Перший варіант цієї доповіді автори представили на П’ятих
Самоквасівських Читаннях, що відбулись у Національному університеті
«Чернігівський колегіум» ім. Тараса Шевченка 21 грудня 2017 р. Коротшу
версію доповіді опублікують у бюлетені канадських візантологів Canadio-Byzantina, no. 29, University of Ottawa, January 2018.
Volodymyr Mezentsev (Toronto), Yurii Sytyi (Chernihiv), and Yurii Kovalenko (Hlukhiv)
REPORT ON THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL RESEARCH OF BATURYN IN 2017
In 1995, the expedition of the Chernihiv Collegium National
University and the Institute of Archaeology of the National Academy of
Sciences of Ukraine led by late Candidate of History Volodymyr Kovalenko
(1954-2016) of this university began the annual large-scale excavations
in Baturyn. For eleven years, this prominent researcher of the
antiquities of Chernihiv-Siversk land headed the Ukraine-Canada
Archaeological Expedition which has conducted field investigations at
Baturyn from 2001 to the present.
The Baturyn Archaeological Expedition is based at the Institute of
History, Ethnology, and Law of Chernihiv University. We wish to
acknowledge Prof. Oleksandr Kovalenko, Director of this institute and
renowned historian of modern Left-Bank Ukraine, for his important
assistance in the administration, organization, and logistics of the
expedition and the publication of its materials in Ukraine. Since 2012,
the expedition has been overseen by Candidate of History Viacheslav
Skorohod and archaeologist Yurii Sytyi, both senior fellows at the
Centre of Archaeology and Early History of Northern Left-Bank Ukraine at
Chernihiv University. They are former students and research assistants
of V. Kovalenko. Yu. Sytyi acts as the scholarly leader of the Baturyn
expedition. The Chernihiv Oblast State Administration contributes annual
subsidies for the excavations in this town.
Prof. Zenon Kohut, the former director of the Canadian Institute of
Ukrainian Studies (CIUS) at the University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada,
and the eminent historian of the Hetman state, was the head of the
project of archaeological and historical research of Baturyn of the
Cossack period in 2001-2015. Presently he serves as academic adviser for
this undertaking. Candidate of History (Ph. D.) Volodymyr Mezentsev,
research associate of CIUS Toronto Office, is the executive director of
the Baturyn project from the Canadian side. Prof. Martin Dimnik,
ex-president of the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies (PIMS) at
the University of Toronto and the leading Canadian historian of medieval
Chernihiv principality has also participated in this research and the
publication of its results in North America. CIUS, PIMS, and the
Ucrainica Research Institute in Toronto sponsor the Baturyn project from
Canada. The Wiacheslav K. Lypynsky East European Research Institute,
Inc. in Philadelphia and the Ukrainian Studies Fund at Harvard
University in Boston, the United States, also supported the historical
and archaeological investigations of early modern Baturyn with grants in
2016-2017.
In August 2017, about 50 students and scholars from the Chernihiv
University, Chernihiv Regional Historical Museum, Hlukhiv National
Pedagogical University, and the Institute of Archaeology of the National
Academy of Sciences of Ukraine took part in the Baturyn archaeological
expedition. Yurii Kovalenko, M.A., of Hlukhiv National Preserve, the
instructor of archaeology of Ukraine at Hlukhiv University, engaged in
these excavations and the examination of its findings.
Based on his archaeological research, V. Kovalenko maintained that
Baturyn emerged in the late eleventh century as a fortress on the south
eastern border of Chernihiv principality. He also asserted that after
its ravaging by the Mongols in 1239, the Baturyn area remained
depopulated until early seventeenth century. However, the 2017
excavations, for the first time, have revealed that this settlement
recovered in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries and the lacuna in
its development was limited to the sixteenth and early seventeenth
centuries. Between 1625 and 1648, when the Chernihiv-Siversk land was
under Polish domination, the royal administration constructed the castle
and adjacent fortress of Baturyn to protect the eastern frontier of the
Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
In
1669-1708, Baturyn was the capital of the Cossack state and benefited
from its extensive economic and cultural ties with Western, Central, and
Eastern Europe. The town prospered most under the reign of the
distinguished Hetman Ivan Mazepa (1687-1709). In 1708, in the course of
suppressing I. Mazepa’s anti-Moscow revolt, the tsarist army completely
destroyed the hetman capital. Baturyn was rebuilt and repopulated and
experienced its last upsurge under the rule of the progressively-minded
Hetman Kyrylo Rozumovsky (1750-1764) prior to his death in 1803.
Last summer, the expedition resumed its excavations in the Baturyn
suburb of Honcharivka. Before 1700, I. Mazepa constructed there his
principal residence with three stories and a mansard (20 m by 14.5 m in
size). This brick palace was plundered and burned by Russian troops in
1708.
Analysis of the excavated palace’s foundations, written sources, and a
unique 1744 drawing of this structure’s ruins, preserved at the
National Museum in Stockholm, has enabled researchers to recreate its
ground plan, dimensions, architectural design, and decoration. V.
Mezentsev and Serhii Dmytriienko (Chernihiv), the Baturyn archaeological
expedition graphic artist, have prepared hypothetical computer
reconstructions of this building. In their view, I. Mazepa’s main
residence was constructed and adorned primarily in the Central European
baroque style. But the embellishment of its faades with glazed ceramic
rosettes represents a distinctive attribute of Hetmanate architecture.
While excavating the remnants of Honcharivka’s villa in 1995-2013,
many fragments of such rosettes were found. These round plate-like
ceramic details are ornamented with relief stylized flowers of various
patterns and covered by white, yellow, green, turquoise, and light or
dark blue enamel. In 2017, on the basis of a detailed examination of
numerous rosette fragments and using computer graphic techniques, V.
Mezentsev and S. Dmytriienko prepared hypothetical colour
reconstructions of six types of intact rosettes. Each type has its own
specific flower or geometric relief ornament and predominantly three or
four subtypes with variations of colour glazing, up to 21 subtypes
altogether. These tiles were nailed to the frieze of the entablature in a
row alternating different types or subtypes. According to V.
Mezentsev’s graphic reconstruction of the Honcharivka palace’s exterior,
these friezes on each of its three stories were decorated with rosettes
of various diameters, ranging from 30 cm to 40 cm.
Rosettes, heating stove tiles or kakhli, and slabs bearing
I. Mazepa’s coat of arms from the Honcharivka palace have been
recognized as valuable pieces of Ukrainian baroque architectural
majolica. The rosettes represent one of the most numerous and
typologically diverse categories of ceramic embellishments of this
edifice. V. Mezentsev’s conclusions regarding the ornamentation of the
Honcharivka palace by six types and 16-21 subtypes of rosettes with a
palette of six colours of enamel complement the results of earlier
research on the application there of seven to nine patterns of floor
pavements or inlays with glazed and terracotta tiles, about 30 kinds of
fine glazed multicoloured stove tiles, and two versions of terracotta
and glazed heraldic plaques. These findings attest to the exceptionally
costly, refined, and diversified ceramic adornments of I. Mazepa’s main
residence in Baturyn.
- Mezentsev contends that the method of decorating the faades of this
structure with ceramic rosettes was borrowed from Kyivan baroque
ecclesiastical architecture. This corresponds with Yu. Sytyi’s assertion
about the production of all the ceramic ornamental details of the
Honcharivka palace, including the rosettes, stove and floor tiles, and
heraldic slabs, by experienced tile-makers or kakhliari, whom
the hetman summoned from Kyiv. Undoubtedly, they made these ware from
local clay while in Baturyn. Yet these masters have brought with them
the carved wooden molds which they employed to fashion rosettes for some
contemporaneous Kyivan churches. V. Mezentsev has suggested that it was
the decorators of St. Nicholas Cathedral (1690-1696) in Kyiv who
finished the Honcharivka palace with rosettes and other ceramic details
between 1696 and 1700.
In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, in keeping with the
Kyivan model, and possibly with the involvement of Kyivan craftsmen,
several monastic churches in the Kyiv, Chernihiv, and Poltava regions
were also embellished with ceramic rosettes. In fact, the Honcharivka
palace is the only known residential building in Ukraine ornamented with
ceramic rosettes (excluding later imitations on dwellings or kam’ianytsi of the Cossack era).
Thus, the exclusive application of this specific method of adorning
churches of the leading Kyivan architectural school for finishing I.
Mazepa’s palace in Baturyn shows the unique nature and national flavour
of the structure. By its three-story design, artistic polychrome glazed
ceramic revetments, and unusual combination of Western and Ukrainian
baroque decorations, the principal hetman residence stood out among the
secular buildings of the Cossack realm.
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Last summer, archaeologists partly excavated the foundation of a
hitherto unknown destroyed brick structure at I. Mazepa’s estate in
Honcharivka. Its investigation and identification will be continued next
summer. Research on the design and polygonal layout of the ramparts
with earthen flanking bastions protecting this manor by Candidate of
History Oleksandr Bondar (Chernihiv Historical Museum) allows him to
propose that they were modelled on advanced contemporaneous Dutch
fortifications.
In 2017, the expedition continued excavating the site of the
household of Judge General Vasyl Kochubei (after 1700) in Baturyn’s
western end. Yu. Sytyi posits that after 1750 K. Rozumovsky owned this
estate and commissioned three buildings for the hetman’s administration
there. They were demolished in the nineteenth century.
Archaeologists have uncovered portions of brick foundations that
supported the wooden walls of two of K. Rozumovsky’s buildings of the
second half of the eighteenth century. Yu Sytyi has determined that the
larger structure had one story, approximately 20 m by 13 m in size, and
at least two heating stoves. One of them was revetted with ornate Delft
blue and white enamel ceramic tiles, which were probably imported from
Holland. The other stove was faced with plain flat tiles glazed
apple-green without images or ornaments. They presumably were produced
in Baturyn in the second part of the eighteenth century. Fragments of
both kinds of these tiles have been unearthed amidst the debris of the
larger administrative premise last summer.
At the court of Judge General, Yu. Kovalenko has discovered a tiny
seventeenth- or eighteenth-century silver neck cross. He conjectures
that it belonged to a child from Kochubei’s family or some other Cossack
elite family. The shape and relief decoration of this artefact resemble
Cossack crosses of local manufacture. It features a three-bar Orthodox
cross inscribed on the front and some ornamental engravings on its back.
According to V. Mezentsev’s interpretation, on the cross arms, the
initials of Jesus Christ, the King, are inscribed in keeping with mixed
Byzantine and modern Slavic iconographic traditions. The Greek letters ІС and Х represent the canonical abbreviations of Christ’s name, while the Cyrillic letter Ц seemingly refers to His title in Slavic: Tsar (Царь). Such a brief monogram for Christ’s name and title, with only four characters (ІС, Х, Ц),
is very rare among modern Orthodox crosses with Cyrillic inscriptions.
It could be due to the small size of this child’s cross.
A larger bronze neck cross was unearthed near the Resurrection Church
(1803) within the former Baturyn fortress. Its lower arm was broken
off. At the intersection of arms, it has a stylized wreath of thorns
with radial rays between the arms. On the front, an inner three-barred
Orthodox cross is inscribed with a miniature wreath of thorns hung
around the central crossbar. Yu. Kovalenko states that this less
expensive neck cross was apparently cast in Muscovy and exported to
Baturyn in the 17th century.
During excavations near the Resurrection Church, this researcher
discovered a remarkable bronze ring with a seal on the octagonal glass
insert of the late seventeenth or early eighteenth centuries. S.
Dmytriienko closely examined the seal and made a sample wax impression
and a graphic outline of its miniature relief image. The seal depicts a
stylized masonry fortress wall flanked by two towers with steep conical
roofs. Above the towers is an image of an eagle fighting a serpent or a
dragon in the sky.
Both V. Mezentsev and Yu. Kovalenko agree that the fortress
symbolizes the fortifications of Constantinople. The seal presents the
legendary combat of two creatures, flying above the city as described in
the tale about the foundation and fall of the Byzantine capital to the
Turks in 1453 by the Russian author Nestor Iskander in the late
fifteenth or early sixteenth centuries.
Illustrations of this legend were popular in applied arts of
seventeenth-century Muscovy. Gold and silver signet rings of this time
with a similar composition were found in Tula Oblast and Mordovia in the
Russian Federation. No early modern seals with this motif are known to
us in Ukraine. It is also absent from the coat of arms of Ukrainian
gentry and baroque engravings. This allows V. Mezentsev and Yu.
Kovalenko to believe that the signet ring discovered in Baturyn was
brought there from Muscovy during I. Mazepa’s reign. It could have
belonged to an educated Cossack officer, state official, scribe, or
cleric who was familiar with N. Iskander’s account about the origins of
Constantinople.
In Baturyn’s northern suburb, the expedition uncovered a portion of
brick foundation of the early eighteenth-century residence of Chancellor
General Pylyp Orlyk, the celebrated author of the first Ukrainian
constitution (1710). This structure was burned during the conflagration
of Baturyn in 1708. It had timber walls and at least two heating stoves.
The first was faced with multicoloured glazed ceramic tiles, while the
second one had less costly terracotta tiles without enamel. Several
shards of both types of these stove tiles of Ukrainian production were
unearthed in 2016-2017.
Yu. Sytyi highly praised the artistic and technical standards of the polychrome glazed kakhli
found at P. Orlyk’s residence. He considers them equal in quality to
the best stove tiles from Mazepa’s palace. And, they are original in
design, not copies of the latter.
During the last excavations, Yu. Kovalenko discovered one terracotta
tile fragment featuring the reliefs of a stylized banner on a wooden
shaft, a flanged mace (the insignia of a Cossack colonel’s rank), and
probably a decorative acanthus leaf in baroque style at the bottom. He
surmises that these images form part of P. Orlyk’s ceramic armorial
bearings. Several fragments of ceramic stove tiles with various elements
of his noble heraldic emblem were found on this site in 2014 and 2016.
Using these finds, S. Dmytriienko has graphically reconstructed in part
the possible design of this rare ceramic coat of arms. Archaeological
explorations of P. Orlyk’s household will be renewed next summer.
While excavating the fortress, town’s suburbs, and Kochubei’s estate,
were also unearthed: two glazed ceramic children’s toys fashioned in a
folk style (a tiny cup and a whistle shaped as a stylized bird), three
fragments of ornamented terracotta Cossack tobacco pipes, two iron belt
clasps, two copper buttons, three lead musket bullets, and various iron
tools, all of local manufacture, nine silver Polish-Lithuanian and three
copper Russian coins from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, as
well as two silver shillings of Queen Christina Vasa of Sweden
(1632-1654) minted in Riga, Livonia, and one seventeenth-century silver
solidus from Swedish Livonia. The identification of Polish and Livonian
coins was provided by Yu. Kovalenko.
In Honcharivka, archaeologists have investigated the remnants of a
wooden dwelling, which was burned together with the neighbouring I.
Mazepa villa in 1708. Inside this structure, an iron cannon ball from
the shelling of the town that year has been found.
To summarise, the brick foundations of three heretofore unknown
buildings and the ceramic tile adornments of the I. Mazepa and K.
Rozumovsky periods were discovered at Baturyn in 2017. The latest
archaeological findings have reconfirmed the dynamics of masonry
construction, local urban crafts, Ukrainian baroque applied arts, and
the broad commercial and cultural relations of the hetman capital with
the Netherlands, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Swedish empire,
and Muscovy. For the first time, the imported artefact depicting the
Byzantine motif has been found in I. Mazepa’s capital.
Thanks to the annual systematic excavations at Baturyn for two
decades, this town has become the most extensively archaeologically
studied settlement of the Cossack realm. Further field investigations in
Baturyn are scheduled for August 2018.
7 FIGURES (14 photos and graphic illustrations)
Fig. 1. I. Mazepa’s palace in Honcharivka, the suburb of Baturyn,
before 1708. Hypothetical reconstruction by V. Mezentsev, computer
graphic by S. Dmytriienko, 2017.
Fig. 2a-e. Some of the glazed ceramic rosettes from the faade
decoration of the Honcharivka palace prior to 1700. Hypothetical
reconstructions by V. Mezentsev and S. Dmytriienko, computer graphics by
S. Dmytriienko, 2017.
Fig. 3. Two 17th-18th-century patterned neck crosses unearthed at Baturyn in 2017. Bronze and silver (centre and right). Photos by Yu. Sytyi.
Fig. 4a-c. Bronze signet ring of the 17th– early 18th
century, graphic outline of the images on the glass seal, and its wax
impression. Photos by Yu. Sytyi and S. Dmytriienko, computer graphic by
S. Dmytriienko, 2017.
Fig. 5a, b. Fragment of the early 18th-century terracotta
stove tile and a graphic reconstruction of its reliefs of a Cossack
flanged mace, banner, and acanthus leaf. Photo by Yu. Sytyi, computer
graphic by S. Dmytriienko, 2017.
Fig. 6. The 17th-18th century glazed ceramic toys discovered in Baturyn in 2017. This and next photo by Yu. Sytyi.
Fig. 7. Silver coins from Swedish Livonia, 17th century. 2017 excavations at Baturyn.
