ИСТИНА

The specificity and interinfluence of individual regional centers is the key problem in the discussion of Late Byzantine architecture. It is of particularly important for the architectural developments on the periphery of the Byzantine Empire, and especially in case of North Macedonia, featured by the coexistence of Greek and Slavic cultures. Late Byzantine architecture of North Macedonia is a complex and not fully explored phenomenon, a lot of questions regarding its origins, specificity, stylistic developments of this architecture and its place in the context of the period still remain unresolved. In the 1280s-1310s after a long period of stagnation, a group of churches appears in Ohrid – the center of the autocephalous archbishopric. There have been expressed various opinions in historiography about the origins of the group. Some researches associated this architecture with Thessaloniki and Constantinople, while others were looking for arguments for the presence of local Macedonian tradition on these buildings. The question of stylistic developments in Late Byzantine architecture was investigated by Slobodan Curcic, who outlined the main trajectory of the evolution of the School of Epirus in Macedonia and Serbia and positioned Ohrid as an important architectural center of Early Palaeologan time. However, these issues were not further investigated. The role of Ohrid in the architectural developments of the Palaeologan era has not been accurately determined. Stylistic and comparative analysis of Ohrid churches in the Context of Architectural Processes of the 13th-early 14th century shows that Epirote building tradition is not limited to the reproduction of particular elements here. Thus, the architectural features of Peribleptos corresponds to the stylistic tendencies of the Epirote school of the late 13th century on the one hand, and it fits into the context of the developments of the Early Palaeologan style, showing a new understanding of the usual vocabular of forms and means, on the other hand. In the exonartex of St. Sophia the composition and rhythmic organization of the front façade demonstrate the pursuance of ordering and architectonics, of the use of expressive possibilities of forms, which replace the laconic prismatic volumes and abundant decorative friezes of the Epirus of the mid-second half of the century. The absence of a pronounced local specificity gives reason to consider Ohrid architecture of the 1280s-1310s as a consistent continuation of the Epirote tradition outside the Despotate at the stage of the formation of Palaeologan style.