Encyclopedia of Russian Art and Architecture (6 vol.)

Today, many are looking for echoes of early culture in buildings from the 18th and 19th centuries. Many assumptions about their restructuring in different epochs and reconstructions. It turns out this is not new. Back in 1900, the Russian Academy commissioned a number of historians and architects to make a detailed description of all existing cathedrals, churches and old buildings. In 1903, the first 2 books on this topic were published. They had a lot of material, but some of them were not very satisfied with the customer. According to the academicians, the author has gone too deep into the search for pagan culture in echoes of architecture. Here and not quite traditional crosses in bas-reliefs and griffins. Therefore, the trial edition remained. In 1910, the second group completed its work and published 3 volumes of the truly Encyclopedia of Russian architecture from the Middle Ages to Peter. The work is unique. Schemes and descriptions of all known buildings and cathedrals. Projects that were never implemented, or at least remained on parchment only. But here it turned out not everything went smoothly. Similarly to the previous work, there were photos of the Olonets province with a 19th century cemetery with Old Believers´ Houses in it, which was suggestive. And the pagoda church. And again hints from a photo on rebuilt churches and cathedrals with strange bas-reliefs and remains of arches. And facilities in the pyramidal style. Therefore, despite the unique work, it remained in small circulation only in the libraries of individual institutions. After, having removed all these inconvenient moments in the editorial office, the final reference book was already released, but it turned out to be so not interesting that it was not claimed by the experts. The Association "Protohistory" collected all the first 6 books in the original and can provide full material on these works.