SACRED TOPICS OF RUSSIAN CITIES (2). SAINT SOPHIA CATHEDRAL: SYNTAX AND SEMANTICS
In this article, I continue the study of sacred topics of Russian cities. Comparison of syntactic functions and dedication’s semantics of St. Sophia Cathedral in Kiev and Constantinople is made in the article. The semantic link between the Old Testament character of God’s Wisdom and the composition of city in Eastern Christianity is picked. I revealed the fundamental idea which lies in the base of the town planning: the supernatural protection exerted to the city in response to his dedication to God. This dedication is visually expressed in the sacred complex consisting of the cathedral as an urban dominant and the gates in the city wall. I made a distinction between two meanings of the concept of Wisdom in Scripture and Tradition: 1) as a direct naming the person and 2) as the description of the name content. On this basis, I made a comparative analysis of the “sophia’s” icons, and I realized their general classification. The semantic analogy between the sacral dominants of Jerusalem, Constantinople and Kiev is demonstrated. It is proved that the Hagia Sophia in Constantinople has the same dedication as the Holy Sepulcher (Anastasis) of Jerusalem. On this basis, I conclude synonymy of these cathedrals, along with the identity of their syntactic positions in the urban text.
Keywords: visual semiotics, Eastern Christianity, city, sacred architecture, visual organization of space, St. Sophia Cathedral, syntax, semantics, iconography, cultural semiotic transfer
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Issue: 3, 2016
Series of issue: Issue 3
Rubric: ARTICLES
Pages: 25 — 81
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