Shatrovye temples in Russia: examples

The tall, tented temples that were visible from a distance were the most suitable for the construction in Russia. Many monuments survived to this day and still amaze tourists with their beauty. Even the area of the internal premises did not play a role, in olden times the hipped temples were not created for a large crowd of people. The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were the most fruitful for the appearance of interesting monuments. For example, the temple of St. Basil the Blessed (the Cathedral of the Intercession on the Ditch) in Moscow, on Red Square, was built in 1552 and marked the appearance of the capture of Kazan. Other tent temples of Russia can hardly compete with him in beauty and fame.

Architecture

Basically, they were all built about the same. Stable chetverik, on which was installed a small octagon - a support for an octagonal tent, looking high into the sky. Nevertheless, every architect brought into the construction of something of his own, why there are no two identical temples. Inventiveness was expressed most often in variations of various details, in decoration.

A feature that all the hipped temples preserve is the absence of pillars, that is, the whole structure is kept on the walls, therefore wide tents are almost impossible. So, it is for this reason that the overly wide stone tent of the Cathedral of the New Jerusalem Monastery collapsed. Then it was replaced by a light wooden and sheathed with iron, and the temple stands, pleases the surrounding people.

Ban?

For one century the hipped roof temples spread widely in the country. But the church reform of Patriarch Nikon broke out in 1653, after which this style became as if banned. Shatrovye temples in Russia were not built. Perhaps, there was no direct ban on construction. But the fact is: not built after the Nikon reform stone hipped roof temples. In the north, they continued to build wooden tents on small churches, and similar endings of the bell remained popular until the appearance of classicism.

Unfortunately, very few preserved examples of wooden architecture, tent wooden churches in addition to wear and post-revolutionary abandonment suffered many hardships and almost disappeared. There are, however, protected islets in the country where they keep the old. When in the late nineteenth century the popularity of the Russian style returned (it turned out, it is true, the pseudo-Russian style), the hipped architecture seemed to be reborn. However, these buildings were very different from their predecessors. The tent churches of the 17th century could not be repeated, and even more so the very first ones that appeared at the turn of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.

Traditions

The appearance of the tent pommels is primarily due to the fact that Russian temples were built most often as monuments, timed to certain events. Shatrovye temples of the 16th century were stretching more and more upward. Russian temple architecture evolved from changes in the vaults. The hypothesis about the connection of the traditions of stone architecture with the earlier - wooden - remained unproven and even not quite true. This can be deduced from the studies of the first buildings - the Church of the Ascension in Kolomenskoye (1532, Vasily III) and the Church of the Ascension of the Vologda Posad (1493). These are the most eloquent examples of hip stone temples.

The most interesting sample and the Church of the Intercession in Medvedkovo, where the architectural type is clearly expressed with a tent instead of a dome. This temple is very similar to the magnificent multi-headed Cathedral of St. Basil the Blessed and it is worthy of a more specific description. Also very famous are the famous Russian tent churches: Pokrovskaya (formerly Troitskaya) church of the Alexander settlement (1510), Uglich church "Divnaya" (1628), Moscow church in Putinka Church of the Nativity of the Virgin.

Medvedkovo

This temple is built on a high podklet (down there, Znamenskaya Winter Church), which holds the entire volume of the quadrangle, the corners of which are completed by small glazes. At the quadrilateral is a fairly low light octagon as the base of a pointed stone tent. The proportions of the four-legged and octagon are squat, solid, and the tent gives the structure a special slenderness and almost flight, because the height of the tent almost exceeds the entire lower part of the temple. The podklet, surrounded by galleries, has two equal parts of the chapel - the Nine Martyrs and Sergius of Radonezh.

By the way, for the first time in Russia, single-headed quaternaries were given a four-high roof. On the altar part of the building, crowned with a special chapter, its own rare multi-stage composition at the expense of the apsidal lower church extended to the east. Kokoshniki, arranged in rows along the entire top of the walls of the quadrangle, as well as on the base of the tent and on the crowning chapter, emphasize the pyramidal construction of the building, its solemnity, aspiration to the sky and beauty that exalts the soul. And from the west the temple seems to be supported by an empire bunk belfry, rebuilt in the 1840s.

History

The onset of the Time of Troubles was marked by all sorts of natural disasters, interventions by the Poles and Swedes, so the state, political and economic situation of the state was the hardest. Shatrovye churches in Moscow, and indeed the entire country were almost stopped. Stone construction as such ceased altogether. Only after twenty-five years has Russia reached a sufficient level for the restoration of stone architecture. Basically, after 1620, the temples repeated the previous types of buildings.

And very soon followed the reform of Patriarch Nikon, when the hipped temples ceased to "fit the rank." Nikon liked the domes for three or five chapters. In 1655, in Veshnyak at the construction of the temple by order of the patriarch, two side-chapels were completed not round, but round heads, although the project provided for the first.

Pillarism as a precursor

Here, first of all, there was a refusal in the course of the church reform of everything old and the preference of the patriarch of all Byzantine, including cross-domed structures. While the hipped roof temples in Russia were more reminiscent of West European Gothic: dynamics, aspiration, the tower architecture of the pillared churches.

For example, the Church of St. John the Baptist in the village of Djakovo (Moscow) and the Church of the Transfiguration of the Lord in the village of Ostrov (Moscow region). Both were built in the second half of the sixteenth century, both pillars and precursors of tent-type buildings. Another example is the one of the most famous church-bells "Ivan the Great", built in honor of John Climacus on the territory of the Kremlin in 1505.

Examples

Function podkololnoni with a tier of belfries, built directly above the temple, the appointment of tent churches is not consistent. There were a lot of different architectural solutions, huge freedom for the architect, and nevertheless almost always small stolpoobraznye temples.

For example, the Church of the Descent of the Holy Spirit (1476, Trinity-Sergius Lavra), the Kolomna St. George's Belltower (formerly the Cathedral of the Archangel Gabriel, 1530), the Church of St. Simeon the Stylite (Danilovsky Monastery, Moscow, 1732, built above the Holy Gate), two Also the gatehouse in the Donskoy monastery, the church of St. Sergius of Radonezh (Novospassky monastery, bell tower), the temple of Theodore Stratelates of Saint Warrior (Menshikov Tower, Moscow, the nineteenth century) and some others.

Symbols

The stone tent architecture is similar in shape to the wooden one, this style is spread from gray antiquity to the present day. It appeared, judging by the annals, clearly according to the patterns of the wooden one. However, if for constructive reasons the dome has been replaced by a tent during the construction of temples from wood, then stone construction can not be connected with the construction in any way. Rather, it was a desire to convey a certain image - festivity, aspirations up. Not only in the provinces, but also in the capital, the elongated silhouettes of wooden churches were the most desired and always played a leading role.

The tent architecture contains a profound meaning: this is the way to the Kingdom of Heaven, and the union of the square (the created world) with the circle (the symbol of eternity). Chetverik - a square that symbolizes the earth, octagon - all directions of space on the sides of the world, plus an eight-pointed star as the symbol of the Virgin and the day of the eighth - the sacred number of the century of the future. The tent, crowning the temple, is a cone, the image of the ladder of the forefather Jacob, the way to God.

Kolomna and Alexandrovskaya Sloboda

The Trinity Church of the Aleksandrovskaya Sloboda (now Pokrovskaya) is the palace temple of Prince Vasily III. With regard to the date of construction for a long time, there were disagreements, but recent studies refer to it by 1510. Before that, the very first tent church was Voznesenskaya in Kolomenskoye (1532), which was also built by the same Grand Duke.

This is certainly the greatest masterpiece, but it was not the first. Both churches were built in the state mansions as small courtiers. And Voznesenskaya became a monument in honor of the birth of the heir - the great Ivan the Terrible. The creator of the amazing ensemble in the Alexander Sloboda is considered to be the architect from Italy - Aleviz New, the author of the Church of the Ascension is supposedly also an Italian - Petrok Malaya.

St Basil's Church

Since this is the main attraction not only of Moscow, but of the whole country, this tent temple should be told in as much detail as possible. The Kazan Khanate was defeated, and in honor of it a monument was created, to this day it is a symbol of Russia and an unrivaled monument of architecture. The Cathedral of the Intercession on the Moat was built six years (since 1555) and turned out uncommonly, even not at all earthly, beautiful. Earlier here was located the Trinity Church and the defensive moat along the entire Kremlin, which was filled only in 1813. In its place now the necropolis and the Mausoleum.

Who is St. Basil the Blessed, buried right next to the Trinity Church, on Red Square? This Moscow fool, endowed with the gift of clairvoyance, predicted many disasters, including a huge fire in 1547, when almost all of Moscow burned down. Ivan the Terrible himself revered and was rather afraid of Basil the Blessed, that's why they buried him with honors and in the redest place. Moreover, a nearby temple was laid nearby, where later the relics of the holy foolish clairvoyant were transferred, since real miracles began immediately after the funeral - people were healed, they began to see, the lame ones began to walk, and the paralyzed ones got up.

Of the eight wins

The Kazan campaign, which for the first time ended in victory, began, usually the Russians in this direction failed because of failure. Ivan the Terrible gave a vow - if Kazan falls, put on the Red Square the most grandiose temple as a memory of victory. And he completely fulfilled the promised.

The war was a long one, and in honor of every victory of Russian weapons near the Trinity Church a small church was built in honor of the saint, whose day it coincided with her confinement. After the triumphant return Ivan the Terrible decided instead of eight new wooden churches to put one big stone - the most famous one - for centuries to come.

Legends

The builders of the beautiful temple have gained such an abundance of a wide variety of stories that it is simply not possible to bring everything here. Traditionally, it was believed that Tsar Ivan the Terrible hired two masters: Barma and Postnik Yakovlev. In fact, the man was one - Ivan Yakovlevich by the name of Barma, and by the nickname Postnik. There is a legend that after construction the sovereign blinded the architects so that they never built anything more beautiful and nowhere else than this temple. How many works of art on this fairy tale is written! However, this is not so.

There are documents, and a fairly large number, that after the Cathedral of the Intercession, this Postnik built the Kazan Kremlin. You could have been more beautiful, probably, and nowhere. Of course, not such as the temple of St. Basil the Blessed, which is unique, but also a great work of architecture. In addition, it is the hand of Postnik that is felt in the construction of the Annunciation Cathedral (the Moscow Kremlin), the Assumption Cathedral, the St. Nicholas Church (Sviyazhsk - both), even the Church of St. John the Baptist in Diakovo. All these temples were created much later.