Донской портрет в русской художественной культуре XVIII века. «Рыцарский» дискурс
Donskoy Portrait in Russian Art Culture of the 18th century. «Chivalry» discourse

Summary/Abstract: The choice of this theme is first of all due to «sarmat», that is Polish-Ukrainian roots of the ensemble of the portraits of Cossack cheiftains, representatives of Cossack heads and members of their families which were situated in Cherkassk, the capital of the Donskoy military. The stability of showing a warrior with certain strict upbringing, with his own code of honour and the demonstration of his readiness to protect his house, his people and his church allows us to speak about certain piety towards the image of a knight. The absence of such classical features of chivalry as armour and also the image of a rider is filled up by almost sacred attitude to weapons and awards. On the contrary, in the capital branch, and in Russian court art of the 18th century, in particular, both the theme of armour and a rider appeared to be quite actual. The uniting thing was the order as the symbol of belonging to a certain corporation. With time the signs of knighthood of «sarmat» type keeping the features of Gothic in the Donskoi portrait are supplemented with the features of the Gothic revival which arrived from the capital of the Russian empire. This baroque combination of the things that cannot be combined as a result of consciously selected aesthetic artistic elements typical for a certain branch of the Primitive art, was a particular case in the interrelationship between the centre and the Cossacks.

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