Kotlyar Еugeny. Sergey R. Kravtsov, Vladimir Levin. Synagogues in Ukraine: Volhynia, 2 vols. Jerusalem: Zalman Shazar Center and Center for Jewish Art, 2017. ISBN: 9789652273420. 848 p. [Review]. Judaic-Slavic Journal 1 (3) (2020): 287-294. (original) (raw)
The Jewish community of Ostroh was one of the oldest and most affluent communities in Volhynia. The Great Synagogue in Ostroh has been built after 1627, when an owner of the town issued a privilege, prohibiting erection of synagogues higher than churches, conducting Jewish burials in the daytime, etc. The synagogue design was novel: a spacious prayer hall had four interior columns and twelve perimeter pilasters, which support nine equal vaulted bays. The preceding edifice of this type was the Great Suburban Synagogue in Lviv. It shared with the Great Synagogue in Ostroh some almost identical shapes, which suggests a common architect, who apparently was Giacomo Medleni (d. 1630), a Lviv guild master employed also in Volhynia. The meaningful placement of the architectural order, the nine-bay scheme of the ground plan, and an addition of the slanting buttresses suggest that the architect employed an imagery of the Jerusalem Temple published in 1604 by theologian Juan Bautista Villalpando. The synagogues of Lviv and Ostroh coined the scheme of four interior pillars and twelve windows illuminating prayer hall, which would become popular in the Commonwealth and beyond.
The article has brought a 1930 report by Yelyzaveta Levytska, member of Ukrainian Archaeological Commission, on architecture and murals of the wooden synagogue of the town of Mykhalpil. Contents and findings of the paper have been critically reviewed and their values for scientific projects emphasized. In the focus of study has been a perception of artistic traditions originated at Jewish synagogue architecture and wall paintings in particular, a point differentiating this study from other similar ones processed during the first third of the XX c. (H.Pavlutsky, P. Zholtovsky and other art scholars); quite unique character of synagogue murals developed in Podolia at the XVIII c. is underlined. Kotlyar Y. On Studying Extinct Synagogues. Yelyzaveta Levytska`s Paper on Murals of the Wooden Synagogue of the Town of Mikhalpol // Narodoznavchi Zoshyty (The Ethnology Notebooks) Magazine. – Lviv: Ethnology Institute of National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. – # 3 (111). – P. 435-446. Котляр Є. До вивчення зниклих єврейських божниць. Дослідження Єлизавети Левитської розписів дерев’яної синагоги у Михалполі, 1930 р. // Народознавчі зошити. – Львів: Інститут народознавства НАН України, 2013. – Число 3 (111), травень-червень. – С. 435-446.
Синагоге и јеврејско наслеђе у Југоисточној Европи: међународни научни зборник/ уредник Растислав Стојсављевић=Synagogues and Jewish heritage in Southeastern Europe: international scientific proceedings/editor Rastislav Stojsavljević, 2021
Атила Пфајфер, Сомборска синагога, Синагоге и јеврејско наслеђе у југоисточној Европи, уред. Растислав Стојисављевић, Нови Сад 2021, 395-426. (Atila Pfajfer, Nebojša Kartalija, Somborska sinagoga, Sinagoge i jevrejsko nasleđe u Jugoistočnoj Evropi, ured. Rastislav Stojisavljević, Novi Sad 2021, 395-426) На територији града Сомбора јеврејска заједница је присутна од 18. века. Са порастом њене бројности јавила се потреба за организовањем верског живота. После првобитног периода када се верска служба одвијала у импровизованим објектима, половином шездесетих година 19. година саграђена је синагога. Она је представљала центар религијског и културног живота Јевреја овог града. Током холокауста страдао је велики број сомборских Јевреја, што је директно утицало на судбину локалне синагоге. Као верски објекат, егзистирала је до 1947. године, када је прешла у посед државе. Користећи историјске изворе и доступну литературу покушаћемо да прикажемо историјат сомборске синагоге. Сматрамо да историја сомборских Јевреја треба да добије истакнутије место у локалној култури сећања. Надамо се да ће овај рад пружити скромни допринос у том настојању. Atila Pfajfer, Nebojša Kartalija ,The Sombor Synagogue, Synagogues and Jewish heritage in Southeastern Europe: international scientific proceedings, ed. Rastislav Stojsavljević, Novi Sad 2021, pp. 395-426. The Jewish community has been present on the territory of the city of Sombor since the 18th century. With the increase in its number, there was a need to organize religious life. After the original period when the religious service took place in improvised buildings, a synagogue was built in the mid-1860s. It was the center of religious and cultural life of the Jews of this city. During the Holocaust, a large number of Sombor Jews were killed, which directly affected the fate of the local synagogue. As a religious building, it existed until 1947, when it became the property of the state. Using historical sources and available literature, we will try to present the history of the Sombor synagogue. We believe that the history of Sombor's Jews should get a more prominent place in the local culture of remembrance. We hope that this work will make a modest contribution to this endeavor. Link: https://www.arhivvojvodine.org.rs/images/stories/zbornici/Sinagoge-Zbornik.pdf Link: https://www.academia.edu/51340768/Synagogues\_and\_jewish\_heritage\_in\_southeastern\_Europe
Ukraine in the 20th century: Culture, Ideology, Politics: Collection of Essays , 2018
«Kyiv receives Tutankhamun. The exhibition “Treasures of Tutankhamun tomb” in Kyiv in January 6 – March 14, 1975.» in: Ukraine in the 20th century: Culture, Ideology, Politics: Collection of Essays / Editor-in-chief V. M. Danylenko. — Issue 23. — Kyiv: Institute of History of Ukraine at the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, 2018. P. 298-318. Як у Києві Тутанхамона приймали. Виставка «Скарби гробниці Тутанхамона» (м. Київ, 6 січня – 14 березня 1975 р.) // Україна XX століття: культура, ідеологія, політика : зб. ст. / Нац. акад. наук України, Ін-т історії України. Вип. 23, 2018. С. 298-318. The article presents the preliminary report of historical and anthropological study of the exhibition “Treasures of Tutankhamun tomb” in State Museum of Ukrainian Graphic Art of Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (January, 6 – March, 14, 1975, Kyiv). This study is a part of the researching project “Tutankhamun in Kyiv” held by the National Art Museum of Ukraine and A. Yu. Krymskyi Institute of Oriental Studies, NASU. The article reconstructs the timelines of the exhibition and its preparing, considers features of the exhibition organization in Kyiv, historical context of the event and the impact of the exhibition “Treasures of Tutankhamun tomb” on the Soviet society perception of Ancient Egypt. The documents of the Scientific Archive of the National Art Museum of Ukraine became the basis for the present researches. Besides the archival documents the author of the present paper recorded a series of the interviews of the persons who were visitors of the exhibition or participants of its organization. These interviews are valuable sources of the information about the impact of the exhibition for perception of the event in Soviet Ukraine society as well as about emotions and emotionally charged impression from the objects of Tutankhamun tomb. So the records of the witnesses’ interviews were used in the present article together with archival documents, as sources of oral history which help to correct and to detalize information of the official documents. The conclusion is made that the exhibition “Treasures of Tutankhamun tomb” had huge impact on the society of Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic and caused the new view of Ancient Egypt. Before the moment of the exhibition the image of Ancient Egypt that dominated in the public opinion was rather negative. This negative image was formed under the impact of Marxism-Leninism ideological theory of five economic formations that subscribed Ancient Egypt to the first stage of slavery-owing formation. So the Ancient Egyptians were regarded as semi-barbarians, and Egypt as the main center of slavery and oppression in the Ancient World, where the upper class of slaves-owners cruelly sweated the slaves, and as a society with a lowest culture. Exhibition “Treasures of Tutankhamun tomb” has broken this view and brought another image of Ancient Egypt and her culture, as well as another point of view for the live and death of King Tutankhamun. New vision of Egypt as one of the highest civilizations of the World history, amazing and magic highly developed culture came to existence and gradually expanded in the society of USSR. Key words: Tutankhamun, the exhibition “Treasures of Tutankhamun tomb”, “Tutankhamun in Kyiv”.
Questions of World History of Architecture. 8 (1/2017). Scientific Research Institute of Theory of Architecture and Town-Planning: Moscow. Pp. 36–57., 2017
THE CLASSIFICATION OF THE LATE ANTIQUE SYNAGOGUES OF THE HOLY LAND (3rd–7th CENTURIES CE). Part I. Historiography of the problem. In the present article the existing principles of classification of Late Antique synagogues of the Holy Land are systematically analyzed. The initial evolution system, that appeared in the very beginning of the 20th century and consisted of three and later four groups (“Early-Galilean”, “Golan”, “Byzantine”, “Transitional”), has been neglecting the step-by-step process, as a result of new discoveries, and new dating of some already known synagogues. New systems were proposed: at first, the same three groups but independent from the chronological sequence; then the other systems appeared sequentially: regional (E. Meyers), statistical (M. Chiat), just chronological ones, without any typology (D. Milson). In parallel, it was supposed to mark out additional groups of the ‘Golan’ synagogues with subgroups (Z. Ma’oz), but because their classification was based on decorative features, such a decision made architectural classification even more complicated. It is obvious that gradually a refusal of architectural principles took place; parallel to that was the mixing of architectural principles with the decorative, regional and statistical features. This led to the disappearance or blurring of the borders between the groups and absence of common classification. Keywords: Palestine, Late Antique, architecture of synagogues, traditional classification, “Early-Galilean”, “Golan”, “Byzantine”, “Transitional” types