Beam of the 1758 and the Church History of the Urban-Type Settlement of Dashiv: A Rethinking

The carved beam of 1758 from the urban-type settlement of Dashiv (a former town, modern Vinnytsia region), created for the house of Vasyl Plotnytskyi, presbyter of the local church of St. Michael the Archangel is submitted in the article in details. The circumstances of the discovery are analyzed, information about the owner’s identity and related historical events is presented; the parameters of the scroll and the image on it are described. The beam is discovered in the autumn of 1904 by Mykola Biliashivskyi and transported to the Kyiv City Museum at this time. Since the late 1960s it has been exhibited in the Poor Man’s House from the village of Yerkivtsi at the Museum of Folk Architecture and Life of the Middle Over Dnipro Lands (Pereiaslav National Historical and Ethnographic Reserve). It is concluded that this monument is an expressive example of Ukrainian art of the early modern period, the only known carved beam from the house of a Uniate priest. Vasyl Plotnytskyi is the parson of St. Michael’s Church at least from 1758 to 1790. Together with the preserved church, built in 1767 with the active participation of this presbyter, the beam forms a unique complex of art monuments created for the Uniates on the borderlands between Naddniprianshchyna and Podillia. However, the church and the beam fit into the style inherent in the Orthodox construction of the Hetmanate and Zaporizhzhia at that time. On the front surface of the swolok there is a one-line inscription with a blessing, information about the owner of the house and the time of its consecration, and in the center there is an Orthodox cross on Golgotha with images of the instruments of torture of Jesus Christ. In the center of the lower part there is a medallion with the monogram of the Virgin Mary. The relief shafts with notches, similar to imitations of twisted ropes, stretch from both sides to it. Today, about 30 carved Ukrainian beams from the early modern period are known. They are kept in Ukrainian museums. Most of them have not been fully introduced into scientific circulation. Given the cultural value of these objects, it is necessary to intensify the process of their in-depth study.