Classic Palace Architecture of the Eastern Podillia in Ukraine: Historical Background and Key Factors

The study of the cultural heritage of Ukraine has always attracted the interest of scientists, architects, restorers and cultural figures, such, as D. Malakov [1], V. Timofienko [2], V. Kolesnyk [3], L. Tomilovich, [4], M. Potupchik [5], A. Izotov [6], and also the Polish historians and researchers investigated our cultural heritage, such as W. Marczynski [7], A. Przezdziecki [8], A. Urbansky [9], E.A. Rolle [10], T. Jaroszewski [11] because the sights of past generations left in fact need the deep analytical studies of specialists of different industries. The most voluminous factual work closely related to the topic of this article is the multidimensional edition of the Polish researcher R. Aftanazi [12], 10 and 9 volumes of this work are devoted to the study of palace and manor construction within modern Vinnytsia region, where a historical context and careful searches of sources come forward as main.

The palace and park estates of the Eastern Podillia of the late 18^th and early 20^th centuries, which are geographically the lands of Vinnytsia, in turn, represent a bright part of the architectural heritage of our country; they contain memories of significant historical events, important figures and cultural development of the region. The formation of the main architectural principles in the establishment of the palace complexes of the Eastern Podillia also is performed in the style of all Ukrainian trends and the combined socio-political system of that time.

The socio-historical peculiarity of the region based on its territorial belonging consistently to the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Russian Empire. Political changes led to the changes in the territorial distribution of Vinnytsia, in the social structure of the region, in the social structure of the population and, in accordance with changes in architecture in general, the palace architecture in the Eastern Podillya got changes as well.

Territorial boundaries covered the modern administrative division of the land of Vinnytsia region as part of Ukraine. In the historical context, these were the lands of the Bratslav Voivodship (during the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth) and the Podolsk province and partly the Kyiv province (during the Russian Empire).

The timeframe for the study begins at the end of the 18^th century and continues until the beginning of the 20^th century. From the end of the 18^th to the middle of the 19^th century it was the period of the emerging of the first manifestations of classicism, the rise and fall of the style features in palace architecture, and also from the end of the 19^th to the beginning of the 20^th century, it was the period of return to the classical style features (in the period of architecture of historicism ) here the stylistics of neoclassicism manifested itself in the architecture of individual palaces in the Vinnytsia region.

To highlight the objectives, the article developed a methodological sequence of research which consists of the following stages: in the first stage, it has been selected the objects of research, formulated the goal and determined its boundaries; at the second stage, the historical analysis of the formation of the classicism style at the world level has been made and its influence on the formation of the palace complexes of the Eastern Podillia has been traced; at the third stage, using the structural analysis of archival, iconographic, cartographic materials and the systematization of primary sources, it has been established the main sociohistorical factors that influenced the development and growth of classic palaces in the region.

In this paper, all the objects of the classic palace architecture in Vinnytsia region are taken into consideration, namely 19 palace complexes. After all, they started the construction of palace ensembles in the region. According to the quantitative ratio, the palaces of classical style were the most significant part among the palace complexes of other stylistic directions built in Vinnytsia region (39% of them belong to the classical style estates from all estates in the region). This tendency of the development of the classic palace architecture was also observed in Volynsk [13] Kyiv [14] and Galytsk [15] regions of Ukraine.

Having analyzed the source base for the palace architecture of the Eastern Podillia, the conclusion can be made that the information is characterized by selectivity in the context of the palace architecture of Ukraine: individual estates are mentioned in various publications, most often it is the group of the most known objects, the information is more descriptive. The principles of the formation and development of classicism in the architecture of the Vinnytsia palaces remain to be discovered; the factors that influenced the volumetric organization of the classic estate haven’t been determined; any scientific work hasn’t been issued on the study of architectural and stylistic orientation, the history of construction and development of palaces of the classic style in the Eastern Podillia.

The erection of the palace and park complexes is a versatile process of interaction of the features of the historical period of the region’s development, the features of the worldview, education, and tastes of the owner of the estate. This was reflected in the stylistic decision of the palace architecture, in the general functional structure of the estate and in the compositional techniques of the organization of the park, because in the period of classicism, the palace and park were integral parts of each other.

Thus, the socio-economic, city-planning, geographical, functional-spatial and regional factors, which appeared as a result of the historical prerequisites of the Podilsk region, influenced the formation of architecture and building of the palace and park complexes.

The socio-economic factors determined the rapid construction of landlord estates in the territory of Eastern Podillia, the formation of which was regulated by the European system of philosophical and aesthetic principles of classicism, mentioned in the previous section [1]. After all, the end of the 18^th century was the time of the reign of King Stanislaw August Poniatowski in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth: the time for the development of the classic palace and park ensemble, the time for fashion at the residence in the wilds, which sometimes was not to yield to “royal residences” [17].

After all, in the Eastern Podillia, the Polish magnates, being owners, thanks to their high social and property status, erected majestic buildings. Applying the best materials, using the most expensive decors, planning picturesque parks, did not limit themselves in the scope of building estates, it was additional evidence of their influence and power among Ukrainian peasants and a noble organization.

The Polish owners of the Podillia estates with their important social status and financial resources were invited to create their palaces by famous architects F. Boffo, F. Mehovych, L. Haydon, A. Melensky [6], I. Stibrol and others, and parkers D. Michler, Zenggolz, F. Tomaier, and others [1]. Palace and park construction caused a fairly branched typology of the object from a small manor to a monumental palace and park ensemble.

The multidimensionality of the manor culture, the polyfunctionality of the palace and park ensembles and the high social and property status of their owners (the Polish magnates) caused a wide range of buildings and structures that are conventionally divided into the following groups: main (palace buildings, wings, house chapels); park (greenhouses, hothouses, pavilions, etc.), service and household buildings [14].

Thus, socio-economic factors influenced the origin of palace architecture, the scope and scale of palace and park ensembles, the choice of materials and a stylistic solution to the architecture of palace buildings.

City-planning factors influenced the formation of new objects in the structure of settlements, visual perception and the location of the palace and park ensembles in the area (Table 2).

Thus, choosing the position of future classical palace ensembles (both during the times of the Polish magnates and during the time of the Russian landlords), places were chosen in the vicinity of villages or towns and at the entrance to small towns. This allowed the magnates not to limit themselves in the building area and the size of the estate emphasized the dominance of the palace in the settlement system. Formation of the spatial structure of estates outside populated areas allowed the use a large territory, involving water reservoirs, forests, gardens, creating artificial lakes and planting new parks (palace and park ensembles in Tulchyn, Antopol, Pyatnychany). After all, an obligatory part of the ensemble of style in classicism was the park, planned in the French regular style or English landscape style [2].

Figure 1.

A distinctive feature of the palace complexes erected in the vicinity of the city or village was a rich assortment of buildings and structures, the park zone was surrounded by the palace more often on three sides, and sometimes the palace was in the middle of the park.

The study found out that the majority of the palace and park ensembles of the Eastern Podillya at the end of the 18^th and the beginning of the 20^th centuries was limited to rural areas and cities (72% – Antopil, Sokolivka, Serebryntsi, Napadivka, etc.), to a lesser extent – at entering small towns (28% – Voronovytsa, Tulchyn, Murovani-Kurylivtsi, etc.), in the county towns classic estates weren’t built. Therefore, considering the remoteness of the palace constructions from settlements, the urban planning structure did not have a significant influence on the formation of the architecture of manor estate. And already the settlement point (town, village) in future years, has grown and developed around the created estate.

Separately, we can single out an additional way to emphasize the dominant position of the manor and park complex, where in its planning scheme played the compositional and visual connections between the palace building and the cult building of the city [17]. To a concrete example of building with the idea of a “palace-temple” connection, the components of which were on the same axis, we refer to the representative of early classicism, the Stanislaw Szczęsny Potocki Palace in Tulchyn, named Podolsky Versailles [5].

The high stylistic degree of execution of the Potocki Palace in Tulchyn (1782) began early classicism not only in the Eastern Podillia, but also in Ukraine as a whole [17]. The majestic central two-story building, with a loggia along the rhythm of ten columns of the ionic order [1], was connected by one-storey semicircular galleries to the side two-story high-grade outbuildings and formed by its volumes the space of a huge courdoner with flower beds and lawn [25].

Baths, stables, a riding school, a theater, ponds, lakes, canals, greenhouses, gazebos, and numerous sculptures, together with a huge park, created a palace architectural ensemble on the Eastern Podillia of incredible scale and grandeur [17].

Stanislaw Szczęsny Potocki (the owner of the Tulchin manor) is one of the richest landowners on the territory of Ukraine in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, a political and public figure who took a pro-Russian position and supported the alliance with Catherine II.

Geographical factors, one of the most important factors that determined the choice of the location of the palace estates on the terrain, considering the characteristics of the natural landscape of the area. They determined the territory and volume of the building of palace ensembles in the Eastern Podillia from the end of the18^th to the beginning of the 20^th century, depending on the geographical characteristics of the Podilsk region.

And since most of the Vinnytsia region is located on the Volyn-Podilsk and Transnistrian highlands, its relief is wavy-flat with numerous valleys of rivers, ravines, and gullies, especially in the south of the region [7]. So, the owners of the palaces could choose the most advantageous place for building their future estate whether on a hill or on an elevated plain or on a slope to a reservoir or on flat terrain with a picturesque park around. This all led to an overview of the palace and park ensemble from all sides and emphasized the uniqueness of the residence, affirming the idea of the superiority of its owner, in the context of the domination of the lands and successfully emphasized the chosen style of classicism in the architecture of the buildings.

Through the entire territory of Vinnytsia region, from the north-west to south and south-east flows the river Southern Buh, which has got lots of tributaries. Therefore, this region, as before and now, is full of numerous ponds located in each district. Also, Vinnytsia region is rich in large tracts of forests, a huge number of plant and tree species (forests occupy 313 thousand hectares, shrubs – 10.7 thousand hectares), especially in the southeast and central part of the region [4].

So, another characteristic feature of the formation of palace and park objects of classicism style by geographic factors was the placement of a reservoir on the main composition axis, in the immediate vicinity of the palace. Compositionally the estates were designed in such a way that from the windows of the park facade of the palace, which stood mainly on the hill, moderately fell to a pond or lake, where it overlooked a view of the surrounding landscape park or the panorama of the village, which was on the other band. In some cases, it was used the method to plan the terrace on the slope, which faced the park façade. These qualities of the location of the building were strengthened by the placing open lawn in front of the palace and outside it.

It is determined that the architectural ensembles of the classicism style in Vinnytsia region were created under the then influences of the French, Polish and Russian architectural schools and regional traditions [2]. They are characterized by a peculiarity in solving the functional-spatial composition and harmonious unity with a variety of reliefs of the Podillia region, rich forests, gardens and the presence of many natural reservoirs. In a skillful combination of architecture and landscape, geometrically distinct volumes of buildings, their strictly symmetrical and balanced compositions contrasted with the picturesque crowns of deciduous and coniferous trees, creating impressive palace ensembles of the classicism style.

Functional-spatial factors primarily influenced the organization of the space of ensemble in accordance with all functional processes: living, work, household life, social life, recreation, etc. The specifics of these processes determine the functional-planning, and more often the architectural and compositional solution of a building or structure. Since all the palace complexes in the Eastern Podillia, built in the classicism style, were suburban landlord ensemble, and functional and spatial factors determined the relative location of the main and auxiliary structures, the zoning of the palace and park zones, the spatial orientation of the architectural center of the ensemble relative to the sides of the world and the elevation of relief.

In general, the estate of the classicism style in the Eastern Podillia with symmetrical-axial organization of the territory, main and service buildings, where the palace was the core of the composition among the landscape park, which often merged into a forest or garden, with many types of ornamental and fruit trees, with rivers and lakes. The main attention was paid to the arrangement of the front part of the main volume (the palace), the rest of the building was subordinated to the main volume (wing) [14]. Dominant of the palace ensembles of Eastern Podillia remained the central core with the protruding portico of the antique warrant and the side vestibules. Economic, service buildings were located closer to the central object in one line or a shaped form around a circle, less often – along with the perimeter of the building.

Figure 2.

The volumes of buildings, depending on the functional-spatial scheme of the palaces, were arranged in two versions:

Regional features of the territory of the Eastern Podillia and the socio-cultural characteristics of landowners affected the arrangement of the internal image of estates. In everyday life, everything was evidenced by their wealth: countless servants, collections of paintings, books with the golden spines in libraries, old furniture, architecture, parks, horses, hunting, luxurious carriages, balls, parties, receptions, where everything was very sophisticated. In the courtyards of poorer estates, which were only a few hundred acres, the way of life was more modest.

At a time when in Left Bank Ukraine, in the words of S. Ozhegov, “the phenomenon of the manor was the fact that it became a unique center for the development of the national culture of Russia, while on the Right Bank Ukraine, namely in the Eastern Podillia, the palace ensembles were the core for socio artistic and cultural Polish life, where among the guests it was always possible to meet well-known composers, writers, artists and poets of their era” [20]. A large number of Polish estates were famous for their libraries, related archives, and collections of antiquities and works of art [22].

Tradition of Podillia in the architecture of the palace complexes was not innovative but only adapted to world trends and regional conditions. The characteristic graceful forms of classicism in the architecture of the palace complexes of the Eastern Podillia were: symmetrical-axial compositions of the layout of buildings; the main element of the facade was an antique portico, in which powerful columns with Ionic, Corinthian, less often Tuscan capitals were used; the main means of external decoration – order motifs (pilasters, garlands, denticles, relief friezes, and trophy motifs – compositions depicting antique weapons and armor) during the early classicism were used domes – wide hemispherical; the walls of the first floors were almost always decorated with rustic furniture, and the balconies were fenced with a balustrade; the window openings were graciously decorated and emphasized geometrically; the typical window was rectangular, topped with laconic triangular pediments; in everyday life there were rotundas and colonnades closed in a ring or semicircle; the walls were covered with plaster and painted in pale colors – white, pale pink, pale yellow.

The analysis of the main factors of the formation of palace and park complexes of the Eastern Podillia of the second half of the 18^th – early 20^th century showed that their influence was not limited only to the moments of creation, but continued throughout the whole existence of the palace. After all, over time, a number of political and economic factors conditioned the emergence of a new type of owner, with new concepts of style, taste, and comfort. As a result, it led to both external and internal significant changes in the authentic appearance of the palace environment, changes in its function, and often – to decline and destruction.

Thus, the historically developed factors considered above influenced the building and architecture of the palace and park ensembles in such a way that these palace masterpieces of the era of classicism with majestic architecture were located on the outskirts with picturesque landscapes. And today, these are architectural monuments of Ukraine protected by the state and located in the Vinnytsia region in remote settlements without developed local infrastructure, without arranged roads, without due care and some in the state of unsatisfactory condition.

We hope that such modern factors of impact as the development of science and technology, the growth of the tourist movement, new building materials, the country’s technical capabilities, foreign relations and European integration of Ukrainian society will promote the restoration practice and revive the monuments of the palace architecture of the Eastern Podillia in Ukraine.