Until the Balkan Wars, with few exceptions, Bulgarian artists were only witnesses of the wars, without participating in them. It was only then that a small number of them encountered war – not so much as mobilized soldiers, but rather as volunteers, they were ordinary privates (G. Evstatiev, Iv. Radinov, S. Velkov, H. Tachev, A. Donkov, Zh. Spiridonov, etc.) and, more rarely, as officers (Second Lieutenants Yakim Banchev, Al. Milenkov, Hr. Petrov, P. Morozov, N. Marinov, M. Georgiev, A. Rosenthal).
Despite existing claims that there are almost no artistic traces of the Balkan Wars, accuracy and historical fairness require to note that in the National Museum of Military History alone there are preserved more than 90 paintings and over 400 works — in watercolour, ink, chalk, pencil, pastel from the Balkan Wars by artists such as Y. Banchev, S. Velkov, Yar. Veshin, G. Evstatiev, A. Iliev, H. Iliev, A. Mitov, Al. Mutafov, P. Pavlov, Zh. Scott, Hr. Stanchev, Al. Baklarov, M. Baltov, B. Denev, Vl. Dimitrov – The Master, V. Zakharyev, P. Morozov, K. Skotunov, St. Stamatov, K. Shtarkelov, V. Dimov, and others, as well as sculptures by Iv. Lazarov, M. Mihaylov, D. Hadzhiivanov, etc.
No matter how much a hint of calm can be felt in some works from the war, mainly landscapes, it is a strange, stolen calm, capturing a fragment of a peaceful day, saturated with special expectation. The Balkan Wars did not entirely destroy the remnants of romanticism in artistic depictions of war in the name of ideals and in the works is conveyed a feeling of victory, sometimes jubilant and all-consuming, so that the sacrifices appear acceptable. But even in the battle scenes of Yaroslav Veshin, often accused of being too ceremonial, the cruelty and senselessness of war seize at first glance. Its rejection is absolute in the paintings of A. Mitov, elevated to a symbol in “The Fallen for the Fatherland”, or in the sorrow, overflowing into pain, carved into the faces of the heroes of Vl. Dimitrov – The Master.
The First World War confronted artists face to face with a different brutal, all-encompassing, unlike any before war and point-blank shot the tranquillity, spirituality, and lyricism of everything familiar. Due to the high mobilization tension and the tasks related to propaganda and raising the spirit of army, for the first time in our history there are so many artists at the front.
In the few existing publications, all artists who took part in the war have been unjustifiably referred to as “war.” Even the few authors who touched upon the subject have not paid attention. Since in the archival documents created by the Headquarters of the Active Army and the War Ministry, the term “war artist” was used only for a few artists, its semantic scope requires clarification.
In a broad sense, of course, artists who produced professionally executed and aesthetically valuable works depicting military subjects and scenes may, with some reservations, be defined as military. However, in official military documents, the term was used in a precise sense, distinguishing between the few officially designated “war artists” and the rest, who were mobilized and also created war-themed art while at the front. In the mentioned documents, the term “war artist” was used only to those appointed as war artists in the Headquarters of the Active Army (B. Denev, G. Evstatiev, and D. Gyudzhenov) and the artists of the eleven infantry divisions, the Cavalry, the Composite and the Mountain Divisions. All of them, even when some of them were already serving in the army, including as artists, were explicitly reappointed to the position of “war artist.”
When talking about the genesis of the concept and the position of “war artist,” we inevitably reache to Yaroslav Veshin — the first major representative of battle art in Bulgaria, whose war-themed works are part of the National Museum of Military History’s collection. In 1904, after resigning from his teaching post at the State Drawing School, he was appointed artist at the Ministry of War, while also serving until the end of his life as the official court painter of Tsar Ferdinand I. Although the majority of his works bear a ceremonial tone, influenced by this dual role, Veshin left behind unsurpassed masterpieces of battle painting from the fronts of the Balkan Wars. Yet in its pure form, the position of “war artist” in Bulgaria was born during the First World War. As Yar. Veshin was unable to fulfil his duties, the Ministry of War announced a competition for Chief War artist of the Headquarters of the Active Army. The artists B. Denev, P. Morozov, D. Gyudzhenov, N. Kozhuharov, B. Mitov, and St. Stamatov competed for the position. The choice fell on the graduate of the Munich Academy of Fine Arts Boris Denev.
In the military press, the decision for competition was described as timely, because Bulgaria’s history, rich in patriotic episodes “lies in darkness” for the wider public due to the absence of paintings. The lack of war artists, according to the writer K. Ernak, was a problem “even in the most cultured countries.” He continued: “A war artist, without combat experience, would have to torture his imagination to depict a battle,” and he urged that the Chief War artist be chosen from artists who had participated in the Balkan Wars.