Orthodox religious construction in Akmolinsk in Modern times: architectural analysis based on the materials of photo documents

Abstract

The article deals with Orthodox temple construction in the city of Akmolinsk in the second half of the XIX - early XX centuries. Active church-building during this period is explained by the increase in the Orthodox population as a result of the rapid resettlement of peasants from the central provinces of the Russian Empire. Religious buildings were built on the basis of exemplary projects of churches. Such samples were distributed by the Holy Synod for unification and a kind of assistance to builders. An important component of the research is to study the Orthodox cult architecture in Akmolinsk and identify common and special architectural and artistic features in them. The historiographical database includes publications of Kazakh and Russian researchers. The main sources are photographic documents that allow us to consider the main details, compositional features and stylistic characteristics of temples. The activity of photographers who own the authorship of black-and-white photographs of Akmola Orthodox churches was studied. As a result, it was revealed that during the construction of Orthodox churches in pre-revolutionary Akmolinsk, special model projects of churches were taken as a basis, but the peculiarities of local color, the interweaving of various cultures and civilizations were taken into account. Russian architectural analysis has revealed the use of a variety of architectural styles, for example, eclecticism, Baroque, classicism, national Russian and Russian-Byzantine styles. The construction of churches, the increase in parishes, and the expansion of the clergy had a positive impact on the urban landscape and the cultural life of citizens. First of all, church building influenced culture and education. Akmola churches had parish schools in their structures. At the same time, this caused the development of missionary activity in the province among the non-Orthodox population.