Lord Novgorod the Great

Among Russia's many ancient cities, Novgorod is one of the greatest repositories of medieval art, with more than fifty surviving churches and monasteries extending from the eleventh through the seventeenth centuries. This distinction is all the more remarkable in view of the city's devastation during almost three years of fighting and occupation during the Second World War. The survival of most of its churches, when so much else was destroyed, must be acknowledged as miraculous. Yet Novgorod also experienced serious, irreplaceable losses.

Although Novgorod originally received its architectural forms from Byzantium via Kiev, the city rapidly developed an indigenous architectural style in churches commissioned by its princes during the eleventh and twelfth centuries, as well as in the "commercial" and neighborhood churches of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Even with the surrender of its independence to Moscow in the late 1400s, Novgorod sustained a vital, creative tradition in its adaptation of a new, "Muscovite" style--a tradition that ceased only in the 1700s, as the city lost its strategic importance and sank into an almost total stagnation.

Medieval chronicles first mention Novgorod in connection with events between 860 and 862, when the local Slavs summoned the Varangian Rurik to assume control of their disordered affairs -- no simple task, apparently. After the Rurikovich dynasty transferred its power to Kiev at the end of the ninth century, Novgorod continued to exercise control over a vast area of northern Rus'. In 989, following the official acceptance of Christianity in the domains of Grand Prince Vladimir, Novgorod was visited by Vladimir's ecclesiastical emissary, Bishop Joachim of Kherson (on the Black Sea). In his energetic imposition of Christianity on Novgorod, the bishop overturned pagan idols into the Volkhov River and commissioned the first stone church (dedicated, appropriately, to Sts. Joachim and Anna; it has not survived), as well as a wooden Church of St. Sophia, with thirteen "tops," or domes. These early references to wooden architecture are tantalizing, particularly since early Novgorodians were known as a "race of carpenters." And yet we know almost nothing about the appearance of these first churches.

The further political history of Novgorod was far from calm, for the city not only frequently challenged its leaders, including Rurik, but also participated in the princely feuds that racked the Kievan state. Nevertheless, Novgorod prospered during the eleventh and twelfth centuries as part of the Dnieper trade route from the Baltic to the Black Sea, and in its prosperity the city had the means to create a citadel and an imposing architectural ensemble of churches. The Volkhov River, which separated the city into the Trading Side and the Sophia Side (named after the Cathedral of St. Sophia, in the Novgorod citadel), provided an essential link for trade and exploration, within a network of waterways that led in every direction. The extent of its commercial activity produced a relatively large group of literate citizens, independent of Kiev and of its princely representative in Novgorod (usually the brother or son of the grand prince in Kiev).

At the beginning of the twelfth century, the assembly of citizens, or veche, assumed the responsibility of electing a posadnik (governor) to direct the city's business. Novgorod's status as a republic was finally established in 1136, when Prince Vsevolod was told by the citizens: "We do not want thee. Go whither thou wilt." Henceforth, the Novgorod prince was retained as a military leader with strictly limited privileges, while effective power lay with a merchant oligarchy and the archbishop. Novgorodians spoke of owing allegiance only to their city, "Lord Novgorod the Great."

During the twelfth century this city of 30,000 inhabitants, with a trading network extending from the Baltic to the Urals, was among the most advanced in eastern Europe: the streets were paved with wooden blocks, literacy was widespread, commercial transactions were recorded on birchbark, and an extensive water system was developed. In their chronicles, the monasteries compiled a comprehensive, if laconic, account of the city's history, with frequent references to the building and alteration of churches; and from these sources, as well as from archaeological research, we know more about the life and art of Novgorod than of any other medieval Russian city.

The achievement of Novgorod's medieval architecture is based primarily on a resourceful adaptation of Byzantine and Kievan prototypes to local conditions, as illustrated in the choice of building materials. The builders who worked in Novgorod did not have a source of high-quality surface stone, such as the white limestone used in twelfth-century churches of the Vladimir area (see Russian Life, February 1998), nor was brick-making as extensively developed as in Kiev. Rather, they devised a method of placing blocks of rough-hewn gray limestone of various sizes within a cement composed of crushed brick and lime, which imparted to the facade a pink hue similar to that of early Kievan churches, though coarser in texture. The use of brick was limited in most cases to ornamentation on the facade, the detailing of window and door arches, and the pilaster strips dividing the exterior bays. Stucco was originally applied only in the interior, which was then covered with frescoes painted by local and foreign masters (from Greece and the Balkans). As in Kiev, all too few of these remarkable paintings have survived. Many were destroyed in the Second World War, others by overpainting in earlier centuries. It is only through prewar photographs that we have some idea of the contrast between the painted interior and the stark exterior of churches such as the Savior on the Nereditsa River.

The oldest surviving and the most imposing monument in the city is the Cathedral of St. Sophia, built between 1045 and 1050 and located in Novgorod's detinets, or citadel, on the west bank of the Volkhov River. The cathedral was commissioned by the prince of Novgorod, Vladimir Yaroslavich, as well as by his father, Yaroslav the Wise of Kiev, and by Archbishop Luke of Novgorod. It is appropriate that Yaroslav, whose own Sophia Cathedral in Kiev was entering its final construction phase at this time, should have played a role in the creation of the Novgorod St. Sophia. Novgorod had been the base of Yaroslav's power, not only during the reign of his father, Grand Prince Vladimir, but also until the death of his rival, Mstislav of Chernigov. With the building of large masonry cathedrals dedicated to the Divine Wisdom in both Kiev and Novgorod, Yaroslav rendered homage to one of the most sacred mysteries of the Orthodox church, and established a link between the two major cities of his realm and "Tsargrad," or Constantinople.

In addition, Yaroslav's participation would have been essential from a very immediate and practical point of view. Masonry construction was virtually unknown in Novgorod before the middle of the eleventh century (the city's earlier church dedicated to St. Sophia had been built of oak), and a cathedral of such size and complexity could only have been constructed under the supervision of imported master builders, presumably from Kiev and ultimately Byzantium. It is thought that some of the brick (for the lower part of the central apse) was also imported from Kiev.

The basic material for the construction of the walls and the piers was obtained in Novgorod and was rougher than that used in Kiev: fieldstone and some undressed blocks of limestone set in a mortar of crushed brick and lime. Flat bricks, or plinthos, were used for the interior arches and vaulting, but appeared in the main walls only for detailing and occasional stabilizing rows, as well as for the apsidal structure (containing the altar in the east) and the cylinders beneath the domes. On the exterior, therefore, the walls of St. Sophia in Novgorod would have presented a highly textured appearance, even with the spreading of mortar to reduce the unevenness of the surface. The earliest reference to the application of whitewash to the walls appears in the Novgorod chronicle under the year 1151.

The design of the Novgorod cathedral has five aisles for the main structure, with enclosed galleries attached to the north, west, and south facades. The north and south galleries each contain chapels on the ground level, and the west gallery includes a round stair tower that leads to the upper gallery levels, including the choir gallery inside the main structure. The most distinctive feature of the Novgorod Sophia Cathedral is its height, which lends a pronounced emphasis to the church's vertical lines. This effect has been somewhat diminished by additions to the central structure and by the accumulation of soil at the base of the church. (Most of Novgorod's early churches have been similarly affected. As the buildings settled and floods deposited new layers of soil, the floor level would be raised and rebuilt, and the walls altered to accommodate a higher entry.) The consummate skill of the Novgorod cathedral's builders, whether from Kiev or Byzantium, not only incorporated local requirements and materials into a functional design but also designed its soaring domes to achieve a visual effect unmatched in early medieval Russian architecture.

Medieval sources indicate that the cathedral interior was painted with frescoes over a period of several decades. According to the Third Novgorod chronicle, soon after the completion of construction "icon painters from Tsargrad [Constantinople]" painted Christ with his hand raised in blessing (probably an image of the Pantocrator in the central dome) and other representations of the Savior. Fragments of the eleventh-century work, including full-length paintings of Emperor Constantine and Elena, have been uncovered, as well as early twelfth-century frescoes. Yet most of the original painting of the interior has vanished under centuries of renovations, including the nineteenth-century frescoes that now cover the interior. In addition to the wall paintings, there was some mosaic work in the floor and the apse, containing the main altar in the east. The present icon screen and icons date from the sixteenth and subsequent centuries. (Examples of Novgorod's superb early medieval icons can be found at the art museum housed in an early nineteenth-century administrative building located across the main square from the Sophia Cathedral.)

The exterior facade above the west portal also displays frescoes, but the most distinctive element is the portal itself, with its magnificent bronze Sigtuna Doors, produced in Magdeburg in the 1050s, and taken as loot from the Varangian fortress of Sigtuna by Novgorod raiders in 1117. Despite its horizontal expanse, the west facade is dominated by the cupolas that soar above it in perfect harmony. The builders calculated the height and mass of the cupola structure to achieve a visual effect unmatched in early medieval Russian architecture. Like a number of Novgorod's other churches, St. Sophia has now been returned to the Russian Orthodox Church for regular use as a place of worship.

Although no subsequent church in Novgorod rivals the Cathedral of St. Sophia in the grandeur of its conception and execution, the twelfth century saw a continuation of major projects initiated by the city's princes. As their hold on political power, and the citadel itself, loosened, Novgorod's princes maintained a show of architectural force by constructing large masonry churches elsewhere in the city. Among them, the most imposing example is the Cathedral of St. George, commissioned in 1119 at the Yurev (St. George) Monastery by Prince Vsevolod.

According to the chronicles, the builder was a certain Master Peter, one of the few medieval Russian architects whose name has been recorded. On the exterior, the vertical development is emphasized by massive pilaster strips that divide the facade into bays. In an era that emphasized the vertical structure, the walls of St. George's reach a height of 20 meters. To have had his name recorded in the chronicles, Master Peter must have been a compelling personality; and in this, his one attested church, he did not work on a modest scale: in its central space the Cathedral of St. George is larger even than St. Sophia.

The walls originally culminated in zakomary that followed the contours of the vaulting and provided a visual transition to the three cupolas: the largest over the crossing, the middle over the stair tower, and the smallest situated at the southwest corner. The present domes, in the "helmet" shape, probably replaced smaller domes prevalent in Rus' during the eleventh and twelfth centuries. (The development of the onion-shaped dome, or lukovitsa, is thought to have occurred in Novgorod during the fourteenth century, but there is no clear agreement on its origin.) In a final decorative touch, the two drums supporting the larger cupolas repeat the arched-window motif of the facade, while the largest and smallest drums are crowned with arcading edged in a dogtooth brick pattern. All three domes have scalloped niches. In contrast to the austere monumentality of the facades, the interior was covered with frescoes and contained icons from the prince's workshop -- including some of the rarest examples of twelfth-century icon painting.

The instability of the position of Novgorod's princes during the twelfth century led to a decrease both in the number and the size of churches they sponsored. The last of these churches -- the transfiguration of the Savior on the Nereditsa, commissioned by Yaroslav Vladimirovich in 1198 and constructed in three and a half months -- is a harbinger of the simplified cube form that would define the dominant pattern in Russian church architecture for the next three centuries. Although the church, located beyond the southeastern fringes of the city, was destroyed by artillery fire during the German offensive in the fall of 1941, it has been possible to reconstruct the building--parts of whose walls remained standing--on the basis of careful research from an earlier restoration, in 1904.

Alas, the frescoes of the Nereditsa church, which before the war had been one of the best preserved sets from early medieval Russia, were virtually destroyed by the collapse of the church. Through painstaking labor, approximately ten percent of the frescoes have been salvaged from the rubble and reassembled. However, the frescoes have yet to be returned to the Nereditsa church, and there is some concern about their condition in storage. In the meantime, one can visit an excellent museum devoted to the restoration of Novgorod's frescoes after the war. The museum is located in the Gate Tower of the Trading Side, near the large St. Nicholas Cathedral -- also under restoration.

There were few churches constructed in Novgorod during the thirteenth century, which was a period of general unrest in the city. The chronicles make frequent reference to fire, flood, and famine, as well as to feuds among the townspeople, with the city's right bank, or Trading Side, pitted against the St. Sophia side. The brawls often culminated on the wooden Volkhov bridge, where the object was to beat and throw into the river as many opponents as possible. During the more violent scrimmages, each side would destroy its part of the bridge. Occasionally the crowd's wrath was directed against an unpopular archbishop or prince, as in 1225, when the people drove Archbishop Arseny from town, "beating him almost unto death."

But Novgorod soon faced a far more serious crisis. In 1238 the Mongols, having begun their conquest of Kievan Rus, advanced to within sixty miles of Novgorod. Although at this point they turned back because of terrain unsuited to cavalry operations, the following years brought invasions by the Swedes from the north, and by the Teutonic Knights from the west -- both intent on colonizing the area. In a series of decisive campaigns directed by Prince Alexander Nevsky ("of the Neva"), Novgorod and its allies checked both invasions (the Swedes in 1240 near the Neva River, the Teutonic Knights in 1242 at Lake Pepius, in the "Battle on the Ice"), for which victories Alexander became a symbol of Russian military valor. In 1259, however, a delegation of Mongols, with their wives and retainers, entered the city to take a census for taxation, with the threat of a punitive expedition if their demands were not met; when the enraged mob threatened to kill them, Alexander counseled submission (one of the reasons given for his elevation to sainthood by the Russian Orthodox Church).

Although later to be sacked and subjugated by Moscow's grand princes, Novgorod was spared the devastation that covered so much of Russia during the Mongol Yoke. As political and military relations with the Mongols achieved a modicum of stability in the first half of the fourteenth century, Novgorod was well situated to explore commercial relations to the west through the Baltic Sea. Its new prosperity was reflected above all in the number of churches commissioned by the city's merchants, or by the citizens of a particular district.

The most significant monument of the Novgorod revival, both for its structure and its frescoes, is the Church of the Transfiguration of the Savior on Elijah Street, built in 1374 by the residents of the major street through the Slavno district of the Trading Side. The new structure replaced a wooden church which had housed the miraculous icon of the Virgin of the Sign. The importance of this church -- second only to St. Sophia in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries -- may account for the festive decorative patterns on its exterior. It is probable that, when first built, the walls of brick and rough stone were left unstuccoed, which would have created a richly textured surface of reddish-brown hue (as in the restored Church of Sts. Peter and Paul in Kozhevniki; see below).

The plan of the Church of the Transfiguration of the Savior is typical of the period, with four square piers supporting the central crossing for the dome. Attached to the west facade were a vestibule and bell tower, which were razed (perhaps in the late eighteenth century) and replaced. The later variants have since been removed, and the west facade now shows the arch of the original extension. On the interior, the northwest and southwest bays were enclosed and on their upper level contained corner chapels dedicated to the Trinity and to Sts. Kozma and Demian, respectively. The north chapel is reached by a stairway within the thickness of the west wall--a common device in medieval brick churches. The two chapels were connected by a wooden passageway spanning the central bay.

Although modest in size, the north chapel contains surviving fragments of one of the greatest works of medieval Russian art. In 1378, the boyar Vassily Danilovich commissioned frescoes for the Transfiguration Church from Theophanes the Greek, an experienced artist from Constantinople who had recently arrived in Novgorod. Theophanes -- or Feofan Grek, as he was known to the Russians -- painted icons as well as frescoes, and the Church of the Transfiguration is his only documented church interior in Novgorod. The two major extant portions -- the Pantocrator surrounded by archangels in the central dome, and the Old Testament Trinity and the Byzantine stylites ascetics in the northwest Trinity chapel -- demonstrate Theophanes' thorough understanding of the relation between monumental painting and architectural space.

At the beginning of the fifteenth century, the traditional church plan that had developed over the preceding half century still retained its creative vigor. Indeed, the Church of Sts. Peter and Paul in Kozhevniki (1406), displays a number of stylistic refinements in comparison with the Church of the Transfiguration on Elijah Street, which it closely resembles. The appearance of new ornamental motifs in brick, such as rosettes and a continuous band of eyebrow arches on the main drum, provides a textural contrast to the main surface of the walls, constructed of a deep-red, rough shellstone that was originally unstuccoed.

Every feature of the exterior of the Church of Sts. Peter and Paul, whether minor or of major structural significance such as the recessed portals, emphasizes the unity of form and plasticity of material characteristic of Novgorodian architecture during the height of its revival in the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries. As was often the case, this church underwent substantial modifications in the sixteenth century, including the replacement of its wooden roof. After substantial damage in the Second World War, a meticulous restoration by Grigory Shtender and L. M. Shuliak stripped the remaining stucco from the facades and re-created the trefoil cornice with its shingled roof.

The glistening wooden shingles of this and other churches remind that Novgorod, like most other Russia cities, was built primarily of wood throughout most of its history. Even many of the churches were built of pine logs. That era has long since passed, but a number of examples of log architecture from the Novgorod region have been gathered in an open-air museum known as Vitoslavlitsy, on the city's southern outskirts. Despite the lack of maintenance on some structures, the park provides an excellent survey of log churches, houses, and other farm buildings from the sixteenth through the nineteenth centuries.

The final stage of Novgorod's history as an independent political and cultural center is dominated by the figure of Yevfimy (Euthymius), archbishop of Novgorod from 1429 to 1458. As the tenacious princes of Muscovy realized their campaign of aggrandizement through military, political, and religious means, Novgorod remained preoccupied with maintaining its European trade. The city's refusal to participate in the first major offensive of the Russians against the Mongols (in 1380, with Russian forces under the command of Prince Dmitry of Moscow) signified its increasing isolation from the center of power in Russia. In resisting Moscow's domination in the fifteenth century, Novgorod's oligarchy even considered allying itself with its Roman Catholic neighbors -- Lithuania in particular.

Archbishop Yevfimy, however, chose architecture as a means of reaffirming Novgorod's glorious past in the face of an uncertain future. The greatest of Yevfimy's architectural endeavors arose within the Novgorod citadel as a product of his determination to create an ensemble that would reflect both his own power and that of a revitalized Novgorod. The major components in this ensemble are the archbishop's reception chambers (the "Faceted Chambers," or Granovitaya palata, built in 1433 as part of the archbishop's palace) and the great freestanding bell tower that bears Yevfimy's name (1443). Both structures were largely of brick, whose production and use were expanded in Novgorod during this period. The increased adaptability of brick stimulated new architectural forms that are particularly evident in the large reception hall of the Faceted Chambers, with ribbed star vaults radiating from a single column in the center of the structure

Novgorod's position between two centers of power--Catholic Europe and Orthodox Muscovy--proved increasingly untenable, and, as Muscovy rose, Novgorod was compelled to submit. As early as 1386, Dmitri Donskoy laid siege to the city, which paid a large sum and accepted his nominal authority. In 1456 (two years before the death of Yevfimy), Grand Prince Basil II imposed by force a treaty that reduced the rights and territory of Novgorod. Subsequent resistance on the part of the city's governing elite was ineffectual and lacked support not only among the common citizens but also among segments of the church, fearing Catholic influence in an alliance with Lithuania. Indeed, resistance provided Ivan III with convenient cause for a campaign against Novgorod, in which he won a complete victory over the city's divided forces in 1471. The last futile attempts to secure help from Lithuania led to Ivan III's occupation of Novgorod without a battle in 1478, and to the complete subordination of the city to Moscow.

As would be expected, the conquest affected construction in Novgorod, but in often paradoxical ways. Much of the city's assets were transferred to Moscow, and the Yaroslav Court, or commercial center, came under the control of the Muscovite grand prince. At the same time Ivan the III, seeing in Novgorod a valuable strategic outpost in the northwest of his expanding realm, initiated in 1484 one of the city's major construction projects: a brick fortification wall to replace the earthen and log ramparts of the citadel. Completed in 1490, the wall displays techniques of military engineering applied in the rebuilding, with Italian guidance, of the Moscow Kremlin during the same period. Despite its imposing scale, foundation problems led to the collapse of a large portion of the Novgorod citadel wall in the early 1990s. Although some specialists hoped that the wall would be reconstructed with the original or similar brick, the section was ultimately rebuilt with a newer brick type that clearly indicates the extent of the collapse.

By the beginning of the sixteenth century, it became evident that Novgorod would retain much of its cultural and commercial vitality under the suzerainty of Moscow. As in the past, the building of new churches reflected the return to a stable, relatively prosperous climate; yet the patrons were now in many cases merchants from Moscow who had been resettled in Novgorod by Ivan as a means of ensuring control over the city's valuable trading network. And a large number of Novgorod merchants were forcibly resettled to Moscow or various Muscovite outposts. But this not the end of the city's ordeal. In 1570 Ivan the Terrible seized the city, slaughtered a great number of its inhabitants, and ravaged what was still one of Muscovy's leading commercial centers -- all on groundless suspicions of sedition. Thereafter, Novgorod went into a steady decline that was only partially reversed in the latter part of the seventeenth century. Although Novgorod continued to serve as a center of church administration for a large area of the north, the extent of the city's neglect is indicated by its being used in the nineteenth century as a place of exile for political thinkers such as Alexander Herzen.

The devastation of the Second World War, during which the city was occupied for several weeks longer than Leningrad, led to a wholesale rebuilding of the urban center. Fortunately, most churches within the city itself survived, and have been gradually restored. Of course the greatest, and in many cases irreparable, losses occurred with frescoes and icons. Despite the general curtailment of cultural funding in Russia, restoration work continues on a limited basis, and the Novgorod State Museum, under the direction of Nikolai Grinev, sustains vital educational and conservation programs from its territory in the Novgorod citadel.

Indeed, there is currently a cooperative program between the Novgorod Regional Administration and the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation (with the support of the U. S. Information Agency Regional Initiative in Novgorod) to promote and develop cultural tourism -- essential if dwindling government funds are to be replaced with tourist revenue. Although the great monuments of Novgorod's medieval art and architecture have shown remarkable durability, their survival cannot be taken for granted. New programs of state and private support must ensure that future generations will be able to appreciate one of Europe's major centers of medieval culture.