Bertash Alexander, archpriest

The Assumption Cathedral of the Pühtitsa monastery in Estonia as a monument of the russian retrospective style, its builders and benefactors

Abstract

The article contains the history of construction and architecture of one of the most signifi cant monuments of the Russian style of the early 20th century — The Dormition Cathedral of the Pühtitsa monastery in Estonia, built on the site of the dismantled old church in 1907–1910, designed by architect A. Poleshchuk, who is a student of the author of the project of the monastery, professor M. Preobrazhensky. The features of the architecture and the semantics of the dedication make it possible to include it in a number of cross-domed centric churches of Russian cathedral churches and to include it in the iconographic line of the Assumption churches, starting from the 11th century — Kyiv Pechersk Monastery, which shows the conservatism of the volumetric-spatial solution of Orthodox church building with a variety of artistic forms. The architecture of the Pühtitsa monastery cathedral is closest to the type of «large cathedrals» of the 17th century, which is characterized by «church-state content». Cathedral in Pyukhtitsa and a number of cathedral-type churches of the turn of the XIX–XX centuries can be attributed to a special «retrospective» direction of the Russian style. Its prototypes — not only use the above ancient Russian samples, but also centric cathedrals, which were designed by the founder of the Russian style K. Ton («stylization of stylization»). As well as Ton's projects, the churches of this group are distinguished by their monumentality and restrained, not intrinsically valuable decoration, in contrast to the churches in the style of the Moscow-Yaroslavl ornamental pattern of the 17th century, which were built in the 1880–1900s. The architecture of the cathedral, perfectly correlated with the natural surroundings, also has an Estonian fl avor, in particular due to the use of local building materials. The biographies of benefactors and architects who took part in the design of the temple at the first stage, when the construction of a temple with the predominant features of the Moscow-Yaroslavl style was supposed to be considered. One of the architects, A. Vladimirov, with a high probability is the author of the project of the The Church of St. John Climacus in the Moscow Donskoy Monastery — the burial vault of the construction benefactor of the Pühtitsa Cathedral — I. Tereshchenko.

Keywords

Assumption Cathedrals in Russian architecture, «large cathedrals”, Russian monastery church building, Pühtitsa Assumption Monastery, Russian style, Moscow- Yaroslavl style, retrospectiveism in church architecture, temple builder I. Tereshchenko, architect A. Poleshchuk, Riga Diocese, Archbishop St. Agafangel (Preobrazhensky)

References

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Information about the author

Bertash Alexander, archpriest

Academic Degree: Candidate of Sciences* in Art Criticism;
Academic Degree: Candidate of Sciences* in Theology;
Place of work: Church of the Holy Royal Passion-bearers in Bremen, Berlin-German Diocese; Kleine Westerholz Strasse, 17, 28309, Bremen, BRD; The limited liability company Architectural Bureau «Liteynaya chast-91»; St.-Petersburg, Russian Federation;
Post: rector of the churc, ancient guardian of the diocese; leading art critic;
ORCID: 0000-0003-3486-0490;
Email: alexanderbertash@gmail.com.

*According to the International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED) 2011, the degree of Candidate of Sciences (Cand.Sc.) belongs to ISCED level 8 — "doctoral or equivalent", together with PhD, DPhil, D.Lit, D.Sc, LL.D, Doctorate or similar.