Directions of the Old Rus Church Architecture Development of the 12th – the first third of the 13th century
Directions of the Old Rus Church Architecture Development of the 12th – the first third of the 13th century

Summary/Abstract: The article analyzes the process of development in the architecture of Old Rus on the basis of transplanted elements of the Byzantine cathedral construction of its own tradition, which is vividly embodied in the original forms of arch-gabled and pillar-shaped churches. The formation of the archgabled church took place in the second half of the 11th century in Kyiv, where in the early 12th century, it acquired finally completed forms. Almost simultaneously in Chernihiv and Novgorod in the first quarter of the 12th century, and later in other cultural centers, there appeared regional variants of arch-gabled church, of which the Chernihiv variant quickly became interregional, spreading in the south-western regions of Rus. The first signs of pillar compositions are recorded in the first decade of the 12th century also in Kyiv within the newly formed arch-gabled cathedral. In the middle of the 12th century in Polotsk there existed already a purposeful search for an aesthetic model of a pillar-shaped church, which in the 80’s of the 12th century moved to Smolensk. The crystallization of the completed forms of the vertically oriented composition occurred at the end of the 12th century, after which the pillar-shaped church took over the role of interregional type, displacing the arch-gabled cathedral, apparently completely until 1240, when the development of Old Rus architecture was interrupted by the Mongol invasion.

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