dfvdfdfd Associate Prof. Ruzha Marinska Dimitar Dobrovich Studio - collection Svetlin Rusev Lectures on Bulgarian Art Dimitar Dobrovich (1816-1905) Associate Prof. Ruzha Marinska 22 April 2014 On the coverpage Self - portrait 1875-1880 Oil on canvas, 45,6 x 36 cm National Gallery Sofia Dimitar Dobrovich (1816-1905) Project An initiative of Bulgarian-European Cultural Dialogue Centre for Bulgarian, New Bulgarian University In honour of the 200th anniversary of the birth of the artist Implemented in partnership with: Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Bulgaria National Art Gallery, Sofia “Dimitar Dobrovich” Art Gallery, Sliven Svetlin Rusev Studio & Collection, Sofia Institute for Mediterranean Studies (IMS), Crete (Greece) With kind support of Mrs Kristalina Georgieva, Vice-President of the European Commission, Brussels Good evening to all! It is a great pleasure for me that Dimitar Dobrovich has gathered such a large audience. I think there is a good reason for this. Dobrovich is really a singular case. I hope that within this lecture I would be able to substantiate this claim. What is most striking in this case is that no one of us would ever be aware that such an artist existed at all if, in his old age, he had not decided to return to his homeland. If this had not happened, the only thing that the more curious among us would now know would be that there was a painter in the 19th century named Dimitrios Domvriadis whose works are now stored at the Athens Pinacotheca and that’s it. Yet fortunately to us, Dimitar Dobrovich decided to return to his homeland which he left when he was in his adolescence. Dimitar Dobrovich was born in 1816 in Sliven. Do pay attention to this date! It is pretty easy to calculate that he was only six years younger than Zahari Zograf. And let us take a look at his self-portrait. It dates back to a different epoch. It speaks of another type of painting school - a European and secular one. He was born in Sliven into the family of a wealthy craftsman and merchant named Georgi (some- times his name is mistaken - Georgi was the name of the father). He was orphaned at the age of 11. Sometime later the troops of Dibic Zadbalkanski arrived in Sliven. They entered the town and were welcomed as liberators. But in 1830 the Edirne Peace Treaty was signed and Dibic Zadbalkanski (who was German by descent 3 Spinner, ca 1875 oil on canvas, 62,4 х 49 „Dimitar Dobrovich“ Art Gallery Sliven 4 but went down in history by that name because he crossed the Balkan Range) was forced to withdraw. Then a considerable part of the Sliven population fled. They feared that on their return the Turks would start persecution and terror. Already an orphan, Dobrovich also fled with his grandparents. The usual course taken was to the North, to the Wallachia region and Romania - in Ploiejti and Brjila. They stayed there for several months. Then word was spread that things had gone back to nor- mal and they could return to their hometown so, taking the road through Ruschuk (present-day Rousse), they returned to Sliven. There Dobrovich took up his father’s occupation and for about two years he was a frieze dealer as he was considered to be quite dexterous. Yet he did not feel at home doing it. Meanwhile, his mother remarried, this time to a man with the surname Pehlivanov, hence the name Dim- itar Dobrovich Pehlivanov. In 1900, already in Bulgaria, he featured in electoral rolls precisely with this name. Otherwise, his stepfather was, to put it mildly, an undesired presence in his life and young Dimitar was eager for an opportunity to embark on his own path. An opportunity presented itself when a business partner of his father, as we would say today, who owed him a considerable sum of money, was in Tsarigrad. So the young man headed for the city. It is believed that this took place in 1833. In Tsarigrad the Vasil Minchovich in question not only gave him the money (he had come to wealth by then) but he also acted as a noble man, giving him the valuable advice to continue his education. So Dobrovich who until then studied at a Greek school in his hometown found himself in the right place in Tsarigrad. This is a re- markable story and it’s not only because there were many Bulgarians there but rather because these Bulgarians were all worthy figures. These Bulgarians held dear some public ideals, what is more, it was namely in the capital city of the Ottoman Empire that they were devising plans of how to topple it. One place of such im- portance in the topography of Tsarigrad was precisely this Korucheshmenska High School in which, as you may notice, Dobrovich studied alongside another three 5 Bulgarians whose names later left lasting traces in Bulgarian history - these were Georgi Sava Rakovski (1821-1867) with whom he shared the same room and whom he helped out of hardships, Sava Dobroplodni (1820-1894) and Gavril Krastevich (1817-1898). They studied in the same class but, more importantly, they were unit- ed not only by their roots (the three of them came from one and the same region of Bulgaria - Sliven and Kotel) but rather by their mutual passion for the fate of their motherland. This would later become the cause to which all of them would devote their lives. But to us it is also of interest to learn that the professors at the Koruchmeshka high school noticed that Dobrovich had a gift for drawing and for being an artist. They encouraged him to develop his skills in this field. But at that time plague broke out in Constantinople and seeing people die in front of his eyes, Dobrovich fled the city. Had he kept a diary, his life story could have been worthy of an adventure novel. His journey to Athens was marked by vicissitudes - he was attacked by pirates at the island of Chios and whatnot. But eventually he set foot in Athens. The year was 1837. With the assistance and at the suggestion of the Great Powers, Athens was already declared capital of the liberated Kingdom. This act was aimed at drawing a connection with the Hellenic antiquity. In other words, as Dobrovich himself wrote in his recollections and as we know from various engravings and other landscapes of that period, Athens at the time was no more than a village. Just to make a com- parison, I can provide the following data - in that period Sliven had a population of 25 thousand people whereas Athens could hardly reach 2,000. Dobrovich himself recalled the outline of those rustic shabby houses packed at the northern side of the Acropolis. But Athens was already the capital of a kingdom. A German prince who was still a minor at the time was elected king - Otto I (1815-1867). I will not quote what has been written about him in history books because this goes outside the current topic. The Greek people did not love him yet he ruled them for 30 long years. However, what they obviously accepted was that this fairly young ruler 6 immediately realized that it was vital to focus all his efforts on the megali idea - the idea of Greater Greece. And that was precisely what he started doing by a series of decrees aimed at establishing Athens as a capital city of modern standards. The two brothers Hans Christian Hansen (1803-1883) and Theophilus von Hansen (1813- 1891), Austrian architects of Dutch origin, were invited to work there as they had outstanding contribution to shaping the modern face of the Greek capital. The construction of the Athens University and the Athens National Observatory took place before Dobrovich’s eyes. Very much in the same vein was another decree of Otto I, declaring the opening of the Royal School of Fine Arts (Polytechnion). This happened on the eve of 1837. And it was precisely during the same year 1837 that Dobrovich arrived in Athens. He was well aware that he had to complete his high-school education and he knew that the path ahead of him was that of an artist. That’s why quite logically he directed himself to that school which initially was not a proper school of arts but I will elaborate on that matter shortly. Let us now go back to the image looking at us from the screen. Usually based on age-related characteristics, experts assume that this self-portrait of Dimitar Do- brovich was painted in the 1870s. You can see how skillful and confident the brush strokes are, how comparable with European painting the style of the artist is. Some- time ago when I decided that my next lecture would be dedicated to Dobrovich, Svetlin Russev told me that this was one of the first works of which he made a copy still as a schoolboy. However, I insist on showing also a photograph published in 1896 in Svetlina journal which, for no obvious reason, the fellow researchers from that period seem to have neglected and not put into use. And to my mind this is a remarkable photograph. It dates back to Dobrovich’s period in Rome. It is impos- sible not to marvel at the nobility and dignity that this image conveys. But this is something that can be attained with age and at the beginning, after the high school in Constantinople, Athens came into his path where he spent 11 years.