Architect, city engineer, lecturer, social activist, active representative of the local Polish community. He was associated with Kharkiv for 35 years of his life. He designed many buildings in the central part of the city, several of which have been recognised as architectural monuments. The architectural showpiece of Mikhailovsky's work is the Roman Catholic Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary (1891). The eclectic-style buildings are a unique and innovative phenomenon in the architecture of Kharkiv in the second half of the 19th and early 20th centuries.

Biography and professional activity

Bolesław Michałowski was born in 1830 in Vilnius into the family of a Polish nobleman, Jerzy Michałowski and Euphrosyna, née Tyminska. Unfortunately, we have no more information about his ancestors or the early life of the future architect. All we know is that he had an aunt Antonina, whose wedding took place in the year of his birth, and a grandfather Antonina and grandmother Jóżefa, née Mecygier. He also had one year older brother, Władysław Konstanty (1829-1881). In Vilnius, Bolesław completed five classes at the local gymnasium and left to study at the Building School in St Petersburg.

Due to a lack of information, it is difficult to find out why the future architect chose his profession, what his life was like during his studies, with whom he was friends, or whether he had material problems. On the other hand, it is clear that his architectural works created in various cities of the Russian Empire testify that this profession was his passion in life.

Between 1844 and 1849, Bolesław and his older brother Władysław were educated at the Building School in St Petersburg. The choice of the place of study was quite obvious at that time, as after the defeat of the November Uprising, the Russian authorities subjected Polish education to repression. The Michałowski brothers were among the 14 graduates of this university from the year 1849. Bolesław graduated with honours and the qualification of "architectural assistant of the 12th class". His name as one of the most talented graduates was inscribed on a commemorative marble plaque.

After completing his studies, Mikhailovsky was sent to work as an architect at the gubernial building and road commission in the Tverskoy Governorate. During the following years, he settled permanently in the provincial city of Tver, commuting to various places in the gubernia on business. The gubernial city and centre of Tver gubernia at that time was mostly built up with single-storey buildings.

From scanty sources, it is known that Boleslaw Mikhailovsky was involved in the construction of bridges, roads, numerous buildings for various purposes, but also private buildings in the gubernial centre and other towns of the gubernia.

Michałowski also worked actively in Rżewo, which was called "the city of merchants and trade" and was located 120 km from Tver. During this period, he tried his hand as a designer of Orthodox churches, some of which survived the Stalinist era and the war, and have been preserved to this day. In the late 1850s and early 1860s, the architect started a fairly successful private building practice. He was very actively involved in the design and construction of townhouses for well-known merchant families in Rżewo. At the same time, he was involved in work related to bridge construction. Hidden in these fragmentary news items is the life of a young Pole who was gaining invaluable professional experience in the provinces of the Russian empire, working on the name of an able architect.

The next 10 years of his life were associated by Bolesław Michałowski with Poltava, the gubernial centre of Poltava Governorate in Left Bank Ukraine. He ended up in a city where there was a small (about 800 people) but quite active Polish community, as evidenced by the initiative to build the Chrestozdwyżeń church in 1859. Among other things, he worked as a provincial architect in the provincial Building and Road Commission, in the Building Department of the Poltava Provincial Government, and from 1867 to 1872 he served as a provincial engineer. He received high recognition for his work.

The Poltava period for Boleslav Mikhailovsky was fruitful and varied in terms of the directions he undertook. He carried out a number of projects concerning the development of the gubernial centre, built up in the early 19th century as a comprehensive complex of the Round Square. He was involved in the redevelopment of the edifice, adapting public spaces to accommodate the district court, the gubernial board, the treasury chamber and the treasury. He also supervised the major renovation of another edifice on the square, the Noble Assembly Building.

He was also involved in improving the city's architecture: he supervised the renovation of the cobblestone and waterworks in Bazaar Square and the adjacent streets. In addition, he carried out a number of other building commissions - he erected a number of buildings on behalf of land boards in towns and villages in Poltava gubernia, designed numerous private buildings, including a villa for the landowner collegiate assessor Ilya Stefanovich, founder and first president of the Poltava Land Bank. He built bridges, designed railway roads and designed several Orthodox churches. At the behest of the city's Germans, he drew up a design and cost estimate for the stone kirchi of Saints Peter and Paul. Unfortunately, the original design of the Neo-Gothic-style edifice was not realised by him due to the increase in the price of building materials and high labour costs.

From 1872--1873 he served as the municipal engineer of the gubernial city of Vladimir on the Klaźma River, located 1,600 km north of Poltava.

From 1874 onwards, Boleslav Mikhailovsky linked his life to Kharkov, and the Kharkov City Duma offered him the post of city engineer,. He performed this function diligently until the last days of his life. His professional activities during this period were extremely varied: he worked as a city official, as a lecturer and as an architect. He was also one of the authors of the town master plan (1895--1897). In addition, he supervised the construction of the town's waterworks and horse railway, the laying of cobblestones and pavements on the roadways, the laying of gutter pipes and drainage works, and the establishment of squares. And he combined all this with a very active social activity for the development of the city and the Polish community in Kharkiv.

He also combined his professional work as a lecturer at Kharkiv's 6th grade Real School, with an additional higher class in mechanics and technology. Until 1893, he taught building art, surveying and mechanical technology within its walls, and from 1880 - "special sciences".

Above all, Bolesław Michałowski, took part in the development of the city. According to his designs, eight bridges were built over the Kharkov and Lopan rivers. It was thanks to his efforts and experience as a builder that modern engineering structures were built in Kharkiv at that time to connect different districts of the city - the Dmytroivsky Bridge on the River Lopan, five wooden bridges on the Kharkiv and Lopan rivers, the Kontorsky Bridge on the River Lopan, the Podolsky Bridge on the River Kharkiv. He was also involved in the reconstruction of existing transport routes, for example, in 1903 he arranged a cost estimate for the City Council and supervised the widening of the Kuznetsov Bridge.

He was also involved as an active member in various municipal special committees. In 1881, he was part of a special commission appointed by the Ministry of Education to investigate "the matter of the preparation of the course and curricula for the Kharkiv Technical University". In 1884 he worked on a commission to study the technical conditions for paving in Kharkov. And already later, in the summer of 1907, he was in charge of inspecting the process of laying pavement in the Theatre Square and Staromoskievskaya and Sadova Streets, among other places, on behalf of the City Council. He was also a member of the commission that was in charge of checking the readiness of Kharkiv's electric trams to function as public transport on the streets of Kharkiv.

In 1ut 1908 he became a member of the anti-flood temporary commission, which was charged with inspecting bridges and wharves, as well as taking measures to supply the population with boats and rescue supplies. Together with his assistant, he was on duty in the districts of "Ryzhovsky wharf to the banks of the Kharkov river, Voznesensky bridge, Dvorian wharf". In the same year, together with another Polish architect Marian Charmanski, he was elected as a member of the building commission for the construction of the Kharkiv city merchant bank. The commission considered a project whose authors included another architect of Polish origin, Alexander Rzepiszewski.

Boleslaw Michalowski was among the founders of the Kharkiv Branch of the Imperial Russian Technical Society (1880). He too was a member of the architectural section and served as president from 1900. He participated in the work of the First Congress of Russian Builders in St Petersburg (1892). In 1899, together with the city architect Mykhailo Dashkevich, he was delegated by the Kharkov City Council to attend the next Congress in St Petersburg.

The architect became actively involved in the life of Kharkiv's Polish community. In 1882 he became a member of the Church Council at the Kharkiv Roman Catholic Church. He also stayed as a trustee of this Council at the church he built. From 1903 to 1906, he was a district governor of Tserkva together with Konstantin Gorski, an outstanding composer, virtuoso violinist, conductor and lecturer. His great Pole's heart and patriotism is evidenced by the fact that he did the design and supervised the construction of the church free of charge. In response to a proposal from the Roman Catholic parish council in Kharkov to receive remuneration for the design and supervision of the construction of the new church, he wrote in his letter of 12 January 1887: "Until the question of the construction of the vault is resolved one way or the other, any agreement will be premature, but I consider it reasonable to declare that, as before and now, I refuse to be paid for the labour. Many parishioners are donating money for the construction of the temple - for my part I wish to donate my labour" (Kharkov Region State Archive, fond 965, description 1, case 6, ark. 23.). He later received a reward of 500 rubles from grateful parishioners.

It is also worth mentioning the personal qualities of Boleslaw Michalowski, who was an exceptionally honest, conscientious, hard-working and responsible man, and enjoyed the respect and affection of his colleagues. In his memories, Michalowski remained as a man extremely dedicated to his work. During his 35 years of professional activity in Kharkiv, he never took the one-month leave he was entitled to once a year, which was due to the employees of the City Council. He only rested for 10 days, around Easter. He reportedly used to say that this was the only time when building work was stopped anyway, so his absence would not change anything.

His modesty is evidenced by the fact that towards the end of his life, a few months before his death, in December 1908, he submitted an application to the mayor Alexander Pogorelka, notifying him of his deteriorating health, resigning and asking to be granted a pension due to his many years of work as a city engineer. Boleslaw Michalowski made sure in advance that the city pride had time to hire a new engineer to replace him: "Taking into account that next March marks the 35th anniversary of my service in Kharkiv City Hall as city engineer, and that I have recently suffered a severe decline in my health, of which I consider it appropriate to warn the City Pride in advance so that an engineer can be found for the vacant post in the four months that remain to that date - I I make a humble request to you, Oleksandr Konstantinovich, to present my request to the City Duma to dismiss me from service and to designate a pension for 35 years of continuous service."

On 14 January 1909, the City Duma granted this request and awarded him a pension of 2,000 roubles a year.

It is interesting to note that on 3 October 1899, under the leadership of Mayor Ivan Golenishchev-Kutuzov, a celebration was organised to mark the 25th anniversary of Boleslav Mikhailovsky's professional service for the development of Kharkov, and in March 1909 a celebration was organised to mark the 35th anniversary of his "impeccable" service and his approaching 80th birthday.

About the architect's personal life we unfortunately do not have much news. He was married and had a son and a daughter. Son Joseph followed in his father's footsteps and became an architect, architectural historian and theorist. He taught architectural history at the Leningrad Institute of Civil Engineers (former Institute of Civil Engineers), and was the author of books that were republished several times.

The architect died suddenly, on 22 March 1909, at the age of 79. An obituary was published in the Kharkiv City Duma News, a portrait of him was displayed in the meeting hall of the City Hall, and a decision was taken to fund a scholarship named after Boleslaw Michalovsky for students of the Real School. He was buried in the local Catholic cemetery, which was destroyed during the Soviet era, at the end of Pushkinskaya Street.

The architect's projects and buildings

The most important aspect of Boleslaw Michalowski's activity was the construction of municipal, private and industrial utility buildings according to official or private commissions, as well as the reconstruction of existing buildings. During the fortress-Poltava period, he was involved in construction and restoration work, and designed orthodox churches and private buildings in towns and villages of these administrative-territorial units of the Russian Empire. Unfortunately, it is not possible to establish exactly how many of these buildings were constructed according to his designs. All that is known is that he used Neo-Renaissance, Neo-Baroque, Neo-Romanesque and Neo-Gothic stylistic forms, as well as Neo-Romanesque and Moorish forms in his work. During his stay in Kharkov, he built more than twenty buildings for various purposes: pretty villas for merchants, residential buildings, various administrative and university buildings, the buildings of the City Duma and the Merchants' Exchange. A number of buildings were built along the central street of the city - Sumska Street. Some of them have survived to this day as architectural monuments, while others were destroyed during World War II or as part of later reconstructions.

In his work, Michałowski was based on the forms of historicism that were in force in the second half of the ХІХ century, called the style of rational choice by its proponents. Characteristic for most of the buildings erected by him is the division of the facades according to the layout of the storeys, with the use of numerous variants of piled-up architectural orders and abundant detailing: rustication, bands, pediments, dormers, bays, small domes, and allegorical sculpture.

Among the architect's best-known completed Kharkiv projects are the club building with an opera hall in the classicist style, which was designed in 1884 for the management of the local Commercial Club, and the building of the Council of the Congress of Mining Industrialists of the South of Russia in the historicist style with elements of classicism and empire (18/20 Sumska Street). In 1893, the city theatre was rebuilt under his supervision, with elements of French Renaissance.

Boleslav Mikhailovsky was the author of several administrative buildings, factories and plants: in 1875, he designed the building of a candy factory at 29 Kontorska Street for the merchant of the 1st Guild, Dmytr Kromsky, one of the most famous producers of candy, chocolate, jam and gingerbread in the Russian Empire. For the second time, Kromskyj asked the architect in 1891 to design an extension to the building on the same street.

In 1895, commissioned by the Russian Locomotive Works Society, the architect was involved in a very ambitious project - the construction of the Locomotive Works in Kharkov. On 21 August 1895, as authorised by the Society, he presented a plan of the 11 buildings that were to be built first: the locomotive works, boiler house, forge, dyeing plant, engineering building, foundry, model warehouse, raw material warehouse and general shop, power plant and steam boiler house. On 31 August 1895 he was appointed by the Governor of Kharkiv as the plant's construction manager.

Among other things, between 1877 and 1878, a five-storey house was built for the scientist-mathematician and social activist Sergei Rajeevsky and his wife Maria Rajeevskaya-Ivanovoy, an artist and educator (the first woman in the Russian Empire to be awarded the title of artist by the Academy of Fine Arts in St Petersburg). The building was located on Chernyshevskaya Street, 6, and was the home of the first private 'drawing school' in Kharkov, founded by Maria in 1869, from which a whole group of prominent painters and architects graduated - including Sergei Vasilevskiy, Oleksiy Beketov and Henryk Siemiradzki.

For his private building practice, Mikhailovsky founded a joint-stock company - the "Kharkov Building Society" - in 1898.

The architect's showpiece is one of Kharkiv's greatest ornaments to this day - the Cathedral Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Kharkiv, built in 1887-1891 (4 Gogol Street). The temple was built in neo-Gothic style, on a Latin cross plan with a short chancel. Inside the new church were three altars: the main one of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary and two side altars of St Anthony of Padua and the Crucified Christ with a painting by Henryk Siemiradzki, who came to town for the last time to celebrate the jubilee of Maria Rajewska-Ivanova, the owner of the School of Fine Arts, where he also studied as a young painter.

On 1 March 2022 in Kharkov, a Russian missile hit the curia building of the Kharkiv-Zaporizhsky diocese of the Roman Catholic Church in Ukraine; on 2 March 2022, windows and stained glass windows in the Catholic Cathedral of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Kharkov were destroyed by shelling, and church furnishings were damaged.

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Boleslav Mikhailovsky left behind a series of designed and restored buildings, built on the main streets of Kharkiv. More than ten of them have the status of architectural monuments, and the true pearl of the architect's work is the Neo-Gothic Cathedral Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. His buildings are among the most unique phenomena in Kharkiv architecture of the second half of the 19th and early 20th centuries.

The architect devoted a significant part of his life to Kharkiv and left behind designed and renovated buildings here. He was a man who gained recognition and authority with his tireless work and talent as a builder.