Social and political foundations of the formation of urban planning and architecture of the cities of Ancient Russia

Abstract

The subject of the study is the political and social aspect of the formation of town-planning scheme of ancient Russian cities. The object of the study is architecture, urban planning, street layout, urbanonims, social topography of cities such as Kiev, Novgorod, Vladimir, Ryazan. The author examines in detail the following aspects of the topic: the influence of the political situation on the architectural appearance of the city, the social and ethnic composition of the population of cities, the origin of ancient Russian urban toponyms. Particular attention is paid to architecture and urban planning as a source on social and political history, the process of evolution of urban development in the context of foreign policy relations, the influence of domestic political and social factors on it. The main conclusions of the study are that the following trends can be identified in the town-planning scheme of ancient Russian cities: chaotic development at the first stage of development and withdrawal to planning with the strengthening of political power, secondariness of streets in some cities of Ancient Russia, by means of urbanonims of ancient Novgorod, Vladimir and Kiev, it is possible to develop ideas about the social and ethnic composition of the city's population Ancient Russia, to trace the changes in its structure, in its political situation. A special contribution of the author to the study of the topic is the identification of a common architectural element between two religious buildings of different regions and different periods in the context of foreign policy contacts. This element is a promising portal in the Church of St. Paraskevi and in the church of Allenau in the village of Porechye, Kaliningrad region. The novelty of the research lies in the fact that urban planning and architecture of Ancient Russia can serve not only in the format of an art history discipline, but also as a visual illustration for political and social history. At the moment, the architecture and urban planning grid of ancient Russian cities is not considered as a serious source in research related to political power, international relations, and the history of social structures.