The TROYAN Monastery "St. Holy Virgin"

H I S T O R Y A chronicle dates back the foundation of the monastery in the year 1600; nothing but the throne stone of the church remains from that time. The Troyan Monastery belongs comple- tely to the Bulgarian National Revival period. In 1872 Vassil Levski set up here a secret revolutionary committee, which was joined by all the monks headed by the Father Superior Macarius. Four years later, the monastery become a citadel of the 1876 April Uprising.  P A I N T I N G    A N D    W O O D C A R V I N G Fortunately, most of the great works of National Revival art have survived. The iconostasis of the main church which was made in 1839 is a masterpiece of woodcarving. Amazing in its originality, is the much earlier carving of the holy altar gates in the St. Nikola Chapel. The Troyan Monastery, is known for the creative work of Zahary Zograph who painted both the exterior and interior of the main church (a rare practice for the time) built in 1835. Besides, he painted a completely secular group portrait of the monastic bro- therhood in the refectory - something highly unusual for the time.

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Here, Zahary Zograph repeated the social and moral "experiments" in religious painting ( the compositions Doomsday and the Wheel of Life), left his second self-portrait signed with amazing self confidence in spite of the Ottoman bondage, and painted the figures of Bulgarian and Russian saints. Particularly valuable among the multitude of manuscripts and inconabula are the so-called Troyan Homilies of 17th century. The monastery's "printery" in which fine graphic works, including many landscapes, were made, was widely known.

BULGARIAN MONASTERIES

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