The origin and fate of the Byzantine master builders of Vladimir Svyatoslavich and his sons: ‘Constantinopolitan’ and ‘non-Constantinopolitan’ features in the architecture of Rus in the late 10th – mid‑11th century (original) (raw)

2023, Происхождение и судьба византийских строителей Владимира Святославича и его сыновей: «константинопольское» и «неконстантинопольское» в зодчестве Руси конца Х – середины XI века // Искусство византийского мира 2: Сборник статей памяти О.С. Поповой / Отв. ред. И.А. Орецкая. М., 2023. С. 38-69

The article deals with the question of the origin of the Byzantine master builders working in Rus’ from the late 10th until the mid‑11th century. Three building crews can be distinguished: the builders of Valdimir’s Tithe Church, the masters of the first stage of Mstislav’s Saviour Cathedral in Chernigov, and the master builders of Yaroslav’s buildings. The first two crews came apparently from the Black Sea region: the first one brought in 989 the tradition of cross-shaped pillars and buttress arches and originated most likely from Cherson, and the second one (in the early 1030s) built of stone and bricks using ‘atectonic’ blind arches on the facades and came probably from the Northeastern or Eastern Black Sea region. From the very beginning of their work (St. Sophia in Kiev, the early 1030s) Yaroslav’s master builders demonstrate a combination of elements from Constantinople and ‘Helladic school,’ combined on Russian soil with the Eastern Byzantine tradition of cross-shaped pillars and buttress arches. Traces of Vladimir’s crew get lost after the completion of the Tithe Church. Plinth-makers and, possibly, masons from Mstislav’s crew could later join the masters of Yaroslav Vladimirovich in Chernigov. In turn, Yaroslav’s masters after the completion of St. St. Sophia, the Golden Gate in Kiev with the Annunciation church and the construction of the Tithe Church, about 1037, moved to Chernigov to finish work on the Saviour Cathedral, where they joined Byzantine plinth-makers from Mstislav’s crew, and then moved to Novgorod for the construction of St. Sophia in 1045–1050. Probably, the same crew built in the early 1050s the last churches of Yaroslav – St. George and St. Irene in Kiev. Thus, during the Yaroslav’s activity in building the stone churches, we see the work of only one crew: until 1037 in Kiev, in the late 1030s (and early 1040s?) in Chernigov, in 1045–1050 in Novgorod and in the early 1050s again in Kiev. However, traces of the plinth-makers of the first, Kiev stage of this crew can be traced in Russia until the 1070s, when the plinth characteristics of them were still found in the main part of the church of the Vydubitsy monastery. But most likely, the Greek masters left Russia after Yaroslav’s death in 1054, and partly even earlier, in the second half of the 1030s (probably the early Yaroslav’s plinth-makers of the Mstislav’s masters of the Saviour Cathedral in Chernigov), giving way to their former local apprentices. Keywords: Old Russian architecture, Byzantine architecture, Kiev, Chernigov, Novgorod, Constantinople, Cherson, Black Sea region, “Helladic school,” Vladimir Svyatoslavich, Mstislav Vladimirovich, Yaroslav Vladimirovich, plinth.