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HISTORY OF COLOR SOLUTIONS OF MEDIEVAL MOSCOW FORTIFICATIONS // ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics. 2015. Issue 3 (5). P. 78-85

The author traces on the basis of documentary, architectural, archaeological and iconographic data the history of the colors of the fortifications of Moscow Kremlin, Kitai-Gorod, White City and Black City since the time of Yuri Dolgoruky until the mid XX century.

Keywords: architecture, Moscow, fortifications, color

TO THE QUESTION OF PATRIARCH NIKON’S PROHIBITION FOR HIPPED-ROOF TEMPLES CONSTRUCTION // ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics. 2017. Issue 3 (13). P. 33-44

This article is devoted to the analysis of the issue of one episode of the history of Russian temples construction – of the prohibition imposed by Patriarch Nikon on the construction of hipped-roof temples, which played an important role in the semiotic structure and aesthetic design of the space of Russian cities and monasteries. In the last years some researchers question the fact that Patriarch Nikon’s prohibition for hipped-roof temples construction in the middle of the 1650s took place. After analyzing all arguments “pro” and “contra”, I show that this prohibition actually took place, and its reasons were as follows. Firstly, the Patriarch took some kind of “monopoly” for such roofs, having decided to erect a tent-roofed rotunda in his New Jerusalem. Secondly, the Patriarch was obliged to take care of the financial and material sides of Church life, and hipped roofs were too expensive, technologically complicated and inefficient from the point of view of temples capacity. Thirdly, hipped roofs did not satisfy Nikon by personal (e. g., aesthetic) reasons. There is also the statistics of hipped-roof temples construction in the article: since 1513 until the beginning of the XVII century about 30–35 such temples were built, ands approximately the same quantity – since the late 1620s until the mid of 1650s. Then such construction was stopped due to Nikon’s prohibition for some decades.

Keywords: Russia, architecture, hipped-roof temple, patriarch Nikon

ABOUT SCIENTIFIC VALIDITY OF HIEROTOPY // ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics. 2018. Issue 1 (15). P. 49-69

Prof. S. V. Zagraevsky undertook a comprehensive analysis of methodology and applications of hierotopy, which is defined as a special kind of activity on creation of so-called “sacred spaces”, and as a special area of historical and cultural research, which identifies and analyzes the examples of this activity. Hierotopy is an extremely broad concept, applicable to actually every scientific discipline (history of architecture and urban planning, and culturology, and ethnography, and philosophy, and art history, and musicology, and religious studies, and political science, and odorology (studying of smells), and many others, down to “mystical knowledge”). The author expressed doubts about scientific validity and practical value of hierotopy, and noted that it is a compilative theoretical layering, which is able to produce scientific achievements only to the extent that it remains within the framework of traditional scientific disciplines. “Superstructure” in the form of an act of faith that almost every artifact is a part of a certain “sacred space” (i. e. has some “higher supernatural sense”) is unproved, therefore, unconvincing, therefore, redundant, therefore, harmful, because overloads scientific text and contradicts to “Occam’s razor” – “Entities should not by multiplied without necessity”. Scientific text must be maximally versatile and should not cause ideological rejection in those readers who do not profess the faith of the author of this text. This is required by basic scientific ethics.

Keywords: hierotopy, methodology, architecture, town-planning, scientific research of culture

THE ORIGIN OF OLD RUSSIAN HIPPED ROOF ARCHITECTURE: THE RETURN TO THE PROBLEM // ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics. 2018. Issue 2 (16). P. 32-61

In 2007, the author of this article published the studies on the origin of Old Russian hipped-roof architecture. Since then the author has received many letters on this theme from colleagues, this issue was widely discussed at scientific conferences and in Internet. In 2012 the author’s book “Typological forming and basic classification of Old Russian Church architecture” was published, and some additional considerations about the origin of hipped-roof architecture were issued there. In general, the author’s position on this theme did not change, but some problems required clarification and expansion of argumentation. On the basis of analysis of new architectural and archaeological data and chronicle information, the issues of the origin of Old Russian hippedroof architecture are systematically considered. The low probability of direct origin of Russian hipped-roof architecture from Western European Gothic is shown, since tower-like, hipped-ceiling and relatively small area of the main volume of temples are not typical for Gothic architecture. The inconsistency of theories of the origin of Old Russian hipped-roof architecture from the Romanesque and Eastern architecture are also shown. In previous studies on stone hipped-roof architecture, the author of this article cited a number of provisions showing its origin from Old Russian wooden architecture. In this work they are expanded and structured. The wide spread of the hipped-roof churches in Old Russian wooden architecture before the first stone hipped-roof temple is shown. The hypothesis about the origin of not only stone, but also wooden hipped-roof architecture of Old Russia is put forward: the wooden hipped-roof was a “simplified form” of the dome, which was canonically conditioned and obligatory in the stone Orthodox Church architecture during the whole history of the Old Russian architecture, since the 10th century. Having shown the widespread, canonical and constructive conditionality of hippedroofs in wooden architecture earlier than the beginning of the 16th century, the author proves that the first hipped-roof stone church came from wooden hipped-roof architecture, not from any Gothic, Romanesque, Eastern and any other foreign sources, and reconstructs the specific circumstances of its appearance in the early 16th century. In previous studies on the origin of Russian stone hipped-roof architecture, the author’s position was that it came only from wooden architecture. But in this article the author shows influence of Old Russian pillarless stone dome churches, which, though few in number, were built during the entire previous history of Russian architecture. The main conclusion of this article is the following: Old Russian stone hipped-roof architecture became the organic continuation of the previous national architectural tradition. That tradition included hipped-roof wooden architecture, stone domed churches and the wide range of connections with world architecture. The article also proposes general principles for the determination of the origin of architectural forms. It is shown that such issues should be solved only in comprehensive manner, as these forms could be generated by talent of architects, artistic taste of customers, the progress of construction equipment, changes in aesthetic preferences of society, ideology, influence of other countries, cultures and styles, and many other factors, up to purely utilitarian ones. A certain role here could be played by financial, human and constructive limitations which led to non-standard solutions.

Keywords: Old Russian architecture, hipped-roof architecture, wooden architecture, Gothic, Renaissance, architectural forms, construction