Early Russian Architecture 989-1703
Early Russian Architecture 989-1703
Early Russian Architecture 989-1703
Christopher Wood
The history of Russian architecture may be dealt with in terms of the five major phases listed below. In this
chapter and the next, only the first three phases will be examined in detail. Phase 1: Early Principalities:
Kiev, Novgorod and the ‘Golden Ring’ (10th century to 13th century) Church architecture evolved in Kiev
and Novgorod (11th century) and in Rostov - Suzdal and Vladimir (12th century). This phase was
inaugurated by the arrival of Christianity in Russia from the Byzantine Empire. Monumental stone
architecture was used almost exclusively for ecclesiastical monuments; most secular buildings were of
wood and far less substantial. The Princes of Old Rus dominated church building. In consequence, the
construction of monuments followed the flow of power from Kiev and Novgorod to the cities of the
‘Golden Ring’ (Suzdal, Vladimir, etc). Architectural styles were handed from one centre to the next.
Byzantine models were slowly modified and indigenous features emerged. After the Mongol invasions,
the architectural tradition which had grown up was handed on to Moscow. Phase 2: Moscow and the Rise
of the Tsars (1300 - 1700) Moscow threw off the Mongol (Tatar) yoke in 1480 and drew other centres of
Russia into its orbit by the 16th century. Architecture in this phase also reflects the intimate relationship
between Church and State. In the earlier phase secular power had ebbed and flowed as contenders had
vied for control of the principalities and the Church had stood for continuity of culture. With the rise of
the Tsars in this phase, the Church increasingly came to be controlled and manipulated by secular
autocrats and this wrought subtle changes to church architecture. This period is characterised by a
fascinating adaptation of Italian Renaissance architectural influences to traditional Russian building types.
It also sees a blossoming of peculiarly Russian decoration and colour in buildings such as St Basil’s,
Moscow. Phase 3: St Petersburg (18th Century) Peter the Great abjured the xenophobia of his
predecessors and opened Russia to the influences of the west. The most powerful expression of this
change in Russian architecture was the creation of his great northern city, St Petersburg. In its architecture
and that of palaces nearby at Peterhof and Pavlovsk we see a brilliant adaptation of the western Baroque,
Rococo and Neo-Classical styles to Russian needs and conditions. The shift in orientation did not bring
with it political change toward a less centralised state. Russia remained an autocracy without a strong,
independent aristocracy or middle class. The grandeur and richness of palatial architecture in this phase
reinforced the authority of the Tsars. It was also used to emphasise Russia’s position as a world power
able to compete with the west. Phase 4: The 19th Century The 19th century saw the slow and rather
tentative development of capitalism in Russia. This was manifested in a growth of bourgeois individualism
which was distrusted by the Tsars. In architecture it saw the onset of eclecticism and historicism through
the influence of cities like Paris and London; the Neo-Gothic style, for example, was particularly popular.
The use of western historicism also led to a revival of the style of traditional Russian architecture of the
first two phases. This was particularly popular amongst conservatives and reactionaries. At the end of the
19th century there was a revival of the Imperial Neo-Classical style of St Petersburg, an attempt by the
authorities to reassert their cultural hegemony. Phase 5: Soviet Architecture The early years of
Communism in Russia saw a flowering of modernist internationalism which was to inspire foreign
architects as diverse as Le Corbusier and Frank Lloyd Wright. At first, the new Communist State seemed
to lead the world in political, social and cultural experiments. Under Stalin, however, this gave way to a
grandiose style in which massive buildings constructed to house State organs and as huge residential
blocks came to be covered with bombastic decorations. Socialism in one country thus saw a search for a
peculiarly Russian type of 20th-century architecture. The megalomania of the great ‘towers’ of Moscow
was, nevertheless, inspired by New York skyscrapers. Phase 1: Early Principalities: Kiev, Novgorod and the
‘Golden Ring’ (10th century to 13th century) The Slavs had inhabited southern and central Russia from the
A clue to the nature of the beauty which attracted the Russians to Byzantine ritual and style may be found
in a passage describing Kiev in Ilarion’s Oration to Prince Vladimir: And gaze upon thy city, radiant in its
splendour, upon churches flourishing, upon Christianity increasing, gaze upon thy city, illuminated with
holy icons, brilliant, surrounded with fragrant darkness, filled with hosannas and divine song. This telling
passage speaks of the richness and beauty of the new Constantinople in terms of the harmonies of song,
the fragrance of incense and above all in terms of the lustre of churches and their icons. It has been stated
that a particularly potent force in Russian culture is brilliant light and bright colour. Architectural examples
from the polychrome St Basil’s to the rich blues of Pavlovsk, would seem to bear this out. There is a long
period between Russia’s short summers and her sparkling winters, when a carpet of snow reflects light,
brightening the landscape. In the interlude between summer and the season of snows, colour is drained
from everything by a bleak half-light. Could it be that the love of light and colour, seen equally in folk art
and in church interiors, is a reaction against a bleak environment? Scholars have certainly suggested that
one particularly powerful way in which the power and glory of the Orthodox Church was expressed to the
people was the dramatic contrast between the dingy interiors of their small wooden dwellings and the
high, airy brilliance of church interiors. Light had, of course, been a fundamental ingredient of liturgy and
art in Byzantium. The language of the Church is filled with allusions to light (to Christ as the light of the
world, to the brilliance of the Heavenly Jerusalem, etc.). The use of sparkling mosaics to cover church
interiors, lit by a myriad lamps and candles, amounts to the creation of an architectural illusion of heaven
on earth. This message was born in Byzantine architecture in the stark contrast between the relatively
unadorned facades of churches and their rich interior decoration. The early churches of Kiev and
Novgorod tended to accentuate this contrast. Ilarion’s use of the words ‘fragrant darkness’ to describe a
Russian church interior does not contradict this point. For it is the contrast between the brilliant icons and
their ambience which is crucial. Medieval people believed that the cosmos was illuminated in degrees of
brilliance which were associated with spiritual hierarchies. The sombre interior ambience therefore served
merely to accentuate the brilliance of the holy images and thus the notion of a heavenly city upon earth. It
has already been noted that the Russians inherited the centrally-planned church from Byzantium.
Although there may once have been basilicas modelled upon Bulgarian churches, these wooden buildings
gave way to the first masonry churches built in Kiev and Novgorod. The central plan in the form of an
inscribed cross encouraged the creation of an extremely high, narrow core space which lifted the central
cupola far above the believers below. Russian church builders took this element of Byzantine architecture
and greatly accentuated it. Russian churches also differed from Byzantine precedent in the multitude of
subsidiary domes which were added to the structure. In profile the upper part of these churches seem like
pyramids: all the subsidiary domes were kept strictly subordinate to the central one. From the time of the
civilisations of the Ancient Near East the dome has been a symbol of heaven. The high central space of a
With the decline of the Mongol Empire, Novgorod flourished and Moscow, which had hitherto been a
minor centre in the principality of Vladimir, rose to power. By the mid-14th century Moscow had eclipsed
Vladimir and in 1328 the seat of the metropolitan of the Russian Church was transferred there. Ivan III
‘The Great’ (1462-1505) brought Yaroslavl’, Rostov, Ryazan’ and Tver’ into the orbit of Moscow. He also
subjugated the city republic of Novgorod in 1477 and formally rejected Tatar overlordship of Russia in
1480. Although Ivan III could boast an impeccable lineage from the blood lines of the Kievan princes, the
nature of his and his successors’ power was different. Succession in a direct line from father to son took
the place of Kievan succession through fraternal superiority, which had led to constant war. This brought
greater stability, allowing two successive dynasties to build an autocratic state. It also concentrated power
in Moscow, which came to dominate Russia as no other city had done. At the centre of Moscow was the
Kremlin, which, with its palaces and churches was a symbol and locus of power without parallel in most
countries. At this time Byzantine protocol and ritual became steadily more prevalent at court. This
emphasised the authority of the ruler. In 1547, Ivan III’s grandson was crowned ‘Tsar’. This new title, which
took the place of princeps, was a Slav corruption of ‘Caesar’, and denoted greater authority. Henceforth
Another feature of St Basil’s is the pronounced verticality of its proportions. The builders of Kiev,
Novgorod, Suzdal and Vladimir gave their churches higher drums than their Byzantine prototypes in order
that larger windows could flood the heavenly zone within with light. The development of the onion domes
which, by the 17th century, were placed upon narrow octagonal drums, gave Russian churches extremely
lively, picturesque profiles without reference to interior symbolic space. A form which owed its origins to
symbolism and liturgy thus slowly gained the function of enlivening the building’s profile. Deliverance
from the Tatar yoke was accompanied by a monastic revival in Russia. An example is the monastery of
Sergiev Posad which was founded by St Sergy of Radonezh in 1345 and rebuilt after the Tatar invasions of
the following century. It became increasingly important, gaining the status of lavra in 1744. Sergy of
Radonezh (1314-92), the most significant church figure of the 14th century was not a metropolitan but a
humble monk. Around his hermitage, in the wilds 70 km north-east of Moscow at the place subsequently
named after him, Sergiev Posad (in Soviet times Zagorsk), was to develop one of the greatest of Russian
monasteries, dedicated to the Holy Trinity (and eventually also to its saintly founder). Sergy’s work
provided the stimulus for a revival of monastic life. New foundations proliferated, by contrast with the pre-
Mongol period, in areas which were hardly populated, even unexplored. In Sergy’s lifetime there were
perhaps 50 new monastic houses; the number was to be trebled within a century of his death. After a
period of civil war which is known in Russian tradition as the ‘Time of Troubles’, in which the Poles and
Swedes occupied Moscow and Novgorod respectively, Mikhail Romanov (1613-1643) was elected tsar. He
and his successors, Aleksey Romanov (1613-1645) and Fyodor III (1676-1682) established order again,
consolidated the administration of such areas as Siberia, and expanded their territories. The Cossacks of
the Ukraine accepted them as overlords, throwing off the sovereignty of the Polish monarch because they
preferred the tsars’ Russian Orthodoxy to the Poles’ Roman Catholicism. The incorporation of the Ukraine
introduced motifs from the Ukrainian Baroque into the Russian architectural tradition. In this period
patterns were set which were of profound importance to Russian history and distinguish it from that of the
West. In ritual and observance the Russian Church grew steadily away from other Orthodox Churches
and, after the only schism between religious and secular powers in Russian history (1668), Church and
State became inseparable: the tsar acquired a semi-divine status. During the long reign of Aleksey
Romanov, masonry churches were built on an unprecedented scale. These included Patriarch Nikon’s New
Jerusalem (Resurrection) Monastery (1658-1685) outside Moscow and Metropolitan Iona Sisoevich’s
walled group of churches and residences in Rostov (1670-1683). These monasteries, which resembled
kremlins, were built at a time when the Church was losing its power and independence to the tsars. Their
huge size and the attempts of the metropolitans who built them to reproduce the Holy City of Jerusalem
in Muscovy reflected their desire to steer the Russian Church back to the Orthodox mainstream. Many
older monasteries, including the great Trinity-Sergius Monastery at Sergiev Posad, were enlarged or
rebuilt in the 17th century.