14th century. (Lubart's castle in Lutsk, castle in Kremenets, etc.), in which the traditions of ancient Russian architecture are so strong, reveals the history of architecture of the Ukrainian people. It was in Volyn that arose in the 14th century. architectural monuments in which the emerging national features of Ukrainian-

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Sky architecture. In this regard, the significance of Volyn architecture of the 12th-13th centuries, which found its direct continuation in the development of the architecture of the Ukrainian people, is very great.

28. Towers of the 13th century.

1 - Kamenets-Litovsky. White Vezha, end of the 13th century. (facade, section and plan); 2 - With. Stolpye near the town of Kholm. Tower, late 13th century. (facade and plan); 3 - With. Belavino near the town of Kholm. Tower, late 13th century. (facade and plan)

The architecture of ancient Galich opens a new page in the history of ancient Russian architecture. Galician land by the middle of the 12th century. becomes one of the largest principalities of ancient Rus'. The Galician princes, like those of Vladimir-Suzdal, are fighting the feudal-boyar opposition and showing a tendency to collect Russian lands.

At the end of the 12th century, the political unification of the Galician-Volyn lands took place under the rule of the princes of the Volyn dynasty. Under them, Galich became the largest center, spreading its influence to neighboring lands. The political influence of Galich especially increased in the first half of the 13th century, when the Galician princes subjugated the Dnieper region to their power and even occupied Kyiv just before the Tatar invasion.

At this time, Galich was one of the largest and richest cities in Europe. He undertook major urban planning work in Galich in the middle of the 12th century. Prince Yaroslav Osmomysl, who rebuilt the Transnistrian capital. The city occupied a large territory spread over hilly terrain in the bend of the Lukva and Mozlev Potok rivers. On the cape of a high plateau stood Detynets - a strong fortress with princely palaces and the palace Church of the Savior on the north side. In the southern part of the city center there was the city Assumption Cathedral. South of Detinets, behind a line of powerful ramparts that today reach 8 m heights, the Okolny town was located. Behind the triple ramparts of the Okolny town there were city suburbs. Numerous suburban villages, monasteries and feudal estates surrounded ancient Galich. The ditches and ramparts of the fortified monastery in 5 km north of Galich, on a high hill at the confluence of the river. Lomnica in the Dniester. In the center of these fortifications stands the Church of Panteleimon. South, at 12 km

The urban development of Galich has been little studied; According to all data, it did not differ significantly from the development of other ancient Russian cities. Chronicles repeatedly mention the princely courts of Galich. The Galich princely wooden palace, built in 1152, was connected by wooden passages to the choir of the stone court church of the Savior, which gives reason to see in it a complex similar to the white stone palace of Andrei Bogolyubsky in Bogolyubovo.

The construction technology of Galician stone buildings is very different from the construction technology of the Dnieper region. The main building material in Galich was local white limestone, excellent in quality. All buildings were erected on rubble foundations. Laying walls, pillars, arches and

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The vaults were made of well-hewn and carefully fitted blocks of stone with lime mortar. Galician architects did not add cement to the lime mortar. The middle of the walls was covered with lime concrete, just as the masters of Vladimir-Suzdal Rus' did. The floors of the buildings were made of patterned tiles. Of particular interest are the thin ceramic tiles that may have lined the walls of palace buildings. Images of griffins, birds, animals and ornaments are embossed on these tiles with great professional skill.

Numerous remains of decorations of monumental buildings in Galich are found in excavations in the form of carved architectural white stone fragments and patterned ceramic facing tiles.

Almost nothing has survived from the monumental stone buildings of Galich. In the large area occupied by Galich and its environs, excavations revealed the foundations of approximately 30 stone structures, but for the most part they have not been sufficiently explored. Nevertheless, based on these studies, it is possible to draw some conclusions about the typological features of the Galician school of architecture. Its main feature was a wide variety of architectural types. In addition to the cross-domed type characteristic of ancient Rus', represented in Galich by a number of four-pillar churches (Assumption Cathedral, Church of the Savior, “under Dubrava”, Panteleimon, Fig. 29, 1, 3, 4 ), small single-nave and single-apse churches and rotundas were characteristic of Galich. In one of the monuments of Galich (the so-called Elias Church, Fig. 29, 2 ) the last two types are combined in a unique way: the round central room is adjoined by a rectangular vestibule from the west and an apse from the east.

In the variety of types of buildings of ancient Galich, as one can assume, its architectural connections were important not only with the Dnieper region (cross-domed buildings), but also with the Romanesque architecture of the West (single-nave churches elongated along the longitudinal axis). The influence of Romanesque architecture was to some extent reflected in the nature of the carved white stone decorations, in particular, the lavishly carved perspective portals. The white stone carving of ancient Galich is very close to the white stone carving of Vladimir-Suzdal architecture and undoubtedly has common ties with it.

The largest building in Galich was the Assumption Cathedral, built in 1157 by Prince Yaroslav Osmomysl. Only the foundation and minor remains of the southern wall have survived from the cathedral building. In its central part, the cathedral, as one can assume, was a cross-domed, four-pillar, three-apse church. It was surrounded on three sides by closed galleries. It ended with perhaps one chapter. The general plan of the building is somewhat reminiscent of the later plans of the Annunciation Cathedral in Chernigov and the Assumption Cathedral in Vladimir-on-Klyazma. The building was built of white stone,

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The facades and portals are decorated with white stone sculptural details, carved capitals, ornamented details, and masks.

The only monument of ancient Galich that has survived to this day is the Church of Panteleimon, built in the second half of the 12th century. (before 1200). From the ancient building, the outer walls, western and southern portals and three apses have been preserved to a considerable height. The church is made of blocks of light yellow stone with lime mortar. The four-pillar, three-apse temple probably had a cross-domed structure. The peculiarity of its plan lies in its exceptionally correct geometric construction (see Fig. 29, 4 ). The cross pillars correspond to narrow blades, somewhat inconsistent with the pilasters of the facades.

The perspective western portal is decorated with columns on pedestals of complex profile with well-drawn Corinthian capitals. Such portals are typical both for monuments of Vladimir-Suzdal architecture and for many Romanesque buildings of the 12th-13th centuries. in Hungary, Czech Republic, Poland, Silesia. The entablature of the portal is decorated with a carved stylized acanthus ornament intertwined with a cord. The archivolts of the portal are framed with the same ornaments and plaits. The portal of the southern facade is simpler, decorated with carved columns with a carved archivolt. The small capitals of the pilasters of the arcade dividing the apses of the eastern facade are very elegantly made. The facades of the temple are undecorated and carefully made in stone masonry (Fig. 30, 31).

Another monument of Galician architecture is known from excavations - a church of the 12th century. in Vasilev, one of the southern cities of the Galician land. The church stood on the Transnistrian hill, adjacent to the hill where the ancient settlement of Vasiliev is located. Its location is similar to the Kolozhskaya Church in Grodno, and, obviously, just like the latter, the Vasilevskaya Church was the temple of a country princely monastery. The type of building is common for ancient Russian churches of the 12th century: four-pillar, cross-domed, with three apses. The masonry of walls from white stone blocks is common in Galician architecture. The portals of the building were decorated with white stone carvings.

In the 13th century the large center of Western Volyn - Kholm - was part of the Galician Principality. In the architecture of the Hill, very close to Galician architecture, Galician traditions continued and developed. Numerous white stone buildings on the Hill have not survived to this day. In the Ipatiev Chronicle from 1259 there is a description of Ivan’s church. She was richly decorated

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Shena by the “cunning” Avdey. Images of human heads were carved on the four-sided capitals. The portals were made of white Galician and green Kholm stone. The windows were decorated with stained glass (“Roman glass”).

In another Kholm church - Kozmodemyanskaya - the internal pillars were “made of solid stone”, and the floors were made of copper slabs filled with tin. The chronicle also tells about an interesting ancient Russian monument - a pillar with a large stone statue of an eagle standing not far from the Hill. The monument had significant dimensions: about 5.5 m in height.

In the 13th century a new center of the Galician land was built - Lviv, which played a big role in the cultural and political life of Galicia. The ancient layout of the city is typical of the ancient Russian town-planning tradition. On a high, steeply sloped western hill - Prince's Mountain, towering above the river valley. Poltva, there was a child. On the northwestern slopes and at the foot of the mountain, Podgorodye was located in a semicircle - city blocks with numerous courtyards, monasteries, and churches. Behind Podgorodye there were craft settlements, which also occupied the right bank of Poltva. On a nearby hill, overlooking the eastern part of the Lviv Valley, was the monastery of St. George.

There were more than 16 Orthodox churches, two Catholic churches, and two Armenian churches in the city. Of these structures, only some monuments of the Undercity have partially survived. The churches of John the Baptist 1260, Pyatnitskaya, Onufrievskaya and the Church of Mary the Snow were so rebuilt in subsequent centuries that it is absolutely impossible to find out their original forms without deep research. Somewhat better preserved, although also in a significantly rebuilt form, is the Church of St. Nicholas (late 13th - early 14th centuries), which is believed to have been the temple of the princely court (Fig. 29, 5 and 32). The church is cruciform in plan, with three apses. The central part is covered with a dome, the side aisles and the western porch are covered with cross vaults. The white stone masonry in the surviving ancient parts is similar in technique to the masonry of the buildings in Galich.

Galician architecture of the 12th - first half of the 13th centuries, typologically close to other local schools of Southern and Western Rus' of that time, was distinguished by the use of cut stone as the main building material. This was also associated with a peculiar decorative treatment of the facades, which, like white stone masonry, found an analogy only in the architecture of the North-East of Rus' - the Vladimir-Suzdal land.

Architectural forms corresponding to a new stage in the development of Russian architecture appeared with full clarity already in the first half of the 12th century. The temples of this time go back not to the huge cathedrals of the Kievan Rus era, but to monuments such as the Assumption Cathedral of the Pechersk Monastery. These are simple, balanced buildings with clearly defined facade planes, crowned by one massive dome. Their appearance becomes more withdrawn, detached from the world, retaining these features even in the presence of an external gallery. The dominant type is a small three-nave cross-domed church with small choirs only in the western part. The desire to create a more compact volume forced the abandonment of stair towers and their replacement with narrow staircases located in the thickness of the wall. If in large cathedrals of the era of Kievan Rus the interior is picturesque and diverse, has a large number of different aspects, then in the monuments of the 12th century the construction of interiors is clear and clear, they could be seen immediately from one point. The nature of the interior decoration also changes; fresco, as a rule, replaces mosaic; stacked mosaic floors are replaced by floors made of glazed ceramic tiles.

However, if this was the general nature of the changes that took place in Russian architecture by the middle of the 12th century, then the forms in which these changes manifested themselves had their own special flavor in each architectural school. At the same time, the basic principle of architecture of the 11th century - the correspondence of the external appearance of the building to its planned scheme and design - was fully preserved in the 12th century. Likewise, the correspondence between construction techniques and decorative elements has been preserved. Structures, building materials, and forms of decorative decoration were still inseparable for the architect. Therefore, changes in construction technology or the transition to the use of other building materials immediately changed the entire decorative system of the building.

Monumental structures were built exclusively by order of princes or the church. Only from the second half of the 12th century they were gradually joined by large boyars, corporations of artisans and traders. At first, while this principality did not yet have its own cadre of builders, craftsmen were invited from the land with which the closest political or church relations existed. As a result, where strong political and church ties remained, the formation of independent architectural schools proceeded slowly; on the contrary, the isolation of the principalities almost always determined the originality of its architecture.

Many Russian lands throughout the 12th century continued to follow Kiev in architecture to one degree or another, even when it had practically lost its significance as the leading political center of Rus'. Yes, no
Despite the presence of their own masters, the architecture of such principalities as Chernigov and Ryazan, Smolensk, Volyn, preserved the Kyiv tradition almost until the end of the 12th century. In other lands - Galicia, Vladimir-Suzdal, Novgorod, Polotsk - already by the middle of the 12th century, their own architectural schools had developed, significantly different from the Kyiv one.

Monuments of Kyiv architecture of the 12th century differ from more ancient compositions and construction techniques. The walls are now laid exclusively from brick and not in the previous, almost square, but more elongated shape. The new technique made it possible to abandon masonry “with a hidden row” and move to a simpler equal-layer masonry, where the ends of all rows of bricks faced the front surface of the walls. This reduced the decorativeness of the wall surfaces. In order not to impoverish the facades, architects began to introduce additional decorative elements that could easily be made from brick - arcature belts, multi-stage portals, windows combined into one composition, etc. An important element of the facades became massive half-columns leaning against the blades and making the wall more plastic. At the same time, only the intermediate blades were complicated with half-columns, while the corner blades were left flat. As in the 11th century, each division of the facade ended with a semicircular zakomara. Since the principle of matching the wall decor with the building material was preserved, the walls, as before, were often not covered with plaster.

Few monuments of Kyiv architecture from the 12th century have survived. The six-pillar St. Cyril Church in Kyiv (after 1146) and the somewhat smaller church in Kanev (1144) have been preserved in all their main parts, although they are greatly distorted on the outside. Very close to them is the Church of the Assumption on Podil in Kyiv (1131-1136, now defunct). The four-pillar type includes the Church of Vasily (or Trekhsvyatitelskaya, 1183) in Kyiv, which has not survived to this day, and the small church of the Zarubsky Monastery on the Dnieper, discovered by excavations.

Several monuments of the 12th century have been preserved in Chernigov. Such is the six-pillar Cathedral of Boris and Gleb, recently restored to its original forms, but without the adjacent gallery, the former appearance of which has not been precisely established. Probably, its decoration included the white stone capitals found here during excavations, covered with magnificent carvings. The Cathedral of the Yeletsky Monastery, also with six pillars, instead of a gallery had vestibules in front of each portal and ended with a three-domed structure, rare for monuments of the 12th century. A small chapel was built into the southwestern corner of the temple. The Annunciation Cathedral (1186), discovered by excavations, rivaled the Kyiv buildings of the 11th century in the luxury of its decoration: its central part was covered with a magnificent mosaic floor depicting a peacock. Outside the temple was surrounded by a gallery. Chernigov masters also created an example of a pillarless solution used for the smallest churches - the Elias Church. The girth arches supporting the drum of the dome rest here not on pillars, but on pylons in the corners of the room. This is the only pillarless church of the 12th century that has preserved its vaults and dome. The facades of some Chernigov buildings were partially plastered and laid out in squares, imitating masonry from white stone blocks. This apparently reflected the interest in the white stone architecture of Galich and Vladimir Rus'.

Politically connected with Chernigov, the Ryazan principality followed the architectural tastes of its metropolis. The capital of the principality was a huge city, beautifully located on the high bank of the Oka, protected by giant earthen ramparts (now the site of Old Ryazan). Here, excavations have uncovered the ruins of three stone temples, two of which date back to the mid-12th century. These are six-pillar cathedrals; one of them had three porches. As in Chernigov, carved white stone parts were used in brickwork in Ryazan buildings. It is possible that they were erected by Chernigov craftsmen. Ryazan, which lived in very difficult military-political conditions, apparently did not have its own builders.

The monuments of the capital city of Volyn - Vladimir-Volynsky - belong to the same Kyiv architectural tradition. The Assumption Cathedral (mid-12th century, restored at the end of the 19th century, Fig. 16) differs from the Kyiv and Chernigov monuments only in minor details. Excavations there also uncovered the remains of a second similar, but much smaller church - the so-called Old Cathedral.

Smolensk became one of the largest centers of monumental construction in the 12th century. Advantageously located between Kiev and Novgorod on the great Dnieper-Volkhov route “from the Varangians to the Greeks,” it quickly grew rich and strengthened its military-political significance in the conditions of inter-princely struggle. The city lay on the picturesque heights of the left bank of the Dnieper, where hills and plateaus with deep winding ravines were combined in spectacular contrast. Nature itself created the relief here, calling architects to build. Unfortunately, most of the monuments of Smolensk architecture have been destroyed and are known only from excavations.

In 1101, Prince Vladimir Monomakh founded the city cathedral in Smolensk. It has not survived, but found samples of building materials (bricks, mortar) suggest that the cathedral was started by South Russians
masters. Subsequently, apparently with the participation of Chernigov architects, extensive construction began in Smolensk, and by the middle of the 12th century it undoubtedly already had its own fairly experienced personnel.

Of the Smolensk buildings of the mid-12th century, only the Church of Peter and Paul has survived almost entirely - a classic example of a four-pillar, single-domed temple, powerful, static and strict (ill. 19). Blades with half-columns add plasticity to the walls, enlivened by spots of windows and a portal. The curb belt, the arcatures at the heels of the zakomars and the convex crosses laid out on the wide planes of the angular blades only emphasize the harsh power of the walls. Compared to the impressive heaviness of the main volume, the large twelve-sided head is relatively light and graceful; an elegant belt made of ceramic tiles was introduced into the decoration of its cornice. The interior of the temple amazes with its grandeur and some coldness. A narrow, poorly lit staircase in the thickness of the western wall leads to the choir, the southwestern corner of which is occupied by a separate chapel with its own apse.

16. Assumption Cathedral in Vladimir-Volynsky. Mid-12th century
17. St. George's Church in Staraya Ladoga. Second half of the 12th century.
18. Transfiguration Cathedral in Pereslavl-Zalessky. 1152
19. Church of Peter and Paul in Smolensk. Mid-12th century

Church of St. John the Evangelist in Smolensk. Plan

Dating back to the 60s-70s of the 12th century, the Church of St. John the Evangelist almost completely repeats the forms of the Church of Peter and Paul, but it has survived to only a little more than half its original height. Both churches had tomb galleries. Among the monuments of this time, uncovered by excavations in Smolensk, there are several more modest in size, four-pillar, devoid of galleries, but there are also larger ones, for example, the Boris and Gleb Cathedral of Smyada of a certain monastery - a six-pillar temple with a gallery (1145-1147).

Of interest was a small pillarless church discovered by excavations in the Smolensk Detinets, the facades of which are dissected by flat blades, as in an ordinary four-pillar temple. This is a successful attempt to create a new type of religious building with a spacious, pillarless interior. In Detinets, the remains of another building have been discovered - a small rectangular building, apparently a princely mansion. He stood on the high edge of the mountain, from where a wide panorama of the city opened up. The pillarless church and tower were erected in the middle of the 12th century.

Near the Church of St. John the Evangelist, archaeologists also found a very unusual, round structure - a rotunda with a diameter of about 18 meters with four pillars placed quite closely in the center. This is the Church of the German Mother of God, which served foreign merchants living in Smolensk. In terms of plan, it exactly corresponds to the northern European Romanesque churches of the second half of the 12th century; The construction was probably supervised by a Scandinavian architect, but the building was obviously erected by Smolensk craftsmen using their usual bricklaying technique.

In most of the listed centers - in Kyiv, Chernigov, Smolensk - construction in the 12th century was carried out by local craftsmen. This is evidenced by differences in architectural forms and details of construction equipment. But all of them affect only in particulars, without affecting the general artistic, compositional and technical principles. The presence in Rus' in the 12th century of a large area of ​​the Kyiv architectural tradition is beyond doubt.

The architecture of the Novgorod land is developing differently. Gradually, during the first half of the 12th century, new architectural forms were developed here, which led to the formation of a completely independent school, different from the Kyiv one. The change in the social appearance of Veliky Novgorod and the uniqueness of its political fate had a great influence on the isolation of Novgorod art. In the 12th century, Novgorod gradually freed itself from the power of the prince and became a feudal republic, headed by the top boyars and the archbishop. Under the dominance of the city nobility, a significant role is still played by the trade and craft population - the “black people”, who have repeatedly stated their demands at the assembly. Culture is becoming more democratic, which also affects architecture.

Since the middle of the 12th century, stone construction in the Novgorod land was mainly led by the boyars, merchants and townspeople. Only small four-pillar churches are erected, which are either the parish church of the street or the home church of a rich boyar. Small chapels appear in the choirs dedicated to the patron of the customer. The interior space is simplified, acquiring a chamber character. Construction technology is also changing. Novgorod residents are increasingly using local limestone slabs, sandwiching them with rows of bricks to level them, which has led to a change in the design of the facades. The Novgorod slab is easily destroyed (eroded) over time. To prevent this, the surfaces of the walls began to be rubbed with mortar, leaving only the brick areas exposed. Decorative details that arose in the conditions of brickwork - belts, multi-broken openings, semi-columns on blades - were difficult to make from slabs, and they were abandoned. A flat reinforcing belt on a drum under the head, several niches, a decorative cross inserted into the wall masonry - that’s all that is included in the decoration of the facade. With the widespread use of slabs, it was difficult to achieve the same clarity and geometric lines as when building with brick or dense cut limestone. This natural feature in Novgorod was perceived not as a drawback, but, on the contrary, as a specific aesthetic device. The unevenness of the planes, the beveled corners, and the somewhat crumpled shape of the arches give the buildings a characteristic plasticity. The simplicity and modesty of Novgorod churches in the second half of the 12th century reflects the well-known democratism of architecture.

Typical for this time are the St. George (second half of the 12th century, ill. 17) and the Assumption churches in Staraya Ladoga. They are simple in composition; the facades are devoid of any decoration and are divided into three fields by flat blades. The Assumption Church originally had three porches. There are no internal blades, the pillars are not cross-shaped, but square in plan. Thanks to this, the interior has a clear configuration and is easy to see. The choirs occupy the western third of the church, with their corner divisions resting on vaults, and the middle part is an open balcony on wooden beams. The choir is reached by a narrow staircase running through the thickness of the western wall. The interiors were originally entirely frescoed; a significant number of them have been preserved in the St. George Church.

This type includes the Church of Cyril, preserved in its lower part or uncovered by excavations, the Church of the Annunciation near the village of Arkazhi near Novgorod, two more churches in Staraya Ladoga, the Church of the Savior in Staraya Russa, Dmitry Solunsky in Pskov and others.

20. Panteleimone Church near Galich. Turn of the XII-XIII centuries. Apse
21. Church of the Savior-Nereditsa near Novgorod. 1198
22. Church of Panteleimon near Galich. Turn of the XII-XIII centuries.

Of particular importance among the monuments of this type was the Church of the Savior-Nereditsa near Novgorod (1198), destroyed by the Nazis and now restored (ill. 21). This small temple amazed with its power and monumentality. Its interior space, immersed in twilight, seemed squeezed by thick walls, heavy and massive pillars, and a log choir hanging overhead. In the interior of the church, ancient painting was almost entirely preserved (Fig. 23). The value of the compositions, and especially the entire complex, was enormous - a rare example of picturesque interior decoration of the 12th century.

The six-pillar type of temples, less popular at this time in Novgorod architecture, is represented by the three-domed cathedral of the Ivanovo Monastery in Pskov, which was then part of the Novgorod land. At two similar churches in Novgorod - the Church of Ivan on Opoki (1127) and the Assumption on Torg (1135) - only the lower parts of the walls survived.

A special option is the Spaso-Preobrazhensky Cathedral of the Mirozhsky Monastery in Pskov, built in the middle of the 12th century. It is unusual in composition for Russian architecture. The central cruciform space is clearly expressed in the configuration of the volume thanks to the sharply lowered side apses and western corner divisions. The building is completed by a massive dome on an unusually wide drum. Apparently, the construction was led not by a Russian, but by a Byzantine architect. At the same time, in terms of construction technology, the monument does not differ from other Novgorod and Pskov churches of this time; Apparently, it was built by local craftsmen. The cathedral has preserved magnificent fresco paintings. In addition to this structure, another building was carried out by order of the Novgorod bishop Nifont, repeating the design of the Mirozh Cathedral: the Church of Clement in Staraya Ladoga, revealed by excavations. Both temples had some influence on the development of Novgorod and Pskov architecture, but did not make significant changes to it. The Greek current, which Nifont tried to infuse into Novgorod architecture, could not shake the local traditions that had been firmly established by that time.
The architecture of the Galician land, which lay on the southwestern borders of Rus', in the Dniester region, took a completely different path. Here, in the first quarter of the 12th century, in the village of Peremyshlya, the Church of John the Baptist was built, the first to be built from hewn stone. Obviously, the Galician land at that time did not yet have its own architects, and new construction equipment was borrowed from neighboring Poland. If we take into account that the Prince of Przemysl Volodar, as a rule, was at enmity with Kiev, it becomes clear why they had to turn to Poland for craftsmen to organize monumental construction. The remains of this temple have been discovered by Polish archaeologists. It turned out that, despite the Romanesque technique, the type of Przemysl temple was not Romanesque, but a typically Russian four-pillar cross-domed building.

In the middle of the 12th century, in the capital city of Galich, picturesquely located on a high plateau above the Lukva River, a large temple was built - the Assumption Cathedral. Its walls on the inner and outer surfaces were made of blocks of well-hewn limestone, and the space between them was filled with broken stone and lime mortar. The temple had a profiled base and flat blades. Its decoration uses bas-relief sculpture. Both the masonry technique and the decoration are directly related to Romanesque architecture. At the same time, according to the plan, it is a four-pillar cross-domed church, typical for Russian architecture of the 12th century, surrounded on three sides by a gallery, with a passage to the choir located in the thickness of the western wall. Thus, in the middle of the 12th century, Galich already had its own cadre of craftsmen. They combined the experience of Romanesque and Kyiv architecture and had sufficient skill for independent creativity.
Unfortunately, the monuments of Galician architecture have not survived; only a small part of them is known from archaeological excavations. Written sources testify to large construction in the Galician land. The chronicle tells about the princely palace in Galich in the mid-12th century, which consisted of a two-story residential building, a transition from the second floor to the choir of the court church and a staircase tower. The entire ensemble, except for the temple, was probably made of wood.
The only surviving monument of Galician architecture is the Church of Panteleimon near Galich (the turn of the 12th and 13th centuries). This is a typical four-pillar temple, three-apse, probably single-domed (Fig. 20, 22). There are no Romanesque elements in its plan, but they are clearly expressed in such details as a profiled plinth, thin apse columns with bases and carved capitals, and carved portals. Particularly interesting is the western portal, which belongs to the promising type.

Stone structures were also erected in other cities of the principality (Zvenigorod, Vasilev), which indicates the large number of Galician architects. The originality of forms and the wide scope of construction determine the outstanding significance of the Galician school in the history of Russian architecture.

One of the most prominent Russian architectural schools of the 12th - first half of the 13th centuries was the Vladimir-Suzdal school. From the beginning to the end of its development, it is connected with the lofty idea of ​​​​unifying the Russian lands, put forward by the Vladimir princes and supported by powerful social forces - townspeople interested in overcoming feudal fragmentation, a new social stratum - the nobility and the church.

The beginning of monumental construction in the northeast is associated with the creation under Vladimir Monomakh at the turn of the 11th-12th centuries of the cathedral in Suzdal, known only from excavations. It was a six-pillar brick building, apparently erected by Russian craftsmen from the south. However, in the future the Kiev tradition did not develop here. By the middle of the 12th century, the time of Yuri Dolgoruky, there are single-domed four-pillar churches made of hewn white stone in Pereslavl-Zalessky, Yuryev-Polsky, in the princely residence of Kideksha near Suzdal and at the princely court in Vladimir. The Transfiguration Cathedral in Pereslavl-Zalessky (1152, ill. 18) has been completely preserved, and the church in Kideksha for the most part. The buildings of that time are almost devoid of decorative elements; only a belt of arcature with a curb runs along the facades and the upper part of the apses, emphasizing the harsh power of the smooth white walls. A heavy head reinforces the impression of irresistible physical strength. The temples had choirs and were connected by a passage with the feudal lord's palace. These first buildings in the Suzdal region were apparently built by invited Galician architects.

Under Andrei Bogolyubsky, architecture is experiencing rapid flowering. The capital is moved to Vladimir. The city, beautifully located on the high bank of the Klyazma, in the 50s - 60s of the 12th century was quickly built up with new buildings, surrounded by mighty ramparts with wooden walls and white stone gate towers. Of these, the Golden Gate (1164) with a huge ceremonial passage arch, above which the gate church towered, has been preserved. The gate was both the strongest point of defense and a triumphal arch.

Intensive construction indicates the formation of numerous experienced builders in Vladimir. They adopted the traditions of Galician architecture, quickly reworked them and further developed them completely independently. At the same time, the direct participation of Romanesque architects is felt in the monuments of Vladimir architecture of this time. There is information that Andrei Bogolyubsky turned to Emperor Frederick Barbarossa for craftsmen. However, the participation of Romanesque architects does not transform Vladimir-Suzdal architecture into a variant of the Romanesque style. Romanesque features appeared mainly in details and carved decoration, while all-Russian forms, dating back to Kyiv traditions, are noticeable in plans, compositions of volumes, and design. The features gravitating from different sources are so organically fused that they create a completely original architecture that clearly characterizes the culture of one of the strongest Russian principalities of this era.

The largest building of Andrei Bogolyubsky's time is the Assumption Cathedral in Vladimir (1158-1161). Placed in the center of the city on the high edge of the coastal plateau, it became the main link of a magnificent ensemble. Although after the fire of 1185 the cathedral was rebuilt on three sides, received a new altar and additional four corner domes, its original appearance is clear. The slender proportions and height of the six-pillar temple are emphasized by exquisite decor: an arcature-columnar belt covers the walls, the blades are complicated by thin half-columns with lush foliate capitals. The columns of the wide perspective portals had carved capitals, and some architectural details were framed with gilded copper; the helmet of the twelve-window drum of the head sparkled with gold. The interior was equally spectacular, well lit and richly decorated with precious utensils. The majestic and solemn Assumption Cathedral figuratively affirmed the idea of ​​​​the primacy of the Vladimir-Suzdal land, turning its capital into the church and political center of Rus'.

The best creation of Vladimir masters, the Church of the Intercession on the Nerl (1165, ill. 24, 25) is one of the greatest masterpieces of ancient Russian and world architecture. It is made using magnificent white stone technique. Complexly profiled pilasters with light semi-columns emphasize the upward movement of the composition of the elegant temple, giving it a plastic, almost sculptural character. An arcature-columnar belt, the thin columns of which rest on carved brackets, runs along all the facades and under the apse cornice. Above the arcature-columnar belt, the walls are decorated with reliefs, and luscious carvings decorate the perspective portals. In general, the image of the temple is very poetic, permeated with a feeling of lightness and bright harmony. It is no coincidence that they talk about the musical associations that the Church of the Intercession on the Nerl gives rise to.
However, the original composition of the temple was more complex. Excavations near its walls showed that the creators of this masterpiece were solving a very difficult task: they had to erect a temple at the confluence of the Nerl into the Klyazma as a solemn monument that marked the arrival of ships sailing from below along the Klyazma at the princely residence - the neighboring Bogolyubovsky Castle. The place designated by the prince for construction was a low-lying floodplain and was filled with water during high water. Therefore, having laid the foundation on dense continental clay, the architects placed on it a kind of pedestal about four meters high made of cut stone, which exactly corresponded to the plan of the church. At the same time as the masonry, earth was added, thereby creating an artificial hill, which was then lined with stone slabs. The church stood on it. It seemed as if the earth itself was lifting her to the sky. The temple was surrounded on three sides by an arcade gallery, in the corner part of which there was a staircase to the choir. Only the foundation of the gallery has been preserved, and the original appearance of the building as a whole can only be restored tentatively.

The princely castle - Bogolyubov-city was built in 1158-1165 on the high bank of the Klyazma, near the mouth of the Nerl. It was surrounded by earthen ramparts with white stone walls. Only one staircase tower with a transition to the choir of the cathedral has survived. The foundations of the walls of the latter, as well as the remains of other parts of the ensemble, have been uncovered by excavations.

The palace ensemble was located on a square paved with white stone slabs. Its center was the cathedral, connected by a passage with a staircase tower, from which a white stone passage also led to the second floor of the palace. To the south of the cathedral through the second tower and passages leading to the fortress wall. Under the passages there were arched passages - passages. All these parts were united by a column-shaped belt into a single picturesque and solemn whole. The facades were decorated with bas-reliefs, fresco paintings, some parts were upholstered in gilded copper. The tall and slender palace cathedral had round pillars-columns, unusual for ancient Russian architecture, painted under white marble and completed with huge gilded foliate capitals. The floor of the choir was covered with majolica tiles, and in the temple itself there were copper plates, sealed with tin and shining like gold. According to the chronicle, there were many precious utensils in the temple. In front of the cathedral on the square stood a unique in Russian architecture, an eight-column ciborium (canopy) with a gilded tent over a white stone holy bowl.

The construction of the time of Vsevolod III marks a further brilliant rise of Vladimir-Suzdal architecture. Two trends arise in architecture: the episcopal one, which has a negative attitude towards the development of the sculptural decoration of churches and is committed to the severity of their appearance, and the princely one, which makes extensive use of plastic arts.

The largest monument of the first movement was the Vladimir Assumption Cathedral after its construction in 1185-1189. The facades are almost devoid of sculptures; only a few carved stones were transferred to them from the walls of the old cathedral. The building actually became a new, more grandiose structure; its volume acquired a stepped structure; since the galleries surrounding the old building were somewhat lowered. Four new chapters were placed on the corners, forming a solemn five-domed structure. The architectural image of the new cathedral revealed even more clearly the idea of ​​strength and royal grandeur, which permeates all the art of the time of the mighty “autocracy” Vsevolod.

26. Sculptural decor of the Demetrievsky Cathedral in Vladimir. 1194-1197. Detail
24. Church of the Intercession on the Nerl.
25. Sculptural decoration of the Church of the Intercession on the Nerl. 1165. Detail

The same idea - the apotheosis of power and might of the Vladimir land - is expressed with greater force in the Demetrius Cathedral in Vladimir (1194-1197, ill. 26, 27). Initially, like the cathedral in Bogolyubovo, the temple was part of the palace ensemble, had staircase towers protruding from the western corners and was connected by passages with the palace buildings. The cathedral belonged to the usual type of single-domed, four-pillar temples, but the architects filled this traditional design with new content. The solemn pomp and representativeness of the temple are emphasized by the majestic rhythm of its divisions and especially enhanced by the richest carved decoration. Dmitrievsky Cathedral most clearly characterizes the second trend of Vladimir architecture, sharply different from episcopal construction by the love for the magnificent carved decoration of buildings.

In the first half of the 13th century, the Vladimir principality was divided into a number of appanage principalities. In architecture, two main lines are defined: Rostov-Yaroslavl, where construction is carried out both from stone and plinth brick, and Suzdal-Nizhny Novgorod, developing the traditions of white stone construction and decorative sculpture. The second group includes the cathedrals of the Nativity of the Virgin in Suzdal (1222-1225) and St. George in Yuryev-Polsky (1230-1234).

The Cathedral of the Nativity of the Virgin Mary has not been completely preserved. After destruction, its upper part was completely rebuilt from brick in the 16th century. This large six-pillar temple with three porches initially ended with three domes. Its creators freely treated the requirements of constructive logic in the decoration of facades, crossing wickerwork with ribbon and carved stones across the blades, covering the columns of the portals with carvings and breaking them with beads. In the masonry they used an uneven slab, against the background of which the white stone blades and rods, the carved white stone belt and reliefs stand out especially clearly. The luxurious copper doors of the cathedral, painted in gold, reflect the love of ornamentation. The interior fresco painting also becomes more flowery and ornamental. The temple is losing its ceremonial ceremonial presence; its appearance is picturesque and cheerful.

These tendencies close to folk culture reach full development in the St. George Cathedral in Yuryev-Polsky (ill. 28). After reconstruction in the 15th century, its appearance was distorted and its decorative system was damaged. Initially, the cathedral was much taller and slimmer. Only the lower half of the building has been preserved without significant changes. This is a four-pillar temple with three porches open inward. Its bright interior, which has no choirs, is free and airy. The outside of the building was covered with carvings from top to bottom, from the base to the basement. A carpet floral pattern, skillfully applied to the surface of the wall, covers the lower part of the building with a transparent mesh, entwines the pilasters and portals. The arcature-columnar belt is interpreted as a wide ornamental ribbon. The cathedral's zakomars, as well as the archivolts (arched ends) of the portals, acquire a keel-shaped outline. Against the background of a flat carpet pattern, images of animals and monsters, executed in high relief, acquire a folkloric coloring, stand out. The zakomars housed large high-relief compositions on Christian themes. Religious-political and folk-fairy tale themes are intertwined in the unique carved decoration of the cathedral, a kind of hymn to the Vladimir land.
This is the rapid and brilliant path traversed by Vladimir-Suzdal architecture in less than a century.

In the 12th century, along with others, the Polotsk architectural school played a major role, the monuments of which, unfortunately, for the most part did not survive.

It is characteristic that they were erected in the old way, as they were built in the 11th century, from plinth “with a hidden row” (for example, the buildings of the Belchitsky and Slaso-Euphrosyne monasteries in Polotsk). This, apparently, was explained by the desire to revive the features of the Polotsk St. Sophia Cathedral, which by this time had become, as it were, a symbol of the independence of the Polotsk region. It is possible that the primordial enmity with the Principality of Kyiv was the reason for the rejection of the new system of row brickwork developed by Kyiv builders. In the same 12th century, another construction technique was used in Polotsk architecture - stone-brick masonry, in which blocks of cut stone alternate with rows of plinth (Church of the Annunciation in Vitebsk). This type of masonry is well known in Byzantium and the Balkans, but is not found anywhere else in Russian architecture.

Polotsk architecture is also interesting due to its new compositional solutions. Thus, the cathedral of the Belchitsa Monastery, known from excavations, represented an original version of a six-pillar temple with three porches. Its dome rested not on the eastern pairs of pillars, but on the western ones, that is, it was shifted one division further west than usual, which, in combination with the vestibules, emphasized the centricity of the composition. Polotsk buildings of the 12th century, unlike those in Kyiv, have flat outer blades.

In addition to architectural schools associated with large Russian principalities and represented by many monuments, a small but completely independent Grodno school emerged in the 12th century. The monuments of ancient Grodno on the Neman (in Old Russian - the city of Goroden) are closest to the buildings of Kyiv and Volyn: they were built of brick using the technique of equal-layer masonry. However, here the brick facades were uniquely and effectively decorated with inserted blocks of polished stone and colored majolica, from the figured tiles of which images of crosses and simple geometric figures were made.

Such is the wide range of architectural schools of Rus' in the 12th century.
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By the end of the 12th century, Russian architecture entered a new stage of its development. The first signs of this appear in the middle of the 12th century.

Thus, new trends have already clearly emerged, for example, in the Cathedral of the Spaso-Euphrosyne Monastery in Polotsk, built by the architect John in the middle of the 12th century. The composition of the six-pillar temple is imbued with the desire to overcome the static nature of the cross-domed volume. The western part of the building is lowered, as is the strongly protruding apse corresponding to it from the east. The central quadrangle rising above them ends with a raised pedestal supporting the drum and the head, having the shape of a three-lobed arch on the side of each façade. The slender stepped silhouette of the building and its tower-like top create a new architectural image of the temple, imbued with strength and dynamics.
Judging by the plan, the Boris and Gleb Cathedral of the Belchitsa Monastery had a similar tower-like composition, apparently built by the same architect John. By the end of the 12th century, buildings with an even more pronounced tower-like volume structure appeared in Polotsk architecture. This is the church revealed by excavations in Polotsk Detinets. It is as centric as possible: it was adjoined on three sides by vestibules, and on the east by one large apse. The side apses, rectangular in their outer outline, were apparently sharply lowered, and the northern and southern porches also had their own independent apses. All this as a whole created a complex, vertically directed volume.

The artistic discovery of the Polotsk architects was immediately picked up in other lands, and above all in Smolensk. The Church of the Archangel Michael (Svirskaya), built there around 1190, is very close in plan to the Church in Detinets of Polotsk. However, Smolensk craftsmen developed these techniques: they opened the porches inside the temple, thereby ensuring the unity of its interior, and on the outside they complicated the multi-part pilasters, complementing them with a thin semi-colony. The great height of the main volume is emphasized by the porches subordinate to it and the high, strongly protruding apse. The dynamics of the complex masses of the building are enhanced by a large number of verticals created by complexly profiled beam pilasters. The three-lobed completion of the facades reflects the quarter-circle vaults covering the corners of the building, the head drum is raised on a special pedestal. The energetic and strong upward movement, expressed in the external appearance, is also noticeable in the free, high, choirless interior space of the temple. Instead of choirs, the second floors of the vestibules were intended for the prince and his retinue, forming a kind of lodges open to the inside of the temple. The Church of the Archangel Michael delighted contemporaries with the beauty and richness of its interior decoration; the chronicle noted the unusualness of this temple “in a midnight country.”

However, it was not the only monument of this type in Smolensk. The Church of the Trinity Monastery, discovered by excavations, at the mouth of the Klovka River is very close to Mikhailovskaya in terms of plan and, apparently, composition. The profiling of its pilasters is even somewhat more complicated.

The new trend also affected buildings that had a more conventional plan; among them there are large six-pillar cathedrals and very small four-pillar churches. As a rule, they do not have vestibules, but almost all of them are surrounded by galleries, creating a tiered volume. Their distinctive feature: the central apse is large and semi
round, and the side ones are smaller and have a rectilinear outline on the outside. The fact that such temples had a tower-like composition is evidenced by complexly profiled pilasters; Such pilasters, forming whole bunches of vertical divisions on the facades, could only make sense if they wanted to give the building a dynamic composition, create the impression of height and takeoff.

Along with such monuments, churches of a different type were built in Smolensk at that time: all three apses were flat and rectilinear on the outside. The largest monument of this group is the Cathedral on Protok, during the excavations of which many fragments of fresco paintings were found and taken to the museum.

At the turn of the 12th and 13th centuries, Smolensk became one of the leading architectural centers of Rus', surpassing even Kyiv and Novgorod in the number of monumental buildings erected. Naturally, Smolensk masters were invited to other Russian lands. Undoubtedly, they erected the Spassky Cathedral in the capital of the Ryazan temple - Old Ryazan, known from the results of archaeological excavations. The Church of Paraskeva Pyatnitsa in Novgorod (1207), which is similar in composition to the Smolensk Church of the Archangel Michael, is also associated with the work of Smolensk masters. Three-lobed curves that completed the facades of the high quadrangle, three slightly lowered in relation to the main volume of the vestibule, and very large beam pilasters gave the composition of the Church of Paraskeva Pyatnitsa dynamism. Obviously, with the participation of Smolensk architects, at the very end of the 12th century, the main temple of Pskov, the Trinity Cathedral, was erected. Even in Kyiv, on Voznesensky, the remains of a small four-pillar church with rectangular side apses and beam pilasters, also apparently built by a Smolensk architect, were excavated from the start.

Of course, Kyiv at the turn of the 12th and 13th centuries had its own masters. Moreover, it was at this time that several churches of exceptional significance were erected here and in Chernigov. One of these masterpieces is the Church of Friday in Chernigov (ill. 29). Despite the traditional plan, the four-pillar temple with three apses is completely unusual in appearance. Complex beam pilasters draw the eye to the completion of the building, striking with the originality of its constructive and artistic design. The Novagor architect completely changed the vault system: he not only covered the corners with quarter-circle vaults, but also greatly raised the girth arches supporting the drum. Thus, here, for the first time in Russian architecture, a system of arches rising stepwise towards the center was used: the dynamic growth of the top, the upward thrust of the building received a natural constructive basis. The facades ended with a three-lobed curve corresponding to the design of the vaults, and stepped arches formed the basis of the second tier of zakomari. The foot of the slender drum was surrounded by decorative zakomars - kokoshniks. The rapid upward movement was further emphasized by the pointed outline of the mosquitoes. The facades of the temple are very elegant: the master lovingly decorated them with a simple but elegant lattice brick belt and meander ribbons.

The Church of Vasily in Ovruch (90s of the 12th century) belongs to the same group. The obvious proximity of this monument to the Church of Friday in Chernigov suggests that initially its vaults were also stepped, and the composition of the volume as a whole was not static, but dynamic. The facades are decorated, like the monuments of Grodno, with decorative inserts in the form of large boulders, and two round staircase towers adjoined the corners of the western facade. The dome was once covered with gilded copper. The Church of Vasily is the palace temple of Prince Rurik Rostislavich, who, according to the chronicler, had “an insatiable love for buildings.” It is almost certain that its author was the favorite master of the prince, Peter Milone, in whose work there is an enthusiastic mention in the chronicle comparing Milonega with the biblical architect Veselil. It is very likely that the same Miloneg built both the Chernigov Church of Friday and the Church of the Apostles in Belgorod, which was uncovered by excavations, and was distinguished by its particularly luxurious interior decoration.

Archaeological splits unusually expanded our knowledge of ancient Russian architecture and, in particular, showed that the variety of types and stylistic shades in the architecture of Southern Rus' at that time was very great. Thus, in Novgorod-Seversky a church was opened that had a completely special “Gothic” profile of pilasters, not found in either Kyiv or Smolensk churches. The church excavated in Putivl had, like Byzantine and Balkan churches, additional apses on the northern and southern sides of the building.

The process of differentiation of Russian architecture continued at the turn of the 12th and 13th centuries, creating new and new local variants. At the same time, it is clear that this diversity of creative thought does not break the ties between Russian architectural schools. Throughout the 12th century, architects did not limit themselves to working within their principality: Galician masters built in Vladimir, Chernigov in Ryazan and Smolensk, Smolensk in Novgorod, Ryazan and Kyiv. The mutual exchange of technical and artistic experience contributed to the rapid flowering of architecture and the spread of a new direction at the turn of the 12th and 13th centuries, which apparently embraced almost all Russian architectural schools. Even in Vladimir-Suzdal architecture, later monuments - the Cathedral of the Nativity of the Virgin in Suzdal and especially St. George's Cathedral in Yuryev-Polsky - according to all data, had a tower-like composition of completion and, probably, a stepwise rising system of vaults.

Thus, at the end of the 12th century, in the architecture of various Russian lands, general, or more precisely, all-Russian development trends were increasingly manifested. Kyiv traditions are being revised almost everywhere, the tower-like appearance and dynamics of the composition are evident, the interior is subordinate to the external appearance of the building, the facades are richly decorated. The compositional idea of ​​temples and their artistic image were more or less similar everywhere, although in each architectural school of Rus' they were solved in their own local forms.

What is the reason for the emergence of new artistic forms in Russian architecture at the end of the 12th century? Apparently, the decisive factor was the influence of urban culture, the growth and strengthening of cities, and the economic strengthening of towns. These conditions caused special attention to the architectural appearance of cities, in which the bright silhouette of temples and the decorative richness of their facades were supposed to play an important, accentuating role. The commonality of development trends shows that in Russian architecture there was clearly making its way, albeit still weak, but a strengthening and winning interregional movement, containing the features of an all-Russian architectural style, to which the future belonged. With good reason we can talk about the beginning of the crystallization of all-Russian national characteristics of the art of construction.

At this high level, the rapid development of Russian architecture was interrupted by the Mongol-Tatar invasion. .

A special branch of the Volyn architectural school is the architecture of the small Grodno principality. The borders of the Volyn land reached the north of the Neman River, where the city of Grodno stands, which early came under the control of Lithuania. The attention of researchers has long been attracted by the only monument of the 12th century preserved here - the Boris and Gleb Church on Kolozha, a suburb of ancient Grodno. When considering the history of Russian architecture, it was usually added to the Polotsk-Smolensk circle of monuments, from which it nevertheless differs in many of its features.

Excavations on the territory of the ancient Kremlin in Grodno revealed new architectural monuments of the 12th century. In the center of the Kremlin’s high cape lie the ruins of the second brick six-pillar temple, conventionally called the “Lower Church”. Like the Kolozha church, it is made of thin plinth; Huge colored spots of polished and untreated flat gneiss and granite boulders are also used in the treatment of its facades; In addition to majolica tiles, green glazed dishes and bowls were introduced into the decoration of the upper parts of the walls. The composition of the plan differs from the Kolozha church. From the east, the arc of the middle apse protrudes very weakly from the plane of the facade, the side ones are cut into the thickness of the wall - this feature is reminiscent of the technique used in the cathedral of the Polotsk Spaso-Euphrosinev Monastery. The location of the pillars indicates that the head of the temple was shifted to the west, and the composition of the masses of the building was, as in Kolozha, asymmetrical. In this regard, it should be noted that flat blades of the facades with rounded corners are present only on the axes of the pillars, while the corners of the building are devoid of blades and are cut at an angle of 45°, like the corners of the internal square pillars. The choirs were located in the western part of the temple; the passage on them was also arranged in a unique way - in the southwestern corner, in a special semicircular brick box. As in the Kolozha church, numerous voices were placed in the walls. The picturesque decoration of the temple, apparently, was limited to icons placed on a small wooden altar barrier, decorated with gilded engraved copper. The wealth of decorative imagination was also manifested in the bright colors of the majolica floor of the temple. In the part under the dome, the floor was decorated with complex ornaments, and near the portals there were pavements made of polished granite. The Grodno Kremlin had not only stone churches. The towers of its fortifications were also made of brick; Insignificant fragments have been preserved from them, which do not allow us to judge any more fully about the architecture of the whole: from the western tower at the corner of the fortress, only part of one wall has survived; the southern tower (the so-called “terem”), overlooking the Neman, was built with the same “inlay” of the facade with colored boulder stones as the Grodno churches.

The chronology of these monuments has not been precisely established, but they all belong to the 12th century. Apparently, the “Lower Church” was built first, dating back to the first half of the 12th century. The Kolozha Temple most likely dates back to the third quarter of the 12th century. The brick towers, which replaced the wooden ones, were built, as there is reason to believe, later than the temples.

The originality of architectural forms and, in particular, the polychrome decoration of facades with majolica and natural stone, which is not found in the architecture of pre-Mongol times and involuntarily makes us recall the polychrome of Russian architecture of the 17th century, allow us to consider the Grodno architectural school as a special branch of Russian architecture of the 12th-13th centuries. We do not know whether the small Grodno principality had its own architects or used the construction forces of its metropolis - Volyn or Smolensk. But whoever these builders were, in Grodno they created monuments that had their own local appearance and did not find direct analogues in the buildings of other schools of feudal Rus'.

In the monuments of Volyn and Grodno, the connection with the technical and artistic culture of the Dnieper region and the Polotsk-Smolensk lands is still clearly felt. The architectural development of the second large city of the Galicia-Volyn land - Galich, which became one of the most important political and cultural centers of Rus' in the 12th-13th centuries, proceeded differently. The appearance of this wonderful city was clarified only as a result of a series of archaeological works, which determined its topography, location and character of its temples, which had long disappeared from the face of the earth. Ancient Galich is located on picturesque hills between a tributary of the Dniester river. Lukva and its tributary Mozolev Stream. In the northern, well-defended part of the hill there was a princely courtyard; to the south there was a vast trading area fenced with ramparts, on which stood the majestic Assumption Cathedral. Outside the ramparts lay an equally extensive settlement, protected in turn by a powerful defensive line of triple ramparts and ditches with gates guarded by towers pushed forward. In the immediate area of ​​the city there were separate villages and monasteries with their own churches, which played an important role in the defense of the approaches to the city.

The ruins of temples discovered by excavations of the 19th-20th centuries represent only more or less surviving parts of the foundations and lower parts of the walls, which makes it very difficult to judge their original appearance; most of them are undated, and their names are not precisely established. All of them were built from various types of local limestone, which replaced brick, using a very consistent masonry technique of hewn blocks, with the internal cavity of the wall filled with rubble and lime. In a number of temples, remains of floors made of majolica tiles, characteristic of the 12th century, fragments of internal fresco painting and external decoration made of carved stone were found. Among these buildings there are both ordinary cross-domed churches and churches of completely unusual types. These are the Church of the Resurrection - a small round chapel with a crown of three apses; “Polygon” is a building of unknown purpose in the shape of an irregular polygon; the pillarless Church of the Annunciation with a very elongated rectangular plan and the Church of Elijah, a round rotunda type with one apse.

The familiarity of Galich architects with Romanesque architecture is evidenced by a group of white-stone cross-domed churches of Galich: the four-pillar Church of the Savior, the six-pillar Church of Cyril and Methodius, the ruins of the church on Tsvintariski and the Church of Panteleimon (early 13th century) that has survived to this day. During the excavations of the first three monuments, fragments of white stone carved details were found, and in the Church of Panteleimon, beautiful processing of apses with arcatures on semi-columns with Attic bases and carved capitals and two carved portals were preserved. Tkachev V.N. History of architecture. M.: Nauka, 1987, - 234 p.

The most important among the Galich churches is the large white-stone Assumption Cathedral, discovered by excavations, which is believed to have been built around 1157 by Prince Yaroslav Osmomysl. Only the foundations and a small part of the basement have survived from the temple. The connection of the Assumption Cathedral with the Kyiv tradition was expressed in imitation of the planned scheme of the Tithe Church. But, unlike the latter, the external galleries of the Assumption Cathedral, surrounding the main core of the three-nave, four-pillar temple, were built simultaneously with the temple; the galleries were closed, being actually the outer walls of the building. In its southwestern corner there was a baptismal chapel in the form of a small closed chapel with an apse, reminiscent of the baptismal chapel of the Yelets Cathedral in Chernigov. Where and how the passage to the choir was built remains unclear, but there is no doubt that there were no staircase towers similar to those in Kyiv. A carved portal led into the cathedral from the west. The floors of the temple were covered with colored majolica tiles, which became a favorite type of interior decoration in the 12th century. The outer facades were divided by flat blades, corresponding to the inner pillars, and ended with zakomaras. The vaults were covered with tin. Fragments of capitals with volutes and palmettes, hewn plinths, and fragments of carved ornamented parts found during excavations indicate the use of plastic in the decoration of the white stone temple. The cornice of the apses was decorated with an arcature belt with carved masks instead of consoles and a curb. A comparison of these fragments with modern monuments of the Romanesque west establishes the closest analogies with the architecture of France and especially Germany of the 12th century. The architects of the border Galich, more actively than their brothers from the lands of the Dnieper region, mastered the artistic techniques of foreign masters, organically linking them with the Russian architectural basis. E.S. Smirnova “Ancient Russian Art”

Also in the middle of the 12th century, the palace of the Galician princes was built at the opposite end of the city Kremlin hill. The story of the Galician-Volyn chronicle about the reception of the ambassador of Prince Izyaslav by the Galician Prince Vladimir contains, in the course of the negotiations, several cursory remarks about the nature of this palace. When Vladimir drove the ambassador away from him, “Peter left the prince’s court, and Vladimir went to the shrine to the Holy Savior for vespers; and when I was on the crossing to the shrine, and then I saw Peter riding and cursed after him... and he said that, walking to the platform. And after singing Vespers, Vladimir left the goddess, and when he was in the place, on the step where he scolded Peter, he said: “Ole! Someone hit me on the shoulder” - and he couldn’t retreat at all from that place, and wanted to fly (throw himself) and then they grabbed him by the arms and carried him to the upper room...” The ambassador was returned, and the prince's servants in black mourning cloaks came down from the vestibule to meet him; Peter, having risen to the vestibule, found Yaroslav sitting “in his father’s place,” i.e. on the throne. Judging by this story, the Galician Palace was a vast architectural ensemble, which included the court stone Church of the Savior with choirs connected by a passage with the staircase tower of the vestibule; their second floor was a kind of throne room, also connected by a passage with the second floor of the wooden palace with its numerous chambers.

In the 12th century. a new type of temple appears in Kyiv, it includes the Three Saints (Vasilievskaya) Church in Kyiv and the church discovered during excavations in the Kudryavtse tract in the Kopyrevo end of Kyiv, both belong to the end of the 12th century. These buildings are small four-pillar, single-domed temples with three apses and, probably, with choirs in the western third. But it is characteristic that in these buildings of the end of the 12th century features appear that indicate the non-Kiev origin of their architects. The outer blades of the Church of the Three Saints are complicated by semi-columns, which is reminiscent of the monuments of Smolensk. The church on Kudryavets was built by a Smolensk master: its corner apses are rectangular on the outside, and the blades took the form of complex beam pilasters, known from the Cathedral of the Archangel Michael in Smolensk and the Church of Friday in Chernigov. The architecture of Kyiv at the end of the 12th century loses its local features; it is possible that the strong influence of Smolensk architecture was associated with the struggle for the Kiev throne between the princes of the Smolensk and Chernigov dynasties. All that is known about the interior decoration of these buildings is that there were simpler majolica floors and fresco paintings.

But these buildings, which contain memories of the architecture of Yaroslav Kyiv, brought to life by the political aspirations of the princes-builders, do not change the general course of development of architecture in the Dnieper region.

In the middle - second half of the 12th century. in Kyiv and the Principality of Kiev, which became the arena of fierce feudal struggle, the influence of regional architectural schools was felt. Prince Andrei Bogolyubsky of Vladimir was going to send his Vladimir architects to Kyiv to build a beautiful temple in the great Yaroslav’s courtyard; Smolensk architects built a church on Kudryavets; maybe they or the Volyn architects created the temple in Ovruch. Peter Miloneg, a friend of Prince Rurik Rostislavich, who became famous in the architectural history of Kyiv for the construction of a stone embankment under the Vydubitsky Monastery in 1199, was most likely a Smolensk architect. Regional architectural schools, which grew on the soil of the Kyiv artistic heritage, seemed to be paying their debt to the impoverished “mother of Russian cities.” "Monuments of urban planning and architecture of the Ukrainian SSR", volume 2, pp. 226-227.