The Pearl of Chernivtsi

Austro-Hungarian emperor Franz Joseph, one of Europe’s most progressive monarchs, viewed the state-building idea as a country’s strength and grandeur being asserted through the grandeur of national culture. Bukovyna was then part of Austro-Hungary, so refined architecture was part and parcel of its development. Bukovyna is often called the emerald pearl of Ukraine, while the former Bukovynian metropolitan’s residence is regarded as the pearl at the heart of the Bukovynian city of Chernivtsi. Today it serves as the main building of Chernivtsi National University named after Yuri Fedkovych. Prof. Mykola TKACH, rector of CNU, told The Day that the metropolitan’s residence, constructed between 1864 and 1882, was designed by the noted Czech architect Josef Hlavka. Researchers believe that this project marked the peak of the architect’s creativity.

Under Austrian rule, Yevhen Hakman, a Ukrainian by nationality, was ordained Bishop of Bukovyna in 1835; his name is forever associated with attempts to create an autocephalous Bukovynian Orthodox Church and to organize the construction of the future Bukovynian metropolitan’s residence. Unfortunately, he was not destined to see its completion, for he died in 1873. Josef Hlavka’s project was staggering in scope and proved too expensive at the time (1,830,000 gold florins).

Czech architect Josef Hlavka, who was twenty-nine years old at the time, was a graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna. He designed the future residence and in 1864, at the age of thirty-three, proceeded to supervise its construction. The project was an ambitious undertaking in Chernivtsi and lasted almost eighteen years. Besides, new quarries, two brick and one tile works, which manufactured their products exclusively to supply the needs of the construction site, were opened in that small town. Every brick was measured and tested by tapping. Masons were permitted to lay only a hundred bricks a day. There is only one other structure that was built with these bricks: the Armenian Church in Chernivtsi, which, incidentally, was also designed by Hlavka.

The future gem then passed into the hands of the world’s best experts, who brought their finest work to life. The Viennese artists Karl Jobst and I. Klein, the Czech Karl Svoboda, and the Bukovynians Epamindos Buchevsky and Yevhen Maksymovych executed ornamental work using local rock and ceramic pieces for the residence. The Viennese sculptor Hoffman supervised the artistic stone-carving and stucco works. Thus, the kinship between Vienna and Chernivtsi is beyond doubt.

The marble hall, decorated with various types of red and brown marble, was considered the most beautiful in Europe, and the synodal library also gained wide repute. As a result of a huge fire that occurred in 1944 — in Ukraine it was compared to Nero’s fire in Rome-the synodal library burned down — striking a painful blow to Ukrainian culture. Today’s Marble Hall is the fruit of work done by restorers who created a fitting copy of the original one. However, two huge chandeliers weighing a total of 1.5 tons, which embellished the decorated three-tiered cupola of the oak ceiling, were destroyed in the fire, along with frescoes created by Karl Svoboda, who in the arches between the columns portrayed the history of the Bukovynian Orthodox Church, which was designed by Hakman.

The conference hall of the Holy Synod was spared. It has remained almost intact since its creation. The floors are old parquetry shining with oak, lime, and red beech, while overhead is a stucco ceiling resembling Easter egg decorations. The walls are decorated with Chinese red silk and Venetian mirrors. Every window gazes out on a variety of towers, spires, cupolas, ornamented cornices, wonderful corbiesteps, and roofs ornamented with glazed, eight-colored tiles. The guesthouse is identifiable by its tall many-tiered clock tower topped by a cupola resembling Monomakh’s crown.

Behind the residence is a unique botanical garden that was created at the same time as the principal buildings of the residence, and which formed part of Hlavka’s design. Although most of the plantations have changed since that time, the landscaping has been preserved: with a pond and a romantic grotto in the center, a bronze bust of Josef Hlavka, and a fountain on each side of it, opposite the main facade. Students and residents of the town say that in those days, bad students of the theological faculty (a leading one since the university’s inception) were punished for their lack of progress and diligence by being made to sit in that stone grotto beneath the castle. There was also an entrance to an underground tunnel through which one could walk through half the town. Rare species of trees have survived, including cork, tulip, red birch, magnolia, catalpa, aspen, pyramidal thuja, and yew, with which Bukovyna once paid its tributes to Turkey. Long ago, other inhabitants of the garden — peacocks, swans, and roe deer — complemented this beauty. Today there are only squirrels and a population of common Ukrainian birds. The ancient nine-meter drinking well in the garden, from which the metropolitans were served mineral water, dried out after disastrous drainage works were undertaken in the 1970s.

Hlavka, however, not only built an amazingly beautiful structure, which the Czechs recognize as an architectural gem, but also planned its construction so thoroughly that it puts modern experts to shame. Humidity generated by the acacias and the drainage system installed beneath a layer of gravel served to prevent the destruction of the brickwork. Hlavka added the acacia plantation to his project because these trees would not only embellish the courtyard, but also serve as a drainage facility, with their roots sucking out groundwater. Drainpipes were constructed, using a special underground canal. The entire structure shows no sign of wear or tear, except the roof, which is badly in need of repair. However, the kind of tiles it needs is manufactured only in Austria and the Czech Republic.

The Church of the Three Prelates (St. Gregory, John Chrysostom, and Basil the Great) is also part of the complex. Although it was closed in the 1940s, together with other churches, and was later converted into an electronic data-processing center in the 1950s, it has survived the religious feud. True church life began there in 1991. The church’s acoustic features are said to be the best in Ukraine. Today, it serves as a lecture hall for theology students from Chernivtsi University, whose legendary reputations were inspired by a variety of interdictions. The theological faculty of Chernivtsi University was one of the first faculties created the same year that the university was opened — 1875. However, in 1940, with the advent of Soviet power in Western Ukraine, the theological faculty and the church were closed. Its activity resumed only in 1993, and today is part of a single philosophy and theology faculty, with chairs of philosophy and theology. The theology students and professors study problems relating to the status and prospects of interconfessional relationships in Western Ukraine, the religious phenomenon, and the relationship between church and state. What makes this faculty unique is that it is the only one of its kind in the system of higher secular education in Ukraine.

Regrettably, the Czech architect did not live to see the completion of the metropolitan’s residence, to which he devoted his heart and soul. Hlavka fell ill and was forced to return to his homeland, the Czech village of Luzany.