Basilicas in Russian Architecture in the Second Half of the 19th – the Beginning of the 20th Centuries

The first basilica in Russian architecture was built in the early 18th century, during the reign of Peter the Great. It was designed to outline Peter I’s western preferences. However, the form of basilica was not developed further, and appeared again only in the first half of the 19th century in the architectural work of Aleksey Gornostaev. Then, basilicas widely spread in the first half of the 20th century as regimental churches. The reasons for such a phenomenon are still unidentified. The following research attempt to discover those reasons, to create the complete catalogue of Russian basilicas and, using formal and contextual analysis, examined the specifics of their existence and functioning as Orthodox churches. It turned out, that ii Russian architecture basilicas appeared more frequently, than it was suggested.