French Institute Opens Double Exhibition Dedicated to M.R. Stefanik

Bratislava, April 24 (TASR) - A double exhibition - Bonjour Monsieur Stefanik and Milan Rastislav Stefanik: A Great Slovak and European Diplomat - was opened at the gallery of the French Institute in Bratislava on Wednesday, marking the 100th anniversary of Stefanik's death this year. The Milan Rastislav Stefanik: A Great Slovak and European Diplomat exhibition was prepared by the Foreign and European Affairs Ministry and created by diplomat, historian, publicist and globetrotter Miroslav Musil, who has been dedicated to figures from Slovak culture and politics for decades. It presents Stefanik on 12 posters dealing with his various roles, including as an astronomer, a diplomatic envoy for France, a pilot, a meteorologist, the creator of a diplomatic strategy for the founding of Czechoslovakia, a recruiter of the Czechoslovak legions in Italy, Russia, Romania and the USA, and a campaigner for recognition of the Czechoslovak army, the Czechoslovak National Council and Czechoslovakia itself. "The main intention is to stress that Stefanik really was a founder of Czechoslovakia," Musil told TASR. The Bonjour Monsieur Stefanik art exhibition showcases Paul Gauguin's wood carvings drawing on Stefanik's observations of Halley's Comet in Tahiti in 1910, along with a series of contemporary paintings by Noemi Kolcak-Szakall inspired by period photographs and a fictitious encounter between Gauguin and Stefanik. am/df