Città ideale: the fortress-city of Stanislaviv in the XVII–XVIII centuries

Modern Ivano-Frankivsk belongs to the group of cities that emerged in the mid-XVII century, precisely at the time when the Renaissance-Baroque tradition of planning new towns, better known as the città ideale (“ideal city”), prevailed across Europe. The fortress founded by Andrii Potocki in the early 1660s, laid out between the two mountain streams of the Bystrytsia River, also acquired the outlines of such a “sun city.” More than three and a half centuries have since passed, and with the city’s growth and transformation, relatively few monuments remain to recall the beginnings of old Stanislaviv. Therefore, we shall focus on three key sites which, although reshaped over time, still serve as markers of the city-fortress.

Bastion Fortress. The idea of building a new fortress city, which would become the defensive, economic, and cultural-educational center of Pokuttia, belonged to the inherited Galician elder Andrii Potocki from Potok. In 1658, he purchased the village of Zabolotiv from local landowner Stanislav Zhychkovskyi, and by 1661, he had begun construction of the fortress city, named Stanislaviv in honor of his firstborn son. In the spring of the following year, Andrii Potocki obtained a privilege for annual fairs from King Jan Kazimierz, and a few months later, on May 7, 1662, he issued a location privilege for the city.

The planning of Stanislaviv was overseen by the French military engineer-architect Francois Corassini from Avignon. It was he who designed the first version of the fortress in the Dutch style, as a regular hexagon with six protruding bastions. The fortress was additionally reinforced with dug-out moats and raised earth ramparts; one of the streets in the city center is still called “Valova,” while the district itself was often referred to by townspeople as “Na Valakh” (“On the Ramparts”). During its defensive functioning in 1662-1812, the Stanislaviv fortress endured nearly three dozen attacks, yet in most cases the local garrison successfully defended the walls of the stronghold.

The pentagonal bastions of the fortress played an important role in repelling enemy attacks, as their protruding location allowed defenders to fire crossfire, making it impossible for the enemy to storm the walls and gates. At the same time, the thickness and low height of the walls neutralized the efforts of the enemy's artillery. At different times, the appearance of the city's main fortifications varie. At first, they were wooden and earthen, sometimes stone structures, and later, mostly brick and stone. The bastions also housed casemates, ammunition depots, and arsenals. It is believed that each bastion of the fortress had its own heavenly patrons; in particular, at the beginning of the XVIII century, the bastion of St. Andriy is mentioned. Unfortunately, only one such monument has survived to this day, because after 1812, by order of the Austrian authorities, the fortifications began to be dismantled, creating new space for urban development expansion.

After reconstruction and renovation, the surviving fragment of the fortress now functions as the Bastion Fortress Gallery, which houses an art and commercial space that is one of the tourist attractions of modern Ivano-Frankivsk.

The Town Hall and Its Underground. The heart of old Stanislaviv was the town hall, deliberately located in the very center of the fortress and surrounded on all sides by the market square. Under the conditions of the Magdeburg Law, the town hall played a crucial role in community life, as it concentrated the power of municipal self-government. Here sat the magistrate and the bench court, where all urgent matters of the city were decided, while its underground chambers housed a prison and casemates. Traditionally, the town hall was the tallest building in the city, also serving as a watchtower.

The first town hall in Stanislaviv was of a temporary nature, built of wood immediately after the city’s founding. Already in 1672, the traveler Ulrich von Werdum wrote that the Stanislaviv town hall had been built as a tower of stone and wood. In 1695, the architect Karl Benoit constructed, on commission from Jozef Potocki, a new stone town hall in the late Renaissance style, adorned with clock faces and rising to the height of a nine-story building. Its layout consisted of two parts, the cross-shaped base and the pointed tower. This town hall stood until the famous “Marmulad Fire” of 1868, after which, three years later, a new structure in Viennese Classicist style was erected, designed by the architects Athanasy Pshybylovskyi and Philip Pokutynskyi.

During the First World War, however, this building was also damaged by artillery fire, and in 1929, construction began on yet another town hall. Its architect was Stanislav Trelya, and by 1935, the main construction work was completed. The present town hall, built in the Constructivist style, was intended to recall the image of the old magistrate, with a single-story cross-shaped base and a tower rising to 49.5 meters.

For most of its actual history, the Stanislaviv town hall served its primary function as the administrative building of municipal self-government. During the Austrian period, however, it also housed the police, military warehouses, and trading pavilions. After the last reconstruction in the 1930s, its premises were adapted for the Pokuttia Museum and the city archive. Today, just as more than eighty years ago, the building remains in the hands of museum workers, hosting the Ivano-Frankivsk Regional Museum. From the viewing platform of its tower, one can admire breathtaking panoramas of both old Stanislaviv and modern Ivano-Frankivsk against the backdrop of the Carpathian peaks.

The town hall's underground chambers, which clearly date back to the city's founding, deserve special attention. Despite the passage of time, numerous renovations, and the construction of new town halls, the underground chambers have largely retained the historical atmosphere of the ancient fortress city. Traditionally, as already mentioned, there was a prison in the basement of the town hall. Various people served their sentences here, but among its most famous prisoners, it is worth mentioning the Carpathian outlaw Vasyl Bayurak, who was executed in 1754 on Market Square in Stanislaviv. It is well known that before his death, the outlaw asked for and fulfilled his last wish - to play his favorite mountain melodies on the flute. Interestingly, there is still a legend among the townspeople about the sound of the flute that can be heard near the town hall at midnight. It is also believed that in 1880, our city patron Ivan Franko “met” the Stanislavov in the basements of the town hall, where he was taken after his arrest in Kolomyia by the Austrian police. There is also a hypothesis that the underground passages beneath the town hall were connected by a secret passage to the Potocki Palace or other important buildings in the city, such as the collegiate church. This remains to be discovered in the course of further research. Today, the underground passages of the Ivano-Frankivsk town hall are open to visitors, and interesting themed tours are held here for guests and residents of the city.

Potocki Palace. After the initial foundation of the fortress city of Stanislaviv, Andrii Potocki invited engineer Karl Benoit in the 1670s–1680s of the XVII century to redesign the existing boundaries of the stronghold in order to build a family residence for the city's owners. As a result, the plan of the existing fortress was extended in the north-eastern direction by rebuilding two bastions into semi-bastions and adding two new palace bastions. The construction of the palace began on a prepared site, which was somewhat separated from the central part of the city.

Ulrich von Werdum mentioned the preparations for this large-scale construction in 1672, when he was a guest of Andrii Potocki, noting that the city's owner had prepared wood, stone and bricks for the construction of a new magnificent palace. In the early 1680s, the main work was completed and the new palace rooms received owners and guests. Among the important visitors to the palace were King Yan III Sobieski of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Prince Ferenc II Rakoczi of Transylvania, the family of Hetman Pylyp Orlyk of the Zaporizhian Army, and many other representatives of the nobility who visited the Potocki family.

The palace underwent luxurious reconstruction during the residence of Josef Potocki in the first half of the 18th century. At that time, the Grand Crown Hetman ordered the expansion of the palace grounds, the creation of a garden and park alley, etc. However, most of the planned work was never fully completed due to the founder’s death in 1751. His son Stanislav, who was a military engineer, tried to continue his father's work. However, his attempts to strengthen the fortress and complete the reconstruction of the palace complex were not very successful. This was partly because Stanislav Potocki did not move to his ancestral residence in Stanislaviv, preferring Zbarazh, and partly because of the political instability that shook the last years of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.

By 1772, Stanislaviv had become part of the Habsburg Monarchy, and the palace and city were owned by Kateryna Potocka Kossakovska, who tried to put her family affairs in order, often getting involved in political stuff, and in 1783 she hosted a visit by the Austrian Emperor Josef II to Stanislaviv. At the end of the same century, Kateryna Kossakovska left the residence and moved to Lviv, selling her estates and the city itself in 1792 to a representative of the dynasty, Antoni Prot Potocki, for 2 million zlotys.

Apparently, the inventory description of the Stanislaviv Palace dates back to those times. It tells about the splendour and grandeur of this three-storey building, which consisted of six vaulted rooms, a hallway, a kitchen on the ground floor, then a spiral staircase led to the second floor, where there was a large hall with parquet flooring, stretch white linen ceilings, colourful fabric wall coverings, several dressing rooms, women's rooms, a bedroom, and a coffee room; the third floor had eight rooms, and the palace also had a large amount of expensive oak furniture. Near the palace were farm buildings – a kitchen, outbuildings, stables, and casemates.

At the beginning of the XIX century, after the death of the bankrupt Prot Potocki, the palace in Stanislaviv, like the city in general, came under the care of the Habsburgs, and a military hospital was set up in the former Potocki residence. The military medical facility existed on this site until 2004, surviving several major and minor wars waged by the states and regimes of the time. During this period, the palace buildings were partially dismantled and partially rebuilt to meet the needs of the hospital. In the last decade, after years of neglect and destruction, the complex of monuments of the former residence has been actively revitalised by the team of the municipal enterprise “Space for Innovative Creations Palace”. 

An interactive weapons museum operates on the Potocki Palace territory, partially restored surviving premises host scientific and educational events, art events and festivals. Along with the restoration of this monument, archaeological research continues, revealing more and more secrets of past centuries.

This publication has been produced with the financial assistance of the European Union. Its contents are the sole responsibility of the Executive Committee of Ivano-Frankivsk City Council and do not necessarily reflect the views of the European Union.

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