E. V. Evdokimova
One of the fundamental properties of a territory is its ability to possess historical-cultural and natural heritage. In this case, the territory acts as a repository of natural heritage, and its value is determined by the density of heritage objects, the patterns of spatial distribution, the peculiarities of the territory’s historical development, the continuity of the formed heritage objects, and their stability and variability. Modern approaches to understanding heritage identify it as a totality of natural and cultural elements through which social groups recognize their identity and commit to transmitting it to future generations. From the standpoint of heritage, the cultural landscape plays a dual role: on the one hand, it represents a heritage object that includes culture as an aspect of landscape, and on the other hand, it functions as a system.
As components of the cultural landscape, the city and village, or selo, or seltso, or mestechko (in the west of the region) are considered — entities that formerly fulfilled the role of preserving cultural traditions, that created special types of culture: noble, monastic, peasant, and that left a specific heritage. Individual cultural landscapes differ in the ratio of cultural and natural layers of the landscape, their structure — the ratio of elements of traditional and innovative culture, the ratio between heritage and contemporary culture.
The cultural landscape is formed as a totality of historical moments of adaptation by human communities to the natural environment of a given territory of habitation, using its resources at existing levels of development of productive forces and spiritual culture.
The formation of the cultural landscape of the Smolensk region was initially influenced by two fundamental factors. First, the peculiarities of the border position of the territory over the course of centuries. Both the barrier and connective functions of borders led to quite noticeable tendencies. Second, the waves of territorial re-development, following one after another as a result of migration flows. They represent not only separate branches of a single cultural-historical environment (most often Slavic), but also an ethnically quite diverse layering of heterogeneous elements. To this day, a noticeable mosaic persists between the three constituent parts of the Smolensk region, which were clearly differentiated in the West-East direction.
Clear boundaries are quite difficult to establish today due to diffusion and the numerous wars that swept through here over the last three centuries. At the same time, the overlay of later strata onto the original historical-cultural heritage, associated with the influence of the increasing complexity of existing technological elements, allows us to trace the results of certain ethnic influences and peculiarities of the Lithuanian, Polish, Belarusian, Jewish, and Latvian ethnic groups.
Confessional diversity, concentrated in such a contrasting territory, also made its significant contribution to the heterogeneity.
The following periods of economic development can be identified as having had the greatest influence on the formation of the cultural landscape and leaving the most specific natural-cultural heritage:
the stage of development of river valleys and lakeside basins by the tribal ethnic conglomerate of the Krivichs, which included elements of Slavic, Baltic, Finno-Ugric, and Scandinavian cultures (8th-10th centuries); the stage of active transport-urban development of the territory with significant influence of the South Russian element (10th-13th centuries);
the stage of external expansion and transformation, leading to the isolation of economic autarky during the extensive development of watershed spaces with notable influence of elements of Eastern (Tatar-Mongol) culture (13th-15th centuries);
the stage of agricultural borderland development with active influence of Polish-Belarusian cultural traditions (15th century);
the stage of borderland-trade development with the influence of Great Russian-Orthodox culture (16th century);
the stage of active destruction of the established cultural landscape and secondary re-development of territories in the western zone under the influence of Polish, and in the eastern zone, Great Russian cultures (17th century);
the stage of comprehensive communal-manorial agricultural and industrial-manufactura development under the dominant influence of the Great Russian cultural environment, leading to the assimilation and Russification of the Belarusian-Polish majority (18th — second half of the 19th century);
the stage of industrial, artisanal-trade, and small-peasant agricultural development of the territory with notable influence of Latvian (after World War I) and Jewish (after World War II) cultures (late 19th — mid-1930s); as well as the urban culture of Moscow in the eastern districts of the province;
the stage of agrarian-industrial economic development with a unified approach to nature management and destruction of elements of past cultural landscapes (up to the present day).
The territory of the Smolensk region belongs to the long-settled areas. The influence of Slavic culture appears in the 8th century, within the framework of which development continues to this day, carried out since the 9th century in the traditions of Christian culture. In the 20th century, evolutionary development was greatly influenced by the technogenic factor and the unification of the cultural-historical space. The Smolensk region has a rich historical past, recorded in numerous historical and cultural monuments. The peculiarities of historical development and repeated re-settlement of lands determined the specific features of the formation of culture and, consequently, the historical-cultural heritage of the Smolensk region. Although much has been irretrievably lost and continues to disappear, the historical-cultural potential of the region remains significant. It is represented by monuments of different cultures, eras, different confessions, and historical periods of special significance (from world to local importance).
The most numerous are monuments of history, archaeology, architecture, and art. Some of them have world significance — the city of Smolensk, the Smolensk Kremlin, the village of Khmelita — while others are still awaiting such recognition and official status: the Church of the Archangel Michael (12th century), the Serteya archaeological complex (6th-2nd millennium BCE) in the Velizh district (the so-called “Swamp Venice”), represented by structures on stilts in a swamp, the Gnezdovo archaeological complex in the Smolensk district, the village of Lyubavichi in the Rudnya district — the center of origin of Hasidism. Monuments of all-Russian significance include Khmelita, Novospasskoye, Flenovo, and the cities of Smolensk and Gagarin.
The surviving monuments of history, culture, and spiritual heritage correspond to certain historical epochs and reflect different periods of human economic and cultural activity. The most numerous are archaeological monuments (represented by hillforts, burial mounds, ancient settlements, cemeteries), architectural monuments (old estates, ancestral manors, churches, monasteries), including the architectural ensembles of city centers, historical monuments (sites of historic battles and treaty signings, places associated with the presence of famous people), memorial complexes and burial sites, monuments of engineering thought, and art monuments.
The existence of two types of culture — urban and rural — determined the formation of specific heritage. The central parts of many cities, saturated with numerous heritage objects, themselves become such objects. Religious architecture (monasteries, temple complexes, churches) occupies a large place. In the countryside, at the end of the 18th century, palatial estates, temples, and magnificent parks were built according to the designs of the best architects, stud farms were created, especially in the eastern districts, where large manorial estates existed (Golitsyn, Griboyedov, Baryshnikov). In the western part of the Smolensk region, lands were largely transferred to Polish gentry who had entered Russian service — the Glinkas, Engelgardts, Vonlyarlyarskys, Przhevalskys, Kakhovskys, Drutsky-Sokolinskys, and Khrapovitskys.
The Smolensk region has many unique natural monuments of man-made origin — these are the former landscape parks of noble estates, cascades of ponds, forest dachas (“Zagon”) and groves. The greatest uniqueness belongs to objects of natural and historical-cultural heritage that combine all these features, for example, Talashkino, as a comprehensive monument of history, culture, architecture, and nature. In such places, museum-reserves have been created that preserve cultural and historical objects in the natural landscape. An example of cultural-natural complexes, which were still relatively widespread in Russia until fairly recently, were manorial estates and monasteries.
The specificity of the historical-cultural heritage of the region is determined by the peculiarities of its historical development, border position, and the presence of territories of compact residence of persons of various nationalities. This led to two parallel processes — interethnic integration of cultures, assimilation, and the emergence of centers of national and religious culture. Running continuously from the 8th century to the end of the 20th, these processes left a special imprint on the cultural landscape of the territory, despite constant unifying pressure from nearby capital regions.
Attempts to preserve the remnants of the established cultural landscape, as well as objects of historical-cultural heritage, have somewhat intensified in recent years. But the efforts undertaken, against the backdrop of economic collapse, are hardly capable of fundamentally changing the current situation.