St Nahum of Ohrid, with Scenes from His Life

The central figure is Naum of Ohrid, and the small scenes framing him tell his life story panel by panel, the way an icon does its own kind of storytelling. Naum lived around the year 900 and was one of the students of Cyril and Methodius, the brothers who gave the Slavs their alphabet. After their mission he settled by Lake Ohrid and founded a monastery there, and his tomb became a place people travelled to in hope of a cure, especially for illnesses of the mind. This icon carries the date 1850, and that timing matters. It was made during the Bulgarian National Revival, when the memory of these early Slavic teachers was taken up again as a source of pride and identity by people living under Ottoman rule. The border scenes would have let a viewer who could not read follow the saint's whole life at a single glance.