While in Paris, Ivan Bilibin, with the assistance of his close friend, writer Evgeny Chirikov, meets with the Czech translator and propagandist of Russian culture František Taborsky. Taborsky was the first in the Czech Republic to pay attention to Bilibin’s illustrations already in 1902. The fascination with them prompted František Taborsky in the 1920s to translate a number of fairy tales and epics designed by Bilibin. These Prague editions were almost an exact reproduction of the famous Saint Petersburg editions of the 1900s.

Bilibin himself, who was living in Paris at the time, found out about it quite by accident and wanted to resolve the issue of his fee, which prompted him to write a letter to Taborsky:

A year later, on March 29, 1905, the premiere of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s opera “The Snow Maiden” took place at the Prague National Theater, for which Bilibin was commissioned sketches of costumes and scenery. In 1910, Czech translations of Russian fairy tales and epics were published for the first time, accompanied by Bilibin’s illustrations. They were warmly noted by Czech critics.

In 1925, the construction of the Russian Orthodox Church was completed at the Olšany Cemetery in Prague; the representative office of the construction cooperative commissioned Bilibin to create sketches of frescoes and mosaics for it. This order coincided with the invitation of the artist to organize an exhibition of his works in Prague. The exhibition was open from April 15 to April 30, 1927, during this period Bilibin himself was also present. The introductory article to the catalog was written by Taborsky. Numerous critical reviews were focused primarily on Bilibin’s illustrations of Russian fairy tales and epics and other works reminiscent of folk art, such as sketches of stage design for the operas “Sadko”, “Ruslan and Lyudmila”, “Boris Godunov”, and the play “The Power of Darkness”. The exhibition also featured finely executed realistic landscapes of Crimea, Palestine and Egypt, as well as sketches of frescoes for the Novgorod State Bank.

Newspapers and magazines gave excellent reviews of his works, which is close to all Slavs, and the monthly magazine DILO even devoted almost the entire issue to Bilibin’s art.