Architecture of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania

In the XIII century , a state known as the Grand Duchy of Lithuania was formed on the lands of modern Eastern Lithuania and North-Western Belarus . Soon, it already included the entire territory of modern Lithuania and Belarus, as well as a substantial part of the territories of Ukraine ( Volyn , Podolia , Kiev region , Chernihiv region , Severshchina , Wild Field ), Russia ( Smolensk region , Bryansk region ) and Poland ( Podlasie ). Even at the time of Kievan Rus , cities arose, which later became the economic , administrative-political, military-defensive and cultural centers of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. The defining feature of the architecture and urban planning of this time is the defensive nature of the structures. The defensive system of cities combined natural barriers (steep river banks, slopes) and artificial fortifications. Detinets and the city were surrounded by a moat and earthen rampart with log fortifications. Such a defense system was consistent with the then tactics of surprise attacks. With the spread of siege tactics, a new type of defense architecture appeared - strong wooden and earthen structures with clay and stone and shaft structures ( Drissa , Davyd Gorodok , Bykhov , Gomel , Radoshkovichi , Glusk , Pinsk , Surazh ). Later, the basis of the defense of many cities ( Vladimir-Volynsky , Kamenetz , Brest , Novogrudok , Krevo , etc.) became multi-tiered rectangular or round stone towers - “pillars” ^[13] .

At the end of the XIII - the first half of the XVI century new ones are being built and rebuilt from old, most often wooden and earthen fortifications, fortresses and castles on the Belarusian lands, in Volyn , in Podolia , in the cities of Vilna , Kamenetz-Podolsky , Lutsk ^{[14] [15]} .

Monasteries are being built that become fortified territories: the Zhidichinsky Nikolaevsky monastery near Lutsk (XIII century), the Zagorovsky monastery near Vladimir-Volynsky (XIV century), the Miletsky Nikolaevsky monastery ( Miltsy in Volyn , XIV century) ^{[16] [17] [ 18]} , Vitebsk Holy Trinity Markov Monastery (XIV century), Vitebsk Holy Spirit Monastery (1380s), Lukoml Nikolaevsky Monastery (XIV century).

The construction of private-owned castles of regular or free form in terms of form, on natural or bulk hills, with a developed irrigation system (castle of the Czartoryski princes in Klevani ( 1495 ), the Radziwill castle in Olyka ( 1534 ), Trakai castle (XIV century), castles in the Svirzhe ( 1485 ), Smolyany , Geranyan ). They had powerful walls and towers - the latter also served for housing. Often, a palace with several rooms and a castle church was attached to the castle.

One of the few preserved castles of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in Ukraine is Lutsky, the construction of which began in the 14th century under Prince Volyn of Lubart . The castle participated in the Ukrainian program Seven Wonders of Ukraine ^[19] . This is a castle with high rectangular towers in plan and powerful, impregnable walls up to 14 m high.In the flat semicircular niches, which in some places adorned the facades of the towers, as well as in two-domed windows with semicircular completions, the features of ancient Russian architecture still appear. But lancet portals testify to the influence of Gothic ^[20] .

The fortress of Kamenets-Podolsky was erected by the Koriatovich brothers who ruled the Principality of Podolsk in the 60–90s of the 14th century, it is a complex architectural ensemble, which was subsequently adapted to protect against cannon fire ^[21] .

Grodno Castle arose in the second half or end of the 11th century as a border fortress and became the core of the future Grodno ^[22] . At the turn of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the Grand Duke of Lithuania Vytautas built a stone and brick building on the site of the fortress (bricks were lined with bricks and lined with towers) a five-tower Gothic castle with walls more than 3 meters thick. Around 1500, the castle was rebuilt. In purely Romanesque architecture, one function prevailed - defensive, and for the castle architecture of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, up to the 15th century, before the development of artillery technology, the characteristics characteristic of Romanesque architecture are characteristic: with the development of crossbow technology, and later cannon, the height of towers and walls increases , the composition of castle complexes is complicated. The upper church had a basilic type, massiveness and static forms, stone arches. In the external design - a bas-relief , arkatura , a promising portal. During its construction was used not Gothic, but Vendian masonry ^[23] .

Under the influence of Italian fortification architecture in Europe , the construction of fortifications of the bastion system spread, it came to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania ( Zaslavl , Nesvizh ). Defensive castles that impeded the Tatar raids rose from East Podillia to the Dnieper ^[24] . Of these, the Lida Castle (1330s), the Rogachev Castle of Queen Bona Sforza ( XVI century) with a water moat, an earthen rampart and a bridge on chains stood out ^[25] . The largest wooden castle in the southern lands of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania was Kiev , built by architect Ivan Sluzhba in 1542 : with fourteen hexagonal towers made of pine wood. In it were the residence of the headman, a room for the garrison, numerous service rooms, four churches, a church . The castle walls were covered with clay , plastered and painted ^[26] . The castle with six towers, also from pine, was erected in Zhitomir in 1544 ^[27] . The smallest in the defensive line was Cherkasy Castle ( 1549 ). In the Gothic style, the gates of the city wall with a chapel in Vilna were built ( Sharp Brama , 1503-1522). The features of the Renaissance in the architecture of castles and palaces that were built in the 16th - first half of the 17th centuries on the estates of magnates were manifested in a peculiar way ^[28] .

For example, the 16th-century towers of the Ostrog Castle in Ostrog are crowned with high attics and peculiar “crowns” with developed arches and a decorative parapet with pediments , volutes and carved decor ^[29] . The same features are in castles in Berezhany (1534–1554) and Medzhibozh (XVI century), in Lyakhovichi , Zaslavl , Lyubcha ^[30] . Even more clearly, the renaissance features were manifested, for example, in castles in Olyka in Volyn with an attic above the gate ( 1564 ) ^[31] , in Zbarazh ( 1631 ), built (partially) according to the project of the outstanding Italian architect Vincenzo Scamozzi , the castle in Chashniki , in the reconstruction of Mirsky castle at the end of the XVI century ^[32] .

The current capital of Belarus, the city of Minsk , at the beginning of the XVII century was surrounded by an earthen rampart with bastions. For a long time the city remained wooden. In 1582, a two-story stone town hall was built ^[33] and several baroque stone churches (the Jesuit Church of the Virgin Mary, the churches of the Bernardine and Bernardine monasteries) ^[34] . In 1795 in Minsk there were 11 stone temples and 6 wooden ^[35] .

The Senyavsky residence in Berezhany is also an example of a defense castle of the Renaissance style: in the form of a polyhedron, on two sides of which three-story residential premises, a barracks and a chapel are attached ^[36] .

In 1586-1589, Kryshtof Radziwill built the Birzai Palace-castle with an artificial lake. In the 14th century, several stone castles were built in Vilna for the Grand Dukes of Lithuania ( Vilnius Castles ). In the XIV century, the Mednitsky castle was erected near Vilna with thick two-meter walls, a five-tower castle in Orsha ( 1398 ) ^[37] .

The techniques of fortification architecture in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth are known, for example, from the work of Jozef Naronovic-Naronky (1610–1678), “Military Construction” (“Architectura militaris to jest budownictwo wojenne”, 1659), where 10 drawings with comments are devoted to construction in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania ^{[ 38]} .

The main building materials of the castles were wood , brick and stone . The brick used for the construction of monasteries and castles had the form of thin and relatively wide tiles. In the written sources of that time, it is called the Greek word "plinth" (plinth, plinth). Clay was kneaded in a large pit, then it was filled with a wooden mold. Then this raw material was stacked and dried for two weeks, after which it was burned in special furnaces. Later, along with the plinth, they began to make squared bricks, which had already spread in Europe ^[39] .

Boulders were taken for the foundation of the structures, with mixed masonry of the walls - more or less flat large stones, mainly granite , gneiss or quartzite . The stones were polished. For decorative purposes, pyrophyllite slate (the so-called red slate) was sometimes used - in particular, in the structures of Kiev , Chernigov , Grodno, Ovruch . Also, local tiled limestone and river limestone were sometimes used for decoration ^[40] . The binder material was calcined lime . Fine grinded brick served as a filler of the solution. In the masonry of Volyn castles, in addition to crushed brick, crushed chalk was also used as a filler. During the construction of boulders and large bricks ( Novogrudok castle , Lida castle , Krevsky castle , Gustyn monastery in Chernihiv region, Trinity monastery fortress in Mezhirichi ) used three-layer masonry (2 brick walls, and between them a clad of small stones and broken bricks, filled with lime solution) ^[41] .

For floors in castles, monasteries and palaces, irrigation ceramic tiles were used. They were laid diagonally in relation to the axis of the building, covered with watering of one of the flowers - yellow, green or cherry brown. There were tiles with multi-colored painting, with ornament ^[42] .

Ceramic vessels were often included in the masonry of building arches. In modern architecture, they are called voices . They served not only for the best acoustics of the building, but also lightened the weight of the vault. Golosniki are in the constructions of Volyn, Chernigov, Polotsk . Many of them were laid, for example, in the walls of the Grodno Kolozha church ^[43] .

The need for protection determined the appearance of the medieval city. It had external fortifications encircling the entire city territory. The system of fortifications included rivers, reservoirs .

The main streets were a continuation of the roads connecting the city with the surrounding area. At the beginning of such streets, an entrance gate was made in the wall. Later, the radial streets of the cities were connected by transverse semicircular streets and created a radial-ring system ^[44] . In the 15th-16th centuries, two city centers were usually formed: the prince’s castle and the market square with shopping malls; in the cities that received Magdeburg law , a town hall was erected on the square. With the development of handicrafts and trade, plantings expanded, their layout became more streamlined, and the streets paved. Along the perimeter of the squares and on the streets close to them, houses of artisans and merchants were located, the construction of which was sometimes used the technique of " Prussian Mura " ^[45] . Houses in the city were usually built wooden, one-story, with the exception of mansions , buildings for city authorities, religious buildings ^[46] .

On the trading floors of cities and large towns, guest houses, ladders and taverns ( austeres ) were built. Since the XVI century, the placement of the latter was regulated by the Statutes of the Principality , grand-ducal and royal privileges . For example, the Statute of 1529 (section 3, Art. 17) prohibited the construction of Austrians “pakutnye, inaudible in places” ^[47] , and the Mogilev Statute of 1594 recommended their construction “at hotels, and it didn’t sit close ... in the places of some appointees, where the houses are entrance for people who are relocating ... the verdict of guarding is guilty ” ^[48] . Some large cities and monasteries had their own master builders (doylids), since the XVI century they were already at castles, in the estates of magnates.

In private construction since the middle of the 17th century, the place of fortified cities, which were being built less and less, is occupied by castles with un fortified cities or towns. In the late Baroque period, they have features not so much of serfdom as of manor character. Such, for example, the Upper Dnieper cities Senno and Shklov . The description of the latter, made in the second half of the 18th century, says: “In the stone trading yard, the shops were located from the outside and inside. Towers were erected above the two gates, of which one is the Shklov Town Hall, and the other has a pantry. Pyramids are placed at the corners, under which wells are dug; voluminous streets are drawn in all directions along the cut of the corners, and although the houses are all wooden, they are built on the same model. With him there is a postal house, a Greek church, a stone girl’s monastery, a stone shop and a stone Jewish school ... Leaving it, there are two planned, linden-seated roads, from which to the left leads to a spacious stone manor house, and to the right - to Mogilev ” ^[49] .

In 1579, the first higher education institution in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, the Academy and the University of Vilna ( Almae Academia et Universitas Vilnensis Societatis Jes ), was founded by the King of Poland and the Grand Duke of Lithuania Stefan Batory at the request of the Jesuits and Pope of Rome. The ensemble of the University of Vilnius , which has absorbed a variety of architectural styles over four centuries, currently occupies almost the entire quarter of the old city. Starting to form around 1570, thanks to the Jesuit order, it was surrounded by new houses and courtyards and now consists of 13 courtyards (library courtyard, observatory courtyard, bursa courtyard, etc.) with 12 connecting buildings, the Church of St. John and the bell tower ^[50] .

In addition to cities and villages, in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania there were such types of settlements as a small town (combining the features of a city and a village), folklore (a pansky courtyard with a zapashka, a complex of outbuildings and buildings for servants) ^[51] , a dungeon (isolated plots of land on which was settled by a low-land gentry ), settlements (several courtyards, evicted from the village), outskirts (a small settlement of the gentry, which had no serfs) ^[52] .

In the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, the smallest villages consisted of 10-20 or fewer yards, the largest had more than 100 yards. The usual layout of villages before the agrarian reforms of the 16th century is crowded and linear; peasant estates in the villages were built with shoulder straps in 1 or 2 rows; sometimes a wreath courtyard was built in the form of a closed quadrangle. The linearity was due to the natural and geographical conditions of the area — the boundaries of the banks of rivers and lakes ^[53] .

Influenced the street reform of 1557 on the street layout - “ Volley Pomera ”, which changed the form of land use and land ownership ^[54] . Instead of crowded villages, new ones were created, always with a street layout in accordance with the developed and approved plan - “ Charters for dragging ”. The commissars and commanders were instructed to look for places near rivers and lakes, to find optimal conditions for managing the village: they were arranged so that the inhabitants of the seven draws could process one pan draw ^[55] . New villages were mostly small, with 10-20 yards. The street was drawn across the entire width of the third field, along sections of 3 morgues for courtyards. For allotment, gardeners worked in grand-ducal or pannic estates one day a week without a horse, and their wives - 6 days in the summer ^[56] .

The peasant manor included a hut and outbuildings ( crate , fire-place, stable , cellar, etc.), the pansky manor house - a palace (with a spacious and rich interior, expensive, often imported, decoration), a complex of structures, often industrial, a park the yard. The huts, like many European nations, were log cabin (made of pine , less often spruce ), slightly raised on wooden blocks (shtandars) or stones, with different ways of solving angles. The floor in the huts was wooden, earthen or adobe. The roof is usually thatched, gable or four-pitched, transitional forms - three-pitched and with a “piers” (slope of a four-pitched roof over a transverse wall); the ceiling was necessarily laid. Roofs were more often made on rafters , on the border of resettlement with Russians and Ukrainians - on bipods ^[57] . The hut was modestly decorated - a skate on the roof, carved platbands , an artistic booty of the pediment. The situation of the peasant's hut was simple (a table, benches, a small bench, a chest, berths - shelves, drapes ); the interior was the same throughout the space of the hut (a stove in the corner near the entrance, a red corner diagonally from the stove); wooden furniture, practical to use. In Ukraine, the huts were whitewashed, sometimes painted walls ^{[58] [59]} .

Due to weather conditions, in most of the Ukrainian lands an open type of yard was formed. In it, the land adjacent to the house remained open. Outbuildings most often were completely separated from the residential building (although there was a partial and complete connection of outbuildings to the dwelling). The residential building was located in the back of the yard, often covered with trees and shrubs. The housing was two-chamber - from a heated hut and unheated canopy. Later, depending on the owner’s wealth, weather conditions, and the characteristics of ethnocultural contacts with other peoples, both parts of the housing began to heat up, or sometimes they had different entrances ^[60] .

The room was a canopy, a house and a pantry. The house and the pantry were on opposite sides of the canopy. Sometimes a second house was built instead of a pantry. Together, this was called a house in two. Housing walls were constructed from local building materials, depending on resources and capabilities. There were two types of wall construction - frame and frame. The first was found occasionally, mainly in areas rich in forest. The frame was filled with clay mixed with straw. In a number of areas, stones were laid along with clay and straw. The floor in the house was clay ^[61] .

The main building material on Ukrainian lands was wood. Even in the treeless south, where huts were placed, log cabins were also found in some places. In the 13th century, simple log houses were built in Polesie - crates, stems, single-chamber houses. Stacks were placed near the house - a convenient wooden building also under a gable wooden roof. The walls inside the building were covered with clay, and fences along the fence were fenced, where beets, carrots, etc. were dumped for storage. Barrels and tubs with pickles and other supplies were placed on the trampled floor. During severe frosts, the stems were heated with hot coals, which were placed in a box or an old bucket ^[62] .

The complex of buildings of the manor houses was of different sizes. In the largest there were residential (large houses with canopies, alkierzha , light rooms), and household (schools, cribs, crates, barns, etc.) buildings. At some estates, water mills, mines and forges worked. The buildings in the estates of medium and small gentry were mostly wooden and of the same type. The tycoons built palace and castle ensembles using stone and brick, and erected a complex multi-room layout at home. A park appeared in large estates ^[63] .

Against the background of traditional rural estates , a fortress house stood out in the village of Gaityunishki, built in 1611-1612. Peter Nonhart, engineer and chief of the royal buildings in Vilna: a two-story brick building with four towers in the corners with narrow loophole windows. The wall thickness is about 1.5 meters. The fortress house was surrounded by bastion type buildings and a moat. Apparently, due to the swampiness of the soil, a foundation made of large stones protrudes beyond the perimeter of the walls per meter ^{[64] [65]} .

The towns occupied a peculiar position in the historical system of settlements of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. They, as transitional settlements between a village and a city, combined the lifestyle of rural and urban life, the life of a peasant and a townsman ^[66] . Locations arose in connection with the auction, which in the first half of the 15th century was held near the princely and large noble estates. Some places appeared simultaneously with the construction of castles ( Ikazn , 1504 , Moshchanitsa , 1546 ), others - with castles that already exist (Voronichi, 1563, Surazh , 1564 ). A number of towns formed near monasteries on church lands ( Barkolabovo , 1623 , Zhirovichi , 1643 , Igumen , Vidzy ), and when carrying out volcano measurements, they replaced the former villages ( Motol ) and undeveloped lands ( Smolevichi , Lipsk, Vasilkovo ). Over time, they developed into a kind of intercity trade and craft centers. With the development of trade, places were also laid on tracts (Mileychitsy, Nacha, Baran , Starobin ) ^[67] . Some places totaled up to 300 smokes , in the XVI century - up to 1500 inhabitants ^[68] .

By the fourteenth century, the main types of wooden churches were identified: one-nave, one- and three-apse , three-nave and cross, with three narthexes on the southern, western and northern sides. Often each of the three log cabins that made up the church building had its own roof. Two directions were developed in temple construction: linear-axial and cross-centric. Most of all, churches with an axial composition were built when the volume (wooden frame) runs along one axis. An obligatory element was the dome , different depending on local traditions - from the hemisphere to the bulbous chapter . The peculiarity of the churches was the pentagonal altar , and not the quadrangular, as in Russia. According to the classification of the architectural historian V. Chanturia, in modern art criticism, Belarusian wooden churches of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania are divided into single-chambered with an altar cut, three-chambered spatial and five-chambered pyramidal-centric ^[69] .

Later, during the heyday of baroque in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, a type of Catholic and Greek Catholic two-carved church was spread, where the main rectangular and five-sided altar log cabins were covered with a common gable roof with an elongated ridge. The main facade was made flat and decorated with two symmetrical square or octagonal towers ^[70] .

The usual view of the Ukrainian wooden Orthodox church in the era of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania is a three-carcass squat domeless church of the “hut” type with different-sized gable tent-like (or hemispherical helmet-like) roofs. The log-house was usually sheathed with planks that were clipped horizontally ^[71] .

Wooden churches in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania were often built as temporary ones before the construction of stone ones; they had in volume both simple and relatively complex shapes: from a regular quadrangle to a complex Roman cross. The basis of the building was a log cabin, which was sheathed with vertical boards, and inside it was finished with a smooth coating. The gable roof was covered with shingles or shingles . Turrets for a small bell and a cross were installed above the pediment ^[72] .

The architecture of stone Orthodox churches preserves Old Russian traditions, although the influence of Gothic architecture is noticeable in the design and some forms. In churches, the principles of Gothic dominate everywhere. Among the notable monuments of monumental architecture of this period: the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist in Lutsk , the Malomozheykovskaya Church , the Church in Synkovichi , the Assumption Church in Zimno , the Borisoglebskaya Church in Novogrudok , the church in the village of Ishkold in the Baranovichi District , the Intercession Fortress Church in the village of Sutkovtsy ^[73] . The architectural monuments of that time are noteworthy: the church of St. Paraskevi Fridays ( 1345 ) in Vilna, built by the wife of Grand Duke Olgerd Maria Yaroslavna , the Cathedral of the Assumption of the Virgin ( 1346 ), founded by Grand Duke Olgerd. In Kiev, after the Tatar destruction of the temple, the Assumption Cathedral of the Kiev Pechersky Monastery ( 1470 , blown up in 1941 , rebuilt in 2000 ), which is a continuation of the eastern tradition of temple construction combined with certain Western borrowings, was built at the expense of Prince Semyon Olelkovich stepped pediments and buttresses of Gothic origin ^[74] .

When the Grand Dynasty and some magnate clans converted to Catholicism in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania after the Krev Union , the first churches began to be built not only for closed trading colonies, but also for local Catholics. These new churches enrich the former castle gothic of the principality with a gothic church ^[75] . The first such Gothic-style churches were: St. Nicholas ( 1387 ) in Vilna, Vilnius pulpit (in its first form), built in 1407 ^[76] , Franciscan church in Vilnius (1430). Next, two Bernardine monasteries were built: a wooden Vilnius monastery with a church of St. Francis (1469) and a wooden monastery with a church in the name of St. George (1471) in Kovno .

Gothic architecture in the lands of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania is rapidly developing throughout the 15th century, right up to the second half of the 16th century. By the 15th century, there were already 6 churches in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania; in the 15th century, about 50 more were built, mostly wooden ^[77] .

Some scholars ^[78] note two trends in the architecture of Ukrainian churches of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries: in monastery or city cathedrals (the Apostle John in Lutsk, the Epiphany Church in Ostrog , the Assumption Church of the Zimny ​​Monastery, the Trinity Church of the Mezheritsky Monastery ), as in the type that originates from cross-domed buildings, and in five-headed compositions, ancient Russian traditions are clearly visible. But one can already see what was not there before: a different character of proportions, octagonal drums , decor of white stone portals , undivided facades , cornice endings. These are characteristic features of the architecture of modern times ^[79] .

In Vilna, Franciscan monks erect a masterpiece of Gothic architecture - the Church of St. Anne , in the construction of which 33 types of bricks were used ^[80] . At this time, the Mikhnovsky Sretensky Monastery (XV century) was built in Volyn, the Desert Rykhlovsky Monastery in Chernihiv (XV century), Slutsky Holy Trinity Monastery (c. 1445) - the former center of Orthodoxy, Tolochinsky Pokrovsky Monastery ( 1604 ), founded Chancellor Leo Sapieha .

Many churches in the cities and villages of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania had features of Gothic architecture - they were stone one-nave with extensions, as well as brick buildings, blocked, as a rule, by rib arches with lancet-shaped window openings devoid of decorative elements. The orderly windows are distinguished by the Ascension Church in Drogobych ( 1551 ) with beautiful Gothic carved portals, white-stone window frames and interesting wall paintings depicting, in particular, the attack of the Cossacks on Drogobych . In Kiev - the Dominican Church on Podil (1610), later rebuilt into the Peter and Paul Church, in Belarus - the church and the Bernardine monastery (1595-1618) in Grodno - a large three-nave basilica with Gothic elements, stone churches in Sapezhinka, Derevnaya ( Stolbtsovsky district ) ^{[ 81]} .

In the middle of the XVI century, with the advent of the Reformation , the construction of Protestant temples (“Calvin fees”) began ^[82] . The Great Chancellor of Lithuania, Nikolai Radziwill Black, founded a number of fees in the Minsk region: in Kletsk , Koidanov , in the village of New Sverzhen (Stolbtsovsky district). His son Nicholas Christopher Radziwill Sirotka , an adherent of Catholicism , converted them into churches around 1590 ^[83] .

Based on samples of Gothic architecture (St. Anne's and Bernardine's Church in Vilna) and local building traditions (Ishkold Trinity Church, 1472), a local Gothic style was developed, which is characterized by plasticity of forms and solemn monumentality in religious buildings ^[84] . Religious buildings have acquired renaissance features. Its features can be traced in the architecture of numerous Ukrainian churches of the XVI - the first half of the XVII century in Volyn and Podillia. These were three-part or two-part, sometimes tri - conch one-nave churches, crowned with one, two or three tops, in the types and compositions of which the traditions of the previous time and folk architecture continued. Most often, the renaissance in them were details of portals, window platbands, and some decor elements. An example of a combination of Gothic and Renaissance are the Trinity Church in Chernavchitsy ( 1583 ) on Berestye, the church in Smorgon ( 1553 ), founded as a Calvinist gathering, and the church in Zamost near Slutsk (early 17th century) ^[85] .

In the second half of the XVI - the first half of the XVII century, stone construction takes on a wide scope in the western regions and, due to historical reasons, is limitedly carried out in the Dnieper and Seversky lands . Here, the urban development is mainly wooden, and the fortifications, according to the Old Russian tradition, are wooden and earthen. True, palaces of Polish magnates, monasteries and churches were built in a number of cities, but most of them were subsequently destroyed by the Cossacks ^[86] . Monasteries and churches of this time are noteworthy - the Korets Holy Trinity Monastery ( 1571 ), the Derman Holy Trinity Monastery (XVI century) in Volyn ^[87] , the Pinsk St. Barbara Monastery (XVI century), the Pinsk church and the Franciscan monastery (XVI c.), Supraduly monastery (beginning of the 16th century), the Bernardine monastery in Minsk , founded by the Konsovsky brothers ( 1624 ) ^[88] , the Bernardine church in Nesvizh (1584–1593), the St. Nicholas church in Mir , etc.

The leading art direction in the second half of the XVII - the middle of the XVIII century was magnificent and refined baroque . The main artistic principles of baroque are the swiftness of composition, the contrasts of scales, rhythms, color effects, the curvilinearity of the outlines, the desire to create the illusion of unlimited space ^[89] . The baroque expressiveness was used by the church for its own purposes to emotionally affect a person’s feelings and to demonstrate the futility of human life before the eternal, magnificent. The material basis for the development of style was architecture. Here the baroque found its fullest expression ^[90] . The development of baroque in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania passed through three periods: early (late XVI - first half of the XVII century), mature (second half of the XVII - 30s of the XVIII century) and later Vilnius (1730-1780s). An example of late Vilnius baroque is, for example, the Vilnius church of the Archangel Raphael (1709). In the second half of the XVIII century , the spread of the ideas of the Renaissance ^[91] . The first example of the Baroque style in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania was the Jesuit Church ( 1587 ) in Nesvizh with the tomb of the Radziwills. Prince Radziwill Sirotka for his construction invited the famous Jesuit monk J. Bernardoni from Italy ^[92] . According to its volumetric and spatial composition, the church was the first three-nave cross-domed basilica in East European architecture ^[93] .

Vilnius Church of St. Casimir was founded in 1604, finally completed in 1616, this is the first example of baroque in Vilna: the plan of the temple is similar to the plan of the first Jesuit church in Rome . The longitudinal and transverse naves form a Latin cross , and a high dome rises above the intersection, the side naves are converted into separate chapels. In 1620-1631, the three-nave All Saints Basilica, built in the style of moderate Baroque, was built in Vilna. In 1748, its interior was burned down, but in 1754 the altars and the pulpit were reconstructed in the late Vilnius baroque style using artificial marble and various sculptures (possibly according to the project of Johann Glaubitz ) ^[94] .

In the 17th century, the architecture of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania showed a tendency for the coexistence of different architectural types and their interaction. An example is the Church of St. John the Baptist in Kamai (1603-1606), combining the forms of defensive architecture with Gothic and Renaissance ^[95] .

However, in the cult and castle construction, the synthesis of baroque forms with local architectural features was more marked (Mogilev Epiphany Cathedral, Zhirovichi Assumption Cathedral , churches in Grodno, Nesvizh, Vishnevo , Franciscan church in Ivyanets , Augustinian church in Mikhalishki , Trinity church of Bernardine and Minnitsa in Minsk the church in Budslau in the Myadelšchyna ^[96] , the Carmelite church and monastery in Glubokoe - the first example of Vilnius baroque in Belarus) ^[97] .

In 1717, the Vilnius Roman Catholic Bishop Konstantin Casimir of Brzhostovsky built a church in Vilnius in the name of the Heart of Jesus , which architecturally meets all the features of the late Baroque. Many palace and castle ensembles ( Sapeg residence in Golshany ^[98] , Nesvizh palace and castle complex , Ruzhany palace , Smolyansk castle , Shchorsa ) were created according to the new layout, their design becomes more artistic and plastic ^[99] .

Since Jews constituted a significant part of the population of cities and towns of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, synagogues were a fairly common type of religious building ^[100] . There are no surviving examples of a wooden synagogue , which, unlike the stone one, was a more traditional building. So, the main synagogue of Pinsk (1616) repeatedly burned and collapsed. In the Pinsk suburb of Karalin, founded in the 17th century, there were several synagogues, schools, and shops. In its place now is the building of the University of Polessk .

The large ("cold") synagogue in Minsk was built in 1590 and was a typical synagogue building. For about 200 years, the synagogue was used as the Orthodox church of the Peter and Paul Monastery, and only in 1716 was it transferred to the Jewish community. In the 1930s, the synagogue was closed. In its place is the building of the Belproekt Institute. Somewhat later, a synagogue was built in Nesvizh in Minsk (XVI - beginning of the XVII centuries). In 1589, local Jews received a letter from the owner of the city, Prince Radziwill Sirotka , which gave them permission to build a stone synagogue. It was destroyed in 1941 . Also known is the stone synagogue in Druya , built by the Italian architect Antonio Paraco, who also built a church and a Dominican monastery there ^[101] .

After the Union of Brest in 1596, many Orthodox churches and monasteries were transferred to the Uniates and Catholic orders , which began to rebuild them. The construction of Orthodox churches was discontinued. Nevertheless, despite the opposition, Orthodox monasteries arose in four cities of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, which began with wooden churches. The oldest church in the name of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul in Minsk was built in 1611 with donations from the Orthodox gentry. The temple became a cathedral in the Peter and Paul Orthodox Monastery. From 1795 to 1799 he was the cathedral of the Minsk diocese . It was restored and rebuilt twice, in 1933 it was closed. It has been operating again since 1997 . This is the only architectural monument of the Renaissance ^[102] .

In 1597, the sisters Theodora and Anna Volovichi built a wooden Orthodox church on their site in Vilna in honor of the Descent of the Holy Spirit , around which members of the Orthodox Vilnius Holy Trinity Brotherhood grouped, who remained without a church that passed to the Uniates. Since 1609, an Orthodox monastery was formed there with a five-year school, a printing house and an almshouse . By 1611, it was the only Vilnius Orthodox church not given to the Uniates. This is explained by the fact that the Holy Trinity Brotherhood as early as 1588 received from the Patriarch of Constantinople the rights of Stavropigia and was not subordinated to the local spiritual authorities. In 1634, King Vladislav IV authorized the construction of a stone church on the site of a wooden church. At the beginning of the XVIII century the Swedes devastated the church, then it was restored, but in the great fire of 1749 it burned to the ground. Restored by architect I. Glaubits. This is the only Orthodox church in Lithuania in the Vilnius Baroque style, more like a church: the plan is based on a Latin cross, the church has two towers, a tall dome above the cross of the main and transverse naves ^[103] .

In 1623, the Orsha Epiphany Kuteinsky Monastery was founded by the subcommittee Bogdan Statkevich-Zaversky , which became one of the centers of Orthodoxy for many years. The monastery complex consisted of a wooden Epiphany Cathedral ( 1635 ), Holy Spirit Church ( 1762 ) and the Trinity Baroque church, a bell tower and outbuildings. Part of the stone wall has been preserved from the original buildings. In 1812 the monastery was destroyed. In 1995, the Trinity Church was restored, but its original appearance was lost ^[104] .

A wooden Orthodox church was built near Mstislavl at the place of the appearance of the icon of the Mother of God. Since the phenomenon occurred on the day of the Descent of the Holy Spirit , the stone monastery that grew up here in 1641 in the tract Tupichevshchina through the efforts of the local landowner Konstantin Matskevich was called Tupichevsky Svyatodukhovskiy . He had 4 churches, a bell tower, a large subsidiary farm and soon became one of the centers of Orthodoxy in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. In the XVII century, for many kilometers around, there was not a single Orthodox church besides him. In 1941, the monastery burned down. Only a part of a meter-thick stone wall with turrets (the end of the 19th century) and dungeons remained. On the site of the monastery is an oil and cheese factory. In 1665, in the vicinity of the city, the daughter of the Mstislav stolnik Marianna Sukhodolskaya laid the foundation for the female Mazolovsky monastery, from which, after fires and rebuilding, two churches of the late 18th century remained. In 1772, it was transferred to the Uniates ^[105] .

In the 17th century, the Baroque art style was formed in the architecture of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Towers have lost their functional significance, becoming composite elements. The main signs of religious buildings were monumentality, the correspondence of horizontal and vertical articulations, the tectonic unity of volumes. Such are the churches of the Carmelites in Zasvir , the Bernardines in Slonim , the Augustinians in Mikhalishki. In more massive religious buildings, a three-nave cross-domed basilica with two tower facades was taken as a sample. Such are the Assumption Cathedral in Mogilev, the Assumption Cathedral in Zhirovichi . In the 17th century, only in Grodno a church and a brigitte monastery were built (1634–1642), a Franciscan monastery ( 1635 ), a Jesuit cathedral church ( 1678 ), and later a church and a Basilian monastery (1720–1751) ^[106] . Since the second half of the XVII century, due to wars and epidemics, the development of cities in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania stopped for almost a century. The population decreased, many villages were looted and burned ^[107] . However, monasteries and churches were erected. So, in 1647, the Vilnius Church of St. Baroque Ignatius with the Jesuit Monastery. In the middle of the 18th century, after the fire, the buildings were rebuilt. In 1648–1689, one of the famous 17th-century monasteries of mature Baroque architecture, the Berezovsky Monastery of the Cartesians, was erected by the Chancellor of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Casimir Sapieha ^[108] . In 1648, the construction of the Pinsk Uniate Cathedral Church of St. Stanislav (1635–1648) - not preserved monument of architecture of the middle of the XVII century. In 1657, Catholic saint Andrei Bobol was buried in his crypt. Subsequently, the monastery passed to the Basilians, then to the Orthodox, in 1800 it was consecrated as the Epiphany ^[109] . Built in the middle of the XVII century, the building of the collegium combines the architecture of the Renaissance and Baroque ^[110] .

In the 17th century, a church of Lateran canons was built in Slonim , rebuilt in the 19th century, and then destroyed. In the second half of the 17th century, the Bernardine Church was built in Slonim. It is notable for the fact that its facade is facing the courtyard, and the altar part looks at the street. The altars of the church were created according to the sketches of I. Glaubits ^[111] .

In Ivye, in the Grodno region, around 1600, at the expense of S. Kishki, the Peter and Paul Church and the Bernardine monastery in the Baroque style were built on the site of an old wooden church. It was destroyed several times and was also repeatedly restored and rebuilt ^[112] .

The Zhodishkovsky Trinity Church of the Calvinists was built - an architectural monument of the Renaissance of 1612 ^[113] . In 1615, in Bolshaya Berestovitsa, at the expense of Jerome Khodkevich , a new church was built, which in its architecture is close to the Peter and Paul Church in Krakow and was built according to the project of the same architect. The church was consecrated in honor of the Blessed Virgin Mary . Over time, one of the first parish schools in the Grodno region was opened with him, and then a hospital for the poor. This temple is well preserved. In the years 1617-1787. the stone Trinity Church was built in Ruzhani with elements of classicism, in 1620 the Jesuit church was erected in Zamosc near Slutsk, the Carmelites church was built in Mstislavl in 1637, the brick Trinity church and the Bernardine monastery in Baroque were built in Druje in Vitebsk region (1643) (1643).

In the early Baroque style, the church of Mikhail the Archangel (1653, architect K. Pence) was built in the village of Mikhalishki ^[114] , in the village of Vistichi in the Brest region - the Trinity Church of the Cistercians (1678). Funded by E. Bulgak, S.K. Radziwill and J.-A. Sangushko in 1683 in Kletsk built the Church of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the Dominican monastery ^[115] .

In the old city of Vilnius , the church of the Order of the Augustinians of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Consolation ( 1670 ) is preserved - a late Baroque monument, the last building of the Baroque type in Vilnius ^[116] . In the 18th century, churches and monasteries of the Uniates were erected - St. Sophia Cathedral in Polotsk, Pokrovsky Monastery in Tolochin ^[117] , the Resurrection Church in Vitebsk , Epiphany and Holy Cross Churches in Zhirovitsy, etc. For the churches of this time in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, monumental sub-forms were formed the influence of Italian baroque. These are the Carmelite churches in Madel (1739–1754) and Mogilev (1739–1752), the Bernardines in Budslau (1767–1783), the Jesuits in Polotsk ( 1745 ) ^[118] .

Such extraordinary structures appeared as the church of the Trinitarian monastery in Krivichi in the Myadelshchyna, the Church of the Mother of God in Kostenevichi near Vileika , the Dominican church in Rakov on the site of the old, built in 1686 by the foundation of C. Sangushko ^[119] . In Ivenets, according to the project of architect A. Chekhovich, the church of St. Michael the Archangel ( 1749 ). In 1869, it was transferred to the Orthodox, as a result of which onion domes appeared on the towers of the church. When in 1920 Ivenets was near Poland , the domes were removed ^[120] .

In the middle of the XVII - beginning of the XVIII century, in spite of the expanding mature Baroque, sometimes the external design of the temples was still characterized by restraint; churches, as before in the Gothic period, began to resemble small fortresses. This architectural style was later called the Sarmatian Baroque ^[121] . This is the Farne Church in Novogrudok at the beginning of the 18th century, the church of the Benedictine monastery in Minsk (now the Orthodox Cathedral of Svyatoduhovskiy Cathedral ), the church in Zasvir (1714), the Augustinian church in Mikhalishki (the second half of the 17th century). The concept of Sarmatism came from the theory that some Slavic and Baltic peoples supposedly descended from the ancient Sarmatian tribe. According to this theory, Poland, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and the Czech Republic were considered Sarmatia. The medieval historian A. Gvagnini called his work "Description of European Sarmatia."

At the beginning of the 18th century, there were only 14 Orthodox monasteries and churches in Slutsk. To date, only the Mikhailovsky Church (the second half of the 18th century) and the Theological School ( 1767 ) have remained ^[122] . Of the 17th-century Orthodox buildings in Mogilev, the Epiphany Church ( 1636 ), which was damaged during the war and demolished, as well as the Intercession and Assumption churches, which also did not survive, are known. From the Catholic structures, the Carmelite church in the Baroque style (the first half of the XVIII century), rebuilt in the style of classicism , and the rebuilt church of 1604 were preserved. The architectural monument was the Mogilev town hall of the 17th century, damaged during the war; It was demolished in Soviet times, but restored by 2008 . In 1637, a wooden Orthodox St. Nicholas Church was built in the city. In its place in 1672 stood a brick church, repeatedly rebuilt ^[123] .

The Farny Church of the Transfiguration of the Lord in Navahrudak was built at the end of the 14th century. Here the Polish king Jagiello was married to Sophia Golshanska - from that time the Jagiellon dynasty began. Adam Mickiewicz was baptized in the church. At the beginning of the XVIII century, the church was rebuilt in the style of the Sarmatian Baroque.

At the end of the XVI - beginning of the XVIII century, a church and a Jesuit monastery were erected in Minsk. The church and several outbuildings of the monastery are preserved. Nearby are the 17th-century Bernardine convents for men and women in the Baroque style. Here in the XVII century there was a Dominican church, demolished in the 1950s ^[124] . The church in Vornjany , built by architect August Kosakovsky at the expense of Marianna Abramovich in 1769, is also an example of Vilna baroque ^[125] .

The owner of Ruzhany Leo Sapega erected a castle in the Renaissance style. The castle was repeatedly destroyed, in the second half of the 18th century it was rebuilt by the architect Jan Samuel Becker ^[126] . The Church of St. Michael the Archangel with two high towers in the village of Luzhki in the Sharkovshchina ( 1756 ) was built. In the middle of the 18th century, in Budslaw, at the expense of the local landowner Barbara Skorulskaya, a Catholic monastery was founded, which did not survive, but a church with a chapel was built into the remaining building in 1767-1783. The width of the facade of the church is more than 30 meters ^[127] . In the second half of the 18th century, in some cities of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, manufactories were built and regular settlements were built next to them. This was most fully manifested in Grodno and Pastavy as a result of the activities of Anthony Tiesenhaus .

From the Baroque classicism in the second half of the 18th century, in some architectural manifestations, there were attempts to switch to a “pure” classicism oriented towards the architecture of Ancient Rome . The first example of the antique style on the lands of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania was the church in Zhirmunts ( 1788 ) near the city of Lida , built by the court architect Radziwill Jan Podchashinsky. In the Bernardine church ( 1765 ) in the Lithuanian town of Telšiai , the first signs of classicism are visible: this is a reckless pediment church of a dome-centric composition. The church in the ensemble of the monastery of the Order of Kamaldul in Pazaislis (1667-1712), architects L. Fredo and the brothers K. Putini and P. Putini are similar to it. This style includes the church of the monastery of businesswomen (1729-1744) by the architect Jozef Paul ^[128] , and the church of Mary Magdalene in Vilnius.

The church of the Lord Jesus and the Trinitarian monastery , built in 1717 by the architect F. Barnini at the expense of Casimir Jan Sapieha , were built according to Roman models. In 1772, the Dominican Order in place of a wooden church in 1669 in Vilna built the Church of the Finding of the Holy Cross with nineteen baroque stone chapels. In 1962, the chapels were blown up; to date, they have been restored. The Franciscan Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin was built in Vilna in 1421, but it burned down. It was rebuilt several times. The last version of the church, preserved to this day, dates back to 1764. This is a transitional style - from baroque to classicism. The late Baroque style Ascension Church of Vilnius was built in 1753, adjacent to it is the monastery of missionaries - the largest monastery in modern Vilnius.

In 1695, a wooden church of the Holy Trinity and a monastery of Trinitarians were laid on the bank of Viliya, which is why this area began to be called Trinopolis over time. In 1710, the buildings burned down, in their place were built stone in the late Baroque style. In 1812, during the invasion of Napoleon, there was a French hospital ^[129] .

In place of the wooden church of 1622, built by the Order of the Benedictines and burned down in 1655, in 1703 a stone church of St. Catherine was erected in Vilna. In 1741-1773, Glaubits reconstructed the church ^[130] . At the expense of Michal Kosice, the Vilnius governor Casimir Sapieha and the Lithuanian Hetman Michael Casimir Radziwill, in 1709 a Jesuit church was founded in the suburbs of Vilna on Snipishki . At first it was wooden, in 1715-1730 a stone was built; at the church in 1740 a stone monastery was erected. In 1773, these buildings passed to the Order of PR .

In addition to religious buildings, in the cities there were estates, residential and public houses - town halls, austeria. In the villages and towns, the pans estates usually consisted of two or three freely located courtyards. The main courtyard is, as a rule, a ceremonial, quadrangular in shape, built up with utility rooms, kitchens, etc. Such, for example, are the Lopatinsky estate Leonpolsky (1750) in the Miory district of Belarus, which was converted into a church in 1919 ^[131] , the Khodkevichi Bolshemozheykovsky estate of the late XVIII century in the Grodno region (the outbuilding was preserved), which was visited by Emperor Alexander I in 1821, or the 17th-century manor in the town of Vysokoye in the Brest Region, which belonged to the Sapieha . They also owned the palace complex in Ruzhany on the Brest region, in which the vivid expressiveness of forms was combined with the functionality of the defense point ^[132] . In the 1765-1780s, at the initiative of Anthony Tiesenhaus, architects I. Mözer and J. Sacco built an architectural complex in Grodno, which included 85 buildings for various purposes. For the foreign masters of local manufactories, 20 houses were built in the late Baroque style with brick facade walls and wooden side walls. This is the first typical development in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Of the public buildings, the Polotsk church (1775) in the Neo - Gothic style, the Slonim Baroque town hall (mid-18th century) were preserved. The monument of civil architecture is a shopping arcade in Pastavy in the Vitebsk region (1760s), a square stone building with a closed courtyard ^[133] .

• Baroque in the Commonwealth
• Vilnius Baroque
• Sarmatian Baroque

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