HARVARD UKRAINIAN STUDIES - See also - Harvard University

376 VOLODYMYR I. MEZENTSEVself was buried in 1123. 38 This church was erected on the site of one of theburned towers. Like the Cathedral of the Transfiguration, the Cathedral ofBoris and Gleb was built as a court church of the prince's palace and servedas a burial chapel for Chernihiv's princes and higher clergy. The chroniclerecords that, in addition to David, his son Iziaslav was buried there in1162. 39The Cathedral of Boris and Gleb was extensively rebuilt as a Catholicchurch in 1628, and was preserved thus until its complete destruction inWorld War II. The church's remains were excavated by the architect M. V.Kholostenko in 1947-1953, and the cathedral itself was reconstructed in itsoriginal form under his direction in 1955.Kholostenko's studies showed that the Cathedral of Boris and Gleb wasa domed cruciform church with three naves, three apses, six pillars, and onedome. It was smaller in size than the Cathedral of the Transfiguration,simpler in architectural composition, and more modest in interior decoration.Galleries surrounded it on the north and west, but these were notreconstructed. The northern gallery ended in a burial chapel, and a burialchapel also adjoined the southern facade. The stairs leading to the choirswere set inside the western wall. Inside the church, in the northern andsouthern walls, were niches (arkasoli) for aristocratic burials. The interiorwas decorated with frescoes, which have almost completely perished. Thechoir's parapets were adorned with slate slabs covered with carved plantand geometric ornamentation. The floor was paved by slate slabs withmosaic inlay and multicolored glazed ceramic tiles.The walls of the Cathedral of Boris and Gleb were yellow brick built upby ordered layings, and the facings of the walls were covered with plasterruled into rectangles recalling Romanesque whitestone laying. This originalsurface was not reproduced during the reconstruction. The facades weredecorated by small niches, an arched frieze and cornice of ceramic details,and pilasters with half-columns. Excavations uncovered limestone capitalsof half-columns and the base of a church portal, bearing relief depiction ofmythical creatures and plant ornamentation of the Romanesque type. 40 Inaddition to tridents (the signs of princely artisans), the cathedral's bricksalso bore many notches associated with the free town craftsmen who took38"Slovo pokhval'noe na perenesenie moshchei Svv. Borisa i Gleba," ed. Kh. Loparev, inPamiatniki drevnei pis'mennosti, vol. 98 (St. Petersburg, 1894), p. 17.39PSRL, vol. 2, col. 518.40N. V. Kholostenko, "Neizvestnye pamiatniki monumental'noi skul'ptury Drevnei Rusi:Rel'efy Borisoglebskogo sobora v Chernigove," Iskusstvo, 1953, no. 3, pp. 84-91.