„First Lady“

This is the first attested Bulgarian „queen“, the sister of Georgi Sursuvul, the second wife of Simeon the Great. For me, it was a journey through time that took me back to the distant years of the 10th century. I found interesting chronicle about Preslav Church-People’s Council from the time of the First Bulgarian Kingdom when the Cyrillic alphabet was adopted for parallel use. As a girl, I wondered what it was to be a woman at those age, when there were no emancipation and #metoo movements on Facebook and Instagram. Then women were „paid less“ for their work and chroniclers often didn’t bother to record their names, although they stood side by side to kings and emperors. And I came across a curious reference book  „The First Ladies of Medieval Bulgaria“ by Prof. Plamen Pavlov. The historian from Veliko Tarnovo University has included portraits of 119 women – not only queens and princesses, but also sisters and mothers of rulers. So my artwork emphasizes the image of women and their contribution to the development of the economy, culture, enlightenment and religious ideas in those distant times.

Technique: print

Size: 50/70 см