Александро-Невский собор в Таллинне – памятник русского стиля в Эстонии

Abstract

The article is devoted to the most significant church building in the Baltics at the end of the 19th century - Cathedral of St. Blessed Prince Alexander Nevsky in Revel (Tallinn). The semantics of the dedication of the temple and its architectural and construction history are considered in the context of church architecture of the Russian Empire in the late 19th — early 20th century and the political course of Emperor Alexander III, known as Russification. The initiator of the construction of a declaratively Russian imperial structure in the center of Revel Vyshgorod (Toompea) with its predominant medieval German architecture was the Estonian governor, Prince S.V.Shakhovskoy, through whose zeal the construction acquired all-Russian significance. The cathedral is one of the most striking works of the Moscow-Yaroslavl version of the Russian style within the boundaries of the former Russian Empire and the most important in the work of the outstanding master of this style, architect M.T. Preobrazhensky. The cathedral, which has never been devastated, despite attempts to close and rebuild it in the 1920s-1940s, still preserves unique Russian-style interiors in terms of safety and integrity. They allow us to present the style of works known in the early twentieth century masters: A.N.Novoskoltsev, Abrosimovs; most of their other works were destroyed during the anti-church persecution in the USSR. The topic of the article is related to the author's previous publications about the architecture of the Puhtitsa Holy Dormition Monastery and Orthodox church building in Estonia.