For several centuries, the Maniavsky Skete played the role of a significant sacred, cultural, and defensive centre of the region. The first two factors have been studied quite thoroughly, but the third one has been neglected by scholars. Therefore, the study of the defence system of the sacred abode is quite relevant. Its study can help to reconstruct the appearance of the complex, the location and planning of the main structural elements, especially since the monastery is listed in the State Register of Immovable Monuments of Ukraine as an architectural monument of national importance under the number 239/0, as well as its individual buildings: the gate tower (No. 239/1), the treasury (No. 239/2), the defensive tower and walls (No. 239/3), and the refectory (No. 2394).
The article is aimed at clarifying the structural units, historical architectural and functional type, typology by the method of fortification, location features (in the landscape environment, in the hydrographic environment, in the urban environment), as well as outlining the architectural and fortification features of the defensive monastery complex.
Based on the results of the study of iconographic, cartographic sources and field surveys, the article examines the planning structure of defensive structures and fortifications and the fortification system of the encastled complex of the Holy Cross Monastery of Skete Maniavskyi, founded in the forest of the Carpathian foothills on the lands of the village of Maniava in the Galician district of the Galician land of the Ruthenian Voivodeship in the late Middle Ages as a monastery of Orthodox hermit monks.
Biblioteka Narodowa, 1908. Skit Manawski obok Solotwiny, Sygnatura Poczt. 11014. [online]. Avialiable at:<https://polona.pl/item/15176729/0/> [Accessed 01 December 2023].
Mokłowski, T., 1915. Skit w Maniawe na podstawie badań dokonanych latem w roku 1911. Sprawozdania Komisyi do Badania Historyi Sztuki w Polsce. T. 9. Z. 1-4. s.
Skit Manawski. 1905. Приватна колекція П. Арсенича.
Talowski, M., 1906. Skit maniawski. Sprawozdania Grona C. K. Konserwatorow Gal. Wsch. Teka III. Lwow. №44-51.
Wagilewicz, J., 1848. Monastyr skit w Maniawie. Lwow: druk. In-tu Stauropig.
Babii, V., 2000. Castles of the Bohorodchany region: a historical essay. Ivano-Frankivsk.
Vvedenskyi, O., comp., 2012. Lviv and Galicia in the lithographs of Karl Auer. Lviv: Tsentr Yevropy.
Holovatyi, M., 2008. Manyavsky Skete. 2008. List of sights of Ivano-Frankivsk region. Bohorodchany district. Ivano-Frankivsk: Lileia-NV, pp. 183-197.
Koval, I., 1999. Researcher of the underground archive of Ukraine. Halych-Lviv: Misioner.
Kuhutiak, M., 2013. The History of the Great Skete as a Scientific Problem. Galicia (Ivano-Frankivsk). Part 22-23, pp. 455-471.
Malaniuk, T. Z., 2013. Defensive and sacred architecture of the Prykarpattia region in the XIII-XVIII c. Karpatskyi krai, № 1.pp. 27-33.
Myroniuk I., Fihlevskyi M. 2008. Skete Maniavskyi. Ivano-Frankivsk: Lileia-NV.
Design proposals for the reconstruction of the Maniavsky Skete. Private archive of Z. Sokolowski.
Skrypnyk, I., 1996. Essays on the history of the Maniavsky Skete. Bogorodchany.
Fridrikh fon Mih, 1779-1782. Map of the principalities of Galicia and Volodymeria (based on the results of the first military mapping survey of the Austrian Empire, М: 1 : 28 800. m. Viden.
Tselevych, Y., 1887. History of the Maniavsky Skete from its foundation to its closure (1611-1785). Lviv.