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five years later, on the occasion of the first Bulgarian Industrial and
Agricultural Exhibition, held at Plovdiv in 1892, the first collective art
exhibition was organised, the productions of the various Bulgarian
artists being exhibited. King Ferdinand is a consistent patron of
Bulgarian art, and has the richest collection of pictures in Bulgaria,
distributed among his palaces at Sofia, Plovdiv, and Varna.
M. Audrey Protitch, in a recent monograph on Bulgarian art (to
which I am indebted for most of the facts above) gives this critical
summary of Bulgarian achievement:
If we exclude historical painting, which, since the early and
specialised attempts of Nicolas Pavlovitch, has been almost entirely
neglected in Bulgaria, Bulgarian artists have tried their hand at almost
every form of art. Ethnographical pictures, national scenes, pictures of
military subjects, landscapes, interiors, flower pieces, animals, portraits,
icons, allegories, mythical subjects, ruins, architecture—all these are fully
represented in the art gallery of the National Museum, and have figured
in nearly all the art exhibitions. The first place among these varieties is
held by landscapes, genre, and portraits, whether in oil, water-colour,
or pastel. The weak point of Bulgarian artists is undoubtedly undraped
figures, especially undraped feminine figures, the only exception being
Stephan Ivanoff, who however abandoned this class of work to become
the best icon-painter in Bulgaria.
Bulgarian art may be called national only as regards its contents, but
neither in form nor technique. As we have already said, the subjects are
taken from Bulgarian scenery or from peasant and town life. The sense of
human form is gradually developing, with the exception of the feminine
body, which remains proscribed by public taste. This last circumstance
accounts, to a great extent, for the low level of sculpture in Bulgaria.
Decorative art is making rapid strides, owing to the great amount of
building going on during recent years. Artistic form and technique are
in a transitional phase, all the younger artists waging war against the
traditional and conventional styles and the foreign influences that have
hitherto hindered the free development of art in Bulgaria, and striving to
evolve forms more in conformity with the contents of Bulgarian art.
About Bulgarian literature I can say nothing—lacking a guidance
of a competent critic or a knowledge of the language—except that
it is ambitious and aspiring. But it can hardly be expected that a
language which is, after all, but a dialect of Russian should ever
produce a great literature. The Bulgarian national pride is so strong
that probably there will never be a movement to make Russian the
literary language of the people; but in that would seem to be the best
hope of a Bulgarian literature.
Chapter XI
How Bulgaria is Governed
To attempt to describe how Bulgaria is governed is to enter
inevitably into the realms of controversy. In theory the system of
government is purely democratic: and many Bulgarians are confident
that the practice follows the theory closely. Personally I have my
doubts. The working of a fully democratic constitution seems to be
tempered a great deal by the aristocratic powers reserved to the King
in Council at times of crisis: and this tempering is probably necessary.
The ancient Bulgarian system of government was without a
doubt the despotic tribal system of nomads. Under Turkish rule, the
territory of Bulgaria was administered as the Vilayet of the Danube
under a Turkish Pasha; and not always badly administered as is
proved by the fact that Bulgarian industry and thrift was allowed to
raise the province into the most flourishing one of Turkey-in-Europe.
But until the Treaty of Paris in 1856, Turkey had no real political
organisation. Being a theocratic state, all her public institutions
emanated from the Kaliph, as the representative of Mohammed.
The Koran took the place of civil and criminal law, and the duty of
its ministers was to punish all those who broke its commandments.
Every parish had a “cadi,” who was appointed by the spiritual
chief. The cadi concentrated in his hands all jurisdictions, judging
without appeal cases, civil and criminal, and observing no fixed
rules of procedure in the application of the few principles which the
Koran contained on the subject of civil relations. In certain special
cases, the Sheik-ul-Islam of Constantinople, the highest religious
tribunal in Turkey, had the right to revise the decisions of the
cadis. At the Congress of Paris, Turkey, as one of the participating
parties, was admitted into the concert of European Powers. Then
civil tribunals were for the first time created in Turkey. In 1867 they
were introduced in the Vilayet of the Danube by the then Governor-
General, Midhat Pasha. In 1877 the Russians liberated Bulgaria
from the Turks. After the Treaty of Berlin Prince Dondoukoff-
Korsakoff framed a provisional system of government for Bulgaria.
Then a Russian law professor, Gradovsky, with the help of
General Domontovity, framed a constitution for Bulgaria. This was
based upon the commune being, as in Russia, the organic unit of
administrative control, and was aristocratic rather than democratic in