For generations of Bulgarians, the 1894 painting Rachenitsa by Czech artist Jan Mrkvička embodies the Bulgarian spirit. When in 2008 a smaller version of the painting appeared at an auction, it sold for 75
For generations of Bulgarians, the 1894 painting Rachenitsa by Czech artist Jan Mrkvička embodies the Bulgarian spirit. When in 2008 a smaller version of the painting appeared at an auction, it sold for 75,000 euros, becoming the most expensive piece of Bulgarian art at the time.
The fact that it was created by a foreigner does not bother the Bulgarians. They consider Mrkvička one of their own.
Jan Mrkvička (1856-1938) was one of the Middle European architects, scientists, artists and industrialists who came to newly-independent Bulgaria after 1879 to help with the building of the country's infrastructure, institutions, and culture. Many of them were Czechs. Historian Konstantin Jireček travelled around the country, wrote the first Bulgarian scholarly history and was even a minister of education. The brothers Hermengild and Karel Škorpil laid the foundation of Bulgaria's archaeology and museums. Another pair of brothers, Jiří and Bogdan Prošek, worked on Sofia's urban planning, built the Eagle and Lion bridges, and founded a printing press and a brewery in the capital.
Jan Mrkvička arrived in 1881 at the invitation of the government of the autonomous Ottoman province of Eastern Rumelia, and taught art there until he moved to Sofia in 1889. Mrkvička fell in love with Bulgaria and its people, and devoted his art to its traditions and way of life. He painted markets still rich with their Ottoman past, weddings, beautiful girls in traditional attire, Gypsies. Mrkvička created the first fine arts school in the country, illustrated the first edition of Pod Igoto, or Under the Yoke, the seminal novel by the writer Ivan Vazov, and painted The Virgin Mary, Jesus and Ss Cyril and Methodius on the icon doors of St Alexandr Nevskiy Cathedral. Together with another Czech, the archaeologist and first director of the Archaeology Museum Václav Dobruský, he created Sofia's first coat of arms.
Rachenitsa is his most famous creation, and justly so. It is more than a rendition of the past, and even what this Bulgarian dance stands for. It is a meditation on the essence of dance. The two main figures look ethereal, lost in their movements, oblivious to physical strain, and to the presence of the onlookers and the world outside. Surrounded by people, they are alone with the music and the dance.
Works of art evoking a rich inner life inevita