Νέος Αριστοφάνης (New Aristophanes): Eastern Rumelia Crisis

This hand-colored lithograph depicts the 1885–86 Eastern Rumelia crisis, when Bulgaria sought to annex the Ottoman province. The scene stages a military farce: soldiers, officials, and anthropomorphic beasts—a lion wearing a fez, a bear in imperial dress—cavort by a river amid barrels and cannons. The composition lampoons the Great Powers' competing interests and Ottoman weakness through visual absurdity and caricatural exaggeration of national types. Descended from Gillray and Rowlandson's political prints, this Greek satirical sheet exemplifies the Bilderbogen tradition: dense, allegorical, and accessible to mass audiences. The classical allusion to Aristophanes—ancient comedy's political satirist—claims continuity with antiquity while addressing contemporary Balkan upheaval.