31 10 510 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Toponymical Politics Description An account of the resource [HOLD FOR TEXT INSERT] Abandoned place Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Beshui (Beshev) Description An account of the resource Beshui has vanished. In 1778 hundreds of Greeks left Beshui to resettle, at the invitation of Empress Catherine II, on the shores of the Sea of Azov. The Tatar population of the village grew in time and in the absence of the Greeks. The village thrived generation after generation until May 1944, when the Tatars were summarily deported. In August 1945 authorities in Moscow gave Beshui a new name: Drovianka. In subsequent years Communist Party officials in Simferopol dissolved the Drovianka collective farm. By 1965 it had been struck from the list of inhabited places of Crimea. Neatline Display Neatline Exhibit 39 Neatline Record 227 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Among the Ruins Description An account of the resource Ruins are among the most powerful elements of the built environment in Russia's southern empire. For much of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries Tavrida itself was seen, from a certain perspective, as one sprawling, glorious ruin. The province was strewn with burial sites, churches, fortifications, and cities that had fallen into various states of disrepair, suffered catastrophic destruction, or otherwise been subsumed within deep layers of soil and rock.  The presence of architectural monuments, ruined and otherwise, played nearly as important a role in the toponymy of the region as geological and hydrographical features. Cliffs and streams, clearings and ancient walls and burial mounds: such features lent their names to the places they shaped. They did more than that. For much of the tsarist period, the surest way to navigate the rocky and tumultuous southern coast was by following rough directions and goat paths, calibrating one's course according to rocky outcroppings, views of the sea, and ruins. Claims to these ubiquitous and treacherous sites were empowering. Knowledge of them was valuable, even vital, to any claim to possession of the peninsula. This narration explores this idea in greater depth and maps the archaeological politics that helped define the significance of Crimea from a global - as well as an intensely local - perspective. Related galleries: <a href="http://dighist.fas.harvard.edu/projects/beautifulspaces/collections/show/19" target="_self">Uvarov's Antiquities</a>; <a href="http://dighist.fas.harvard.edu/projects/beautifulspaces/collections/show/25" target="_self">Keppen's Antiquities</a> Related article: Kelly O'Neill, "<a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/560940/pdf" title="link to pdf (log in to Project Muse via your library for full access)" target="_blank">Constructing Russian Identity in the Imperial Borderland: Architecture, Islam, and the Transformation of the Crimean Landscape</a>," Ab Imperio 2 (2006): 163-192.  <hr /> Narration fragment Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Vantage points Description An account of the resource In 1837 the Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg, at the behest Count Mikhail Semenovich Vorontsov (the governor-general of Novorossia and Bessarabia), published a volume called "On the Antiquities of the Southern Coast of Crimea and the Tauride Mountains." The author, a man named Peter Keppen, dedicated his work - the "weak fruit of decades of research" - to the Romanov heir, Alexander Nikolaevich, who was about to make his first journey to Crimea.   Keppen had traveled through Crimea in 1819 but settled there permanently in 1827. In 1833 Vorontsov provided him with "the means to compose an archaeographical and topographical study" of southern Crimea and the 1837 publication was to be the first installment of such a work. In it he documents the ruins of churches, Greek and Armenian inscriptions, and Greek, Karaim, and Tatar tombs. But the lion's share of pages are devoted to the ruins of fortifications; (Greek and Genoese) fortifications that prove that "the inhabitants of Tauride mountains took every measure to protect themselves from the peoples of the steppe." “From the northern side," he wrote, "at every gorge/canyon that pierced the mountains there was some kind of fortification or observation post, a tower, etc., and on the coastal cliffs defenses were arranged in systematic order, so that from a given fortress it was often possible to maintain watch over several fortified positions.”(<a title="bibliographic citation" href="https://www.zotero.org/groups/beautiful_spaces/items/itemKey/AEB7WZTM" target="_blank">Keppen</a>, 2) https://s3.amazonaws.com/atg-prod-oaas-files/beautifulspaces/original/373a60208df27f4af2cb107adc4d919a.png 8b1d3d27301cc674911dae6fc9643e83 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Among the Ruins Description An account of the resource Ruins are among the most powerful elements of the built environment in Russia's southern empire. For much of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries Tavrida itself was seen, from a certain perspective, as one sprawling, glorious ruin. The province was strewn with burial sites, churches, fortifications, and cities that had fallen into various states of disrepair, suffered catastrophic destruction, or otherwise been subsumed within deep layers of soil and rock.  The presence of architectural monuments, ruined and otherwise, played nearly as important a role in the toponymy of the region as geological and hydrographical features. Cliffs and streams, clearings and ancient walls and burial mounds: such features lent their names to the places they shaped. They did more than that. For much of the tsarist period, the surest way to navigate the rocky and tumultuous southern coast was by following rough directions and goat paths, calibrating one's course according to rocky outcroppings, views of the sea, and ruins. Claims to these ubiquitous and treacherous sites were empowering. Knowledge of them was valuable, even vital, to any claim to possession of the peninsula. This narration explores this idea in greater depth and maps the archaeological politics that helped define the significance of Crimea from a global - as well as an intensely local - perspective. Related galleries: <a href="http://dighist.fas.harvard.edu/projects/beautifulspaces/collections/show/19" target="_self">Uvarov's Antiquities</a>; <a href="http://dighist.fas.harvard.edu/projects/beautifulspaces/collections/show/25" target="_self">Keppen's Antiquities</a> Related article: Kelly O'Neill, "<a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/560940/pdf" title="link to pdf (log in to Project Muse via your library for full access)" target="_blank">Constructing Russian Identity in the Imperial Borderland: Architecture, Islam, and the Transformation of the Crimean Landscape</a>," Ab Imperio 2 (2006): 163-192.  <hr /> Narration fragment Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Humble remains Description An account of the resource Keppen notes that the Greek churches he found in the mountains were modest in size: no more than 18 arshins (42 feet) long and 9 arshins (21 feet) wide. Some were truly diminuitive, with lengths of only 6 arshins (14 feet). He found them easy to distinguish from the surrounding landscape, despite their state of ruin, because of the distinctive semicircular altar arrayed to face the rising sun [page 15]. Keppen found only one two-story Greek church: that at <a href="http://dighist.fas.harvard.edu/projects/beautifulspaces/item/578" target="_blank">Demirdhzi</a>. His observations lead him to speculate that the Armenians were either more wealthy or more generous in the amount of resouces poured into church building. They used limestone, where the local Greeks used clay, and built structures of greater size and embellishment. The humble Greek structures, on the other hand, spoke of "fear and weakness" [page 17]. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource A Monumental Inscription Description An account of the resource [HOLD FOR INTRO TEXT]<hr /> Narration fragment Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Odessa Society gets its hands dirty Description An account of the resource In 1836, Governor General Mikhail Semenovich Vorontsov commissioned the translation (into Russian) of the Arabic and Ottoman inscriptions at Bahcesaray as one of the first scholarly projects of the Odessa Society of History and Antiquities. The lion's share of work fell to <a href="http://dighist.fas.harvard.edu/projects/beautifulspaces/items/show/568" target="_blank">A. A. Borzenko</a> and F. M. Dombrovskij who, between them, translated 130 inscriptions.  The fruit of their labor was vetted in 1842 by Khristian Danilovich Fren (Christian Martin Joachim Frähn), the leading Orientalist at the Russian Academy of Sciences and first director of the "<a title="architect of the "Eastern" cabinet" href="http://dighist.fas.harvard.edu/projects/beautifulspaces/items/show/583" target="_self">Eastern Cabinet</a>" (later known as the Asiatic Museum), and by V. P. Kuz'min, Professor of Eastern Languages at the Richelieu Institute in Odessa. Fren extolled the work of Borzenko and Dombrovskij as a rare service to the scholarly community; the Odessa Society proclaimed the set of translations as nothing less than "a monument of the dominion of the khans at the Alhambra-Bakhchesaray; one that attests to the genealogy and chronology of the Crimean Khans and to the sources of their enlightenment". It appeared, at long last, under the title "<a title="off to the bibliography" href="https://www.zotero.org/groups/beautiful_spaces/items/itemKey/JU339MJZ" target="_blank">Arabic and Turkish Inscriptions of Bakhchesaraj</a>" in the second volume of the <a title="read about the Proceedings" href="http://dighist.fas.harvard.edu/projects/beautifulspaces/items/show/569" target="_self">Proceedings of the Odessa Society</a> (1848-1849). Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource A Monumental Inscription Description An account of the resource [HOLD FOR INTRO TEXT]<hr /> Narration fragment Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource A site of bountiful inscription Description An account of the resource The vast majority of the inscriptions that absorbed the energies of the Odessa Society for over a decade were located within the grounds of the Khan Palace at Bakhchisaray. Neatline Display Neatline Exhibit 11 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource A Monumental Inscription Description An account of the resource [HOLD FOR INTRO TEXT]<hr /> Narration fragment Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource A revealing blueprint Description An account of the resource In the middle of the nineteenth century, the scholarly appetite for such scholarship was considerable. Small wonder. Sifting through dozens of pages of transcriptions and translations yields tantalizing insight into the patronage practices, literary preferences, and the crafting of identity in the early modern world of the Giray clan. It yields equally tantalyzing insights into the interests and competencies of the nineteenth-century Russian amateurs, bureaucrats, and trained professionals who consumed and produced academic knowledge about the region. Most importantly for our purposes, the inscriptions constitute a carefully preserved ceremonial space; a blueprint, in a way, of physical structures that have, in many cases, been lost or lapsed into ruin. <img style="float: right;" src="http://www.hansaray.org.ua/images/schema_bgcs.gif" alt="" />This is particularly true of the inscriptions found in the neighborhoods surrounding Bakhchisaray: in (working west to east on this map) Eski Yurt, [Bahçesaray], Salaçık, and Kırk-Er.  Two came from a mausoleum at Salaçık, a medieval settlement in the Churuk Su valley at the foot of Chufut Kale. <a href="http://dighist.fas.harvard.edu/projects/beautifulspaces/items/show/570" target="_blank">They appeared on the pages of the Odessa Society Proceedings.</a> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource A Monumental Inscription Description An account of the resource [HOLD FOR INTRO TEXT]<hr /> Narration fragment Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource No ordinary tomb Description An account of the resource The tomb described in this inscription was no ordinary tomb. In fact, the burial place of Haci Giray Khan, who died in 1466 having founded the Giray dynasty, is one of precious few surviving examples of sixteenth century Crimean architecture. Its significance was clear to members of the Odessa Society, and it was likewise clear to Count Aleksei Sergeevich Uvarov (1828-1884), a famous archaeologist and member of the Russian Academy of Sciences. At precisely the same time that the Odessa Society was preparing its inscription translations, Uvarov was conducting an archaeological expedition of the antiquities of the Black Sea region commissioned by the newly-established Imperial Archaeological Society in St. Petersburg. He published his work in 1848 (the French translation came in 1855), following it three years later with <a title="see select illustrations from Uvarov's work" href="http://dighist.fas.harvard.edu/projects/beautifulspaces/collections/show/19" target="_self">a companion collection of maps and drawings</a>. The sixty-nine plates in the latter volume testify to the strikingly inclusive scholarly gaze of Uvarov and the community of archaeologists (and imperial officials) he represented. The maps, views, and illustrations of artifacts bring Tatar mosques, Karaim cave dwellings, stashes of Greek amphorae, and Genoese fortifications, all in various stages of preservation or ruin, together in one elegant articulation of the particularly Russian understanding of what constituted "the Orient". They celebrate both the sedimentation of civilizations along the Black Sea's northern littoral, and Russia's territorial and cultural possession of those legacies, all with a tastefully subdued palate of beige, blue, and gray. Uvarov included <a href="http://dighist.fas.harvard.edu/projects/beautifulspaces/item/565" target="_blank">a color lithograph of the mausoleum at Salaçık</a>. Executed by François Joseph Dupressoir, it allows us some sense of the changes wrought over time to the tomb, its surrounding landscape, and to the imperial approach to defining and preserving antiquities.  Use the link below to navigate the annotated image in fullscreen mode (recommended). Neatline Display Neatline Exhibit 9 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Estates Description An account of the resource From the 1830s onward Crimea was a favored venue for prominent displays of wealth by powerful members of the ruling elite generally associated with the gulf-side imperial capital far away to the north. Rather than recreate the architecture of St. Petersburg on the Black Sea, many of those well-connected and well-to-do landowners made a conscious effort to accentuate the foreignness – perhaps even the exotic nature – of Crimea in the architecture of their estates and palaces. For some, the distinctiveness of the landscape was rooted in its Greek legacy. Russians and foreigners alike, inspired by the classical revival in architecture sweeping across Europe, pointed excitedly to the tangible residue of this legacy which suddenly placed Tavrida on the intellectual and cultural map of western civilization. Grecian elements therefore dominated many early nineteenth-century buildings. Other landowners – particularly the most wealthy and well-connected – played up the more exotic “Asiatic” legacy of Tavrida in their domestic landscapes. These nobles found it not just aesthetically pleasing but also empowering to incorporate elements of the local architectural tradition and natural landscape. In this they were no different than imperial elites elsewhere. In Russia, private residences were of particular importance to the articulation of the imperial presence in the borderland precisely because they were anything but private. Country houses and palaces were essentially public spaces, meant to attract the gaze of peers and peasants alike. The dignitaries, travelers and other visitors who penned detailed descriptions of Alupka, Gaspra, and Gurzuf inscribed these structures into the symbolic landscape of the province, but even on their own, the usad’by served as daily reminders of the reality of imperial authority to those who inhabited neighboring villages and worked in estate orchards and vineyards. Of course, not all landowners were wealthy enough to build palaces or manor houses that could accommodate such lavish public spectacles. The majority of those who did command that level of wealth were not provincial nobles, but members of the ruling elite who owned estates but neither registered in the Tavrida noble register nor otherwise participated in daily life in the province. The bulk of Tavrida’s registered nobles were not part of the ruling elite, nor were they distinguished for their wealth. In 1789 Governor Zhegulin pointed out to Potemkin that many of the (non-Tatar) officials in Tavrida were quite small-time Little Russian nobles or Polish szlachta who owned between five and thirty-five serfs. The low population density of the province together with the freedom of the native population from serfdom prevented landowners from accumulating wealth in the form of souls until well into the nineteenth century. However, most nobles (96% of non-Tatars and 88% of mirzas) in 1815 for example did own land from which they presumably drew sufficient income to maintain an honorable lifestyle. Of the 225 nobles registered between 1830 and 1853 for whom I have property data, 65% owned either arable or pasture land, and another 12% owned land in the form of orchards, gardens or vineyards. The remaining 23% owned houses and/or household servants and peasants, but did not mention landholding in their entries. Among ennobled mirzas, 96% owned land of some kind. Interestingly enough, they enjoyed average holdings three times larger than those of others, and a number of mirzas accumulated (or maintained) considerable annual incomes.<hr /> Elite residence Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Alupka Description An account of the resource Vorontsov acquired the land around Alupka piecemeal from 226 Tatar inhabitants between 1823 and 1825. He spent the equivalent of over 37,000 silver rubles in the process. Vorontsov developed the estate between 1828 and 1848 with revenues from the wine produced at Massandra. The celebrated Alupka palace, designed by Edward Blore, was perched amid a wild landscape of rock and cliff running down to the sea and surrounded by the houses of local Tatars (some of whom he convinced to resettle away from the palace grounds in exchange for his building them a new mosque). In 1837 this served as the setting in which Vorontsov entertained the tsar, his family and extended entourage in grand style, with fireworks displays and lavish dinners. The palace was by far the most spectacular demonstration of what contemporaries described as “oriental” or “asiatic” flair in Crimea. Alupka was “renowned far and wide,” according to Kohl, “for its architectural and Hesperian splendours,” the designs of which alone were rumored to have cost upwards of 60,000 rubles. But it was even more re<st1:personname w:st="on">mark</st1:personname>able for its marriage of Gothic and eastern elements. The western side of the palace resembled a medieval castle wall with fortifications, while the northern façade was done in the Tudor style. The southern and most famous façade meanwhile gained the nickname “<st1:place w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on">Alhambra</st1:city></st1:place>” because of its two-storey horseshoe arch, slender minarets, and a deeply-recessed niche with an Arabic inscription reading “There is no God but Allah.” The project, still incomplete in the early 1840s, was expected to run Vorontsov seven million rubles, but Kohl was not impressed. He faulted the local marble with which it was built for its “greenish cast,” the large windows that did not fit the Gothic styling, and the location of the castle itself with only the “gray desolate sea” for a view. Inside, he found some of the rooms splendid, but criticized the books and pictures which decorated them as “by no means re<st1:personname w:st="on">mark</st1:personname>able.”  Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Vorontsov, Zapiski Gubernatora (Odessa: Optimum, 2003), 177; A.P. Pal’chikova, “Iz istorii Alupkinskogo majorata Vorontsovykh,” in ed. V. P. Kazarin, Rossiia i Krym v sud’be Vorontsovykh: II Krymskie Vorontsovskie Chteniia. Materialy (Simferopol: “Krymskij Arkhiv,” 2000): 67; Bragina & Vasil’eva, Khoziaeva i gosti, 110-118 & 122; Kohl, 463-464. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Biographical Sketches Description An account of the resource Brief biographies of men and women whose names crop up in the sources, in this project, and in the book. Please note that the mirzas described in the "mirza sketches" are not included here.<hr /> Person An individual. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Edward Blore Description An account of the resource Blore (1787-1879) was an architect [...] Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Estates Description An account of the resource From the 1830s onward Crimea was a favored venue for prominent displays of wealth by powerful members of the ruling elite generally associated with the gulf-side imperial capital far away to the north. Rather than recreate the architecture of St. Petersburg on the Black Sea, many of those well-connected and well-to-do landowners made a conscious effort to accentuate the foreignness – perhaps even the exotic nature – of Crimea in the architecture of their estates and palaces. For some, the distinctiveness of the landscape was rooted in its Greek legacy. Russians and foreigners alike, inspired by the classical revival in architecture sweeping across Europe, pointed excitedly to the tangible residue of this legacy which suddenly placed Tavrida on the intellectual and cultural map of western civilization. Grecian elements therefore dominated many early nineteenth-century buildings. Other landowners – particularly the most wealthy and well-connected – played up the more exotic “Asiatic” legacy of Tavrida in their domestic landscapes. These nobles found it not just aesthetically pleasing but also empowering to incorporate elements of the local architectural tradition and natural landscape. In this they were no different than imperial elites elsewhere. In Russia, private residences were of particular importance to the articulation of the imperial presence in the borderland precisely because they were anything but private. Country houses and palaces were essentially public spaces, meant to attract the gaze of peers and peasants alike. The dignitaries, travelers and other visitors who penned detailed descriptions of Alupka, Gaspra, and Gurzuf inscribed these structures into the symbolic landscape of the province, but even on their own, the usad’by served as daily reminders of the reality of imperial authority to those who inhabited neighboring villages and worked in estate orchards and vineyards. Of course, not all landowners were wealthy enough to build palaces or manor houses that could accommodate such lavish public spectacles. The majority of those who did command that level of wealth were not provincial nobles, but members of the ruling elite who owned estates but neither registered in the Tavrida noble register nor otherwise participated in daily life in the province. The bulk of Tavrida’s registered nobles were not part of the ruling elite, nor were they distinguished for their wealth. In 1789 Governor Zhegulin pointed out to Potemkin that many of the (non-Tatar) officials in Tavrida were quite small-time Little Russian nobles or Polish szlachta who owned between five and thirty-five serfs. The low population density of the province together with the freedom of the native population from serfdom prevented landowners from accumulating wealth in the form of souls until well into the nineteenth century. However, most nobles (96% of non-Tatars and 88% of mirzas) in 1815 for example did own land from which they presumably drew sufficient income to maintain an honorable lifestyle. Of the 225 nobles registered between 1830 and 1853 for whom I have property data, 65% owned either arable or pasture land, and another 12% owned land in the form of orchards, gardens or vineyards. The remaining 23% owned houses and/or household servants and peasants, but did not mention landholding in their entries. Among ennobled mirzas, 96% owned land of some kind. Interestingly enough, they enjoyed average holdings three times larger than those of others, and a number of mirzas accumulated (or maintained) considerable annual incomes.<hr /> Elite residence Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Miskhor Description An account of the resource Lev Aleksandrovich Naryshkin, a general and wealthy cousin of Mikhail Vorontsov, built the estate of Miskhor in the 1830s, gracing it with a park of cypress and cedars and a house known as “Little Alupka” in a nod to his kinsman. Naryshkin acquired the estate through marriage: his wife, Countess Ol’ga Stanislavovna Pototskaia, inherited it from her mother, Sofiia Konstantinovna Pototskaia, who in turn received it from Potemkin himself. The Naryshkins pleased their many guests with minaret-shaped chimneys, as well as window casings in the typical eastern style.