The division between Western (Latin) and Eastern (Greek) Christianity has profoundly influenced the cultural landscapes of Europe, giving rise to two distinct trajectories of religious and secular evolution. Among various initiatives aimed at bridging the Western-Eastern gap, the Union of Brest (1596) holds particular significance. This event established the Uniate (Greek Catholic) Church within the Commonwealth of Poland and Lithuania, combining Eastern rites and traditions with Catholic dogmas and the supremacy of the pope. The Basilians, the sole Uniate order and the ecclesiastical elite, played a pivotal role in facilitating cultural exchanges between Western and Eastern influences. By the eighteenth century, they constituted one of the largest monastic communities in Poland-Lithuania, boasting a network of over 150 monasteries (their number was changing) and over one thousand monks. They took care of the most important sanctuaries, provided pastoral and educational care, established modern printing houses, and served as a recruitment pool for Uniate bishops. Consequently, alterations in Basilian monastic complexes aptly reflect the modernising aspirations and social roles of influential Uniate figures.
The project titled "Jesuits of the East? Artistic Network of the Basilian Order in Eighteenth-Century Poland-Lithuania" utilises GIS (Geographic Information System) and SNA (Social Network Analysis) to uncover the interconnections within and around the Basilian order, encompassing individuals, events, objects, and locations. Research inquiries revolve around the artistic pursuits of the order, the uniformity and specificity (in the context of art), and the influence of patronage.
The project relies on diverse historical sources, including written, iconographic, cartographic, and material evidence (objects of art in situ). Written sources comprise acts of visitations, inventories, chronicles, building documentation (agreements with artists or artisans, payment records, artistic designs), correspondence, and Basilian prints. These sources are complemented by historical and contemporary images of Basilian objects and their representations on maps. To gather, analyse, and visualise the data and address the research questions, a digital humanities toolset, consisting of Nodegoat, QGIS, and Gephi, is employed. Nodegoat is used for data model preparation and data collection, while QGIS and Gephi are employed for geographical and social visualisations, respectively.
The data model includes distinct feature types for human actors (Basilian order members, patrons, artists, etc.), places and tangible objects (monasteries, settlements, artefacts), and events (actions). Controlled vocabularies ensure data consistency, with "action" being a pivotal concept that links human actors, places, and objects. For example, the action of constructing a new church occurs in a specific monastery and involves various individuals with particular roles (monastery superior, patron, architect, contractors, etc.). The database encompasses approximately 1500 actions, 600 human actors, 181 monasteries, and 1800 artistic objects, enabling further analysis through filtering, querying, spatial operations, and graph metrics.
A fundamental aspect of the project involves mapping the formal solutions employed in objects of art and the arrangement patterns of monastic complexes. Basilians amalgamated Tridentine Catholicism with the spiritual and material heritage of Eastern monasticism. Tracking specific objects in particular monasteries illustrates the spatial dispersion of “Latin” and “Orthodox” elements, as well as the synthesis of various influences (e.g. introducing side altars or organs, reducing and creatively remodelling of the iconostasis). Similarly, the preferred localisation and spatial organisation of monasteries evolved with Basilians' increased involvement in pastoral and educational services. Older outposts were situated in remote places away from settlements, while new ones were established in urban contexts. The shift from a loose composition of wooden buildings to regular axial ensembles of brick edifices in Late Baroque, Rococo, or Neoclassical styles is evident throughout the order’s outposts. On the other hand, significant disparities between the Polish and Lithuanian provinces of the order are observed, both in terms of actor activities and formal solutions employed in artworks.
The described approach integrates data from historical sources of various kinds and the contemporary appearance of preserved heritage into a single database. This integration enables the tracking of spatial distribution of artistic and sociocultural phenomena across the Eastern-Western borderland area comprising the territories of present-day Poland, Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania, Latvia, and even part of Russia. Moreover, the project's challenges and significance are heightened by the current political situation. Monuments in Belarus are inaccessible to Western scholars, while Basilian complexes in Ukraine should be considered endangered heritage. Furthermore, the Greek Catholic Church holds immense importance for Ukrainian national identity that has made it a target of Russian persecutions, both tsarist and Soviet. Consequently, the study of the artistic network of the Basilian order transcends academic boundaries, resonating with broader questions of identity and Eastern-Western tensions in the expansive region between Central Europe and Russia.