Wood and stone: the Smolensk Kremlin fortifications of the second half of the 16th - early 17th centuries

The Smolensk Kremlin built according to the project of F. Kon at the end of the 16th century has been well studied by researchers of the history of fortification and architecture. At the same time, the study of the fortifications preceding the stone Kremlin in Smolensk began relatively recently: in the late 20th - early 21st centuries. It was at this time that the earlier fortifications began to be studied by archaeologists. The article is devoted to the analysis of modern hypotheses about the origin and construction of the wood and earth fortifications of Smolensk in the second half of the 16th - early 17th centuries, the time of the Turmoil and the Polish intervention. The author of the article offers a different interpretation of some of these hypotheses. Based on the descriptions of the fortifications of Smolensk during the Polish siege of 1610, an assumption is made that the stone walls, partially destroyed by the Polish army, could have been later supplemented with wooden fortifications. The author notes that the description of the Smolensk fortifications as earthen walls using wattle structures, made by the Papal ambassador Antonio Possevino in the 1580s, may coincide with the description of similar structures contained in Italian treatises on fortification dating back to the early 17th century. References to such treatises that were not previously introduced into scientific circulation in Russian historiography are given. It is concluded that some wooden fortifications of the Smolensk Kremlin at the beginning of the 17th century are not related to the earlier fortification complexes described by A. Possevino.