Bow crosses of Russian North of the 16th-17th centuries. A review of Russian historiography

The aim of this article is to discuss the key works of Russian historiography that deal with Northern crosses of the 16th — 17th centuries. The article takes into account scientifi c works beginning from the fi rst half and middle of the 19th century, i.e. the time when staurography emerged, up to the present day. Following the logic of the development of staurography, the article pays attention to the emergence in the latter half of the 19th century of studies devoted to bow and mortgage crosses that are found in the North of Russia, in Novgorod. The Northern direction in historiography was developing in the early 20th century, when there appeared a number of works that incorporate this type of monument into the cultural context of North Russian lands by means of comparing crosses and a range of other ritual objects. In the late 20th — early 21st centuries there appeared a relatively sizeable (compared with the preceding periods) amount of studies that consider the northern crosses from various viewpoints. Their authors analyse the transformation of the appearance of Northern crosses and church complexes through the study of the change and combination of traditional folk practices with Christianity. Another object of research is the identifi cation of the role of the cross in the sacred topography of the Russian North and the centres of production of bow crosses. Besides, there appeared a number of works dealing with unique monuments. The attention of researchers has been directed to monuments from not only 18th and 19th centuries but to the earlier stauroi, though their study is complicated by the fact that they have been preserved in a signifi cantly smaller number than the later crosses