The Russian Empire 1450–1801

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monastic ensembles, as in the Khutinskii Monastery in Novgorod (1515), the
Novodevichii Convent in Moscow (1524), and the Trinity St. Sergii Monastery
outside of Moscow (1559–85), or constituting a town’s main church, as in
Iaroslavl’ (1506–16), Rostov (early sixteenth century), Pereiaslavl’ Zalesskii
(1557), Vologda (1568–70), Dormition-stylefive-domed cathedrals imprinted
the landscape with Moscow’s imperial presence.
As Moscow moved into non-Russian territory, its ability to use architecture to
make a visual statement depended upon the local setting. In conquering Polotsk in
the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in 1562, for example, Moscow’s architectural idiom
was not radically different from the Orthodox churches of this old East Slavic city.
Rather than construct new edifices, the conquering Ivan IV“consecrated”the city
by entering on foot in cross procession and by hearing the liturgy in the town’s
ancient Sofiia Cathedral (1044–66). In brief occupations of the Livonian town of
Narva, Moscow constructed a mighty fortress (latefifteenth century) and an
Orthodox church (1558), marking an alien imperial presence in this town of
German architecture.
Moving towards Kazan’in the mid-sixteenth century, church and military
architecture provided a sharp contrast to local building styles. In 1551 in Sviazhsk,
a staging area outside of Kazan, Moscow built a fortified center, a monastery, and
a magnificent Dormition Cathedral. Once having conquered Kazan’in 1552,
Moscow transformed the Kazan citadel. The Tatar population was moved out
and mosques, minarets, and fortifications were destroyed. The fortress was rebuilt
in the style of the Moscow Kremlin, with tent-shaped towers and Italianate
merlons. A wooden Cathedral of the Annunciation was consecrated, followed
soon thereafter (1561–2) by a limestonefive-domed Dormition Cathedral, adorned
with decorative brick detail by Pskov architects. By century’s end the Kazan
Kremlin’s Savior-Transfiguration Monastery had two stone churches, monasteries
had been established on the outskirts of Kazan, and wood and stone churches
erected in urban neighborhoods for Russian cavalrymen, musketeers, artisans, and
coachmen. All these structures evoked Muscovite styles from thefive-domed
cathedral to more modest tent-shaped churches.
In the seventeenth century Moscow’s style of religious architecture added
decorative features from Russian tradition in sufficient effusion to merit the title
“Moscow baroque.” Scallop shells borrowed from the Kremlin’s St. Michael
Cathedral, painted motifs echoing the brick facets from the Faceted Chamber,
nested tiers of gables evoking Russian married women’s headdresses—all adorned
Orthodox churches that remained structurally unchanged. At mid-century reform-
ist Patriarch Nikon banned the tent shape (derived from village wooden architec-
ture) from churches as too undignified for a consecrated building, but it was
promptly used in bell towers instead. This created a characteristic“ship”-shaped
horizontal outline: a tall, vertical bell tower/entrance at the west connecting to a
long nave and cuboid domed apse at the east end (Figure 6.5). By the late
seventeenth century, Moscow’s home-grown“baroque”was joined by a style called
the“Naryshkin baroque”after the family of Peter I’s mother who patronized it.
Stemming from Ukrainian baroque, this style featured centrally planned churches


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