Carved support beams of the Hetmanate

Abstract

The article examines the carved support beams from the apartments of representatives of the families of the Cossack elders and the Orthodox clergy of the Hetmanate from the last quarter of the 17th till the end of 18th centuries. The creation of multi-ornamented support beams was a kind of confirmation of the social status of the owners of the houses and their artistic preferences, and an expression of the skill level of the master carvers of that time. The aim of the study is to analyze all the support beams of representatives of the Cossack elders and clergy of the 17th and 18th centuries known today and to achieve general undertanding regarding the specifics of these monuments of the material culture of the Hetmanate. For the first time in historiography, on the basis of information about the support beams preserved in museum collections and highlighted in scientific publications, a comprehensive general analysis of these monuments as a phenomenon of material culture was carried out. As a result of the analysis of information about 22 carved support beams of the 17th-18th centuries from the territory of the Hetmanate, it was concluded that the common features of these monuments are the presence (with some exceptions) of straight Orthodox crosses and inscriptions in the Church Slavonic language in the centers of the artefacts. In the ornamentation of the support beams, features characteristic of the late baroque and classicism can be traced. At the same time, both simpler and more richly decorated artefacts exist. The second group includes support beams from the houses of individual representatives of the Cossack elders. Each support beam was a visual manifestation of the owner's wealth and social status, and of their artistic preferences against the background of generally accepted cultural canons. At the same time, carved support beams are examples of the skill of Ukrainian master carvers of the early modern era, which need to be preserved for future generations. In general, the images on these products are permeated with Christian symbolism, although they also contain some symbols that occur in pagan sign systems.

Keywords

• support beam
• museum collection
• hetmanate
• cossack elder
• clergy