Колірний декор палацу Івана Мазепи у Батурині та європейські паралелі

Description

This fourteenth annual booklet in the Canada-Ukraine Baturyn Project series (Toronto, 2025, 36 pp. in Ukrainian, 42 colour illustrations) showcases the results of the 2025 excavations near Baturyn, the capital of the 17th–18th-century Cossack Hetman state. Field investigations in Baturyn were suspended in 2022–23 due to the initial Russian offensive against central and northern Ukraine. From 2024 onward, despite the continuing Russo-Ukrainian war, limited excavations in the vicinities of this town have been resumed. This has been undertaken with funding from CIUS, the primary sponsor of the Baturyn Archaeological Project.

This booklet focuses on the colour decor of the principal three-storey residence of Hetman Ivan Mazepa (ca. 1700) in Baturyn. The town was completely destroyed in 1708 by Russian troops after the defeat of Mazepa’s anti-Moscow uprising. Extensive excavations of the remnants of his palace have established that its façades were painted bright red and white. Such an ornate exterior colour combination was rare in Cossack masonry architecture but was widely employed in early modern secular and ecclesiastical structures throughout Europe, particularly in central Europe.

The authors compare digital reconstructions of the red-and-white exterior of Mazepa’s manor with similar colour treatments of many European mannerist, baroque, and rococo aristocratic palaces, mansions, villas, churches, and monastic buildings. They argue that Mazepa adopted this colourful polychrome design for his ambitious main residence within the context of fashionable 17th-century palatial architecture and its characteristic adornments in Poland and other central European countries.

This booklet provides new insights into the architectural style of Cossack Ukraine and the influence of advanced Western architecture and art that Mazepa promoted in the Hetman capital. The authors’ archeological and art-historical research, as well as their digital re-creation of Mazepa’s ruined palace, provides the details necessary for an authentic reconstruction of the palace after the current Russo-Ukrainian war.