RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN NATIONAL IDENTITY AND EXTERNAL INFLUENCES IN ARCHITECTURE AND ART (EXAMPLE OF CHINA, ALGERIA AND LIBYA)

Abstract

The topic of the research is devoted to the combination of national traditions and external borrowings in the architecture and art of the cultures of North Africa and the Far East. On the example of the historical sites of Shaanxi province and the Dunhuang cave temple complex in China, it is possible to trace how borrowed architectural and artistic traditions were gradually modified in local conditions. On the example of Shaanxi province, it can be noted how the construction of a type of multi-tiered Buddhist pagoda borrowed from India gradually came to naught, instead, in the Late Dynastic periods, the construction of temples of traditional Chinese religions / philosophical teachings – Taoism and Confucianism – was intensified. Examples of ancient mosques in Xi'an, the capital of Shaanxi province, whose appearance and decorative decoration are identical to temples of traditional Chinese religions are illustrative. 
 A study of the architecture of Northeast Africa (the so-called Maghreb region) showed that the Maghreb tower-type minaret was the most resistant to changes and external borrowings: it is even found in mosques of the Ottoman period. The multiculturalism of Libya has led to the fact that mosques of fundamentally different types are simultaneously present within the country, each of which embodies the architectural preferences of a certain ethnic group of the population and is adapted to the natural and climatic conditions of a particular region. The same situation is observed in the case of mosques in Algeria.
 The greatest impact of local traditions on the transformation of external borrowing is observed in China. In Algeria and Libya, more remote regions were the most protected from external influences, on the other hand, the phenomenon of multiculturalism is observed in the coastal territories.