Раннее церковное зодчество на Кавказе и Византия: старые концепции и новые датировки

Христианский восток. 2021. Т. 9 (XV). С. 290–304.

Vinogradov A.

Only four examples of the redating of monuments of Caucasian Christian architecture, from a decade (Aruch) to several centuries (Tekor and Akura), show how shaky the concepts of its development, based mainly on
stylistic analysis, are. Clarifying the date of the construction of the church often makes it possible to clarify both the architectural and historical context of the monument. Contrary to the "autochthonistic" concepts of Caucasian researchers, it turns out that in many cases architectural types of churches appeared in the Caucasus under Byzantine influence (Tekor, Aruch). In parallel, the magic of the "big narratives" created by the founders of local art schools makes it difficult to see a clear connection even between related monuments of the same culture (Samshvilde and Tsromi, Akura and Alaverdi). All this should once again encourage scientists to base the concepts of architectural development not on one, but on several foundations: history, epigraphy, construction technology, architectural decoration, etc.

Keywords: Закавказье, средневековая архитектура

Publication based on the results of: Models of Representation of the Past in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Period (2019)