Essay ''On architecture" in Apollon Maikov's traveler's diary of 1842-1843

Apollon Maikov's traveler's diary of 1842-43 represents a unique phenomenon in the context of this genre tradition. This is reflected in the microgenre structure of the diary and the transformation of the traditional genre form, which gradually assumes the characteristics of a note book. This is particularly manifested in the Roman section of the diary, where the conventional form of the traveler's notes is replaced by untypical genre forms, i.e. outline, an essay in cultural studies, and translations of literary and historical works. Acquaintance with the architectural monuments of Rome and the preceding journey round Europe through Copenhagen cathedrals and Parisian Gothic churches, Maikov's interest to history and culture as a whole, to revealing their trends and tendencies and the development of the beginnings as such makes him undertake a close study of the history of architecture and try to understand the grounds for the emergence of certain successive historical epochs and styles. This explains why a new peculiar form appeared in the traveler's diary, which employs the ''word of the other'', - the essay ''On architecture''. Its content reflects the history of the development of European architectural forms from the ancient times to the 15th century. Rome was viewed by the young traveler as a kind of repository of architectural monuments of different epochs, an encyclopedia that creates clear representations on the history of evolution of European architectural styles and trends. It is evident that Maikov is interested not only in the facts of development of architectural styles, but also in their profound historical and cultural study, whose parameters have already been determined in these brief and concise notes. Therefore, considerable attention in the essay is paid to determining the reasons for changes in architectural trends in the process of borrowings and the changes of cultural epochs. Emergence of this note confirms the desire to read this historical-cultural text, unriddle the logic of the changes that stipulated the emergence of new forms, decode the essence of cultural processes, explain the reasons of historical changes in art, and understand the peculiarities of individual epochs, the significance and importance of their discoveries in the context of evolution from the ancient forms to the modern ones. The nature of the analyzed essay once again reveals the inherence in Maikov's world view of interest to art as a way to express the level of development of material and spiritual views of a man of a certain epoch, which are stipulated by a whole set of external factors, including geoclimatic conditions and religious and cult reasons.

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