Сакральная архитектура Украины конца ХХ века

In the present paper, the author describes the history of the religious architecture on the modern territory of Ukraine that can be traced back to the Antiquity (8th -7th centuries B.C.). There is a statistical description of the losses of the Church architecture during Soviet era both in the Soviet Union and in particular in Ukraine. Author also shows the percentage of different religious confessions of contemporary Ukrainian citizens. He focuses on the contemporary Christian Church architecture (mostly Orthodox, but there are also examples of Roman and Greek Catholic, Protestant churches and Buddhist temple). After Ukraine regained independence there was a renaissance of the sacral architecture. Author shows the peculiarities of Ukrainian architecture that have roots in art of Princely Kiev (after the baptism of Kievan Rus in 988), architecture of Greek-Catholic (Uniate) churches (after the Brest Union of 1596), architecture of so-called Ukrainian (Mazepa/Cossack) Baroque at the turn of the 17th and 18th centuries and the art of Ukrainian Art Nouveau and in the folk art of the Hutsuls and Lemkos. All these sources of inspiration have been used when creating religious buildings in the late-20th century. The traditional trend in the architecture included e.g. reconstructions of churches and monasteries destroyed during the Soviet era or the continuation of the constructing works on the unfinished churches or even the exact copies of ancient structures, historicism or direct "quotations" from certain buildings or the above-mentioned styles. New forms of architecture were also obtained due to the transformation of historical styles, but the Orthodox architecture more traditional in this respect than the Catholic or Protestant ones. The author also shows examples of temporary structures erected without architectural blueprints that are of significant interest and of wooden architecture based on the Carpathian highlanders' (Hutsuls, Lemkos) churches. The author was a chairman of the International School of Church Architecture that has been founded at the Lviv Polytechnic and educated over 120 architects (1991-1998). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]