New Directions in Russian Orthodox Church Architecture at the Beginning of the Twentieth Century

Journal of Siberian Federal University. Humanities & Social Sciences 1 (2016 9) 5-40 ~ ~ ~ УДК 7.033:726 New Directions in Russian Orthodox Church Architecture at the beginning of the Twentieth Century William Craft Brumfield* Tulane University New Orleans, Louisiana, USA Received 24.10.2015, received in revised form 16.11.2015, accepted 28.12.2015 At the beginning of the 20th century certain influential voices in Russian architecture began to question the highly ornamental approach to church design that had reigned during the latter half of the 19th century. In the opinion of these architect-critics, the so-called Ostankinshchina style (named after the late 17th-century Church of the Trinity at Ostankino) seemed to deform the aesthetic purity of medieval Russian church architecture, even as it lessened the spiritual meaning of the church itself. In response, a number of architects, such as Aleksei Shchusev and Vladimir Pokrovskii, explored new paths in church design by combining a study of early medieval Russian forms with new technological methods. Keywords: Russian church architecture, style moderne, “Ostankinshchina”, Abramtsevo, Viktor Vasnetsov, Fedor Shekhtel, Aleksei Shchusev, Vladimir Pokrovskii. DOI: 10.17516/1997-1370-2016-9-1-5-40. Research area: culture studies. The Russian artistic revival at the turn of period there also occurred a renascence in church the century is best known for its effect on secular architecture that combined the plasticity of the culture in painting, music, and literature. Equally new style and its use of advanced construction a part of the cultural life of the period was an techniques with a rediscovery of the structural architectural movement known as the “new style,” and decorative principles of medieval Russian or the “style moderne,” which played a major religious architecture. role in transforming the built environment of On first consideration it might seem Moscow and Petersburg during the final decades paradoxical that so traditional a form as the of Imperial Russia. Scholars in both Russia and structure of the Russian church should lend itself the West have noted the antecedents of the style to the modernist movement. In fact the primary moderne in a native arts and crafts tradition, as obstacle to a new interpretation of church well as its obvious links to European modernism architecture arose not from some inherently in the form of art nouveau and the Vienna conservative principle within the design of the Secession1. The emphasis in this discussion has medieval Russian church (which had shown been on secular architecture. Yet during this same itself receptive to strikingly innovative forms © Siberian Federal University. All rights reserved * Corresponding author E-mail address: [email protected] – 5 – William Craft Brumfield. New Directions in Russian Orthodox Church Architecture at the beginning of the Twentieth… in both wood and masonry during the sixteenth church facades with decorative motifs reproduced and seventeenth centuries), but rather from the in archeological precision from the highly ponderous attempts in the nineteenth century ornamental churches of late seventeenth century to establish a national style in the building of Muscovy. So firmly was this ornamentation churches after the decline of neoclassicism. The identified with an authentically Russian style by most noted proponent of this approach during the Ivan Ropet, Viktor Hartmann, Vladimir Shervud, reign of Nicholas I was the architect Konstantin Nikolai Sultanov and others during the latter Ton, whose massive Church of Christ the Savior part of the nineteenth century, that its primary (1838-83; destroyed in the early 1930s) near the function shifted from the decoration of churches Prechistenka Quay in Moscow used what was to the secular structures designed to meet the considered to be a Russo-Byzantine style to increasingly diverse needs of Russia’s expanding reestablish the purity and orthodoxy of Russian cities during the latter half of the century. This church architecture (Fig. 1)2. “pseudo- Russian” or Russian Revival style Although subsequent exercises in the was especially evident in Moscow, not only in national style were rarely so expressive of official major buildings such as the Historical Museum ideology, the attempt to rephrase the essence of (Shervud), the Technological Museum (Ippolit national identity in the design of churches led Monighetti), and the Moscow City Duma (Dmitrii either to a predictable repetition of the Russo- Chichagov), but also in the design of numerous Byzantine elements or to an encrustation of commercial and housing structures. Fig. 1. Moscow. Cathedral of Christ the Savior. 1838-83. Architect: Konstantin Ton. Southeast view – 6 – William Craft Brumfield. New Directions in Russian Orthodox Church Architecture at the beginning of the Twentieth… Despite this semiotic transposition of stagnation in European architecture following “national” stylistic devices from religious to the final flowering of neoclassicism. At this point secular architecture, the use of architectural Russian policy on church construction adopted symbolism to a two-dimensional text (to be what Aplaksin calls a “false path” [lozhnji shag] read on the surface of a building, independently by implementing in 1841 an official preference of the interior structure) had little to do with for the “ancient Byzantine style” [“drevnii essence of medieval Russian church architecture. vizantiiskii stil’”] in the building and repair Despite the impressive scale and decoration of of churches (as stipulated in current article 101 major churches constructed in the last three of the building code)5. [“lozhnij shag v vide decades of the nineteenth century, the repetitive uzakonennogo (25 marta 1841 g) trebovaniia pri application of superficial detail often produced postroike i remonte tserkvei “predpochtitel’no churches marked by a loss of the proportions drevnii vizantiiskii stil’” (sovremennaia st. and structural harmony characteristic of their 101 ust. stroit.) “] This legislation of aesthetic medieval antecedants. policy not only produced artificial and improper The impasse created by persistent attempts constraints (according to Aplaksin), but also had to adapt church design to a concept of national a further, unforseen effect: “As a counterweight style (whether initiated from above or supported [to the “Byzantine” style] there began a search for by “democratic” voices such as the influential art an individual style, which was fabricated under critic Vasilii Stasov) led at the beginning of the the portentous name “Russian” and characterized century to open criticism of attitudes underlying by coxcomb ornaments, onion domes, and the design, building, and decoration of Orthodox kokoshniki. Thus in church construction, which churches. One of the most explicit attacks on was especially intensive at this time, there the current order appeared in a presentation at appeared two approaches: the quasi-Byzantine – the Fourth Congress of Russian Architects, held sanctioned by law – and the quasi-Russian, at the Imperial Academy of Arts in January otherwise known as Ostankovshchina [after the 1911. Entitled “Russian Church Art and its highly-decorated late seventeenth-century Church Contemporary Goals,” the lecture represented of the Trinity at Ostankino].”6 [“Kak protivoves, the views not of a disgruntled outsider, but of nachalis’ poiski sobstvennogo stilia, kotoryi byl one who stood at the very center of the official sfabrikovan pod gromkim imenem “russkogo” i system – Andrei Aplaksin, an architect attached kharakterizovalsia petushkami s grebeshkami i to the Petersburg Eparchy3. Furthermore, the lukovichkami s kokoshnikami. Takim obrazom journal Zodchii, the publication of the Imperial v tserkovnom stroitel’stve, kotoroe v etot period Petersburg Society ofArchitects, noted at the stalo osobenno intensivnym, poluchilos’ dva end of its report on the lecture that the audience nachala: quasi-vizantiiskoe – osnovannoe na included Grand Duke Petr Nikolaevich, whose zakone i quasi-russkoe, imenouemoe inache presence implies a degree of official approbation “ostankovshchinoi.” “] for Aplaksin’s views4. Aplaksin’s criticism of contemporary church After presenting a survey of the development construction and its decoration (including the of Russian church architecture, from its iconostasis) is unrelenting: “The contemporary antecedents in Kiev and Vladimir to its imitation church built in the above manner is, from an artistic of Western forms during the eighteenth century, point of view, a combination of lack of talent, lack Aplaksin places the decline at a period of general of taste, and commercialism . ..” [“Postroennyi – 7 – William Craft Brumfield. New Directions in Russian Orthodox Church Architecture at the beginning of the Twentieth… takim obrazom sovremennyi khram iavliaetsia, appreciation of early medieval churches, reflected s tochki zreniia iskusstva, sovmestitel’stvom in Russian art criticism at the turn of the century, bezdarnosti, bezvkusiia i rynka, kakogo ne bylo influenced a number of innovative church designs ni v odnu iz predshestvuiushchikh epokh.”] The by 1911. To be sure, many of these designs lay last factor is of particular interest as an indication beyond the purview of official Orthodoxy. It is of the extent to which commercial, secular no accident that the most significant work in this building practices had asserted a logic of their architectural revival occurred after 1905, during own, quite

Load more