INFLUENCE OF BAROQUE STYLE ON THE ARCHITECTURE OF WOODEN TEMPLES OF POHORYNYA
Authors: Zavada Viktor 
Published: April 2021

In the complex process of formation, flourishing and decline of various artistic and stylistic trends in the centuries-old history of national architecture, a special place belongs to the Baroque, which has left a noticeable mark in most historical regions of Ukraine. Despite more than a century of research into this unique phenomenon, there are still many gaps in the identification of its impact on the architecture of various localities and historical types of buildings. These include, for example, the absence in the literature of any mention of Pohorynya - a kind of historical area in northwestern Ukraine, which was formed in the early Middle Ages on the basis of several separate principalities along the ancient Pohoryn path. The significance of this unique union of medieval city-states grows even more in view of the fact that in subsequent historical periods it also played an important role in the trade, economic and cultural life of Ukraine and the surrounding areas of Belarus. Nevertheless, any purposeful studies of the peculiar building culture of Pohorin and, in particular, the identification of its inherent manifestations of the Baroque style are still missing. Based on this, as well as the special role of traditional temple building in ensuring the historical integrity and originality of national architecture, the study of this phenomenon should be limited to a comparative analysis of wooden temples of the eighteenth century in the region. The main difficulty of such research is the significant influence on the formation of building art. The burning of artistic and stylistic ideas and compositional techniques of the European Renaissance, which inevitably affected the architecture of the most common in the traditional cult construction of this region Volyn type of wooden temples. Nevertheless, it was in the architecture of these Renaissance buildings that, according to their original artistic and stylistic features, the influence of the Baroque style differed by perhaps the most consistent character and variety of forms. Particularly significant in this regard was the gradual formation on the basis of older temples with one centrally located top, much more complex in its compositional and structural solution of three-story buildings of the Volyn type. No less important in strengthening the Baroque features in the architecture of wooden temples Pohorynya was also the arrangement of additional folds in the structure of their chopped tops, which combined with increasing their height and increasing vertical proportions gave these buildings inherent in this style harmony and plastic expressiveness. And, finally, the last, perhaps the brightest, touch of the studied artistic and stylistic tendencies in the development of the Pohorin school of domestic temple building became characteristic of the monuments of the XVIII century baroque orientation of all, without exception, elements of interior and exterior decor from the complex shape and location of window openings to exquisite carved iconostasis. Summarizing the observations presented in the article, it can be noted that the appeal to the historical Pohorin in the context of studying the features of the Baroque style in the architecture of different regions of Ukraine allows to obtain a much broader and more holistic picture of the successive evolution of this extraordinary phenomenon.