The Russian Empire 1450–1801

(Marvins-Underground-K-12) #1

painting, and architecture, they created a decorative Stroganov style borrowing
from the Moscow and Naryshkin baroques. Surviving stone churches in booming
economic centers such as Cherdyn’, Tot’ma, Solikamsk, Verkhotur’e, and Usol’e
date from the eighteenth century, but perpetuated Muscovite styles of the previous
century. In the Cherdyn area in the Perm’lands, for example, the ornate baroque
Church of St. Nicholas in Nyrob (1704) commemorated the death here in 1601 of
Mikhail Nikitich Romanov, exiled by his rival Boris Godunov; its exterior is
profuse with carved ornament and pilasters. The city of Tot’ma is studded with
similarly decorative baroque churches with carved cartouches that traveled from
there into Siberia. In two key Stroganov trading centers, Usol’e and Solikamsk, a
multitude of churches developed the decorative baroque, including Solikamsk’s
Church of John the Baptist (built 1715–21 and remodeled in 1772) and Usol’e’s
Church of the Transfiguration (1731). In Solikamsk, the Trinity Cathedral fea-
tured exterior frescos, colorful ceramic tiles, and a characteristic strip of brickwork
resembling the spider-like Cyrillic letter“zhe”(Figure 6.6).


Figure 6.6Solikamsk’s 1680s Trinity Church features an ornament resembling the spidery
Cyrillic letter“zhe”that traveled from here across Siberia in the next century. Photo:
William Brumfield.


Broadcasting Legitimacy 145
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