Album of Most Famous Architect of Churches in Galicia Presented in Lviv
The presentation of the valuable, thoroughly researched publication – the album “100 Nahirny Churches. Part One. Vasyl Nahirny’s Churches” – took place on September 20, 2013, in the conference hall of the Borys Voznytsky National Art Gallery of Lviv.
Before the presentation, those present held a minute of silence in memory of two people who helped make the book possible: Borys Voznytsky (tragically died last year), who saved the archive of the Nahiryn family, and Vasyl Lev, the son-in-law of the architect Vasyl Nahirny, who began to study the saved archive.
The album is the first part of the project “100 Nahirny Churches” and contains current photographs of more than 50 churches designed by prominent Galician architect and civic activist Vasyl Nahirny (1848-1921), whose total heritage includes more than 200 projects of sacred buildings, most of which were realized.
The authors and compilers of the publication – Natalia Filevych, Khrystyna Lev, and Vasyl Slobodyan – spoke during the presentation. Natalia Filevych spoke briefly about the history of the album from the mid-1990s. Khrystyna Lev, the great-granddaughter of the famous architect Vasily Nagorny, thanked the funders through whom it was possible to publish this historically important album.
Vasyl Slobodyan, who diligently described each church found in the album, noted that today the Ukrainian architects’ work, through whom Galicia has its own unique look and character, has been poorly studied. He stressed that from Vasyl Nahirny’s projects, churches were built not only in his life – that is, during the 1910-1920s – but even in the 1990s, when churches were rebuilt in Galicia after the end of the communist period.
In the second part, on which the authors and compilers are currently working, it is planned to present the development projects of Yevhen Nahirny (1885-1951), the son of Vasyl, author of more than 500 projects, 300 of which are carried out.
The publication received financial support from the Taras Shevchenko Scientific Society in America, Saint Sophia Religious Society of Ukrainian Catholics from the U.S. Natalia Danylchenko Foundation, Roman and Michael Osinchuk Foundation, Orest and Lidia Bilous Family Foundation, Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky Charitable Foundation, the Society of St. Sophia in Ukraine told RISU.
Background: The work of Vasyl Nahirny laid the foundations of the creation of the modern Galician school of sacred architecture at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Not only a prolific architect, he was also an active organizer of Ukrainian community life in Galicia, one of the founders of the cooperative movement and various societies whose activities led to a new standard of living for Ukrainians in Galicia. Vasyl Nahirny tried to develop the architecture of churches in the national tradition, but also build on the building style of Kyiv, showing the unity of Galicia with the Constantinople Byzantine center. For his work, the architect received a silver medal from the hands of the Metropolitan Sylvester Sembratovych.
