Transformation of the National Style in the Architecture of Orthodox Churches of the mid-19th − early 20th Centuries in the Rostov Region

Introduction. An integral part of the architectural heritage of the Rostov region are Orthodox churches of the mid-19^th − early 20^th centuries. The architectural features of these churches are unevenly studied. The purpose of this publication is to characterize the style evolution of their architecture, the tasks are to identify the monuments that most fully reflect the stages of this evolution, to analyze their spatial compositions and decor, to determine prototypes of architectural and artistic solutions, to identify the regional specifics of Don churches in the context of the general line of evolution of the Russian church building of the studied period. The relevance of the study is due to insufficient study and the need to restore a number of churches of the studied period in the Rostov region. The most famous and large such as the cathedrals of the Nativity of the Virgin and Pokrovsky in Rostov-on-Don, the Ascension Cathedral and the Alexander Nevsky Church in Novocherkassk [1, 2] have been studied in sufficient detail, however, many monuments located in remote villages and farms were not analyzed from the point of view of their stylistics, respectively, the stylistic classification of churches was not carried out.

The theoretical basis of the study was the concept presented in the monograph by V. G. Lisovsky “National style in the architecture of Russia” [3], as well as the ideas presented in the monograph by E. I. Kirichenko “Russian style” [4]. In recent years, literature dedicated to the architectural monuments of the Southern region has become quite numerous. Thus, the book of the head of the construction of the Novocherkassk Cathedral K. Kh. Limarenko [5] was reprinted. A general description of the evolution of the architecture of this region is presented in the book by G.V. Esaulov “Architecture of the South of Russia. From history to modernity” [6]. Churches built according to the projects of A.A. Yashchenko are considered in the study by M.G. Evenko and V.V. Pishchulina “Creativity of academician of architecture A.A. Yashchenko” [7]. The regional aspect of church building is disclosed in the monograph by V.V. Pishchulina “Church building in the spatial culture of the Don Cossacks of the 16^th − 19^th centuries. [8]. Historical information is scrupulously collected in the work of A.V. Shadrina “Churches of the Don and Novocherkassk diocese. The end of the 17^th century − 1920” [9]. In order to identify prototypes, albums of exemplary projects were viewed [10, 11].

Materials and Methods. Stylistic and comparative analysis, bibliographic method, photofixation, synchronous and diachronic approaches are used. The materials were historical and modern photographs of facades and interiors, plans, sections, design drawings of the studied objects of cultural heritage, as well as their prototypes and analogues.

Results. As it is known, in the second quarter of the 19^th century, in accordance with the ideas of romanticism, interest in the medieval heritage of national culture deepens. In architecture, the expression of this process was the formation of the Russian-Byzantine style, which was most fully reflected in the work of academician of architecture K.A. Ton. This style is characterized by symmetry of compositions coming from classicism, monumentality, accentuation of the center, as well as bulbous cupolas borrowed from the ancient Russian architecture, keeled arched gables and careen-shaped ogee gables, perspective portals, band of pilasters.

The largest monument of the Russian-Byzantine style in the Rostov region is the Cathedral of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Rostov-on-Don (1854−1860). It is based on the project of the Vvedenskaya Church in the Semenovsky regiment compiled by K.A. Ton and revised by the Moscow architect A.S. Kutepov [3, p. 86]. The building is centric and symmetrical, refers to the type of cross-domed temples. The five-domed composition is dominated by the central dome, all cupolas are bulbous. The plan is square, with each side of the square complicated by a protruding risalit corresponding to the cross arm. Risalits are separated by faceted half-columns and above the cornice are completed with keeled arched gables. The arched windows are decorated with platbands with keeled archivolts, and the doors with perspective portals. Light faceted dome drums are decorated with small three-quarter Doric columns. The all-facade and symmetry of the building are associated with the classic tradition, while the details, narrow arched windows, keeled arched gables and platbands, go back to the architecture of the Moscow principality of the 14^th century and Muscovite state of the late 15^th century, in particular, to the Assumption Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin of Aristotle Fioravanti.

According to the project given in the album compiled by K.A. Ton [10], even before the Rostov Cathedral, in 1844−1846 the Hodegetria Church of the settlement of Agrafenovka was built. The project was developed for the Epiphany Church in Saratov (1838, not preserved). The composition is designed on the principle of “ship”. Unlike the project, the church is cruciform, as it is complicated by vestibules from the North and South, with angular foundations, without separate toeholds. Above the square middle cross the square dome drum rises, crowned with a closed vault. The bell tower is a tentcompleted octagon over three tiers of quadrangles. The northern and southern arms of the cross, covered with cylindrical arches, on the facades are completed with triangular gables. The windows are arched, in the dome drum, the middle quadrangle and the octagon of the bell tower alternating with the same niches, and the archivolts rest on pilasters. The edges of the tent are cut through by round lucarnes. The corners of all volumes are fixed with pilaster-strips, in the lower tier of the building with rusticated. The second quadrangle of the bell tower under the eaves is decorated with a frieze of square decorative brickworks. The dome and tent of the bell tower were originally completed by miniature bulbous cupolas. Currently, the church needs to be restored.

Another example of the use of the exemplary project of K.A. Ton is the Church of St. Mary Magdalene (1852), built in the village of Novo-Maryinsky (now Krasniy Desant farm). The composition is also designed on the principle of “ship”. The tent bell tower includes a quadrangle and two octagons. The prayer hall is square in plan, with angular foundations, without separate toe-holds. An octagonal dome drum rises above it, raised on a pedestal and crowned with a bulbous cupola. The apse is semicircular in plan. The upper octagon of the bell tower is cut through by rectangular campanile embrasures, borders are decorated with flat obelisks superimposed on them. The borders of the lower octagon are decorated with panels, into which icon-cases are inscribed. The bell tower tent is completed by a miniature bulbous. Portals are perspective with keeled archivolts. The windows are arched with trapezoidal cornices. Dome drum borders are secured by semi-columns supporting architrave and resting on cantilevers. The dome drum windows are double arched with keeled archivolts supported by thin half columns. Thus, order elements borrowed from classicism are supplemented by recognizable motifs of the ancient Russian architecture (tent, keeled archivolts, trapezoidal cornices, bulbous cupola).

The beginning of the formation of the Byzantine style also dates back to the era of romanticism. However, this direction takes on mature forms during the eclectic period, by 1860, when academician of architecture D.I. Grimm developed the project of Vladimir Cathedral for Chersonesos. The Byzantine style was based on a careful study of the architectural heritage of the Byzantine Empire. During the reign of Alexander II, this style was widely used in the construction of churches, clearly expressing the idea of kinship with Byzantium, the unity of the Slavic peoples and imperial greatness. These ideas led to the demand for style in the studied multinational and multiconfessional region close to the southern border. Characteristic features of the style were gentle domes, low dome drums completed with arcatures, “striped bond” imitating the Byzantine technique of “recessed row” and “opus mixtum”, semi-ring diaconicons around apses, double and triple arched windows. Compositions were also diverse, not only cross-domed, but also tetraconchal churches and basilicas. During its existence, the Byzantine style evolved from a romantic stage to an archaeologized one, then to an eclecticized one, and finally to the stage marked by modernist influences.

The most significant monument in the Byzantine style in the Rostov region is undoubtedly the Ascension Cathedral in Novocherkassk (1891−1905). The author of its design is Aleksandr Aleksandrovich Yashchenko (1842-1893). The urban planning solution of the cathedral is very successful: it organically rises atop a hill crowning it and playing the dominant role in the ensemble of the surrounding Ermak Square. The cathedral is five-domed, three-aisled, four-pier, cross-in-square in plan, with blind side domes serving as campaniles. The square plan is complicated by a “ship”-like extension connecting the vestibule and the bell tower, which is supplemented by side porches. The apse is encircled by a semicircular sacristy. In addition to the apse, the Ascension Cathedral’s plan features projecting semicircular apsidioles in the North and South, characteristic of churches of the so-called “Athonite type”. The domes are helmet-shaped. The bell tower is executed in the “octagon-on-quadrangle” (octagonal drum over a quadrangular base) composition and it is relatively low. The dome drum of the central dome is decorated with a double arcade: the arches of the lower tier rest on paired semi-columns, while those of the upper tier on single columns. The arcades of the lateral domes are supported by pilasters rather than semi-columns. The belfry tier of the bell tower is ornamented similarly to the central drum but lacks the upper “crown”. The corners of the church volumes are accented with elongated columns having beveled “Byzantine” capitals. The same type of capitals decorates all the semi-columns of the cathedral, with their ornamentation including either acanthus or acanthus with crosses. The facades of the main volume are completed by monumental arched gables, adorned with broad friezes featuring lush vegetal ornamentation, while the lateral facades of the porch beneath the bell tower bear trilobed curves. The cornices, which separate the main volume of the cathedral into two tiers, as well as those completing the pedestals of the dome drums and arcades, and also the sections of cornices accentuating the truncated corners of the building, vary in design. They incorporate bands of dentils, chevron motifs, “porebrik” (traditional Russian brickwork ornament), acanthus, and string-of-beads in various combinations. The facades of the bell tower are especially richly decorated. The main entrance is designed as a perspective portal, akin to those found in the Vladimir-Suzdal architecture. Two arched windows flank the main entrance, above which, in niches, there are relief eight-pointed crosses. Above the portal there is a triforium window; in its elevated central opening, a clock is installed. The niche housing the triforium is stepped, terminating in a kiot (icon case) with the depiction of the Don Icon of the Mother of God. The lateral facades of the bell tower’s quadrangle, in addition to the triforium at the second tier, are pierced by a biforium window at the lower level. Above it, the archivolt is formed by the curve of the cornice, below there are vegetal ornamentation and bas-reliefs of six-winged Seraphim.

Almost simultaneously with Cathedral of the Ascension in Novocherkassk the Alexander Nevski Church was built (1888−1902). The author of its design is Nikolay Evstigneevich Anokhin (1854−?). Anokhin based his project on a design created by V.A. Schreter for a now-lost church intended for the estate of F.A. Tereshchenko near Kyiv (before 1883). The church is a four-pillar, five-domed, cross-in-square church with small lateral domes above the campaniles and a dominant central dome. The main cubic volume is surrounded by four semi-domes adjoining the arched gables, giving the volumetric solution the character of a tetraconchal church. The cylindrical bell tower is connected to the church by a spacious refectory. The windows are semicircular; in the dome drums of the church and campanile are separated by wide piers and complemented by profiled archivolts with dentals. Dentals are also located under the cornices. The archivolts of the windows of the lower tier have a keel-shaped contour. Relief decorations include rings in the friezes, an oblique lattice at the level of the semi-domes, crosses on the corners under the campaniles, recessed into the piers and angles of the half-columns. The campaniles are lightweight, rectangular in plan, and open. The arches supporting their domes rest on four low columns. The portal is perspective and keel-shaped. The main hall, rectangular in plan with four pillars, is complemented in the West by a large refectory and a vestibule under the bell tower, and in the East by a semicircular sacristy surrounding the apse. The eastern corner cells of the church, where the side altars are located, have rounded inner corners and are covered by small hemispherical vaults not expressed on the facade, evoking associations with the interior solutions of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople: in the interior, the motif of the central dome, supported by four semi-domes, is supplemented by two small conches. The choir lofts were removed during renovations in 1912−1915. In the detail character of the Aleksandro-Nevskaya Church, Byzantine features combine with borrowings from Russian sources: these include keel-shaped archivolts of the niches and arches of the portals of the lower tier, as well as the two-tone coloration of the facades, reminiscent of the 17^th-century constructions.

The Troitskaya Church of the Dyadin farmstead (1886−1894) was attributed by M.G. Evenko as related to the work of A.A. Yashchenko. The composition, as in the churches described above, is solved as a “ship” and includes a bell tower of the type “octagon on a square base”, a small refectory, the church itself crowned with a single dome on a low drum, and an apse. However, the planning solution is original. The Russian tradition here is linked with the overall cruciform plan, symbolically significant and genetically tracing back to early Christian martyriums and baptisteries of the 5^th century. At the same time, the main volume of the church has an octagonal plan. The combination of cruciform and octagonal plan is a very rare technique in the Byzantine-style architecture. The drums are crowned with an arcade, the domes above the main volume and the bell tower are hemispherical. In the piers of the drums there are miniature half-columns. The windows are arched, and triforia are located in the square base of the bell tower and above the portals, united by a common perspective archivolt. The corners of the square base of the bell tower and the portals are accented with paired half-columns. A similar church, the Odigitrievskaya Church, is located in the village of Gruzsko-Lomovka, town of Makiivka, Donetsk People’s Republic.

In relation to the second half of the 19^th century, the direction focused on the medieval heritage of the ancient Russian architecture is usually called the Russian style. According to the classification of V.G. Lisovsky, in the Russian style there were two directions: eclectic (combining historical decor with the structure of modern buildings) and organic (striving for unity of decor and composition). Based on this classification, church buildings should be attributed to the second, organic direction.

One of the most interesting monuments of this direction in the Rostov region is the Church of the Archangel Michael of Sloboda Pozdneevka (1890). The church is composed in the form of a “ship”. The bell tower is of the tented type, classified as “a quadrangle on a quadrangle”, with the lateral parts of the bell tower in the North and South as well as the upper quadrangle crowned by pediments with keel-shaped endings. The vaulted refectory has a gable roof. The main two-level volume of the column-free prayer hall, complicated by vestibules on the North and South sides, is covered by a closed vault with vault sections shaped as three-lobed keel-shaped arched gables. The central dome is illuminated, while the side ones are blind. All drums are two-tiered, separated by profiled cornices and complemented at the pedestal level by flat stepped arched niches. The pediments of the vestibules, which incorporate icon shrines (kiots), are similar in shape to the pediments of the bell tower. The motif of the three-lobed keel-shaped arched gable is the leading decorative element on the facades, repeating in the design of the arch window pediment supported by pilasters. This three-lobed arched gable recalls medieval monuments, such as the Church of St. Tryphon in Naprudny, Moscow, and the pediments of window frames in 17^th-century buildings. A significant role in the facade composition is played by the order arranged in tiers, represented by half-columns, either single or grouped in clusters at the corners, supporting the complex-profiled cornice reinforcements. The portals are perspective. Decorative details also include wall panels and two-color brickwork forming a chessboard pattern, crosses, and rhombuses. The vaulting system is particularly interesting and reminiscent of Baroque monuments. A close constructive analogue is the Annunciation Church on Vasilievsky Island in Saint Petersburg, from 1750−1765. While belonging to the Baroque period, it is nevertheless influenced by the pre-Petrine Moscow architecture.

The Odigitrievskaya Church in Aksay (then Aksayskaya stanitsa) dates from 1891 to 1897. The church has a cruciform plan and the traditional ship composition. The bell tower is a quadrangle crowned with a tent with chamfered corners and bell embrasures on a wider quadrangle. According to a historical photograph, it was originally much taller and multitiered. The main volume is topped by a closed four-vaulted vault, which from outside forms the shape of a hemispherical dome. There are small bulbous cupolas above the tent and dome. The apse is faceted. The facades are unplastered, and the decor is made of brickwork. The lower quadrangle of the bell tower and the buttresses of the main volume are emphasized by gables with cut upper corner. The gables are decorated with relief crosses, kneelers under the cornice and staggered kneelers resembling a geometrized Romanesque arcature. The crowning cornice of the main volume is adorned with two rows of triangular teeth, the frieze includes narrow panels, below which there are kneelers and gorodki. Relief crosses framed by miniature half-columns surround the portal of the main entrance. Small half-columns with cubic capitals with chamfered corners are embedded into the corners of the main volume. The same half-columns in two tiers flank the porches. The main volume lacks freestanding columns and is covered with a closed vault. The style of the church is Russian, with some Romanesque borrowings. This direction in the national style was called “Russo-Romanesque” by contemporaries [3, p. 120].

The Pyatnitskaya Church of Manichskaya stanitsa (1897−1904), designed by Ivan Petrovich Zlobin (1859−about 1930), has a complex and memorable look. The church is cross-in-square with a dome, in the ship composition, featuring four internal columns. The quadrangle of the bell tower, refectory, and the church are two-light, with tiers divided by a horizontal string way. The bell tower and all five bulbous cupolas of the church are tented roofs, with abundant verticals enhancing the silhouette’s pronounced dynamic. On the North and South sides, the main volume adjoins pentagonal apselike projections, giving the church the character of an “Athonite-type” church. The quadrangle of the bell tower widens downward, acquiring the shape of a truncated pyramid. The main volume and refectory above the profiled cornice are finished with a parapet with balusters. The frieze includes a ribbon of running ornament and a broad band with triglyphs and square decorative brickworks. The windows are arched, with semicircular and keel-shaped archivolts resting on halfcolumns and pilasters with Byzantine capitals. Above the quadrangle of the belltower, the upper part forms an arcade with columns decorated with baluster-shaped half-columns, fixed at the corners by clusters of three cylindrical half-columns, and is topped by a solid parapet also with baluster-shaped half-columns and relief crosses. Four tiers of octagonal bell tower cells with decreasing diameter rise above.

The first, adorned with small turrets, and the third, supplemented with square decorative brickworks, octagonal structures pierced by openings on every other facet, while the second and fourth represent openwork arcades. In the second octagon, topped with careen-shaped ogee gables bearing crosses aligned with the openings’ axes, the arches rest on columns; in the third octagon, supplemented with square decorative brickworks, the arches rest on columns decorated with baluster-shaped half-columns; and in the fourth, which upper part is adorned with a running molding, these halfcolumns are doubled. The bell tower’s tent roof is crowned with a ring featuring arched niches and a sheya (crowning part of church building usually of cylindrical or octahedral form) topped with a bulbous cupola. The corner tents of the main volume are octagons elevated on square bases with arched niches. The octagons themselves are supplemented with square decorative brickworks, pierced by arched windows, and capped with an arcade on consoles decorated with miniature embossed crosses aligned with the windows’ axes. Above the tents there are rings with running moldings and «sheyas» crowned with bulbous cupolas. The facets of the main octagon of the central dome are crowned with three-lobed careenshaped ogee gables with a central keel-shaped element; the windows here are also arched with keel-shaped archivolts supported by pilasters with crossbands and rolls. Below the window sill band course, square decorative brickworks are placed. Beneath the tent roof there is a smaller octagon adorned with an arcade resting on baluster-shaped half-columns and featuring a battlement termination. The tent is crowned with a ring with a similar but smaller-scale arcade in lower relief, and a dome on a slender drum — sheya. Apse-like projections are decorated with panels. The main entrance is framed by decagons, giving the portal a battlement character. The details trace back to the architecture of the mid-17^th century Russian patterned design (such as the Church of the Nativity of the Virgin in Putinki). At the same time, the facade decoration does not seem excessive. A comparison naturally arises with the church — in style, silhouette, and decoration — with the Peter and Paul Cathedral in Peterhof, built simultaneously and designed by N.V. Sultanov.

At the beginning of the 20^th century, under the influence of new principles of form-making within the framework of a turn to the national architectural tradition of the Middle Ages, monuments were created that were interpreted particularly freely and expressively. The volumetric-spatial compositions became more plastic and cohesive, based on the correlation of deliberately enlarged masses; the plans became stricter and simpler, and the decorations were no longer so abundant, no longer covering the facades entirely but forming peculiar clusters that emphasized compositional centers. There was a shift from the stylization of eclecticism to the stylization of Art Nouveau, to the creative reinterpretation of medieval forms. This stage of heritage assimilation is commonly referred to as the Russian Revival. The main source of inspiration now became the earlier, more laconic architecture, primarily the monuments of Novgorod and Pskov. The emotionality, sometimes expressiveness, of the authors’ approaches enhanced the romantic component. All this was the result of the influence of fin-de-siècle trends, although the features of Art Nouveau manifested to varying degrees in different monuments. Many churches were characterized by an increased focus on the expressiveness of volumes, accentuation, sometimes monumentalization of individual elements that sharpened habitual compositional solutions. However, in the church architecture of the Rostov region, these tendencies manifested rather moderately, with a preference, under the influence of Cossack traditionalism, given to established methods of late eclecticism. Its architect was Grigory Nikolaevich Vasilyev (1868−1932). The church is five-domed, traditionally designed as a “ship”. The vestibules and refectory are rectangular in plan, with the choir above the refectory occupying half its area. The prayer hall is square in plan, with powerful wall-mounted supports. The pentagonal apse adjoins the prothesis and diaconicon. The vestibules protruding from the North and South give the plan a cruciform shape. The bell tower includes two octagons over a quadrangle and a tented roof crowned by a dome on a slender drum-sheya. In the upper tier under the cornice there are battlements, an arcade, square decorative brickworks, archivolts of the arched openings. At the base of the drum there are careen-shaped ogee gables. In the lower tier, windows have battlement endings. Side windows of the quadrangle have rounded upper corners. The cornice crowning the entire building rests on stepped town-like brackets. The band of ornamental brickwork runs above the basement. The walls of the refectory are pierced by three arched windows decorated with squat halfcolumns. Vestibules have gable roofing. The cornice is supported by town-like brackets. The wall surface is divided by pilaster strips into bays finished with three-lobed central and two-lobed side curved shapes. Windows are arched with dripstones. In the niche under the central window there are square decorative brickworks and a carved stone flowering cross in a keel-shaped niche, with a running molding insert above the window. The central cubic volume, decorated with a cornice on dentals, an arcade and an arcade-column band, is covered with a four-slope roof and bears five domes — a luminous central one with a large bulbous cupola and solid side domes with slightly elongated teardrop-shaped domes. The main drum with arched windows is decorated with corbels, curb stones, running molding, and square decorative brickworks; the side drums, with arched niches, have corbels and running molding. Entrances are arched and accessed by stairs. The archivolt of the western portal rests on thin half-columns with carved stone capitals. On the sides, the bell tower quadrangle windows have a three-lobed ending fitted into arched niches with dripstones. Decorative elements trace back to the architecture of the Russian patterned style of the mid-17^th century. The powerful five-domed composition recalls the monuments of the Yaroslavl school. Elements of Russian Revival include windows with battlement endings and rounded corners, teardrop-shaped domes, and motifs of the medieval Novgorod architecture (gable ends, multi-lobed curves, dripstones).

The laconicism of the decorative solution and the opposition in the silhouette of the enlarged central dome and miniature chapels are close to the Russian Revival style Ascension Church of the Susat farm (1914).

Discussion and Сonclusion. The architectural monuments examined allow us to conclude that the stylistic evolution of church building in the territory of the Rostov region in the mid-19^th to early 20^th century chronologically corresponds to the all-Russian transformation of the national style from Romanticism through Eclecticism to Art Nouveau, practically without the lag characteristic of the provincial architecture in earlier periods. The Russian-Byzantine, Byzantine, Russian and Russian Revival styles are represented by monuments forming the ecological framework of the region, all of the worthy architectural and artistic level, in which the features of these stages of heritage assimilation are fully and clearly manifested. While in the mid-19^th century, construction was mainly based on exemplar designs, in the second half of the 19^th and early 20^th centuries, projects predominately were developed for particular churches.

The overwhelming majority of churches feature bell towers connected to the main volume of the building. Alongside the cross-in-square plans, including those of the “Athos type” and tetraconch forms, pillarless compositions, cross-shaped and single-nave, are widely used. The crowning parts of the churches vary: single-domed, five-domed, tent-roofed, with domes on closed vaults. Domes vary as well, onion-shaped, close to helmet-shaped, hemispherical. Decorative elements in the Russian-Byzantine style are mostly borrowed from the 15^th-century architecture; in the Byzantine style from monuments of the middle Byzantine period with the addition of the Old Russian motifs; in the Russian Style mainly from the “carved decorations” (ornamental) styles of the Moscow and Yaroslavl schools; in the Russian Revival style, elements of the Pskov and Novgorod medieval architecture are added. A distinctive feature of the region, due to its originally borderland position, is the widespread distribution of churches in the Byzantine style, expressing the imperial idea. Another feature is the appeal within the Russian style to its “Russian-Romantic” variant. Traits of Art Nouveau in church building in the early 20^th century often appear fairly restrained, while maintaining orientation towards the 17^th century “carved decorations”. Borrowings from earlier epochs become dominant only in rare cases.

Orthodox churches of the mid-19^th to early 20^th centuries in the Rostov region are not only testimonies of historical memory and cultural heritage objects deserving of in-depth study, preservation, and restoration including restoration of their original appearance but they can and should become a source of inspiration for contemporary architects engaged in church building.