5 Leva

Bulgaria contracted the American Bank Note Company for this series during a period of acute postwar financial strain — the country had emerged from the First World War on the losing side, stripped of territory under the Treaty of Neuilly in 1919 and burdened with heavy reparations that put sustained pressure on the lev throughout the early 1920s. Sending the work to New York rather than a European printer was partly a practical decision; domestic facilities were inadequate, and the established continental houses were themselves recovering from wartime disruption.

Kozhouharov and Gyudzhenov were both serious figures in Bulgarian art — Gyudzhenov in particular had trained in Munich and was one of the more prominent painters of his generation. Their involvement in banknote design was unusual for the period, when most issuers relied entirely on the printer's own design staff.