Sacred landscape: classification and interpretation

The given research has an interdisciplinary character, as it covers a wide range of issues related to various scientific disciplines: geography, social theory, culture, philosophical anthropology. An essential part of the sacred space belongs to religious objects, but among the tools of sacralization one can distinguish a myth, symbolization, an event that gives the landscape an extremely valuable value. The article deals with the sacred landscape as a natural, naturally-anthropogenic or anthropogenic system, associated with certain life symbols, myths, significant events, religious feelings, it is of tremendous value for a person or group of people and it needs special respect and protection.As a result of scientific developments, a deep analysis of scientific sources concerning the classification of sacral landscapes has been carried out. The author's interpretation and classification scheme of the sacred landscape is presented and substantiated.The systematic approach to the study of sacred landscapes as a holistic organized territorial system and a set of methods is used in this work, in particular: structural-logical generalization and system analysis, comparative-geographical and historical-geographical ones.Sacred landscapes can be classified according to the following features: the level of organization, temporal variability, genesis. By the level of organization, it is possible to distinguish individual, local, regional, national and global sacred landscapes. The landscapes of all these levels of organization may have relatively equal areas, but their impact on people is different. The greater is the radius of influence of the cult territorial system per person the higher is level of its organization.For temporal variability, sacred landscapes should be classified into paleocultural and historical-cultural. Paleocultural landscapes were important for the people in the past, but with the development of society, religious needs, ideology and culture, which leads to a change of landscape, their spiritual value has been changed. Historical and cultural landscapes can be of a different age, but they are united by the value or holiness for a certain group of people at the present stage of social development.By genesis, the sacred landscape can traditionally be divided into natural and natural- anthropogenic and anthropogenic. Since the difference between the natural and natural-anthropogenic landscape sometimes is not distinct in the context of our research, such territorial systems were considered to be in the same group. Taking into account the origin of the sacred place or object, which are the important components of the sacred landscapes, we recommend to classify this group as: geologically-geomorphological, hydrological, and floral.The markers of anthropogenic sacred landscapes are the cult objects of previous cultures, as well as the objects of architecture and urban building of modern ethnic groups. With the evolution of society, the ideas about the functions and types of such structures, technical and aesthetic solutions have been changed. The classification of religious objects of anthropogenic origin was carried out using the classifier of immovable objects of cultural heritage of Ukraine, which the author has adapted and supplemented. Such sacred objects of architecture and urban building should be categorized according to the following features: functional typology, stylistics, materials of formation, the character of anthropogenic development, the location in the urban structure.The proposed classification scheme is based on the ranking of the signs of territorial systems and their sacred components (territories and objects), which were determined due to the peculiarities of the structure, peculiarity of evolutionary development and functional purpose.Keywords: humanistic geography, sacred landscape, interpretation, classification.