Russian-Byzantine style

The Russian-Byzantine style, or Neo-Russian style, is a conditional common name for several different historical trends in Russian architecture of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, based on the traditions of Old Russian architecture and folk art, as well as the elements of Byzantine architecture associated with them. A variety of “national romanticism”.

The pseudo-Russian style emerged within the framework of a pan-European interest in national architecture and represents the interpretation and stylization of the Russian architectural heritage. Style consistently combined with other directions – from architectural romanticism of the first half of the XIX century to the modernist style.

Terminology
The terms denoting the direction in the Russian architecture of the second half of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, connected with the search for an original national style, are still inaccurate, and individual phenomena that existed within the framework of this direction are not differentiated.

Appearing at the beginning of the 19th century, the name “Russian-Byzantine style”, which was often reduced by contemporaries to “Byzantine style”, denoted such different samples of nationally oriented architecture as “Tone architecture” (according to KA Ton), which has nothing in common with Byzantine prototypes, and, for example, constructions imitating the samples of the Caucasian and Balkan architecture. The term “Russian style” that appeared in the second half of the 19th century united even more diverse phenomena – from small court country buildings of the 1830s in the “Peyzan style”, idealizing the way of life of the peasantry, to massive wooden park buildings and exhibition pavilions of the 1870s, and also large public buildings of the 1880s.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, the whole aggregate of phenomena in the architecture of the nineteenth century, associated with the search for Russian national identity, was called the “pseudo-Russian style” (the term V. Ya. Kurbatov) – in contrast to the “neo-Russian style”. Along with the definition of “pseudo-Russian”, already having an evaluative character, the name with an even more negative tint – “false Russian style” began to be used to denote the same phenomena.

The question of the genesis of the “neo-Russian style” (another name – Novorussky) is controversial. EI Kirichenko, AV Ikonnikov and a number of other authors consider the Neo-Russian style as a “direction”, “option” or “national-romantic branch” of modernity . In the opinion of DV Sarabyanov, the Neo-Russian style existed as a variant within modernity, although it made attempts to gain independence. MV Nashchokina and EA Borisova believe that Neo-Russian style and modernity can not be identified. EI Kirichenko differentiates the neo-Russian style, as the direction of modernity, and the Russian style, as one of the architectural trends of eclecticism, at the level of differences between the architects’ interpretation of the samples of the domestic architecture and the methods of form-building used by them:

Styling is characteristic of modernity in contrast to eclecticism, for which stylization is typical. <...> Stylistics is based on visually authentic (realistic) recreation of the heritage of the past. <...>… provides the possibility of using any form of architecture of the past in any combination. In stylization, the attitude toward the sample is different. Artists are interested in the general, the nature of the interconnection of elements and forms, the whole, and not the detail, particular. General features and recognizability of the sample are preserved. However, the samples themselves, when reconstituted, are transformed in accordance with new tastes. <...> This is done without any desire for historical authenticity and accuracy of reproduction of sources.

DV Sarabyanov believes that architecture researchers fairly share Russian and Neo-Russian styles: ” Indeed, the border between them is a line dividing eclecticism and modernity “.

Features of the style
Russian-Byzantine style
One of the first trends that emerged within the framework of the pseudo-Russian style was the “Russian-Byzantine style” that originated in the 1830s in the architecture of churches. The first example of buildings in this style is the Orthodox Church of Alexander Nevsky in Potsdam, designed by Vasily Stasov. The consecration of the temple occurred in September 1829.

The development of this direction was facilitated by very broad government support, since the Russian-Byzantine style embodied the idea of official Orthodoxy about the continuity between Byzantium and Russia. For Russian-Byzantine architecture is characterized by the borrowing of a number of compositional techniques and motifs of Byzantine architecture, most vividly embodied in the “exemplary projects” of the churches of Constantine Ton in the 1840s. The Cathedral of Christ the Savior, the Grand Kremlin Palace and the Armory Chamber were erected in Moscow, as well as cathedrals in Sveaborg, Yelets (Ascension Cathedral), Tomsk, Rostov-on-Don and Krasnoyarsk.

Imitation of Old Russian architecture
For another direction of the pseudo-Russian style that arose under the influence of Romanticism and Slavophilism, buildings with arbitrary interpretation of the motifs of Old Russian architecture are typical. One of the first Russian architects who turned to historical layers, Mikhail Dormidontovich Bykovsky said:

” We must imitate not the forms of the ancients, but their example: to have our own architecture, national architecture.”

In the framework of this direction, many buildings were built by Alexei Gornostaev and Nikolai Nikitin (wooden ” Pogodinskaya izba ” on the Devichi Field in Moscow).

Development

Years 1825-1850
The first existing example of Byzantine revival in Russian architecture and the first example ever built, is located in Potsdam, Germany, the Alexander Nevsky memorial church, a church with five domes designed by the neoclassicist Vasili Stasov (builder of the neoclassical cathedral of the Holy Trinity of St. Petersburg, and father of the critic Vladimir Stasov). The following year, in 1827, Stasov completed a new church with five domes, larger, in Kiev, the church of the Tithes.

One of the first currents that developed in the pseudo-Russian style is that which appeared in the 1830s under the name of “Russian-Byzantine style”. Russian-Byzantine idea was carried forward by Konstantin Thon with the strong approval of Tsar Nicholas I. Thon’s style embodied the idea of continuity between Byzantium and Russia, which fit perfectly with the ideology of Nicholas I: Orthodoxy, Autocracy and Nationality. Russian-Byzantine architecture was characterized by mixing compositional methods and vaulted arches of Byzantine architecture with ancient Russian exterior ornaments, and they were vividly realized in Thon’s “model projects”. In 1838, Nicolás I pointed outThon book of model projects as an example to all architects, continue to apply between 1841 and 1844. 18

Thon had erected the Great Kremlin Palace (1838-1850), the Cathedral of Christ the Savior of Moscow (1839-1883) and the Armory Building of the Moscow Kremlin (1844-1851), and also the church of Suomenlinna and the cathedrals of Sveaborg, the Ascension of Yelets (1845-1889), the Trinity of Tomsk (1845-1900), the Nativity of Krasnoyarsk (1845-1861), and the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Rostov-on -Don (1854-1860).

The official application of Byzantine architecture was, in fact, very limited: it applied only to the construction of new churches and, to a lesser extent, to royal palaces. The private and public construction proceeded independently. Thon public buildings, such as the pseudo-Renaissance Nikolaevsky terminal station in St. Petersburg, lack Byzantine features. A closer look at the churches built in the reign of Nicholas reveals the creation of many neoclassical buildings of the first order, such as the cathedral of Elokhovo in Moscow (1837-1845), the work of Yevgraph Tyurin. 19Byzantine art was not official at all in the reign of Nicholas; it is scarce today, since the Byzantine churches, declared “worthless” by the Bolsheviks, were the first to be demolished in the Soviet era.

As for the “pseudo-Russian style”, it was developed under the influence of romanticism and slavophilia, and is characteristic of buildings that used interpretations of motifs from ancient architecture. The examples are numerous among the constructions due to Aleksei Gornostaev. Another example of this trend is that of « Isba Pogodinskaïa », by the architect Nikolai Nikitin (1828).

1850s
Another direction taken by the Neo-Russian style was a reaction against the official art of Thon, influenced by Romanticism, the Slavophiles and detailed studies of vernacular architecture. The forerunner of this trend in the design of the church was Alexey Gornostaev (in his later years, 1848-1862), notable for reinventing the tent roof of northern Russia, enhanced with a Romanesque and Renaissance vaulted structure. An early example in civil architecture is the wooden hut of Pogodinsky in Devichye Pole, Moscow, by Nikolai Nikitin (1856). 20

After 1861
The emancipation reform of 1861 and the subsequent reforms of Alexander II pushed the liberal elite to explore the roots of national culture. In the early 1870s, the Russian populist ideas of the Narodnikis aroused a growing interest in art circles for popular culture, peasant architecture and Russian architecture of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The first result of these studies in architecture was the birth of “folk” or pseudo-Russian style, exemplified by the works of Ivan Ropet of the 1870s (“Terem” in Abramtsevo, near Moscow, 1873) and Viktor Hartmann (printing press). Mamontovin Moscow, 1872). These artists idealized peasant life and created their own vision of vernacular architecture. Another factor was the rejection of the Western eclectics who dominated the civil construction of the years 1850-1860, a reaction against the “decadent West”, promoted by the influential art critic Vladimir Stasov and spread in the wooden architecture of pavilions and from small village houses, and then to the monumental buildings in stone.

Ivan Zabelin, a theorist of the movement, stated that “The Russian Khoromy, developed naturally from peasant huts, retains the spirit of beautiful disorder… the beauty of a building is not in its proportions, but on the contrary, in the difference and independence of its parts ». 21 As a result, ropetovschina, as enemies of Ropet, marked his style, concentrating on hoarding together brightly, but without relating pieces of vernacular architecture, notably high ceilings, barrel ceilings and wooden tracery. Wood was the preferred material, since many fantasies could not be physically constructed in masonry. This was good and bad for ropetovschina: bad, because wooden buildings, especially those of non-conventional form, were not scalable and had a very short life and very few survive to date; and good, because the speed of construction and the unorthodox aspect were the perfect combination to erect exhibition pavilions, coronation stands and similar short-lived projects. The trend continued in the twentieth century (Fyodor Schechtel) 22 and 1920 (Ilya Golosov). 23

In the early 1880s, the style of Ivan Ropet had replaced the official pseudo-Russian style by almost literally compiling the motifs of Russian architecture of the 17th century. And for a short period he almost succeeded in becoming the new official art. These buildings that were built, as a rule, from brick or white stone, with the application of modern building technology, began to be abundantly decorated in the traditions of Russian folk architecture. The columns of this architecture are bulging or pot-bellied, the low ceilings are covered with arched vaults, the embrasures of the windows are narrow, the ceilings carpados, the frescoes decorate the walls of floral ornaments, the ceramic tiles and the massive forge are used abundantly, both in the exterior and in the interior decoration. It is in this genre that they were built: the floors of the commercial galleries of the current building of the GUM (1890-1893) by the architect Alexander Pomerantsev; the building of the State Historical Museum (1875-1881), of the architect Vladimir Sherwood) that completed the whole of the Red Square in Moscow; and the Savvinskoïe Podvore, a hostelry of the architect Ivan Kouznetsov (1907).

At the beginning of the 20th century
At the beginning of the 20th century, the “Neo-Russian style” developed. The architects looked for inspiration in the simplicity of the old monuments, like those of Novgorod or of Pskov and other regions of the north of Russia. The achievements that followed were sometimes also stylized in the spirit of the national romantic style of the Nordic countries.

At the turn of the century, the Russian Orthodox Church experienced a new trend, the construction of unusually large cathedrals in the suburbs of the working class of the big cities. Some, such as the Cathedral of the Ascension of Dorogomilovo (1898-1910), on the outskirts of Moscow, capable of 10,000 faithful, were undertaken in the quiet outskirts of the countryside, which increased in population at the time of its completion. (The cathedral was demolished by the oviet authorities in 1938). Christian theorists explained the choice of those remote places with the desire to extend the reach of the Church to the working class, and only to the working class, at a time when the richer classes were moving away from it. 24Byzantine architecture was a natural choice for these projects. It was a clear statement of national roots, against modern European heresies. It was also much cheaper than the great neoclassical cathedrals, both in the initial costs and in the subsequent maintenance. The largest examples of this type were completed after the Russian Revolution of 1905.

In St. Petersburg, this Neo-Russian style finds application in the religious buildings of the architects Vladimir Pokrovski, Stepane Kritchinski, Andre Aplaksine and Herman Grimm. But they also built housing or rental buildings in this style, such as the Koupermane house, by architect Alexandre Lichnevski on Ploutalova street.

An interesting example of Neo-Russian style (but with some modernist features) is the Church of the Holy Face in Kliazma, built in honor of the 300-year reign of the Romanov dynasty by the architect Vasili Motyliov according to the drawings of Sergey Vashkov (1879- 1914), student of Victor Vasnetsov in 1913-1916.

Achievements of the main architects

Viktor Vasnetsov
It is Víktor Vasnetsov (1848-1926) who owed the first architectural experiments based on the emotional interpretation of folklore and the Russian stories that are the originality of the neo-Russian style. In the domain of Savva Mamontov in Abramtsevo, he built a stone church. But instead of copying the architectural details of the Pskov and Novgorod churches of the fourteenth century, he tried to capture the spirit, the atmosphere of those religious buildings. He also contributed to the architecture some of his epic-inspired historical painting technique, close to the art nouveau. In Moscow it is built in 1927 on the street that now bears his name (Vasnetsov Pereoulok), a fairy tale house made of blackened logs on white-covered walls.

The best-known architectural achievement of Vasnetsov is the Tretyakov Gallery (1900-1905). The emblematic facade is crowned by the arms of the city of Moscow, carved in white stone. Vasnetsov created a picturesque metaphor of Russian antiquity without his loans being specific. Returning to the words of one of his contemporaries, it resembles a prominent headliner of a medieval manuscript.

Sergei Maliutin
Sergei Maliutin, a storyteller and painter, was also director of fantastic works in the Neo-Russian style. His drawings were used to build the small Terem de Talachniko on the estate of the Grand Duchess Maria Tenicheva. The same style is found in the Pertsov house in Moscow (1905-1907).

Franz Schechtel
The most important building of Franz Schechtel (1859-1926), the Yaroslavsky station in Moscow (1902-1904), was erected when the Neo-Russian style was not yet free of art nouveau. The idea of the architect was to create a synthetic image of the extensions of the north of Russia, since the travelers would see them when departing from this station. The architecture of ancient Russia was a source of inspiration, but Schechtel was not limited to reproducing it. The massive portal in front seems to invite the trip. Majolicas richly colored are arranged under the cornices. The architect creates a variation of the art nouveaubased on Russian legends and stories rather than history. Combined with the architectural concept of art nouveau, the Neo-Russian style thoroughly studies the architecture of ancient Russia in order to identify the basic principles and leads to a purely artistic and emotional perception.

Aleksey Shchusev
Unlike his predecessors, who were painters and rather dilettantes in the field of architecture, Aleksey Shchusev was an archaeologist and conservator of buildings combined with an exercise in architecture as a professional. Between 1904 and 1911 he restored the cathedral of St. Basil of Ovruch (12th century) in Ukraine. The church of Kulikovo, near Tula(in the place of the battle of 1380, which marked the beginning of the Russian liberation of the Tatar-Mongolian yoke) is one of his most notable works of the Neorussian. The symmetry is broken by irregularities such as the towers flanking the portal that are of different shapes. The distribution of the windows seems to be chosen at random. The church extracts from its inaccuracies and irregularities a living, imperfect and sculpted image.

The Kazan station in Moscow, begun in 1913, was completed under the Soviet regime in 1926. Prototypes from different eras were used for different parts of the station that imitated a group of buildings from the architecture of ancient Russia. The main tower reproduces the stepped tower of the Kazan Kremlin. Shchushev proposed to endow the interior of the building with paintings of artists of the time attracted by the art nouveau. This desire was not raised and only Eugène Lanceray painted the roof of the restaurant later.

The convent of the Saint Marta and Mary was built between 1908 and 1912. Shchushev interpreted the picturesque architecture of Pskov and Novgorod. But if the general silhouette is traditional, it expresses, however, a sincere emotion despite certain exaggerations due to its asymmetries and its picturesque forms.

Vladimir Pokrovski
Vladimir Pokrovski was the architect of the Fyodorovsky barracks, built in Pushkin near Tsarskoe Selo. The barracks that had to serve for the last emperor’s guards was conceived as a scene set in the Neo-Russian style. His general moedlo was medieval Russian architecture. The complex was, in fact, a scale reproduction of the Rostov Kremlin. Its buildings are joined by walls with towers. In 1911, the construction of a cathedral was carried out on the basis of the plans of Pokrovski. Its forms are robust and its pyramidal shape is crowned by a huge bulb. These constructions on the eve of the October Revolution were not completely finished at the time and remained partially unfinished.

The headquarters of the branch of the State Bank of Nizhny Novgorod (formerly Gorky city) is also owned by the architect Pokrovsky. It was built between 1910 and 1913. The steps are flanked by two round towers. The holes do not correspond to the decoration that is supposed to evoke Russian architecture of the seventeenth century. The interior wall paintings are made from cardboard by Ivan Bilibine.

Source from Wikipedia