Russian Revival Architecture - Cultural Background

Cultural Background

Like the romantic revivals of Western Europe the Russian revival was informed by a scholarly interest in the historic monuments of the nation. This historicism resonated with the popular nationalism and pan-Slavism of the period. The first illustrated account of Russian architecture was the project of Count Anatole Demidov and French draughtsman André Durand, the record of their 1839 tour of Russia was published in Paris in 1845 as Album du voyage pittoresque et archaéologique en Russie. Durand’s lithographs betray a foreigner’s sensitivity to the seeming alien-ness of Russian architecture displaying some curiously distorted features, and while they are on the whole fairly accurate representations the folios he produced belong to the genre of travel literature rather than historical inquiry. The attempt to discern the chronology and development of Russia’s building begins in earnest with Ivan Snegirev and A. A Martynov’s Russkaya starina v pamyatnikakh tserkovnago i grazhanskago zodchestva (Moscow, 1851). The state took an interest in this endeavour, sponsoring a series of folios published as Drevnosti rossiiskago gosudavstva (Moscow 1849-53 in 6 volumes) depicting antiquities and decorative works of art. By this time the Moscow Archaeological Society undertook research on the subject, formalizing it as a field of study. A series of triennial conferences were instituted from 1869 until 1915, whose reports included studies of the architecture of the Kievian Rus and early Moscow periods. Perhaps the Society’s most significant achievement was the publication of the Kommissii po sokhraneniiu drevnikh pamyatnikov in 6 volumes between 1907 and 1915. Also the St. Petersburg Academy of fine Arts commissioned research from V. V. Suslov in the form of his two multi-volume works Panyatniki drevnyago russkago zodchestva (1895–1901, seven parts) and Pamyatniki drevne-russkago iskusstva (1908–12, 4 parts). With the application of positivist historical principals the chronology of Russian architecture was firmly established by the time of the publication of that definitive 6-volume survey of Russian art Istoriya russkogo isskustva (1909–17), edited by Igor Grabar, the appearance of the final volume was, however, interrupted by the revolution.