Wooden Orthodox Church Architecture in A Country Landscape After World War II-In the Area of the Former Eastern Galicia

摘要

For hundreds of years,villages and small towns-dominating in the Polish landscape -were built in wood,with dominant monuments crystallizing in the form of iconic buildings.The attachment to the local tradition was prevailing-opposing foreign influences.Foreign influences usually underwent modification and specific”taming”in the existing cultural environment.Among the wooden temples of south-eastern Poland distinguish Greek Catholic churches,which are characterized by a great variety of architectural forms.Their specificity has its genesis in the place of their formation-it is the borderline of the Latin and Byzantine cultural circle.It was also here that the influences of numerous,ethnically diverse regions of Poland,Russia,Slovakia(Upper Hungary),Bukovina,Moldova,etc.,were crossed.Forced displacement of the Rusins(Ukrainian)population from her previous places of residence,has condemned to leave and exterminate nearly 300 wooden temples-not counting many ruined villages.Few valuable wooden churches were surrounded by conservation and restored.Originally wooden churches,usually with roofs and walls covered with shingles,topped with intricately wrought iron crosses,were usually located on small hills,surrounded by old linden trees or oaks.They were accompanied by wooden or stone fences,wooden belfries and picturesque gates.The square of the church,some distance from the center of the village,accompanied the daily life of local communities.It was a constant and”homely”element of a rural or small-town landscape.In renovations or in the construction of a few new church buildings at the turn of the 20th and 21st century,new materials were increasingly sought after -especially using steel sheets to cover roofs and walls.Today,thanks to the support of the conservation authorities,the traditional cover is restored to the church.Some of the churches that survived the turmoil of war,today are deprived of care and only the most valuable objects are undergoing renovations.Thanks to joint efforts of Poland and Ukraine,the group of the most valuable surviving wooden orthodox churches was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List.