The History of the Discovery and Study of Russian Medieval Painting [1 ed.] 9789004305274, 9789004279674

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The History of the Discovery and Study of Russian Medieval Painting

Russian History and Culture Editors-in-Chief Jeffrey P. Brooks (The Johns Hopkins University) Christina Lodder (University of Kent)

Volume 18

The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/rhc

The History of the Discovery and Study of Russian Medieval Painting By

Gerol’d I. Vzdornov Translated by

Valerii G. Dereviagin Edited by

Marybeth Sollins

LEIDEN | BOSTON

Cover illustration: General view of the Pskov Kremlin, end of the nineteenth century. A Bronze Horseman Translation

English Translation of Otkrytie i izuchenie russkoi srednevekovoi zhivopisi (Moscow: Iskusstvo, 1986) © Copyright 2011 by Bronze Horseman Literary Agency Larchmont, New York, 10538 The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available online at http://catalog.loc.gov LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2017023571

Typeface for the Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic scripts: “Brill”. See and download: brill.com/brill-typeface. ISSN 1877-7791 isbn 978-90-04-27967-4 (hardback) isbn 978-90-04-30527-4 (e-book) Copyright 2018 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands and The Bronze Horseman. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Hes & De Graaf, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Rodopi, Brill Sense and Hotei Publishing. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NV provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. This book is printed on acid-free paper and produced in a sustainable manner.

In Memory of Alisa Vladimirovna Bank and Milena Dushanovna Semiz

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Contents Preface ix Acknowledgments xii List of Illustrations xiii List of Abbreviations xViii 1 General Information on Russian Icons and Frescoes 1 2 First Steps in the Discovery of Medieval Russian Painting 11 3 The Artist-Archaeologist F. G. Solntsev and the Artist-Restorer N. I. Podkliuchnikov 20 4 The 1840s Men of Letters, Palaeologists, Collectors 52 5 F. I. Buslaev and His Contemporaries 101 6 Learned Societies 167 7 Museums, Private Collections, and Exhibitions 251 8 Academy and University Scholarship 321 Conclusion 414 Index 417



Preface Some years have passed since my book was published in Russian. At last, it is coming out in English. I say “at last,” because the poor knowledge of the Russian language continues to be a stumbling block in interpreting every ramification of Russian culture. I hope my book will serve not only as the record of a major event in the history of world art, but as an introduction to the study of Russian painting and traditional Russian artistic culture that will engage both specialists and ordinary readers. It seems to be common knowledge that Russian art originated many centuries ago and that despite its periods of rise and fall it has created many great works. Interest in medieval Russian painting as an art form rather than as an object of religious practice arose in relatively recent times. In fact, its discovery is an event of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, with practical work peaking in the 1910s and 1920s. Consequently, we are right to consider ourselves involved in the process. The task of writing a history of this process struck me as both useful and not too arduous, but gradually delving into the matter, searching for evidence, and putting it in a systematic form proved to be more complicated than expected. The perusal of sources revealed a good deal of evidence vital to the modern researcher, but work on this material threatened somehow to compromise the original idea for, collected together by subject headings, it would acquire a value of its own. I had to limit myself to the most important points, and my book is therefore only a general essay bringing out the most vivid figures and the most significant discoveries; details of scholarship and practical aspects of saving old frescoes and icons, although interesting when taken separately, form the background, adding to the integrity of the picture. I interpret the discovery of medieval Russian painting as a twofold phenomenon. On the one hand, it was the appreciation and study of a new, hitherto little-known artistic heritage, undertaken at first by a small group of scholars, professional restorers, collectors, artists, and art critics who were drawn to the moving beauty of an ancient art. On the other hand, this discovery was also a continuing process of research and growing awareness. It was not until many icons and frescoes had been rid of over-paintings and clumsy restorations that those interested in the history of Russia’s artistic past received enough reliable and complete evidence to judge it soundly. Under layers of paint, dried-out oil, and soot were hidden real masterpieces created by artists from the eleventh to the seventeenth century. All, or nearly all, that had been written about medieval Russian art before the real thing was revealed turned out to be a weak

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pastiche or incorrect interpretation. Once the authentic originals became accessible, a new field of scholarly study opened up, and the foundations were laid for a proper understanding and interpretation of medieval Russian art. This book is the first special investigation devoted to the subject. I should mention here similar books written for other fields, in particular, The History of Russian Ethnography by A. N. Pypin (Istoriia russkoi etnografii, 1890); The History of Slavonic Philology by I. V. Yagich (Istoriia slavianskoi filologii, 1910); and The Introduction to Archaeology by S. A. Zhebelev (Vvedenie v arkheologiiu, 1923). The last work is brief, and refers to some of the same personalities who are mentioned here. There is no doubt that Russian scholars have sought to evaluate the current status of their respective fields by examining what had been achieved in the past, but nothing of that kind has been done in the field of medieval Russian art, and so my book partly fills this gap. Nor did I want to narrow the scope of my investigation by limiting it to the study of painting alone; this book deals with Russian art in general and, quite often, with the art of Byzantium and the Southern Slavs, which is introduced as it sets in relief the activity of Russian scholars. The data may be incomplete, and various omissions are possible. As originally conceived, The History of the Discovery and Study of Russian Medieval Painting would have an essay on the nineteenth century as an introduction to the principal text on the period from the early twentieth century to the post-revolutionary years. When I was working on this plan, I proceeded from a strong and long-standing common conviction that medieval Russian painting had been discovered only in our time. However, this opinion is erroneous. Without the enormous preliminary work of the nineteenth century it would have been impossible to make the magnificent discoveries of the early twentieth century, which were publicized in various articles and essays devoted to the history of Russian fine arts. The nation forged its spiritual values in complex historical conditions, in collisions of different social and individual forces, but eventually these values became a fact of public self-awareness long before a systematic scholarly discovery of medieval Russian painting. What I had conceived as an introduction grew into an independent research, and I can now state with confidence that the nineteenth century was as important a period in the history of the discovery and study of medieval Russian art as the twentieth century itself. Specialist readers will notice that I do not often refer to the written sources. This does not indicate my reluctance to work with archives. In fact, manuscripts add but little to the published matter. The data available provide such a solid basis for studying the subject at hand that it would be a waste of time and effort to dust off archival material to dig out information that would end up

Preface

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in notes or appendices. Hundreds of publications, articles, books, notes, and reports, which are cited in the book’s notes, testify amply that those involved in the process during the nineteenth century had done all they could to enable twentieth-century scholars to recognize their work and to evaluate justly its contribution to the history of Russian culture. As with any historiographical work of this kind, this volume depended on the many articles and notes on the subject published by my predecessors. However, this is material of diverse value. Almost every paper cited has certain drawbacks that arise from a tendentious presentation of facts or an incompleteness of sources. This becomes evident when comparing articles written by different authors who look at the same subject from different points of view. In addition, there are cases when knotty and complicated questions (not reflected in other publications) prevent me from understanding a particular problem well enough to describe objectively an historical event. Whenever possible, I have checked the reliability of the evidence supplied and have provided exhaustive documentation. There is only one work published on the subject close to the sphere of my interest, and it is an important study: The History of the Study of Byzantine and Medieval Russian Art in Russia: F. I. Buslaev, N. P. Kondakov: Methods, Idea, Theories (Istoriia izucheniia vizantiiskogo i drevnerusskogo iskusstva v Rossii. F. I. Buslaev, N. P. Kondakov: metody, idei, teorii, 1985) by I. L. Kyzlasova. The scope of this work is limited, as suggested by its subtitle, which shows that it is devoted to elucidating the methods of only two scholars — F. I. Buslaev and N. P. Kondakov. Despite the obvious impact that those prominent researchers had on both their contemporaries and scholars of the next generation, neither Buslaev’s nor Kondakov’s methods explain all the phenomena of Russian artistic and public life, nor do they provide enough material for conducting an historical study. In this respect, my work gives a much more detailed description of the subject. Whether I have succeeded in sorting out the turmoil of nineteenth-century ideas, and shaping the scholarly and artistic thoughts into a strictly coherent whole without losing sight of the main historical line, is another matter. It is, of course, for the reader, not the author, to make a final judgment.

Acknowledgments Translating from any language is fraught with problems and prone to emphasis of either style or accuracy. We have sought to ensure accuracy and to avoid substantive errors by engaging a translator and an editor who are native speakers of Russian. Valerii Dereviagin did the initial painstaking work of rendering the original into English. He worked with great care to get at the author’s meaning. Yurii Pamfilov, a seasoned translator and editor of art books, checked the English against the original and made substantive corrections. Then we found an expert editor in New York to review the translation and take out the occasional stiffness of an over-literal rendering. This was the work of Marybeth Sollins, who besides greatly improving the flow of the English had the intuition to flag places where another look at the original was called for. Before we began the translation we benefited from the response to the original that Professor Michael Flier of Harvard University gave us. Professor Flier pointed out the significance of the discovery and awareness of the iconographic heritage for Russian modernism. And it was Edward Kasinec, longtime chief of the New York Public Library’s Slavic division, who introduced us to the book as worthy of an English edition. Brill was alert to the book’s worth and receptive to our proposal from our initial conversation with Herman Pabbruwe, CEO of Brill, at the Frankfurt Book Fair. After the fair Arjan van Dijk, acquisitions editor, took the trouble to call New York and discuss the translation. Marti Huetink, manager of the publishing unit and senior acquisitions editor, advanced the project by working with the Slavic editor Ivo Romein to get readers’ reports on the translation and communicate their progress. Theo Joppe and Brill’s production team were skillful and efficient in shaping the manuscript into book form and thorough and scrupulous in guiding the book through several stages of proofs. We are fortunate to have found a publisher of such professionalism and good will. They have been exceptionally responsive and cordial in handling all questions relating to the book’s publication. John Emerich

Bronze Horseman Literary Agency

List of Illustrations 3.1 Portrait of Fedor Grigor’evich Solntsev (1801–92), anonymous. Fedor Solntsev House Museum in the village of Borok (Iaroslav region) 22 3.2 Two apostles from the composition of the Last Judgment in a fresco, ca. 1195, in the Cathedral of St. Demetrius in Vladimir 25 3.3 St. Sophia in Kiev, constructed 1037–42. General view toward the chancel apse 27 3.4 Virgin Orans, 1043–46. Mosaic in the chancel apse of St. Sophia in Kiev 28 3.5 Archangel Gabriel from the Annunciation, 1043–46. Mosaic from the northeast pillar of St. Sophia in Kiev 29 3.6 Virgin from the Annunciation, 1043–46. Mosaic from the southeast pillar of St. Sophia in Kiev 29 3.7 Nikolai Ivanovich Podkliuchnikov (1813–77). Self–Portrait. State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg 38 3.8 John the Baptist in an icon from the Dormition Cathedral in Vladimir, 1408. Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow 43 3.9 The apostle Paul in an icon from the Dormition Cathedral in Vladimir, 1408. Russian Museum, St. Petersburg 44 4.1 Stepan Petrovich Shevyrev (1806–64). Lithographic portrait, mid-nineteenth century 55 4.2 The Trinity by Andrei Rublev in an icon of the early fifteenth century. Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow 58 4.3 St. Cyril of the White Lake in an icon of the early fifteenth century. Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow 58 4.4 Ivan Mikhailovich Snegirev (1793–1868). Drawing, anonymous. Location unknown 59 4.5 Ivan Petrovich Sakharov (1807–63) 64 4.6 Sergei Grigor’evich Stroganov (1794–1882). Photograph, ca. 1880 86 4.7 Portrait of Mikhail Petrovich Pogodin (1800–75) by Vassili Perov, 1872. Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow 88 4.8 Dmitrii Aleksandrovich Rovinskii (1824–95). Engraving by I. P. Pozhalostin, 1880 93 4.9 D. A. Rovinskii, A Survey of Icon-Painting in Russia through the Late Seventeenth Century (Obozrenie ikonopisaniia v Rossii do kontsa XVII veka), St. Petersburg, 1903 94 5.1 Moscow Public and Rumiantsev Museums [Museums] (Pashkov Dom), architect V. I. Bazhenov, 1780s 103

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5.2 The apostles Peter and Paul in a miniature from Gospels , 1220. State Historical Museum, Moscow 106 5.3 Petr Ivanovich Sevast’ianov (1811–67) 108 5.4 Aleksei Egorovich Viktorov (1827–83) 112 5.5 Herald of the Society of Medieval Russian Art (Vestnik Obshchestva drevnerusskogo iskusstva) at Moscow Public Museum, Moscow, 1876 117 5.6 Savior in an icon by Simon Ushakov, 1678. Tretyakov Gallery 118 5.7 Fedor Ivanovich Buslaev (1818–97) 121 5.8 Georgii Dmitrievich Filimonov (1828–98) 135 5.9 Vasilii Aleksandrovich Prokhorov (1818–82) 153 5.10 Church of the Transfiguration on Nereditsa near Novgorod, 1199 155 5.11 Virgin Orans in a fresco in the Church of the Transfiguration on Nereditsa near Novgorod, 1199 156 5.12 Saints in a fresco of 1199, Church of the Transfiguration on Nereditsa near Novgorod 157 5.13 God is the Ancient of Days in a fresco of 1199, Church of the Transfiguration on Nereditsa near Novgorod 158 5.14 Miracle of St. George and the Dragon in a fresco of 1167, Church of St. George, Staraia Ladoga 160 6.1 Makarii (Macarius) (Nikolai Kirillovich Miroliubov. 1817–94), archimandrite of Antoniev Monastery in Novgorod, author of An Archaeological Description of Church Antiquities in Novgorod and Its Environs (Arkheologicheskoe opisanie tserkovnykh drevnostei v Novgorode i ego okrestnostiakh), two vols. (1860). Photograph, 1867 172 6.2 An Archaeological Description of Church Antiquities in Novgorod and Its Environs, vol. 1, Moscow, 1860 175 6.3 Portrait of Adrian Viktorovich Prakhov (1846–1916) by I. N. Kramskoi, 1879. Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow 179 6.4 Catalogue of Copies and Tracings of Works of Art [in St. Sophia] in Kiev, St. Michael Monastery of the Golden Roofs, and St. Cyril Church in Kiev, executed by A. V. Prakhov in 1880, 1881, and 1882. S. Petersburg, 1882 180 6.5 Sts. Constantine and Elena in a fresco, ca. 1050, on the wall of the south nave of the Cathedral of St. Sophia, Novgorod 181 6.6 Christ and Angel in a mosaic of the Eucharist in the apse of St. Michael Monastery of the Golden Roofs in Kiev 187 6.7 Aleksei Sergeevich Uvarov (1824–84), chairman of the Moscow Archaeological Society, 1864–84 192 6.8 Praskovia Sergeevna Uvarova, chairwoman of the Moscow Archaeological Society, 1884–1917 193

List Of Illustrations

6.9 6.10 6.11 6.12 6.13 6.14 6.15 6.16 6.17 6.18 6.19 6.20 6.21 6.22 6.23 6.24 6.25 6.26 6.27 6.28 7.1 7.2

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Dormition Cathedral at the Moscow Kremlin, architect Aristotele Fioravanti, 1475–79 204 Dormition Cathedral at the Moscow Kremlin. General view of the iconostasis and wall-paintings 205 Fresco of St. Alexius on the altar wall of Dormition Cathedral in the Moscow Kremlin, 1479–81 206 Fresco of St. Anthony on the altar wall of Dormition Cathedral in the Moscow Kremlin, 1479–81 207 Dormition Cathedral in Vladimir, twelfth century 208 Fresco of Sts. Peter and Paul from the Last Judgment, 1408, Dormition Cathedral in Vladimir 208 Fresco of angel from the Last Judgment, 1408, Dormition Cathedral in Vladimir 209 Fresco of angel from the Last Judgment, 1408, Dormition Cathedral in Vladimir 210 Nikolai Mikhailovich Sofonov (1844–1910) 213 Vladimir Vasil’evich Suslov (1857–1921) 227 Archangel Gabriel from a fresco of the Annunciation, before 1156, on the northeast pillar of the Cathedral of the Transfiguration, Mirozh Monastery, Pskov 231 St. Sophia in Novgorod, mid-eleventh century 231 Solomon in a fresco, 1108, on the dome of the Cathedral of St. Sophia, Novgorod 232 Church of the Dormition on Volotovo Field in Novgorod, 1353 237 Church of the Dormition on Volotovo Field in Novgorod, 1353 238 Angel, late fourteenth-century fresco, Church of the Dormition on Volotovo Field in Novgorod 238 Church of the Dormition on Volotovo Field. General view of the wall-paintings, 1390s 239 Magi on horseback from a fresco of the Nativity, 1390s, Church of the Dormition on Volotovo Field 240 Monuments of Medieval Russian Art (Pamiatniki drevne-russkogo iskusstva / Monuments de l’art ancien russe), Imperial Academy of Arts, St. Petersburg, 1912 244 N. V. Pokrovskii, Siisk Icon-Painting Manual (Siiskii ikonopisnyi podlinnik), issues I–IV, St. Petersburg, edition of the Society of Lovers of Ancient Literature, 1895–97 247 Ivan Egorovich Zabelin (1820–1908) 255 Viacheslav Nikolaevich Shchepkin (1863–1920) 256

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7.3

Avgust Kazimirovich Zhiznevskii (1819–96), founder of Tver Museum 258 Rostov Kremlin, seventeenth century 262 Andrei Aleksandrovich Titov (1844–1911), one of the founders of the Rostov Museum of Church Antiquities 262 Building of the Synod Sacristy at the Moscow Kremlin 269 Savva (Ivan Mikhailovich Tikhomirov.), archbishop of Tver and Kashin, 1850-59, a Synod sacristan 270 Index for Survey of the Moscow Patriarchal (later Synodal) Sacristy and Library. Moscow, 1858 271 Nikolai Ivanovich Petrov (1840–1921), founder of the Church Archaeological Museum in Kiev, godfather of the writer M. A. Bulgakov 274 Andrei Nikolaevich Murav’ev (1806–74) 277 Bishop Porphyrius (Porfirii) (Konstantin Alekseevich Uspenskii, 1804–85), scholar, traveler to shrines of the Eastern Orthodox Church 279 Historical Museum in Moscow, 1875–81, Architect V. O. Shervud 297 Petr Ivanovich Shchukin (1853–1912) 299 Nikolai Mikhailovich Postnikov (ca. 1827–1900) 302 Battle of the Novogorodians and Suzdalians in an icon from the 1460s, Novgorod State Museum Preserve 304 Portrait of Nikolai Semenovich Leskov (1831–95), by Valentin Serov, 1894. Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow 312 Embroidery of Christ, angels, apostles, and saints, 1389. From the collection of P. I. Shchukin. State Historical Museum, Moscow 316 Shroud, 1444, Donated by Prince Dmitri Shemiaka to Yurev Monastery in Novgorod. Novgorod State Museum Preserve 316 Izmail Ivanovich Sreznevskii (1812–80) 322 Luke the Apostle in a miniature from Ostromir Gospel, 1056–57. Russian National Library. St. Petersburg 325 Fathers of the Church in a miniature from Sviatoslav’s Izbornik (Miscellany), 1073. State Historical Museum, Moscow 327 David composing psalms in a miniature from Khludov Psalter. State Historical Museum, Moscow 329 Nikodim Pavlovich Kondakov (1844–1925) 340 N. P. Kondakov and I. I. Tolstoy, Russian Antiquities in Works of Art, issue 6, Monuments of Vladimir, Novgorod and Pskov (Russkie drevnosti v pamiatnikakh iskusstva, vypusk 6, Pamiatniki Vladimira, Novgorods i Pskova), St. Petersburg, 1899 359

7.4 7.5 7.6 7.7 7.8 7.9 7.10 7.11 7.12 7.13 7.14 7.15 7.16 7.17 7.18 8.1 8.2 8.3 8.4 8.5 8.6

List Of Illustrations

8.7 8.8 8.9 8.10 8.11 8.12 8.13 8.14

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Vladimir Vasil’evich Stasov (1824–1906). Portrait by Ilya Repin, 1873. Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow 372 Page from the Kiev Psalter, 1397. Russian National Library, St. Petersburg 376 Aleksandr Petrovich Golubtsov (1860–1911), founder of the Church Archaeological Museum at the Moscow Theological Academy 384 Nikolai Vasil’evich Pokrovskii (1848–1917), professor of St. Petersburg Theological Academy, founder and director of the Archaeological Institute in St. Petersburg 387 N. V. Pokrovskii, The Gospel in Iconographic Sources, Primarily Byzantine and Russian (Evangelie v pamiatnikakh ikonografii preimushchestvenno vizantiiskikh i russkikh), St. Petersburg, 1892 398 N. V. Pokrovskii, Notes on Works of Pskov Church Antiquity (Zametki o pamiatnikakh pskovskoi tserkovnoi stariny), Moscow, 1914 400 Egor Kuz’mich Redin (1863–1908) 406 Dmitrii Vasil’evich Ainalov (1862–1939) 406

List of Abbreviations AIZ

Arkheologicheskie izvestiia i zametki (Archaeological Reports and Notes), Moscow ArkhEV Arkhangel’skie eparkhial’nye vedomosti (Archangel Eparchial Bulletin) AS Arkheologicheskii s’ezd (Archaeological Congress) BAN Biblioteka Akademii nauk (The Library of the Academy of Sciences), St. Petersburg BV Bogoslovskii vestnik (izdanie Moskovskoi dukhovnoi akademii) (The Theological Herald published by the Moscow Theological Academy), Sergiev Posad ChOIDR Chteniia v Obshchestve istorii i drevnostei rossiiskikh pri imp. Moskovskom universitete (Readings in the Society of Russian History and Antiquities at Moscow University) ChOLDP Chteniia v Obshchestve liubitelei dukhovnogo prosveshcheniia (Readings in the Society of Lovers of Theological Enlightenment), Moscow GAIMK Gosudarstvennaia akademiia istorii material’noi kul’tury (State Academy of the History of Material Culture), Leningrad GM Golos minuvshego (The Voice of Bygone Days), Moscow GPB Gosudarstvennaia Publichnaia biblioteka imeni M. E. SaltykovaShchedrina (M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin State Public Library), Leningrad IAK Izvestiia imp. Arkheologicheskoi komissii (The Reports of the Imperial Archaeological Committee), St. Petersburg-Petrograd IORIaS Izvestiia imp. Akademii nauk po Otdeleniiu russkogo iazyka i slovesnosti (The Reports of the Imperial Academy of Sciences, the Department of the Russian Language and Literature), St. Petersburg IV Istoricheskii vestnik (The Historical Herald), St. Petersburg KhCh Khristianskoe chtenie (izdanie S.-Peterburgskoi dukhovnoi akademii) (Christian Readings, edited by the St. Petersburg Theological Academy) KhD Khristianskie drevnosti, izdavaemye pod red. V. Prokhorova (Christian Antiquities, edited by V. Prokhorov), St. Petersburg KhDA Khristianskie drevnosti i arkheologiia, izdavaemye pod red. V. Prokhorova (Christian Antiquities and Archaeology edited by V. Prokhorov), St. Petersburg KhIFO Kharkovskoe istoriko-filologicheskoe obshchestvo (The Kharkov HistoricoPhilological Society) KievEV Kievskie eparkhial’nye vedomosti (The Kiev Eparchial Bulletin) KievUI [Kievskie] Universitetskie izvestiia (The Kiev University Reports)

List Of Abbreviations KS MAI MAO MoskTsV NovgIS OLDP ORIaS

PDP PDPI RA RAO RBS RD RiazUAK RS SA SevernV SG SK TKDA TODRL

TsGADA

xix

Kievskaia starina (The Kiev Past) Moskovskii arkheologicheskii institut (The Moscow Archaeological Institute) Moskovskoe arkheologicheskoe obshchestvo (The Moscow Archaeological Society) Moskovskie tserkovnye vedomosti (The Moscow Church Bulletin) Novgorodskii istoricheskii sbornik (The Novgorod Historical Collection), St. Petersburg and issues 5–8, Novgorod Obshchestvo liubitelei drevnei pis’mennosti (The Society of Lovers of Ancient Literature), St. Petersburg Otdelenie russkogo iazyka i slovesnosti imp. Akademii nauk (The Department of the Russian Language and Literature, the Imperial Academy of Sciences), St. Petersburg Pamiatniki drevnei pis’mennosti (Monuments of Ancient Literature), St. Petersburg Pamiatniki drevnei pis’mennosti i iskusstva (Monuments of Ancient Literature and Art), St. Petersburg Russkii arkhiv (The Russian Archives), Moscow Russkoe arkheologicheskoe obshchestvo (The Russian Archaeological Society), St. Petersburg Russkii biograficheskii slovar’ (The Russian Biographical Dictionary), St. Petersburg Russkie drevnosti, izdavaemye pod red. V. Prokhorova (Russian Antiquities edited by V. Prokhorov), St. Petersburg Riazanskaia uchenaia arkhivnaia komissiia (The Riazan’ Scientific Archival Committee) Russkaia starina (The Russian Past), St. Petersburg Sovetskaia arkheologiia (Soviet Archaeology), Moscow Severnyi vestnik (The Northern Herald), St. Petersburg Starye Gody (The Bygone Years), St. Petersburg Seminarium Kondakovianum, Prague Trudy Kievskoi dukhovnoi akademii (Transactions of the Kiev Theological Academy) Trudy Otdela drevnerusskoi literatury Instituta russkoi literatury [Pushkinskii Dom] Akademii nauk SSSR (Transactions of the Department of Ancient Russian Literature at the Institute of Russian Literature [Pushkin House] of the Russian Academy of Sciences), St. Petersburg Tsentral’nyi gosudarstvennyi arkhiv drevnikh aktov (The Central State Archives of Ancient Acts), Moscow

xx TsV TverskSt VAI

VDI VE VestnII VladGV VlUAK VolynskEV VV ZhMNP ZhMP ZOOID ZORSA

ZRAO

list of abbreviations Tserkovnyi vestnik (izdanie S.-Peterburgskoi dukhovnoi akademii) (The Church Herald, edited by the St. Petersburg Theological Academy) Tverskaia starina (The Tverian Past) Vestnik arkheologii i istorii, izdavaemyi imp. S.-Peterburgskim arkheologicheskim institutom (The Herald of Archaeology and History published by the Imperial Archaeological Institute), St. Petersburg Vestnik drevnei istorii (The Herald of Ancient History) Vestnik Evropy (The Herald of Europe), St. Petersburg Vestnik iziashchnykh iskusstv (The Herald of Fine Arts), St. Petersburg Vladimirskie gubernskie vedomosti (The Vladimir Province Bulletin) Vladimirskaia uchenaia arkhivnaia komissiia (The Vladimir Scientific Archival Committee) Volynskie eparkhial’nye vedomosti (The Volynsk Eparchial Bulletin), Kremenets-Podol’skii Vizantiiskii vremennik (The Byzantine Chronicles), St. Petersburg and Moscow Zhurnal Ministerstva narodnogo prosveshcheniia (The Journal of the Ministry of Public Education), St. Petersburg Zhurnal Moskovskoi patriarkhii (The Journal of Moscow Patriarchate) Zapiski Odesskogo obshchestva istorii i drevnostei (The Proceedings of the Odessa Society of History and Antiquities) Zapiski Otdeleniia russkoi i slavianskoi arkheologii imp. Russkogo arkheologicheskogo obshchestva (The Proceedings of the Department of Russian and Slavonic Archaeology af the Imperial Archaeological Society), St. Petersburg Zapiski imp. Russkogo arkheologicheskogo obshchestva (The Proceedings of the Imperial Archaeological Society), St. Petersburg

CHAPTER 1

General Information on Russian Icons and Frescoes The religious nature of medieval Russian painting. Untoward conditions of icon preservation. The destruction of surface texture and the darkening of the icon’s protective coat. Restoration techniques. Murals and the causes of their poor condition. Seventeenth century “conservation” in the Moscow Kremlin. On the rare deliberate alterations of painting in Rus’. The eighteenth-century attitude toward works of antiquity. “Conservations” in the reign of Catherine II. Medieval Russian painting and Mikhail Lomonosov. Jacob von Stählin’s materials and their significance for the history of Russian art. Russian medieval painting was religious. Icons, frescoes, embroidered portrait hangings, and illuminated manuscripts were all objects of church ritual. Today we regard icons displayed in museums and frescoes seen in churches as works of art, but the medieval Russian treated them primarily as images created for the purpose of prayer and devotion. This is not to say, however, that he had no sense of beauty. Contemporaries of the author of the twelfth-century Lay of Igor’s Host or of the archpriest Avvakum (1620–82) were fully conversant with art and could certainly distinguish a good painting from a bad one. It was the images of saints that were valued most for the artistry of their execution and their intrinsic excellence. The few rapturous descriptions of medieval painting we find in written sources (codices, vitae, homilies, deeds, and treatises of church councils) are first and foremost conditioned by the fact that such icons and frescoes were held to be authentic depictions of the beauties of a celestial world that sharply differed from man’s realm on earth. The religious character of medieval Russian art determined its historical development. Church buildings served as the main repositories for works of medieval Russian painting, yet neither masonry nor wood churches had heating. The extremes of temperature of the Russian climate had a deleterious effect on the condition of icons. Executed on wood, the icon panels swelled in the wet weather of spring and autumn, and shrank during the hot dry days of summer. The infinitesimal but constant movement of the icon ground caused warping and craquelure, and slowly but surely corroded these painted works. Icons also deteriorated because of the darkening of their protective coats of oil. Master icon-painters used to cover the paint layer with drying oil, a specially prepared linseed oil that preserved colors from the harmful effect of dampness and gave

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them a brighter and richer look. In the course of time, however, the drying oil would turn yellow and darken, the darkening being aggravated by an accumulation of layers of dust and soot on the oily surface of the protective coat. This inevitable obscuring (zatiagivanie) of the surface texture tended to make the original image indistinguishable. The deterioration of the original painting on icons naturally led later artists to seek ways of restoring the icons’ original appearance. As the changes varied, so did the techniques of restoration. From time to time, damage was repaired.1 A sixteenth-century artist repairing an icon of the thirteenth or fourteenth century cared least of all about matching his painting with the style of the original brushwork; he made his repairs (chinki) fit the fragments of an old icon only in drawing and not in texture and color. Some icons were repaired so many times that, when cleaned, they look like a mosaic of painterly fragments of different periods and styles. Very often, however, these doctored areas stood out so much against the old brushwork that in order to soften the harsh and unpleasant impression the renovator had to overpaint with new colors the adjacent well-preserved areas or even the entire icon. In a century or two, this new paint layer would in turn undergo another renovation, this time by a third artist, so that the original surface texture would eventually be totally hidden behind a series of retouchings and repairs. If the ground and paint layer of an old icon were in a good state of preservation but the protective coat of drying oil had darkened considerably, there were two ways of restoring the painting: removing the darkened upper layers or painting the entire composition anew. Drying oil that was only slightly darkened was removed with warm water and soap, while the old hardened oil would be taken off, depending on its density, by a number of other means, including caustic lye (schelok educhii) which, when used too heavily, would damage the texture of the original. An inexperienced restorer could also damage the surface if he used a knife to remove a film of softened drying oil.2 Since it was not possible to clean the painting completely by using the abovementioned techniques, the icon restorer would, on removing the old drying oil, paint the image with new col1  The regulations of the Church Council, convoked in 1551 in Moscow, contain, in particular, the following clause: “Also the archpriests and senior prelates … each in their own town, [ought to] inspect the holy icons in all the churches … and which icons are old, [they] will have these old icons mended and which icons are poorly coated with the drying oil, [they] will have these icons oiled….” See Stoglav (St. Petersburg, 1863), p. 95 (chapter 27). 2  See “Materialy dlia istorii russkogo ikonopisaniia. Publikatsiia N. V. Pokrovskogo,” in VAI, XVI (1904), pp. 115–18 (regarding icon repairs carried out in compliance with the 17th-century icon-painting manual).

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ors. An interesting incident is indicative of the dilemmas faced by restorers. The Dormition Monastery in the town of Tikhvin possessed an ancient icon of the Virgin whose image had darkened so badly by the early seventeenth century that it was completely obscured. In 1636, the monastery’s father-superior, Gerasim (Gerizim) appealed to Tsar Mikhail Fedorovich for permission to restore the icon, in order “to clear up the darkened image by taking off the drying oil … and at the same time to restore the icon’s brushwork which was damaged in places” (… posredstvom sniatia olify poiasnit’ temnovaty vid … i s tem vmeste vozobnovit’ mestami povrezhdennoe ikonopisanie). Permission was granted and Gerasim set to work. When the restorers removed the drying oil and started retouching the surface texture the Virgin’s image suddenly disappeared, which discouraged Gerasim from further attempts at restoration of the ancient painting. Instead, the artist confined himself to coating the icon with fresh drying oil.3 This incident is of interest, as it unambiguously links the miraculous disappearance of the icon’s image with the actions of the artist who wished to retouch the icon’s original paint texture. The legend implies the inviolability of the image and the consequences of infringing on its sacrosanct nature. It was partly because of this apprehension, and also because the removal of the drying oil required much skill and dexterity, that the artists who were commissioned to restore old icons preferred to repaint them, using the icons’ old outlines and basic color juxtapositions (provided that the original colors could still be seen on an icon’s surface). Although the new brushwork was obviously at variance with the original painting both with respect to color and style, the original image remained undamaged and could later be uncovered by an experienced master conservator. The Dormition Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin has an icon of the Trinity that was probably created by the greatest fourteenthcentury artist, Andrei Rublev. In 1700, it was completely repainted by the tsar’s icon painter Tikhon Filat’ev. Because the original surface texture was well-preserved, Filat’ev decided not to remove the darkened drying oil but painted the same composition anew, using the faint silhouettes of the three angels in the old icon as a kind of preliminary drawing for his own work on that theme. In the nineteenth century Filat’ev’s paintwork was partially removed, revealing a remarkable fourteenth-century head of an angel. Numerous observations made in the course of cleanings in various restoration workshops have shown that icon repairs were conducted almost from the very first centuries of the existence of church painting in Rus’. One should particularly single out the thirteenth-century repairs of the Virgin of Vladimir,

3  O chudotvorno-iavlennoi Tikhvinskoi ikone Bozhiei Materii o zamechatel’nykh s neia spiskakh…. (St. Petersburg, 1864), pp. 143–44.

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and the fourteenth-century repairs of the full-length icon of St. George from Novgorod’s Yuriev (St. George) Monastery (now in the Tretyakov Gallery) and the Virgin Eleusa (Umilenie) from the same monastery (now in the Museum of the Moscow Kremlin). But the main repairs and renovations were carried out in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The sixteenth-century ones reveal a penchant for renovating wonder-working icons, which was undoubtedly part of a state policy aimed at preserving the shrines of Russia. Metropolitan Varlaam personally took part in the renovation of ancient icons from Vladimir (1514, 1518) and Rzhev (1531),4 and Metropolitan Makarii (Macarius) did the same in Novgorod (1548) and Vyatka (1554).5 In the dry mountainous regions of Asia Minor and the Balkan Peninsula it was customary to erect masonry churches and decorate them with murals. In the north of Russia, however, the abundance of forests prompted people to build wooden churches and to adorn them for the most part with icons rather than frescoes. If a church was built of stone and then decorated with wall paintings, the severe winters, dank springs, hot summers, and long wet autumns mercilessly damaged both the stucco ground and the paintings. In addition, the techniques of building in brick and in local varieties of rather soft stone lagged behind those used by Greek, Bulgarian, and Serbian architects, and Russian masonry churches quickly became dilapidated: their foundations sank, walls cracked, and vaults fell down, all bringing about the destruction of their fresco decorations. Where buildings and wall paintings did survive, however, the condition of the paintings left much to be desired, even in antiqu­ ity. Crumbling pieces of plaster revealed the masonry or brickwork of walls, at first spoiling individual scenes and eventually the entire wall painting. The damaged areas were later re-stuccoed and often painted anew, and it was difficult to keep a large ensemble of murals in order. Eventually, even prelates respectful of the ancient works ordered frescoes whitewashed, overpainted, or even rubbed off. As a result, church interiors looked less festive, but worshipers were no longer annoyed by the unpleasant sight of the spoiled or repeatedly patched surfaces. The first appreciable restoration works in Russia were carried out in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries on the icons and wall paintings in the churches of the Moscow Kremlin. Work done here in the seventeenth century is of particular interest. The Time of Troubles, its tumult and wars, left in its wake innumerable scars of ravage and desolation in this great sacred place. 4  P SRL, vol. 13, first half (St. Petersburg, 1904), pp. 17–18, 29–30, and 58. 5  N. E. Andreev, “Mitropolit Makarii kak deiatel’ religioznogo iskusstva,” in SK, VII (1935), pp. 233, 236.

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The Poles occupied the Kremlin and brought its churches into the wretched condition in which the French would leave them exactly two centuries later. It was a matter of state that this vandalism be repaired. In 1643, the Cathedral of the Dormition was fully redecorated and in 1666 the renovation of frescoes was completed in the Archangel Cathedral. In 1697, the Cathedral of the Annunciation was restored. Major and minor repairs of the painted areas in various parts of these buildings were carried out later as well. In the Cathedral of the Dormition the badly damaged sixteenth-century frescoes, after being copied, were chipped off and replaced with the same compositions executed in seventeenth-century style on a new plaster ground.6 A similar method was used in the Archangel Cathedral.7 Since it was the sacred image rather than the quality of its execution that was valued most in this period, unskilled handling of such work was tolerated, provided the painting was in good condition. The primitive murals found in the cave temples of Cappadocia, and the rather crude icons of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries from the north of Russia (painted in the northern manner), provide clear evidence of this. It was always considered necessary to restore old paintings to good condition. Only rarely were retouchings undertaken for aesthetic reasons, that is, as a consequence of slipshod work or changes of taste and style. These were the exception rather than the rule. One instance of a renovation of this kind is the decorative treatment of the sanctuary recess in the Church of the Dormition on Volotovo Field near Novgorod. Soon after the erection of the church (1352) the wall behind the chancel (zaaltarnaia stena) was decorated with a fresco on the subject of the Service of the Saintly Fathers. Dating from 1352 or 1363, it is the work of an icon painter who executed a large-scale mural in the fresco technique in the purely iconic manner then favored by the best workshops of Novgorod.8 Several decades later later, around 1390, it was decided to decorate the church’s interior in full and, judging by the style of the secondary surface texture, this work was commissioned from a visiting Greek master whose sketchy impressionistic manner had nothing in common with the fresco painted by the Novgorodian artist. When undertaking the overall redecoration of the church, the Greek artist 6  A. I. Uspenskii, Istoriia stenopisi Uspenskogo sobora v Moskve (Moscow, 1902), pp. 5, 8, 10; idem, Tsarskie ikonopistsy i zhivopistsy XVII veka [vol. 1] (Moscow, 1913) (=Zapiski MAI, vol. 1), pp. 5–10. 7  A. I. Uspenskii, Tsarskie ikonopistsy i zhivopistsy XVII veka [vol. 1], pp. 28–32. 8  G. I. Vzdornov, “O pervonachal’noi rospisi Volotovskoi tserkvi,” in Vizantiia, Iuzhnye slaviane i Drevniaia Rus’. Zapadnaia Evropa. Iskusstvo i kul’tura. Sbornik statei v chest’ V. N. Lazareva (Moscow, 1973), pp. 281–95.

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could have retained the fresco of his predecessor since it was well preserved and the subject corresponded to the one he was going to paint. He thought it more expedient, however, to paint the same composition anew, probably hoping to impart a more coherent look to the decorative treatment of the church. He also made large notches on the surface of the earlier fresco for better adhesion of the new plaster, thereby destroying the excellent figures of angels and church hierarchs. Had it not been for the purely accidental uncovering, in 1855, of a fragment of the original fresco, which led to the cleaning of the entire mid-fourteenth century composition, we would never have learned that the sanctuary recess of the Church of the Dormition on Volotovo Field had two layers of wall painting rather than one. The practice of restoration shows that despite the frequent discoveries of overpaintings dating from the seventeenth century, the early eighteenth century, and occasionally from earlier periods, it was only from the eighteenth century onward that the renovation of icons and frescoes became routine. The very mention of the eighteenth century calls to mind Peter the Great and his reforms, which had a profound impact on the entire subsequent history of Russia. In the comparatively short period of a few decades a new culture closely linked in its external forms with the cultures of Poland, Holland, England, and France, arose in Russia. A critical, if not hostile, attitude to the past began to prevail. The turning to the artistic experience of Western Europe, which began in the Petrine age, drastically changed Russian artistic taste and the style of Russian art in general. Needless to say, the church retained its former influence, especially among the vast masses of the peasantry. But the abolition of the patriarchal see and the establishment of the Holy Synod in its place, the establishment in the Synod of the powerful position of Chief Procurator, personally appointed by the emperor, and the placement of church administration under the authority of the government could not but affect the official aspect of church culture. Changes in the tastes at the top of the hierarchy rippled through the entire church system, eventually reaching the level of parish priests, church patrons (ktitors), and the wardens who looked after the churches. In much the same way that new forms of church architecture developed, starting with basilicas erected in St. Petersburg during Peter’s lifetime and ending with classical edifices throughout the empire in the reigns of Catherine II, Paul, and Alexander I, so church painting evolved, breaking with the age-old traditions of conventional art and its canons of severe grandeur and spirituality, reversed perspective, flatness of mass, and “unnaturalness” of drawing and color. No matter how much the popular masses tried to resist the Petrine reforms, both openly and covertly, or how indignant they were at the breaches of piety

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and age-old traditions, the natural course of history did its work and the new attitude toward church art took final shape under Catherine II. Richly gilded iconostases, in which carving and figural representations obscured the painting proper, came into fashion. The lower-tier icons were covered with heavy metal mounts. If the saints’ faces and hands, visible through the openings in the icon frames, appeared too dark, the artist would repaint them, using flesh tints with bright rouge for the faces and black for the hair. If an icon was frameless when renovated its background would be overpainted with opulent foliage and flowers while the velvet, brocade, and ornaments in the saints’ draperies would be reproduced in the spirit of the eighteenth century. The renovation of the old after the current fashion was exaggerated to the point of absurdity so that a worshiper looking intently at an icon was often led astray by discovering, for example, that St. Mary of Egypt, who “wandered in the desert, mortifying her flesh and having no rag to cover her nakedness,” was represented as a blooming and smartly clad woman posing against a background of lush nature. Although respect for antiquities was sometimes expressed in words, no one really cared about preserving ancient works of art in their authentic state. The break with the past appeared irrevocable: neither the tastes nor the painterly techniques of restorers came close to those of the comparatively recent seventeenth century. The “conservation” carried out in the Moscow Kremlin between 1770 and 1773 may serve as an example. Catherine II, who considered herself a great connoisseur of things historical, attended personally to the project of the “restoration” of frescoes in the Kremlin’s cathedrals. When the issue of the darkened frescoes of the Dormition Cathedral was raised, she enjoined in a letter to Archbishop Amvrosii (Ambrosius) of Moscow that they be restored using tempera paints, and that “all the brushwork be done in the same manner as in olden days and be indistinguishable therefrom” (vse to zhivopistvo napisano bylo takim iskusstvom, kak i drevnee, bez otlichiia).9 In fact, it was in oil rather than tempera that the Dormition’s frescoes were repainted, as established during conservation performed in the Soviet period.10 It was also in oil that the frescoes were periodically renovated within the hundred years 9   A. G. Levshin, Istoricheskoe opisanie … moskovskogo bol’shogo Uspenskogo sobora i o vozobnovlenii pervykh trekh moskovskikh soborov: Uspenskogo, Blagoveshchenskogo i Arkhangel’skogo…. (Moscow, 1783), p. 5 (the second pagination count); see also A. Nikol’skii, “Restavratsiia ikon i nastennoi ikonopisi v moskovskikh soborakh: Bol’shom Uspenskom, Arkhangel’skom i Blagoveshchenskom v 1770–1773 godakh,” in VAI, XXII (1914), pp. 97–106. 10  O. V. Zonova, “Stenopis’ Uspenskogo sobora Moskovskogo Kremlia,” in Drevnerusskoe iskusstvo. XVII vek (Moscow, 1964), p. 111, note 8.

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that followed Catherine’s reign, the procedure being repeated with particular thoroughness and haste on the eves of coronations of Russian tsars, which traditionally took place in the Dormition Cathedral. It often happened that the restoration of frescoes led to that of icons, while the refurbishing of the iconostasis usually ended in a renovation of frescoes. The eighteenth-century public could not tolerate a variety of styles in their surroundings and strove to rearrange everything in the spirit of the times. Since the repainting of old icons was only a makeshift measure, new iconostases were usually installed in rich cathedrals and churches to replace the old ones. The ancient panels were either taken away to church sheds, where they soon moldered away, or handed over to less important churches. The following incident is fairly well known. Returning from her trip to Kazan in 1767, Catherine II visited Vladimir, the ancient metropolitan city of northeastern Rus’. During the liturgy the authorities of Vladimir Cathedral were much abashed by the contrast between the empress and her glittering retinue and the lowering darkened ancient icons and wall paintings. Catherine also noticed the decrepitude and “poverty” of the famous church and ordered the issue of 14,000 rubles for its restoration, pointing out specifically that the “old aspect of this building [should] be preserved and maintained in the best way possible.” It was decided in Vladimir that the maintenance of the old aspect of the cathedral should start with the iconostasis executed in the early fifteenth century by Andrei Rublev and Daniil Chernyi. It was dismantled and sold, and a new icon stand, carved and gilded in the Baroque style and furnished with icons by a local selftaught amateur painter, M. Strokin, was installed in its place. Next in turn were the frescoes, which were partly chipped off, partly whitewashed, and repainted in oil.11 In this condition the Dormition Cathedral of Vladimir remained for more than a century, and the iconostasis with its ridiculous painting survives even today. Eighteenth-century men took a keen interest in Russian history but cared surprisingly little about the literature and art of Rus’. It was through the research, studies, and publications of source materials by V. N. Tatishchev, M. V. Lomonosov, G. F. Miller, M. M. Shcherbatov, I. N. Boltin, and N. I. Novikov that the foundations of Russian historiography were laid. Their interest in the past was rooted in a characteristically eighteenth-century drive to generalize historical experience for the elucidation of the present and for didactic purposes, as clearly illustrated by the works of Shcherbatov and Boltin. As far as the “arts and sciences” were concerned, it was held that they did not develop until Peter 11  A. Vinogradov, Istoriia kafedral’nogo Uspenskogo sobora v gub. gor. Vladimire (1891), pp. 73, 74–75, 77.

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I’s reign. Of all the eighteenth-century Russian writers, only Lomonosov realized that this was not the case. Although he was mainly preoccupied with scientific and technical investigations, his all-embracing genius also touched as specific field as medieval Russian painting. He was equally interested in mosaics, frescoes, and icons. But he focused his interest on very specific areas. When turning to mosaics, for instance, he wished to discover the secrets of smalt production in order to revive that art in Russia,12 whereas his 1760 report on the necessity of sending an expedition to ancient towns for the study of icons and frescoes was aimed at collecting materials “for … the iconology of sovereigns that reigned in Russia.”13 One may say that for Lomonosov investigation of medieval art was a means for technical discovery or historical illustration, rather than being important in its own right. Lomonosov was not the only eighteenth-century scholar who evinced interest in Russian antiquities. Another remarkable personality of the day was the German historian Jacob von Stählin (1709–85). Like many other foreigners, von Stählin was invited to work permanently in Russia while still a young man. At various times—from 1735 to 1785—he worked in the Academy of Sciences and the Academy of Arts, where he was in charge of the engraving department and where he supervised the design and manufacture of the medals that circulated in such abundance in eighteenth-century Russia. This visiting foreigner was destined to spend the rest of his life in Russia, which became his second motherland. Very few educated Russians could boast the same genuinely patriotic fervor that von Stählin showed in his various pursuits in Russia. His active involvement in the artistic life of St. Petersburg and his regular, even daily, contacts with outstanding Russian and foreign artists, architects, sculptors, and engravers prompted him, among other things, to write a history of Russian art.14 Although nothing came of this project, the numerous notes and materials that survive today corroborate von Stählin’s intention to create a work that would appraise Russia’s achievements. Accumulating the necessary data on contemporary art, von Stählin was led to delve into the very origins of Russian art. He, at any rate, was well aware of the fact that it was not from nothing that the liberal arts evolved in Russia. 12  V. K. Makarov, Khudozhestvennoe nasledie M. V. Lomonosova. Mozaiki (Moscow-Leningrad, 1950); idem, “Kievskaia ‘musiia’ v khudozhestvennom tvorchestve M. V. Lomonosova,” in Russkaia literatura XVIII veka i slavianskie literatury (Moscow-Leningrad, 1963), pp. 102–104. 13  G. N. Moiseeva, Lomonosov i drevnerusskaia literatura (Leningrad, 1971), p. 77. 14  K. V. Malinovskii, “Rabota Iakoba Shtelina nad pervoi istoriei iskusstva v Rossii,” in Sovetskoe iskusstvoznanie ‘81, issue 1 (Moscow, 1982), pp. 242–44.

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But as his own knowledge of medieval Russian painting was particularly inadequate, he consulted Lomonosov and Miller who studied history in a more systematic way and who, he thought, were able to direct him in these matters. This was undoubtedly the case since, in his notes on works of ancient Russian art, von Stählin refers mostly to the illuminated Book of Titles (Titularnik) of 1674, which he saw in Lomonosov’s house; the frescoed representations of grand princes and tsars in the Archangel Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin; the richly illuminated Coronation Regulations of Tsar Mikhail Fedorovich (Chin Venchania na Tsarstvo); and the Radziwill Chronicle. Thus, it may be concluded that von Stählin did not yet realize the artistic value of ancient Russian painting and that the task of its discovery and study was premature.

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First Steps in the Discovery of Medieval Russian Painting Russian antiquities discovered in the late eighteenth century. Historicoarchaeological expedition of K. M. Borozdin (1809–10). From monuments of written language to those of painting N. M. Karamzin’s comments on the manuscript illuminations and mosaics of the Kievan St. Sophia. The fate of the frescoes of the St. George Church in Staraya Ladoga. P. I. Keppen and his List of Russian Monuments for the Compilation of the History of Arts and National Palaeography (1822).—Prerequisites for the growth of public interest in Russia’s history: the upsurge of popular-patriotic sentiment during the war against Napoleon; the aesthetic of romanticism in literature and art; the internal policy of Nicholas I. Any significant phenomenon of national culture, however novel it may appear at first sight, is deeply rooted in history. The discovery of Russian medieval painting is no exception. Its recognition began with the general study of Russian antiquities, many of which came to be known as early as the second half of the eighteenth century. The Tmutarakan’ Stone, the Laurentian Text of the Primary Chronicle, the Ostromir Gospel, and the Lay of Igor’s Host were all discovered a hundred odd years earlier than the icons of the eleventh to the fourteenth centuries. Though indirectly related to art, these works influenced the awakening of interest in the artistic culture of Rus’. The disputes about the authenticity of the Tmutarakan’ Stone made people aware of the centuries-old origins of their culture. The poetic graces of the Lay also aroused interest in earlier ages. The publication of the Lay in 1800 was a remarkable event: it was not merely the text of the Chronicle, a princely charter, a tsar’s edict, a church liturgy, or a trite laudation of a saint—it was an artistic piece of literature. The literary talent of the Lay’s creator, his vivid metaphors, fine sense of color, and his imaginative treatment of his subject placed old Russian culture in a new light that had nothing in common with the outlook of eighteenth-century Russian literati. The work’s lyrical and epic narrative and its complex vocabulary, used not so much for description as for the shaping of image and mood, were particularly striking. In 1809–10, despite lukewarm public interest in Russia’s antiquities, the government launched an historico-archaeological expedition to sketch and describe relics of the past in various towns and monasteries of Russia. The © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���8 | doi ��.��63/9789004305274_003

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team was made up of the palaeographer A. I. Yermolaev and the artist D. I. Ivanov and was headed by the historian and palaeographer K. M. Borozdin. Yermolaev and Ivanov were on friendly terms with A. N. Olenin, President of the Academy of Arts and Director of St. Petersburg’s Public Library, who was particularly interested in relics of the history of Russian art.1 It was presumably to Olenin that the initiative of sending this team belonged. The expedition visited Staraya Ladoga, Tikhvin, Ustiuzhin, Chernovets, Belozersk, Vologda as well as Kiev, Chernigov, Kursk, Borovsk, and Tula. It was in Kiev that they made sketches of the eleventh-century mosaics in the St. Sophia and in the cathedral of the St. Michael Monastery, while in Staraya Ladoga they copied the twelfthcentury frescoes in the Church of St. George. Four large-format portfolios of drawings, drafts, and commentaries later entered the Public Library, providing invaluable source material for those who wished to familiarize themselves with artifacts and art objects of Rus’.2 The late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries saw the emergence of a few private collections of ancient manuscripts. Within a short period of time Counts A. I. Musin-Pushkin and F. A. Tolstoi in Moscow and State Chancellor Count N. P. Rumiantsev in St. Petersburg amassed extensive collections. The passion for objets d’art was coming into vogue. Not only were such eccentric aristocrats as Count Tolstoi attracted to collecting rarities, but men of other classes—mining engineer P. K. Frolov; Moscow University professor F. G. Bause; the merchant A. I. Lobkov; and the so-called raznochintsy intellectuals, K. F. Kalaidovich and P. M. Stroev—were also interested. Their libraries held thousands of precious manuscripts which were a rich source of diverse information about Russia. Although primarily interested in history and in the search for and publication of works of historical value, the collectors also acquired manuscripts of purely ecclesiastical content. Throughout the eighteenth century, when the handwritten book was being actively ousted from use by its handier printed counterpart, there was a considerable influx of theological manuscripts into private collections from church and monasterial book 1  See S. N. Kondakov Imp. Sanktpeterburgskaia Akademiia khudozhestv. 1764–1914, part II. Spisok russkikh khudozhnikov k iubileinomu spravochniku (St. Petersburg 1915), p. 67 (about A. I. Ermolaev) and p. 79 (about D. I. Ivanov); Slavianovedenie v dorevoliutsionnoi Rossii. Bibliograficheskii slovar’ (Moscow, 1979), pp. 156–57 (A. S. Myl’nikov’s article about A. I. Ermolaev with an index of literature); A. S. Myl’nikov, “A. I. Ermolaev—issledovatel’ rukopisnoi knigi (opyt knigovedcheskoi kharakteristiki),” in Kniga, XLII (Moscow, 1981), pp. 74–93. 2  D. V. Polenov, “Opisanie Borozdinskogo sobraniia risunkov k ego arkheologicheskomu puteshestviiu po Rossii, s gg. Ermolaevym i Ivanovym, v 1809–1810 godakh,” in Trudy IAC v Moskve, 1869, vol. I (Moscow, 1871), supplements, pp. 62–71.

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repositories. These church books were usually adorned with miniatures which, unlike icons, were not coated with drying oil nor darkened with age and were but rarely repainted. Their colors retained the freshness and purity of their time of origin. By studying illuminated codices, amateurs and scholars gradually familiarized themselves with authentic specimens of medieval Russian painting. It is curious, however, that some perspicacious scholars of the day had a condescending attitude toward miniature painting. Having seen “some such illuminated sheets” in the collections of Bause and Musin-Pushkin, which were damaged in the Moscow fire of 1812, Nikolai Karamzin noted that medieval painters used expertly bound pigments, yet showed little workmanship in drawing.3 He made a similar pronouncement on another authentic piece of medieval art, the mosaics of the St. Sophia in Kiev: “the workmanship which is more laborous than elegant.”4 Although what we have here is the personal opinion of Karamzin, it would be a mistake to think that his perception of medieval Russian painting differed much from that of his contemporaries. In fact, this comment comes from a man of society whose artistic tastes formed in the Enlightenment when the monuments of classical Greek and Roman art were recognized as true models of impeccable taste. A work of art, whether ancient or modern, was seen against the Greek or Roman ideal so that any deviation from the noble beauty and natural proportion inherent in works of classical antiquity was condemned. Men of the early nineteenth century still had to learn to appraise medieval art forms on their own terms. The early nineteenth century was the period immediately preceding the real discovery of medieval Russian art, and its artistic perceptions appear rather hazy. The lack of interest in medieval painting obscured finds of paramount importance. The regular cleaning of icons and frescoes started only in the midnineteenth century, and the restoration of works of art began to be viewed as a scholarly endeavor only in the early twentieth century. Nevertheless, some specimens of monumental and easel painting had already been uncovered before the turn of the nineteenth century; it was this accumulation of information about medieval Russian art that gradually paved the way for a scholarly approach. Unfortunately, all of the early discoveries were made by pure chance and became known only to a few. Moreover, the uncovered frescoes and icons were often coated with a new plaster and gesso ground (levkas), and new paintwork executed on the newly laid priming. 3  N. M. Karamzin, Istoriia Gosudarstva Rossiiskogo, vol. III (St. Petersburg, 1816), p. 211 and note 258 on p. 534. 4  Ibid., vol. II (St. Petersburg, 1816), p. 39.

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Among the most remarkable monuments of medieval Russian painting discovered in the late eighteenth century were the twelfth-century murals in the St. George Church at Staraya Ladoga. The frescoes, long hidden under plaster, were found around 1780 by Metropolitan Gavriil of Novgorod.5 The historian and traveler Z. Ya. Dolenga-Khodakovskii (Adam Charnotskii), who visited Staraya Ladoga in 1820, specially mentioned the frescoes he saw there in his notes: “In the church of St. George, which is in the manor-house, is the medieval painting executed in a rather ancient Greek style; it was stuccoed up by some ignoramus but has recently been uncovered and cleaned. Each saint represented there looks majestic, holding a scroll done in the Russian lettering of the day.”6 One might think that the uncovering of a few fragments of painting would lead to the overall cleaning of the series. Nothing of the kind happened. The lack of understanding of the historical and aesthetic value of medieval painting, especially among the parochial and provincial clergy, far exceeded even the slight interest evinced at the time by certain enlightened individuals such as Z. Ya. Khodakovskii or his host in Staraya Ladoga, the local landowner A. R. Tomilov, a hero of the war against Napoleon and “lover of national memorabilia”, who was in Khodakovskii’s words, “resolved to hire a good artist for making true copies [of the Ladoga frescoes].”7 In 1849, when the Church of St. George was being refurbished to give it a “godly look,” many of its frescoes were knocked off the walls, its walls plastered anew, and the remaining fragments whitewashed.8 The work of uncovering and describing relics of medieval Russian painting, carried out in the first quarter of the nineteenth century, was summed up in Petr I. Keppen’s List of Russian Monuments for the Compilation of the History of Arts and National Palaeography, a reference book characteristic of the time (1822). This list enumerates outstanding manuscripts discovered by members of the Rumiantsev circle, of which Keppen was a member. However, as a scholar of broad outlook and inquisitive mind, Keppen did not confine his interests

5  Materialy dlia statistiki Rossiiskoi imperii, vol. 2 (St. Petersburg, 1841), section I, p. 63. 6  “Otryvok iz puteshestviia Khodakovskogo po Rossii. Ladoga, Novgorod,” in Russkii istoricheskii sbornik, vol. III, book 2 (Moscow, 1839), pp. 143–44. 7  Ibid. 8  [V. Prokhorov], “Stennaia zhivopis’ (freski) XII veka v tserkvi sv. Georgiia v Riurikovoi kreposti v Staroi Ladoge,” in KhDA, book 2 (1862), p. 10; N. E. Brandenburg, Staraia Ladoga (St. Petersburg, 1896), pp. 236–37; see also V. N. Lazarev, Freski Staroi Ladogi (Moscow, 1960), pp. 10–11; V. N. Lazarev, “Novye fragmenty rospisei iz Staroi Ladogi,” in Kul’tura i iskusstvo Drevnei Rusi. Sbornik statei v chest’ professora M. K. Kargera (Leningrad, 1967), p. 77.

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to manuscript and epigraphical material alone.9 In addition to numerous illuminated manuscripts, the List included information on works of monumental art and icons. Here we find mention of the frescoes of the Tithe (Desiatinnaia) Church and the mosaics of the Kievan St. Sophia, of wall painting in the Church of the Savior in Polotsk and the Volotovo Church in Novgorod, of frescoes in Staraya Ladoga and Vertiazin Gorodok. Judging by the author’s brief note about a fresco depicting St. Nicholas found in the crypt of the Gorodishche Church (“where I uncovered it from underneath the whitewash”),10 Keppen not only recorded the then known monuments but also tried to supplement the List with his own discoveries. It was somewhat later that scholars began to identify Russian medieval painting as the art of the country’s national past, which is inseparably linked with its present, and to work toward the systematic discovery and study of its monuments. This recognition came in the wake of external and internal events that affected Russian society and were responsible for a new attitude toward works of antiquity. One decisive factor was undoubtedly Napoleon’s 1812 invasion of Russia. The popular patriotic movement, the Battle of Borodino, Moscow’s surrender and liberation, the burning of Moscow, the Russian rout and pursuit of the French, and, finally, the triumphal march of Russian troops into Paris spurred the growth of national self-consciousness. All of these events occurred within the span of two years. Of particular impact on the Russians were the retreat of the Russian army from Moscow, the burning of the city, and the Kremlin’s ravage by the French. Many people compared these events to the historic struggle that ended the Time of Troubles in the early seventeenth century. They recalled to mind the names and exploits of Minin and Pozharskii. They perceived the rout of Napoleon’s army as another triumph of the Russian people, who succeeded in upholding the glory of their progenitors and in championing Russia’s greatness. This surge of patriotic feeling and national pride stirred up a broad interest in the country’s history and the relics of its past. The events of 1812 were still fresh and the Russian army, stationed in Paris, was only just beginning to return 9    See F. P. Keppen, Biografiia P. I. Keppena (St. Petersburg, 1911) (=Sbornik ORIaS, vol. LXXXIX, no. 5), pp. 1–170. 10  P. Keppen, Spisok russkim pamiatnikam, sluzhashchim k sostavleniiu istorii khudozhestv i otechestvennoi paleografii (Moscow, 1822), p. 37. For this particular fresco, see V. V. Filatov, “Fragment freski tserkvi Rozhdestva Bogoroditsy v sele Gorodnia,” in Drevnerusskoe iskusstvo. Khudozhestvennaia kul’tura Moskvy i prilezhashchikh k nei kniazhestv. XIX–XVI vv. (Moscow, 1970), pp. 359–64; G. V. Popov, A. V. Ryndina, Zhivopis’ i prikladnoe iskusstvo Tveri. XIV–XVI veka (Moscow, 1979), p. 107 (ill.) and pp. 108–109.

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to Russia when the first eight volumes of Nikolai Karamzin’s History came out in Moscow. Alexander Pushkin wrote, “The appearance of that book … made a great stir and created a strong impression. Three thousand copies were sold in a month (which even Karamzin did not foresee) and that is a unique occurrence in our land. Everybody, even women of fashion, rushed to read the history of their Fatherland about which they had known nothing. It was a new discovery for them … For a short while, it was the only thing talked about.”11 On reading the History, the future Decembrist Nikolai Turgenev wrote, “Some events pierce the heart like a stroke of lightning, showing a connection to the Russians of the past.”12 These were the impressions made by the book on the best minds of the day. From that time on, interest in the nation’s history and its relics became integral to Russian culture. A passion for antiquities and an interest in the life of the Russian people and their folklore, characteristic of Romanticism, also stimulated the study of the past. There seemed to be no creative endeavor that was immune to the germ of romantic animation.13 Even in architecture which, more than other arts, was related to man’s everyday existence, there was a similar penchant for the unusual. For a long time the “Gothic” buildings, erected by Yu. M. Felten, V. I. Bazhenov, M. F. Kazakov, the Neelovs (father and son), I. V. Yegotov, and A. N. Bakarev set the pace in developing the romantic element in art. Drawing on Russian architectural forms of the late seventeenth century and on impressions of medieval English and French architecture, this trend revealed the new mood in fanciful creations at Chesme and Tsaritsyn, in Peter the Great’s palace in Moscow, Golutvin Monastery in Kolomna, the Gostinyi Dvor (Trading Arcade) in Kaluga, St. Nicholas Cathedral in Mozhaisk, the Synodal Printing Office in Moscow, and in manor houses in the villages of Znamenka, Mikhalkov, Krasnoye, Bykovo, Grabtsevo, Ivanteevka, Tsarevo, Sukhanovo, and many others. The Pseudo-Gothic style evolved along with the classical style. Though imitative, it was a strikingly fresh and imaginative movement. The deliberate deviation from the classical canon and the combination of stylistic elements deriving from different periods and nations turned out to be vital and even productive. It is significant that the best specimens of Pseudo-Gothic style emerged in and near Moscow where old architectural monuments abounded and the demands of official taste were not as pervasive as in St. Petersburg. 11  A. S. Pushkin, Polnoe sobranie sochinenii v 10-ti tomakh, vol. VIII (Moscow, 1958), pp. 66–67 (an extract on N. M. Karamzin from Pushkin’s memoirs for 1826). 12   Arkhiv brat’ev Turgenevykh, 5. Dnevniki i pis’ma N. I. Turgeneva (Petrograd, 1921), p. 115. 13  For the issue in general, see; V. Turchin, Epokha romantizma v Rossii. K istorii russkogo iskusstva pervoi treti XIX stoletiia. Ocherki (Moscow, 1981).

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In this regard, the domain of literature was even less constrained. Having developed when the romantic trend in architecture was in decline, literary romanticism announced itself in full voice in Pushkin’s poem, Ruslan and Liudmila (1817–20), followed by his Prisoner of the Caucasus, the unfinished poem Vadim, Fountains of Bakhchisarai, and Gypsies. The geographic settings of these works—Kievan Rus’, the Caucasus, Novgorod, the Crimea, Bessarabia— reflected the aesthetic framework of romanticism that presupposed that the action of a literary work be transferred from everyday reality to some faraway, unknown, mysterious or even fairytale land. By unfolding his story in ancient times known to the public at large only through the semi-legendary accounts of historians, the poet or the novelist also freed himself of the need to be true to life, which facilitated his flights of fancy. The literary idiom and mode of expression were freely borrowed from the oral tradition of folklore: ballads, fairytales, proverbs, and sayings. An author’s disregard for historical verisimilitude and classical rhetoric provided ample opportunities to expose the hero’s inner world and his spiritual life and feelings. Russian literary romanticism was relatively short-lived, culminating in the 1820s. Reflecting the spiritual needs of the time, and especially the intrinsically Russian idiosyncrasy of self-observation in the mirror of history, the best men of letters soon turned to an historical genre. The last two volumes of Karamzin’s History, published in 1824, served as a thematic foundation for Pushkin’s tragedy, Boris Godunov (1824–26), in which he painted a vivid and moving picture of Russian spiritual life in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. His unfinished novel about Peter the Great, his works of poetry and prose devoted to the eighteenth century, all drew Pushkin and his readers closer to events of the recent past. The historical past and the modern age imperceptibly blended together, the modern age being of no less importance than “legends of the days of yore.” For a long time afterwards medieval Russian subjects, even those written by mediocre writers, attracted the public’s attention. A case in point is a novel entitled Yurii Miloslavskii, or the Russians in 1612, by M. N. Zagoskin (1829), which had great success. After this novel’s appearance, Pushkin aptly remarked that the “depiction of old ways, however weak and incorrect it may be, still has an ineffable charm for the mind dulled by the monotonous glitter of the present, the everyday.” There was yet another factor that provided the foundation for the discoveries of medieval artworks, a factor that might even be regarded as primary. This was the domestic policy of the government of Nicholas I and the attitude of the tsar himself. It was not without reason that Nicholas I became notorious as one of the most protectionist (okhranitel’neishii) Russian emperors of the nineteenth century. Extremely frightened by the Decembrist revolt,

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which coincided with his accession to the throne in 1825, and by the July 1830 revolution in France and the Polish insurgence in 1831, he strove to crush not only every manifestation of insubordination to authority but also any kind of “dreaming” about a constitution and democracy. From his childhood on, his only love was to watch “the soulless movement of masses of soldiers at the word of command.” His ideal in civil life was the unswerving loyalty and the controllability of all his subjects, from the great Pushkin down to the ordinary man in the street and government clerk. He wished everybody “to sit quietly” and to have only lawful ideas expressed in lawful ways. Nicholas I had an instinctive hatred of the idea of enlightenment, which enabled people to think for themselves. He himself was an embodiment of a “don’t argue” formula.14 Since the subordination of the universities would have injured his image in the eyes of the public, Nicholas I found someone else to impart the monarchical aspect to educational establishments. This was S. S. Uvarov, then President of the Academy of Sciences, Minister of Education, and also author of the famous policy of Orthodoxy, Autocracy, and Nationality (Pravoslavie, Samoderzhavie i Narodnost’). These were the three fundamentals upon which all official cultural life of Russia in the 1830s, 1840s, and 1850s rested. By orthodoxy was meant the preservation of religion as a moral groundwork for public life. Autocracy implied the idea of the emperor’s unlimited power. Nationality reflected a view of the people as a mass of peasants devoted to the monarchic creed and capable of resisting the unnecessary and harmful ideas of the new age. The gist of these official concepts was that Russia was a state in its own right, and that it differed from Western Europe in the basic features of its social structure and mode of life. Given this outlook on Russian history and the character of the peoples inhabiting the country, Nicholas I and his government looked indulgently on every manifestation of what may be called the samobytnyi (ingenious, intrinsic) quality of the nation, to use a historically less appropriate term. In this context the squint-eyed, left-handed Tula master (Levsha) and his comrades were superior to foreign craftsmen, the ancient monuments of Orthodox piety to Western European ones, for which an undistinguished state-paid professor could provide the “scientific” grounds for justifying the superiority of the East over the “rotting” West.

14   Zapiski Sergeia Mikhailovicha Solov’eva (Petrograd, 1915), p. 119. The memoirs of an outstanding 19th-century historian and a witness of Nicholas I’s spiritless reign provide a scathing characteristization of both the emperor and the system of surveillance and regulation of public life he created in Russia.

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But Nicholas I had a taste for the arts.15 One loyal author described this remarkable quality of the tsar after his death: “It is not without reverence that one recalls the lofty patronage and fatherly care which the late monarch constantly showed toward the artistic world and its representatives …. The sovereign visited their studios, supervised the progress of work, made suggestions on methods, rejoiced at the [artists’] successes, and commended them. It is to the bounties of His Majesty that a whole generation of artists are indebted, and not only Russians but also foreign [artists].”16 It should be added that Nicholas I favored only those artists who followed his advice and could divine his secret wishes, and that his desire to keep creative work under strict surveillance affected not only contemporary art but also the study of medieval art. Yet it is a fact that during his reign and with his direct participation the discoveries and first investigations of medieval Russian painting entered an active phase, the way to which had already been paved by other circumstances in Russian society.

15  See N. Vrangel’, “Iskusstvo i gosudar’ Nikolai Pavlovich,” in SG (1913), July-September, pp. 53–64. 16  N. Ramazanov, Materialy dlia istorii khudozhestv v Rossii, book 1 (Moscow, 1863), p. 125 (from the chapter, Khudozhestva pod pokrovitel’stvom imperatora Nikolaia 1-go).

CHAPTER 3

The Artist-Archaeologist F. G. Solntsev and the Artist-Restorer N. I. Podkliuchnikov Regarding the frescoes of the Dormition Church in the Kiev Monastery of the Caves. F. G. Solntsev and his artistic and archaeological activities. The uncovering of the frescoes of the St. Demetrius Cathedral in Vladimir. Restoration of wall paintings in the Kievan St. Sophia. The 1842 law on the preservation of monuments. Once again concerning the fate of the frescoes in Staraia Ladoga. The beginning of conservation work in Moscow. N. I. Podkliuchnikov as first professional restorer of medieval Russian painting. The conservation of the iconostases in the Dormition Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin and the church in the village of Vasil’evskoe near Shuia. F. G. Solntsev’s drawings in Drevnosti Rossiiskogo Gosudarstva (Antiquities of the Russian State). Publication of mosaics and frescoes of the Kievan St. Sophia. The artist-archaeologist N. A. Martynov and his collection of sketches of medieval paintings of Novgorod, Pskov, and Staraia Ladoga. In the summer of 1840, Irinarkh, the hieromonk of one of the monasteries of the Orel eparchy, acting on the initiative of Metropolitan Filaret (Philaret) of Kiev, began to renovate the wall paintings of the Dormition Church in the Kiev Monastery of the Caves. The Dormition Church was first decorated with mosaics and frescoes in the 1070s and 1080s,1 but by the time Irinarkh and his team were invited to renovate them, the mosaics had probably disappeared, and what remained of the original frescoes had been covered by the overpaintings of 1730 and 1776 under which, in turn, were even earlier layers of overall and partial renovations of the original painting. Undertaking yet another restoration of painting, Irinarkh cared least of all about investigating the Dormition 1  According to Povest’ o prishestvii pistsev tserkovnykh ko igumenu Nikonu ot Tsariagrada (11th century), the Dormition Cathedral was decorated by Greek masters, The Povest’ contains an indication that mosaic (musiia) was employed for the decoration of the church’s sanctuary. When sorting out the church’s ruins (it was blown up in 1941), restorers found both the smalt and fragments of frescoes. See N. V. Kholostenko, “Issledovaniia ruin Uspenskogo sobora Kievo-Pecherskoi lavry,” in SA, XXIII (1955), pp. 356–57; N. V. Kholostenko, “Issledovaniia ruin Uspenskogo sobora Kievo-Pecherskoi lavry v 1962–1963 gg.,” in Kul’tura i iskusstvo Drevnei Rusi. Sbornik statei v chest’ prof. M. K. Kargera, (Leningrad, 1967), pp. 64, 66. © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���8 | doi ��.��63/9789004305274_004

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Church and uncovering the eleventh-century frescoes: he simply retouched the depictions dating from the time of Catherine II with fresh paint. The monasterial council saw nothing reprehensible in Irinarkh’s actions and only encouraged him. In the autumn of 1842, when the restoration was drawing to an end, the monastery was visited by Nicholas I, who took a strong dislike to the new decoration and issued an imperial order to suspend restoration activities and to set up a special commission to determine whether Irinarkh’s renovations complied with the original style of the eleventh century.2 The commission, made up of several clerics, provincial officials, a professor, and a drawing teacher, decided that the new painting bore no resemblance to the excellent Greek workmanship, because it was light and brightly colored. On the basis of this finding the Kiev governor, D. G. Bibikov, requested the Synod to send the monastery a skilled artist who would amend Irinarkh’s paintwork in another style, more commensurate with the earlier one. The Synod’s chief procurator, Count N. A. Protasov, conveyed the request to the emperor, who once again expressed his displeasure, enjoining that Fedor Grigor’evich Solntsev, whom he considered a connoisseur of medieval art, should go to Kiev. Solntsev proposed that the Irinarkh’s brushwork be darkened, the ornaments and gold decorations amended, and a greater lightness be imparted to the perspective and scenery. The unexpectedly simple solution proposed by Solntsev meant that he tacitly acknowledged the unfeasibility of improving Irinarkh’s brushwork and of bringing it into line with the then largely unknown eleventh-century manner; it also implied that his suggestions aimed to “mollify cross hearts” (umiagchenie zlykh serdets) rather than elucidate historical truth.3 2  The history of the renovation of frescoes in the Dormition Cathedral is related in P. G. Lebedintsev’s special essay which appeared in various publications: P. G. Lebedintsev, “Vozobnovlenie stennoi zhivopisi v velikoi tserkvi Kievo-Pecherskoi lavry v 1840–1843 gg.,” in KievUI (1878), no. 3 (March), section Nauchnaia Khronika, pp. 56–64 [“Vozobnovlenie …,” in KievEB (1878), no. 11, section II, pp. 335–45 (the article’s ending has been removed)]; Chteniia v Istoricheskom obshchestve Nestora letopistsa, 2 (Kiev, 1888), I, pp. 34–42. 3  The historic truth lay in the fact, as was revealed later, that the ancient paintwork of the Dormition Cathedral had not survived at all. See A. D. Ertel, “O stenopisi v velikoi Uspenskoi tserkvi Kievo-Pecherskoi lavry,” in TKDA (April, 1897), pp. 500–527; M. Istomin, “K voprosu o drevnei ikonopisi Kievo-Pecherskoi lavry,” in Chteniia v Istoricheskom obshchestve Nestora letopistsa, 12 (Kiev, 1898), section II, pp. 3–19 and section III, pp. 34–89; V. N. Nikolaev, “Steny vnutri velikoi tserkvi Kievo-Pecherskoi lavry po sniatii s nikh shtukaturki,” in Trudy XI AS v Kieve (1899), vol. II (Moscow, 1902), minutes, pp. 125–126; S. Iaremich, “Pamiatniki iskusstva XVI i XVII stoletii v Kievo-Pecherskoi lavre,” in Arkheologicheskaia letopis’ Iuzhnoi Rossii, vol. II (1900), edited by N. F. Beliashevskii (1900), pp. 95–107; [S. Iaremich], “Eshcho o pamiatnikakh iskusstva Kievo-Pecherskoi lavry,” ibid., pp. 171–80 (idem, in KS [1900], 10, pp. 179–88);

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Figure 3.1 Portrait of Fedor Grigor’evich Solntsev (1801–92), anonymous. Fedor Solntsev House Museum in the village of Borok (Iaroslav region).

Solntsev, was born in 1801 into the family of a Yaroslavl peasant, a serf of Count A. I. Musin-Pushkin. Noted for his early drawing talent, Solntsev was sent to St. Petersburg, where he enrolled in the Academy of Arts.4 On completing his N. I. Petrov, “Ob uprazdnennoi stenopisi velikoi tserkvi Kievo-Pecherskoi lavry,” in TKDA (April, 1900), pp. 579–610 and May, pp. 40–70. 4  About him, see F. G. Solntsev, “Moia zhizn’ i khudozhestvenno-arkheologicheskie trudy,” in RS (January, 1876), pp. 109–128; February, pp. 311–23, March, pp. 617–44; May, pp. 147–60; June, pp. 263–302 (the issue also contains the text of M. I. Semevskii’s speech made on the occasion of conferring the gold medal of the Russian Archaeological Society on F. G. Solntsev in 1876, pp. 303–308); P. N. Petrov, “F. G. Solntsev. Ocherk ego khudozhestvenno-arkheologicheskoi deiatel’nosti,” in Izvestiia RAO, VIII (1877), columns 267–69; N. P. Sobko, F. G. Solntsev i ego khudozhestvenno-arkheologicheskaia deiatel’nost’,” in VestnII, vol. 1, issue II(I St. Petersburg, 1883), pp. 471–82; N. A. Belozerskaia, “Fedor Grigor’evich Solntsev, professor arkheologicheskoi zhivopisi,” in RS (April-June, 1887), pp. 713–37; “F. G. Solntsev. Nekrolog,” in ZhMNP (May, 1892), section IV, pp. 92–95; V. Stasov, “Pamiati Fedora Grigor’evicha Solntseva (Rech’,

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training, he remained at the Academy by order of its president, Olenin, to perfect his skills in archaeology and ethnography. Solntsev’s natural bent for the study of Russian art and folk traditions, in which he was encouraged by Olenin, led him to choose this as the primary focus of his career. From 1830 he took regular trips to ancient towns where he tirelessly sketched old-time household implements and weaponry, church plate and vestments, archaeological finds and buildings, icons and frescoes. About 5,000 of Solntsev’s watercolor studies have survived. Reproducing the medieval relics of Kiev, Chernigov, Novgorod, Smolensk, Polotsk, Riazan, Vladimir, Suzdal, Moscow, and many other towns and monasteries of Russia, they form a kind of encyclopedia of medieval Russian life and folkways embodied in its material heritage. Following Olenin’s death in 1843, Nicholas I, who already knew Solntsev quite well, gave the artist his personal patronage. All of Solntsev’s subsequent works were, in his own words, carried out only on His Majesty’s orders. They ranged from landscapes, on which the tsar liked to paint battle scenes, to extensive conservation projects and art editions. Nicholas viewed Solntsev’s endeavors primarily as an important means of propagating the ideas of Orthodoxy and Nationality. Since Solntsev was never at odds with his august patron on these issues, he had truly unlimited opportunities for studying Russian anti­ quities and applying his knowledge of the art of the past in his creative practice. Alongside the architect K. A. Thon, who built the Great Kremlin Palace (1837–50), the Palace of Facets (1844–50), and the Cathedral of Christ the Savior (1832–84) in Moscow, Solntsev was co-founder of the so-called NeoRussian style, which had broad influence in the architecture and applied arts of the second half of the nineteenth century. He was the chief artist of the royal construction projects implemented by Thon.5 He executed hundreds of sketches and plans in the Neo-Russian and Neo-Byzantine styles for the Synod and various eparchies.6 The indefatigable Solntsev took part in the restoration of all medieval painting initiated by Nicholas I in the 1840s. Thus, following his report to the prochitannaia v sobranii Arkheologicheskogo instituta 12 marta 1892 goda),” in SevernV (April, 1892), section II, pp. 113–22 (idem in VAI, IX [1892], pp. 159–69); V. Kalugin, “Ia risoval vsiu zhizn’ …,” in Pamiatniki Otechestva (1980), 2, pp. 70–75; V. Kalugin, “Drevnosti F. G. Solntseva,” in Vstrechi s knigoi, 2 (Moscow, 1984), pp. 206–214. 5  F. G. Solntsev, “Moia zhizn’ i khudozhestvenno-arkheologicheskie trudy,” in RS (June, 1876), pp. 278–81; A. I. Vlasiuk, “Novye materialy o proektirovanii i stroitel’stve Bol’shogo dvortsa i Oruzheinoi palaty v Moskovskom Kremle,” in Arkhitekturnoe nasledstvo, 18 (Moscow, 1969), pp. 100–101. See also V. G. Lisovskii, “Iz istorii ‘khudozhestvennoi arkheologii’ v Rossii,” in Problemy razvitiia russkogo iskusstva, X (Leningrad, 1978). pp. 46–52. 6  N. P. Sobko, F. G. Solntsev i ego khudozhestvenno-arkheologicheskaia deiatel’nost’, pp. 480–82.

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emperor on the inspection of the renovated painting in the Kiev Monastery of the Caves, he was sent to Vladimir to study frescoes that had been discovered by chance in the Cathedral of St. Demetrius. The Cathedral of St. Demetrius, erected in the late twelfth century, was probably decorated around 1197. According to an entry in the Laurentian Chronicle, this court church of Grand Prince Vsevolod III was “wonderfully adorned by him with icons and frescoes” (ukrasi iu divno ikonami i pisaniem). As in other medieval churches, its frescoes were frequently repaired and repainted. It was therefore evident by the mid-nineteenth century that only the remains of the original painting could have survived under layers of overpaint. These fragments were uncovered at the completion of the building’s architectural restoration to “its original state” (1837–39), which was carried out by order of the tsar after his visit to Vladimir in 1834. In much the same way that ignorant architectural restorers mistakenly destroyed some parts of the building, thinking them to be latter-day additions, so M. L. Safonov’s team of icon painters, commissioned in 1843 to decorate the cathedral with new icons and wall paintings, contributed to the obliteration of the cathedral’s original medieval paintings. However, as the remains of the old decoration under the gallery in the cathedral’s western part were very large in size, Safonov reported their discovery to Archbishop Parfenii (Parphenius), who ordered him to make precise copies of the frescoes, and sent them to St. Petersburg, pending further instructions.7 It was for the identification of the uncovered frescoes that Solntsev was dispatched to Vladimir, and he immediately ascertained them to be the remainder of the Last Judgment composition, which he dated to the twelfth century, probably relying on the chronicle record. The subsequent history of the St. Demetrius frescoes provides evidence of the methods of study and conservation that were utilized by Solntsev and his casual collaborators on the site. On his arrival in Vladimir, Solntsev was dissatisfied with Safonov’s “precise” copies, and made more appropriate copies for his own collection of archaeological sketches. After finishing this work, he reported that he found it expedient to restore the twelfth-century painting to “its original state” and to entrust Safonov with the said restoration.8 He made this decision partly because the removal of the later retouchings that concealed the frescoes of Vsevolod III’s time had uncovered a number of random notches probably made in the eighteenth century in order to insure a better cohesion 7  [V. Dobrokhotov], “Kratkie svedeniia o Dmitrievskom sobore,” in Pribavlenie k VlGV (1844), no. 16, pp. 63–64; S. Stroganov, Dmitrievskii sobor vo Vladimire na Kliaz’me (Moscow, 1849), pp. 11–12; V. V. Kasatkin, Dmitrievskii sobor v gubernskom gorode Vladimire (1914), p. 24. 8  N. P. Sychev, “K istorii rospisi Dmitrievskogo sobora vo Vladimire,” in Pamiatniki kul’tury. Issledovanie i restavratsiia, 1 (Moscow, 1959), p. 149.

The Artist-Archaeologist F. G. Solntsev

Figure 3.2 Two apostles from the composition of the Last Judgment in a fresco, ca. 1195, in the Cathedral of St. Demetrius in Vladimir.

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of the new plaster to the old murals,9 and partly because the Safonov team, when scraping off the new painting, had damaged the old painting as well.10 Needless to say, Mikhail Safonov favored the conservation scheme proposed by Solntsev. In the summer of 1844, the uncovered twelfth-century paintings were thoroughly retouched in compliance with their original style under the supervision of Archbishop Parfenii (Parphenius).11 As a result of Safonov’s restoration, the Last Judgment of the St. Demetrius Cathedral, while retaining some resemblance to the original twelfth-century work in drawing and composition, acquired an aspect of nineteenth-century stylization with respect to color and handling. It was not until 1918 that these frescoes were restored to their authentic state and beauty. All the sketches and descriptions of the frescoes made before the 1917 revolution record their state as it was after the Safonov renovation, conveying the iconographic rather than the stylistic value of the painting.12 In the summer of 1843, during Solntsev’s stay in Kiev, a discovery in the Kievan St. Sophia led to one of the most thorough and most barbarous restorations undertaken during the reign of Nicholas I. One could observe the remains of medieval painting under the crumbling plaster on the ground floor of the cathedral, which gave ample grounds to presume its existence in other parts of the building as well.13 When Solntsev, began to make sampled cuttings, 9   Wishing to get the Synod’s permission for the repair of uncovered frescoes, Archbishop Parfenii (Parphenius) referred to the fact that they had already been damaged when “the stucco stripped off now had been laid on” (ibid., p. 148). 10  “When knocking off the upper layers of stucco, much damage was done to the part depicting the Synaxis of Angels; it is chipped and rubbed off in places; … the faces of the Apostles had also suffered considerably” (S. Stroganov, Dmitrievskii sobor vo Vladimire na Kliaz’me, pp. 11–12). 11  N. P. Sychev, “K istorii rospisi Dmitrievskogo sobora vo Vladimire,” p. 149. 12  The Safonov (1843) and Solntsev (1844) copies have not been revealed and published yet. S. G. Stroganov’s investigation contains the tinted lithographed sketches made by the Vladimir drawing-master F. Dmitriev (table, XV and XVI). There also exists a very accurate color lithograph depicting a group of the righteous women in the north pendentive of the minor vault; it was executed by V. A. Prokhorov in the 1870s (Materialy po istorii russkikh odezhd i obstanovki zhizni narodnoi, izdavaemye … A. Prokhorovym, [III] [St. Petersburg, 1884], p. 3, table XXIV). N. P. Kondakov (I. Tolstoi and N. Kondakov, Russkie drevnosti v pamiatnikakh iskusstva, IV. Pamiatniki Vladimira, Novgoroda I Pskova [St. Petersburg, 1899], p. 63, fig. 100) reproduced a photograph of the painting in the south pendentive of the minor vault from the collection of I. F. Barshchevskii. 13  S. Kryzhanovskii, “O drevnei grecheskoi stennoi zhivopisi v Kievskom Sofiiskom sobore,” in Severnaia pchela (2 November, 1843), no. 246, p. 984; I. M. Skvortsov, Opisanie KievoSofiiskogo sobora po obnovlenii ego v 1843–1853 godakh (Kiev, 1854), p. 35; N. Zakrevskii, Opisanie Kieva, vol. II (Moscow, 1868), p. 806.

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Figure 3.3 St. Sophia in Kiev, constructed 1037–42. General view toward the chancel apse.

he found remains of the eleventh-century frescoes, contemporary with the cathedral’s mosaics, wherever he chipped off new plaster. He decided to uncover the surviving frescoes and to paint the walls anew in keeping with the original style, in those places where the frescoes had been lost. Solntsev reported on the project to the emperor who sent his report to the Synod. After a committee was set up, Nicholas granted permission for the restoration of the cathedral and the frescoes.14 It is known that the frescoes of the Kievan St. Sophia had long remained unretouched. Despite the loss of considerable parts and even entire compositions in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries when the church was neglected and semi-ruined,15 the frescoes were still in evidence in Petr Mogila’s day (1632–47), and the gradual whitewashing of the painted area and its renovation did not start until the close of the seventeenth century.16 Master-craftsmen, engaged by Metropolitan Philaret of Kiev, and the restorer Focht, who implemented 14  See P. Lebedintsev, Vozobnovlenie Kievo-Sofiiskogo sobora v 1843–1853 g. (Kiev, 1879) (=TKDA [August, 1878], pp. 364–403; December, pp. 495–526). 15  M. K. Karger, Drevnii Kiev, vol. II (Moscow-Leningrad, 1961), pp. 106–109. 16  P. G. Lebedintsev, “O sviatoi Sofii Kievskoi,” in Trudy III AS v Rossii, byvshego v Kieve v avguste 1874 goda, vol. I (Kiev, p. 76).

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Figure 3.4 Virgin Orans, 1043–46. Mosaic in the chancel apse of St. Sophia in Kiev.

Solntsev’s program, first had to remove the accretions of the previous century, which had no historic and aesthetic value. This work was completed within two years (1844–45).17 Apart from the frescoes located in the stairway towers, their work uncovered a total of twenty-five compositions, 220 full-length representations of saints, 108 half-length figures, and a large number of ornamental

17  The cleaning was carried out using spirits of, soap, potash, turpentine, oil, and other materials. See P. Lebedintsev, Vozobnovlenie Kievo-Sofiiskogo sobora v 1843–1853 g., p. 13.

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Figure 3.5 Archangel Gabriel from the Annunciation, 1043–46. Mosaic from the northeast pillar of St. Sophia in Kiev.

Figure 3.6 Virgin from the Annunciation, 1043–46. Mosaic from the southeast pillar of St. Sophia in Kiev.

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patterns.18 No other fresco cycle of that scale had been found in Western or Eastern Europe at that time. Despite the losses and the wear and tear to the paint layer caused by the ravages of time and the rough cleaning techniques used by Metropolitan Philaret’s workmen and the master-restorer Focht, the best way to preserve the remaining frescoes of the Kievan St. Sophia would have been to leave them completely intact. However, the tastes of the nineteenth century demanded that all the damaged areas be repaired and the wall painting restored to its “full undamaged integrity.” With this in view, Solntsev invited to Kiev the St. Petersburg master, M. S. Peshekhonov, whom he already knew to “be fairly good at icon painting and retouching old icons.” Peshekhonov pledged himself to “refrain from altering the ancient outlines,” promising to “retouch the lost areas in such a way as to make the repair unnoticed” (zapravliat’ utrachennye mesta tak, chtoby zapravka ne byla zametna), whereupon in the summer of 1848 he set to work. On being informed that Peshekhonov was a noted Old Believer, Metropolitan Filaret (Philaret) kept watch over the artist lest he make any uncanonic additions to the painting under restoration. He placed Peshekhonov’s work under secret surveillance and finally exposed him for trying to alter the drawing and color scheme. It also turned out that, in order to speed up the progress of work, Peshekhonov had hired a team of the “most uncouth dissenters,” who were ignorant of the art of medieval painting and, in addition, utilized low-quality factory-made paints for renovating the frescoes.19 There was no doubt that the accusations against Peshekhonov were based on factual evidence since, no less than a year later, the restored frescoes became moldy and darkened.20 In 1850, Filaret succeeded in cancelling the contract with Peshekhonov, but by that time his masters had managed to “restore” about one-third of the uncovered frescoes, i.e., 100 full-length figures, forty-four half-length figures, and 127 ornaments.21

18  I. M. Skvortsov, Opisanie Kievo-Sofiiskogo sobora po obnovlenii ego v 1843–1853 godakh, pp. 48–49; P. Lebedintsev Vozobnovlenie Kievo-Sofiiskogo sobora v 1843–1853 g., p. 64; N. Zakrevskii, Opisanie Kieva, vol. II, pp. 812 and 814; P. G. L[ebedintsev], Opisanie KievoSofiiskogo kafedral’nogo sobora (Kiev, 1882), p. 44. The numerical data on the murals of the Kievan St. Sophia differ from author to author. We present the most authentic general data which comply with the number of frescoes that were rediscovered in the Soviet period. 19  P. Lebedintsev, Vozobnovlenie Kievo-Sofiiskogo sobora v 1843–1853 g., pp. 23–25. 20  Ibid., p. 24. 21  Ibid., p. 27, 28. Subsequently, almost all of the representations “mended” by Peshekhonov’s team had to be reworked and only five figures remained intact (ibid., p. 28).

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Having dismissed Peshekhonov, the committee supervising the cathedral’s restoration invited Father Irinarkh, the hieromonk from Orel who had renovated the paintings of the Monastery of the Caves in Kiev, to serve in his place. Irinarkh arrived at the St. Sophia with the team of monk-iconographers that he had gathered earlier and, in 1850–51, he repainted another third of the frescoes. In P. G. Lebedintsev’s words, “the work proceeded quite fast.” Nicholas, who regularly visited Kiev and personally supervised the course of the restoration of the cathedral’s frescoes, even distinguished Irinarkh with his imperial graces. But this time, too, the metropolitan and the committee considered it expedient to replace the executing artist. Petr Lebedintsev, who recorded the saga of the cathedral’s renovation while its participants were still alive, commented that Irinarkh’s removal came about because of his “willful treatment of the fresco painting and his stubbornness, which not only amounted to an unwillingness to obey Solntsev’s instructions but also defiance of the criticism of the metropolitan. After having his works approved by the emperor, Father Irinarkh began to put on airs and was then removed.”22 The completion of the restoration was entrusted to the cathedral’s priest, I. R. Zheltonozhskii, who far outstripped both Peshekhonov and Father Irinarkh in the pace of repairing the old frescoes and, especially, of painting new ones.23 In the words of N. V. Zakrevskii, who came to Kiev a few years later and obtained information directly from the craftsmen engaged in the restoration, Zheltonozhskii had set himself to completing the work with the “assistance of his forty apprentices.”24 Within three years, from 1851 through 1853, he managed to restore all the frescoes that adorned the stairway towers of the cathedral, among other things.25 22  Ibid., p. 30. 23  Ibid., pp. 29, 30–31, 38, and 39. 24  N. Zakrevskii, “Zametki o drevnostiakh kievskikh, v iune 1864 goda,” in Sbornik na 1866 god, izdannyi Obshchestvom drevnerusskogo iskusstva pri Moskovskom Publichnom muzee (Moscow, 1866), section II, p. 147. 25  Among Father Zheltonozhskii’s activities was the cleaning of “ancient” frescoes in the Church of the Savior-on-Berestovo. Both the building and its wall painting have been renovated repeatedly. Between 1865 and 1867, I. R. Zheltonozhskii removed three layers of oil painting, uncovering, as he believed, the underlying frescoes of the 10th century. In fact, however, this was the tempera paintwork dating from the days of Petr Mogila (1644). For the history of Father Zheltonozhskii’s work in the Church of the Savior and the assessment of frescoes uncovered by him, see the following notes and articles: “Novoe otkrytie freskov v Kieve,” in KievEV (1863), no. 11, section II, pp. 345–46 (preliminary communication); “Otkrytie freskov tserkvi Spasa na Berestove, chto v Kievo-Pecherskoi tsitadeli,” ibid. (1865), no. 19, section II, pp. 737–38; N. Zakrevskii, Zametki o drevnostiakh kievskikh, v iiune 1864 goda, p. 147; P. Lashkarev, Tserkovno-arkheologicheskie ocherki, issledovaniia

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In general, this is the factual record of the restoration of the eleventh-century paintings in the Kievan St. Sophia. The inadequate understanding of preservation aims, the hiring of casual contractors and unskilled workmen for the cleaning and renovation of frescoes, the poor control over the entire process, and the haste with which the job was done could not but play a fatal role in the history of one of the oldest monuments of painting in Russia. With the exception of the frescoes in the chapel of St. Michael,26 which were preserved unretouched as a keepsake for posterity, scores of large-scale compositions and hundreds of detached figures and half-figures of saints, ornaments, and other decorative motifs were crudely repainted with oils within a period of five years. At the first stage of the process, in order to achieve better cohesion with the newly laid paint, the uncovered frescoes were coated with a layer of drying oil, which deeply penetrated not only the paint layer itself but the priming of the eleventh-century wall. Rather than being fixed, the poorly held fragments were knocked off to make room for the hackwork of renovators. A number of images were entirely painted anew.27 At the formal consecration on October 4, 1853, viewers of the St. Sophia did not behold newly uncovered medieval frescoes but painting that had very little in common with the art of the eleventh century. Even for the mid-nineteenth century, when principles of scientific conservation were still in formation, the renovation of the St. Sophia frescoes was nothing less than an act of vandalism that caused irreparable harm. The supervisory committee, created by the joint efforts of Nicholas I and the Synod, consisted solely of clerics and government officials who were uninformed i referaty (Kiev, 1898), p. 115 (from a reprint of the article, Chto ostalos’ ot drevnei kievskoi tserkvi Spasa na Berestove? published for the first time in 1867); N. I. Petrov, “Drevniaia stenopis’ v kievskoi Spasskoi na Berestove tserkvi,” in TKDA (February, 1908), pp. 266–98. The question of medieval painting in the Church of the Savior was finally resolved only in 1970 when Kiev restorers uncovered there—hidden under the paintwork of 1644—a great many fragments of frescoes dating back to the early 12th century (G. Logvin, “Vozrozhdenie freski XII veka,” in Iskusstvo (1971), 8, pp. 64–68; W. Babjuk, Ju. Kolada, “Odkrycie malowidel sciennich w cerkwi Spasa na Bieriestowie w Kijowie,” in Ochrona zabytków, vol. 26, no. 1 (1973), pp. 62–65, ills. 1, 2). 26  Although all the earlier authors pointed out that the unretouched frescoes survived in the St. George (Three Prelates) side-altar, D. V. Ainalov and E. K. Redin noted, correctly in our view, that in fact what was meant was the side-altar of St. Michael. See D. Ainalov and E. Redin, Kievo-Sofiiskii sobor. Issledovanie drevnei mozaicheskoi i freskovoi zhivopisi (St. Petersburg, 1889), p. 6. 27  According to Lebedintsev (Vozobnovlenie Kievo-Sofiiskogo sobora v 1843–1853 g., p. 64), a total of 46 compositions, 535 full-length figures, 346 half-length figures, and 907 ornaments were executed on the newly-laid stucco.

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about art. Only Solntsev, who was in charge, could have channeled it in a proper direction and taken steps to preserve the authentic paintings of the St. Sophia. But as he shared the tastes of the tsar, who imagined himself to be a connoisseur of antiquity, Solntsev did not accomplish even a fraction of what should have been done to salvage the cathedral’s artistic decor. Therefore, it is largely Solntsev who bears the responsibility for the damage to the St. Sophia’s frescoes. Since the restoration of St. Sophia had been undertaken of the tsar’s own accord, criticism of Solntsev, the supervisory committee, and their actions might have stirred up trouble while the tsar was alive. A popular guide to Kiev, issued in 1852 by N. M. Sementovskii, hailed the renovation of the cathedral’s frescoes as an outstanding event in the cultural life of Russia.28 Following Nicholas I’s death, however, the tone of comment about the restoration made a sharp reversal. The second edition of Sementovskii’s book (1864), views the matter in an entirely different light: “The Academician Solntsev, who supervised the uncovering of medieval wall painting …, while staying in Kiev but very briefly during the summer seasons and being rather remotely acquainted with archaeology, could neither physically nor morally perform the duty he was entrusted with …. We can even say that the medieval wall painting of the Kievan St. Sophia has suffered twice: first, when it was whitewashed, and, second, when the layers of plaster were rubbed off by common workmen who were hired as day laborers and had not the least idea of any kind of painting, to say nothing of frescoes …. We personally witnessed how these precious depictions—having come down to us through the centuries in a perfect state of preservation, with all their features and bright colors intact—were disappearing under the iron scrapers of these vulgar artists. All this happened because there was no real manager who was familiar with archaeology and conversant with medieval wall painting.”29 Even such a loyal and officially-minded writer as A. N. Murav’ev noted, “It would be tedious and even useless to record all the frescoes after their renovation.”30 “When one first looks at this restoration,” continues another author, “it appears that the Church of St. Sophia has been painted anew, and one has to search for antiquity; [this is so] because it was easier to lay the paint over the whole background or the draperies of a saint than to gradually make the coloring tally with the original, which would

28  N. Sementovskii, Kiev i ego dostopamiatnosti (Kiev, 1852), pp. 133, 137–38. 29  N. Sementovskii, Kiev, ego sviatynia, drevnosti, dostopamiatnosti i svedeniia, neobkhodimye dlia ego pochitatelei i puteshestvennikov (Kiev, 1864), p. 99. 30  [A. N. Murav’ev], “Drevnosti i simvolika Kievo-Sofiiskogo sobora,” in Pribavleniia k izdaniiu tvorenii sviatykh otsev v russkom perevode, part 18 (Moscow, 1859), p. 570.

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require time, patience, and knowledge.”31 Particular regret was expressed with regard to the frescoes with subjects from the life of the Byzantine imperial court, which were torn off the walls of two stairway towers leading to the gallery: “… none of the other frescoes of this church perhaps suffered so much under the scrapers of workmen on their uncovering and also during the renovation when they were buried under the new paint layers as these symbolic representations ….”32 An even more bitter criticism was voiced by a noted advocate of Russian antiquity, archaeologist and painter V. A. Prokhorov: “All the frescoes are doctored, retouched, and have figures painted anew in many areas which tally but little with the former ones. Some images, in the places where their legends were rubbed off, have totally different inscriptions, some of which are arbitrary, others utterly out of place, so that a male figure may be interpreted as a female one, and vice versa. Thus, all the frescoes have, one way or another, lost their original aspect.”33 On his return from Kiev to St. Petersburg, in 1842, Nicholas I, furious at the “renovation” of the Dormition Cathedral in the Monastery of the Caves, ordered a law to be passed which was directed against any arbitrary and uncontrolled restorations. In November and December of the same year, an article was inserted in the Construction Regulations (Stroitel’nyi Ustav) then in force which ran as follows: “It is forbidden, without the imperial permission, to start any renovations in ancient churches and all suchlike monuments. In general, the ancient aspect of churches, both the outward and the inner, shall be carefully preserved and no arbitrary emendations and alterations shall be allowed without the consent of the high ecclesiastical authority.” In April 1843, the article was supplemented with another clause: “In addition, the eparchial bishops are enjoined to ensure that nowhere in ancient churches shall, under any pretext, be allowed any, however slight, emendations, renovations, and alterations of the painting and other objects of antiquity but that one shall always solicit the Holy Synod for the permission thereof.”34 The wording of this law remained unchanged until 1889 when the right to decide the fate of ancient monuments was, on the initiative of the Russian Archaeological Society, given to archaeological societies and committees.35 31  N. Zakrevskii, Opisanie Kieva, vol. II, p. 810. 32  Ibid., p. 815. 33  V. P[rokhorov], “Arkheologicheskii obzor a) kievskikh drevnostei i b) drevnostei, byvshikh na arkheologicheskom s”ezde v Kieve,” in KhD (1875), p. 8. 34   Svod zakonov Rossiiskoi imperii, vol. XII, part 1 (St. Petersburg, 1857), Ustav stroitel’nyi, p. 47, art. 207. 35   Ustav stroitel’nyi … s raz”iasneniiami … i s kommentariiami … compiled by P. S. Tsypkin (Petrograd, 1915), pp. 9–10 (art. 3, section Nadzor sa pamiatnikami iskusstv). See also Ustav

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On the whole, the 1842 law had a positive effect, although the meddling of the state in the conservation of artworks, its deliberate neglect of science, and the transfer of all matters connected with conservation to the ecclesiastical administration could not but discredit the noble task of historical preservation. The Russian Orthodox Church, which was too ignorant to merge with the aristocratic ruling class and, at the same time, too “scholarly” to remain at the level of the common people, formed a rather backward stratum within the general fabric of the empire: it was incapable of assessing the discoveries made in the realm of ancient art. Because of the gap between the lawmaking and executive bodies that marked the centrally governed state, it often happened that even the eparchial elite, called upon to ensure that no arbitrary or uncontrolled repairs, cleanings, or renovations be done, was unaware of the redoubtable edicts of 1842 and 1843. Lastly, the inadequate scholarly discussion of what was to be considered a monument of art and what was not, as well as a lack of knowledge about the really valuable and outstanding works of icon- and wallpainting increasingly hampered the implementation of the preservation law. The conventionalism of the system created by Nicholas I is brought into focus by the fate of the twelfth-century frescoes of the St. George Church in Staraia Ladoga, mentioned in Chapter 2 above. For a long time, the fragments of old painting, found in 1780, were an eyesore, standing out as they did, against the dull and featureless whitewash. In 1847, these fervent lovers of decorum decided to have the church repaired. With this in view, all the more recent plaster, together with the paintings buried underneath, was chipped off, the walls were restuccoed, and the uncovered frescoes whitewashed. Vasilii Prokhorov, who visited Staraia Ladoga on completion of the repairs, could not for years afterward restrain his feelings of frustration and anger—fairly understandable for us today—when recalling the invaluable frescoes that perished. Using axes and crowbars, they knocked almost all of the frescoes off the walls and piled up this priceless treasure like unwanted litter in one of the half-ruined towers of the fortress. It was only by pure chance that some of them survived—precisely those which the plasterers did not think it worthwhile to chip off and stuccoed up instead.”36 When the rumor of this unprecedented destruction of the stroitel’nyi … s raz”iasneniiami … compiled by D. P. Butyrskii, 3rd edition, revised and enlarged (Moscow, 1912), pp. 71–72 (art. 78 in Section Osobennye pravila o sokhranenii i pochinke drevnikh zdanii). 36  [V. A. Prokhorov], “Stennaia zhivopis’ (freski) XII veka v staroladozhskoi kreposti v tserkvi sv. Georgiia,” in KhDA (1865), book 12, p. 154. Wishing to rescue even the fractioned [broken ?] fragments of frescoes, V. A. Prokhorov sorted out the “scrap” left after the repairs. “For about three weeks,” he wrote, “my assistants and I raked through all this debris, picking out all the petty bits of chipped-off frescoes, which eventually totalled five crates,

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ensemble reached the Novgorod Church Council (consistory) and the servitors of the St. George Church were ordered to clean the surviving frescoes again, the priest and the warden lightheartedly declared that those fragments, while “lacking any historical integrity,” merely imparted “ugliness and deformity” to the church in question.37 This case is eloquent evidence of the attitude assumed by the Orthodox clergy towards monuments of medieval painting, and it was that same clergy who, according to Nicholas I’s law, were to preserve them for posterity. So far we have only dealt with restorations undertaken during the reign of Nicholas I in the domain of monumental art. Almost concurrent with the restoration of the Kievan St. Sophia, however, was the conservation work on a large collection of works of icon painting—the iconostasis of the Dormition Cathedral in the Moscow Kremlin. Here the task was different—the uncovering, rather than renovation, of paintings. And although its concept lacked consistency and was questionable, the Moscow work differed markedly from the “restorations” carried out in Kiev. Since the fourteenth century, the Dormition Cathedral in the Moscow Kremlin has been the see of the metropolitans and, later, the patriarchs of all the Russias. For a few centuries, it was a repository of the best specimens of icon painting created by master painters in Moscow, Vladimir, Rostov, Novgorod, and Pskov. Not infrequently, icons for the Dormition Cathedral were executed by visiting artists, either Greek or Serbian. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, when the separate Russian principalities were united into one centralized state under Moscow, the Dormition Cathedral also acquired a remarkable collection of very ancient icons brought from Novgorod, including a number of works of the pre-Mongol period. All this made the Dormition Cathedral a treasure-house of Russian medieval icon painting. In 1612 and 1812, when Moscow was occupied by the Poles and the French respectively, the Dormition Cathedral was pillaged. Although the invaders were mainly interested in gold and silver pearl- and gem-studded icon mounts, they did much damage when tearing off the cases to paintings, which later had to be repeatedly mended and repainted. When plundering the Kremlin’s churches, the French wrenched almost every icon out of the iconostasis of the all in all; these I wanted to piece together into some [coherent] whole but almost all my efforts failed, and I managed to put together only some tiny fractions of the whole [composition], which I fixed with gypsum in flat boxes and donated to the museum of early Christianity in St. Petersburg.” (ibid., note **). See also a variant of V. A. Prokhorov’s report in KhDA for 1871, book 1, p. 10. 37  See N. E. Brandenburg, Staraia Ladoga (St. Petersburg, 1896), p. 237, note 1.

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Dormition Cathedral, heaping them all on the soleum. After the liberation of Moscow, setting the cathedral in relative order was considered one of the most urgent tasks in the scheme of the town’s reconstruction. Within the three summer months of 1813 master-craftsmen summoned to the Kremlin managed to restore, mount into new silver frames, and set back into the iconostasis and near the walls a total of 375 icons.38 In this condition, assembled and renovated in haste and without due care, the iconostasis remained until 1851 when Nicholas I, who had by that time returned from Kiev, expressed his wish to Metropolitan Filaret (Philaret) that this holy place of Moscow be opened and restored. As Solntsev was busy with the restoration of the Kievan St. Sophia, the question of putting him in charge of the conservation project in the Dormition Cathedral was not even discussed. The Moscow Synodal Office and Metropolitan Filaret (Philaret) decided to find a suitable candidate among icon painters who were not only noted for creating new icons but also for restoring old ones. The Synod and Metropolitan chose the artist N. I. Podkliuchnikov, who was interested in medieval icons and knew how to clean them of drying oil and overpaintings.39 Nikolai Ivanovich Podkliuchnikov (1813–77) may be called the father of the conservation of medieval Russian painting. He was born in Ostankino near Moscow into the family of a serf iconographer of the Sheremetevs.40 Although his brothers and sisters remained in serfdom until the end of their lives, Nikolai had the good fortune to be released from bondage and to be educated as an 38   Uspenskii sobor v Moskve, published by N. Martynov, text by I. M. Snegirev (Moscow, 1856), pp. 5 and 15. 39  In the 1830s and 1840s, Master Salautin, who worked in the Trinity-St. Sergius Monastery received much credit for his skills in removing retouchings and uncovering the original brushwork of icons. But he had died by the time it was decided to restore the iconostasis of the Dormition Cathedral. See a brief account about him in Filaret, Sobranie mnenii i otzyvov Filareta, mitropolita Moskovskogo i Kolomenskogo, po uchebnym i tserkovno-gosudarstvennym voprosam, vol. III (St. Petersburg, 1885), p. 457. 40  Owing to this circumstance, we have at our disposal a good biographical essay about N. I. Podkliuchnikov, which was compiled in the Ostankino palace museum as a “note for the tourist”: M. P. Bashilova, Krepostnoi khudozhnik i restavrator N. I. Podkliuchnikov,(Moscow, 1951). See also N. Ramazanov, O restavratore kartin Nikolae Ivanoviche Podkliuchnikove (Moscow, 1854) (a separate issue of the article published in the Moskvitianin for 1853, no. 22, section VII, pp. 107–14); P. F., “N. I. Podkliuchnikov, russkii restavrator,” in Vsemirnaia illustratsiia (January, 1878), pp. 28, 30; RBS, vol. 14 (St. Petersburg, 1905), p. 196; Iz zapisnoi knizhki A. P. Bakhrushina, Kto chto sobiraet. S primechaniiami M. Tsiavlovskogo (Moscow, 1916), pp. 24 and 106 (notes by M. Tsiavlovskii).

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Figure 3.7 Nikolai Ivanovich Podkliuchnikov (1813–77). Self-Portrait. State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg.

artist. In the 1840s and 1850s, he was largely known among Moscow art lovers as a gifted master of domestic interiors and architectural landscapes. At that time, the young artist, who was keen to learn the manner of the old masters, became interested in the techniques of cleaning paintings of discolored varnish and retouchings. Gradually, he turned to the restoration of medieval icons. Using the skills acquired during his childhood apprenticeship in an icon-painter’s workshop at Ostankino and also relying on his own experiments in softening and removing the most recent retouching colors in paintings and icons, Nikolai Podkliuchnikov devised solvents and worked out his own secret methods for their use. This secured him the exclusive right to carry out the conservation of almost all the valuable artworks in Moscow and the nearby towns and monasteries. Podkliuchnikov’s fame as a conservator grew considerably after he was commissioned by a wealthy merchant, A. I. Lobkov, to restore a darkened and apparently irreparably damaged oil painting which, after his skillful cleaning, turned out to be Correggio’s St. Joseph and the Infant Christ. Podkliuchnikov was invited to work in the Dormition Cathedral on the recom­mendation of Metropolitan Filaret (the artist was probably introduced to him by Aleksei Lobkov, who was on friendly terms with the Metropolitan). “… The artist Podkliuchnikov was known to me even before the present business,” wrote Filaret to the Synod, while the restoration was still underway.

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“Incidentally, he would take an ancient icon from a parish church and show it to me at the stage when he had already cleared one part of the image and the other remained covered by a layer of retouchings and darkened varnish fused with dust, with the outlines of the image barely discernible. One could clearly see that it was not a question of renovating the image with colors but of removing the crust covering it.”41 The Moscow Synodal Office requested that Podkliuchnikov demonstrate his skills and, after a successful test, obliged him to carry out the work under the supervision of a committee made up of the priest and deacon of the Church of Sts. Cosmas and Damian in Kadashi, the Vladislavlevs, father and son. These men were to take stock of the icons cleaned, keep a record of their cleanings, and supply all the necessary accounts. The project started in March and ended in August 1852.42 During this time, Nikolai Podkliuchnikov cleaned and restored a total of 100 icons. The only exceptions were the five most celebrated medieval panels located in the local tier of the iconostasis: the Virgin of Vladimir, the Christ Enthroned, the Dormition of the Virgin, the Ustiug Annunciation, and the St. Demetrius of Thessalonica. There is no doubt that he did not work alone but employed assistants, who were probably entrusted with jobs that did not require solvents for removing the old retouchings. The specific restoration program for the iconostasis in the Dormition Cathedral was supposedly outlined by Podkliuchnikov himself and formulated as follows: 1) to remove the darkened drying oil from all the icons in all five tiers; 2) to remove the retouchings and to uncover the original paintwork; 3) to retouch with dots (zapunktirovat’) the rubbed-off and damaged areas but “not to apply new colors unless strictly necessary”; 4) to coat the icons with mastic varnish after cleaning and restoration. According to reports sent by the priest Vladislavlev to Filaret and later forwarded to the Synod, the conservation was carried out in strict conformity with the charted plan: the sample cleanings were made first and the overpaint was then removed layer by layer. If the final samples revealed an icon’s in poor condition, its first layer of overpaint was left untouched; if the damage was slight, the icon was completely uncovered and losses were filled in keeping with the “coloring … which was in evidence on the sound places of the original.”43 41   Sobranie mnenii i otzyvov Filareta, mitropolita Moskovskogo i Kolomenskogo, vol. III, p. 457. 42  I. Karabinov, “Poluzabytyi opyt restavratsii drevnerusskikh ikon,” in Soobshcheniia GAIMK, II (Leningrad, 1929), pp. 325–29. About the iconostasis in general, see I. Ia. Kachalova, “K istorii nyne sushchestvuiushchego ikonostasa Uspenskogo sobora,” in Gosudarstvennye muzei Moskovskogo Kremlia. Materialy i issledovaniia, II (Moscow, 1976), pp. 104–108. 43   Sobranie mnenii i otzyvov Filareta, mitropolita Moskovskogo i Kolomenskogo, vol. III, pp. 460–61.

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Podkliuchnikov’s unusual approach to conservation aroused much public interest in the cleaning of the iconostasis of the Dormition Cathedral. Both amateurs and connoisseurs—S. G. Stroganov, I. M. Snegirev, A. I. Lobkov, I. V. Kireevskii, A. F. Weltman, and others—voiced their approval. D. Vladislavlev thus conveyed their sentiment: “Thank God, a new epoch in the renovation of medieval icons has at last begun in our cathedral. Formerly, the restorers only spoiled medieval icons by repainting them.”44 Others were less well disposed. Most critical among these were contract icon painters who lost a well-paid commission to Podkliuchnikov whose novel understanding of the problems of conservation called into question the entire former practice of handling old icons. The results of Podkliuchnikov’s restoration also elicited a rather ambiguous response in the community of Old Believers, among whom were quite a few connoisseurs and icon painters working in the old manner (ikonopistsystarinshchiki). Since the Old Believers recognized only those icons executed before the reforms of Patriarch Nikon [elected 1652, deposed 1666] and those among the newer icons that were totally modelled on medieval panels, the cleaning of works from the twelfth to seventeenth centuries in the Dormition Cathedral corresponded to their wish to see the authentic specimens of the country’s past. But since their notions of the past were based on the study of retouched icons or those that remained intact but altered with respect to color due to the darkening of drying oil or the accumulation of dust and soot, they either considered the bright and clear colors of the icons uncovered by Podkliuchnikov as fakes or simply rejected them as failing to accord with their understanding of the authentic style of antiquity. “… One would wish,” said one of the Preobrazhenskoe Old Believers to Podkliuchnikov, “that you had covered them [the icons] in our own fashion, with tinted drying oil, so that they would look older.”45 In order to ascertain the authenticity of the uncovered paintings, Podkliuchnikov displayed the icon of the Annunciation in the cathedral, with one half fully cleaned and the other left under the retouchings at various stages of their removal.46 This was the first instance in the literature of the demonstration of a cleaning procedure that has today become part of every conservation project. As a freelance artist associated with the milieu of the raznochintsy intellectuals, Podkliuchnikov was an outsider in church circles and among iconographers, whose very life centered round religious practice and its everyday needs and requirements. Thus, it was in the church’s interests that Podkliuchnikov’s know-how should pass into their hands. When the cleaning of the iconostasis 44  Ibid., p. 462. 45  Ibid., pp. 462–63. 46  Ibid., p. 463.

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of the Dormition Cathedral was still in progress, Metropolitan Filaret (Philaret) cautiously inquired of the priest Vladislavlev whether it was possible to study Podkliuchnikov’s techniques. Vladislavlev honestly replied that “no one knows exactly the method and materials used by an artist in cleaning the icons as they are that artist’s private matter” and that he could not “perform … this work as skillfully as the artist Podkliuchnikov did, that is, take off each paint layer one after another without ever touching the original as he had no grasp of the latter’s secret means.”47 Soon after completing the work in the Dormition Cathedral, Podkliuchnikov wrote a report, probably at the request of the Moscow sculptor, N. A. Ramazanov, in which he set forth his views on the conservation of medieval Russian painting. In his report published in 1853–54,48 he openly declared the right to safeguard the secret of his layer-by-layer, and consequently safe, cleaning procedure, which he discovered by experimentation. Yet the report contained, among other things, many specific observations and recommendations that could be of use to conservation as a whole. In particular, Podkliuchnikov advocated the application of mastic varnish in place of drying oil for coating the icons. Whereas drying oil made the colors look fresh and rich, it tended to turn yellow and darken under the effects of light and warm air, its oily surface collecting dust and candle soot and not easily yielding to softening and removal. In this respect, he believed that varnish was the preferable material since it was transparent, slow to change, and more easily removed than drying oil. As he was well aware of the positive properties of both drying oil and mastic varnish, the oil as a better vehicle for bringing out the icon’s coloring and the varnish as a more adequate protective film, Podkliuchnikov devised a way of using the materials in combination. Leaving the finest coat of the old drying oil on the uncovered icons, he would then cover them with a layer of the mastic varnish. The varnish prevented the drying oil underneath from darkening and the painting retained the fresh and vivid look of the original for years to come. Also novel was Podkliuchnikov’s own deeply personal involvement in conservation, which he regarded as a matter of conscience rather than a mere job. Despite a wealth of general information about the restoration treatment of the iconostasis of the Dormition Cathedral in 1852, it is difficult to form a clear 47  Ibid., p. 464. 48  It formed part of N. A. Ramazanov’s article (and, later, of a booklet) mentioned above in note 40. The original passed at about the same time into I. M. Snegirev’s hands, probably via N. A. Ramazanov, and on the latter’s death was issued a second time as part of his biography. See A. Ivanovskii, “Biograficheskii ocherk I. M. Snegireva, sostavlennyi po dnevniku ego vospominanii,” in Ivan Mikhailovich Snegirev. Biograficheskii ocherk. Sostavil A. Ivanovskii (St. Petersburg, 1871), pp. 88–98.

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idea of the cleaning techniques and, especially, the nature of the retouchings performed by Podkliuchnikov. In 1875 and between 1894 and 1895, the icons of the Dormition Cathedral were retouched again. During the secondary cleaning done in the Soviet period, the traces of mid-nineteenth century restoration were neither singled out nor fixed. There is no doubt, however, that the third item of Podkliuchnikov’s restoration plan (“if one finds areas which are either damaged or rubbed off on icons, these shall be retouched with dots but new paints shall not be applied unless strictly necessary”) envisaged retouchings and emendations (zadelki i zapravki) that were characteristic of the entire restoration practice of the nineteenth century. These were inevitable, as people of that time were not sophisticated enough to appreciate the art of antiquity when seen in fragments and odd pieces. There was yet another reason that accounted for the lack of consistency in Podkliuchnikov’s restoration: in order to finish the commission on time, the artist employed assistants whom he entrusted with the finishing touches to the cleaned icons, and it was well known that retouching the paintings was the habitual practice of icon painters assisting in the work, to say nothing of those who commissioned their work. Two years after the completion of the work in the Kremlin, Podkliuchnikov began to clean another large iconostasis, located in the village of Vasil’evskoe of the Shuia uezd in Vladimir province. This was the icon stand that the Vasil’evskoe villagers had bought in 1775 from the Dormition Cathedral in Vladimir.49 Dating back to the early fifteenth century, it was the work of Andrei Rublev and Daniil Chernyi. Although some of the original icons were rejected as being unfit for sale during the dismantling of the Vladimir iconostasis, the church of Vasil’evskoe obtained thirteen huge Deesis icons, eleven Feasts, and two panels from the Prophets tier. Count D. N. Sheremetev, who owned Vasil’evskoe, provided 500 rubles in silver for their restoration and entrusted the job to Podkliuchnikov and his team, probably made up of the same masters who worked on the restoration of the Dormition Cathedral in Moscow. When working in Vasil’evskoe, Podkliuchnikov was beyond the bounds of the Synod’s surveillance, which could not but bring the negative side of his method to focus. His letter to A. N. Murav’ev of 25 March 1856,50 contains an 49  See chapter 1, p. 17. 50   “Pis’mo khudozhnika N. I. Podkliuchnikova k Andreiu Nikolaevichu Murav’evu iz sela Vasil’evskogo bliz Shui. Soobshchil A. V. Murav’ev,” in Ikonopisnyi sbornik, III (St. Petersburg, 1909), pp. 41–49. See also a reprint of this publication entitled “Staryi ikonostas Vladimirskogo Uspenskogo sobora. Pis’mo khudozhnika N. I. Podkliuchnikova k Andreiu Nikolaevichu Murav’evu iz sela Vasil’evskogo bliz Shui,” in Trudy VlUAK, XI (Vladimir, 1909), section Smes’, pp. 3–8 (with a note by V. T. Georgievskii on pp. 3–5). In the Trinity Church of the village Vasil’evskoe there was a ledger registering the progress of

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Figure 3.8 John the Baptist in an icon from the Dormition Cathedral in Vladimir, 1408. Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow.

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Figure 3.9 The apostle Paul in an icon from the Dormition Cathedral in Vladimir, 1408. Russian Museum, St. Petersburg.

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interesting account of the division of labor between the restorer and members of his workshop. “From the white cross-bedecked chasubles [on the icons of prelates] I myself removed from two to three layers of many-colored draperies, of up to one copper coin in width, which had designs resembling those of the damasked cloth, in red and green.… Having developed a real passion for my work, I toiled day and night, remaining in the same position for three months running, and in the end was utterly exhausted; on returning home for Christmas, I could not come round for sheer exhaustion. But I had left my master-workmen at the site to do the retouching and emending of the gold borders as they [had] become deteriorated with time.…”51 As modern research has determined, the work on the Vasil’evskoe icons was abandoned by the restorer at different stages of their cleaning: some icons were uncovered in full, others—down to the first and, in places, even the second layer of overpaint. It also became evident that Podkliuchnikov’s icon painters did not always confine themselves to retouching only; instead, they considerably reworked the cleaned painting with new colors and, while “emending the gold borders” they repainted them all anew with gold. We can state, therefore, that rather than preserving the cleaned painting in its original state, Podkliuchnikov and his assistants instead repainted it. Podkliuchnikov was a prolific restorer. Although he was mainly concerned with the restoration of wall paintings rather than icons, we know that, in addition to his work in the Dormition Cathedral and Vasil’evskoe, he worked in the Christian Museum, affiliated with the Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg.52 He the icons’ restoration, which contained their description before and after the renovation. See: “Drevnie ikony v Troitskoi tserkvi sela Vasil’evskogo, Shuiskogo uezda. Soobshchil Yakov, episkop Muromskii, vikarii Vladimirovskii,” in Ezhegodnik Vladimirskogo gubernskogo statisticheskogo komiteta. Materialy dlia statistiki, etnografii, istorii i arkheologii Vladimirskoi gubernii, vol. II, edited by K. Tikhonravov (Vladimir, 1878), columns 141–50. 51  The 6th of January, which means that the restoration work in Vasil’evskoe began in early October 1855 and continued in January 1856. V. I. Antonova reports that the reverse of Christ in Majesty and the obverses of the Apostle St. Andrew the First-Called and St. Gregory the Theologian featured inscriptions testifying to the icons’ restoration by N. I. Podkliuchnikov in 1852. (V. I. Antonova, N. E. Mneva, Katalog drevnerusskoi zhivopisi Gosudarstvennoi Tret’iakovskoi galerei, vol. 1 (Moscow, 1963), pp. 268, 269, 270 and note 1 on p. 271). Here is the text of the inscription on the St Gregory’s panel: “In 1855 (sic. G. V:) with the blessing of Justin, bishop of Vladimir and Suzdal, three layers of paint, laid thereon at different times as renovations, were removed from this icon and its original paintwork was uncovered by the freelance artist, Nikolai Podkliuchnikov.” The same text is on the icon of St. Andrew. 52  P. F. “N. I. Podkliuchnikov, russkii restavrator,” p. 30.

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also cleaned the icon of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker from the Monastery of the Holy Ghost in Novosil near Orel,53 the St. Demetrius of Thessalonica from the St. Demetrius Cathedral in Vladimir,54 and restored works in the Church of the Nativity of the Virgin in the Kremlin55 and the Museum of Tver.56 He also accepted commissions from private persons. Podkliuchnikov’s interest in medieval Russian art did not arise from professional considerations alone. He writes of how exhilarated he was at seeing the icons in the collections of A. I. Lobkov and S. G. Stroganov,57 and he speaks with admiration of the incomparable coloring of icons in the Dormition Cathedral.58 It is also significant that in Podkliuchnikov’s personal art collection, alongside the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century paintings, there was a 2000-piece selection of Russian metal body crosses (kresty-tel’niki), which he exhibited at the Moscow Ethnographical Exhibition of 1867 and the Paris World Exhibition of 1868.59 In his reply to critics who attributed his resounding successes as a conservator solely to his “patience,” he remarked that apart from patience one “needs love for [one’s] métier, and in my case it prevents me from bungling an important piece of work because of the monetary gain. On my part, it is a matter of the artist’s conscience, which can hardly be demanded from men who regard art as hackwork.”60 The grand restorations of the 1840s and early 1850s form two well-defined and qualitatively unequal phenomena. On the one hand, these represent restoration in the spirit of the eighteenth century. But there were also sporadic discoveries that gave rise to spuriously scientific renovations, such as the repainting of the frescoes in the Dormition Church of the Kiev Monastery of the 53  N. Troitskii, “Novosil’skaia ikona sv. Nikolaia ‘Dobrogo’,” in Svetil’nik, (1915), nos. 9–15, p. 75 (May, 1855). Regarding the second restoration of the same icon by an unidentified restorer under the supervision of the Tula archaeologist N. I. Troitskii, see N. I. Troitskii, “Ob ikone sv. Nikolaia Novosil’skogo,” in Trudy XIV AS v Chernigove, 1908, vol. III (Moscow, 1911), minutes, pp. 60–61 [nine layers of latest overpaint were removed and allegedly the paintwork of the 11th century uncovered]. 54  “Pis’mo khudozhnika N. I. Podkliuchnikova k Andreiu Nikolaevichu Murav’evu iz sela Vasil’evskogo bliz Shui,” pp. 46–47 (late 1855 or early 1856). 55  N. A. Skvortsov, Arkheologiia i topografiia Moskvy (Moscow, 1913), p. 473 (on executing new and renovating old icons in the Church of the Nativity, prior to August, 1856). 56  A K. Zhiznevskii, “Opisanie Tverskogo muzeia (prodolzhenie), V. Pamiatniki tserkovnye,” in Drevnosti. Trudy MAO, vol. IX, 2–3 (1883), Issledovaniia, p. 138. 57  N. Ramazanov, O restavratore kartin Nikolae Ivanoviche Podkliuchnikove, p. 6. 58  Ibid., p. 10. 59  M. P. Bashilova, Krepostnoi khudozhnik i restavrator N. I. Podkliuchnikov, pp. 45–46. 60  N. Ramazanov, O restavratore kartin Nikolae Ivanoviche Podkliuchnikove, p. 11.

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Caves. Most of these barbarous acts must be imputed to Fedor Solntsev, the artist-archaeologist to Nicholas I, who used both knife and axe to uncover the wall paintings of St. Sophia and who employed the most uncouth, hack icon painters to “reconstruct” them. It is in an entirely different light that one should view the restorations performed under the guidance of Podkliuchnikov, whose very first work on the iconostasis of the Dormition Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin showed him to be not only a connoisseur of old icons but also an experienced conservator. His layer-by-layer icon-cleaning method, which he used in combination with preliminary samplings in order to determine the condition of the icon’s most ancient paint layer, is one of the main requirements of modern scientific conservation. His rule whereby well-preserved icons were cleaned, leaving intact the fine coat of original drying oil, and whereby the partly preserved icons were cleaned down to their earliest retouchings, saved scores of works of medieval painting from damage and unnecessary new retouchings. Podkliuchnikov was one of the few people in the mid-nineteenth century who valued medieval Russian painting for its own excellence of subject, line, and color, rather than as a good imitation of the “excellent Greek style.” He also started to develop a theory of conservation as a specific scientific and artistic discipline by writing a paper, which was published in journals and used in archaeological investigations. Thus we have ample grounds for considering Podkliuchnikov as the father of conservation of medieval Russian painting despite the unavoidable gross errors and, perhaps deliberate concessions that he occasionally made to prevailing public tastes and demands. This survey of measures taken by the church and state for the uncovering of medieval Russian painting would be incomplete without mention of the efforts aimed not only at the discovery but the publication of these works, as well. The mid-nineteenth century saw the appearance of a fundamental publication Drevnosti Rossiiskogo gosudarstva (Antiquities of the Russian State, 1849–53) on Russian art. Each of the six volumes of the Antiquities consisted of two halves: a large-format atlas furnished with lithographed drawings, and a smaller book with an introductory article and explanatory notes to the tables. A major part of the first volume, devoted to church antiquities, is taken up by the descriptions and reproductions of miracle-working and other remarkable icons.61 The lithographic prints were made from Solntsev’s watercolors. In particular, one finds here the Virgin of Vladimir and the Virgin of the Don, 61   Drevnosti Rossiiskogo gosudarstva, section I. Sviatye ikony, kresty, utvar’ khramovaia i oblacheniia sana dukhovnogo (Moscow, 1849), nos. 1–3, 5–10 (pp. 3–11, 15–31) and the corresponding tables in the atlas.

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from cathedrals of the Moscow Kremlin, and also the general view and details of the famous fifteenth-century Novgorod icon, The Miracle of the Icon of the Virgin of the Sign or The Battle Between the Novgorodians and the Suzdalians. As it was the uncleaned icons that constituted the bulk of the atlas, the ostentatious grandeur of the edition could not make up for the inferiority of the later-day retouchings. Only a few of the artworks included in the fourth volume—among which was a miniature depicting the family of Prince Sviatoslav Yaroslavich from the Izbornik (Miscellany) of 1073 and the parsuna-portraits of Tsar Fedor and Prince M. V. Skopin-Shuiskii62—had survived without retouchings, giving an approximate idea of what these ancient works were like. It is very rare that official publications attain the thoroughness and precision required of scholarly works. In this respect, Antiquities of the Russian State takes a place between the two: thanks to Solntsev’s indefatigable energy and government financing of the project, these volumes provide an abundance of factual evidence; on the other hand, owing to the artist’s lack of scientific expertise and self-control, the drawings collected in the Antiquities are not adequate reproductions of the objects depicted. The first volumes that came out during Nicholas I’s lifetime incurred no criticism in scholarly circles. Subsequent ones on mosaics and frescoes of the Kievan St. Sophia were considerably delayed owing to the imprecise nature of Solntsev’s sketches. During the ten years that it took to renovate the St. Sophia, Solntsev went to Kiev every year where, in accordance with established custom, he made watercolor copies of the frescoes that had been cleaned. Each autumn, he brought eighty or 100 drawings to St. Petersburg, which were then presented to the tsar.63 One might presume that these were the true reproductions of eleventh-century paintings. But this was not the case: a comparison of Solntsev’s sketches and the original images uncovered in the Soviet period showed that Solntsev’s sketches were not exact copies of the works in question. In fact, Solntsev did not hesitate to reproduce scenes or figures that had been repainted in oil by M. S. Peshekhonov, Irinarkh, and Ioasaph Zheltonozhskii.64 62  Ibid., section IV. Drevnie velikokniazheskie, tsarskie, boiarskie i narodnye odezhdy, izobrazheniia i portrety (Moscow, 1851), nos. 2 and 5 (pp. 7–31) and the corresponding tables in the atlas. 63  N. P. Sobko, F. G. Solntsev i ego khudozhestvenno-arkheologicheskie trudy, p. 480. 64  See, in particular, a definite statement made on this issue by N. I. Petrov, the connoisseur of the Kiev antiquities: N. Petrov, “O min’iatiurakh grecheskogo Nikomidiiskogo evangeliia (XIII v.) v sravnenii s min’iatiurami evangeliia Gelatskogo monastyria XI veka,” in Trudy V AS v Tiflise (Moscow, 1887), appendices, p. 171.

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Nicholas I ordered the publication of Solntsev’s sketches of the St. Sophia immediately on completion of the sixth volume of the Antiquities in 1853. The task was entrusted to the Russian Archaeological Society.65 But the Crimean War and complications that arose after the emperor’s death impeded the realization of the project. When Count S. G. Stroganov, the chairman of the committee charged with the publication of the Antiquities, visited Kiev in 1855, he compared Solntsev’s sketches to the same images in the St. Sophia. He concluded that the “copies have very little in common with the originals” and therefore could not be published by a scholarly society. Solntsev explained that he made his copies from the repaintings of the ancient figures: it had been considered unnecessary to copy the authentic painting on its uncovering; instead, the authentic work was immediately restored, that is, renovated. One can hardly believe it, but this statement, in which Solntsev’s naiveté mingles with his sheer stupidity, was taken into consideration by the bureaucracy of the state scholarly establishment and, in 1866, a commission for the publication was formed. Solntsev, who was by that time well advanced in years, and Sreznevskii were entrusted with the collation and emendation of sketches; Sreznevskii also agreed to write the explanatory text for the edition. In 1867, Solntsev and his collaborators made tinted tracings of the renovated frescoes, considering that this fully discharged them of any further involvement. Sreznevskii, having determined that the renovated painting was unfit for scholarly publication, had bought a pig in a poke. As an historian of the Russian language and a palaeographer by profession, he was primarily interested in the legends inscribed on the frescoes; it had become clear, however, that most of the uncovered frescoes retained no inscriptions and that the new ones, made by ignorant restorers, were mere guesswork. Thus, for instance, St. Phocas, painted with an oar, was dubbed St. Avercius, whereas the sons and daughters of Prince Yaroslav on the donor’s fresco were, despite all the tokens of their princely status in the draperies, interpreted as Sts. Wisdom, Faith, Hope, and Charity and were renovated bearing the corresponding Greek legends of these saints. According to eyewitnesses of the uncovering and renovation of the St. Sophia, from eleven to twenty-six ancient inscriptions were found on the frescoes.66 As the restorers 65  The history of the continuation of the Drevnosti Rossiiskogo gosudarstva is given in N. I. Veselovskii, Istoriia imp. Russkogo arkheologicheskogo obshchestva za pervoe piatidesiatiletie ego sushchestvovaniia. 1846–1896 (St. Petersburg, 1900), pp. 114–23. 66  See, S. Kryzhanovskii, “Kievo-Sofiiskaia stenopis’ v koridorakh lestnits, vedushchikh na khory,” in Severnaia pchela (1853), no. 147, p. 587; I. M. Skvortsov, Opisanie KievoSofiiskogo sobora po obnovlenii ego v 1843–1853 godakh, p. 37; N. Sementovskii, Kiev, ego sviatynia, drevnosti, dostopamiatnosti i svedeniia, neobkhodimye dlia ego pochitatelei i

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ignored the Synod’s decision of 1850, according to which the representations of unknown saints were to be left without inscriptions, hundreds of figures of saints and scores of scenes were supplied with new, totally arbitrary names and titles during the finishing of the wall painting. Sreznevskii dragged out his part of the work on the publication and in the end refused to write the text. The Archaeological Society, which had spent a small fortune on the preparation of the edition, decided to publish Solntsev’s sketches without an explanatory article. The Society’s first volume of the atlas appeared in 1871, to be followed by the second and third in 1873; the fourth came out in 1887 (i.e., thirty-odd years after the material was presented to the Society).67 Since even after emendation Solntsev’s drawings were at variance with the corresponding works in the St. Sophia, the fourth issue contained a new colored copy of the mosaic Eucharist, contributed by A. V. Prakhov. Despite all the emendations, however, the long overdue edition failed to meet the requirements of the new times. It is therefore chiefly as a monument to the dreary state of mid-nineteenth century restoration that the Antiquities devoted to the Kievan St. Sophia will remain forever. Although the government deemed it necessary to preserve Russia’s antiquities, sketching of artworks was, with the techniques of reproduction being costly and imperfect, most often done in advance. There were but few artists who, like Solntsev, could boast such auspicious work conditions and the lucky fate of the material they collected for publication. It was often on an artist’s own initiative, and without a hope of seeing his life-long labors in print, that such artworks were copied. One such enthusiast, whose legacy is probably equal to Solntsev’s but who is hardly known, was Nikolai Aleksandrovich Martynov (1820–95),68 a brother of Aleksei Aleksandrovich Martynov who published books and art books devoted to the antiquities of Moscow and its environs, mostly of an architectural nature. Taking a keen interest in the country’s history and its material remains, Nikolai Martynov had begun in the 1840s to visit old towns where he tirelessly sketched churches, icons, mosaics, frescoes, crosses, and other relics of Russian medieval culture. By the early 1850s, puteshestvennikov, p. 98; N. Zakrevskii, Opisanie Kieva, vol. II, p. 808; P. Lebedintsev, Vozobnovlenie Kievo-Sofiiskogo sobora v 1843–1853 g., pp. 31–32 and 70–71. 67   Drevnosti Rossiiskogo gosudarstva. Kievskii Sofiiskii sobor, I–IV (St. Petersburg, 1871–1887), published by the Imperial Russian Archaeological Society. 68  See about him in N. V. Sultanov, “Uspekhi russkoi khudozhestvennoi arkheologii v tsarstvovanie imp. Aleksandra II,” in VestnII, vol. III (1885), p. 232; Novoe vremia (10 (22) March, 1895), no. 6835, p. 3; Imp. Moskovskoe arkheologicheskoe obshchestvo v pervoe piatidesiatiletie ego sushchestvovaniia (1864–1914), vol. II (Moscow, 1915), section I, p. 224.

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his work attracted government attention and he finally obtained a state subsidy. The apex of Martynov’s career was a very large collection of drawings which he created on the orders of the Ministry of State Property and which later entered the library of the Moscow Archaeological Society.69 One may begin to form an idea of its size from the number of drawings dedicated to Novgorod and Pskov alone, which amounted to some 500 sheets. Alongside sketches of archaeological monuments, they included watercolors of some icons and also of the frescoes of the St. Sophia, Mirozh, the Savior on Nereditsa Hill, Staraia Ladoga, Gostinopol’e, and other Novgorod and Pskov churches and monasteries.70 Of special prominence were sheets with copies of the Nereditsa frescoes.71 Executed in 1867, they were shown at the World Exhibition in Paris,72 where they were awarded a bronze medal, and their success in Europe spurred the Synod’s decision to forbid the uninformed renovation of frescoes and to start collecting money for the preservation of antiquities for future generations. 69   Drevnosti. Trudy MAO, vol. IV, 1 (1874), minutes, pp. 6 and 9. The drawings came to the MAO in 1872 but, according to N. V. Pokrovskii, in the 1880s they were already in the Historical Museum (N. V. Pokrovskii, “Stennye rospisi v drevnikh khramakh grecheskikh i russkikh,” in Trudy VII AS v Yaroslavle, vol. I [1887] [Moscow, 1890], p. 186). They are still there at the present time. 70  I. Mansvetov, “Arkhitektura i zhivopis’ drevneishikh novgorodskikh tserkvei (Po povodu arkheologicheskogo al’boma g. Martynova),” in Pravoslavnoe obozrenie (October, 1873), pp. 586–616. Regarding the copies of the Mirozh frescoes, see A. M. Pavlinov, “Spaso-Mirozhskii monastyr’ v g. Pskove,” in Drevnosti. Trudy MAO, vol. XIII, 1 (1889), Issledovaniia, pp. 158–59, table I. 71  Partially, these were published in 1890 by N. V. Pokrovskii. See N. V. Pokrovskii, “Stennye rospisi v drevnikh khramakh grecheskikh i russkikh,” tables I–VII. 72  About this, see Vestnik Obshchestva drevnerusskogo iskusstva pri Moskovskom Publichnom muzee (1875), 6–10, Ofitsial’nyi otdel, pp. 59–63 (from a report by G. D. Filimonov regarding the selection of exhibits for the Russian pavilion of the exhibition).

CHAPTER 4

The 1840s Men of Letters, Palaeologists, Collectors N. D. Ivanchin-Pisarev and S. P. Shevyrev. Historico-archaeological works of I. M. Snegirev and I. P. Sakharov. The Old Believer community and its significance in the preservation of old artworks. I. M. Snegirev’s discourses with icon painters and connoisseurs of icon painting at the Preobrazhenskoe and Rogozhskoe cemeteries. Private and public collections of icons. Methods of their selection. Moscow home chapels (molennye) as described by F. I. Buslaev. A. F. Sorokin’s collection. Classification of Sorokin collection icons in accordance with notes made by the collector. Ancestral collections. Icons of the Stroganov school in S. G. Stroganov’s collection. M. P. Pogodin’s old artworks repository. D. A. Rovinskii and his book, Obozrenie ikonopisaniia v Rossii do kontsa XVII veka (A Survey of Icon Painting in Russia up to the End of the Seventeenth Century). At the same time that restorations of artworks were being carried out under the aegis of the government and the church, medieval Russian painting was being described in educational literature and in journals with a patriotic bias. The 1840s also saw the appearance of the first specialist works devoted to icon painting. This was a period during which there was a gradual accumulation of evidence about medieval Russian art.1 Although it would still be a long time before this knowledge could be defined as a scholarly discipline in its own right, it was during the 1840s that icons came to be regarded as a part of Russia’s artistic heritage that was worthy of serious and comprehensive study. Curiously enough, it was men of letters and philologists rather than archaeologists who were the first to handle the theme of icon painting, and this has a logic of its own: as the subject was still unexplored and novel, no one expected writers or journalists to treat it with scholarly precision. In fact, men of letters cared little for the need to define a particular school, style, or date, being more preoccupied with the narrative aspect of the subject and, the historical background of the work’s provenance. N. D. Ivanchin-Pisarev (1790–1849), a doyen of the writers who turned to medieval Russian art as a specific literary theme, was born in Moscow into a 1  For the general acquaintance, see I. L. Kyzlasova, “Iz istorii zarozhdeniia otechestvennoi nauki o drevnerusskom iskusstve v pervoi polovine XIX veka,” in Problemy istorii SSSR, VI (Moscow, 1977), pp. 108–27. The article also takes account of the evidence reported in the three previous chapters of the History. © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���8 | doi ��.��63/9789004305274_005

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nobleman’s family.2 Possessing the means for a modest but fairly comfortable existence, Ivanchin-Pisarev began his career as an amateur writer. His poems first appeared in literary almanacs and journals and later in separate collections. They combined a dreamy loftiness with shallow content, betraying him as an unimaginative imitator of Karamzin. The historiographer’s example, as well as the interest in Russia’s past evinced by the enlightened public, led Ivanchin-Pisarev to develop a bent for another literary genre—that of the brief sentimental story about monuments of the country’s antiquity. It was this new interest that accounts for the appearance of a series of his small-format books: A Day in the Trinity Monastery (1840); An Evening in the St. Simon’s Monastery (1840); A Morning in the New Monastery of the Savior (1841); The St. Andronicus Monastery of the Savior (1842); and A Tour of the Ancient Kolomna District (1844). A year later, the Tour was supplemented with an article entitled A Few More Reminiscences of the Kolomna Route and the Town Itself, which was published in Pogodin’s Moskvitianin (1845). Ivanchin-Pisarev’s book and article about Kolomna and its environs are written with a thoroughness and a clear understanding of the importance of history for the development and nurture of the nation’s self-consciousness. “Every town and every village,” states the author, “must possess recollections and memorials of their own; otherwise, we will destroy their effect forever: neither here nor there will they remain dear to the heart; the moving narratives of our elder fellow-countrymen nourish piety and love for [our] motherland…. Not everyone is capable of being immediately aroused with the spirit of lofty patriotism. However, I can vouch for this feeling in everyone who has his local attachments and is not indifferent not only to matters of such importance but also to unimportant things of the past.”3 Alongside descriptions of historical locales and civic monuments, IvanchinPisarev’s works contain scores of pages devoted to church antiquities. The author reveals a rare understanding of the value of painting that had not been retouched or altered. “Painting and overpainting,” he says, “are two totally different crafts.”4 He looks askance at renovators. Here is Ivanchin-Pisarev’s story of his visit to the sixteenth-century Church of the Resurrection located in the village of Gorodnia near Kolomna, which had formerly belonged to Prince Ya. N. Odoevskii: “I inquired where the icon of St. John the Merciful executed in the Greek manner had gone, for which, as they say, ‘the boyar himself traveled 2  See about him in RBS [vol. 8, Ibak-Kliucharev] (St. Petersburg, 1897), pp. 34–36; Pis’ma N. D. Ivanchina-Pisareva k I. M. Snegirevu. S predisloviem i primechaniiami B. L. Modzalevskogo (St. Petersburg, 1902) (= Izvestia ORIaS, vol. VII, book 4), pp. 1–8. 3  N. Ivanchin-Pisarev, Progulka po drevnemu Kolomenskomu uezdu (Moscow, 1844), p. 145. 4  N. Ivanchin-Pisarev, Vecher v Simonove (Moscow, 1840), p. 90, notes.

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to Alexandria.’ They replied with an indifference that made me shudder: ‘It was taken yesterday to Moscow to be repainted.’ ”5 It would be a mistake to think, however, that Ivanchin-Pisarev’s learning in the field of icon painting was so detailed as to enable him to easily distinguish an overpainted icon from an unretouched one. His approach is, first and foremost, one of literary affectation and lyrical-patriotic sentiment. A case in point is Ivanchin-Pisarev’s judgment of one of the icons from the Ugresh Monastery of St. Nicholas near Moscow depicting St. John the Baptist in the wilderness: “I stood for a long time in front of this icon, marvelling at the character of prophecy that the artist imparted to John’s face, [and] at the coloring that remained fairly fresh despite the fact that probably some five centuries have elapsed.”6 Those who have dealt with medieval Russian painting know that the coloring of an icon coated with drying oil loses its freshness within a few decades. What can be said of those pieces that are more than five hundred years old? It is the same strange mixture of learning and literary inexactness that one finds in a brief extract about the icons discovered by Ivanchin-Pisarev in the Church of St. Anna’s Conception in the Kolomna Kremlin, which he ascribed to Andrei Rublev. “I have come to this conclusion about the latter [icons],” he says, “bearing in mind the style and the finish of this celebrated icon painter, only a few [of whose] works have survived the ravages of time, fires, and renovations. He was, perhaps, the only one at that time who was able to combine thought and feeling, appropriate to the moment, in his tiniest, almost miniature-like depictions with which he embellished the icons with Lives.”7 Now that we know the authentic works of Rublev and the painters of his circle (which include not a single hagiographic icon among them), it is not difficult to grasp that in this extract Ivanchin-Pisarev was describing icons of the sixteenth or even seventeenth centuries. An analogous treatment of the subject and a similar manner of narration can be found in works by S. P. Shevyrev (1806–64), a Moscow professor of Russian

5  N. Ivanchin-Pisarev, Progulka po drevnemu Kolomenskomu uezdu, p. 62, see also pp. 46, 47, and 151. 6  N. Ivanchin-Pisarev, “Eshcho neskol’ko vospominanii o kolomenskom puti i o samom gorode,” in Moskvitianin (1845), no. 3, Materialy dlia russkoi istorii, p. 8. 7  N. Ivanchin-Pisarev, Progulka po drevnemu Kolomenskomu uezdu, p. 150, a note. It would be well to the point to mention here that N. D. Ivanchin-Pisarev was, perhaps, the first to identify the Trinity by Andrei Rublev with the icon mentioned in the Life of Nikon, who had commisioned it “to praise” St. Sergii (Sergius) of Radonezh. See N. Ivanchin-Pisarev. Den’ v Troitskoi lavre (Moscow, 1840), pp. 21–22.

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Figure 4.1 Stepan Petrovich Shevyrev (1806–64). Lithographic portrait, mid-nineteenth century.

philology, who was well known in the mid-nineteenth century.8 He received his university chair with the support of S. S. Uvarov, who noticed Shevyrev’s loyal attitude and was able to direct his creative energies along the lines of official narodnost’ (folkways nationality,). Sympathizing with the Slavophiles but knowing neither measure nor tact, Shevyrev carried the polemic of Russia versus the West to the point of absurdity. He considered Russia as a paragon of moral excellence and the West as a rotting carcass. In 1848, A. V. Nikitenko, a noted public figure and intelligent statesman of the mid-century, succinctly and accurately characterized this trend of thought in official journalism and university instruction as follows, “Now it is the fashion to be patriotic, to reject everything European, including the sciences and arts, and to assure everybody that Russia is so God-blest that it will be able to live by Orthodoxy alone. They appear to have forgotten,” he continues, referring to university 8  See about him in Biograficheskii slovar’ professorov i prepodavatelei imp. Moskovskogo universiteta, II (Moscow, 1855), pp. 602–24; M. Pogodin, “Vospominanie o Stepane Petroviche Shevyreve,” in ZhMNP, (February, 1869), pp. 395–452; Sochineniia N. S. Tikhonravova, vol. III, part 2 (Moscow, 1898), pp. 220–29; “Moskovskii universitet v vospominaniiakh A. N. Afanas’eva. 1843–1849 gg.,” in RS, 1(August, 886), pp. 368–71; RBS, [vol. 23, Shebanov-Schütz] (St. Petersburg, 1911), pp. 19–29; Zapiski Sergeia Mikhailovicha Solov’eva (Petrograd, [1915]), p, 47; Slavianovedenie v dorevoliutsionnoi Rossii. Biobibliograficheskii slovar’ (Moscow, 1979), pp. 369–70 (an entry by A. A. Iliushin and E. A. Maimin).

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professors of Shevyrev’s type, “what a wretched place Orthodox Byzantium has become …. All the evidence points to the fact that Peter the Great’s cause has no fewer enemies nowadays than at the time of the mutinies of the dissenters and strel’tsy-musketeers.”9 It was the irony of fate that Shevyrev spent his last years in the West. As a result of an outrageous argument that he started at a sitting of the council of the Moscow Art Society with Count V. A. Bobrinskii, whom he accused of lacking in patriotism, Shevyrev was dismissed from the university and a few years later went abroad only to die in Paris. In 1847, Shevyrev undertook a summer trip from Moscow to the St. Cyril Monastery at Beloozero, which he described in a book issued in two installments three years later. The literary genre of the scholarly journey was still in fashion so that, alongside Ivanchin-Pisarev’s Tours and the more superficial journal articles by M. P. Pogodin, Shevyrev’s book was a typical example of this kind of literature. Shevyrev visited the town of Pushkin, the Trinity-St. Sergius Monastery, the Aleksandrova Sloboda, and Vologda, and—on his way back from St. Cyril’s—Belozersk, Cherepovets, Rybinsk, and Tver. The form of a diary, supplied with detailed accounts of stopovers in the most interesting locales, gave him an occasion to inform the reader of the towns and villages lying between his destinations, manor houses and monasteries, icons and manuscript books, natural phenomena and people. His accounts of church antiquities are thorough and as frequent as his descriptions of the weather and the countryside. Icons drew the author’s particular attention, but their characterization is as hazy as in the books of Ivanchin-Pisarev. “The handling is Byzantine and an excellent one.” Thus Shevyrev voices his admiration for Rublev’s Trinity in the Trinity-St. Sergius Monastery. “The countenances of a purely Greek type are imbued with ineffable beauty and grace. The outlines of faces, eyes, and hair display a sinuous movement of line. All three angels fondly incline their heads toward one another, creating, as it were, an integral whole and thereby expressing symbolically the idea of a love-infused union of the Holy Trinity’s persons.”10 With regard to another well-known icon of the fifteenth century, the portrait of St. Cyril of Beloozero from the St. Cyril Monastery at Beloozero, he remarks that the “saint’s countenance is endowed with a solemn serenity and profound wisdom.”11 In the mid-nineteenth century, the original surfaces of both the Trinity and the portrait of St. Cyril were concealed by later paintwork, and the most recent 9  A. V. Nikitenko, Dnevnik, vol. 1, 1826–1857 (Moscow, 1955), pp. 317–18. 10   Poezdka v Kirillo-Belozerskii monastyr’. Vakatsionnye dni professora S. Shevyreva v 1847 godu, part 1 (Moscow, 1850), p. 13. 11  Ibid., part 2 (Moscow, 1850), p. 13.

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retouchings of the second icon had no artistic value at all, which, incidentally, a lithographic print attached to Shevyrev’s work clearly shows. Did Shevyrev realize that what he described was not the original painting? He probably did, as his work contains quite a few pages in which unretouched or recently cleaned icons are specially marked out (and even reproduced).12 What is really astonishing, however, is that he chooses the same words for describing the authentic paintings as he used to characterize Rublev’s Trinity, and only briefly mentions the uncovered icons in the Trinity Monastery and the Tver Cathedral without going into details. It looks as if the author wishes to bypass the issue of what distinguishes authentic paintings from restorations. If the most recent paintwork retains the former outlines and the relationships of basic colors of the original, he considers such icons to be authentic or almost authentic. It is evident that his interpretation of medieval Russian painting is not only amateurish but limited. Rather than focusing on the painting proper, he dwells on the type and the subject, and his descriptions are actually based not so much on the aesthetic quality of the original as on the attractive features of an iconographic specimen. One hundred years ago, a small essay entitled The Russian Palaeologists of the 1840s, by the historian-biographer and source-study expert N. P. Barsukov, appeared in the journal Ancient and Modern Russia.13 It dealt, among other things, with I. P. Sakharov. Although the term palaeologist had as yet entered none of the existing dictionaries of the Russian language, one can with little difficulty apply it to people who dedicated themselves to the study of antiquity. In the mid-nineteenth century, when the science of Russian antiquities was still poorly differentiated, the term palaeologist aptly points to the wideranging interests of I. P. Sakharov and his contemporaries. An exemplary palaeologist was Ivan Mikhailovich Snegirev (1793[?]–1868).14 He viewed historical monuments not as literary material intended to meet the romantic demands of readers, but as objects of scholarly research. Snegirev was constantly, one might say, daily and even hourly, enlarging the stock of his 12  Ibid., part 1, pp. 14, 41, 51–52, 124–25; part 2, p. 127. 13  N. Barsukov, “Russkie paleologi sorokovykh godov,” in Drevniaia i novaia Rossiia, (February, 1880), pp. 259–90; March, pp. 517–51; April, pp. 727–57. 14  See about him in Biograficheskii slovar’ professorov i prepodavatelei imp. Moskovskogo universiteta, part II, pp. 423–27; F. Buslaev, “Ivan Mikhailovich Snegirev (1793–1868),” in Moskovskie universitetskie izvestiia (1869), no. 1, pp. 56–62; Ivan Mikhailovich Snegirev. Biograficheskii ocherk. Sostavil A. Ivanovskii, (St. Petersburg, 1871); A. N. Pypin, Istoriia russkoi etnografii, vol. I (St. Petersburg, 1890), pp. 316–29; RBS, [vol. 19, SmelovskiiSuvorina] (St. Petersburg, 1909), pp. 7–11; Slavianovedenie v dorevoliutsionnoi Rossii. Biobibliograficheskii slovar’, pp. 310–11.

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Figure 4.2 The Trinity by Andrei Rublev in an icon of the early fifteenth century. Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow.

Figure 4.3 St. Cyril of the White Lake in an icon of the early fifteenth century. Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow.

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Figure 4.4 Ivan Mikhailovich Snegirev (1793–1868). Drawing, anonymous. Location unknown.

archaeological observations. Over the course of many years, he made tireless tours of Moscow, that veritable storehouse of pre-Petrine antiquities. For him, Moscow was an inexhaustible source of information about history, archaeology, art, and everyday life.15 He studied Moscow’s topography and church history so thoroughly that all the subsequent scholars of Moscow antiquities would, to a great extent, rely on his publications. “None of the scholars knew so well all the sites of the ancient metropolis,” wrote F. I. Buslaev about Snegirev after his death. “None walked so much throughout the length and breadth of Moscow or so painstakingly studied its churches, monasteries, and other relics of the past; none knew better than he so many different tales and anecdotes connected with various localities and landmarks of the ancient capital. He was

15  The folklore, folk ways, and arts are the subject of a number of Snegirev’s works, in particular, his Russkie v svoikh poslovitsakh (1831–1834), Russkie prostonarodnye prazdniki i suevernye obriady (1837–1839), Lubochnye kartinki (1844, 1861), Russkie narodnye poslovitsy i pritchi (1848), and Novyi sbornik russkikh poslovits (1857). Among the many books devoted to Moscow and Moscow’s and nearby churches and monasteries one should single out a capital two-volume description of Moscow: I. M. Snegirev, Moskva. Podrobnoe istoricheskoe i arkheologicheskoe opisanie goroda, I–II (Moscow, 1865–1873).

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a most experienced and trustworthy guide in Moscow.”16 It is remarkable that, like other palaeologists of the 1840s, Snegirev was not an ex officio historian or archaeologist. He earned his living first by reading lectures in the department of philology at the University of Moscow and then by holding the post of Moscow censor. In 1855, Snegirev was dismissed from this post for authorizing the publication of an article about N. I. Novikov (1744–1818), the free-thinking Russian journalist and philanthropist, whereupon he gradually sank into poverty, moved to St. Petersburg, and died in a hospital there. In 1834, Snegirev prepared his first major work on Russian painting. This was an extensive paper on the historical relationships of Greek, Byzantine, and Russian art, which abounded in arguments of a general character.17 It was followed by a chapter on icons in the Survey of Moscow Antiquities, which came out in separate issues from 1842 to 1845 and, upon completion of the work, constituted one large and amply illustrated volume. A special booklet by Snegirev, entitled On the Significance of Russian Icon Painting, appeared in 1848; it was designed as a series of letters addressed to the young count, A. S. Uvarov, son of the then Minister of Public Education, who had once questioned Snegirev about icons at a Moscow soirée. The next year saw the publication of the first volume of the official edition of Antiquities of the Russian State (Drevnosti Rossiiskogo gosudarstva) with an article by Snegirev, which may be considered a synopsis of his historical and theoretical speculations on Russian painting. Taken together, all this gives a general idea of Snegirev’s views on the subject in question. Snegirev makes it clear that icons, apart from being sacred church relics, are an essential source of information about Russia’s historical past,18 and they are, first and foremost, artworks that can provide evidence of the state of art in the medieval period. Since many icons were created on the occasion of some event or in connection with the life of some eminent statesman or ecclesiastic, they are also of historical importance as the mementoes of those events and individuals. They also have an archaeological value, for in icons the researcher can find representations of towns, churches, and monasteries or of clothing and household utensils which can be used, alongside other sources, in the study of the antiquities and life of the Russian people. “Add to this,” wrote 16  F. Buslaev, “Ivan Mikhailovich Snegirev (1793–1868),” p. 57. 17  [I. M.] Snegirev, “O stile vizantiiskogo khudozhestva, osobenno vaianiia i zhivopisi, v otnoshenii k russkomu,” in Uchenye zapiski imp. Moskovskogo universiteta, part VI (Moscow, 1834), pp. 273–86 and 418–49. 18   I. M. Snegirev, O znachenii otechestvennoi ikonopisi. Pis’ma k grafu A. S. Uvarovu (St. Petersburg, 1848) (a reprint of an article published in Zapiski arkheologichesko-numizmaticheskogo obshchestva v Sanktpeterburge, III [St. Petersburg, 1848], pp. 1–8.

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Snegirev in his other work on icons, “the enigmatic symbolism with which monuments of art have quite frequently been infused in Rus’: while giving food for thought and imagination, it leads us into the domain of spirit, introducing us to the views and notions of our forefathers.”19 Snegirev perceived Russian medieval painting as a living, developing art and it is this understanding that also colors his judgments of icons. The history of the art of icon painting embraces its origin, heyday, and decline, and its workshops and schools, outstanding artists, and stylistic trends. The beginning of and the first independent essays in Russian icon painting are closely related to the Byzantine school, which furnished Russian artists with iconographic prototypes, techniques, and notions of beauty. Whereas the content of the art remains unchanged, its stylistic attributes vary with the time and place of the icon painter’s activity. Like the state and church of Rus’, icon painting originated in the south and then gradually spread to the north and northeast, where a variety of styles or poshiby, as described in the nineteenth century, such as those of Novgorod, Moscow, and Suzdal, came into being.20 This is true not only of easel painting (i.e., icon painting proper), but also of wall painting and manuscript illumination. The apparent similarity between Snegirev’s views and the fundamental principles adopted by modern scholarship with regard to medieval Russian painting is superficial: they are worlds apart. While establishing the fact of the existence of the main—Novgorod, Moscow, and Stroganov—schools of icon painting, which were then recognized on the evidence of numerous artworks rather than theoretically, Snegirev expresses the opinion that each of these schools existed for a long time in a consecutive rather than concurrent order: the Novgorod school gave way to the Moscow school which, in turn, was succeeded by the Stroganov school. As the Novgorod school derives directly from the Byzantine one, Novgorod painting was regarded as a variety of Greek painting rather than a school of its own. The Moscow school of icon painting was the first, and most famous, Russian one. It emerged in the sixteenth century during the reign of Ivan the Terrible. The Moscow icons are remarkable for their light coloring, tinted highlights, and the “tenderness of facial expressions, whereas the Novgorod icons present a more stern and forbidding look.”21 The period of 19   Pamiatniki drevnego khudozhestva v Rossii, published by A. A. Martynov, text by I. M. Snegirev, fascicle I (Moscow, 1850), introduction. 20  I. M. Snegirev, O znachenii otechestvennoi ikonopisi, pp. 16–17. 21  I. Snegirev, Pamiatniki moskovskoi drevnosti s prisovokupleniem ocherka monumental’noi istorii Moskvy (Moscow, 1842–1845), p. XXXVI; Drevnosti Rossiiskogo gosudarstva, section I, Sviatye ikony, kresty, utvar’ khramovaia i oblacheniia sana dukhovnogo (Moscow, 1849), p. XXXIV.

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the Moscow school was simultaneous with the period of the emergence of the Friazin (Friazhskaya) and Stroganov schools. The Friazin school originated as a result of the migration of Greek masters first to Italy and then to Moscow, and its style is Byzantine with an admixture of the Italian and Moscow schools. The late sixteenth century also saw the formation, in the northern town of Solvychegodsk, of the Stroganov school whose examples were particularly valued for their refined execution and decor. In the seventeenth century, the Stroganov school gradually “veered away” from its Greek prototypes, revealing a growing technical similarity to works of the Friazin school. Lastly, the period following Peter’s death was marked by the development of Suzdalian icon painting which, despite what its name implies, stands for the style that originated in the villages of Mstera, Kholui, and Palekh, located within the territory of ancient Suzdalia, rather than in the town of Suzdal proper. Snegirev readily substantiates his speculations about these schools and styles with information about artists and the patrons who commissioned these works. Rublev, whose name and work were even then considered the embodiment of all that was best in Russian icon painting, is in the center of his attention. Art-historical books of the nineteenth century, particularly Ivanchin-Pisarev’s Tours, are so frequently interspersed with reports about Rublev’s icons that the inexperienced reader might think that a hundred years ago works by this master were counted by the score and could be found in almost all the church repositories and owned by all more or less respectable collectors. Snegirev points out, however, that of the icons known as Rublevs in his day only some were painted by the master himself; others were the work of his pupils and even imitators.22 This means that Moscow icons of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries which repeated Rublev’s favorite types of the Virgin of Vladimir or the Savior were ascribed to Rublev. For the first time in scholarly literature Snegirev touches on the stylistic features of such icons: “Their drawing is austere and distinct, the coloring, though dense, is fluid and refined, or, as the icon painter would put it ‘cloudy’; … on the strongly worked areas of the faces the ocher is not laid with white lead, which is used for fine shades instead.”23 Although the information that he gives about other masters is less detailed, the number of mere mentions of significant other icon paint-

22  I. Snegirev, Pamiatniki moskovskoi drevnosti s prisovokupleniem ocherka monumental’noi istorii Moskvy, p. XXII; I. Snegirev, O znachenii otechestvennoi ikonopisi, p. 19; Drevnosti Rossiiskogo gosudarstva, section I, p. XXVIII. 23  I. M. Snegirev, O znachenii otechestvennoi ikonopisi, p. 19; Drevnosti Rossiiskogo gosudarstva, section I, p. XXIX.

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ers in Snegirev’s works sets them far ahead of other palaeologists’ writings of the 1840s. Such was Snegirev’s understanding of Russian medieval painting. He made the first attempt at sorting out this vast artistic heritage, at classifying it in terms of epochs and schools; to be sure, Snegirev was aware that he dealt with either overpainted or time-ravaged icons, “for, one cannot believe that they were painted in the same dark fashion as they appear to us now.”24 Unfortunately, the fanciful and motley hodge-podge of facts, surmises, and pure conjectures that one encounters in Snegirev’s articles and books looks somewhat simplified and orderly in our narration. His terminology is imprecise; alongside the term shkola (school) he uses such appellatives as pis’mo and stil’ (style) and, especially frequently, the ugly word poshib (manner), which may equally well stand for manner, school, and style. He expresses inconsistent and even conflicting ideas. Thus, at one point he states that the Moscow school emerged in the sixteenth century but a few pages earlier one finds a hint that it existed as far back as the fourteenth century.25 Still vaguer are Snegirev’s understanding of the Chersonesus (Korsun) style and his assessment of Suzdal painting. M. P. Pogodin, who knew Snegirev intimately, characterizes him as follows: Snegirev was a man of extensive learning and very well-read, fond of archaeological pursuits and research. He knew how to search, inquire, and record facts, being, as one might put it, a hunter in the full sense of the word. Writing all … his books and descriptions, he did great service to Russian science and provided a good deal of new evidence; what he lacked, however, was accuracy and clarity, as he was not critical enough and could not distinguish the essential from the inessential. Ideas originated in his mind as if at random, and that is why his periodization often looks utterly nonsensical…. He often gets mixed up, confusing the reader as well, at times doing it intentionally, as it were, in accordance with his peculiar cast of mind: it looks as if it pleases him more to be foggy than lucid. He is sure to add one false piece of evidence to ten true ones, and you will have to rack your brains, trying to guess which of these eleven pieces is no good. For this reason, Snegirev’s numerous writings and findings with their rich factual material should be treated with extreme caution and not be trusted without due checking.26 24  I. M. Snegirev, O znachenii otechestvennoi ikonopisi, p. 15. 25   Drevnosti Rossiiskogo gosudarstva, section I, pp. XXXIV and XXVIII. 26  M. P. Pogodin, “Sud’by arkheologii v Rossii,” in Trudy I AS v Moskve (1869), vol. I (Moscow, 1871), pp. 25–26 (reprinted in M. P. Pogodin, Sochineniia, vol. III, Rechi. 1830–1872 (Moscow,

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Figure 4.5 Ivan Petrovich Sakharov (1807–63).

Another palaeologist, I. P. Sakharov, sought like Snegirev to embrace the study of Russian antiquities as a whole rather than elucidating its odd and casual features. His passion for accumulating facts, however, often eclipsed their investigation so that, seen in its entirety, Sakharov’s activity appears as that of an indefatigable collector, classifier, and publisher. Ivan Petrovich Sakharov (1807–63)27 was born in Tula into the family of a parish priest. On finishing the local theological school he entered the Medical Department of Moscow University, rather than following in his father’s footsteps. Later, Sakharov moved to St. Petersburg, where he worked for a long time as a staff physician at the Postal Department of the Ministry of the Interior. But the genuine interests of this physicion lay not so much in medicine as in history. As was the case with many other young scholars of his generation, his 1872), pp. 504–505). For similar remarks made by I. E. Zabelin, see I. Zabelin, Opyty izucheniia russkikh drevnostei i istorii, part II (Moscow, 1873), pp. 119–22. 27  See about him in I. Sreznevskii, “Vospominaniia ob I. P. Sakharove,” in Zapiski imp. Akademii nauk, vol. IV, book 2 (St. Petersburg, 1864), section Prilozheniia k protokolam, pp. 239–144; N. Barsukov, “Russkie paleologi sorokovykh godov,” pp. 262–65; A. N. Pypin, Istoriia russkoi etnografii, vol. I, pp. 276–313; N. I. Veselovskii, Istoriia imp. Russkogo arkheologicheskogo obshchestva za pervoe piatidesiatiletie ego sushchestvovaniia. 1846–1896 (St. Petersburg, 1900), pp. 62–63. Most substantial biographic material about I. P. Sakharov was gathered after his death by P. I. Savvaitov. It includes Sakharov’s Moi vospominaniia, a list of his works and publications, Zapiski I. P. Sakharova, and official documents relating to his career. See “Dlia biografii I. P. Sakharova. Soobshcheno P. I. Savvaitovym,” in RA (1873), book 1, columns 897–1017; RBS, [vol. 18, Sabaneev-Smyslov] (St. Petersburg, 1904), pp. 211–16 (the entry by E. Tarasov).

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historic interests were awakened by reading Karamzin. Even in his pre-university days, Sakharov walked all over Tula, Orel, Riazan, and Moscow provinces, where he examined a multitude of ancient monuments and heard thousands of songs, fairy tales, ballads, and legends. Being a commoner himself, he got on well with simple folk. As a priest’s son and former seminarian, he had access to all the church repositories and archives. In a short time he managed to accumulate a large amount of material that he gradually made public, issuing it in separate monographs and periodical editions. Sakharov’s world view was marked by boundless eulogizing of the Russian people and an equally boundless hatred of everything foreign: his xenophobia was not only chauvinistic, like Shevyrev’s, but also pathological. He wrote, “Thank God, not a single French scoundrel tutored me. I am proud that no German vagabond was ever near or around me. I did not kowtow to any French bungler nor hearken to his directions as to how to hate my motherland and squander the riches amassed by my fathers and grandfathers…. They did not befuddle me with their superior tastes for the elegant, nor with their notions of the sublime and beautiful which could ostensibly be found only in France and Germany.”28 This irrational spite for foreigners pervades every page of his memoirs. “Going from village to village,” related Sakharov, “I took a good look at people from all walks of life, I listened to the wonderful Russian idiom and gathered the lore of long forgotten days, and in doing all this, I could not believe my eyes: are these the same historical people whom the overseas vagrants dare to despise so much.”29 In Sakharov’s view, the common people were endowed only with positive qualities: they lived in the old way; their morals were untainted; they were pious and devout, loyal to the tsar and the Orthodox Church. As this view of the peasant masses and petty townsfolk of the Russian empire tallied so well with the official doctrine of the government, it is small wonder that Sakharov’s writings abound in countless panegyrics on Nicholas I. “The Russian narodnost’, declared Sakharov, “is being proclaimed in Russia in a bold and magnificent fashion. Emperor Nikolai Pavlovich felt not the slightest doubt in taking our folkways under his aegis and making them the symbol of the Ministry of Public Education. He clearly divined Russia’s future glory; he alone grasped the destiny of the Russian land. Walking about Russia, recording its old traditions, I could not then foresee that our country’s narodnost’ would so soon be made known to everyone and become the touchstone in our appraisal of old Russian life and new European learning.”30 28  “Dlia biografii I. P. Sakharova. Soobshcheno P. I. Savvaitovym,” column 906. 29  Ibid., column 909. 30  Ibid., column 910.

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The government turned on Sakharov its “revivifying eyes of benevolence” (zhivitel’nyi vzor blogovoleniia) so that, from 1836 on, after gaining some experience in issuing brief articles, Sakharov began to publish his major works, The Tales of the Russian People (Skazaniia Russkogo naroda, in three installments, 1836–37); The Travels of the Russian People (Puteshestviia russkikh liudei, in two parts, 1837); The Songs of the Russian People (Pesni Russkogo naroda, in five instalments, 1838–39); Notes by Russian People (Zapiski russkikh liudei, 1841); and Russian Folk Tales (Russkie narodnye skazki, 1841). Each of these collections contained a host of new or long-forgotten and little-known material that vividly and comprehensively elucidated the spiritual and everyday life of the Russian people from ancient times to the mid-nineteenth century. The weak and sentimental notions regarding the Russian nation that characterized the thinking of Sakharov’s predecessors acquired a specific and, one might say, tangible aspect in these books. All this turned out to be so fresh and, owing to the social expectations, so timely and appropriate that Sakharov became an extremely popular figure in archaeological and literary circles. Also very impressive were his announcements about even more extensive and significant future investigations and publications. In the foreword to the second edition of his Tales, which were particularly well received, Sakharov disclosed that the complete publication of the available material would consist of thirty books, arranged in seven volumes. To begin with, only a few people noticed the confusion and patent absurdity that characterized Sakharov’s publications. A review of latter-day criticism,31 however, indicates that his publications reveal not so much the workings of the lively and critical mind of a specially trained scholar as the energy and ambition of a natural talent and self-taught amateur given to exaggeration and, in some cases, to the embellishment and twisting of evidence. Sakharov also published Studies of Russian Icon Painting (1849),32 in two volumes, which immediately stirred a lively interest among lovers of Russian antiquities. The first printing of six hundred copies of the first volume proved insufficient; the second volume, issued somewhat later, had a print-run of two thousand copies. The second edition of the first volume came out in 1850, with 1400 copies, thus bridging the gap between the number of copies issued in 1849 and that of the second volume.33 The entire printing quickly sold out and, as 31  See, in particular, an unfavorable review by I. E. Zabelin about Sakharov’s Obozrenie russkoi arkheologii: I. Zabelin, Opyty izucheniia russkikh drevnostei i istorii, part II, pp. 79–106. 32  I. Sakharov, Issledovaniia o russkom ikonopisanii, book 1–2 (St. Petersburg, 1849). 33  For the information about it, see “Dlia biografii I. P. Sakharova. Soobshcheno P. I. Savvaitovym,” columns 938, 939 (from the list of works and publications).

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a result, Sakharov was acknowledged as the greatest authority on folklore and medieval Russian painting. In Studies Sakharov voiced an accurate and well-grounded opinion of the need for a history of Russian icon painting. The contents of such a history would be the discussion of master-craftsmen, their output, events of their artistic lives, and the literature pertaining to the theory and practice of painting. With this in mind, Sakharov mapped out a specific program of investigation, which included, among other things, the publication of an icon-painting manual (ikonopisnyi podlinnik); the compilation of artists’ biographies; the inventory and description of Byzantine and Russian icons and manuscript illuminations; the review of old and new literature and written sources on icon painting; the study of icon-painting techniques; and, last but not least, the techniques of wall painting. He correctly singled out the items concerning the publication of explanatory illustrated manuals (tolkovye litsevye podlinniki) and the description of icons and miniatures. Sakharov intended to issue all the works in the form of special monographs. To exemplify such an edition of a manual, he published his notes on the manual in the first volume of Studies, and the two recensions of an explanatory manual for the month of September. The second volume of Sakharov’s Studies consists mostly of his extensive notes on the schools or groups of practitioners of early Russian art. This is one great asset of Sakharov’s work, since the classification of icons on the basis of style and school is an important prerequisite for the study of medieval Russian painting. The foreword introduces the reader to the subject at hand and explains that interest in Russian antiquities sprang up as one recoiled from the “void of the West.” Further on, the author mentions the connoisseurs and amateurs who, he thinks, may well compete with the best scholars of Western Europe. “Verify their words,” advises Sakharov “with your own studies and observations and you will see the truth….” Expounding on his theory of the schools of Russian art, Sakharov disagrees with his predecessors. The view of Ivanchin-Pisarev, who defined only three schools—Byzantine-Russian, Suzdal, and Novgorod—is, in his words, “too narrow to encompass the entire scope of our icon painting.” Snegirev had already written about six schools (Byzantine, Korsun’, Novgorod, Moscow, Friazin, and Stroganov) but, as Sakharov points out, he had omitted the Kiev school, “where Russian icon painting first came into being” and instead listed the Korsun’ school which had never existed. Sakharov’s list is more complete and accurate. He enumerates eight schools: Byzantium, Kiev, Novgorod, Moscow, Ustiug, Stroganov, Friazin, and Suzdal.34 They are given in chronological order, 34  I. Sakharov, Issledovaniia o russkom ikonopisanii, book 2, p. 8.

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from the non-Russian, Byzantine school which is extremely important for the entire history of Russian medieval painting, to such a survival of early art as the Suzdal school, that is, the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century workshops of Kholui, Palekh, and Mstera. Sakharov corroborates his general evaluations of these schools in his second volume with a special study of the Byzantine school, which is a kind of gauge, as it were, for the characterization of all other schools. He categorizes works of Byzantine painting by medium as icons, frescoes, mosaics, or manuscript illuminations. He describes icons with particular thoroughness. Of considerable value, even in our time, is a list of Russian-owned Byzantine icons in which Sakharov names about forty works known to him, updating his information either with evidence from the Chronicles, Lives, and other sources, or with his own observations. But alongside his adequate remarks on Byzantine painting, Sakharov’s text abounds in formulations that retain only the semblance of scholarly commentary. The stylistic features of Byzantine icons that he enumerates in twenty-three paragraphs35 might do credit to a present-day scholar were many of these not utterly vague. Such statements as “A universal alienation of fanciful demands of the changeable human nature and everything is based on lawful rules and conditions,” and “the biblical outlines of faces found their expression in rotundity that only the ancient world could attain,” abound in the text. Let us point out, however, that Sakharov was aware of the preliminary character of his notes.36 Critics of Byzantine painting, which was not highly valued at the time, pointed to the lack of perspective or failure to alternate planes, to the glitter of gold and the brightness or darkness of faces. Sakharov replied, “Do we not, sometimes, take a poor renovation done by the rural painter for a creative endeavor of the artist?” This did occur, and Sakharov himself often erred in his judgment of the authenticity of medieval Russian painting. In a short section of the second book of vol. 2 of Studies is the following passage: “These works have survived without renovations and other arbitrary alterations at the hands of our home-bred daubers.” Whereupon, Sakharov, speaking of the need to study Russian illuminations by comparing them with their Byzantine counterparts, refers to the miniatures of the fourteenth-century Kholm Lectionary from the former collection of N. P. Rumiantsev (RNL, f. 256, no. 106) as examples of genuine painting. Contrary to his opinion, however, these were executed not in the fourteenth century but in the sixteenth or 35  Ibid., pp. 16–18. 36  As evidenced by one of Sakharov’s relations, he revised and updated his work about icon painting shortly before his death (N. Barsukov, “Russkie paleologi sorokovykh godov,” p. 264).

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even seventeenth century, and are the work of a Ukrainian rather than Russian artist who widely used decorative motifs of Western European origin. There are quite a few mistakes of this kind in Sakharov’s works and in the works of other authors who wrote about icon painting at that time. The second volume of Sakharov’s Studies had several supplements. A good deal of valuable information can be culled from his Program of Technical Instruction in Icon Painting which contained, alongside pieces of practical advice on the training of icon painters, rules for the restoration of ancient panels.37 In Sakharov’s view, the term “restoration” (vozobnovlenie) stands for the reconstruction (vosstanovlenie) rather than overpainting of the original surface texture, that is, for the removal of drying oil and retouchings and the subsequent repair of damaged areas “in accordance with the ancient style and original manner” by working up these areas either with dots (punktirom) or by thick glazing with paints (gustoi plavkoi kraskami). Despite the many facts that directly or indirectly relate to the history of medieval painting, Sakharov’s Studies, in much the same way as the writings of his contemporaries, does not furnish any clear characterization of this painting. Nevertheless, Sakharov’s rules of icon restoration and Shevyrev’s reports on the cleanings of works in the Trinity-St. Sergius Monastery and Tver provide evidence that in the 1840s the cleaning of ancient icons, aimed at uncovering their original brushwork, was already conducted with a full awareness of the task, thus paving the way for Podkliuchnikov. Retouching with dots and, especially, thick glazing with paints were probably still regarded as the sine qua non of “restoration,” which ruled out the possibility of studying the authentic painting. As a result, people’s ideas of the works remained vague or downright wrong. Now that we have become acquainted with the publications of palaeologists, we can probe their sources of information. Both Snegirev and Sakharov mention their conversations with certain connoisseurs and amateurs, which helped them to accumulate the documentary evidence for the history of icon painting. Sakharov dedicated the second volume of Studies to the collectors of the sacred legacy of Russia—yet another category of individuals concerned with icons. Who were these connoisseurs, amateurs, and collectors and why did their knowledge become so vital to scholars? It is the Old Believers who instantly come to mind. The Old Believer communities were keepers of old ways, and their house chapels and churches were veritable museums of icon painting. That had been an ancient custom, but in 37  I. Sakharov, Issledovaniia o russkom ikonopisanii, book 2, appendices, pp. 33–34.

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the 1840s, when the passion for antiquities became widespread, the purposeful collecting activities of the Old Believers assumed a new dynamic. The split between the Old Believers and the official church arose in the midseventeenth century and was a consequence of the reforms of Tsar Aleksei Mikhailovich and Patriarch Nikon.38 The reforms emended some liturgical texts, church rites, and the practice of church painting after Greek models, even though it was clear to many Russian prelates of the day that the seventeenth-century Greeks had deviated from the Byzantine canon more than their Russian fellows. The progressive men of Muscovy also realized that the differences in texts and practices between the Greeks of the Orthodox East and the Russians had objective causes, and that any attempts to reduce them to a common pattern were doomed to failure. The reforms also threatened the unity of the church. The backward and ignorant peasants were not prepared for changes in the religious sphere of their daily life, which was firmly rooted in old legends and traditions. Yet the sharp outburst of opposition sentiment known as the Old Believer dissent is explained not only by the essence of the reforms but also by the brutal nature of their implementation. Patriarch Nikon condemned icons executed, in his view, in a manner revealing the influence of the Catholic West. A colorful account of Nikon’s measures to emend church painting is contained in the travel notes of Paul of Aleppo, who visited Muscovy when the reforms were in full swing. According to Paul, Nikon obliterated the saints’ eyes on such icons and then displayed the mutilated panels for desecration in public places; he also smashed the icons on the floor with such force that they broke to pieces and then ordered them burned. But “the Muscovites,” says Paul, “are generally noted for their strong attachment to and fondness for icons, and they care not a bit for the beauty of the image depicted nor the art of the painter, and all the icons, whether beautiful or ugly, have for them 38  N. F. Kapterev, Patriarkh Nikon i tsar’ Aleksei Mikhailovich, I–II, (Sergiev Posad, 1900–1912); N. F. Kapterev, Patriarkh Nikon i ego protivniki v dele ispravleniia tserkovnykh obriadov (Sergiev Posad, 1913). The history of the schism gave rise to ample literature, which is mostly of pre-revolutionary origin and rather complicated owing to the confessional interests of its authors. See A. S. Prugavin, Raskol—sektantstvo. Materialy dlia izucheniia religiozno-bytovykh dvizhenii russkogo naroda, I. Bibliografiia staroobriadchestva i ego razvetvlenii (Moscow, 1887); F. Sakharov, Literatura istorii i oblicheniia russkogo raskola. Sistematicheskii ukazatel’ knig, broshiur i statei o raskole, nakhodiashchikhsia v dukhovnykh i svetskikh periodicheskikh izdaniiakh, 1–3 (Tambov-St. Petersburg, 1887–1900). For more details, see the reference books Istoriia dorevoliutsionnoi Rossii v dnevnikakh i vospominaniiakh. Annotirovannyi ukazatel’ knig i publikatsii v zhurnalakh, vol. 2, part 1 (1801–1856) (Moscow, 1977), pp. 130–33 (nos. 690–708) and vol. 3, part 1, 1857–1894 (Moscow, 1979), pp. 295–310 (nos. 1802–1908).

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the same value: they hold them sacred and worship them all with the same reverence even if the icon be only a sketch on paper or drawing from a child’s hand…. Seeing what the patriarch did to the icons, [they] thought that he was much in error and they got confused and deemed him to be an iconoclast.”39 That was why, despite all the assurances of the church and government, the reforms aimed at the elimination of errors in religious practices and texts and the restoration of ancient customs, Nikon’s actions were seen as the profanation of sacred objects and the old faith. The severe persecutions and the executions of dissenters, which culminated in the burning at the stake of Archpriest Avvakum, the champion of the Old Believer movement, did not end dissent or restore the church to its former unity. The Petrine epoch only made the opposition more articulate. Peter concerned himself with matters of religion only as necessitated by the tasks of the state reorganization he was implementing. In exchange for the Old Believers assent to work at his metal works and accept the double soul tax, he granted them some degree of freedom. It was in Peter’s time that the schism essentially took the form of a special creed and even a special way of organizing private life and social activity. There is evidence that some exponents of the Old Believer movement had already begun collecting old (pre-Nikonian) icons in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century.40 These were chiefly required for the maintenance of religious practice and executing new icons on their pattern, thus preserving the iconography and style of antiquity. At the same time, the Old Believers spared no effort in collecting manuscript books untainted by mid-seventeenth century emendations. Despite their persecution, which resumed under Biron in the 1730s, and the confiscation of articles of church practice which accompanied the closing down of their sketes (small and secluded monasteries) and house chapels, the Old Believers managed to retain and in some cases even augment their old collections. Since their strict adherence to the purity of “ancient” worship made it obligatory for them to discriminate between the old and the new, the icon painters and lovers of antiquities in the Old Believer communities worked out a system of stylistic and technical characteristics, which they used to ascertain an icon’s date and provenance. Although quite confusing and even fantastic, at times, this kind of knowledge was the only reliable evidence of medieval Russian painting in the 1840s. 39   Puteshestvie antiokhiiskogo patriarkha Makariia v Rossiiu v polovine XVII veka, opisannoe ego synom arkhidiakonom Pavlom Aleppskim (translated from the Arabic by G. Murkos), 3 (Moscow, 1898), pp. 136, 137. 40  A. Shchapov, Russkii raskol staroobriadchestva (Kazan’, 1859), pp. 302, 306–307; N. Mel’nikov, Istoricheskie ocherki popovshchiny, I (Moscow, 1864), pp. 67–68.

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During the reigns of Alexander I and Nicholas I, the two major centers of Old Believer activities were the Preobrazhenskoe and Rogozhskoe cemeteries in Moscow.41 Both were set up as quarantine posts and burial-places during the plague of 1771. When the epidemic was over, the communities of the village of Preobrazhenskoe and those beyond the Rogozhskoe frontier post did not disband but actually expanded, acquiring great influence as the ideological and administrative centers of the majority of Russia’s Old Believer population. The Preobrazhenskoe cemetery united the Old Believers of the Fedoseev persuasion (who rejected the priesthood); those who accepted the priesthood grouped together at the Rogozhskoe cemetery. Large masonry churches, dwelling houses, chapels, walls, and towers all imparted the look of monasteries to the newly founded Old Believer communities. The first leaders of these communities wielded great authority. The founder of the Preobrazhenskoe cemetery, Moscow merchant I. A. Kovylin (1731–1809)—who owned a cloth mill and brickyards, and carried out brisk trade overseas—established close links with other eminent merchants, government officials, and even with the Moscow police. This gave him a free hand so that in reply to the continued appeals of Moscow Metropolitan Platon to abandon dissent and accept Orthodoxy, Kovylin would assert, not without pride, that in the official church he would have been on a par with any worthless peasant whereas in the Preobrazhenskoe cloister he rated not less than the patriarch himself. Both cemeteries were noted not only for their spiritual influence but also for their rich icon collections. In 1771, they came into possession of icons of deceased Old Believers and those of the Orthodox Muscovites who had converted to the Old Believers’ version of Orthodox faith. Kovylin managed to acquire a complete iconostasis from the Orthodox Church of St. Anastasia the BondBreaker (Uzoreshitel’nitsa) which was situated in the Okhotny Riad and erected, according to legend, by Tsar Ivan the Terrible’s first wife Anastasia Romanovna. Bribing a church priest, Kovylin ordered that the old icons be smuggled over to the Church of the Dormition in the Preobrazhenskoe cemetery and that new

41  See “Fedoseevtsy. Istoriia Preobrazhenskogo kladbishcha,” in Sbornik pravitel’stvennykh svedenii o raskol’nikakh, sostavlennyi V. Kel’sievym, I (London, 1860), pp. 3–74; F. V. Livanov, Raskol’niki i ostrozhniki, vol. III (St. Petersburg, 1872), pp. 1–277 [I. Tainy moskovskogo Preobrazhenskogo kladbishcha (Pervaia polnaia istoriia sego kladbishcha s osnovaniia onago 1771 goda i do nastoiashchego vremeni 1871 goda)]; P. V. Sinitsyn, Preobrazhenskoe i okruzhaiushchie ego mesta, ikh proshloe i nastoiashchee (Moscow, 1895), pp. 124–65; N. Subbotin, Iz istorii Rogozhskogo kladbishcha (Moscow, 1892); V. E. Makarov, Ocherk istorii Rogozhskogo kladbishcha v Moskve (Moscow, 1911).

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panels, painted in the ancient manner, be installed in their stead.42 Additions were made to the iconostases of the Preobrazhenskoe cemetery churches well after Kovylin’s death, owing particularly to various acquisitions. Sources comprised the Fedoseevite meeting-house in Ozerki (near Serpukhov); Stroganov icons purchased in Sol’vychegodsk by N. A. Papulin, the Sudislavl Fedoseevite; Novgorod icons from the collection of N. M. Gusarev, the superintendent of the Moscow Fedoseevite meeting-house; the Royal Doors from Novgorod’s Yur’ev (St. George) Monastery; and many other collections and odd pieces.43 Prior to Podkliuchnikov’s cleanings of works in the Dormition Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin, the icons collected at the Preobrazhenskoe and Rogozhskoe cemeteries were the only notable collections of works of medieval Russian painting or, to put it in a more cautious way, the only ones which were regarded as works of medieval Russian painting. That accounts for the willingness with which the Moscow palaeologists visited these cemeteries and established close links with them, which made it easier to collect information. Snegirev’s diary, teems with accounts of his visits to the Old Believers and their visits to him. Begun in 1823, his Journal entries of this kind continued until 1855, thus covering a period of some thirty-odd years.44 At the Preobrazhenskoe cemetery, Snegirev’s regular companion and consultant was the icon painter Fedor Sidorov; at the Rogozhskoe it was the merchant Vasilii Yakimov, whom Snegirev describes in his diary as “a connoisseur of icon painting and a clever and well-read man.” Snegirev’s ties with the Fedoseevites of the Preobrazhenskoe cemetery were particularly long-standing and productive: “Went to the Preobrazhenka to see the icon painter Fedor Sidorov with whom [I] examined the ancient icons in the chapel” (24 January 1844); “the icon painter Fedor Sidorov from the Preobrazhenskoe cemetery called on me and we checked my review of Russian icon painting” (10 December 1844); “the 42  P. V. Sinitsyn, Nikol’skii edinovercheskii muzhskoi monastyr’ v Moskve, chto v Preobrazhenskom (Moscow, 1896), pp. 10–12; N. Romanskii, “Moskovskii Nikol’skii edinovercheskii monastyr’,” in MoskTsV (1902), no. 2, p. 22. Also see Dnevnik I. M. Snegireva, II (1853–1865) (Moscow, 1905), p. 28. 43  P. V. Sinitsyn, Nikol’skii edinovercheskii muzhskoi monastyr’ v Moskve, chto v Preobrazhenskom, pp. 11, 12; “Dnevnye dozornye zapisi o moskovskikh raskol’nikakh. Soobshcheny A. A. Titovym,” in ChOIDR (1885), book 2, section V, pp. 37–38; N. Romanskii, “Moskovskii edinovercheskii monastyr’,” p. 21. Also see reports of alleged thefts of ancient icons from the Orthodox Moscow churches in 1812 and later, in “Fedoseevtsy. Istoriia Preobrazhenskogo kladbishcha,” p. 38; “Dnevnye dozornye zapisi o moskovskikh raskol’nikakh. Soobshcheny A. A. Titovym,” in ChOIDR, book 1, section I, pp. 19–20. 44  See Dnevnik I. M. Snegireva, I, 1822–1852 (Moscow, 1904), pp. 28, 242, 286, 293, 341, 353, 354, 368, 396, 398, 406; II, p. 28, 33.

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painter Sidorov from the Preobrazhenskoe cemetery called on me and together we went through my article on icon painters of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries” (7 January 1845); “together with the icon painter Fedor Sidorov reread my article on icon painting” (21 September 1847); “checked my article on icon painting together with Fedor Sidorov” (26 September 1847). Remarks of this kind indicate explicitly where Snegirev acquired his information, which he made public in 1848 in his Letters to Count A. S. Uvarov and other editions dealing with Russian artistic antiquities. Emerging at approximately the same time as the repositories at the Preobrazhenskoe and Rogozhskoe cemeteries were private Old Believer collections of icons. As a rule rich merchants owned such collections. In addition to icons, they enthusiastically searched out ancient codices and incunabula. In this respect, St. Petersburg—the official capital of the empire—was poorly suited to the Old Believers’ ends: the Synod, the Ministry of the Interior, and various other committees set up to fight the schism saw to it day and night that no “contagion” of any kind penetrated the emperor’s quarters and the central offices of the Orthodox Church. We know of only one sizable collection of icons in St. Petersburg, which belonged to the Fedoseevite Sylvester Kuzmin.45 In other towns, especially those of central Russia, on the Volga and around Moscow, such collections were considerably more numerous. One of M. P. Pogodin’s correspondents from Ivanovo-Voznesensk wrote in 1849, “I’ll tell you that none of the other provincial towns has so many things of old as Ivanovo; these are largely amassed, however, in the hands of the rich who are, on top of that, inveterate dissenters.”46 In Sudislavl, Kostroma province, a huge collection of old icons belonged to N. A. Papulin, a non-priestly (bespopovets) Fedoseevite merchant. In the early 1840s, this energetic and bold entrepreneur had the reputation of the premier collector and trader in old icons. As claimed by the government’s police investigation office, Nikolai Papulin had made a daring illegal purchase of some 1350 icons, mostly of the Stroganov school, from the Annunciation Cathedral in Sol’vychegodsk.47 It was with these panels, both large and small and “of truly ancient craftsmanship and without any admixture of newness,” that he embellished two of his meeting-houses in 45  D. A. Rovinskii, Obozrenie ikonopisaniia v Rossii do kontsa XVII veka [St. Petersburg], published by A. S. Suvorin (1903), pp. 9, 15 (note 1), 22, 38 and 42. 46  N. Barsukov, Zhizn’ i trudy M. P. Pogodina, X (St. Petersburg, 1896), p. 452. 47  “Dnevnye dozornye zapisi o moskovskikh raskol’nikakh. Soobshcheny A. A. Titovym,” in ChOIDR (1885), book 2, section V, pp. 37–38. Further on, when referring to the evidence of the “Dnevnye dozornye zapisi,” only the corresponding collection papers of the ChOIDR will be indicated.

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Nalishki near the town of Sudislavl; he also sold quite a few icons to other collectors and to the Preobrazhenskoe cemetery.48 In the summer of 1846, Papulin was arrested and exiled to the St. Cyril Monastery of Belozersk.49 Some of the icons had been removed from Nalishki in good time and entered the repository of the Preobrazhenskoe cemetery and the private chapels of the Fedoseevites. Those that remained in Nalishki were confiscated50 and after some time found their way into the collection of Count S. G. Stroganov.51 The true center of Old Believer collecting activities was of course Moscow. Living far from the capital, enjoying their importance as factory owners and merchant bosses52 and using to good advantage their friendly business connections with heads of the Moscow administration, the wealthy Old Believers and their trusted servitors felt very much at ease. They did not try to conceal from the public eye the chapels in their solidly built houses, which were lavishly decorated with old icons. In 1847, there existed in Moscow 119 meetinghouses belonging to Fedoseev followers alone.53 Of great renown were the collections of the merchants I. N. Tsarskii;54 F. A. and A. A. Rakhmanov;55 48   ChOIDR (1886), book 1, section V, pp. 148–51. See, also (1885), book 3, section V, p. 50 and book 4, section V, p. 112. 49   ChOIDR (1886), book 1, section V, p. 141, 152–53 and (1892) book 1, section I, p. 84. 50   ChOIDR (1886), book 1, section V, pp. 173–74 and (1892) book 2, section I, p. 134. See also Pis’ma dukhovnykh i svetskikh lits k mitropolitu moskovskomu Filaretu (s 1812 po 1867 gg.), izdannye … A. N. L’vovym (St. Petersburg, 1900), p. 313. 51   ChOIDR (1892), book 2, section I, p. 187; Dnevnik I. M. Snegireva, I, p. 402 (both reports are of 1848); [M. P. Pogodin], “Moskovskie chastnye khranilishcha drevnostei i redkostei po chasti nauki, iskusstv i khudozhestv,” in Moskvitianin (1849), II, section Moskovskaia letopis’, p. 53; F. I. Buslaev, Moi vospominaniia (Moscow, 1897), pp. 169–70. 52  See about it in P. G. Ryndziunskii, “Staroobriadcheskaia organizatsiia v usloviiakh razvitiia promyshlennogo kapitalizma (na primere istorii moskovskoi obshchiny fedoseevtsev v 40-kh godakh XIX v.),” in Voprosy istorii religii i ateizma [I] (Moscow, 1950), pp. 188–248. 53   ChOIDR (1892), book 1, section I, pp. 69 and 88. 54  I. M. Snegirev, O znachenii otechestvennoi ikonopisi, pp. 25–26; Drevnosti Rossiiskogo gosudarstva, section I, p. XXXVI; M. P. Pogodin, “Sud’by arkheologii v Rossii,” p. 29 (“Sud’by arkheologii Rossii,” in M. P. Pogodin, Sochineniia, vol. III, p. 471); N. I. Veselovskii, Istoriia imp. Russkogo arkheologicheskogo obshchestva za pervoe piatidesiatiletie ego sushchestvovaniia, 1846–1896, p. 8. 55   Dnevnik I. M. Snegireva, I, p. 396 (report of 16 September 1847); I. M. Snegirev, “O znachenii otechestvennoi ikonopisi,” pp. 19 and 25–26; Drevnosti Rossiiskogo gosudarstva, section I, p. XXXVI. In his Dnevnik and “O znachenii otechestvennoi ikonopisi,” Snegirev speaks of the collection of F. A. Rakhmanov, whereas in the Drevnosti he mentions not only Fedor Andreevich Rakhmanov but also his brother Alexei Andreevich (both died in 1854). The plural, that is, “the collection of the Rakhmanovs,” is continually used by D. A. Rovinskii

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G. T. Moloshnikov;56 I. V. Strelkov;57 S. I. Tikhomirov;58 Semen Kuzmin, the abbot of the Preobrazhenskoe cemetery;59 the icon painter Nikifor Gavrilov,60 and of Erofei Afanas’ev, the steward of the wealthy merchants Guchkov.61 The iconostasis in Tikhomirov’s chapel was worth 20,000 rubles, that in F. A. Guchkov’s 13,000, and in Strelkov’s and E. S. Morozov’s—10,000 rubles (see the index of his book in the 1903 edition). M. P. Pogodin, in his turn, reports only of the collection of A. A. Rakhmanov ([M. P. Pogodin], Moskovskie chastnye khranilishcha drevnostei i redkostei …, p. 53). The clan of the wealthy merchant Rakhmanovs, who were the Old Believers of the Rogozhskoe community, was a very large one (F. V. Livanov, Raskol’niki i ostrozhniki, vol. I [St. Petersburg, 1869], pp. 433–41) and the icons, gathered by them, passed by right of succession to their junior relations so that the “collection of the Rakhmanovs’“ continued well into the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. 56  I. Snegirev, Pamiatniki moskovskoi drevnosti s prisovokupleniem ocherka monumental’noi istorii Moskvy, p. CIV; I. M. Snegirev, “O znachenii otechestvennoi ikonopisi,” pp. 25–26; Drevnosti Rossiiskogo gosudarstva, section I, p. XXXVI; ChOIDR (1885), book 4, section V, pp. 114 and (1886), book 1, section V, p. 149; [M. P. Pogodin], Moskovskie chastnye khranilishcha drevnostei i redkostei …, p. 53; D. A. Rovinskii, Obozrenie ikonopisaniia v Rossii do kontsa XVII veka, index. 57  I. Snegirev. Pamiatniki moskovskoi drevnosti s prisovokupleniem ocherka monumental’noi istorii Moskvy, p. CIV; I. M. Snegirev, “O znachenii otechestvennoi ikonopisi,” pp. 25–26; Drevnosti Rossiiskogo gosudarstva, section I, p. XXXV; ChOIDR (1885), book 4, section V, p. 118; (1886), book 1, section V, p. 149; (1892), book 2, section I, pp. 154–55; [M. P. Pogodin], Moskovskie chastnye khranilishcha drevnostei i redkostei …, p. 53; D. A. Rovinskii, Obozrenie ikonopisaniia v Rossii do kontsa XVII veka, index. 58   ChOIDR (1886), book 1, section V, p. 149; (1892), book 2, section I, pp. 154–55; [M. P. Pogodin], Moskovskie chastnye khranilishcha drevnostei i redkostei …, p. 53; D. A. Rovinskii, Obozrenie ikonopisaniia v Rossii do kontsa XVII veka, pp. 32, 38. 59  Semen Kuz’min is repeatedly mentioned in the government registers of Moscow dissenters for 1844–46, published by A. A. Titov. The meeting-house owned by him was well known to D. A. Rovinskii, who refers to him, using his patronymic Kuz’mich, rather than his surname (D. A. Rovinskii, Obozrenie ikonopisaniia v Rossii do kontsa XVII veka, index). In 1854, when the government closed down the Old Believer communities in Moscow, Semen Kuz’min was exiled to Poltava, where he died in 1859. See about him in N. “K istorii zamechatel’nykh liudei v staroobriadchestve,” in Tserkov’. Staroobriadcheskii tserkovnoobshchestvennyi zhurnal (1914), no. 16, pp. 391–92 and (1912) no. 36, p. 860 (his portrait). 60   Dnevnik I. M. Snegireva, I, p. 406 (report of 6 March 1848); idem, “O znachenii otechestvennoi ikonopisi,” pp. 25–26; Drevnosti Rossiiskogo gosudarstva, section, I, p. XXXVI; ChOIDR (1886), book 1, section V, p. 149; D. A. Rovinskii, Obozrenie ikonopisaniia v Rossii do kontsa XVII veka, index. 61   ChOIDR (1886), book 1, section V, p. 149; (1892) book 2, section I, p. 162. D. A. Rovinskii uses the epithet ‘precious’ when referring to the collection gathered by Erofei Afanas’ev (D. A. Rovinskii, Obozrenie ikonopisaniia v Rossii do kontsa XVII veka, p. 40. Also see the index).

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respectively.62 There were also other less notable and valuable collections of old icons. The Old Believer collections for the most part contained icons of the Stroganov school. Of great repute in this respect were the meeting-houses of the Preobrazhenskoe cemetery and the collections of Semen Kuzmin, Strelkov, Erofei Afanas’ev, and Moloshnikov. In the 1840s (and much later), it was generally believed that the Stroganov icons were all painted by masters who worked exclusively for the Stroganovs in the north of Russia and mainly on the Stroganov patrimonial estate of Sol’vychegodsk and in nearby Ustiug. The Stroganov icons were valued for their small-scale, ornate, and painstakingly worked brushwork. The painter’s mastery in executing details was on a par with the jeweler’s art; the disposition of details, however, was so well balanced in relation to the whole that a Stroganov icon was invariably marked by a clear-cut composition and no less well pronounced, mostly ochrous or bluish-brown, coloring. According to D. A. Rovinskii, “the Stroganov icon painters … were the first to treat icon painting as an art in its own right and to take care not only to retain symbolism and tradition in their handling of icons but also in their handling of the beauty of finish and the variety of copies (perevody).”63 Collectors also realized what remarkable pieces of art the Stroganov panels were and accordingly paid fantastic sums of money for them. The P. D. Korin collection includes a tiny signed icon St. Demetrius of Thessalonica and Tsarevich Dimitrii, by Prokopii Chirin, which was probably painted in the 1610s. It formerly belonged to Erofei Afanas’ev and was priced at 300 rubles.64 In the 1840s the prices of large-sized Stroganov panels, especially those featuring the “acts” or miracles, amounted to 1000, 1500, or even 1700 rubles apiece.65 Along with icons of the Stroganov school, it was every collector’s dream to possess some works by Andrei Rublev. Sixteenth-century sources saw Rublev as an artist who strictly followed the canon, and this stirred up wealthy Old Believers’ interest in him. They spared nothing in the effort to obtain an icon reckoned to be the master’s own work or the work of an artist of his circle. “There is hardly an amateur [nowadays] who will not boast of having icons by Rublev in his collection,” reported Rovinskii.66 Among the lucky owners of Rublev’s icons were Erofei Afanas’ev, A. I. Lobkov, Morozov, the Rakhmanovs, 62   ChOIDR (1892), book 2, section I, pp. 154–55, 156–57, 164–67. 63  D. A. Rovinskii, Obozrenie ikonopisaniia v Rossii do kontsa XVII veka, p. 26. 64  Ibid., p. 31. See V. I. Antonova, Drevnerusskoe iskusstvo v sobranii Pavla Korina (Moscow, [1967]), pp. 98–99, no. 74, ill. 92. 65  D. A. Rovinskii, Obozrenie ikonopisaniia v Rossii do kontsa XVII veka, pp. 31, 35. 66  Ibid., p. 40.

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Moloshnikov, and K. T. Soldatenkov. The Rogozhskoe and Preobrazhenskoe cemeteries had two large icons of the Virgin Eleusa (Umilenie) that were also ascribed to Rublev. Since parts of these icons contained complicated mythological subjects that became known in the Russian visual arts only in the sixteenth century, they cannot have been works of the early fifteenth century. The attribution of other icons to Rublev was no less fictitious. As the cleaning of such works as the Savior from the Soldatenkov collection and the Virgin Hodegetria from the Church of the Intercession at the Rogozhskoe cemetery has shown,67 even icons which were considered authentic works of Rublev were in fact painted many years after the artist’s death. In the 1840s both old and new collections grew considerably. Decisive factors in this development were the will and energy of leading Old Believers who were, as a rule, very wealthy men. Bargain, substitution, and even common theft were among the most widespread ways of making new acquisitions. A consignment of 1,000 Stroganov icons, purchased for a song and then sold by Papulin into different collections, is one of the most impressive deals of this kind. Other collectors also acted decisively. Using tricks and deceptions, Fedoseev followers laid their hands on old panels in Moscow’s Passion (Strastnoi) and Ascension (Voznesenskii) monasteries, the New Maidens (Novodevichii) Convent, the Ugresh and the St. Sabbas Storozhevsk monasteries near Moscow, and the St. Cyril Monastery of Belozersk, while the most daring and enterprising of these collectors even ventured to procure the much coveted icons from the Moscow Kremlin.68 Parish churches were veritable treasure troves. Their abbots willingly parted with their time-worn ancient icons, giving them away either to petty itinerant traders (ofeni) or directly to agents of the Old Believer collectors, in exchange for money and a new icon mounted in a rich silver frame.69 If 67  See about them in N. P. Toll’, “Ikona Spasitelia iz sobraniia K. T. Soldatenkova,” in SK, VI (1933), pp. 209–17, tables XV, XVI; Drevnie ikony staroobriadcheskogo kafedral’nogo Pokrovskogo sobora pri Rogozhskom kladbishche v Moskve, published by the Old Believer archepiscopate of Moscow and All Russias (1956), pp. 17–18, no. 28, tables 28 and 28a. 68   ChOIDR (1885), book 2, section V, p. 15, and book 3, section V, p. 53; (1886), book 1, section V, pp. 134–35, 156–57, 170; (1892), book 2, section I, p. 106. 69  Keeping an eye on the Moscow Old Believers in 1845–47, an unknown government plainclothes man reported that in June 1846, an itinerant peddler had delivered a whole cartload of ancient icons to the Preobrazhenskoe cemetery (ChOIDR [1886], book 1, section V, p. 170). An analogous report was made in January 1847, which runs as follows: “Itinerant peddlers from Vladimir province, village of Mstera, brought [with them to Moscow] various ancient icons, which they had procured in exchange for church utensils in Orthodox village churches; they sold part of these icons to the dean, Semen Kozmin at the cemetery, the rest to the Fedoseevite merchant Strelkov” (ChOIDR [1892], book 1, section I, p. 67).

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a valuable icon could not be bartered “fairly” or obtained in any other “lawful” way, collectors resorted to the dangerous trick of removing the icon’s painted area and substituting another identical image, leaving the original panel. This required great expertise. To this end, the icon support’s uppermost layer was carefully removed together with the gesso ground and the painting proper, and a thin piece of wood of the same size, which had been carved beforehand and had a new painting modeled after the old one, was glued onto the remaining wood. The traces of the sawed-off part were then treated with drying oil, tinted varnish, or colors. As nineteenth-century notions of the style of medieval painting were uninformed and inadequate to the task of identification by means of stylistic analysis, it was almost impossible to recognize a fake. As a rule, it was the old panel that served as a kind of warranty of the preservation of the original. With this type of theft, however, the original panel remained attesting to the authenticity and antiquity of the image, which had, in fact, long since adorned the meeting-house of an enterprising Old Believer. The writer Nikolai Leskov, who described a similar occurrence in Zapechatlennyi Angel (1873), certainly based his story on fact. As witnessed by Sakharov,70 sawed-off icons (spilki) were in evidence as far back as the eighteenth century, which means that by the 1840s the technique of pilfering old works of painting, as described by Leskov in his story, had been honed to perfection. And indeed it had, as the sawed-off pieces are not such a rarity in those of the Old Believer collections that later entered state repositories and were the subjects of special studies that revealed the faking of support or image.71 One can glean a clear idea of what the meeting-houses, mostly of the Old Believer type, looked like from a brief article by F. I. Buslaev, which dealt with this characteristic feature of the merchant household in the life of old Moscow. Despite its late appearance (1866), the paper adequately describes the situation as it existed in the 1840s, summing up Buslaev’s observations over a period of many years: This chapel [molel’nia] constitutes the household’s [most] sacred place which is concealed from the eyes of those not privy to the host’s family matters. It is located away from the main apartments and the front door and is usually entered from the back porch. Sometimes, it is situated beyond the bedroom and near the storeroom in which the master of the house keeps his money and valuables. When assigned to devotees from 70  70.I. Sakharov, Issledovaniia o russkom ikonopisanii, book 2, p. 34. 71  See, in particular, N. Petrov, “Odin iz sposobov pokhishcheniia drevnikh ikon putem podmena ikh pozdneishimi kopiiami,” in Iskusstvo (Kiev, 1911), no. 11, pp. 483–92.

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the outside, the chapel is separated from the living quarters by a vestibule [seni], which at times may be unheated. In that case, the chapel is preceded by a room that looks like a hall. Starting from the height of about one-and-a-half arshins [0.71 m] and up to the very ceiling, the chapel is set with icons which usually hang on its three walls, the fourth one being left empty so that one can stand with one’s back against it while praying. Glimmering in front of the icons are a multitude of lamps and candles.72 As an astute scholar and observer, Buslaev also reports the following: Fairly widespread among us is the opinion that the Russian icon worshiper treats icons only as objects of pious veneration, which clouds his eyes with a sort of mystical haze so much that the icon’s outer contours totally escape his attention and, consequently, the artistry as such disappears entirely from his view, eclipsed as it is by the bewitching force of religious enchantment. Those who have had a chance to visit some of the best chapels will not only refrain from sharing the above prejudice but will also remain firmly convinced that the owners of these goodly collections are, at the same time, perfect connoisseurs of our ancient icon painting which they treat with a special kind of artistic tact. They know by name all the best masters of the Stroganov and Novgorod schools and grudge no money for the acquisition of an icon by some celebrated master. Regarding it with reverence and adoration as a sacred object, they also can to grasp its artistic merits so that their commentary on the provenance and techniques may well yield some useful material for the history of Russian ecclesiastical art…. I happened to frequent many of the Moscow chapels, and each of my visits invariably proved to be a most gratifying experience induced by that fresh and exciting way in which the pious owners treated their treasures. They would take icons off the walls to have a better look at all the particulars of execution or decipher an ancient legend. They would expound their views on the date of the icon’s creation and nature of its handling, or would plunge into an interesting dispute if there happened to be a connoisseur around, so that for a short

72   F. I. Buslaev, “Moskovskie molel’ni” in Sbornik na 1866 god, izdannyi Obshchestvom drevnerusskogo iskusstva pri Moskovskom Publichnom muzee (Moscow, 1866), Smes’, p. 125 (“Moskovskie molel’ni,” in Sochineniia F. I. Buslaeva, I [St. Petersburg, 1908], p. 252).

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time the chapel would turn into a most original gallery of artworks and the pious host—into an experienced custodian.73 The makeup of the Old Believer collections is best exemplified by the collection of the Moscow merchant Andrei Efimovich Sorokin. Unlike other assemblages of this kind, which changed hands and gradually scattered on their first owner’s demise, the Sorokin collection was born under a lucky star. Its many icons were amassed in the mid-eighteenth century and hung in a non-priestly chapel founded in 1765 in Volokolamsk by a certain Evstignei Bazhanov. Bazhanov’s son Mikhail later moved to Moscow where he handed the icons over to Sorokin’s grandfather Ivan Vasil’evich Onisimov, who in turn, bequeathed them to his grandson. In 1851, Sorokin converted to the Edinoverie (an Old Believer sect which reached an organizational compromise with the official Orthodox Church.), closing down his meeting-house on Metropolitan Filaret’s (Philaret) advice. By that time, the ancestral part of Sorokin’s treasures had considerably expanded thanks to additions from the collections of Lavrentii Osipov and N. M. Gusarev, the executors of Kovylin’s will, the Sudislavl merchant Papulin; the icon painters and traders in ancient icons Nikifor Gavrilov and Fedor Lopukhin; the commissioner and antiquary D. V. Piskarev; the Moscow merchant V. E. Grachev; and the Yaroslavl resident N. F. Dubrovin. It also incorporated a number of icons that had previously hung in the royal Preobrazhenskii palace and which, following its demolition, were pilfered about the households of the Preobrazhenskaia sloboda and then, through Sorokin’s efforts, gathered together in his mansion. After closing down his meeting-house and refusing to hand over the icons to his former fellows, Sorokin set himself to turning it into a repository of ancient icons of a specifically historical character. With this in mind, he sorted out the icons in such a way that all the periods and schools of Russian medieval painting were represented by one or several characteristic specimens. It was probably in the course of this work that Sorokin separated duplicate 73  F. I. Buslaev, “Moskovskie molel’ni, p. 126 (also in Sochineniia F. I. Buslaeva, I, pp. 252–53). F. I. Buslaev describes the meeting-house of the merchant I. N. Goriunov as a model of the Moscow prayer-room (“ … one of the richest in Moscow in the number of icons presenting examples of all the best styles of Russian icon painting from the Greek, ancient Novgorodian, and Muscovite to the latest Stroganov and royal ones”). Goriunov was a well-known Old Believer and warden of the Preobrazhenskoe cemetery. All of his icons later passed to the collection of S. P. Riabushinskii. See V. Borin, “Materialy po ikonografii. Sviataia Troitsa. (K Piatidesiatnitse),” in Tserkov’. Staroobriadcheskii tserkovno-obshchestvennyi zhurnal (1910), no. 23, p. 583.

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specimens into a special group, and in 1858 he sold 122 panels for 1500 rubles to the newly-founded edinovertcheskii Spaso-Preobrazhenskii (Transfiguration) Monastery in the village of Guslitsy of the Bogorodskii uezd, Moscow province. Ten years later, in 1868, the wooden church of the Guslitsy Monastery burned down, destroying both icons and church.74 Sorokin sold the remaining and most valuable part of his collection in 1875—“for the benefit of the church and the country”—to the Kiev Theological Academy for 13,000 rubles. He intended that the collection would go to the Museum of Church Archaeology at the Academy. The Academy’s former rector (later, Bishop of Riga) Filaret (Philaret, Filaretov) assisted in negotiating the purchase, and for this reason the Sorokin collection is also called the Filaret collection. After the 1917 revolution, it entered the Kiev State Museums so that even now the Department of Ancient Painting of the Museum of Russian Art in Kiev houses quite a few icons from the former Sorokin-Filaret collection. Soon after the Sorokin icons were transferred to Kiev, one of the local churches began to publish a description of this collection in the Trudy Kievskoi dukhovnoi Akademii (Proceedings of the Kiev Theological Academy). The review was not finished, covering only 118 icons out of 222.75 Many years later, the renowned Kiev scholar N. I. Petrov published another survey of this collection, supplementing it with a series of early photographic prints (fototipy) of its most remarkable and characteristic icons.76 None of the other Old Believer 74  For more details, see Sobranie mnenii i otzyvov Filareta, mitropolita Moskovskogo i Kolomenskogo, po uchebnym i tserkovno-gosudarstvennym voprosam, vol. V, part 1 (Moscow, 1887), p. 213, note 4. 75   F. Smirnov, “Opisanie kollektsii drevnikh russkikh ikon, priobretennoi Tserkovnoarkheologicheskim obshchestvom dlia Tserkovno-arkheologicheskogo muzeia pri Kievskoi dukhovnoi akademii v 1875 g. pokupkoiu u moskovskogo pochet[nogo] grazhdanina Sorokina,” in TKDA (November, 1877), pp. 398–411; (February, 1878), pp. 414–26; (May), pp. 327–56; (August, 1879), pp. 528–41, December, pp. 528–36; (February, 1880), pp. 448–59; (September, 1881), pp. 99–108 (separate edition: Khristofor (Christopher) (Smirnov), ieromonakh, Opisanie kollektsii drevnikh russkikh ikon … 1 [Kiev, 1883]). For an abbreviated complete list thereof, see N. I. Petrov, Ukazatel’ Tserkovno-arkheologicheskogo muzeia pri Kievskoi dukhovnoi akademii, 2nd revised and enlarged edition (Kiev, 1897), pp. 153–60. 76  N. I. Petrov, “Sorokinsko-filaretovskaia kollektsiia russkikh ikon,” in Isskustvo v iuzhnoi Rossii (1913), no. 2, pp. 55–90 and no. 3, pp. 115–19 (separate edition: N. Petrov, Al’bom dostoprimechatel’nostei Tserkovno-arkheologicheskogo muzeia pri Kievskoi dukhovnoi akademii. II. Sorokinsko-filaretovskaia kollektsia russkikh ikon raznykh poshibov i pisem [Kiev, 1913]). Shortly before Petrov, part of the Sorokin collection was published by N. P. Likhachev: N. P. Likhachev, Materialy dlia istorii russkogo ikonopisaniia. Atlas, part 1 (St. Petersburg, 1906), table CXCIX–CCX (nos. 356–79) and part II (St. Petersburg, 1906),

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icon collections of the 1840s was as well documented as Sorokin’s. What makes the publication of the Sorokin collection unique is the fact that its history and classification of icons by schools and epochs as well as their iconographic and stylistic descriptions are related according to Sorokin’s own notes, which epitomized the entire experience gained by the Old Believers’ collecting efforts. The Old Believer connoisseurs used to class the then-known icons into schools or pis’ma according to style or manner of execution. The Sorokin collection had a wide variety of styles, including eight icons of the Greek pis’ma; one of the Korsun’; one of the Serbian; one of the Kievan; six of the monasterial pis’ma; twenty-six of Novgorodian; two of Kostroma; one of Ustiug; fortynine pieces from Moscow of the Stroganov pis’ma;77 twelve of the [Stroganov] Baron pis’ma; two of the Siberian; four of the Friazin; and two of the latterday pis’ma—those executed in the collector’s lifetime or even, probably, on his own commission. We use the plural pis’ma here since the Old Believer connoisseurs viewed the pis’mo in its ongoing development encompassing all the changes of the inherent stylistic idiom. Thus, for instance, the Stroganov pis’ma were divided into the first (sixteenth century), second (first half of the seventeenth century), and third groups. The third group (which took shape during the second half of the seventeenth century and well into the eighteenth century) had lost its ties with the first group so irrevocably that scholars used to separate it into the Baron group (named after the Stroganovs who received the title of Baron in 1722). The Moscow pis’ma were also divided into four groups. Although icons of the Stroganov and Moscow pis’ma, which were most amply represented and quite often in unretouched condition, were studied fairly well, evidence about the other schools is rather vague and confusing. For instance, the Greek pis’ma, rather than standing for ancient Byzantine icons, referred to mediocre specimens of Italo-Greek or even more recent Cretan origin. Scholars also included in this category icons by Russian artists who were either apprenticed to Greeks or worked in the same teams. The mysterious Korsun’ pis’mo, rather than being associated with Chersonesus (Korsun’) of the Tauride, was identified with only one variety of poorly fashioned Greek icons. The Serbian pis’mo had nothing to do with Serbian masters: a Russian pastiche of the Serbian or Macedonian schools, it emerged no earlier than the fifteenth century. The Kiev pis’mo designated not so much specimens of the medieval Kievan school as latter-day painting with obvious traces of the Polish influence. The Novgorod pis’mo was least of all an expression of Novgorodian table CCXXVIII (nos. 414 and 415), CCXXX (420 and 421), CCXLIV (no. 489) and CCCXXXIV (no. 657 and 658). 77  See N. I. Petrov’s magazine and separate publications.

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ideals, but an apish imitation of the Greek style. As regards the monasterial pis’ma, this term was used by Sorokin and his fellow collectors not for icons produced in monastery workshops but for those that could not be categorized in other styles, their date being determined solely by outward appearance: the yellower the icon the more ancient it was thought to be. The prints of the Sorokin icons, published by N. I. Petrov, clearly show that the overwhelming majority were either repainted or retouched. While retaining some semblance of their ancient origin, these icons could not throw light on what the originals were like. They also included fakes, designed to appeal to an undiscerning public with hazy notions of medieval painting. Although, in principle, the Old Believers advocated unblemished antiquity, in reality many of the icons they owned had been repeatedly repaired and emended. Outward splendor (blagolepie) rated just as high among Old Believers as among Orthodox churchmen. A well-preserved icon had a higher cost as well. Thus, for instance, to make more saleable a large consignment of icons that he had purchased in Sol’vychegodsk and intended to resell, Papulin hired eight master icon painters for three years.78 Pogodin and Rovinskii mention having seen “renovated, mended, and regilded” icons even at the Preobrazhenskoe and Rogozhskoe cemeteries, though one would expect the purity of ancient style to be preserved there most tenaciously.79 It was, no doubt, the wish to see their personal icons in good condition that prompted owners to undertake a comprehensive renovation of all the time-worn works, including those that had but occasional losses of the paint layer and levkas priming. Sakharov knew of more than one hundred private collections of icons.80 This impressive figure signifies that the collections of the Old Believers existed alongside those built up by persons who were connected with the official church and collected icons either for the love of art or for scholarly purposes. The first private collections of the Orthodox type were, of course, the patrimonial assemblages of icons that belonged to the wealthy and pious forefathers of old boyar and princely families. When, in 1835, Snegirev visited Princess Urusova’s mother, Anastasia Khitrovo, he reported “having examined her icons among which there were many ancient and rare ones.”81 Another case in point was the patrimonial repository of antiquities of Count D. N. Sheremetev, which 78  ChOIDR 1(885), book 3, section V, p. 43 and (1886), book 1, section V, p. 151. 79  N. Barsukov, Zhizn’ i trudy M. P. Pogodina, V (St. Petersburg, 1892), p. 441 (on the meetinghouse of the Preobrazhenskoe cemetery in 1840); D. A. Rovinskii, Obozrenie ikonopisaniia v Rossii do kontsa XVII veka, p. 27. 80  I. Sakharov, Issledovaniia o russkom ikonopisanii, book 2, p. 9. 81   Dnevnik I. M. Snegireva, I, p. 208.

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included around about 200 icons and crosses.82 The unscholarly approach to collecting, however, made such assemblages utterly unfit for development as a collection in our understanding of that term. The idea of the evolution of a collection through the exclusion of some works and purchase of other new and more interesting specimens was, as a rule, alien to the owners of these patrimonial repositories. Instead, one glimpses far more frequently in midnineteenth century memoirs, journals, and periodicals the names of persons who collected purposefully, often starting from scratch and excited by the very idea of assembling a collection of rarities. In the 1840s, collectors’ interests were not yet specialized, so that works of painting could often be found in collections that consisted mainly of manuscripts, coins, and other curios. An example of this was the collection of P. F. Korobanov (1767–1851). Accommodated in two large rooms of his private house on the Pokrovka in Moscow, it contained several icons mainly mounted in silver or enameled cases, along with objects of applied art such as bowls, cups, and other household paraphernalia from the fifteenth to eighteenth centuries.83 Other icon assemblages of this period also tended to include manuscripts and incunabula, coins, and engravings. Such was the collection of the wealthy Moscow merchant Aleksei Lobkov, who bought icons along with manuscripts and paintings.84 Most prominent among these collections, however, 82  G. S. Kuz’min, “Drevnosti doma grafov Sheremetevykh,” in ZORSA, vol. I (1851), section IV, p. 8. 83  See G. Filimonov, Opisanie pamiatnikov drevnosti tserkovnogo i grazhdanskogo byta Russkogo muzeia P. F. Korobanova (Moscow, 1849), pp. 10–13 (nos. XI–XV); Pamiatniki drevnosti Russkogo muzeia P. Korobanova [Moscow, 1849], section I, nos. XI–XV; [M. P. Pogodin], Moskovskie chastnye khranilishcha drevnostei i redkostei …, p. 54; N. Barsukov, Zhizn’ i trudy M. P. Pogodina, VII (St. Petersburg, 1893), pp. 256–58; E. I. Makedonskaia, “Sobranie russkikh drevnostei P. F. Karabanova,” in Voprosy istorii (1982), 1, pp. 180–83. According to Barsukov, P. F. Korobanov’s collection, which he had gathered for half a century from about 1800 was, on his death, given to the state (N. Barsukov, Zhizn’ i trudy M. P. Pogodina, XI [St. Petersburg, 1897], p. 227, 514). Certain items from this collection are now in the Armory and the State Historical Museum in Moscow. 84  About A. I. Lobkov’s icons, see Dnevnik I. M. Snegireva, I, pp. 285 and 298 (reports of 29 March 1840 and of 1 March 1841, respectively); Dnevnik I. M. Snegireva, “O znachenii otechestvennoi ikonopisi,” pp. 19 and 25–26; Drevnosti Rossiiskogo gosudarstva, section I, p. XXXVI; F. I. Buslaev, “Moskovskie molel’ni,” p. 126 (also in Sochineniia F. I. Buslaeva, vol. I, p. 254); M. P. Pogodin, Sud’by arkheologii v Rossii, p. 29 (also in M. P. Pogodin, Sochineniia, vol. III, p. 411); D. A. Rovinskii, Obozrenie ikonopisaniia v Rossii do kontsa XVII veka, p. 36. Later on, Lobkov’s collection passed to his son-in-law S. A. Egorov. For more about it, see N. P[okrovskii], “Tserkovnaia starina na vystavke VIII arkheologicheskogo s”ezda v Moskve,” in TsV (1890), no. 6, p. 100.

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Figure 4.6 Sergei Grigor’evich Stroganov (1794–1882). Photograph, ca. 1880.

were those of S. G. Stroganov in St. Petersburg and Mikhail Pogodin in Moscow. Both grew to such a degree and acquired such great monetary and scholarly value that no mid-nineteenth century publications devoted to Russia’s anti­ quities could fail to mention these collections and their owners. Count Sergei Grigor’evich Stroganov (1794–1882)85 was a man of liberal views, the superintendent of the Moscow school district, the first chairman of the Society of Russian History and Antiquities affiliated with Moscow University, and the founder of the Imperial Archeological Commission. He belonged to that branch of the Stroganov clan whose members were believed to have established a distinct school of icon painting. It was only natural that, being keen on antiquities, Stroganov should take interest primarily in works produced on the commissions of his forefathers. The earlier specimens in the Stroganov 85  The best idea of what S. G. Stroganov was like may be obtained from the memoirs written by F. I. Buslaev, who knew him intimately and for a long time: F. I. Buslaev, Moi vospominaniia (Moscow, 1897). See also RBS [vol. 19, Smelovskii-Suvorina], pp. 523–30, with bibliography.

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collection were icons by Ivan Sobol’, Semen Borozdin, Istoma Savin, Nikifor Savin, and Prokopii Chirin, all of whom worked for Nikita Grigor’evich and Maksim Yakovlevich Stroganov around 1600 (Sobol’ did an icon, The Translation of the Holy Relics of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker from Myra of Lycia to the Town of Bari that was dated 1598).86 Alongside works by the first and best icon painters of the Stroganov school, the collection also included panels by less well-known artists87 and icons by the royal masters of the second half of the seventeenth century, such as the patriarch’s icon-painter, Nazarii Istomin, and Georgii Zinov’ev and Nikita Pavlovets.88 These icons, were unacceptable in consistent Old Believers’ collections, but were quite readily acquired by other collectors. Stroganov also collected traced patterns (prorisi) and icon-painting manuals,89 the most prominent of which was a complete illuminated icon manual of the seventeenth century issued lithographically in 1869,90 and still highly valued as a reference book. In his three diary entries of January 9, 10, and 12, 1848, Snegirev mentions his visits to Stroganov’s Moscow mansion, where he examined the owner’s collection of icons.91 This means that it was not until the mid-1840s that the Stroganov collection had taken its final shape. After his forced resignation as the superintendent of the Moscow school district, Stroganov moved to St. Petersburg and took his collection with him. It was then accommodated in the Stroganovs’ mansion on Nevsky Prospekt [built by Rastrelli]. After the revolution, the best icons were handed over to the Russian Museum in St. Petersburg. Mikhail Petrovich Pogodin (1800–75),92 journalist, public figure, and professor of history, was a collector on a new level, a man whose interests were far 86  D. A. Rovinskii, Obozrenie ikonopisaniia v Rossii do kontsa XVII veka, pp. 28 and 125 (on icons by Semen Borozdin); pp. 28–29 and 163 (on icons by Ivan Sobol’); p. 29 (on the icon, The Raising of Lazarus, by Istoma Savin); pp. 33 and 64 (on icons by Nikifor Savin); and p. 32 (on the icon, St. Demetrius of Thessalonica Strikes the Devil, by Prokopii Chirin). 87  Ibid., pp. 29 and 149 (Mikhailovo pis’mo); pp. 29 and 156 (Pershkino pis’mo); pp. 34 and 133 (Emel’ian); and p. 37 (the unidentified Stroganov icons). 88  Ibid., p. 30 (The Guardian Angel, by Nazarii Istomin, 1654); pp. 53 and 135 (Deesis by Georgii Zinov’ev, 1679); pp. 54, 61 and 154 (The Trinity by Nikita Pavlovets, 1681). 89  Ibid., pp. 11, 39–40, 138. 90   Stroganovskii ikonopisnyi podlinnik (kontsa XVI i nachala XVII stoletii) (Moscow, 1869). 91   Dnevnik I. M. Snegireva, I, p. 402 and 403. For the Stroganov icon collection, also see the literature indicated in note 51 on p. 289. 92  The main source about M. P. Pogodin’s life and work (and, likewise about a great number of his contemporaries) is the 22-volume biography written on the basis of archival and printed material by N. P. Barsukov: N. Barsukov, Zhizn’ i trudy M. P. Pogodina, I–XXII (St. Petersburg, 1888–1910). See also N. Kondakov, M. P. Pogodin kak arkheolog (St. Petersburg, 1901) (=Sbornik ORIaS, vol. LXXI, no. 4). For a detailed bibliography, see

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Figure 4.7 Portrait of Mikhail Petrovich Pogodin (1800–75) by Vassili Perov, 1872. Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow.

beyond the reach of his contemporaries even in the 1840s, when people collected any relic of the past. Pogodin, too, collected everything: manuscripts and incunabula, painted and carved icons, crosses and embroidered articles, coins the following reference books: Istoriia istoricheskoi nauki v SSSR, Dooktiabr’skii period. Bibliografiia (Moscow, 1965), pp. 351–54; M. G. Bulakhov, Vostochnoslavianskie iazykovedy. Biobibliograficheskii slovar’, vol. 1 (Minsk, 1976), pp. 185–86; Slavianovedenie v dorevoliutsionnoi Rossii. Biobibliograficheskii slovar’, pp. 272–73.

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and seals, medals and weaponry, autographs and rare editions. As Pogodin said himself, it was in the 1820s that he first took a fancy to collecting.93 In 1826, after Count Nikolai Rumiantsev died and Count Fedor Tolstoi ceased his collecting activities, Pogodin was recognized as the authority among Russian collectors. Being worldly-wise and chary of unnecessary expenditures (even when heading a university chair, he traded in timber and iron ore), Pogodin managed in his better years to save considerable sums of money, which gave him an opportunity to purchase artworks by lots (na vygreb) rather than selecting the best. It was largely to Pogodin that traders interested in speeding up the turnover of their merchandise addressed themselves. His tactics secured for Pogodin the finest pieces, leaving other collectors duplicates and works of lesser value. For a quarter of a century, he amassed treasures and his collection rapidly expanded, eventually forming his much-famed “ancient repository.” The collection was stored in his own house at the Novo-Devich’e Pole in Moscow (from 1836 onward) in fifty large bookcases and two hundred boxes, not counting the pieces hanging on the walls and lying or standing on the floor.94 By advertising his collection in every possible way, Pogodin succeeded in impressing both the public and the Russian government with its exceptional value. High-ranking officials, grand dukes, and the heir to the throne all came to see Pogodin’s antiquities repository. In 1851, Nicholas I expressed a wish to acquire Pogodin’s collection, and a year later he sold it to the state for a price of 150,000 silver rubles.95 Manuscripts went to the Imperial Public Library of St. Petersburg; archaeological rarities, coins, seals, and medals to the Hermitage; and church antiquities entered the patriarch’s collections in the Moscow Kremlin.96 In 1871, the few odds and ends of the former Pogodin repository that still remained in Moscow were gradually moved to St. Petersburg,97 and today almost all of this huge collection and Pogodin’s personal archives are preserved there.

93  M. P[ogodin] “Ob arkheologicheskikh sobraniiakh pr[ofessora] Pogodina, Moskvitianin (1844), V, p. 171 (“… my collection that I started more than 15 years ago”); N. Barsukov, Zhizn’ i trudy M. P. Pogodina, IV (St. Petersburg, 1891), p. 431 (on the purchase, in 1824, of the incunabulum Prologue and the beginning of his collecting activities), XI (St. Petersburg, 1897), p. 511 (“my collecting of a thirty-year standing”—from a letter of 1851 to the tsar). 94  N. Barsukov, Zhizn’ i trudy M. P. Pogodina, X (St. Petersburg, 1896), pp. 441–44. 95  For a special account of the antiquities repository and its sellout to the state, see N. Barsukov, Zhizn’ i trudy M. P. Pogodina, XII (St. Petersburg, 1898), pp. 310–78. 96  As evidenced by F. I. Buslaev, this part of Pogodin’s repository was housed in the Chrismmaking Chamber of the Church of the Twelve Apostles. See F. I. Buslaev, “Moskovskie molel’ni,” p. 126 (also in Sochineniia F. I. Buslaeva, vol. I, p. 254). 97  See Ustav i protokoly Obshchestva drevnerusskogo iskusstva pri Moskovskom Publichnom muzee (Moscow, 1876), pp. 117–18.

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In 1849, Pogodin possessed about 100 icons executed in the “Greek,” Novgorod, Moscow, Stroganov, and Suzdal styles. The collection’s main body consisted of icons with a clearly symbolic message, such as the Lord God Sabbaoth, the Savior of the Good Silence, the Hagia Sophia, the Virgin of the Passions, and others.98 Pogodin kept buying artworks even after 1849, when his idea of selling the repository had already matured in his mind. In 1851, for example, he bought a “completely unretouched” ancient Novgorod icon of Christ, an icon of the Nativity of the Virgin (both from the town of Tula),99 and one of Sts. Florus and Laurus.100 He also acquired twelve seventeenth-century menaia executed on canvas, of “such impeccable and fine workmanship the like of which neither I nor the artist Solntsev had ever seen,” wrote Pogodin in his diary.101 As the search for rare icons ceased to be the sole province of Old Believer collectors and came into vogue among the nobility as well, Pogodin become more avid. But as Sergei Solov’ev quite justly noted, Pogodin realized less than others the historical significance of the works assembled in his repository.102 It is only from Pogodin’s diaries, published after his death by Nikolai Barsukov,103 that we learn, for example, of a particularly outstanding icon in his collection, the Novgorod hagiographical St George dating from the first half of the fourteenth century that he acquired in the 1840s (now in the Russian Museum, St. Petersburg). In Pogodin’s vast biography compiled by Barsukov, the account of his famous antiquities repository occupies hundreds of pages. Barsukov includes descriptions of Pogodin’s acquisition methods, with some reference to the icons.

98  N. Barsukov, Zhizn’ i trudy M. P. Pogodina, X, pp. 442–44. The symbolic sacred images drew I. M. Snegirev’s particular attention. See Dnevnik I. M. Snegireva, I, p. 381 (a report of 24 November 1846). The growth of the collection of medieval Russian painting in Pogodin’s antiquities repository is illustrated by the following figures: in 1844 he owned about thirty icons on wood and eight embroidered images (M. P[ogodin], “Ob arkheologicheskikh sobraniiakh pr[ofessora] Pogodina,” in Moskvitianin, V (1844), p. 176) whereas in 1849 he possessed about one hundred icons and fifteen illuminated embroideries ([M. P. Pogodin], “Pogodinskoe sobranie drevnostei v Moskve,” in ZhMNP, part LXI (1849), section VII, p. 63). 99  M. [Pogodin], “Arkheologicheskie priobreteniia,” in Moskvitianin (1851), I, p. 227. 100   Moskvitianin (1851), III, section Sovremennye izvestiia, p. 82. 101  N. Barsukov, Zhizn’ i trudy M. P. Pogodina, X, p. 513. The tablets (“from a very good hand of tsar’s own masters”) were also noted by D. A. Rovinskii (Obozrenie ikonopisaniia v Rossii do kontsa XVII veka, p. 61). 102   Zapiski Sergeia Mikhailovicha Solov’eva, p. 55. 103  N. Barsukov, Zhizn’ i trudy M. P. Pogodina, XI, pp. 241–42 (records from August, 1851).

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Icons made up a smaller proportion of the collection than other types of work,104 and are thus discussed less fully. We can easily picture where and how Pogodin acquired the ancient panels. He undertook regular long trips to towns noted for their antiquities. Besides Moscow, which was his permanent residence, he visited practically all the significant towns and monasteries of Russia where, thanks to his popularity and affable behavior (even to people of common descent), he had many friends and well-wishers. He remembered best, however, those people who could point out, deliver, or sell him old artworks. He even acknowledged in print his ties with Old Believer tradesmen who rendered him “important services.”105 At the Nizhnii Novgorod fair, he would immediately rush to the “lowly bast booths” where his “fellow antiquaries sat brooding over ancient codices, incunabula, carved crosses, and embroidered palls.”106 Such merchants as N. P. Filatov, T. F. Bol’shakov, D. V. Piskarev, and V. Ya. Lopukhin were from Moscow; A. I. Kasterin from St. Petersburg; Mikhail Zubov, A. G. Golovastikov, and G. Drebezhzhanov from Nizhnii Novgorod; I. K. Izergin from Viatka; the Viaznikovo peasants V. F. Morzhakov and Pakhom Stepanov; Fedor Gerasimov from the neighborhood of Vladimir; the icon painter Tiulin from Mstera; and other lovers of the antique, all sold Pogodin not only manuscripts, which he bought plentifully, but works of art as well.107 He even sent his agents to the Urals and Siberia.108 “They offer me things from every corner. Many just for a song,” he wrote to Stepan Shevyrev, referring to new acquisitions that had entered his antiquities repository in 1849.109 From 1841 to 1851, Pogodin issued a thick journal entitled Moskvitianin (The Muscovite). He obtained permission to publish it through Count Sergei Uvarov 104  M. P. Pogodin realized that his icon collection was far from complete and in 1849–51 he nearly bought the meeting-house owned by A. E. Sorokin, who demanded 10,000 rubles in silver for it. He wrote to S. P. Shevyrev: “I would have bequeathed to posterity a collection of all schools of icon painting similar to that of the ancient literature and history I already possess “ (N. Barsukov, Zhizn’ i trudy M. P. Pogodina, X, p. 454; also, ibid., XI, p. 511). 105  M. P[ogodin], “Ob arkheologicheskikh sobraniiakh pr[ofessora] Pogodina,” p. 171. 106  M. P[ogodin], “Pis’mo iz Nizhnego Novgoroda. 9 avgusta 1849,” in Moskvitianin (1849), I, section V (Vnutrennie izvestiia), p. 40; N. Barsukov, Zhizn’ i trudy M. P. Pogodina, X, p. 436. 107  See M. P[ogodin], “Novye priobreteniia v muzee M. P. Pogodina, in Moskvitianin (1847), I, pp. 248–49; M. Pogodin, “O priobreteniiakh na Nizhegorodskoi iarmarke,” ibid. (1847), III, p. 121; M. Pogodin, “Pis’mo iz Nizhnego Novgoroda. 9 avgusta 1849,” pp. 40–41; M. Pogodin, “Sud’by arkheologii v Rossii,” p. 29 (also in M. P. Pogodin, Sochineniia, vol. III, p. 512); N. Barsukov, Zhizn’ i trudy M. P. Pogodina, V, pp. 438–39; VI (St. Petersburg, 1892), pp. 168– 69, 364–70; IX (St. Petersburg, 1895), p. 138; X, p. 465, XI, pp. 436–39. 108  N. Barsukov, Zhizn’ i trudy M. P. Pogodina, X, pp. 465–67. 109  Ibid., p. 454.

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who, as an individual and as the official mouthpiece of Orthodoxy, Autocracy, and Nationality, found in Pogodin a devoted supporter. Pogodin and Shevyrev, his co-­editor, repeatedly made it clear that the goal of the journal they founded was to disseminate sound notions about Russian history and the Russian people to counterbalance the influence of the St. Petersburg journals and the Moscow cosmopolitans who held Russia’s past in contempt and praised to the skies the culture of the West.110 The blatantly loyalist bias of the Moskvitianin turned away progressive-minded readers, and the journal was constantly on the verge of failure. This did not prevent Pogodin from publishing a great deal of historical and contemporary material that threw light on the spiritual and daily life of Russian and other Slavic peoples from the ninth to the eighteenth century.111 Exercising his right as a publisher, he also unobtrusively placed in the journal brief reports about his repository: current acquisitions, commissioners, prices for antique objects. This kind of information gave some of the journal’s issues the flavor of a publication intended for the few. The spirit of collecting, of delving into things past, which gradually became widespread, required a specialized publication, and in this respect, Pogodin’s Moskvitianin was the first periodical primarily designed for the lovers of antiquity. The Old Believers’ experience in collecting and their amateur study of icons during the 1840s was summed up in Dmitrii Rovinskii’s Survey of Icon Painting in Russia through the Late Seventeenth Century (Obozrenie ikonopisaniia v Rossii do kontsa XVII veka). The book appeared in 1856 and was the first comprehensive work about Russian icons and icon painters. It is not only because of its scholarly merits that Rovinskii’s book deserves special consideration, but also because the story of its publication abounds in details that typify academic and literary life during the reign of Nicholas I. The Survey’s author, Dmitrii Aleksandrovich Rovinskii,112 was the son of the head of the Moscow city police. He studied law, working his way up from a 110  N. Barsukov, Zhizn’ i trudy M. P. Pogodina, VI, pp. 10–16; VII, pp. 73–76, 395; VIII (St. Petersburg, 1894), pp. 46–47 ff. 111  P. I. Bartenev, Ukazatel’ statei i materialov po istorii, slovesnosti, statistike i etnografii Rossii, pomeshchennykh v ‘Moskvitianine’ za 1841–1853 gody (Moscow, 1855). 112  See Publichnoe sobranie imp. Akademii nauk v pamiat’ eia pochetnogo chlena Dmitriia Aleksandrovicha Rovinskogo. 10-go dekabria 1895 goda (St. Petersburg, 1896) (I. E. Zabelin, Vospominanie o D. A. Rovinskom, pp. 3–16; V. V. Stasov, Vospominaniia tovarishcha o D. A. Rovinskom, pp. 17–38; A. F. Koni, Obshchestvennaia i gosudarstvennaia deiatel’nost’ D. A. Rovinskogo, pp. 39–93; A. F. Bychkov, D. A. Rovinskii i imperatorskaia Publichnaia biblioteka, pp. 98–104; “D. A. Rovinskii. Nekrolog,” in ZhMNP (July, 1895), section IV, pp. 20–22; A. F. Koni, “Dmitrii Aleksandrovich Rovinskii,” in VE (January, 1896), pp. 129–75 and February, pp. 607, 660; A. A. Pavlovskii, “Pamiati D. A. Rovinskogo,” in ZOOID, XIX

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Figure 4.8 Dmitrii Aleksandrovich Rovinskii (1824–95). Engraving by I. P. Pozhalostin, 1880.

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position as secretary of the high court tribunal to that of a senator. In his history of the judiciary he comes across as a bright and progressive jurist in the manner of F. T. Gaaz (Haas) and A. F. Koni. A man with a keen sense of civic duty and of singular conscientiousness, he devoted most of his life to legal practice and reforms of the state judicial bodies that were most backward in Russia. But in his leisure time Rovinskii wholeheartedly engaged in his favorite pursuits: the collection and study of works of art, engravings in particular. His main writings, including the four-volume Detailed Dictionary of Russian Engraved Portraits (Podrobnyi slovar’ russkikh gravirovannykh portretov, 1886– 89) and the twelve-volume Russian Folk Pictures (Russkie narodnye kartinki, 1881–93), remain unparalleled in their completeness, clarity, and quality of reproduction of invaluable material. Having no specialist training in history or the arts, Rovinskii grew from an autodidact into an outstanding art historian and, toward the end of his life, was made an honorary member of the Academy of Sciences and the Academy of Arts. From his youth, Rovinskii took interest in Russian folk life. Like Sakharov before him, he walked all over central Russia, “hearkening to people and looking around.” He thoroughly studied Moscow and its environs—the veritable hub and mirror of the life of the Russian nation.113 There he also collected all the necessary material for his Survey of Icon Painting in Russia. Certain circumstances induced Rovinskii to write his icon book. In 1850, the St. Petersburg merchant G. S. Kuz’min granted the Russian Archaeological Society 400 rubles as an award for the best work written on the history of the Russian schools of icon painting up until the late seventeenth century. A

(1896), pp. 37–45; V. Ia. Adariukov, “Dmitrii Aleksandrovich Rovinskii (Materialy dlia ego biografii)” in SG (April–June, 1916), pp. 93–110 (on pp. 99–108 is a List of D. A. Rovinskii’s Works and on pp. 108–110, Articles and Notes on D. A. Rovinskii); “O D. A. Rovinskom. Stranichka iz vospominanii A. F. Koni,” in Sredi kollektsionerov (1921), no. 5, pp. 27–28; V. Ia. Adariukov, “Arkhiv Dmitriia Aleksandrovicha Rovinskogo,” ibid., nos. 6–7, pp. 11–20; V. V. Stasov, Pis’ma k deiateliam russkoi kul’tury, 2 (Moscow, 1967), pp. 287–89 (the text of B. N. Chicherin’s memoirs about D. A. Rovinskii: an appendix to Stasov’s letter to Chicherin dated 5 October 1895); O. Vraskaia, “D. A. Rovinskii, ego sovremenniki i posledovateli,” in Narodnaia graviura i fol’klor v Rossii XVII–XIX vv. (K 150-letiiu so dnia rozhdeniia D. A. Rovinskogo). Materialy nauchnoi konferentsii (1975) (Moscow, 1976), pp. 5–33. 113  It was under the influence of I. E. Zabelin and M. P. Pogodin that D. A. Rovinskii took interest in the Russian antiquity. For his and Zabelin’s tours of the lands neighboring Moscow and his collecting of material for the Obozrenie, see I. E. Zabelin, Vospominaniia o D. A. Rovinskom, pp. 4–13.

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two-year deadline was set for the work’s completion.114 Rovinskii undertook the task and within the stipulated term handed over the manuscript to the Society.115 To all appearances, the members of the commission, set up by the Society to examine the manuscript, reviewed it favorably and Rovinskii received Kuz’min’s grant.116 No sooner had the book been recommended for the press, however, than unexpected obstacles arose with respect to censorship. Rovinskii’s text abounded in references to collections made at the Old Believer cemeteries and by Old Believer amateurs. The government and the church regarded the Old Believer creed as illegal and tried to eradicate it. Not long before Rovinskii’s manuscript was submitted to the Archaeological Society, Tsar Nicholas I sanctioned rigid measures against dissenters.117 The censors kept an eye on all writings that dealt with the Russian past, and their mistrust of any mention, however innocuous, of the church or any positive knowledge connected with the schism knew no bounds.118 Rovinskii’s work was submitted for the personal consideration of Metropolitan Filaret (Philaret), who reacted negatively.119 Along with correct and well-grounded remarks about the book’s 114   Ot imp. Arkheologicheskogo obshchestva. Ob’iavleniia o trekh zadachakh na soiskanie premii (St. Petersburg, 1850), pp. 13–14. (also in Z[R]AO, vol. III (St. Petersburg, 1851), pp. 25–26). 115   Perechen’ zasedanii imp. Arkheologicheskoi komissii za 1852 (St. Petersburg, 1852), p. 16. 116  It was probably Rovinskii, too, who wrote the Opisanie drevnikh ikon v sobornykh, prikhodskikh i monastyrskikh tserkvakh v Preobrazhenskom i Rogozhskom kladbishchakh stolichnogo goroda Moskvy, which was presented for the Lobkov 1000-ruble award. The book was presented to the Russian Archaeological Society in 1853 and 1857 but was rejected each time, one of the arguments, in 1857, being that “its first part was only an abbreviation of Rovinskii’s work that had been published in the Society’s Proceedings, and cannot be repeated with such slight alterations in the Society’s editions.” Regarding A. I. Lobkov’s aims and awards, see Perechen’ zasedanii imp. Arkheologicheskogo obshchestva za 1851 god (St. Petersburg, 1851), pp. 131–32; Perechen’ zasedanii … za 1852 god (St. Petersburg, 1852), pp. 39–41, 86–87; Izvestiia [R]AO, vol. I, 1 (St. Petersburg, 1857), columns 25–27; 4 (St. Petersburg, 1858), columns 226, 234, 238–39; vol. IV, 2 (St. Petersburg, 1862), column 184; N. I. Veselovskii, Istoriia imp. Russkogo arkheologicheskogo obshchestva za pervoe piatidesiatiletie ego sushchestvovaniia. 1846–1896, pp. 176–80 and 267 (it was Veselovskii who reported that the author of the work presented for the Lobkov award was also D. A. Rovinskii. See note 1 on p. 178). 117   Sbornik pravitel’stvennykh svedenii o raskol’nikakh, sostavlennyi V. Kel’sievym, 2 (London, 1861), p. 183 ff. See also P. S. Smirnov, Istoriia russkogo raskola staroobriadstva, pp. 217–24. 118  A. Kotovich, Dukhovnaia tsenzura v Rossii. 1799–1855 gg. (St. Petersburg, 1909), pp. 530, 532, 539, 540–49, 552–55, 557. 119   Sobranie mnenii i otzyvov Filareta, mitropolita Moskovskogo i Kolomenskogo, po uchebnym i tserkovno-gosudarstvennym voprosam, tom dopolnitel’nyi (St. Petersburg, 1887), pp. 331–42.

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Figure 4.9 D. A. Rovinskii, A Survey of Icon-Painting in Russia through the Late Seventeenth Century, St. Petersburg, 1903.

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individual points, Filaret’s review was studded with casuistic comments and made it plain that publication of data on the Old Believer icon collections was out of the question, as it might be instrumental in enhancing the view of the importance of their establishment and, hence, in deepening dissent. The Holy Synod passed a resolution authorizing the publication of Rovinskii’s work, stipulating that the author or editors make all the necessary emendations and abridgments of the text.120 In 1856, the Society issued Rovinskii’s work121 and a year later it was awarded a minor Uvarov prize.122 The original publication, however, had quite a few cuts; it was only half a century later, in 1903, that the book appeared in its unabridged form, albeit with a different title.123 The 1903 edition was not meant solely to be an expression of belated respect for this outstanding scholar; many of Rovinskii’s observations and conclusions still remained valid and were still used to ascertain schools of icon painting and the individual styles of the most notable artists. In general terms, the content of Rovinskii’s book may be summed up as follows. Rovinskii regarded the first five centuries of art in Russia as a period of bustling activity by foreign masters: Greeks, Germans, and Italians. Russian artists became apprentices to foreign masters, copying their works and not daring to work on their own. But the authentic Greek artistic heritage appeared to Rovinskii to be totally unknown since he justly believed that all of the forty Greek icons listed by Sakharov had been repeatedly repaired, precluding any evaluation of their pictorial qualities. In order to appreciate the Byzantine style, Rovinskii’s believed one should turn to the miniatures in Greek manuscripts, as these had escaped renovation. Rovinskii, however, set no great store in Byzantine painting, expressing his surprise at the judgment of incompetent people which had resulted in a “strange” and generally accepted view that “Byzantine icon painting [was] the greatest pure art, deserving not only study as a classic but even of all-round restoration.” Rovinskii’s attitude clearly reflected the tastes of a nineteenth-century man whose aesthetic upbringing was formed within the framework of the exalted worship of classical antiquity and 120  N. I. Veselovskii, Istoriia imp. Russkogo arkheologicheskogo obshchestva za pervoe piatidesiatiletie ego sushchestvovaniia. 1846–1896, pp. 341–42. 121  D. A. Rovinskii “Istoriia russkikh shkol ikonopisaniia do kontsa XVII veka,” in ZRAO, vol. VIII (1856), pp. 1–196. 122   Otchet o pervom prisuzhdenii nagrad grafa Uvarova 25 sentiabria 1857 goda (St. Petersburg, 1857), pp. 12–15. The same publication includes the Razbor sochineniia g. Rovinskogo: Istoriia russkikh shkol ikonopisaniia, sostavlennyi akad. M. P. Pogodinym, pp. 26–32. 123  D. A. Rovinskii, Obozrenie ikonopisaniia v Rossii do kontsa XVII veka (St. Petersburg, 1903), pp. 1–174.

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its Western European modification during the period from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century. It was not without reason that Rovinskii rejected the attribution of the Trinity from the Trinity-St. Sergius Monastery to Andrei Rublev, reckoning it to be a work by an Italian master. According to Rovinskii, the history of authentic Russian painting begins in the sixteenth century. Sharing the connoisseurs’ opinion, but reducing the number of schools to only the most significant, he singled out the Novgorod, Stroganov, and Moscow pis’ma. For some reason, however, both Rovinskii and his predecessors and contemporaries considered as Novgorodian not only icons from Novgorod itself but also those from Pskov, Yaroslavl, and other northern and trans-Volgan towns. Therefore, he listed under the heading of the Novgorod pis’ma such stylistically different icons as the Virgin of the Sign from the Znamenskii Cathedral in Novgorod and the Fedorov Virgin from Kostroma, the Transfiguration from the Monastery of the Savior in Yaroslavl, and the quadripartite panel from the Annunciation Cathedral in the Moscow Kremlin. The stylistic features and emphatic linearity of drawing, the abundance of highlights on faces, and the weakly worked architectural and landscape backdrops that Rovinskii noted as being common to all Novgorodian icons are generally indisputable. They were confirmed by subsequent cleanings of genuine Novgorod panels. What is remarkable, however, is that in his judgment of the Novgorod school Rovinskii sided with those icon collectors, especially the Muscovites, who “were unimpressed by the Novgorod pis’ma.” According to Rovinskii, the icons executed in this manner were distinguished neither by finesse, which was highly valued in the Stroganov pis’ma, nor by liveliness of coloring, which distinguished the old Moscow panels. It was the icons of the Stroganov school that Rovinskii held in particularly high esteem. In fact, he regarded these as the supreme achievement of Russian art throughout its centuries-old existence, comparing them to exuberant flowers nurtured by great artists and solicitous patrons. He believed that the technical aspect of icon painting had been brought to the highest possible perfection in these works, especially in the rendering of minute detail, the likes of which were not found in any other manner of execution. The fairytale world of the Stroganov icons—with their lightsome figures clad in ornate costumes and their fantastic palaces and fanciful landscapes—appeared to the nineteenth-century viewer even more astounding, as their provenance was reckoned to be the wild and frosty lands of the north, which lay thousands of miles and weeks of travel away from the capital and the tsar’s court. A constant demand for the Stroganov icons could not but lead to their transfer from the churches of Solvychegodsk and Ustiug to the richly furnished, mostly

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Muscovite, meeting-houses of the Old Believers. Art lovers and connoisseurs took such a keen interest in the Stroganov icons that they were thoroughly familiar with all the best masters and even the evolution of their personal styles. It remained for future generations to ascertain that it was Moscow, rather than Stroganov’s court, that gave birth to the Stroganov school and that the most renowned of Stroganov’s icon painters were actually the tsar’s salaried masters. Unlike other art historians of his day, who mainly focused on the Moscow school of painting, Rovinskii has very little to say about it so that his chapter on that subject is only five pages long, throwing no light on the subject. According to Rovinskii, the Moscow pis’ma have an abundant use of ochers (vokhra) and chrome green (prazelen’), and he has little else to say on the subject. What is significant, however, is that he lays the main stress on Rublev’s endeavor rather than the Moscow pis’ma as a whole. One cannot help feeling that in the 1840s the issue of what the celebrated master’s art represented stirred up much controversy. Rovinskii lists fourteen icons, mainly from private collections, which were ascribed to Rublev, but makes a characteristic reservation that the list does not include icons known to be of a later date, the seventeenth and eighteenth century. He rejects the attribution of all of the icons mentioned, particularly the Christ Emmanuel from the Soldatenkov collection (“of a perfect workmanship”). “More authentic and remarkable than others” was, in Rovinskii’s words, the Virgin Eleusa (Umilenie), which was purchased by Erofei Afanas’ev from the merchant N. A. Papulin in Sudislavl, the reverse of which contained an inscription in sixteenth-century shorthand, as follows: “This image is painted by the tsar’s former Muscovite master Rublev.” Rovinskii remarks, however, that stylistically the icon resembles those of the Stroganov school and that it could hardly have been executed in the early fifteenth century. A new feature of Rovinskii’s work, as compared to works on Russian medieval painting by his predecessors, is a large section devoted to the royal and urban icon painters active in the second half of the seventeenth century and the early eighteenth century. Here, Rovinskii utilized the Armory’s material, published in 1850 by I. E. Zabelin,124 and it was probably this part of the book that prevented the commission of the Archaeological Society from calling his work original. The Society’s conclusion is evidently unjust, as the material evidence and its interpretation are two separate considerations. What we find in Rovinskii’s book is not a paraphrase but a clear account of the way the iconpainting craft was organized in the seventeenth century as well as a list of the 124  I. Zabelin, “Materialy dlia istorii russkoi ikonopisi,” in Vremennik imp. Moskovskogo Obshchestva istorii i drevnostei rossiiskikh, VII (Moscow, 1850), pp. 1–128.

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leading masters of that period, such as Simon Ushakov, Iosif Vladimirov, and Nikita Pavlovets. Reading the section about the royal icon painters one immediately notices how the abundance of material evidence affects the general tenor of the book’s text, that is, how the judgments about features pertaining to various pis’ma gradually recede into the background, giving way to the factual account which in the long run provides a clear historical picture. But recognizing style as the main category of art, Rovinskii draws some conclusions that remain valid until the present day. He states that because icon painters from various Russian towns frequently traveled to Moscow and also worked for many years in teams or workshops, the idiosyncrasies of local pis’ma gradually leveled out, resulting in the emergence of a single style in all towns. The Friazin pis’mo, “which is a kind of transition from icon painting to painting proper,” has, in his words, no stylistic properties of its own, as one master could paint in both an iconic and a lay manner and the choice of either of these was as often as not determined by the commissioner of the work. Following established tradition and his work’s main objective, Rovinskii included in the Survey a long article on the techniques of icon painting and three extensive appendices: extracts from icon painters’ manuals, a subject index, and a name index of icon painters. Each of these sections by far exceeds the analogous appendices in Sakharov’s and Snegirev’s books. Suffice it to say that his section “List of Russian Icon Painters of All the Schools with Brief Notes About Them” alone includes approximately six hundred names. It tallies well with Sakharov’s data; Sakharov’s declaration, however, was not substantiated by a printed list whereas Rovinskii, an astute gatherer of factual references of all kinds, spent much time and effort to give his book the semblance of a fundamental reference volume. It was with the same goal that he provided ample evidence regarding the collectors and repositories of icons, the monasteries, churches, chapels, and meeting-houses.

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F. I. Buslaev and His Contemporaries The 1860s. Narodnost’ as the key idea of the era. The prehistory of Moscow museums. The Moscow Public Museum and Rumiantsev Museum. P. I. Sevast’ianov and his archaeological expeditions and collections. A. E. Viktorov. First publications of the Moscow Public Museum. The Society of Medieval Russian Art at the Moscow Public Museum. The Society’s publications. F. I. Buslaev. His biography and works on art. Foreign critics’ comments on Russian art as reviewed by F. I. Buslaev. S. D. Filimonov as editor, scholar, and collector. Russian antiquities assembled at the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts. V. A. Prokhorov. His journals, Christian Antiquities and Archaeology and Russian Antiquities. V. A. Prokhorov’s lectures on the history of medieval Russian art delivered at the Academy of Arts. In the 1840s, the passion for Russian antiquities had not yet become the subject of a systematic study aimed at revealing the aesthetic aspect of medieval Russian painting and its main stages of historical development. Even in Rovinskii’s book, the general historical and theoretic section is only indirectly concerned with art. But a lively interest in the past, a variety of major and minor discoveries, a timid recognition of genuine rather than fictitious originals when renovating icons and frescoes, and the first attempts at summing up accumulated experience eventually bore fruit. The artistic culture of Rus’ had attained the status of a serious scholarly subject studied by the best academics and university scholars of the day. An upsurge of interest in Russian antiquity ensued from the social upheavals of the 1860s. The Crimean War, the death of Nicholas I, the coronation of Alexander II, and the peasant reforms of 1861 all occurred in less than a decade. But each day of this brief period was conducive to the awakening of minds. Various strata of the country’s population were bustling with a new social activism. The question of Russia’s future direction and development became vitally important. The emancipation of 22 million peasants from serfdom gave impetus to the idea of an historic role for these people. All things Russian, folk-like and original, encompassed by the term narodnost’, (nationality, folkways), were perceived as objectively existing creative elements of Russia’s national history. To understand how the notion of narodnost’ permeated pre- and post-reform Russia, one need look only at its manifestions among the social classes of the

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Russian empire. High-ranking courtiers and members of the metropolitan gentry appeared at fancy-dress balls in Russian-style costumes in the late 1840s. On February 9, 1849, a procession took place in the mansion of the Moscow governorgeneral A. A. Zakrevskii at which the hosts and guests were dressed in national costumes, personifying ancient Russian capitals, lands, and towns.1 In 1855, following the death of Nicholas I, even the imperial court caught the passion for things Russian. The military failure in the Crimea only fanned nationalist sentiment and hostile attitudes toward the West. There was talk among Slavophiles of introducing a new court uniform that would consist of boyar caftans and beaver hats.2 Gossip was particularly rampant during preparations for the coronation of Alexander II. According to I. S. Aksakov,3 there were even rumors that the German terms used to designate the ranks of court officials would revert to russified medieval forms, so that the kamergery (chamberlains) would become stol’niki and the kameriunkery (gentlemen of the bedchamber) kliuchniki. Courtiers and rich landowners took note of Russian antiquity to express a love of the exotic, which they played upon at balls or during ceremonial dinners. But a serious interest in Russian antiquity arose among enthusiastic amateurs and professional scholars, who in the third quarter of the nineteenth century were instrumental in creating the first specialized institutions of medieval Russian artistic culture and publishing the first scholarly studies. The changes in socio-economic and political life in the 1860s transformed a superficial interest in Russia’s past into a serious pursuit. People were becoming aware of the need to set up scholarly and public institutions that would assert the significance of their nation in the history of world culture. Although Moscow was a center of Russian statehood, its only public institutions that might carry out specialist work on Russia’s artistic heritage were the university and the Society of History and Russian Antiquities, affiliated with the university. In the 1860s, the imperial court and city leaders at first responded to the idea of establishing a national museum in Moscow with indifference and even enmity. Much time and effort was required to overcome the resistance and to found a professional art repository in Moscow accessible to everyone. 1  “Angliia i Rossiia. 9-go fevralia v Moskve,” in Moskvitianin (1849), no. 4, February, book 2, section V (Moskovskaia letopis’), pp. 95–107, 109–111. Availing himself of the fancy-dress ball given by A. A. Zakrevskii, M. P. Pogodin wrote a special article on Russian costume, in which he pointed to its advantages as compared to the tail-coat and evening dress of western Europe. See M. Pogodin, “Neskol’ko slov o znachenii russkoi odezhdy v sravnenii s evropeiskoi,” ibid., pp. 114–20. 2  N. Barsukov, Zhizn’ i trudy M. P. Pogodina, XIV (St. Petersburg, 1900), p. 20. 3  Ibid., p. 20.

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Figure 5.1 Moscow Public and Rumiantsev Museums (Pashkov Dom), architect V. I. Bazhenov, 1780s.

Many Moscow scholars thought that the city should have its own museum of Russian antiquities. . M. Snegirev first broached the question and, in May 1843, drew up a proposal and submitted it to Moscow’s governor-general I. G. Seniavin.4 In Snegirev’s view, the museum was to reveal Russia’s past in all its diversity. The idea of an independent museum or art gallery had not matured yet, and Snegirev thought that old manuscripts, icons, portraits, household utensils, clothing, and other ancient objects should be ranged alongside works of contemporary painting. Snegirev’s project was not realized; under Nicholas I such questions were settled only in the palace, and we cannot say with certainty whether it was even submitted to the emperor. M. P. Pogodin, who had made up his mind to sell his own collection of antiquities to the state, also espoused establishing a public museum in Moscow. He had an ulterior motive: he wanted the post of the repository’s managing director for himself. Pogodin’s biographer, N. P. Barsukov, had a point when he said the “most sensitive chord” of Pogodin’s heart was his ambition. His persistent wish to be in the limelight prompted him to seek the posts of vice president of the Academy of Sciences, chief procurator of the Synod, superintendent of a school district, director of a department of the Ministry of Public Education, or to become a diplomat, tutor of the heir to the throne, or the tsar’s official historiographer. Since none of these dreams came true, he placed his hope on his collection of antiquities. In the winter of 1851, he took advantage of the twenty-fifth anniversary of Nicholas I’s accession to the throne, addressing the tsar with the following petition: “Will you enjoin, all-merciful Sire that … an all-Russian people’s museum be set up in Moscow and my collections of some thirty years standing be accepted as its foundation and also the managing of 4  Dnevnik I. M. Snegireva, I, 1822–1852 (Moscow), pp. 335–36.

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these be entrusted to me, and I will at short notice take it upon myself to bring it to a state hitherto unknown in Russia as far as the diversity of objects encompassing the entirety of Russian life, that is to say, a museum that, I dare say, will fill up a page in the history of your reign.”5 But even this time, despite the good foundation that Pogodin’s collection would provide for a museum, Nicholas demurred. He distrusted enlightenment notions, and the proposed Moscow museum threatened to turn into an establishment of precisely this kind. It was only under Alexander II that the proposal to found a museum began to gain ground. Moscow University took the initiative and offered to share some of its academic collections to form the nucleus of a city museum and public library. The unexpected opportunity to acquire another complete collection of rarities changed the initial, rather limited plan into a broader and more inviting prospect. In St. Petersburg there was a large library and collection of medieval manuscripts which belonged to the chancellor, Count N. P. Rumiantsev. In 1828, he bequeathed the manuscripts to the state. In the 1850s, the Rumiantsev Museum, located in Rumiantsev’s own mansion on the English Embankment, was closed because of the building’s general disrepair and poor attendance.6 Petersburg officials started making plans to split up the collection among other museums. The administrator of the Moscow educational district, General N. V. Isakov, who was in charge of establishing a museum in Moscow and who happened to be in the capital at that critical moment, managed to have the ministerial committee pass a decision to preserve the Rumiantsev collection as a whole and to transfer it to Moscow. On May 23, 1861, the emperor approved this decision and a month later the library, manuscripts, and other assets of the Rumiantsev Museum were moved to a new home. Thus, within one decade, Pogodin’s huge antiquities repository that had been amassed in Moscow went to St. Petersburg. The Rumiantsev collection, built up in St. Petersburg, found its way to Moscow. Rumiantsev’s collection had been preserved as a complete collection at the death of its owner. Isakov and his staff decided to bring the collections of Moscow Public Museum and the Rumiantsev Museum together under one roof in Pashkov House, one of the city’s most imposing buildings, erected in 1784– 86 opposite the Kremlin by the architect V. I. Bazhenov.7 On May 9, 1862, both 5  N. Barsukov, Zhizn’ i trudy M. P. Pogodina, XI (St. Petersburg, 1897), p. 511. 6  At the moment, the former Rumiantsev House accomodates the Museum of the Blockade of Leningrad. 7  De jure, the measure was fictitious as very soon Rumiantsev’s collections became part of the more extensive collections amassed by the growing Public Museum. However, its double title existed until 1913 when it was renamed the Moscow Public Rumiantsev Museum (and later, simply, the Rumiantsev Museum).

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museums opened to the general public, and one year later a library affiliated with them also opened. The pediment of Pashkov House was decorated with an inscription in gilded letters made at one time for the St. Petersburg premises of the Rumiantsev Museum, which ran as follows: “From State Chancellor Count Rumiantsev for the cause of enlightenment.”8 The Rumiantsev Museum had one department devoted to works of Russian medieval painting, comprising an invaluable collection of sixteen illuminated manuscripts of the period from the twelfth to the seventeenth century, among them Gospels of 1164, 1270, and 1401; a fourteenth-century Psalter; a sixteenthcentury Hexameron; the 1608 Church Regulations; the 1673 Sibylline Books; and other specimens.9 An exhibition of the best codices from the Rumiantsev collection featuring illuminated manuscripts, acts, chronicles, and palaeographic rarities celebrated the museum’s inauguration.10 Subsequently supplemented with donations from T. F. Bol’shakov (1864), V. M. Undol’skii (1866), D. V. Piskarev (1868), P. I. Sevast’ianov (1874), and other collectors, the exhibition

8  Regarding the Rumiantsev collections proper, the transfer of the Rumiantsev Museum to Moscow, the foundation of the Moscow Public Museum, and the subsequent development of these museums, see K. I. Kestner, Materialy dlia istoricheskogo opisaniia Rumiantsovskogo muzeuma (Moscow, 1882) (written in 1848); Otchet po Moskovskomy Publichnomu muzeiu ot vremeni osnovaniia ego do 1-go ianvaria 1864 goda (St. Petersburg, 1864), pp. 4–11; Sbornik materialov dlia istorii Rumiantsovskogo muzeia, I (Moscow, 1882); V. V. Stasov, “Rumiantsovskii muzei. Istoriia ego perevoda iz Peterburga v Moskvu v 1860–1861 gg.,” in RS (January, 1883), pp. 87–116 (the same in V. V. Stasov, Sobranie sochinenii vol. III (St. Petersburg, 1894), columns 1687–1712); E. Varb, Odno iz nashikh tsentral’nykh prosvetitel’nykh uchrezhdenii (Ocherki Rumiantsovskogo muzeia) (Moscow, 1898); Piatidesiatiletie Rumiantsovskogo muzeia v Moskve. 1862–1912. Istoricheskii ocherk (Moscow, 1913); L. Galberstadt Halberstadt), “K iubileiu Rumiantsevskogo muzeia. Perenesenie muzeia v Moskvu v 1861 g.,” in GM (1913), no. 3, pp. 287–90; Gosudarstvennyi Rumiantsovskii muzei. Putevoditel’, I. Biblioteka (Moscow, 1923); M. M. Klevevskii, Istoriia Gosudarstvennoi Biblioteki SSSR imeni V. I. Lenina, vol. 1; Istoriia Biblioteki Moskovskogo Publichnogo Rumiantsevskogo muzeia. 1862–1917 gg. (Moscow, 1953). Regarding N. P. Rumiantsev himself and his assistants, see also a more recent edition: V. I. Kozlov, Kolumby rossiiskikh drevnostei (Moscow, 1981) (given herein is also all the previous literature); Rukopisnye sobraniia Gosudarstvennoi Biblioteki SSSR imeni V. I. Lenina. Ukazatel’, vol. I (1862–1917) (Moscow, 1983), pp. 14–27 (texts by A. D. Cherviakov and K. A. Maikova). 9  The importance of the Rumiantsev illuminated manuscripts as a special stock of evidence relevant for the study of medieval Russian art was highlighted in the first official account of museums. See Otchet po Moskovskomu Publichnomu muzeiu ot vremeni osnovaniia ego do 1-go ianvaria 1864 goda, pp. 22–23. 10   Otchet Moskovskogo Publichnogo i Rumiantsevskogo muzeev za 1867–1869 g. (Moscow), p. 60.

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Figure 5.2 The apostles Peter and Paul in a miniature from Gospels, 1220. State Historical Museum, Moscow.

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was eventually deemed permanent, eliciting a lively interest among specialists and the general public.11 The manuscripts on their own could not constitute an adequate Russian antiquities department. The small archaeological collection that supplemented the Rumiantsev library had disparate works, amounting to some one hundred pieces.12 The noted traveler P. I. Sevast’ianov made a major contribution when, in April 1862, shortly before the museums were inaugurated, he provided a large collection of works of Christian art as a usufruct property for the three years duration. This was exhibited in two rooms of the main building’s upper storey as the Public Museum’s department of Christian and Russian antiquities. Petr Ivanovich Sevast’ianov (1811–67) is a typical example of the nineteenthcentury self-taught archaeologist. The son of a Penza merchant, he developed a passion for collecting solely from his wish to “assist” the work of scholars. But unlike other collectors who primarily sought to discover authentic Russian antiquities, Sevast’ianov traveled extensively abroad,13 focusing his efforts on the more strenuous task of acquiring a large collection of early Christian and Byzantine artifacts.14 His most fruitful expeditions took him to Palestine, 11  Regarding the ancient manuscripts adorned with miniatures and other embellishments which entered the museums in the second half of the nineteenth century, see a special illustrated essay: G. P. Georgievskii, “Otdelenie rukopisei,” in Piatidesiatiletie Rumiantsevskogo muzeia v Moskve. 1862–1912. Istoricheskii ocherk, pp. 39–78. 12  See G. D. Filimonov, “Graf N. P. Rumiantsov kak arkheolog-sobiratel’,” in Sbornik materialov dlia istorii Rumiantsovskogo muzeia, 1, pp. 171–98; S. Dolgov, “Otdelenie doistoricheskikh, khristianskikh i russkikh drevnostei” in Piatidesiatiletie Rumiantsovskogo muzeia v Moskve. 1862–1912. Istoricheskii ocherk, pp. 185–89. 13  In different years, he visited Germany, Switzerland, Italy, France, England, Scotland, Ireland, Spain, Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco, Egypt, Syria, Palestine, Turkey, Greece, and Athos. 14  Regarding P. I. Sevast’ianov and his collecting activities, see P. Bezsonov (Bessonov), “Petr Ivanovich Sevast’ianov,” in Sovremennaia letopis’, no. 14, pp. 6–9; G. F[ilimonov], “Kharakteristika arkheologicheskoi deiatel’nosti P. I. Sevast’ianova,” in Vestnik drevnerusskogo iskusstva pri Moskovskom Publichnom muzee (1874), 1–3, section Smes’, pp, 17–20; F. Buslaev, “O zaslugakh pokoinogo P. I. Sevast’ianova,” ibid., 4–5, Ofitsial’nyi otdel, pp. 40–42; N. Kondakov, Pamiatniki khristianskogo iskusstva na Afone (St. Petersburg, 1902), pp. 7–11; RBS [vol. 18, Sabaneev-Smyslov] (St. Petersburg), pp. 269–70 (the article is by E. Tarasov, supplied with a short bibliography); Imperatorskoe Moskovskoe arkheologicheskoe obshchestvo v pervoe piatidesiatiletie ego sushchestvovaniia (1864–1914), vol. II (Moscow, 1915), section 1, pp. 319–20, with a portrait on table XIV; Slavianovedenie v dorevoliutsionnoi Rossii. Bio-bibliograficheskii slovar’ (Moscow, 1979), pp. 301–302; Rukopisnye sobraniia Gosudarstvennoi Biblioteki SSSR imeni V. I. Lenina. Ukazatel’, vol. 1, issue I (1862–1917), pp. 139–51 (text by G. I. Dovgallo and N. B. Tikhomirov supplied with a bibliography and

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Figure 5.3 Petr Ivanovich Sevast’ianov (1811–67).

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Mount Athos, and Rome. Like Pogodin, Sevast’ianov collected everything pertaining to the field of interest he had chosen: manuscripts, books, fresco, mosaic, and architectural fragments; small icons, life-size icons, crosses, embroidery, clothing, fabrics, vessels, and a host of other things relating to the history of the Greek church and Byzantine culture. Unlike Pogodin, who purchased only authenticated objects, Sevast’ianov also acquired ancillary material for the study of authentic works. If he could not obtain an original, Sevast’ianov would willingly resort to the aid of artists and architects to make a model, copy, plaster cast, drawing, or sketch. He was also the first Russian collector to appreciate the importance of photography as a method of documentation and took thousands of photographs of icons and manuscript miniatures.15 During visits to Athos in 1851 and 1857 Sevast’ianov succeeded in gathering a large amount of valuable material that he exhibited in Paris in 1858 and a year later in the Synod’s chambers in St. Petersburg, and then at Moscow University.16 The collection aroused much interest and received the approval of the emperor, which entitled Sevast’ianov to a state subsidy. He launched a fourteen-month expedition to Athos. Photographers, artists, and topographers, whose services were granted to Sevast’ianov by the Academy of Arts. Others from France, Bulgaria, and Greece, he specially invited to join the expedition. The expedition materials comprised original pieces and many drawings, topographic plans, traced impressions, copies of frescoes, and photographs of icons and manuscripts partially tinted to tally with the originals.17 Sevast’ianov reference literature). A truly scholarly assessment of Sevast’ianov’s activities should first and foremost be based on the material of his personal archive. See A. Viktorov, Sobranie rukopisei P. I. Sevast’ianova (Moscow, 1881), pp. 105–16. 15  “O svetopisi v otnoshenii k arkheologii. Zapiska P. I. Sevast’ianova, chitannaia 5 fevralia 1858 g. v sobranii Parizhskoi Akademii nadpisei i slovesnosti,” in Izvestiia [R]AO, vol. I (1859), columns 257–61. Regarding the photographs taken by P. I. Sevast’ianov primarily, from manuscripts illuminated with miniatures, see I. I. Sreznevskii, “Zapiska o fotograficheskikh snimkakh P. I. Sevast’ianova,” in IORIaS, vol. VII (1858), columns 367–70; the review “Peterburgskaia zhizn’,” in Sovremennik, vol. LXXIV (St. Petersburg, 1859), section Sovremennoe obozrenie, pp. 193–201; A. Viktorov, Sobranie rukopisei P. I. Sevast’ianova, pp. 78–104. 16  See S. Shevyrev, Afonskie ikony vizantiiskogo stilia v zhivopisnykh snimkakh, privezennykh v Moskvu P. I. Sevast’ianovym (Moscow, 1859); D. Polenov, “Snimki s ikon i drugikh drevnostei sv. gory Afonskoi,” in Dukhovnaia beseda (1859), no. 12, section Tserkovnye svedeniia, pp. 372–89; Izvestiia [R]AO, vol. IV (1863), column 83 (the index of articles about P. I. Sevast’ianov and his collections in connection with their exhibition in Moscow). 17  See “Arkheologicheskaia ekspeditsiia na Afon,” in Sovremennaia letopis’ Russkogo vestnika (1861), no. 1, pp. 31–32; A. Gavrilov, “Postanovleniia i rasporiazheniia sv. Sinoda o sokhranenii i izuchenii pamiatnikov drevnosti (1855–1880),” in VAI, VI (1866), pp. 60–63.

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divided them into two parts. The Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg received one part and the other, which included his personal collection of medieval manuscripts, went to the Public Museum in Moscow.18 Even before the inauguration of the museums, scholars and art lovers congregated at exhibitions of Sevast’ianov’s collections.19 The newspaper Moskovskie Vedomosti carried an article by F. I. Buslaev20 in which he pointed out the particular value of Sevast’ianov’s photographs of miniatures. In Buslaev’s words, they gave a true picture of “the rich and productive rudiments of Byzantine art.” Original Greek icons also drew much attention. One of the treasures of Sevast’ianov’s collection was the tiny mosaic image of Christ Emanuel, which the owner dated to the tenth century; in fact it was fashioned in the late thirteenth century.21 Also prominent among the items displayed were two excellent tempera icons, the Dormition of the Virgin and the Virgin and Child.22 Although the icons were coated with darkened varnish, their noble outlines suggested the style of Byzantine painting during its best period.

18  There is some evidence that a considerable number of traced copies were not taken to Russia but remained at Athos, where they were kept in nailed crates at the St. Andrew skete monastery. See N. V. Pokrovskii, “Stennye rospisi v drevnikh khramakh grecheskikh i russkikh,” in Trudy VII AS v Yaroslavle (1887), vol. I (Moscow, 1890), p. 138. The traced copies of the Athos icons and frescoes, preserved in the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts, were widely used for the study of Byzantine art even in the early twentieth century. See N. P. Kondakov, Pamiatniki khristianskogo iskusstva na Afone, figs. 59–62, 66–68. 19  An entry in Snegirev’s Diary on 21 April 1862 shows that on that day he viewed the Sevast’ianov collection of Christian antiquities in the Pashkov House with M. P. Pogodin and K. S. Aksakov being among visitors there. See Dnevnik I. M. Snegireva, II (Moscow, 1905), p. 198. 20  F. Buslaev, “Obraztsy ikonopisi v Publichnom muzee (v sobranii P. I. Sevast’ianova), in Moskovskie vedomosti (1862), no. 111, 23 May, pp. 885–87 and no. 113, 25 May, pp. 901–902. See also a reprint of this article in the Sochineniia F. I. Buslaeva, vol. I (St. Petersburg, 1908), pp. 370–87. 21   Otchet po Moskovskomu Publichnomu muzeiu ot vremeni osnovaniia ego do 1-go ianvaria 1864 goda, p. 98; Otchet Moskovskogo Publichnogo i Rumiantsevskogo muzeev za 1873–1875 gg. (Moscow, 1877), p. 99. About this mosaic see E. S. Ovchinnikova, “Miniatiurnaia mozaika iz sobraniia Gosudarstvennogo Istoricheskogo muzeia,” in VV, XXVIII (1968), pp. 207–24. 22   Moskovskii Publichnyi i Rumiantsovskii muzei. Katalog otdeleniia drevnostei, a) drevnosti khristianskie (Moscow, 1901), p. 13, no. 521 and p. 14, no. 524. See V. N. Lazarev, Istoriia vizantiiskoi zhivopisi, vol. I (Moscow, 1947), pp. 221–22 and vol. II (Moscow, 1948), tables 306, 307; V. N. Lazarev, “Vizantiiskie ikony XIV–XV vekov,” in Vizantiiskaia zhivopis’ [Sbornik statei] (Moscow, 1971), pp. 332, ill. on pp. 334, 335.

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The opening of Moscow’s Public Museum and the success of the Sevast’ianov exhibition prompted many collectors from Moscow and elsewhere to donate to the museum single works or, following Sevast’ianov’s example, to lend their collections for temporary use by the museum. Invited in April 1863 as a curator of the Department of Christian and Russian Antiquities, G. D. Filimonov displayed his collection of icons, traced impressions, and objects of applied art;23 separate pieces and even whole collections of antiquities were contributed by A. N. Murav’ev, M. P. Pogodin, A. E. Sorokin, F. G. Solntsev, among others. In 1864, the museum received a large pall belonging to the Yaroslavl princes, Fedor, David, and Konstantin, which had been produced in Moscow around 1500 in a purely Russian style with no flagrant distortions of drawing and coloring.24 Later, in 1868, Prince P. P. Viazemskii gave the museum forty Russian icons painted from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century.25 A. N. Murav’ev, the noted explorer of sacred places and collector of church antiquities donated a remarkable Greek icon, The Synaxis of the Twelve Apostles, which, as was discovered during the Soviet period, was the work of the Constantinopolitan school in the early fourteenth century.26 The number of donations later dwindled considerably, and museum leaders were aware of the pitfalls of building their collection merely through donations. They then took great pains to 23   Otchet po Moskovskomu Publichnomu muzeiu ot vremeni osnovaniia ego do 1-go ianvaria 1864 goda, p. 100. 24   Otchet Moskovskogo i Rumiantsevskogo muzeia za 1864 god (Moscow, 1865), p. 25. See a special publication: L. I. Iakunina, “Pamiatnik portretnogo shit’ia kontsa XV veka,” in Drevnerusskoe iskusstvo XV–nachala XVI vekov (Moscow, 1963), pp. 263–84. L. I. Iakunina points out, incorrectly, that the pall derives from P. I. Sevast’ianov’s collection (p. 263, note 1). In fact, however, it was handed over here by an anonymous person via Archimandrite (Amphilochius); see Moskovskii publichnyi i Rumiantsovskii muzei. Katalog otdeleniia drevnostei, b) drevnosti russkie (Moscow, 1902), p. 107, no. 2194. 25   Otchet Moskovskogo Publichnogo i Rumiantsevskogo muzeev za 1867–1869 gg. (Moscow, 1871), pp. 187, 191. 26   Otchet Moskovskogo Publichnogo i Rumiantsevskogo muzeev za 1867–1869 gg., p. 191. About this icon see V. N. Lazarev, Istoriia vizantiiskoi zhivopisi, vol. I, p. 221, table XLVI and vol. II, table 305; V. N. Lazarev, Vizantiiskie ikony XIV–XV vekov, pp. 331–32, ill. on p. 333; A. V. Bank, Vizantiiskoe iskusstvo v sobraniiakh Sovetskogo Soiuza, Moscow-Leningrad [1967], ill. 254; Iskusstvo Vizantii v sobraniiakh SSSR. Katalog vystavki, 3 (Moscow, 1977), no. 933. In her art book (the annotation on p. 323), A. V. Bank reports that the icon comes from P. I. Sevast’ianov’s collection. In fact, however, it was owned from the very beginning by A. N. Murav’ev, who took it from the Monastery of Christ the Pantocrator at Athos. See [A. N. Murav’ev], Opisanie predmetov drevnosti i sviatyni, sobrannykh po Sviatym mestam (Kiev, 1872), p. 15; M. Tolstoi, Pamiati Andreia Nikolaevicha Murav’eva. (Pis’mo k M. M. Evreinovu) (Moscow, 1874), pp. 12–13.

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Figure 5.4 Aleksei Egorovich Viktorov (1827–83).

acquire antiquities from official sources. In 1864 G. D. Filimonov, who managed the Armory and was curator of the Department of Christian and Russian Antiquities in the Public Museum, obtained more than one hundred icons from a disused church property storehouse located in the Ivan the Great belfry of the Moscow Kremlin. In 1871, he received a small consignment of icons from the Synod’s archives. The first acquisition was particularly valuable. It consisted mainly of seventeenth-century works, many of which were well preserved and supplied with precise dates and inscriptions that testified to their provenance from Moscow, Novgorod, Pskov, Yaroslavl, Tver’, and other towns of Russia.27 Upon close examination, works of great rarity were identified among them. “There is in this assemblage a specimen of strictly Greek style of no later than the sixteenth century: an excellent face of an archangel from a complete head-and-shoulders Deesis tier,” remarked the compiler of the collection’s first printed survey.28 That work was actually the now famous twelfth-century icon, the Angel with Golden Hair, which, until its cleaning during the Soviet period, had been hidden under a retouching in the Ushakov manner and therefore could not have been identified by Filimonov.29 The directorial board of the Public Museum and the Rumiantsev Museum regarded this new Moscow institution not only as a repository of treasures but also as a research center. As was customary in the nineteenth century, how27   Otchet Moskovskogo Publichnogo i Rumiantsevskogo muzeia za 1864 god, pp. 25–27. 28  Ibid., p. 25. 29  The catalog of the Department of Antiquities, issued many years later, describes the icon as follows: “ … the icon of the archangel is probably from the 17th-century headand-shoulders deesis done in the Ushakov style, with no frame preserved” [Moskovskii Publichnyi i Rumiantsovskii muzei. Katalog otdeleniia drevnostei, b) drevnosti russkie, p. 24, no. 350]. The remains of the seventeenth-century overpaint can still be seen on the icon of the Angel with Golden Hair: these are the icon’s green background and the bands on the angel’s head.

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ever, everything depended on the personal initiative of skillfully chosen staff members. Fortunately, from the very beginning, there was such a man among the museum workers—the curator of the department of manuscripts and incunabula, A. E. Viktorov (1827–83).30 Even before the opening of the museums, he was busy preparing a comprehensive edition of miniatures chosen from the most noteworthy illuminated Byzantine manuscripts kept in the synodal library of the Moscow Kremlin. Assisted by the photographer N. M. Alasin, who wholeheartedly supported the study of Moscow antiquities, Viktorov had all the necessary photographs ready. From 1862 to 1865 he published four of the most important specimens of Byzantine miniature painting, including the February part of the Menologion; the eleventh-century Discourses by St Gregory of Nazianzus (State Historical Museum, grech. 183 and 61); and the New Testament with the Psalter and the Akathistos of the fourteenth century (State Historical Museum, grech. 407 and 429). The edition appeared in three volumes, each provided with an introductory article in Russian and French, tables of photographs (which were tinted in some individual copies), and footnotes to the tables. The printing costs were paid by the Museum and all the issues had the imprint “Edition of the Moscow Public Museum.”31 By producing 30  Regarding A. E. Viktorov, see I. I. Sreznevskii, “Neskol’ko pripominanii o nauchnoi deiatel’nosti A. E. Viktorova,” in Sbornik ORIAS, vol. XXI, no. 8 (1881), pp. 1–23 (a list of A. E. Viktorov’s works on pp. 12–19); N. Sobko, “A. E. Viktorov. Nekrolog,” in ZhMNP (September, 1883), section IV, pp. 52–61; E. V. Barsov, “Vospominanie ob A. E. Viktorove,” in ChOIDR (1883), book 3, section V, pp. 108–18; A. F. Bychkov, “Vospominanie ob A. E. Viktorove,” in Sbornik ORIAS, vol. XXX, issue 1 (1884), pp. 46–53; E. S. Nekrasova, “Aleksei Egorovich Viktorov, † 1883 g. Ocherk po pis’mam i lichnym vospominaniiam,” in RS (August, 1884), pp. 425–48; D. Iazykov, Obzor zhizni i trudov pokoinykh Russkikh pisatelei, 5 Pisateli, umershie v 1883 godu (St. Petersburg, 1889), p. 9; Istoricheskaia zapiska o deiatel’nosti imp. Moskovskogo arkheologicheskogo obshchestva za pervye 25 let sushchestvovaniia (Moscow, 1890), appendices, pp. 118–23; E. Varb, Odno iz nashikh tsentral’nykh prosvetitel’nykh uchrezhdenii. (Ocherki Rumiantsevskogo muzeia), pp. 45–47; Imp. Moskovskoe arkheologicheskoe obshchestvo v pervoe piatidesiatiletie ego sushchestvovaniia (1864–1914 gg.), vol. II, section 1, pp. 68–69; Slavianovedenie v Rossii. Biobibliograficheskii slovar’, pp. 103– 104. A complete idea of A. E. Viktorov and his printed oeuvre may be obtained from a special issue of the Book Museum of the Russian State Library Aleksei Egorovich Viktorov. Bibliograficheskii ukazatel’, compiled by O. A. Gracheva and K. P. Sokol’skaia, intr. and ed. by E. L. Nemirovskii (Moscow, 1982). 31   Fotograficheskie snimki s miniatiur grecheskikh rukopisei, nakhodiashchikhsia v Moskovskoi Sinodal’noi, byvshei Patriarshei, biblioteke, published by the Moscow Public Museum, 1 (Moscow, 1862) (Akathistos); II (Moscow, 1863) (Menologies); III (Moscow, 1865) (Discourses of St. Gregory of Nazianzus and the New Testament with the Psalter). The print run of each issue is 50 copies. There is no indication anywhere of A. E. Viktorov’s

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this excellent edition at the very outset of its existence, the Museum asserted itself as a professional scholarly institution with far-reaching creative goals and publishing plans. The Moscow Public Museum inspired Moscow scholars to study the artistic heritage of Rus’. The Society of Medieval Russian Art was formed at the Museum on the initiative of F. I. Buslaev; the writer and connoisseur of medieval Russian music Prince V. F. Odoevskii; the curator of the department of manuscripts and incunabula of the Moscow Public Museum and the Rumiantsev Museum A. E. Viktorov; and the curator of the department of Christian and Russian antiquities G. D. Filimonov. The idea also found support among other scholars and public figures. Twenty-seven founding members of the Society signed a petition for the new scholarly institution. Among the founding members were Archimandrite Amfilokhii (Amphilochius); I. E. Zabelin; M. P. Pogodin; N. I. Podkliuchnikov; D. A. Rovinskii; P. I. Sevast’ianov; N. S. Tikhomirov; S. M. Solov’ev; V. M. Undol’skii; and other historians, palaeographers, literary critics, and collectors. To secure the Society’s financial backing, the two merchant-patrons of the arts, K. T. Soldatenkov and A. I. Khludov, great lovers of antiquity and collectors of medieval manuscripts, icons, and books, received invitations to become founding members. The Society’s charter, approved on May 22, 1864, briefly formulated the Society’s goals: the collection and scholarly investigation of works of medieval Russian art and materials pertaining to them; the study of general archaeology (mainly Byzantine); and the development of scholarly and practical data on medieval Russian arts, particularly icon painting and liturgical singing.32 The Society of Medieval Russian Art was an undertaking in typical Russian style, set up by a coterie of enthusiasts as a specialized scholarly institution.33 name. See a special reference concerning this edition in Sochineniia F. I. Buslaeva, vol. I, pp. 414–17; I. I. Sreznevskii, Neskol’ko pripominanii o nauchnoi deiatel’nosti A. E. Viktorova, pp. 8–9; A. F. Bychkov, Vospominanie ob A. E. Viktorove, p. 50; Piatidesiatiletie Rumiantsovskogo muzeia v Moskve. 1862–1912. Istoricheskii ocherk, pp. 20–21. The Russian State Library possesses a proof-sheet copy of issue IV of the Fotograficheskie snimki (only the text without illustrations). 32  See Ustav Obshchestva drevnerusskogo iskusstva pri Moskovskom Publichnom muzeume, vysochaishe utverzhdennyi v 22-i den’ maia 1864 goda (Moscow, 1864), pp. 3–4. 33  See F. Buslaev, “Pervoe izvestie ob osnovanii Obshchestva (Sovremennaia Letopis’, 1863, no. 14),” in Vestnik Obshchestva drevnerusskogo iskusstva pri Moskovskom Publichnom muzee (1874), 4–5, Ofitsial’nyi otdel, pp. 33–36; “Zapiska sekretaria Obshchestva F. I. Buslaeva o tseli i znachenii Obshchestva drevnerusskogo iskusstva s dopolneniiami chl.-osn. kniaria Vl. F. Odoevskogo,” idem, pp. 36–39; D. L. [Dahl, L. V.], “Moskovskoe Obshchestvo drevnerusskogo iskusstva,” in VAI, VII (1888), section III, pp. 33–35; F. I. Buslaev, Moi

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Only a handful of its members had a clear notion of the subject of their future research. The Society’s meetings brought together scholars of classical learning and world fame as well as modest amateurs who approached works of Russian church art solely as objects and relics of Orthodox religious practice. An unhealthy atmosphere of mutual misunderstanding, suspicion, and class-based differences spawned disagreements that had nothing to do with the scholarly discussion of any particular subject. Meetings were held irregularly and poorly attended. Nobles and university elite were put off by the necessity of mingling with merchants, icon painters, and seminary schoolmasters, while the lowerclass members in turn felt ill-at-ease about speaking up in a setting characterized by scholarly jargon and talks on subjects that were not always clear to the interpreters themselves. Many members and founding members did not participate in the Society’s activities, and a meeting was considered well attended if ten or fifteen persons showed up. N. V. Zakrevskii, the author of the two-volume Description of Kiev, who held the post of an assistant librarian of the Public Museum in the 1860s, left a fairly reliable account of the Society’s workaday routine. “This is a kind of Noah’s Arc accommodating lithographers, wordcarvers, village painters, and hucksters from the market stalls,” he wrote in the spring of 1866 to archpriest P. G. Lebedintsev, his fellow townsman, in Kiev. He continued, With the exception of a few members, this is a very motley assembly. One man more distinguished than the others is the merchant Soldatenkov, but he was elected only to exploit his wealthy magnanimity. One cannot describe everything. Three or four men started this Society to show themselves off, and the one who has the strongest voice always gets his word in.… The rows and scenes made there are worthy of a second-hand market, especially the hullabaloo about an article on the allegedly forged vessels of St. Anthony of Rome. The article was written by Filimonov, a young man of about thirty, who has little learning but is full of self-conceit.… He is also the Society’s main founder. Many of its members have already rejected the honor of belonging to this Society; I stopped attending long ago. The main initiators have collected money from merchants and recently issued a large folio which they put together themselves. Believe me, this is all being done out of self-adoration.… Complaints went as high as the metropolitan himself, and it seems that the Society vospominaniia (Moscow, 1897), pp. 362–63; Piatidesiatiletie Rumiantsovskogo muzeia v Moskve. 1862–1912. Istoricheskii ocherk, pp. 21–23, 192–94; N. P. Kondakov, Vospominaniia i dumy (Prague, 1927), p. 47.

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cannot last for long: it will fall apart by itself. Things are quite different in the Moscow Archaeological Society. It consists solely of savants and superior aristocrats. Its chairman, Count Alexei Sergeevich Uvarov, is a man of great energy and learning; he has considerable means and wields much influence. The spirit reigning there is entirely different: every talent, every mature article will find a refuge there.34 A feeling of insulted self-esteem probably motivated him together with his dislike for the Society’s secretary Buslaev, the assistant-secretary Viktorov, and the editor of the Society’s publications Filimonov. They were the Society’s heart and soul, and all the meetings, reports, excursions, relations with foreigners, information in newspapers and magazines, and the selection and publication of articles were the result of their comparatively short-lived but intensive exertions. Zakrevskii’s scornful remark that “all is being done out of self-adoration” was prompted by envy for his more successful fellow members whose work in the Society brought them fame as the finest connoisseurs of medieval Russian art. The Society’s minutes and archives,35 notwithstanding, it is difficult more than a century after the fact to give a clear and accurate description of its workaday routine. Compared to more numerous publications of other learned societies of the nineteenth century, its editions stand out for their truly monumental aspect and the opulence of material amassed.36 Buslaev and Filimonov were responsible for its main achievements. In the 1860s and 1870s Filimonov edited two voluminous miscellanies of articles by the Society’s members. The first gave prominence to articles by Buslaev (twelve out of thirty-seven); the second—to papers and materials prepared by Filimonov himself (three extensive publications out of six). Both Buslaev and Filimonov also actively contributed to the Herald of the Society of Medieval Russian Art (Vestnik Obshchestva drevnerusskogo iskusstva), issued between 1874 and 1876. Many of the journals articles and notes retain their importance today. Along with brief pieces, the miscellanies and the Herald contained first-rate substantive essays and 34  “Pis’ma N. V. Zakrevskogo k protoiereiu P. G. Lebedintsevu,” in KS (July–August, 1902), p. 90 (separate edition Kiev, 1902, p. 14). 35   Ustav i protokoly Obshchestva drevnerusskogo iskusstva pri Moskovskom Publichnom muzee (Moscow, 1876). These are the reimposed proof-sheets of the analogous material printed in different issues of the Vestnik Obshchestva drevnerusskogo iskusstva for 1874–1876. The abovementioned archive of the Society (about 3,000 sheets) is in the Manuscript Department of the Russia State Library (fond 202). 36  See a general review thereof in F. I. Bulgakov, “Izdaniia Obshchestva drevnerusskogo iskusstva,” in PDP [II] (St. Petersburg, 1879), I, pp. 31–43.

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Figure 5.5 Herald of the Society of Medieval Russian Art (Vestnik Obshchestva drevnerusskogo iskusstva) at Moscow Public Museum, Moscow, 1876.

research. Of these, Buslaev’s paper General Notions of Russian Icon Painting (1866) and Filimonov’s thoroughly documented work Simon Ushakov and the Russian Icon Painting of His Time (1873) are of particular significance. Filimonov also spent much time and effort on the publication of various recensions of the icon-painting manual (ikonopisnyi podlinnik). The miscellany of 1873 included

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Figure 5.6 Savior, in an icon by Simon Ushakov, 1678. Tretyakov Gallery.

“Icon-Painting Manual in its Novgorod Recension Made According to the Sophia Manuscript Copy of the Late Sixteenth Century.” The Herald published “Icon-Painting Manual of the Summary Recension of the Eighteenth Century,” which came out in 1876 as a separate edition.37 In general, the Society’s 37   Ikonopisnyi podlinnik svodnoi redaktsii XVIII veka. G. D. Filimonov, ed., issued by the Obshchestvo drevnerusskogo iskusstva (Moscow, 1876). There is also a separate edition

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publications touched on many seminal problems in the history of medieval Russian art, Byzantine art, and South Slavic art. The publications devoted to the icon-painting manual are without parallel even today, and are indispensable to any specialized iconographic research. Zakrevskii prophesied in 1866 that the Society of Medieval Russian Art could not last long. Only nine members attended the jubilee meeting on May 22, 1874, which was dedicated to the tenth anniversary of the Society. The Society of Medieval Russian Art failed to withstand the competition of the Moscow Archaeological Society whose tasks were much broader and better suited to the requirements of the still poorly differentiated field of archaeology. In addition, the Moscow Archaeological Society had solid financial backing whereas the Society of Medieval Russian Art existed solely on private donations and occasional state subsidies. The outbreak of the Russo-Turkish War and the Ministry of Finance’s subsequent refusal to meet obligations incurred for publication of the Herald undermined the Society’s financial standing. The last meeting took place on October 9, 1877 when it was agreed that the Society of Medieval Russian Art would affiliate with the Society of History and Russian Antiquities.38 In the early 1880s, Viktorov and Filimonov tried to resume publication of the Herald, and Filimonov even prepared tables dated 1884 for his paper about the Annunciation Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin.39 This was the last documented evidence of the Society’s existence. Buslaev later wrote a monograph on illustrations to the Apocalypse; Viktorov died; and Filimonov turned to the study of prehistoric antiquities. The most prominent figure in the Society of Medieval Russian Art and the leader of a new trend in scholarship was F. I. Buslaev. He managed to create a coherent picture of artistic life in medieval Russia, which he ingeniously adorned with vivid memorabilia. In order to assess Buslaev’s contribution to the study of Russia’s past one must consider his publications, his significance as a scholar in his own right, and his work as a teacher of other remarkable researchers. His pupils at Moscow University expanded on his ideas, supplementing and updating what was already known and discovering previously unknown aspects of medieval Russian culture. Among Buslaev’s pupils was N. P. Kondakov, whose name is inseparably linked to the study of the history of Byzantine art. Buslaev and Kondakov laid

of the Ikonopisnyi podlinnik novgorodskoi redaktsii po sofiiskomu spisku kontsa XVI veka (Moscow, 1873). 38  See ChOIDR (1878), book I, supplements, pp. IX–X. 39  They are preserved in the archive of the Society, in the Manuscript Department of the Russian State Library.

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a solid foundation for all modern research in Eastern European and Byzantine art and antiquities. Fedor Ivanovich Buslaev40 was born in 1818 in the out-of-the-way town of Kerensk, Penza province. His father, a petty official, died early and the education of the future scholar was left to his mother who did everything possible to give her son a solid school and university education. It was to his mother that he owed his first artistic impressions drawn from reading the works of John Milton, Alexander Pushkin, and Vasilii Zhukovskii. His mother also insisted that Buslaev enter the historico-philological, rather than medical, faculty of 40  F. I. Buslaev is the subject of an extensive memoir and specialist literature, much of which is appended in S. V. Smirnov, Fedor Ivanovich Buslaev (1818–1897) (Moscow, 1978) (=Zamechatel’nye uchenye Moskovskogo universiteta, 47). Also given herein is a complete list of Buslaev’s own work. See a special reference to Buslaev as art historian in N. Pokrovskii, “Pamiati Buslaeva. (Zaslugi ego v oblasti khudozhestvennoi arkheologii),” in VAI, X (1898), pp. 13–18; D. V. Ainalov, “Znachenie F. I. Buslaeva v nauke istorii iskusstv,” in Izvestiia Obshchestva arkheologii, istorii i etnografii pri imp. Kazanskom universitete, vol. XIV, 4 (Kazan, 1898), pp. 393–405; E. K. Redin, F. I. Buslaev. Obzor trudov ego po istorii i arkheologii iskusstva (Kharkov, 1898); N. P. Kondakov, Vospominaniia i dumy, pp. 27–30; M. V. Alpatov, Etiudy po istorii russkogo iskusstva, 1 (Moscow, 1967), pp. 9–25 (a reprint of the earlier published article Iz istorii russkoi nauki ob iskusstve); I. L. Kyzlasova, “Sviaz’ nauchnogo tvorchestva F. I. Buslaeva s ideinymi techeniami ego vremeni,” in Problemy istorii SSSR, VII (Moscow, 1978), pp. 53–71; I. L. Kyzlasova, “Issledovatel’skie metody F. I. Buslaeva and N. P. Kondakova. (Itogi i perspektivy izucheniia),” in Vestnik Moskovskogo universiteta, Istoriia (1978), 4, pp. 81–95; I. L. Kyzlasova, “U istokov izucheniia drevnerusskogo iskusstva. Trudy akademika F. I. Buslaeva,” in Iskusstvo (1979), 4, pp. 65–69; N. V. Churmaeva, Buslaev (Moscow, 1984) (Men of Science series issed by the Prosveshchenie Publishers); I. L. Kyzlasova, Istoriia izucheniia vizantiiskogo i drevnerusskogo iskusstva v Rossii (F. I. Buslaev, N. P. Kondakov: metody, idei, teorii) (Moscow, 1985), pp. 27–73 (Chapter 1, Issledovatel’skii metod F. I. Buslaeva). For the most recent reference book on F. I. Buslaev, including an index of his works and the literature about him, see Istoriia istoricheskoi nauki v SSSR. Dooktiabr’skii period. Bibliografiia (Moscow, 1965), pp. 238–39; M. G. Bulakhov, Vostochnoslavianskie iazykovedy. Biobibliograficheskii slovar’, 1 (Minsk, 1976), pp. 47–55; Slavianovedenie v dorevolutsionnoi Rossii. Biobibliograficheskii slovar’, pp. 89–91; Russkoe i slavianskoe iazykoznanie v Rossii serediny XVII–XIX vv. (v biograficheskikh ocherkakh i vospominaniiakh sovremennikov). Uchebnoe posobie (Leningrad, 1980), pp. 132–69. The best idea of F. I. Buslaev as a man may be derived from his own book, Moi vospominaniia (Moscow, 1897). A manuscript of the second volume of these memoirs has not yet been published. See E. V. Pomerantseva, “Novye stranitsy vospominanii F. I. Buslaeva,” in Trudy Instituta etnografii imeni N. N. Miklukho-Maklaia, new series, vol. 91 (Moscow, 1965) (= Ocherki istorii russkoi etnografii, folkloristiki i antropologii, III), pp. 145–61.

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Figure 5.7 Fedor Ivanovich Buslaev (1818–97).

Moscow University (the latter was more to his own liking); her decision determined his destiny. Although Buslaev attended many university lectures, he benefited most from the courses of S. P. Shevyrev and M. P. Pogodin. Shevyrev was also instrumental in determining the subject of Buslaev’s first independent research: the history of the Russian language and medieval Russian literature. It was to this history and to the development of a most effective system of teaching the Russian language in secondary and higher school establishments that he devoted the first half of his scholarly life. It was only in the mid-1860s that Buslaev focused his attention on the study of medieval Russian art. Buslaev only turned to the study of art in his maturity, but the entire course of his previous research prepared him for such a change in his scholarly orientation. A sensitive, artistically endowed man, Buslaev had a natural appreciation of beauty, which had developed into a harmonious world outlook in his younger years. In 1839, at the age of twenty-one Buslaev was invited to act as a tutor in the household of Count S. G. Stroganov. He set off with the family on a two-year journey to Italy by way of Germany and Austria. Buslaev became aware of a whole world of classical antiquity and Renaissance art revealed to him by his travels. Constrained neither by time nor his duties as tutor, he delighted in the artistic treasures of Italy, developed his aesthetic sensibility, and acquired stores of new knowledge. Buslaev’s sojourn in Naples and Rome, and his visits to many other Italian towns, enriched his experience, imparting to his learning the breadth of a European scholar. It also noticeably tempered Buslaev’s particularly Russian Orthodox jingoism, which often stood in the way of other Russian scholars of the nineteenth century. Buslaev recalled half a century later,

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I must confess that I liked to frequent Roman churches, with which I became better and more thoroughly acquainted than with the Moscow ones, and it was not out of sheer piety only that I did so, although I prayed in them fervently, but out of my insatiable desire to enjoy their artistic interiors, to walk beneath their lofty vaults, in their chapels, or side-altars as we call them here, and along their passages and galleries, admiring the exquisite works of painting, mosaic, and sculpture which surrounded me on all sides. The church then became for me a museum full of art rarities in which I, acting in the interests of scholarship, enriched the hoard of my learning with new evidence in the history of art and antiquity. I was fond of attending church services with their sumptuous ceremonies, and the more I fancied their unusual novelty, the greater and clearer was my conviction that Roman Catholicism differed from our Orthodoxy not so much by the theological dogma as by Catholicism’s connivance with human follies and frailties, thus catching the superstitious flock in [its] net by the delights of the fine arts manifest in the decoration of churches and also by sundry wanton tricks of sophisticated ceremony.41 He added, “Catholicism was a religion borne of the art of painting and music.”42 This exalted language, however, is in no way evidence of a cosmopolitan attitude to life. He was a genuinely Russian man and always cherished an affinity for the Russian folk element. Buslaev died in 1897 at the age of eighty-one. He was long considered a living embodiment of the humanities in Russia in the nineteenth century, and all subsequent researchers and scholarly institutions acknowledged his outstanding achievements in the study of Russian cultural heritage. His personal charm, industry, and affability, his wish to assist his pupils and friends, and his indefatigable quest for knowledge all played a part in that continuing acknowledgment. Soon after Buslaev’s death, on Kondakov’s initiative, the Academy of Sciences prepared for publication three volumes of his works on archaeology and the history of art, which finally appeared between 1908 and 1930.43 This edition reprinted about fifty of Buslaev’s long articles, notes, and reviews. Most 41  F. I. Buslaev, Moi vospominaniia, pp. 243–44. 42  Ibid., p. 246. 43   Sochineniia F. I. Buslaeva, vol. I (St. Petersburg, 1908); vol. II (St. Petersburg, 1910); vol. III (Leningrad, 1930) (a major portion of the third volume appeared as early as 1917 under the title, Istoricheskie ocherki F. I. Buslaeva po russkomu ornamentu v rukopisiakh (Petrograd, 1917); this edition is of interest itself, for it contains a list of illustrations and their sources that are lacking in a series edition of the Sochineniia). For the comprehensive list of

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of the works were devoted to medieval Russian literature, writing, and art, giving a full idea of Buslaev’s scholarly interests and mastery of method. Buslaev set out to study art as a refined philologist, and it was thus the narrative rather than representational value for which he was searching in works of visual art. By focusing on the literary, narrative element of artworks, Buslaev never tried to detract from the nature of the creative endeavor of the medieval Russian masters. He proceeded from a correct idea about the synthetic character of medieval culture, whose creators equated the word and the pictorial or sculptural image. He understood that medieval artists, mainly acting within the framework of church organization, persistently advocated the homiletic principle that aimed, like a sermon or any other moralizing literary work, at explicating some definite notions and social ideology. It was, therefore, as a source of information about people’s mores, customs, and ancient traditions rather than for its own sake that Buslaev studied art. He often commented that medieval Russian art sometimes lacked artistic significance, but always possessed a profound subject matter. It is this aspect of content, marked with a poetic idiom of its own, that was the subject of his investigations. Buslaev’s scholarly legacy, while varied and broad, strikes one by its singular inner integrity. In his address, Regarding Folk Poetry in Medieval Russian Literature, delivered at Moscow University in 1859, Buslaev asserted that “a clear and full understanding of the basic national roots (narodnost’) is almost the most essential issue of both our scholarship and our life.”44 He devoted all his subsequent years to the elucidation of folk beliefs and notions embodied in works of visual art and literature. Buslaev interpreted the essence of narodnost’ in art in a poetic, yet conservative, fashion. Studying the Russian past, in which he discovered art forms and types of imagery with which he was familiar from the primary sources of antiquity, Buslaev concluded that the historic mission of pre-Petrine Russia had been the preservation of the old behests. In Buslaev’s view, the abiding and piously observed church precepts lay behind this unending experiencing of the past. “The most distinguishing characteristic of Russian icon painting,” he writes at the beginning of his comprehensive essay on the Russian visual arts, “is its religious nature which either rules out or overrides and absorbs all other artistic concerns in it. Other peoples practiced the same religious veneration of church art only in the earliest prehistoric era, but in the Russians a pristine worship of church art as something sacred runs through our whole centuriesF. I. Buslaev’s works, which is supplied with bibliographical references, see S. V. Smirnov, Fedor Ivanovich Buslaev (1818–1897), pp. 72–91. 44   Sochineniia F. I. Buslaeva, vol. II, p. 1.

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long history, reigning supreme in all classes of society as far back as the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and even in recent times being cherished by a vast majority of the Russian population.”45 Even in the best of his studies Buslaev denies Russian art its intrinsic originality. He defines medieval Russian painting as undeveloped, stagnant, primitive, weak, and inexperienced. The unprepared reader will certainly be in the wrong, however, if he decides that all of Buslaev’s writings merely denigrate the Russian national legacy. To the contrary, Buslaev never tires of admiring Russian art, if only for its striving to convey as faithfully as possible all the symbolism, all the content of the art of antiquity, without ever inventing anything and without deliberately disregarding the beauty of form. “The unique importance of medieval Russian painting,” says Buslaev, “lies not in the artistry of execution but in the iconic subjects dictated by church tradition.”46 In his desire to underscore this lofty mission of Russian art, he is even ready to belittle the art of Italy, which is otherwise very dear to his heart, as well as the art of Western Europe in general. Thus, commenting on the steps taken by Ivan the Terrible to establish state control over the visual arts, Buslaev writes, “Despite all its shortcomings, which plainly reveal the ignorance and backwardness of our sixteenth-century ancestors, our medieval icon-painting has unquestionable advantages over the art of the West in virtue of the sole fact that in that critical period destiny saved it from the artistic upheaval known as the Renaissance, thereby contrasting the pristine purity of icon-painting precepts with that corruption of mores and that dull materialism and inane idealization which reigned in Western European art from the second half of the sixteenth century to the early years of the current [nineteenth] century. Owing to its [adherence to traditional ways of] craftsmanship [remeslennost’], our icon painting remained self-sufficient, not depending on the artistic authorities of the West. It compensated for its lack of beauty with the originality of the most ancient style of Christian art, and this entitles it to the notice even of the nations that gave the world Raphael, Rubens, and Poussin.”47 By denying medieval Russian painting its beauty, Buslaev only shared the well-known tastes of the nineteenth century, an age of great discoveries in classical archaeology when Greek and Roman paintings and sculpture were proclaimed the ideal and unattainable standard for other epochs and peoples. Buslaev was an enthusiastic admirer of Johann Winckelmann and, while touring Naples and Rome, never parted with his Geschichte der Kunst des Altertums. 45  “Obshchie poniatiia o russkoi ikonopisi.” Sochineniia F. I. Buslaeva, vol. I, p. 3. 46  Ibid., p. 67. 47  Ibid., p. 10, also see similar considerations on pp. 38, 39–41, 169–72, and others.

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It is small wonder, therefore, that his articles dealing with the shortcomings of Russian painting teem with disparaging remarks on its lack of perspective, adequate drawing, fresh paints, chiaroscuro, figure proportionality, and compositional balance, all those properties which were inherent in Greek art and which Winckelmann succinctly termed as sublimity and simplicity. According to Buslaev, “No matter how highly the artistic merits of a medieval Russian icon are valued the icon always disappoints an aesthetically cultivated taste, and this is due not only to its faulty draftsmanship and coloring but also to the effect of disharmony which is always produced by a work of art in which external beauty is sacrificed to a religious idea deriving from theological dogma.”48 Such statements aside, Buslaev persistently strove to show medieval Russian painting in a favorable light, apparently unconcerned by the contradiction of his own judgments. “It [the medieval Russian icon] replaces beauty by nobleness,” he remarks, meaning the spirituality, sanctity, and ideals such painting expressed. He even makes a point that in some of their works Russian medieval artists conveyed the spirit of early Christian art as well as classical art, capturing it through works of the Byzantine period in a subtler way than their eighteenth- and nineteenth-century counterparts who would study Greek and Roman classical prototypes from casts and originals. Palaeologists attempted to show the relationship between medieval Russian and Byzantine painting as early as the 1840s. These efforts, however, went no further than the compilation and inept description of lists of Greek icons and brief comments of a historical nature. In fact, Buslaev was the first to reveal the Russo-Byzantine relationship on the basis of broad documentary evidence. His three visits to Italy, his examination of museum collections in Germany and France, and a life-long study of Greek illuminated manuscripts provided him with a level of erudition undreamed of by his predecessors. Placing no trust in icons as they had been repainted, Buslaev used mosaics, sculpture, objects of applied art, and miniatures, authentic works, undistorted by restoration and also drew upon historical and literary sources to reach his fairly plausible and comprehensive conclusion. Giving Byzantine Greeks their due for their extraordinary way of embellishing churches and other buildings with mosaics, Buslaev nevertheless saw their art as a gradual movement from the best to the worst, a gradual corruption of an aesthetic ideal. “The more steeped in antiquity Christian art is, the more the artistic element predominates, and the more features of Byzantine style it assumes, the more fully it obeys theology. The more ancient an art is, the greater freedom of creative endeavor and poetic inspiration it possesses and, 48  Ibid., p. 32.

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conversely, the more recent an art is, the more strongly it is fettered by the conventions of religious doctrine.”49 Buslaev, however, was not interested in Byzantine art per se, but rather as a connecting link between early Christian and later Russian art, i.e., as a preparatory phase for medieval Russian art. He succeeded in demonstrating that most of the iconographic subjects and types of individual saints, which had been looked upon as part and parcel of the Russian artistic idiom, were in fact conceived in the early Christian Church and took final shape in the heyday of Orthodoxy from the ninth to the eleventh century. It was also on Byzantine soil that the general artistic principles that later determined the aesthetic of medieval Russian painting developed. The comparative historical method that Buslaev used could not but lead him to the recognition that Russian art was not only a keeper of ancient tradition but also an important phenomenon of its own in the history of art. Buslaev reached these conclusions all the more readily as they were in full accord with his own inner conviction, which as yet lacked scholarly grounds. He considered it a specifically national trait that Russian artists had the ability to express their notions of God and man in epic forms, leaving no place for anything accidental. This knack of abstracting oneself from everyday reality, from fixing on the individual, temporal, or not fully comprehensible, became all the more noticeable the farther apart East and West went along their ways. In Russian art, flesh is subservient to spirit, and the ascetic element finds its pictorial expression in stern, static faces. Amid a host of saints it is the venerable elders, totally impervious to temptation, whose vitality is salient. Even in the depictions of a cosmogonic nature, such as the Last Judgment, Russian artists avoid unnecessary detail and especially anything that might evoke passion, which would distract the viewer’s attention, and reduce the sacred image to the level of a simple painting intended not so much for devotional purposes and instruction as for the stimulation of the senses. A perceptive connoisseur of genuine creative work, Buslaev could hardly bypass the two most significant aspects of medieval Russian culture—the iconostasis and the illuminated icon-painter’s manuals—which as the epitome of folk art distilled the experience of many generations of Russian artists. Buslaev, however, only glanced at the question of the tall iconostasis, which he treated as an integrated theological and painterly-architectural system, as “the only linkage of [sundry] arts.”50 On the other hand, the icon-painter’s manuals, which attracted the attention of Buslaev’s predecessors and contemporaries

49  Ibid., p. 71, see, also, pp. 148, 161. 50  Ibid., p. 28.

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alike, were a recurring subject in his studies, where he characterized them vividly. The reader of the chapter on icon-painter’s manuals in Buslaev’s essay, “General Concepts of Russian Icon Painting,” feels the excitement with which Buslaev describes Russian icon-painters’ manuals unique for their scope and import. Buslaev was convinced that objective reasons relating to the people’s spiritual life made medieval Russian artistic values the product of a joint and protracted effort. Those values gradually expanded, were affirmed and refined, eventually assuming a concise and comprehensible form. In this respect, the icon-painters’ manuals were graphic evidence of Buslaev’s cherished ideas, and he seems to forget the shortcomings of the paintings that were created in accordance with the manuals. “The great monument … is not any particular icon or mosaic, nor the exemplary creation of any one genius, but a whole icon-painting system, an expression of the work of many generations of masters, a result of a centuries-long endeavor; it is a well-thought-out system, firm in its premises and consistent in the implementation of general principles down to the smallest detail, a system combining scholarship and religion, theory and practice, art and craftsmanship.” Literature is part of the achievement: the manuals “emerged and developed on the basis of the Prologues, menaia saints’ lives, and church calendars, thus being a comprehensive compendium of all knowledge, both literary and artistic, at the disposal of the Russian medieval icon painter.”51 With the exhilaration of a trailblazer, Buslaev reconstructs the evolution of the icon-painter’s manual in all its historical, literary, and practical aspects. He takes particular interest in that period of the manual’s history when it branched out from brief descriptions of commonly known Christian saints to include standard depictions of distinctly Russian ones from Moscow, Novgorod, Rostov, Vologda, Archangel, and other localities. He underscored how compilers of new recensions began supplementing the main text with information on what was holy to Russians, thereby imparting a specifically national character to icon-painters’ manuals and gradually turning them into an important source for the study of Russian art and archaeology.52 Buslaev shared the typical nineteenth-century delusion that it was possible and necessary to revive the precepts of medieval religious painting, and regarded the iconpainters’ manuals as a powerful means of renewing contemporary church art. The manuals combined instruction and, in the case of illuminated recensions, representations of the remote past with events and persons of a comparatively 51  Ibid., p. 42. 52  See “Literatura russkikh ikonopisnykh podlinnikov,” ibid., vol. II, pp. 364–75, 392–97.

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recent age. Thus he believed that they could help bring about a renaissance of church art, which was at a low ebb in his day. In his opinion, all other works of Byzantine and Russian origin should serve the same purpose. Buslaev’s scholarly and literary legacy reveals the remarkable breadth of his learning and views, comprising a virtual encyclopedia of the spiritual life of the Russian people, albeit an encyclopedia resting upon the foundation of European and Near Eastern cultures. His overriding idea of Russian medieval art as a storehouse of forms of Early Christian and Byzantine art links Russia’s artistic life with that of both the East and the West. Buslaev tends to digress into the history of art and literature of western, oriental, and even northern and Scandinavian peoples. He uses German, Italian, French, and Greek works either to prove their common parentage with those of Russia or to set off their fundamental differences: he also employs them to elucidate the meaning of Russian works. At the same time, as a bona-fide scholar without nationalistic prejudices, Buslaev feels no qualms about resorting to such evidence to demonstrate the shortcomings of many aspects of medieval Russian art. Despite Russia’s thousand-year history, Buslaev regarded Russian culture as a comparatively young phenomenon and saw nothing discreditable in pointing to the Russian artists’ desire to learn from their more experienced foreign masters. “The national character of every people that is destined to have a great future (and the Russians are just such a people),” he remarks in this connection, “is capable of absorbing whatever penetrates it from the outside. It is, therefore, not so much to the detriment as to the advantage of our folkways (narodnost’) that the researcher speaks of the foreign influences on Russian antiquity since our folkways have emerged unscathed from all kinds of alien borrowings, imbibing only that much of the alien element which accords well with its own essence.”53 A remarkable feature of Buslaev’s articles about Russian medieval art is their abundance of literary sources and parallels which are organically integrated into the narrative’s fabric. Buslaev was so sensitive to everything aesthetically appreciable that he even regarded language, particularly ancient language, not as a conventional means for the expression of thought but as an artistic image that emerged from the sensation produced on man by life itself. In his own aphorism, this was “a most perfect marriage of idea and form.” With this view of language and philology in general, Buslaev could hardly avoid interspersing his works on the pictorial arts with extracts from Old Russian literary texts, whether tales culled from the chronicles or legends of miracle-working icons, saints’ lives, passages from icon-painters’ manuals, spiritual verse, or even records and deeds from the pre-Petrine era. And he did it all in a most 53  “O narodnosti v drevnerusskoi literature i iskusstve,” ibid., p. 79.

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appropriate manner. Set against such a broad background, he perceived the facts of art history in an entirely new way. More than a hundred years have elapsed since the appearance of Buslaev’s best articles, but not a single scholar has approached let alone surpassed, him in this respect. Running through all of Buslaev’s literary works is the idea that Russian medieval art was a synthesis of the verbal and pictorial arts. This idea emerged from Buslaev’s specific fields of interest and study. He took a keen interest in the unpublished works of medieval Russian literature and, since these could mainly be found in old handwritten miscellanies, he turned to the study of manuscripts. His affection for the written word underpinned his interest in representations that illustrated it, and there are hundreds of Russian manuscripts, from the eleventh century onward, in which drawings supplement, elucidate, and embellish the text. He appreciated that miniatures in manuscripts, being bound up with the texts of the Bible and other church books, formed “a complete cycle of sacred images,”54 and even included subjects never found in other pictorial arts. In other words, Buslaev viewed miniatures as an inexhaustible source of iconographic specimens. Along with the texts they illustrated, miniatures gave a complete and faithful sense of intellectual life in medieval society. Gradually, Buslaev moved on to the study of icons and the few works of monumental painting that were known in those days. Owing to his specific scholarly interests and the “armchair” character of his research, miniatures and ornamental patterns in medieval manuscripts forever remained for Buslaev the most accessible and richest source. Most of Buslaev’s articles about art are illustrated with miniatures, headpieces, initials, and examples of scribal handwriting from medieval manuscripts, and two of his important publications, Specimens of Penmanship and Ornaments in the Psalter According to a Fifteenth-century Manuscript (1881) and The Russian Illuminated Apocalypse (Russkii litsevoi Apokalipsis, 1884), are entirely devoted to the relationship between written language and literature and manuscript decoration and drawing. Buslaev believed in the indivisibility of literature and art, and the longer he studied, the more evidence he accumulated, both historical and personal, to support his conviction. The culture of Rus’ was a highly coherent whole cemented by the dominant canons of Christian religion. The written language, literature, poetry, arts, architecture, and even science were all subservient to the church. Ideas encompassed by literature and the pictorial arts were closely bound up with the church’s demands. They developed along the same course, their unity extending not only to content but also, largely, to form. “The closer 54  “Obshchie poniatiia o russkoi ikonopisi,” ibid., vol. I, p. 103.

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to the Middle Ages,” remarks Buslaev, “the more fused the literary and pictorial elements were, just as the scribe and author of a manuscript was also its illuminator, so the literary historian often gains from the miniatures that adorn a manuscript an additional insight into the Scripture’s meaning which is not wholly explicit in its lines. And if for a modern artist these miniatures are a matter of secondary importance … for the history of literature they are the half, and even the more important half of the material evidence offered by a manuscript.”55 In many of his articles, Buslaev expounded his views on the essence of the relationship between literature and art and its specific forms. In his lecture “Folk Poetry in Old Russian Literature” (1859), he referred to the anonymous fifteenth-century Novgorodian Tale of the Shchilov Monastery, which intertwines the folk legend of the posthumous punishment of a rich Novgorod moneylender and the author’s own impressions of painted representations on the theme of the Last Judgment so well that, in Buslaev’s words, the work “belongs to the realm of folk poetry and to the history of painting.”56 Buslaev’s familiarity with literary material often enabled him to grasp the logic underlying some of the techniques of the medieval artist that seemed strange to Buslaev’s contemporaries. For example, many of them found it odd, inartistic, and contrary to precepts of good taste and rules of propriety that one composition should often combine several scenes violating the unities of place and time. Touching upon this issue with regard to sixteenth-century miniatures illuminating the lives of Russian saints, Buslaev points out that “in the vitae at every step the earthly alternates with the celestial, the visible with the invisible, and reality may suddenly resolve in a miracle.” Thus the miniatures consist of two parts: the one below is a setting for acts of a pious ascetic; the one above, in heaven, features God, the apostles, prophets, and angels. “With this particular nature of painterly style,” he observes, “it is not only not prohibited but even required to disrupt the unity of time and, especially, of place.”57 In another paper, Ideal Female Characters of Ancient Rus’ (1861), he draws another subtle parallel. The point at issue is the stylistic correspondence of the pictorial and the verbal creative endeavor. Buslaev recounts the Murom tale of two sisters, Martha and Maria, remarking in passing that the story’s characteristic trait is a symbolic recurrence of the main events in the life of both sisters, which imparts a certain symmetry to the tale. Buslaev says that this tale plainly reveals a specific 55  “Vizantiiskaia i drevnerusskaia simvolika po rukopisiam ot XV do kontsa XVI v.,” ibid., vol. II, p. 201. 56  “O narodnoi poezii v drevnerusskoi literature,” ibid., p. 59. 57  “Dlia istorii russkoi zhivopisi XVI veka,” ibid., pp. 306–307.

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artistic idea alluding to a period when symbolism and a strict, albeit naive, symmetry of icon-painting style reigned supreme in art.58 Comments of this kind, which are often enlivened by a host of poetic details, occur quite often in Buslaev’s publications and all of these, owing to the integrity of Buslaev’s work as a scholar, combine to form a highly coherent literary and artistic concept. One of the peculiarities of Buslaev’s scholarly method was his selectivity in choosing the theme for an article or book, or even in choosing a work to be reviewed. He avoided minor issues, more readily taking up matters of general interest. His broad view comes forth in the titles of his works: Folkways in Medieval Russian Literature and Art; Depiction of the Last Judgment According to Russian Icon-Painter’s Manuals; Byzantine and Medieval Russian Symbolism According to Manuscripts; Novgorod and Moscow, Literature of Russian IconPainter’s Manuals; Russian Aesthetics of the Seventeenth Century, General Notions of Russian Icon Painting; Regarding Russian Folk Books and Popular Print Editions; Russian Art as Judged by a French Scholar; and The Russian Illuminated Apocalypse. Even when treating a minor subject or a topic of a narrow scope, Buslaev was always able to turn it into a major issue. In a sketch entitled The Beard in Medieval Russia, devoted to a typological characteristic of saints that one comes across in icon-painter’s manuals and to the importance of the beard in Russian folk life,59 he almost immediately recalls the disregard for the beard in the art of antiquity and, on these grounds, exposes all the differences between paganism and Christianity. In a brief letter, sent in 1878 from Rome for publication in the Herald of Medieval Russian Art, he describes the peculiarities of two Greek illuminated Psalters and concludes that there are two recensions of the illuminated Psalter in Byzantine art,60 a conclusion the modern researcher would perhaps require the scope of a book to arrive at. Adroitly dealing with important issues, Buslaev never indulged in idle speculation. Dealing with a broad theme, he never lost sight of the material evidence and details necessary to confirm his ideas. He chose those details to sustain the reader or listener’s active interest and, at the same time, to make the reader himself grasp the problem at hand. Thanks to this feature of Buslaev’s scholarly works, their contents are easily comprehended and remembered. Buslaev was a remarkable master of style. His admiration for the diction of ancient literature and the lively vernaculars of the Russians and other Slavic peoples made him particularly keen to refine his own writing. Buslaev’s idiom 58  “Ideal’nye zhenskie kharaktery drevnei Rusi,” ibid., p. 251. 59  Ibid., pp. 216–39. 60  “Iz Rima. na imia predsedatelia Obshchestva drevnerusskogo iskusstva. II,” ibid., vol. III, pp. 214–24.

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is free from artificial embellishment and bombast. The few archaic expressions encountered in his work are explained not so much by his wish to make his idiom more in keeping with that of the past as by the fact that many vestiges of the language of the eighteenth and early nineteenth century still survived in Buslaev’s time. His articles make unhurried reading, disposing the reader to pause and reflect. It is as if the scholar, endowed with the happy gift of spontaneously forging his thoughts into a clear-cut literary form, enters into lively discourse with the reader, which he often did in real life. Buslaev’s Memoirs, which he dictated at the close of his life when he lost his eyesight, are imbued with the same freshness and purely Russian expressiveness that mark his research works of the 1850s and 1860s. For a better understanding of Buslaev’s prose one should also consider his literary predilections, which he voiced in the Memoirs. He held Nikolai Gogol and Ivan Turgenev in high esteem, but set little store by Nikolai Leskov’s deliberate stylization of the Russian idiom. Lucidity, simplicity, and the ability to speak about complicated things in an easily comprehensible manner were qualities that Buslaev held to be the sine qua non of a scholar’s activity. As a representative of Russia’s nineteenth-century intelligentsia whose ambition was to link its very existence with the progressive ideas of the age and to promote the cause of social progress, Buslaev tackled scholarly themes that helped develop the self-awareness of the Russian people at crucial points of its history. “Issues of narodnost’,” wrote Buslaev in the 1860s, “give direction to the tenor of modern life; it is in their name that millions of serf laborers are freed from bondage; issues of narodnost’ are what historical scholarship comes to grips with and lays out in all its branches.” It was for this reason that Buslaev more readily contributed to popular newspapers and literary-artistic magazines than to academic journals of limited readership. Thanks to a remarkable lucidity and expressiveness of style, his publications played an enormous role in shaping Russian society’s positive attitude toward Russia’s artistic culture. Since it was chiefly for his private satisfaction (dlia dushi) that Buslaev studied art history, he did not always proceed along the lines adopted by strict scholars with their specialist terminology and clear logic of investigation. He realized that art, as a specific type of thought, required an approach that lent itself to more liberal and flexible judgments and that appealed, like art itself, less to man’s reason than to his emotions. This determined the original style of Buslaev’s articles on art, in which issues of special interest often intertwined with general impressions and even facts deriving from other fields of scholarship and other periods. The traditional character of church art was deeply bound up with the culture and lifestyle of the nineteenth century. It was natural

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for Buslaev to evaluate the phenomena of contemporary art and everyday life; to this end, the professor would occasionally become the art critic, writing articles such as Specimens of Icon Painting in the Public Museum from the Collection of P. I. Sevast’ianov (1862); The Icon-Painting Fraternity (1863); Moscow PrayerHouses (1866); and New Icons of Academician and Professor E. S. Sorokin (1866). Much later, N. P. Kondakov, a St. Petersburg scholar of a purely academic cast, would note that Buslaev had formed his judgments of the masterpieces and general phenomena of art history not only using objectively established evidence but also on the basis of his personal impressions. But it is this very idiosyncrasy of Buslaev’s work that has kept it alive for more than a hundred years.61 While many of Buslaev’s conclusions seem outdated, the general tone of his writings and his moving accounts of the unexpected joys and delights of every new encounter with relics of antiquity attract both the specialist and the inquisitive layman to the treasures of medieval Russian art. Buslaev’s erudition, his interest in art-historical research carried out in the West, and his concern for the unbiased interpretation of the history of Russian art led him to write extensive critical reviews of studies of Russia written by foreigners. As a rule, these were usually by German or French authors, the former being marked by the usual bias against everything Russian, the latter by a purely French flippancy. In newspapers and magazines over a period of many years, Buslaev informed readers about the “discoveries” of Russian art made by C. Schnaase, F. Kugler, E. Ferster, C. Lemke, O. Motes, and E. Viollet-le-Duc.62 Even before Buslaev, Russian scholars were puzzled and offended by foreign critics of Russian art, but the dismal state of Western European criticism on the subject in the middle and end of the nineteenth century was acute. As Buslaev 61  The only exceptions are precisely those of Buslaev’s monographs in which he strove to observe the style of “pure” science, tediously enumerating and describing the works listed. A case in point is his monumental Russkii litsevoi Apokalipsis (The Russian Illuminated Apocalypse), which is short on lively impressions and conclusions. When, in 1895, he issued supplements to this book (F. I. Buslaev, “Pervoe dopolnenie k Litsevomu Apokalipsisu,” in Trudy VIII AS v Moskve (1890), vol. II (Moscow, 1895), pp. 1–9), thus wishing somehow to vindicate the previous book’s obvious drawbacks, Buslaev made the following remark: “Totally engrossed by an ardent interest in discoveries that I did not cease to make, I fell into raptures and could not tear myself away from the state of enchanted contemplation in order to subject all the details of my experience to my sober analysis.” These words superbly characterize Fedor Ivanovich himself but—alas!—comply least of all with the vocabulary and the general tone of his monograph. 62  See “Otzyvy inostrantsev o russkom natsional’nom iskusstve,” in Sochineniia F. I. Buslaeva, vol. I, pp. 194–205; “Russkoe iskusstvo v otsenke frantsuzskogo uchenogo,” ibid., vol. III, p. 1ff.

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remarked, foreigners’ lack of understanding of Russia’s artistic past recalled the gloomy accounts of medieval travels to Russia in which Russians were portrayed as uncouth barbarians totally incapable of creativity and Russian icons were characterized as narrow-mindedly pious and slavish imitations of poor prototypes. Buslaev paid particular attention to Eugène Viollet-le-Duc’s muchtalked-of book, L’art russe, issued in Paris (1877) and Moscow (1879). Buslaev knew that Viollet-le-Duc had received the assistance of the Russian government, which placed at his disposal the complete edition of the Antiquities of the Russian State and the French translation of Nikolai Karamzin’s History.63 In that light, the impertinence of Viollet-le-Duc’s describing Russian art as a hodge-podge of Byzantine, Tatar, Indian, Chinese, Persian, and Finnish styles, seemed all the more outrageous.64 The classification of Russian culture as Asian rather than European offended Buslaev’s belief in the unity of Russian and Western European cultures, of their historical relationship with Byzantium, and of Byzantine art with Greco-Roman art. Nevertheless, Buslaev accepted the shortcomings of French and German works devoted to Russia’s artistic heritage because, as he explained, “many educated Russians know even less about our ecclesiastical antiquity … and think about it in almost the same [way as foreign critics].”65 Although Buslaev does not cite Russian authors to support this view, we may cite A. N. Pypin, a noted historian of Russian literature, who wrote about Russian icon painting in 1861 in connection with Buslaev’s works, that the icons’ brown coloring and soaring figures resembled Chinese painting.66 In the 1860s, such views on medieval Russian painting were not unusual.

63  F. I. Buslaev, Moi vospominaniia, pp. 384–85. 64  Cf, also, a sharply unfavorable review by V. V. Stasov in V. V. Stasov, Sobranie sochinenii, vol. II (St. Petersburg, 1894), section 3, columns 389–402 (a reprint of the article from the newspaper Novoe vremia [New Times]). 65   Sochineniia F. I. Buslaeva, vol. I, p. 198. Buslaev’s review served as a pretext for V. I. Butovskii, Director of the Stroganov School of Technical Drawing, to come out in the press in defense of E. Viollet-le-Duc’s book, to which he gave an enthusiastic welcome. See V. I. Butovskii, Russkoe iskusstvo i mneniia o nem E. Violle le Diuka, frantsuzskogo uchenogo arkhitektora, i F. I. Buslaeva, russkogo uchenogo arkheologa (Moscow, 1879). In turn, Viollet-le-Duc’s and Butovskii’s publications prompted P. P. Viazemskii to publish a special article, which he devoted to reviewing another book written on the subject of Russian art by a foreign author. See [P. P. Viazemskii], “Istoricheskoe razvitie russkogo iskusstva. L’art russe par le R. P. J. Martinov. Arras, 1878,” in PDP, [I] (St. Petersburg, 1878–1879), pp. 187–200 (on pp. 195–96, criticism of E. Viollet-le-Duc’s judgments on art). 66  A. Pypin, “Po povodu issledovanii g. Buslaeva o russkoi starine,” in Sovremennik, (January, 1861), section Sovremennoe obozrenie, p. 27.

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Figure 5.8 Georgii Dmitrievich Filimonov (1828–98).

Another prominent medievalist was Georgii Dmitrievich Filimonov (1828–98), who at one time worked with Buslaev in Moscow. Whereas Buslaev was largely concerned with the intellectual life of Rus’, Filimonov focused his attention on specific questions of art and archaeology, showing a bias toward the history of individual artworks. While Buslaev started as a philologist and ended his career as an art critic, Filimonov began with the study of the history of medieval Russian art and later switched over to archaeology, digging at prehistoric sites in the Crimea and the Caucasus. Buslaev was intermittently a schoolmaster and a university professor, and liked student audiences and talks on literary and scholarly subjects; Filimonov spent dozens of years occupying posts in various libraries, offices, archives, and museums, and this milieu noticeably affected his lifestyle and thought processes. Unlike Buslaev, who was a man of impulse, Filimonov was a somewhat dry and restrained individual, in a word, a clerk.67 67  The literature on G. D. Filimonov is not abundant See V. Rudakov, “G. D. Filimonov. Nekrolog,” in ZhMNP, (July, 1898), section Sovremennaia letopis’, pp. 17–19; D. A[nuchin], “G. D. Filimonov. Nekrolog,” in AIZ (1898), nos. 5–6, pp. 211–14; A. Kirpichnikov, “Vospominaniia o G. D. Filimonove,” ibid. (1898), nos. 11–12, pp. 360–68; N. V. Pokrovskii, “G. D. Filimonov (nekrolog).† 26 maia 1898 g.,” in PDPI, CXXXII (St. Petersburg, 1899), pp. 48–51; S. Sheremetev, “Pamiati F. I. Buslaeva and G. D. Filimonova,” ibid., pp. 55–58; A. Kirpichnikov, “Filimonov,” in Entsiklopedicheskii slovar’ F. A. Brokgauza i I. A. Efrona, vol 70 (=XXXV A) (St. Petersburg, 1902), pp. 747–49; Vospominaniia P. I. Shchukina, part 3 (Moscow, 1912), pp. 42–43; Imp. Moskovskoe arkheologicheskoe obshchestvo v pervoe piatidesiatiletie ego sushchestvovania (1864–1914), vol. II, section 1, pp. 381–82; Istoricheskii ocherk i obzor fondov Rukopisnogo otdela Biblioteki Adademii nauk SSSR, II, XIX–X veka (Moscow-Leningrad, 1958), pp. 145–46 (a brief biography and review of the fund).

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Anyone who has had to deal with the specific issues of Christian iconography, with single works or special problems of art history, knows only too well how difficult it is to attain a level of exhaustive completeness of material and to arrive at reliable and unambiguous conclusions. Investigations of this kind are always vulnerable to the criticism of future generations of scholars since the accumulation of new evidence changes scholars’ views on the works of art at hand, the evolution of iconography and style, and the assessment of a particular artist’s legacy. Filimonov’s best writings, however, still retain much of their original significance. He had a remarkable gift of getting to the heart of a matter and of making cautious but on the whole valid conclusions. “We have at present,” said Buslaev, “only two real connoisseurs of Russian antiquities, two archaeologists par excellence: Count Uvarov, and Filimonov.”68 Connoisseurship and profundity of research distinguish Filimonov the scholar. Filimonov’s classic work, written at the age of thirty, was a small book (or more precisely, a separately published article) entitled “The Church of St Nicholas the Wonderworker on the Lipna near Novgorod: The Question of the Original Shape of Iconostases in Russian Churches.” In this treatise Filimonov summed up his observations made in the town of Zvenigorod near Moscow and during his stay at the neglected monasterial church on the Lipna in the Novgorod vicinity, which he visited in 1849 with the architect A. A. Avdeev. The church was dilapidated with its windows and doors gone, and Filimonov could investigate freely the remnants of its frescoes dating to approximately 1294. He gave particular attention to the original frescoes decorating the sides of the eastward piers located behind the iconostasis and came to the simple yet extremely significant conclusion that these frescoes had been designed to be viewed from the main body of the church. This implied that the tall iconostasis of the Lipna church was not the original one. Originally only a low altar screen separated the church’s altar space from the nave, where the congregation gathered. “In that period, frescoes served as a substitute for icons on wood. Wall painting was equivalent to icon painting proper, which gained prominence of course [only] with the emergence of iconostases of a new design…. Traces of such wall painting can still be found behind iconostases in some other churches as well and there is no doubt that in all churches of the earliest times the piers and walls, which are now screened off by tall iconostases, were completely open to view and decorated with frescoes.”69 Without 68  A. Kirpichnikov, Vospominaniia o G. D. Filimonove, p. 361. 69  G. Filimonov, Tserkov’ sv. Nikolaia chudotvortsa na Lipne, bliz Novgoroda. Vopros o pervonachal’noi forme ikonostasov v russkikh tserkvakh (Moscow, 1859), p. 17.

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idle speculation, Filimonov also used supporting evidence of the chronicles, original medieval representations, and his own archaeological observations, to propose that at a certain historic stage the altar screen was supplemented with the Royal Doors and icons of Christ and the Virgin. The first tall iconostases, at the turn of the fifteenth century, were combined with a through altar screen or a painted stone templon in front of the sanctuary. As it was widely believed in the academic and church circles of Filimonov’s time that the tall Russian iconostases were of great antiquity, his paper on the gradual evolution of this purely Russian attribute of church interior design made an impression. One may even assert that Filimonov directly or indirectly influenced all subsequent work on the history of the altar screen, templon, and tall iconostasis. For a long period Filimonov was in charge of the archives in the Armory of the Moscow Kremlin, which then held thousands of documents on the history of Russian art. A vigorous investigation into the Armory documents had already been undertaken by I. E. Zabelin, who published Material on the History of Russian Icon-Painting (1850). When Filimonov was assigned to the Armory, he decided to continue Zabelin’s research, focusing on the records pertaining to the activities of only one artist, Simon Ushakov (1626–86). This choice was not accidental. The period of Filimonov’s tenure as head of the Armory’s archives coincided with the reform of 1861, which aroused much public interest not only in Russia’s future but also in the preceding epochs of Russian history. The seventeenth century, viewed as a transitional period from old, pre-Petrine Russia to the empire of Peter the Great and Catherine II, became a subject of scrutiny. To Filimonov, the work of Simon Ushakov—who had for many years been an important figure in the art world of Moscow, and even central Russia—was the embodiment of seventeenth-century art. Filimonov’s paper, “Simon Ushakov and the Russian Icon Painting of His Day”, was published in the 1873 Miscellany of the Society of Medieval Russian Art. As Buslaev’s seminal work General Notions of Russian Icon Painting had done for the Society’s first publication (1866), Filimonov’s study set the tone of the Society’s second publication which included D. V. Razumovskii’s paper, “The Sovereign’s Choristers in the Seventeenth Century” (Gosudarevy pevchie d’iaki v XVII veke), and Filimonov’s “Seventeenth-Century Census Book of the Moscow Annunciation Cathedral” (Perepisnaia kniga moskovskogo Blagoveshchenskogo sobora XVII veka), making the seventeenth century the main theme of the Miscellany for 1873. Filimonov did not indulge in theorizing or speculating in abstract terms. For that reason, his brief foreword to “Simon Ushakov” in which he formulates his understanding of medieval Russian art is even more illuminating.

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It would not be out of place to speak in brief here about the importance with which we view medieval Russian art, since no unanimity of opinion has as yet been achieved on the subject. If, on the one hand, it would seem odd to raise works of Russian church art to the level of truly artistic ones, it would be even more unjust to downgrade them to the level of mere crafts. Following a middle course, however, we will regard them as works combining art and craftsmanship whereas art proper, as exemplified by our icon-painting, should be rated as an artistic handicraft, or industrial art, like any kind of artistic endeavor not wholly emancipated from its subservience to the church [its sponsor] and not risen to the heights of pure creativity. Thus, in our view icon painting is primarily the art of the church and therefore it is not a purely free art; icon painters are artists of the church and, consequently, not free artists.70 Many documents and art works substantiate Filimonov’s view of medieval Russian church painting as a blend of art and craft and of its subservient status. In this respect, the seventeenth century provided inexhaustible materials for study. Filimonov was correct to draw his readers’ attention to the versatility of Ushakov and others who accepted court commissions. They not only painted icons and frescoes but also decorated church plate, designed patterns for embroidery and banners, made woodcuts and engravings, drew plans and maps, and embellished the tsar’s toys and horse harnesses, furniture, and other household and church objects. The artist had to be skilled in many crafts His abilities determined whether he was promoted, paid higher fees, and esteemed. His universality had a negative side, however, as it tended to level off his talent. Given a variety of assignments, the artist could not choose one particular creative activity on which he could concentrate and improve his skills. The immense scope of work and the haste with which it was done, a feature characteristic of the seventeenth century, also occasioned narrow specializations. Some were engaged in drawing, others painted faces, still others executed the raiments (dolichnoe); there were artists who specialized in painting architectural wings or fashioning ornamental frames or just inscribing text. Even Simon Ushakov did not escape this predicament: for a long time he was the “banner-designer” (znamenshchik), that is, a specialist in drawing and composition. Filimonov described the master’s arduous life, from his apprentice70  G. Filimonov, “Simon Ushakov i sovremennaia emu epokha russkoi ikonopisi,” in Sbornik na 1873 god, izdannyi obshchestvom drevnerusskogo iskusstva pri Moskovskom Publichnom muzee (Moscow, 1873), p. 3.

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ship in the silver workshop, which produced silver and gold utensils for the royal court, to his position as a leading artist of the Armory charged with the general supervision of icon painting in Russia. Owing to his talent and industry, Ushakov did not get into a rut, but turned into a good artist, who made his patrons reckon with his personal interests and ideas. Filimonov’s paper on Ushakov follows a chronological principle. The artist’s life and career are presented year by year and even occasionally month by month if evidence was available. The paper also contains brief essays of a specialized nature: “Little Known Icons by Ushakov”; “Ushakov’s Drawings for Printed Editions”; “Simon Ushakov’s Disciples”; “The Importance of Simon Ushakov’s Artistic Activity”; and a supplement, “Simon Ushakov’s Household in Moscow’s Kitai-Gorod.” All of these abound in facts, dates, names, and figures, mainly of official nature, which meticulously record Ushakov’s progress up the social ladder. Filimonov considered it expedient to include all the evidence he obtained. He made no effort to set reference material aside in footnotes; instead, he provided extensive citations or pedantic explanations of the contents of archival documents within the text of his work. He described in detail all of Ushakov’s best icons even though he included large-size lithographic prints of these icons in the paper. Today, this way of presenting material would look clumsy, and the research would be unsatisfactory. In the 1870s, however, all of Filimonov’s reports on Ushakov had an aura of indisputable novelty, as did the very idea of imparting to Ushakov the status of the main figure in the history of seventeenth-century Russian painting. At the same time, the extensive information published in the article suggested an epoch in which Russia’s artistic life reached such an unheard-of intensity and stylistic diversity that it simply could not be described within the confines of terse language and precise definitions. This, in turn, made the study’s outward faults irrelevant. Filimonov’s characterization of Simon Ushakov is in keeping with the generally accepted view of the seventeenth century as a period of transition from the old to the new. “One can distinguish in [Ushakov],” he writes, “two absolutely dissimilar qualities. At times he still appears to be an icon painter of Rus’, full of serene piety and ardent love for antiquity; at others he appears to be an accomplished artist treating traditions with a critical eye and endeavoring to introduce some improvements into church art. This dualism, strictly conditioned by the general tenor of the age, is as noticeable in his own works as in the work of his contemporaries.”71 Filimonov gleaned ample evidence in the Moscow Church of the Trinity at Nikitniki to elucidate Ushakov’s individual style and assess the landmarks of his 71  Ibid., p. 52.

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career. It was there that Filimonov located one of Ushakov’s most remarkable icons, The Virgin of Vladimir or Planting of the Tree of the Russian State, painted in 1668.72 The icon depicts the Moscow Kremlin inside which Tsar Ivan Kalita (“Moneybags”) and Metropolitan Peter plant the Tree of the Russian State, with the Dormition Cathedral in the background. At the top of the tree are an image of the Virgin and the imagined portraits of outstanding Russian clerics and statesmen of the period from the fourteenth through the seventeenth century. Below, to the left and right, are Tsar Aleksei Mikhailovich, the tsarina, and their sons, whose faces bear a likeness to the figures in the icon. The icon points to the historical continuity of the Romanov dynasty with the Riurik clan. Its original composition is in keeping with the imaginative style. Clearly distinguishable here are the artist’s attempts to paint from life or, more precisely, to observe “life” and then convey its comparatively accurate image to the icon. In Filimonov’s opinion, “Ushakov was not and could not be a reformer in the realm of Russian painting, but he was a veritable progressive.”73 In order to single out and stress the progressive element in the artist’s work, Filimonov drew on a message to Ushakov from his friend and kindred spirit Iosif Vladimirov (“The Message of Zographos Iosif to the Tsar’s Zographos and Wisest Painter Simon Fedorovich”). Buslaev, too, cited extensive extracts from this message in his article, “Russian Aesthetics of the Seventeenth Century” (1861). He correctly defined it as a first-rate source for understanding the conflict of two trends which determined the tenor of artistic life of the day. Filimonov interprets the message as it relates to Ushakov: it is the inspiring force of Iosif’s treatise that provides the researcher with a firm basis for characterizing Ushakov as one who consciously improved and strove to impart freshness and corporeality to the church painting of his time. He enlivened icon-painting with the spirit of art beyond the contents of a newly assessed dogma. Filimonov concludes his study with an interesting thought that pinpoints the duality (polovinchatost’) of Ushakov’s work and, at the same time, reflects the typical nineteenth-century assessment of medieval Russian painting as but a preparatory stage of development toward the “correct” painting of the modern epoch. “Ushakov’s school,” he says, drew inspiration from totally new and heretofore unknown ideas which shared with antiquity only the common root of Christian art and not at all the dried-up branches of its stagnation and exclusiveness. Instead of being content and fully satisfied with generally accepted conventional 72  Ibid., pp. 33–39. 73  Ibid., p. 84.

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prototypes, this school brought into focus through its exponents the deep awareness of the poor state of affairs in contemporary art, a striving to wrench itself free onto a new path and test its worth in pure creativity. All this is evident both from Iosif’s message and from works produced by Ushakov and his pupils. It should not be forgotten, however, that to adequately solve the tasks facing the school, Ushakov’s age lacked most essential means: the social milieu was not prepared; the Western European works from which the master himself evolved his style were few and far from the best; the skills of either draftsmanship or modeling, in the academic sense, were as yet unheard of; the art of perspective was known only through works of the master of perspective Petr Engels; and even the most advanced of our compatriots were utterly amazed to see, when traveling abroad, quite simple paintings done from life (s zhivstva, aki zhivye). And he continues: Hence, it becomes clear how much we should cherish even the faint gleams of that relatively artistic development which Ushakov’s school betrays. A new sense of beauty and nature that penetrated the modest workshop of the Russian icon painter is clearly reflected in considerably improved drawing, which is at times not devoid of an artistic grace evocative of masters of the Old Christian school, and in a lighter coloring which has no parallel in previous works and, lastly, in an independent invention of new subjects marked by originality and forceful imagination. The faces of saints depicted on icons acquire individuality, a more correct setting, movement, and even expression. Their faces presented a most complicated problem for the icon painter who was used to painting hackneyed, conventional features. There emerge icons with views of towns and monasteries, painted from life although without due observance of the principles of perspective. We see that icon painting in general is making certain strides forward, which, while being not particularly fast, are steady and resolute. For our own time, works done in this vein are mainly of archaeological interest only. That they were quite progressive for their own era is seen by the cool response they received from Old Believers, who took them to be of a later date, i.e., only one hundred years old. We are firmly convinced that the main service rendered by Ushakov and his disciples [to the country] is that they were far ahead of their time as most talented coryphaei of folk art, who stood on the right track.74 74  Ibid., pp. 84–85.

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In his letter to Petr Lebedintsev, Nikolai Zakrevskii refers to Filimonov as the “chief founder” of the Society of Art affiliated to the Public Museum. Two other founders of the Society, Fedor Buslaev, writer and public figure, and Vladimir Odoevskii, could not and probably did not want to contribute the large amount of organizational work needed to achieve the Society’s goals. They were honorary figures, representing the Society in the press and in Russian and foreign academic circles. Meanwhile, all the routine work of the Society was carried out by two officials of the Public Museum: Aleksei Viktorov (Buslaev’s deputysecretary) and Filimonov, the editor of the Society’s publications. On Filimonov’s proposal, the Society began to issue the journal, The Herald of the Society of Medieval Russian Art Affiliated to the Moscow Public Museum (Vestnik Obshchestva drevnerusskogo iskusstva pri Moskovskom Publichnom Muzee), which from 1874 on replaced the voluminous miscellanies whose compilation had taken from five to seven years. Five issues were published in both 1874, and 1875, and two in 1876. A shortage of material and funds halted publication of the journal. A feeble attempt to resume it in 1884 was unsuccessful. Filimonov provided the first issue of 1874 with an introductory article in which he sketched the contents of forthcoming issues. The journal’s publisher was the Society of Medieval Russian Art, but Filimonov, acting on behalf of the editorial board, declared his intention to emphasize archaeology. This implied among other things that the journal would carry articles not on art as such, the emotional and narrative aspects of which could be appreciated by all educated readers, but on antiquities, requiring a considerable background in history and other areas of specialization. “According to the opinion shared by the majority of European scholars,” reads the foreword, “the editorial board defines archaeology as a science aimed at studying ancient artworks and artifacts.”75 Filimonov proceeded to formulate the specific tasks of the journal, whose staff was to publicize and competently examine what were considered archaeological monuments in Russia, focusing mainly on architecture and iconography.76 One of the Herald’s main tasks, the publication of newly-discovered works, was carried out admirably. Filimonov had a penchant for this kind of work, and the journal also received an influx of documentary evidence in the form of notes, articles, and letters contributed by Archimandrite Amfilokhii (Amphilochius, from the St Boris and Gleb Monastery near Rostov),77 A. K. Zhiznevskii (from 75  [G. D. Filimonov], “Ot redaktsii Obshchestva drevnerusskogo iskusstva,” in Vestnik Obshchestva drevnerusskogo iskusstva pri Moskovskom Publichnom muzee (1874), 1–3, p. 1. 76  Ibid., pp. III–IV. 77  Amfilokhii, arkhim. “Rostovskie drevnosti, 2. Drevnie ikony i tserkovnaia utvar’ v rostovskom Borisoglebskom monastyre, 4. Drevnie ikony v tserkvakh, sosednikh s Borisoglebskim

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Tver’),78 Bishop Makarii (Macarius, from Nizhnii Novgorod),79 Archimandrite Leonid (from Constantinople), and others who wrote about church antiquities. The editorial board did not confine itself to Russian material but published data on Byzantine art as well. Amfilokhii wrote a brief review devoted to the miniatures of the 1063 Greek Menology from the St. Petersburg synodal library, which had earlier been published by Aleksei Viktorov;80 Leonid, head of the church of the Russian Embassy in Constantinople, supplied information for the first time in Russian scholary literature on the early fourteenth-century mosaics and frescoes from the Church of the Chora (Kariye Camii).81 Filimonov compiled and edited the new journal and wrote more of its articles than anyone else. In about three years of issues the Herald published forty-seven pieces by him, including four extensive studies, twelve reviews, twenty-one short articles, five official reports, and five publications of written source material. Although such vigorous creative activity was obviously based on Filimonov’s previous pursuits, it was certainly in the 1870s that he became, along with Buslaev, a leading authority on the art of Rus’. The editorial boards published not only data on unknown artworks but also important studies in iconography, which the nineteenth-century considered the foundation of medieval art. The first issue of the journal, Essays on Russian Christian Iconography (Ocherki russkoi khristianskoi ikonografii), featured Filimonov’s article about the iconographic types of Sophia, the Wisdom of

monastyrem,” ibid. (1873), 1–3, section Smes’, pp. 3–4, and 5. Amfilokhii (Amphilochius) should also be credited with writing two articles of a similar type, which were printed earlier in the Society’s Sbornik. See Amfilokhii, arkhim., “Tsarskie vrata v Uspenskoi teploi tserkvi v Nikolo-Ugreshskom monastyre i drevnie tserkovnye veshchi togo zhe monastyria,” in Sbornik na 1866 god, izdannyi Obshchestvom drevnerusskogo iskusstva pri Moskovskom Publichnom muzee (Moscow, 1866), Smes’, pp. 122–24; Amfilokhii, arkhim., “Opisanie ikony Bozhiei materi Blagoveshcheniia s litsevym Akafistom po poliam, nakhodiashcheisia v rostovskom Borisoglebskom monastyre v teploi tserkvi Blagoveshchenskoi,” ibid., pp. 148–50. 78  “Tverskie drevnosti. Korrespondentsiia A. K. Zhiznevskogo, s dopolneniiami G. F[ilimonova],” in Vestnik Obshchestva drevnerusskogo iskusstva pri Moskovskom Publichnom muzee (1873), 1–3, pp. 5–14. 79  Makarii, arkhiepiskop. “Shityi vozdukh 1563 goda v nizhegorodskom Pecherskom monastyre,” ibid., p. 17. 80  Amfilokhii, arkhim., “Miniatiury v grecheskom, 1063 goda, sbornike zhiti sviatykh i pouchenii (moskovskoi Sinodal’noi biblioteki no. 9),” ibid. (1875), 6–10, Smes’, pp. 56–58. 81  Leonid, arkhim., “Al’bom pamiatnikov tserkovnogo zodchestva Tsar’grada vremen imperii, s V po XV vek,” ibid. (1873), 1–3, Smes’, p. 24.

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God, along with relevant source material.82 In this study Filimonov made a fairly successful attempt to ascertain Sophia’s representations in Constantinople, Kiev, and Novgorod according to the understanding of this abstract idea in the dogma of different periods of Byzantine and Russian history. Most remarkable of all Filimonov’s contributions to the Herald was an article on portraits of Russian tsars.83 Although the continuation of the article promised by the author never appeared in print (and was probably never undertaken), the published portion of the broadly conceived essay is unusual in the literature on medieval Russian painting. No other scholar before or after Filimonov so thoroughly explored this stimulating subject. It is all the more surprising, therefore, that Kondakov omitted mention of Filimonov’s work in his book of 1906, Representations of the Russian Princely Family in EleventhCentury Miniatures. It is also odd is that when he discussed miniatures from two twelfth-century Russian manuscripts representing unidentified princes he refuted at length the current views of their personalities, although these views had been long before proved groundless by Filimonov.84 Filimonov, incidentally, had issued the only correct identification of these depictions as the then-known historical figures of the Bulgar Tsar Boris and his heir Tsar Simeon. Filimonov’s article on portraits abounds in generalities, a trait which is otherwise quite uncommon in his work. The aim here is to introduce the reader to the special province of medieval Russian art. Filimonov was correct to point out that the desire to capture the images of beloved martyr-saints and other historical or legendary figures of Orthodoxy gave strong impetus to the development of Christian iconography. He was correct to assert that all the many representations of saints in medieval art are nothing but a collection of their likenesses whose idealized and even imagined features make them look more like portrait icons (portretnye ikony).85 However, Filimonov chose only a small number of representations of secular persons—chiefly princes and tsars who were admitted for religious veneration by virtue of their state 82  G. Filimonov, “Ocherki russkoi khristianskoi ikonografii, 1. Sofiia Premudrost’ Bozhiia,” ibid. (1874), 1–3, Issledovaniia, pp. 1–20 and Materialy, pp. 1–24. 83  G. Filimonov, “Ikonnye portrety russkikh tsarei,” ibid. (1875), pp. 6–10, Issledovaniia, pp. 35–66. 84   N. P. Kondakov, Izobrazheniia russkoi kniazheskoi sem’i v miniatiurakh XI veka (St. Petersburg, 1906), p. 44 ff. 85  It will be instructive, in connection with the above wording, to recall the remark made by V. O. Kliuchevskii in his Course of Russian History, read in the 1880s: “The Vita is not a biography in its proper sense but, rather, an edifying panegyric made in terms of biography just as the image of a saint is not a portrait but an icon.” (V. O. Kliuchevskii, Sochineniia, vol. II (Kurs russkoi istorii, part 2) (Moscow, 1957), p. 255).

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and, consequently, church importance—out of this vast mass of works, calling these representations icon-like portraits (ikonnye portrety) rather than portrait icons86 and pointing to their closer affinity to the future art of portraiture in the ordinary sense of this term. Filimonov cites many icon-like portraits created at various times, from a group portrait of Yaroslav the Wise’s family in the Kievan St. Sophia to depictions of Russian seventeenth-century tsars. He devotes most of his article, however, to two works: the large sakkos of Metropolitan Fotii (Photius) from the Armory, and the tombstone icon of Grand Prince Vasilii III from the Archangel Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin. The main text of the essay was supplemented with a chapter on the icon The Praying Novgorodians discovered by Filimonov in Novgorod in 1849. The representations on the sakkos (early fifteenth century) and the Novgorod icon (1467) are without doubt the best and most valuable ones from a scholarly point of view. The sakkos is decorated with the embroidered portraits of Byzantine emperor John VIII Palaeologus, his wife Anna Vasil’evna, Grand Prince Vasilii Dmitrievich, his wife Sophia Vitovtovna, and Metropolitan Fotii (Photius). All the legends except those accompanying the portraits of the Moscow prince and princess are in Greek, which led Filimonov to conclude that the sakkos was of possible Greek origin. Greek workmanship is also apparent in the fact that John VIII, Anna, and Metropolitan Fotii (Photius) are shown with nimbuses while the Russian prince and Princess Sophia Vitovtovna lack them. Filimonov focuses particular attention on the nimbus as a token of sanctity and he correctly points out that by depicting Byzantine emperors and Greek Orthodox clerics with these symbols of holiness common people were reminded of the God-chosen nature of their authority. In fact, Filimonov sustains the reader’s interest, by his discussion of previously unpublished artworks and cleverly interpreting them. As mentioned above, Filimonov did not indulge in unprovable speculation. Thus, when relating all the data on the Praying Novgorodians available to him, he nevertheless confessed to having difficulty in interpreting the icon which revealed, under close scrutiny, “quite a few puzzles” (nemalo zagadochnogo) both in its legend and representations.87

86  G. Filimonov, Ikonnye portrety russkikh tsarei, p. 35. 87  A new interpretation of the icon and its legends was suggested by V. L. Ianin in 1973; in the author’s opinion, however, it failed to provide the clue to all the riddles inherent in this monument. See V. L. Ianin, “Patronal’nye siuzhety i atributsiia drevnerusskikh khudozhestvennykh proizvedenii” in Vizantiia, Iuzhnye slaviane i Drevniaia Rus’. Zapadnaia Evropa. Iskusstvo i kul’tura. Sbornik statei v chest’ V. N. Lazareva (Moscow, 1973), pp. 268–69

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Filimonov did not confine himself to archival pursuits alone. He would willingly take up any matter if it could provide him with new information about the history of art or help to stir public interest in the medieval art of Russia. This accounts for his seven-year tenure as head of the department of Christian and Russian antiquities at the Public Museum (1863–70), which he undertook without pay and which included his participation in the work of the committee for the restoration of icons and uncovering of sixteenth-century frescoes in the upper chapels of the Annunciation Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin (1863–64).88 It explains his arduous but interesting job going around to churches and monasteries selecting works for the Russian pavilion at the Paris World Exhibition (1864–67);89 and his supervision of restorations being carried out on paintings in the Palace of Facets (1881) in Moscow. Not all of (reprinted in V. L. Ianin, Ocherki kompleksnogo istochnikovedeniia. Srednevekovyi Novgorod (Moscow, 1977), pp. 182–92). 88  G. Filimonov, “Otkrytie freskov v verkhnikh pridelakh moskovskogo Blagoveshchenskogo sobora,” in Sovremennaia letopis’ (1863), no. 26, pp. 5–8; N. Izvekov, Moskovskii pridvornyi Blagoveshchenskii sobor (Moscow, 1911), pp. 59–61. The work was carried out by the Mstera icon painter and restorer A. V. Tiulin. 89  One of the first publications devoted to this work is the Kratkaia zapiska o poseshchenii Velikogo Novagoroda chlenami Obshchestva drevnerusskogo iskusstva, issued by Filimonov in the Sbornik na 1866 god (the section Smes’, pp. 119–122). Trips to Novgorod, besides Filimonov’s were made by V. I. Butovskii and two painters, who made sketches and copies of the monuments in question. Filimonov published an official account of his expeditions for the selection of exhibits in the Vestnik Obshchestva drevnerusskogo iskusstva pri Moskovskom Publichnom muzee (1875, 6–10, Ofitsial’nyi otdel, pp. 45–64). In 1868, Filimonov was sent to Paris as a commissioner of the Russian art department at the exhibition there. He dedicated his spare time to the study of the “celebrated works of Slavic art housed in France,” later publishing two short reports on the Rheims Gospel Book and the Bulgar icon with the Savior Not Made by Hands from Laon Cathedral (Vestnik Obshchestva drevnerusskogo iskusstva pri Moskovskom Publichnom muzee [1874], 4–5, Smes’, pp. 25–27 and 27–28). Filimonov’s comprehensive account of his stay in Paris appeared soon afterwards (idem., [1875], 6–10, Ofitsial’nyi otdel, pp. 64–66, and [1876], 11–12, Ofitsial’nyi otdel, pp. 67–77). The display of early Russian works at the Paris exhibition added to the interest evinced in this art by foreign scholars, who made frequent visits to the Russian art department there and often shared with Filimonov their views on the self-sufficiency of the Russian style. It was precisely this interest, voiced by the exponents of European science, that prompted Filimonov, soon after the appearance of E. Viollet-le-Duc’s book, to publish a short article in which he contrasted the French architect’s fabrications with the opinions of other scholars. The article avoided tackling the issues and polemic of the moment, focusing instead on the urgent necessity of serious study of the general history of Russian art in Russia proper. See G. Filimonov, Samostoiatel’nost’ russkogo stilia s tochki zreniia sovremennoi kritiki iskusstva na Zapade (Moscow, 1879).

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these projects were equally successful. Restoration of the Palace of Facets interiors, performed by Palekh craftsmen at his invitation, provoked much outrage at the hideous quality of the new paintwork.90 Nevertheless, Filimonov’s theoretical views on conservation, which was then being increasingly practiced in Moscow and the provinces, were reasonable enough, being much ahead of his time. He opposed the plan of other members of the committee for the restoration of the Annunciation Cathedral to pull down a good nineteenth-century iconostasis in the chapel of St Alexander Nevskii and replace it with the one created in an “ancient style,” openly declaring in the press the wrong-headedness of such “restorations” undertaken by numerous “seekers of awards and grants.” Wrote Filimonov, Antiquity has once given way to the new, and there is no doubt that, in a spurious attempt to revive the past, the former iconostasis will surely be scrapped and the newly painted one will never rival what now exists.… Indeed, how much longer shall we tear down good old things for the sake of mediocre new ones and good new things for the sake of vague fantasies of reconstructing antiquity. When shall we learn to pay due respect to what really deserves it and cease to behave like quacks in the name of worshiping the idea of antiquity with which we are no longer so well acquainted. All our renovators, restorers, and … our builders and custodians of ancient artworks should bear in mind more than anything else that in treating them one should not allow oneself the least arbitrariness, neither renovate nor reconstruct them unless strictly necessary; in a word, one should never risk harming the artwork by repairs and refashionings. As for those who wish to display their learning … in the matter of 90  S. Sheremetev, Pamiati F. I. Buslaeva and G. D Filimonova, pp. 56–57. Filimonov’s program was put to practice by the father and son Belousov. See Otchety o zasedaniakh Obshchestva liubitelei drevnei pis’mennosti. 1881–1882. Compiled by P. Tikhonov (St. Petersburg, [1889]) (=PDP, LXXX), pp. 82–83 (a summary of Filimonov’s report on the preparatory work for renovation); Izograf, vol. I (1884), issue VII [St. Petersburg, 1884], p. 38; “Ikonopistsykhudozhniki krest’iane,” in TsV, unofficial part (1883), no. 49 (3rd December), p. 17. A fair idea of the work done by V. V. and I. V. Belousov in the Palace of Facets can be gleaned from Granovitaia palata Moskovskogo Kremlia, introduction by A. S. Nasibova (Leningrad, 1978). Apropos, it should be pointed out that the renovation of wall painting and iconostases in the Kremlin cathedrals and churches, with the exception of the conservation of icons of the Dormition Cathedral done by N. I. Podkliuchnikov, was marked by generally sloppy workmanship, e.g., the renovations of paintwork in the Cathedral of the Archangel Michael carried out by the artist N. A. Kozlov (1853) and in the Cathedral of the Savior-onthe-Pinewood (na Boru) by a team headed by the icon painter Rogozhkin (1857–1863).

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restoring antiquities, let them not realize their plans to the detriment of ancient monuments.91 Many scholars of the second half of the nineteenth century who studied medieval Russian art were keen collectors as well. Since the majority of them were either short of money or more interested in scholarly matters than in collecting art, they purchased artworks occasionally rather than regularly, and their collections were usually rather modest. Nevertheless, the phenomenon of collecting was quite remarkable in itself. Such collecting was useful even when the collector himself was not aware how it widened the range of source material. Public collections of antiquities in central and local museums and libraries were still fairly limited, and most artworks were either in churches, monasteries, or private collections, which greatly inhibited their study and assessment. Scholars thus turned into collectors willy-nilly. They sought artworks required for their research. Buslaev collected literary manuscripts and illuminated Apocalypses; Filimonov, whose interest was focused on iconography and painting, collected icons, drawings, icon tracings, and works of applied art. Filimonov’s own collection deserves special mention as it was his good luck to have discovered a specific province of Russian icon painting that had not yet been studied (or, more precisely, had been underestimated) by other scholars: the icon tracings or patterns (prorisi). Filimonov himself related the story of this discovery.92 In the autumn of 1862, on the ground in front of a huckster at the marketplace near the Sukharev Tower in Moscow he chanced upon a pile of tattered drawings of well-known and unfamiliar subjects. They caught his fancy, and he bought the whole lot, paying three kopecks a sheet. Suspecting that the drawings were only part of a collection being sold, Filimonov talked the huckster into revealing the source, which turned out to be the remainder of a once enormous assemblage of icon-painter’s patterns (obraztsy). In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century they had belonged to the brothers P. I. and M. I. Sapozhnikov, who owned a private icon-painting studio. By the time Filimonov stumbled upon this hoard, it contained only a tenth of the original Sapozhnikov treasure. “At first, we were going to send them to our village to paper the izba rooms,” said 91  G. Filimonov, Otkrytie freskov v verkhnikh pridelakh moskovskogo Blagoveshchenskogo sobora, p. 6, see also pp. 7–8. 92  G. F[ilimonov], “Arkheologicheskii klad u Sukharevoi bashni,” in Vestnik Obshchestva drevnerusskogo iskusstva pri Moskovskom Publichnom muzee (1874), 4–5, Smes’, pp. 29–32; G. F[ilimonov], “Sobranie ikonopisnykh risunkov brat’iev P. i M. Sapozhnikovykh,” ibid. (1875), 6–10, Smes’, pp. 41–45.

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the Sukharev Tower salesman. “Then I took some to the tobacconist’s to sell them by weight as wrapping paper but we did not agree on a price … I took them out to the Sukharev [Tower] and was right in doing so as they sold pretty well.” Even before Filimonov discovered them, some of the drawings had been purchased by I. E. Zabelin, E. I. Makovskii, I. S. Nekrasov,93 and some unknown icon painters from the village of Mstera. Owing to his persistence, Filimonov got the lion’s share. “There was such an abundance of drawings,” he wrote about his final purchase of the remainder of the collection, “that when hired carriage was loaded with them, I could hardly find a seat for myself.” Filimonov organized the Sapozhnikov collection, into two parts: drawings dating from the seventeenth century through the early eighteenth century, which included sheets by Simon Ushakov and other receiving commissions from the tsar, and those from the late eighteenth century through the early nineteenth century, which was the heyday of the Sapozhnikov icon-painters. Alongside the predominantly iconic subjects there were drawings on military, allegorical, and various secular themes, in particular those from early seventeenth-century Russian history. Their manner of execution made these drawings a rich source for the study of icon painting in Russia. The bulk of the collection was made up of so-called casts (slepki), which were impressions of the icon’s main outlines obtained in a special way, and punchings (skolki), which were outline drawings that were created by needle piercing for subsequent transfer onto a clear prime coat by means of pouncing (priporokh). In fact, drawings from the Sapozhnikov collection formed an illustrated icon-painting manual whose system of arrangement according to the days of the year was lost, but which had probably been gathered and preserved at one time according to that principle.94 Except for odd sheets in private collections or those used as working material by the icon painters of Palekh and Mstera, only one complete illustrated icon-painting manual was known before Filimonov’s find. It was a seventeenth-century manuscript from the S. G. Stroganov collection. A few years after Filimonov’s discovery, on Buslaev’s initiative, V. I. Butovskii, the director of the Stroganov School of Art and Industry,

93  One of the sheets of the Sapozhnikov collection, purchased by this author, was issued (described) in a special article: I. S. Nekrasov, “Drevnii risunok, predstavliaiushchii istselenie v Orde khanshi mitropolitom Aleksiem,” in Otchety o zasedaniiakh im. OLDP v 1893–1894 godu, s prilozheniiami ([St. Petersburg], 1894) (=PDP, SP), pp. 52–56. 94  See: G. F[ilimonov], “Sobranie ikonopisnykh risunkov brat’iev P. i M. Sapozhnikovykh,” p. 42.

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published its manual.95 In the early 1860s, however, people knew very little about icon-painting manuals. Filimonov thus rejoiced at his discovery. In 1863, he displayed the best sheets in the Public Museum’s department of Russian antiquities and, later, published two articles on the Sapozhnikov collection. Filimonov prepared two large publications of an explanatory manual, one of which was an abbreviated sixteenth-century Novgorod recension from a copy of the St. Sophia Cathedral and the other an extended eighteenth-century recension from the copy that he owned.96 Summing up his preliminary examination of the Sapozhnikov collection, Filimonov stated that “it ought to bring about a radical change in the study of Russian icon painting.” He wrote: It was not without reason that we called it a treasure-trove: even in the much-plundered state that it reached us it [was] a real archaeological hoard the like of which had been unknown in Russia, a hoard that lay buried for half a century. Its very existence was not even suspected by our archaeologists.… [It] is of paramount importance for scholarship, as it throws light on the achievements that folk icon painters had made over at least two centuries both in developing diverse nuances of icon-painting style and in working out an amazing variety of iconographic subjects…. Specialists, who spent dozens of years, investigating the archaeological, historical, and theoretic evidence of icon painting, never mentioned in their works nor probably divined that, apart from frescoes, icons on panels, and [icons] in printed editions, another immense reserve of iconpainting evidence existed in old drawings that until recently have been used by our icon painters.97 The discovery and study of medieval Russian painting had always been concentrated in Moscow, so fertile in historical records and memories. In this respect, St. Petersburg fell far behind Moscow, though, as the empire’s capital, it had certain advantages of its own. Thus, no sooner had any idea received the 95   Stroganovskii ikonopisnyi podlinnik (kontsa XVI i nachala XVII stoletii), [Moscow, 1869]. Regarding the history of this edition, see V. I. Butovskii, Russkoe iskusstvo i mneniia o nem E. Violle le Diuka, frantsuzskogo uchenogo arkhitektora i F. I. Buslaeva, russkogo uchenogo arkheologa, p. 7 and 183. 96  See about it on p. 88. 97  G. F[ilimonov], “Arkheologicheskii klad u Sukharevoi bashni,” p. 31. Following Filimonov’s death, the collection of traced patterns from his repository entered the museum of the St. Petersburg Society of Lovers of Ancient Literature (see about it in this edition on p. 168). In 1930, it was transferred to the Saltykov-Shchedrin Public Library, Leningrad.

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approval of the tsar and court than its realization began without delay even without material evidence. It was this impulse from above that triggered the foundation of the first St. Petersburg museums and learned societies, which were assigned the task of collecting and investigating works of medieval Russian art. For a long time, the only repository of medieval Russian art in St. Petersburg was the museum affiliated with the Academy of Arts, which opened in 1856 as an auxiliary collection of medieval artifacts designed for the use of academics and students specializing in church painting.98 This collection of antiquities was at first referred to as the Museum of Orthodox Icon Painting. In the Academy, it had some independence, not being fully merged with the Academy’s museum, which exhibited only paintings and sculptures of the eighteenth and nineteenth century. The vice president of the Academy of Arts, Count Grigorii Grigor’evich Gagarin, initiated creation of the Museum of Orthodox Icon Painting.99 A talented painter, military commander, and diplomat, Gagarin spent many years in Italy, Constantinople, and the Caucasus, where he investigated Byzantine architecture and decorative art. An advocate of the revival of contemporary church painting through emulation of Byzantine art, Gagarin copied Byzantine works and also produced his own compositions on Byzantine themes. This led him to the idea of creating the Museum of Orthodox Icon Painting whose works could be used to educate artists about church art. Since the revival of interest in Byzantine and Russian antiquity accorded with the policies of Nicholas I and Alexander II, the museum was founded and gradually enriched with art objects.

98   Sbornik postanovlenii Soveta imp. Akademii khudozhestv po khudozhestvennoi i uchebnoi chasti s 1859 po 1890 god (St. Petersburg, 1890), pp. 139–40; S. N. Kondakov, Imp. Sanktpeterburgskaia Akademiia khudozhestv. Kratkii istoricheskii ocherk. 1764–1914 (St. Petersburg, 1914), pp. 44–45. 99  See about him in: ZRAO, vol. VII, issues 3 and 4 (1895), minutes, pp. XXXV–XXXVIII (from the minutes as of 20 April 1893); “† Kniaz’ Grigorii Grigor’evich Gagarin (po povodu 20-letiia so dnia smerti),” in TverskSt (1913), no. 1, pp. 3–6; RBS, [vol. 4], Gaag—Gerbel’, Moscow, pp. 64–66; S. Ernst, “Neskol’ko slov o risunkakh kn. G. G. Gagarina v Russkom muzee imp. Aleksandra III,” in SG (March, 1914), pp. 3–10; D. D. Iazykov, Obzor zhizni i trudov russkikh pisatelei i pisatel’nits. 13 (Petrograd, 1916) (=Sbornik ORIaS, vol. XCV, no. 3), pp. 47–49; A. N. Savinov, G. Gagarin (Moscow, 1950); idem, Grigorii Grigor’evich Gagarin. 1810–1893 (Moscow, 1951); S. P. Dolgova, “Khudozhnik G. G. Gagarin v Gruzii,” in Panorama iskusstv, 3 (Moscow, 1980), pp. 209–13. It was from 1859 to 1872 that G. G. Gagarin held the post of the vice president of the Academy.

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Ivan Ivanovich Gornostaev, a professor of art history, was the first director of the Museum of Orthodox Icon Painting. During his tenure the museum obtained a large group of icons and other rarities, which were requisitioned from Old Believers and stored, prior to their transfer to the Academy, on the premises of the Ministry of the Interior.100 His interest in medieval Russian architecture led Gornostaev to regularly tour medieval Russian towns and monasteries. He managed to acquire for the museum a collection of diverse church antiqu­ ities which lay unseen and unstudied in the gallery of Novgorod’s St. Sophia Cathedral. It included such notable artworks as a twelfth-century bronze lamp (choros), a “Chaldean furnace” of the sixteenth century, and carved figures of Novgorod saints dating from the sixteenth and seventeenth century (now in the Russian Museum, St. Petersburg).101 At about the same time, in 1860, the Academy’s new museum acquired part of the Sevast’ianov collection, brought from Athos and consisting of sketches, tracings, drawings, and photographs of Athos relics.102 This huge collection filled the small museum to capacity and required skillful sorting, selection, attribution, and installation. Gornostaev was preoccupied with his academic responsibilities, so Gagarin recommended that the post of curator be given in 1861 to V. A. Prokhorov.103 Vasilii Aleksandrovich Prokhorov104 was born in 1818 in Orel into the family of a priest, who died when Prokhorov was very young. He studied at the 100   Otchet imp. Akademii khudozhestv s 10-go maia 1859 po 4-e sentiabria 1860 g. (St. Petersburg, 1860), p. 19. 101  We found no official evidence of Gornostaev’s activity in stocking the Academy’s museum. The information used herein comes from V. V. Stasov. “Vasilii Aleksandrovich Prokhorov,” in Vestnll, vol. III, issue 4 (St. Petersburg, 1885), pp. 333–35. See also V. V. Stasov, “Ivan Ivanovich Gornostaev,” in V. V. Stasov. Sobranie sochinenii, vol. II (St. Petersburg, 1894), section 4, columns 139–50. 102   Otchet imp. Akademii khudozhestv s 4 sentiabria 1860 po 3 sentiabria 1861 g. (St. Petersburg, 1861), p. 17. According to P. A. Bezsonov (Bessonov), Sevast’ianov handed over to the museum of the Academy of Arts a total of 1200 copies, tracing copies, and sketches of icons and frescoes, 200 architectural drawings and 150 icons (P. Bezsonov (Bessonov), “Petr Ivanovich Sevast’ianov,” in Sovremennaia letopis’ (1867), no. 14, p. 7). The photographs of manuscripts (5,000 items) entered the Public Library. 103   Otchet imp. Akademii khudozhestv s 4 sentiabria 1860 po 3 sentiabria 1861 g., p. 34; Sbornik postanovlenii Soveta imp. Akademii khudozhestv po khudozhestvennoi i uchebnoi chasti s 1859 po 1890 god, p. 141. 104  About him see N. I. Kostomarov, “V. A. Prokhorov i ego arkheologicheskaia deiatel’nost’,” in Novoe vremia (16 February, 1882),;V. V. Stasov, “Vasilii Aleksandrovich Prokhorov,” in Vestnll, vol. III, issue 4, pp. 320–60 (Stasov’s long article from the Vestnik iziashchnykh iskusstv and also a short Nekrolog V. A. Prokhorova from the newspaper Golos are included in the Sobranie sochinenii V. V. Stasova, vol. II, section 4, columns 239–44 and

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Figure 5.9 Vasilii Aleksandrovich Prokhorov (1818–82).

Kherson theological seminary and later taught in Odessa. Having discovered an interest in the study of painting and architecture, he managed in 1842 to leave the priesthood and move to St. Petersburg, where he enrolled in the Academy of Arts. Although Prokhorov did not have the makings of a good painter, he became a fairly skilled draftsman, and this played a key role in his future. From 1844 to 1857, Prokhorov taught history at the Naval College; in September 1859, he was invited in the same capacity to the Academy of Arts. By that time, he had already won the reputation of an ardent collector and student of medieval Russian and Byzantine art. Prokhorov’s appointment to the Museum of Orthodox Icon Painting and Russian Antiquities by the Academy’s authorities was thus a fitting one. Under Prokhorov, the Museum of Orthodox Icon Painting and Russian Antiquities continued to grow. Vladimir Stasov was on close terms with Prokhorov and frequently visited the museum. He left us a good account of Prokhorov’s concerns about the management and expansion of the museum. “Prokhorov seemed to be born for the job. He was truly fond of all the artworks in his museum and cared for them as for something very dear to him; 423–58); D. Iazykov, Obzor zhizni i trudov pokoinykh russkikh pisatelei, 5 (St. Petersburg, 1889), p. 8; “V. A. Prokhorov,” Istoricheskaia zapiska o deiatel’nosti imp. Moskovskogo arkheologicheskogo obshchestva za pervye 25 let sushchestvovaniia (Moscow, 1890), supplements, pp. 294–99; Entsiklopedicheskii slovar’ F. A. Brokgauza i I. A. Efrona, vol. XXV A (St. Petersburg, 1898), pp. 579–80. “Kharakteristiki deiatelei arkheologii 1860–1870 gg., prinadlezhashchie I. I. Sreznevskomu. Soobshchil Vs. I. Sreznevskii,” in Bibliograficheskaia letopis’, I ([St. Petersburg], 1914), p. 118; Imp. Moskovskoe arkheologicheskoe obshchestvo v pervoe piatidesiatiletie ego sushchestvovaniia (1864–1914), vol. II (Moscow, 1915), 1. Biograficheskii slovar’ chlenov Obshchestva, p. 294; 2. Spisok trudov chlenov Obshchestva, pomeshchennykh v izdaniiakh Obshchestva, p. 158.

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he scrutinized and studied them with zeal and passion and his museum pursuits were for him a real comfort and profound enjoyment rather than a duty. At the same time, he was continually and passionately preoccupied with augmenting and extending this museum, enriching it with ever new acquisitions.”105 Prokhorov solicited the Academy’s authorities (Gagarin was then its vice president) for funding to organize trips to nearby gubernias for search and purchase of unusual artworks. Prokhorov acquired many of the works himself, and in some cases he managed to obtain interesting pieces from other collections through official channels. In 1871, for example, he succeeded in transferring to the museum a collection of icons from the former repository of Pogodin’s antiquities which, following its sale to the state, was kept in the Chrism-making workshop (Mirovarennaia palata) of the Moscow Kremlin.106 Over the fifteen years of Prokhorov’s activity, the museum, at first a medley of discrete pieces, underwent a transformation. Alongside Russian icons and church plate, which still formed the better part of its holdings, were Greek artworks, a multitude of drawings made by Prokhorov from Russian antiquities preserved in other museums and libraries or in other towns and monasteries, and a valuable collection of Russian folk costumes developed entirely on Prokhorov’s own initiative. The museum was allotted new premises and now had five large rooms at its disposal.107 While preserving its former academic bias, it acquired a broader social importance, providing a fairly broad idea of the art of Athos, Byzantium, and Russia. The museum took special pride in its numerous copies of miniatures from medieval manuscripts, copies of Novgorod and Staraia Ladoga frescoes, the Sevast’ianov tinted tracings of Athos icons and frescoes, and a collection of Russian icons (more than 500), including the ancient and remarkably well preserved hagiographical St George from the former Pogodin antiquities repository. Thanks to Prokhorov, who was particularly keen on augmenting the collection with works of Russian origin, the museum’s name was changed to Museum of Medieval Russian Art, best reflecting the nature of its collections.(Previous names were the Museum of the Icon-Painting Class and Museum of Orthodox Icon Painting and, later, at various times, the Museum of Orthodox Icon Painting and Russian Antiquities, the Museum of Russian Archaeology and Icon Painting, and the Museum of Christian Antiquities.) 105  V. V. Stasov, “Vasilii Aleksandrovich Prokhorov,” p. 335. 106  See Ustav i protokoly Obshchestva drevnerusskogo iskusstva pri Moskovskom Publichnom muzee (Moscow, 1876), pp. 116, 117–18. 107  See: Imp. Akademiia khudozhestv. Katalog muzeia drevnerusskogo iskusstva, compiled by V. Prokhorov (St. Petersburg, 1879).

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Church of the Transfiguration on Nereditsa dating to 1199 near Novgorod.

Prokhorov spent most of his time sorting, attributing, restoring, and installing museum items. The Sevast’ianov collection of Athos tracings and Prokhorov’s own large-format copies of frescoes in the Nereditsa, Staraia Ladoga, Lipna, St. Theodore Stratilates, and Volotovo churches were particularly troublesome. Prokhorov found an ingenious solution, fixing the tracings and copies to the ceiling in neatly fashioned wooden frames that could be lowered easily by means of pulleys. “This agglomeration of huge and variegated drawings soaring high above the spectators’ heads,” recollected Stasov, “always reminded me of those many knightly gonfalons and ensigns that one can see hanging so picturesquely in medieval churches and chapels over carved seats that were once occupied by knights of old during mass. Here, as in those chapels, the impression made on me was original and striking.”108 While sorting and studying the collections in the museum, Prokhorov launched an unusual journal, Christian Antiquities and Archaeology. As stated in the prospectus the new edition would carry information on Christian architecture, painting, and sculpture, church plate and priestly vestments, and critical reviews of research on Christian antiquities. The publication was 108  V. V. Stasov, “Vasilii Aleksandrovich Prokhorov,” pp. 336–37.

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Virgin Orans in a fresco in the Church of the Transfiguration on Nereditsa dating to 1199 near Novgorod.

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Saints in a fresco in the Church of the Transfiguration on Nereditsa dating to 1199 near Novgorod.

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God is the Ancient of Days in a fresco in the Church of the Transfiguration on Nereditsa dating to 1199 near Novgorod.

conceived as a monthly journal with an illustrated supplement of photographs, lithographs, and photolithographic prints of ten to fifteen sheets. The journal’s first issue appeared in the summer of 1862. In the following years, two sets of twelve issues each came out annually in compliance with the editor’s plans.109 But due to financial problems and the hostility of the Orthodox clergy who believed the journal “pandered to dissenters,” Prokhorov was obliged to cease publication. It resumed in 1871, when Prokhorov obtained a small grant from the Academy of Arts and enlisted “august” support for the journal. But only six issues came out in 1871. As a monthly, the journal failed. Later it was published in substantial volumes without indication of the issue number. One such volume appeared in 1872 and another in 1875. Notwithstanding these difficulties, Prokhorov launched another similar publication, Russian Antiquities. As its title implied, the journal was devoted to Russian works of art. It appeared in

109  All the books of the Khristianskie drevnosti i arkheologiia for 1862/63 and 1863/64 were published by Prokhorov twice. The covers of the first fascicle of the second issue bear the impression second edition.

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1871, 1872, and 1876, but just as irregularly as Christian Antiquities: six fascicles appeared in 1871 and only one in 1872 and 1876. The novelty of the artworks presented and the fresh and independent judgments made Prokhorov’s journal varied and entertaining. Quite often in one issue readers found short essays on Byzantine and Russian architecture, illuminations, individual iconographic subjects, the depiction of utensils and costume in frescoes and manuscripts, and ornamental patterns and fabrics. Articles and drawings were based on material kept at the Academy museum and in Prokhorov’s personal collection. But Vladimir Stasov reproached him for a certain lack of purpose, advising him instead to focus on the two or three most interesting themes that could be studied and illustrated better than others. It was under Stasov’s wise and perceptive guidance (and owing to his personal, leanings) that Prokhorov paid particular attention to the frescoes of Staraia Ladoga, the history of Russian architecture, and the Russian costume. Prokhorov’s articles on the frescoes in the Church of St. George at Staraia Ladoga, which appeared in 1862, 1865, and 1871,110 were not only the first scholarly descriptions of those works but the first studies ever devoted to a single landmark of medieval Russian painting. The articles provided a detailed history of the town and fortress where the Church of St. George is located. On the basis of the church’s extant paintwork, Prokhorov made a survey of its decorative system and described the iconography and style of the frescoes. Illustrations included plans and general views of the fortress and church, the cross-sections of the church with indications of uncovered frescoes, and a multitude of excellent color lithographs of the more notable figures and compositions. Taking into account that, on being uncovered, the murals of the Kievan St. Sophia were all newly repainted, Prokhorov rightly reckoned that the paintings in the St. George Church would attract special attention as one of the oldest (along with the one in Nereditsa) unspoiled landmarks of Russian monumental painting. Many of Prokhorov’s articles had an intrinsic scholarly value, yet he believed that the main task of his journals was to present material for future

110  V. P[rokhorov], “Stennaia ikonopis’ (freski) XII veka v tserkvi sv. Georgiia v Riurikovoi kreposti v Staroi Ladoge,” in KhDA (1862), book 2, pp. 1–3, table 1; V. P[rokhorov], “Stennaia zhivopis’ (freski) XII veka v Staroladozhskoi kreposti v tserkvi sv. Georgiia,” ibid. (1865), book 12, pp. 153–56, tables 1–10; V. P[rokhorov], “Stennaia ikonopis’ (freski) XII veka v tserkvi sv. Georgiia v Riurikovoi kreposti v Staroi Ladoge,” in KhDA (1871), books 1–4, 30 pages of text and 36 tables.

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Miracle of St. George and the Dragon in a fresco of 1167, Church of St. George, Staraia Ladoga.

research.111 Thus he called two of his long, systematic essays devoted to the costume and architecture of medieval Russia: Material for the Study of the History of Medieval Russian Costume (Materialy dlia istorii drevnikh russkikh odezhd)112 111  See, in particular, his remarks about this in the introduction to the Materialy dlia istorii russkikh odezhd, in RD (1871), book 1, p. 1. 112   Materialy dlia istorii drevnikh russkikh odezhd came out (under different titles) in 1864 in KhDA (book 1), in 1871 in RD (books 1–6), and in 1876 in KhD (book 1 being the only one issued). In 1881–83, they were re-published by V. A. Prokhorov (and, following his death, by his son, A. V. Prokhorov, who took over his father’s post as museum manager at the Academy of Arts) as three separate issues under the title Materialy po istorii russkikh odezhd i obstanovki zhizni narodnoi ([I] St. Petersburg, 1881, [II], St. Petersburg,

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and Explanatory Material for the Study of the History of Architecture in Russia (Poiasnitel’nye materialy pri issledovanii istorii arkhitektury v Rossii).113 The reader unfamiliar with these journals may naturally ask whether there is any relationship between the history of costume and architecture and the history of the discovery of medieval Russian painting. The relationship is essential, albeit indirect. In his description of costume and architecture of the eleventh to the fifteenth century, and sometimes for later periods. Prokhorov drew extensively on manuscript miniatures and representations in icons and frescoes. To this end, he reproduced scores of superb works of medieval Russian painting in drawings and color prints for the first time, supplying them with explanatory notes. Many reproductions were published in the journals. There was an illustration of Yaroslav the Wise’s family from the frescoes from the staircase towers of the Kievan St. Sophia. There were miniatures from the 1073 Miscellany and the Yur’ev Gospel Book. Also published were the frescoes of the St. Demetrius Cathedral as well as those of Nereditsa, Lipna, Theodore Stratilates, and Volotovo. Illustrated also were the miniatures of the Discourse of St. Hippolytus, the St. Pantaleimon Gospel, the Khludov Psalter, the Sylvester Miscellany, the Uglich Psalter, and the Radziwill Chronicle. Other reproductions included drawings from the Book of the Election of … Tsar and Grand Prince Mikhail Fedorovich; the icon of St. George with scenes from his life from the former Pogodin collection; several seventeenth-century icons and manuscripts from the museum of the Academy of Arts; and a great many other works, often very old and rare, from Kiev, Novgorod, Pskov, Vladimir, Moscow, and St. Petersburg. Prokhorov had also published material on works not directly related to his articles on costume and architecture. We thus find information in the journals on the ornaments and altar mosaics of the Kievan St. Sophia; the mosaics of the St. Michael Monastery of the Golden Roofs and the Church of Our Savior in Berestovo; the frescoes of Kideksha; the 1556 katapetasma veil donated by Ivan the Terrible to the Hilandar Monastery; drawings from the Book of Kings and the illuminated manual that once belonged to Count S. G. Stroganov; and the icon-portrait of St. Maximus the Greek. Also extensively reproduced 1883, and [III], St. Petersburg, 1883). The first of these issues was reviewed in detail by V. V. Stasov. See V. Stasov, “Zametki o drevnerusskoi odezhde i vooruzhenii. Po povodu izdaniia: Materialy po istorii russkikh odezhd i obstanovki zhizni narodnoi’, izdavaemye …  V. Prokhorovym, St. Petersburg, 1881,” in ZhMNP, (January, 1882), Otdel nauk, pp. 168–94 (reprinted in Sobranie sochinenii V. V. Stasova, vol. II, section 3, columns 571–96). 113   Poiasnitel’nye materialy pri issledovanii istorii arkhitektury v Rossii were published by Prokhorov (under different titles) in 1872 in KhDA and in 1875 and 1877 [1878] in KhD (each year was represented by only one issue of the journal).

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in the journals were works of Byzantine, Bulgarian, and Serbian art. In various issues Christian Antiquities also acquainted its readers with the mosaics of the Hagia Sophia of Constantinople and the churches of St. George and St. Sophia in Thessalonica; the miniatures of the Homilies of St. Gregory of Nazianzus; the Paris Psalter and the Vatican Menologion of Basil II; the frescoes and icons from Karyes, Protaton, and the Hilandar Monastery; the miniatures from the Vukan Gospel Book and the Gospel Book of Radoslav. In short, these publications were veritable encyclopedias of the art of the Orthodox East and medieval Russia. Prokhorov wrote most of the articles that appeared in Christian Antiquities. He also prepared the material, copies, drawings, cover designs, and programs. He also established a photographic and lithographic studio in his house in order to produce illustrations for the journals. He even sought to restore frescoes to make them look accurate enough, unspoiled by the ravages of time and numerous renovations.114 During the years that the journals were being published, Prokhorov benefited from the advice of friends and colleagues like Stasov, and he invited other scholars to contribute to his publications.115 Most prominent was the contribution made by Academician Izmail Sreznevskii, who published eight extensive articles about works of Byzantine, Russian, and Old Slavonic literature and epigraphy. Because he always used medieval manuscripts in his work, Sreznevskii could not help taking an interest in their illumination. He was attracted by some other works of medieval Russian art as well, especially those with unusually interesting inscriptions. For this reason, his scholarly legacy includes quite a few articles which might be of equal interest to the language historian, palaeographer, and art historian.116 One of Prokhorov’s publications featured his article on representations of Sts. Boris and Gleb.117 In his research, Sreznevskii relied on palaeographic and linguistic 114  In the Church of St. George at Staraia Ladoga, Prokhorov cleaned the dome frescoes of the “earthen” mold; at Nereditsa, he removed partial overpaint from the image of Prince Yaroslav Vsevolodovich. See KhDA (1871), book 1, p. 11, and RD (1871), book 4, pp. 35–36, table 1 (see the same in Materialy po istorii russkikh odezhd i obstanovki zhizni narodnoi, izdavaemye … V. A. Prokhorovym, [I], p. 78, unnumbered table. 115  A socializer, who tried to get to the root of things in all his endeavors, V. V. Stasov supported Prokhorov and his editions not only by word of mouth but also in various periodicals, such as the Sankt-Petersburgskie Vedomosti newspaper. See V. V. Stasov, Sobranie sochinenii, vol. II, section 3, columns 267–70 (a review of the fourth book of the Russkie drevnosti for 1871). 116  See the list of Sreznevskii’s published works prepared by A. F. Bychkov with no indication of the compiler’s name in Bibliograficheskii spisok sochinenii i izdanii … I. I. Sreznevskogo (St. Petersburg, 1879). 117  I. I. Sreznevskii, “Drevnie izobrazheniia sv. kniazei Borisa i Gleba,” in KhDA (1863), book 9, pp. 1–80, tables 1–9.

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evidence, and his conclusions occasionally ran counter to Prokhorov’s interpretations of the same works, which attached much importance to archaeological evidence and style of painting. Thus, when discussing Sreznevskii’s proposed dating of a Greek illuminated manuscript, Prokhorov rejected it but expressed a remarkable idea about the benefit that one could derive from a concord of different scholarly disciplines. If the archaeologists studying manuscripts paid the same heed and applied the same erudition to [the manuscripts’] artistic merits as they do to deciphering [the scribal] hands, evidence determining the manuscripts’ date and provenance would emerge incomparably more clearly and precisely than in the course of merely sorting out the hands [writing]. Some even regard the drawings attached to a manuscript only as an embellishment, without giving to them the archaeological attention they deserve.… Unless archaeologists grow to be artists and those, in turn, to be archaeologists, our archaeological studies of manuscripts and art will proceed slowly and onesidedly. Each party should help the other so that we could use our investigations and observations for working out such evidence and data on the basis of which we could positively assign the antiquities concerned to one century or another.118 Despite the novelty of Prokhorov’s publications, their comparatively low price (one ruble per issue), and their extremely interesting illustrative material, much of which was executed in the medium of color lithography and (rare for the 1860s), photolithography, these journals received scant or belated approval from scholars, the clergy, students, and antiquarians. The ubiquitous Pogodin, who was eager to write about any trifle connected with medieval art, discovered the Christian Antiquities and Archaeology in the second year of its existence and then only by chance. After acquainting himself with the journal, he stated in a newspaper: “Quite by accident I came across the ninth issue of Christian Antiquities and Archaeology in St. Petersburg. I could hardly believe my eyes: this is an excellent, marvelous, and perfectly European edition. What artistry of drawings, significance of content, rarity of originals chosen! I immediately set out to look for the publisher, whom I found [living] in the garret of a house owned by the tailor Krutz on the seventh line of Bolshoi Prospekt near the Church of St. Andrew. The rooms were all heaped with antiquities, whose sight was familiar and dear to me: icons, crosses, church items, drawings, rolls, 118  [V. A. Prokhorov], “Vzgliad na khudozhestvennuiu storonu rukopisi Grigoriia Nazianzina i znachenie khudozhestvenno-arkheologicheskogo razbora pri izuchenii podobnykh rukopisei,” in KhDA (1862), book 3, pp. 5–6.

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bits of vellum. ‘May I have a look at your periodical,’ I said, and Mr. Prokhorov lugged over to me the issues already published. I was really dazzled.”119 Pogodin was not the only one who was dazzled. Other critics, particularly Buslaev,120 wrote favorable reviews of the journal, and the 1866 miscellany of the Moscow Society of Medieval Russian Art featured an extensive editorial devoted to Christian Antiquities and Archaeology.121 Here, too, the journal was rated as one of the best in Europe owing to the variety and importance of the artworks discussed and, especially, the quality of illustrations. “The publisher, who has more of an artist than a scholar and researcher in him,” reads the review, “spared neither effort nor means to make his photographs of masterpieces of Christian art faithfully reproduce the originals, and look consummate and refined.” The reviewer also expressed his conviction that the journal would “become a handbook for every Russian who is aware of his national heritage, and holds it dear.” Other voices, however, broke the harmony of this panegyric chorus. In his note, Pogodin rather rashly recommended the journal to theological academies, seminaries, colleges, and the clergy in general, as well as to Old Believers. On examining the journal, Orthodox clergy discovered with dismay that Prokhorov tended to select and publish such antiquities that, in their view, supported Old Believers’ theses on the primary origin of two-fingered crossing and the spelling Isus in place of Iisus. The controversy assumed the air of a religious debate. One of Prokhorov’s opponents, while commenting favorably for the sake of appearances on the journal’s illustrations, did not hesitate to stigmatize the edition as a “cesspool of all kinds of intellectual filth engendered by the Netovshchina and Feodosian persuasions.” As Stasov, who devoted a special section to this ugly episode in his article on Prokhorov,122 aptly remarked, the Orthodox clergy had contrived to put “their fly in the ointment.” The knowledge yielded by Prokhorov’s zeal for Christian and Russian antiquities was so extensive that he wished to share it not only with the readers of the journals but with the young students of the Academy of Arts as well. 119  M. Pogodin, “Neskol’ko dnei v Peterburge. G. Prokhorov i ego izdanie,” in Moskovskie vedomosti (1863), no. 168, 2 August, p. 3. 120   F. Buslaev, “Novosti russkoi literatury po tserkovnomu iskusstvu i arkheologii” in Sovremennaia letopis’ (1863), no. 9, pp. 12–13 (the same in Sochineniia F. I. Buslaeva, vol. III, pp. 148–50). 121  The Editors “Khristianskie drevnosti i arkheologiia,” Sbornik na 1866 god, izdannyi Obshchestvom drevnerusskogo iskusstva pri Moskovskom Publichnom muzee, otdel Kritika i bibliografiia, pp. 35–42. 122  V. V. Stasov, “Vasilii Aleksandrovich Prokhorov,” pp. 341–50.

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With this in mind, in 1872, he submitted a program of lectures on the history of Russian medieval art for the consideration of the Academy Board. He noted that all the lectures could be illustrated by authentic works and copies available in the museum of the Academy. The lectures were intended to cover specimens of church art, history, and costume, the knowledge of which was particularly useful for young artists when painting themes from Russian history or folk life. The program also included the chronological survey of mosaics, frescoes, icons, embroidery, and miniatures; their provenance, preservation, subject matter, and style; illuminations from manuscripts, the symbolic presentation of imagery, the history of art schools, and the relationships between art and other forms of social activity.123 Substantiating the need for such a course, Prokhorov expressed his conviction that art and good taste were inherent properties of the ancient Russian’s existence, exerting a strong impact on the life of our ancestors. We have arrived at a time when Russian scholars have begun a concerted study and exploration of national antiquities, which have long been neglected. Thanks to their effort, the old traditions come to life again; many vital issues are being raised whose resolution will have far-reaching consequences: on the one hand, it will enhance Russia’s progress and, on the other, will impart to it a distinct orientation of its own. Among such vital issues is the question of the development of Russian art. There was a time when, influenced by foreign styles Russians regarded their progenitors as totally inartistic; ancient Russians were denied any pursuit of the refined; no one would concede them as little as a grain of aesthetic taste. This view is utterly unacceptable nowadays: the investigation of old monuments that has started shows ancient Russians in a completely different light. Indeed, it is inconceivable that so great a nation as the Russians, having a history not at all inferior to that of other nations, should have existed in a sort of moral stupor for a hundred, let alone a thousand, years. A penchant for the refined led them to create a state of their own and establish a foundation for their way of life. It enabled them to engage in trade and industry, to draft laws, set up libraries, decorate churches, to enliven clothing by variety, and, in general, to create a social system based on the feeling for the refined, for truth, and a desire a wish for order, harmony, and beauty.… It was not without reason that our forefathers coined and used such words as beauty, splendor, grace, elegance, art, and craft; we 123   Sbornik postanovlenii Soveta imp. Akademii khudozhestv po khudozhestvennoi i uchebnoi chasti s 1859 po 1890 god, pp. 132–38.

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use the same words nowadays, which means that we have inherited them and that our inborn sense of the refined has come down to us from our progenitors together with their words.124 The Board of the Academy of Arts approved Prokhorov’s proposal and voiced the opinion that such a course of lectures might one day turn into a new system of knowledge. It authorized Prokhorov to present the lectures as an extra­curricular subject, with attendance permitted to Academy students and outsiders alike.125 The lectures started in September 1873, were updated later, and from 1876 became a compulsory subject of the Academy’s curriculum.126 This was, in fact, the first systematic course of lectures on medieval Russian art in the history of all the academic institutions of Russia.127

124  Ibid., pp. 137–38. 125   Otchet imp. Akademii khudozhestv s 4-go noiabria 1871 po 4-e noiabria 1872 g. (St. Petersburg, 1873), p. 7; Sbornik postanovlenii Soveta imp. Akademii khudozhestv po khudozhestvennoi i uchebnoi chasti s 1859 po 1890 god, pp. 142–43. 126   Sbornik postanovlenii Soveta imp. Akademii khudozhestv po khudozhestvennoi i uchebnoi chasti s 1859 po 1890 god, pp. 167–69. 127  It should be noted, however, that, while being eager to read lectures and having at his disposal fairly good illustrative materials for the purpose, V. A. Prokhorov was incapable of delivering them in a clear, concise, and easy-to-grasp fashion. He continually digressed to side topics so that the issue at hand was inundated in a mass of other disordered evidence. Nor did Prokhorov possess the gift of oratory required of the regular lecturers. See N. Ogloblin, “Iz vospominanii slushatelia Arkheologicheskogo instituta 1-go vypuska (1878–1880 gg.),” in VAI, XV (1903), pp. 378, 386–87, 388, 398, 405–406, 409–10, and 425.

CHAPTER 6

Learned Societies The flourishing of learned societies in the second half of the nineteenth century. Russian Archaeological Society. Archimandrite Makarii (Macarius) and his church-archaeological descriptions. Once more on the Russian Archaeological Society. A. V. Prakhov. His scholarly and artistic discoveries in Kiev, Vladimir-Volynskii, and Chernigov. A. V. Prakhov’s work as a copyist. The Moscow Archaeological Society. Count A. S. Uvarov’s views on medieval Russian art. Once more on the Moscow Archaeological Society. The discovery of frescoes on the altar-screen of the Dormition Cathedral in the Moscow Kremlin. The discovery of murals in the Dormition Cathedral in Vladimir. The restoration of frescoes in the Annunciation Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin. The renovation of sixteenth-century murals in the Dormition Cathedral of the Sviiazhskii Monastery. The restoration of the iconostasis in the Cathedral of Our Lady of Smolensk at the Novodevichii Convent in Moscow. The Archaeological Commitee and the Academy of Arts. The architect V. V. Suslov and his restorations in Pereslavl-Zalesskii, Pskov, and Novgorod. Copying of frescoes in Staraia Ladoga, Mirozh, and the St. Sophia Cathedral in Novgorod. The Society of Lovers of Ancient Literature and Art. During the second half of the nineteenth century, there was an unprecedented flourishing of learned societies in Russia. Alongside a few old ones such as the Society of Russian History and Antiquities at Moscow University founded in 1804, new societies sprang up in the provincial centers and university towns that were rich in antiquities. There were historical, philological, and other specialized associations, but societies that explored the past archaeologically were prevalent.1 The new social consciousness of the post-reform era led to the organization of these cultural associations. The incipient crisis of tsarist autocracy forced the state to institute some social reforms as well as to make 1  Historiography on Russian learned societies is not extensive. The only general survey of primary interest for the subject was prepared by the Moscow Institute of History and Archival Research: A. D. Stepanskii, “K istorii nauchno-istoricheskikh obshchestv v dorevoliutsionnoi Rossii,” in Arkheograficheskii ezhegodnik za 1974 god (Moscow, 1975), pp. 38–55. For earlier publications, see “Arkheologicheskie obshchestva v Rossii,” in Entsiklopedicheskii slovar’ F. A. Brokgauza i I. A. Efrona, vol. 3 (St. Petersburg, 1890), pp. 230–43.

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concessions in the sphere of general education, allowing non-state institutions to take an active part in public life. The majority of learned societies in prerevolutionary Russia subsisted on the fees and voluntary donations of members and other interested individuals. These were truly public (but not state) institutions and they played an important role in the education of the people in their own history.2 Prior to the 1910s no learned societies in Russia except the Society of Medieval Russian Art attached to the Moscow Public Museum were devoted solely to the relics of the past. Even the founding of the Society of Medieval Russian Art was to a large degree premature: in 1877 it merged with the Society of Russian History and Antiquities because archaeologists and art historians did not yet realize the uniqueness of the material they were investigating: medieval Russian art was still regarded as a branch of archaeology.3 Study of medieval Russian painting was thus concentrated in archaeological societies. In St. Petersburg, the Russian Archaeological Society, patronized by the imperial court, played the leading role.4 Founded in 1846 on the initiative of B. V. Koene, the Society’s purpose was to study classical antiquities, medieval archaeology, and numismatics. Numismatists from Germany and France at first dominated the Society, but with the passage of time Russian members with a patriotic bent rid themselves of foreign influence. Archaeological research eventually became more important than the narrow specific concerns of numismatics. Later the Society’s scholars divided into separate groups according to specialization, and in 1851 the Society officially organized into three separate departments: Russian and Slavonic archaeology, oriental archaeology, and western archaeology. The most numerous and active members were those of the department of Russian and Slavonic archaeology.5 In the early 1850s, the moving spirit of the department was I. P. Sakharov, who wanted to develop an extensive program for the study of Russian antiquities. He drew up long-term plans and suggested new themes that had not 2  The statutes of the overwhelming majority of pre-revolutionary historical and archaeological societies contained a special provision on the dissemination of scholarly knowledge in Russia and all of them, with the exception of church institutions, were monitored by the Ministry of Public Education. 3  ChOIDR (1878), book I, supplements. pp. IX–X (the text of the Society’s official letter sent to D. N. Tolstoi, Chairman of the Society of Russian History and Antiquities, with the request for a merger, reflecting their desire not to split up the academic body of Moscow scholars). 4  For a fundamental study on it, see N. I. Veselovskii, Istoriia imp. Russkogo arkheologicheskogo obshchestva za pervoe piatidesiatiletie ego sushchestvovaniia. 1846–1896 (St. Petersburg, 1900). 5  N. I. Veselovskii’s book contains a special section devoted to the Department of Russian and Slavonic Archaeology (pp. 265–90).

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yet been discussed. In his view, the main objective of the department was to excavate all Russian archaeological relics and publish a full list of finds, indicating their locations according to province and district. At the first meeting of the department in March 1851, he read his Report for the Survey of Russian Antiquities and spoke about the necessity of involving provincial scholars and antiquarians in the society’s work. Sakharov’s report was immediately published in Papers of the Department of Russian and Slavonic Archaeology6 and later issued as a separate edition of 20,000 copies.7 No other archaeological publication of the nineteenth century had such a large print-run. Conceiving such an extensive program for the description of Russian antiquities, Sakharov conceived a time-frame within which to characterize the objects or buildings of past epochs. Naturally, he viewed the period of Peter’s reforms as a chronological watershed, and he tentatively proposed 1700 as the end-date for a future reference book. He also suggested 1700 as the end-date for his study of icon painting. Explication of icons, descriptions of iconostases and dilapidated icons no longer in use, views of towns and monasteries depicted on icons, drawings with images of saints, and information about individual painters were among his planned subjects of research and publication. When describing icons Sakharov urged scholars to distinguish different styles of icon painting. Sakharov’s report also included sections on embroidered church vestments and illuminated manuscripts. The research was to be channeled into a coherent system that would make possible an intelligible history of Russian icon painting. The majority of Sakharov’s projects never came to fruition, and his Report for the Survey of Russian Antiquities was no exception. The realization of this project would have required the participation of many trained specialists, but Sakharov mistakenly believed that abbots of monasteries, urban and rural priests, teachers in theological seminaries, gymnasia, and district schools and landowners on whose estates church relics might be uncovered would be able to supply the necessary information. Sakharov’s project failed to kindle scholarly enthusiasm, and the material sent to the Society by correspondents did not match the scope of Sakharov’s plan. The number of permanent correspondents involved in the project was not large, and their reports amounted to descriptions of one or two (or occasionally a small group) of artifacts. These 6  [I. P. Sakharov], “Zapiska dlia obozreniia russkikh drevnostei, St. Petersburg, 1851,” in supplement to Zapiski Otdeleniia russkoi i slavianskoi arkheologii imp. Arkheologicheskogo obshchestva, vol. I (St. Petersburg, 1851); see also “Predpolozheniia chlenov ob arkheologicheskoi programme,” Ibid., section IV, pp. 26–37. 7  “Perechen’ zasedanii Otdeleniia russkoi i slavianskoi arkheologii za 1851 god,” Ibid., supplement, p. 24.

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reports, published during the 1850s and 1860s in the Papers8 and Proceedings9 of the Society and in the Papers of its department of Russian and Slavonic archaeology, did not provide enough material for an atlas of antiquities or a history of Russian icon painting. 8  I. P. Borichevskii, “Ob’iasnenie nadpisi na ikone v Smolenske,” in Zapiski Sanktpeterburgskogo arkheologichesko-numizmaticheskogo obshchestva, II (St. Petersburg, 1850), pp. 428–30 (an icon of 1560 from Smolensk); Ieromonakh Makarii, “Svedeniia ob ikone X veka v nizhegorodskom Blagoveshchenskom monastere,” in Zapiski imp. Arkheologicheskogo obshchestva, sluzhashchie prodolzheniem Zapisok Sanktpeterburgskogo arkheologichesko-numizmaticheskogo obshchestva, III (St. Petersburg, 1851), section “Perechen’ zasedanii … za 1850 god,” pp. 73–75; P. Savvaitov, “Tri russkie nadpisi v Vologde i Solvychegodske,” Ibid., pp. 93–96; S. Kryzhanovskii, “Kievskie mozaiki,” Ibid., VIII (St. Petersburg, 1856), pp. 235–70; Ignatii (Ignatius), arkhiepiskop Voronezhskii, “Ob ikone sv. Sofii v novgorodskom Sofiiskom sobore. S predisloviem i primechaniem arkhim. Makariia,” Ibid., XI (St. Petersburg, 1865), pp. 244–69. 9  K. N. Tikhonravov, “Shitaia pelena XV veka v suzdal’skom Rozhdestvenskom sobore,” in Izvestiia [R]AO, vol. I, issue 4 (1858), columns 212–14; Makarii, arkhimandrit, “Ikona sviatitelia Nikolaia Chudotvortsa v novgorodskom Nikolaevskom Dvorishchenskom sobore,” Ibid., vol. I, issue 6 (1859), columns 342–50; Makarii, arkhimandrit, “O vozobnovlenii ikony Znameniia Bozhiei Materi v novgorodskom Znamenskom monastyre v 1640 g.,” Ibid., columns 350, 351; N. A. Abramov, “Starinnye ikony v Tobolskoi eparkhii,” Ibid., columns 352–57; N. M. Sementovskii, “Plashchanitsa XVI veka v Pereiaslavle,” Ibid., vol. II, issue 1 (1859), columns 57–58; S. P. Kryzhanovskii, “O drevnem vozdukhe (pokrove), khraniashchemsia v riazanskoi Krestovoi tserkvi,” Ibid., vol. II, issues 5 and 6 (1860), columns 297–315; S. A. Serebrennikov, “Dva vyshitye obraza sv. blagovernykh kniazei Vasiliia i Konstantina, iaroslavskikh chudotvortsev, nakhodiashchiesia v iaroslavskom Uspenskom sobore,” Ibid., columns 334, 335; V. V. Stasov, “Shitaia pelena s izobrazheniem sv. Aleksandra Nevskogo,” Ibid., vol. IV, issue 1 (1863), columns 74–76, table (the shroud of 1613 from the Monastery of the Nativity in Vladimir); I. I. Sreznevskii, “Napis’ v Nereditskoi tserkvi bliz Novgoroda,” Ibid., issue 3 (1863), columns 20–205; I. I. Sreznevskii, “Rodoslovnoe derevo russkikh kniazei i tsarits. Risunok 1676–1682 g.,” Ibid., issue 4 (1863), columns 308–10, table; V. V. Stasov, “Zamechaniia o miniatiurakh Ostromirova Evangeliia,” Ibid., columns 324–34; N. A. Abramov, “Starinnye ikony v Tobolskoi eparkhii,” Ibid., issue 5 (1863), columns 416–24; V. V. Stasov, “Zametki o drevnei russkoi katapetasme,” Ibid., issue 6 (1863), columns 534–41, table (the veil of 1556 sent by Ivan the Terrible to Chiliandarion Monastery on Mount Athos); I. K. Kupriianov, “Spiski ikonopisnykh podlinnikov novgorodskoi Sofiiskoi biblioteki,” Ibid., vol. V, issue 2 (1863,) columns 85–92; P. P. Pekarskii, “Materialy dlia istorii ikonopisaniia v Rossii,” Ibid., issue 5 (1864), columns 317–35; K. Nevostruev, “Plashchanitsa, prilozhennaia v Iosifov Volokolamskii monastyr’ udel’nym kniazem Vladimirom Andreevichem i materiiu ego Evfrosinieiu v 1558 godu,” Ibid., vol. VI, issues 1 and 2 (1867), columns 41–61, table; P. G. Lebedintsev, “O vremeni napisaniia freskov Kievo-Sofiiskogo kafedral’nogo sobora,” Ibid., vol. VIII, issue 1 (1877), columns 67–71; P. A. Putiatin, F. Bratskii, “Vzgliad na novgorodskie drevnosti,” Ibid., issue 5 (1877), columns 516–21; A. N. Vinogradov, “Sravnitel’noe opisanie i kratkoe ob’iasnenie ikony prisnodevy Bogoroditsy Neopalimyia Kupiny,” Ibid., vol. IX, issue 1 (1877), columns 1–70, tables II–VI.

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Though Sakharov’s plans proved too ambitious, significant information about Russian antiquities began to be steadily accumulated in the mid-nineteenth century. It is impossible to list all the books, pamphlets, short newspaper and magazine articles, and reports of that period devoted to works of Russian medieval painting. Descriptions of monasteries and churches appeared in large numbers every year. Sections on icons, embroidery, illuminated manuscripts, and murals covered dozens of pages.10 The archives of churches and monasteries provided abundant material for historical publications, and industrious compilers published extensive extracts from sixteenth- and seventeenth-century documents in which countless artworks housed in churches, vestries, libraries, and other church repositories were described in ornate oldfashioned language.11 Archimandrite Makarii (1817–94) assisted decisively in implementing the program of the Russian Archaeological Society for the study of antiquities.12 10  Unfortunately, there is no summary index of such publications, although a need for it is felt by all the researchers who are, one way or another, involved in the study of old Russian artistic culture. The fullest articles’ indices are those printed in church editions as well as those compiled in past periods to cover one particular province or another (for example, Vologda, Riazan, Vladimir). See Iu. I. Masanov, N. V. Nitkina, Z. D. Titova, Ukazatel’ soderzhaniia russkikh zhurnalov i prodolzhaiushchikhsia izdanii. 1755–1970 (Moscow, 1975); Spravochniki po istorii dorevoliutsionnoi Rossii. Bibliograficheskii ukazatel’, 2nd edition, enlarged (Moscow, 1978). 11  As an example of this kind of publication, suffice it to point out several inventories from the RAO periodicals: “Opis’ novgorodskogo Spaso-Khutynskogo monastyria 1642 goda, Izdal arkhim. Makarii,” in Z[R]AO, IX (1857), pp. 406–557; P. I. Savvaitov, “Tserkvi i riznitsa Kirillo-Belozerskogo monastyria. Po opisnym knigam 1668 g.,” in ZORSA, II (1861), pp. 126–343; I. K. Kupriianov, “Otryvki iz opisi novgorodskogo Sofiiskogo sobora pervoi poloviny XVII veka,” in Izvestiia [R]AO, vol. III (1861), columns 366–86; “Vypiska iz opisi imushchestvu Voskresenskogo Novoierusalimskogo monastyria 1680 g. Sostavlennaia arkhim. Amfilokhiem (Amphilochius),” Ibid., vol. IV, issue 1 (1863), columns 25–60; I. K. Kupriianov, “Opis’ monastyria Nikolaia Chudotvortsa na Liatke, bliz Riurikova gorodishcha, pod Novgorodom,” Ibid., issue 5 (1863), columns 424–42; N. I. Suvorov, “Opis’ Sviiazhskogo Bogoroditskogo muzheskogo monastyria, sostavlennaia v 1614 godu,” Ibid., issue 6 (1863), columns 548–89; P. S. Voronov, “Tri opisi tserkvei Vel’skogo uezda XVII stoletiia i riadnaia zapis’ na ikonopisnue raboty 1715 goda,” Ibid., vol. V, issue 2 (1863), columns 128–36; N. I. Suvorov, “Opis’ Pavloobnorskogo monastyria Vologodskoi eparkhii 1683 goda,” Ibid., issue 3 (1864), columns 162–90 and 260–308. 12   For information on him, see Piatidesiatiletie tserkovno-obshchestvennoi i nauchnoliteraturnoi deiatel’nosti vysokopreosviashchenneishego Makariia, arkhiepiskopa Donskogo i Novocherkasskogo. Iubileinoe izdanie (Novocherkassk, 1893) (on pp. 4–92 Biograficheskie svedeniia …); A. F. Selivanov, “Makarii (Miroliubov), arkhiepiskop Donskoi i Novocherkasskii,” in Trudy RiazUAK, vol., VII (1893), pp. 85–87; St. Iakhontov, “Makarii,

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Figure 6.1 Makarii (Macarius) (Nikolai Kirillovich Miroliubov. 1817–94), archimandrite of Antoniev Monastery in Novgorod, author of An Archaeological Description of Church Antiquities in Novgorod and Its Environs, two vols. (1860). Photograph, 1867.

Like many other ecclesiastics, he was born into the family of a village priest. He received the customary education first in a seminary, then in a theological academy, and after graduation embarked upon a long and eventful career. At various periods he was a teacher, inspector, and rector of seminaries in Nizhnii Novgorod, Perm’, Riazan and Novgorod; a bishop in Orel, Archangel, Nizhnii Novgorod, and Viatka; and finally he became the archbishop of the arkhiepiskop Donskoi i Novocherkasskii. (Materialy dlia ego biografii),” Ibid., vol. XIX, issue 3 (1905), pp. 173–78, with the supplement: P. Miroliubov, “Vospominanie o letakh detstva i otrochestva moego umershego rodnogo brata, arkhiepisk. Makariia, sluzhivshego vo mnogikh eparkhiiakh, a pri sem neskol’ko i o sebe samom,” pp. 179–85. S. D. Iakhontov’s article on pp. 175–77 contains a concise (and unfortunately not very accurate) list of Archim. Macarius’s most important archaeological, historical, and church-archaeological works.

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Don and Novocherkassk. Makarii became interested in the study of antiquities in the late 1840s in Nizhnii Novgorod, where he struck up a friendship with two other outstanding figures of Russian culture, the future writer, P. I. Mel’nikovPecherskii and V. I. Dahl, a folklore scholar and the compiler of the Explanatory Dictionary of the Living Great Russian Language. The mid-nineteenth century was a golden age for researchers. Church objects were not yet bought and sold on such a scale as they would be in the 1870s and 1880s. Even if they were no longer used for worship, liturgical antiquities remained more or less intact and available for examination, study, and description. An influential churchman such as Archimandrite Makarii naturally enjoyed especial access. During his service in Nizhnii Novgorod he wrote articles that were published in local and metropolitan periodicals. In 1857, on the initiative of the Russian Archaeological Society, Makarii revised and supplemented his articles, which were published for the second time in a separate volume as a reference book on the church antiquities of Nizhnii Novgorod and its diocese.13 Makarii’s articles brought him wide fame. He associated with such scholars as I. P. Sakharov, M. P. Pogodin, P. I. Savvaitov, and I. I. Sreznevskii, and was elected full or corresponding member of all the learned societies in St. Petersburg and Moscow. They readily entrusted him with all urgent and important research projects and scholarly descriptions because it was well known that his thoroughness could be depended upon. Eventually, the highest church authorities noticed Makarii. In 1853, by the personal order of Metropolitan Filaret (Philaret), he was appointed member of a synodal committee set up for the purpose of taking an inventory of church antiquities preserved in monasteries and churches. For this reason he was sent to Vologda, Yaroslavl, Kostroma, Vladimir, and Novgorod. The Novgorod antiquities fascinated Makarii so much that in a short time he prepared an extensive description of all the churches and monasteries in and around Novgorod and virtually all the objects of artistic and historical value housed there. This work, Archaeological Description of Church Antiquities in Novgorod and Its Environs, was published in two volumes in 1860.14 The first 13  Arkhim. Makarii, Pamiatniki tserkovnykh drevnostei. Nizhegorodskaia guberniia (St. Peters­ burg, 1857) (457 pages with plates and indices). Under a slightly changed name (Pamiatniki tserkovnykh drevnostei v Nizhegorodskoi gubernii), this book also constitutes the tenth volume of ZRAO. 14  Arkhim. Makarii, Arkheologicheskoe opisanie tserkovnykh drevnostei v Novgorode i ego okrestnostiakh, I–II (Moscow, 1860) (over a thousand pages with excellent indices in the second volume). The appearance of Macarius’s book is usually ascribed to mere chance,

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v­ olume contained descriptions of sixty-four churches and monasteries; the second volume surveyed such artifacts as various icons, metal and carved crosses, embroidery, vestments, and church plate. Makarii’s book on Novgorod still retains its importance as a source of information and as a scholarly work.15 It is especially valuable as a basic handbook for the study of the artifacts of Novgorod because since its publication many churches and monasteries have been destroyed and their art objects either transferred to museums or lost. During Makarii’s life time these objects still filled the local churches for which they were originally intended. In his book we encounter the first evidence on such relics as the frescoes of the Cathedral of St. Sophia, the Cathedral of St. Nicholas at [Yaroslav’s] Court, the Church of St. Nicholas of Lipna, the Church [of Our Savior] on Nereditsa Hill, the Church of the Transfiguration and St. Theodore Stratilates, the Volotovo and Kovalevo churches, the Church of the Nativity-inthe-Graveyard, and the Cathedral of the Virgin of the Sign (Znamenskii). He also provides a short but lucid account of all the most significant Novgorodian artifacts, including the oldest icons of the St. Sophia Cathedral (the Virgin of the Sign, St. Nicholas of Lipna, the Praying Novgorodians);16 the epitaphs of 1449 and 1452 from the Yur’ev Monastery and the vestry of St. Sophia. He supplies much information from archival sources, especially the church registers of the sixteenth and seventeenth century which enabled him to reconstruct a general picture of the past. “Reviewing old Novgorodian artifacts,” explained Makarii, that is, his wish to write commentaries on a series of copies and drawings of Novgorod antiquities made in 1855 by the painter and archaeologist Iu. P. Lvov. But Lvov’s 200 drawings could hardly satisfy Macarius, as his intention surely was to cover the monuments of Novgorod as a whole. It is also possible that to lithograph the drawings was considered too long and expensive an affair while the external circumstances—the coming celebration of the millennium of Russia—demanded that the book be published as early as 1860. Whatever the case, Lvov’s drawings, executed with the help of photographs and extremely accurate for that time, were not published. For more details on Iu. P. Lvov, see P. Gusev, “Novgorodskii detinets po izobrazheniiu na ikone Mikhailovskoi tserkvi,” in VAI, XXII (1914), pp. 47–48. 15  One should, however, bear in mind the imperfections of the book noticed in his time by V. V. Stasov. See V. V. Stasov, “Razbor sochineniia arkhim. Makariia Arkheologicheskoe opisanie tserkovnykh drevnostei v Novgorode i ego okrestnostiakh,” in Tridtsatoe prisuzhdenie uchrezhdennykh P. N. Demidovym nagrad 16 iunia 1861 goda (St. Petersburg, 1861), pp. 85–129. Reprinted in V. V. Stasov, Sobr[anie] soch[inenii], vol. II (St. Petersburg, 1894), section 3, pp. 75–104. 16  For information on them, see also a special description of this cathedral prepared by another author: P. I. Solov’ev, “Novgorodskii Sofiiskii sobor,” in ZRAO, vol. XI (St. Petersburg, 1865), pp. 1–225.

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Figure 6.2 An Archaeological Description of Church Antiquities in Novgorod and Its Environs, vol. 1, Moscow, 1860.

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“we sought to indicate both the extant works and those that were once the pride of Novgorod as evidenced by chronicles and other documents, so that a general conclusion could be made about their appearance in the past.” It was this approach that enabled Makarii to create a book of such fundamental importance. No other church-archaeological description of the nineteenth century is so complete and balanced in general concept and detail as the Archaeological Description of Church Antiquities in Novgorod and Its Environs.”17 From 1860 to 1866 at St. Antony Monastery in Novgorod Makarii was rector of the seminary, teacher, and abbot. It was during this period that he prepared several other works about Novgorod, one of them being a guidebook to Novgorod, which ran into two editions.18 Later, too, he used every opportunity to study the antiquities of one region or another, but with the course of time, as his eyesight and energy began to fail, he gave up active scholarly research. Moreover, the Synod, which thought little of his true calling, transferred him from one office to another until at last he found himself in the diocese of the Don, an area quite poor in historical relics. Members of the Russian Archaeological Society repeatedly raised the question of the preservation of antiquities. Such concerns were expressed by P. S. Savel’ev in 1859 and again by V. V. Stasov in 1862, but it was not until ten years later that the Society drew up a comprehensive project outlining measures for the protection of artifacts. The Ministry of Education submitted the project for the consideration of the Synod, the Academy of Sciences, and the Academy of Arts. In 1876, the final proposal called for a government committee for the preservation of historical monuments, a large staff of officials, and division of Russia into seventeen archaeological districts headed by local executive and 17  See, for example, I. I. Vasilev’s work on Pskov, also published by the RAO and clearly imitating Macarius’s book: I. I. Vasilev, Arkheologicheskii ukazatel’ g. Pskova i ego okrestnostei (St. Petersburg, 1898) (=ZRAO, vol. X, issues 1–2. Trudy Otdeleniia slavianskoi i russkoi arkheologii, book 3 (St. Petersburg, 1898), pp. 211–309). 18  Macarius was fortunate enough to be in Novgorod when the city celebrated its millennium and the first edition of his guide was timed to that date (Makarii, arkhim., Putevoditel’ po Novgorodu s ukazaniem na ego tserkovnye drevnosti i sviatyni [St. Petersburg, 1862]. M. V. Tolstoi’s Sviatyni i drevnosti Velikogo Novgoroda (Moscow, 1862) also appeared at that time. Other works by Makarii on Novgorodian monuments, directly connected with the study of local painting, are mentioned on p. 306; see also “Obozrenie drevnikh rukopisei i knig tserkovnykh v Novgorode i ego okrestnostiakh,” in ChOIDR (1861), book 2, pp. 1–40 (on pp. 2–6 there is a detailed description of the late twelfth- or early thirteenth-century illuminated Toshinich Gospel which is preserved in the State Public Library [now the National Library of Russia, St. Petersburg] Sof. I).

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inspecting bodies.19 The government rejected the project. The only positive result was the Synod’s decision to require the heads of the dioceses not to begin repairs or reconstruction of antiquities without the prior consent of the nearest archaeological or historical society.20 Lack of money undermined another remarkable proposal made by A. V. Prakhov, an active member of the Russian Archaeological Society. His idea was to send a well-equipped expedition to mainland Greece to study medieval architecture and painting. Prakhov’s plan envisaged the copying of mosaics and frescoes in the monasteries at Daphni and Hosios Lukas as well as at Mistra, Meteora, and on Salamis.21 Although all the Russian Archaeological Society’s St. Petersburg undertakings fell short of their goals, it would be wrong to evaluate the Society’s work solely on that basis. In every possible way it promoted projects that appeared reasonable and well-grounded and that received financial aid from the government. It should also be noted that, despite constant efforts at communication and cooperation, members seldom managed to put a collective idea into practice. Accomplishments were the fruits of individual efforts. For this reason the Russian Archaeological Society readily supported the personal ventures of its members and, particularly, such ventures that coincided with the goals of archaeological scholarship in general. The Society attached much importance to the publication of information about churches and monasteries, and sponsored a great number of such descriptions. Research works on medieval Russian painting also appeared regularly in the Papers and Proceedings of the Society. Several works stand out for their fundamental and serious treatment of the subject: D. A. Grigorov’s Russian Icon Painting Manual (1887),22 articles by N. P. Kondakov and A. A. Bobrinskii about the frescoes of the stairway towers in the Cathedral of St. Sophia in Kiev (1888, 1889),23 and an extensive study 19  N. I. Veselovskii, Istoriia imp. Russkogo arkheologicheskogo obshchestva za pervoe piatidesiatiletie ego sushchestvovaniia, pp. 84–87. See also Proekt pravil o sokhranenii istoricheskikh pamiatnikov (St. Petersburg, 1877). 20  N. I. Veselovskii, Istoriia imp. Russkogo arkheologicheskogo obshchestva za pervoe piatidesiatiletie ego sushchestvovaniia, pp. 225, 226. 21  Ibid., pp. 160, 161. For a detailed account of this unrealized project see: ZRAO, new series, vol. II, issue I (1886), minutes, pp. xXI–xXVI and xXXIX–xLIV. 22  D. A. Grigorov, “Russkii ikonopisnyi podlinnik,” in ZRAO, new series, vol. III, issue I (1887), pp. 21–167. To the same author belongs the informative publication “Tekhnika freskovoi zhivopisi po russkomu ikonopisnomu podlinniku,” Ibid., vol. III, issues 3 and 4 (1888), pp. 414–23. 23  N. P. Kondakov, “O freskakh lestnits Kievo-Sofiiskogo sobora,” in ZRAO, vol. III, issues 3 and 4, pp. 286–306; A. A. Bobrinskii, “Ob odnoi iz fresok lestnitsy Kievo-Sofiiskogo sobora. Pis’mo professoru Kondakovu,” Ibid., vol. IV, issue 2 (1889), pp. 81–92.

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of the mosaics and frescoes of the St. Sophia of Kiev by D. V. Ainalov and E. K. Redin (1889).24 Incidentally, the treatises of Kondakov, Bobrinskii, Ainalov, and Redin made up for the old debt of the Society; they produced the atlas of the Kievan St. Sophia, which the Society published from 1871 to 1889 and which formed part of the Antiquities of the Russian State. A major discovery made in Kiev with the participation of the Russian Archaeological Society was the uncovering of the frescoes of the Church of St. Cyril. Adrian Viktorovich Prakhov, who made copies of the frescoes, supervised the work. Prakhov (1846–1916)25 lived for many years in St. Petersburg and Kiev, making frequent journeys to Germany, England, France, Italy, Greece, Turkey, Egypt, Palestine, and Syria. A versatile teacher, he lectured on the history and theory of art at the universities of St. Petersburg and Kiev. Although Prakhov held a doctorate and was a professor, he lacked the respect of other scholars who often pointed out the superficiality of his judgments in the spheres of Greek sculpture and Egyptian architecture. But every devotee of archaeology gave him credit for making a key contribution to the discovery and popularization of Russian medieval painting. Prakhov in 1880 began to take great interest in the uncovering and copying of the murals of old Ukrainian churches, to which he devoted the rest of his life. The mid twelfth-century frescoes in the Church of St. Cyril on the outskirts of Kiev26 were discovered in 1860, when workers repairing the church began to 24  D. V. Ainalov, E. K. Redin, “Kievskii Sofiiskii sobor. Issledovanie drevnei zhivopisi—mozaik i fresok sobora,” in ZRAO, new series, vol. IV, issues 3 and 4 (1890), pp. 231–381, with illustrations. 25  He was born in Mstislavl, Mogilev province, and died in Yalta. For information on him, see Biograficheskii slovar’ professorov i prepodavatelei imp. S.-Peterburgskogo universiteta za istekshuiu tret’iu chetvert’ veka ego sushchestvovaniia. 1869–1894, vol. II (M-Ia) (St. Petersburg, 1898), pp. 129–38 (curriculum vitae); S. A. Zhebelev, “A. V. Prakhov (Nekrolog),” in ZhMNP (June, 1916), section Sovremennaia letopis’, pp. 76–84; S. A. Zhebelev, “Adrian Viktorovich Prakhov,” in Otchet o sostoianii i deiatel’nosti imp. Petrogradskogo universiteta za vesennee polugodie 1916 goda (Petrograd, 1916), pp. 45–47; IAK, supplement to issue 63 (Khronika i bibliografiia, issue 30) (Petrograd, 1916), pp. 72, 73; M. V. Nesterov, “Pamiati A. V. Prakhova,” in M. V. Nesterov, Davnie dni. Vstrechi i vospominaniia (Moscow, 1959), pp. 310–13 (after the text from the Novoe Vremia newspaper of 20 May 1916), with the portrait; N. A. Prakhov, Stranitsy proshlogo. Ocherki-vospominaniia o khudozhnikakh (Kiev, 1958); M. V. Nesterov, Vospominaniia (Moscow, 1985), see index on p. 408. 26  I believe that the monastery and its cathedral, referred to as St. Cyril’s in chronicles and in oral tradition, were in fact dedicated to the Holy Trinity, and that only the chapel of St. Cyril of Alexandria located within the area of the communion table was called St. Cyril’s. The monastery, the church, and the chapel derive their name from the founder

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Figure 6.3 Portrait of Adrian Viktorovich Prakhov (1846–1916) by I. N. Kramskoi, 1879. Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow.

remove the most recent layers of whitewash and came across some fragments of medieval painting. The workers and the architect contractor who supervised the repairs did not care at all for the frescoes. They destroyed or damaged

of the monastery, Prince Vsevolod Olgovich, whose baptismal name was Cyril. Vsevolod Olgovich was the prince of Kiev from 1139; he died in 1146. It is possible that construction of the stone church and execution of the murals were completed after Vsevolod’s death by his widow, Princess Maria, who died in 1179. See M. K. Karger, Drevnii Kiev, vol. II (Moscow-Leningrad, 1961) pp. 442, 443; V. L. Ianin, Aktovye pechati Drevnei Rusi X–XV vv., vol. I (Moscow, 1970), p. 71.

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Figure 6.4 Catalogue of an Exhibition of Copies and Tracings of Works of Art in Kiev, executed by A. V. Prakhov in 1880, 1881, and 1882. S. Petersburg, 1882.

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Figure 6.5 Sts. Constantine and Elena in a fresco, ca. 1050, on the wall of the south nave of the Cathedral of St. Sophia, Novgorod.

quite a few of them before P. I. Orlovsky, the priest of the church, suspended repairs and informed the diocesan authorities about the frescoes.27 The matter was brought before the governor-general of Kiev, and the church and the remnants of the frescoes were saved from further damage. N. V. Zakrevskii reported

27  “Eparkhial’naia khronika,” in Pribavleniia k KievEV za 1861 god, pp. 158, 159; N. Sementovskii, Kiev, ego sviatynia, drevnosti, dostopamiatnosti i svedeniia, neobkhodimye dlia ego pochitatelei i puteshestvennikov, 3rd ed. (Kiev, 1864), p. 233; N. Zakrevskii, “Zametki o drevnostiakh kievskikh, v iiune 1864 goda,” in Sbornik na 1866 god, izdannyi Obshchestvom drevnerusskogo iskusstva pri Moskovskom Publichnom muzee (Moscow, 1866), section II, pp. 147, 148.

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several years later, “I contemplated these fortuitous discoveries, which were marred by the [workers’] iron paint-scrapers.”28 In the summer of 1880, during a visit to the Church of St. Cyril, Prakhov cleaned small fragments of frescoes and made copies of them. In the autumn of 1880 he exhibited the drawings at the Russian Archaeological Society and suggested that the Society uncover and copy the other surviving frescoes of the church. This idea interested Alexander II, who ordered the allocatation of 10,000 rubles for the work, after which the church was to be restored. During the next two years, Prakhov uncovered all the frescoes in the church.29 Wooden and iron knives with blunted edges, bread crumbs, potash, and a weak solution of salicylic acid and soda were used for the cleaning process. The missing fragments of the damaged frescoes were painted anew. Unfortunately, Prakhov did not stop there and, in order to protect the frescoes “from the effect of dampness” he had them polished with a mixture of turpentine, wax, white tar, and oil. When this compound proved unsuitable, he covered them with a mixture of enamel polish and turpentine.30 His careless actions led to the loss of the original colors and texture of the twelfth-century frescoes which, after being polished with lacquer, became shiny and smooth. Ninety years later, when the time had come for the scholarly restoration of the St. Cyril frescoes, masters from Kiev had great trouble trying to restore them even to a semblance of the original state in which Prakhov had discovered them.31 28  N. Zakrevskii, “Zametki o drevnostiakh kievskikh, v iiune 1864 goda,” in Sbornik nf 1866 god, p. 148; N. Zakrevskii, Opisanie Kieva, vol. I (Moscow, 1868), p. 356. 29  “Otkrytie fresok v kievskoi Kirillovskoi tserkvi,” in KievEV (1881), no. 22, p. 7 (a short anonymous report about the beginning of work); “Vnov’ otkrytaia freskovaia zhivopis’ XII veka v Kieve.” in ZhMNP (June, 1881), section IV, pp. 120, 121; A. Prakhov, “Otkrytie fresok Kirillovskogo monastyria pod Kievom. Rech, proiznesennaia A. V. Prakhovym v obshchem sobranii imp. Russkogo arkheologicheskogo obshchestva 9-go ianvaria 1883 goda,” in ZhMNP (March, 1883), Sovremennaia letopis’, pp. 22–34 (see also a reprint of this speech: A. Prakhov, “Freski Kievo-Kirillovskoi tserkvi XII v.,” in KS [May, 1883], pp. 97–110); N. P[okrovskii], “Novoe tserkovno-arkheologicheskoe otkrytie.” in TsV, unofficial section (1883), no. 3 (15 January), pp. 9, 10. A detailed account was published four years later: A. V. Prakhov, “Kievskie pamiatniki vizantiisko-russkogo iskusstva. Doklad v imp. Moskovskom arkheologicheskom obshchestve 19 i 20 dekabria 1885 goda,” in Drevnosti. Trudy imp. MAO, vol. XI, issue III (1887), pp. 9–24, tables IV, V. See also: N. I. Veselovskii, Istoriia imp. Russkogo arkheologicheskogo obshchestva za pervoe piatidesiatiletie ego sushchestvovaniia. 1846–1896, pp. 157–59. 30  P. G. Lebedintsev refers to it as “glass lacquer” (Drevnosti. Trudy MAO, vol. XII, issue I [1888], minutes, p. 94). 31  See: I. P. Dorofienko, P. Ia. Red’ko, “Raskrytie fresok XII v. v Kirillovskoi tserkvi Kieva,” in Drevnerusskoe iskusstvo. Monumental’naia zhivopis XI–XVII vv. (Moscow, 1980), pp. 45–51.

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The St. Cyril church was not meant to be only an archaeological monument. After finishing the cleaning of the frescoes, restoration of the church taking into account both the interests of Russian archaeology and the Orthodox Church was to begin.32 According to Prakhov’s design, a marble altar-screen with new icons was to be installed and new wall paintings done in those areas where the old ones had been completely lost.33 He also decided that new compositions were acceptable where only faint traces of the twelfth-century frescoes were left. All the new painting was to be executed in oils. The lost fragments of the twelfth-century frescoes were also painted in oils. According to Prakhov’s concept, only the frescoes of the chapel of St. Cyril of Alexandria were to remain intact. But considerable additions were made to them, too. Naturally enough, instead of leading to the restoration of the original interior of the church, this resulted in a renovation, which betrayed a fair proportion of individual styles of church painting just evolving at that time.34 In the early 1880s the second stage of the restoration of the St. Sophia Cathedral began: the plan included the restoration of the porch, installation of a heating system, and the washing of Solntsev’s painting. In the summer of 1884, as the scaffoldings inside the cathedral reached the main dome, Prakhov discovered four previously unknown mosaics: the Pantokrator, an archangel, and Apostle Paul in the dome, and the figure of High Priest Aaron on the north side of the triumphal arch.35 Some fragments of these mosaics could still be glimpsed at the beginning of the nineteenth century,36 but they had been 32  N. I. Veselovskii, Istoriia imp. Russkogo arkheologicheskogo obshchestva za pervoe piatidesiatiletie ego sushchestvovaniia (1846–1896), p. 159. 33   Z RAO, vol. III, issues 3 and 4 (1888), pp. 471–72 (a report reprinted from the Pravitelstvennyi vestnik newspaper of 7 June 1888). 34  It is known that A. V. Prakhov engaged M. A. Vrubel’ on the restoration of the St. Cyril church and in 1884–86 he painted The Descent of the Holy Ghost as well as several other compositions and four icons for the altar-screen there. Together with Vrubel’, professional icon painters and pupils of the Kiev painter N. I. Murashko worked in the St. Cyril church. See Vospominaniia starogo uchitelia, issue 2 (Kiev, 1907), pp. 114–29; issue 3 (Kiev, 1907), p. 139; V. M. Zummer, “Vrubel’ u Kirilivs’kii tserkvi,” in Iubileinii zbirnik na poshanu akademika D. I. Bagaliia (Kiev, 1927) (=Ukrains’ka Akademiia nauk, no. 51), pp. 425–38. 35  P. L[ashkare]v. “Otkrytie drevnikh mozaik v glavnom kupole Kievo-Sofiiskogo sobora,” in KS (September, 1884), pp. 162–65; ZRAO, vol. II, issue I (1886), minutes, pp. I–III (the contents of A. V. Prakhov’s report read at the general meeting of the RAO on 16 November 1885); A. V. Prakhov, “Kievskie pamiatniki vizantiisko-russkogo iskusstva. Doklad v imp. Moskovskom arkheologicheskom obshchestve 19 i 20 dekabria 1885 goda,” pp. 7–9, tables I–III. 36  In K. M. Borozdin’s sketchbooks that reflect his account of the archaeological tour of Russia in 1809–10 there is a sketch of the image of Christ made by the painter D. I. Ivanov

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crudely overpainted and forgotten. The discovery of the mosaics was of primary scholarly importance, augmenting the body of surviving mosaics in the Kievan St. Sophia.37 In the 1880s and 1890s, more than twenty frescoes were discovered in the St. Sophia.38 All of them were located beneath the brickwork or behind the iconostasis. The restorations carried out in the time of Nicholas I had thus not affected them. Best preserved were the frescoes that Prakhov discovered in 1882 on the arches of the south and north galleries: the representations of Adrian and Natalia in the Chapel of the Presentation of Our Lord in the Temple, and the martyrs of Thessalonica, Domna and Philippolus, in the Chapel of the Apostles.39 Half-length representations of the saints were placed in rectangular frames against reddish-brown and green backgrounds. The inscriptions indicating the names of the saints could be read easily. Prakhov also cleaned the painting of the baptistery in the western part of the cathedral, which had been discovered a year earlier during the architectural restoration of the porch. Here, alongside the images of the forty martyrs of Sebaste and the prelates, all in a bad state of preservation, he uncovered the composition of the Baptism, (OR [Department of Drawings] GPB, R IV, table 6). See also S. Kryzhanovskii, “Kievskie mozaiki,” in Z[R]AO, vol. VIII (1856), pp. 235–236. 37  To fill in the losses in the mosaic decoration of the dome, A. V. Prakhov invited M. A. Vrubel’, previously engaged by him in the St. Cyril church, who painted in the missing figures of three archangels and restored the lower part of the representation of the fourth archangel. Here too he was assisted by local painters from N. I. Murashko’s studio. See N. A. Prakhov, Stranitsy proshlogo. Ocherki-vospominaniia o khudozhnikakh, p. 101; M. A. Vrubel’, Perepiska. Vospominaniia o khudozhnike (Leningrad-Moscow, 1963), pp. 94–96, 168 (M. A. Vrubel’s undated letter to A. V. Prakhov, written in 1884, and notes of the compilers of the book). 38  For a list of these frescoes and the exact date of their uncovering, see: ZRAO, new series, vol. IV, issues 3 and 4 (1890), pp. 416 and 458; AIZ (1893), no. 5, pp. 174, 175 and nos. 7, 8, pp. 267–68 (V. Z. Zavitnevich’s reports); N. I. Petrov, “O novykh arkheologicheskikh otkrytiiakh v g. Kieve i osobenno o novootkrytykh freskakh Kievo-Sofiiskogo sobora,” in Trudy IX AS v Vilne, 1893, vol. II (Moscow, 1897), minutes, p. 53; N. I. Petrov, Istoriko-topograficheskie ocherki drevnego Kiev (Kiev, 1897), pp. 132, 133 (see notes); Biograficheskii slovar’ professorov i prepodavatelei imp. S.-Peterburgskogo universiteta za istekshuiu tret’iu chetvert’ veka ego sushchestvovaniia. 1869–1894, pp. 134, 135. 39  The scholarly publication of these frescoes appeared only thirty-six years after their uncovering when the upper layer of paint had already been lost. See V. Miasoedov, “Freski severnogo pritvora Sofiiskogo sobora v Kieve,” in ZORSA, vol. XII (Petrograd, 1918), pp. 1–6, tables I, II; A. Grabar, “Freski Apostolskogo pridela Kievo-Sofiiskogo sobora,” Ibid., pp. 98–106, table. For color plates, see G. N. Logvin, Sofiia Kievskaia (Kiev, 1971), table 217 (Domnus), 218 (Philippol), 219 (Natalia), and 221 (Adrian).

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probably done in the twelfth rather than the eleventh century.40 The newly found frescoes considerably expanded the scholars’ idea about the decoration of the cathedral and, like the mosaics, served for a long time as the main source for study of the original style of painting of the period of the construction of the Kievan St. Sophia. Prakhov’s energetic activity led him to important discoveries even where medieval artworks had survived in their original state. This was the case with the mosaics of the St. Michael Monastery of the Golden Roofs. Like the altar mosaics of the St. Sophia Cathedral, they had never been overpainted, but were covered with a thick layer of dust and soot, which hampered both the perception and description of the compositions.41 In 1888, with the agreement of the diocesan administration, Prakhov undertook the cleaning of the mosaics of the St. Michael Monastery. For this purpose, he used a mixture of soap, potassium, and oil applied to the surface of the mosaics several times in succession and then removed with tissue-paper. The dust and soot stuck between the small cubes were extracted by applying plasters made of dough-like gypsum.42 Once the work was finished, the mosaics of St. Michael’s radiated such tender colors and the figures of the apostles and saints proved so lifelike that Prakhov, who had valued them more than those of the St. Sophia,43 was now fully convinced of their artistic perfection. Simultaneously with the cleaning and repair of the St. Michael mosaics, Prakhov uncovered several frescos,44 thus bringing 40  These frescoes were also published many years later. See N. Okunev, “Kreshchal’naia Sofiiskogo sobora v Kieve,” in ZORSA, vol. X (Petrograd, 1915), pp. 113–37, tables XII–XVIII. 41  See S. Kryzhanovskii, “Kievskie mozaiki,” in Z[R]AO, vol. VIII (1856), pp. 261–70. 42   Z RAO, new series, vol. III, issues 3 and 4, pp. 476–77 (a reprint from Pravitel’stvennyi vestnik of 13 July 1888) and vol. IV, issue 2 (1889), p. 193 (a reprint from the same newspaper of 27 January 1889 about the completion of the works). 43   A. V. Prakhov, “Kievskie pamiatniki vizantiisko-russkogo iskusstva. Doklad v imp. Moskovskom arkheologicheskom obshchestve 19 i 20 dekabria 1885 goda,” p. 25. 44  These were the Archangel Gabriel and Mary from the Annunciation, representations of Zechariah and Samuel, two unknown prelates and two martyrs, and ornaments. See Kievo-Zlatoverkho-Mikhailovskii monastyr’. Istoricheskii ocherk … (Kiev, 1889), pp. 10–12; Biograficheskii slovar’ professorov i prepodavatelei imp. S.-Peterburgskogo universiteta …, vol. II, p. 136; N. I. Petrov, Istoriko-topograficheskie ocherki drevnego Kieva, p. 153; S. Petrovskii, Zlatoverkhii Mikhailovskii monastyr’ v Kieve. Istoricheskii ocherk i sovremennoe sostoianie obiteli (Odessa, 1902), pp. 62–64 and notes on p. 68. Before demolishing the cathedral in 1935, the St. Michael frescoes and mosaics were dismantled and placed in the gallery of the Kievan St. Sophia. Now a part of the frescoes with ornaments is preserved in the Russian Museum, and the mosaic of St. Demetrius of Thessalonica is in the Tretyakov Gallery. Undoubtedly, when the cathedral was demolished those of the frescoes that had not been cleaned by that time were lost and it is impossible to define the subjects and

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to light the same decorative combination of fresco and mosaic that existed in the Kievan St. Sophia. Prakhov combined the enthusiasm of discovery with his artistic talent. He confessed that the two sides of his nature, the artistic and the scholarly, were in constant conflict. In the 1860s he simultaneously attended lectures at the university, practiced his hand at the Academy of Arts, and copied paintings of the old masters in the Hermitage. He did not become a painter but he mastered painterly technique and learned to draw well. He used these skills to good advantage when a series of medieval paintings was discovered in the Ukraine. Prakhov realized that the mosaics and frescoes he uncovered would sooner or later be “corrected” or even painted over so that worshipers would not be offended by the look of half-obliterated brushwork and damaged figures of saints. It was partly for this reason that he tried to copy as many of the uncovered compositions as possible. His personal motive was also important: well-executed copies could bring him considerable success in artistic and academic circles. Original mosaics and frescoes from Kiev churches had been copied even before Prakhov, by the painter D. I. Ivanov, a member of the K. M. Borozdin expedition,45 and later by F. G. Solntsev,46 N. V. Zakrevskii47 and V. A. Prokhorov.48 But their work was episodic: they only made selected copies, and the artists usually did not care about the accuracy of their reproduction of the old painting. Prakhov far surpassed his predecessors. He undertook the systematic copying of the extant pieces of monumental painting in Kiev, choosing both known and newly discovered works for the purpose. He tried to execute copies “in the original size whenever possible, on a durable material, and with the reproduction of all damaged areas so that these copies could serve as a visual record of evidence showing a monument the way it was at the moment

location of these lost parts of the murals. There is no special publication devoted to the St. Michael frescoes (unlike the mosaics). For brief information on them, see V. N. Lazarev, Mikhailovskie mozaiki (Moscow, 1966), pp. 32–37; there are individual reproductions in Istoriia ukrains’kogo mistetstva, vol. I (Kiev, 1966), ills. 240, 248, 249. 45  See ch. 2 of this edition. 46  See chs. 2 and 3 of this edition. 47  N. Zakrevskii, “Zametki o drevnostiakh kievskikh, v iiune 1864 goda,” p. 146; “Izdavaemoe opisanie Kieva. Zapiska N. V. Zakrevskogo,” in Drevnosti. Trudy MAO, vol. II (1870), minutes, pp. 181–82. See also the supplement to the edition: N. Zakrevskii, Opisanie Kieva, vol. II: Thirteen folios with drafts and drawings, fol. XI (from the left). 48  V. P[rokhorov], “Kiev. Arkheologicheskii obzor a) kievskikh drevnostei i b) drevnostei, byvshikh na arkheologicheskom s”ezde v Kieve,” in KhD (1875), pp. 9, 13, 19, and table.

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Figure 6.6 Christ and Angel in a mosaic of the Eucharist in the apse of St. Michael Monastery of the Golden Roofs in Kiev.

of its discovery.”49 With this in mind, he formed a team of painters in Kiev whom he invited from the drawing school of N. I. Murashko. Together they executed many large- and small-size copies in watercolor and oil. In 1881 and 1882, the frescoes of the St. Cyril Church were copied, in the summer of 1881—a mosaic from the altar of the St. Sophia Cathedral with the representation of the Eucharist; in 1881 and 1882—the newly discovered frescoes of the baptistery; in 1882—the mosaics of St. Michael; in 1884—the newly discovered mosaics of the dome and the triumphal arch; in 1888—the previously unknown St. Michael frescoes, and in 1888 and 1893—individual figures from the newly discovered frescoes of St. Sophia. Prakhov also made copies of frescoes in other .

49   A. V. Prakhov, “Kievskie pamiatniki vizantiisko-russkogo iskusstva. Doklad v imp. Moskovskom arkheologicheskom obshchestve 19 i 20 dekabria 1885 goda,” p. 13.

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Russian towns, for example Vladimir-in-Volhynia50 and Chernigov.51 We can gauge the scope of Prakhov’s copying activities when we learn that during the third year of his work in the Ukraine he brought more than two hundred copies to St. Petersburg and exhibited them in the university rooms. These were mainly the copies and drawings of the St. Cyril frescoes.52 The exhibition, held in January and February of 1883,53 attracted a large audience, and was visited by the members of the tsar’s family. From that time on Prakhov enjoyed the reputation of a man of action and a connoisseur of Byzantine and medieval Russian art. In his reports about the Kiev discoveries Prakhov repeatedly proposed the publication of the copies, first of all those of the St. Cyril frescoes and 50  There is rather fragmentary information on the frescoes discovered by A. V. Prakhov during the exploration of the ruins of the Dormition cathedral, the so-called old cathedra in the Vladimir-Volynskii cathedral as well as the ensuing photographing and copying of the Volynian frescoes. For individual references, see “Arkheologicheskie rozyskaniia prof. Prakhova vo Vladimire-Volynskom i ego okrestnostiakh,” in VolynskEV (1886), no. 31, unofficial section, p. 1009 (in brief); “Ob issledovanii Mstislavova Vladimiro-Volynskogo sobors XII veka (referat prof. Prakhova na moskovskom arkheologicheskom s”ezde),” Ibid. (1890), no. 5, unofficial section, pp. 162–64 (a reprint from the Novoe vremia newspaper with a short reference to frescoes); “Lektsiia prof. Prakhova o volynskikh drevnostiakh,” Ibid. (1890), no. 7, unofficial section, p. 232 (brief information from the Syn Otechestva newspaper of 6 February 1890); D. V. Ainalov, “Vystavka VIII arkheologicheskogo s”ezda v Moskve, v 1890 g.,” in VestnII, vol. 8, issue 2 (1890), p. 117; Biograficheskii slovar’ professorov i prepodavatelei imp. S.-Peterburgskogo universiteta …, vol. II, p. 135; Drevnosti. Trudy MAO, vol. XIX, issue I (1901), “Arkheologicheskaia khronika,” pp. 3 and 4. An idea of the type of ornamental frescoes found in the Dormition cathedral can be gleaned from the recently published fragment which was uncovered, though, ten years after Prakhov’s works: P. A. Rappoport, “Mstislavov khram vo Vladimire-Volynskom,” in Zograf, 7 (Belgrade, 1977), p. 20 and fig. 8 on p. 22; P. A. Rappoport, “Staraia kafedra” v okrestnostiakh VladimiraVolynskogo,” in SA (1977), 4, p. 262. 51  A. V. Prakhov did only sample cleanings and boreholes in the Dormition cathedral of the Elets monastery in Chernigov (Biograficheskii slovar’ professorov i prepodavatelei imp. S.-Petersburgskogo universiteta …, vol. II, p. 136). In 1889, on the initiative of Sergius, Bishop of Novgorod-Seversk and Chernigov, work was continued but the Archaeological Commission banned the unauthorized activities and the uncovered frescoes were overpainted again (P. M. Dobrovol’skii, Chernigovskii Eletskii Uspenskii pervoklassnyi monastyr. Istoricheskoe opisanie [Chernigov, 1900], p. 100). In the Soviet period new boreholes were made and the uncovered compositions reproduced in color copies (Istoriia ukrains’kogo mistetstva, vol. I, ills. 259–61). 52  See Katalog vystavki kopii s pamiatnikov iskusstva v Kieve, X, XI i XII vv., ispolnennykh A. V. Prakhovym v techenie 1880, 1881 and 1882 gg. (St. Petersburg, 1882). 53   Z RAO, new series, vol. I (1886), minutes, pp. iII–iV and xIII–xIV.

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St. Sophia mosaics.54 But the Russian Archaeological Society turned down his proposals pleading a lack of funds. As a result, only the careful copy of the St. Sophia mosaic with the Eucharist was printed.55 The Moscow Archaeological Society, which commissioned Prakhov to make the copies of the newly discovered mosaics in the dome and the triumphal arch of the Kievan St. Sophia, published the copies of the Pantokrator, an archangel, High Priest Aaron, and also those of two frescoes from the St. Cyril Church and a mosaic from the altar of the Monastery of St. Michael with the Golden Roofs.56 The publication of Prakhov’s copies then virtually ended.57 It also proved impossible to keep the copies in one place. Prakhov readily showed his copies at exhibitions, including the exhibition of 1884 held on the occasion of the Sixth Congress of Archaeologists in Odessa,58 and also lent them to other institutions such as the Moscow Historical Museum.59 The Russian Archaeological Society, which lacked permanent quarters, could not provide a special repository for the copies. Therefore the Society decided to sell the St. Cyril copies to the Moscow Historical Museum,60 which had already received from Prakhov copies of the newly discovered mosaics from the Kievan St. Sophia. But, since the Society fixed the price at 10,000 rubles (the sum spent not only for the copying but

54  Ibid., minutes, pp. iII and xIII (the minutes of 11 January 1883); vol. III, issue I (1887), minutes, pp. lVI–lVII (the minutes of the sitting on 11 May 1887); vol. XI, issues 1 and 2. Trudy Otdeleniia slavianskoi i russkoi arkheologii, book 4 (1899), pp. 402–403 (the minutes of the sitting on 12 December 1899); Protokoly zasedanii imp. RAO za 1898 g. (St. Petersburg, 1900), pp. 32–33. See also N. I. Veselovskii, Istoriia imp. Russkogo arkheologicheskogo obshchestva za pervoe piatidesiatiletie ego sushchestvovaniia. 1846–1896, pp. 157–59. 55   Drevnosti Rossiiskogo gosudarstva. Kievskii Sofiiskii sobor. Izdanie imp. Russkogo arkheologicheskogo obshchestva, IV (St. Petersburg, 1887), table 5 (in three parts). For the history of the publication of this copy, see N. I. Veselovskii, Istoriia imp. Russkogo arkheologicheskogo obshchestva za pervoe piatidesiatiletie ego sushchestvovaniia. 1846–1896, pp. 123, 124. 56   Drevnosti. Trudy MAO, vol. XI, issue 3 (1887), tables I–IV. 57  See N. I. Veselovskii, Istoriia imp. Russkogo arkheologicheskogo obshchestva za pervoe piatidesiatiletie ego sushchestvovaniia. 1846–1896, pp. 337–60. 58  N. Pokrovskii, “Shestoi arkheologicheskii s”ezd v Odesse. (Pamiatniki khristianstva),” in KhCh (January, 1885), pp. 202, 203; “Arkheologicheskaia vystavka VI-go s”ezda,” in Trudy VI AS v Odesse (1884 g.), vol. I (Odessa, 1886), p. LXXIV. 59  See: Trudy VI AS v Odesse (1884 g.), vol. I, p. LXXXIV. An album of photographs of the best works shown at the Odessa exhibition, including eight of Prakhov’s copies (ff. 29–36), was published at the same time, its print run being probably only a few copies; for this album, see p. LXXVII. 60   Z RAO, new series, vol. III, issues 3 and 4 (1888), minutes, p. LXXXII.

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also the restoration of the frescoes), the sale never took place.61 Ten years later, the copies still lay neglected in a shed at St. Petersburg University, where they had been placed after the Odessa exhibition. It was not until 1900 that they were finally transferred to the Emperor Alexander III Russian Museum in St. Petersburg.62 Despite temporary setbacks, Prakhov’s inexhaustible energy led him to participate in many discoveries of tremendous artistic and historical value. Moreover, he attracted attention to these discoveries from, among others, Alexander III; Chief Procurator of the Synod K. P. Pobedonostsev; Minister of the Interior Count D. A. Tolstoy; and Minister of Education Count I. D. Delianov. Prakhov was a capable practical archaeologist, and he was entrusted with the decoration work of the Cathedral of St. Vladimir in Kiev,63 which he carried out between 1885 and 1896 and which his long study of the Russian-Byzantine style made possible. “The name of A. V. Prakhov will be forever linked with the Cathedral of St. Vladimir in Kiev, that wonderful and finest monument of our new church architecture,” wrote one of his biographers. “A. V. Prakhov, who invited artists such as Viktor Vasnetsov and Nesterov to decorate the cathedral, initiated an almost new era in Russian church painting…. Even if his theoretical contribution to the history of art was, strictly speaking, quite insignificant, his services to the cause of the artistic education of Russian society and to the awakening of interest in the relics of the past are indisputably great and will be duly appreciated in the future.”64 The results that the Russian Archaeological Society had achieved in discovering and studying medieval Russian painting were comparatively small. The bureaucratic approach typical of all St. Petersburg institutions, even if they were public, limited the initiative of their members and defeated all the best intentions. Most of the Society members represented the St. Petersburg aristocracy and the Academy of Sciences, the former having no taste for this kind of work and the latter being preoccupied with purely academic problems. According to established tradition, St. Petersburg scholars were primarily interested in the history of the classical and oriental world, as well as the history of literature, archaeography, numismatics, and archaeology proper, either 61  Ibid., vol. XI, issues 1 and 2. Trudy Otdeleniia slavianskoi i russkoi arkheologii, book 4, minutes, p. 402. 62   Protokoly obshchikh sobranii imp. RAO za 1899–1908 gody, Petrograd, 1915, p. 80. 63   Z RAO, new series, vol. I, minutes, p. LXXXI. See also Biograficheskii slovar professorov i prepodavatelei imp. S.-Peterburgskogo universiteta …, vol. II, pp. 136–37; Sobor sv. kniazia Vladimira v Kieve, Kiev, published by S. V. Kul’zhenko (1898). 64  S. Zhebelev, A. V. Prakhov (Nekrolog), p. 84.

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prehistoric or classical. Finally, one more reason hampered scholarly research of the art of Rus’: there were so few towns in the vicinity of St. Petersburg— only Novgorod, Staraia Ladoga, and Pskov—in which monuments of medieval Russian art could be investigated. A different lot fell to the Moscow Archaeological Society. Organized eighteen years later than the St. Petersburg Society, the Moscow Archaeological Society did much more for the revival of interest in Russia’s past. To a considerable degree, this was because the Moscow Archaeological Society was founded on private initiative and because during the entire period of its existence—more than half a century—Count A. S. Uvarov and his wife, Countess P. S. Uvarova, who were completely devoted to it, were in charge of the Society. Aleksei Sergeevich Uvarov (1824–84)65 was the only son of S. S. Uvarov, the Minister of Education ill-famed for formulating the doctrine of Autocracy, Orthodoxy, and Narodnost’ which became a symbol not only of the Russia of Nicholas I but of the entire tsarist era in the history of Russia. Uvarov the son shared his father’s convictions but became an archaeologist, devoting himself to the study of antiquities discovered on the territory of Russia, and Russian antiquities proper. In the late 1850s he moved from St. Petersburg to Moscow 65  On A. S. Uvarov, see: I. E. Zabelin, “Rech ob obshchestvennom znachenii trudov grafa A. S. Uvarova,” in ChOIDR (1884), book 4, section I, pp. 1–15; Nezabvennoi pamiati grafa Alexeia Sergeevicha Uvarova. Rechi, prochitannye v soedinennom zasedanii uchenykh Obshchestv 28 fevralia 1885 goda, naznachennom imp. Moskovskim arkheologicheskim obshchestvom dlia chestvovaniia pamiati svoego pokoinogo predsedatelia, s prilozheniiami (Moscow, 1885) (speeches made by V. E. Rumiantsev, I. E. Zabelin, N. V. Nikitin, D. N. Anuchin, D. I. Ilovaiskii, F. A. Büler, A. A. Titov, A. K. Zhiznevskii, V. I. Sizov, I. D. Mansvetov, K. N. Bestuzhev-Riumin, N. F. von Kruse, and E. V. Barsov); Pamiati grafa A. S. Uvarova. Rechi, proiznesennye S. M. Shpilevskim, P. D. Shestakovym i D. A. Korsakovym na zasedanii Kazanskogo obshchestva arkheologii, istorii i etnografii 17 ianvaria 1885 goda (Kazan, 1885) (the most informative speech was made by S. M. Shpilevskii, pp. 7–53, which is supplemented with “Materialy k bibliografii uchenykh trudov grafa A. S. Uvarova,” pp. 54–74); “Graf Alexei Sergeevich Uvarov,” in Istoricheskaia zapiska o deiatel’nosti imp. Moskovskogo arkheologicheskogo obshchestva za pervye 25 let sushchestvovaniia (Moscow, 1890), supplements, pp. 88–94; Graf A. S. Uvarov. Sbornik. Materialy dlia biografii i stat’i po teoreticheskim voprosam, vol. III (Moscow, 1910), pp. I–172; Drevnosti. Trudy MAO, vol. XXIII, issue 1 (1911) (articles by N. S. Shcherbatov, D. N. Anuchin, M. N. Speranskii, N. N. Ardashev, N. V. Nekrasov, and P. S. Uvarova); “Kharakteristiki deiatelei arkheologii 1860–1870-kh gg., prinadlezhashchie I. I. Sreznevskomu. Soobshchil V. I. Sreznevskii,” in Bibliograficheskaia letopis’, I [St. Petersburg], 1914, pp. 118, 119; N. Shcherbatov, “Pamiati grafa Alexeia Sergeevicha Uvarova,” in Otchet imp. Rossiiskogo Istoricheskogo muzeia … za 1883–1903 gody (Moscow, 1916), pp. 11–16. For a more detailed account, see Istoriia istoricheskoi nauki v SSSR. Dooktiabr’skii period. Bibliografiia (Moscow, 1965), pp. 396, 397.

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Figure 6.7 Aleksei Sergeevich Uvarov (1824–84), chairman of the Moscow Archaeological Society, 1864–84.

where he decided to set up a local archaeological society similar to the one in St. Petersburg but with different objectives and on a broader base. His personal energy and his lavish donations contributed to the realization of his plans: as a rich landowner, Uvarov could afford to spend many thousands of rubles to support the general needs of the Society. After his death Praskovia Sergeevna Uvarova followed in his footsteps. It would be no exaggeration to say that the couple did as much for the benefit of the Moscow Archaeological Society as all official Russia did for the support of other historical and archaeological societies. The Moscow Archaeological Society was founded on February 17, 1864.66 The first session of the Society took place October 4, 1865, and from that time 66  Much valuable information on MAO is contained in all works devoted to A. S. and P. S. Uvarov (see notes 65 and 69), and also in numerous individual articles published

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Figure 6.8 Praskovia Sergeevna Uvarova, chairwoman of the Moscow Archaeological Society, 1884–1917.

on, it functioned with enviable regularity, with the number of its members gradually increasing and its research subjects becoming more varied. The influx of scholars into the Society and the practical results of its activities made it the preeminent pre-revolutionary Russian archaeological society. Suffice it to say that the Moscow Archaeological Society initiated and published about two hundred volumes,67 often supplemented with splendid atlases and albums, which today constitute a first-class library and valuable source for studying the history of the Society and the entire scholarship of Russian antiquities. Among the reasons for the extraordinary popularity and success of the Society there are three that stand out clearly. The Moscow Archaeological Society, whose charter provided for the study of general and Russian archaeology on an equal basis, focused on the examination of Russian monuments, irrespective of its founders’ intentions and theoretical premises. As this task in Trudy (Transactions) of the Society. But there are special editions too: Istoricheskaia zapiska o deiatel’nosti imp. Moskovskogo arkheologicheskogo obshchestva za pervye 25 let sushchestvovaniia (Moscow, 1890) (with the supplement: “Bibliograficheskii ukazatel’ trudov gg. chlenov imp. Moskovskogo arkheologicheskogo obshchestva”); Imp. Moskovskoe arkheologicheskoe obshchestvo v pervoe 50-letie ego sushchestvovaniia (1864–1914 gg.), vol. 2. Biograficheskii slovar’ chlenov obshchestva. Spisok trudov chlenov Obshchestva, pomeshchennykh v izdaniiakh Obshchestva (Moscow, 1915). For a more detailed account, see Istoriia istoricheskoi nauki v SSSR. Dooktiabr’skii period. Bibliografiia, pp. 136–38. 67  V. K. Trutovskii, Spisok izdanii imp. Moskovskogo istoricheskogo obshchestva s ukazaniem ikh soderzhaniia (Moscow, 1915).

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corresponded to the actual demands of the times, it provoked boundless enthusiasm of many antiquarians, who were not only sympathetic to the Society’s objectives but were prepared to work toward them constantly and unselfishly for many years. Another important reason for the Society’s success was its democratic character. In a speech delivered at the first session of the Society, Uvarov emphasized this essentially new quality: “The closed nature common to our societies has no place in our charter. Everyone can attend our sessions. Here he will watch the work of our members and keep track of all the activities of the Society, which will receive a new impetus to its endeavor through this openness.… We hope that in this way we can more easily develop an understanding and love of archaeology in our public.”68 His expectations were realized. The public sessions and classless nature of the Society attracted people whose presence would have been regarded as a breach of decorum in other associations. Suffice it to say that, alongside the familiar figures of aristocrats and even members of the Imperial family, the Moscow Society included village priests, petty bourgeois (meshchane), peasants, and women. According to contemporaries, Count Uvarov “did not want to admit the female element into the Society or set an example for this by the election of his wife [as a member of the Society],” though she was unofficially his principal assistant from the first years of the Society’s existence. After the count’s death, Praskovia Sergeevna Uvarova (1840–1924)69 was unanimously elected a member and chairman of the Society, which created a precedent for the later inclusion in its ranks of fresh forces represented by the first women researchers. Today, when the majority of scholars who study medieval Russian culture are women, we seldom 68  A. S. Uvarov, “O deiatel’nosti, predstoiashchei Moskovskomu arkheologicheskomu obshchestvu,” in Drevnosti. Trudy MAO, vol. I [issue 1] (1865), p. IV (the same in the book Graf A. S. Uvarov. Sbornik. Materialy dlia biografii i stat’i po teoreticheskim voprosam, vol. III, pp. 128, 129). 69  On P. S. Uvarova, see: E. K. Redin, “Grafinia P. S. Uvarova (K dvadtsatiletiiu ee predsedatel’stva v imp. Moskovskom arkheologicheskom obshchestve),” in Trudy Khar’kovskoi komissii po ustroistvu XIII AS v g. Ekaterinoslavle (Kharkov, 1905) (=Sbornik KhIFO, vol. 16), pp. I–8; I. A. Linnichenko, Grafinia P. S. Uvarova. K 25-letnemu iubileiu, Odessa, 1910; “30 aprelia—11 maia 1910,” in Drevnosti. Trudy MAO, vol. XXIII, issue 1 (1911), pp. 127–30 plus material on pp. 131–205 (published for the twenty-fifth anniversary of P. S. Uvarova’s chairmanship); D. Anuchin, “Grafinia Praskov’ia Sergeevna Uvarova v eia sluzhenii nauke o drevnostiakh na postu predsedatelia imp. Moskovskogo arkheologicheskogo obshchestva,” in Sbornik statei v chest’ grafini P. S. Uvarovoi (Moscow, 1916), pp. xI–xXIV; A. I. Sobolevskii, “P. S. Uvarova. 1840–1924. Nekrolog,” in Izvestiia Rossiiskoi Akademii nauk, 6th series (1925), no. 6–8, pp. 141–44; A. Kalitinskii, “Grafinia P. S. Uvarova,” in SK, I (1927), pp. 304–306.

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if ever think about this, but before the revolution, in the second half of the nineteenth century in particular, the presence of women at the sessions of the Moscow Archaeological Society was a sign of the progressiveness of its leaders. A third salient reason for the effectiveness of the Moscow Society was the large-scale popularization of archaeology in the provinces. The Society took the initiative of organizing archaeological congresses in various Russian towns that were rich in historical monuments, and to set an example it arranged the first congress of archaeologists in Moscow in 1869. Prior to World War I, there were fifteen congresses:70 two in Moscow (1869, 1890) and Kiev (1874, 1899), and one each in St. Petersburg (1876), Kazan (1877), Tiflis (1881), Odessa (1884), Yaroslavl (1887), Vilna (1893), Riga (1896), Kharkov (1902), Yekaterinoslav (1905), Chernigov (1908), and Novgorod (1911). The congresses convened regularly every three years. The sixteenth congress was scheduled for August 1914 in Pskov, but the war followed by the revolution put an end to this remarkable tradition. The congresses’ accomplishments can scarcely be exaggerated. They and their preparatory organizing committees gave strong impetus to the development of local studies and stimulated the involvement of previously unknown provincial enthusiasts among the ranks of scholars. Public sessions, which were accessible to all interested, and large-scale archaeological and art exhibitions, which invariably accompanied most of the congresses, helped introduce broad cross-sections of the population to archaeology and led to the development of an interest in the past and the preservation of historical relics. Had it not been for the Moscow Archaeological Society and the congresses convened by it, Russia would have lost countless archaeological monuments which came to be known in the history of national and world culture. Moscow and its surrounding towns, monasteries, country estates, and churches, provided ample material for the study of art. Nowhere else, except perhaps Kiev and Novgorod, was there such a wealth of valuable material as in Moscow and the adjacent provinces. Vladimir, Tver, Riazan, Suzdal, Murom, Rostov, Yaroslavl, Pereslavl-Zalesskii, Kostroma, Nizhnii Novgorod, Zvenigorod, Kolomna, the Trinity Lavra, Vologda, to say nothing of Moscow itself and the

70  Especially on the congresses concerning the subject in question, see N. F. Krasnosel’tsev, Tserkovnaia arkheologiia na russkikh arkheologicheskikh s”ezdakh (Kazan, 1887); E. R[edin], Znachenie deiatel’nosti arkheologicheskikh s”ezdov dlia nauki russkoi arkheologii. K XII arkheologicheskomu s”ezdu v Khar’kove (Kharkov, 1901). For more details, see Istoriia istoricheskoi nauki v SSSR. Dooktiabr’skii period. Bibliografiia, pp. 148–53 (with a list of works for each of the fifteen congresses).

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Moscow Kremlin—the center of the Russian state and church—were all vital museums of Russian history and art. Like other archaeological associations, the Moscow Society sought to study the relics of the past. Articles and reports about individual works and composite studies of artifacts contained in churches, monasteries, and museums found a prominent place in the Society’s publications. They teemed with new material on embroidery with images of saints, illuminated manuscripts, engravings and drawings, icons, mosaics, and frescoes. The Society’s Transactions,71 including the Transactions of congresses,72 constitute an enormous body of factual material about art.73 In fact, this material is still current today, more than a hundred years after the publication of the Society’s first collection of articles. Uvarov worked out a coherent system of theoretical views on archaeology and its methods of study that was quite advanced for the nineteenth century. He managed to publish only an insignificant part of his theoretical articles during his lifetime—his major works appeared twenty-five years after his death. Yet Uvarov, as the head of the Society and a leader among Russian scholars,

71  The editions of the Moscow Archaeological Society were published under one common title Drevnosti (Antiquities). The following series are basic to the study of Russian and Byzantine painting: Drevnosti. Trudy MAO, vols. I–XXV (Moscow, 1865–1916); Drevnosti. Arkheologicheskii vestnik, izdavaemyi MAO [I–VI] (Moscow, 1867–68); Drevnosti. Trudy Komissii po sokhraneniiu drevnikh pamiatnikov imp. MAO, vols. I–VI (Moscow, 1907–15). Many volumes were split into two, three, or four issues. That is why the number of Drevnosti books greatly exceeds the number of volumes. See also the reference and information collections, Arkheologicheskie izvestiia i zametki (1893–99) (monthly issues). 72  The materials of all fifteen congresses and their preparatory committees have been published. More often than not, these Trudy came out in several volumes, supplemented with the atlases of tables, drafts, and drawings. 73  The Society’s authorities took care in good time to provide indices to the Society’s Transactions. The indices save a lot of time for the acquaintance with the contents of the Transactions but, unfortunately, they do not register the agenda of the Society’s meetings recorded in the voluminous minutes which were published in all of the Drevnosti series. See V. K. Trutovskii, Spisok izdanii imp. Moskovskogo arkheologicheskogo obshchestva za 50 let ego deiatel’nosti s ukazaniem ikh soderzhaniia (Moscow, 1915); “Alfavitnyi ukazatel’ stat’iam, recham i dokladam, vkhodiashchim v sostav Trudov pervykh 12-ti arkheologicheskikh s”ezdov i ikh predvaritel’nykh komitetov,” in Trudy XII AS v Khar’kove, 1902 g., vol. III, pp. 1–49 (supplement to P. S. Uvarova’s article). As follows from these titles, the indices likewise do not include the articles and other materials published in the Transactions of the thirteenth through fifteenth congresses and in the MAO editions which came out after V. K. Trutovskii’s index.

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inculcated directly his views in other researchers.74 First of all, he identified a change in the very notion of archaeology: if before the mid-nineteenth century archaeology was viewed only as the study of the art of the past, to the exclusion of mere artifacts or antiquities, then archaeology of the third quarter of the century was a science that explored the ancient way of life on the broad basis of material evidence, written and oral sources. Because modes of life could be inferred from all kinds of details, the discovery and explanation of these details came to be viewed as the main tasks of archaeology. Uvarov rejected the indiscriminate accumulation of facts and artifacts that characterized early Russian archaeology.75 A mechanical fusion of the two could neither be regarded as a science nor as a basis for the gradual development of a science. Uvarov valued only those monuments that led to theoretical conclusions. He gave primary attention to the external circumstances that accompanied a discovery or the existence of a monument. For Uvarov, every monument was a witness with a secret to be revealed. Only when that secret was revealed would it become a source of historical knowledge. “A fallen piece of plaster with traces of painting,” explained Uvarov, “has no scientific importance unless we know in what place and at what depth it was found. But when such a fragment of wall painting is discovered, for example, among the ruins of the Church of the Tithe and it is at the level of [the church’s] ancient flooring, then on the basis of this find we can positively infer that the inner walls of the ancient church were decorated with wall painting and that the discovered fragment belonged to this wall painting.”76 Even today Uvarov’s idea of the relationship between the general and the particular in artworks, which he described using examples chosen from the medieval Russian artistic heritage, is original and relevant. Just as the archaeological background of a monument has various facets, so its artistic side, the works of art have their own features: style, national or regional schools, and

74  See, for example, A. S. Uvarov, “Chto dolzhna obnimat’ programma dlia prepodavaniia russkoi arkheologii i v kakom sistematicheskom poriadke dolzhna byt’ raspredelena eta programma?” in Trudy III AS v Rossii, byvshego v Kieve v avguste 1874 goda, vol. I (Kiev, 1878), pp. 19–38. 75  Graf A. S. Uvarov. Sbornik. Materialy dlia biografii i stat’i po teoreticheskim voprosam, vol. III (Moscow, 1910), pp. 173–90 (a reprint of the article cited in note 74); pp. 191–210 (“Lektsii, chitannye v Moskovskom arkheologicheskom obshchestve 1879 goda 20 i 27 fevralia i 9 marta”); pp. 262–303 (“Russkaia arkheologiia”). See also N. N. Ardashev, “Graf A. S. Uvarov kak teoretik arkheologii,” in Drevnosti. Trudy MAO, vol. XXIII, issue I (1911), pp. 25–40. 76   Graf A. S. Uvarov. Sbornik. Materialy dlia biografii i stat’i po teoreticheskim voprosam, vol. III, pp. 175, 176.

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individual masters.77 The main determinant is the general character or style which bears the imprint of the period and nation to which the particular work belongs. Style, in turn, is subject to local influences in various areas, such as Novgorod, Kiev, Vladimir, or Pskov, where regional characteristics or schools of painting emerged and lasted for a long time. In the Middle Ages, national and regional features overshadowed the manifestation of painters’ personal talents, and the local character, the character of a school, dominated their individuality. “An exception to this general rule, and a rare exception at that, is represented by those works in which an artist has reached the level of a genius. Despite the fact that such examples are rare in every nation … even they could not always escape the effacing influence of a period or school. What a great number of masterpieces in all countries come down to us without the names of their creators!” It is interesting that the example Uvarov chose for the confirmation of his views on the style, school, and individuality of a painter and the relationship among these characteristics was the icon with the images of St. George and St. Demetrius on horseback, executed around 1670 by the registered icon painter of the Armory, Nikita Pavlovets.78 The style of seventeenthcentury painters does reveal a few personal traits, and anonymous works may be attributed to one master or another, yet Uvarov made it clear that even in this icon of the late seventeenth century, the influence of the school outweighed the individual manner of the artist.79 The Moscow Archaeological Society’s primary goal was the accumulation of exact factual data about medieval Russian works and painters. This activity continued steadily year after year. More precise information was obtained about already known monuments, and new works were discovered. The goal of these investigations, according to the wide-ranging plans of the Society, was a history of Russian icon painting. As early as 1867 Uvarov called on Russian antiquarians to inform him personally of the names of artists or to publish them in the Society’s publications along with inscriptions on icons and frescoes, written evidence about works of painting or their commissioners, and

77  Ibid., pp. 270, 271. 78  Now in the Tretyakov Gallery (V. I. Antonova, N. E. Mneva, Katalog drevnerusskoi zhivopisi, vol. II [Moscow, 1963], no. 893). The date 1614 cited by A. S. Uvarov for this icon is not correct. 79  A. S. Uvarov, “Chto dolzhna obnimat’ programma dlia prepodavaniia russkoi arkheologii i v kakom sistematicheskom poriadke dolzhna byt’ raspredelena eta programma?” pp. 25–27; Graf A. S. Uvarov. Sbornik. Materialy dlia biografii i stat’i po teoreticheskim voprosam, vol. III, pp. 179, 180.

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about illuminated manuscripts.80 One of the first to respond was I. S. Nekrasov who contributed interesting data about icon painters, which he had gleaned from the lives of Sabbas of Krypetsk, Barlaam of Khutyn’, and Joseph of Volotsk and from the Stoglav (a sixteenth-century work encapsulating Muscovite values and stemming from the Council of the Hundred Chapters).81 Nekrasov’s article produced a strong impression on the public. He initiated a debate with scholars who were inclined to idealize early Russia, pointing out some anecdotal “dark” facts from the lives of Russian painters: non-observance of church and monastic rules, hard drinking and fighting, superstitions, and irreverence for the saints. The critical overtones in Nekrasov’s article were at variance with Sakharov’s work, describing art only in superlatives, which created a beautiful but far from truthful image of the Russian icon painter. Following Uvarov’s proposal, the Transactions of the Moscow Archaeological Society systematically published Materials for a Dictionary of Archaeology. This reference book was intended for those scholars who devoted themselves to the study of Russian church archaeology. The project envisaged, among other things, special articles on iconography and the symbolism of icons, church antiquities and rites, painters and scribes.82 The size of the articles was not limited, and different authors could write on the same theme, producing either polemical papers on controversial issues or straightforward research. P. I. Savvaitov actively supplied information for the dictionary, including data on thirty-seven Russian artists,83 drawn from chronicles and acts, unpublished saints’ lives, inscriptions on icons, and other sources. Savvaitov prepared with particular thoroughness the articles about Dionisii Glushitskii; Vassian, Archbishop of Rostov; and the Savins (Istoma, Nazarii, Yakov, and Fedor), as well as the later Vologda painters, on whom he had collected data in the midnineteenth century when he taught at a Vologda seminary. Articles by I. D. Mansvetov about E. V. Barsov, and Archimandrite Amfilokhii (Amphilochius), exceptional for their insights, deserve attention.84 They dealt with the embroidered and decorated cloths that were hung in Russian churches on festivals 80  [A. S.] Uvarov, “Gg. chlenam Moskovskogo arkheologicheskogo obshchestva i ko vsem liubiteliam otechestvennykh drevnostei,” in Drevnosti. Arkheologicheskii vestnik (1867), JulyAugust, p. 191. 81  I. Nekrasov, “Neskol’ko dannykh iz zhitii sviatykh dlia kharakteristiki drevnerusskogo ikonopistsa,” in Drevnosti. Arkheologicheskii Vestnik (1867), November-December (the issue is dated 1868), pp. 275–77. 82   Drevnosti. Trudy MAO, vol. I [issue 1] (1865), minutes, pp. 11 and 15, 16. 83  Ibid., vol. III, issue 3 (1873), pp. 22, 24, 25, 41–43, and others. 84   Drevnosti. Trudy MAO, vol. VIII (1880), “Materialy dlia arkheologicheskogo slovaria,” pp. 2 and 28.

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forming a single decorative whole with icons and murals, and with the templon or tiablo (the upper part of the iconostasis).85 In every possible way, the Moscow Archaeological Society supported its full and corresponding members who contributed material for the study of original icons, frescoes, embroidery, and miniatures. Very often such material appeared in the form of descriptions of entire collections. At various periods, the Society published lists of the most interesting artworks housed in the churches of Moscow86 Staraia Rusa,87 and the Orthodox and Old Believers’ communities of Riga.88 The most outstanding of these descriptions was the catalogue of the Tver museum, first published in the Transactions of the Society and then issued as a separate volume.89 The Society also received abundant information about individual artworks. It is impossible to give a full account of these publications since important reports were sometimes printed untitled within the minutes of the Society’s sessions and for this reason did not appear in the indices prepared later.90 We can infer the scope of the Society’s publishing activities from the articles and reviews of A. S. Uvarov, V. E. Rumiantsev, N. P. Likhachev, P. L. Gusev, and A. I. Uspenskii concerning historical, commissioned, dated, or otherwise remarkable icons from monastic, church, state, or private collections.91 All ar85  Ibid., pp. 29–37. 86  N. P. Rozanov, “Drevnie i drugie osobo zamechatel’nye predmety v prikhodskikh tserkvakh g. Moskvy,” in Drevnosti. Trudy MA, vol. IV, issue 3 (1873), Issledovaniia, pp. 127–70. 87  M. V. Tolstoi, “O drevnikh ikonakh v g. Staroi Ruse,” in Trudy IV AS v Rossii, byvshego v Kazani s 31 iiulia po 18 avgusta 1877 goda, vol. I (Kazan, 1884), pp. 1–4 (at the end of the volume). 88  M. I. and A. I. Uspenskie, “Ocherk tserkovnykh drevnostei goroda Rigi,” in Trudy X AS v Rige (1896), vol. III (Moscow, 1900), pp. 140–55, 160, 161 (on embroidery), 161–218. See also “Vyborka iz svedenii, dostavlennykh Moskovskomu arkheologicheskomu obshchestvu pravoslavnym dukhovenstvom po rasporiazheniiu rizhskogo arkhiepiskopa Arseniia (Arsenius),” in Trudy moskovskogo predvaritel’nogo komiteta X AS v g. Rige, vol. II (Moscow, 1896), pp. 39–210. 89  On the theme in question, see A. K. Zhiznevskii, “Opisanie Tverskogo muzeia,” in Drevnosti. Trudy MAO, vol. IX, issues 2–3 (1883), Issledovaniia, pp. 121–153, and vol. X (1885), Issledovaniia, pp. 162–64, 166–68. 90  For the information on the thirteenth-century colored and embossed Byzantine icon of St. George with scenes from his life (from Mariupol), not registered in the special literature, see AIZ (1895), no. 6, pp. 224–26. Cf.: A. Bank, Byzantine Art in the Collections of Soviet Museums (Leningrad, 1977), pls. 266–68, p. 322. 91  A. S. Uvarov, “Kiot 1614 goda v Kirillo-Belozerskom monastyre,” in Drevnosti. Trudy MAO, vol. I [issue 1] (1865) pp. 111–14; V. E. Rumiantsev, “Ikona s izobrazheniem monastyria i pered nim Khrista v obraze nishchego,” in Drevnosti. Trudy MAO, vol. XI, issue 3 (1887), pp. 70–72, table; N. Likhachev, “Novaia stroganovskaia imennaia ikona,” in AIZ (1894),

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ticles about embroidery that included images of saints are also noteworthy because they deal with original representations that were never altered. A. I. Odobesko, a Rumanian member of the Society, published the 1594 shroud depicting Avraamii of Rostov, which was preserved in Florence, and the 1601 epitaphion from the Bistrita monastery in Walachia.92 S. A. Usov supplied information on “Sapega’s banner,”93 and N. E. Ordin wrote about a small but valuable collection of Stroganov embroideries in Sol’vychegodsk.94 The best works issued by the Moscow Archaeological Society on embroideries that included representations of saints were written by V. N. Shchepkin. Publishing two large embroidered fifteenth-century icons of the Eucharist and Entombment from the Moscow Historical Museum,95 Shchepkin raised and clarified all the questions connected with the history and purpose of these remarkable works. The articles about illuminated manuscripts published valuable research. In accordance with the spirit of the times they most often concentrated the subject on miniatures, seeking to elucidate their iconographic and everyday details. Among these are the reports by Archimandrite Amfilokhii (Amphilochius) on the illustrations of the Novgorod Khludov Psalter;96 by I. D. Mansvetov on the illustrations of the Tver Chronicle of George Hamartolos;97 by V. N. Shchepkin

no. 8–9, pp. 249–51; N. Likhachev, “Dve ikony s letopis’iu,” in AIZ (1894), no. 12, pp. 391–94; P. L. Gusev, “O novgorodskoi ikone svv. Borisa i Gleba s deianiiami,” in AIZ (1898), no. 3–4, pp. 147–49; A. I. Uspenskii, “Interesnye pamiatniki ikonopisi: a) stroganovskaia ikona i b) skladen’, pisannyi na dereve ot raki pr. Sergiia,” in Drevnosti. Trudy MAO, vol. XIX, issue 3 (1902), pp. 116–20, with table. 92  A. O[dobesko], “Shityi pokrov na moshchi sv. Avraamiia Rostovskogo, nakhodiashchiisia vo Florentsii,” in AIZ (1894), no. 2, pp. 44–47, fig. 6; A. O[dobesko], “Vozdukh s vyshitym izobrazheniem polozheniia Spasitelia vo grob, pozhertvovannyi v 1601 g. v russkii Tikhvinskii monastyr i naidennyi v Bystritskom monastyre v Valakhii,” in Drevnosti. Trudy MAO, vol. IV, issue 1 (1874), Issledovaniia, pp. 1–36, tables I–III. 93   Drevnosti. Trudy MAO, vol. X (1885), minutes, pp. 94–96 (an untitled report). 94  N. Ordin, “Drevnosti Sol’vychegodskogo Blagoveshchenskogo sobora,” in Trudy VII AS v Yaroslavle, 1887, vol. III (Moscow, 1892), minutes, pp. 41–49. 95  V. N. Shchepkin, “Pamiatnik zolotogo shit’ia nachala XV veka,” in Drevnosti. Trudy MAO, vol. XV, issue 1 (1894), Issledovaniia, pp. 35–68, tables V–VII; V. N. Shchepkin, “Zagriazhskii vozdukh kontsa XV veka,” in Drevnosti. Trudy MAO, vol. XVIII (1901), pp. 49–54, table. 96  Arkhim. Amfilokhii (Amphilochius), “O slavianskoi Psaltiri XIII–XIV veka biblioteki A. I. Khludova,” in Drevnosti. Trudy MAO, vol. III, issue 1 (1870), pp. 1–3, with the supplement “Opisanie miniatiur iz slavianskoi Psaltiri XIII–XIV vekov biblioteki A. I. Khludova” on pp. 4–28 and an atlas of drawings. 97  I. D. Mansvetov, “Khudozhestvennye i bytovye dannye o slavianskom spiske letopisi Georgiia Amartola iz biblioteki moskovskoi Dukhovnoi akademii,” in Trudy V AS v Tiflise (Moscow, 1887), supplements, pp. 161–69.

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on illuminated miscellanies;98 by G. K. Bugoslavskii on the sumptuously decorated Psalter of 1395;99 by E. K. Redin on illuminated Psalters and Gospels from the A. S. Uvarov collection;100 by Uvarov himself on the illuminated Gospel from Vologda dated 1577;101 by S. N. Kologrivov on the Synodikon from the Moscow Kremlin;102 and by I. M. Tarabrin on the 1693 copy of Karion Istomin’s famous illustrated primer.103 The Moscow Archaeological Society placed special emphasis on architecture and wall painting, which embodied the art of medieval Russia in its most significant forms and images. The preservation, restoration, study, and publication of such monuments demanded a great deal of effort, time, and material resources. The Moscow scholars succeeded in making known the best of the buildings and frescoes. In the summer of 1881, on the occasion of the forthcoming coronation of Alexander III, repairs were carried out in the Dormition Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin. A committee, headed by Zabelin and Uvarov, was entrusted with the task of putting the cathedral iconostasis in order.104 When, the large “local” icons were removed for the examination of the condition of the iconostasis’ lower tier, the committee members, discovered a stone wall with twenty half-length frescoed representations of saints of the order of holy monks.105 Some time later it was recalled that these representations had been uncovered

98  V. Shchepkin, “Dva litsevykh sbornika Istoricheskogo muzeia,” in AIZ (1897), no. 4, pp. 97–128. 99  G. K. Bugoslavskii, “Zamechatel’nyi pamiuatnik drevnei smolenskoi pis’mennosti XIV v. i imeiushchiisia v nem risunok simvoliko-politicheskogo soderzhaniia,” in Drevnosti. Trudy MAO, vol. XXI, issue 1 (1906), pp. 77–87, tables XII–XX. 100  E. K. Redin, “Litsevye rukopisi sobraniia grafa A. S. Uvarova,” in Drevnosti. Trudy MAO, vol. XX (1904), pp. 81–88, tables LVI–LXVIII and vol. XXI, issue 2 (1907), pp. 38–42, figs. I–6. 101  A. S. Uvarov, “Evangelie 1577 goda, izobrazheniia evangelistov i ikh simvolov,” in Drevnosti. Trudy MAO, vol. XXI, issue 2, pp. 7–37, table. 102  S. N. Kologrivov, “Sinodik dvortsovoi tserkvi sv. velikomuchenitsy Evdokii 7141 (1633) g.,” in Drevnosti. Trudy MAO, vol. XXII, issue 2 (1909), pp. 310–14, tables IX, X. 103  I. Tarabrin, “Litsevoi Bukvar’ Kariona Istomina,” in Drevnosti. Trudy MAO, vol. XXV (1916), pp. 249–330, tables XV–LIII. The copy published is now in TsGADA. 104  A. I. Uspenskii, “K istorii ikonostasa Uspenskogo sobora v Moskve,” in Drevnosti. Trudy MAO, vol. XVIII,(1901), p. 42. 105  “Predvaritel’naia informatsiia,” in Drevnosti. Trudy MAO, vol. IX, issues 2–3 (1883), minutes, p. 106 (V. E. Rumiantsev’s report); Otchety o zasedaniiakh Obshchestva liubitelei drevnei pis’mennosti, 1881–1882. Sost[avil] P. Tikhanov (St. Petersburg [1889]) (=PDP, LXXX), pp. 81, 82 (G. D. Filimonov’s report). Both reports were made in March 12, 1882.

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earlier, in 1812 and 1852,106 but nobody had paid attention to them. Now this altar-screen with frescoes aroused keen interest. A scholarly debate flared up, in which S. A. Usov, A. S. Pavlov, and I. D. Mansvetov took an active part.107 The Moscow chronicles refer to the Dormition Cathedral repeatedly. The present building was constructed in 1479. In 1481 a three-tier iconostasis was installed, and between 1513 and 1515 frescoes were painted. The iconostasis of 1481 and the frescoes of the early sixteenth century did not survive, and the chronicles were silent about the altar-screen and its decoration. Thus various ideas were expressed as to the purpose of the screen and the dating of the newly discovered frescoes. Usov, who tried to identify the frescoes of the altarscreen with the Deesis iconostasis of 1481 mentioned in the chronicles, had the weakest position. His idea that the choice of the saints depicted was dictated by events of fifteenth-century history also met with criticism. Mansvetov approached the subject differently, reminding Society members that stone screens were not uncommon in Russia and that similarly built partitions in front of church sanctuaries survived in Zvenigorod, the St. Trinity Lavra, and the Annunciation Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin. He also pointed out that the screens of two Zvenigorod cathedrals and the Annunciation Cathedral were painted with images of holy monks, just as in the Dormition Cathedral. To demonstrate the unacceptability of Usov’s point of view, Mansvetov published a short but well-founded essay on the Deesis using Byzantine and Russian sources.108 His sources showed that the word deesis generally designated icons of Christ with the Mother of God, John the Baptist, and other saints standing 106  See I. M. Snegirev, Uspenskii sobor v Moskve (Moscow, 1856), p. 13. 107  See Drevnosti. Trudy MAO, vol. IX, issues 2–3, minutes [the second pagination], pp. 44–47 (S. A. Usov’s opinion) and 47–50 (I. D. Mansvetov’s remarks); [A. S. Pavlov], “Razbor letopisnykh izvestii o vremeni pervonachal’nogo ukrasheniia moskovskogo Uspenskogo sobora stennymi izobrazheniiami,” Ibid., minutes, supplement A, pp. 83–85; [I. D. Mansvetov, “O tom zhe,”] Ibid., supplement B, pp. 85–90; I. Mansvetov, “Po povodu nedavno otkrytoi stenopisi v moskovskom i vladimirskom Uspenskikh soborakh,” in Pribavleniia k Tvoreniiam sviatykh otsev, II (Moscow, 1883), pp. 523–25, 530–37 (separate edition: Moscow, 1883, pp. 2–4, 10–16); S. A. Usov, “K istorii moskovskogo Uspenskogo sobora,” in Drevnosti. Trudy MAO, vol. X (1885), Issledovaniia, pp. 82–94; [S. A. Usov]. “Otvet A. S. Pavlovu. Po povodu ego “Razbora letopisnykh izvestii …,” Ibid., minutes, supplement A, pp. 13–20. A general survey of opinions was made by A. I. Uspenskii: A. I. Uspenskii, Tsarskie ikonopistsy i zhivopistsy XVII veka (Moscow, 1913) (=Zapiski MAI, vol. I), see note 1 to p. 5 on pp. 5–7. 108   Drevnosti. Trudy MAO, vol. IX, issue 2–3, minutes [the second pagination], pp. 47–50; “Po povodu nedavno otkrytoi stenopisi v moskovskom i vladimirskom Uspenskikh soborakh,” pp. 525–29 (pp. 5–10 in a separate edition).

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Figure 6.9 Dormition Cathedral at the Moscow Kremlin, architect Aristotele Fioravanti, 1475–79.

before him in prayer and that a 1481 chronicle entry on the Deesis, festivals, and prophets had nothing to do with the subject of the frescoes on the altar-screen. In the course of the debate the scholars forgot to photograph and publish the discovered frescoes.109 The exact date of the frescoes also remained unknown.110 While Usov argued in favor of 1481 and Pavlov interpreted the frescoes on the screen as part of the overall decoration of the cathedral completed in 1515, Mansvetov advanced the opinion that it was impossible to date them to the period between 1479 and 1482 or between 1481 and 1515. It should be noted that this problem is still unresolved today111 and that the frescoes on the altar109  Only uncolored life-size tracing-paper copies of the original frescoes were made; they were shown by G. D. Filimonov at a meeting of the Society of Lovers of Ancient Literature. See note 105. 110  The collector and well-known Russian antiquarian A. E. Sorokin, one of the first to report on the newly discovered frescoes of the Dormition cathedral, dated them to the period of the cathedral’s completion in 1479 (A. Sorokin, “Liubiteliam drevnei ikonopisi,” in Moskovskie vedomosti, 25 March, 1882 no. 83, pp. 4–5). 111  See O. V. Zonova, “Stenopis’ Uspenskogo sobora Moskovskogo Kremlia,” in Drevnerusskoe iskusstvo. XVII vek (Moscow, 1964), pp. 116, 118, 122. Nearly half of the surviving frescoes are published in the following albums and articles: O. Zonova, “Pervaia rospis’ Uspenskogo

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Figure 6.10 Dormition Cathedral at the Moscow Kremlin. General view of the iconostasis and wall-paintings.

screen of the Dormition Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin still await a truly scholarly publication. In the nineteenth century, most discoveries of medieval Russian painting were serendipitous. They were usually made during periodic renovations of murals. In the course of such renovations quite a few important artworks were irretrievably lost because those in charge did not realize their historical value and the scholars of archaeological societies even in the capital cities, to say nothing of the out-of-the-way corners of the provinces, were in adequately informed. Some churchmen, however, showed a keen interest in local antiquities and took great pains to uncover and publish them. In 1849, the Vladimir historian V. I. Dobrokhotov published his research on two twelfth-century Vladimir cathedrals: the Dormition and St. Demetrius.112 The book was noticed by M. P. Pogodin who, recommending it to the readers of Moskvitianin, expressed deep concern about the destruction of the frescoes sobora [Moskovskogo Kremlia]” (Leningrad, 1971) (=Publikatsiia odnogo pamiatnika, 6), ills. I–7; Uspenskii sobor Moskovskogo Kremlia. Sostavitel’ O. V. Zonova (Moscow, 1971), ills. 49–53; T. V. Tolstaia, Uspenskii sobor Moskovskogo Kremlia. K 500-letiiu unikal’nogo pamiatnika russkoi kul’tury (Moscow, 1979), pp. 15–20, ills. 45–49; I. Ia. Kachalov, “Altarnaia pregrada Uspenskogo sobora Moskovskogo Kremlia. Itogi restavratsii zhivopisi v 1978–1979 gg..” in Drevnerusskoe iskusstvo. XIV–XV vv. (Moscow, 1984). pp. 267–82. Among earlier publications we can indicate the editorial “Drevnie freski za ikonostasom moskovskogo Uspenskogo sobora,” in the Svetil’nik magazine, 1915, no. I, pp. 3–7. 112  V. Dobrokhotov, Pamiatniki drevnosti vo Vladimire Kliazemskom. Sobory: kafedral’nyi Uspenskii i byvshii pridvornym v[elikogo] k[niazia] Vsevoloda Dmitrievskii (Moscow, 1849).

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Fresco of St. Alexius, 1479–81, on the altar wall of Dormition Cathedral in the Moscow Kremlin.

that had once decorated the cathedrals of Vladimir, Bogoliubovo, Suzdal, and Rostov. “Whitewash is the arch-enemy of our archaeology: it covers the inside and outside of our old buildings so thickly that they look as if they were erected yesterday.… I’m sure that some parts of the Dormition Cathedral in Vladimir conceal old icon painting under several layers of whitewash….”113 He then drew an apt comparison between old churches and palimpsests, and expressed the hope that numerous relics of monumental painting known from 113   Moskvitianin (1849), part V, no. 18, book 2, section Kritika i bibliografiia, p. 18. See also a reprint in N. Barsukov, Zhizn’ i trudy M. P. Pogodina, X (St. Petersburg, 1896), p. 416.

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Fresco of St. Anthony, 1479–81, on the altar wall of Dormition Cathedral in the Moscow Kremlin.

chronicles and other historical sources would be discovered in Vladimir in the future. Pogodin’s conviction was based on the information drawn from Dobrokhotov’s book. Dobrokhotov stated, when describing the interior of the Dormition Cathedral, that nearly all the walls and vaults of the building were whitewashed and that the painting in the sanctuary and on the large vault in the western part of the central nave under the choir was new, done in oils in the second half of the eighteenth century. But Dobrokhotov, versed in the history of the cathedral, knew that it had also been painted in the twelfth and fifteenth centuries. Here and there old frescoes showed from beneath the peeled-off whitewash and were especially noticeable on the south slope of the small

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Figure 6.13

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Dormition Cathedral in Vladimir (twelfth century).

Figure 6.14 Fresco of Sts. Peter and Paul from the Last Judgment, 1408, Dormition Cathedral in Vladimir.

vault near the large vault of the central nave under the choir. It was precisely these particular frescoes, with individual figures from the composition of the Last Judgment, that indicated that the Dormition Cathedral might become the site of very interesting discoveries. In the mid-nineteenth century there was no unanimous opinion concerning the remnants of the painting on the small vault: they were regarded either as twelfth-century frescoes or as the traces of a fifteenth-century restoration by Daniil Chernyi and Andrei Rublev.114 Now 114  V. Dobrokhotov, Pamiatniki drevnosti vo Vladimire Kliazemskom …, pp. 49, 50.

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Fresco of angel from the Last Judgment, 1408, Dormition Cathedral in Vladimir.

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Figure 6.16

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Fresco of angel from the Last Judgment, 1408, Dormition Cathedral in Vladimir.

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we know that the smaller and larger vaults as well as their supporting arches and piers in the western part of the Dormition Cathedral retain fragments of frescoes from different periods, and that Chernyi and Rublev’s paintings partly cover the poorly preserved frescoes from the time of Vsevolod (Bol’shoe Gnezdo about 1189).115 Hence, we can more easily understand the confusion of mid nineteenth-century scholars who dated these frescoes not on stylistic grounds but on historical evidence. The fresco on the south slope of the smaller vault, with the figures of Abraham, Isaac, and James in Paradise, and part of the ancient ornamental design were uncovered in 1859 by F. G. Solntsev, who at that time was attached to the Imperial Archaeological Committee specifically for the discovery and renovation of wall painting in old churches.116 But work was suspended in 1859, and new discoveries resumed in the Dormition Cathedral only twenty years later when on the initiative of the newly appointed archbishop, Feognost (Theognostos), the renovation of the entire cathedral began.117 Feognost intended to remove the whitewash and the poor eighteenth-century painting from the walls and have them painted again in “the ancient style.” In 1881, having informed the Moscow Archaeological Society and the Synod that the ancient painting had not survived in the cathedral, he ordered that the main sanctuary be decorated anew. This work went on for two years, and by the spring of 1882 scaffoldings had been installed for the decoration of the main premises of the cathedral, which was entrusted to N. M. Safonov, a well-known contractor and master from Palekh. Meanwhile the cathedral keeper A. I. Vinogradov discovered that pieces of plaster knocked off the walls in the main sanctuary and scattered in the yard contained earlier representations which he 115  The problem of correlation between the 1408 murals and the remains of the twelfthcentury murals in the Dormition cathedral is treated in A. B. Matveeva, “Freski Andreia Rubleva i stenopis’ XII veka vo Vladimire,” in Andrei Rublev i ego epokha. Sbornik statei pod red. M. V. Alpatova (Moscow, 1971), pp. 142–56 and 162–70. 116  N. P. Sobko, “F. G. Solntsev i ego khudozhestvenno-arkheologicheskaia deiatel’nost’,” in VestnII, vol. I, issue III (St. Petersburg, 1883), p. 481. 117  For the history of the renewal and discovery of ancient frescoes in Vladimir’s Dormition cathedral see A. Vinogradov, “Vladimirskii Uspenskii sobor i otkrytye v nem freski,” in VEFV (1884), no. 4, unofficial section, pp. 94–107; I. Golyshev, “Schastlivaia sud’ba freskov vladimirskogo kafedral’nogo Uspenskogo sobora XII veka,” Ibid. (1884), no. 16, unofficial section, pp. 491–98; [A. I. Vinogradov], “Obnovlenie vladimirskogo Uspenskogo sobora,” iIbid. (1884), no. 22, unofficial section, pp. 683–98; A. I. Vinogradov, Istoriia kafedral’nogo Uspenskogo sobora v gubernskom gorode Vladimire (Vladimir, 1891), pp. 73–77, 92–103 (the same work, 3rd ed., enlarged [Vladimir, 1905], pp. 47–50, 92–99); A. I. Vinogradov, Vospominaniia (na pamiat’ detiam) (Vladimir na Kliaz’me, 1915), pp. 93–103.

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took for the remnants of the twelfth-century frescoes that were visible under the crude eighteenth-century overpainting. Worried by the senseless loss of ancient frescoes from the sanctuary, Vinogradov decided to take samples in some other places in the cathedral. A specially appointed committee made prospect-holes in different areas on the vaults and walls but no frescoes were located. Nevertheless, Vinogradov continued his search even if only to find traces of old frescoes.118 “As if obsessed with a presentiment I had no peace, believing that the remnants of the ancient painting must have been left somewhere,” he related many years later. I pestered Safonov, asking him to climb the scaffoldings once again and try our luck. We crossed ourselves and set to work but at first did not climb the scaffoldings and began from the bottom. Nikolai Mikhailovich had a double-edged clasp-knife, like a dagger. He unfolded it and with a sure hand started scraping off the oil-paint that covered the right-hand side of the wide arch under the choir that featured the new, poorly executed image of the Savior with a rope. In less than a minute another layer of paint, of red color, appeared from under the oil-paint. This was the border drawn along the edge of the arch. Nikolai Mikhailovich went on scraping and gradually the background began to show on which the outline of a foot soon emerged. With sinking hearts we continued to remove the upper layer of oil-paint. Night came but we were not sleepy. At last, a life-size figure of a trumpeting angel appeared before our eyes. To make the figure stand out clearly, Safonov outlined it with charcoal dissolved in water and the angel grew even more lifelike in his wonderful gracefulness.119 This was one of the most elegant figures painted by Daniil Chernyi and Andrei Rublev around 1408, well known today from numerous reproductions which no publication on Rublev’s art can do without. “After the discovery of the trumpeting angel,” continued Vinogradov, “samples were taken in other parts of the cathedral as well, and remnants of ancient painting were found in different areas. The committee looking for ancient frescoes could not locate them be118  Apparently he was familiar with both V. I. Dobrokhotov’s vague reports and the much clearer observations made by the guberniia architect N. A. Artleben who was invited by Theognost to monitor the restoration of the cathedral: as early as 1869 N. A. Artleben reported that traces of ancient murals could be seen on two vaults under the choir loft and behind the iconostasis of the Dormition cathedral. See N. A. Artleben, “Po voprosu ob arkhitekture XII veka,” in Trudy I AS v Moskve (1869), vol. I, p. 297. 119  A. I. Vinogradov, Vospominaniia (na pamiat’ detiam), p. 98.

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Figure 6.17 Nikolai Mikhailovich Sofonov (1844–1910).

cause it conducted [its] search under the deep layer of plaster, while the murals were only whitewashed and not plastered over.”120 This unexpected success inspired Vinogradov. Archbishop Theognostos and the Moscow Archaeological Society were immediately informed of this discovery. On May 16, 1882, Society delegates V. E. Rumiantsev and A. P. Popov arrived and under their supervision almost all of the remnants of twelfth- and fifteenth-century frescoes were uncovered within the next seven days.121 These included the composition of the Last Judgment under the choir, individual figures of saints on the pillars, and fragments of large multifigure scenes on the vaults and in the lunettes of the upper part of the building: the Presentation in the Temple, the Offering of Joachim and Anne, the Baptism, the Transfiguration, and the Descent of the Holy Spirit. Last to be discovered were the fragments of frescoes behind the iconostasis, and the second trumpeting angel on the north slope of the entrance arch under the choir.122

120  Ibid., p. 99. 121  In the 1970s the frescoes of the Dormition cathedral were studied again, giving a more accurate idea of their state of preservation. See L. P. Balygina, A. P. Nekrasov, A. I. Skvortsov, “Vnov’ otkrytye i maloizvestnye fragmenty zhivopisi XII v. v Uspenskom sobore vo Vladimire,” in Drevnerusskoe iskusstvo. Monumental’naia zhivopis’ XI–XVII vv. (Moscow, 1980), pp. 61–76. 122  The later oil painting was not only removed by hand but also washed off with the solution of potash in pure water. It caused considerable damage to the delicate colors of the murals and especially to the frescoes painted by Daniel Chernyi and Andrei Rublev.

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On June 6, 1882, the official committee of the Moscow Archaeological Society, headed by Zabelin and Rumiantsev, pronounced the uncovered frescoes to be the remnants of a twelfth-century Greek work, renovated by Andrei Rublev after the original pattern. The committed resolved “to restore the ancient painting” and, where no frescoes were found, to remove the old plaster and execute new frescoes in the twelfth-century style. Safonov, who received a contract for the renovation of the murals, was instructed to make accurate colored copies of the uncovered frescoes with indications of all the lost and damaged areas. This work was done during the summer while Safonov’s team spent the two following years on the “restoration” of old frescoes and the painting of new ones. In November 1884, the restored cathedral was consecrated, with delegations from Moscow and Nizhnii Novgorod attending. It should be noted that Safonov approached the renovation of the twelfth- and fifteenth-century murals in the Vladimir cathedral with the greatest responsibility that could be expected from a nineteenth-century contractor. But the haste with which the work was done, though counterbalanced by the proficiency of Safonov’s team, could not produce good results: loosely hanging pieces of ancient frescoes were virtually destroyed, the eighteenth-century oil paint and the most recent layer of whitewash were not completely removed, and all the uncovered frescoes of the twelfth and fifteenth centuries retouched. In light of these results it did not make sense to study frescoes of different periods in the Dormition Cathedral after Safonov’s renovation, especially since the experienced masters of his team, skilled at restorations of this kind, had effaced the differences between the twelfth- and fifteenth-century frescoes as well as the differences between remnants of ancient painting and their own work. Fortunately, the life-size copies of the frescoes made by Safonov and two or three sets of color photographs123 gave a more or less correct idea of the newly discovered frescoes. For this reason, the Vladimir frescoes were immediately studied by scholars and were often referred to in iconographic research.124 Although there was 123  One of them, delivered to the Synod, was directly turned over by Chief Procurator K. P. Pobedonostsev to the church-archaeological museum at the Kiev Theological Academy (N. Petrov, “Otchet Tserkovno-arkheologicheskogo obshchestva pri Kievskoi dukhovnoi akademii za 1885 god,” in TKDA [1886], February, p. 275). Similar sets were also made for the Academy of Arts and the museum in Vladimir. 124  See, for example I. Mansvetov, “Po povodu nedavno otkrytoi stenopisi v moskovskom i vladimirskom Uspenskikh soborakh,” pp. 536–57 (in a separate edition pp. 18–37); N. V. Pokrovskii, “Strashnyi sud v pamiatnikakh vizantiiskogo i russkogo iskusstva,” in Trudy VI AS v Odesse (1884 g.), vol. III (Odessa, 1887), pp. 308–11, tables 3–12; M. and V. I. Uspenskie, Zametki o drevnerusskom ikonopisanii. Izvestnye ikonopistsy i ikh proizvedeniia: I. Sv. Alimpii, II. Andrei Rublev (St. Petersburg, 1901), pp. 47–58, figs. 11–19; N. V. Pokrovskii,

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only a limited possibility for stylistic appraisal of the frescoes, it was precisely such indications of style as “slim figures,” “refined facial features,” and “accuracy and neatness of finishing touches” that served to date the majority of the newly discovered frescoes, especially the compositions on the Last Judgment theme, to the period of Daniil Chernyi and Andrei Rublev.125 Simultaneously with the work in Vladimir, the Moscow Archaeological Society undertook the restoration of the frescoes in the Annunciation Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin. As in other Kremlin cathedrals, its frescoes had been repeatedly painted over and, by the beginning of the 1880s, they looked like the work of an ordinary nineteenth-century house-painter. Only the frescoes of the upper side-chapels, the rarely renovated (but considerably darkened) composition of the main dome, and the remnants of the images of holy monks on the front sides of the sanctuary pillars behind the iconostasis gave an idea of the earlier decoration of the building which, according to historical sources, must have included, along with the painting of the second half of the sixteenth century, the frescoes of 1508 painted by Feodosii (Theodosius) and Vladimir, sons of the celebrated artist Dionysius.

“Stennye rospisi v drevnikh khramakh grecheskikh i russkikh,” in Trudy VII AS v Yaroslavle, 1887, vol. I (Moscow, 1890), pp. 204–208. Apart from the representation of the Last Judgment, considerable interest was also aroused by the figure of an unknown saint wearing a royal crown, uncovered on the front side of the southeast pier supporting the dome behind the iconostasis: interpreted as a representation of Prince Vladimir, it was repeatedly published and discussed in various articles and books printed on the occasion of the nine-hundredth anniversary of the baptism of Russia. See, in particular, Kholmskaia Rus’. Istoricheskie sud’by russkogo Zabuzh’ia, Izdanie P. N. Batiushkova (St. Petersburg, 1887), a table and explanatory notes for it on pp. 13, 14 in “Ob’iasneniia k risunkam”; K. Tsybul’skii [=P. A. Lashkarev], in KS (1887), November, pp. 555, 556 (in the review of P. N. Batiushkov’s edition); N. P[etrov], “Drevnie izobrazheniia sv. Vladimira,” in TKDA (July, 1888), pp. 446–54; P. Vinogradov, “Ob izobrazhenii sv. Vladimira na freske Vladimirskogo sobora,” in Moskovskie vedomosti (1888), December 31, no. 302, p. 5; N. Petrov, “O drevnem freskovom izobrazhenii sv. ravnoapostol’nogo kniazia Vladimira vo Vladimirskom Uspenskom sobore,” in TKDA (July, 1889), pp. 445–67. Cf. V. A. Plugin, “Ob ikonografii edinolichnykh izobrazhenii v stenopisi Andreia Rubleva i Daniila Chernogo v Uspenskom sobore vo Vladimire,” in Kul’tura drevnei Rusi. [Sbornik statei] k 40-letiiu nauchnoi deiatel’nosti N. N. Voronina (Moscow, 1966), pp. 198–200, ill. on p. 199 (after N. M. Safonov’s copy). 125  N. V. Pokrovskii, “Stennye rospisi v drevnikh khramakh grecheskikh i russkikh,” pp. 204, 205. A similar opinion concerning the date of the execution of the Vladimir frescoes was put forward by I. D. Mansvetov in 1883.

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The restoration of the frescoes in the Annunciation Cathedral had nothing to do with academic concerns.126 Like the renovation in the Dormition Cathedral supervised by Uvarov, it was undertaken on the occasion of the coronation of Alexander III. For the same reason the committee, in which the Moscow Society was represented by Zabelin, was headed by Count A. V. OrlovDavydov; an official of the Ministry of the Court, and M. P. Botkin, a member of the Academy of Arts. The academician Viktor Dorimantovich Fartusov, who was invited to clean the frescoes, had, with other Moscow academicians, decorated the Church of Christ the Savior. Today it is easy to see that the composition of the committee and the choice of restorers boded ill. At first everything went according to plan. But after cleaning the image of the Pantokrator in the main dome in 1882, Fartusov moved on to the frescoes of the porch, which had been overpainted particularly often, so that traces of past renovations presented an extremely complicated problem for restoration. According to his contract, Fartusov was only to “wash and touch up” the most recent extant painting, yet he persuaded the committee members, after the uncovering of the sixteenth-century fresco in the dome, to undertake the cleaning of all the ancient painting of the cathedral. Work in the Annunciation Cathedral continued long after the coronation. Evidently, the committee members often regretted afterwards that they had agreed to the continuation of work since, in their words, “Fartusov the restorer found himself in a role that was alien to him” and in 1884 he began to draw and paint in additions rather than to merely clean the frescoes. This he did in a quite unexpected style clearly modeled on the Italian quattrocento, assuring everybody that he was uncovering the original frescoes of Italian artists who had allegedly worked in the cathedral under Ivan III. “At first the restorer uncovered ancient painting rather successfully, but later he permitted himself some deviations harmful to the process,” Zabelin and Botkin informed Orlov-Davydov in December 1884. “Probably these resulted from a certain fatigue caused by the long and painstaking effort to remove several successive layers of paint so that in the end the artist started imagining forms and shapes even in the exposed patches which he, 126  See N. D. Izvekov, Moskovskie kremlevskie dvortsovye tserkvi i sluzhivshie pri nikh litsa v XVII veke (Moscow, 1906) (=Trudy Komissii po osmotru i izucheniiu pamiatnikov tserkovnoi stariny g. Moskvy i Moskovskoi eparkhii, vol. 2), pp. 6–34 (general information on the history of the cathedral and its renewals); A. I. Uspenskii, “Freski paperti Blagoveshchenskogo sobora v Moskve,” in Zolotoe runo, 1906, no. 7–9, pp. 33–45, with table; A. I. Uspenskii, “Stenopis’ Blagoveshchenskogo sobora v Moskve (po povodu restavratsii 1884 goda),” in Drevnosti. Trudy Komissii po sokhraneniiu drevnikh pamiatnikov imp. MAO, vol. III (Moscow, 1909), minutes, pp. 153–77, tables XV–XXI.

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after some additions and retouchings, turned into heads and figures, (though it ran counter to the overall composition). On close examination, it becomes clear that none of the good artists of old would have studded the walls with so many heads and arms without any sense and coherence…. Mr. Fartusov, it is true, admitted that he began to see these images only after two years of work.”127 The conflict between the worried committee and the obstinate artist ended in Fartusov’s dismissal. In an explanatory note to Orlov-Davydov, Fartusov in turn made a transparent hint at the incompetence of the committee members supervising the restoration work. “The idea that such remarkably varied types can be created without a study, a model, a charcoal, and a pencil, using only a penknife and a brush for retouching, is strange and unfeasible because it cannot be done by the best artists of Russia or those of Western Europe. I, too, could not do anything of the kind even when I worked in the Church of Christ the Savior in Moscow though I painted up to two hundred images there, employing all the resources of my knowledge and all devices…. The fact that even my assistant, who has some skill of painting, easily restores the elements of a remarkably regular and beautiful drawing merely confirms the reality of the existence of the ancient drawing and not the fantastic invention of the restorer carried away by his work. It is sufficient to look at the newly uncovered and restored parts of the painting or the photographs to be convinced of the truth of the aforesaid.”128 The controversy led Fartusov to take a series of photographs of the uncovered frescoes, which were published twenty-five years later thanks to a revival of interest in medieval Russian painting and a revision of the theoretical grounds of nineteenth-century restoration. The composition In Thee Rejoiceth, which particularly puzzled the committee members, is indeed a quaint mixture of Italianate heads and arms depicted at random and quite often merging with one another. Such a work would have been impossible for a Russian artist, and equally atypical for an Italian master. Realizing this, Fartusov was inclined to think that what he had uncovered were the preparatory studies for a future fresco. Likewise he interpreted the image of an unknown prelate, next to the fresco In Thee Rejoiceth. This figure he said held a model of the Annunciation Cathedral shaped like a stone construction with a belfry which also allegedly 127  A. I. Uspenskii, “Freski paperti Blagoveshchenskogo sobora v Moskve,” p. 42; A. I. Uspenskii, “Stenopis’ Blagoveshchenskogo sobora v Moskve (po povodu restavratsii 1884 goda),” pp. 161, 162. 128  A. I. Uspenskii, “Freski paperti Blagoveshchenskogo sobora v Moskve,” pp. 42, 43; A. I. Uspenskii, “Stenopis’ Blagoveshchenskogo sobora v Moskve (po povodu restavratsii 1884 goda),” p. 162.

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contained an iconostasis, murals, and all the details of interior decoration.129 The churchwarden of the court cathedral, the model described [suggested] by Fartusov, could by no means be painted as a prelate. Fartusov’s conception in no way fits fifteenth-century Russian art nor that of the Italian Renaissance.130 The subsequent restoration of the frescoes in the Annunciation Cathedral was carried out in the way usual of all learned societies of the second half of the nineteenth century. After Fartusov’s dismissal, the committee invited N. M. Safonov, who had just finished the renovation of the frescoes in the Dormition Cathedral in Vladimir, to take on the project. By that time Safonov had signed several profitable contracts for the restoration of other monuments, but he accepted the offer to do the Annunciation Cathedral. Safonov and his team finished in 1895: instead of cleaning the old frescoes, his craftsmen merely refreshed the existing nineteenth-century oil painting. Fartusov’s drawings were destroyed and new compositions were painted in. The insulted Fartusov did not fail to express his view on the tastes of the connoisseurs of medieval art from the archaeological societies: “As regards the imitation of medieval icon painting, they say that the uglier the body and the draperies are painted, the more they are highlighted with gold, the closer [they are] to medieval painting.”131 All the negative consequences of the theory of restoration, whether unconscious or openly espoused by even the most progressive scholars and restorers, were made fully manifest during the renovation of the sixteenth-century frescoes in the Dormition Cathedral of the Sviiazhsk Monastery near Kazan’. Here, too, the contract was made with Safonov. From the very beginning, the 129  A. I. Uspenskii, “Freski paperti Blagoveshchenskogo sobora v Moskve,” p. 45; A. I. Uspenskii, “Stenopis’ Blagoveshchenskogo sobora v Moskve (po povodu restavratsii 1884 goda),” p. 168. 130  It is rather interesting that many years later V. D. Fartusov’s discoveries found a staunch supporter in the person of the artist A. V. Grishchenko who advocated the authenticity of the representations photographed in 1884 (A. Grishchenko, Voprosy zhivopisi, 3. Russkaia ikona kak iskusstvo zhivopisi [Moscow, 1917], pp. 20–30). The overall cleaning of the frescoes undertaken in the north and west porches of the cathedral from 1947–61 exposed nothing that could be reminiscent of V. D. Fartusov’s drawings, but it is noteworthy that G. S. Sokolova (who made a point of studying the materials of Fartusov’s case), does not rule out the possibility that the galleries of the Annunciation Cathedral were originally painted by Italian artists. See G. S. Sokolova, Rospis’ Blagoveshchenskogo sobora. Freski Feodosiia (1508) i khudozhnikov serediny XVI veka v Moskovskom Kremle (Leningrad, 1970); G. S. Sokolova, “K voprosu o pervonachal’noi rospisi galerei Blagoveshchenskogo sobora Moskovskogo Kremlia,” in Gos. muzei Moskovskogo Kremlia. Materialy i issledovaniia, III (Moscow, 1980), pp. 106–37. 131  V. D. Fartusov, “Po voprosu o nabliudenii za ikonopisaniem,” in MoskTsV (1901), no. 8, p. 92.

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Moscow Archaeological Society had only weak control over the renovation. Because of the great distance between Moscow and Kazan’, it was decided not to send a special committee to Sviiazhsk. Instead, the Society entrusted the general supervision over the contractor to D. V. Ainalov, a non-Muscovite member, and professor of the Kazan’ University department of art history who was just preparing an article on the Sviiazhsk frescoes. Ainalov conscientiously fulfilled the Society’s commission but, as his idea of restoration objectives hardly diverged from the demands of the clergy and Safonov’s proposals, the murals in Sviiazhsk were simply repainted, with Safonov’s masters giving free rein to their imagination in those areas where the traces of old frescoes were too faint to follow. In the extensive iconographic research on the Sviiazhsk murals, published by Ainalov shortly after the project ended, we find the following curious report about the restoration of the fresco depicting the battle of Archangel Michael and Satan: “Now the figure is restored with complete clarity, but instead of the Archangel’s youthful features we see the face of the Lord of Sabaoth with a beard and long dark hair.… One must suppose that this occurred because of a misunderstanding on the part of restorers.”132 It is obvious that all the individuals and institutions involved in the restoration—the monastery, Safonov, and the Moscow Archaeological Society—were primarily concerned with imparting the former clarity of line to the old frescoes and sacrificed the original art for the sake of the incorrectly understood general objective of the restoration. That is why Ainalov had no scruples about saying that the lost inscriptions were renewed at random from Holy Scripture and chants, and the poorly preserved blue background of the frescoes was replaced by an ash-grey background probably because of the contractor’s unwillingness to use expensive blue paint.133 The only circumstance that Ainalov thinks “can reconcile the scholarly approach and the restoration of ancient painting at all” is the decision of the Moscow Archaeological Society to renew the Sviiazhsk frescoes in watercolors rather than in oils, which Safonov usually applied.134 It is obvious, however, that this decision gave free rein to all kinds of slackness in restoration. Any restorer suspected of dishonest work could explain that he used paints that could be removed with ordinary water, if necessary. This kind of unscrupulous reasoning is still practiced by restorers who do not hesitate to tint poorly preserved icons and frescoes and to paint in additions with watercolors, reckoning that no one will remove the tinting and that the apparent 132  D. V. Ainalov, “Freskovaia rospis’ khrama Uspeniia Bogoroditsy v Sviiazhskom muzhskom Bogoroditskom monastyre,” in Drevnosti. Trudy MAO, vol. XXI, issue 1 (1906), p. 33. 133  Ibid., pp. 8, 9 and 38. 134  Ibid., p. 7.

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good condition of a work will last for many years. So it happened with the frescoes of the Sviiazhsk monastery, and all the researchers who worked there after Ainalov.135 They had to answer basic questions concerning historical background, state of preservation, and style—always with a certain degree of probability caused by the 1899 restoration. The work in Sviiazhsk turned out to be one of the last restorations in the field of monumental painting carried out by the Moscow Archaeological Society. All later cleanings and renovations of old frescoes were either done by other institutions or with the indirect participation of the Uvarovs’ Society. At the Thirteenth Archaeological Congress in Ekaterinoslav, when Ya. I. Smirnov displayed the drawings of Kievan antiquities based on the 1651 sketches made in the cathedral,136 Ainalov immediately suggested that the portraits of Yaroslav the Wise and his family depicted on one of the sheets of this historical series should be uncovered in the Kievan St. Sophia.137 The cathedral’s administration authorized the cleaning and decided to collaborate with one of Moscow’s icon-painting workshops.138 For unknown reasons this project, which might have led to the discovery of an outstanding historical and artistic monument, was not realized, and the group portrait of Yaroslav and his family was found only thirty years later by P. I. Yukin.139 According to the Synod decision of May 31, 1853, all major restoration works in churches and monasteries were to be conducted only after a special notification of the Synod and only with the approval of the nearest archaeological society. This resolution, one of the first expressing church and state policy di135  See B. P. Denike, “Opisanie fresok Uspenskogo sobora v Sviiazhskom muzhskom monastyre,” in P. M. Dul’skii, Pamiatniki Kazanskoi stariny (Kazan, 1914), pp. 187–200; M. K. Karger, “Uspenskii sobor Sviiazhskogo monastyria kak arkhitekturnyi pamiatnik. (Iz istorii kul’turno-khudozhestvennykh otnoshenii Pskova i Moskvy),” in Materialy po okhrane, remontu i restavratsii pamiatnikov TSSR, 2 (Kazan, 1928), pp. 10–31; M. K. Karger, “Les portraits des fondateurs dans les peintures murales de monastère de Svijazsk,” in L’art byzantin chez les slaves, II (Paris, 1932), pp. 135–49; N. E. Mneva, “Moskovskaia zhivopis’ XVI veka,” in Istoriia russkogo iskusstva, vol. III (Moscow, 1955), pp. 560, 562–64; I. A. Kochetkov, “Rospisi Uspenskogo sobora Sviiazhska. Restavratsiia i issledovanie,” in Drevnerusskoe iskusstvo. Monumental’naia zhivopis’ XI–XVII v., pp. 370–78. 136  Ia. I. Smirnov, “Risunki Kieva 1651 goda po kopiiam ikh kontsa XVIII veka,” in Trudy XIII AS v Ekaterinoslavle, 1905, vol. II (Moscow, 1908), pp. 444–62. 137  Ibid., minutes, pp. 239, 240, 245. 138   Drevnosti. Trudy MAO, vol. XXII, issue 1 (1909), pp. 31, 32 (from “Doklad P. S. Uvarovoi o predpolagaemykh rabotakh dlia XIV arkheologicheskogo s”ezda”). 139  See V. N. Lazarev, Russkaia srednevekovaia zhivopis’. Stat’i i issledovaniia (Moscow, 1970), pp. 27–34 (the article “Gruppovoi portret semeistva Yaroslava”).

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rected toward the preservation of artistic and historical monuments, remained in force until the 1917 revolution. The Moscow Archaeological Society also respected this decree and, in 1890, when the Imperial Archaeological Committee tried to concentrate matters of preservation and restoration in the hands of an official state-controlled institution, the Moscow Archaeological Society succeeded in obtaining the confirmation of the 1853 decree from Chief Procurator K. P. Pobedonostsev.140 Precisely at that time the Moscow Archaeological Society set up a committee for historical preservation. It would examine all current proposals concerning the conservation and restoration of monuments— predominantly the restoration of monumental and easel painting in Moscow, Moscow province, and the central regions of Russia. The committee’s activity reached a peak in the early twentieth century. But one of the first important restorations, that of the iconostasis in the Cathedral of Our Lady of Smolensk of the Novodevichii Convent in Moscow carried out under the supervision of the committee, clearly demonstrates the crisis of the principles of restoration in the second half of the nineteenth century. The cathedral was dedicated to the Virgin Hodegetria of Smolensk and was usually called the Smolensk cathedral. It was built in 1524–25. In the mid-sixteenth century it was painted in fresco and about 1598 Boris Godunov ordered it decorated with a tall five-tier iconostasis. The cathedral, with its frescoes and iconostasis, was repaired and altered many times.141 The most extensive works were conducted in 1685, when all the icons of the late sixteenth century were renovated and fourteen icons on the theme of the Passion of Christ were painted anew; Fedor Zubov, a distinguished master from the Armory, participated in this project. In the 1890s when a new heating system was being installed in the cathedral, the Moscow Archaeological Society raised the question of the major repairs of the building and its frescoes. The most well-known specialists of the time were invited to participate: I. P. Mashkov was in charge of architectural restoration; the cleaning of murals was entrusted to Safonov’s team; and the workshop of M. O. and G. O. Chirikov received the contract for the restoration of the iconostasis. To supervise the restoration, the Moscow Archaeological Society appointed a committee consisting of V. I. Sizov, I. S. Ostroukhov, A. M. Vasnetsov, 140   Drevnosti. Trudy MAO, vol. XV, issue 2 (1894), minutes, pp. 60, 61, 147–49 and 149, 150. 141  See I. P. Mashkov, Arkhitektura Novo-Devich’ego monastyria v Moskve (Moscow, 1949), pp. 5–35; L. S. Retkovskaia, “Smolenskii sobor Novodevich’ego monastyria” (Moscow, 1954) (=Trudy Gos. Istoricheskogo muzeia. Pamiatniki kul’tury, XIV); A. I. Vlasiuk, Novodevichii monastyr’ (Moscow, 1958), pp. 8–12; Iu. Ovsiannikov, Novo-Devichii monastyr’ (Moscow, 1968), pp. 35–40; L. V. Tsiurik, Novodevichii monastyr’ (Moscow, 1970), pp. 14–23.

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V. N. Shchepkin, and A. I. Kirpichnikov. The work took place between 1898 and 1902. Samples of the restoration and cleaning of damaged painting on the icons submitted for the consideration of the committee when the contract with the Chirikovs’ workshops was made proved adequate. The experienced masters knew that in order to win the contract they had to please the archaeologists and make their test-samples meet the requirements adopted by learned societies. They also knew that all subsequent work depended solely on them; that they could, of their own accord, reduce the restoration to routine retouching; and that their supervisors acting on behalf of scholarly interests would try to hush up all violations of the requirements once they approved the contractors’ project. The outcome of the restoration of the Novodevichii icons is evident from A. M. Vasnetsov’s official report concerning the restoration of the principal icon in the cathedral—that of Our Lady of Smolensk—commissioned from O. S. Chirikov. Vasnetsov reported that “all the more or less well preserved areas of the ancient painting were restored by means of retouching the fallen-out or rubbed off-patches, cracks, and similar damage. As a result, some areas looked very much like the original work, providing a pattern for freshly primed places. For all our caution we managed to preserve only two-thirds of the Virgin’s face and the remaining third had to be freshly primed and painted anew. The newly painted areas can be easily distinguished by their smooth priming and the ancient areas [by] the old priming…. Gilding on the clothes was restored after the surviving fragments. The inscriptions on the background were made anew following the examples of other ancient icons of the Hodegetria.”142 All would have proceeded as it had dozens of times before had not an outsider, the archaeologist A. I. Uspenskii, noticed the Chirikovs’ improper practices and published his observations. His article appeared in the newspaper Moskovskie tserkovnye vedomosti and caused commotion in the administrative circles of the Moscow Archaeological Society. V. N. Shchepkin and A. D. Grigor’ev, a member of the Society’s Slavic Committee, were sent to the Novodevichii Convent to clarify the matter. These two scholars—students of palaeography and language—had been chosen because the Chirikovs were accused of willfully changing the inscriptions on the icons.143 Uspenskii said, “One cannot but express deep regret that these icons, and particularly the inscriptions on them are so distorted and disfigured by the latest restoration. The restorer-icon painter Mr. Chirikov showed here his complete ignorance as to 142   Drevnosti. Trudy MAO, vol. XX, issue 1 (1904), minutes, p. 68. 143  A. Uspenskii, “Piat’ vnov’ otkrytykh ikon kisti Simona Ushakova,” in MoskTsV (1901), no. 36, p. 416.

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how inscriptions on icons should be treated. The absurdity of his corrections is strikingly evident in the text of the inscriptions that follow. Thus, instead of the words Piotr presviter i igumen (Peter the Presbyter and Hegumen) we read Petrotinoter i iganen; instead of pochitaem (venerate)—pomiraem (die); instead of chrez (through)—chria; and so on. Meanwhile such restorers enjoy the reputation of sound expert masters, and quite successfully spoil many beautiful old masterpieces of Orthodox iconography in Moscow churches. What a sad event!” Uspenskii’s criticism was considered fair, but the Chirikovs managed to demonstrate that the majority of the inscriptions they corrected had been corrupted long before their restoration. At the same time they tried to convince the members of the committee that to write new inscriptions in place of half-obliterated or completely lost old ones did not run counter to the requirements of scientific restoration, because such inscriptions could be easily removed at any time without causing any harm to the icon. In the presence of the inspectors the new inscriptions of the Burning Bush icon were washed off, and the committee decided to continue the restoration of icons according to the previously approved plan. In the spring of 1903, the leaders of the Moscow Archaeological Society, summing up the results, informed the press that “despite all the obstacles and troubles that the Society had encountered in the course of work [it] carried the project through without deviating in the least degree from its convictions or its program.”144 This did not solve the problems: in 1902 D. K. Trenev, the well-known expert on church restoration, had published a book about the iconostasis of the Smolensk cathedral in which he irrefutably proved—supporting his statements with photographs taken during the restoration of the iconostasis—that not only the inscriptions had been corrupted but also the icon painting itself, which was restored by adding gesso ground and painting in the damaged areas.145 The restoration of the icons in the Novodevichii Convent is a typical example of the Moscow Archaeological Society’s activities to preserve ancient monuments. Having the authority to monitor such works, the Society leaders often enlisted the services of icon painters, starinshchiki (masters specializing in the restoration of old icons), recommending them to abbots and abbesses 144   Drevnosti. Trudy MAO, vol. XXI, issue 1 (1906), minutes, p. 26. For more details on the restoration of painting in the Novodevichii monastery, see Drevnosti. Trudy MAO, vol. XX, issue 1, minutes, pp. 56–58, 67, 68; vol. XX, issue 2 (1904), pp. 10, 85, 87, 88, 89, 90, 103, 104, 106–109; vol. XXI, issue 1, pp. 25–27. 145  D. K. Trenev, Ikonostas Smolenskogo sobora moskovskogo Novodevich’ego monastyria. Obraztsovyi russkii ikonostas XVI–XVII vekov, s pribavleniem kratkoi istorii ikonostasa s drevneishikh vremen (Moscow, 1902).

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of monasteries, to priests, and to communities of believers. Beginning in 1882, when the icon painter M. I. Dikarev restored two icons from the Cathedral of the Transfiguration of the Savior in Pereslavl-Zalesskii,146 records of such restorations occur more and more often in the minutes of Society meetings. Quite often, renovations were conducted on a large scale. In 1893–94, for example, Ya. E. Epaneshnikov and his apprentices, under the supervision of Zabelin and Sizov, renovated 120 icons in the cathedral of the Chudov monastery.147 The procedures were always the same: the Society entrusted the restoration of the icons to “skillful icon painters who were to follow established techniques.”148 The workshop of the brothers Chirikov was considered the most trustworthy of all. They permanently employed no less that ten starinshchiki and carried out commissions of varying complexity for nearly forty years—until the mid-1910s. In the second half of the nineteenth century, in addition to the Russian Archaeological Society and Moscow Archaeological Society there was another institution that claimed a place in the field of preservation and restoration of medieval Russian painting. It was not a society though, but a governmental body, the Imperial Archaeological Committee. The Imperial Archaeological Committee was conceived under Nicholas I, but it was Alexander II who officially founded it by personal decree in February 1859.149 At first the new institution was viewed as experimental, and its term was to expire in three years. But in 1862 the committee became a permanent institution. It not only functioned until the 1917 revolution, but, unlike the societies, continued its activities in the Soviet period as the State Academy of Material Culture. The present Institute of Archaeology of the Academy of Sciences of Russia originated as the 1859 Imperial Archaeological Committee. The Imperial Archaeological Committee at first limited itself to archaeological excavations and the collection of antiquities. Among its priorities were the investigation of Scythian burial mounds and other graves, as well as the excavations of Grecian towns in the coastal area of the North Black Sea. But gradually the committee extended its activities to the protection, study, and restoration of medieval Russian architecture and painting. According to the imperial decree of March 11, 1889, all repairs and restorations of “large-scale 146   Drevnosti. Trudy MAO, vol. IX, issue 2–3 (1883), minutes, pp. 31, 72 and vol. X (1885), p. 82. 147   Moskovskii kafedral’nyi Chudov monastyr’, Izdanie Chudova monastyria. The Holy TrinitySt Sergius Lavra (1896), p. 20; Drevnosti. Trudy MAO, vol. XVII (1900), minutes, pp. 171, 172. 148   Drevnosti. Trudy MAO, vol. XIII, issue 2 (1890), minutes, p. 48. 149  For this matter, see V. Smolin, “Kratkii ocherk istorii zakonodatel’nykh mer po okhrane pamiatnikov stariny v Rossii,” in IAK, 63 (Petrograd, 1917), pp. 141–44. For a more detailed account, see Istoriia istoricheskoi nauki v SSSR. Dooktiabr’skii period. Bibliografiia, p. 123.

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monuments of antiquity” were not to be conducted without the approval of the Imperial Archaeological Committee, which in turn was obliged to coordinate its decisions with the Academy of Arts. The 1889 decree was a purely bureaucratic invention since its authors completely ignored the similar and long-standing jurisdiction of the Moscow Archaeological Society. The Moscow scholars, headed by Countess P. S. Uvarova, expressed their disapproval of the imperial decree, and St. Petersburg was forced to concede by unofficially delegating many urgent matters concerning the research and restoration of architectural and artistic monuments to the Moscow Archaeological Society. It is noteworthy that the resolute Moscow Archaeological Society was more effective in this area than cautious and slow St. Petersburg, where every undertaking was preceded by dozens of meetings accompanied by countless records of proceedings, letters, memos, reports, statements, accounts, and other red tape. Until 1902, when P. P. Pokryshkin joined the Imperial Archaeological Committee, there was no permanent scholar or architect on its staff who could research and restore ancient monuments on his own. That is why on those occasions when a repair or restoration of original architecture, frescoes, or iconostases was planned and church authorities applied for permission from the Imperial Archaeological Committee, the Committee sent the applicants to some other related institution. Usually this related institution was the Academy of Arts in which the chief specialist was Academician V. V. Suslov. He was appointed to this post not only because the decree of March 1889 obliged the Academy of Arts to participate in the resolution of certain specific problems entrusted to the Imperial Archaeological Committee, but also because he had erudition in Russian artistic antiquities. Vladimir Vasil’evich Suslov was born in 1857 into the peasant family of a serf icon painter from Palekh who had moved to Moscow and opened his own icon painting workshop there.150 The childhood of the future academician was divided between Moscow and Palekh, and the impressions he received in 150  For information about him, see a detailed monograph prepared with the assistance of his daughter A. V. Suslova who made use of official documents as well as materials from Suslovs’ family archives: A. V. Suslova, T. A. Slavina, Vladimir Suslov (Leningrad, 1978). Other works: A. V. Suslova, “Nekotorye dannye k kharakteristike deiatel’nosti akademika arkhitektury V. V. Suslova v oblasti restavratsii i okhrany novgorodskikh pamiatnikov (1891–1900 gg.),” in NovgIS, 9 (Novgorod, 1959), pp. 191–218; Akademik arkhitektury V. V. Suslov. 1857–1921. Katalog vystavki. Materialy po issledovaniiu pamiatnikov drevnerusskogo zodchestva. Chertezhi, akvareli, proekty restavratsii, arkhitekturnye fantazii. Sost[avitel’] i avtor stat’i V. G. Lisovskii (Leningrad, 1971); T. M. Sytina, “Pamiati vydaiushchegosia issledovatelia arkhitektury V. V. Suslova,” in Iz istorii restavratsii pamiatnikov kul’tury (Moscow, 1974) (=Trudy Nauchno-issledovatel’skogo instituta kul’tury Ministerstva kul’tury RSFSR,

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the professional milieu of icon painters must have had a strong impact on the development of his scholarly and practical interests. Suslov himself did little actual designing and building, though through these activities he could have become a prosperous architect. Remaining in the Academy after finishing a course of studies there, he embarked in 1883 on expeditions to northern and central Russia, lasting for many years. First he visited Archangel and Olonets provinces to explore Russian wooden architecture. He made drawings, watercolors, and photographs of the extant artworks of the north, which caused as much excitement as the examples of heroic epic literature discovered ten years earlier by P. N. Rybnikov and A. F. Gil’ferding (Hilferding) in the same region. Suslov’s expeditions not only reaffirmed his reputation as a connoisseur of Russian antiquities and, primarily, of wooden and stone church architecture, but brought fame to Russian scholarship in general. Suslov readily undertook architectural restorations because they gave him a unique opportunity to test and enrich his theoretical observations derived from measurements and visual examinations of buildings. Many of his restoration projects combined architectural tasks with the study and restoration of frescoes. These were probably the first experiments in “overall” restoration that aimed to explore every component of a monument with equal thoroughness. This is what took place at least in Pereslavl-Zalesskii, Pskov, and Novgorod. Bad luck rather than Suslov’s own shortcoming prevented him from always arriving at a correct solution to problems concerning frescoes. Perhaps the saddest incident of this sort occurred in Pereslavl-Zalesskii, where Suslov carried out the restoration of a twelfth-century cathedral. In 1862 and 1869 N. A. Artleben, the chief architect of Vladimir province, discovered remains of ancient frescoes on the subject of the Last Judgment in the western part of the cathedral, under the choir. Individual representations could be seen in other parts of the building as well: the conch of the apse contained the Mother of God enthroned and two angels, and underneath were the well-preserved draperies. Clearly realizing that these fragments were of artistic and scholarly value, Artleben immediately published his discoveries in the local press and in Moscow.151 Twenty 13), pp. 178–84; T. A. Slavina, “Issledovatel’,” in Pamiatniki Otechestva (1984), no. 2 (10), pp. 132–35. 151  N. A. Artleben, “Drevnie freski, otkrytye v Spaso-Preobrazhenskom sobore v PereslavleZalesskom,” in Trudy Vladimirskogo gubernskogo statisticheskogo komiteta, I (Vladimir, 1863), pp. 77, 80–82; N. A. Artleben, “Arkheologicheskoe izvestie,” in VladGV (1864), unofficial section, no. 28, pp. 162, 163; Drevnosti. Trudy MAO, vol. III, issue 1 (1870), minutes, pp. 126, 127 (the text of a letter dated 4 November, 1869 from N. A. Artleben to A. S. Uvarov). Much later the murals in the conch of the apse were mentioned by V. V. Suslov in his book

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Vladimir Vasil’evich Suslov (1857–1921).

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years later, when Suslov arrived in Pereslavl-Zalesskii to restore the building, the frescoes discovered by Artleben were still intact and Suslov intended to incorporate them into his project for the redecoration of the cathedral. However, since the old plaster did not hold fast to the walls, it was decided to remove all the unbroken pieces of the twelfth-century murals and secure them by means of specially prepared mortar in fifty wooden boxes.152 Suslov performed this work with all possible care in 1892, and placed the boxes with the frescoes in a barn near the cathedral. At the same time he sent two boxes with the representations of two apostles to the Historical Museum in Moscow. The museum accepted the specimens but refused to take responsibility for storing the other forty-eight boxes in its storerooms. Suslov immediately addressed other institutions, but neither the Imperial Archaeological Committee, the Academy of Arts, nor the Vladimir eparchial museum could come up with the small amount of money and room necessary to save the frescoes. The interdepartmental exchange of letters lasted for three years. Meanwhile dampness and mildew were destroying the frescoes that had been removed from the cathedral’s walls. Finally, the Imperial Archaeological Committee declared the condition of the frescoes hopeless and, in the summer of 1895, they were disposed of in Lake Pleshcheevo.153 Only one of the two frescoes sent by Suslov to the Historical Museum survived.154 on the Volotovo frescoes. See V. V. Suslov, Tserkov’ Uspeniia presviatoi Bogoroditsy v sele Volotove, bliz Novgoroda, postroennaia v 1352 g. (Moscow, 1911), p. 36. 152  It is relevant here to cite V. V. Suslov’s account of the way the frescoes were taken off the walls, because it deals with the first experiment of this kind in Russia. He reported to the Imperial Archaeological Commission, “I was lucky enough to remove the remains of all the murals from the walls under the choir loft of the cathedral, in the following way. All the frescoes had canvas glued to them, then they were divided into small sections and with the use of various tools separated from the wall together with the plaster. As parts of the frescoes were removed, boxes of corresponding size were prepared for them. The separated sections of the frescoes were put in the bottoms of these boxes with the canvas sides down. Then, by way of experiment, the upper surface was coated with alabaster. The moisture produced by the alabaster destroyed the adhesive quality of the glue and, turning the thus coated section of the fresco upside down, it was possible to remove the canvas. The paintwork was not damaged at all. In this way the frescoes were placed in other boxes on a firm foundation and completely open to view” [IAK, 26. (Voprosy restavratsii, I) (St. Petersburg, 1908), p. 73]. 153  For this matter, see IAK, 26 (Voprosy restavratsii, I), pp. 62–74; M. I. Smirnov, Pereslavl’ Zalesskii. Ego proshloe i nastoiashchee (Sergiev Posad, 1913), p. 36; G. K. Lukomskii, O pamiatnikakh arkhitektury Pereslavlia Zalesskogo (St. Petersburg, 1914), pp. 13–19. 154  G. I. Vzdornov, “Freska Spaso-Preobrazhenskogo sobora v Pereiaslavle-Zalesskom,” in SA (1968), 4, pp. 217–23. In 1866 and 1891 some unknown painters were commissioned by

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Simultaneously with his work in Pereslavl Suslov supervised the important restoration of the Mirozh Monastery of the Savior in Pskov. As the mid-twelfth century structure of the monastery’s cathedral was in a rather good state of preservation, its architectural restoration was limited to the reinforcement of its foundation and the uncovering of the ancient flooring.155 There were also extant frescoes from the same period, their fragments having been discovered quite by chance in 1858, but they were covered with layers of later whitewash and plaster. The Mirozh frescoes had been known for some time from a brief reference in M. V. Tolstoi’s 1861 book on Pskovian antiquities, and from N. A. Martynov’s watercolor sketches of five apostles in the composition The Holy Communion, which the Historical Museum in Moscow had acquired.156 In the late 1880s the monastery authorities, with the agreement of the Imperial Archaeological Committee, commissioned Suslov to expose the twelfth-century frescoes. He supervised this work between 1889 and 1893.157 In the course of removing the plaster and whitewash from the frescoes, it turned out that the whole interior of the cathedral was painted in fresco, but the condition of the frescoes varied in different parts of the building. Alongside well-preserved scenes and figures there were damaged ones in the dome, skylight drum, and wings. In the lower parts of the building the frescoes had been completely ruined by dampness that had accumulated during floods of the Velikaia River. Since the cathedral was in use, its patrons wished to restore the lost frescoes. The timid appeals of specialists to leave the unique ensemble intact went unheeded,158 and during the next three years the masters of Safonov’s team G. D. Filimonov and V. V. Suslov to make copies of the Pereslavl frescoes, the location of which is unknown. For this matter, see Vestnik Obshchestva drevnerusskogo iskusstva pri Moskovskom Publichnom muzee (1875), no. 6–10, section V, p. 52; G. I. Vzdornov, “Freska Spaso-Preobrazhenskogo sobora v Pereiaslavle-Zalesskom,” p. 218. 155  See: IAK, 26 (Voprosy restavratsii, I), pp. 81–86; G. Alferova, “Sobor Spaso-Mirozhskogo monastyria,” in Arkhitekturnoe nasledstvo, 10 (Moscow, 1958), pp. 3–32. 156  M. Tolstoi, Sviatyni i drevnosti Pskova (Moscow, 1861), p. 66; A. M. Pavlinov, “SpasoMirozhskii monastyr’ v g. Pskove,” in Drevnosti. Trudy MAO, vol. XIII, issue 1 (1889), pp. 158, 159, table 1. 157  See N. V. Pokrovskii, “Vnov’ otkrytyi pamiatnik drevnosti,” in TsV (1893), no. 28, pp. 437–39 and no. 29, pp. 452, 453; AIZ (1898), no. 5–6, pp. 192, 193 (a reprint of V. V. Suslov’s article from the newspaper Novoe Vremia, [1898], no. 7972); F. A. Ushakov, Spaso-Mirozhskii monastyr’ v g. Pskove (Pskov, 1902), pp. 8–13. 158   Trudy IX AS v Vilne, 1893, vol. II (Moscow, 1897), minutes, pp. 43, 44 (from the discussion of V. V. Suslov’s report “O Spaso-Preobrazhenskom sobore v Mirozhskom monastyre g. Pskova”); Arkheolog, “K restavratsii drevnego khrama pskovskogo Mirozhskogo monastyria,” in AIZ (1898), no. 11–12, p. 386 (a reprint of the article from the Sanktpeterburgskie

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renewed the frescoes uncovered by Suslov: the lost frescoes were painted anew and all the extant parts were freshened up so as to make the ensemble look well-preserved.159 Much later, in the Soviet period, Suslov wrote that “the church proved to be inadequately studied and its frescoes spoiled.”160 Other authors went even farther, referring to the renovation of the Mirozh frescoes as barbarous. Of course they were unaware of modern restoration objectives while Safonov’s renovations were considered to be correct and were approved by all the archaeological societies of his day without exception. Safonov’s restoration in the cathedral of the Mirozh monastery was a model performance of a sort: here the new painting was brought into exact conformity with the old style. Even today, when all the original frescoes have been cleaned again, it is not always possible to tell where the twelfth-century murals end and those of the late nineteenth century begin. In any case, the old frescoes were not destroyed but only retouched with colors. A much worse fate befell the frescoes of the St. Sophia Cathedral in Novgorod. One would think that this outstanding monument, located so near St. Petersburg, might escape the fate of the Mirozh frescoes and those of Pereslavl. But even the Imperial Archaeological Committee and the Academy of Arts, supervising the restoration of St. Sophia, were unable to enforce ordinary standards of examination and preservation of the antiquities. The renewal of the St. Sophia Cathedral began in 1893 on the initiative of Theognostos, the Novgorodian archbishop. Suslov supervised the restoration of the architecture, designed new murals, and was responsible for investigations aimed at discovering ancient frescoes. From the autumn of 1893 to the spring of 1894, when the crude early nineteenth-century murals were being removed, he uncovered not only the figures of the archangels, seraphs, and vedomosti [1898], no. 334); I. Tolstoi and N. Kondakov, Russkie drevnosti v pamiatnikakh iskusstva, VI. Pamiatniki Vladimira, Novgoroda i Pskova (St. Petersburg, 1899), p. 178. 159  During Safonov’s renovation, the Mirozh frescoes were photographed by O. I. Parli and some of the uncovered frescoes were shown in his album the way they looked prior to renovation. See O. I. Parli, Freski khrama Preobrazheniia Gospodnia v pskovskom SpasoMirozhskom monastyre. Al’bom fotograficheskikh snimkov (Pskov, 1903); Opisanie fresok. Sostavil F. A. Ushakov. K al’bomu fotograficheskikh snimkov, sdelannykh O. I. Parli (Pskov, 1903). Considerably less valuable are the photographs taken by I. F. Chistiakov, the photographer of the Imperial Archaeological Commission, because they were made after the completion of N. M. Safonov’s work. Cf. A. I. Uspenskii, “Freski tserkvi Preobrazheniia Gospodnia Spaso-Mirozhskogo monastyria,” in Zapiski MAI, VII (Moscow, 1910), pp. 1–12, with tables. 160  A. V. Suslova, T. A. Slavina, Vladimir Suslov, p. 44 (from the unpublished memoirs of 1921 in A. V. Suslova’s possession).

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Figure 6.19 Archangel Gabriel from a pre-1156 fresco of the Annunciation, on the northeast pillar of the Cathedral of the Transfiguration, Mirozh Monastery, Pskov.

Figure 6.20

St. Sophia in Novgorod, mid-eleventh century.

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Figure 6.21 Solomon in a fresco, 1108, on the dome of the Cathedral of St. Sophia, Novgorod.

prophets in the dome but also one of the oldest frescoes painted in the St. Sophia Cathedral, which depicted Constantine and Helena and ten other important scenes and individual figures.161 The committee to monitor the restoration of St. Sophia, headed by M. P. Botkin, also included the best representatives of archaeology: N. V. Pokrovskii, N. P. Kondakov, and N. V. Sultanov. From the very beginning the committee focused on Suslov’s new design for the murals. Pokrovskii criticized the choice of sample sketches presented and demanded that Suslov and his assistants submit for the approval of the committee life-size sketches of all individual figures and multifigure compositions. Suslov pointed out the impracticability of this condition, and the project became enmeshed in a great deal of red tape. Meanwhile Archbishop Theognostos gained the Synod’s support, and invited Safonov to remove old layers. His masters in no time scraped from the walls of St. Sophia both the low caliber murals of Nicholas I’s period as well as all the fragments of the eleventh- and twelfth-century murals that had covered the walls and vaults. It should be noted, though, that Suslov and Safonov’s team 161  V. Sizov, “Vnov’ otkrytaia freska v Sofiskom sobore v Novgorode,” in AIZ (1893), no. 12, pp. 416–18 (on Constantine and Helen); V. V. Suslov, “Kratkoe izlozhenie issledovanii novgorodskogo Sofiiskogo sobora,” in Zodchii (November, 1894), p. 86, 87 and December, pp. 92–94, 96; Obsuzhdenie proekta stennoi rospisi novgorodskogo Sofiiskogo sobora (St. Petersburg, 1897) (=Materialy po arkheologii Rossii, no. 21), pp. 11–13, 14, 15, 21, 28, 30, 31, 39, 41, figs. 4, 5, 9–11, 13, 14, 16. See also: AIZ (1898), no. 5–6, p. 194 (a reprint of V. V. Suslov’s report from the newspaper Novoe vremia (1898), no. 7972); V. V. Suslov, “Novgorodskii Sofiiskii sobor,” in Trudy X AS v Rige, 1896, vol. III (Moscow, 1900), minutes, pp. 71–73; Drevnosti. Trudy MAO, vol. XVII (1900), p. 240 (an extract from a letter written by the architect N. A. Lashkov).

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did not do this wilfully but followed the recommendations of the supervising committee whose members advised them to “dispose of” the remaining poorly preserved and loosely hanging frescoes “depending on circumstances.”162 Only the figures of Constantine and Helena in the St. Martyrius porch, the representations of four bishops on the upper lantern arches connecting the sanctuary with the altar and diaconicon, and the frescoes in the dome were left intact. But even these few frescoes, except Constantine and Helena, were considerably freshened up in the course of the new decoration from 1897 to 1900. During the seven years of repair and renovation, St. Sophia of Novgorod endured as much as it did, probably, over the previous eight centuries. Time and again one must marvel at the indifference of such academics as Pokrovskii and especially Kondakov who could have (but did not) interfered in order to insist on the inviolability of the uncovered fragments of the ancient frescoes. In this case, the iconographic bias of their science, their preoccupation with the nature of the cathedral’s new decoration rather than the fate of the remains of the eleventh- and twelfth-century frescoes, betrayed itself. Suslov understood the situation better than others. Realizing that all the incomplete parts of the frescoes would be destroyed and the surviving figures retouched, he and his assistants made about a hundred copies (including copies on tracing paper) and sketches that conveyed the substance and condition of what had survived from the original decoration of the St. Sophia Cathedral after its walls had been cleaned of the overpaintings of poor quality.163 In addition to his energetic research into architecture, the aim of which was to restore the original aspect of Russian architectural monuments, Suslov was one of the first to do large-scale scholarly copying of frescoes. Adrian Prakhov, who supervised copying of mosaics and frescoes in Kiev which were published in the 1880s, was his only predecessor. But unlike Prakhov’s projects, Suslov’s were extensive and, if he set about putting his own plans into practice, he did his best to carry them through. Even in Pereslavl where, in his own words, work 162  V. V. Suslov, “Kratkoe izlozhenie issledovanii novgorodskogo Sofiiskogo sobora,” pp. 93, 94. 163  V. Miasoedov, “Fragmenty freskovoi rospisi sviatoi Sofii novgorodskoi,” in ZORSA, vol. X (Petrograd, 1915), pp. 15–34, figs. 9–16, tables VI–VIII. The life-size copies of the prophets’ figures located on the piers of the drum which, upon the completion of the restoration of the cathedral, were transferred to the museum of the Academy of Arts became even more valuable after one of the figures was lost and the others damaged during World War II. Now Suslov’s copies are in the Novgorod Museum and exhibited in the north gallery of the cathedral. See Iu. N. Dmitriev, “Stennye rospisi Novgoroda, ikh restavratsiia i issledovanie (raboty 1945–1948 godov),” in Praktika restavratsionnykh rabot I (Moscow, 1950), pp. 135–54; V. N. Lazarev, Vizantiiskoe i drevnerusskoe iskusstvo. Stat’i i materialy (Moscow, 1978), pp. 116–74 (a reprint of the article “O rospisi Sofii Novgorodskoi,” first published in 1968).

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conditions were awful, he made photographs and copies of figures from the composition of the Last Judgment. The Pereslavl copies were not published and did not survive,164 but the copies (including those on tracing paper) of the frescoes of the St. George Church made under his supervision in Staraia Ladoga give a good idea of the nature and quality of his work. They were commissioned by the Russian Archaeological Society for N. E. Brandenburg’s book about Staraia Ladoga, which was conceived as a jubilee edition to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the Society in 1896.165 To execute the copies, Suslov invited the assistance of Kranakh, a student of the Society for the Encouragement of the Arts, and A. F. Afanas’ev, a former pupil of the Academy of Arts.166 During the summer of 1893 Suslov made quite a few drafts of the church showing the arrangement of frescoes on its walls, while Kranakh and Afanas’ev executed no less than fifty life-size tracing-paper and colored copies of the frescoes in the dome, drum, sanctuary, and walls under the dome.167 The copies were made by using “linen” paper—a strong semi-transparent fabric—to draw the contours and then finish the resulting picture by eye. Depending on the quality and preservation of a particular fresco and if there was enough time, a tracingpaper outline was treated with ceruse (belil’nye sveta) or brought to the level of a full-scale multicolor copy. The tracing-paper and colored copies of the Staraia Ladoga frescoes, reproduced in Brandenburg’s book in phototype and 164  See G. I. Vzdornov, “Freska Spaso-Preobrazhenskogo sobora v Pereiaslavle-Zalesskom,” p. 219. 165  N. E. Brandenburg’s monograph was the result of many years of research in Staraia Ladoga where, along with the fortress which particularly interested him, he also studied monuments of church art. In 1886 and 1887 he excavated the ruins of an unknown church and explored the Church of St. Clement, both with the remains of twelfth-century murals. See N. E. “Ob arkheologicheskikh issledovaniiakh v Staroi Ladoge v 1886–1887 gg.,” in VAI, VIII (St. Petersburg, 1892), pp. 160, 161, and 163, 164. Cf. also V. N. Lazarev, Vizantiiskoe i drevnerusskoe iskusstvo. Stat’i i materialy, pp. 178, 180 (the article “Novye fragmenty rospisei iz Staroi Ladogi,” first published in 1967). 166  This information comes from the unpublished memoirs of V. V. Suslov, an extract from which I received from his daughter A. V. Suslova (the letter of 2 April 1979). 167   V. V. Suslov, “Tekhnicheskoe opisanie arkhitekturnykh pamiatnikov Staroi Ladogi (Poiasnitel’nyi tekst k tablitsam),” in N. E. Brandenburg, Staraia Ladoga. Risunki i tekhnicheskoe opisanie akademika V. V. Suslova. Iubileinoe izdanie imp. Russkogo arkheologicheskogo obshchestva (St. Petersburg, 1896), pp. 314–18, tables lIV, lLV, LXV–XC. See also AIZ (1894), no. 1, pp. 24, 25 (an account of V. V. Suslov’s report on the works in Staraia Ladoga); ZRAO, vol. VII, issues 3 and 4 (1895), minutes, pp. LII, LIV; N. I. Veselovskii, Istoriia imp. Russkogo arkheologicheskogo obshchestva za pervoe piatidesiatiletie ego sushchestvovaniia. 1846–1896 (St. Petersburg, 1900), pp. 139–140. Incidentally, N. E. Brandenburg’s book was printed in only 638 copies.

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chromolithography, convey a good idea of Suslov’s work or, to be more precise, the work of his assistants and particularly F. M. Fomin. In his unpublished memoirs, Suslov writes about the copying of the frescoes in the Mirozh monastery in 1892 and 1893, recalling that at first he sought out some icon painters to perform this task but he did not like them, and took as his assistant “a very capable young painter, [named] Fomin, and invited a painter [named] Blazin to do some copies in colors.”168 Suslov collaborated with Fomin in Staraia Ladoga as well as in the Novgorod St. Sophia, where for a short time another painter, Nechaev, also assisted him.169 In 1892 about a hundred tracing-paper and colored copies were made in Novgorod, including excellent life-size copies of eight huge figures of the prophets,170 which are preserved today in the north nave of the St. Sophia Cathedral.171 A fundamental series of copies and one of his last was the complete reproduction on “transparent calico” of the late fourteenth-century murals in the Church of the Dormition on Volotovo Field near Novgorod. In 1893 and 1894, the Volotovo frescoes were cleaned of surface dirt, and in 1894 and 1895 they were copied by F. M. Fomin.172 In his official report sent to the Imperial Archaeological Committee that financed the copies, Suslov pointed out

168  A. V. Suslova, “Nekotorye dannye k kharakteristike deiatel’nosti akademika arkhitektury V. V. Suslova v oblasti restavratsii i okhrany novgorodskikh pamiatnikov (1891–1900 gg.), p. 197. For the copying of frescoes in Pskov, see also IAK, 26 (Voprosy restavratsii, I), p. 82. All the Mirozh tracing and copies were handed over by V. V. Suslov to the Imperial Archaeological Commission and at present they are presumably preserved in the Russian Museum, St. Petersburg (in the univentoried collections of the museum). Their photographs are kept in the St. Petersburg branch of the Archaeological Institute of the Academy of Sciences. Individual photographs of the Mirozh tracings made by F. M. Fomin are published in the following editions: I. Tolstoi and N. Kondakov, Russkie drevnosti v pamiatnikakh iskusstva, VI. Pamiatniki Vladimira, Novgoroda i Pskova, figs. 218–31; M. N. Soboleva, “Stenopis’ Spaso-Preobrazhenskogo sobora v Pskove,” in Drevnerusskoe iskusstvo. Khudozhestvennaia kul’tura Pskova (Moscow, 1968), figs. on pp. 20, 21, 23, 47 and 49. 169  V. V. Suslov, “Kratkoe izlozhenie issledovanii novgorodskogo Sofiiskogo sobora,” p. 98. 170  Ibid., pp. 94–95. As in Pereslavl-Zalesskii, V. V. Suslov took some of the St. Sophia frescoes off the walls and placed them in wooden boxes on a cement ground. Evidence for the further fate of these fragments has not survived. 171  Their photographs are reproduced in V. N. Lazarev’s article “O rospisi Sofii Novgorodskoi.” See V. N. Lazarev, Vizantiiskoe i drenerusskoe iskusstvo. Stat’i i materialy, p. 140, 144, 148, 150, 152, 156, 158, and 160. 172  See the archives of the St. Petersburg department of the Archaeological Institute of the Academy of Sciences, col. I (1894), no. 152, fol. 5–5v., 29, 30, 32–32v.

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Fomin’s “extremely conscientious attitude to his work.”173 And, indeed, in the course of two summer seasons, Fomin made 184 outline tracing-paper copies in India ink and seven copies of the best frescoes in oils. Realizing the great value of this material, Suslov intended to publish it in a separate edition, but neither the Imperial Archaeological Committee, nor the Academy of Arts would undertake it. Many years later, in 1911, thanks to the assistance of the Moscow Archaeological Society and Countess Uvarova, the architectural part of Suslov’s research in the Volotovo church was published. The arrangement of frescoes and several selected copies and tracing-paper outlines made by Fomin were reproduced.174 It would be incorrect, however, to depict Suslov as an advocate of the inviolability of ancient frescoes. Like others of his time, he strictly differentiated the cleaning of ancient murals and their restoration, seeing the latter as a means of restoring old painting and endowing it with an integrity of iconography, color, and general color scheme. It seems likely that, uncovering ancient frescoes, Suslov allowed their renovation because even his eye had not yet learned to appreciate old painting in its fragmentary state. But as a scholar biased toward archaeology, he thought it his duty to reproduce the uncovered fragments in their original unbeautified aspect. Quite often, in doing so, the inviolability and even the survival of old paintings were sacrificed. Thus, for example, to make the Mirozh frescoes more perceptible, which was expedient for the execution of tracing-paper copies, the uncovered murals were washed with “glass and eggyolk,”175 and in order to enable Fomin to see clearly the outlines of the figures all principal lines were additionally traced in bright white.176 The same procedure was used when making tracing-paper copies in the Dormition Church on Volotovo Field: the fourteenth-century frescoes were “freshened up” and outlines and inscriptions reinforced with “Suslov’s white watercolors.”177 The surviving photographs, taken by the photographer of the Imperial Archaeological Committee at that very time, clearly show that Suslov’s critics did not invent anything but were telling the truth. 173  Ibid., fol. 15–15v. 174  V. V. Suslov, “Tserkov’ Uspeniia presviatoi Bogoroditsy v sele Volotove, bliz Novgoroda, postroennaia v 1352 g.” (Moscow, 1911) (=Trudy moskovskogo Predvaritel’nogo komiteta XV AS, vol. II). 175   Trudy IX AS v Vilne (1893), vol. II, minutes, p. 43. 176  N. Pokrovskii, “Vnov’ otkrytyi pamiatnik drevnosti,” in TsV, no. 28, note 1 on p. 438; Arkheolog, “K restavratsii drevnego khrama pskovskogo Mirozhskogo monastyria,” p. 386. 177  The St. Petersburg department of the archives of the Academy of Sciences, col. 991, inv. 4, item 32, fol. 403v. (from V. K. Miasoedov’s notebook, 1910).

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Figure 6.22

Church of the Dormition on Volotovo Field in Novgorod, 1353.

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Figure 6.23

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Church of the Dormition on Volotovo Field in Novgorod.

Figure 6.24 Angel, late fourteenth-century fresco, Church of the Dormition on Volotovo Field in Novgorod.

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Figure 6.25

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Church of the Dormition on Volotovo Field. General view of the wall-paintings, 1390s.

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Magi on horseback from a fresco of the Nativity, 1390s, Church of the Dormition on Volotovo Field.

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The Society of Lovers of Ancient Literature,178 founded in 1877 on the initiative of Prince P. P. Viazemskii occupies a place apart among the nineteenth-century learned societies that promoted the scholarly research and publication of prePetrine Russian painting. From the very beginning the new society proved itself to be an élite circle of antiquarians. Among its twenty-four founding members were the princes P. P. Viazemskii and G. G. Gagarin, the counts A. A. Bobrinskii, A. A. Mordvinov, and S. G. Stroganov, the brothers A. D. and S. D. Sheremetev, and other representatives of noble families. The Society’s founders did not intend to conceal the aristocratic nature of their association, as the size of the entrance and annual fees paid for the maintenance of the Society attest. Only those participants who contributed no less than 4,000 rubles before the official registration of the Society were recognized as founding members, while ordinary members had to pay 200 rubles every year. Extremely small print-runs of the Society’s publications also bore witness to its closed character. Some editions were printed in ten copies only and were not designed for circulation in academic circles. They were commissioned by the Society’s members and immediately deposited in their private libraries. Nevertheless, the Society of Lovers of Ancient Literature played an exceptional role in the discovery of medieval Russian art and its recognition as a subject for academic research, largely because the Society considered the production of facsimile editions of illuminated manuscripts one of its key tasks.179 Although the lesser known examples of the sixteenth and seventeenth century received priority, illuminated manuscripts of an earlier date did not escape the 178  For more information on it, see Zapiska ob uchrezhdenii Obshchestva liubitelei drevneslavianskoi pis’mennosti (St. Petersburg, 1877); [S. D. Sheremetev], Obshchestvo liubitelei drevnei pis’mennosti (St. Petersburg, 1877); Pamiati kniazia Pavla Petrovicha Viazemskogo, pochetnogo predsedatelia imp. Obshchestva liubitelei drevnei pis’mennosti. Zasedanie 2 dekabria 1888 (St. Petersburg, [1888]); 19-e fevralia 1880 goda. Deiatel’nost’ Obshchestva liubitelei drevnei pis’mennosti, vysochaishe utverzhdennogo 5-go maia 1877 goda (St. Petersburg, [1880]); S Sheremetev, “Osnovanie Obshchestva liubitelei drevnei pis’mennosti,” 1877 (St. Petersburg, 1891) (=PDP, LXXXIII, supplement); V. S. Ikonnikov, Opyt russkoi istoriografii, vol. I, book 2 (Kiev, 1892), pp. 1003–1007; Imperatorskoe Obshchestvo liubitelei drevnei pis’mennosti. 1877–1882–1896 (St. Petersburg, 1896); P. G. Apraksin, “K 25-letiiu osnovaniia Obshchestva liubitelei drevnei pis’mennosti,” in RV (April, 1903), pp. 763–77. 179  “When selecting the manuscript copies [it concerned the publication of the lives of Russian saints.—G. V.] the Society prefers those with illuminations with the intention or supplying material for the acquaintance with the history of medieval Russian art, little studied as yet:” 19-e fevralia 1880 goda. Deiatel’nost’ Obshchestva liubitelei drevnei pis’mennosti, vysochaishe utverzhdennogo 5-go maia 1877 goda (St. Petersburg, [1880]), p. 10.

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publishers’ attention. All publications were divided into two series, one called Izdaniia (Editions) and the other Pamiatniki (Monuments). The first series included full and fairly accurate lithographed or chromolithographed reproductions of manuscripts themselves; with the development of photography, lithography gave way to phototype, a more advanced technique of reproduction. As a rule, the Society’s editions were intended for its honorary and full members and only occasionally were sent to outside libraries and museums. The other series, Monuments of Ancient Literature, reflected the research and organizational activities of the Society, including information on its meetings, annual scholarly and financial reports, research works and brief communications, bibliographic descriptions and reviews, as well as the texts of short manuscripts that had no artistic value and were interesting only for scholars. The print-runs of the Monuments were much larger than those of the Editions and were sold and distributed among full and corresponding members of the Society. Each of the two series had its own numeration in consecutive order, which reveal the exact extent of the Society’s publishing activities. In the fortyeight years between 1878 and 1926, the Society of Lovers of Ancient Literature published 135 Editions and 190 Monuments.180 No other state or private institution of pre-revolutionary Russia, including the Academy of Sciences and leading universities, had such a conspicuous bias toward the study of antiquity, and none had such a systematic program for publication of its works. It is evident that the publishing and research activities of the Society would not have been so prolific if the founders had depended only on a small élite membership. In the 1870s and 1880s all the well-known St. Petersburg and Moscow scholars who were directly or indirectly involved in the study of Russian literature and antiquity were elected as full or corresponding members of the Society.181 Among these were also scholars who took particular inter180  A complete bibliographical description of the Society’s Izdaniia and Pamiatniki does not exist. But starting from 1892 every Pamiatniki volume contained lists of editions of both series printed separately from each other at the end. See N. W. ([Vserossiiskaia vystavka v Moskve. Izdaniia Obshchestva liubitelei drevnei pis’mennosti, [Moscow, 1882]); Izdaniia imp. Obshchestva liubitelei drevnei pis’mennosti (St. Petersburg, 1888) (=PDP, LXXVI)—a detailed description of Izdaniia and Pamiatniki from 1872 to 1887; V. N. Peretts, “Imp. Obshchestvo liubitelei drevnei pis’mennosti. Trudy i izdaniia za 1898–1899 gg.,” in ZhMNP (1900), April, pp. 39–75; Numernye izdaniia … imp. Obshchestva liubitelei drevnei pis’mennosti (St. Petersburg, 1910); Biulleten’ Leningradskogo otdeleniia Vsesoiuznogo ob’edineniia “Mezhdunarodnaia kniga,” 1933, no. 11, pp. 7–17 (a list of all Pamiatniki volumes from 1878 to 1925). 181  According to the data for 1902, the Society of Lovers of Ancient Literature numbered ten honorary members, thirty-five full members (including institutions that subscribed

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est in painting and, more specifically, in the illustrations contained in manuscripts, among whom were Buslaev, Stasov, Kondakov, Pokrovskii, Likhachev, Shchepkin, Redin, and Ainolov. Under the auspices of the Society they published quite a few artworks and research about them. Among these were a fundamental treatise on the illuminated manuscripts of the Revelation by Buslaev182 and a superb album with reproductions of Greek and Russian miniatures prepared by Stasov.183 It was here, too, that Kondakov published his notes on the late fifteenth-century illustrations in the Radziwill Chronicle184 and Likhachev printed one of his first monographs about Andrei Rublev.185 Pavel Simoni, who for many years studied the historical background, the production, and palaeography of the oldest Russian manuscripts, prepared a model edition of the Mstislav Lectionary.186 And finally, in the Soviet period, in the last book of the Monuments series, Ainalov published his extremely interesting review of illuminated manuscripts from the library of the Trinity-St. Sergius Lavra.187 There were also publications of individual illuminated manuscripts or parts of manuscripts which appeared from the very first year of the Society’s existence and to the Society’s editions) and 119 corresponding members. See Otchety o zasedaniiakh imp. Obshchestva liubitelei drevnei pis’mennosti v 1901–1902 godu. S prilozheniiami ([St. Petersburg], 1902) (=PDPI, CXLVIII), p. 26. 182   Russkii litsevoi Apokalipsis. Svod izobrazhenii iz litsevykh Apokalipsisov po russkim rukopisiam s XVI-go veka po XIX-yi. Sost. F. Buslaev. Text, (Moscow, 1884) (=OLDP edition, LXXXII) + [Album], St. Petersburg, 1884 (=OLDP edition, LIII–LXXV–LXXXII). See N. V. Pokrovskii’s review of this edition ZRAO, new series, vol. II, issue 2 (1886), pp. 143–51. 183  V. V. Stasov, Miniatiury nekotorykh rukopisei vizantiiskikh, bolgarskikh, russkikh, dzhagataiskikh i persidskikh ([St. Petersburg], 1902) (=OLDP edition, CXX). 184  N. P. Kondakov, “Zametki o miniatiurakh Kenigsbergskogo spiska nachal’noi letopisi,” in Radzivilovskaia, ili Kenigsbergskaia letopis’, II. Stat’i o tekste i miniatiurakh rukopisi (St. Petersburg, 1902) (=OLDP edition, CXVIII), pp. 115–27. 185  N. P. Likhachev, Manera pis’ma Andreia Rubleva ([St. Petersburg], 1907) (=OLDP edition, CXXVI). 186   M’stislavovo Evangelie nachala XII-go veka v arkheologicheskom i paleograficheskom otnosheniiakh. Materialy dlia izucheniia ego serebrianogo oklada s drevnimi finiftiami, litsevykh ikonnykh izobrazhenii svv. evangelistov, zastavits, zaglavnykh bukv i raznykh rodov pis’ma, kak ukrashennogo, zolotogo, tak i vsekh pocherkov ustavnogo chernogo. S prilozheniem dvenadtsati svetopisnykh tablits snimkov i so mnogimi chertezhami v tekste. Sobral, prigotovil k izdaniiu i snabdil vvodnoiu stat’eiu P. Simoni, I. Vvodnaia stat’ia ([St. Petersburg], 1910) (=OLDP edition, CXXIX), II. Snimki, [St. Petersburg], 1904 (=OLDP edition, CXXIII). 187  D. V. Ainalov, “Miniatiury drevneishikh russkikh rukopisei v muzee Troitse-Sergievoi lavry i na ee vystavke,” in Kratkii otchet o deiatel’nosti Obshchestva drevnei pis’mennosti i iskusstva za 1917–1923 gody (Leningrad, 1925) (=PDPI, CXC), pp. 11–35.

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Figure 6.27

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Monuments of Medieval Russian Art, Imperial Academy of Arts, St. Petersburg, 1912.

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which, despite their extremely small print-runs, left a clear record of Russian painting through examples dating from the mid-eleventh to the early eighteenth century. Among these publications were the Izbornik (Miscellany) of 1073 (GIM, Syn. 31-d);188 Abraham’s Revelations from the Sylvester Miscellany of the mid-fourteenth century (TsGADA, f. 381, Printer’s library, no. 53);189 the Paleia of 1477 (GIM, Syn. 210);190 the late fifteenth-century Radziwill Chronicle (BAN, 34.5.30);191 the late fifteenth-century Lives of Sts. Boris and Gleb (LOII, f. 238, no. 71);192 two late fifteenth- and late sixteenth-century manuscripts on the subject of John the Theologian’s pilgrimage (LOII, f. 238, no. 71 and BAN, 34.3.5);193 miniatures executed by Dionysius’s son Feodosii (Theodosius) for the Lectionary of 1507 (GPB, Pogod. 133);194 the 1539 Christian Topography of Cosmas Indicopleustes (TsGADA, f. 201, Obol. 159);195 and a number of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century manuscripts without a fixed date: the Life 188   Izbornik velikogo kniazia Sviatoslava Yaroslavicha 1073 goda (Published under the supervision and with the introduction of G. F. Karpov(]. Izhdiveniem … T. S. Morozova (St. Petersburg, 1880) (=OLDP edition, LV). The print run was 360 copies. In connection with the nine-hundredth anniversary of Sviatoslav’s Izbornik which was observed in 1973, a new facsimile edition of the manuscript was prepared: Izbornik Sviatoslava 1073 goda. Faksimil’noe izdanie (Moscow, 1983). See also Izbornik Sviatoslava 1073 g. Sbornik statei (Moscow, 1977). 189   Otkrovenie Avraama (St. Petersburg, 1891) (=OLDP edition, XCIX). Included in the publication are the folios 164v–186 with six miniatures. 190   Tolkovaia Paleia 1477 goda (The reproduction of the Synodal manuscript no. 210, issue 1, St. Petersburg), 1892 (=OLDP edition, XCIII). Only one issue came out (302 folios out of 584). For the manuscript, see T. N. Protas’eva, “Pskovskaia Paleia 1477 goda,” in Drevnerusskoe iskusstvo. Khudozhestvennaia kul’tura Pskova (Moscow, 1968), pp. 97–108. 191   Radzivilovskaia, ili Kenigsbergskaia letopis’, I. Fotomekhanicheskoe vosproizvedenie rukopisi, II. Stat’i o tekste i miniatiurakh rukopisi (St. Petersburg, 1902) (=OLDP edition, CXVIII). 192  N. P. Likhachev, Litsevoe zhitie sviatykh blagovernykh kniazei Borisa i Gleba. Po rukopisi kontsa XV st. (St. Petersburg, 1907) (=OLDP edition, CXXIV). 193  N. P. Likhachev, Khozhdenie sv. apostola i evangelista Ioanna Bogoslova. Po litsevym rukopisiam XV i XVI vekov ([St. Petersburg], 1911) (=OLDP edition, CXXX). See also G. V. Popov, “Illiustratsii Khozhdeniia Ioanna Bogoslova v miniatiure i stankovoi zhivopisi kontsa XV veka,” in TODRL, XXII (Moscow-Leningrad, 1966), pp. 208–21. 194   Zastavki i miniatiury Chetveroevangeliia 1507 goda. Iz rukopisi, khraniashcheisia v imp. Publichnoi biblioteke (Drevlekhranilishche Pogodina no. 133). Vosproizvedeny khudozhnikom M. I. Osipovym. S predisl[oviem] A. F. Bychkova (St. Petersburg, 1880–1881) (=OLDP edition, LXVIII and LXXVI) [misprinted on the cover: LXXXVI]. 195   Kniga glagolemaia Kozmy Indikoplova. Iz rukopisi Moskovskogo glavnogo arkhiva Ministerstva inostrannykh del. Mineia chetiia mitropolita Makariia (novgor. spisok), XVI v., mesiats avgust, dni 23–31 (sobr. kn. Obolenskogo no. 159) (St. Petersburg, 1886) (=OLDP edition, LXXXVI).

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of St. Niphont (GPB, OdDP Q17);196 the Life of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker (GBL, f. 37, no. 15);197 the Life of St. Theodore of Edessa (GPB, Viaz. F° 89);198 the Life of St. Alexius, Metropolitan of Moscow (location unknown);199 and other, less important works. One of the most remarkable and useful projects carried out by the Society of Lovers of Ancient Literature was the publication of the Siisk icon-painting manual. This name was given to a large collection of seventeenth-century drawings (more than fifty sheets) intended for icon painters. The Siisk manual was bought in Moscow in 1881 specifically for the Society.200 Nikolai Pokrovskii, a connoisseur of Christian iconography between 1895 and 1897 published a complete description of all the sheets of this manual.201 Life-size lithographic reproductions of the best drawings illustrated his description.202 The plates of the book reproduced icons by Prokopii Chirin, Simon Ushakov, Fedor Evtikhiev (Zubov), Semen Spiridonov (Kholmogorets), and other metropolitan (Moscow) and less known masters from the north such as Vasilii Mamontov from Kargopol’, Fedor from Usol’e, Ermolai of Vologda, and Nikodim, a monk of the Siisk monastery who evidently compiled the manual itself. The abundance of reproductions of icons by metropolitan icon painters can be explained 196   Zhitie prepodobnogo Nifonta. Iz rukopisi, prinadlezhashchei kniaziu P. P. Viazemskomu, no. LXXI. Spisano litograficheskimi chernilami na prozrachnuiu bumagu Fedorom Eliseevym, issue 1–3 (St. Petersburg, 1879–1885) (=OLDP editions, XXXIX, LXII, and LXX). 197   Zhitie Nikolaia Chudotvortsa. Izdano po rukopisi XVI veka, prinadlezhashchei Moskovskomu Publichnomu i Rumiantsevskomu muzeiu (fol. no. 15) (St. Petersburg, 1882) (=OLDP edition, XXVIII and XL), with an anonymous introduction. The miniatures are reproduced in outlines except fol. 1v.—4, 109, 110v, 111, 112v, 133v, 134, 135v, and 136. 198   Zhitie Fedora Edesskogo. Iz rukopisi, prinadlezhashchei kniaziu P. P. Viazemskomu, no. LXXXIX, issue 1–3 (St. Petersburg, 1879–1885) (=OLDP edition, XLVIII–LXI–LXXII). 199   Zhitie mitropolita vseia Rusi sviatago Aleksiia, sostavlennoe Pakhomiem Logofetom, issue 1–2 (St. Petersburg, 1877–1878) (=OLDP edition, IV8, with an anonymous introduction on pp. III–XVI (issue I) and I–IV (issue 2). 200  Now in GPB, OLDP Fº 88. See N. V. Pokrovskii, “O Siiskom ikonopisnom podlinnike,” in AIZ (1897), no. 7–8, pp. 257, 258. 201  N. V. Pokrovskii, Siiskii ikonopisnyi podlinnik, I ([St. Petersburg], 1895) (=PDP, CV18; II ([St. Petersburg], 1896) (=PDP, CXIII); III ([St. Petersburg], 1897) (=PDP, CXXII); IV ([St. Petersburg], 1898) (=PDP, CXXIV). 202   Litsevoi Siiskii ikonopisnyi podlinnik, 1. Supplement to issue CVI of Pamiatniki [(St. Peters­burg], 1894) (=OLDP edition, CVII); 2. Supplement to issue CXIII of Pamiatniki [St. Petersburg], 1895) (=OLDP edition, CXI); 3. Supplement to issue CXXII of Pamiat­ niki ([St. Petersburg], 1896) (OLDP edition, CXI); 4. Supplement to issue CXXVI of Pamiatniki ([St. Petersburg], 1897) (=OLDP edition, CXII). In this edition issues 2 and 3 have the same series number: CXI.

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Figure 6.28

N. V. Pokrovskii, Siisk Icon-Painting Manual, issues I–IV, St. Petersburg, edition of the Society of Lovers of Ancient Literature, 1895–97.

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by the fact that the Siisk manual was created with the participation of those northern artists who, throughout the seventeenth century, were regularly summoned to Moscow to work together on government commissions such as the decoration of the Dormition and Archangel Cathedrals. It was in this way— either directly or indirectly—that a drawing depicting the icon of the Mother of God, “which image was painted by Peter the Metropolitan” and which, according to a note on the corresponding sheet, “stands in the Cathedral of the Dormition in the Kremlin” (LXXXVI), entered the collection of drawings of the Siisk Monastery. Also from the Moscow Kremlin comes another sheet of the collection, this time not an icon but an icon-portrait showing Patriarch Nikon and Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich (XLIII). But since the manual was compiled in a northern monastery, representations of numerous northern saints were gradually added to it, and the image of Antony, the founder of the Siisk Monastery, was reproduced on several sheets. The most valuable but still underestimated part of the edition of the Siisk manual is Pokrovskii’s iconographic commentary. He clearly realized that a manual of the Siisk type cannot serve as the basis for the appraisal of the technique and “artistic finish” of an icon. It is mainly of iconographic and historical importance. On the basis of specimens contained in the Siisk manual one can study the gradual elaboration of old, well-known images and the formation of new symbolic icons that began to acquire features of the icon-picture characteristic of the transitional period (for example, a rarely found composition, Persecution of the Holy Church). For all its fullness, Pokrovskii’s edition had a preliminary, descriptive character, and he planned to devote further study to the Siisk manual and to define its significance in the general history of Byzantine-Russian iconography. Scholars saw the need to examine Russian icon-painters’ manuals even before Pokrovskii, as evidenced, for example, by the extensive research work of Dmitrii Grigorov mentioned in the beginning of this chapter. None of the scholars, however, was so well-versed in his field as Pokrovskii, whose historical and theological erudition happily combined with a profound interest in medieval art. In 1895, the Society of Lovers of Ancient Literature obtained information on another seventeenth-century illuminated manual from the Siisk Monastery.203 One would think that a new find would have stimulated 203   Otchety o zasedaniiakh imp. Obshchestva liubitelei drevnei pis’mennosti v 1895–1896 godu. S prilozheniiami ([St. Petersburg], 1896) (=PDP, CXX), pp. 17, 18. Now this manual is in BAN (Arkhang. 205). For the first and second Siisk manuals, see also P. Simoni, K istorii obikhoda knigopistsa, perepletchika i ikonnogo pistsa pri knizhnom i ikonnom stroenii. Materialy dlia istorii tekhniki knizhnogo dela i ikonopisi, izvlechennye iz russkikh i serbskikh rukopisei i

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Pokrovskii to more vigorous research. But he ignored it, and Russian iconographic manuals remained fallow material for the scholars of that generation.204 In its early days the Society of Lovers of Ancient Literature quite often had the words “and Art” added to its name. But the addition lapsed, only to be restored officially in 1898.205 The decision to use the name “The Society of Lovers of Ancient Literature and Art” bore witness to the prominent place that the monuments of medieval Russian art occupied in the activities and publications of the Society. It was at the Society of Lovers of Ancient Literature that Kondakov delivered in November 1898 his speech, “On the Scholarly Tasks of the Study of Medieval Russian Art,”206 which contributed to a transition from dilettantism to the serious study of the art and scholarly research. Prince Pavel Viazemskii, the first chairman of the Society, hosted its meetings in his house on Pochtamtskaia Street. After his death Count Sergii Sheremetev’s palace on the Fontanka River became their meeting place. The Society’s museum was transferred to the palace, too. It consisted of four parts: a manuscript collection, a library, a collection of various objects, and an icon collection. Primary attention was of course given to the enlargement of its stock of manuscripts. At various times the museum obtained treasures of both literature and art, among others, an illuminated Psalter created in Kiev in 1397,207 and the entire collection of drawings and prints (about 5,000 sheets) drugikh istochnikov XV–XVIII stoletii, issue 1. Texts and annotations I–XIX. Supplemented with fourteen tables of photographs and drawings in the text ([St. Petersburg], 1906) (=PDPI, CLXI), pp. 169–216; M. V. Kukushkina, Monastyrskie biblioteki Severa. Ocherki po istorii knizhnoi kul’tury XVI–XVII vekov (Leningrad, 1977), pp. 111, 115 (under nos. 2 and 3), 118, 166, 167; V. G. Briusova, “Virshi Simonu Ushakovu,” in Pamiatniki kul’tury. Novye otkrytiia. Ezhegodnik 1977 (Moscow, 1977), pp. 31, 32. 204  Among other studies on the subject of the icon-painting manual we should mention two more OLDP editions: Ikonopisnyi podlinnik kratkoi redaktsii. Soobshchenie kn. P. P. Viazemskogo (St. Petersburg, 1885) (=PDP, [LVI]); P. Simoni, K istorii obikhoda knigopistsa, perepletchika i ikonnogo pistsa … Materialy …, I, pp. 183–87 and 187–94. 205   Otchety o zasedaniiakh imp. Obshchestva liubitelei drevnei pis’mennosti v 1898–1899 godu, p. 5. 206  Ibid., pp. 12–14. For the full text of the speech, see N. P. Kondakov, “O nauchnykh zadachakh istorii drevnerusskogo iskusstva,” in PDP, CXXXII ([St. Petersburg], 1899), pp. 1–47. 207   G PB, OLDP Fº VI. The manuscript was bought by S. D. Sheremetev from P. P. Viazemskii and presented to the Society in 1881. 224 (out of 229) folios were printed in the lithography technique: Litsevaia Psaltir’ 1397 goda, prinadlezhashchaia Obshchestvu liubitelei drevnei pis’mennosti [no. 1252, Fº VI) (proof-sheets) (St. Petersburg, 1890). This unfinished edition was not included in the series of the OLDP numbered editions. For a new publication see G. Vzdornov, Issledovanie o Kievskoi Psaltiri (Moscow, 1978); Kievskaia Psaltir’ 1397 goda

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amassed by Georgii Filimonov, and presented to the Society by his widow N. F. Filimonova, which amounted to a copious supplement to the Siisk manual.208 The collection of icons also grew from contributions by individuals and institutions. In the late 1870s, for example, the Society received dozens of icons from the archives of the Synod,209 whose depositories contained a great many objects from abolished monasteries as well as antiquities taken away from Old Believers after 1856. It should be noted, however, that the icons obtained by the Society were not studied at all and were not even cleaned.210 In 1923, forty-six years after the foundation of the Society, a commission appointed for the inspection of its museum located in Sheremetev’s palace a large room whose walls had been hung with icons as early as the 1870s and 1880s, some of which were found to be extremely valuable.211 The Society’s collections began to be gradually transferred to state repositories: the icons to the Russian Museum, the books and manuscripts to the Public Library. The Society of Lovers of Ancient Literature and Art had fulfilled its historical mission. Under new circumstances, it became an anachronism, and in 1932 it was dissolved.

iz Gosudarstvennoi Publichnoi biblioteki imeni M. E. Saltykova-Shchedrina v Leningrade (OLDP, Fº 6) (Moscow, 1978). 208   Otchety o zasedaniiakh imp. Obshchestva liubitelei drevnei pis’mennosti v 1898–1899 godu, pp. 6 and 22. 209   Pamiatniki drevnei pis’mennosti. Protokol polugodovogo sobraniia Obshchestva [liubitelei drevnei pis’mennosti] 16-go dekabria 1878 g. (St. Petersburg, 1879) [issue 1], pp. 15, 16; “Protokol polugodovogo sobraniia Obshchestva liubitelei drevnei pis’mennosti 7-go dekabria 1879 goda,” in PDP [VI] (St. Petersburg, 1880), issue 1, pp. 24–26 (a list of these icons). 210  There is brief evidence, though, that in 1905 the Society was worried by the bad state of the paint layers on the collected icons and that it decided to invite the icon-painter V. P. Gur’ianov to examine them (“Otchety o zasedaniiakh Obshchestva liubitelei drevnei pis’mennosti v 1904–1905 godu,” in PDPI, CLX [St. Petersburg, 1906], pp. 6, 7). 211  The Archives of the St. Petersburg Department of the Archaeological Institute of the Academy of Sciences. col. 29, no. 851, fol. 1–3v.

CHAPTER 7

Museums, Private Collections, and Exhibitions The concept of a national museum as presented in the projects of F. P. Adelung and G. von Wiechman. The Historical Museum in Moscow. I. E. Zabelin and V. N. Shchepkin. The museum in Tver. A. K. Zhiznevskii. The Rostov museum. Provincial statistical boards and learned archival commissions. Church museums. The Synodal vestry in the Moscow Kremlin. The Archimandrite Savva (Sabbas) and his Index for the viewing of the vestry. The museum of church archaeology at the Kiev Ecclesiastical Academy. N. I. Petrov. The collections of A. E. Sorokin, A. N. Murav’ev, and Porfirii Uspenskii. Museums of church archaeology at the ecclesiastical academies of Moscow and St. Petersburg. The department of church archaeology at the Society of Lovers of Spiritual Enlightenment and the Society’s museum. The Tula eparchial depository of antiquities. Depositories of antiquities in Vladimir and Archangel. Private museums of V. A. Prokhorov, F. M. Pliushkin, A. S. Uvarov, and P. I. Shchukin. The collectors N. M. and A. M. Postnikov and I. L. Silin. Antiquaries T. F. and S. T. Bol’shakov. N. S. Leskov and the popularization of medieval Russian painting. Russian antiquities at the World Exposition in Paris in 1867. Exhibitions at archaeological congresses. Church antiquities at the exhibition of the Eighth Archaeological Congress in Moscow in 1890. The art and archaeology exhibition in St. Petersburg in 1898. On the Moscow exhibitions of the representations of Christ and the Mother of God in 1896 and 1897. The discovery of medieval Russian painting (as well as that of any other variety of art) could not be called a real discovery without its ensuing popularization. If individual collectors or art lovers do not tell about their findings or show the found treasures at exhibitions accessible to all, the art remains within the limits of domestic or scholarly interest. Fortunately, those individuals and institutions that sought, found, and finally studied works of medieval Russian painting saw to it that their efforts became widely known, that the works they appreciated did not remain a topic of discussion for a select few. They organized museums, arranged permanent and temporary exhibitions, and published catalogues and albums. In this way, a taste for medieval Russian painting developed in the broad circles of enthusiasts and students of Russia’s history and artistic heritage. The Historical Museum in Moscow was instrumental in the dissemination of knowledge about medieval Russian painting. Unlike the Public Museum © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���8 | doi ��.��63/9789004305274_008

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and the Rumiantsev Museum which both had heterogeneous collections, the Moscow Historical Museum, was conceived as a national museum long before its actual establishment. The idea of creating a Russian national museum took shape nearly half a century before it was brought to life. The proposal was made by two Germans, F. P. Adelung and G. von Wiechman who worked as librarians at various periods in Count N. P. Rumiantsev’s home museum in St. Petersburg.1 Adelung and von Wiechman’s 1821 project, was distinguished by an innovative approach: they suggested an unusual idea for the early nineteenth century, namely, adding a special gallery to the usual collection of portraits of the tsars and other remarkable personages of Russian history, “where only Russian icons would be displayed in chronological order.”2 On the whole, their proposal envisaged the founding of a museum in which “every citizen could have the right to look for whatever materials or data he needed for his education and the enrichment of his knowledge of the Motherland.”3 Many years elapsed before this idea became a vital necessity rather than a dream. A museum for icons opened in Moscow rather than St. Petersburg and, typical of post-reform Russia, it came into being by personal initiative. A. S. Uvarov and N. I. Chepelevskii were the prime movers. It was only after things had gotten underway, during the construction of the museum and the acquisition of artifacts, that the Moscow Archaeological Society and the government joined the project.4 The city duma allotted a site for the new museum on the northern slope of Red Square where, between 1875 and 1883, the architect V. O. Sherwood and the engineer A. A. Semenov constructed a multistoried brick building in the poorly understood style of seventeenth-century Russian architecture. The inauguration of the Russian Historical Museum took place on May 27, 1883, but the decoration of a number of museum rooms dragged on and was only completed in the early twentieth century. Since the Historical Museum was conceived as a general museum of the Russian way of life, the art objects collected there were intended to reflect (and this rule is still adhered to) the everyday, rather than spiritual, life of the 1   F. Adelung, “Predlozhenie ob uchrezhdenii russkogo natsional’nogo muzeia,” in Syn Otechestva, part XXXVII (1817), pp. 54–72; G. von Wiechman, “Rossiiskii otechestvennyi muzei,” Ibid., part LXXI (1821), pp. 289–310. 2  G. von Wiechman, “Rossiiskii otechestvennyi muzei,” p. 304. 3  Ibid., p. 293. 4  See A. M. Razgon, “Rossiiskii Istoricheskii muzei. Istoriia ego osnovaniia i deiatel’nosti (1872– 1917 gg.),” in Ocherki istorii muzeinogo dela v Rossii, II (Moscow, 1960), pp. 224–98. Among the earlier works the best survey of factual material on the beginnings of the Historical Museum is provided by the anonymous “Letopis’” (chronicle) in Otchet imp. Rossiiskogo Istoricheskogo muzeia … v Moskve za 1883–1908 gody (Moscow, 1916), pp. 1–10. For the history of the building, see E. I. Kirichenko, Istoricheskii muzei (Moscow, 1984).

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Russian people. At first, original antiquities were few and the Board of the Historical Museum permitted the use of copies, especially as many works worthy of exhibition, such as wall paintings, could be shown in a museum only in reproductions.5 Therefore the museum acquired and exhibited some of the best watercolors by N. A. Martynov; copies of mosaics made by A. V. Prakhov in the St. Sophia of Kiev and the St. Michael Monastery of the Golden Roofs; watercolor copies of miniatures from the 1073 Izbornik and Sylvester’s Miscellany; and copies of the Novgorodian icons that are so remarkable for their historical value such as the Praying Novgorodians and the Vision of the Khutyn Sexton Tarasius.6 Both the general public and specialists appreciated the importance of copies for the illustration of Russian history and viewed this approach to museum displays, novel as it was for the nineteenth century, as a unique opportunity for the study of the art of particular epochs. In his letter of 25 June 1900, F. I. Shmit wrote to Prakhov: “This museum struck me in many ways, including the decoration of the rooms, the richness of the collections, and the cleverness of the principle that admitted the use of copies. For the first time I saw museum rooms decorated in the style of the epoch represented by the exhibits. It seems that we are the first to begin exhibiting copies in a museum. Only in this way it is possible to give a full idea of the development of Russian art and, above all, to make its study accessible. As a matter of fact, works of art such as the miniatures, headpieces, and initials of manuscripts cannot be available to all—they would fade away [from exposure to light and air—trans.]. But here, in the showcases, a collection of copies can be studied by everyone who wants to do so.”7 The name of the great scholar Ivan Egorovich Zabelin (1820–1908)8 is inseparably linked with the Moscow Historical Museum. He was a co-founder of the museum and the chief curator of its collections. It is difficult even to 5  For a concise list of icons, illuminated manuscripts, and original embroideries with images of saints acquired by the Museum in the first quarter of its existence, see Otchet imp. Rossiiskogo Istoricheskogo muzeia … za 1883–1908 gody, pp. 88–91 and 137–42 (in the section Obzor vazhneishikh pamiatnikov, prepared by V. N. Shchepkin). 6  Imp. Rossiiskii Istoricheskii muzei. Ukazatel’ k pervym desiati zalam (Moscow, 1883), pp. 133, 131–32; Imp. Rossiiskii Istoricheskii muzei, 2nd ed. (Moscow, 1893), pp. 525, 526, 529–32, 542– 45, 563, 564, 569–70; Kratkii putevoditel’ po Gosudarstvennomu Rossiiskomu Istoricheskomu Muzeiu, 3rd ed. (Moscow, 1923), pp. 157, 159, 165, 166, 176–78. 7  The manuscript division of the State Russian Museum in Leningrad, col. 139, item 882, fol. 1v–2. 8  For information about him, see N. L. Rubinstein, “Ivan Egorovich Zabelin. Istoricheskie vozzreniia i nauchnaia deiatel’nost’ (1820–1908),” in Istoriia SSSR (1965), no. 1, pp. 54–74; A. A. Formozov, Istorik Moskvy I. E. Zabelin (Moscow, 1984). For other literature, see the reference volume Istoriia istoricheskoi nauki v SSSR. Dooktiabr’skii period. Bibliographiia (Moscow, 1965), pp. 269–271.

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imagine anyone else who could so well personify the Historical Museum. He spent a good third of his life there, and his two fundamental scholarly works, The Family Life of the Russian Tsars and The Family Life of the Russian Tsarinas, though they were written and published before the opening of the museum, are akin to the character and purpose of that educational institution. Like the museum itself, both of Zabelin’s books present an encyclopedia of Russian daily life,9 in which all the facets of its historical past are viewed through the prism of court life. Many pages of Family Life are devoted to the creative activity of all sorts of artists who were employed by the tsars to decorate churches or who catered to the secular needs of the tsars’ families and the old Muscovite aristocracy. As V. N. Shchepkin (1863–1920)10 put it, art is inseparable from the people and for this reason icons are grouped here “not according to schools and the manner of execution but according to their location in tsarevnas’ chambers and tsars’ and boyars’ bedrooms.”11 In Zabelin’s books the Russian people live among the works of art that they created for themselves; they live and use art as only contemporaries have the right to do—at first hand and at any time—and not as “tourists” of later centuries who can only see the end product and, more often than not, only the fragments of old artistry wrenched [from their origin] into silent museums.12 In 1887, Zabelin invited Shchepkin to work in the Historical Museum, and the accomplished scholar remained faithful to it for the rest of his life. He headed the Historical Museum’s department of manuscripts and early printed 9   That is how, in fact, these Zabelin studies are titled: Domashnii byt russkogo naroda v XVI– XVII st., vol. I; Domashnii byt russkikh tsarei v XVI i XVII st., vol. II; and Domashnii byt russkikh tsarits v XVI i XVII st. Both books were repeatedly enlarged and reprinted. The last edition of the first part of the first volume appeared in 1918 (4th ed. [Moscow, 1918]), and the last edition of the second part in 1915 (3rd ed. [Moscow, 1915]); the last edition of the second volume appeared in 1901 (3rd ed. [Moscow, 1901]). As to other publications on similar matters, a popular book by N. I. Kostomarov, Ocherk domashnei zhizni i nravov velikorusskogo naroda v XVI–XVII stoletiiakh, still remains an important source of information (Moscow, 1860). 10  A large number of works have been written about V. N. Shchepkin. Suffice it to mention S. B. Bernstein’s Viacheslav Nikolaevich Shchepkin (Moscow, 1955), which contains a bibliography of the scholar’s published works and literature about him. Another list of his works and articles about him is given in V. N. Shchepkin, Russkaia paleografiia (Moscow, 1967), pp. 216–19 and 219–20. 11  V. Shchepkin, “Zabelin kak istorik russkogo iskusstva,” in Otchet imp. Rossiiskogo istoricheskogo muzeia … za 1883–1908 gody, p. 36. 12  Ibid. For better understanding of the principal direction of Zabelin’s scholarly studies, see K. Kuz’minskii “Spisok pechatnykh trudov I. E. Zabelina s 1842 po 1908 god,” Ibid., pp. 23–35.

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Figure 7.1 Ivan Egorovich Zabelin (1820–1908).

books (published in Russia before the eighteenth century), which he himself organized. Shchepkin was noticeably more interested in medieval Russian painting than were the other research fellows of the Historical Museum, and he based his opinions about it on embroidered images of saints and illuminated manuscripts,13 which was sound methodology. Unlike icons and wall paintings, embroideries and manuscripts were rarely changed after their original creation and, thus, they conveyed a true idea of the pictorial art of Rus’. It is significant that Shchepkin was a linguist, palaeographer, and connoisseur of manuscripts. His keen interest in inscriptions, handwriting, and language served as a firm basis for the attribution of unsigned and undated artworks. His first published work, A Monument of Early-Fifteenth-Century Gold Embroidery (1894), was a model study in art and history because of its 13  See “Pamiatnik zolotogo shit’ia nachala XV veka,” in Drevnosti. Trudy MAO, vol. XV, issue 1 (1894), pp. 35–68; “Dva litsevykh sbornika Istoricheskogo muzeia (XVIII i XVI vv. [??]),” in AIZ (1897), no. 4, pp. 97–128; “Litsevoi sbornik imp. Rossiiskogo Istoricheskogo muzeia,” in IORIaS, vol. IV, book 1–4, (St. Petersburg, 1899), pp. 49–54; “Novgorodskaia shkola ikonopisi po dannym miniatiury,” in Trudy XI AS v Kieve, 1899, vol. II. (Moscow, 1902), pp. 183–208; “Zhitie sviatogo Nifonta litsevoie XVI veka” (Moscow, 1903) (Imp. Rossiiskii Istoricheskii muzei. Opisanie pamiatnikov, III); “Khristos blagoslovliaet apostolov: Miniatiura Siiskogo Evangeliia 1339 goda,” in GM (1913), no. 3, pp. 294–96; “Istochniki illiustratsii,” in Russkaia ustnaia slovesnost’, vol. I. Byliny (Moscow, 1916), pp. 433–43 and others.

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Figure 7.2 Viacheslav Nikolaevich Shchepkin (1863–1920).

exhaustive description, with many references to historical, literary, palaeographic, and linguistic data on one of the finest pieces of Russian embroidery. Although Shchepkin did not provide instructions for methods of study of miniatures and embroidery, anyone who reads his articles will draw from them much valuable and useful information.14 In any case, this kind of reading is much more helpful than instructions and manuals of all sorts which exasperate the reader by their didactic manner and discourage him from the study of the subject matter described by their authors. The importance of the Moscow Historical Museum lay in its breadth: its exhibition halls and depositories contained items from all over Russia. Other museums with the exception of the Hermitage and, to a degree, the Public Museum and Rumiantsev Museum in Moscow, mainly collected local antiquities, and were what we would probably call museums of regional studies. Such museums, ranging from very small ones that occupied only a room at a provincial statistical board or archival commission to very large ones that were sometimes accommodated in palaces, proliferated in the 1860s and 1870s. These museums were directly connected with the overall democratization of life in post-reform Russia, when any private initiative in the sphere of edu-

14  The chapter “Miniatiura” in Shchepkin’s manual, Russkaia paleografiia (Moscow, 1918 [1920]), pp. 73–82; 2nd ed. (Moscow, 1967), pp. 86–96) is no exception.

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cation found strong social backing.15 Thus, the major provincial museums of Tver and Rostov came into being thanks to the active support of the Moscow Archaeological Society. Many other museums were founded with the assistance of local antiquarians who often made up the entire staff of these museums. The museum in Tver opened on August 9, 1866, on the initiative of Prince P. R. Bagration, the Tver governor, and N. I. Rubtsov, the secretary of the local statistical board. It was the first important provincial museum in Russia. Originally its collections consisted of specimens of local industry and natural history received from the Tver gubernia exhibition, and a few items relating to ethnography, archaeology, and art. The situation changed in 1872 when August Kasimirovich Zhiznevskii (1819–96)16 became the head of the museum. He can justly be called the real founder of the Tver museum. Within twenty-five years, Zhiznevskii increased the museum’s holdings of archaeological and churcharchaeological items to 8,694 and the number of manuscripts to 7,101, many of which were of significance to Russian culture as a whole. Moreover, he succeeded in moving the museum from an unsightly and inconvenient building to a large and beautiful eighteenth-century roadside palace of the tsars. On the whole, Zhiznevskii achieved a level of success rarely equaled by other students of local lore as he made the Tver museum the richest and most important museum outside Moscow and St. Petersburg.17 15  For information on them, see [P. S.] Uvarova “Oblastnye muzei,” in Trudy VII AS v Yaroslavle, 1887, vol. II (Moscow, 1891), pp. 259–81; I. F. Likhachev, “Zamechaniia, vyzvannye dokladom gr. Uvarovoi,” Ibid., pp. 329–36; I. F. Likhachev, “Ob ustroistve provintsial’nykh muzeev i osnovanii Obshchestva okhrany natsional’nykh pamiatnikov,” Ibid., pp. 337–56. For more details, see the reference volume Istoriia istoricheskoi nauki v SSSR. Dooktiabr’skii period. Bibliografiia, pp. 159–63. 16  For Zhiznevskii and the Tver museum, see Otchety o zasedaniiakh imp. Obshchestva liubitelei drevnei pis’mennosti v 1895–1896 godu. S prilozheniiami ([St. Petersburg], 1896) (VPDP, CXX), pp. 28–30 (necrology); V. Kolosov, “Pamiati Avgusta Kazimirovicha Zhiznevskogo” (Tver, 1896) (supplement to the journal of the fifty-fourth meeting of the Tver learned archival commission, pp. 1–14); S. S[lutskii], “A. K. Zhiznevskii,” in AIZ (1896), no. 4, pp. 129–30; P. N. Polevoi, “Vospominaniie ob A. K. Zhiznevskom,” in IV (June, 1896), pp. 985–89; A. O[vsiannikov], “Pamiati A. K. Zhiznevskogo,” in RA (1896), 8, pp. 602–607; D. A. Korsakov, “Pominka po A. K. Zhiznevskomu,” in Trudy X AS v Rige, 1896, vol. III (Moscow, 1900), minutes, pp. 52–55; V. I. Kolosov, “Pamiati Avgusta Kazimirovicha Zhiznevskogo,” in Drevnosti. Trudy MAO, vol. XVIII (1901), minutes, pp. 23–32; V. I. Kolosov, K istorii Tverskogo muzeia (Tver, 1904); V. I. Kolosov, “K istorii Tverskogo muzeia,” in Trudy vtorogo oblastnogo tverskogo arkheologicheskogo s”ezda 1903 goda 10–20 avgusta (Tver, 1906), pp. 335–46; Vospominaniia P. I. Shchukina, part 5 (Moscow, 1912), p. 35. 17  Unfortunately, we do not have a full description of its collection of medieval Russian art, a considerable part of which was for various reasons dispersed or perished in the period

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Figure 7.3 Avgust Kazimirovich Zhiznevskii (1819–96), founder of Tver Museum.

Zhiznevskii represented a type of local-lore enthusiast of whom there were many in pre-revolutionary Russia. Without his efforts the Tver museum would probably have never gotten off the ground. He took an interest in museum work at a mature age, and he devoted to it all his efforts, time, social connections, and even personal savings. This devotion is all the more astonishing as Zhiznevskii was neither a native of Tver nor a professional historian or archaeologist. Born in Polotsk, he studied law at Moscow University and lived in Moscow, Novgorod, Riazan, and Tambov until he settled in Tver in the 1860s. Zhiznevskii paid particular attention to enriching the museum collections with such artifacts as icons, stone and metal pendants with images of saints, woodcarvings, embroidery, engravings, portraits, manuscripts, and books printed before the eighteenth century. Having no professional archaeological education, he eagerly sought the advice and support of others. He was fortunate to become acquainted with A. S. Uvarov, the chairman of the Moscow from the 1920s to the 1950s. A survey of the exhibition undertaken in 1911 was interrupted when it reached the department of portraits, numismatics, and sphragistics (V. Kolosov, Kratkoie opisanie Tverskogo muzeia [1–2] [Tver, 1911–1912]). For this reason the best idea of the painted and embroidered icons of the Tver museum can be gleaned from Zhiznevskii’s Description, and for the period from 1882 on from the regular reports (Otchety) on the new acquisitions of the museum printed in the Tverskie Gubernskie Vedomosti (Tver Gazette) and simultaneously published in separate pamphlets. Fifteen reports came out before 1912.

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Archaeological Society, who often visited Tver and helped Zhiznevskii to reorganize the museum and to classify its rapidly growing collections on a scholarly basis.18 With Uvarov’s cooperation and personal assistance, Zhiznevskii published a description of his favorite historical and archaeological department of the museum.19 He assessed the task of the reorganization of the museum as follows: “The Tver museum was founded to serve as a visual aid for the study of Tver province in its present state.… But to explore in depth the present-day condition of the land one must know its past. And the only possible way to learn about the past is through the study of relics of antiquity, which unfortunately disappear very quickly and irrevocably, ruined if not by time then by people’s ignorance and indifference. To preserve the surviving monuments of antiquity or at least their representations, to collect them in one place so that young students and all those interested in the national past have the best, most complete and authentic picture of ancient popular life is the task that appeared to be urgent as soon as the Tver museum became filled with specimens of natural history and artifacts of the modern economy and industry of Tver province.”20 Zhiznevskii continued, “It is desirable that future archaeologists, explorers of Tver province, should bear in mind [this] purpose of the museum and supply it at least with copies if not with all the originals of Tver antiquity that they discover. This way of enriching the local museum demonstrates its usefulness for the study of the country’s past, and will inevitably arouse the sympathy of society and private individuals who will certainly not refuse to help the museum through their own donations.”21

18  A. K. Zhiznevskii, “Ob otnosheniiakh grafa Alekseia Semenovicha Uvarova k Tverskomu muzeiu drevnostei,” in Nezabvennoi pamiati grafa A. S. Uvarova (Moscow, 1885), pp. 39– 44. See also Istoricheskaia zapiska o deiatel’nosti imp. Moskovskogo arkheologicheskogo obshchestva za pervye 25 let sushchestvovaniia (Moscow, 1890), p. 11. 19  Originally this description was published in parts in the Drevnosti followed by a separate edition. See A. K. Zhiznevskii, Opisanie Tverskogo muzeia. Arkheologicheskii otdel. S primechaniiami gr. A. S. Uvarova (Moscow, 1888). As for other research works by Zhiznevskii, see “Tverskie drevnosti. Korrespondentsiia A. K. Zhiznevskogo. S dopolneniiami G. F[ilimonova],” in Vestnik Obshchestva drevnerusskogo iskusstva pri Moskovskom Publichnom muzee (1873), no. 1–3, Smes’‘, pp. 5–14; “Ob ikone spasitelia, khraniashcheisia v Novotorzhskom Borisoglebskom monastyre,” in Drevnosti. Trudy MAO, vol. IV, issue 2 (1874), section Arkheologicheskie izvestiia i zametki, pp. 82–84 (16th century); “Drevnii arkhiv Krasnokholmskogo Antonieva monastyria,” Ibid., vol. VIII (1880), Issledovaniia, pp. 1–95; Portret tverskogo velikogo kniazia Mikhaila Borisovicha (Tver, 1889). 20  A. K. Zhiznevskii, Opisanie Tverskogo muzeia. Arkheologicheskii otdel, p. 4. 21  Ibid., p. 5.

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These expectations came true, and the Tver museum grew vigorously both in Zhiznevskii’s lifetime and after his death. The church department of the museum assumed special importance. Even during the first years of its existence, this collection22 received one section of the now famous late fourteenth-century Royal Doors with the representation of St. Basil of Caesarea; several seventeenth-century icons with representations of Tver princes and princesses; embroidered shrouds with images of Tver, Kashin, and Torzhok saints; and a host of other precious works of medieval Russian art.23 Gifts came not only from residents of Tver but also from inhabitants of other districts of Tver province (e.g., Kashin, Ostashkov, and Rzhev) and from other Russian towns.24 For the sake of completeness, Zhiznevskii published an album of photographs that contained 120 illustrations of objects in churches and other places that were not to be transferred to the museum.25 The popularity of the museum increased as it was transformed from an exhibition of factory-made articles to a first-class repository of Tver antiquities. In 1874 only twelve people visited the museum, but in ten years’ time the number of annual visitors reached 9,000.26 This was recognition that Tver had become a new cultural center. After Zhiznevskii’s death, V. I. Kolosov (1854–1919), another enthusiast of local studies, was appointed to his post. The Tver museum remained a distinguished attraction both of Tver and central Russia. Soon after the foundation of the Tver museum another provincial museum opened. It is unnecessary to mention the history of Rostov, which goes back to the eleventh century, and the numerous Rostov churches, whose symbol is the famous Kremlin built in the sixteenth and seventeenth century.27 Objects 22  See A. K. Zhiznevskii, Opisanie Tverskogo muzeia. Arkheologicheskii otdel, pp. 40–72. 23  In 1911 a certain A. N. Vershinskii undertook a description of the most valuable icons of the Tver museum, but he analyzed only two icons by Simon Ushakov and representations of Novgorodian saints. See Tverskaia Starina, no. 2 February 1911, (Staritsa, 1911), pp. 37–40 and no. 3, March 1911 (Staritsa, 1911), pp. 27, 28. A fair amount of valuable information on the acquisition of medieval Russian paintings by the Tver Museum, part of which is derived from archival sources, is given in G. V. Popov’s and A. V. Ryndina’s Zhivopis’ i prikladnoie iskusstvo Tveri. XIV–XVI veka (Moscow, 1979). 24  An example of such donations is a gift of the Moscow collector P. I. Shchukin, who sent an icon with the view of the Tver kremlin to the Tver Museum. See Vospominaniia P. I. Shchukina, part 5, p. 35. 25  A. K. Zhiznevskii, Opisanie Tverskogo muzeia. Arkheologicheskii otdel, pp. 5–7. 26  V. I. Kolosov, K istorii Tverskogo muzeia, p. 7. 27  See A. A. Titov, Kreml’ Rostova Velikogo (Moscow, 1905); V. Banige, Kreml’ Rostova Velikogo. XVI–XVII veka (Moscow, 1976). On Rostov and the Rostov churches in general, see also A. A. Titov, Rostov Velikii v ego tserkovno-arkheologicheskikh pamiatnikakh [Moscow, 1911];

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of antiquity were so abundant in the town that it was not at all difficult to form a collection worthy of a museum. Instead, the problem was to find suitable premises. It seemed only natural that the museum should be housed in the Kremlin, but all the Kremlin buildings not owned by the Church were on the verge of ruin and required urgent restoration. V. I. and E. I. Korolev, who were merchants from Tomsk and natives of Rostov, donated 4,000 rubles for this purpose. First to be restored was the white refectory (stolovaia palata), followed by the ceremonial hall (otdatochnaia palata), and the prince’s chambers (kniazh’i terema).28 The architectural restoration was carried out by local workmen. Some of the architectural forms of these buildings were not restored to their original state; some were even distorted to please the nineteenth-century tastes. But within a short period of time three large buildings were ready for the museum, and as the white refectory, the ceremonial hall, and the prince’s chambers were linked by a gallery to the beautiful Church of the Savior decorated with late seventeenth-century frescoes, the church and its frescoes supplemented the museum and its exhibits. The Rostov museum opened on October 28, 1883. Its founders were A. A. Titov (1844–1911) and I. A. Shliakov (1840–1919), local amateur archaeologists. Titov owned a remarkable collection of manuscripts and published dozens of scholarly books and articles about Rostov antiquities and the Rostov museum, thus enhancing the popularity of his native town and the museum.29 Iu. Shamurin, Rostov Velikii (Moscow, 1913) (in the series Khudozhestvennye sokrovishcha Rossii, 6); B. von Eding, Rostov Velikii. Uglich (Moscow, [1913]) (in the series: Igor Grabar’. Russkie goroda—rassadniki iskusstva, I). 28  N. N. Selifontov, “Vozobnovlenie zdanii drevnego Kremlia v Rostove, Yaroslavskoi gubernii, i uchrezhdenie muzeia mestnykh drevnostei,” in VAI, III (1885), pp. 54–62 (the same work without indication of the author’s name and under the title “Vosstanovlenie drevnikh zdanii i muzei tserkovnykh drevnostei v Rostove Velikom,” in ZhMNP [November, 1885], section Sovremennaia letopis’, pp. 25–34); Iv. Shliakov, Ocherk deiatel’nosti komissii po vosstanovleniiu Rostovskogo Kremlia, (Rostov Yaroslavskii, 1902); Rostovskii Kreml’ v opisaniiakh A. A. Titova, Izdanie V. A. Talitskogo (Moscow, 1912); Drevnosti. Trudy MAO. vol. XXIII, issue 2 (1914), pp. 146–59. The restoration of the Rostov Kremlin was undertaken on the initiative of A. S. Uvarov. His project attracted the attention of A. A. Titov, an enterprising Rostov merchant and lover of antiquity who contributed greatly not only to the restoration of Rostov architectural monuments but also to the revival of the town’s former glory. 29  On A. A. Titov, see [V. Rudakov], Andrei Aleksandrovich Titov. + 24 oktiabria 1911 goda v Rostove Velikom (Moscow, [1911]); U. G. Ivask, “Pamiati A. A. Titova,” in Russkii bibliofil (1911), no. 7, pp. 115, 116; U. G. Ivask, “Materialy dlia bibliograficheskogo ukazetelia trudov i izdanii A. A. Titova,” Russkii bibliofil (1911), no. 8, pp. 88–96 (nearly 300 titles); V. Rudakov, “A. A. Titov (1844–1911). “Nekrolog,” in ZhMNP (February, 1912), section Sovremennaia letopis’, pp. 72–86; Rostovskii Kreml’ v opisaniiakh An. Al. Titova. Izd. V. A. Talitskogo

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Figure 7.4 Rostov Kremlin, seventeenth century.

Figure 7.5 Andrei Aleksandrovich Titov (1844–1911), one of the founders of the Rostov Museum of Church Antiquities.

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Acknowledging Titov and Shliakov, we should not forget Archbishop Jonathan (Ionafan) (1816–1906) of Yaroslavl and Rostov.30 Since the museum in Rostov was, above all, a repository of church antiquities, the archbishop ordered that all icons and other relics no longer in use and housed in churches within the jurisdiction of his eparchy be transferred to the new repository without compensation. This ensured an almost inexhaustible source of new exhibits for the Rostov museum. In addition, wealthy local people, guided by feelings of vanity and patriotism, eagerly donated large sums of money for the restoration of Rostov churches. Thanks to their generous backing, the committee for the reconstruction of the Kremlin managed, in 1887 and 1889, to clean the seventeenth-century frescoes in the churches of John the Divine (1683) and the Resurrection of Christ (ca. 1670).31 Once the future of the museum was assured, more private individuals and institutions readily contributed not only individual antiquities but entire collections. The largesse of its benefactors made the museum in Rostov unique among provincial museums of Russia. Eventually the State Duma recognized the national importance of the museum and allocated 2,300 rubles from the Treasury for its maintenance and enlargement. Many publications containing general views of its exhibitions and photographs of individual works give us an idea of what the Rostov museum was like before the revolution.32 This repository, abounding in various objects, was typical of the period (and, incidentally, quite similar to the so-called stocks (fondy) of Russia’s provincial museums of recent times). Exhibits were not well organized: icons and crosses, church plate and books, portraits and furniture shared the same corner or even the same showcase. Typical, too, was the atmosphere of antiquity that could be felt in the massive pillars and vaults of (Moscow, 1912); Iz zapisnoi knizhki A. P. Bakhrushina. S primechaniiami M. Tsiavlovskogo (Moscow, 1916), pp. 17, 18, and 101. In 1900, Titov donated the collection of manuscripts, which he had amassed and described, to the Imperial Public Library. 30  See A. A. Titov, “Vysokopreosviashchennyi Ionafan, byvshii arkhiepiskop Yaroslavskii i Rostovskii,” in Drevnosti. Trudy MAO, vol. XXII, issue 1, (1909), pp. 61–63. 31  Iv. Shliakov, Ocherk deiatel’nosti komissii po vosstanovleniiu Rostovskogo Kremlia, note 1 on p. 17 and note 2 on p. 20. N. M. Safonov was commissioned to do the work. For specific information on the Rostov frescoes, see V. G. Briusova, Freski Yaroslavlia XVII–nachala XVIII veka (Moscow, 1969), pp. 44–65, with illustrations. 32  See F. A. Bychkov, Putevoditel’ po Rostovskomu muzeiu tserkovnykh drevnostei (Yaroslavl, 1886). Also published here are the museum’s statutes, lists of its principal staff and corresponding members. Rostovskii muzei tserkovnykh drevnostei, 1:V. Mansvetov, Opisanie tserkovnoi utvari i predmetov bogosluzhebnykh, khraniashchikhsia v muzee (Yaroslavl, 1886) (2nd ed., suppl. [Yaroslavl, 1889]); Putevoditel’ po Rostovskomu myzeiu tserkovnykh drevnostei. Izdanie Komiteta muzeia (Moscow, [1911]); Rostovskii Kreml’ v opisaniakh A. A. Titova. Izdanie V. A. Talitskogo, pp. 31–46 (the article “Muzei tserkovnykh drevnostei”).

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the white refectory, the darkened faces of the saints, the faded colors of the portraits, and the old, worn vestments. But this was antiquity in toto, as yet inadequately understood for scholarly classification. Even the list of museum icons published as a catalogue of this specific collection does not exceed the limits of church archaeology.33 There is not a single word about painting as such: the author of the list dwells upon the subjects of the icons, but he admits quite plainly his inability to discuss schools, masters, and styles. That would have been impossible to do responsibly, as half of the icons received by the museum had been retouched, and only their barely legible inscriptions gave grounds for assuming that these were works of the sixteenth or seventeenth century. Yet even at that time the Rostov museum possessed such riches as a fifteenth-century icon of Sts. Boris and Gleb,34 a fifteenth-century icon of Archangel Michael,35 and a 1553 shroud with the representation of Abramius of Rostov, and many other noteworthy works of painting and embroidery.36 The Moscow Archaeological Society supervised the Tver and Rostov museums.37 The curators of the Tver museum (Zhiznevskii and Kolosov) and the Rostov museum (Titov and Shliakov), were active members of the Society, sought to carry out decisions taken by the Society, and ensured close contacts. Moscow specialists who were members of the Society often visited Tver and Rostov and never refused to assess a work’s value to researchers, undertake the restoration of a building or painting, and advise on a difficult problem with the help of the Society’s Board or through its public meetings. The collections of almost all the provincial museums contained first-class works whose study was encouraged, especially since the museums of the Moscow Archaeological

33  I. Bogoslovskii, Opisanie ikon, khraniashchikhsia v Rostovskom muzee tserkovnykh drevnostei (Yaroslavl, 1904) (on the cover the date is 1909). 34  Now in the Tretyakov Gallery. See V. I. Antonova, N. E. Mneva, Katalog drevnerusskoi zhivopisi, vol. I (Moscow, 1963), no. 180, ill. 131, cf. F. A. Bychkov, Putevoditel’ po Rostovskomu muzeiu tserkovnykh drevnostei, p. 15; I. Bogoslovskii, Opisanie ikon, khraniashchikhsia v Rostovskom muzee tserkovnykh drevnostei, p. 83, no. 204. 35  Still in the Rostov museum. See I. Bogoslovskii, Opisanie ikon, khraniashchikhsia v Rostovskom muzee tserkovnykh drevnostei, p. 91, no. 224. 36  Still in the Rostov museum. See I. N. Bogoslovskii, Putevoditel’ po Rostovskomu muzeiu tserkovnykh drevnostei (Moscow, 1911), p. 24. 37  In 1892, with the assistance of this Society, another town museum was opened in Uglich, for which a late fifteenth-century palace building was specially restored. A leading department of the Uglich museum was that of the history of everyday life. For a detailed account of the museum’s history and structure, see K. Mukhin, Muzei drevnostei vo dvortse sviatogo tsarevicha Dimitriia v Ugliche (Uglich, 1915).

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Society and the Russian Archaeological Society were insignificant.38 The attraction of provincial collections was evident to all Moscow and St. Petersburg scholars, who visited Rostov and the Rostov museum regularly. They participated either directly or indirectly in the museum’s activities, and their publication of local antiquities made the town’s artistic heritage more popular. Besides the Tver and Rostov museums, there were quite a few other museums and collections of antiquities at various institutions which served scholarly or educational purposes in the second half of the nineteenth century. If an inquisitive traveler showed interest and persistence, he could gain admission to these museums, but this depended largely on the whims of the authorities and curators. Provincial collections were the fruit of archival commissions and statistical boards, local historical and archaeological societies, ecclesiastical academies and seminaries, and churches and monasteries. Museums at provincial statistical boards and scholarly archival commissions had relatively few paintings. Their boards were engaged in gathering current statistics on the population, industry and agriculture, and the archival commissions handled the preservation and description primarily of documents, but various circumstances enabled the museums attached to boards and commissions to acquire the occasional icon, embroidery with images of saints, handwritten or printed books.39 For the most part, these objects were scarcely studied, and were stored with the bones of “antediluvian” animals and other old specimens in a manner reminiscent of the lumber of a junkman’s shop. Thus, the museums at provincial statistical boards and archival commissions are not considered very important. In even the best of them (for example in Vladimir’s) the collections of medieval Russian paintings cannot compare 38  See N. I. Veselovskii, Istoriia imp. Russkogo arkheologicheskogo obshchestva za pervoie piatidesiatiletie ego sushchestvovaniia.1846–1896 (St. Petersburg, 1900), pp. 337–60; Istoricheskaia zapiska o deiatel’nosti imp. Moskovskogo arkheologicheskogo obshchestva za pervye 25 let sushchestvovaniia (Moscow, 1890), p. 5. 39  Provincial learned archival commissions were established in 1884 on the initiative of N. V. Kalachov. The first four commissions opened in Orel, Tambov, Riazan’, and Tver. For commissions in general, see V. S. Ikonnikov, Gubernskie uchenye arkhivnye komissii. 1884–1890 (Kiev, 1892); A. V. Selivanov, “O tseli uchrezhdeniia i predmetakh deiatel’nosti arkhivnykh komissii,” in Trudy VladUAK, I (Vladimir, 1899), minutes, pp. 5–11; “Gubernskie uchenye arkhivnye komissii,” in Trudy VladUAK, X (Vladimir, 1908), chronological register, pp. 27–44; N. V. Pokrovskii, Gubernskie uchenye arkhivnye kommissii (St. Petersburg, 1908); Sbornik materialov, otnosiashchikhsia do arkhivnoi chasti v Rossii, vol. I (Petrograd, 1916), pp. 660–74; Istoriia istoricheskoi nauki v SSSR. Dooktiabr’skii period. Bibliografiia (Moscow, 1965), pp. 153–58 and other publications such as O. I. Shvedova’s work referred to in the next note.

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with those in church institutions. The archival commissions and statistical boards made an ancillary contribution, publishing sources in which the role that pictorial art played in the everyday religious and secular life of Russian people could be traced. Usually these studies were descriptions of town, country, and monastery churches which were rich in works of art and craftsmanship as late as the nineteenth century.40 But let us return to the museums attached to church and church-archaeological institutions, which were commoner than municipal museums and those at government boards and commissions. This was natural since the Church had an inexhaustible source of art and antiquities for building up its collections. If a bishop or his associates in one see or another took an interest in the past, they had access to the material from which a museum with excellent prospects could be built. The only problem was that the higher church authorities were reluctant to give away works of art from active churches. The majority of eparchial repositories sprang up in the 1880s, 1890s, and even in the early twentieth century,41 when a passion for collecting struck all levels of educated society and it became necessary to prevent private collectors from plundering church antiquities. Some church museums appeared much earlier —in the mid-seventeenth century, when for example, the so-called Image Chamber (obraznaia palata)—a specially equipped repository for icons, embroidery with saints, and other objects of church use—was established at the palace of the Moscow Kremlin. As evidenced by the inventory of 1669,42 the Image Chamber contained between 2,000 and 3,000 icons. Along with works by the best seventeenth-century Russian masters, which formed the nucleus of this unique collection, there were some very old, darkened Russian icons, as well as Greek, Slavonic, and Georgian ones that had been presented by various ecclesiastical embassies arriving from Mount Athos, the Caucasus, Palestine, and 40  As an excellent guide to the publications of archival commissions from 1884 to 1918 is O. I. Shvedova’s survey “Ukazatel” Trudov gubernskikh uchenykh arkhivnykh komissii i otdel’nykh ikh izdanii,” in Arkheograficheskii ezhegodnik za 1957 god (Moscow, 1958), pp. 377–433. 41  K. Ia. Zdravomyslov, Svedeniia o konsistorskikh arkhivakh i tserkovno-arkheologicheskikh uchrezhdeniiakh v eparkhiiakh s proektom “Pravil vysochaishe utverzhdennoi arkhivnoarkheologicheskoi komissii pri Sviateishem Sinode” i “Polozheniia o tserkovno-arkheologicheskikh komitetakh” (St. Petersburg, 1908); K. Ia. Zdravomyslov, “Svedeniia o sushchestvuiushchikh v eparkhiiakh tserkovno-arkheologicheskikh uchrezhdeniiakh i konsistorskikh arkhivakh,” Sbornik materialov, otnosiashchikhsia do arkhivnoi chasti v Rossii, vol. II (Petrograd, 1917), pp. 322–59. 42  A. I. Uspenskii, “Tserkovno-arkheologicheskoie khranilishche pri Moskovskom dvortse v XVII veke,” in ChOIDR (1902), book 3, section 1, pp. 1–92.

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Slavonic countries in the Balkans. A peculiar feature of the Image Chamber collection was its apparent fluidity since the majority of works accumulated there were made for specific needs, on occasion (na sluchai), for donation to churches and monasteries, reciprocal gifts to ambassadors, and for the decoration of churches personally commissioned by the tsar and members of the royal family. It was for this reason that many icon subjects were painted again and again: there were 238 copies of the image of Christ Pantocrator, 240 copies of the Trinity, 260 copies of the Nativity of the Mother of God, 416 copies of the Epiphany, and 600 copies of the Dormition. Nevertheless, individual objects of particular value were not given away and later became part of the collection of the Armory in the Moscow Kremlin. Another church museum, a permanent one, was the Synodal Vestry and Library, which had a first-class collection of Greek, Russian, and South Slavonic manuscripts. It was housed in the Bell Tower of Ivan the Great in the Moscow Kremlin. The origin of the Synodal Vestry and Library is even earlier than that of the Image Chamber, but it was only in the mid-nineteenth century that Metropolitan Filaret (Philaret) took the initiative of turning the Vestry into a well-appointed museum accessible to viewing and scholarly research. For this task he found a clever, amiable, and sociable hieromonk named Savva from the Trinity Lavra. A monk ordained as a priest, Savva (1819–96) graduated from the ecclesiastical academy, became a sacrist and then an archimandrite; his career parallels that of Makaii (Macarius).43 Like Makarii, he devoted himself to academic and administrative tasks when still comparatively young and then, at the wish of Filaret, set out on a spiritual pilgrimage. After a number of transfers from one important post to another he was finally appointed Archbishop of Tver and Kashin. But for us, Archimandrite Savva is first and foremost the sacrist of the Synodal Vestry. He held this office from 1850 to 1859. In 1850, the church objects and manuscripts housed there were in disorder, uncounted and uncatalogued. Five years later Savva had put the collection in perfect 43  See about him in V. Vladislavlev, Prazdnovanie blagopoluchno sovershivshegosia dvadtsatipiatiletiia v sane episkopa vysokopreosviashchenneishego Savvy, arkhiepiskopa Tverskogo i Kashinskogo, 2nd ed., revised and enlarged (Tver, 1892); “Otchety o zasedaniiakh imp. Obshchestva liubitelei drevnei pis’mennosti v 1896–1897 godu” ([St. Petersburg], 1897) (=PDP, CXXIV), pp. 10–13; Pamiati arkhiepiskopa Savvy, episkopa Amfilokhiia (Amphilochius), prof. A. I. Pavinskogo i grafa M. V. Tolstogo (Moscow, 1898), pp. 1–35 (articles by I. N. Korsunskii, M. N. Speranskii, F. I. Buslaev, and A. I. Kirpichnikov). A wealth of material on Savva’s life can be found in his own memoirs: Khronika moei zhizni. Avtobiograficheskie zapiski vysokopreosviashchennogo Savvy, arkhiepiskopa Tverskogo i Kashinskogo, vols. I–IX (Sergiev Posad [St. Sergius-Holy Trinity Lavra], 1898–1911). See also A. Titov, “O zapiskakh arkhiepiskopa Savvy,” in RA (1905), book 1, pp. 237–94.

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order. This is surprising as he had no training in archaeology: he matured as a scholar in the course of the work entrusted to him. His efforts culminated in the informative and conceptually fundamental Index for the Viewing of the Vestry and Library, which ran into five editions and was even translated into French.44 This book of about five hundred pages lists and briefly describes all the objects and manuscripts housed in the Vestry in the mid-nineteenth century. Among them were sakkoi and a stole (epitrachilion) of Metropolitan Fotii (Photius), sacerdotal robes embroidered with images of saints belonging to Greek and Russian metropolitans and patriarchs, and illuminated Greek and Slavonic manuscripts.45 The arrangement of the museum itself, with the finest exhibits displayed in made-to-order showcases, the printed Index, and, finally, Savva’s goodwill toward visitors were so unusual for the time that he could hardly avoid receiving favorable reviews in newspapers and journals. Leonidas, another learned archimandrite, wrote about Savva: “His readiness to use his knowledge, enthusiasm, and academic connections for everyone’s benefit turned the library and the vestry into a public treasury of antiquities; and the person of the synodal sacrist commanded such universal respect as it had never done previously.”46 In any event, the opening of the Vestry to the public and to scholars, combined with the publication of the Index, marked a turning point in the sphere of Russian museums. All leading historical and archaeological societies elected Savva as a member, and at the end of his life the Moscow Ecclesiastical Academy conferred upon him the honorary title of Doctor of Church History. 44  Savva, arkhim., Ukazatel’ dlia obozreniia moskovskoi Patriarshei (nyne Sinodal’noi) riznitsy i biblioteki, 3rd ed., enlarged (Moscow, 1858). In terms of completeness, the first two editions of 1855 and 1858 are inferior to the third one while the next two editions of 1863 and 1883 repeat it, although the 1863 edition lacks the section on the library. The scholarly value of the Ukazatel’ is attested by I. I. Sreznevskii’s review written for the presentation to the author of the Demidov Prize: I. I. Sreznevskii, “Razbor sochineniia o. arkhimandrita Savvy pod zaglaviem: Ukazatel’ dlia obozreniia moskovskoi Sinodal’noi (Patriarshei) biblioteki, in Dvadtsat’ vos’moe prisuzhdenie uchrezhdennykh P. N. Demidovym nagrad 5 iiunia 1859 goda (St. Petersburg, 1859), pp. 157–66. 45  Later they were described by A. V. Gorskii, K. I. Nevostruev, and Archimandrite Vladimir. See A. Gorskii and K. Nevostruev, Opisanie slavianskikh rukopisei moskovskoi Sinodal’noi (Patriarshei) biblioteki, I–IV (Moscow, 1855–1917): Vladimir, arkhim, Sistematicheskoe opisanie rukopisei moskovskoi Sinodal’noi (Patriarshei) biblioteki, part I. Rukopisi grecheskie (Moscow, 1894). 46  Quoted from V. Vladislavlev, Prazdnovanie blagopoluchno sovershivshegosia dvadtsatipiatiletiia v sane episkopa vysokopreosviashchenneishego Savvy, arkhiepiskopa Tverskogo i Kashinskogo, p. 38.

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Figure 7.6 The Synod Sacristy at the Moscow Kremlin.

It was not only Savva’s personal efforts that led to putting the Synodal Vestry and Library in perfect order: in large measure, it was a result of Metropolitan Filaret’s general concern for the preservation of antiquities and manuscripts housed in churches and monasteries throughout the Russian Empire. On March 18, 1853, he wrote a report on this subject and submitted it to the Synod, which immediately sent a relevant decree to all eparchies, prescribing that they quickly take an inventory of their most valuable works.47 Most urgent were the manuscripts: manuscript collecting by individuals began in the reign of Catherine II and continued in such a manner that, of a great number of church libraries, only the Synodal Library and the Typographical (Printer’s) Library in Moscow managed to keep their collections intact. All the other larger libraries suffered losses of varying degrees at the hands of all kinds of buyers, especially palaeographers, who combined their official jobs of describing manuscripts with commissions from collectors among the aristocracy. Among those collections that suffered losses were the St. Sergius-Trinity Lavra, the New-Jerusalem Resurrection Monastery at Voskresensk near Moscow, the St. Sophia Cathedral of Novgorod, and the Bishop’s Residence in Yaroslavl, to say nothing of lesser known collections of manuscripts in central and northern Russia and the Trans-Volga regions. That the danger of losing masterpieces of national importance was very great is attested by the story of the celebrated portrait of Prince Sviatoslav and his family in one of the title-page miniatures of the 1073 Izbornik. This manuscript was discovered in the New-Jerusalem 47   Sobranie mnenii i otzyvov Filareta, mitropolita Moskovskogo i Kolomenskogo, po uchebnym i tserkovno-gosudarstvennym voprosam, vol. III (St. Petersburg, 1885), pp. 492–503 (no. 375).

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Resurrection Monastery in 1817, and in 1834 it was transferred to the Synodal Library in the Kremlin. But during the short period of time when the manuscript was still in the monastery, the miniature with the portraits of Sviatoslav and members of his family fell into the hands of A. D. Chertkov, the Moscow collector. Only after this affair was made known, which did not bode well for the collector, was the original of the drawing handed over to S. S. Uvarov, the Minister of Education, from whom it later passed to the Armory and then to the Repository of Old Charts and Manuscripts on the premises of the Moscow Kremlin.48 Many years later, after the 1917 revolution, the original miniature

Figure 7.7 Savva (Ivan Mikhailovich Tikhomirov. archbishop of Tver and Kashin, 1850–59, a Synod sacristan. 48  A. Uspenskii, Zapisnye knigi i bumagi starinnykh dvortsovykh prikazov. Dokumenty XVIII–XIX vv. byvshego arkhiva Oruzheinoi palaty (Moscow, 1905), p. 208. Cf. N. P. Sobko, “F. G. Solntsev i ego khudozhestvenno-arkheologicheskaia deiatel’nost’,” in VestnII, vol. I, issue III (St. Petersburg, 1883), p. 479; L. P. Zhukovskaia, “Izbornik 1073 g. Sud’ba knigi, sostoianie i zadachi izucheniia,” in Izbornik 1073 g. Collected articles (Moscow, 1977), p. 18.

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Figure 7.8 Index for Survey of the Moscow Patriarchal (later Synodal) Sacristy and Library. Moscow, 1858.

found its way to the Moscow Historical Museum where the entire manuscript was preserved. In 1981, it was at last reunited with the other title-page leaf of the Izbornik showing the enthroned Savior and Sviatoslav presenting him with the book he created. The Synodal Vestry and Library inventoried by Archimandrite Savva were repositories of importance for the Church and the nation. Their collections were relatively stable, receiving almost no new objects and manuscripts. Quite different in character were the church-archaeological collections at the educational establishments such as ecclesiastical academies, seminaries, and church-archaeological committees and societies that appeared in profusion in almost all the major eparchies from the 1870 on. Before that, the idea of

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creating museums of church archaeology was expressed by M. P. Pogodin: he elaborated on it at length in his speech at the First Archaeological Congress in Moscow. The academic community regarded these museums as an efficient means of preserving historical and art treasures, but the system of church administration required them for educational and, to some extent, missionary purposes. The new statutes adopted by the ecclesiastical academies in 1869 considered church archaeology an independent subject of the curriculum. If previously it had been included in the general course on liturgics, from 1869 on it became a self-contained subject. Consequently, church antiquities became essential to the teaching of church archaeology. The establishment of church-archaeological museums was recognized as a necessity,49 and the best representatives of church education seized the opportunity to develop them. The first museum of church archaeology was organized at the Kiev Ecclesiastical Academy. In the summer of 1872, Professor F. A. Ternovskii visited the educational museum at Berlin University,50 and on his return to Kiev he and two other teachers, P. A. Lashkarev and A. D. Voronov, submitted a report to the Academy Board on the establishment of a church-archaeological museum and society at the Kiev Ecclesiastical Academy. The proposal, drawn up by Lashkarev, was sent to the Synod for approval. Following the Synod’s decree of October 18, 1872, the official life of the museum and society in Kiev began.51 At first neither institution made much progress. Arsenii (Arsenius), the Metropolitan of Kiev who was in office until 1876, regarded the foundation of the church-archaeological society and museum as a tribute to fashion. In his opinion, it was a useless waste of the time and effort of those people who were supposed to serve only the Church and church education. He did not support the Kiev museum; on the contrary, he hampered its development in every possible way. According to the founders’ concept, the academic museum was to become the repository of the church antiquities of south Russia and, above all, of Kiev. But it was precisely from the Kiev churches that the museum failed to receive even those objects that were long out of use. In some instances Arsenii even insisted that objects transferred to the collection be returned to their for-

49  For the general idea, see I. Mansvetov, “Ob ustroistve tserkovno-arkheologicheskikh muzeev,” in Pravoslavnoe obozrenie (first half year, 1872), pp. 259–82. 50  F. Ternovskii, “Sobraniia tserkovnykh drevnostei na Afone, v Drezdene i Berline,” in TKDA (December, 1872), pp. 417–18. 51  For information on this subject, see, N. Petrov, “Tridtsatiletie Tserkovno-istoricheskogo i arkheologicheskogo obshchestva pri Kievskoi dukhovnoi adademii,” in TKDA (January, 1903), pp. 134–51.

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mer places. The museum thus built its collection of antiquities with donations from private collectors and sympathizers. In these unfavorable conditions the museum needed a man who would make the future of the museum his life’s work. This was Nikolai Ivanovich Petrov (1840–1921), the first secretary of the church’s archaeological society and the first curator of the museum.52 Born in Kostroma province, he studied at the Kiev Ecclesiastical Academy in the 1860s, where he later held the chair of the history and theory of Russian and world literature.53 Petrov combined his research and lectures at the Academy with the formation and improvement of the museum, which he undertook ardently. At its inception the museum occupied a tiny room next to the library of the Academy, from which it received valuable printed books and a few manuscripts in the very first year of its existence. Thirty years later54 the museum occupied eight rooms in which 30,000 works of art and relics of the past were preserved and exhibited.55 What 52  See about him in E. K. Redin, “Professor N. I. Petrov (Po povodu ispolnivshegosia tridtsatiletiia ego uchenoi deiatel’nosti),” in Arkheologicheskaia letopis’ Iuzhnoi Rossii (1904), no. 4–5, pp. 125–27; “Zhittepis akademika Mikoli Ivanovicha Petrova,” in Zapiski istoriko-filologichnogo viddilu Ukrains’koi Akademii nauk (1919), book I, pp. lXXI–lXXII and Bibliografiia naivazhnishikh prats’ akad. M. I. Petrova, pp. xXIII–xXV; D. Shch[erbakivs’kii], “Mikola Ivanovich Petrov (1840–1921),” in Ukrains’ke naukove tovaristvo. Zbirnik sektsii mistetstv, I (Kiev, 1921), pp. 134–36; Shch[erbakivs’kii], “Spis golovnishikh prats’ akad. M. I. Petrova shcho do arkheologii ta istorii mistetstva,” Ibid., pp. 145–47. N. I. Petrov’s personal file is in the Central State Historical Archives of the Ukrainian SSR (Kiev), col. 711, inv. I, item 10946. 53  It would not be out of place to note that N. I. Petrov was for many years on friendly terms with M. A. Bulgakov’s father and was the godfather of the future writer. See L. Ianovskaia, “Neskol’ko dokumentov k biografii Mikhaila Bulgakova,” in Voprosy literatury (1980), 6, pp. 305–308. 54  For a summary of the research and museum work of the Church-Archaeological Society at the Kiev Academy, see N. Petrov, “Tridtsatiletie Tserkovno-istoricheskogo i arkheologicheskogo obshchestva pri Kievskoi dukhovnoi akademii,” in TKDA (Janyary, 1903), pp. 134–51; F. T[itov], “Stranichka iz tridtsatiletnei istorii Tserkovno-istoricheskogo i arkheologicheskogo obshchestva pri Kievskoi dukhovnoi akademii,” Ibid., pp. 152–58; I. Brodovich, “Tridtsatiletie Tserkovno-arkheologicheskogo muzeia pri Kievskoi dukhovnoi akademii,” TKDA (February, 1903), pp. 231–53. Among the earlier survey publications of this kind, see N. Petrov, “Zapiska o sostoianii Tserkovno-arkheologicheskogo muzeia i Obshchestva pri Kievskoi dukh. akademii za pervoe desiatiletie ikh sushchestvovaniia (1872–1882 g.),” in TKDA (December, 1882), pp. 421–48. 55  A considerable part of the Kiev museum’s collections was formed by manuscripts, including Grecian and Slavonic handwritten books with miniatures. See P. Pylaev, “Opisanie pergamentnogo Evangeliia, khraniashchegosia v muzee, sostoiashchem pri Kievskoi dukhovnoi akademii,” in TKDA (1876), December, pp. 1–45; N. Petrov, “O miniatiurakh

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Figure 7.9 Nikolai Ivanovich Petrov (1840–1921), founder of the Church Archaeological Museum in Kiev, godfather of the writer M. A. Bulgakov.

is extraordinary is that Petrov built the museum almost single-handedly: he was the only employee of this unique museum. He sought fitting objects, tried to convince church authorities and collectors to donate them, registered and described new exhibits, and prepared monthly and annual reports. He also published indices and articles on the more remarkable objects, received scholars and distinguished visitors (whose numbers increased as the fame of the museum grew), took care of the showcases, and attended to the repairs of the museum building. Therefore, it is no exaggeration to say that Petrov was the true founder of the Kiev museum.56 The first important acquisition of the museum at the Kiev Ecclesiastical Academy was a specially chosen collection of 222 icons bought in 1875 from grecheskogo Nikomidiiskogo Evangeliia (XIII v.) v sravnenii s miniatiurami Evangeliia Gelatskogo monastyria XI veka,” in Trudy V AS v Tiflise, 1881 (Moscow, 1887), pp. 170–79, table XVII; N. Petrov, “Min’iatiury i zastavki v grecheskom Evangelii XI–XII v. i otnoshenie ikh k mozaicheskim i freskovym izobrazheniiam v Kievo-Sofiiskom sobore,” in TKDA (May, 1881), pp. 78–100; G. Kryzhanovskii, Rukopisnye Evangeliia kievskikh knigokhranilishch. Issledovanie iazyka i sravnitel’naia kharakteristika teksta (Kiev, 1889); N. I. Petrov, “Miniatiury i zastavki v grecheskom Evangelii XIII-go v.,” in Iskusstvo (Kiev, 1911), no. I, pp. 117–30, ills. I–II and no. 4, pp. 170–92, ills. 12–24. 56  See I. Brodovich, Tridtsatiletie tserkovno-arkheologicheskogo muzeia pri Kievskoi dukhovnoi akademii, pp. 259–251. The author of this survey was N. I. Petrov’s assistant from 1898.

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A. E. Sorokin, the Moscow merchant and former Old Believer.57 The history of Sorokin’s two collections —the Guslitsy and the Kiev—is briefly outlined above in Chapter 4. One should add only that the purchase of Sorokin’s icons at the cost of 13,000 rubles immediately manifested the intention of the people of Kiev to create a museum unlike any other. It is interesting to note that according to statutes, the church’s archaeological society was responsible for the museum’s collecting, but it did not spend a kopeck on Sorokin’s icons. By agreement with Filaret (Philaret), rector of the Kiev Academy and chairman of the church’s archaeological society, 10,000 rubles came from an unknown donor and the remaining 3,000 rubles came from Filaret himself; hence the name the Sorokin-Filaret collection.58 In 1878, the Kiev museum received another independent collection from the relatives of Andrei Nikolaevich Murav’ev (1806–74), a well-known traveler to the holy places of the East, who had lived and died in Kiev. In execution of 57  A general idea of the museum as it was in the late nineteenth century is provided by the fundamental reference index by N. I. Petrov, Ukazatel’ Tserkovno-arkheologicheskogo muzeia pri Kievskoi dukhovnoi akademii, 2nd ed., revised and enlarged (Kiev, 1897). Collections bearing the names of their owners are described by the same author in special survey articles published in the Trudy Kievskoi dukhovnoi akademii or in separate editions. Unfortunately, numerous “Otchety” and “Izvestiia” of the Church-historical and Archaeological Society published by N. I. Petrov in the Trudy Kievskoi dukhovnoi akademii from 1875 to 1916 and presenting brief but accurate information on current acquisitions of the museum were not put together. Among the latest materials we know only of an account of Petrov’s 1914 memorandum on the necessity of transferring the museum to another building and employing a staff of workers for it (Iskusstvo v iuzhnoi Rossii [1914], no. 1–2, pp. 83–85). A fair amount of valuable information on the museum can be found in the unpublished part of the Vospominaniia starogo arkheologa written by Petrov shortly before his death in 1920 and now preserved in the Manuscript Department of the Central Research Library of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR in Kiev (col. I, no. 11063, fol. 52–3). See also an unpublished draft essay by K. V. Sherotskii, evidently written about 1917 (State Museum of Ukrainian Art, Kiev, col. 2, item 31). 58  A complete list of literature on this part of the Kiev museum is given in notes 75 and 76 below For this reason we mention here only one illustrated edition: N. Petrov, Al’bom dostoprimechatel’nostei Tserkovno-arkheologicheskogo muzeia pri Kievskoi dukhovnoi akademii, II. Sorokinsko-filaretovskaia kollektsiia russkikh ikon raznykh poshibov i pisem (Kiev, 1913). Specially on Philaret, who rendered generous support to the Kiev museum during the difficult period of its formation, see N. I. Petrov, “Preosviashchennyi Filaret Rizhskii kak pervyi predsedatel’ Tserkovno-arkheologicheskogo obshchestva,” in TKDA (May, 1882), pp. 58–73; Iv. Korol’kov, “Preosviashchennyi Filaret, episkop Rizhskii, kak rektor Kievskoi dukhovnoi akademii,” TKDA (December, 1882), pp. 1–96; Pamiati preosviashchennogo episkopa Filareta Filaretova, byvshego rektora Kievskoi dukhovnoi akademii (+ 24 fevr. 1882 g.) (Kiev, 1912).

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his will, about two hundred objects of church archaeology were handed over to the museum. Alongside icons of fairly recent workmanship and souvenirs such as the branch of a palm tree from Jerusalem, a source of inspiration for Mikhail Lermontov’s poem “Tell me, O branch of Palestine,” Murav’ev’s collection contained many genuine antiquities, mostly of Byzantine origin, discovered at Sinai, in Jerusalem, Athos, Greece, and Italy.59 Among them were such unique items as a miniature, probably from the ninth century, from an unknown parchment manuscript with the representation of Apostle Paul. It had been preserved in the Lavra of St. Savva the Sanctified.60 Also noteworthy was a fragment of an eleventh-century menology for October through December from the Monastery of St. Catherine at Mount Sinai.61 Murav’ev embodied the piety of a believer, the inquisitiveness of a traveler, and the enthusiasm of a collector. His collection also contained copies. The Kiev museum received copies of two Greek mosaics (rare for the second half of the nineteenth century): one reproduced the tenth-century mosaic of the Mother of God, Justinian, and Constantine from the south vestibule of the Hagia Sophia in Constantinople, which had been exposed for a short time during repair works in the cathedral in 1848; the other reproduced the lesser-known eleventhcentury mosaic icon with the image of John the Precursor that was once kept in the Constantinopolitan Church of the Mother of God Pammakaristos and later transferred to the Patriarch Church of St. George in Istanbul.62 Among the copied works received by the museum were reduced copies of six icons from the Vasil’evskii Range executed in 1856 when the original icons were being cleaned and when N. I. Podkliuchnikov wrote his well-known letter to

59  [A. N. Murav’ev], Opisanie predmetov drevnosti i sviatyni, sobrannykh po Sviatym mestam (Kiev, 1872); M. Tolstoi, “Pamiati Andreia Nikolaevicha Murav’eva (A letter to M. M. Evreinov),” in Dushepoleznoe chtenie (November, 1874), pp. 278–96 (separately: Moscow, 1874); N. Petrov, “Murav’evskaia kollektsiia v Tserkovno-arkheologicheskom muzee pri Kievskoi dukhovnoi akademii,” in TKDA (July, 1878), pp. 193–211 (separately: Kiev, 1878). 60  Location unknown. 61  This little known fragment was first published by N. P. Likhachev in Materialy dlia istorii russkogo ikonopisaniia (part I [St. Petersburg, 1906], table XII–I). It perished during World War II. A photograph survives, apparently taken in the 1920s or 1930s, the only copy of which (without the negative) is in the Kiev Monastery of the Caves (col. 596, fol. 395, 422, 423). 62  See V. Lazarev, Storia della pittura bizantina (Turin, 1967), figs. 157, 316; H. Belting, C. Mango, D. Mouriki, The Mosaics and Frescoes of St. Mary Pammakaristos (Fethiye Camii) at Istanbul (Washington, 1978), pp. 9, 10, fig. 113a. See also note 73 below.

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Figure 7.10 Andrei Nikolaevich Murav’ev (1806–74).

Murav’ev that contained the description of the restoration works in the village of Vasil’evskoe.63 As soon as Petrov published a report about the acquisition of the Murav’ev collection, Porfirii Uspenskii, another famous traveler to holy places who was then the vicar of the Kiev eparchy and permanently resided at the St. Michael Monastery of the Golden Roofs, declared that he, too, had some ancient icons that he would bequeath to the museum. After his death, his executor, Archimandrite Amfilokhii (Amphilochius), sent the Kiev Museum forty-two icons, which, according to Porfirii’s records, came from Sinai, Jerusalem, and Athos. Porfirii’s collection contained extremely interesting Byzantine icons, including four sixth- and seventh-century encaustic icons, which became the most valuable holdings in the Kiev museum. For this reason it is appropriate to say a few words here about Porfirii and his scholarly travels. Like Makarii, Savva, and Amfilokhii, Porfirii Uspenskii (1804–85)64 came from the lower ranks of 63  See in this edition on p. 41. 64  For more on him, see A. Dmitrievskii, “Pominki preosviashchennogo Porfiriia Uspenskogo i professora Moskovskoi dukhovnoi akademii I. D. Mansvetova (Kratkii ocherk uchenoliteraturnoi deiatel’nosti ikh),” in TKDA (March, 1886), pp. 332–39 (in a separate edition pp. 2–8); D. D. Iazykov, Obzor zhizni i trudov pokoinykh russkikh pisatelei, 5. Russkie pisateli, umershie v 1885 godu (St. Petersburg, 1889), pp. 123–26 (with a list of his works and

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the church hierarchy: his father was a reader in one of the Kostroma churches. After completing a regular course in the Kostroma seminary he entered the St. Petersburg Ecclesiastical Academy, where at the age of twenty-five he took monastic vows under the name of Porfirii. After many years of work as a teacher and professor in Odessa, he was appointed dean of the embassy church in Vienna, whence, in 1841, he set out on his first scholarly journey to Dalmatia. This was the first of his many trips abroad to Greece, Italy, Egypt, Syria, Athos, Jerusalem, Sinai, and Constantinople. His keen mind, unquenchable thirst for knowledge, unusual persistence in pursuing his goals, and extraordinary diligence eventually made him one of the most prominent experts in the Orthodox East. From 1847 to 1854, Porfirii held the important post of head of the Russian Orthodox Mission in Jerusalem, and his detailed reports to the government, the Synod, to V. P. Titov, the Russian ambassador in Constantinople, and to K. M. Basili, the consul-general in Beirut, exercised considerable influence on Russian policy in the Near East on the eve of the Crimean war. But Porfirii’s true interests lay in the sphere of scholarly research, and he took every opportunity to visit historical places in order to work in archives and libraries, see monuments of church architecture and art, copy the most remarkable documents and inscriptions, and draw pictures of or photograph the best buildings, mosaics, frescoes, and icons. Studying all sorts of documents in the monasteries of the Orthodox East, he taught himself to be a first-class palaeographer and church historian. The East was the object of his affection, pain, and consoliterature on him); P. Syrku, Opisanie bumag episkopa Porfiriia Uspenskogo, pozhertvovannykh im v imp. Akademiiu nauk po zaveshchaniiu (St. Petersburg, 1891) (= Supplement to vol. LXIV of Zapiski imp. Akademii nauk, no. 9); A. Lebedev, “Preosviashchennyi Porfirii Uspenskii (Po povodu stoletiia so dnia ego rozhdeniia),” in BV (September, 1904), pp. 81–103; A. Dmitrievskii, “Episkop Porfirii Uspenskii kak initsiator i organizator pervoi Russkoi dukhovnoi missii v Ierusalime i ego zaslugi v pol’zu pravoslaviia i v dele izucheniia khristianskogo Vostoka (Po povodu stoletiia so dnia ego rozhdeniia),” in Soobshcheniia imp. Pravoslavnogo Palestinskogo obshchestva, vol. XVI, issue 3 (St. Petersburg, 1905), pp. 329–261 and issue 4, pp. 457–47 (separate edition: St. Petersburg, 1906); S. Golubev, “Porfirii (Uspenskii),” in RBS, [14] (St. Petersburg, 1905), pp. 593–96; Materialy dlia biografii episkopa Porfiriia Uspenskogo, I–II (St. Petersburg, 1910); Istoriia istoricheskoi nauki v SSSR. Dooktiabr’skii period. Bibliografiia, pp. 566, 567; Agafangel (Agathangelus), arkhim., “Episkop Porfirii Uspenskii (1804–1885),” in ZhMP (1975), no. 5, pp. 76–80 and no. 6, pp. 68–72. Porfiriis’ autobiographical notes and published works, first of all the descriptions of his travels to the East, are a unique source for the study of his life and activities: for a list of Porfiriis’ publications, see the abovementioned book by P. A. Syrku (pp. 399–408) and a many-volume edition, Kniga bytiia moego. Dnevniki i avtobiograficheskie zapiski episkopa Porfiriia Uspenskogo (I–VIII) (St. Petersburg, 1894–1902).

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Figure 7.11 Bishop Porphyrius (Porfirii) (Konstantin Alekseevich Uspenskii, 1804–85), scholar, traveler to shrines of the Eastern Orthodox Church.

lation. Porfirii once wrote: “The more one gets to know the East the more one’s curiosity is excited, the greater one’s regret that a shortage of time, the usual [state of affairs] for a traveler, prevents one from reading all the manuscripts, and the more convinced one is that the best history of the Orthodox Church, including that of Russia, can be written only when all the repositories of records in the East have been explored.”65 Porfirii’s interests were truly encyclopaedic and along with church history, palaeography, and diplomacy, he became attracted to everything that was in any way connected with church painting. The material on art that he collected and later bequeathed to the Academy of Sciences filled dozens of boxes in his archives, while his handwritten and printed sources for the study of painting ran to many hundreds of pages.66 It was Porfirii who found the famous Erminia by Dionysius Phurnoagraphiotes in one of the libraries at Athos, translated it into Russian, and then published it. This work contained the early eighteenthcentury Greek artist’s detailed iconographic and technical instructions and provided a vivid picture of the post-Byzantine icon-painter’s craft.67 It was also 65   Materialy dlia biografii episkopa Porfiriia Uspenskogo, vol. II, p. 310 (from a letter of 20 April 1850 to V. P. Titov from Alexandria). 66  P. Syrku, Opisanie bumag episkopa Porfiriia Uspenskogo, pozhertvovannykh im v imp. Akademiiu nauk po zaveshchaniiu, pp. 368–98. 67   Erminiia ili Nastavlenie v zhivopisnom iskusstve, sostavlennoe ieromonakhom i zhivopistsem Dionisiem Furnoagrafiotom. 1701–1733 goda. Porfiriia, episkopa Chigirinskogo (Kiev, 1868)

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Porfirii who collected and published other less known sources on the same subject.68 He was the first to discover a great many old Greek icons in the belltower of the Sinai monastery,69 which were published in the twentieth century by G. and M. Sotiriou and K. Weitzmann. And, finally, Porfirii was one of the first to begin collecting specimens of Greek miniature and easel painting which are among the gems of present-day Russian libraries and museums.70 It is known that Porfirii found the best icons of his collection in 1850 among the “scratched and disfigured” images piled up by the monks in the tower over the porch of the cathedral of St. Catherine’s Monastery in Sinai.71 It did not even occur to him then that he had in his hands some of the oldest of extant Greek icons. For a long time he thought that these icons, which he called “black” in his notes and letters, had been brought to Sinai by Nubian Christians

(earlier published in parts in TKDA: 1868, January, pp. 269–315; February, pp. 494–563; March, pp. 529–70; June, pp. 494–563; and December, pp. 355–445). The complete Greek text was published by A. I. Papadopulo-Keramevs in 1909. 68  “Skazaniia o vneshnem vide sviatykh muzhei i zhen i o vozraste ikh. Izvlecheny iz raznykh rukopisei, podrobno poimenovannykh, arkhimandritom Porfiriem,” in TKDA (January, 1867), pp. 3–47; “Vostok khristianskii. Sbornik rukopisei, soderzhashchikh nastavleniia v zhivopisnom iskusstve i opisaniia vneshnego vida Iisusa Khrista, presviatoi devy Marii i sviatykh oboego pola. Sobrany arkhimandritom Porfiriem Uspenskim,” in TKDA (February, 1867), pp. 263–77; “Erminiia, ili Nastavlenie v zhivopisnom iskusstve, napisannoe neizvestno kem vskore posle 1566 goda (Pervaia ierusalimskaia rukopis’ 17-go veka). Porfiriia, episkopa Chigirinskogo,” in TKDA (July, 1867), pp. 139–92; “Pis’ma o preslovutom zhivopistse Panseline … k nastoiateliu posol’skoi tserkvi nashei v Konstantinopole arkhimandritu Antoninu,” (1867), October, pp. 120–64 and November, pp. 266–92; “Kniga o zhivopisnom iskusstve Daniila sviashchennika 1674 goda (Vtoraia ierusalimskaia rukopis’). Perevod s novogrecheskogo a[rkhimandrita] P[orfiriia],” TRDA (December, 1867), pp. 463–508; “Vostok Khristianskii, I. Prosopografiia tserkovnaia. Perevel s novogrecheskogo Porfirii, episkop, Chigirinskii,” TKDA (April, 1871), pp. 105–12. 69  Vtoroe puteshestvie arkhimandrita Porfiriia Uspenskogo v Sinaiskii monastyr’ v 1850 godu (St. Petersburg, 1856), p. 163. 70  Grecian and other manuscripts from Porfiriis’ private collection—chiefly in extracts and even fragments, but still of considerable academic value—are preserved in the National Library of Russia, St. Petersburg. See I. A. Bychkov, Kratkii obzor sobraniia rukopisei, prinadlezhashchego preosviashchennomu episkopu Porfiriiu, a nyne khraniashchegosia v imp. Publichnoi biblioteke (St. Petersburg, 1885) (= Supplement to Otchet imp. Publichnoi biblioteki za 1883 g. [St. Petersburg, 1885]). Among these manuscripts there is a large number of illuminated ones, brought by Porfirii from Athos, Jerusalem, and Sinai. 71   Vtoroe puteshestvie arkhimandrita Porfiriia Uspenskogo v Sinaiskii monastyr’ v 1850 godu, p. 163.

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who had come there to worship the holy relics of the Sinai monastery.72 It was not until 1884, when Porfirii’s icons were moved from his house in Jerusalem to St. Petersburg and given to the local restorer A. I. Travin for cleaning, that it turned out that several Sinai icons were painted in the encaustic technique, which reminded Porfirii that John Chrysostom liked this particular type of icon. In a published report, Porfirii gives a picturesque account of the unexpected results of Travin’s work.73 Out of prudence the first attempt at cleaning the icons was made in his cell in the Alexander Nevskii Lavra. To begin, Porfirii chose the icon of the Virgin and Child. “Mr. Travin poured some liquid out of a phial onto the abovementioned Sinai icon. The liquid was invented by him and emitted no smell, then he let it stay for some minutes, and began to clean the Holy Virgin’s hand with a sharp blade,” Porfirii recounted. “I watch and see: soot and lacquer are cleaned away, the upper layer of paint begins to show, the color scheme of the icon comes into sight, the hand grows white, and the blade leaves no scratches on it.” The same treatment followed for the eleventhcentury icon of the Baptism, which was uncovered in the same way and with the aid of the same compound, and the rest of Porfirii’s icons. “After the cleaning, it turned out that some of the icons were executed in wax paints and in very remote times,” Porfirii concludes: “But for Mr. Travin I should never know that I had such curiosities.” Because Travin, acting in accord with mid-nineteenth century practices, filled in the lost areas and touched up the painting after the cleaning so that the old and new areas would look more coherent, scholarly attribution of the icons from Porfirii’s collection that entered the museum of the Kiev Ecclesiastical Academy in 1885 presented considerable difficulties. Since the collector did not have an exact list of the icons with indications of their origin, N. T. Petrov had to rely solely on the small amount of information on the labels attached to the reverse sides of the works and on Porfirii’s brief references to the labels scattered in his already published travel notes. And since Petrov lacked the experience and special skills of an art historian, he committed errors in describing a number of important works.74 For example, he identified 72  Ibid., p. 164; Materialy dlia biografii episkopa Porfiriia Uspenskogo, vol. I, p. 489 and vol. II, p. 314. 73  Porfirii, arkhim., “Vazhnoe izobretenie peterburgskogo ikonopistsa Alekseia Ivanovicha Travina,” in Dukhovnaia beseda (1864), no. 8, pp. 282–87. This article was reprinted in the newspapers Severnaia pochta [March 20, (April 1), 1864, no. 65, pp. 260, 261] and Syn Otechestva (1864, no. 100). There are separate reprints as well. 74  See N. Petrov, “Izvestiia Tserkovno-arkheologicheskogo obshchestva pri Kievskoi dukhovnoi akademii za m. avgust 1885 g.,” in TKDA (November, 1885), pp. 505–507; N. Petrov,

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the sixth-century encaustic icon Man Martyr and Woman Martyr as a representation of Constantine and Helen, and dated another encaustic icon, Sergius and Bacchus, to a period not earlier than the sixteenth century. It was not until many years later when the Porfirii collection was more carefully studied by Petrov, Kondakov, and Ainalov that the oldest icons of the collection were adequately assessed and caused a sensation in Byzantine studies worldwide.75 Thanks to the special published reviews of Sorokin’s, Murav’ev’s, and Porfirii’s collections we have a comparatively accurate idea of their character. The icon-painting department of the Kiev museum also received many items from other sources. We know, for example, that with the assistance of P. G. Lebedintsev, the dean of the St. Sophia Cathedral, the museum succeeded in obtaining a good many icons from the synodal storehouses in Moscow.76 We also know that about two hundred icons were sent to the museum from the Moscow Society of Lovers of Spiritual Enlightenment.77 Furthermore, the museum possessed a mixed collection of south Russian icons,78 a similar collection of icons of different schools from different places,79 and finally, that there were some interesting items in the collections of P. P. and E. P. Demidov-San Donato and V. N. Fal’kovskii that were handed over to the museum throughout the 1880s and 1890s.80 We have every reason to believe that on the eve of the 1917 revolution the museum of the Kiev Academy had no less than one thou“Kollektsii drevnikh vostochnykh ikon i obrashchikov drevnei knizhnoi zhivopisi, zaveshchannye preosviashchennym Porfiriem (Uspenskim) Tserkovno-arkheologicheskomu obshchestvu pri Kievskoi dukhovnoi akademii,” TKDA (1886), September, pp. 163–77 and October, pp. 294–320. 75   Ikony Sinaiskoi i Afonskoi kollektsii preosv. Porfiriia, izdavaemye v lichno im izgotovlennykh 23 tablitsakh. Ob’iasnitel’nyi tekst N. P. Kondakova (St. Petersburg, 1902) (this edition lacks the description of encaustic icons); D. Ainalov, “Sinaiskie ikony voskovoi zhivopisi,” in VV, vol. IX, issue 3–4 (St. Petersburg, 1902), pp. 343–77; N. Petrov, Al’bom dostoprimechatel’nostei Tserkovno-arkheologicheskogo muzeia pri Kievskoi dukhovnoi akademii, I. Kollektsiia sinaiskikh i afonskikh ikon preosviashchennogo Porfiriia Uspenskogo (Kiev, 1912). 76  N. I. Petrov, Ukazatel’ Tserkovno-arkheologicheskogo muzeia pri Kievskoi dukhovnoi akademii, pp. 98, 99. 77  Ibid., pp. 99–101. 78   Ibid., pp. 101–107. See also N. Petrov, Al’bom dostoprimechatel’nostei Tserkovnoarkheologicheskogo muzeia pri Kievskoi dukhovnoi akademii, III. Iuzhnorusskie ikony (Kiev, [1913]). 79  N. I. Petrov, Ukazatel’ Tserkovno-arkheologicheskogo muzeia …, pp. 107–109. 80  Ibid., pp. 110–119. See also N. I. Petrov, “Kollektsiia staroobriadcheskikh ikon i drugikh sviashchennykh predmetov iz Starodub’ia, sobrannaia V. N. Fal’kovskim,” in TKDA (January, 1902), pp. 147–61.

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sand Greek, Russian, and south Russian icons. This remarkable collection grew during the Soviet period, when it was moved to the Kiev Monastery of the Caves and received the icons confiscated from urban and suburban churches. It is a great misfortune that all these treasures were plundered by the Nazis in their retreat from Kiev. What became of them is unknown: some apparently were destroyed, and others dispersed among European and American collections.81 Only a few works were spared: the four encaustic icons of the Porfirii collection, which found their way shortly before the war from the Kiev Monastery of the Caves to the Museum of Western and Eastern Art, and some valuable manuscripts obtained by the Library of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences. In 1879, a church museum opened at the St. Petersburg Ecclesiastical Academy.82 N. V. Pokrovskii, one of its founders, was an assistant professor and later a professor at the Academy. He visited Western Europe to see the archaeological museums of Berlin, Strasbourg, and Rome, although it was clear from the published reports of Ternovskii, who had made a similar journey before the opening of the Kiev museum, that archaeological museums abroad could not serve as models for Russian museums because they had few genuine antiquities in their collections. Pokrovskii came to realize this when he visited the F. Piper Museum in Berlin which, contrary to rumor, turned out to be quite small, with half of its collections consisting of copies, plaster casts, drafts, drawings, and scale models rather than original works of church art. After receiving approval to open a museum at the St. Petersburg Academy, Pokrovskii energetically began to fill it with church antiquities from Novgorod and Moscow. At that very time the Novgorodian zemstvo (assembly) decided to close Novgorod’s only municipal museum, which it had inherited from the provincial statistical board: among the reasons given was a lack of money for its maintenance, and the local population’s indifference to it. The museum, remained open, but Pokrovskii obtained permission to select its best pieces for the St. Petersburg Theological Academy. These works included all sorts of crosses, large and small, icon lamps, church chandeliers, chalices, patens, lanterns, metal pendants, folding icons, wedding crowns, icon mounts and head pieces, and other objects of ritual use. But there were no icons from the 81  A huge shipment of museum objects taken along by the German Fascists when retreating from Kiev in November 1943 was destroyed, according to the evidence of P. A. Kul’zhenko who escorted the railway cars on the night of February 1, 1945, during the bombing of one of the railway stations in Germany (from Kul’zhenko’s letter of 1 February (1980 to the author). 82  See N. V. Pokrovskii, Tserkovno-arkheologicheskii muzei S.-Peterburgskoi dukhovnoi akademii. 1879–1909 (St. Petersburg, 1909).

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Novgorod museum, and the new museum acquired them instead from three other sources: a small number came from synodal storehouses; the Moscow Society of Lovers of Spiritual Enlightenment contributed about three hundred; and Count S. G. Stroganov presented several valuable seventeenth-century works of the Stroganov school, probably originating from Sol’vychegodsk and confiscated in 1846 from the Sudislavl merchant N. A. Papulin.83 According to the inscriptions and labels on the backs of the icons, those received from the Danilov (St. Daniel) Monastery in Moscow, where the collection of the Society of Lovers of Spiritual Enlightenment was housed, came from the Chudov and Ascension monasteries of the Moscow Kremlin. In other words, almost the entire collection of the St. Petersburg museum consisted of icons either directly or indirectly linked with the art of Moscow. At this point, strictly speaking, the history of collecting for the museum at the St. Petersburg Ecclesiastical Academy came to an end; its collections stopped growing immediately after its first large acquisitions. In 1909, Pokrovskii published a survey of the museum, but this featured the same three thousand items as in 1879. In his review of Pokrovskii’s book, Petrov (the curator of the Kiev museum) did not fail to observe that the enviable splendor of the edition stood in striking contrast to the poor collections of the St. Petersburg museum, which, moreover, had none of the unique items of the Kiev museum.84 But everyone including Petrov admitted that the survey of the St. Petersburg museum was intended for scholarly use rather than just for the publication of its rarities, and that it supplied short descriptive notes about all the extraordinary objects and pictures in the museum. Pokrovskii paid particular attention to the analysis of the subjects of the icons, identifying their literary sources, the influence of apocrypha, liturgical meaning, and other details. He deliberately refrained from assessing the icons from an artistic point of view, believing that “the union of the [Russian] soul and the Orthodox icon” was expressed not so much in the outward form as in the very idea of the icon. That idea is embodied in the image of Christ, the Mother of God, Greek and Russian saints, scenes from their lives, miracles performed in their lifetimes and after their deaths, and, finally, in symbols representing church chants and other literary works.85 There could be a great difference even between museums of related institutions, as exemplified by the church-archaeological museum at the Moscow Ecclesiastical Academy housed in the Trinity-St. Sergius Lavra near Moscow. 83  For this matter, see Chapter 4. 84   T KDA (January, 1910), pp. 127–45. 85  N. V. Pokrovskii, Tserkovno-arkheologicheskii muzei S.-Peterburgskoi dukhovnoi akademii. 1879–1909, p. xXVII.

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The nucleus of this museum’s collection of church objects consisted of seventy icons received in the autumn of 1871 from the St. Petersburg depository of icons and early printed books confiscated from Old Believers.86 But the inauguration of this museum took place only in 1880, at which time for lack of a spare room in the Lavra the icons brought from St. Petersburg were handed over to the manuscript division of the Academy library. More than ten years were to pass before the museum was given two corner rooms in the so-called chertogi (mansions) built at the Lavra in the late seventeenth century for the visiting members of the royal family. The museum collections, however, hardly matched the splendor of the new premises. They grew slowly, mainly from occasional acquisitions of eighteenth-century coins and medals. Out of 2,975 items possessed by the museum in 1895 only 186 belonged to the churcharchaeological section of the collection, of which fewer than a hundred were icons.87 “That the academic collection of antiquities did not look like a museum was noticed by many,” observed the curator, A. P. Golubtsov, “and every visitor involuntarily noticed the almost complete absence of objects of strictly Christian origin.” In 1892, A. M. Postnikov, the well-known Moscow collector, offered the Academy two hundred of the choicest icons of his collection for 25,000 rubles, but the Academy declined the chance to enlarge the museum.88 Soon afterwards, there was a frantic rush to buy and sell antiquities involving a great many private collectors who paid tens of thousands of rubles for icons, while the museum of the Moscow Theological Academy, which had no money, was doomed to remain a marginal collection. It is impossible to provide information on all the church museums of the second half of the nineteenth century. And there is no need to do so, since at least half of them were of little importance: they came into being and then imperceptibly disappeared or were absorbed into other collections, and are remembered only in references or short reviews in special publications. An example of such an ephemeral museum was a collection of icons formed about 1870 in the Danilov Monastery in Moscow. Archimandrite Amfilokhii, then a well-known scholar, set up the repository. He also published the description of individual icons, but soon he lost interest in icons and ordered the best of 86  Initially the idea of setting up a museum at the Moscow Theological Academy was put forward in 1870 by E. E. Golubinskii, a well-known historian of the Russian Church. See Vospominaniia E. E. Golubinskogo (Kostroma, 1923), p. 47. 87  A. Golubtsov, “Tserkovno-arkheologicheskii muzei pri Moskovskoi dukhovnoi akademii” (Sergiev Posad, 1895) (a reprint from the journal Bogoslovskii vestnik [April-May, 1895], p. 30. 88  Ibid., p. 9, note I.

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them to be placed in the churches of the Danilov Monastery and the others to be removed to the monastery belfry.89 The “others” numbered no less than six hundred, and were later transferred to the ecclesiastical academies of Kiev, St. Petersburg, and (finally in 1900) to the church-archaeological museum of the Society of Lovers of Spiritual Enlightenment.90 The Society of Lovers of Spiritual Enlightenment was founded in 1863 for the dissemination of spiritual and moral ideals among the people and for the exchange of theological knowledge among its members. The Society published a monthly journal with church writers as its main contributors. It organized an extremely rich eparchial library housed in the Vysokopetrovskii Monastery (on Petrovka) in Moscow and somewhat later created a department of icon studies (or a church archaeological department), which in turn built up a collection of old and new icons.91 For the most part, they were the very same icons that the Danilov Monastery’s Archimandrite Amfilokhii had disposed of around 1880. The Society’s department of icon studies at Vysokopetrovskii Monastery reflected the general reawakening of interest in church art at the turn of the twentieth century. But this time it took a different form and received the name of the church-archaeological department. Vysokopetrovskii icon department was essentially a new institution that came into being in 1900.92 It took the remaining icons from the Danilov Monastery and placed them in the eparchial library on Petrovka. Here, in the library, the church-archaeological department held its meetings. Its small staff had a distinctly ecclesiastical character. More 89  Amfilokhii (Amphilochius), arkhim., “O drevnikh ikonakh v moskovskom Danilovom monastyre: sviatykh apostolakh Petre i Pavle, Vladimirskoi Bozhiei Materi s Akafistom po poliam i semi Vselenskikh soborakh,” in ChOLDP (January, 1871), pp. 20–23 and February, pp. 28–31. 90  A. Uspenskii, “Ikony Tserkovno-arkheologicheskogo muzeia Obshchestva liubitelei dukhovnogo prosveshcheniia,” in TsV (1900), no. 37, p. 447. 91  The date for the founding of the department of icon studies, cited in literature as 1872, is not quite correct because there is printed evidence concerning the transfer of the icon to this department in 1871. See Amfilokhii (Amphilochius), arkhim., “O litsevom slavianskom Akafiste Bozhiei Materi, XVII veka, pozhertvovannom v otdelenie ikonovedeniia polkovnitseiu Annoiu Liubenkovoiu,” in ChOLDP (August, 1871), pp. 29–33 (the icon, sawn into four parts, was sent from Kiev). The correct date for the founding of the department is about 1870, see p. 189 of this book. 92  More on him, see “Pervoe publichnoe zasedanie Tserkovno-arkheologicheskogo otdela pri Obshchestve liubitelei dukhovnogo prosveshcheniia,” in MoskTsV (1900), no. 47, p. 577; K. Ia. Zdravomyslov, “Svedeniia o sushchestvuiushchikh v eparkhiiakh tserkovno-arkheologicheskikh uchrezhdeniiakh i konsistorskikh arkhivakh,” in Sobrnik materialov, otnosiashchikhsia do arkhivnoi chasti v Rossii, vol. II, pp. 341–42.

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that half of its members were clergymen, and the others were icon painters, architects who worked for the church, and collectors, mainly merchants, who bought icons and were eager to enrich their knowledge of iconography. Among the active participants were N. D. Izvekov, A. I. Uspenskii, N. A. Skvortsov, N. D. Strukov, D. K. Trenev, V. D. Fartusov, V. P. Gur’ianov, O. S. Chirikov, V. M. Borin, and A. A. Glazunov,93 all of whom were Moscow residents. Both the Society of Lovers of Spiritual Enlightenment and the eparchial library with its church-archaeological department were institutions bred in the milieu of the old capital. From 1900 to 1917, the church-archaeological department held 125 meetings,94 and published nearly two hundred reports. They dealt mainly with iconographic matters, interpreting rare or particularly sophisticated subjects of icons and throwing light on the historical background of miracle-working and other Russian icons. Many of these reports appeared in the Moscow Church Gazette (Moskovskie Tserkovnye Vedomosti) edited by the Society, and in the Readings and Transactions of the church-archaeological department.95 Most fundamental of all the publications was Uspenskii’s description of icons from the Society’s museum, published simultaneously in two editions. The full version appeared in the Moscow Church Gazette,96 and the description of the museum’s best works with the photographs of all the icons was published in a separate edition.97 Uspenskii also wrote a number of essays that provided a more accurate interpretation of popular (khodovoi) but not always correctly understood subjects.98 These essays became a good reference on iconography, supplementing the description of the museum at the St. Petersburg Theological 93  For a complete list of the members, see MoskTsV (1910), no. 5, pp. 32–35. 94  Ibid. (1917), no. 13–14, p. 71. 95  Only one volume of this edition came out: Trudy Tserkovno-arkheologicheskogo otdela pri Obshchestve liubitelei dukhovnogo prosveshcheniia, vol. I (Moscow, 1911). 96  A. Uspenskii, “Ikony Tserkovno-arkheologicheskogo muzeia Obshchestva liubitelei dukhovnogo prosveshcheniia,” in TsV (1900), nos. 37, 38, 40, 47, 48, 50, 51, 52; (1901) nos. 1, 8, 11, 13, 17, 19, 21, 40, 41, 42, 43; (1904) nos. 37, 40, 51–52; (1905) nos. 37, 40, 41, 43, 47, 51, 52; (1906) nos. 14, 15. 97  A. I. Uspenskii, Ikony Tserkovno-arkheologicheskogo muzeia Obshchestva liubitelei dukhovnogo prosveshcheniia, I–III (Moscow, 1900–1906). 98  See, for example A. Uspenskii, “Deisus (Ikonograficheskaia spravka),” in MoskTsV (1902), no. 22, pp. 278–80; “Vladimirskaia ikona Bogomateri v Moskovskom Uspenskom sobore (Istoriko-arkheologicheskaia zametka),” Ibid. (1902), no. 33, pp. 383–86 and no. 34, pp. 391–93; “Pokrov presviatoi Bogoroditsy (Ikonograficheskaia zametka),” Ibid. (1902), no. 39, pp. 449–52; “Pokhvala Bogoroditsy, Ikona tsarskikh ikonopistsev iz Vvedenskoi edinovercheskoi tserkvi v Moskve,” Ibid. (1902), no. 42, pp. 497–98; “Sobor 12-ti apostolov. Ikonograficheskaia zametka,” Ibid. (1902), no. 48, pp. 575–78.

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Academy and the published icon-painting manuals with commentaries. One of the reviewers wrote: “Uspenskii’s explanations are truly iconographic studies which show that the author is well-versed in archaeological literature and knows a lot about old art. One cannot help expressing the wish that the example of the Society of Lovers of Spiritual Enlightenment find followers. It would be good to see similar church-archaeological museums created in the provinces to help preserve the precious monuments of medieval Russian art which at present, when their beauty is ruined by age, are doomed to destruction either through incompetent restoration or because they are sold to scavengers or buried in storehouses, barns, belfries, and so forth. One cannot help wishing as well that, following in the footsteps of the same Society, the monuments of medieval Russian art be published and described so that we could at last have a real history of medieval Russian art.”99 Although the higher church authorities allowed and encouraged the growth of repositories of antiquities, the fate of these collections depended largely on a local bishop, abbot (hegumenon), or priest. Frequent replacements of bishops, who as often as not looked upon museums as absolutely useless burdens, jeopardized even the very best collections of antiquities. None of these was safe from being closed for a time, dispersed, or even banned. Sometimes it happened that changes in church administration obliterated the results of many years of efforts. Museum premises were re-allocated to fulfill the needs of the eparchial administration; exhibits that had been collected with such difficulty were transferred from an unsuitable building to an even worse one; and, in the end, the remaining artifacts were dumped in a belfry or sent back to their former sites. The history of all provincial depositories of antiquities—even the most famous museums of church artifacts—abounds in episodes that attest to their difficult struggle for survival.100 A relatively fortunate example is the Tula 99  “Otzyv prof. E. K. Redina o tserkovno-arkheologicheskikh izdaniiakh Obshchestva liubitelei dukhovnogo prosveshcheniia,” in MoskTsv (1905), no. 2, p. 440. 100  It would be appropriate to single out two well-appointed depositories for antiquities in the south of Russia—those in Kholm and Poltava—which are not discussed in this study because their collections consisted mainly of specimens of south Russian culture of a later period. See F. V. Korallov, Tserkovno-arkheologicheskii muzei pri Kholmskom pravoslavnom Sviato-Bogoroditskom bratstve. Opyt kratkogo ocherka istorii muzeia v sviazi s svedeniiami ob arkheologicheskoi nauke voobshche i s ukazaniem togo, chto osobenno vazhnogo i interesnogo mozhno uvidet’ v Kholmskom tserkovno-arkheologicheskom muzee pri Bratstve (Kholm, 1911); V. Tripol’skii, Poltavskoe eparkhial’noe drevlekhranilishche. Ukazatel’ s opisaniem vydaiushchikhsia pis’mennykh i veshchestvennykh pamiatnikov tserkovnoi stariny Poltavskoi eparkhii (Poltava, 1909).

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eparchial depository of antiquities, which was set up in 1885 on the initiative of Nikolai Ivanovich Troitskii (1851–1920), a teacher at the local theological seminary.101 At first, with the permission of Nikandr, the Archbishop of Tula, it occupied one of the two rooms in the vestry of the bishop’s house.102 With the growth of the collection, which in a mere five years numbered one thousand artifacts, the collection was moved twice to other, more spacious quarters. In 1894, after Nikandr’s death, Bishop Irinei took over: he closed the collection and dismissed Troitskii from its management.103 Only three years later, when Irinei left Tula, was it possible to reopen the museum and even find ways to make it accessible to the public.104 It was at this time, too, that, on the suggestion of Troitskii, the Tula Historical-Archaeological Society was founded and set itself the task of expanding the museum and of publishing material and written monuments of the Tula region.105 The founding of the Society, with 101  About him, see P. Nikol’skii, Tul’skoe eparkhial’noe drevlekhranilishche (Tula, 1898), pp. 4–9. 102   N. Troitskii, “Tserkovno-arkheologicheskie pamiatniki, khraniashchiesia v riznitse Tul’skogo arkhiereiskogo doma,” in Drevnosti. Trudy MAO, vol. XI, issue 1, (1886), Issledovaniia, pp. 1–38, tables I–V; [Iu. A. Olsuf’ev], Pamiatniki iskusstva Tul’skoi gubernii, year II, issue 1, (Moscow, 1913) (the entire issue is devoted to the vestry). Specifically for the history of the formation of this museum, see “Dokladnaia zapiska N. I. Troitskogo,” in Drevnosti. Trudy MAO, vol. XI, issue 2 (1886), minutes, pp. 37–40. 103  P. Nikol’skii, Tul’skoe eparkhial’noe drevlekhranilishche, p. 12. 104  Ibid., pp. 22, 23. See also “Otkrytie Tul’skogo eparkhial’nogo drevlekhranilishcha,” in Tul’skaia starina, I (Tula, 1899), pp. 5–8. 105  [N. Troitskii],” Tul’skoe eparkhial’noe istoriko-arkheologicheskoe tovarishchestvo,” Ibid., pp. 1–5. It is appropriate to cite some of Troitskii’s most important works: “Ikonostas i ego simvolika,” in Pravoslavnoe obozrenie (1891), April, pp. 696–719; “Selo Gorodishche Kashirskogo u[ezda] Tul’skoi gub[ernii], Drevnii gorod Lopasnia i monastyr’ sv. Nikolaia Chudotvortsa, chetyrekh tserkvei,” in Trudy XI AS v Kieve, 1899, vol. II (Moscow, 1902), pp. 126–36, with tables; “Arkhistratig Mikhail. Po pamiatnikam ikonographii, religioznoi pis’mennosti i tserkovnogo zodchestva,” in Tul’skaia starina, 12 (Tula, 1902), pp. 27–39; “Krest Khrista—Drevo zhizni,” Tul’skaia starina, 16 (Tula, 1904), pp. 43–65; “Vizantiiskaia numizmatika kak istochnik po istorii khristianskoi ikonografii,” in Trudy tret’ego oblastnogo istoriko-arkheologicheskogo s”ezda, byvshego v g[ubernskom] gorode Vladimire 20–26 iunia 1906 goda (Vladimir, 1909), pp. 1–15 (on the Resurrection and Ascension); Pesn’ pesnei v freskakh tul’skogo Uspenskogo sobora, 2nd ed. (Tula, 1910); “Triedinstvo bozhestva v pamiatnikakh vseobshchei istorii iskusstva. Vopros o vliianii dokhristianskoi skul’ptury na khristianskuiu ikonopis’,” in Trudy XIV AS v Chernigove, 1908, vol. III (Moscow, 1911), minutes, pp. 69–71; “Kostromskaia ikona Blagoveshcheniia presviatyia Bogoroditsy,” in Trudy IV oblastnogo istoriko-arkheologicheskogo s”ezda v gor. Kostrome, v iiune 1909 g. (Kostroma, 1914), pp. 57–72 (an icon painted by the Kostroma priest, Ivan Andreev, in 1717).

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Troitskii as its head, made the position of the museum so much stronger that shortly before World War I it was given a new, specially constructed building on the grounds of the Kremlin (the Tula Eparchial Chamber of Antiquities). In Vladimir the development of the museum was quite different. There two related institutions—the church repository of antiquities and the archival commission—joined efforts to create a collective museum. The repository of antiquities at the Alexander Nevskii Brotherhood in Vladimir had been set up in 1886 on the initiative of Vasilii Vasil’evich Kosatkin (1845–1914), Dean of the St. Demetrius Cathedral.106 The founder and the first curators of the Vladimir church-historical and archaeological museum wanted to collect various kinds of church antiquities in one place for the convenience of their viewing, study, and description. They sought to use antiquities to expose the “dissenters’ fallacy.” Finally, they wished to improve the professional knowledge of the students at the seminary and the two icon-painting schools founded with the assistance of the Brotherhood in Kholui and Mstera. As usual, the repository was originally housed in the eparchial library,107 and its first exhibits were manuscripts and early printed books received from various libraries of the Vladimir eparchy, including the Dormition Monastery in Alexandrov, the Florishcheva pustyn’ near the town of Viazniki, and the monasteries of the Deposition of the Robe and the Intercession in Suzdal. According to Vasilii Georgievskii, the librarian and curator of the museum, the collection of icons, in comparison with the collection of manuscripts, was not rich in original works. However, in a survey of the collection published ten years after its foundation we find no less than eighty icons, several Royal Doors decorated with paintings, and a considerable number of pieces of sixteenth- and seventeenthcentury embroidery with images of saints.108 At the close of the nineteenth century another cultural institution—the Learned Archival Commission—began to function in Vladimir. The public character of the commission and the energetic measures taken by its first leaders to collect and publish important archival material eventually united around 106   Protoierei V. V. Kosatkin. + January 29, 1914.—V. V. Kosatkin, Dmitrievskii sobor v gub[ernskom] gor[ode] Vladimire (Vladimir, 1914), pp. i–xvi. 107  For this, see V. Georgievskii, Kratkoe opisanie tserkovno-istoricheskogo drevlekhranilishcha pri Bratstve sv. Alexandra Nevskogo vo Vladimirskoi [gubernii] (Viazniki, 1896); V. V. Kosatkin, Dmitrievskii sobor v gub[ernskom] gor[ode] Vladimire, pp. ii–ix. 108  One of the first-class works of art housed in the repository was the large embroidered portrait shroud of Cosmas of Iakhrensk made in the royal workshops in the late sixteenth century. See V. Georgievskii, Kratkoe opisanie …, p. 36; N. N. Trofimova, “Litsevoi pokrov Koz’my Iakhrenskogo,” in Pamiatniki kul’tury. Novye otkrytiia. Ezhegodnik, 1978 (Leningrad, 1979), pp. 426–30.

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it all those who had anything to do with the study of the history of the Vladimir region.109 One of its active contributors was Vasilii Georgievskii, who was a specialist on the antiquities of Vladimir and Suzdal. In the very first volume of the commission’s Transactions, Georgievskii published an extensive article about the Life of Euphrosyne of Suzdal, an illuminated manuscript that survived in the Monastery of the Deposition of the Robe in Suzdal.110 Georgievskii made that monastery’s antiquities an object of his special studies.111 He also published two extremely valuable inventories of the Intercession Monastery in Suzdal, where remarkable works of painting, applied art, and embroidery were amassed in the sixteenth and seventeenth century.112 Other scholars such as N. N. Ushakov, V. G. Dobronravov, and V. N. Dobrynkin wrote articles about Palekh, Suzdal, and Murom.113 With the publication of such materials, the Vladimir commission ensured a long academic life for its numerous editions. Moreover, thanks to the financial support of local nobles and industrialists who were elected honorary members of the commission, between 1900 and 1905 a two-story building was constructed in the center of the town to house the provincial museum-archives. All this was so novel and unusual that the commission began to receive hundreds of gifts of various kinds: special libraries, family archives, unique autographs, portraits, valuable collections of coins and medals, and archaeological, domestic, and church antiquities. The best acquisition was a collection of church objects from the eparchial repository of 109  Every year the Vladimir learned archive commission published its Trudy—thick, excellently compiled collections of articles which gave a prominent place to the study of artistic antiquities. Between 1899 and 1918 eighteen such collections came out. The contents of the first ten were entered in a special index: A. V. Smirnov, Trudy Vladimirskoi uchenoi arkhivnoi komissii za pervoe desiatiletie ee sushchestvovaniia (1899–26 noiabria—1908). Bibliograficheskii ukazatel’ (Vladimir, 1909) (reprint of Trudy, XI [Vladimir, 1909], supplements, pp. 1–22). 110  V. T. Georgievskii, “Zhitie pr. Evfrosinii Suzdal’skoi po spisku XVII veka s litsevymi izobrazheniiami,” in Trudy VladUAK, I (Vladimir, 1899), reports, pp. 73–172. See also A. I. Nekrasov, “Neskol’ko slov o litsevykh spiskakh zhitiia prep. Evfrosinii Suzdal’skoi,” in IORIaS, vol. XV, book I (St. Petersburg, 1910), pp. 258–69. 111  See V. T. Georgievskii, “Suzdal’skii Pizpolozhenskii zhenskii monastyr’,” in Trudy VladUAK, II (1900), pp. 87–190. 112  Inventories of 1651 and 1725. See Trudy VladUAK, V (1903), materials, pp. 55–126 and X (1908), materials, pp. i–iV, 1–21. 113  N. N. Ushakov, “Restavratsiia Krestovozdvizhenskogo khrama v sele Palekhe Viaznikovsk­ ogo uezda,” Ibid. X (1908), chronicle, pp. 11–26; [V. G. Dobronravov], “Suzdal’ i ego dostopamiatnosti” (Moscow, 1912) (= Trudy VladUAK, XIV); V. N. Dobrynkin, “Muromskii Bogoroditskii sobor. Istoriko-arkheologicheskoe opisanie,” Ibid., XVII (1917), reports, pp. 1–33. All the works cited are illustrated.

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antiquities, which was transferred to the commission on the condition that it would remain the property of the eparchial repository. Between 1906 and 1915 this collection was exhibited in the municipal museum (because the commission had no suitable premises of its own) and drew the attention of local and visiting viewers alike.114 The most important of all the late nineteenth-century church repositories was in Archangel. A committee for the collection and preservation of monuments of church antiquity began its work in 1887 and largely owed its success to Iustin Mikhailovich Sibirtsev (1853–1932), its chairman. He was an energetic and learned student of local lore who eventually became the curator of the future museum, a post he occupied for nearly forty years.115 No less diligent was G. K. Bugoslavskii, his assistant, who held an official post in a circuit court. The committee, from its beginnings as a purely administrative body, evolved into a scholarly institution and transformed the Archangel repository of antiquities into a treasure of the north.116 It acquired many works of art, including icons and embroidery with images of saints, an extremely rich library from the St. Antony Monastery at Siisk, manuscripts from the Krestnyi (the Cross), Krasnogorskii, Korel’skii, and other monasteries near Archangel.117 The mas114  See “Otchet Vladimirskoi uchenoi arkhivnoi komissii za semnadtsatyi god ee sushchestvovaniia (1915 g.),” in Trudy VladUAK, XVIII (1917–1918), supplements, pp. 13, 14. 115  For more on him, see IAK, Pribavlenie k vyp[usku] 26-mu (Khronika i bibliografiia, issue 13) (St. Petersburg, 1908), pp. 11, 12 (reprint of the Novoe Vremia newspaper, 30 September 1908); S. Platonov, M. Bogoslovskii, N. Likhachev, “Zapiska ob uchenykh trudakh Iu. M. Sibirtseva,” in Izvestiia Akademii nauk SSSR, Series VII, Otdelenie gumanitarnykh nauk (1928), no. 8–10, pp. 442, 443 (supplemented with “Spisok uchenykh trudov Iu. M. Sibirtseva” on p. 444); Ia. P. Koshelev, “Zasedanie, posviashchennoe pamiati Iu. M. Sibirtseva,” in Arkheograficheskii ezhegodnik za 1978 god (Moscow, 1979), p. 358. 116  P. S. Uvarova, “Oblastnye muzei,” in Trudy VII AS v Yaroslavle, 1887, vol. II (Moscow, 1891), pp. 285–91 (Supplement I. A list of objects housed in the repository of antiquities in Archangel); G. K. Bugoslavskii, “Drevlekhranilishche Arkhangel’skogo eparkhial’nogo tserkovno-arkheologicheskogo komiteta,” in Drevnosti. Trudy MAO, vol. XXI, issue I (1906), pp. 70–72; V. [A.] Lengauer (Lenhauer), “O pamiatnikakh tserkovnoi drevnosti do XVIII v. v Arkhangel’skoi gubernii,” in Izvestiia Arkhangel’skogo obshchestva izucheniia Russkogo Severa (1912), no. 4, pp. 166–71; XXV-letie Arkhangel’skogo eparkhial’nogo tserkovno-arkheologicheskogo komiteta (Archangel, 1913). 117  The overwhelming majority of manuscripts from the Archangel repository of antiquities was moved to Leningrad in 1927, and at present they are distributed between the Historical Institute (documentary material) and the Library of the Academy of Sciences (handwritten books). See Istoricheskii ocherk i obzor fondov Rukopisnogo otdela Biblioteki Akademii nauk SSSR, II (Moscow-Leningrad, 1958), pp. 152–69; M. V. Kukushkina, Monastyrskie

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terpieces of the collection were two illuminated manuscripts from the Siisk monastery: the parchment Gospel of 1339 (1340), made by order of Ivan Kalita in Moscow, and a splendid gospel of 1693 with more than two thousand miniatures, also of Moscow provenance, which had been commissioned specially for the Siisk monastery by its treasurer, the Elder Paisii. The predominance of handwritten material in the repository accounts for the committee members’ interest in written sources.118 It is relevant to add, however, that the most significant publications of Sibirtsev and Bugoslavskii were their articles on manuscripts of artistic value: two Gospels from Siisk and the Onega Psalter of 1395.119 The Archangel repository of antiquities had enormous difficulties in housing its collections. Originally located in the building of the bishop’s house, it moved in 1891 to the barracks of the St. Michael Monastery. Ten years later a special museum building was constructed on the grounds of this monastery, but it turned out to be damp, cold, and dark. Weary of frequent transfers of the repository that numbered many thousands of items, the committee members were nevertheless happy that at last the museum had found a permanent shelter. A general review of the repository, published on the occasion of its twenty-fifth anniversary in 1913, described the collection: “Dispersed over different locations of the eparchy before being placed in the repository, these objects were neglected and unprotected and quite frequently left in storerooms, basements, and attics, on the whole in places not befitting their holiness and importance. … [They] fell into decay, suffered damage and destruction. The biblioteki Russkogo Severa. Ocherki po istorii knizhnoi kul’tury XVI–XVII vekov (Leningrad, 1977). 118  For the list of most important works, see N. F. Bel’chikov, Iu. K. Begunov, N. P. Rozhdest­ venskii, Spravochnik-ukazatel’ pechatnykh opisanii slaviano-russkikh rukopisei (MoscowLeningrad, 1963), pp. 78–83. 119   See G. K. Bugoslavskii, “Rukopisnoe pergamennoe Evangelie aprakos AntonievaSiiskogo monastyria 1339 goda,” in ArkhEV (1902), no. 23, pp. 812–27 and no. 24, pp. 844– 63; G. K. Bugoslavskii, Rukopisnye Evangeliia Drevlekhranilishcha Arkhangel’skogo eparkhial’nogo tserkovno-arkheologicheskogo komiteta (Archangel, 1904); G. K. Bugo­ slavskii, “Zamechatel’nyi pamiatnik drevnei smolenskoi pis’mennosti XIV v. i imeiushchiisia v nem risunok simvoliko-politicheskogo soderzhaniia,” in Drevnosti. Trudy MAO, vol. XXI, issue I (1906), pp. 77‚ 88, tables XII–XX; I. M. Sibirtsev, Rukopisnoe Siiskoe Evangelie 1339 goda. S dvumia snimkami s rukopisi (episkopa Mikheia) i prilozheniem tsennykh v missionerskom otnoshenii primechanii. Published by the Seiatel’ magazine (Ufa, 1913). Both Gospels of Siisk are now in the Library of the Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg (Arkheogr. komissiia 189 and 339), and the Onega Psalter—in the Historical Museum in Moscow (Muz. 4040).

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foundation of the repository ensures their careful preservation under the best possible conditions. Some of the more remarkable specimens of medieval literature, the oldest and most elegantly decorated books, the oldest acts and documents, the charters of tsars and prelates, liturgical crosses and gospels and marriage crowns are arranged in showcases under glass, thus enabling visitors to view them without touching; icons, Royal Doors, engravings and portraits are fixed on the walls. Old sacerdotal robes hang on a special rack. Books are placed in glazed bookcases and documents in drawers. In other words, the objects of church antiquity housed in the repository are not only preserved in the best possible way but, collected in one place, give a visual picture of the ancient church household of the Archangel eparchy in its historical development.”120 We now pass to the review of the late nineteenth-century private collections of icons. Not all of them can be assessed since, for example, Old Believers did not make their collections publicly known, and many other private museums were not described before they were broken up. But brief references to private collections in special sources enable us to provide a general description. The term “icon-painting collection” is conventional, but none of the private collections in the second half of the nineteenth century actually had a strictly defined character.121 They contained objects of church antiquity: icons, ornamental and domestic embroidery, icon mounts, handwritten and early printed books, crosses, church plate, and other objects of church use. The small collection of V. A. Prokhorov, a description of which appeared only after his death, was a good example of this kind of collection.122 M. P. Pogodin, who visited Prokhorov in 1863, described his apartment: “The rooms are heaped up with antiquities familiar and dear to me: icons, crosses, church plate, drawings, scrolls, scraps of parchment.”123 Even quainter was the museum of Fedor 120   X XV-letie Arkhangelskogo eparkhial’nogo tserkovno-arkheologicheskogo komiteta, p. 25. 121  For general introduction to the subject, see S. A. Ovsiannikova, “Chastnoe kollektsionirovanie v Rossii v poreformennuiu epokhu (1861–1917 gg.),” in Ocherki istorii muzeinogo dela v Rossii, II (Moscow, 1960), pp. 66–144. 122   Opis’ predmetov drevnosti, sostavliavshikh sobranie V. A. Prokhorova (St. Petersburg, 1896). The inventory was made following the purchase of the collection by the Emperor Alexander III Russian Museum. 123  M. Pogodin, “Neskol’ko dnei v Peterburge. G. Prokhorov i ego izdanie,” in Moskovskie vedomosti (1863), no. 168, August 2, p. 3. V. A. Prokhorov’s collection contained some noteworthy works such as an early fifteenth-century Virgin of Vladimir; a fifteenthcentury Novgorodian icon Selected Saints and the Virgin of the Sign; and portions of the Last Judgment, an icon of the first half of the sixteenth century. All of them are now in the Russian Museum in Leningrad. See Iu. Lebedeva, “K voprosu o rannem tvorchestve

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Mikhailovich Pliushkin (1837–1911).124 It occupied nine rooms on the second floor of his house in Pskov and looked rather like an old curiosity shop or an antique store where objects, as they arrived, were put in any vacant place and where, in the end, there was a veritable heap of both valuable and completely worthless objects. Pliushkin collected everything, from freaks of nature to playing cards of various periods to works of erotic art. Some of the coins and stonework pieces in his museum were considered the best in Russia while the church-archaeological collection rivaled the richest eparchial repositories. According to a contemporary, there were enough icons in the museum to decorate several iconostases.125 The entire collection numbered more than a million items: when Pliushin died, the Council of Ministers discussed the problem of buying his collection. A commission was set up to assess the collection and included specialists of very different fields: the numismatist A. K. Markov, the orientalist S. F. Oldenburg; the art historian N. N. Vrangel’; the church archaeologist N. V. Pokrovskii; the specialist in weaponry E. E. Lenz; the jeweler C. Fabergé; the Egyptologist B. A. Turaev; the palaeographer V. I. Sreznevskii, and the archaeologist A. A. Spitsin.126 As objects from Pliushkin’s collection varied greatly in their value, the question of buying it was repeatedly postponed; only the rivalry of the British Museum prodded the Russian government to purchase it for 100,000 rubles for the Emperor Alexander III Russian Museum which was being formed in St. Petersburg at that time.127 Rubleva,” in Iskusstvo (1957), no. 4, pp. 66–69; Zhivopis’ drevnego Novgoroda i ego zemel’ XII–XVII stoletii. Katalog vystavki. (Leningrad, 1974), no. 49, ill. 30; P. Muratov, “Russkaia zhivopis’ do serediny XVII veka,” in Igor’ Grabar’. Istoriia russkogo iskusstva, VI (Moscow, [1914]), ills. on pp. 284 and 285. 124  See M. Men’shikov, “Pliushkinskii muzei,” in IAK. Pribavlenie k vypusku 26-mu (Chronicle and bibliography, issue 13), pp. 15–18 (reprint of the newspaper, Novoe Vremia, 11 September 1908); V. A. Alekseev, Pliushkinskii muzei (St. Petersburg, 1911) (with the portrait); V. A. Alekseev, F. M. Pliushkin i ego muzei (Petrograd, 1916). 125  V. A. Alekseev, F. M. Pliushkin i ego muzei, p. 14. 126  Ibid., p. 122. 127  The inhabitants of Pskov had long grown accustomed to the idea that all antiquities should first be offered to F. M. Pliushkin. He paid a good price for them and, as a result, other Pskov museums (the museum of the local archaeological society, for example) were inferior to that of Pliushkin’s in the number and quality of works. See N. F. Kazarinov, Putevoditel’ po muzeiu Pskovskogo arkheologicheskogo obshchestva (Pskov, 1908); N. F. Okulich-Kazarin, “Kratkii istoricheskii ocherk Pskovskogo arkheologicheskogo obshchestva i ego muzeia i mery, prinimaemye Obshchestvom dlia okhrany pamiatnikov stariny,” in Trudy XV AS v Novgorode, 1911, vol. I (Moscow, 1914), minutes, pp. 191–97. There were, though, individual noteworthy examples in the Church-Archaeological Museum,

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In contrast, Count A. S. Uvarov’s museum, located on his country estate Porech’e near Mozhaisk, was distinguished by a much stricter, scholarly choice of exhibits. The members of the Moscow Archaeological Society and other scholarly societies willingly visited it on the invitation of the owner to do research. One visitor wrote; “In his famous Porech’e only the ground floor is occupied by living quarters and a picture gallery. The second floor is allotted to a historical-archaeological museum and the third floor to an enormous library numbering up to 100,000 volumes of the choicest works on historical and archaeological subjects. No other museum possesses such material on Russian antiquities as were left in the count’s study [after his death].”128 The core of Uvarov’s museum, to say nothing of the paintings, consisted of Russian antiquities. Fortunately, Uvarov described this part of the collection himself.129 A description of the manuscripts in his collection was published in four volumes in 1893 and 1894.130 Thanks to these publications we have a clear idea of the nature of Uvarov’s museum and its most important holdings. The oldest works of Russian painting are represented here by handwritten books, such as a thirteenth-century Novgorodian Code of Religious Laws (Kormchaia) with a miniature showing two prelates (Historical Museum, Uvarov col. 124); a sixteenth-century illuminated life of Sts. Boris and Gleb repeating the famous Sylvester Miscellany (Historical Museum, Uvarov col. 628); the Vologda Gospel of 1577 (Historical Museum, Uvarov col. 972); the Psalter of 1592 (Historical Museum, Uvarov col. 592); the Godunov Psalter of 1594 (Historical Museum, Uvarov col. 564); a seventeenth-century Bible (Historical Museum, Uvarov col.

but since it was opened only in the early twentieth century it will be discussed in the second volume of this study. 128  “Pamiati grafa A. S. Uvarova. Rechi, proiznesennye S. M. Shpilevskim, P. D. Shestakovym i D. A. Korsakovym na zasedanii Kazanskogo obshchestva arkheologii, istorii i etnografii 17 ianvaria 1885 g. Kazan” (1885), p. 20 (reprinted from the newspaper Moskovskie vedomosti (1885), no. 2). For the museum in Porech’e, see also E. K. Redin’s personal recollections: “Pis’ma prof. E. K. Redina k prof. N. F. Sumtsovu,” in Sbornik KhIFO, vol. XIX. Pamiati professora Egora Kuz’micha Redina (+ 27 aprelia 1908 g.) (Kharkov, 1913), pp. 43, 44. For Uvarovs’ estate in Porech’e (with the earlier and recent literature indicated), see Pamiatniki arkhitektury Moskovskoi oblasti. A two-volume catalogue, vol. 2 (Moscow, 1975), pp. 18–21. 129   Katalog sobraniia drevnostei grafa Alekseia Sergeevicha Uvarova, sections IV–VI (Moscow, 1907) and sections VIII–IX (Moscow, 1908). 130  Leonid, arkhim., Sistematicheskoe opisanie … slaviano-russkikh rukopisei sobraniia grafa A. S. Uvarova, part I–IV (Moscow, 1893–94).

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Figure 7.12 Historical Museum in Moscow, 1875–81, Architect V. O. Shervud.

38); and many other illuminated manuscripts.131 It was precisely the illuminated manuscripts that attracted to Porech’e many scholars interested in Russian art and problems of Byzantine and Russian iconography.132 Another important part of Uvarov’s collection of Russian art comprised about 330 icons, both painted and embroidered.133 “The icons on panels were mostly from the sixteenth and seventeenth century, which period was considered in the nineteenth century to have been the most brilliant period of Russian painting, predominantly symbolic, and based on intricate and rare subjects, on many of which Uvarov supplied extensive historical and literary commentaries. The collection of embroidery with the images of saints was rather small, but it contained several outstanding works, such as the shroud The Dormition of the Virgin executed between 1561 and 1563 in the workshop of Evfrosiniia (Euphrosyne) Staritskaia in Moscow for the St. Cyril Monastery on Lake Beloe.134 According to the terms 131  See M. V. Shchepkina and T. N. Protas’eva, Sokrovishcha drevnei pis’mennosti i staroi pechati. Obzor rukopisei russkikh, slavianskikh, grecheskikh, a takzhe knig staroi pechati Gosudarstvennogo Istoricheskogo muzeia (Moscow, 1958), pp. 37, 39. 132  E. K. Redin, “Tolkovaia litsevaia Paleia XVI-go veka sobraniia grafa A. S. Uvarova,” in PDP, CXLI ([St. Petersburg] 1901), supplements, pp. 1–9; E. K. Redin, “Materialy k istorii vizantiiskogo i drevnerusskogo iskusstva, I. Psaltiri sobraniia gr[afa] A. S. Uvarova v s[ele] Porech’e (Moskovskoi gubernii),” in VV, vol. IX, issue 1–2 (St. Petersburg, 1902), pp. 103– 121; E. K. Redin, “Litsevye rukopisi sobraniia grafa A. S. Uvarova, I. Litsevaia Psaltir’ povestvovatel’noi redaktsii XVII veka, II. Litsevaia Psaltir’ redaktsii po kafizmam 1548 goda,” in Drevnosti. Trudy MAO, vol. XX, issue 1 (1904), pp. 81–98; E. K. Redin, “Litsevye rukopisi sobraniia grafa A. S. Uvarova. Evangeliia,” in Drevnosti. Trudy MAO, vol. XXI, issue 2 (1907), pp. 38–42. See also A. S. Uvarov, “Evangelie 1577 goda, izobrazheniia evangelistov i ikh simvolov,” .Ibid., pp. 7–37. All these articles are provided with illustrations and tables. 133   Katalog sobraniia drevnostei grafa A. S. Uvarova, sections IV–VI, pp. 77–149 and 151–70, with tables. 134  See Katalog sobraniia drevnostei grafa A. S. Uvarova, sections IV–VI, pp. 163, 164, table 2. Cf. N. A. Maiasova, “Masterskaia khudozhestvennogo shit’ia kniazei Staritskikh,” in

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of Uvarov’s will the entire collection went to the Moscow Historical Museum, becoming a highlight of the museum.135 Undoubtedly, one of the best universal museums of Russian antiquities was that of P. I. Shchukin in Moscow. It surpasses any similar late nineteenth- or early twentieth-century museum in size, number of publications, and general seriousness of approach. In 1905, Shchukin donated all his collections and the buildings in which they were housed to the Moscow Historical Museum; this was a logical decision, since Shchukin clearly realized the scholarly value and the social significance of his holdings. Upon acquiring Shchukin’s collection, the Moscow Historical Museum came into the possession of thousands of original works of all sorts for the first time. An official representative of the museum stated that the collection “excels qualitatively and numerically the museum’s own collection.”136 Among merchant-collectors, Petr Ivanovich Shchukin was typical. Aristocratic collectors such as Princess M. K. Tenisheva, spoke slightingly and even with an obvious tinge of disgust about the Moscow nouveaux riches, owners of enormous collections which were set up, as she believed, to keep up with fashion and “have something to boast about” rather than to follow the dictates of the heart and mind.137 Shchukin did not escape the common lot. It was obvious to him, a manufacturer and dealer in textiles, to whom Tenisheva (who visited Shchukin’s museum after his death) addressed the following words: “Of no small importance is probably the fact that the fame of a connoisseur, collector, or patron of the arts overshadows, veils with a pleasing haze, the prosaic figure of a cloth-weaver or tanner.”138 Reflecting upon Tenisheva’s comment we cannot completely rebut her, nor can we entirely accept her opinion of the motives of the Moscow merchant-collectors. It is worth noting here that the museum of Tenisheva herself was created not merely on her own but required funds of her husband—a co-owner of factories in Briansk and Putilov.

Soobshcheniia Zagorskogo gosudarstvennogo istoriko-khudozhestvennogo muzeia-zapovednika, 3 (Zagorsk, 1960), pp. 55, 56, table 8. 135  In 1930, when museum collections were redistributed, a number of Uvarov’s icons were transferred to the Tretyakov Gallery. See V. I. Antonova, N. E. Mneva, Katalog drevnerusskoi zhivopisi, vol. II (Moscow, 1963), index, p. 560 (Uvarov A. S.). 136  N. Shcherbatov, “Vozniknovenie otdelov muzeia i mysli o dal’neishem razmeshchenii raznorodnykh ego sobranii i okonchatel’nom ego ustroistve,” in Otchet imp. Rossiiskogo Istoricheskogo muzeia … za 1914 god (Moscow, 1915), p. 96. 137  M. K. Tenisheva, Vpechatleniia moei zhizni. Published by the Russian HistoricalGenealogical Society in France (Paris, 1933), pp. 461–64. 138  Ibid., p. 462.

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Figure 7.13 Petr Ivanovich Shchukin (1853–1912).

Shchukin lived a comparatively short life: he was born in 1853 and died in 1912. The history of his museum was even shorter.139 Although he began collecting about 1878, it was only in 1890 that his interests shifted from an initial fascination with the Orient toward Russian antiquities, and it was the Russian antiquities that made his collection so valuable. This means that the actual history of Shchukin’s museum covers only a little more than twenty years. But it was not without reason that A. P. Bakhrushin, a veteran and chronicler of Moscow collecting, called Shchukin “the most serious” of all the collectors he knew. According to Bakhrushin, Shchukin did not acquire a single thing “without first compiling a bibliography about it and studying it from books.” Unlike Pliushkin and others, Shchukin did not collect indiscriminately but 139  There are a number of detailed works about P. I. Shchukin and his museum, written by both the collector and his contemporaries. See P. I. Shchukin, Kratkoe opisanie Shchukinskogo muzeia v Moskve (Moscow, 1895), with illustrations; A. Pypin, “Shchukinskii muzei v Moskve,” in Vestnik Evropy (November, 1896), pp. 435–37; N. Treskin, Shchukinskii muzei v Moskve (Moscow, 1896); D. F. Kobeko, “Otzyv o trudakh P. I. Shchukina po opisaniiu prinadlezhashchikh emu sobranii drevnostei i rukopisei,” in Protokoly zasedanii imp. RAO za 1898 god (St. Petersburg, 1900), pp. 51–56; V. Trutovskii, “Muzei P. I. Shchukina v Moskve,” in Khudozhestvennye sokrovishcha Rossii (1902), no. 6, pp. 107–36, with illustrations; P. I. Shchukin, Kratkoe opisanie novogo vladeniia Rossiiskogo Istoricheskogo muzeia v gorode Moskve (Moscow, 1906); E. Korsh, “Otdelenie imp. Rossiiskogo Istoricheskogo muzeia. Muzei P. I. Shchukina i noveishie ego priobreteniia,” in SG (1908), May, pp. 257– 63; A. Oreshnikov, “P. I. Shchukin (+ 12 oktiabria 1912 g.),” in GM (1913), no. 7, pp. 279–81; E. F. Korsh, Petr Ivanovich Shchukin (Moscow, 1913) (= Otchet imp. Rossiiskogo Istoricheskogo muzeia za 1912 g., [Moscow, 1913]), pp. 77–81.

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tried, as far as possible, to limit his interests to domestic and church antiquity as well as to manuscripts and written sources that shed light on the politics, history, literature, art, and everyday life of the Russian people up to the nineteenth century.140 And if we add that Shchukin, though he had only an incomplete secondary education, spent considerable time abroad and had a very good command of German and French, visited various countries and museums of Europe and North Africa, and knew well the state of the antique market in the major towns of Russia, such as Moscow and Nizhnii Novgorod, the cultural level of the collector and his museum will be clearer to the reader.141 Illuminated manuscripts, embroidery, and icons did not constitute a special department at Shchukin’s museum: the illuminated manuscripts were part of the general collection of manuscripts, while icons and embroidery were kept with large and small crosses, stone, wood, and bone pendants with holy images, antimensions, icon mounts, chalices, patens, vestments, and other objects of church use. This is why the assessment of Shchukin’s collection from the point of view of medieval Russian pictorial art is quite difficult. It seems that even the total number of such pieces is impossible to fix because no detailed review or description of them was ever published.142 Nevertheless, there is no reason to doubt the integrity and importance of his collection. Shchukin’s museum had three unique pieces of embroidery with images of saints. One was a large embroidered icon of the Vernicle with figures of saints and angels made in Moscow in 1389 on commission from Princess Maria, the widow of Grand Prince Simeon the Proud.143 A second was an equally remarkable late fifteenth-century shroud showing a church procession in which the image of the Virgin Hodegetria is carried; the shroud was made in Moscow in

140  Slavonic and Russian manuscripts from Shchukin’s museum were partly described by A. I. Iatsimirskii (A. I. Iatsimirskii, Opis’ starinnykh slavianskikh i russkikh rukopisei sobraniia P. I. Shchukina, I–II (Moscow, 1896–97), while a great many written sources of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were published by the collector himself in Shchukinskie sborniki (I–X, [Moscow, 1902–12]). 141  The best idea of Shchukin himself can be gleaned from his memoirs, which are extremely simple stylistically and show no sign of affectation: Vospominaniia P. I. Shchukina, parts 1–5 (Moscow, 1911–12) (the first three parts were also published in Shchukinskii sbornik, X [Moscow, 1912], pp. 140–69, 245–81 and 370–426). 142  I. Fomin’s short article on carved crosses and icons where only isolated exhibits are reproduced is no exception. See I. Fomin, “Drevnerusskie dereviannye ikony iz sobraniia Petra Ivanovicha Shchukina,” in Iskusstvo (January, 1905), pp. 11–18, with illustrations. 143  See V. Trutovskii, “Muzei P. I. Shchukina v Moskve,” p. 113, 125, table 56; N. A. Maiasova, Drevnerusskoe shit’e (Moscow, 1971), pp. 10, 11, tables 5 and 6; T. A. Badiaeva, “Pelena Marii Tverskoi,” in Voprosy istorii SSSR, [I] (Moscow, 1972), pp. 499–514.

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1498.144 In addition, there was a shroud from the same period and the same Moscow workshop depicting the beheading of St. John the Baptist.145 The collection also contained excellent works of tempera painting on wooden panels: a Moscow icon of the Savior dating to the first half of the sixteenth century;146 a Novgorodian icon of 1560 with saints and the Virgin of the Sign;147 and several Royal Doors and numerous dated icons of the Petrine and postPetrine period.148 And, finally, Shchukin collected quite a few very good illuminated manuscripts: two leaves from an unknown fourteenth-century Novgorodian manuscript with the representations of the Evangelists St. Luke and St. Mark,149 an early seventeenth-century Apocalypse, the Life of Anthony of Siisk of 1648, more than ten seventeenth-century Synodics, and other manuscripts of various dates.150 In the second half of the nineteenth century, special collections of icons also grew quickly. In fact, they did not differ substantially from the earlier collections of Old Believers and edinovertsy (dissenters from the Orthodox church) such as those of I. V. Strelkov or A. E. Sorokin. Individual collections that we discuss in this chapter are directly linked to the previous period because they began to be formed in the mid-nineteenth century. Such was the then famous collection of the Moscow merchant Nikolai Mikhailovich Postnikov (ca. 1827–

144  M. V. Shchepkina, “Izobrazhenie russkikh istoricheskikh lits v shit’e XV veka” (Moscow, 1954) (= Trudy Gosudarstvennogo Istoricheskogo muzeia, XII); N. A. Maiasova, Drevnerusskoe shit’e, p. 20, table 27. 145  N. A. Maiasova, Drevnerusskoe shit’e, pp. 20, 21, table 28. 146  V. Trutovskii, “Muzei P. I. Shchukina v Moskve,” pp. 113, 127, table 60. 147  Ibid., pp. 113, 126, table 59; N. Likhachev, “Dve ikony s letopis’iu,” in AIZ (1894), no. 12, pp. 393, 394. 148  V. Trutovskii, “Muzei P. I. Shchukina v Moskve,” pl. 113 and 114. Part of Shchukin’s collection of icons is now in the Historical Museum (these icons are not described), and a number of his icons were transferred from the Historical Museum to the Tretyakov Gallery as early as 1930. See V. I. Antonova, N. E. Mneva, Katalog drevnerusskoi zhivopisi, vol. I (Moscow, 1963), no. 313, ill. 239; vol. II (Moscow, 1963), nos. 366, ill. 7 (dated 1560), 388, 462, 628, 674, 732, 758, 761, 959, and 969, ill. 159 (a rare icon of the Petrine era showing the siege of the Tikhvin monastery by the Swedes in 1613). 149  See O. S. Popova, “Novgorodskie miniatiury i vtoroe iuzhnoslavianskoe vliianie,” in Drevnerusskoe iskusstvo. Khudozhestvennaia kul’tura Novgoroda (Moscow, 1968), pp. 170– 200, ill. on p. 195 (Mark). 150  On this matter see M. V. Shchepkina and T. N. Protas’eva, Sokrovishcha drevnei pis’mennosti i staroi pechati. Obzor rukopisei russkikh, slavianskikh, grecheskikh, a takzhe knig staroi pechati Gosudarstvennogo Istoricheskogo muzeia, pp. 58–60. As an example of a first-rate illuminated manuscript I should point out, first of all, the Life of Anthony of Siisk, see Istoriia russkogo iskusstva, vol. IV (Moscow, 1959), color plate between pp. 486 and 487.

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Figure 7.14

Nikolai Mikhailovich Postnikov (ca. 1827–1900).

ca. 1900).151 Beginning in the late 1840s, Postnikov kept a well-known Moscow shop where he sold icons and various church objects. It was at this period that he took an interest in collecting and began to reserve for himself the best of the works which buyers and traders dealing in icons brought to his shop. He also began to seek out valuable icons in other people’s collections. It is known, for example, that he bought In Thee Rejoiceth, a tiny, early seventeenth-century icon of the Stroganov school, from I. S. Tikhomirov for 1,500 rubles, and that the Stroganov icon of Our Lady of Smolensk of the same period was acquired for 2,100 rubles from M. I. Dikarev and O. S. Chirikov.152 In this way, he enlarged his collection for about forty years until he finally owned more than three thousand icons, the largest of all the nineteenth-century state and private collections. It is quite natural, however, to ask what kind of icons Postnikov collected. An answer can be partly gleaned from the catalogue he prepared and published in 1888.153 Even those who are not versed in art have to marvel when reading the section of the catalogue that deals with icons. It contains long lists 151  The literature on N. M. Postnikov is not abundant. See Iz zapisnoi knizhki A. P. Bakhrushina. Kto chto sobiraet. S primechaniiami M. Tsiavlovskogo (Moscow, 1916), pp. 12, 28–29 and 98–99 (notes). We have not established the exact date of N. M. Postnikov’s death, but in 1895 he was still alive: on January 27 of that year he received a superb edition of N. P. Kondakov’s Vizantiiskie emali (Byzantine Enamels), a copy of which, sent to Postnikov by the publisher A. V. Zvenigorodskii, is now in V. V. Tarnogradskii’s collection of rare books in Drogobych. See O. Lasunskii, “Pis’mo iz Drogobycha,” Vstrecha s knigoi, 2 (Moscow, 1984), pp. 169, 170. 152  V. I. Antonova, N. E. Mneva, Katalog drevnerusskoi zhivopisi, vol. II, nos. 820 and 832. 153   Katalog khristianskikh drevnostei, sobrannykh moskovskim kuptsom Nikolaem Mikhailovichem Postnikovym (Moscow, 1888).

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of icons dating from as early as the tenth century up to the fifteenth century. A good many icons are ascribed to Andrei Rublev and there are works of twenty other schools or, to be more exact, styles of painting (pis’ma). But once we have seen the list of particularly rare items, we come to a familiar picture of dull nineteenth-century church art. Rumor had it that Postnikov preferred icons untouched by the restorer’s hand, yet many of his icons were painted over and retouched, and consequently gave an absolutely false idea of Greek, Novgorodian, Moscow, and other styles, including even the highly praised Stroganov miniature icons.154 Only individual seventeenth-, eighteenth-, and nineteenth-century specimens from Postnikov’s collection could probably be used for the study of original painting. The part of the collection that included dated works by Moscow, Mstera, Palekh and Kholui icon painters V. I. Khokhlov, I. A. Rosliakov, I. D. Shakhov, N. V. and P. N. Shchepetov, M. N., E. N., and I. E. Mumrikov, M. I. Dikarev, F. I. and M. I. Tsepkov, A. M. and Ya. V. Tiulin, O. S. Chirikov, and other nineteenth-century masters also has historical importance.155 Postnikov’s peculiar fondness for icons of recent times and imitations of antiquity (pod starinu), which he even commissioned in Moscow, Mstera, and Palekh, can be explained by his contacts with hereditary icon painters. It was from them that he derived knowledge of the styles and schools of Russian painting and eventually, in the eyes of the late nineteenth-century learned public, became an expert in icon painting. Icons from Postnikov’s former collection can be found today in many state museums: the Tretyakov Gallery, the Moscow Historical Museum, the former Museum of the History of Religion and Atheism in Leningrad (now the Museum of the History of Religion in St. Petersburg), and the Museum of Russian Art in Kiev. Evidently there are isolated pieces in private collections as well, since, for example, P. D. Korin had a late sixteenth-century Virgin of Jerusalem and an icon of Saturday of All Saints, dated 1813 by the Palekh master V. I. Khokhlov, both of which had belonged to Postnikov.156 This enormous collection was dispersed because, in the 1890s, Postnikov found himself in straitened circumstances and was forced to pawn his collection to the merchant Ponomarev, who owned a candle-shop at the Cathedral of St. Basil the Blessed. Since Postnikov never managed to get his collection out of pawn before he

154   Iz zapisnoi knizhki A. P. Bakhrushina. Kto chto sobiraet, p. 65. 155   Katalog khristianskikh drevnostei, sobrannykh moskovskim kuptsom Nikolaem Mikhailovichem Postnikovym, pp. 35, 37, 38, 39, 40–43, 45, 46. 156  V. I. Antonova, Drevnerusskoe iskusstvo v sobranii Pavla Korina (Moscow, [1967]), no. 45, ill. 59, and no. 114, ills. 132, 133.

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Battle of the Novogorodians and Suzdalians in an icon from the 1460s, Novgorod State Museum Preserve.

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died, Ponomarev sold Postnikov’s icons.157 N. P. Likhachev, who at that very time was forming a huge collection of his own, bought a considerable number; and quite a few icons went to P. M. Tretyakov, E. E. Egorov, D. I. Silin, L. K. Zubalov, B. I. and V. N. Khanenko, and finally to B. N. Protopopov, a collector little known today. The presence of some of Postnikov’s icons in museums today affords an opportunity to establish the general chronological and qualitative level of his collection.158 The two-volume catalogue of the Tretyakov Gallery, which does not include eighteenth- and nineteenth-century works, lists fifteen icons from Postnikov’s former collection: two of them are dated to the fifteenth century, eight to the sixteenth century, and five to the seventeenth century.159 One of the two Postnikov’s icons in Korin’s private museum, now affiliated with the Tretyakov Gallery, is dated to the late sixteenth century and the other to the early nineteenth century. But none of them are dated earlier than the fifteenth century. The collection of Nikolai Mikhailovich Postnikov is often confused with that of his younger brother Andrei Mikhailovich. This error was committed by the compilers of the catalogue of the Tretyakov Gallery who assigned two icons from the collection of the second Postnikov to the first.160 According to Bakhrushin, the second Postnikov manufactured silver and bronze church plate and “was supposedly a collector of old icons.”161 The word “supposedly” was due to the obvious ill-will shown by Bakhrushin toward Andrei Mikhailovich. It is known that the junior Postnikov did actually collect icons.162 It took him a long time, about fifty years, to build up a collection, numbering 211 items, and alongside old icons (istinniki—original works) it contained new ones painted in the nineteenth century “in the old style.” A. E. Sorokin 157  For this matter, see the unpublished notes of B. I. Khanenko on the formation of the Museum of B. I. and V. N. Khanenko in Kiev (the Kiev Museum of Eastern and Western Art, arch. inv. I, item 4, fol. 18–18v.). 158  See V. Georgievskii, “Ikona sv. Ioanna Predtechi (From B. N. Protopopov’s collection),” in Svetil’nik (1914), no. 7, pp. 3—6, with color plates (on p. 4 there is a special reference to N. M. Postnikov and the later fate of his collection). 159  V. I. Antonova, N. E. Mneva, Katalog drevnerusskoi zhivopisi, vol. II, see the index. 160  Ibid., vol. I, no. 285 and vol. II, no. 385. 161   Iz zapisnoi knizhki A. P. Bakhrushina. Kto chto sobiraet, p. 68 and p. 122 (notes by M. Tsiavlovskii). 162  M. I. and V. I. Uspenskie, Drevnie ikony iz sobraniia A. M. Postnikova (St. Petersburg, 1899) (the publication of traced copies of 96 icons, all of which are the mirror images of original works). See also V. I. Uspenskii, Ikonopisanie v drevnei Rusi. (Po povodu izdaniia perevodov s drevnikh ikon iz sobraniia A. M. Postnikova),” in VAI, XII (1899), pp. 41–82.

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and the writer N. S. Leskov, who was at that time keenly interested in medieval Russian art, spoke with approval of the quality of this collection.163 From April to September 1892, A. M. Postnikov, evidently thinking that his collection was complete and reckoning on the generosity of the church authorities in connection with the commemoration of the quincentenary of the Repose of St. Sergii (Sergius) of Radonezh, repeatedly offered his icons to the museum at the Moscow Ecclesiastical Academy for 25,000 rubles.164 To acquaint themselves with the “merchandise,” Leontii the metropolitan of Moscow, and Savva, the archbishop of Tver and Kashin, visited Postnikov’s shop. They examined the collection scrupulously, but an official decision of the Synod to buy it never followed. The further fate of this little-known collection is not quite clear. It is likely that it went, in part, to St. Petersburg and was purchased for the royal family, since one of the best of A. M. Postnikov’s holdings—a fifteenth-century Novgorodian icon of the Virgin and Child with St. Blaise (dated to the twelfth century by Postnikov)—turned up after the 1917 revolution in the imperial palace at Gatchina, whence it went to the Russian Museum.165 The other icons, as we know, found their way into the Moscow Historical Museum and the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow. All this gives grounds to believe that A. M. Postnikov’s collection, rather than being preserved in its entirety, was sold out in parts. Both Postnikovs, and especially Nikolai Mikhailovich, built collections that were not only of artistic value but also served as an investment of capital. They exercised a strong influence on other late nineteenth-century collectors. Following partly in their footsteps, Dmitrii Andreevich Postnikov, (the son of Andrei Mikhailovich), Yu. V. Merlin, and many other predominantly Moscow collectors formed good collections of icons.166 It was with N. M. Postnikov’s influence that P. I. Shchukin began to collect icons,167 and Shchukin’s example 163  See A. Sorokin, “Liubiteliam drevnei ikonopisi,” in Moskovskie vedomosti (1 April 1883), no. 91, p. 5; N. Leskov, “Diva ne budet,” in Peterburgskaia gazeta (5 November 1884), no. 305, p. 1. N. S. Leskov’s article was written on the occasion of the prospective exhibition of icons from A. M. Postnikov’s collection in the Society for the Encouragement of Arts. 164  A. Golubtsov, Tserkovno-arkheologicheskii muzei pri Moskovskoi dukhovnoi akademii, p. 9, note 1. 165  E. S. Smirnova, Zhivopis’ Velikogo Novgoroda. Seredina XIII—nachalo XV veka (Moscow, 1976), catalogue, no. 38, pp. 258–61, ill. on p. 374. Cf.: M. I. and V. I. Uspenskie, Drevnie ikony iz sobraniia A. M. Postnikova, table XXXIX. 166   Iz zapisnoi knizhki A. P. Bakhrushina. Kto chto sobiraet, p. 12. He collected mainly Russian and foreign enamels, but, as A. P. Bakhrushin observed, “there are also ancient icons highly valued by connoisseurs in his collection.” 167  Ibid., pp. 15, 16. According to M. Tsiavlovskii (Ibid., p. 100), a number of Iu. V. Merlin’s antiques passed into the hands of A. M. and A. V. Maraev (Serpukhov), but more accurate information on the icons is not available.

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in turn influenced his relative M. P. Botkin, a famous St. Petersburg collector, who eventually acquired the excellent Novgorodian late fourteenth-century icon God Sabaoth and the Archangels.168 Still, in number of objects, the preeminent collections were those of professional antiquarians like I. L. Silin or S. T. Bol’shakov. Ivan Lukich Silin (ca. 1825–99)169 built a collection not as extensive as N. M. Postnikov’s, but he knew more about icons and could estimate their real worth better than Postnikov and was considered the finest connoisseur of medieval Russian painting among Moscow collectors. A competitor of Postnikov’s, Silin regarded him as an implacable enemy. Silin kept two shops where he sold icons, manuscripts, and early printed books. Bakhrushin said of him, “He spares no expense for a good book or an icon, and is never in a hurry to sell, sometimes keeping it for ten years, and if he does sell it, the price will be enormous to make up for all these years.”170 Such a temporizing approach coupled with large sums of money, a rare thing for an antiquary, allowed Silin to amass a remarkable collection, which he exhibited at the Eighth Archaeological Congress, filling a whole room with pieces from his shop.171 One of the most engaging items in Silin’s collection was a tiny icon of the Transfiguration with the inscription of a later period on the reverse to the effect that it was painted by Andrei Rublev for Grand Prince Vasilii Vasil’evich in 1425.172 Unlike many other privately owned so-called Rublev icons that in fact were works of the sixteenth or seventeenth century,173 Silin’s Transfiguration, as discovered in 1956 during its cleaning, was painted no later than the date indicated in the inscription.174 Its composition repeats that of a similar icon from the iconostasis of the Cathedral of the Holy Trinity in the Trinity-St. Sergius Lavra painted in the period between 1425

168  E. S. Smirnova, Zhivopis’ Velikogo Novgoroda. Seredina XIII—nachalo XV veka. Catalogue, no. 25, pp. 234–36, illustrations on pp. 340–43. Especially for this icon, see also V. N. Lazarev, Russkaia srednevekovaia zhivopis’. Stat’i i issledovaniia (Moscow, 1970), pp. 279–91 (the article “Ob odnoi novgorodskoi ikone i eresi antitrinitariev”). 169  On him, see Vospominaniia P. I. Shchukina, part 5 (Moscow, 1912), p. 31; Zapisnaia knizhka A. P. Bakhrushina. Kto chto sobiraet, pp. 21, 64–67 and 122 (notes by M. Tsiavlovskii). 170   Iz zapisnoi knizhki A. P. Bakhrushina. Kto chto sobiraet, p. 65. 171  See Katalog vystavki VIII arkheologicheskogo s”ezda v Moskve, 1890 god (Moscow, 1890). Zala 4. Sobranie rukopisei, knig staroi pechati, ikon i krestov I. L. Silina. Sostavil V. Shchepkin, pp. 13–26. 172  Ibid., p. 16, no. 41. 173  For a list of these icons, see A. Uspenskii, “Perevody s drevnikh ikon iz sobraniia V. P. Gur’ianova,” in MoskTsV (1902), no. 16–17, pp. 215–18. 174  See USSR. Drevnie russkie ikony. Published by UNESCO, New York-Milan (1958), table XXV; V. I. Antonova, N. E. Mneva, Katalog drevnerusskoi zhivopisi, vol. I, no. 233.

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and 1427 probably with the participation of Andrei Rublev and the artists of his school. The names Silin and, to a degree, Postnikov open up a list of collections owned, to follow Bakhrushin’s classification, by antiquaries and tradesmen, rather than by pure collectors. Bakhrushin observed, with a tinge of contempt toward Silin, “Though he says that he collects works of art there is nothing that he holds dear: just give him an extravagant price and take whatever icon, book, or manuscript you like.”175 When Pavel Tretyakov, expanding his gallery of nineteenth-century paintings, began to acquire works of medieval Russian art, Silin sold him eight small icons of Tretyakov own choice for 22,000 rubles.176 It dealt a final blow to any pretensions he had as a collector: for him it was trade. The Bol’shakovs (father and son), Tikhon Fedorovich (1794–1863)177 and Sergei Tikhonovich (1842–1906),178 were also antiquaries. They won themselves a name as dealers in manuscripts and early printed books rather than icons. Tikhon Fedorovich was already in business when the older generation of collectors like N. P. Rumiantsev, F. A. Tolstoi, P. M. Stroev, V. M. Undol’skii, and M. P. Pogodin were forming their collections. Those who were acquainted with Tikhon Fedorovich always spoke highly of him because, among antiquaries of this kind, no one seemed to know manuscripts and early printed books better. Sergei Tikhonovich revered the memory of his father: in 1863–64, he sold the main and most valuable part of the senior Bolshakov’s library to the Rumiantsev Museum at a low price and entered the remaining part in an exhibition of Russian antiquities in Moscow in 1890. The greatest work of the Bol’shakovs’ collection was a sixteenth-century illuminated manuscript with scenes from the life of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker, the lithographed edition of which was published by the Moscow Society of Lovers of Ancient Literature

175   Iz zapisnoi knizhki A. P. Bakhrushina. Kto chto sobiraet, p. 21. 176  Ibid., pp. 65–67. 177  See Iz zapisnoi knizhki A. P. Bakhrushina. Kto chto sobiraet, pp. 117–22 (notes by M. Tsiavlovskii, with the reprinted article about T. F. Bol’shakov written by P. A. Bezsonov (Bessonov) in 1863, and with a list of literature about him in other editions); RBS, [III]. Betancour-Biakster (St. Petersburg, 1908), pp. 207–208; G. P. Georgievskii, Rukopisi T. F. Bol’shakova, khraniashchiesia v imp. Moskovskom i Rumiantsevskom muzee (Petrograd, 1915), pp. v–vI; Rukopisnye sobraniia Gos. Biblioteki SSSR imeni V. I. Lenina. Ukazatel’, vol. 1, issue 1 (1862–1917) (Moscow, 1984), pp. 77–83 (the article by S. N. Travnikov and Iu. D. Rykov, a list of the old literature). 178   Iz zapisnoi knizhki A. P. Bakhrushina. Kto chto sobiraet, pp. 57, 58, and 117, 121, 122 (notes by M. Tsiavlovskii); Vospominaniia P. I. Shchukina, part 3, p. 22 and part 5, pp. 30, 32.

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in 1882.179 Another manuscript of artistic workmanship, a seventeenth-century illuminated icon-painters’ manual which repeated the Stroganov version of the manual, was also an important source for researchers.180 The Bol’shakovs valued icons and embroidery less than manuscripts and printed books, but their collection contained some remarkable works of art in those categories, too: thus, from the Bol’shakov collection there is a large embroidered icon of the Vernicle with angels and saints (dated 1389), later bought by Shchukin, and also some noteworthy icons on wooden panels, although they date from the sixteenth and seventeenth century181 and not from the twelfth and thirteenth century as indicated in the printed catalogue of the collection.182 The growth of multi-purpose private museums and specialized collections of icons required the systematic acquisition of all kinds of antiquities in both the capital cities and the provinces. Dozens of big and small tradesmen habitually scoured Yaroslavl, Novgorod, Vologda, and Archangel provinces for church antiquities and ancient relics of domestic use. As reported by one of the St. Petersburg journals, already in the mid-1880s icons, manuscripts, and early printed books were being acquired on a large scale for N. M. Postnikov and P. P. Shibanov.183 Small suppliers did not have their own customers and sold their merchandise to the owners of icon shops and bookshops such as N. M. Postnikov, I. F. Silin, T. E. and S. T. Bol’shakov, N. F. Dubrovin, E. P. Maslennikova, M. P. Vostriakov, M. M. Savostin, and P. P. Shibanov either in Moscow or at the Nizhnii Novgorod Fair. These individuals in turn resold the goods to wealthy customers at higher prices. Bakhrushin and Shchukin, knew the antique 179  For this matter, see the previous chapter, p. 166. 180   Podlinnik ikonopisnyi (published by S. T. Bolshakov, ed. by A. I. Uspenskii) (Moscow, 1904). 181  See Arkheologicheskaia vystavka v Moskve. Sobranie T. F. Bolshakova (Moscow, 1890). 182  A. I. Uspenskii, “Interesnye pamiatniki ikonopisi,” in Drevnosti. Trudy MAO, vol. XIX, issue 3 (1902), pp. 116–20. There is also a separate edition of this article. Two seventeenthcentury icons are published, one of which was evidently painted in the St. Cyril of Belozersk Monastery and presented to N. G. Stroganov by Hegumen Matfei in 1614. It would be not out of place to mention here a representative of the third generation of the Bolshakovs—Nikolai Sergeevich. In 1938 the Tretyakov Gallery bought from him the Archangel Michael Trampling the Devil, a rare icon painted by Simon Ushakov in 1676. Two more of his icons, the sixteenth-century St Nicholas of Zaraisk with Scenes from His Life and Theodore Stratilates with Selected Saints painted by F. E. Zubov about 1662, passed to the collection of P. D. Korin. See V. I. Antonova, N. E. Mneva, Katalog drevnerusskoi zhivopisi, vol. II, no. 920, ill. 145; V. I. Antonova, Drevnerusskoe iskusstvo v sobranii Pavla Korina, nos. 55 and 82, ills. 73, 98, and 99. 183   Izograf. Zhurnal ikonografii i drevnikh khudozhestv, izdavaemyi I. Ia. Krasnitskim, vol. I, issues XI and XII (St. Petersburg, 1886), p. 84.

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business in Moscow well. Shchukin knew the market in the provinces, too, and they provide interesting information on dealing and dealers in antiques.184 The antique market abounded not only in rare artworks but also in rare personalities, connections, and incidents. Bakhrushin devoted several pages of his notebook to P. M. Ivanov, the manufacturer of fakes; “He has few scruples and I think all Moscow antique dealers have none at all. Indeed, they cannot have any because this business is worse than the horse-dealing of gypsies, and it is common knowledge that a horse-dealer thinks nothing of cheating his own father.”185 Swindling, counterfeiting, and thefts were commonplace. Wild rumors spread, for example, about the origin of many early Russian works from the miscellaneous Moscow collection of I. M. Zaitsevskii.186 In any case there is some reason to believe that the owner of this “amazing collection,” as the antiquary Savostin put it, one of the best in Moscow, contained quite a few objects stolen from the Kremlin cathedrals during repairs and restorations in the second half of the nineteenth century.187 Here it is an appropriate place to mention N. S. Leskov. In the late twentieth century journalists, writers, artists, and literary critics popularized Russian icons and medieval Russian culture in general. The professional concerns of most of these individuals (among whom are the writer V. A. Soloukhin, the painters N. V. Kuz’min and T. A. Mavrina, and the historian of literature, Academician D. S. Likhachev) are not concentrated on medieval Russian art. In the nineteenth century, it was different: a genuine interest in the art of Rus’ had just arisen, and only a few people ventured to discuss it in the pages of newspapers and journals. The writer Nikolai Semenovich Leskov was one of the first to do so. It is impossible to say definitively why he turned to this subject, but several facts of his biography were probably conducive to it. He lived from 1849 to 1861 in Kiev, a city rich in historical relics. He was acquainted (through the editorial office of Russkaia Rech) and met often with F. I. Buslaev. He had an interest in the life-style of dissenters. He supervised schools entrusted to him by the Ministry of Education, and he traveled across Russia meeting “the people 184   Iz zapisnoi knizhki A. P. Bakhrushina. Kto chto sobiraet, pp. 48–68; P. I. Shchukin, Kratkoe opisanie Shchukinskogo muzeia (Moscow, 1895), pp. 110, 111; Vospominaniia P. I. Shchukina, part 5, pp. 30–33 and 35. 185   Iz zapisnoi knizhki A. P. Bakhrushina. Kto chto sobiraet, p. 56. 186   On him, see “Chastnyi muzei drevnostei Zaitsevskogo v Khlebnom pereulke,” in Khudozhestvennyi zhurnal (May, 1887), pp. 332, 333; Vospominaniia P. I. Shchukina, part 4 (Moscow, 1912), pp. 26 and 40–42; Iz zapisnoi knizhki A. P. Bakhrushina. Kto chto sobiraet, pp. 45–47 and 113–116 (notes by M. Tsiavlovskii). 187  See V. I. Antonova, Drevnerusskoe iskusstvo v sobranii Pavla Korina. pp. 44, 45.

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of old piety.” Leskov’s insight eventually led him to write an essay focused on artistic antiquities. In doing this, he benefited greatly from his friendship with the icon painter and restorer Nikita Sevast’ianovich Racheiskii (Racheikov), who kept a small workshop on Vasil’ievskii Island in St. Petersburg. Leskov’s story, The Painted Angel, was written entirely, according to Leskov, “in Nikita’s hot and stuffy workshop.” Published in Russkii Vestnik in 1873 (and dedicated, by the way, to Buslaev), the story was a tremendous success.188 Afterwards Leskov said, not without humor, that “Katkov printed it, Tsar Alexander II praised [it], and so did the tsaritsa who sent over the adjutant-general to express appreciation.”189 And it was really so: the aristocrats close to the court flocked to Racheiskii, vying with one another to have an icon with the “angel.”190 In short, the story renewed a love for antiquity, and the fact that the royal family was pleased with it caught the public’s attention. Leskov, in turn, did his best to nourish this interest in icon painting and its practitioners with a series of short stories, notes, and articles published in various newspapers and journals between 1873 and 1895.191 In The Trifles of a Prelate’s Life (1879),192 his main characters are already familiar to us: Metropolitan Filaret, the restorers of frescoes F. G. Solntsev, M. S. Peshekhonov, and Father Irinarkh, and the connoisseurs and collectors of icons V. A. Prokhorov, A. P. Murav’ev, and Porfirii Uspenskii. Taking into account Leskov’s ever-increasing popularity, there is no 188  For the historical background and the reaction of critics and general public, see I. Z. Serman’s commentaries in N. S. Leskov, Sobranie sochinenii v 11-ti tomakh, vol. 4 (Moscow, 1957), pp. 541–45. See also I. A. Shliapkin, “K biografii N. S. Leskova,” in Russkaia starina (December, 1895), December, pp. 208 and 211. 189  N. S. Leskov, Sobranie sochinenii v 11-ti tomakh, vol. II (Moscow, 1958), p. 351 (a letter of 3 October 1887, to S. N. Shubinskii). 190  N. Leskov, “O khudozhnem muzhe Nikite i sovospitannykh emu,” in Novoe vremia (25 December 188.6 no. 3889, pp. 1–2. 191  See in particular “O russkoi ikonopisi,” in Russkii mir, 26 September (8 October 1873), no. 254, pp. 1, 2 (reprinted in Sobranie sochinenii v 11-ti tomakh, vol. 10 (Moscow, 1958), pp. 179–87), “Adopisnye ikony,” Ibid., 24 July (5 August 1873), no. 192, pp. 1, 2 (with the comments on this article written and edited by an unknown person in the same newspaper of 13/25 August, no. 211, p. 1); “Zametka po khlamovedeniiu,” in Novosti i birzhevaia gazeta, 26 October (7 November 1882), no. 284, p. 1; “Blagorazumnyi razboinik,” in Khudozhestvennyi zhurnal (March 1883), pp. 191–98; “Diva ne budet,” in Peterburgskaia gazeta, 5 November 1884, no. 305, p. 1; “Khristos-mladenets i blagorazumnyi razboinik,” in Gazeta A. Gatsuka, vol. X, 12 May 1884, no. 18, pp. 304–306; “O khudozhnem muzhe Nikite i o sovospitannykh emu” (see note 190) and other works. For the general introduction to the subject, see A. A. Gorelov,” O “vizantiiskikh” legendakh Leskova,” in Russkaia lit[eratura] (1883), no. 1, pp. 119–33. 192  N. S. Leskov, Sobranie sochinenii v II-ti tomakh, vol. 6 (Moscow, 1957), pp. 398–538.

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Portrait of Nikolai Semenovich Leskov (1831–95), by Valentin Serov, 1894. Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow.

doubt that his publications were instrumental in disseminating knowledge of Russian antiquity among the wider circles of society. The Painted Angel, in any case, has been read and is still being read by many, with each reader learning something about the enchanting power of medieval Russian painting. We now pass to exhibitions. Most specialists in the history of medieval Russian painting are convinced that the first exhibition of medieval Russian art took place in Moscow in 1913 on the tercentenary of the imperial house of Romanov. This opinion, however, is erroneous. In fact, such exhibitions began at an earlier date. It took quite a long time to attract the attention of the educated public to ecclesiastical art, which by common belief did not deserve the name of art. But eventually, church archaeology ceased to be an object of study only for the select few. Beginning in the second half of the nineteenth century the general public also came to understand that, though dark with age,

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icons and mosaics were a source of information for the inquisitive mind and a vision of beauty for the sensitive soul not entirely lacking in faith. It does not seem at all strange that a growing interest in the national past of Russia abroad stimulated a similar interest among Russians. In 1867 at the World Exhibition in Paris, the Russian pavilion attracted thousands of people, largely due to the display of various handicrafts and the art and history division of the exhibition. This section had been formed with the participation of G. D. Filimonov who, long before the opening of the exhibition, had been officially entrusted with the task of competently selecting the best antiquities for Paris. It should be noted, however, that the broadly conceived project was not implemented in full because the Church, in the person of Metropolitan Filaret, was against sending “the Orthodox sacred relics” to the commercial exhibition,193 and Filaret closed to Filimonov the vestries of churches and monasteries—the main sources for the selection of objects required for the exhibition. Copies, drawings, and replicas had to be made instead.194 For this reason, the works exhibited in Paris were Martynov’s sketches of Nereditsa’s frescoes and images on the shrouds of saints; his drawing from the excellently preserved sixteenth-century iconostasis in the Nativity Chapel of the St. Sophia Cathedral in Novgorod; the copies from the icons The Praying Novgorodians and The Battle Between the Men of Novgorod and the Men of Suzdal; and some other works of historical interest. The selection of original pieces was comparatively small and included several dozen icons, mostly from the sixteenth and seventeenth century, which Filimonov selected from the Public Museum and the Rumiantsev Museum, and from the private collections of A. E. Sorokin and V. A. Prokhorov. But even in such a curtailed form (for lack of original works) the Russian antiquities made a strong impression in Paris, and many exhibits of the Russian pavilion, particularly the excellent drawings by N. A. Martynov received medals and honorary diplomas. The 1867 World Exhibition in Paris was not the last international show of Russian antiquities. But none of the similar exhibitions in the second half of the nineteenth century had any impact on the study of medieval art. Retrospective shows of icons in Russian pavilions were regarded as exotica rather than art in 193   See “Mnenie mitropolita Filareta (ot 30 maia 1866 goda) po povodu namereniia Arkheologicheskogo obshchestva otpravit’ na Parizhskuiu vystavku 1867 goda tserkovnye drevnosti iz monastyrskikh i tserkovnykh riznits i knigokhranilishch. Soobshchil arkhim. Leonid,” in RA (1885), no. 6, pp. 291–93. 194  For G. D. Filimonov’s reports on the preparatory works and on the exhibition itself, see Vestnik Obshchestva drevnerusskogo iskusstva pri Moskovskom Publichnom muzee (1875), nos. 6–10, official section, pp. 45–77.

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the true sense of the word. By contrast, exhibitions in Russia were quite different in concept, and their influence went deep. For a long time the best exhibitions were held during archaeological congresses. Not a single congress, whoever convened it, did without a show of objects linked with the history of the area where the congress convened. Among exhibits were finds unearthed during excavations, drafts, drawings, watercolors, paintings, manuscripts, and all sorts of church objects. The number of church objects varied, and not all the congresses could be credited with giving church antiquities a fitting place at exhibitions. At some congresses, however, church antiquities made up the most salient exhibits. Such was the Eighth Archaeological Congress held in Moscow in January 1890.195 The opening ceremony and sessions of the congress attended by 380 delegates took place in the Moscow Historical Museum, where an extremely rich exhibition was installed in eleven spacious rooms. It was timed for the twentyfifth anniversary of the Moscow Archaeological Society and, as Moscow and its province were renowned not only for their churches and monasteries but also for collectors of church antiquities, the character of the exhibition seemed to determine itself. The private collections of T. F. Bol’shakov, A. S. Uvarov, I. L. Silin, N. M. Postnikov, S. A. Egorov (formerly Lobkov’s), and I. M. Zaitsevskii set the tone of the show; Postnikov had two museum rooms in which to display a large portion of his many-thousand-strong collection of antiquities. Next to it, three official museums, the Tver Museum, the Riazan Museum, and the Moscow Historical Museum, placed their best works: icons, embroidery, manuscripts, and church plate. The Church Archaeological Museum at the Kiev Ecclesiastical Academy and the repository of ancient relics at the Alexander Nevskii Brotherhood in Vladimir sent individual items. And, finally, the organizing committee delivered a fair number of remarkable pieces from church vestries in Moscow and elsewhere.196 As a result, this exhibition surpassed all previous congresses or similar venues in nineteenth-century Russia.

195   See E. Shmurlo, “Vos’moi arkheologicheskii s”ezd (9-go-24 ianvaria 1890 goda)” (St. Petersburg, 1890) (=ZhMNP [May, 1890], section Sovremennaia letopis’, pp. 1–47; June, pp. 83–146). 196  See “Obshchii perechen’ vystavki,” in Trudy VIII AS v Moskve, 1890, vol. IV (Moscow, 1897), pp. 241, 242.

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The organizers not only mounted a comprehensive display but also provided catalogues which, along with scholarly reviews, give a good idea of the works presented at the Moscow Historical Museum.197 Visitors and specialists alike took particular notice of the icons from Postnikov’s and Silin’s collections. Both men were constantly present at the exhibition, and interpreted the works as necessary. Everyone who cared about Russian icons visited the show. Here and there disputes sprang up about manners, schools, styles, masters, rare iconographic variants, and the dating of icons. Recent transfers of icons from one collection to another were also widely discussed: collectors tried to keep track of the best, most famous specimens which often changed hands, moving from one chapel to another. Common folk, men of the street, tradesmen, Old Believers, icon painters, and clergymen mingled with aristocrats and scholars, and everyone tried to mentally digest this immeasurable treasure gathered in one place for the first time. Here, too, enterprising collector-dealers looked for buyers, while buyers listened attentively to connoisseurs’ opinions, and cautiously inquired about prices. And the prices went up as never before: Pavel Tretyakov, who was looking to buy old Russian icons for his gallery from Silin’s collection, had to pay 5,000 rubles for a small image of the Virgin Eleusa, 8,000 for a triptych In Thee Rejoiceth, and 9,000 for an icon of the Resurrection of Christ.198 One can be sure that items bought by Shchukin from the Bol’shakov and Zaitsevskii collections entailed real investments. The exhibition of 1890 was striking not only in its scope but because it included so many genuine originals. Among these were a large embroidered icon of 1389 with the Vernicle in the middle; two late fifteenth-century shrouds from the workshop of Elena Voloshanka; an excellent shroud with the Dormition of 197   Katalog vystavki VIII arheologicheskogo s’ezda v Moskve, (Moscow, 1890). The description of exhibits is arranged according to their location in the museum rooms and every time has a different pagination. See also N. Pokrovskii, “Tserkovnaia starina na vystavke VIII arkheologicheskogo s’ezda v Moskve,” in TsV (1890), no. 6, pp. 99–101 and no. 7, pp. 116, 117; D. V. Ainalov, “Vystavka VIII-go arkheologicheskogo s’ezda v Moskve v 1890 g.,” VestnII, vol. VIII, issue 2 (St. Petersburg, 1890), pp. 104–17; E. K. Redin, “Vystavka VIII-go arkheologicheskogo s”ezda v Moskve v 1890 g. Pamiatniki drevnerusskogo iskusstva,” VestnII, vol. VIII, issue 3, pp. 211–24; E. K. Redin, “Tserkovnye drevnosti,” in Trudy VIII AS v Moskve (1890), vol. IV, pp. 207–19; “Opisaniia tablits,” Ibid., pp. 226–40. The description of icons from S. A. Egorov’s collection was not included in the catalogue because it was submitted directly before the opening of the exhibition. 198  See N. P. Likhachev, Kratkoe opisanie ikon sobraniia P. M. Tret’iakova (Moscow, 1905), pp. 5, 30 and 35, 36 (nos. 6, 35 and 45).

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Figure 7.17 Embroidery of Christ, angels, apostles, and saints, 1389. From the collection of P. I. Shchukin. State Historical Museum, Moscow.

Figure 7.18

Shroud, 1444, Donated by Prince Dmitri Shemiaka to Yurev Monastery in Novgorod. Novgorod State Museum Preserve.

the Virgin from the workshop of Ivan the Terrible’s aunt, Evfrosiniia Staritskaia; sixteenth- and seventeenth-century palls embroidered with the images of Russian saints; a sixteenth-century illuminated Life of St. John the Theologian from Bol’shakov’s collection; a late sixteenth-century illuminated Psalter from Silin’s collection; icons bearing the signature of Simon Ushakov; and dozens

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of other works untouched by restorers. Works of Byzantine art also graced the exhibition: for example, an encaustic sixth-century icon of Man-Martyr and Woman-Martyr and an early fourteenth-century mosaic icon of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker, which had once belonged to Porfirii Uspenskii, were sent from Kiev. As to the number and value of original artworks displayed at archaeological congresses, the exhibition organized on the initiative of E. K. Redin in Kharkov in 1902, is the only one that can compare with the Moscow show of 1890. The Twelfth Archaeological Congress was the occasion of the Kharkov exhibition, but here, in keeping with the subjects discussed and the site of the congress, Ukrainian antiquities dominated.199 The same was also true of the Fourteenth Congress in Chernigov.200 At other congresses, except for the Fifteenth Congress in Novgorod, which we plan to discuss in a subsequent volume, medieval Russian painting was not shown at all or was represented either by copies and photographs or by isolated specimens of the miniaturist’s art, icon painting, and embroidery. Thus, for example, in 1884 at the Sixth Congress in Odessa A. V. Prakhov exhibited his copies of mosaics from St. Sophia Cathedral and copies of frescoes from the Church of St. Cyril in Kiev.201 Displayed at the Seventh Archaeological Congress in Yaroslavl were illuminated manuscripts from the vestry of the local archbishops’ house, the illuminated Uglich Psalter of 1485, and an early eighteenth-century illuminated Life of Tsarevich Dimitrii sent from the Public Library of St. Petersburg.202 In 1893, in Vilna, V. V. Suslov 199  E. K. Redin, Katalog vystavki XII arkheologicheskogo s”ezda v g. Kharkove. Otdel tserkovnykh drevnostei (Kharkov, 1902); Al’bom vystavki XII arkheologicheskogo s”ezda v g. Kharkove. Edited with comments by E. K. Redin, (Moscow, 1903). 200  A. Beletskii, Otdel tserkovnykh drevnostei na XIV-m arkheologicheskom s”ezde v Chernigove (Kharkov, 1909); Countess P. S. Uvarova, “Tserkovnyi otdel vystavki Chernigovskogo arkheologicheskogo s”ezda,” in Trudy XIV AS v Chernigove, 1908, vol. II (Moscow, 1911), pp. 48–121, 140–42, tables XII–XIX, XXI. Among the few Russian objects exhibited at this show was the embroidered epitaphion made in 1466 by Elena Yaroslavna, the wife of Prince Mikhail Andreevich of Vereia, and only because the epitaphion was preserved in Poltava and not in Vereia. See V. Tripol’skii, Poltavskoe eparkhialnoe drevlekhranilishche. Ukazatel’ s opisaniem vydaiushchikhsia pis’mennykh i veshchestvennykh pamiatnikov tserkovnoi stariny Poltavskoi eparkhii (Poltava, 1909), with the table in the beginning of the index. The epitaphion came to the Poltava repository of antiquities from the church in the village of Sulimovka, Pereiaslavl uezd. 201  N. Pokrovskii, “Shestoi arkheologicheskii s”ezd v Odesse (Pamiatniki khristianstva),” in KhCh (January-February, 1885), pp. 202, 203; “Arkheologicheskaia vystavka VI-go s”ezda,” in Trudy VI AS v Odesse (1884 g.), vol. I (Odessa, 1886), p. LXXIV. 202  Countess [P. S.] Uvarova, Katalog riznitsy Spaso-Preobrazhenskogo monastyria v Yaroslavle (Moscow, 1887), pp. 4–5, tables 3 and 4; S. O. Dolgov, “Opisanie Evangeliia XIII v., prinadlezhashchego Iaroslavskomu Arkhiereiskomu domu,” in Trudy VII-go AS v Yaroslavle,

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showed regular and tracing-paper copies of the Mirozh frescoes,203 and in 1899, at the Eleventh Congress in Kiev, V. T. Georgievskii exhibited his photographs of such antiquities of Suzdal’ as the south and west golden doors of the Nativity Cathedral; icons from the Intercession Nunnery remarkable for their painting and decoration; embroidery with the images of saints from the vestry of the Monastery of the Deposition of the Robe.204 Although it may seem that these shows do not bear comparison with the 1890 Moscow exhibition, the importance of such displays as were held in Vilna or Kiev should not be underestimated. Copies and photographs exhibited at the Ninth and Eleventh Congress gave viewers for the first time an idea of the mural painting and iconography of northeastern Russia, renowned for its art in earlier centuries. This art had never before left the small churches of out-of-the-way towns. Finally, it would not be out of place to say that study on location often compensated for the lack of original works at exhibitions. The organizers of congresses arranged tours and took care that relics kept in local churches would be accessible to delegates. Thus, for example, the lack of exhibits with church antiquities at the Seventh Archaeological Congress in Yaroslavl did not prevent participants from seeing them: tours were arranged around Yaroslavl, to neighboring Rostov and Romanov-Borisoglebsk,205 and also to the Tolg monastery whose numerous churches were extremely rich in murals, icons, and church plate. In the second half of the nineteenth century there were no exhibitions devoted solely to medieval Russian painting. At best, exhibitions included ecclesiastical art in general, but often, next to icons and manuscripts, one could also see primitive flint implements, antique marbles, artifacts excavated from Scythian and Slavonic burial mounds, and the miscellaneous “detritus” of ancient cultures. Even the exhibition at the Eighth Archaeological Congress was no exception. Next to the collections of Postnikov, Silin, and other collections there were large quantities of artifacts of other periods and cultures. Finally, at the end of the nineteenth century a more specific approach had evolved, and in December 1898 in St. Petersburg an exhibition of church antiquities opened 1887, vol. III (Moscow, 1892), pp. 52–84, tables XXV and XXVI; Opisanie rukopisei imp. Publichnoi biblioteki, dostavlennykh na vystavku pri VII arkheologicheskom s”ezde v Iaroslvale (Yaroslavl, 1887), pp. 1–6, no. 1 and pp. 15–18, no. 5 (Pogod. 715). 203   Trudy IX AS v Vilne, 1893, vol. II (Moscow, 1897), minutes, p. 42. 204  See I. M. Kamanin, Kratkii perechen’ rukopisei i staropechatnykh knig na vystavke XI-go arkheologicheskogo s”ezda [Kiev, 1899], pp. 21–23, no. 1–130. 205  Iv. Nedoumov, “O poseshchenii Rostova chlenami VII arkheologicheskogo s”ezda,” in TsV, 1887, unofficial section, no. 34 (August 22), pp. 559–61.

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at the Archaeological Institute at the corner of Inzhenernaia and Sadovaia streets. Icons prevailed and evidently for this reason the St. Petersburg exhibition was officially called artistic-archaeological.206 The icons came from the institute’s museum and from individuals.207 Unlike the Moscow show, where the collections were separated from one another, the exhibits in St. Petersburg were arranged chronologically in order to demonstrate the evolution of ecclesiastical painting. First came icons of the Novgorodian school,comprising works dated up to the sixteenth century; then followed examples of the Moscow school from the sixteenth and seventeenth century; and last came works of the transitional period from the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century. Icons were presented with their decorative metalwork along with cast copper pendants, crosses, and specimens of embroidery and enamel. Icons of the so-called Cretan school from N. P. Likhachev’s collection (which apparently included pieces of Byzantine origin proper and post-Byzantine icons of mixed origin) supplemented the exhibition. At the turn of the twentieth century Russian icons gradually found their way into general art exhibitions. When the Moscow Society of Lovers of Art organized two exhibitions of the representations of Christ and the Mother of God in 1896 and 1897, no one thought it strange to ask for original works and even copies of medieval Russian art. Such exhibits came from the Moscow Historical Museum, the Russian Archaeological Society, the Academy of Arts, and from private collectors, among whom were Countess P. S. Uvarova and Grand Duke Sergei Aleksandrovich.208 Furthermore, at the 1896 exhibition, Professor D. V. Ainalov of Kazan University and Professor A. I. Kirpichnikov of Novorossiisk University delivered special lectures: “The Images of Christ in Art” and “The 206   A IZ (1898), no. 11–12, pp. 389, 390; A. E. M[almgren], “Vystavka Arkheologicheskogo instituta v S.-Peterburge,” AIZ (1899), no. 1–2, pp. 21–26; Trudy VlUAK, I (Vladimir, 1899), chronicle, p. 29 (the reprint of the report from Novoe Vremia); VAI, XII (1899), pp. 10 and 12, 13 (from the report of the institute for 1898–99). The exhibition was held from 20 December 20 1898, to 17 January 17 1899. 207  This museum was not rich, though, in works of medieval Russian art. See N. Pokrovskii, “Tridtsatiletniaia godovshchina imp. Arkheologicheskogo instituta,” in VAI, XVIII (1909), p. 24. 208  See S. S., “Moskovskaia vystavka izobrazhenii Khrista,” in AIZ (1896), no. 7–8, pp. 213–15, tables VI–VIII; Tridtsat’ shestoi otchet Komiteta … Obshchestva liubitelei khudozhestv za 1896 god (Moscow, 1897), pp. 14, 15, and 16–20; Tridtsat’ sed’moi otchet Komiteta … Obshchestva liubitelei khudozhestv za 1897 god (Moscow, 1898), p. (?); Protokoly zasedanii imp. RAO za 1897 g. (St. Petersburg, 1899), p. 6; Drevnosti. Trudy MAO, vol. XVIII, 1901, report … for 1896– 1897, pp. 3, 15; Drevnosti. Trudy Komissii po sokhraneniiu drevnikh pamiatnikov imp. MAO, vol. I (Moscow, 1907), pp. xXXIV–xXXV.

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Explanation of Some Iconographic Compositions with the Representation of the Savior.” The audience showed such great interest in the lectures of these two well-known scholars of medieval art that, as evidenced by the report of the 1896 exhibition organizing committee, the hall of the Society could not hold all those wishing to attend.209

209   Tridtsat’ shestoi otchet Komiteta … Obshchestva liubitelei khudozhestv za 1896 god, pp. 14, 15. There is evidence that similar lectures were delivered at the exhibition of 1897 as well. See A. Kirpichnikov, “Istoricheskii obzor ikonopisnykh izobrazhenii Bogomateri,” in ZhMNP (July 1897), p. 45, notes.

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Academy and University Scholarship Medieval Russian painting as reflected in the Proceedings of the Second Department of the Academy of Sciences. I. I. Sreznevskii. Descriptions of manuscript collections and single codices as a source for the study of Byzantine and Russian miniatures. V. N. Shchepkin’s views on the illuminated manuscripts. Chairs of the history of art in metropolitan and provincial universities. N. P. Kondakov. The Odessa period of his life and work: from classical archaeology to the history of Byzantine art. Kondakov’s contemporaries. The St. Petersburg period of Kondakov’s life and work: from Byzantine to Russian antiquities. The importance of his report “On the scholarly Objectives of the History of Medieval Russian Art.” V. V. Stasov. His articles on art. The atlas The Slavonic and Eastern Ornament in Ancient and Modern Manuscripts (1887). Problems of art and literature in works by A. I. Kirpichnikov. Church archaeology as a subject of study and teaching in theological academies. I. D. Mansvetov, A. A. Dmitrievskii, A. P. Golubtsov. N. V. Pokrovskii and his iconographic investigations. Art issues in E. E. Golubinskii’s History of the Russian Church. E. K. Redin and D. V. Ainalov. Conclusion Rarely did the Academy of Sciences in Russia recognize the history of art as an academic science. A negative attitude to art studies comes, in part, from the fact that the representatives of exact and applied sciences, who were ordinarily elected as presidents and vice-presidents of the Academy of Sciences, have never reckoned the history of art as a scholarly discipline. In their view, it has been the subject of unbiased, poorly verified, and often downright useless research. It is for this reason that the history of art in Russia has mainly been explored in archaeological societies, clubs, and committees, in universities, the Academy of Arts, the Academy of the History of Material Culture, at art schools and various museums, at institutes of art studies and conservation, and in restoration workshops. The policy of bringing under one roof the problems of conservation and the history of art was unfortunate: it lowered the level of the science of art criticism and art history. Hence, academics became more convinced of their opinion that the study of art was not a serious branch of science but one practiced by amateurs and those interested in interpreting culture rather than bona fide scholars. Despite the Academy’s officially negative stand on art and art criticism, by the irony of fate the history of medieval Russian art took root precisely on “academic” © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���8 | doi ��.��63/9789004305274_009

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Figure 8.1 Izmail Ivanovich Sreznevskii (1812–80).

soil. It has ties of kinship with such long-established academic disciplines as the history of literature, philology, archaeology, archaeography, and palaeology. In 1841, the Russian Academy, which had previously functioned as an independent institution aimed at sustaining the purity of the Russian language and literature, was affiliated to the Academy of Sciences, in which it emerged as the Second Department, or the Department of the Russian Language and Literature.1 At first, the members of the new department—with some exceptions such as A. Kh. Vostokov—were overshadowed by those in established fields. Things took a new turn in 1847 when a young and energetic professor I. I. Sreznevskii arrived from Kharkov. He was made an assistant professor and soon became an academician. He initiated the publishing of the Proceedings and Transactions of the Second Department and from 1867 onward, after the suspension of the first two editions, issued the Miscellanies, which continued to appear until 1928, forming an invaluable series of more than one hundred substantial volumes.2 And, finally, after Sreznevskii’s death the same department organized—not without the influence of his first undertaking—the publication of the new Proceedings: these came out annually in four books from 1896 to 1917, and in two books from 1918 to 1927. As a whole, the periodicals of the Department of the Russian Language and Literature constitute a veritable library of Slavonic and Russian philology: apart from special publications, which included a three-volume edition of works by F. I. Buslaev and such capital monographs as the two-volume Iconography of the Virgin by 1  See: [Ja. K. Grooth], Piatidesiatiletie Otdeleniia russkogo iazyka i slovesnosti imp. Akademii nauk. 1841–1891, St. Petersburg, 1892. 2  V. I. Sreznevskii, K istorii izdaniia Izvestii i Uchenykh zapisok Vtorogo otdeleniia imp. Akademii nauk (1852–1863), St. Petersburg, 1905.

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N. P. Kondakov, the Department issued, from 1851 to 1928, 150 works constituting 250 separate books and fascicles. Going through this colossal collection of books, one immediately notices many articles directly or indirectly dealing with art.3 Mention should first of all be made of articles and brief notes on illuminated manuscripts since these manuscripts display a remarkable blending of word and image which so much attracts the philologist. In this respect, too, Sreznevskii set the tone. In the long history of the Department of the Russian Language and Literature, whose ranks boasted many celebrated names, such as A. A. Shakhmatov and A. I. Sobolevskii, it was Sreznevskii who pioneered the study of art based on manuscripts. Izmail Ivanovich Sreznevskii (1812–80) began his career as a scholar by taking a course in statistics at Kharkov University.4 His interests soon shifted toward Slavic antiquities, and for his effort in this field he was the first in Russia to receive a doctorate in philology. It was only in the 1850s, however, after he had moved to St. Petersburg, that he found his true vocation in the study of Russian literature and language. The libraries and museums of St. Petersburg provided Sreznevskii with the source material which he lacked in Kharkov. It was in those years that the 3  For familiarizing with their contents, see the following indexes: “Sistematicheskii ukazatel’ statei, napechatannykh v Izvestiiakh i Uchenykh zapiskakh Vtorogo otdeleniia imp. Akademii nauk (1852–1863),” in V. I. Sreznevskii, K istorii izdaniia Izvestii i Uchenykh zapisok …, pp. 63–133; Ukazatel’ avtorov i ikh statei, napechatannykh v Izvestiiakh Otdeleniia russkogo iazyka i slovesnosti za vse vremia sushchestvovaniia etogo izdaniia s 1896 g. po 1927 g., vols. I–XXXII, Leningrad, 1928. See also: Katalog izdanii Otdeleniia russkogo iazyka i slovesnosti imp. Akademii nauk (it was published repeatedly with the view of disseminating the Department’s editions through the trading network and the book exchange with scholarly societies; the Katalog’s last issue came out in Petrograd in February, 1917). 4  The best idea of him may be culled from the collected papers Pamiati Izmaila Ivanovicha Sreznevskogo (book 1, Petrograd, 1916), which contain all the material needed for an account of the scholar’s creative biography (given on pp. 333–406 is a list of 609 printed works, which are either devoted to I. I. Sreznevskii or refer to him in one way or other). For the most recent publications, provided with a new bibliography, see N. Kuz’minskii, “I. I. Sreznevskii. (K piatidesiatiletiiu so dnia konchiny),” in SK, III, 1929, pp. 288–292; Istoriia istoricheskoi nauki v SSSR. Dooktiabr’skii period. Bibliografiia, Moscow, 1965, pp. 592–594; M. G. Bulakhov, Vostochnoslavianskie iazykovedy. Biobibliograficheskii slovar’, vol. 1, Minsk, 1976, pp. 219–232; Slavianovedenie v dorevolutsionnoi Rossii. Biobibliograficheskii slovar’, Moscow, 1979, pp. 318– 321 (the entry by S. B. Bernstein and M. Yu. Dostal’); Russkoe i slavianskoe iazykoznanie v Rossii serediny XVIII–XIX vv. (v biograficheskikh ocherkakh i vospominaniiakh sovremennikov). Uchebnoe posobie, Leningrad, 1980, pp. 73–106; M. Yu. Dostal’, “Obshchestvenno-politicheskie vzgliady I. I. Sreznevskogo,” in Issledovaniia po istoriografii slavianovedeniia i balkanistiki, Moscow, 1981, pp. 191–214 (supplied with a general bibliography).

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Imperial Public Library added many new acquisitions to its manuscript collection, which contained the Ostromir Gospel and the small collection of the mining engineer P. K. Frolov. In 1830 the government purchased the collection of F. A. Tolstoi and in 1852 that of M. P. Pogodin, which were reputed for their particularly valuable artworks. Remarkable manuscripts were also kept in the Academy of Sciences and the Theological Academy. The latter obtained in 1859, by a special decree of the Synod, extensive libraries of Novgorod’s St. Sophia and the St Cyril of Belozersk Monastery. In 1861, also in St. Petersburg, a catalogue raisonné of the Rumiantsev Museum’s famous manuscripts was compiled by Vostokov, appearing only a few years before Sreznevskii’s arrival. But Sreznevskii did not confine himself to examining St. Petersburg libraries alone. In different years, he worked in the Synodal and Printing-House libraries; the Public Museum in Moscow; private book repositories; the Trinity-St. Sergius Monastery; in Kiev, Kazan, Nizhnii Novgorod, and Yaroslavl. In time he managed to examine well-nigh all notable specimens of Old Russian literature, making for himself the necessary descriptions, copies, excerpts, and annotations. Acting on his friends’ advice, and wishing to render the material thus collected easily accessible to the public, Sreznevskii published in 1863 a reference book entitled Ancient Monuments of Russian Writing and Language.5 It included works of literature and records of palaeography, manuscripts, and inscriptions. Art proper was given but a small space with no mention whatsoever of even such outstanding manuscripts as the Ostromir Gospel. At the same time, in his book Sreznevskii provided information on a great many artworks from an angle which had hitherto remained obscured even in professional investigations devoted to Russian painting: he examined various inscriptions, names of commissioners and scribes, artists and owners, the authentic or assumed dates of this or that manuscript, fresco, or icon. Using Sreznevskii’s directory, specialists in related fields could pass sound judgments on the chronological sequence of works, and set in order things that had been almost entirely obscured. Sreznevskii was the first to draw attention to many hitherto unknown works and supply reliable data on them. In his book, we find information on the 5  I. Sreznevskii, Drevnie pamiatniki russkogo pis’ma i iazyka (X–XIV vekov). Obshchee povremennoe obozrenie s paleograficheskimi ukazaniiami i vypiskami iz podlinnikov i iz drevnikh spiskov, St. Petersburg, 1863; I. Sreznevskii, Drevnie pamiatniki russkogo pis’ma i iazyka (X–XIV vekov). Prilozhenie: snimki s pamiatnikov, St. Petersburg, 1866. In 1882 and 1898, both of the above-cited editions were reprinted; however, the reference book of 1882 came out without the quotes (vypiski]) which accounted, roughly, for half the book; this is a rare case of downgrading the edition’s quality in its republication.

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Figure 8.2 Luke the Apostle in a miniature from Ostromir Gospel, 1056–57. Russian National Library. St. Petersburg.

1337 icon with the Savior Enthroned from the Annunciation Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin; on the 1338 St Basil’s Gate from the Intercession Cathedral in Alexandrov; and one of the first references to the 1397 illuminated Psalter. The plates of the appended atlas publish the lithographic reproductions of Christ Enthroned from the Sviatoslav Izbornik (Miscellany); the decorative compositions of the Yur’ev Gospel; a replica of the ktetor’s inscription accompanying the representation of Prince Yaroslav on a Nereditsa fresco; a photograph of representations of Sts. Pantaleimon and Catherine from the Gospel of Maxim Toshinich; and a copy of the afterword by the Deacon Spiridon from the Kievan Psalter. Despite the edition’s philological bias, its completeness and accuracy of description (in the part dealing with extant manuscripts) made Sreznevskii’s directory a felicitious supplement to the specialist reference book previously published by P. I. Keppen. It must also be pointed out that

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Sreznevskii, continued to work on the manuscripts as well. It was precisely in these years that he even more intensively studied both individual manuscripts and general questions on the evolution of manuscripts and books.6 He summed up his observations in concise articles, such as an essay about Russian manuscript books issued in 1864.7 Gradually he created another capital work, Slavonic-Russian Palaeography, in which, unlike Ancient Monuments, he specifically mentioned miniatures of many manuscripts, ranging from the Ostromir Gospel to the Deed of Prince Oleg of Riazan.8 Sreznevskii’s Palaeography ushered in a whole series of works done in the same vein by other scholars, such as A. I. Sobolevskii, V. N. Shchepkin, and E. F. Karskii. Karskii also did groundbreaking work on illuminated manuscripts.9 “His palaeographic activity is undoubtedly superior to that of a linguist, although both are closely interrelated, with a preponderance of archaeology,” said one reader.10 Sreznevskii himself was well aware of the intrinsic relationship and mutual enrichment of palaeography and archaeology. Studying manuscripts and artifacts with inscriptions, he often had an urge to study and publish the illuminations that were of historical or iconographic interest. He thus published Ancient Representations of Sts. Princes Boris and Gleb (1863); The Genealogical Tree of the Russian Princes and Tsars (1863); A Legend in the Nereditsa Church Near Novgorod (1863); An Ancient Representation of Prince 6  See: I. Sreznevskii, Svedeniia i zametki o maloizvestnykh i neizvestnykh pamiatnikakh, [1–3], St. Petersburg, 1867–1876–1879. The Svedenia i zametki were published in different editions; for more precise information, see: A. F. Bychkov, Otchet o deiatel’nosti Vtorogo otdeleniia imp. Akademii nauk za 1880 god, St. Petersburg, 1881, (=Sbornik ORIaS, vol. XXII, no. 6), V-e prilozhenie: Spisok sochinenii i izdanii ordinarnogo akademika imp. Akademii nauk I. I. Sreznevskogo, in particular, nos. 276, 285, 294, 304–306, 333, 341, 348, 349, 361 and 385. 7  I. I Sreznevskii, Drevnie rukopisnye knigi. Paleograficheskii ocherk, St. Petersburg, 1864 (a separate reprint from the Khristianskie drevnosti i arkheologiia by V. Prokhorov, 1864, book 2, pp. 13–36 and book 4, pp. 57–72). See also substantial articles on a cognate subject: I. I. Sreznevskii, “Paleograficheskie issledovaniia pamiatnikov russkoi drevnosti,” in IORIaS, vol. VI, issue 4, St. Petersburg, 1857, pp. 257–275; I. I. Sreznevskii, “Obzor materialov dlia izucheniia paleografii,” in ZhMNP, 1867, January, pp. 76–115. 8  See: I. I. Sreznevskii, Slaviano-russkaia paleografiia XI–XIV vv. Lektsii, chitannye v imp. S. Peteburgskom universitete v 1865–1880 gg., St. Petersburg, 1885, pp. 104, 111, 142, 175, 199– 200, 246. 9  A. I. Sobolevskii, Slaviano-russkaia paleografiia, 2nd edition, St. Petersburg, 1908, pp. 29–30, 71; V. N. Shchepkin, Uchebnik russkoi paleografii, Moscow, 1918, pp. 73–82; E. F. Karskii, Slavianskaia kirillovskaia paleografiia, Leningrad, 1928, pp. 136–141. Shchepkin’s and Karskii’s manuals were re-issued in 1967 and 1979. 10  E. F. Karskii, Slavianskaia kirillovskaia paleografiia, p. 74.

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Figure 8.3 Fathers of the Church in a miniature from Sviatoslav’s Izbornik (Miscellany), 1073. State Historical Museum, Moscow.

Vsevolod-Gavriil (1867); The 1501 Pall from the Sepulcher of Princes of the Yaroslav House (1867), and Ancient Representations of Grand Prince Vladimir and Grand Princess Olga (1867).11 More often than not, however, Sreznevskii makes no aesthetic assessment of the artworks, merely referring occasionally to “unsatisfactory” drawings and rich but “inelegant” miniatures. His artistic sense, nurtured 11  For precise information about the editions and their printers, see: A. F. Bychkov, Otchet o deiatel’nosti Vtorogo otdeleniia imp. Akademii nauk za 1880 god, V-e prilozhenie: Spisok sochinenii i izdanii ordinarnogo akademika imp. Akademii nauk I. I. Sreznevskogo, nos. 261, 262, 264, 302, and also the first volume of the Svedeniia i zametki …, nos. XIV and XXX.

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on works of classical antiquity, was not pliable enough to recognize the intrinsic value of Russian painting and his aesthetic judgments of art never diverged from standards based on Raphael and Murillo, common for the second half of the nineteenth century. Although the Second Department of the Academy of Sciences and Sreznevskii were apparently obliquely involved in the discovery of medieval Russian painting, it would be altogether erroneous to belittle their impact on the development of archaeography and palaeography and through these on the growth of interest in illuminated manuscripts. Manuscripts could provide an idea of the Russian visual arts from the eleventh to the seventeenth century. Even now other works of art. can only give a scattered impression of these centuries. Therefore, any mention, description, or publication of illuminated manuscripts brought them within the orbit of science and increased the number of sources available for the study of medieval Russian art. Scholars who cataloged collections that contained illuminated manuscripts thus amplified the sources. The first experiment of this kind was the description of the N. P. Rumiantsev collection made by Vostokov. His book appeared in 1843 and caused a sensation: no one before Vostokov had endeavored to describe manuscripts so accurately and provide so much reliable information.12 “Nothing escaped his keen eye: either a calendar record or a chronological fact, a piece of important historical evidence or the voice of folk tradition, a folk belief or custom … anything that had in any way historical or literary significance,” Sreznevskii was to write about Vostokov later.13 To this, we should add that Vostokov never lost sight of the aesthetic aspect of a manuscript. He never fails to note where and which pages carry the illustrations, what they depict, whether they have preserved the accompanying legends and whether the manuscript itself is embellished with headpieces and initials. Describing one of the best illuminated manuscripts in the Rumiantsev collection, the 1270 12  An earlier account of manuscripts collected by F. A. Tolstoi provided too brief an evidence of the works included, which even the authors of the edition regretted. See K. Kalaidovich and P. Stroev, Obstoiatel’noe opisanie slavianorossiiskikh rukopisei, khraniashchikhsia v Moskve v biblioteke grafa F. A. Tolstova, Moscow, 1825. 13  I. I. Sreznevskii, “Obozrenie nauchnykh trudov A. Kh. Vostokova,” in Filologicheskie nabliudeniia A. Kh. Vostokova, St. Petersburg, 1865, p. LVI. About A. Kh. Vostokov, see Istoriia istoricheskoi nauki v SSSR. Dooktiabr’skii period. Bibliografiia, pp. 249–250; M. G. Bulakhov, Vostochno-slavianskie iazykovedy. Biobibliograficheskii slovar’, vol. 1, pp. 63–70; Slavianovedenie v dorevoliutsionnoi Rossii. Biobibliograficheskii slovar’, pp. 111–113 (an entry by R. M. Tseitlin); Russkoe i slavianskoe iazykoznanie v Rossii serediny XVIII–XIX vv. (V biograficheskikh ocherkakh i vospominaniiakh sovremennikov). Uchebnoe posobie, pp. 31–48.

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Figure 8.4 David composing psalms in a miniature from Khludov Psalter. State Historical Museum, Moscow.

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Gospel Book commissioned by Simon, a monk of the Novgorod St. George (Yur’ev) Monastery, Vostokov makes the following remarks about the miniatures: “Folios 1, 25, 63, and 93 are taken up by the representations of the four Evangelists: John, Mathew, Luke, and Mark. Each of them stands and holds a book. Greek inscriptions written in Russian letters appear on either side of their heads. [Farther along he glosses the inscriptions—G. V.] Placed near St. John is the small figure of a man with a halo around his head and his right hand raised in the gesture of a deacon performing a religious rite. Written above the head of this figure is the name Semen (in Russian). As the archpriest Gomel I. Grigorovich surmised, this legend must refer to Simon, who is mentioned in the colophon and whose exertions led to the writing of this Gospel Book. The scribe-artist might try to flatter him by depicting Simon’s angel near the Evangelist. Or, perhaps, he might have been commissioned to paint this image. St. John the Evangelist is usually shown together with his disciple, St. Prochoros the Deacon, who is probably represented by the said figure, although it is given the name of Simon.” And Vostokov continues: “Large initials begin every reading and are composed of dragons, birds, and other representations, which are quite varied and bespeak the particular inventiveness of the scribe.”14 One can easily note here that Vostokov avoids plunging into descriptions and evaluations of style. Yet as a former student of the Academy of Arts he is drawn to the art of old masters and his brief comment about the “particular inventiveness of the scribe” who painted the initials in the 1270 Gospel Book betrays the perceptive treatment of the artist’s endeavor. The thoroughness of Vostokov’s comments is all the more remarkable as the Rumiantsev collection had no lack of artistic rarities, such as the South Russian Dobrilovo Gospels (1164), the Moscow Evangelistary (1401), and the Moscow Sibylline Books (1637) executed at the tsar’s court. If Rumiantsev could not buy a book he needed, he would order a copy. Thus, for example, he acquired a full copy of the 1073 Izbornik which was made by the artist Alexander Ratshin in 1819 almost immediately after the discovery of the manuscript; at that time the Izbornik, which entered the Synodal library a few years later, was still kept at its original place 14  A. Kh. Vostokov, Opisanie russkikh i slovenskikh rukopisei Rumiantsevskogo muzeuma, St. Petersburg, 1842, no. CV, pp. 172–173. The above-mentioned archpriest I. I. Grigorovich from the town of Gomel’ was one of N. P. Rumiantsev’s advisers and collaborators; the latter, while sojourning for considerable periods of time in his palace in Gomel, had the manuscripts purchased for himself there, as was also the case with the 1270 Gospel Book. For the reference to this particular MS, see O. S. Popova, “Novgorodskaia rukopis’ 1270 g. (Miniatiury i ornament),” in Zapiski Otdela rukopisei Gos. Biblioteki SSSR imeni V. I. Lenina, 25, Moscow, 1962, pp. 184–219.

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of preservation in the New-Jerusalem Monastery at Voskresensk. Reading Vostokov’s account of the Izbornik’s miniatures,15 one is immediately aware of the author’s genuine interest in the artistic makeup of the manuscript, which was to become no less famous than the Ostromir Gospel. Following Vostokov’s exemplary research, the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries saw the appearance of descriptions and surveys of well-nigh all major manuscript collections in Russia, that is, those owned by the Church, the State, and private individuals.16 These included fundamental works such as the six-volume description of ancient manuscripts of the Synodal library;17 the description of manuscripts of the New-Jerusalem Monastery at Voskresensk;18 the three-volume account of manuscripts of the Trinity-St. Sergius Monastery (with data on the Trinity’s manuscripts preserved in the monastery’s diaconicon and the library of the Moscow Theological Academy);19 the three-volume description of manuscripts of the Solovetskii Monastery;20 the three-volume description of a collection owned by the Society of Lovers of Ancient Literature;21 the four-volume description of manuscripts belonging to Count A. S. Uvarov;22

15  A. Kh. Vostokov, Opisanie russkikh i slovenskikh rukopisei Rumiantsevskogo muzeuma, no. CCLVI, pp. 499–506. 16  For the detailed information, see: Spravochnik-ukazatel’ pechatnykh opisanii slavianorusskikh rukopisei, compiled by N. F. Bel’chikov, Yu. K. Begunov, and N. P. Rozhdestvenskii, Moscow—Leningrad, 1963. 17  A. Gorskii, K. Nevostruev, Opisanie slavianskikh rukopisei Moskovskoi Sinodal’noi biblioteki, I–VI, Moscow, 1855–1917. 18  Amfilokhiii (Amphilochius), arkhim., Opisanie rukopisei Voskresenskogo stavropigial’nogo pervoklassnogo imenuemogo Novyi Ierusalim monastyria, pisannykh na pergamine i bumage, Moscow, 1875. 19  [Ilarii i Arsenii, ieromonakhi], Opisanie slavianskikh rukopisei biblioteki Sviato-Troitskoi Sergievoi lavry, I–III, Moscow, 1878–1879. See, also, Leonid, arkhim., Slavianskie rukopisi, khraniashchiesia v riznitse Sviato-Troitskoi Sergievoi lavry, Moscow, 1881; Leonid, arkhim., Svedenie o slavianskikh rukopisiakh, postupivshikh iz knigokhranilishcha Sv.-Troitskoi Sergievoi lavry v biblioteku Troitskoi dukhovnoi seminarii v 1747 g. (nyne nakhodiashchikhsia v biblioteke Moskovskoi dukhovnoi akademii), 1–2, Moscow, 1887. 20  [I. Ia. Porfil’ev, A. V. Vadkovskii, N. F. Krasnosel’tsev], Opisanie rukopisei Solovetskogo monastyria, nakhodiashchikhsia v biblioteke Kazanskoi dukhovnoi akademii, I–III, Kazan’, 1881–1896. 21  Kh. M. Loparev, Opisanie rukopisei Obshchestva liubitelei drevnei pis’mennosti, I–III, St. Petersburg, 1892–1899 (=PDP, C, CV and CXIV). 22  Leonid, arkhim., Sistematicheskoe opisanie … slaviano-russkikh rukopisei sobraniia grafa A. S. Uvarova, I–IV, Moscow, 1893–1894.

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the incomplete description of the St. Sophia of Novgorod’s library;23 the sixvolume description of a valuable, though uneven collection of manuscripts owned by A. A. Titov;24 the description of most ancient codices in the library of the Academy of Sciences;25 the historico-palaeographic review of parchment manuscripts kept in the Synodal and Printing-House libraries,26 and other similar publications. When one includes published descriptions of less prominent libraries, overall works can be counted by the score. As a result, hundreds of illuminated manuscripts of the eleventh through the eighteenth century were made available to scholars. Among them were the Psalters, Gospel Books, Lectionaries, Service Books, Chronicles, Vitae, various Miscellanies as well as Synodicals (sinodiki, or memorial lists of executed persons), and Glossaries (azbukovniki). Brief data on illuminated manuscripts contained in archaeographic editions furnish but a vague idea of the works concerned and a truly scholarly assessment of the manuscripts can be made only on the basis of specialist descriptions and publications of these, either in full or in part. The nineteenth century provided ample opportunities for such publications and much credit in this respect should be given to the Society of Lovers of Ancient Literature and Art. Similar work was also done by A. E. Viktorov and V. A. Prokhorov. The Academy of Sciences, the archaeological societies, museums, and private persons also set themselves the task of describing fully and accurately one illuminated manuscript or another. Suffice it to say that the Ostromir Gospel, whose miniatures rank alongside the mosaics and frescoes of the Kievan St. Sophia as the oldest examples of visual art in Russia, ran into several editions in the nineteenth century.27 Hardly a year passed without the Russian scholarly public 23  I. K. Kupriianov, “Obozrenie pergamennykh rukopisei novgorodskoi Sofiiskoi biblioteki,” in IORIaS, vol. VI, issue 1, St. Petersburg, 1857, columns 34–66 and issue 4, St. Petersburg, 1857, columns 276–320; D. I. Abramovich, Opisanie rukopisei S.-Peterburgskoi Dukhovnoi akademii. Sofiiskaia biblioteka, I–III, St. Petersburg, 1905–1910. 24  A. A. Titov, Opisanie slaviano-russkikh rukopisei, nakhodiashchikhsia v sobranii … A. A. Titova, I–VI, St. Petersburg—Moscow, 1893–1913. 25  V. I. Sreznevskii, F. I. Pokrovskii, Opisanie Rukopisnogo otdela Biblioteki imp. Akademii nauk, I. Rukopisi, I–III, St. Petersburg—Leningrad, 1910–1930. 26  A. A. Pokrovskii, Drevnee pskovsko-novgorodskoe pis’mennoe nasledie. Obozrenie pergamennykh rukopisei Tipografskoi i Patriarshei bibliotek v sviazi s voprosom o vremeni obrazovania etikh knigokhranilishch, Moscow, 1916 (=Trudy XV AS v Novgorode, 1911 g., vol. II, Moscow, 1915). 27   Ostromirovo Evangelie 1056–57 goda s prilozheniem grecheskogo teksta evangelii i grammaticheskimi ob”iasneniami, izdannoe A. Vostokovym, St. Petersburg, 1843 (the type-set text supplied with traced patterns of miniatures); Ostromirovo Evangelie 1056–57 goda,

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being informed in detail of prominent manuscripts, be it several first-rate codices from the Synodal collection described by Buslaev,28 or the facsimile edition of the Tale of Sts. Boris and Gleb according to the Novgorod fourteenth-century illuminated manuscript prepared for print by Sreznevskii with the assistance of the Russian Archaeological Society,29 or the publication of the first data on the now famous ninth-century Greek illuminated Psalter from A. I. Lobkov’s collection prepared by V. M. Undol’skii, Archimandrite Amfilokhii, and N. P. Kondakov.30 The assiduous and indefatigable Amfilokhii31 made public khraniashcheesia v imp. Publichnoi biblioteke. Izhdiveniem s.-peterburgskogo kuptsa II’i Savinkova, St. Petersburg, 1883; Ostromirovo Evangelie 1056–1057 g. [Vtoroe] fotolitograficheskoe izdanie. Izhdiveniem potomstvennogo pochetnogo grazhdanina Il’i Kirillovicha Savinkova, St. Petersburg, 1889. 28  “Paleograficheskie i filologicheskie materialy dlia istorii pis’men slavianskikh, sobrannye iz XV-ti rukopisei Moskovskoi Sinodal’noi biblioteki … F. Buslaevym, s prilozheniem 22-kh snimkov, litografirovannykh lonoiu Shelkovnikovym,” in Materialy dlia istorii pis’men vostochnykh i grecheskikh, rimskikh i slavianskikh. Izgotovleny k stoletnemu iubileiu imp. Moskovskogo universiteta trudami professorov i prepodavatelei Petrova, Klina, Men’shikova, i Buslaeva, Moscow, 1855, pp. 1–58. Among the Russian MSS described by F. I. Buslaev are the Izbornik of 1073, the Rostov Apostol of 1220, the Novgorod Sluzhebnik of 1400, and the Pskov Evangelie of 1409. The tables compiled by I. Shelkovnikov give a fairly good idea of both the illustrations and the decorative designs used in these books. 29   Skazaniia o sviatykh Borise i Glebe. Sil’vestrovskii spisok XIV veka. Po porucheniiu i na izhdivenii imp. Arkheologicheskogo obshchestva izdal I. I. Sreznevskii, St. Petersburg, 1860 (the text is printed in black paint, the headings in red, while the initial letters in blue, red, and yellow; of the 49 miniatures only 2 are printed in colors corresponding to those of the original, whereas all others are given in traced patterns). 30  V. M. Undol’skii, “Opisanie grecheskogo kodeksa Psaltyri, IX–XII v., s sovremennymi izobrazheniiami, prinadlezhashchego A. I. Lobkovu,” in Sbornik na 1866 god, izdannyi Obshchestvom drevnerusskogo iskusstva pri Moskovskom Publichnom muzee, Moscow, 1866, pp. 139–153. Amfilokhii (Amphilochius), arkhim., Arkheologicheskie zametki o grecheskoi Psaltyri, pisannoi v kontse IX veka i perepisannoi v XII veke, s miniatiurami X– XI veka, prinadlezhashchei deistvitel’nomu chlenu Obshchestva drevnerusskogo iskusstva pri Rumiantsevskom muzee i drugikh Obshchestv A. I. Lobkovu, s snimkami Simvola very, Kheruvimskoi pesni i nekotorykh drugikh pesnei na 12 stranitsakh. Published by K. T. Soldatenkov, Moscow, 1866; N. P. Kondakov, “Miniatiury grecheskoi rukopisi Psaltyri IX veka iz sobraniia A. I. Khludova v Moskve,” in Drevnosti. Trudy MAO, vol. VII, issue 3, 1878, pp. 162–183 + I–III (Contents of tables of drawings from the Khludov 9th-century Psalter), tables I–XIV + [XV]. 31   For the lists of numerous works produced by Amfilokhii (Amphilochius) (1818– 1893), which are devoted to the Russian and Slavic handwritten books, see the articles; P. Vladimirov, “Amfilokhii (Amphilochius),” in Kritiko-biograficheskii slovar’ russkikh pisatelei i uchenykh S. A. Vengerova, vol. I, St. Petersburg, 1866, pp. 508–513;

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another remarkable ancient codex, the Novgorod Psalter of the late thirteenth century from the collection of A. I. Khludov.32 Incidentally, it was at about the same time that Khludov purchased a major part of Lobkov’s manuscript collection which included, among other things, the abovementioned ninthcentury Byzantine Psalter. Several outstanding manuscripts were published by V. I. Sizov, A. I. Nekrasov, and I. S. Sventsitskii at a later date.33 That interest in illuminated manuscripts was evident in 1874 at the Third Archaeological Congress in Kiev. The church section of the exhibition had various Greek, Russian, Serbian, and Moldavian illuminated manuscripts from Dimitrii, letopisets, “Ucheno-literaturnye trudy episkopa uglichskogo Amfilokhiia (Amphilochius). (Ko dniu ego poluvekovogo sluzheniia russkoi tserkvi i otechestvennoi nauke), in Bibliograficheskie zapiski, 1892, no. 10, pp. 717–721; K. Golovshchikov, “Uglichskii episkop Amfilokhii (Amphilochius). 1842–1892 gg., in Bibliograf, 1892, nos. 10–11, pp. 346–350; G. Voskresenskii, “Preosviashchennyi Amfilokhii (Amphilochius), episkop Uglichskii († 20 iiulia 1893 g.), in ChOIDR, 1894, book 1, minutes, pp. 73–81; A. A. Titov, “Preosviashchennyi Amfilokhii kak uchenyi i paleograf,” in Otchety o zasedaniiakh imp. OLDP v 1893–1894 godu, s prilozheniiami, [St. Petersburg], 1894 (=PDP, CII), supplements, pp. 31–51; K. D. Golovshchikov, Deiateli Yaroslavskogo kraia, 1, Yaroslavl, 1898, pp. 106–111; I. N. Korsunskii, “Preosviashchennyi Amfilokhii, episkop Uglichskii,” in Pamiati arkhiepiskopa Savvy, episkopa Amfilokhia, prof. A. I. Pavinskogo i gr. M. V. Tolstogo, Moscow, 1898, pp. 36–57; “Kharakteristiki deiatelei arkheologii 1860–1870-kh gg., prinadlezhashchie I. I. Sreznevskomu. Soobshchil V. I. Sreznevskii,” in Bibliograficheskaia letopis’, I, [St. Petersburg], 1914, pp. 117–118; D. D. Iazykov, Obzor zhizni i trudov pisatelei i pisatel’nits, 13, Petrograd, 1916 (=Sbornik ORIaS, vol. XCV, no.3), pp. 5–15 (with reference literature about Amfilokhii and a list of his works); Rukopisnye sobraniia Gos. Biblioteki SSSR imeni V. I. Lenina. Ukazatel’, vol. 1, issue 1 (1862–1917), Moscow, 1983, pp. 50–57 (the entry by Yu. D. Rykov and N. A. Shcherbacheva, wth the reference literature of previous years). For Amfilokhii’s most significant works, see also: I. V. Yagich, Chetyre kritiko-paleograficheskie stat’i. Prilozhenie k Otchetu Prisuzhdenii Lomonosovskoi premii za 1883 god, St. Petersburg, 1884. 32  As to the Slavic Khludov Psalter (now: GIM, Khlud. 3), there is a capital four-volume edition prepared by the archim. Amfilokhii (Amphilochius), see: Amfilokhii, arkhim., Drevleslavianskaia Psaltir’ Simonovskaia do 1280 goda, I–IV, 2nd ed., Moscow, 1880–1881. With regard to miniatures, see: vol. III, Moscow, 1880, pp. 222–258, with 11 tables. For previous publications specially devoted to the illustrations, see Amfilokhii, arkhim., “O Slavianskoi Psaltiri XIII–XIV v. biblioteki A. I. Khludova,” in Drevnosti. Trudy MAO, vol. III, issue 1, 1870, pp. 1–28, with tables. 33  See: V. I. Sizov, “Miniatiury Kenigsbergskoi letopisi (arkheologicheskii etiud), in IORIaS, vol. X, book 1, St. Petersburg, 1905, pp. 1–50; A. I. Nekrasov, “Neskol’ko slov o litsevykh spiskakh zhitiia prep. Evfrosinii Suzdal’skoi,” ibid., vol. XV, book 1, St. Petersburg, 1910, pp. 258–269; I. S. Sventsitskii, “Lavrashevskoe Evangelie nachala XIV veka,” ibid., vol. XVIII, book 1, St. Petersburg, 1913, pp. 206–228.

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Russian and foreign collections. For a full three weeks, the exhibition impressed visitors with real rarities, among which were Greek illuminated manuscripts and some single illuminated folios from the 1429 Serbian Gospel Book collected by Porfirii Uspenskii (many from the ancient monasterial libraries of Sinai, Palestine, and Athos); a thirteenth-century Gospel Book from Macedonia; a copy of the seventeenth-century Munich Psalter from the People’s Library in Belgrade (the latter two perished during the Second World War); a late-thirteenth-century Novgorod illuminated Psalter from the Khludov collection; a 1577 illuminated Gospel Book from Vologda; the 1594 illuminated Psalter of Tsar Boris Godunov from the Poretsk library of A. C. Uvarov, and many other outstanding works of book art.34 The appearance of manuscripts at exhibitions like the one at Kiev underscored their historical and artistic merit. We note here that, assessing the general standard of archaeographic editions of the mid-nineteenth century, Sreznevskii lamented the superficial descriptions of manuscripts evident in works of even the most careful authors and specifically pointed out the need for evidence of this kind. He wrote, “As memorials of their own time, of the mores and level of enlightenment of this or that nation in this or that particular period, the manuscripts can sometimes be important and valuable simply as objects [which tell us about] writing implements, the art of writing and illuminating, the art of making ink, pigments, silver- and goldleaf for this purpose, the art of bookmaking and, finally, as works of art and taste in general.”35 With all the truly encyclopaedic scope of nineteenth-century science, we know of only one philologist and palaeographer who was specifically and invariably preoccupied with art issues on the evidence of old manuscript books. This was Viacheslav Nikolaevich Shchepkin and what is remarkable is that his interests were not confined to the study of miniatures and ornamentation in Russian codices only.36 Sent abroad in 1901 by the Department of Russian Language and Literature of the Academy of Sciences to study Slav antiquities and Old Slavonic documents, he spent many hours in the Vatican Library, 34   Ukazatel’ vystavki pri tret’em arkheologicheskom s”ezde v Kieve 1874 g., 2–22 avgusta, Kiev, 1874, the third pagination, p. 1ff. See also: V. P[rokhorov], “Arkheologicheskii obzor a) kievskikh drevnostei i b) drevnostei, byvshikh na arkheologicheskom s”ezde v Kieve,” in KhD, 1875, pp. 30–33, with tables. 35   “Zapiski, podannye vo Vtoroe otdelenie Akademii nauk o trude gg. Gorskogo i Nevostrueva Opisanie slavianskikh rukopisei Patriarshei, nyne Sinodal’noi biblioteki. Zapiska I. I. Sreznevskogo,” in Sbornik statei, chitannykh v ORIaS imp. Akademii nauk, vol. VII, St. Petersburg, 1870, p. 19. 36  See also about him in chapter 7 on p. 172.

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studying Byzantine manuscripts and the workmanship and style of Greek miniaturists. He leafed through practically all the major Greek manuscripts, and examined about a thousand miniatures, describing each on a separate index card. It would seem that with his meticulous approach, Shchepkin was bound to overlook the characteristic traits and general laws governing the evolution of Byzantine miniature painting. Nothing of the kind happened, however, and his report, which he submitted to the Academy, especially its section entitled In the Sphere of Art, is remarkable for a number of valuable observations and conclusions:37. The miniature, more than anything else, admits of the accidental, which emerges mainly in two forms: as some unexpected echoes of more distant past as when the illuminator takes as his original an illuminated manuscript dating from a bygone period of art, and through the illuminator’s own personality, since in miniature painting he is much less bound by general conventions peculiar to mosaic, fresco, and icon painting. Besides, he is more dependent on the text he illustrates. The size of a miniature usually presupposes the choice of various techniques. Applying these considerations to the assessment of miniature painting as compared to icon painting, we should expect, in advance, that miniature painting will afford much more variety: a far greater number of occasional echoes of the ancient element and, alongside this, many more manifestations of crude folk realism, stylistic uniformity in aesthetic notions, compositions, draftsmanship, and tinting and a more pronounced manner in all these areas or, more precisely, a variety of different manners typical for different miniaturists. Yet beyond all this, elements of unity manifest themselves in works of miniature painting of a definite period, which are characteristic of that time, while comparison of works dating from different periods would reveal general changes in the development of art. However, the realm of the accidental in miniature painting is so vast that the general similarities and differences may be discovered only by comparing a considerable number of works.38 Shchepkin himself showed better than anyone else the significance of the miniature in assessing certain changes in the art of the Byzantine Empire. Basing 37  V. N. Shchepkin, “II otchet Otdeleniiu russkogo iazyka i slovesnosti,” in IORIaS, vol. VII, book 3, 1902, pp. 171–218. See also: Otchet o deiatel’nosti ORIaS imp. Akademii nauk za 1901 god, St. Petersburg, 1902, pp. 39–40. 38  V. N. Shchepkin, II otchet Otdeleniiu russkogo iazyka i slovesnosti, pp. 171–172.

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his argument exclusively on his observations made in the Vatican, he came to the correct conclusion that the conquest of Constantinople by the Crusaders had led to the decline of the Greek style, when there occurred a fortuitous rapprochement of the metropolitan style and the aesthetic of the Eastern Christian world. Says Shchepkin: “The Tsar’grad [Constantinople] school of miniature painting perishes in this troubled period: its outward luster, its soft color scheme, its exquisite drawing and well-thought-out variety of color in depicting the saints’ faces all give way to the miniature deeply rooted in folk tradition and duller and darker in coloring.”39 He is also credited with making an adequate evaluation of the Byzantine style as the one based on canons acquiring the significance of “indispensable signs.” Owing to definite types of form and singleness of purpose, “Byzantine art,” concludes Shchepkin, “never, in principle, broke its ties with the past, only moving gradually away from it.”40 In the second half of the nineteenth and early twentieth century, scholarship of the Academy of Sciences and scholarship in the universities developed in one common direction, which, incidentally, ensured a high standard of teaching at the university. With few exceptions, full and corresponding members of the Russian Academy of Sciences held professorships in metropolitan or provincial universities at one time or other. Thus, F. I. Buslaev, A. I. Kirpichnikov, and V. N. Shchepkin lectured in Moscow; N. P. Kondakov in Odessa and, later, in St. Petersburg; E. K. Redin in Kharkov; and D. V. Ainalov in Kazan and Petrograd (St Petersburg). Theological academies had serious historical and archaeological departments before the 1917 revolution and produced quite a few remarkable specialists. Working in Kiev at the time were N. I. Petrov, the historian and liturgist A. A. Dmitrievskii; in St. Petersburg there was N. V. Pokrovskii; and I. D. Mansvetov and A. P. Golubtsov worked at the TrinitySt. Sergius Monastery. We mention only those scholars who most significantly contributed to the study of Byzantine and Russian art. The university statutes of 1863 created favorable conditions for art criticism at universities.41 These statutes, in many respects the government’s concession to liberal-minded society, increased the variety of academic disciplines, introducing the history and theory of art.42 The 1863 statutes made it plain that 39  Ibid., p. 176. 40  Ibid., p. 210. 41  See: S. V. Rozhdestvenskii, Istoricheskii obzor deiatel’nosti Ministerstva narodnogo prosveshcheniia. 1802–1902, St. Petersburg, 1902, pp. 416–423; R. G. Eimontova, “Universitetskaia reforma 1863 g.,” in Istoricheskie zapiski, 70, Moscow, 1961, pp. 163–196. 42  The only exception, however, was Moscow University, in which such a chair was in evidence since the fall of 1857. It was headed by K. K. Gerts (Herz). See: V. N. Grashchenkov,

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from now on the universities would have every opportunity to pursue scholarship and research; previously they had been regarded only as educational institutions.43 The duties of a professorship were not too onerous. A course of lectures or a seminar topic was freely chosen. Trips abroad for studying art or working in libraries were granted. All this attracted truly prominent scholars who would blaze new trails at the reformed universities. Setting up a university chair of the history and theory of art did not imply that it would be automatically filled in one university or another at the start of the new academic year. By virtue of the newness of the subject itself, such chairs could remain vacant for quite a while or be held by some odd-job teachers who would combine the course of lectures in the history of art with the main subject of another discipline such as, for instance, the history of language or literature. Some universities, including Kiev University, did not produce a single notable art historian. Others invited a qualified lecturer for a short period of time or many years after the vacancy was announced. E. K. Redin was the first truly erudite art historian at Kharkov University. He started lecturing in 1896 some thirty years after the chair was actually set up in Kharkov. The university lectures in the history of art were planned to cover all aspects of the subject in question. One syllabus covered all known arts and styles, the very list of which took up a dozen pages.44 Since only one lecturer was appointed to a professorship, the overall syllabus remained mostly on paper and the actual teaching was confined to one freely chosen subject. As a rule, lectures on the history of classical art or that of the Renaissance were read in conjunction with lectures or specialized classes on the art of some other epoch that interested the lecturer. It was in this way that N. P. Kondakov did his lectures on Byzantine artistic culture at Novorossiisk University. Later, in the early 1900s, D. V. Ainalov did the same with his course of lectures on the art of Russia up to the early sixteenth century at St. Petersburg University. As the attendance of these “K 125-letiiu prepodavaniia istorii iskusstv v Moskovskom universitete,” in Sovetskoe iskusstvovedenie, ‘83, issue 118, Moscow, p. 184ff. 43  This accounts, particularly, for the increase of specialized scholarly societies at universities, many of which continued their activities well after the revolution of 1917; a case in point is the Society of Archaeology, History, and Ethnography at Kazan University. About the issue on the whole, see: A. D. Stepanskii, “Nauchnye obshchestva pri vysshikh uchebnykh zavedeniiakh dorevoliutsionnoi Rossii,” in Gosudarstvennoe rukovodstvo vysshei shkoloi v dorevoliutsionnoi Rossii i v SSSR. Sborniki statei, Moscow, 1979, pp. 210–239. 44  P. V. Pavlov, “Programma po predmetu kafedry istorii i teorii iskusstv,” in Trudy IV AS v Rossii, byvshego v Kazani s 31 iiulia po 18 avgusta 1877 goda, vol. I, Kazan, 1884, section III, pp. 1–19. The initiator of this program was a professor at Kiev University.

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lectures was not compulsory for students of the other divisions of the historico-philological faculty, the steady audience of a professor of the history of art would usually consist of a three or four of students majoring in the subject. Kondakov and Kirpichnikov thus received the tutorial guidance from Buslaev; Redin, Ainalov, and Ya. I. Smirnov from Kondakov; D. P. Gordeev from Redin. D. V. Ainalov was in the early 1900s the tutor of V. K. Miasoedov, N. P. Sychev, N. L. Okunev, A. N. Grabar, and L. A. Matsulevich. After Buslaev, the leading exponent of university and academy scholarship in the field of medieval Russian painting was undoubtedly N. P. Kondakov. Although it was due to his studies in the realm of Byzantine artistic culture that Kondakov won truly international fame, issues of national art never escaped his attention, becoming clearly predominant in his creative output at the close of life. Kondakov’s knowledge of Byzantine art, which was truly extraordinary for his day, did him good service in his pursuit of Russian antiquities. He had a clearer idea than anyone else around him of what the sources of Russian painting were and he saw in much broader context the artistic environment that formed the background for the development of Russian visual arts. Like Buslaev, Nikodim Pavlovich Kondakov lived a long life: he died in 1925 at the age of eighty.45 Unlike Buslaev, however, whose whole life passed within the confines of the fairly untroubled and not too hectic nineteenth century, Kondakov, who was born long before the abolition of serfdom in Russia, survived four tsars, three revolutions, a civil war and emigration, dying in exile where even such a renowned scholar could not escape indigence, humiliation, and bitter frustration.46 He was a witness of a real breakthrough in the 45  Much of the earlier literature devoted to N. P. Kondakov is considered in V. N. Lazarev’s monographic essay, and its first edition came out in 1925 and the second one in 1971 (V. N. Lazarev, Nikodim Pavlovich Kondakov. 1844–1925, Moscow, 1925; a partly revised version appeared in: V. N. Lazarev, Vizantiiskaia zhivopis’. [Sbornik statei], Moscow, 1971, pp. 7–19). Lazarev’s work prompted the well-known Leningrad Byzantinist F. I. Shmit to undertake a more extensive research on Kondakov, and he, incidentally, also pointed out the shortcomings of Lazarev’s essay. Unfortunately, it was only the first two parts in six chapters of his broadly conceived book that Shmit managed to bring out in his lifetime. His manuscript Vizantinovedenie na sluzhbe samoderzhaviia: N. P. Kondakov, dated 26 October 1933, is preserved in the archives of the St. Petersburg Branch of the Institute of Archaeology of the Academy of Sciences (col. 55, no. 40, fols. 1–68). For recent works, see: Istoriia istoricheskoi nauki v SSSR. Dooktiabr’skii period. Bibliografiia, pp. 539–540; Slavianovedenie v dorevoliutsionnoi Rossii. Biobibliograficheskii slovar’, pp. 187–188 (the entry is by L. P. Lapteva). 46  See: V. Muromtseva, “N. P. Kondakov. (K piatiletiiu so dnia smerti).” in Poslednie novosti (Paris), 1930, 21 February, p. 4.

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Figure 8.5 Nikodim Pavlovich Kondakov (1844–1925).

scholarly knowledge of Russian and Byzantine art, which follow a series of successive discoveries of excellent works of Greek and Russian painting. He realized plainly how his former writings were shaken by these new discoveries. He nevertheless kept abreast of the scholarship and that at an age when his scholarly inquisitiveness surpassed the physical stamina which was necessary to become personally acquainted with works of art at various sites. As Kondakov himself wrote, his ambition to become an art historian was spurred by a “remarkably intelligent, meticulous, and observant” student at Moscow University, Konstantin Pavlovich Semenov, who lived next door to Kondakov, and with whom Kondakov became particularly close as he finished grammar school. “It was chiefly though Semenov,” he says, “that instead of pursuing history, on which I was then keen, I resolved to blindly follow his advice and specialize in the history of art, in which I was prompted, first and foremost, by the fact that, as he put it, the subject being perfectly new and almost totally unknown in Russia, it would be easier for me to get a professor’s post and that I would be sought to fill a vacancy rather than having to wait for one.” And he adds, “I never regretted making this choice as I was able to derive from my pursuits in the field of art history not only a purely aesthetic but a spiritual pleasure as well.”47 47  N. P. Kondakov, Vospominaniia i dumy, Prague, 1927, pp. 24–25.

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For a long while, Moscow University’s department of the history and theory of art was chaired by K. K. Gerts (Herz), who mainly lectured on classical Greek art.48 Kondakov was probably his only student who never missed a lecture, learning not so much from the professor himself as from books amassed in his well-stocked library. He also made good use of the library owned by Buslaev, and under his influence gradually embarked upon issues of Christian art and archaeology on leaving the university. “Here, as well,” Kondakov remarks, “what I really liked was a certain novelty of the field, which was barely touched by research, since I have always been more interested in the quest for knowledge and comprehension than in erudition and veneration of authority.”49 Reading Kondakov’s memoirs, which he wrote shortly before his death, one gets a clear idea of his spiritual kinship with Buslaev, who was, in fact, the founder of the Russian science of art history. It was to Buslaev and also to Viktor Grigorovich, Porfirii Uspenskii, and Antonin Kapustin, whom he encountered somewhat later, that Kondakov addressed the words of his warmest appreciation. Buslaev was, indeed, Kondakov’s real mentor in that the disciple inherited from his teacher the tenor of his interests and an appreciation of science as the scholar’s moral duty rather than a system of knowledge and methods of examining material evidence. In his first five years after graduating from the university (1865–1870), Kondakov shared the lot of the majority of university graduates who began their careers teaching history, literature, and the Russian language. In 1870, however, he received an invitation to fill a vacancy in the chair of the history and theory of art at Novorossiisk University in Odessa, where he moved in the fall of 1871.50 Thus one of Semenov’s prophecies came true. At the start, from sheer inertia, Kondakov gave preference to classical art. His first university lecture, which he delivered, as was the custom, at the general meeting of students and teachers of the historico-philological faculty, was dedicated to the relationship between classical archaeology and the theory of art. He chose for his master’s thesis the symbolic imagery of Greek art as exemplified by a tomb frieze in Asia Minor. What is really remarkable, however, is that in the above lecture Kondakov makes mention, irrelevant though it was, to the 48  He read his introductory lecture On the Meaning of Art History on October 5, 1857. See: K. K. Gerts (Herz), Sobranie sochinenii, 5. Stat’i po arkheologii vostochnoi, klassicheskoi i drevnekhristianskoi. 1856–1882, St. Petersburg, 1900, pp. 1–15. See about him in: D. Malein, Karl Karlovich Gerts (Herz) (1820–1883). Biograficheskii ocherk, St. Petersburg, 1912. 49  N. P. Kondakov, Vospominaniia i dumy, p. 27. 50  See: A. I. Markevich, Dvadtsatipiatiletie imp. Novorossiiskogo universiteta, Odessa, 1890, pp. 302–305.

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subject in hand, of the p ­ oor familiarity with Byzantine art, which may explain Kondakov’s later determined study of it.51 It was in Odessa that he began an intensive study of Byzantine art, gradually turning this obscure and recondite subject into a scholarly discipline in its own right. In fact, Kondakov made the study of Byzantine antiquities an entirely independent and self-sufficient branch of medieval artistic culture. Kondakov lived in Odessa from 1871 to 1888. Why did he stay so long in this outlying region of Russia, in a town of which he often spoke disparagingly and at a university in which he had not a single disciple during the first fifteen years and where he felt an utter disgust each time he had to read a lecture? Odessa by virtue of its geographical position gave him ready access to the Crimea, the Caucasus, the Near East, Constantinople, the Slavic countries of the Balkans and, last but not least, to Kiev, which still preserved numerous artifacts of the Byzantine era that had barely begun to be studied. It was from Odessa that Kondakov set off on his famed research trips abroad, each of which yielded him all sorts of material to be later used in specialist papers and fundamental monographs. Nikodim Kondakov was an unusually bad-tempered man by nature: he was unsociable, caustic, sharp-tongued, and resentful toward the people around him and the whole Russian way of life. This accounts, partly, for his being on more than cool terms with his fellow-teachers at Novorossiisk University, among whom were such reputable scholars as F. I. Uspenskii, N. F. Krasnosel’tsev, A. I. Kirpichnikov, V. I. Grigorovich, and Ph. K. Brun. There was yet another cause of such isolation. Kondakov’s pursuit of Byzantine art seemed even more bizarre than Brun’s infatuation with the historical geography of the northern Black Sea coast area, in which the endless re-appearances of the “uturghurs” and “kuturghurs” merged into one aimless and senseless whirling of nomadic tribes and peoples. “So profound was the general ignorance of the Russian intelligentsia in the matters of art,” remarked Kondakov afterwards, “that even people I was well acquainted with would shy away from questions about art and its history or about archaeology, and this despite the existence in Odessa of the Society of History and Antiquities.”52 Even other scholars at Novorossiisk University who, like the eminent physiologist I. I. Mechnikov, felt sympathetic to Kondakov, followed with growing bewilderment his evolution from classical

51  N. Kondakov, Nauka klassicheskoi arkheologii i teorii iskusstva, Odessa, 1872 (from the 8th volume of the Zapiski imp. Novorossiiskogo universiteta), p. 21. 52  N. P. Kondakov, Vospominaniia i dumy, p. 71.

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to Byzantine art, openly poking fun at his archaeological journeys and his penchant for the study of “freaks” (urodov).53 It should be noted that lack of comprehension of Byzantine art was typical of the time. Grigorii Gagarin draws exactly the same picture with reference to the artistic milieu in St. Petersburg: No sooner had one turned the talk to the subject of Byzantine painting” than, all at once, lips of most of the listeners would curl in contempt or irony. Had one the temerity to say that this painting merited a thoroughgoing study, there would be no end of jesting and ridicule. You would be heaped with witty remarks about hideous proportions, angular forms, awkward poses, and about the composition being uncouth and out of character, and all this would be accompanied by wry faces meant to express more eloquently disgust at the ugliness of the rejected painting. I would not … dare to stand in defense of flaws stemming from lack of expertise or from the barbarity of the times, nor would I seek in these [works] the propriety of drawing or the soundness of perspective or the proper lighting or modeling or a thousand and one other qualities constituting the intrinsic idiom of modern art. What I seek, instead, are thought and style, and I do find them.54 This pithy extract characterizes the thinking of the few enthusiasts, like Gagarin and Kondakov, whose personal leanings defied the prevalent taste of the day and who managed, in the long run, to reverse the public mood and artistic sentiments in favor of mysterious Byzantium.55 It would not be out of place to add here that Kondakov was by no means the only Russian scholar of the second half of the nineteenth century who applied himself to the study of the Byzantine world. Working at the same time at St. Petersburg University was the outstanding Byzantinist V. G. Vasil’evskii, whose school turned out all the noted Byzantinists of this period: P. V. Bezobrazov, D. F. Beliaev, A. A. Vasil’ev, B. A. Panchenko, F. I. Uspenskii. Back in the 1870s, both 53  Ibid., p. 65. 54  G. G. G[agarin], Kratkaia khronologicheskaia tablitsa v posobie istorii vizantiiskogo iskusstva, Tiflis, 1856, pp. IV–V. 55  As an instance of these new trends, I may point to two lectures on Byzantine art delivered [by him] in 1884 at the Academy of Arts, their contents revealing a fairly sound knowledge of the subject. See: M. Solov’ev, “Ocherk istorii vizantiiskogo iskusstva. Publichnye chtenia v Akademii khudozhestv 29 ianvaria i 2 fevralia 1884 goda,” in Russkii vestnik, 1884, June, pp. 704–753.

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Vasil’evskii and Uspenskii read specialized university courses in the history of Byzantium, and in their research they probed complex problems of SlavonicByzantine relations. As a result, Byzantine studies gradually turned into a scholarly discipline in its own right, which year after year recruited new scholars.56 The flourishing of Byzantine studies in Russia was favored by two factors. On the one hand, an upsurge of national feeling among the Slavic peoples oppressed by the Turks in the Balkans struck a chord in Russia. This was what, in the long run, brought about the Russo-Turkish War of 1877, which drew attention of all strata of society to the struggle of the Greeks and Slavs subjugated by the Turks. On the other hand, there was yet another, more profound reason for the development of Byzantine studies in Russia: the study and publication of Byzantine history and art led to the widespread recognition of the indisputable fact that the history of Russia was intimately linked with that of Byzantium. It was from Byzantium that the Russians had obtained their faith, many elements of a new way of life, literary tradition, and art. The millenniumlong history of the Russian state led the Russians back to the history of the Byzantine Empire and to Byzantine artistic culture. Kondakov’s scholarly legacy is modest in quantity. Even considering reports and brief abstracts of unpublished papers, he wrote fewer than one hundred works.57 His best works, however, are so profound that they delineate an entire epoch in the history of world scholarship. Making a career as a Byzantinist, Kondakov became a trailblazer. Neither the French, who had earlier than others shown an interest in Byzantium nor the 56  See about it in: N. Popov, “Nachalo vizantinovedeniia v Rossii,” in Sbornik statei, posviashchennykh V. O. Kliuchevskomu, Moscow, 1909, pp. 435–448; F. Uspenskii, “Iz istorii vizantinovedeniia v Rossii,” in Annaly, 1, Petrograd, 1922, pp. 110–126; F. Uspenskii, “Notes sur l’histoire des études byzantines en Russie,” in Byzantion, II (1925), 1926, pp. 1–53; S. A. Zhebelev, “Russkoe vizantinovedenie, ego proshloe, ego zadachi v sovetskoi nauke,” in VDI, 4(5), 1938, pp. 13–22; B. T. Gorianov, “Akademiia nauk i vizantinovedenie v dorevoliutsionnyi period,” in Vestnik Akademii nauk SSSR, 1945, nos. 5–6, pp. 182–188. For the most recent works, see the section Russkoe vizantinovedenie in: G. L. Kurbatov, Istoriia Vizantii (istoriografiia), Leningrad, 1975, pp. 106–122; S. B. Avrunina, “Russkie arkheologicheskie s”ezdy i stanovlenie vizantinovedeniia v Rossii, in VV, 37, Moscow, 1976, pp. 255–257. 57  For a complete list of N. P. Kondakov’s works, see the following editions: Nikodim Pavlovich Kondakov. 1844–1924. K vos’midesiatiletiiu so dnia rozhdeniia, Prague, 1924, pp. 75–85; G. V[ernadskii], “Bibliograficheskii spisok trudov N. P. Kondakova,” in Sbornik statei, posviashchennykh pamiati N. P. Kondakova, Prague, 1926, pp. XXXIV–XL; G. V[ernadskii], “Dopolneniia k spisku trudov N. P. Kondakova,” in SK, I, 1927, pp. 315–316; “Dopolnenia k spisku trudov N. P. Kondakova,” ibid., III, pp. 205–296.

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Russians could boast of works giving even an approximate notion of Byzantine art. The nature of Byzantine art, its sources and main stages of development, the areas to which it spread, the relationship of Byzantine culture to the national cultures of other peoples, and the general appraisal of the Byzantine artistic heritage were terra incognita. Kondakov realized, of course, that he was trailblazer in a new field and he alone could clarify at least the essential questions of Byzantine art. But he had to start from the main thing: the study of works of art and, to be sure, such works of art that would fall in a relatively coherent line from the outset of the Byzantine Empire to the fall of Constantinople. The only reliable material in this respect was the illuminated manuscript. Many manuscripts are dated and their provenance clear. Essential, in his view, was pristine freshness, the integrity of manuscript illuminations: unlike other works of Greek visual art, they were but rarely reworked and thus gave not only a fair idea of the subject matter but also of the artistic taste of the people who made the manuscript. Kondakov thus devoted his first book to his theme: The History of Byzantine Art and Iconography as Exemplified by Miniatures from Greek Manuscripts (1876).58 It would be out of place to relate the book’s contents here. Nor would it be appropriate to dwell at length on the peculiarities of the author’s iconographic method, which he first employed precisely in this work and which, to our great regret, is taken by some historians as Kondakov’s entire creative legacy.59 It is far more important to get the gist of Kondakov’s work on Byzantine antiquities and to assess its benefit for the study of the art of the peoples neighboring Byzantium who shared historical and cultural affinities.

58  It was also published in the Zapiski imp. Novorossiiskogo universiteta (vol. XXI, Odessa, 1877, part II, pp. 1–276). In 1886 and 1891, the book was translated into French for a series entitled Mezhdunarodnaia biblioteka iskusstv, see: N. P. Kondakov, Histoire de l’art byzantin considéré principalement dans les miniatures, I–II, Paris, 1886–1891. 59  See, for example, I. L. Kyzlasova, “Issledovatel’skie metody F. I. Buslaeva i N. P. Kondakova. (Itogi i perspektivy izuchenia),” in Vestnik Moskovskogo universiteta, 1978, 4 (July–August), pp. 87–95; I. L. Kyzlasova, “Nachal’nyi etap v stanovlenii ikonograficheskogo metoda N. P. Kondakova,” in VV, 41, Moscow, 1980, pp. 221–233; I. L. Kyzlasova, Istoriia izucheniia vizantiiskogo i drevnerusskogo iskusstva v Rossii (F. I. Buslaev, N. P. Kondakov: metody, idei, teorii), Moscow, Moscow University Publishers, 1985, pp. 74–155 (Chapter II. N. P. Kondakov’s Method of Investigation).

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Kondakov was not the first Russian scholar to specifically study Byzantine miniatures. Archimandrite Amfilokhii (Amphilochius),60 V. N. Vinogradov,61 F. I. Buslaev,62 and, lastly, A. E. Viktorov,63 were interested in Byzantine illuminated manuscripts earlier. Their research mainly amounted to occasional notes and articles on individual works. The same situation existed in the West. Such sparse literature and narrow background ruled out a fundamental study of Byzantine art. Scholarly treatment required an entirely new and more purposeful approach: far more works had to be studied, a considerable increment in the artifacts being treated, on the one hand, and then one must turn to their cataloguing and comprehensive survey as an artistic phenomenon in its own right, on the other. Kondakov set out in the early spring of 1875 on a prolonged research trip abroad, visiting all major European towns and investigating every repository of Greek codices known to him. In addition to descriptions of manuscripts, he made notes of a more general nature, trying to elicit the aesthetic ideals of Byzantine art and the main stages of its evolution. The work grew in size and maturity in the course of studying the sources. By the fall of 1876, when Kondakov returned to Odessa, he had completed his book, handed the manuscript over to the press, and waited for its publication. 60  “O litsevom grecheskom Akafiste Bozhiei Materi 2-oi poloviny XIV-go veka moskovskoi Sinodal’noi biblioteki no. 429,” in ChOLDP, 1870, October, pp. 118–126; “O miniatiurakh i ukrasheniiakh v grecheskikh rukopisiakh imp. Publichnoi biblioteki, odnoi rukopisi 1072 [goda] Biblioteki imp. Moskovskogo universiteta i odnoi iz biblioteki g. Norova, khraniashcheisia v Moskovskom Publichnom muzee,” ibid., 1870, November, pp. 215–276, with 4 tables; “O grecheskikh miniatiurakh na 14-ti listakh iz Evangel’skikh chtenii v imp. Publichnoi biblioteke pod no. XX-m, X veka,” in Izvestiia RAO, vol. VII, issue 3, 1872, columns 241–249; “O miniatiurakh v tolkovom svodnom Chetveroevangelii X–XI veka moskovskoi Sinodal’noi biblioteki no. 41,” in ChOLDP, 1873, October, pp. 403–404, with 2 ills., “Miniatiury v grecheskom, 1063 goda, sbornike zhitii sviatykh i pouchenii (moskovskoi Sinodal’noi biblioteki no. 9),” in Vestnik Obshchestva drevnerusskogo iskusstva pri Moskovskom Publichnom muzee, 1875, 6–10, section IV, Smes’, pp. 56–58. See also accounts of a whole number of illuminated MSS in the edition: Amfilokhii (Amphilochius), arkhim., Paleograficheskoe opisanie grecheskikh rukopisei IX–XVII veka opredelennykh let, I–IV, Moscow, 1879–1881. Amfilokhii’s booklet about the Lobkov Psalter is mentioned in note 30 above . 61  V. N. Vinogradskii, “Miniatiury Vatikanskoi Bibleiskoi rukopisi XII veka,” in Sbornik na 1873 god, izdannyi Obshchestvom drevnerusskogo iskusstva pri Moskovskom Publichnom muzee, Moscow, 1873, pp. 135–150. 62  “Iz Rima. Pis’ma prof. F. I. Buslaeva na imia predsedatelia Obshchestva,” in Vestnik Obshchestva drevnerusskogo iskusstva pri Moskovskom Publichnom muzee, 1875, 6–10, section IV, Smes’, pp. 67–72. 63  See about it in chapter 5.

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Browsing through Kondakov’s History nowadays, over one hundred years later, we immediately notice that the author informs us of a great number of little known, if not totally unknown, works of art. He evaluates each of these in his own peculiar way wholly independent of assessments made by his predecessors, and focuses on technique and quality of execution, and the relation of the miniature to the relevant literary work or iconographic variant. Next we see that despite an obvious preponderance of purely factual evidence, which makes the book as compressed and dense as a reference book, Kondakov tempers this factual material with his marvelous descriptions of objects, revealing all the incisiveness of his inquisitive mind. Thus, for instance, when dwelling on the peculiarities of style of the Vienna Book of Genesis, he notes that “the flesh tints in this codex are rendered with a genuinely Pompeian gusto, its coloring varying from gently pinkish to bronze and red for the shepherds, which can only be observed in the best frescoes of antiquity.”64 Another, vivid description refers to the best of the miniatures adorning a Vienna manuscript as “toylike.” Kondakov hastens to affirm that the term used is not intended to “diminish their outward beauty but, rather, to imply the joyous nature of the scenes.”65 An amazing freedom, a sense of being unfettered by any conventions of the genre, is also evident in portions of the text dealing with general issues. Thus, when summing up his impressions of the style and technical excellence of the eleventh-century miniatures which are known to have marked the acme in the evolution of this art, Kondakov points to “a gentle blending of overtones” in the brushwork, which reminds him of the “rocky scenery of the Bosphoros softened by the delicate colors and glimmering azure mist … the jagged silhouette of its cliffs and a fine pattern made up of various creepers carpeting the soil in a rich and motley fashion.” He adds that the manuscript decoration “betrays the same interplay of Nature’s forms as does a fanciful interlacing of plant and geometrical ornaments.”66 Encountering this or similar characteristics in the text, which are more typical of the prose of P. P. Muratov than the scholarly research of the 1870s, one recognizes the attraction of Byzantine artistic culture, which found in Kondakov its truly unbiased interpreter. Although the extracts cited here were chosen almost at random, it would be naive to believe that all of Kondakov’s works are colored by sentiments of this kind. In fact the general tenor of his works is entirely different. One must say that the author cared little for how the text would be received by his reader. 64  N. Kondakov, Istoriia vizantiiskogo iskusstva i ikonografii po miniatiuram grecheskikh rukopisei, Odessa, 1876, p. 41. 65  Ibid., p. 42. 66  Ibid., pp. 135–136.

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Recounting the history of the subject in an equable, measured way, he does not try to embroider it with unusual terms, similes, and metaphors. His imagery, his comprehension of artifacts and theoretical interpretation of evidence, all find a fairly adequate expression in lexical and syntactic forms of language which are entirely his own. It is therefore common to find rather inelegant and unwieldy turns of speech in his writings. His idiom becomes abstruse and even, at times, downright cryptic. In fact, Kondakov’s writings show very little of that literary flavor which is designed to evoke a ready image and facilitate an artistic interpretation of artifacts, making the subject more accessible. Might it not, then, seem strange that his study of Greek miniatures as well as other Byzantine antiquities make enjoyable reading? Even today when specialists are spoiled by many brilliantly written works on Byzantine artistic culture, every serious historian may detect the cause of this phenomenon: Kondakov had a remarkable knack of seeking and finding a great multitude of new material evidence. He also had a rare gift of seeing the past at close quarters, without the aid of obliging go-betweens who would impose upon him their own predilections and interpretation of that past. Hence, his judgments and appraisals have an unusual freshness and straightforwardness. He never feels at a loss to inform the reader of everything he has found, seen, held, thought over, and sorted out. He has a firm belief that all that has previously been unknown and undisclosed will be welcomed with gratitude. For the same reason, he fears not a whit to bestow the highest praise or hand down the harshest verdict upon an epoch, emperor, courtier, historian, anonymous artist, or merely an work of art no matter what its provenance is or what has been written about it by anyone before him. One may query Kondakov’s views or argue with him on some points at issue, but one cannot deny him a singular intellectual curiosity, industry, and devotion to his scholarship, and a remarkable open-mindedness of judgment. The History of Byzantine Art and Iconography as Exemplified by Miniatures from Greek Manuscripts is far from being the best work of Kondakov. The book suffers somewhat from being rigidly oriented toward one theme and being supported by some theoretical bias, which was obviously not Kondakov’s forte. The creative element of his nature, if one is allowed to apply this term to the historian, revealed itself most forcefully in a spontaneous exposé of a number of sundry topics cropping up in the course of research. It is therefore Kondakov’s scholarly accounts of archaeological expeditions that one should reckon among his most significant books. The above History may also be seen as an account, albeit a peculiar one, of such a journey, although it is devoid of the newness marking all of Kondakov’s travelogues of the East. Kondakov’s image as a professor, academician, and world-famed specialist should not lead

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us to confuse him with an armchair-scholar. Constantly drawn to new, unexplored towns and artworks, he spent months and years on end in constant journeyings. Judging by his letters and memoirs, his favorite place of sojourn was Europe, in particular, Italy and France. In actual fact, however, his real attachment was to the East, especially in his pre-Petersburg period, when it gave him particularly rich food for thought. In one of his first books to emerge after such a trip, Journey to Sinai, Kondakov defined clearly the fascination that the East held for him: The Sinai, just as the far East in general, is still largely a virgin land unsullied by fieldwork, and a European traveling here turns, willy-nilly, into a kind of naive pilgrim, falling under the spell of the foreign environment surrounding him on all sides. It is in these surroundings that he will surely find all the necessary information…. In the East, in general, and the Sinai Monastery, in particular, antiquity and its relics are still preserved in their own, natural surroundings and the traveler finds here none of the various contraptions specially devised for him, nor the ready material sorted out to suit the various degrees of his curiosity. Meanwhile, the very impulse to seek and discover on one’s own, to wander about, perchance to stumble upon something unexpected, something that will eventually turn out to be more interesting and instructive, constitutes that irresistible charm of traveling about the East which is borne of man’s inherent quality to hold dear to him only what is really so and what he attains with effort as a result of his own labor.67 In Kondakov’s day, the genre of a scientific journey was nothing extraordinary. One may refer here to books by Porfirii Uspenskii, in which he describes his travels to Greece, Turkey, Egypt, Syria, and Palestine, to say nothing of writings done in this vein by foreign authors that have been in evidence since the seventeenth century. The resemblance of genre, however, does not mean an affinity in essence. In the travelogues of other authors, even the best (with the exception of the famous Essay on the Journey Around European Turkey by V. I. Grigorovich, 1848, second edition 1877) the places of interest were more often than not merely described or even simply named.68 In Kondakov’s 67  N. Kondakov, Puteshestvie na Sinai v 1881 godu. Iz putevykh vpechatlenii. Drevnosti Sinaiskogo monastyria, Odessa, 1882, pp. II–III. 68  See, for instance, [A. N. Murav’ev], Pis’ma s Vostoka v 1849–1850 godakh, I–II, St. Petersburg, 1851; A. S. Norov, Ierusalim i Sinai. Zapiski vtorogo puteshestviia na Vostok, St. Petersburg, 1878.

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books they become the subject of full-fledged archaeological study, which is the individual force of Kondakov’s travelogues. Episodes of the journey itself gradually fade out making way for the study, or else combine with it to create a single whole perceived as an in-depth experience. In such an early work as the Journey to Sinai these two facets of a research trip are still kept apart and the travel notes precede the review of the “antiquities of the Sinai Monastery.”69 But in Byzantine Churches and Monuments of Constantinople, published three years later as a result of a special expedition undertaken by the preparatory committee of the Sixth Archaeological Congress in Odessa, the synthetic character of Kondakov’s travelogues is salient. Byzantine Churches and Monuments of Constantinople is undoubtedly one of Kondakov’s supreme achievements.70 Worthy of note first of all is the very formulation of the theme: a survey of the city’s monuments of empire. It had long been Kondakov’s firm conviction that this principal city of Byzantium was not only the hub of its political activities but also its chief artistic center. Constantinople’s influence spread far beyond the empire’s confines, as Kondakov underscores, be it when he speaks of foreign missions that were sent to Tsar’grad or of pilgrimages, especially those made by Russians, which continued uninterruptedly from the eleventh to the mid-fifteenth century. “Although artistic evidence is deemed unimportant,” Kondakov remarks, “it will not be superfluous to note that the St. Sophia did more for the enhancement of the role of the Byzantine Empire than many of its wars and that Vladimir’s ambassadors were surely not the only ones who imagined themselves to have risen to 69  It is worthy of note that it was the Russians who did especially much for the initial study of one of the first-rate works of Byzantine art at Sinai, the 6th-century altar mosaics in the cathedral of the St. Catherine Monastery. In 1837, the mosaics, which had been in a poor state of preservation, were carefully washed and fixed by the Russian archpriest Samuil (Vtoroe puteshestvie arkhimandrita Porfiriia Uspenskogo v Sinaiskii monastyr’ v 1850 godu, St. Petersburg, 1856, pp. 81–82). In 1861, A. S. Norov’s fellow traveler N. P. Polivanov did a copy of the Transfiguration composition there, for which purpose the special scaffolding was erected (A. S. Norov, Ierusalim i Sinai. Zapiski vtorogo puteshestviia na Vostok, pp. 114–115 with tables). Later, S. A. Usov and N. P. Kondakov devoted a special study to these mosaics (S. A. Usov, “Mozaika v tserkvi Preobrazheniia v monastyre sv. Ekateriny na Sinae,” in Drevnosti. Trudy MAO, vol. VIII, 1880, pp. 105–122; N. Kondakov, Puteshestvie na Sinai v 1881 godu. Iz putevykh vpechatlenii. Drevnosti sinaiskogo monastyria, pp. 75–90). For comparison, see the most recent investigation: K. Weitzmann, Studies in the Arts at Sinai, Princeton, N. Y., 1982, pp. 5–18 (“The Mosaic in St. Catherine’s Monastery on Mount Sinai”). 70  It was not without reason that it received the Gold Medal of the Russian Archaeological Society. See, in particular, a review of it made by N. V. Pokrovskii (ZRAO, vol. III, issue 1, 1887, minutes, pp. XXXIII–XL).

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heaven while contemplating the magnificent and luxurious church.71 This lapidary, aphoristic statement characterizes Kondakov’s general approach to the problem of Byzantium’s artistic ties with other states of Europe and the East. Despite its title, Kondakov’s book may least of all be viewed as an investigation of Constantinople’s architecture. His study of Byzantine churches, palaces, ramparts, and triumphal memorials is intended to elucidate all aspects of the religious, political, and artistic life of the metropolis. The Istanbul of the 1880s offered exceptionally rich opportunities to such a purposeful scholar as Kondakov. Although the archaeological excavations, on which he pinned his best hopes, had not started yet, neither had the area been built over so densely as nowadays, barring the very possibility of such diggings. Because of frequent fires, which destroyed the hastily knocked-up Turkish dwellings, the city lay sprawled in vacant lots, flower gardens, and vegetable plots, bringing in sharp relief both its topography and antiquity. The overall desolation was so great that the phantom of former Byzantium loomed at every turn. Rising steeply were the hills of the ancient city surmounted by church and monastery buildings. Towering majestically in the Roman manner was the bulk of the Valens aqueduct overgrown with clumps of ivy whereas the coastal walls and imperial palaces, not yet cut off from the sea by the highway which nowadays encircles the entire city, descended right down to the waves of the Bosphoros or the Marmara Sea. Says Kondakov: “Although the recently extant reality has become antiquity, its historical artifacts could still be sighted amid their natural and customary surroundings. There are few ancient cities, like Rome, Athens and, possibly, Moscow within the near future, that are of such singular and vital importance for history.”72 Kondakov’s book abounds not only in vivid descriptions relevant to the chosen theme but also in pungent historical reminiscences displaying Kondakov’s inimitable knack of tying together the evidence of art and that of history, ideology, literature, everyday life, and culture in general. While directed toward one goal, this kind of scholarly stream of consciousness catches up, in passing, a great number of other subjects which the author either finds relevant or inserts in his text as curious additions. These odd bits of information form a veritable encyclopedia of Constantinople, and may be of use to an historian, a liturgist, a literary critic, or a specialist in Byzantine art. Art has for Kondakov an attraction all its own. The book dwells at length on what remains of the mosaics of the Hagia Sophia, the Kariye Camii and Fethiye Camii, on the mosaic cycles described in the chronicles but no longer 71  N. Kondakov, Vizantiiskie tserkvi i pamiatniki Konstantinopolia, Odessa, 1886, p. 41. 72  Ibid., p. 96.

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extant of the Church of the Holy Apostles and the palace Nea Church. Unlike A. N. Murav’ev, however, who visited Istanbul in the mid-nineteenth century (when, incidentally, many of the previously uncovered mosaics of the Hagia Sophia were again re-plastered), Kondakov does not limit himself to the description of what has survived but makes far-reaching generalizations.73 Examining the literature on the Hagia Sophia’s decorative treatment, he finds enough grounds to disagree with those of his predecessors who surmised the existence of an extensive mosaic decoration as far back as the age of Justinian. In Kondakov’s view, the overwhelming majority of figural representations that are still extant in the Hagia Sophia cannot have emerged earlier than the ninth and tenth centuries, but “in the sixth century,” he remarks, not without irony, “it had nothing like the forty thousand feet of mosaics of the St. Mark’s kind.”74 Of course not all of the questions arising in the course of work in Tsar’grad (the Slavic word for Constantinople) were settled by Kondakov with the same degree of persuasiveness. He found it particularly difficult to ascertain the dating of mosaics and frescoes of Constantinople’s famous architectural hallmark, Kariye Camii, or of the cathedral church of the Chora Monastery. Five years earlier he had issued a booklet wholly devoted to the Kariye mosaics,75 but in this newly revised text, meant to be part of a general survey of Constantinople, he commits a gross incongruity by chronologically splitting this integral work of art into two parts, one of which (the mosaics of the katholikon and inner narthex) he dates to the eleventh century and the other (the dedicatory composition with the St. Theodore Metochites, the monumental Deesis, the figures of Sts. Peter and Paul in the inner narthex and all the mosaics and frescoes of the outer narthex and the south side-altar) to the end of the thirteenth or the beginning of the fourteenth centuries. This incongruity obviously resulted from Kondakov’s conviction, which he arrived at in the course of his study of illuminated manuscripts, that the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries were incapable of creating anything that could stand comparison with the earlier and more fertile eras in the history of Byzantine art. One should, nevertheless, give Kondakov credit for one thing: his idea of dividing the ensemble into two parts with regard to period came from his acutely perceived sense of varying quality: the decorative treatment of the outer narthex and some individual 73  See: [A. N. Murav’ev], Pis’ma s Vostoka v 1849–1850 godakh, part I, pp. 11–12, 17–20, 23–26 St. Sophia’s mosaics), part II, p. 338 (the mosaics of the Fethiye Camii), 339–341 (the mosaics of Kariye Camii), 381 (the mosaic icons in the Patriarch’s church of St. George). 74  N. Kondakov, Vizantiiskie tserkvi i pamiatniki Konstantinopolia, p. 112. 75  N. Kondakov, Mozaiki mecheti Kahrie-Dzhamisi—μονη τηζ Xωραζ—v Konstantinopole, Odessa, 1881.

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compositions of the inner one do betray the workmanship of a different, less experienced team of masters. One has to agree with Kondakov when he points to a sluggish paleness of coloring of the mosaics of the outer narthex,76 or to “a hard-hearted dryness” marking the image of Christ in the monumental Deesis to the right of the main door leading from the inner narthex to the katholikon.77 Passing from one Byzantine church to another and reliving, as it were, the entire millennium of Byzantine history, Kondakov keeps to his characteristic habit of reconstructing an event in its historical context, and voices, in passing, other considerations’ each of which could serve (and no less today than in Kondakov’s time) as a theme for a major investigation in its own right. Contrary to his contemporaries belief in the absolute superiority of the art of Western Europe and, especially, that of the Italian Renaissance, over the art of the East, Kondakov, proceeding in his subtly caustic way, draws an entirely different picture of relationships linking Italian and Western European art with that of Byzantium during the crucial period of the thirteenth century. In terms of creativity, he unambiguously refers to the Crusades as the renewal of European art through Byzantine art. Describing ravages of the Latins in captured Constantinople, Kondakov does not miss the opportunity to point out that the Venetians, for example, used the spoils of war from the East not only for “adorning St. Mark’s Cathedral and its sacristy with jewelry and works of art but also for giving inspiration to their own craftsmen.”78 One may wonder if this remarkable insight does not lie at the root of modern scholarship dealing with the early history of Venetian art, which gave us marvelous masterpieces of painting such as the creations of Paolo Veneziano and, later, of Titian, Veronese, and Tintoretto. It is the same thought that runs through Kondakov’s general characteristic of late Byzantine art as he conceived it from his study of mosaics and frescoes of Kariye Camii. Voicing his astonishment at those scholars who, instead of renouncing their obsolete views on Byzantine art as “a lifeless and ugly mummy,” eagerly declared that this remarkable architectural monument was the work of Italian masters emulating some Byzantine prototypes, Kondakov develops the contrary idea of the beneficial influence that Byzantine painting exerted on Italian art of Duccio’s and Giotto’s day. He adds, “The Byzantine artistic heritage, which has hitherto suffered every kind of ravage, is at present being plundered, not without success, for the benefit of some local, self-appointed art schools created in the imagination of patriotically-

76  N. Kondakov, Vizantiiskie tserkvi i pamiatniki Konstantinopolia, p. 176. 77  Ibid., p. 188. 78  Ibid., p. 77.

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minded researchers.”79 These words reveal the essence of Kondakov’s personality in that he trusted fact no matter how many attractive spurious explanations prevailed among his fellow scholars and in the social milieu of the time. In doing so, he remained a true patriot, albeit one dedicated to the only province infinitely close to him: unbiased scholarship. The concept of Byzantine art is expanded by Kondakov to cover not only the Byzantine artistic culture proper, first and foremost, the creative heritage of Constantinople, but also the art of many other countries and peoples within the orbit of Byzantium’s political, ecclesiastic, and artistic influence, such as Syria, Palestine, Georgia, Armenia, Bulgaria, Serbia, Russia, and even, partly, Italy and Germany. This is how Kondakov himself expounds the idea: “During a whole millennium, Byzantine art and the artistic idiom it coined enjoyed the same universal currency (albeit of a different worth) as did classical art [in its own time] and like the latter, incorporated so many diverse elements developing under its aegis that one may reckon this art and its idiom as typical for the time in question. It is apparent that alongside these, an enormous variety of purely folk formations existed in the art and everyday life of both the barbarian tribes and the well-established states of medieval Europe, but it is the art of Byzantium that still remains the only bond and, hence, scholarly foundation of all this movement.”80 This broad interpretation of Byzantine art exaggerated the significance of the metropolis and diminished the creative role of the provinces. Only this may account for Kondakov’s numerous pronouncements on the stylistic coarseness and impropriety of a whole number of Georgian and Russian artworks; a case in point is his odd remark about the “marvelous decorative treatment of the Palatine Chapel compared to which the wall painting of churches in the West and Russia looks but an insipid and discolored copy.”81 Polemic digressions of this kind, which are not infrequent in Kondakov’s writings, never affect his firm conviction that the art of a particular nation is no figment of the imagination, but a real fact and that Armenians, Georgians, Serbs, Bulgars, and Russians have indeed succeeded in creating art forms of their own which are well in keeping with their lifestyles, national traditions, and indigenous tastes. The best testimony to this facet of Kondakov’s approach is his interest in what was distinctive in Russian art, whose problems he became more and more preoccupied with after moving from Odessa to St. Petersburg in 1888. When one turns over the last page of his book on Byzantine churches 79  Ibid., pp. 196–197. 80  Ibid., p. VI. The quote is edited by us as the printed text suffers an obvious mixing of the singular and plural. 81  Ibid., p. 62.

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and monuments of Constantinople and then browses through the sections already read, one cannot but notice certain statements made by the author. One of these runs as follows: “May the ultimate purpose of works on Byzantine archaeology be the knowledge of the Russian past,” for “the knowledge of antiquities and the art of the Orthodox East is vital to the Russian archaeological science not only as the closest, kindred and, therefore, comprehensible medium, but also as the historically inherited one.”82 Before we review Kondakov’s work during his St. Petersburg period, we shall briefly dwell on some less well-known scholars who were concerned with Byzantine art and archaeology. To better appreciate the value of Kondakov’s undertakings and theories, we may contrast them with the “Byzantine” essay of A. S. Uvarov. Intending to write a history of Byzantine art independent of Kondakov, he spent considerable time searching for the necessary evidence such as data on early Christian sarcophagi, Greek miniatures, and mosaics. Today Uvarov’s material, published soon after the author’s death, strikes one as superficial and out-of-date.83 Nor was he able to accomplish his plan of launching, under the aegis of the Moscow Archaeological Society, a course of public lectures on the Byzantine antiquities which he and Mansvetov would give.84 One productive area was in the publication of individual works. Owing to a general predilection of the nineteenth-century researcher for the study of illuminated manuscripts, it was the miniatures that came to the fore. Apart from the abovementioned Archimandrite Amfilokhii (Amphilochius), Vinogradskii, Buslaev, Viktorov, and Shchepkin, we should also note S. A. Usov, who published two sixth-century codices: the Rossano Gospel Book and the Rabbula Gospel Book.85 Surveys of collections appeared in print on a regular 82  Ibid., p. V. 83   Vizantiiskii al’bom gr. A. S. Uvarova, vol. I, issue 1, Moscow, 1890. Cf.: I. D. Mansvetov, “O trudakh grafa A. S. Uvarova po vizantiiskoi arkheologii,” in Nezabvennoi pamiati grafa A. S. Uvarova, Moscow, 1885, pp. 56–61. See also I. V. Tsvetaev’s review of the abovementioned art book in Drevnosti. Trudy MAO, vol. XV, issue 1, 1894, minutes, pp. 30–35. 84   Drevnosti. Trudy MAO, vol. IX, issue 1, 1881, minutes, pp. 31–33. 85   S. A. Usov, “Miniatiury k grecheskomu kodeksu Evangeliia VI veka, otkrytomu v Rossano,” in Drevnosti. Trudy MAO, vol. IX, issue 1, pp. 37–78 with tables; S. A. Usov, “Siriiskoe Evangelie Lavrentianskoi biblioteki,” ibid., vol. XI, issue 2, 1886, pp. 1–51, with ills. Regarding the first of these two manuscripts, which was discovered in the 1870s by German scholars, see also some special considerations made by I. D. Mansvetov and N. V. Pokrovskii: Pribavleniia k Tvoreniiam sviatykh otsev v russkom perevode, 1881, book I, pp. 242–257 (Mansvetov’s review of the edition of O. Gebhardt (Hebhardt) and A. Kharnak); N. V. Pokrovskii, Evangelie v pamiatnikakh ikonografii, preimushchestvenno vizantiiskikh i russkikh, St. Petersburg, 1892, pp. IX–XIV.

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basis: following the description of illuminated manuscripts from the repository of the Sinai Monastery, which constituted a section of its own in Kondakov’s book,86 an attempt was made to publish a list of the illuminated manuscripts in the library of the Greek Patriarchate in Jerusalem.87 Gradually, works of monumental art also came to be subjects of scholarly research: A. G. Liuiks reported on mosaics of Fethiye Camii;88 A. N. Shchukarev, a talented scholar who died prematurely, did the same on the mosaics of Cefalu and Martorana.89 Unfortunately, these publications were motley in character and uneven in quality, their authors setting, with few exceptions, no long-term goals. This work, no matter how well carried out, changed nothing in the general approach to Byzantine art. And it was only Kondakov with his perseverance, indefatigable energy, and sound judgment of Byzantine art not through separate works but synthetically, estimating large groups, categories, and even whole epochs, who reached conclusions of wide-ranging import. There is an interesting comment made by Alexander Nikolaevich Benois about Kondakov’s lectures in St. Petersburg University, which he read soon after moving to the capital from Odessa. Since we set store by any individual testimony which adds to the scholar’s personality, we would like to cite here Benois’s words: And so it happened that I started attending Kondakov’s lectures, which he read in the library’s premises in a very informal setting to a fairly small audience. Going to the first of these, I fancied that I would hear something very soul-inspiring, like the legendary lectures that Granovskii or Tan [Taine?] used to read in their time. Instead, the three lectures of our famed scholar that I attended dwelt in a rather awkward way exclusively upon the antiquities of Mycenae and presented a most detailed survey of various bowls, cups, and other excavated gold artifacts. As I instantly felt utterly disgusted with all this “gravedigging,” I swore off attending the lectures of our eminent Nikodim Pavlovich … Archaeology was then 86  N. Kondakov, Puteshestvie na Sinai v 1881 godu, pp. 119–156. 87  A. S. Pavlov, “O kataloge grecheskikh rukopisei ierusalimskoi patriarkhii, izdannom imp. Palestinskim obshchestvom,” in Drevnosti. Trudy MAO, vol. XV, issue 1, 1894, pp. 69–79 (based on the material of the catalog issued in 1891 by A. I. Papadopulo-Keramevs). 88  A. G. Liuiks, “Mechet’ Fethiye Dzhami v Konstantinopole,” in Trudy VI AS v Odesse (1884 g.), vol. III, Odessa, 1887, pp. 281–284. 89  A. N. Shchukarev, “Vizantiiskie mozaiki dvukh sitsiliiskikh tserkvei XII veka,” in ZRAO, vol. IV, issue 1, 1889, pp. 50–67, tabl. V–VII. Regarding the author of this work, see: S. A. Zhebelev, “Pamiati A. N. Shchukareva,” ibid., vol. XII, issue 3 and 4, 1901, pp. 1–14.

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clearly not to my liking: it seemed to be the province lying in the direction plainly opposite to that of art. Later on, I could better appreciate the benefit of a painstaking study of these, at first sight, rather uncomely objects. Moreover, Kondakov as a person aroused in me the greatest respect. What a lucid mind, what profound erudition, what a tremendous feeling for beauty hidden behind the shell of outward dryness and even some sort of dullness.90 Benois’ memoirs deal with the 1890s, when lecturing was not something that Kondakov considered obligatory. He retired in 1897, received the title of academician in 1898, and joined the staff of the Academy of Sciences in 1900, leaving for good the university that he had grown so sick of. Being fairly well-off and henceforth able to freely plan his working time, he gave himself wholly to scholarly pursuits. Since he was on the staff of the Academy’s Department of Russian Language and Literature, the study of Russian archaeology became not only his public duty but also a matter of conscience. Fortunately, it tallied well with Kondakov’s personal aspirations. The Byzantine he made his permanent concern, yet he turned ever more often to the study of Russian art. This was the ground which brought him into contact with high-ranking officials of the imperial court as well as members of the imperial family itself: the Vice-President of the Academy of Arts I. I. Tolstoi; the Chairman of the Society of Lovers of Ancient Literature S. D. Sheremetev; Grand Dukes Konstantin Nikolaevich and Konstantin Konstantinovich; and, finally, Emperor Nicholas II himself. Through his wife, who was the Moscow Metropolitan Filaret’s grandniece, he gained access to the highest echelons of Russian clergy including the chief procurator of the Synod K. P. Pobedonostsev. This gave him every kind of privilege in studying church artifacts, regardless of their whereabouts: the faraway sacristies and libraries, cathedrals and monasteries, state and private collections, both in Russia and abroad. Within a very short time, Kondakov’s acknowledged authority as the preeminent expert on Byzantine art took on an additional coloring: he became a major specialist of Russian art and archaeology. One after another came out his fundamental works on Russian 90  A. Benua, Moi vospominaniia, I–III, Moscow, 1980, p. 637. Cf. also S. A. Zhebelev’s review, which runs as follows: “N. P. Kondakov, our famous art historian and archaeologist, came to to us [that is, to St. Petersburg University—G. V.] from Odessa. While he rendered the history of Greek art mostly in general terms, his lectures on the history of Byzantine art, coupled with practical classes, were both extremely interesting and profoundly instructive.” [S. A. Zhebelev, “Iz universitetskikh vospominanii (1886–1890),” in Annaly, II, Petrograd, 1922, p. 180].

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antiquities: the six-volume edition Russian Antiquities in Artworks (1889–99); Russian Hoards (1898); The Iconography of Jesus Christ (1905); Representations of the Russian Princely Family in Eleventh-Century Illuminations (1906); the two-volume Iconography of the Virgin (1914–15); and much later, during World War I and the civil war in Russia, his monumental oeuvre, The Russian Icon (two volumes of text and another two of illustrations, 1928–33). If we add to this impressive list An Inventory of Artworks of Antiquity in Some Churches and Monasteries of Georgia (1890), and Byzantine Enamels (1892), which was a magnificent edition in both concept and design, as well as his books Works of Christian Art at Athos (1902), An Archaeological Journey Through Syria and Palestine (1904), and Macedonia (1909), all of which abound in factual evidence and, finally, his many articles, reviews, and reports on Russo-Byzantine subjects, the figure of Kondakov—“this veritable patriarch of the national archaeology of Russia”—will emerge in all its magnitude.91 He was a real exponent of the period especially when it concerned the study of the Russian artistic heritage in the general context of Eastern Christian and Byzantine antiquity. It is, of course, impossible to give here detailed account of the above-cited works as their subject matter is too immense and varied. His latest monographs (The Iconography of Jesus Christ, The Iconography of the Virgin, and The Russian Icon) fall completely out of the chronological bounds of this volume, and will occupy a place in its planned sequel. As V. N. Lazarev’s said,92 Kondakov’s scholarship emerged “inductively,” that is, as an intensive, neverceasing process of accumulating factual evidence, with neither time nor room being left for its theoretic elucidation. Kondakov himself was well aware of this, and for this reason was fond of repeating N. Fustel de Coulanges’ dictum that “all life is for the analysis and one day for the synthesis.” In his own case, however, the “life for the analysis” went on and on, while “the day for the synthesis” never came. Neither did the history of art proper, as interpreted by Kondakov, ever receive, systematic treatment, hindered by the fusion at that time of the notions of art and artistic archaeology. His original intention to marshal the history of Byzantine art according to its different categories or genres was abandoned less than halfway through: the survey of Byzantine mosaics, started in the wake of the study of miniatures, materialized in a brief work devoted to the mosaics of Kariye Camii. He failed to elaborate his earlier observations on Byzantinesque mosaics in Italy and Greece because he was 91  In V. V. Stasov’s words. See his dedication in the book: V. V. Stasov, Miniatiury nekotorykh rukopisei vizantiiskikh, bolgarskikh, russkikh, dzhagataiskikh i persidskikh, St. Petersburg, 1902, (=PDP, CXX). 92  V. N. Lazarev, Nikodim Pavlovich Kondakov, p. 18.

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Figure 8.6 N. P. Kondakov and I. I. Tolstoy, Russian Antiquities in Works of Art, issue 6, Monuments of Vladimir, Novgorod and Pskov. St. Petersburg, 1899.

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too engrossed in retrieving from oblivion a multitude of then largely unknown artworks. In fact, Kondakov’s long life was spent in creating a solid foundation upon which all modern Byzantine scholarship and a considerable number of national schools were to build. It is therefore for this reason that we are somewhat at a loss when faced with the task of grasping the tenor of Kondakov’s investigations: they opened up vistas and established interrelationships each of which has a real value only when considered as part of the whole. Before highlighting the Russian theme in Kondakov’s scholarly legacy, let us first look briefly at his Monuments of Christian Art at Athos, which work is Kondakov’s account of an expedition sent by the Academy of Sciences to Mount Athos in 1898.93 Like his books devoted to Constantinople’s antiquities and Macedonia, Athos is an exemplary report on an archaeological expedition a masterpiece of the genre. Despite the seeming incongruity of the terms “masterpiece” and “report” they both aptly describe the book. It is a truly inexhaustible mine of information about the Athos antiquities, and at the same time a fascinating and talented narrative of a journey to an exciting, inaccessible place. The Holy Mountain has of old been an object of lofty aspirations of Russians.94 Since the eleventh century, when the first Russians appeared at Athos, the path between Athos and Russia has been well trodden for a thousand years. Beginning in the nineteenth century, pilgrimages alternated with research expeditions; both yielded valuable data on the natural conditions and inhabitants of Athos, on the organization of the monastic republic and on various works of literature and art stored in the monasteries of Athos. A good deal of scholarly interest is stirred by even an early work such as the description of the Athos monasteries made by the Kiev citizen, Vasilii Grigorovich-Barskii after he roamed the loca sancta (1723–47).95 This work was followed, one hundred years later, by the expeditions of P. I. Sevast’ianov and the learned pilgrimages of Andrei Murav’ev, Porfirii Uspenskii, Mikhail Tolstoi, and other admirers of Athos. None of these, however, with the exception of Sevast’ianov, investigated the Athos monasteries to reveal the art contained there. Western studies of Athos had the same gap. Kondakov saw through the “clamorous, yet shallow” repute of A. Dideron, whose writings on Athos painting enjoyed an undeserved popularity. The turning point came only at the close of the nineteenth century with the appearance, shortly before Kondakov’s journey, of works by 93  N. Kondakov, Pamiatniki khristianskogo iskusstva na Afone, St. Petersburg, 1902. 94  For the bibliography of this issue, see: A. Prosvirin, “Afon i russkaia tserkov’,” in Bogoslovskie trudy, XV, Moscow, 1976, pp. 185–256. 95   Stranstvovaniia Vasil’ia Grigorovicha-Barskogo po sviatym mestam Vostoka s 1723 po 1747 g., part III, St. Petersburg, 1887 (the entire third volume is devoted to Athos).

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A. A. Dmitrievskii, N. V. Pokrovskii, and H. Brockhaus.96 However, all of these betrayed the narrow range of interests of their authors. It was from a different angle that Kondakov approached his task. “[My] survey of the Athos monuments of Christian antiquity and art,” he reported, “is a treatise on the historical course of development of Christian art in the Greek and South Slavic East following the fall of Byzantium rather than a mere description of all the works seen there.”97 These words capture the book’s true purport, for it is indeed a treatise and an investigation carried out by a man of perceptive mind, rather than just an inventory of the best artworks, however well done. It does lay emphasis on the antiquities of the post-Byzantine age since Athos long survived the Byzantine Empire. And, last but not least, the book surveys the international aspect of art at Athos, which has at all times been a place where men of different cultures met and worked together and where pilgrims from Bulgaria, Serbia, Rumania, Moldavia, Georgia, and Russia brought their votive offerings. The synthetic nature of the investigation thus conceived made for an unusual bulkiness of its constituent parts. In this respect, all the chapters devoted to visual arts—wall painting, mosaic and tempera icons, embroidery and illuminated manuscripts—provide a remarkable picture. It is noteworthy that Kondakov debunks the allegedly single tradition and Byzantine bias of Athos wall paintings which, following A. Dideron, was accepted by the leading lights of Western European archaeology. Athos frescoes had to be reappraised after the discovery of the Russian ones, painted early on and reflecting better the true purport of Byzantine iconography and aesthetics. But while pointing to an extreme complexity and, at the same time, triteness of Athos murals, Kondakov did not deny them their intrinsic historical significance as the last stage in the development of a once great art. He showed insight in stressing the necessity of searching out and publishing artworks of the intermediary period of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, which were then but barely known from single frescoes discovered in Serbia and Macedonia. He showed that Athos icons, many of which were being credited with venerable age, were hidden under metal frames or layers of impenetrable olive oil and centuries-old soot, which created many problems for dating and the reconstruction of the history of Byzantine painting. To all appearances, Kondakov attached much importance to future discoveries in the realm of icon painting and this should 96  See: A. Dmitrievskii, “Afonskaia ikonopis’ i ee kharakter,” in Rukovodstvo dlia sel’skikh pastyrei, 1887, no. 15, pp. 519–534; N. V. Pokrovskii, Stennye rospisi v drevnikh khramakh grecheskikh i russkikh, pp. 214–246; H. Brockhaus, Die Kunst in den Athos-Klöstern, Leipzig, 1891 (2nd edition: Leipzig, 1924). 97  N. Kondakov, Pamiatniki khristianskogo iskusstva na Afone, p. 59.

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be remembered each time one starts considering the iconographic method applied by the scholar, who would allegedly set no store by the genuine painting.98 That he held in high esteem the artistic mastery in ancient artworks is clearly seen from the book’s brief but highly instructive section dealing with embroidery which “vies with the first-class works produced by icon painters of the day.”99 Speaking of the few extant embroideries that were discovered at Athos by the expedition, including those in the Hilandari and Doxiari monasteries, Kondakov gives a detailed historico-iconographic reference, recalling, for the sake of completeness of his argumentation and comprehensiveness of conclusions, works of similar kind in Ochrida, Bucharest, Putnja, Thessalonica, Suceava, Novgorod, Smolensk, Poltava, Vladimir, Suzdal’, Yaroslavl, and Putivl.100 The geographical range of works to which he refers demonstrates his wideranging treatment of the Athos theme in a major historical investigation. Reading Kondakov’s book on Athos, one is enthralled by the pages dealing with arts reflecting regional characteristics of the countries neighboring Athos and by his view of Russian artworks, which had been “looked upon as objects of local interest.”101 And the more he reveals the non-Athos provenance of some capital works preserved in Athos, the more often he returns to the subject in hand. A case in point are two exquisite church curtains from the Hilandari Monastery one of which (of the late fourteenth century) was produced in Serbia and the other (of the mid-sixteenth century) in Russia. It would not be wide of the mark to assert that the issue of national art schools was Kondakov’s chief concern. Exploring Athos, whose relics of the past exhibited no particularly Byzantinesque or, to be more exact, Constantinopolitan bias, gave him occasion to switch over to the study of works of art preserved in Slavic countries, which were then little explored in the context of scholarship on Byzantine art as a whole. Kondakov’s firsthand acquaintance with the art of different countries and his equally thorough knowledge of historical source material enabled him to raise and resolve key issues of both Russian and Byzantine art, unique for the nineteenth century. Already in his first major work on Russian art dealing with the frescoes of the stair-tower of the Kievan St. Sophia, Kondakov demonstrated his approach to the interpretation of a work of art. Contrary to a common view of these enigmatic depictions as the scenes of hunting and entertainment of eleventh-century Kievan princes, he established that the subjects of the Kievan murals were not Russian, convincingly arguing their kinship with 98  Ibid., pp. 121, 130, 133. 99  Ibid., p. 272. 100  Ibid., pp. 240–281. 101  Ibid., p. 13.

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the festive performances and pageants of the Constantinople hippodrome as recorded by Byzantine writers.102 His analysis goes beyond the subject-matter. Following his habit of getting at the root of things, Kondakov often points out the eastern traits in the life of the Greek capital, elements of which are represented on the staircase paintings of the the Kievan St. Sophia. He draws the conclusion that there was in Byzantium a continual, lasting, and pervasive influence from Asia Minor. The eastern aspect of Greek culture had a powerful attraction for Kondakov and it was chiefly for this reason that his last major work, based on lectures which he read in emigration, was wholly devoted to the art and life of nomads and their impact on Byzantine civilization.103 Kondakov’s Russian Antiquities in Artworks, published with some assistance from the vice president of the Academy of Arts Count I. I. Tolstoi, is well-nigh the only oeuvre in his scientific legacy presenting the history of Russian art in a systematic fashion.104 Russian Antiquities came out in six books, each of which was amply illustrated (over a thousand illustrations, in all). This was, in fact, the first truly scholarly history of pre-Mongol Russian art. Thanks to its novel subject and the indisputable authority of the narrative, it was immediately translated into French, and became known in the West. Kondakov’s certitude, based on the experience of his scholarly method, that Russian art cannot be properly understood without taking into account the cultural traits of other peoples that had inhabited the vast expanse later settled by Russians prompted him to devote the edition’s first three volumes to the classical antiquities of the Black Sea coast, those of Scythia and Sarmatia, and those dating to the migration period. Russian art proper occupies the last three volumes, two of which are given over to painting. The specimens chosen are exclusively works of monumental art: mosaics and frescoes of Kiev, Vladimir, Novgorod, and Pskov. The most ancient of Russian icons were still to be discovered, but 102  N. P. Kondakov, “O freskakh lestnits Kievo-Sofiiskogo sobora,” in ZRAO, vol. III, issue 3 and 4, 1888, pp. 287–306. Cf: A. A. Bobrinskii, “Ob odnoi iz fresok lestnitsy Kievo-Sofiiskogo sobora. Pis’mo professoru Kondakovu,” ibid., vol. IV, issue 2, 1889, pp. 81–92. See also some earlier and later specialist works on these frescoes: S. Kryzhanovskii, “Kievo-Sofiiskaia stenopis’ v korridorakh lestnits, vedushchikh na khory,” in Severnaia pchela, 1853, no. 147 and 148, pp. 587–588 and 591–592; N. Smirnov, “Freskovye izobrazheniia po lestnitsam na khory Kievo-Sofiiskogo sobora,” in TKDA, 1871, March, pp. 554–591; A. Grabar, “Les fresques des escaliers à Saint-Sophie de Kiev et l’iconographie impériale byzantine,” in SK, VII, 1935, pp. 103–117. 103  N. P. Kondakov, Ocherki i zametki po istorii srednevekovogo iskusstva i kul’tury, Prague, 1929. 104  See about him: S. Zhebelev, “Graf I. I. Tolstoi (Nekrolog),” in ZhMNP, 1916, September, section Sovremennaia letopis’, pp. 27–44; S. Zhebelev, “Graf Ivan Ivanovich Tolstoi (18 maia 1858 g.–20 maia 1916 g.), in Russkii istoricheskii zhurnal, 1–2, 1917, pp. 185–187.

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the omission of miniatures, which researchers in the nineteenth century published in great abundance, appears as some inexplicable lapse. Kondakov was perfectly aware of the historical significance of manuscript illumination. At the beginning of Russian Antiquities he had occasion to declare that the “Russian miniature … is precisely that self-dependent objective and popular medium of artistic and spiritual creativity which is awaiting its explorer in order to gratify him with the most fruitful results and disclose for him the innermost recesses of the people’s life.”105 Despite the obvious insufficiency of the corpus of artworks included in Russian Antiquities, Kondakov expounds his views on the history of Russian art of its most remote period. It goes without saying that he treats as “ByzantineRussian” the first works of painting emerging on Kiev soil in the mid-eleventh century, namely mosaics and frescoes of the St. Sophia Cathedral, doing it just for that simple reason that, as he himself aptly remarks, “mosaics as a kind of art executed in situ clear the way for local arts” even when, as in the case of Kiev, the master-craftsmen were dispatched from Byzantium.106 He also treats in terms of the history of Grecian art the altar-space mosaics of the St. Michael Monastery of the Golden Roofs, although an obvious departure of the creators of this composition from the serenely ceremonial style of the St. Sophia mosaics, the exaggerated proportions and movements of figures as well as the emergence of a Russian legend here, all give Kondakov sufficient reasons for asserting that “St. Michael’s mosaics “must have been executed, in part, by the Kiev disciples of Greek masters.”107 In the Kievan artworks of the eleventh and twelfth centuries the Byzantine element is plainly manifest. Yet it may appear odd and even importunate that Kondakov so persistently refers to Byzantine or Byzantine-Russian art in relation to numerous church murals of Vladimir, Novgorod, and Pskov, which laid the groundwork for a purely Russian interpretation of art form.108 Kondakov’s interpretation of the terms “Byzantine” or “Greek” covers not so much the style as the aesthetic-cum-historical type of artistic expression, which is characterized by its sharply defined subjects, techniques of representation, and spiritual content. It is therefore pointless to infer 105  N. Kondakov, “Russkii litsevoi Apokalipsis. Retsenziia na knigu: F. Buslaev, Svod izobrazhenii iz litsevykh Apokalipsisov po russkim rukopisiam s XVI-go veka po XIX-i, Moscow, 1884,” in ZhMNP, 1885, July, p. 141. 106   Russkie drevnosti v pamiatnikakh iskusstva, izdavaemye I. Tolstym i N. Kondakovym. 4. Khristianskie drevnosti Kryma, Kavkaza i Kieva, St. Petersburg, 1891, p. 131. 107  Ibid., p. 163. 108   Russkie drevnosti v pamiatnikakh iskusstva, izdavaemye I. Tolstym i N. Kondakovym, 6. Pamiatniki Vladimira, Novgoroda i Pskova, St. Petersburg, 1899.

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a pejorative meaning in definitions of this kind. The self-sufficiency of Russian art is, in Kondakov’s view, a fait accompli. The very appearance of Russian Antiquities shows better than any arguments the scholar’s stand. Moreover, rather than wasting time on polemics with his overseas colleagues who were writing all kinds of nonsense about Russian art, Kondakov approaches the subject with a thoroughness peculiarly his own. He analyses all the noteworthy artworks down to the minutest detail, including their provenance, iconography, relationship with the art of the West and East, idiosyncrasies of their medium, subject matter, and style. Each new volume of Russian Antiquities was far from a mere inventory of works: a complex and creative study of the subject unfolded in the context of diverse catalogue problems. As no one else, Kondakov saw the complexity of the historical development of any artistic phenomenon and, as no one else, he valued the deeply rooted community of Near Eastern and Eastern European cultures. The publication of Russian Antiquities did credit to the whole of Russian scholarship.109 Forty years had elapsed since the publication of I. M. Snegirev’s and I. P. Sakharov’s historico-archaeological work. Kondakov’s work made a great stride forward, not only acquiring the profile of a truly European branch of learning but becoming, in a large measure, a model to be emulated by Europe. As a Byzantinist, Kondakov was mainly concerned with Russian art dating from the pre-Mongol period (before the mid-twelfth century) when it still retained many features of the Greek style. This choice of subject matter made it easier for Kondakov to broach the Russian theme. On the other hand, this was to the advantage of the entire field of Russian antiquities as Kondakov took upon himself the elucidation of the most obscure pages of history. There was only a handful of extant and ascertained monuments of the eleventh and twelfth centuries and these, as often as not, baffled the scholarly community at large: so much did they differ from the later works by which scholars and laymen judged the style of medieval Russian art. It required the bold and resolute personality of Kondakov to scorn the tradition and look at Russian art of the pre-Mongol period with the fresh eye of a historian unconstrained by prejudice and preset goals. Here, in much the same way as in his investigations of Byzantine art, Kondakov rejected general deliberations in favor of an in-depth study of a uniform group of works selected on the principle of common origin or purpose. Thus appeared his Russian Hoards (1898) and, somewhat later, a most interesting essay entitled The Representation of the Russian Princely 109  Yet, no man is a prophet in his own country: one of the reviewers, who searched out a few slips and cases of inconsistency in the sixth issue of the Russkie Drevnosti, described it in most critical tones. See VAI, XIII, 1900, pp. 293–296 (the initial G stands for P. L. Gusev).

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Family in Eleventh-Century Miniatures (1906) The latter work is of particular interest for it deals with specimens of visual rather than applied arts. It is also noteworthy as a clear example of Kondakov’s scholarly method. In The Representation of the Russian Princely Family, Kondakov uses his favorite device: focusing as ever on a single work of art, he gradually links it with a multitude of other phenomena so that what we observe at the end is a broad historico-social panorama of a whole historical epoch. It is to this particular work that one may apply, in the best way possible, Kondakov’s own words which, although pronounced on some other occasion, reflect the essence of the scholar’s methodological views. “A comparative analysis limited to a narrow range of surroundings,” he says, “may sometimes fall into petty triviality and some errors and lapses may creep in; following this course of research, however, one still can expect some positive results and throw light on the subject’s history, but the general surveys of all Christian iconography employed for evaluating an insignificant work usually yield nothing new for the iconography proper or the work in hand.” And he concludes: “A work of art must first be elucidated as such, that is, in terms of its own historical parameters, which should later be indicated in the course of development of the iconographic type, subject, and in the progress of an art form.”110 The starting point of research in The Representation of the Russian Princely Family are five miniatures of the mid-eleventh century that were produced in Kiev and sewn onto a late tenth-century Latin Psalter. Contrary to his custom of searching for something new and peculiar, something that is either totally unknown to his contemporaries or known by hearsay and, hence, misunderstood, Kondakov here makes use of a work of art that has already been issued and well commented upon. The miniatures that took his fancy had earlier been considered by H. Sauerland, A. Haseloff, and by A. A. Bobrinskii.111 Unlike the previous authors, however, who never aimed at tracing the overall history of this kind of representation, Kondakov seeks to discover a whole series of analogous portraits of noted personalities, and not only Russian but also Greek ones. His fancy is taken first of all by the priceless material of everyday life abounding in descriptions made in the lifetimes of Byzantine basileuses, Greek

110  N. Kondakovv, Istoriia i pamiatniki vizantiiskoi emali, St. Petersburg, 1892, p. 254. 111  H. V. Sauerland, A. Haseloff, Der Psalter Erzbischof Egberts von Trier. Codex Gertrudianus in Cividale. Trier, 1901; A. A. Bobrinskii, “Kievskie miniatiury XI veka i portret kniazia Iaropolka Iziaslavicha v Psaltyre Egberta, arkhiepiskopa Trirskogo,” in ZRAO, vol. XII, issue 1–2, Trudy Otdeleniia slavianskoi i russkoi arkheologii, issue 5, St. Petersburg, 1901, pp. 351–371, tables. XXIV–XXVII.

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courtiers, and Russian princes.112 He takes interest in clothing, crowns, crown tops, caps, footwear, pieces of decoration, various forms of ceremony. He compares every noteworthy detail with the evidence of archaeological finds and, especially frequently, the written reports of Greek and Russian authors which help him to clarify the hidden purport of a work or a scene presented, or of some minor detail of drapery. The general theme ramifies into a multitude of issues, each being elucidated by Kondakov with his characteristic thoroughness. Discussing subsidiary material, the author never loses sight of the main task to which he keeps returning time and again, thus rekindling the reader’s interest in the subject of investigation. As in Kondakov’s other works, discussion of the art here recedes into the background, but he makes isolated observations that are of considerable value. Usually, these form no theoretic sections of their own, being, instead, rather fancifully intertwined into the description of a particular feature. Thus, for instance, when referring to the depiction of the Nativity of Christ on one of the miniatures in the Trier Psalter and drawing the reader’s attention to the license that the artist allows himself in disposing the figures of angels, Kondakov puts forth the idea—a fairly progressive one for the time in question—that an element of creativity is inherent in work of any talented Greek or Russian icon painter. It will suffice to have a few instances of direct observation to become convinced of the rather important fact that these masters never make copies in the strict sense of the term. True, there are certain exceptions to the rule, for example, traced impressions [perevody] of large, mostly singlefaced, icons, whose execution may to a certain degree be compared to fashioning a replica, although in this case, too, it is only in a roundabout way that one may speak of executing a copy of an ancient icon as the master icon painter is here mainly preoccupied with reproducing a template that he is familiar with. As regards small and, generally, multifigure icons, such as feasts and the like, the icon painter treating this subject matter … executes figures in all detail, sticking to the accustomed techniques and shapes.… Not only does he have at his disposal a drawing of a male or a female figure, standing or seated, be it that of an apostle, saint, or venerable father, which is fairly customary and deeply ingrained in his memory, but he also has a perfect command of the technique of representing 112  Cf. also: N. P. Kondakov, “Grecheskie izobrazheniia pervykh russkikh kniazei,” in Sbornik v pamiat’ sv. ravnoapostol’nogo kniazia Vladimira, I, Petrograd, 1917, pp. 10–20 (regarding the miniatures of the John Skylitzes Chronicles preserved in Madrid).

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clothes, drapery, heads, hair, noses, down to a smallest detail, which he mastered during the many years of his apprenticeship and which turned for him into something like habitual templates. Moreover, a truly gifted master will never be hard put to execute a scene of some well-known feast in any scale at all, either narrowing down or widening the field and disposing figures in a way to suit the commissioner’s requirements. It is for this reason, that we deem it especially important to elucidate, on various occasions, the point that all the countless traced impressions of Byzantine and Russian iconographic themes are not in the least their mechanical copies but are accompanied with infinite variations of each subject as revealed in many small details.113 No less remarkable in this respect is Kondakov’s idea that national artistic schools undoubtedly emerged no later than the twelfth century. While insisting on the prevalence of the Greek style in miniatures of the Trier Psalter, and building his entire investigation on this premise, he nevertheless plainly states that their “Pan-Byzantine style is in no way a warranty of their provenance within the area, that was exclusively under Byzantine influence,” since of various national variations of Byzantine art were already spreading in the eleventh century so that to speak of the Byzantine style in general, without singling out its local varieties and idiosyncrasies, would be tantamount to making a superficial judgment of the very essence of issue.114 No other author of the day writing on the relationship between Byzantine and Russian art reached judgments that are so far-reaching and ahead of his time.115 In the 1910s the old idea that the independent development of Russian painting had begun only in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries was still much in evidence. Only much later did G. G. Pavlutskii and A. I. raise this issue anew. By the close of the nineteenth century, Kondakov’s reputation as leading researcher of Byzantine and Russian antiquities had become widespread. He was elected academician and a full or corresponding member of a many academic bodies, learned societies, and universities; at the end of his life, he possessed up to sixty different diplomas. As he was loath to be just a nominal member of learned associations, he took every opportunity to make an impact by sending out an abstract, a note, an article, or a book on some vital theme. 113   N. P. Kondakov, Izobrazheniia russkoi kniazheskoi sem’i v miniatiurakh XI veka, St. Petersburg, 1906, pp. 21–22. 114  Ibid., pp. 115–116. 115  With the exception of M. P. Pogodin and E. E. Golubinskii. See about it on p. 267 and note 199 on p. 358.

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He was particularly active in the Society of Lovers of Ancient Literature and Art, where he even struck up a sort of friendship with its chairperson, Count S. D. Sheremetev. It was here that Kondakov read his reports on the iconography of St. Sophia the Wisdom of God in connection with a drawing in the Kievan Psalter;116 on the 1477 Paleia from Pskov;117 on the state of affairs with folk icon painting of the day;118 on his trip to Mstera, Kholui, and Palekh;119 on Russian miniatures in the Trier Psalter;120 on V. V. Stasov,121 and on the historical links between Byzantine and Russian icon painting.122 He also made a number of other, less seminal communications. It was at this society that Kondakov read one of his most remarkable works, On the Scholarly Objectives of the History of Medieval Russian Art, which was soon published.123 It was a blueprint for further elaboration of this issue by the author himself and by scholars with similar interests. Although written in Kondakov’s usual way, this report is not theoretical; ninetenths of its text is devoted to the study of the wall reliefs of the St. Demetrius Cathedral in Vladimir and the Church of the Nativity of the Virgin in Yur’ievPolskii, and its introductory and concluding sections outline his views on the subject. One can, first of all, trace his tacit polemics with F. I. Buslaev, who denied medieval Russian art any aesthetic quality. “This faulty estimate of our national past,” says Kondakov, “sprang from the dearth of artworks dating to the best, pre-Mongol epoch, [which were] destroyed during the Tatar invasion, and also from hasty judgments made on the basis of much later works that emerged at the time when the breakdown of a formerly integral world outlook, the crisis of monumentality and decline of mastery all came plainly to light.”124 In fact, asserted Kondakov, Russian art, especially in the first centuries of its development, was an “original aesthetic type,” a major historical phenomenon that took shape as a result of interaction of local, Greek, and Eastern elements.125 116  “Obshchestvo liubitelei drevnei pis’mennosti v 1880 godu,” in ZhMNP, 1881, July, section Sovremennaia letopis‘, p. 3. 117   P DP, LXXXIII, St. Petersburg, 1891, p. 5. 118  Ibid., CXXXIX, [St. Petersburg], 1901. 119  Ibid., CXLVI, [St. Petersburg], 1902, pp. 15–19. 120  Ibid., CXLVIII, [St. Petersburg], 1902, pp. 9–10. 121  Ibid., CLXX, [St. Petersburg], 1908, Otchety … za 1906–1907 god, pp. 10–12. 122  Ibid., CLXXVI, [St. Petersburg], 1911, Otchety … za 1909–1910, pp. 19–22. 123  Ibid., CXXXV, [St. Petersburg], 1900, pp. 12–14. For the text in full, see: PDP, CXXXII, [St. Petersburg], 1899, pp. 1–47. 124  N. Kondakov, “O nauchnykh zadachakh istorii drevnerusskogo iskusstva,” in PDP, CXXXII, pp. 4–5. 125  Ibid., p. 2.

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Kondakov sees nothing reprehensible in borrowings made by Eastern Slavs from the artistic cultures of neighboring peoples: he elucidates this point by asserting that a scientifically formulated history of art demonstrates that “any [new] art starts its progress by borrowing or, to put it more properly, by communicating with a more advanced culture,”126 and that we, Russians, are all the more fortunate since the period of emergence of Russian art tallied precisely with that of mature Byzantine art.127 This, in turn, means that Russian artists at that crucial moment were able to make use of patterns of the best art, thereby ensuring the high quality and intrinsic significance of their works for years ahead. Kondakov’s subject obliged him to plainly state what he meant by the term “history of art.” And we must say that his interpretation of it satisfied his audience and readership alike. According to Kondakov, the history of art is a scholarly discipline that groups all manifold artistic evidence left by the centuries into historical sequence by investigating the form of the art and estimates the historical significance of the individual works and groups of works in the development of the art form.128 The goals set by artistic archaeology are entirely different as it studies specific works of antiquity, thus supplying the history of art with the necessary material evidence: it is an ancillary historical discipline. Distinguishing the history of art and artistic archaeology from an evaluation of the advancement of either of these two disciplines, Kondakov conceived the tasks confronting Russian scholars. He was perfectly aware that the nineteenth century had accumulated a great number of observations on individual works but by cramming scholarship with a hodgepodge of the valuable and worthless, the relevant and the irrelevant, the central and the peripheral, a plethora of information obstructed scientific progress and hindered the solution of key issues. What resulted was a “deplorable separation” of the scientific method firmly set in the history of art from the actual study of antiquities.129 The necessity of bridging that gap shaped the study of the history of medieval Russian art at the close of the nineteenth century. In fact, Kondakov called on scholars to start the arduous but fruitful work of introducing local antiquities into the domain of the history of art, of elucidating and assessing these on the basis of broad comparative generalizations, so that the best records of the past would receive the status of works of art and not mere antiques. They would

126  Ibid., p. 6. 127  Ibid., pp. 6–7. 128  Ibid., p. 44. 129  Ibid., p. 45.

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then characterize the extent of development of the entire artistic culture of the Russian people in the different periods of its historical past.130 This judicious formulation of the main task and clear understanding of the ultimate goal begs the question regarding the report’s author: why is it that Kondakov himself left us no systematic history of Byzantine and Russian art? The reason should probably be sought in the general direction of Kondakov’s scholarship. With all his sympathy for Russian art and antiquities, they mainly interested Kondakov as source material for the history of Byzantine culture: the witness accounts left by Russian pilgrims were employed by him for characterizing both extant and extinct Greek artworks; the staircase frescoes of the Kievan St. Sophia served him for the elucidation of the ceremonial and entertainment practices at the court of the Byzantine emperor; the most opulent Russian hoards furnished him with the evidence for the study of RussoByzantine relations; the miniatures of the Trier Psalter were used for the reconstruction of the tsar’s and prince’s vestments, and so on and so forth. In other words, the Byzantine theme set the tone even when he treated purely Russian issues. Therefore, Kondakov addressed his report about the most urgent tasks involved in the study of Russian art not so much to himself as to other scholars, who were solely engaged with Russian history. As for Kondakov himself, he remained faithful to Byzantine antiquities. This was the province in which the accumulation of factual evidence was still in full swing; every year the Byzantinist was enriched with new discoveries, whereas a whole number of museums, monasterial and churchly vestries and libraries and even entire geographical regions were still awaiting their explorers. Kondakov was physically unable to reorganize his research to suit the new requirements. He had a natural predilection for searching everything for himself, for experiencing the “inadvertent delights” that any archaeological journey brings, and for accumulating and sorting out the artistic evidence for his future synthetic constructions. He could not turn himself into an armchair scholar rehashing someone else’s discoveries into his own historical research. The emergence, in 1902, of a substantive report of his trip to Mount Athos and, in 1909, of an important account of the archaeological journey around Macedonia testified, better than any wordy declarations, to Kondakov’s scholarly interests.131 He had no intention of giving up his fame as Russia’s and Europe’s leading Byzantinist, but his work on the history of Byzantine art proceeded inductively. He steadily amassed material which he himself published and which comprised the essential facets of Byzantine culture, reconstructing the visual aspect of 130  Ibid., p. 46. 131  N. P. Kondakov, Makedonia. Arkheologicheskoe puteshestvie, St. Petersburg, 1909.

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Figure 8.7 Vladimir Vasil’evich Stasov (1824–1906). Portrait by Ilya Repin, 1873. Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow.

the Byzantine artistic heritage in general and of every period of the history of Byzantine art in particular. The history of the discovery of medieval Russian painting would not only look incomplete but also rather impaired if our essays failed to outline a remarkably lively personality of Vladimir Vasil’evich Stasov (1824–1906).132 Stasov’s ardent, impulsive, and passionate nature, his ever-burning desire to see everything with his own eyes, to learn everything at first-hand, to meddle into everything and to have his own say on every issue meant he was involved in every major social undertaking of the second half of the nineteenth century. While men of 132  Among the numerous works devoted to V. V. Stasov, it is undoubtedly the book compiled by his niece, V. D. Komarova, who wrote under a pen name of Karenin, that ranks first; see: Vlad. Karenin, Vladimir Stasov. Ocherk ego zhizni i deiatel’nosti, 1–2, Leningrad, 1927. This work is largely colored by its author’s kinship with and personal sympathies to Stasov, and as such shows us the scholar in his own right, rather than the despicable figure we gather from present-day publications. Much credit should also be given to A. K. Lebedev and A. V. Solodovnikov, who collected a good deal of evidence reflecting Stasov’s scholarly and social activity. See: A. K. Lebedev, A. V. Solodovnikov, Vladimir Vasil’evich Stasov. Zhizn’ i tvorchestvo, Moscow, 1976.

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his caliber are not uncommon in Russia, even his contemporaries were amazed at Stasov’s inordinately wide range of interests. “It was especially difficult for all of us,” recollected Kondakov afterwards, “to define the province in which V. V. Stasov was most accomplished as our competence went no farther than the field of archaeology or art criticism whereas he wrote, among other things, on the history of literature and that of arts, on issues of modern art, especially that of Russia, and on music .…”133 It was not only the range of Stasov’s talents that distinguishes him. In Kondakov’s apt wording, the other facet of Stasov’s activities as critic and researcher was his pronounced national idea. “To praise anything Russian which he reckoned praiseworthy and good and, what is most significant, to use the press for persistent, indefatigable, and ardent calls to all Russians, to all kinds of readership, to express their appreciation of this or that Russian phenomenon worthy of note, to direct all their sympathies to it—this was, by and large, Stasov’s goal in literature and social life. Without jumping on the nationalist bandwagon, Stasov was, in our literature, a living champion of freedom. While himself a Westerner by education, by his tastes and ways of life as well as through his passion for travels in Europe and for overseas art exhibitions, he was, at the same time, a leading exponent of Russian folk ideas in literature, art, music, and even science, at least, as far as its content was concerned.… He even approached the archaeology of art from the angle of Russian folk roots and forms; it was issues lying, one way or other, within the range of folk art that held his most lively interest until the end of his days.”134 Stasov’s name bears on the few but fairly essential pages of the history of discovery and study of medieval Russian visual art. In some cases, when he published new artworks and new documentary evidence, he came out as a discoverer in his own right; in others, when he happened to speak out about people and books, his critical eye and fighting spirit made, in a great measure, for eradicating complacency and stagnation which, alas, so easily take root in science. It was this facet of Stasov’s personality—his ability to draw one’s special attention to something in particular, thereby arousing intellectual curiosity in others—that was noted by all those who worked in cognate branches of science and scholarship. While being often biased and superficial in his judgments and generally quite noisy—he was wont to fulminate even when it was unnecessary—Stasov remained, despite all his passions and predilections and vehemently sticking to his guns, an invariable champion of any art event of consequence, whether it be brand-new developments or works dating from hoary antiquity. 133  N. Kondakov, “V. V. Stasov. (Nekrolog),” in ZhMNP, 1907, January, p. 51. 134  Ibid., pp. 52–53.

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Figuring amongst Stasov’s first independent works devoted to Russian artistic antiquity135 are his communications on the two icons depicting Novgorod and Pskov and the articles on the seventeenth-century embroidered shroud featuring Prince Alexander Nevskii and the church catapetasma curtain which Ivan the Terrible sent as a gift to the Serb Hilandari Monastery on Mount Athos. From contributing brief notes, however, whose content never outstripped the description of one or two particular works of art or architecture, he gradually passed over to works of greater scope, manuscript ornamentation becoming his particularly strong and lasting interest. And it all started in 1857 when he helped organize an exhibition of Old Russian codices illuminated with miniatures, headpieces, and figure initials which was arranged, for the first time in Russia, on the precincts of the St. Petersburg Public Library.136 It was also at that time that the Public Library became Stasov’s permanent workplace where he studied, to his heart’s content, the Novgorod and Pskov manuscript books that he was so fond of. As is well known, it was this fancy that led Stasov to his most significant publication, The Slavonic and Eastern Ornament According to the Manuscripts of Ancient and Modern Times (1887), which even nowadays retains its scholarly value.137 It is interesting that Buslaev and Kondakov, the two leading scholars of the day engaged in the study of Russian artistic archaeology, 135  For a general idea of it, see: Vlad. Karenin Vladimir Stasov. Ocherk ego zhizni i deiatel’nosti, 1, pp. 291–342. Almost all the articles written on this subject entered the fundamental, four-volume Sobranie sochinenii [Collected Works], which was issued during Stasov’s lifetime (I–IV, St. Petersburg, 1894–1906). Since this edition gives a precise indication of the first publication, it is to the Sobranie sochinenii that I refer in my account. For a fuller idea of V. V. Stasov’s scholarly, literary, and artistic-and-critical heritage, see an excellently compiled book of reference: Vladimir Vasil’evich Stasov. Materialy k bibliografii. Opisanie rukopisei, Moscow, 1956. 136   Otchet imp. Publichnoi biblioteki za 1857 god, St. Petersburg, 1858, pp. 16–17. The main bulk of work on setting up the exhibition was carried out by A. F. Bychkov. 137  This edition should not be confused with another atlas, many tables of which reproduce the same art monuments, namely: Istoriia russkogo ornamenta s X po XVI stoletie po drevnim rukopisiam, issued by the Director of Moscow’s Stroganov School of Technical Drawing V. I. Butovskii (Moscow, 1870). There are fewer tables in this edition (100 against 156 in that of Stasov’s), and the ornament patterns form no clearcut topographical system and many of the initials and headpieces are deliberately retouched for school and industrial use. All the drawings were executed in 1867 for the Paris World Exhibition. F. I. Buslaev was supposed to write the text for this atlas. For the history of V. I. Butovskii’s edition, see: V. V. Stasov, Sobranie sochinenii vol. II, St. Petersburg, 1894, section 3, columns 219–226 (from the article Novye khudozhestvennye izdaniia); V. I. Butovskii, Russkoe iskusstvo i mneniia o nem E. Violle le Diuka, frantsuzskogo uchenogo arkhitektora, i F. I. Buslaeva, russkogo uchenogo arkheologa, Moscow, 1879, pp. 7, 167–175 and 184–185.

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have, each in his own way, expressed their admiration of this important work of Stasov’s. “I don’t know if there is anyone in Russia who will appreciate your work of long standing better and more fully than I do,” writes Buslaev to Stasov on the occasion of the publication of the first issue of the atlas, “but I am sure there is no one who will be more rejoiced at its appearance (in print).” To which he adds, “Of course, I am looking forward to see your investigation,138 but the perspicacity and tact of an experienced master with which the facts have been collected suffice to convince me that the conclusions you made are of great interest.”139 In his turn, Kondakov, when he set himself, a few years later, to studying an obscure issue of the emergence of the “animal” style in the art of nomadic tribes of the East, stated as follows: “It has been three years now that I regularly peruse your album.… This is a truly inexhaustible treasure trove. Yet neither Buslaev, nor Yagich, for that matter, could appreciate the true wealth of the material gathered in it because they themselves took no interest in what you have been concerned with for the last forty years.…”140 The appearance of Stasov’s atlas not only called forth a great number of reviews141 but it also gave rise to extensive literature on the subject of Russian manuscript book ornamentation which, prior to Stasov, attracted little interest and was scarcely known at all.142 Although Stasov’s fancy was less strongly taken by miniatures—obviously for the simple reason that they had already been long studied by other scholars—he succeeded here as well by publishing, for a start, his objections to an

138  The intention to write a text for the atlas was not realized. 139  Quoted after the book: Vlad. Karenin, Vladimir Stasov. Ocherk ego zhizni i deiatel’nosti, 2, p. 326 (from a letter of January 10, 1884). 140  Ibid., p. 334 (from a letter of May 30, 1897). For the history of creation of Stasov’s album, see also his correspondence with F. I. Buslaev and V. I. Butovskii: V. V. Stasov, Pis’ma k deiateliam russkoi kul’tury, 1, Moscow, 1962, pp. 212–215 and 219–221. 141   ZhMNP, 1884, May, section Kritika i bibliografiia, pp. 54–104 (F. I. Buslaev’s review of the 1st issue, which was reprinted with illustrations in: Istoricheskie ocherki F. I. Buslaeva po russkomu ornamentu v rukopisiakh, Petrograd, 1917, pp. 75–143); A. Sobolevskii, “Novyi trud g. Stasova,” in KievUI, 1887, May, section Kritika i bibliografiia, pp. 49–57; I. V. Yagich, “Trud V. V. Stasova: Slavianskii i vostochnyi ornament,” in VestnII, vol. IV, issue 2, St. Petersburg, 1888, pp. 146–185. 142  Alongside his atlas, one should single out Stasov’s rather specific work on ornament: V. V. Stasov, Kartiny i kompozitsii, skrytye v zaglavnykh bukvakh drevnikh russkikh rukopisei, [St. Petersburg], 1884 (=PDP, XLIX), with tables. Reprinted without illustrations: V. V. Stasov, Sobranie sochinenii vol I, section 1, columns 835–852.

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Figure 8.8 Page from the Kiev Psalter, 1397. Russian National Library, St. Petersburg.

article about miniatures of the Ostromir Evangelistary by K. K. Gerts (Herz),143 which was followed by a whole book provided with a historical and social commentary on miniatures found in Greek, Bulgar, and Russian manuscripts.144 143  V. V. Stasov, Sobranie sochinenii, vol. II, section 3, columns 127–136 (“Zamechaniia o miniatiurakh Ostromirova Evangeliia”). 144  V. V. Stasov, Miniatiury nekotorykh rukopisei vizantiiskikh, bolgarskikh, russkikh, dzhagataiskikh i persidskikh, St. Petersburg, 1902 (=PDP, CXX). The book’s major part is formed by the notes on the Manasses Chronicles from the Vatican. The Russian evidence is limited to a commentary on full-page miniatures in two MSS from the turn of the 13th century produced in northeastern Russia (GIM, Syn. 262 and Chud. 12).

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As an amateur, Stasov was quite unshackled by prejudice and would boldly explore a province that a professional scholar would never have ventured to penetrate for fear of undermining his reputation. He possessed a kind of ‘irresponsibility’ that enabled him to pose broader issues than was usual among professional scholars. His scholarly fancy would move the customary limits of research apart, forcing, as it were, serious-minded scholarship to come to terms with tasks which would seem utterly preposterous, if not downright outrageous in other circumstances. Incidentally, it was by his amateurism, albeit of a very high caliber, that he won recognition from N. P. Kondakov, who was very sparing and reluctant in doling out his praise. “If such men,” wrote Kondakov meaning Rovinskii and Stasov, “are sometimes given the appellation ‘collector’ or ‘amateur,’ this only results in embellishing the very term, which, in fact, introduces them to the company of those famed dilettanti of Europe who laid the foundation of sciences and general knowledge.”145 For his scholarly work and social activity, which found expression in articles and public speeches devoted to art and art criticism, Stasov was, at the close of his life, elected an honorary member of the Russian Academy of Sciences. It is no accident, therefore, that every educated Russian knows him just as well as they do his friend Ilya Repin: both were, each in his own sphere, ardent exponents of the folk principle in the public life of Russia. The second half of the nineteenth century was the time of specialization of the humanities. The palaeologists of the 1840s, who were equally interested in any kind of antiquity, and wrote with equal zeal on painting, architecture, and literature, were now a thing of the past. The quantitative accumulation of evidence, the working out of special methodology for each discipline, and the immense growth of scholarly literature all relentlessly drove the soberminded scholars to readjusting their working routines, to narrowing down the scope of research, focusing their main attention on a few select problems. It became beyond one’s powers even for people with extraordinary capacity for work to show equal expertise in several subjects at once. Of course, the level of specialization was nothing compared with that of today and a survey of published works of even not so distinguished scholars strikes one by the wide range of their interests. The general picture, however, is fairly convincing in that the study of Russian antiquities has branched out into separate subjects and trends. 145  N. Kondakov, V. V. Stasov. (Nekrolog), p. 55. See also the exposé of N. P. Kondakov’s speech about V. V. Stasov made on January 12, 1907 at the Society of Lovers of Ancient Literature: “Otchety o zasedaniiakh imp. OLDP v 1905–1907 gody,” in PDPI, CLXX, [St. Petersburg], pp. 10–12.

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A well-nigh most exemplary personality in this respect is Aleksandr Ivanovich Kirpichnikov (1845–1903).146 A disciple of Buslaev’s, whose lectures he attended at the same time as Kondakov’s, Kirpichnikov did not make art his life’s vocation. Instead, he became a professor of the general history of literature and was, in fact, one of the founders of teaching foreign literature as an academic subject in the universities of Kharkov and, later, Odessa, and Moscow. He also gave much of his time to the study of the literary legacies of Alexander Pushkin and Nikolai Gogol, and it was not until 1882 that he took up visual arts. The aesthetic experience and feeling for beauty, which make themselves felt so strongly even in the most specialized of Kondakov’s works are quite uncharacteristic for Kirpichnikov, who regards art only as historical evidence. Moreover, despite some of his much publicized declarations to the contrary, one can easily detect in Kirpichnikov’s outlook an apparently narrow-minded approach to the task in hand. In fact, he employs works of Russian, Western European, and Byzantine art either as parallels to those of literature or for clearing up some obscure issues of medieval literature when, as is well known, the pictorial image and the word had not yet diverged so far as to crystallize into totally different manifestations of spiritual endeavor. As the basis of his works in iconography Kirpichnikov chose the image of the Virgin,147 a subject not only completely new for him but also obviously beyond 146   See about him in: A. I. Markevich, Dvadtsatipiatiletie imp. Novorossiiskogo universiteta, Odessa, 1890, pp. 269–271; V. F. Lazurskii, Nauchnaia deiatel’nost’ professora A. I. Kirpichnikova, Odessa, 1903; Dim. Iazykov, “Aleksandr Ivanovich Kirpichnikov. (Bibliograficheskii obzor),” in IV, 1903, June, pp. 1014–1021; Sbornik KhIFO, 14, Kharkov, 1905, section IV. Pamiati professora Aleksandra Ivanovicha Kirpichnikova, pp. 1–174 (two of the articles here are particularly interesting, namely: E. K. Redin, “Professor Aleksandr Ivanovich Kirpichnikov. Obzor trudov po istorii i arkheologii iskusstva,” pp. 63–80, and M. G. Popruzhenko, “Bibliograficheskii obzor trudov A. I. Kirpichnikova,” pp. 162–174); V. N. Shchepkin, “Pamiati A. I. Kirpichnikova,” in Drevnosti. Trudy imp. MAO, vol. XX, issue 2, 1904, pp. 1–4; L. D. Vorontsova, “A. I. Kirpichnikov kak issledovatel’ russkoi ikonografii i ego zaslugi v etoi oblasti,” ibid., pp. 5–26; Otchety o zasedaniakh imp. OLDP v 1903– 1904 godu. S prilozheniami, [St. Petersburg], 1904 (=PDP, CLVI), pp. 14–17 (D. A. Korsakov’s personal memoirs); Imperatorskoe arkheologicheskoe obshchestvo v pervoe piatidesiatiletie ego sushchestvovaniia (1864–1914 gg.), vol. II, Moscow, 1915, pp. 158–159; V. P. Buzeskul, “Iz istorii Khar’kovskogo universiteta vtoroi poloviny 70-kh godov proshlogo veka (lichnye vospominaniia),” in Naukovi zapiski naukovo-doslidchoi katedri istorii ukrains’koi kul’turi, 6, Kharkov, 1927, pp. 11–12; M. G. Bulakhov, Vostochnoslavianskie iazykovedy. Biobibliograficheskii slovar’, vol. 1, Minsk, 1976, pp. 118–119. 147  A. Kirpichnikov, “Skazaniia o zhitii devy Marii i ikh vyrazhenie v srednevekovom iskusstve,” in ZhMNP, 1883, July, pp. 16–66; “Programma issledovaniia professora A. I. Kirpichnikova ‘O deve Marii v poezii i iskusstve’,” in Zapiski imp. Akademii nauk, vol. 49, St. Petersburg,

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his powers when taken in full, of which he himself made a frank confession. This was, probably, one of the reasons for an extremely hostile and scornful attitude taken to him by Kondakov,148 who always strove in his researches to embrace as many things as possible, for, in his opinion, only this approach enables one to correctly pose questions and arrive at reliable conclusions. What saves Kirpichnikov’s academic repute, however, is that he was one of the first scholars who started to study art in its relationships with literature, including apocrypha, and little explored strata of folk creativity, such as spiritual verse, traditions, and legendary tales. His only predecessors in investigations of this kind were Buslaev and E. B. Barsov;149 these, however, had tackled the task in more general terms, that is, rather as a theoretical base for future research. Kirpichnikov comes out here as a successor of Buslaev’s whose method he applies to one specific issue: the representations of the Virgin. He proceeds from a correct premise that the same subject matter of spiritual lore and church art could not but affect the dependence of individual pictorial forms on the literary ones, and vice versa. Says Kirpichnikov: “The icon is a holy book for laymen, who always read it with the same reverence and heed; the scholar enjoys the godly book for the very fact that it provides him with a necessary commentary for the object of his conscious veneration. A close acquaintance with monuments of one kind is therefore necessary for a fuller understanding of those of another kind, and if one cannot study iconography without turning himself to records of literature, the range of ideas existing within a certain period of 1884, pp. 47–51 (appended with: “Otzyv ordinarnogo akademika Buslaeva o programme issledovaniia professora A. I. Kirpichnikova …,” pp. 51–52); “Uspenie Bogoroditsy v legende i v iskusstve,” in Trudy VI AS v Odesse (1884 g.), vol. II, Odessa, 1888, pp. 191–235; “Otzyv o sochinenii N. V. Pokrovskogo: Evangelie v pamiatnikakh ikonografii, preimushchestvenno vizantiiskikh i russkikh, St. Petersburg, 1892,” in ZRAO, vol. VII, issue 3 and 4, 1895, pp. LXXXVII–CXL (generally, on the iconography of the Annunciation). Related to the main theme are the author’s other iconographic works, such as: “Ikonografiia Vozneseniia Khristova,” in Trudy VI AS v Odesse (1884 g.), vol. III, Odessa, 1887, pp. 387–395; “Deisus na Vostoke i Zapade i ego literaturnye paralleli,” in ZhMNP, 1893, November, pp. 1–26: “Etiudy po ikonografii Rozhdestva Khristova, 1. Puteshestvie v Vifleem,” in ZRAO, vol. VII, issue 1 and 2, 1894, pp. 95–104; “K ikonografii Soshestviia sv. Dukha,” in Drevnosti. Trudy MAO, vol. XV, issue 1, 1894, pp. 1–15. 148  N. P. Kondakov, Vospominaniia i dumy, pp. 45–47. It is interesting to compare a characteristic contained herein and an earlier official review which, nevertheless, also suggests a rather reserved attitude: N. Kondakov, “A. I. Kirpichnikov,” in Sbornik KhIFO, 14, section IV, pp. 124–126. 149  E. V. Barsov, “O vozdeistvii apokrifov na obriad i ikonopis’,” in ZhMNP, 1885, December, pp. 96–115.

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time, the national character of the people … the contribution made by it to the universal treasure house of world culture cannot become comprehensible to all unless they are illustrated with the evidence of archaeology and history of plastic arts among which iconography ranks first.”150 It is the impact of literature on iconography that is more easily comprehended and richly exemplified of these two aspects. Naturally, one must rule out the books of the Old and New Testaments as the subjects derived from these sources form the basis of an overwhelming majority of religious works in the East and the West. Apart from purely canonical lore, however, there exists a vast ecclesiastical and para-ecclesiastical literature, encompassing all kinds and genres of creative work, ranging from the official resolutions of church councils to the lyrical exhortations of clerical poets; from the verbose theological treatises of antiquity to the latter-day concise edifying tales; from the most reputed interpreters of the Scriptures, who lived at the same time as Church Fathers, to the anonymous composers of divine poems who lived in the eighteenth and even nineteenth centuries. And, of course, all this vast medley of the written and the spoken word, in which the best creations of professional pen go side by side with the naive specimens of folk creativity of a dubious or unknown origin, also made its impact on visual arts. At times these determined the particulars of a given subject, at others—the whole compositions, as, for instance, in the representation of the Vernicle, or Spas Nerukotvornyi (image not made with hands), which owes its provenance to an apocryphal tale about Abgar of Edessa; or in the multi-figure scene of the Dormition of the Virgin, whose composition is also based on the legendary tales associated with Virgin Mary’s death and assumption. The icon was surely possessed of a latent potential for the subject’s “self-development” and enrichment with detail, the latter mainly proceeding from the flights of the people’s fantasy who sought in sacred images features of their own life and twisted the subject to suit their own notions as to where and how this or that historical event took place. “And how could this be otherwise?” queries Kirpichnikov. “What is read from the pulpit is understood only by a few whereas simple folks may stare at icons for hours and what is depicted therein ought to be explicated in words,

150  A. Kirpichnikov, “Vzaimodeistvie ikonopisi i slovesnosti narodnoi i knizhnoi,” in Trudy VIII AS v Moskve, 1890, vol. II, Moscow, 1895, p. 213. It is curious that Kirpichnikov’s historical-and-literary essay prompted the criticism of one theologian who insisted on the manuscript’s having only dogmatic subject matter. See: V. Arsen’ev, “O tserkovnom ikonopisanii. Po povodu poslednego arkheologicheskogo s”ezda,” in Dushepoleznoe chtenie, 1890, March, pp. 253–266.

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no matter how imperfect or even erroneous the explanation may be.”151 The other side of the matter, i.e., the effect of iconography on literature or folklore, seemed more complicated to Kirpichnikov although in this case, too, he found apt illustrations in spiritual verse and folk poetry, in general.152 This is easily understandable, because in literature the visual image is understood, consciously or intuitively, as a source nourishing the writer’s imagination. What finds a particularly frequent expression in icon painting is more permanently planted in mind, later yielding strikingly vivid literary shoots from the original grain. One may recall scores of prosaic and poetical works on the subject of the Nativity of Christ or the Miracle of St. George and the Dragon, all written at different times and including two poems by Boris Pasternak, Christmas Star (Rozhdestvennaia zvezda), and Fairy Tale (Skazka). Beside the Academy of Sciences and universities, issues of iconography, church archaeology, and art of the past were also vigorously tackled in four academies in Kiev, Moscow, Kazan, and St. Petersburg. Among the teaching staff of these academies were, as often as not, quite outstanding scholars. A case in point are V. O. Kliuchevskii and E. E. Golubinskii, whose names are associated with the Moscow academy, in which the former read a course in Russian civil history and the latter in the history of the Russian church. Like universities, theological academies were institutions of higher learning, where independent scholarship was held just as high as in universities, the general trend oriented, primarily, toward disciplines related to the history of the church. The academic curriculum included medieval Russian art, which was studied and taught within the framework of so specific a discipline as church archaeology, whose objective was the study of material evidence of an exclusively clerical nature. For a long time, chairs of church archaeology, set up in theological academies, had a sort of twofold existence, i.e., they combined church archaeology and liturgics under one heading.153 This double purpose rarely corresponded to their professors, who were equally keen on liturgics and church archaeology. Therefore, it was one of the two subjects that usually stood out in sharper relief, the liturgics being, as often as not, given preference as more indispensable in pastoral duties of future church prelates. Besides, the study of liturgics had already had a well-established tradition whereas that of church archaeology was only starting, and caused much concern among teachers by its novelty.

151  A. Kirpichnikov, “Vzaimodeistvie ikonopisi i slovesnosti narodnoi i knizhnoi,” p. 226. 152  Ibid., pp. 221–225. 153  For a general idea, see a serious article: N. V. Pokrovskii, “Zhelatel’naia postanovka tserkovnoi arkheologii v dukhovnykh akademiiakh,” in KhCh, 1906, March, pp. 333–349.

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First lectures on church archaeology were read in the Moscow Theological Academy starting from 1844 onward, and were delivered on a once-a-week basis. Prior to 1869, however, none of the professors treated the subject as a branch of scholarship, filling their reading hours with anything possible but the church archaeology proper. A turning point came in 1869 when the new academic statutes were approved prescribing a strict observance of the regulations concerning academic appointments. The chair of liturgics and church archaeology, set up in the academy situated on the precincts of the Trinity Monastery was assigned for Ivan Danilovich Mansvetov (1843–1885),154 on whom the Moscow academy’s rector A. V. Gorskii and its entire staff pinned their best hopes. Unfortunately, no records have survived of Mansvetov’s lectures which he read from 1868 to 1885 and it is only through his printed works that we can comprehend his vision of church archaeology, which he regarded as a special field of study about material religious evidence, including works of church art. In fact, Mansvetov saw liturgics as his true vocation in life. The same metamorphosis is observed in the academic career of the other outstanding Russian liturgist Aleksei Afanas’evich Dmitrievskii (1856–1929),155 who held the chair of church archaeology and liturgics in Kiev. Very few works in Dmitrievskii’s extensive legacy, however,156 stem from work related to the academic chair in question. A case in point is Dmitrievskii’s report on his long journey to the East during which he did, alongside the research of liturgical manuscripts in the libraries 154  See about him: A. Lebedev, “Ivan Danilovich Mansvetov. (Nekrolog),” in MoskTsV, 1886, no. 1, pp. 10–12; A. Lebedev, “Ivan Danilovich Mansvetov,” in Pravoslavnoe obozrenie, 1886, January, pp. 203–208; A. Lebedev, “Professor Moskovskoi dukhovnoi akademii Ivan Danilovich Mansvetov († 16 dekabria 1885 goda),” ibid., 1886, April, pp. 789–813; S. Smirnov, “Professor Moskovskoi dukhovnoi akademii I. D. Mansvetov (nekrolog),” in Pribavleniia k tvoreniiam sviatykh otsev v russkom perevode, 1886, book I, pp. 1–13; A. A. Dmitrievskii, “Pominki preosviashchennogo Porfiriia Uspenskogo i professora Moskovskoi dukhovnoi akademii Ivana Danilovicha Mansvetova. Kratkii ocherk ucheno-literaturnoi deiatel’nosti ikh, chitannyi v zasedanii Tserkovno-arkheologicheskogo obshchestva pri Kievskoi dukhovnoi akademii 13 ianvaria 1886 goda,” in TKDA, 1886, March, pp. 339–391 (separate edition: Kiev, 1886, pp. 9–61); D. D. Iazykov, Obzor zhizni i trudov pokoinykh russkikh pisatelei, 5. Russkie pisateli, umershie v 1885 godu, St. Petersburg, pp. 103–105 (with an indication of I. D. Mansvetov’s works and literature on him). 155  See about him: B. I. Sove, “Russkii Goar i ego shkola,” in Bogoslovskie trudy, 4, Moscow, 1968, pp. 39–84; N. D. Uspenskii, “Iz lichnykh vospominanii ob A. A. Dmitrievskom,” ibid., pp. 85–89; P. V. Urzhumtsev, “Shkola ‘russkogo Goara’ v Leningradskoi dukhovnoi akademii,” ibid., pp. 91–93. 156  G. van Aalst, “Die Bibliographie des russischen Liturgisten A. A. Dmitrievsky,” in Orientalia Christiana Periodica, XXVI, 1960, pp. 108–140; L. Makhno, “Spisok trudov prof. Alekseia Afanas’evicha Dmitrievskogo,” in Bogoslovskie trudy, 4, Moscow, 1968, pp. 95–110.

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of Istanbul, Athos, Cairo, Alexandria, Athens, and the St. Catherine Convent on Sinai, a special study of Byzantine illuminated manuscripts. He also compiled an inventory of icons, including date and provenance, preserved in churches of the Sinai Convent, which was, in fact, the first work of this kind antedating the efforts of Greek and American scholars by scores of years.157 Unlike Mansvetov and Dmitrievskii, Aleksandr Petrovich Golubtsov (1860– 1911),158 who took over the chair in the Moscow Theological Academy soon after Mansvetov’s premature death, showed a strong bias toward artistic archaeology or what later became known as art history. Since Golubtsov’s lifetime coincided with a new epoch during which Russia’s past elicited a greater scholarly interest, the list of his writings includes quite a few works on art such as his articles “On the Greek Icon—Painting Manual” (1888), “On the History of Representations of the Cross” (1889), “Medieval Christian Symbolism of the Resurrection” (1896), “On the Most Ancient Representations of the Virgin Mary” (1897), “On the History of Medieval Russian Icon Painting” (1897), “Material for the History of Medieval Russian Icon Painting” (1910) as well as a number of reviews and a large unfinished research into the origins of the iconostasis and so-called icons of the “local tier.”159 Golubtsov’s best articles on church archaeology, which were published posthumously,160 show him treating that subject on a large scale both in his lectures and in the entire corpus of his work devoted to the study of church art. One feature characterizing Golubtsov as a scholar was his ability to see his field as a whole. For him, liturgics and archaeology were two component parts of the study of Christian antiquities; the former was aimed at the study of church ritual, the latter—at that of church art and everyday life. Although formally, 157  A. Dmitrievskii, “Puteshestvie na Vostok i ego nauchnye resul’taty. (Ofitsial’nyi otchet), IV. Pamiatniki khristianskikh drevnostei na Vostoke,” in TKDA, 1889, July, pp. 422–444. See also: A. Dmitrievskii, Patmosskie ocherki. Iz poezdki na ostrov Patmos letom 1891 goda, Kiev, 1894, pp. 176–195. 158  See about him: “† A. P. Golubtsov. (20 noiabria 1860 g.—† 4 iulia 1911 g.), in BV, 1911, July– August, pp. 1–40, with a portrait; on pp. 41–47 is the Spisok trudov Aleksandra Petrovicha Golubtsova (List of works by A. P. Golubtsov), compiled by his elder son, I. A. Golubtsov. See also a separate edition, which has the same pagination: Aleksandr Petrovich Golubtsov, professor Moskovskoi dukhovnoi akademii († 4 iiulia 1911 goda), Sergiev Posad, 1911. 159  For more accurate information on the articles in hand, see pp. 41–44 in the abovementioned article which features the list of A. P. Golubtsov’s works. 160  A. P. Golubtsov, Sbornik statei po liturgike i tserkovnoi arkheologii, Sergiev Posad, 1911; A. P. Golubtsov, Iz chtenii po tserkovnoi arkheologii i liturgike. Edited posthumously by I. A. Golubtsov, part I. Tserkovnaia arkheologiia, Sergiev Posad, 1918 (part II, published in the same edition and the same year, is devoted to liturgics).

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Figure 8.9 Aleksandr Petrovich Golubtsov (1860–1911), founder of the Church Archaeological Museum at the Moscow Theological Academy.

for convenience of research and integrity of narrative, his historico-liturgical and historico-archaeological investigations were conducted in parallel, forming two separate cycles, they in fact merge into one another. His substantive books devoted to church rituals (chinovniki) provide a lot of interesting data on works of church art, and his work on church art in many ways complements the information drawn from the sources on the history of church liturgy. This synthetic approach to scholarship also determined those high demands that Golubtsov set for himself and his fellow-scholars. “The archaeologist,” he wrote in the theoretical part of his course of lectures on church archaeology, “must also be a linguist, who is quite competent in history in general and culture in particular, whereas the church archaeologist needs, in addition, special theological training and knowledge of church literature. Unless this condition is met, interpreting an archaeological work is impossible.”161 It should be added that what Golubtsov meant by church literature was not literature as such but the knowledge of sources, and not only published works but those in manuscript. This ability to deal with manuscripts which, incidentally, the libraries of the Trinity Monastery and Moscow Theological Academy possessed in ample quantities, an ability to search and discover material evidence totally unknown 161  A. P. Golubtsov, Iz chtenii po tserkovnoi arkheologii i liturgike, part I, p. 21.

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to anyone before him was what marked out Golubtsov throughout his shortlived academic career. It was this ability, too, that lent an unusual freshness to a whole number of his publications. We should emphasize that he was the first, even before Georgievskii, to search out, ascertain, and publish the 1545 inventory of icons belonging to the St. Joseph of Volokolamsk Monastery. That catalogue was unique in its fullness and precision without which it would have been inconceivable to conduct the study of, say, the art of Dionysius and other Moscow artists of the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries.162 An extensive course of lectures prepared by Golubtsov included, alongside views well accepted by scholars, quite a few original considerations. Among the latter is his entirely novel evaluation of the icon painting manual. Unlike Filimonov and Buslaev, who regarded the manual only as a positive phenomenon, Golubtsov detected in the spread of icon painting manuals the symptoms of the increasing stagnation of art, and correctly spoke of their generally detrimental influence.163 Also promising to become a novelty was the part, albeit unfinished, of his lectures touching on the issue of the Russian high iconostasis. Whereas previous scholars, like N. I. Troitskii, saw the reason for the development of iconostasis in the deliberate desire to express the idea of an ecumenical church through images of its best representatives, Golubtsov, who relied on the evidence of documentary sources, was inclined to seek fairly prosaic causes of its emergence. According to his preliminary sketches and oral statements, which were recorded by his son,164 it was the decision of church authorities of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries to put an end to the “non-hierarchical” arrangement of a great variety of icons commissioned, donated, or simply brought there by the believers, and the wish to set in order the place that was formerly in the hands of a private individual rather than an official church institution. Golubtsov was preparing this work on the iconostasis for the forthcoming Eleventh Archaeological Congress in Novgorod but his premature death cut short his investigation. Reading Golubtsov’s works, one cannot but notice his rare gift of turning the ecclesiastic themes into something extraordinarily fascinating. This particular trait of Golubtsov’s was noted by all his colleagues who happened to review 162   A. P. Golubtsov, “Materialy dlia istorii drevnerusskoi ikonopisi,” in BV, 1910, May, pp. 182–195. Reprinted in: A. P. Golubtsov, Sbornik statei po liturgike i tserkovnoi arkheologii, Sergiev Posad, 1911, pp. 114–136. 163  A. P. Golubtsov, Iz chtenii po tserkovnoi arkheologii i liturgike, part I, pp. 309–324. 164  A. P. Golubtsov, Sbornik statei po liturgike i tserkovnoi arkheologii, pp. 128–133; Aleksandr Petrovich Golubtsov, professor Moskovskoi dukhovnoi akademii († 4 iiulia 1911 goda), Sergiev Posad, 1911, pp. 44–47.

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his writings. “He is very thrifty with words, his style of writing is terse and pithy; that said, he can also write colorfully and even artistically,” reports S. I. Smirnov.165 Other reviewers also noted “the creativity of thought and the remarkable brevity of narration, which is as clear as day,” and “an uncommonly simple style, attaining to the heights of pellucid clarity.”166 This quality of Aleksandr Petrovich’s character was even more highly praised by Vasilii Kliuchevskii, his Academy fellow and a close friend of the Golubtsov family who invited Golubtsov to read lectures on church art at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture.167 The lectures started in October 1898 and here, too, Golubtsov showed himself at his best: in order to make the new subject more attractive for young artists and to cultivate in them a genuine, rather than formal, appreciation of things past, he often read his lectures in rooms of the Historic Museum or at the Armory, and in the Kremlin’s cathedral churches, rather than the precincts of the School itself.168 Future specialists in church archaeology were usually trained in theological academies proper. This was the case with Mansvetov and Golubtsov, and also with a most prominent church archaeologist of the late nineteenth century Nikolai Vasil’evich Pokrovskii (1848–1917). An alumnus of the St. Petersburg Theological Academy, he had to divide his attachments between his alma mater and the capital’s Archaeological Institute, which had, since 1878, a chair of church archaeology of its own. An excellent organizer and a productive scholar, Pokrovskii did much to further the development of Russian antiquities as a field of study.169 His main works reach beyond the Academy’s theological

165   Aleksandr Petrovich Golubtsov, professor Moskovskoi dukhovnoi akademii († 4 iiulia 1911 goda), p. 19. 166  Ibid., pp. 20 and 35. 167  Ibid., p. 167. See also: M. Golubtsova, “Vospominaniia o V. O. Kliuchevskom,” in U Troitsy v Akademii. 1814–1914. Iubileinyi sbornik istoricheskikh materialov, Moscow, 1914, p. 679. 168   Aleksandr Petrovich Golubtsov, professor Moskovskoi dukhovnoi akademii († 4 iiulia 1911 goda), p. 27. 169   See about him: XXXV. Professor Nikolai Vasil’evich Pokrovskii, direktor imp. Arkheologicheskogo instituta. 1874–1909. Kratkii ocherk uchenoi deiatel’nosti, St. Petersburg, 1909 (a collection of papers with an autobiographic essay on pp. 1–28 and a list of works on pp. 28–32); N. Malitskii, “Prof. N. V. Pokrovskii i ego nauchnye zaslugi,” in KhCh, 1917, March–June, pp. 217–237; N. Malitskii, “Uchenye trudy prof. N. V. Pokrovskogo i ikh znachenie dlia nauki khristianskoi arkheologii,” in VAI, XXIII, 1918, pp. VII–XIX. Unfortunately, none of the above-mentioned works provides a complete checked list of N. V. Pokrovskii’s printed works.

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Figure 8.10 Nikolai Vasil’evich Pokrovskii (1848–1917), professor of St. Petersburg Theological Academy, founder and director of the Archaeological Institute in St. Petersburg.

program, showing him as a researcher of great talent who set himself and solved tasks of general scholarly interest. Pokrovskii’s thesis submitted after completing his academic course dealt with the history of the eighteenth-century church sermon. Nothing seemed to indicate any change in his future ambitions, but the young scholar’s natural talent caught the eye of the Academy’s rector and the academic board, who were at the time looking for a suitable person to hold the chair of liturgics and church archaeology. Pokrovskii’s momentary hesitation, which he felt on receiving this flattering offer, was dispelled by the board’s assertion that the knowledge necessary to perform his duties would come with time, as he came to grips with issues indispensable to his academic pursuits. As a result, Pokrovskii redefined his new field of study to remain closer to church archaeology, and subsequently never deviated from the path once chosen, mainly focusing himself on issues of church art or, to put it more precisely, on investigations in the field of iconography. Pokrovskii stated his reasons for turning to art rather than any other aspect of church archaeology on many occasions. He firmly believed that it was only in art that the ethical and aesthetic precepts of Eastern Christianity had found

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their fullest expression.170 Starting from the letter of the Law down to a simple need to behold the beautiful, everything embodied itself in visual imagery, be it an ordinary sketch executed on a parchment leaf or a whole system of various representations, as in church wall painting, in which elements of chance were reduced to a minimum by a well-thought-out pictorial ensemble. Acting not so much on reason as on emotions, visual art was more readily perceived by masses of believers and owing to its accessibility had a far greater potential to stimulate reflection, interpretation, comparison with literature and folklore, and an understanding of history. On the whole art seems to reflect, better than anything else, the level of man’s spiritual and intellectual development. Therefore, it is art that should be studied first by researchers concerned with the history of society and their own people. Like Buslaev before him, Pokrovskii focused his attention on art’s literary and narrative aspects to the exclusion of everything else, leaving out the issues of art form and quality as something optional or, at any rate, something of secondary importance. Since art of the past had, in his view, no value of its own, he regarded it as a kind of receptacle for historical and literary evidence, dogmatic and folklore material, and as some fanciful mish-mash of sources varying in origin and date. Art did not deal with specifics but generalized centuries-old experience; it was instructive and edifying. Even if artworks did have a national tinge not to be met with in other places and at other times, this only added to the common knowledge and the common creative legacy. Owing to a certain immutability of subject matter and the uneven preservation of art records, an ancient tradition may be found in a later artwork and a full unfolding of a theme could, in actual fact, reveal a thousand-year-old grain embedded in it. This essentially correct consideration of Pokrovskii’s determines the Eastern Christian and Byzantine bias of well-nigh all his works on iconography. Being mainly preoccupied with artworks of Russian origin, the overwhelming majority of which had not emerged until the fall of Byzantium, he is not inclined to exaggerate their value as such. As one learns from historical experience, there is hardly anything that exists without a precedent. According to Pokrovskii, “standing behind an artwork of Russian antiquity is almost invariably a Byzantine or, sometimes, Eastern Christian and, even, Western European one, which serves as its prototype.”171 In fact, he hastens to add, by way of qualifying himself, that his words carry no intention of denigrating Russian art, which 170  N. Pokrovskii, “Noveishie vozzreniia na predmet i zadachi arkheologii,” in Sbornik Arkheologicheskogo instituta, 4, St. Petersburg, 1880, section I, pp. 13–28. 171  N. Pokrovskii, “O nekotorykh pamiatnikakh drevnosti v Turtsii i Gretsii,” in KhCh, 1889, September–October, p. 436.

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has quite a few profoundly original works to its credit, but only aim at stressing the need to widen the range of observations, especially when posing themes of general interest. For those who limit themselves to Russian artworks only “are always at risk of arriving at a one-sided or downright erroneous solution of the issue.” Says Pokrovskii: “For us, Russians, works produced on Russian soil are of particular importance and it is to the study of these that we should devote our main energies. A comprehensive assessment of these works, however, is impossible without comparison with corresponding artworks of Byzantium. The transfer of art forms from one nation to another is, to a greater or lesser extent, an ordinary occurrence in the history of art, particularly religious art; here we have an echo of a fateful historical necessity whereby some facets of a young nation’s everyday existence come, in certain historical conditions, under the influence of the nations standing higher on the ladder of civilization. When applied to religious art, this law of historical dependence acquires a particular force: in the process of being transferred from one nation to another, religion naturally carries its former art forms into a new area of its geographic expansion. And, indeed, since Russian iconography, architecture, and church music were, at the early stages of Russia’s Christianization, a more or less accurate repetition of Byzantine artistic forms, it will be necessary, when judging Russian art, to turn to Byzantium for elucidation.”172 These words, culled from the introductory part of Pokrovskii’s work on iconography, truly characterize both the principal stand of Nikolai Vasil’evich himself and the whole methodological bias of late nineteenth-century academic scholarship, which deemed it inconceivable to treat Russian artistic culture without turning to the artistic heritage of Byzantium. Pokrovskii’s name is associated with one of the most remarkable works of the late nineteenth century, The Gospels in Monuments of Iconography Predominantly of Byzantine and Russian Origin (Evangelie v pamiatnikakh ikonografii, preimushchestvenno vizantiiskikh i russkikh). This definitive study, containing over 500 pages of close print in folio, came out in 1892 as the first volume of the Proceedings of the Eighth Archaeological Congress which, alongside the extensive exhibition held at the Historical Museum, marked the special importance of this congress convened on the occasion of the twentyfifth anniversary of the Moscow Archaeological Society.173 172  N. Pokrovskii. Ocherki pamiatnikov khristianskoi ikonografii i iskusstva, 2nd ed., St. Petersburg, 1900, p. V. 173  N. Pokrovskii, Evangelie v pamiatnikakh ikonografii, preimushchestvenno vizantiiskikh i russkikh, St. Petersburg, 1892 (=Trudy VIII AS v Moskve, 1890, vol. I). The book’s publication was funded by the Moscow Archaeological Society, which accounts for its being dedicated

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The iconography of the Gospels was of course studied both before and after Pokrovskii, but no other work treating this subject attains the fundamental quality of the Russian scholar’s effort. Popular amongst Byzantinists of the day, the book by G. Millet, which came out in 1916 and was re-issued in 1960, did not replace Pokrovskii’s investigation, as it was limited to later artworks only and had an obvious bias toward the history of art rather than the iconography proper. And if Millet’s book is still reckoned as unique this fact only bespeaks a poor familiarity on the part of Western scholars with the Russian literature on the subject, rather than a weakness of Pokrovskii’s book, which has been and still is the main reference for those who take up the study of the iconography of the Gospels. Such longevity of a scholarly work is a rare thing, testifying, better than any words, to Pokrovskii’s importance in the history of Russian scholarship. Pokrovskii planned this book as a thesis for his doctorate, which would give him an opportunity to obtain professorships at the Archaeological Institute and the Theological Academy. Members of the Institute staff N. V. Kalachov and I. I. Sreznevskii tried to persuade him into taking up the study of Byzantine and Russian art. Although their efforts to win him over were a success, Pokrovskii had his doubts about writing on the iconography of the Gospels, of which he speaks plainly in his autobiography: “I had a mind to dwell upon a subject which, while being rich in content, had not yet been seriously tackled by anyone before me and therefore had a touch of novelty; besides, it would be one which I could handle all by myself and with a fair degree of competence.”174. Turning to Buslaev and Kirpichnikov for advice, he finally settled, under their influence, on evangelical iconography. The work in hand was ready within five years, an unprecedented term for an investigation of this magnitude as it also included trips to the Near East, Europe, and throughout Russia, which Pokrovskii made in order to familiarize himself with artworks in situ. Moreover, another two extensive works by Pokrovskii, The Last Judgment in Byzantine and Russian Art and Wall Paintings in Ancient Churches of Greece and Russia, branched off the main subject, developing into investigations in their own right.175

to the late A. S. Uvarov, who was the founder of that Society and of archaeological congresses convened in Russia. 174   X XXV. Professor Nikolai Vasil’evich Pokrovskii, direktor imp. Arkheologicheskogo instituta. 1874–1909 Kratkii ocherk uchenoi deiatel’nosti, p. 13. 175  See on pp. 261–263.

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Representations of themes from Gospel history occupy a place of special prominence in the art of the Middle Ages, reaching far beyond the confines of ordinary illumination of the text. The Gospel lies at the root of a multitude of various works of literature; depictions of the Gospel events in art, while generally retaining the type of this or that episode, run into a huge number of variants which are primarily meant to enrich the Evangelists’ succinct accounts. The understandable wish to learn as much and thoroughly as possible about Christ’s life and his miracles drove man to eke out this knowledge in every possible way by recording folk legends, reconstructing the missing links in the lives of Christ and the Virgin Mary through the century-old theological interpretations of the Gospels, by poetic elaboration of the text, and, last but not least, by simple invention, which was especially characteristic of folk imagination, ever ready to embroider on a story with details drawn up from the surrounding reality. The general evolution of religious thinking and of views on the tasks set before art also added to a greater complication of the evangelical iconography. Suffice it to point to the lines along which the art of Europe developed after the Renaissance, which via Holland, Germany, and Poland were instrumental in creating a remarkable variety of artistic expression in Russian art of the seventeenth century. The Gospel in Byzantine and Russian art has a history of its own, covering a span of over 1500 years and being subject to the direct influence of religious and aesthetic ideas of different epochs. These were, in general, Pokrovskii’s views on the matter when he set to work. He was faced with the task of discovering the origins of the evangelical iconography, of tracing the paths of its subsequent development, of elucidating the purport of a multitude of general and individual concepts, and, finally, of sorting out the incredible hodgepodge of diverse elements characterizing contemporary Greek and Russian art. In order to clearly see the picture in all its various ramifications, Pokrovskii needed a comprehensive method that he could use in unraveling the most knotty questions. The only possible way to achieve this goal was, in his reckoning, to study artworks in comparison with works of ancient literature.176 During in the Middle Ages the written word and literature were primary, and the visual arts often stemmed from written works, so the scholarly method chosen by Pokrovskii was the only appropriate way of dealing with his broadly conceived research. Like Kondakov, who deemed it impossible to compose a history of Byzantine art without first ascertaining and studying its major artworks, Pokrovskii spared no effort finding and publishing the most characteristic and interesting 176  N. Pokrovskii, Evangelie v pamiatnikakh ikonografii …, p. III.

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images differing from canonical prototypes.177 Ranking first among his primary sources are a number of various illuminated copies of the Gospel Book, from the sixth-century Rossano Codex to richly illustrated sixteenth- and seventeenth-century manuscripts from Moldavia and Russia. These are followed by the Greek and Russian illuminated manuscripts of the Psalter, the Discourse by Gregory Nazianzus, the Menologies, Akathists, and a variety of Miscellanies. A good deal of evidence is extracted from church wall-paintings and Russian icons, supplemented with the data of explanatory and illustrative icon-painting manuals. Last but not least, while not quite expecting to find the material in its entirety there, Pokrovskii utilized works of Western European art, giving preference to those which borrow and use rare motifs deriving from the Greek iconography of the Gospels. Pokrovskii’s monograph is divided into three main parts, in which he discusses the iconography of Christ’s childhood, the evidence of his works, and the eschatological iconography of the Gospels. Each of the parts mentioned fall into chapters corresponding to the main episodes of the cumulative Gospel story. There are, all in all, nineteen chapters, each of which forms a special investigation in its own right. The events most thoroughly explored are the Annunciation, the Nativity, the Presentation in the Temple, the Adoration of the Magi, the Flight into Egypt, the Baptism of Christ, the Transfiguration, as well as various episodes dealing with Christ’s teaching and miracles, such as the Raising of Lazarus, the Entry into Jerusalem, the Last Supper, the Crucifixion, the Resurrection, the Ascension and Descent of the Holy Spirit. Also highlighted in an appropriate scholarly fashion are other evangelical topics: the Visitation, the Appearance of an Angel to Mary’s Husband Joseph, the Journey to Bethlehem, the Return of the Holy Family from Egypt, the Massacre of the Innocents, Christ Teaching the Doctors in Jerusalem’s Temple, the Temptation of Christ in the Desert, the Driving Out of Traffickers from Temple, the Washing of the Disciples’ Feet, Christ’s Agony in Gethsemene Garden, Judas’s Betrayal, Christ’s Trial and Scourging, Peter’s Denial and Judas’s Death, the Begging of Christ’s Body from Pilate, the Deposition and Entombment, the Descent Into Limbo, the Appearance of Christ to Three Marys, and the Incredulity of Thomas. Not a single fact, not one interesting detail of Gospel iconography escaped Pokrovskii’s attention: everything was duly marked out, collected, and interpreted. It is through this handling of the material that his book emerges as a full-fledged investigation and reference. Not in vain did it receive such flattering, even enthusiastic reviews by Russian and international 177  Almost the entire introduction with up to sixty pages of text is devoted to this subject.

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scholars, who ranked Pokrovskii’s oeuvre as an outstanding achievement of world scholarship.178 To use Kondakov’s phrase, iconography is the “ABC of church art.”179 No researcher of medieval painting can skip this stage over for the simple reason that many elements of iconography are, at the same time, those of style. Every iconographic image possesses of course a subject matter of its own, which is wholly independent of its art form. Here, in our view, lies a peculiarity whereby one can divorce an iconographic image from an artistic one, that is, the representation as scheme from that as art. This kind of differentiation is characteristic of the nineteenth century since the majority of works of medieval painting were hidden beneath many layers of overpaint, which meant only the outlines of drawing rather than the artistic image itself survived, as the latter is usually a sum total of the dialectic interaction between diverse elements of form and content. In order to better understand the difference between iconography and artistry in the realm of art, it will be sufficient to compare it with the difference between the alphabet and writing. However, in just the same way as it would be unfair to rail at a linguist for his straying from the study of literature when preoccupied with the history of language, it is just as wrong to censure Pokrovskii for his love for iconography rather than art proper, the latter being inconceivable without the ABC of iconography. We should be reminded of these simple truths as some scholars do look with contempt or, at best, with irony at those who take up iconography, regarding them as not subtle enough to handle the art form as such. One peculiar feature of Pokrovskii’s iconographic researches is its abundance of material of Russian origin. And it is not the scholar’s “Orthodox penchant,” although Pokrovskii did speak critically of those of the Roman school who made it a point to trace all Byzantine iconography to catacomb paintings and Roman mosaics. On the contrary, he saw quite clearly that Eastern Christianity lay at the root of most of the subjects of Byzantine art on Syrian and Palestinian soil, lending these somewhat crude images of Eastern folk imagination a peculiar stylistic tinge permeated with the spirit of Hellenism. Also of the “Oriental nature” were, in Pokrovskii’s view, those Russian works which largely retained, in virtue of the general conservative quality of Russian art, many specific traits of both Byzantine and Eastern Christian iconography. 178  For a full list of reviews of the Evangelie v pamiatnikakh ikonografii …, see: XXXV. Professor Nikolai Vasil’evich Pokrovskii, direktor imp. Arkheologicheskogo instituta. 1874–1909. Kratkii ocherk uchenoi deiatel’nosti, p. 29. Cf. also N. Malitskii, Uchenye trudy prof. N. V. Pokrovskogo i ikh znachenie dlia nauki khristianskoi arkheologii, pp. XII–XV. 179  N. Kondakov, Pamiatniki khristianskogo iskusstva na Afone, p. 2.

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Since a great number of Greek and Eastern Christian works had been lost and specimens that survived were still, with few exceptions, awaiting their time of discovery and scholarly study, the rich Russian material acquired great importance. Moreover, an extremely advantageous position was occupied by all of Russian scholarship, for it now could tackle the most overriding problems of church archaeology by broadly drawing upon Russian works of art and religious literature, explicating and updating the hidden import of most recondite and abstruse details of Byzantine iconography. We see the international scope of Pokrovskii’s study of medieval art in his monograph on the iconography of the Gospels and in many of his other works, such as The Last Judgment in Works of Byzantine and Russian Art (1887);180 Wall Paintings in Medieval Churches of Greece and Russia (1890);181 a four-volume survey of the Siisk painter’s manual (1895–98);182 an explanatory catalogue of the most significant works preserved in the Church-Archaeological Museum affiliated with the St. Petersburg Theological Academy (1902);183 and a wellannotated publication of historical and artistic antiquities from the St. Sophia of Novgorod (1914).184 The most significant of these works is undoubtedly the investigation of wall paintings. Since most of such ensembles extend over large areas and have a complex structure, their study always entails difficulties. One must make extended trips to faraway places and to describe various compositions in situ for the subsequent treatment indoors of the evidence gathered. One does not need to speak about the inconvenience of examining frescoes in half-lit and cold church buildings and the difficulty of correctly identifying the small figure representations disposed in the upper parts of walls and vaults where they can hardly be discerned by the naked eye. To better grasp the magnitude of Pokrovskii’s task, one has only to think of another kind of art, namely manuscript illuminations. No matter how much time and effort it takes to search for and ascertain the illuminated manuscripts, work on these is conducted in well-equipped, clean, and warm repositories that are located, for the most 180  N. V. Pokrovskii, “Strashnyi sud v pamiatnikakh vizantiiskogo i russkogo iskusstva,” in Trudy VI AS v Odesse (1884 g.), vol. III, Odessa, 1887, pp. 285–381. 181  N. V. Pokrovskii, “Stennye rospisi v drevnikh khramakh grecheskikh i russkikh,” in Trudy VII AS v Yaroslavle, 1887 g., vol. I, Moscow, 1890, pp. 135–305. 182  See about it in chapter 6, pp. 166–167. 183  See in chapter 7, p. 188. 184  N. V. Pokrovskii, “Drevniaia riznitsa Sofiiskogo novgorodskogo sobora,” in Trudy XV AS v Novgorode, 1991, vol. I, Moscow, 1914, pp. XIII–XVIII, 1–124, tables I–XXIII. A separate edition is available. See also: N. V. Pokrovskii, “Drevniaia Sofiiskaia riznitsa v Novgorode,” VAI, XXII, 1914, pp. 1–35.

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part, in capital cities of Europe and the Near East. Mural study is quite another matter. Yet, not only did Pokrovskii have the pluck to embark upon the work in hand, but he carried it through to the very end so that even nowadays the investigation he published remains a unique survey of all the major mosaic and fresco cycles that were still extant by the end of the nineteenth century. Spanning over 1500 years, it covers works from the Early Christian era up to the latest Greek and Russian murals dating from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. What strikes the eye on first acquaintance with Pokrovskii’s work is the extremely small number of references to publications of other authors, as he obviously prefers his own observations, thus reducing to a minimum the inevitable inaccuracies and blunders. Where he does borrow, it is either the evidence of primary sources, such as texts of ancient liturgies and liturgical interpretations, or valuable descriptions of extinct wall paintings and references to illustrations that are lacking in his work. Little-known or totally unidentified specimens attract his particular attention; a case in point is his account of the Yaroslavl murals, distinguished, as they are, by a most complicated compositional structure, which he describes with an unprecedented fullness to make them serve as reliable material for assessing Russian art prior to and following Peter the Great’s reforms. The emphasis on the Yaroslavl murals was also due to the fact that Pokrovskii prepared his work for the forthcoming archaeological congress in Yaroslavl. His bias toward the latest Russian art relics does not mean, however, that he neglects other relics. On the contrary, everything is covered with the same attention to detail so that the reader gets a clear picture of both the general principle underlying the church’s decorative treatment and the peculiarities marking the time and place. An enormous quantity of murals gave Pokrovskii sufficient grounds for speaking about the reoccurrence of the main figural and thematic representations in all Christian churches and about a relative similarity of their arrangement. The depictions of Christ, the Virgin Mary, angels, prophets, martyrs, Church Fathers, the Old Testament and Gospel scenes, in more or less detail, are typical of almost all wall paintings. This recurrence comes from the view that the church is a visible heaven on earth. All its component parts—dome, apse, altar, sacristy, nave and aisles, narthexes and parvises, and other divisions of the whole—have a stable symbolic meaning of their own and are accordingly decorated. What is obvious, however, is that two identical murals seldom occur and that adherence to a general principle does not mean one has to forcibly restrain one’s freedom of choice in correlating the scenes depicted. Pokrovskii’s acknowledgment of this fact shows him as an exceptionally unprejudiced art historian. He is perfectly aware of the creative potential of

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antiquity, which he is more ready to recognize in a majority of artworks of the past. Summing up his observations of wall painting in the Yaroslavl church of St. John the Baptist in Tolchkovo (1671–1687), in which the complexity of subjects, characteristic of the late seventeenth century, attains its highest pitch, and verges on incoherence, Pokrovskii is inclined to underscore the creative will of the artists concerned. “Although it is the themes treating of antiquity that predominate in the painting that has survived,” he reports, “their development is unusually variegated: what we see here is not only scenes from the Old and New Testaments but also numerous events from ecclesiastical history, homiletic scenes from paterikons (collecting saints’ lives and other didactic literature composed by church fathers) and miscellanies of the kind that we have not come across in the Greek and Western European iconographies. No matter what their artistic merits are, however, one cannot but see here the hand of an experienced master-craftsman and a theologian who is familiar with both the writing of the day and the Orthodox creed in its essential elements and features distinguishing it from Protestantism. Even if the master did make use of the help and advice of persons well versed in the craft and in theology … he would, nevertheless, need much experience and talent be able to translate the abstract themes to the idiom of art, clothing them in forms worthy of their content. It is here, within the walls of this church,” he concludes, “that the history of divine house-building unfolds itself before our eyes in its entirety and what a vast didactic poem it is!”185 The iconographic aspect of the painting as described by Pokrovskii in the above extract about the wall painting of the Tolchkovo church, does not eclipse for Pokrovskii the various manifestations of creativity in the realm of form. For example, speaking about the Russian murals, he points out that the chronological sequence of artworks leads us to “an elucidation of artistic ideals, notions, and views regarding the objectives of church archaeology at different periods of its development, thus providing the material for future work on the history of Russian art.”186 “The material for future work on the history of Russian art!” These words well epitomize Pokrovskii’s creative activity. It remains a puzzle why Kondakov and Likhachev thought that Pokrovskii carried the iconographic method of the study of ancient art to the point of absurdity by completely negating art form.187 185  N. V. Pokrovskii, Stennye rospisi v drevnikh khramakh grecheskikh i russkikh, p. 264. 186  Ibid., p. 141. 187  V. N. Lazarev, Vizantiiskaia zhivopis’. [Sbornik statei], Moscow, 1971, p. 275 (from the introduction to the Etiudy po ikonografii Bogomateri). On the other hand, it would be even less justified to regard N. V. Pokrovskii as the founder and head of the Russian iconographical school, for this would be nothing else but an attempt to schematize the history of the

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Even if one disregards the fact that all of Pokrovskii’s best iconographic studies were written earlier than the similar treatises of Kondakov and Likhachev, the above view completely ignores both the historically determined approach toward art in the late nineteenth century and the specific goal set by Pokrovskii in his research: he never set himself to writing a history of art as such. He saw his task, first, in searching for and then correctly elucidating the newly discovered factual evidence, being well aware that there was no more or less full and substantiated information even on the major works of Russian visual art. His treatment of the new strata of medieval artistic culture, however, was not just a mechanical accumulation of evidence. Every major monograph by Pokrovskii centers around some basic theme, which runs all through the entire work, picking up, like a magnet, its separate pieces into one coherent historical whole. Pokrovskii’s synthesizing thought enables readers not only to familiarize themselves with new artworks but also to better understand the questions that arise since all of these artworks are discussed in the context of definite historical changes as creations of one particular cultural environment or another. This ability of his—to see the general in the individual and to characterize this general not so much in words as by a whole sum total of works studied is what undoubtedly puts Pokrovskii on a par with Kondakov. But for Kondakov and Pokrovskii, with their indefatigable quest for knowledge and extensive iconographic research, Russian art criticism would never have possessed that thoroughness with which it was credited by European scholars of the late nineteenth century. Neither I. D. Mansvetov nor A. A. Dmitrievskii, for that matter, have left us any systematized exposé of their lectures on church archaeology. In fact, the liturgical aspect in their academic activities was more important to them than church archaeology, and it was only Pokrovskii who developed the subject. This can even be seen in the relatively early précis of his lectures, dated to the 1884/85 academic year.188 In the course of time, when Pokrovskii was appointed the inspector of St. Petersburg Theological Academy, and took the post of director of the Archaeological Institute, when his administrative duties began to distract him from his research, and the teaching of Early Christian and Byzantine-Russian church archaeology and iconography became the Russian scholarship and pigeon-hole what in fact constituted the living scientific reality. See: V. Sokol, “Ikonograficheskii i zhivopisno-formal’nyi metody izucheniia russkoi ikonopisi,” in Izvestiia Obshchestva arkheologii i etnografii pri Kazanskom universitete, vol. XXXII, issue 2, Kazan, 1923, pp. 187–194. 188   Lektsii po tserkovnoi arkheologii, chitannye studentam S. Pb. d[ukhovnoi] akademii [v] 1884/5 g., St. Petersburg, [1885]. Lithographed edition.

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N. V. Pokrovskii, The Gospel in Iconographic Sources, Primarily Byzantine and Russian, St. Petersburg, 1892.

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main form of his public activity. The textbooks that he wrote for students of the Theological Academy, for seminary graduates, and even for pupils of the eparchial and parish schools, appear one after another.189 Not all of these are of the same high quality as their author would frequently tread the beaten path, simplifying the subject and combining under one heading paintings by Raphael and compositions by some seventeenth-century Russian icon painter. However, they all were, in the long run, to the general benefit since they acquainted many students and aspiring scholars with the field of Russian antiquities.190 It was solely through Pokrovskii’s effort that church archaeology and iconography were included in the compulsory curriculum of the seminary course of study and (shortly before the revolution), they were appointed to chairs in their own right in theological academies.191 When dealing with the history of the discovery and study of medieval Russian painting one’s attention is inevitably drawn to the outstanding church historian Evgenii Evstigneevich Golubinskii (1834–1912).192 A son of a poor parish priest from Kostroma province, Golubinskii succeeded in his career to rise 189   Ocherki pamiatnikov khristianskoi ikonografii i iskusstva, 2nd ed. suppl., St. Petersburg, 1900; “Konspektivnoe izlozhenie chtenii po khristianskoi arkheologii,” in Konspekty lektsii po istorii i drevnostiam Velikogo Novgoroda, chitannykh v 1909 godu v Novgorodskom obshchestve liubitelei drevnosti gg. lektorami imp. Arkheologicheskogo instituta, I–II, Novgorod, 1910, pp. 69–100; Tserkovnaia arkheologiia v sviazi s istorieiu khristianskogo iskusstva, Petrograd, 1916. See also: N. Malitskii, Uchenye trudy prof. N. V. Pokrovskogo i ikh znachenie dlia nauki khristianskoi arkheologii, pp. XVII–XVIII. 190  We may note here that among Pokrovskii’s disciples figured such scholars as D. A. Grigorov and N. A. Sperovskii, who wrote excellent MA compositions entitled Russkii ikonopisnyi podlinnik (The Russian icon-painting manual) and Starinnye russkie ikonostasy (Early Russian Iconostases). See about them in chapter 6 and chapter 8. The remarkable scholar N. V. Malitskii, who in the Soviet period worked in the Russian Museum, Leningrad, was also a disciple of Pokrovskii’s. 191  See: N. Pokrovskii, “Khristianskaia arkheologiia kak samostoiatel’naia nauka v dukhovnykh akademiiakh,” in TsV, 1907, nos. 38–40 (September 20 and 27 and October 4), columns 1223–1227, 1260–1262 and 1278–1281. 192  The entire specialist literature on E. E. Golubinskii is listed in the reference book Istoriia istoricheskoi nauki v SSSR. Dooktiabr’skii period. Bibliografiia, pp. 255–256. The best work on him was written by S. I. Smirnov, who succeeded Golubinskii of the Chair of of Russian Church History at the Moscow academy; see S. I. Smirnov, “E. E. Golubinskii. Nekrolog,” in ZhMNP, 1912, May, Sovremennaia letopis’, pp. 19–43. Substantial material for the scholar’s biography is provided by his memoirs, part of which he wrote himself and part dictated to S. I. Smirnov when became blind: Vospominaniia E. E. Golubinskogo, Kostroma, 1923. For a review of these memoirs based on the author’s and S. I. Smirnov’s manuscripts, see in the reference book: Vospominaniia i dnevniki XVIII–XX vv., Ukazatel’ rukopisei, ed.

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N. V. Pokrovskii, Notes on Works of Pskov Church Antiquity, Moscow, 1914.

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from the theological school through the seminary to the academy. From 1861 to 1895, Golubinskii taught at the Moscow Theological Academy, all the time tirelessly writing his History of the Russian Church. While intending, originally, to carry his narrative up to the establishment of the Synod (1721), he was obliged to finish the book at the time of Metropolitan Makarii (Macarius) (1543–64). Even in this, incomplete state, however, Golubinskii’s History occupies over 3,500 pages of printed text,193 covering the subject in all its entirety. For this magnum opus , Golubinskii was elected a full member of the Academy of Sciences, the first and only case of conferring the title of academician on a professor of a theological academy.194 From the 1880s on, when a new edition of the first volume of the History appeared in print, and until the very end of his life, Golubinskii remained under suspicion by the church authorities, even expecting at times to be expelled from the Theological Academy. The malevolence of the Synod’s administration was caused, first of all, by Golubinskii’s independent stance, which he took toward official historiography, and also by his exceptionally fresh approach to Russian history, when many “sacred” legends turned out, under the brunt of his criticism, to be utterly untenable and Russian church life presented a most pitiable picture. In his character traits and perseverance in achieving his goals, his scholarly probity, and his striving to get to the root of things, Golubinskii much resembled Kondakov. It was not surprising that these two succeeded, each in his own sphere, in creating some profoundly original works, which have since become indispensable. Medieval Russian visual arts, and church archaeology, are considered by Golubinskii in the second half of Volume I and the second half of Volume II of his History. Briefly, they center around two main issues: the origin of the iconostasis and the inception of independent Russian painting.

by S. V. Zhitomirskaia, Moscow, 1976, pp. 275–276 (E. E. Golubinskii’s collection at the Russian State Public Library). 193  E. Golubinskii, Istoriia russkoi tserkvi, vol. I, first half of the volume, 2nd ed., rev. and suppl., Moscow, 1901; vol. I, second half, 2nd ed., rev., and suppl., Moscow, 1904; vol. II, first half, Moscow, 1900; vol. II, second half, issue 1, Moscow, 1911 (1917 on the cover). Issued in 1906, the Arkheologicheskii atlas ko vtoroi polovine I-go toma Istorii russkoi tserkvi (Moscow, 1906, = ChOIDR, 1906, book II) is now outdated and has no instructive value of its own. 194  It was with this in view that a fairly detailed list of Golubinskii’s printed works was compiled, featuring the reviews of his Istoriia russkoi tserkvi: K. M. Popov, “Spisok trudov akademika E. E. Golubinskogo. 1859–1911,” in Otchet o deiatel’nosti Otdeleniia russkogo iazyka i slovesnosti imp. Akademii nauk za 1912 god, St. Petersburg, 1912, supplements, pp. 1–32. See also: Materialy dlia biograficheskogo slovaria deistvitel’nykh chlenov imp. Akademii nauk, 1. A—L, Petrograd, 1915, pp. 218–226.

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Many scholars broached the history of iconostasis—the truly Russian contribution to Orthodox church art and architecture—throughout the nineteenth century. Starting with the now classic work by G. D. Filimonov, printed in 1859, the subject was tackled by E. E. Golubinskii, P. G. Lebedintsev, I. D. Mansvetov, S. A. Usov, N. A. Sperovskii and N. I. Troitskii.195 It was only much later, in the second half of the twentieth century, that the original history of the iconostasis was updated by other scholars, following the discovery in medieval churches of authentic altar screens and ancient icons serving as their decoration.196 It should be noted, however, that the latter-day investigations were but an updating of the evidence unearthed by scholars of the older generation, including E. E. Golubinskii, who had correctly mapped out the history of the iconostasis. According to a view prevalent among the above scholars, the Russian high iconostasis grew out of an altar screen, which was a feature of the Byzantine and early Russian churches. The screens were comparatively low structures made up of little columns, or poles, with an architrave surmounting them overhead and gratings, or parapet slabs, concealing them beneath. It was not until the sixth century that the architrave started to be decorated with half-figures of saints, the space over the holy doors leading from the nave to the sanctuary being, in the course of time, permanently occupied by a tripartite composition made up of the half-figures of Christ, the Virgin, and St. John the 195  See about it in chapter 5. I shall cite here only a few most remarkable investigations of the subject: G. Filimonov, Tserkov’ sv. Nikolaia Chudotvortsa na Lipne bliz Novgoroda. Vopros o pervonachal’noi forme ikonostasov v russkikh tserkvakh, Moscow, 1859; E. E. Golubinskii, “Istoriia altarnoi pregrady, ili ikonostasa, v pravoslavnykh tserkvakh,” in Pravoslavnoe obozrenie, 1872, the year’s second half, pp. 570–589; P. G. Lebedintsev, “O sv. Sofii Kievskoi,” in Trudy III AS v Kieve, v avguste 1874 goda, vol. I, Kiev, 1878, pp. 78– 90; I. Mansvetov, “Po povodu nedavno otkrytoi stenopisi v moskovskom i vladimirskom Uspenskikh soborakh,” in Pribavleniia k Tvoreniiam sviatykh otsev v russkom perevode, vol. II, Moscow, 1883, pp. 525–529; N. Sperovskii, “Starinnye russkie ikonostasy,” in KhCh, 1891, November–December, pp. 337–353; 1892, March–April, pp. 162–176; May–June, pp. 321–334; July–August, pp. 3–17; November–December, pp. 522–537; 1893, September– October, pp. 321–342; N. I. Troitskii, “Ikonostas i ego simvolika,” in Pravoslavnoe obozrenie, 1891, April, pp. 696–719; E. Golubinskii, Istoriia russkoi tserkvi, vol. I, the volume’s second half, 2nd ed., pp. 197–216, vol. II, the volume’s second half, issue 1, pp. 343–353. 196  For full critical coverage of the old and new literature, see: V. N. Lazarev, Russkaia srednevekovaia zhivopis’. Stat’i i issledovaniia, Moscow, 1970, pp. 128–139 [the article “Dva novykh pamiatnika russkoi stankovoi zhivopisi XII–XIII vekov. (K istorii ikonostasa),” first published in 1946]; V. N. Lazarev, Vizantiiskaia zhivopis’. [Sbornik statei], pp. 110–136 (the article “Tri fragmenta raspisnykh epistiliev i vizantiiskii templon,” first published in French and Russian in 1964 and 1967); G. Babii, “O zhivopisnom ukrasu oltarskikh pregrada,” in Zbornik za likovne umetnosti, 11, Novi Sad, 1975, pp. 3–41.

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Baptist. The composition, referred to as “deesis” in the literature, was found directly on a transverse beam of the architrave or else somewhere above it. In the latter case, it was often executed in oil on a panel surmounting the architrave’s central portion. Such tripartite deesis compositions, dating back to the late twelfth or early thirteenth centuries, were later found in Russia, showing vividly the base from which arose the iconostasis’ main portion—icons of the deesis range. Golubinskii presumed that as early as the pre-Mongol period there existed iconostases no less than two tiers in height and a width not exceeding that of a triumphal arch, which was limited by the east pillars. However, as the issue was quite obscure, Golubinskii was obliged to voice his opinion rather cautiously as, apart from a vague hint provided by a twelfth-century tale about Prince Andrei Bogoliubskii’s murder, he was unable to find any accurate evidence to go by. Of particular interest are those pages of the History in which Golubinskii describes the initial stage of the development of Russian easel and fresco painting. In doing so, the author evaluates the standards of general learning existing in pre-Mongol Russia from the viewpoint of a future representative of the skeptical school of criticism. In his opinion, the Russia of the period in question was a somewhat literate but insufficiently enlightened country: all the best things were then borrowed from Byzantium. According to Golubinskii, icons furnishing the churches of Kiev, Vladimir, and Novgorod were all imported and, with the exception of rare specimens commissioned by the princely élite and the higher clergy, they were all but second-rate works which the owners of workshops, bereft of commissions, dumped at the Constantinople market. Here, Golubinskii allowed himself an uncritical argument, proceeding from the present toward the past. “As the demand for icons in Russia must have been great and was ever growing with time,” asserts Golubinskii, “one should think that not only all the poorly fashioned, non-commissioned icons were purchased for her [Russia], but that a special fabrication of icons, executed specially for us, was launched in places that carried out the trade in icons with Russia, i.e., icons produced as fast and as cheaply and with as little care about anything except cost and speed as one finds nowadays in Mstera and Kholui.”197 More fruitful, in Golubinskii’s view, was the practice of decorating Russian churches with frescoes, as he is certain that no Greek fresco painter would ever travel to Russia unless promised a fair commission rather than some vague assurance thereof. “It follows from this that there were no Greek mural painters loitering in crowds at our marketplaces, and offering their services to anyone who had 197  E. Golubinskii, Istoriia russkoi tserkvi, vol. I, the volume’s second half, 2nd ed., p. 224.

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a need for them but that they could be obtained from Greece by a special dispatch only. This being the case,” concludes Golubinskii, “there was obviously a need for our own, Russian master-craftsmen as well.”198 Despite its seemingly unobliging character, this brief comment has a good grain of truth in it, for monumental painting as an art created in situ rather than that imported from outside opens up good opportunities for developing national craftsmanship and style. This thought of Golubinskii’s, original and perspicacious, even reconciles us to the slighting tone that he uses when speaking of the early records of Russian monumental painting known to him, i.e., the frescoes of Mirozh, Staraia Ladoga, and Nereditsa. But on the other hand, long before others, he firmly asserted, that the inception of Russian fine arts coincided with the first years of the Russian state, that is, the tenth century.199 When dealing with Kondakov’s stay in Odessa, we pointed to the lack of popularity that his university lectures suffered there as well as the fact that for a good many years he had no students of his own. Luckily for him, however, two young men who had enrolled at Novorossiisk University in 1884, not long before his departure for St. Petersburg, showed almost overnight that their vocation was to study the art of Byzantium and Russia. These were Dmitrii Vlas’evich Ainalov (1862–1939), and Egor Kuzmich Redin (1863–1908). Whereas the latter’s name speaks little to the readership at large, that of Ainalov is fairly well known. He died at a ripe old age and some of our contemporaries or teachers, such as V. K. Miasoedov, N. P. Sychev, L. A. Matsulevich, N. L. Okunev, A. N. Grabar, A. N. Svirin, M. K. Karger, V. N. Lazarev, and M. A. Alpatov were among his direct or extramural pupils and followers. It was through Ainalov that our the first generation of scholars maintained a close link with a new, Soviet one, and this alone entitles him to a place of honor in the history of the study of Byzantine and Russian art.

198  Ibid., p. 226. 199  Ibid., p. 227. I believe, Golubinski’s only predecessor in this respect was M. P. Pogodin. See: “Razbor sochinenia g. Rovinskogo: Istoria russkikh shkol ikonopisaniia, sostavlennyi akad. M. P. Pogodinym,” in Otchet o pervom prisuzhdenii nagrad grafa Uvarova 25 sentiabria 1857 goda, St. Petersburg, 1857, p. 31.

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As was the case with many other outstanding scholars of the nineteenth century, both Ainalov200 and Redin201 came from the lower strata of Russian society: Ainalov was born into a merchant’s family and Redin into a peasant’s family. It should be pointed out, in this connection, that their academic careers were always strongly colored by truly democratic tendencies such as the awareness of their commitment as scholars to the general advancement of Russian social thought, the desire to bring scholarship closer to the realities of the age, their concern for their students, and benevolence toward their fellow-scholars. Ainalov and Redin did their first research while still at university, and their joint work on the mosaics and frescoes of the Kievan St. Sophia was carried out for the undergraduate degree. The subject was suggested by Kondakov, who explained his choice thus: the text should accompany the sketches and copies of the St. Sophia mosaics published earlier, which were to be done by Sreznevskii, who had failed to fulfil his obligation. Although the assignment to write the text for an official edition (the four volumes devoted to the painting of the Kievan St. Sophia cathedral formed part of the series The Antiquities of the Russian State) was a rather intricate one, the young researchers brilliantly coped with it. Their book, finished in 1888 and issued the following year by the Russian Archaeological Society,202 was honored with a Society review, and favorably commented upon in the metropolitan archaeological journals. Though 200  A complete list of literature on D. V. Ainalov will be given in the second volume of the History. Here we only point to his brief autobiography and to one article: Biograficheskii slovar’ professorov i prepodavatelei imp. Kazanskogo universiteta (1804–1904), part 1, Kazan’, pp. 19–21; V. Rakint, “D. V. Ainalov,” Germes, 1916, January–May, pp. 218–224, with a portrait on p. 219. Detailed information on Ainalov’s promotions and scholarly work can be gleaned from his unpublished autobiography of 1930, which is preserved at the Central Scientific Library of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR in Kiev (col. X. no. 4764, fol. 1–6). 201  Almost all biographical data on E. K. Redin are to be found in a collection of papers published in connection with his untimely demise at the age of forty-five. See: Sbornik KhIFO, vol. XIX. “Pamiati professora Egora Kuzmicha Redina († 27 aprelia 1908 g.),” Kharkov, 1913. Of special notice are articles and obituaries by D. V. Ainalov, N. F. Sumtsov, and A. I. Beletskii. Of other publications, see: S. Zhebelev, “Pamiati E. K. Redina,” in Zapiski Klassicheskogo otdeleniia imp. RAO, vol. VI, St. Petersburg, 1910, pp. VIII–XIII. 202  D. Ainalov and E. Redin, Kievo-Sofiiskii sobor. Issledovanie drevnei mozaicheskoi i freskovoi zhivopisi, St. Petersburg, 1889. The same work was issued serially: D. V. Ainalov and E. K. Redin, “Kievskii Sofiiskii sobor. Issledovanie drevnei zhivopisi—mozaik i fresok sobora,” in ZRAO, vol. IV, issue 3–4, 1890, pp. 231–381. See also some popular essays about the St. Sophia: D. Ainalov and E. Redin, “Mozaiki i freski Kievo-Sofiiskogo sobora,” in VestnII, vol. 8, issue 6, St. Petersburg, 1890, pp. 569–585; D. Ainalov and E. Redin, “Drevnie

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Figure 8.13 Egor Kuz’mich Redin (1863–1908).

Figure 8.14 Dmitrii Vlas’evich Ainalov (1862–1939).

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it came out almost one hundred years ago and since then many works about the Kievan St. Sophia have appeared, it retains its value as a quite useful reference aid, all the more so as Lazarev’s monograph on mosaics,203 issued in 1960, was not followed with an analogous publication on the St. Sophia’s frescoes.204 Preparing their book on the frescoes and mosaics of the Kievan St. Sophia, Ainalov and Redin had little recourse to the Antiquities of the Russian State albums, and their debt to F. G. Solntsev remains but a superficial one. Both scholars rely on their personal experience and the notes they made in Kiev, where they also studied the mosaics uncovered by A. V. Prakhov, which were not included in the Antiquities. These are, mainly, the mosaics of the dome and bema. One of the first reviewers of the book on the St. Sophia205 noted a rare expertise of the aspiring authors: they made straight for their goal, their narrative was pithy and to the point, and every scholarly issue arising in the course of investigation was interpreted in a substantiated and reliable fashion. Having focused their attention on the subjects of wall painting, Ainalov and Redin showed themselves so erudite in the matters of iconography as to arouse envy in no less an authority as Kondakov himself. In a planned and thoroughgoing way, the investigation covers all mosaic representations, then the painting of five old side-altars, then the group portrait of the princely family and the secular paintings in the corner staircase towers leading up to the church galleries. Without overburdening their narrative with reference data and mainly utilizing the primary sources and parallels rather than the relevant literature, the authors furnish an excellent example of an independent interpretation pamiatniki iskusstva Kieva,” in Trudy Pedagogicheskogo otdela KhIFO, 6, Kharkov, 1900, pp. 1–50, figs. 1–66. 203  V. N. Lazarev, Mozaiki Sofii Kievskoi. S prilozheniem stat’i A. A. Beletskogo o grecheskikh nadpisiakh na mozaikakh, Moscow, 1960. 204  The book on the fresco painting of the Kievan St. Sophia, begun by V. N. Lazarev, was left unfinished in 1961 as the Directorate of the St. Sophia Museum refused to supply Lazarev with the necessary graphic material and photographic illustrations. For a general acquaintance with the history of uncovering the frescoes and the system of decorative treatment in the St. Sophia, see: V. N. Lazarev, Mozaiki Sofii Kievskoi, pp. 38–64, 72–76; V. N. Lazarev, Vizantiiskoe i drevnerusskoe iskusstvo. Stat’i i materialy, Moscow, 1978, pp. 65–115 (the first publication of an unfinished work on frescoes from the scholar’s archive). 205  “Otzyv pochetnogo chlena [RAO] I. V. Pomialovskogo o sochinenii chlenov-sotrudnikov E. K. Redina and D. V. Ainalova ‘Kievskii sobor. Issledovanie drevnei zhivopisi—mozaik i fresok sobora’,” in ZRAO, vol. VI, issue 3 and 4, 1893, minutes, XCI–XCIV. See also: TsV, 1900, no. 29. Addenda, pp. 1174–1176 (a review by N. V. Pokrovskii of the Kharkov publication of 1900).

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of the artwork in question. Even when some individual pieces of wall painting, such as the staircase frescoes of the St. Sophia, have already been tackled by other scholars, Ainalov and Redin approach them in a new vein, bringing into focus all kinds of minor details which greatly add to the interpretation of these poorly preserved murals. Taken as a whole, the book may be viewed as an iconographic reference and guide to the Kievan St. Sophia. The stylistic assessments are made but sparingly and, unlike the extensive historico-iconographic portions of the text, do not adequately describe the painting. In some cases, when the authors deal with fully renovated frescoes, this approach may be explained by the lack of authenticity of the frescoes. In others, when they speak of mosaics, whose appearance differed but little from what it is nowadays, the authors obviously succumb to the spirit of scholarship prevailing in the second half of the nineteenth century, in which the stylistic interpretation was much less important than interpretation based on written sources. They still did not grasp the specific quality of the Byzantine style, and they perceived any deviation from the classical precepts as a corruption of beauty. “Most of our mosaics,” say Ainalov and Redin, “demonstrate a painstaking and complex technique which, in many respects, caused a degradation of style or, rather, a working-out of a specifically stagnant style which eventually brought about a total torpidity of Byzantine art. The real clue as to what led Byzantine art to that state is given by its history. In fact, already at the very first stages, it became dogmatic and religious in the strictest sense of the term, drawing on a rich classical heritage to express theological ideas. Hence, that well-known Byzantine stereotype, that adherence to the pattern of a once elaborated and accepted image, which rules out any departure from it.… Instead of representing the venerated subject in artistic and religious terms there is a dogmatically precise and detailed reproduction. Needless to say, in this case workmanship and manual dexterity played a most prominent part and it is no wonder that even a most refined and painstaking craftsmanship yields images poised in mid-air without support and also iterative gestures and symmetrical poses as, for example, in our altar scene of the Eucharist.”206 When coming across such characteristics, one cannot but marvel at the spell that traditional thinking had over scholars as only few of them were able to cast off its shackles. The comprehension of Byzantine aesthetics was still at its infancy. Theory lagged behind the practical study of Byzantine and ancient Russian art, and it is no wonder that any scholarly work on this subject in the nineteenth century focused, first and foremost, on history and iconography. 206  D. Ainalov, E. Redin, Kievo-Sofiiskii sobor. Issledovanie drevnei mozaicheskoi i freskovoi zhivopisi, p. 70.

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Ainalov and Redin’s outstanding abilities prompted the academic board of Novorossiisk University to take the decision that they should stay at the university and prepare themselves for future professorships. This would have taken its normal course had not Kondakov moved at the time to St. Petersburg. The students followed their teacher207 and some time later, after broadening their learning, first in the capital and then through prolonged travels abroad, they received (on the recommendation of the Ministry of Public Education) chairs of their own at two provincial universities: Ainalov moved to Kazan and Redin to Kharkov. It is at this time that they began their independent creative careers and very soon their research on a whole number of important issues of the history of Russian and Byzantine art placed Ainalov and Redin among the leading specialists in Russia and Western Europe. Their first important joint researches on graduating from the university clearly illustrate the guiding influence of Kondakov. And, indeed, what are, in essence, the Mosaics of the Fourth and Fifth Centuries by Ainalov (1895) and the Mosaics of the Ravenna Churches by Redin (1896),208 which were published on their return from an overseas tour and presented as theses for masters’ degrees? Coupled with their undergraduate work on the mosaics and frescoes of the Kievan St. Sophia, these books were devised to make up for Kondakov’s unrealized plan to compile a history of Byzantine art that would include, in addition to illuminated manuscripts, some of the most outstanding specimens of monumental painting. Fortunately for Ainalov and Redin, their personal interests tallied well with their teacher’s aspirations so that both investigations on mosaics reveal a clear understanding of the task. Completeness of material and novelty of elucidation distinguish their work. In particular, both researchers persistently point to the incidence of the Byzantine style in the fifth-century mosaics created on Roman and Ravenna soils, thereby debunking the myth widely cultivated by Western European scholars of the Roman school lying at the root of the entire early history of Byzantine art. Everything was, in fact, the other way round: it was the East, rather than the West, that engendered all the major stylistic changes in the art of the time and, with the exception of the mosaic decoration in the church of St. Constance, all other 207  A. I. Markevich, Dvadtsatipiatiletie imp. Novorossiiskogo universiteta, Odessa, 1890, p. 303, note 3. 208  D. V. Ainalov, “Mozaiki IV i V vekov. Issledovaniia v oblasti ikonografii i stilia drevnekhristianskogo iskusstva,” St. Petersburg, 1895 (=ZhMNP, 1895, April pp. 241–309, May, 94–155, and July, pp. 21–71); E. K. Redin, Mozaiki ravennskikh tserkvei, St. Petersburg, 1896 (=ZRAO, vol. XI, issues 3 and 4. Trudy Otdeleniia arkheologii drevneklassicheskoi, vizantiiskoi i zapadnoevropeiskoi, book 2, St. Petersburg, 1897, pp. 41–264).

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contemporary works of art in Rome, Naples, Capua, and Ravenna bear, one way or other, the stamp of the growing art of Constantinople. It is interesting that Ainalov probed this issue even more deeply in a work published five years later, a new monograph entitled The Hellenistic Origins of Byzantine Art. Printed in 1900,209 the book outlined one of the most fundamental problems of the Byzantine style so clearly and precisely that it soon became the classical reference on the subject, and was reprinted in 1961 in English translation.210 What Ainalov meant by the Hellenistic origins of the Byzantine style, however, was not so much the art of continental Greece or Rome as that of Alexandria, Syria, Palestine, and Asia Minor, where classical tradition had continually been merging with the artistic legacy of the East and, while preserving its own distinctive features, became enriched with a fresh influx of fantasy and mysticism that were intrinsic to the East. The founding of Constantinople shifted the empire’s center closer to the countries of the East, and the molding of a new style became historically inevitable. The study of evidence provided by Greek manuscripts, whose originators had copied the Alexandrian and Syrian prototypes of the first and second centuries, was especially instrumental in helping the readers of Ainalov’s book to grasp his idea. It was the Hellenistic art of the East, rich in subtleties, rather than that of imperial Rome, with a highly integrated and coarse strength of its own, that became the starting point in the development of Byzantine artistic culture. Or, in Ainalov’s own perceptive rendering, “a gradual changing of the classical basis under the influence of Eastern art is what constitutes the very foundation of Byzantine art.” Drawing evidence from scores of sundry artworks in support of his theory, which he supplied with a terse and pithy commentary and appraisal of his own, Ainalov succeeded in expounding and substantiating, within the framework of a fairly concise investigation, what was hinted at by other eminent scholars, such as Kondakov and Strzhigovskii,211 whose “divination of fact” he replaced with a coherent array of historical evidence. In fact, Ainalov’s book on the Hellenistic origins of Byzantine art is now perceived as a kind of theory of relativity of its 209  D. V. Ainalov, “Ellinisticheskie osnovy vizantiiskogo iskusstva. Issledovaniia v oblasti istorii rannevizantiiskogo iskusstva, “St. Petersburg, 1900 (=ZRAO, vol. XII, issues 3 and 4. Trudy Otdeleniia arkheologii drevneklassicheskoi, vizantiiskoi i zapadnoevropeiskoi, book 5, St. Petersburg, 1901, pp. 1–224). 210  D. Ainalov, The Hellenistic Origins of Byzantine Art, translated by E. and T. S. Sobolevitch, ed. by C. Mango, New Brunswick, N. J., 1961. 211  A well-known work by J. Strzhigovskii Orient oder Rom? Beiträge zur Geschichte der spätantiken und früchristichen Kunst, in which the same problem was posed and also in favor of the East, was published a year after D. V. Ainalov’s book (Leipzig, 1901).

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history: former straightforward judgments now become untenable, giving way to a far subtler interpretation of reality opening up good prospects for an even deeper probing. A remarkable feature of the Russian Byzantinists of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was that none of the more or less prominent specialists in Byzantine art overlooked the national issue. The study of Byzantine works would lead, sooner or later, to examination of Russian ones since works of Russian painting often contained within themselves elements of Greek painting in iconography and, partly, in style. Going through Ainalov’s and Redin’s publications,212 what is really striking is how they manage to counterbalance the above themes, with Redin who, like Ainalov, had originally given preference to Byzantium, now gradually shifting toward issues of the national artistic heritage. Redin was mainly preoccupied with illuminated manuscripts and soon passed from Greek and Eastern Christian works to Russian ones. Particularly productive in this respect was his trip, in December 1898, to Moscow and the Uvarovs’ country estate Porech’e near Moscow, which had a huge collection of little-known Slavonic and Russian manuscripts of varied content. Redin published the material he encountered at Porech’e as a series of specialist articles mainly focusing on the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century illuminated Psalters.213 It was probably at that time that Redin conceived the idea of producing a Russia-oriented version of Kondakov’s book, in which Kondakov had set the task of investigating the history of Byzantine art through miniatures of Greek manuscripts. It is only in this light that one should interpret Redin’s statement: “Considering the illuminated manuscripts as endproducts of the common tastes, learning, and artistic trend of the given period at a particular cultural center, one may, approaching their historical evolution, through recensions, reconstruct the history of the Russian miniature and even the art of Russia. This method was applied by Kondakov to the history of Byzantine art; the same method could well be used for the history of medieval Russian art.”214 Alas, by the early twentieth century, this approach had become quite antiquated. It was a multitude of unpublished and unstudied Russian illuminated manuscripts, which he came across in Moscow libraries and 212  See: “Spisok trudov D. V. Ainalova, 1888, 29/XII 1913,” in Dmitriiu Vlas’evichu Ainalovu ot uchenikov k dvadtsatipiatiletiiu ego uchenoi deiatel’nosti, Petrograd, 1915, pp. 1–16. “Spisok uchenykh i literaturnykh trudov E. K. Redina (1889–1907),” in Sbornik KhIFO, vol. XIX. Pamiati professora Egora Kuz’micha Redina († 27 aprelia 1908 g.), pp. 168–174. 213  See note 132 to chapter 7. 214  E. K. Redin, “Litsevye rukopisi sobraniia grafa A. S. Uvarova,” in Drevnosti. Trudy MAO, vol. XX, issue 1, p. 81.

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museums, that made Redin recall his teacher’s undertaking. Besides, Redin’s own doctoral dissertation took so much time and energy that the task of creating the History of Russian Art and Iconography According to Miniatures from Manuscripts proved to be utterly unfeasible. Incidentally, his idea was partly embodied in the material of the abovementioned dissertation, a major work entitled Christian Topography of Cosmas Indikopleustes According to the Greek and Russian Copies. Although left unfinished and even unpublished in full, this investigation,215 in which illustrations culled from the Russian illuminated manuscripts far exceed those from the Greek ones, includes quite a few specimens from the fifteenth through the eighteenth centuries, which give a certain idea of stylistic changes that took place in Russian painting of the same period. Personal friendship, which at times grew into creative partnership, tied Ainalov’s and Redin’s lives for a span of twenty-four years—until the latter’s death. People who happened to observe the life and academic activity of both scholars said not without reason, that when somebody mentioned the name of one of them he would immediately recall the name of the other: so much had these two men in common—age, character, the place of study, teachers, academic positions , and research interests. One would expect, under the circumstances, that both would be equally endowed to meet the demands that the time made on academic research in general, and on scholarship about ancient and medieval art, in particular. However, this similarity of approach to research is not present in Ainalov’s and Redin’s works. Whereas Redin tended toward, a purely iconographic treatment of the subject he was preoccupied with, Ainalov, while not wholly rejecting iconography, tried simultaneously to solve a more comprehensive task: to give his readership an idea of the artistic merits of Byzantine and Russian art. Hence, the persistent concern that Ainalov showed for the stylistic idiosyncrasies of any individual work of art or artistic school and, along with it, his continual effort to improve his style of writing as he was fully aware that it is not so much the visual image that shapes the verbal one as the word that affects our mental picture of the image. Redin’s works are meant, with few exceptions, to be studied rather than read through and the specialist, while finding quite a few soundly interpreted iconographic details in them, will search in vain for the subject’s extended stylistic characteristic or a synthesizing conclusion. Ainalov, on the contrary, while demonstrating a certain brevity or even, seemingly, a sketchiness of iconographic 215  E. K. Redin, Khristianskaia topografiia Kozz’my Indikoplova po grecheskim i russkim spiskam, part I, Moscow, 1916. The posthumous edition with a short introduction by D. V. Ainalov.

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inquiries, makes up for it by giving more prominence to the text intended for a better comprehension of the subject not only by scholars working in related fields but also by the readership at large. When reviewing Redin’s Mosaics of the Ravenna Churches, Ainalov was obliged to note that his analysis of iconographic content sometimes “impinges” on the description of the work’s artistic merits.216 In his turn, S. A. Zhebelev, when reviewing Ainalov’s Mosaics of the Fourth and Fifth Centuries, pointed out specifically that its author “continually brings to the fore the analysis of artistic and historical aspects of artworks.”217 And this is all really so, as, eventually, Ainalov’s stylistic appraisal of works came to be even more pronounced. It was first with Ainalov that a new approach to artistic antiquities gained ground and a painstaking analysis of historical and iconographic evidence gradually gave way to an analysis of the creative work proper.

216  D. Ainalov, “Ravenna i ee iskusstvo,” in ZhMNP, 1897, June, p. 446. 217   Z RAO, vol. VIII, issues 3 and 4. Trudy Otdeleniia arkheologii drevnegrecheskoi, vizantiiskoi i zapadnoevropeiskoi, book 1, St. Petersburg, 1896, p. 403.

Conclusion The nineteenth century, which previously seemed infertile as far as the discovery of medieval Russian art is concerned, was in fact a full-fledged and extremely productive era which has retained its significance to the present time not as a pre-history of recent discoveries but as an independent stage of our coming to grips with medieval artistic culture. The restoration of works of monumental painting (frescoes, wall-paintings), which was started by F. G. Solntsev and continued by A. V. Prakhov and V. V. Suslov, introduced the educated public to wall painting and marked the beginning period in the history of Russian art. Not all, however, could well appreciate the discoveries made by these restorers and only the most sober-minded scholars such as E. E. Golubinskii, began to speak of Russian painting as an art phenomenon with an almost thousand-year history. This was a completely novel attitude since many other researchers were elaborating throughout the nineteenth century a thesis that Russian art’s independent phase started only in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, treating the whole preceding period as a preparatory one dominated by the Byzantine style. In actual fact, however, Russian art revealed its deep roots going back to the formation of the Russian state itself. Ancient mosaic and fresco cycles were discovered by cleaning off overpaintings in church buildings of the eleventh and twelfth centuries: the Kievan St. Sophia, the St. Sophia of Novgorod, the St. Demetrius and Dormition Cathedrals in Vladimir, the St. George in Staraia Ladoga, a cathedral church of the Mirozh Monastery in Pskov. The result was the discovery of authentic and precisely dated works. The task then was to correctly interpret the works of art. The study of easel painting proceeded along entirely different lines. We know that the ease with which icons were transferred from one church to another and from town to town obscured their original provenance. Eventually they lost a connection to their origin. In addition, almost every ancient icon turned out to be overpainted at some later date and the removal of one coat of paint from the surface of another presented a complicated technical problem which began to be solved only in the 1850s owing to the experiments carried out by N. I. Podkliuchnikov. He undertook the cleaning of icons of the Dormition Cathedral in the Moscow Kremlin as well as those of an old iconostasis brought to the village of Vasil’evskoe from the Dormition Cathedral in Vladimir. The artist Podkliuchnikov was the first to work out a theory of scientific conservation, which, in essence, boiled down to asserting the necessity to uncover the original paintwork and to repudiate the practice of retouching

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the authentic representations with newly laid colors. Although in this particular case theory was far ahead of practice as icons being uncovered continued, on the orders of the Church, to be subjected to “ennobling” of their damaged painting, Podkliuchnikov may rightly be called the founder of scientific conservation in Russia. His activity, however fruitful it was, for reasons mentioned above, did not lead to a scholarly history of icon painting, which in the nineteenth century was progressing so slowly that it took well-nigh a quarter of the next one to reveal all the main landmarks in this historical process. With very few exceptions nineteenth-century scholars held the view that the development of the Russian icon started only in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries and that its heyday came even later, that is, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The history of stylistic schools was given just as biased an interpretation as dating the works themselves. Nevertheless, the nineteenth century witnessed an abiding interest in medieval Russian painting, which grew with time and spread among ever new strata of the population. The fact that the writer Nikolai Leskov turned to the subject of icon painting in his story Painted Angel (1873) is significant in itself as it shows, better than anything else, the growth of popular interest in icon painting and early Russian art. The development of church archaeology and an upsurge in collecting activities led to the formation of considerable church, state, and private collections; these contained specimens of icon painting, and quite a few works in other media of medieval Russian art that went back to hoary antiquity and were never retouched by latter-day artists. They included illuminated manuscripts, embroidery, and seventeenth-century icons that survived unretouched. Among the best collections of this kind were those of the Synod sacristy, M. P. Pogodin, A. S. Uvarov, and some prominent industrialists and bankers from Old Believer families, in which the veneration and collecting of objects of old church art had a tradition of long standing. The nineteenth century saw a gradual refinement of a scholarship devoted to the nation’s antiquities as well as to Russia’s artistic ties with Byzantium, South Slavic and Western European countries, with the Christian and, partly, Muslim East. The leading learned societies of Russia ascertained, published, and eventually made accessible hundreds and even thousands of works of medieval Russian painting ranging from the miniatures of the Ostromir Evangelistary, the mosaics of the Kievan St. Sophia, the frescoes of Staraia Ladoga to the icons and illuminated manuscripts of traditional content dating from the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It was in this way that a foundation, made up of primary source material, was laid for the highly original work of several generations of Russian scholars. The sphere of interests of D. A. Rovinskii, F. I. Buslaev, G. D. Filimonov, A. I. Kirpichnikov, N. V. Pokrovskii, N. P. Kondakov,

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E. K. Redin, and D. V. Ainalov was far from parochial. They studied Russian artistic antiquities and those of Byzantium, with Kondakov, Ainalov, and Redin, giving a noticeable preponderance to Byzantine art. Russian scholarship of the second half of the nineteenth century alongside German and French occupied a leading position in the study of medieval ecclesiastical antiquities. However, neither the broadest erudition and excellent grasp of material demonstrated by scholars nor the subtlest methods of investigation they employed are capable of concealing the main shortcoming of this scholarship—its inability to throw light on the intrinsic painting of works investigated. Thousands of icons were overpainted, retouched and lay buried under massive metal frames or centuries-old layers of darkened drying oil, soot, and dust. For the same reason, many wall paintings remained inaccessible for research. Consequently, the study of works of art took a biased, one-sided course. Impressive monographs by eminent scholars and large collections of papers published by historical and archaeological societies and institutes created a foundation for further art historical study. The material was diverse: descriptions, catalogs, reviews, archival records, articles on the history of individual works, on the iconography of the Scriptural and Gospel subjects, saints and martyrs. It offered few detailed evaluations of the stylistic and artistic merits of the works concerned. The grasp of ancient painting was vague and approximate, and the evidence about the renowned artists of antiquity was usually based on legend. An entirely different approach to Russian medieval painting was to evolve during the decade preceding the October revolution of 1917 when, spurred by an interest in purely aesthetic values of art, a systematic cleaning of ancient works of art was carried out. However, this is the subject of another volume of our research, in which the history of discovery and study of medieval Russian painting will be presented in the light of new events, facts, and personalities.

Index Adelung, Friedrich (Fedor Pavlovich) 251, 252 envisioning a museum of Russian icons  252 Afanas’ev, Aleksei Fedorovich 234 Afanas’ev, Erofei 76–77, 99 Ainalov, Dmitrii Vlas’evich 32n, 120, 282, 337, 405–16 bringing scholarship closer to the realities of the age 405 connecting generations of scholars 404 lecturing at St. Petersburg University 338 researching illuminated manuscripts 243 updating approaches to restoration  219–20 Aleksei Mikhailovich, Tsar 70, 140 Alexander I 6, 72 Alexander II 101, 104, 151, 311 allocating 10,000 rubles for copying of frescoes 182 supporting the Imperial Archaeological Committee 224 Alexander III 190, 202, 216, 295 Alpatov, Mikhail Vladimirovich 404 Amfilokhii (Amphilochius), Archimandrite  114, 142, 201, 277, 333, 346 forming icon collection 285–86 insightful work on embroidery, icons and murals forming church festival ensembles 199 writing on miniatures in Greek Menology  143 Amvrosii (Ambrosius), Archbishop 7 Arsenii (Arsenius), Metropolitan of Kiev, hindering formation of museum of church art 272 Artleben, Nikolai Andreevich 212n, 226, 228 Avvakum 1, 71 Bagration, Petr Romanovich, Prince, founding first important provincial museum 257 Bakarev, Aleksei Nikitich 16 Bakhrushin, Aleksei Petrovich 305, 307–08 on methods of collecting 299 wary of fakes on the antique market 310

Bank, Alisa Vladimirovna 111n, 200n Barsov, Elpidifor Vasil’evich 199, 379 Barsukov, Nikolai Platonovich 85n, 90, 103 introducing palaeology as the study of antiquities 57 Bashilova, Marianna Petrovna, biography of N. I. Poskliuchnikov 37n Bazhanovs, Evstignei and Mikhail 81 Bazhenov, Vasilii Ivanovich 16 Belousov, Ivan Vasil’evich and Vasilii Vasil’evich 147n Benois, Alexander Nikolaevich, on Kondakov’s lectures 356–57 Bezobrazov, Pavel Vladimirovich 343 Bibikov, Dmitrii Gavrilovich, and murals in the ancient style 21 Biron, Ernst Iogann, persecuting Old Believers 71 Bobrinskii, Aleksei Alksandrovich 177–78, 241, 366 Bobrinskii, Vladimir Alekseevich 56 Bol’shakov, Sergei Tikhonovich 251, 307–09, 315–16 Bol’shakov, Tikhon Fedorovich 91, 105, 314, 315–16 building book and icon collection 309 versed in manuscripts and early printed books 308 Boltin, Ivan Nikitich, among founders of Russian historiography 8 Borin, Vasilii Mikheevich 287 Boris, Bulgar Tsar 144 Boris Godunov 17, 221, 335 Borozdin, Konstantin Matveevich 186 expedition of 11–12 Borozdin, Semen 87 Botkin, Mikhail Petrovich 216, 307 British Museum 295 Brockhaus, Heinrich 361 Bugoslavskii, Grigorii Kirillovich 202, 293 Buslaev, Fedor Ivanovich xi, 59, 119, 120n, 123–134, 148, 375 as founder of the history of art as a scholarly discipline in Russia 341 describing Old-Believer meeting-houses and their icon collections 79–81

418 Buslaev, Fedor Ivanovich (cont.) initiating the Society of Medieval Russian Art 114 noting rich style of Byzantine art 110 threefold achievement of, to art history 119 visiting European cities as tutor for Count Stroganov’s family 121 Butovskii, Viktor Ivanovich 134n, 146n, 149 Bychkov, Afanasii Fedorovich 162n, 263n, 280n, 374n

Index

Fabergé, Carl 295 Fartusov, Viktor Dorimantovich, as example of misguided restoration of frescoes 216–18 Felten, Iurii Matveevich 16 Feodosii (Theodosius) 215 Feognost (Theognostos), Archbishop in Vladimir 213 discovering ancient frescoes during restoration of Dormition Cathedral in Vladimir 211–12 Feognost (Theognostos), Archbishop in Catherine II 7–8, 137, 269 Novgorod 230 Charnotskii, Adam (Z. Ya. DolengaFilaret (Philaret, Amfiteatrov, Fedor Khodakovskii), and early description of Georgievich), Metropolitan of Kiev 20, 30 frescoes at Staraya Ladoga 14 Filaret (Philaret, Drozdov, Vasilii Chepelevskii, Nikolai Il’ich, as prime mover Mikhailovich), Metropolitan of Moscow  with Count Uvarov of Moscow Historical  37–39, 41, 81 Museum 252 concern of, for preservation of art and Chirikov, Grigorii Osipovich and Mikhail manuscripts held by churches 269 Osipovich 221, 224 criticizing Rovinskii’s writing on icons  sparking controversy by changing 95–97 inscriptions during restoration  opposing exhibition of church art abroad  222–23 313 Chirikov, Osip Semenovich 287, 302, 303 turning Synodal Vestry and Library into a Chirin, Prokopii Ivanov 77, 246 museum of church antiquities 267 painting icons for the Stroganovs 87 Filaret (Philaret, Filaretov, Mikhail Prokopievich), rector of Kiev Theological Dahl, Vladimir Ivanovich 173 Academy, buying Sorokin’s collection for Daniil Chernyi 8, 208, 212, 215 academy museum 82, 275 Dikarev, Mikhail Ivanovich 224, 302 Filat’ev, Tikhon Ivanovich 3 Dionysius Phurnoagraphiotes 279 Filimonov, Georgii Dmitrievich 101, 115, Dmitrievskii, Aleksei Afanas’evich 321, 337, 135–36, 204n, 250 361, 382–83, 397 among those initiating Society of Russian Dobronravov, Vasilii Gavrilovich 291 Medieval Art 114 Dobrokhotov, Vasilii Ivanovich 207 as curator at Moscow Public Museum 111 research of, on twelfth-century cathedrals first to collect and study icon patterns or in Vladimir 205 tracings 148–50 Dobrynkin, Vladimir Nikolaevich 291 leading Society’s publishing program 116 Dubrovin, Nikolai Fedorovich 81, 309 researching the iconostasis 136–37 Duccio, possibly influenced by Byzantine art  selecting works for the Russian pavilion at 353 the Paris World Exhibition (1864–67)  146, 313 Elena Voloshanka, works exhibited from her writing on Simon Ushakov’s icon-painting  fifteenth-century embroidery 117–19, 138–40 workshop 315 writing on iconographic types 143–45 Epaneshnikov, Yakov Efimovich, renovating Fomin, F. M. 235–36 Chudov Monastery icons 224 Frolov, Petr Koz’mich 12, 324

419

Index Gavriil, Metropolitan of Novgorod, discovering frescoes at Staraya Ladoga 14 Gavrilov, Nikifor 76, 81 Gagarin, Count Grigorii Grigor’evich 152, 154, 241 initiating the Museum of Orthodox Icon Painting 151 on the artistic milieu in St. Petersburg  343 Georgievskii, Vasilii Timofeevich 290, 318, 385 expertise of, on art of Vladimir and Suzdal  291 Gerasim, Hegumen, requesting permission of tsar to restore icon 3 Gerts (Herz), Karl Karlovich 376 furthering Kondakov’s education through his library 341 Gil’ferding (Hilferding), Aleksandr Fedorovich 226 Giotto, possibly influenced by Byzantine art  353 Golubinskii, Evgenii Evstigneevich 321, 381, 399–400, 414 tracing the origins of the iconostasis  401–03 seeking origins of distinct school of Russian art 404 Golubtsov, Aleksandr Petrovich 321 writing prolifically on medieval Greek and Russian art 383–84 seminal work of, on icons belonging to the St. Joseph of Volokolamsk Monastery 385 Gordeev, Dmitrii Petrovich 339 Gornostaev, Ivan Ivanovich 152 Grigorov, Dmitrii Aleksandrovich 177, 248 Grigorovich, Viktor Ivanovich 341–42 travelogue of, on Turkey 349 Grigorovich-Barskii, describing Athos monasteries in mid eighteenth century  360 Gusarev, Nikon Matveevich 73, 81 Gusev, Petr L’vovich 200 Ionafan (Jonathan), Archbishop, collecting icons and relics no longer in liturgical use for museum 263

Irinarkh, Hiermonk 20–1, 31, 311 Isakov, Nikolai Vasil’evich, preserving Rumiantsev collection as a whole and uniting Moscow Public Museum with the Rumiantsev Museum at Pashkov House 104, 104n collecting illuminated manuscripts 105 Ivan III 216 Ivan IV Vasil’evich (Ivan the Terrible) 61 and state control of the arts 124 Ivanov, Dmitrii Ivanovich 12, 186 Ivanov, Petr Markovich 310 Ivanchin-Pisarev, Nikolai Dmitrievich 54, 56, 62, 67 emphasizing importance of history to cultivate nation’s self-consciousness  52–53 John Chrysostom 281 Justinian (I, Emperor) 276, 352 Kalachov, Nikolai Vasil’evich 265n, 390 Kalaidovich, Konstantin Fedorovich 12 Karamzin, Nikolai Mikahilovich 16 typifying attitude toward Russian medieval art 13 awakening an interest in the past 65 Karskii, Evfimii Fedorovich 326 Katkov, Mikhail Nikiforovich 312 Kazakov, Matvei Fedorovich 16 Keppen, Petr Ivanovich 325 reference book of, on artistic monuments of past 14–15 Khanenko, Bogdan Ivanovich 305, 305n Khitrovo, Anastasia, as example of estate icon collector 84 Khludov, Aleksei Ivanovich 114, 161, 329, 334, 335 Kirpichnikov, Aleksandr Ivanovich 222, 337, 339, 342, 415 lecturing on icon-painting 319–20 comparing didactic impact of art with that of literature 377–81 Kliuchevskii, Vasilii Osipovich 144n, 381, 386 Kologrivov, Sergei Nikolaevich 202 Kolosov, Vladimir Ivanovich, heading Tver museum 260, 264 Komarova, Varvara Dmitrevna 372n

420 Kondakov, Nikodim Pavlovich 122, 340, 364–65 as trailblazer shaping art-historical discipline through intensive study of works of art in many places 342, 345 combining dense factual material with lyrical descriptions 347 failing to intervene to preserve ancient frescoes in St. Sophia in Novgorod 233 following Byzantium’s artistic ties with other states of Europe and the East  351 insights of, on Byzantine art vis-à-vis that of Western Europe 353 laying foundation for study of Byzantine and Eastern European art 119–20, 243, 344 noting significance of St. Sophia as symbol of Byzantine Empire 350–51 seeking the origins of Russian art 339, 364 travelogues of, based on research trips  348–50 Konstantin Konstantinovich, Grand Prince  357 Konstantin Nikolaevich, Grand Prince 357 Korin, Pavel Dmitrievich 77 Korobanov, Pavel Fedorovich, typical of 1840s collectors 85 Korolevy, E. I. and V. I., financing Kremlln restoration 261 Kovylin, Il’ia Alekseevich 72 Kosatkin, Vasilii Vasil’evich, founding church museum 290 Kostomarov, Nikolai Ivanovich, as source on sixteenth- and seventeenth-century daily life 254n Kuz’min, G. S., offering award for best icon-painting book 94–95 Lazarev, Viktor Nikitich 339n on Kondakov’s inductive method 358 Lashkarev, Petr Aleksandrovich, proposing a church-archaeological museum at Kiev Ecclesiastical Academy 272 Lebedintsev, Petr Gavrilovich 31, 282, 402

Index Leonid, Archimandrite of Constantinople, discovering sources on the early fourteenth-century mosaics and frescoes from the Church of the Chora (Kariye Camii) 143 Lermontov, Mikhail Iur’evich, inspired by A. N. Murav’ev’s collection to write “Tell me, O branch of Palestine,” 276 Leskov, Nikolai Semenovich 306 icon-painting as theme of story 79 spreading an interest in medieval Russian art 310–11 Likhachev, Nikolai Petrovich 305, 319, 396–97 and monograph about Andrei Rublev  243 Lobkov, Aleksei Ivanovich 38, 77 as merchant collector 12, 85 awarding scholarship 95n Lomonosov, Mikhail 8, 9 Makarii (Macarius), Archimandrite 167, 171–72 writing on church archaeology 173–74, 176 Makarii (Macarius), Metropolitan 4 Mansvetov, Ivan Danilovich 203, 204, 355 writing on embroidery 199–201 defining church archaeology as a special field gathering material evidence on religious subjects 382 Martynov, Aleksei Aleksandrovich 45 Martynov, Nikolai Aleksandrovich 45 sketching church art and architecture  50–51 drawings of, receiving prize at Paris World Exhibition 51 Mashkov, Ivan Pavlovich 221 Merlin, Iurii Vsevolodovich 306 Mechnikov, Il’ia Il’ich, reacting to Kondakov’s work at Novorossiisk University 342–43 Mikhail Fedorovich, Tsar, and state authority to restore ancient icons 3 Miller, Gerard Friedrich 8, 10 Millet, Gabriel, writing superficially on Byzantine art 390 Moloshnikov, Gavriil Trifonovich 76, 77, 78

Index Morozov, Elisei Savvich 76, 77 Murashko, Nikolai Ivanovich, and copies of frescoes 187 Murav’ev, Andrei Nikolaevich 275–77, 282, 311, 360 as believer, traveler, and collector 275 donations of, to Moscow Public Museum  111 Murillo, as basis of nineteenth-century aesthetic judgments 328 Musin-Pushkin, Aleksei Ivanovich 12, 13 Napoleon, invasion of, as spur to growth of national self-consciousness 15–16 vandalizing church by soldiers of 36–37 Nicholas I 17–18, 19, 35–36, 37, 103–04 acquiring Pogodin’s collection for the state 89 commissioning Fedor Solntsev’s sketches of works of ancient church art 23, 48–49 creating policy of Orthodoxy, Autocracy, and Nationality 18 ordering restoration of frescoes in St. Sophia (Kiev) 32 passing law on restoration 34 Odobesko, Alexander 201 Odoevskii, Prince Vladimir Fedorovich 142 initiating Society of Russian Medieval Art 114 Olenin, Aleksei Nikkolaevich 12 expedition to sketch and describe relics of the past 11–12 encouraging Fedor Solntsev 23 Papulin, Nikolai Andreevich 73, 284 Parfenii, Archbishop 24, 26 Pasternak, Boris 381 Paul of Aleppo, describing Nikon’s violent treatment of church art at variance with reforms 70–71 Pavlov, Aleksei Stepanovich 203–04 Pavlovets, Nikita 87, 100, 198 Peshekhonov, Makar Samsonovich 48, 311 suspected of retouching icons in Old-Believer style 30–31 Peter the Great 6, 17

421 Petrov, Nikolai Ivanovich 82, 84, 277, 281–82, 284 creating the first museum of church archaeology at the Kiev Ecclesiastical Academy 273–74 Philaret, Metropolitan of Kiev 27 Piper, Ferdinand, and his museum in Berling  283 Platon, Metropolitan 72 Pliushkin, Fedor Mikhailovich 251 collection of, in Pskov 294–95 Pobedonostsev, Konstantin Petrovich 190, 214n, 221, 357 Podkliuchnikov, Nikolai Ivanovich 20 37–38, 42, 45–46, 414–15 cleaning iconostasis of Dormition Cathedral 40 devising method of restoring without damaging original 41 originating methods of modern conservation 38 recognizing excellence of medieval Russian art 47 Pogodin, Mikhail Petrovich 52, 53, 63, 76n, 86, 163–64, 207, 272 aims of, in promoting Moscow Public Museum 103–04 as omnivorous collector 87–89 collecting methods of 90–91 home collection of, eventually ending up in Kremlin, Hermitage, and Imperial Public Library 89 using journal Mosvitianin to promote Russian culture 92, 102n selling collection to the state 324 Pokrovskii, Nikolai Vasil’evich 233, 246, 393–99 analyzing the iconography of the Gospels  390 comparing Western and Eastern European art 392 founding church art museum 283–84 insights of, about icon-painting manuals 248 justifying specialization in art as the fullest expression of the ethical and aesthetic precepts of Eastern Christianity 387–88

422 Pokrovskii, Nikolai Vasil’evich (cont.) understanding the connection between Byzantine and Russian art 389 Pokryshkin, Petr Petrovich 225 Porphyrius (Porfirii), Bishop (Konstantin Alekseevich Uspenskii) 251, 311, 335 as exemplary traveler-scholar 278–79 determining attributions of early Christian art 282 discoveries of, at Athos, Sinai 279–81 donating icons from Sinai, Jerusalem, and Athos to museum at Kiev Ecclesiastical Academy 277 Kiev collection of, decimated during World War II 283 Postnikov, Nikolai Mikhailovich 301–03, 309 building largest icon collection 302 mistaken attributions of 303 exhibiting his icons 314 periodizing his icon collection 305 Postnikov, Andrei Mikhailovich 285, 305–06 Prokhorov, Vasilii Aleksandrovich 101, 153, 155, 158, 163 as first to publish works of medieval Russian painting 161 lamenting the distortions and destruction of frescoes during restorations in Kiev and Staraia Ladoga 34–35 publishing journal Christian Antiquities and Archaeology 155–58 recommended as curator of Museum of Orthodox Icon Painting and Church Antiquities 152 Stasov’s praise of 153–54 writing on frescoes and church art 159, 163–64 Pushkin, Aleksandr Sergeevich 16, 17, 120 Pypin, Aleksandr Nikolaevich  x, 134 Racheiskii, Nikita Sevast’ianovich, helping Nikolai Leskov write The Painted Angel   311 Ramazanov, Nikolai Aleksandrovich 41 Rakhmanovs, Aleksei Andreevich, Fedor Andreevich 75, 75n, 77 Raphael, as basis of nineteenth-century aesthetic judgments 328 Ratshin, Alexander 330 Redin, Egor Kuz’mich 178, 202, 296n, 321, 406

Index and social origin of nineteenth-century scholars 405 and the continuity of Russian art history 339 becoming eminent specialist in Europe on Russian and Byzantine art 409 collaborating with Ainalov on study of Kievan St. Sophia 407–08 evolving from study of Byzantine and Eastern Christian to Russian art 411 organizing exhibition in Kharkov 317 Repin, Ilya Efimovich 372, 377 Riurik 140 Rumiantsev, Nikolai Petrovich 12, 89 bequeathing his manuscript collection to the state 104 collection of, transferred to Moscow  104 honored by inscription on Pashkov House 105 ordering copies to fill out manuscript collection 330–331 Rumiantsev, Vasilii Egorovich 200, 213–14 Rublev, Andrei 42–45, 56–57, 215, 307–08 as evaluated by Rovinskii 99 damage to his painting, in restoring  213n difficulty of attributing frescoes 208–12 iconostasis of, dismantled and sold 8 icons attributed erroneously to 54, 62, 77–78, 303 Trinity icon of, painted over in Dormition Cathedral 3 Safonov, Mikhail L’vovich 24, 26, 211–12 and harsh methods of restoration 214, 229–30 Safonov, Nikolai Mikhailovich 218–19, 232 Sakharov, Ivan Petrovich 52, 64 as example of pioneering scholar of antiquities 57 researching history of icon-painting  67–70, 81, 84 xenophobia of 65 Sapozhnikov, Mikhail and Petr Ivanovich  148–49 Savel’ev, Pavel Stepanovich, initiating measures for protecting antiquities 176 Savostin, Mikhail Mikhailovich 309, 310

Index Savva (Ivan Mikhailovich Tikhomirov), Archimandrite, Archbishop of Tver and Kashin 251 exceptional way of welcoming visitors to Synodal Vestry collection 268–71 organizing manuscript collection of Synodal Vestry 267 Savvaitov, Pavel Ivanovich 199 Semenov, Anatolii Aleksandrovich, building the Historical Museum 252 Semenov, Konstantin Pavlovich, influencing Kondakov’s choice of studies 340 Sementovskii, Nikolai Maksimovich, on restorers’ damage to Kievan St. Sophia’s frescoes 33 Sergei Aleksandrovich, Grand Duke 319 Sergius of Radonezh, St. 54n, 306 Sevast’ianov, Petr Ivanovich 101, 152, 152n, 154, 155, 360 donating collection to Rumiantsev Library 107 exhibiting and popularizing his collection  110–11 traveling to Palestine, Mt. Athos, and Rome to study early Christian art 107–09 Shchepkin, Viacheslav Nikolaevich 222–23, 251 publishing research on embroidered icons  201 Shcherbatov, Mikhail Mikhailovich, among founders of Russian historiography 8 Shchukarev, Aleksandr Nikolaevich 356 Shchukin, Petr Ivanovich 306 and knowledge of antique market 309–10 as exemplary merchant-collector  298–99 building coherent collection 299 collecting embroidered icons and illuminated manuscripts 301 donating collection to Moscow Historical Museum 298 learning Western European languages and traveling to acquire knowledge and experience of 300 Sheremetev, Dmitrii Nikolaevich 42 as example of mid nineteenth century icon collector 84–85 Sheremetev, Sergii Dmitrievich 369 hosting Society of Lovers of Ancient Literature and Art in his palace on the Fontanka River 249

423 exhibiting Society’s collection 249–50 Sherwood, Vladimir Osipovich, designing the Historical Museum 252 Shevyrev, Stepan Petrovich 52, 54–56, 65, 69 as co-editor of Mosvitianin 92 as example of scholar-traveler 56 influencing Buslaev 121 writing ambiguously of original versus restored works 57 Shliakov, Ivan Aleksandrovich, founding museum in Rostov and publishing its antiquities 261 Shmit, Fedor Ivanovich 253 Sibirtsev, Iustin Mikhailovich, building and curating best church repository of antiquities 292, 293 Sidorov, Fedor 73–74 Silin, Dmitrii Ivanovich 251, 305 Silin, Ivan Lukich 308 exhibiting his collection at archeological congress 307 Simon (Novgorod monk), commissioning illuminated Gospel 330 Sizov, Vladimir Ivanovich 221, 334 supervising restoration of Cathedral of Chudov Monastery icons 224 Smirnov, Yakov Ivanovich 220, 339 Snegirev, Ivan Mikhailovich 57 dismissed as censor for allowing article about Novikov 60 enriching history of icon-painting by identifying icon-painters 62–63 recognizing icons as more than objects of liturical use 60–61 tapping Moscow sources of antiquities  59 tracing relationship of Byzantine and Russian art 60 substantiating views on schools of icon-painting 62 Sobolevskii, Aleksei Ivanovich 323, 326 Sobol’, Ivan 87, 87n Soldatenkov, Koz’ma Terent’evich 99 as member of Society of Medieval Russian Art 115 collecting icons thought to be by Rublev 78 as merchant-patron 114 Solntsev, Fedor 20, 22–24 by Nicholas I to do Kiev restoration 21

424 Solntsev, Fedor (cont.) combining factual evidence with inaccuracies 47–49 drawings of, as an encyclopedia of medieval Russian life embodied in its material heritage 23 faulty restoration methods of, at Kievan St. Sophia 26–33 seen by tsar as propagating ideas of orthodoxy and nationality 23 Solov’ev, Sergei Mikhailovich 18n on the historical significance of Pogodin’s collection 90 Sorokin, Andrei Efimovich 52, 204, 275 classifying his icon collections by schools and styles 83 icons of, exhibited in Paris 313 exemplifying Old Believer icon collections at their best 81 selling collection to Filaret for the Museum of Church Archaeology at Kiev Theological Academy 82 Sreznevskii, Izmail Ivanovich 295, 321, 322–28 expertise of, on manuscript illuminations and inscriptions 162–63, 335 pioneering the study of art through manuscript miniatures 323 understanding flaw in Solntsev’s Antiquities of the Russian State 49–50 using wide range of sources to compile handbook of works of literature, manuscripts, and inscriptions 324 Stählin, Jacob von 9–10 Stasov, Vladimir Vasil’evich 153, 155, 321, 372–77 appraising Prokhorov’s Museum of Orthodox Icon Painting and Russian Antiquities 153, 162n boldness of, in broaching broad art-historical issues 377 characterized as promethean by Kondakov 373 defending Prokhorov against attacks by Orthodox clergy 164 guiding Prokhorov’s collecting interests 159

Index initiating measures for protecting antiquities 176 organizing one of first exhibitions of illuminated manuscripts 374 preparing Greek and Russian manuscript miniatures for publication 243 publishing unprecedented atlas of manuscript ornaments 375 Stroganov, Nikita Grigor’evich 87 Stroganov, Maksim Yakovlevich 87 Stroganov, Sergei Grigor’evich 26n, 46, 52, 86, 86n, 121 comparing Solntsev’s drawings of Kievan St. Sophia to the originals 49 donating icons to new museum 284 favoring icons from his ancestors’ workshops 87 Suslov, Vladimir Vasil’evich 167, 225–28, 414 as chief specialist in medieval art at the Academy of Arts 225 imploring institutions for money to preserve frescoes 228 itinerant research on church antiquities  226 trying to save frescoes in Pereslavl-Zalesskii, Mirozh, and Novgorod 228–32 recording medieval frescoes by scrupulous copying 233–36 Sviatoslav, Prince 48, 269–71 Tatishchev, Vasilii Nikitich, among founders of Russian historiography 8 Tenisheva, Maria Klavdievna, Princess, attitude of, toward merchant-collectors   298 Ternovskii, Filipp Alekseevich, using Berlin University’s experience to propose church archaeology museum in Kiev 272, 283 Theodore Metochites, saint 352 Tintoretto, possibly inspired by works from the East 353 Titian, possibly inspired by works from the East 353 Titov, Andrei Aleksandrovich 261–63, 332 donating manuscript collection to Imperial Public Library 263n founding museum in Rostov 261, 261n

Index

425

Tolstoi, Fedor Andreevich 12, 89 Tolstoi, Ivan Ivanovich 363 Tolstoi, Mikhail Vladimirovich 229, 360 Tomilov, Aleksei Romanovich 14 Ton (Thon), Konstantin Andreevich 23 Travin, Aleksi Ivanovich, discovering during restoration icons painted in the encaustic manner 281 Trenev, Dmitrii Kapitonovich 223 Troitskii, Nikolai Ivanovich 385, 402 founding museum in Tula 289–90 Tsarskii, Ivan Nikitich 75 Turgenev, Nikolai Ivanovich 16

Uvarova, Praskovia Sergeevna 192–93, 236 continuing the work of the Moscow Archaeological Society 192 opening up Moscow Archaeological Society to the first women researchers 194 opposing decree granting Imperial Archaeological Society authority over repairs and restoration of medieval artistic and architectural sites 225 Uvarov, Sergei Semenovich 55, 91 devising policy of Autocracy, Orthodoxy, and Nationality 18, 191

Undol’skii, Vukol Mikhailovich 105, 114, 308, 333 Ushakov, Simon 100, 117, 118, 137–41, 260n, 309, 316 difficulties of, in attaining status of artist 139 representative of seventeenth-century art 137–38 Usov, Sergei Aleksandrovich 201, 350n, 355 theory of, on iconostasis 203–04 Uspenskii, Aleksandr Ivanovich 200, 287 publicizing shoddy restoration at Novodevichii Convent 222 Uvarov, Aleksei Sergeevich 60, 74, 136, 167, 191–92, 258–59 bequeathing collection to Moscow Historical Museum 298 describing manuscripts 331 estate museum of 296–97 initiating movement to form museum  252 opening up Moscow Archaeological Society to all 194 publishing periodical records and reference books 199–200 setting high standards at Moscow Archaeological Society 116 supervising restoration 202, 216 working out original theories of archaeology and study of the past based on material evidence 196–98

Varlaam, Metropolitan of Moscow, renovating icons 4 Vasilii I Dmitrievich 145 Vasilii II Vasil’evich 307 Vasilii III Ivanovich 145 Vasil’evskii, Vasilii Grigor’evich 344 Vasnetsov, Apollinarii Mikhailovich 221 describing restoration of icon Our Lady of Smolensk 222 Vasnetsov, Viktor Mikhailovich 190 Veneziano, Paolo, possibly inspired by works from the East 353 Viktorov, Aleksei Egorovich 101, 112–14, 116, 142, 332, 346 attempting to revive publication of journal on medieval art 119 initiating Society of Russian Medieval Art 114 publishing Byzantine manuscript miniatures 113 Vinogradov, Aleksandr Ivanovich 346 discovering medieval paintings at Dormition Cathedral in Vladimir  211–12 Viollet-le-Duc, Eugène, writing on Russian art 133– 34, 146n Buslaev’s criticism of 134 Vladimir Sviatoslavich, Grand Prince 327 Vladimirov, Iosif 100 as friend and kindred spirit of Ushakov 140

426 Vladislavlevs (priest and deacon), assisting in restoration of icons at Dormition Cathedral in Kremlin 39–41 Voronov, Aleksandr Dmitrievich, proposing a church archaeology museum at Kiev Ecclesiastical Academy 272 Vostokov, Aleksandr Khristoforovich 322, 324, 330 first to describe illuminated manuscripts in a scholarly way 328 Vrangel’, Nikolai Nikolaevich 295 Vrubel’, Mikhail Aleksandrovich, restoring church paintings in Kiev 183n, 184n Vsevolod, Grand Prince (Vsevolod III Bol’shoe Gnezdo) 211 adorning the Cathedral of St. Demetrius in Vladimir 24 Vsevolod, Olgovich 179n Viazemskii, Pavel Petrovich 111, 134, 249 founding The Society of Lovers of Ancient Literature 241 Wiechman, B. H. von, envisioning a museum of Russian icons 252 Winckelmann, Johann, and Buslaev’s enthusiasm for his Geschichte der Kunst des Altertums 124, 125

Index Yagich, Ignatii Vikent’evich x Yakimov, Vasilii 73 Yaroslav Vladimirovich (the Wise), Grand Prince 49, 145, 161, 220, 325 Yermolaev, Aleksandr Ivanovich 12 Zabelin, Ivan Egorovich 99, 114, 137, 202, 214, 216, 224 establishing the Historical Museum  253–55 Zagoskin, Mikhail Nikolaevich 17 Zaitsevskii, Ivan Mikailovich 310, 314–15 Zakrevskii, Nikolai Vasil’evich 31, 119, 142, 181–82 describing the Society of Russian Medieval Art 115–16 Zhebelev, Sergei Aleksandrovich x, 4 Zheltonozhskii, Ioasaf 48 baneful effect of hasty restoration of Kievan St. Sofia’s frescoes 31–32 Zhiznevskii, August Kasimirovich, making Tver Museum richest outside of Moscow and St. Petersburg 257–60 Zhukovskii, Vasilii Andreevich 120 Zinov’ev, Georgii 87 Zubov, Fedor Evtikhievich 221, 246