Original scientific paper
The orthodox church in Šarengrad – an example of a baroque-neo-classic Gesamtkunstwerk
Dragan Damjanović
Abstract
The Orthodox church in Šarengrad, although today in very poor condition, belongs among the most interesting and in terms of equipment and furnishing the most opulent of religious buildings of the extreme east of Croatia. This spacious Baroque-Neoclassical building, interesting not only for its art-historical but also for its cultural-historical significance, has for a long time been overshadowed by the medieval monuments of Šarengrad, by the older medieval (later baroquized) Franciscan parish church and by the fortress.
Newly discovered resources in the archive of the Serbian Orthodox congregation in Šarengrad, kept in the church itself, reveal that the building was erected between 1791 and 1800 according to the design of an unknown master builder as a single-nave and single-tower building.
After the church was built, no very large items of new equipment were obtained for more than three decades. All the facilities of the old church were transferred to the new church. The prestigious throne of the Mother of God, constructed in 1783, was preserved as were some icons from the 18th century, which were transferred to the Gallery of Matica Srpska in Novi Sad. In 1818 the painter Peter Čortanović was commissioned to design a new icon of the Mother of God with Christ and in 1825 a new altar was placed in the apse, a good piece of Neoclassic work made of red marble. Three years later, in 1828, after the church fund was replenished, the Šarengrad congregation decided to acquire a new architectural iconostasis frame and other necessary woodwork: choirs, the Archierius’ throne, ripidia, the cross, chairs for church walls as well as other small parts of equipment. These elements were designed between 1830 and 1832 by the well-regarded wood-carver (icon-carver) Georgije Dević from Bačka Palanka. The large Baroque-Neoclassic iconostasis is one of the last perfectly preserved and one of the most magnificent iconostases of the first half of the 19th century in Croatia. Two decades later, in 1854, the Šarengrad parish, entrusted the painter Bogdan Đukić with the task to paint the building and later, in 1855, the icons on the iconostasis; two decades earlier he had decorated the local Franciscan church. According to the inscription on the northern church wall, Đukić was assisted by the Greek Mihailo Hristopulos. As well as decorative motives and several Biblical scenes and illustrations of individual saints, Đukić and Hristopulos painted above the western church entrance wall, on the choir, a fresco presenting the Battle of Kosovo Polje based on the model of a fresco from the 18th century from the dining room of Vrdnik Monastery in Fruška Gora, signifying the awakening of national consciousness and a Romantic view of this historical battle. The Turks were illustrated with flags in colours similar to the Hungarian flag, the Serbian Christian army with flags resembling the later Yugoslav flag. During the completion of this work, the painter was probably much influenced by the Croatian-Serbian-Hungarian war within the Monarchy from 1848 to 1849.
Today, Šarengrad Orthodox church shows very well what the religious space was like before it began to be purged during the second half of the 19th century. It indicates how religious buildings at the time were considered as locations of collective memory, as places where those who had the means and possibilities wanted to leave their marks by donating icons, flags, crosses, carpets, glasses, chalices, censers, candelabra, chairs, altars, thrones or tombstones.
Keywords
Šarengrad; orthodox church; Baroque classicism; Battle of Kosovo
Hrčak ID:
130418
URI
Publication date:
1.10.2014.
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