ROCOCO IN EASTERN EUROPE

[This article describes the penetration of the aristocratic Rococo style into modern Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus, Russia, Ukraine and Poland. A second article will describe its prevalence in Central Europe, in the modern Czech Republic, Slovakia, Austria and Hungary, which were more culturally homogenous in the 18^th century.]

Rococo has its origins in France, the great arbiter of taste in 18^th century Europe, but it was most enthusiastically embraced in Germany. Germany was a mosaic of princedoms and her aristocratic families married into the nobility of Poland and Russia. An ambitious princeling would want to be seen as à la mode and in this way the cultural influence of Rococo spread east, hugely beautifying many places far way from the French and German courts.

A case in point is the 1730s Rundale Palace in Latvia (then the Duchy of Courland) where the Duke resided, reflecting the baroque and light-hearted Rococo style of the time. Its architect was Bartolomeo Rastrelli, much involved later in St Petersburg’s Tsarkoe Selo.

Rundale Palace, Latvia

Rundale Palace interior

   

 

Further south in devout Lithuania we encounter another influence, the Catholic Church. The Dominican order particularly loved the rapt and ecstatic Rococo ecclesiastical style and built many fine churches like the 1754 St Theresa in Vilnius, so reminiscent of Bavaria.

St Theresa, Vilnius, Lithuania

As we go further east to Belarus with its many ethnic German settlers and landowners we encounter other influences. The Orthodox Church had its own admired architectural tradition and liturgical usages; Catholic Rococo had to adapt and thus we see the Byzantine domed Shkaplernaya Church at the resort of Myadel, Belarus

Shkaplernaya Mother of God Church

Nesvizh Castle, Belarus

Among secular buildings in Belarus, the famed Lithuanian Radziwill family erected the renaissance castle at Nesvizh, much altered from 1760 in the 18^th century style by Antoni Zaleski exuding Enlightenment values (presently being restored).

Russia itself is dominated by the Russian Orthodox tradition but in its 18^th century heyday the German architectural influence was potent. Empress Catherine the Great ruled vigorously from 1762 to 1796 and transformed her adopted nation (she was born a Prussian princess). Like Frederick II of Prussia and Joseph II of the Hapsburg Empire, Catherine strove rapidly to develop her country as an “enlightened despot”. Reforms abounded and western influences like Rococo and Neo-Classicism were welcomed as seen in the famous Summer Palace at Tsarkoe Selo just outside St Petersburg. Its architects were the Italo-Russian Bartolomeo Rastrelli and the talented Scotsman Charles Cameron.

Tsarkoe Selo Facade, St Petersburg

Tsarkoe Selo Pavilion

A greatly admired Russian architect was Dimitri Ukhtomsty whose Martyr Nikita Church in Moscow of 1760 boasts a flamboyantly monumental iconostasis.

Ukhtomsky Church, Moscow

Although Russia was predominantly Orthodox, the Catholics were strongly entrenched in the Ukraine with large Greek Catholic (autonomous “uniate” churches deferring to Rome but celebrating the Mass with the Byzantine rite) congregations.

St Andrew, Kiev, Ukraine

St George's, Lviv, Ukraine

In the famous city of Kiev stands the spectacular Cathedral of St Andrew, very clearly Rococo-influenced and in Ukraine’s cultural capital of Lviv we enjoy the elaboration and asymmetry of St George’s.

The 18^th century was a catastrophic one for Poland which endured three partitions between Russia, Prussia and Austria, finally to disappear from the map entirely in 1795; she had to wait until 1918 to be restored. Her distinctive culture, Catholic and Slav, held on notably in the lovely royal City of Krakow, with its many churches and in now sadly war-damaged Warsaw. Let St Anne’s Krakow and Rococo Czapski Palace fly this proud nation’s flag.

Pulpit, St Anne's, Krakow

Czapski Palace, Warsaw

I hope this brief article has illustrated how far and how profoundly the cultural reach of Rococo extended. Eastern Europe is haunted by many ghosts; the appalling fate of its Jews: the persecution, repression and murder of Stalin’s cohorts: the unspeakable cruelty and devastation of the Nazis.

But the 20^th century is now a closed book. If Eastern Europe looks around for those things which unite it, architectural delight is one such unifier. All the people of Eastern Europe can now enjoy Beauty and Civilisation together, a legacy from the once exclusive 18^th century, a right and privilege for all in the 21^st.

SMD

28.12.12

Text Copyright © Sidney Donald 2012