Prince’s Trident on Frescoes and Graffiti of St. Sophia of Kyiv

Abstract

The article, for the first time in academic research, puts and comprehensively considers a unique phenomenon of picturing seven images stylized under the lily of the prince’s tridents of Volodymyr on the frescoes and graffiti of St. Sophia of Kyiv, which elucidates the time of the cathedral construction and its prince-builder. They are singled out as separate compositions, “inserted” in the center of large narrative scenes of the religious and secular nature. Four tridents of Volodymyr are present in four frescoes of the vestry, decorated with scenes from the cycle of the Virgin; two more are present in the fresco of the north stair tower, which is part of the secular cycle that tells about the conclusion of dynastic marriage between Prince Volodymyr and Byzantine Princess Anna. Two inverted tridents of Volodymyr, drawn by his warriors after the death of the prince, were found in the graffiti of St. Sophia. They appeared around 1017 after Yaroslav’s capture of the Kyiv throne. Volodymyr’s trident on the walls of St. Sophia is a sign of his ownership of the temple and the glorification of the prince in the eyes of contemporaries and descendants. On the wall of the St. Michael’s altar of the cathedral there is a trident of Iziaslav Yaroslavych, similar to the lilies on the frescoes of the cathedral, which in the conditions of feud marked the right of this prince to Kyiv and St. Sophia, its heart. Iziaslav’s trident appeared here during the difficult period between 1068 and 1078. The prince’s tridents did not appear in the graffiti of Sophia spontaneously, as their authors were inspired by the urgent needs of life at that time. Like the oldest dated graffiti on its walls, mosaics, and frescoes, Prince Volodymyr’s tridents confirm the inference that St. Sophia was founded by Volodymyr the Great in 1011, and during his reign the cathedral was built and decorated with mosaics and frescoes. Instead, Yaroslav’s tridents were not found on the walls of St. Sophia.