Ukrainian Baroque Style

St. Michael's Golden-Domed Monastery

The ideological basis of the Baroque - New Age philosophy, was formed under the influence of socio-political situation in Central and Eastern Europe in the XVII - XVIII centuries.

Dormition Cathedral of Kiev Pechersk Lavra

The architectural style of Ukrainian Baroque emerged in the seventeenth century. Ukrainian architects tried to combine elements of European Baroque with traditions of ancient architecture. Ornate Baroque shapes were balanced by the relative plainness of the walls, thus providing a general harmony and giving order to the overall composition via the laws of measure and rhythm. The classical architectural order involves Ukrainian artists, involved not only in the constructive logic, but also the decorative features: columns and pilasters are not necessarily load-bearing, and are decorative.

Dormition Cathedral of Kiev Pechersk Lavra

The most expressive features of the Ukrainian baroque emerged in stone churches, inheriting the traditions of wooden construction. They are called Cossack cathedrals. The peculiarity of this type of temple is the lack of a clear-cut front. They are the same on all four sides. This embodied the democratic idea, a complex feeling of unity of finite and infinite within the infinite complexity of all things.

 Kiev Pechersk Lavra

There were differences in the architecture of the Western and Eastern Ukraine. In the east at the time were two common types of Orthodox churches - three naves with a high-altitude emphasis of the internal space (the Basilica type, which dates back to the traditions of Old Russian architecture) or a cross and one, five, or nine domes based on folk traditions of wooden architecture with high-altitude emphasis the internal space. The first type goes back to the recreation in the XVII century of the old Russian style relic of the cross-dome. After revival, they were dressed in Baroque clothes - chapels attached, adorned with decorations.

Bell tower  in   Kiev Pechersk Lavra

Specificity of the formation of Ukrainian Baroque is as follows:
Its development was not related to the Gothic as Romanesque contrasted with Romanticism, Classicism and Renaissance styles. In Ukraine there are no elements of Gothic restoration, because Gothic never truly developed there. At the same time, the Ukrainian Baroque did not transform into Rococo—it was an independent stylistic system different from those of Western European countries (Yudkin І.M. Іstorichnі Artist’s Style-System / / Ukrainian artists culture. - K., 1996).

The scientific and intellectual center during this period was the Kiev-Mohyla Academy, the first East Slavic University. There were laid the theoretical foundations of the poetics of the Baroque. The philosophical influence of the professors of the Kiev-Mohyla Academy is present in complex synthesis of European social movements (humanism, the Reformation, the early Enlightenment) and even in indigenous culture, which was based on the traditions of the princely period (Horsky B. Іstorіya ukraїnskoї fіlosofії. - K., 1997; Ukraїnske Baroque: Materіali I. congress Mіzhnarodnoї asotsіatsії ukraїnіstіv. - K., 1993).

The cultural processes that took place in XVII-XVIII centuries were inextricably linked to political establishment of the Cossacks. Formed in the XV century as a military organization, whose mission was to protect the population in the frontier lands from attack by the Crimean Tatars and Ottoman Turks, the Cossacks became the protectors of the Ukrainian people during the XVII century during the national, religious, and socio-economic oppression. They also became the bearers of a new artistic taste, which is reflected in the common term "Cossack Baroque" (Makarov Svitlo Ukrayinsky Baroque. - K., 1994). [1]

St Andrew's Church, Kiev

[1] Facets of Ukrainian Baroque: East and West (based on the architecture), O. Mashtaler, Baroque and Classicism in the history of World Culture: Proceedings of the International Scientific Conference. Series «Symposium». Issue 17. St. Petersburg.: St. Petersburg Philosophical Society, 2001.