The City Casino in Sofia, today the address of the Sofia City Art Gallery, is one of those focal points where the cultural life of the capital has been concentrated since the first half of the past century. From a topos of writers’ gatherings, dramatic and musical performances and charity carnivals, to a stage of the most spectacular balls in the city, the Casino is also the place where the first Miss Bulgaria was formally chosen. It happened on 31 January 1929, shortly after midnight. The present exhibition is a kind of a documentary about that first beauty contest, arranged by the initiative of Le Journal, a Parisian newspaper that operated as a chief promoter for choosing Miss Europe, under the auspices of the French Union of Artists. Who was our first winner, how was she chosen, what were the rules of the contest, how many were the contestants, who were the runners-up of the First Beauty? And still, what happened when Miss Bulgaria appeared on the big stage in Paris, what kind of reception did she get, what did she reveal in her interview for the French press? When did she return to Bulgaria and how did the Bulgarian public respond to her success? And last but not least — who were the figures who made the choice of Miss Bulgaria and who was the Bulgarian member of the jury that determined Miss Europe in Paris? These are no more than a small part of the questions that are answered by the exhibition.
“A Story from the City Casino of Sofia” is also an occasion to talk about the role of the media in documenting our own present that would enable us to regain the knowledge about this present when it will be defined in its turn as a past. It is precisely the newspapers of 1929 with the scores of publications on their pages, along with the documentary evidence, that enable us to revive the story about the first woman in our country who won the high title, to correct the mistakes that have accumulated with years, and throw light on some forgotten facts about this outstanding and milestone event of our history of women’s beauty that is a confirmation of Bulgaria’s visible footprint on the paneuropean scene, even at this cultural level.
Not least important, the visual documentary arranged in Dechko Uzunov Gallery acquaints us with works of eminent Bulgarian artists revealing their attitude to female beauty — the reason they were invited to join the jury for the Miss Bulgaria contest in 1929. The exhibition is also an opportunity to see the Andrey Nikolov’s Portrait of Elena Nigrita — a work that hasn’t been shown for decades. The sculptor — “the master of marble”, as he was referred to by his contemporaries — would personally appeal from the first page of Zora newspaper in 1929: „Let our maidens beat their shyness and present themselves at the announced contest for a Belle of Europe. There are, undoubtedly, many young Bulgarian beauties, and if all of them come and give us the opportunity to choose the prettiest of the pretty, it is not impossible that a Bulgarian may become the Belle of Europe — and this would be a great honour to our homeland.”