The collapse of the November Uprising in 1831 resulted in numerous restrictions by Russia, including the suppression of Catholic monasteries in the seized lands of the Republic. However, the abandoned churches and monasteries were valuable masonry to be used by the Orthodox Church, or by the Tsarist army.

Within a few years, almost 200 monastery complexes were inventoried according to the high standards in force. These materials show - through projections, cross-sections and drawn elevations - in great detail an architecture that is mostly no longer known today. Approximately 10% of the measured assemblages have survived to the present day in an untransformed form. Most of them were destroyed in the 19th century, but mainly during the communist Soviet era, some were drastically transformed.

Through her many years of studies and searches, mainly in the archives of St Petersburg and Moscow, as well as Vilnius, Minsk and Grodno, Prof. Maria Kalamajska-Saeed not only found several hundred 19th-century measured inventories and reconstruction projects of former Catholic monastic sites from the Russian partition, but also acquired their scans. This extremely arduous and difficult work resulted in a professional catalogue preceded by a scientific commentary, published by the POLONIKA Institute as part of the scientific series 'Studies and Materials'. It is a powerful source of knowledge about architecture - mainly Baroque - from the former eastern lands of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, which opens up new research perspectives for scientists.

Author: Maria Kałamajska-Saaed

Year of publication: 2021

Number of pages: 608 (first volume); 656 (second volume)

Cover: Hardbound

Format: A4

ISBN: 978-83-66172-40-1