Encyclobanknotes: Bulgaria

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Monday, April 6, 2009

Bulgaria

Bulgaria 20 Leva 1991 UNC
Front: Desislava Sevastokratoritsa
Back: The Boyana Church

A fresco depicting Desislava, a church patron

Desislava of Bulgaria (Bulgarian: Десислава) was the daughter of Tsar Ivan Alexander of Bulgaria and his second wife, a converted Jewess, Theodora. Desislava was a sister of tsar Ivan Shishman, tsar Ivan Sratsimir. Her sister Keratsa-Petritsa was wife of the byzantine emperor Andronikos IV Palaiologos. Desislava' halfsister Kera Tamara was married otoman sultan Murad I.
Desislava married a wallachian prince Constantine.

Boyana Church

The Boyana Church is a medieval Bulgarian Orthodox church situated on the outskirts of Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria, in the Boyana quarter. The east wing of the two-storey church was originally constructed in the late 10th or early 11th century, then the central wing was added in the 13th century under the Second Bulgarian Empire, the whole building being finished with a further expansion to the west in the middle of the 19th century. The church owes its world fame mainly to its frescoes from 1259. They form a second layer over the paintings from earlier centuries and represent one of the most complete and well-preserved monuments of Eastern European mediaeval art. A total of 89 scenes with 240 human images are depicted on the walls of the church. The name of the painter is recently discovered during restoration. The inscription reads: "zograph Vassilii from the village Subonosha, Sersko and his apprentice Dimitar".

Information and Image Obtained From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Bulgaria

Bulgaria 100 Leva 1993
Front: Zahariy Hristovich Dimitrov aka Zahari Zograf
Back: Wheel of Life

Zahariy Hristovich Dimitrov (Bulgarian: Захарий Христович Димитров) (1810–1853), better known as Zahari Zograf (or Zahariy Zograf; Захари(й) Зограф) is arguably the most famous Bulgarian painter of the Bulgarian National Revival, noted for his church mural paintings and icons and often regarded as the founder of secular art in Bulgaria due to the introduction of everyday life elements in his work.

Zahari Zograf was born in the town of Samokov in 1810 and was taught by his brother Dimitar Zograf, with whom he later worked together, as his father died early. A spiritual student of Neophyte of Rila since 1827, he became an equal partner of his brother at the age of 21 in 1831, i.e. he was proclaimed a master.

His best known icons are those of the SS Constantine and Helen Church in Plovdiv, the Church of the Theotokos in Koprivshtitsa, as well as a number of monasteries. Zahari Zograf's best known frescoes are those in the main church of the Rila Monastery, in the chapel and the St Nicholas church of the Bachkovo Monastery, the Troyan Monastery and the Monastery of the Transfiguration. He painted three mural portraits of himself in the latter three, a move that was regarded as controversial during the time.

Zahari Zograf lived and worked on Mount Athos between 1851 and 1852, where he decorated the outer narthex of the Great Lavra. He also did several church donor's portraits in his later years, also leaving a large number of unrealized sektches after his death from typhus on 14 June 1853.