COLUMNS from the Director 4 Events 5 COMMENT Mikhail Piotrovsky On
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COLUMNS PLACE
From the director 4 52 Yuri Zinin on the culture of hammam
Events 5
FILM
COMMENT 56 Vika Smirnova on Iranian film
Mikhail Piotrovsky on the culture of Islam 8
REVIEWS
COLLECTIONS 58 Chris Gordon on Abbas Kiarostami
Ada Adamova on Nizami’s ‘Khamsa’ 10 59 Jaakko Rustanius on Time of the Storytellers
Elena Tsareva on prayer rugs 14 60 Maria Korostoleva on Soviet and Nazi Propaganda
Nasser D. Khalili on the Khalili Collection 16
SPOTLIGHT
ART AND MONEY 62 Stefano Carboni on Venice and Islam
Sergey Skaterschikov on investing in the art of Islam 18 PREVIEW
64 The tent of the Emir of Bukhara at the Hermitage THE WRITTEN WORD 66 Dmitry Ozerkov on the Hermitage 20/21 project Louis Werner on the m anuscripts of the Sahara 20 67 Matt Brown speaks with Charles Saatchi Sergey Kozin interviews Slavoj Zizek 24 69 Celebrating Eimuntas Nekrosius Robert Irwin on Scheherazade 26 70 Boris Godunov rediscovered Efim Rezvan on the Uthman Qur’an 28
LISTINGS ARCHITECTURE 73 International exhibitions diary Alexander Rappaport on the architecture of St. Petersburg 30 77 Important sales and events
The St. Petersburg Mosque 32
Andreas Tölke interviews Zaha Hadid 34 MY HERMITAGE
78 Oleg Grabar recalls a first visit to the Hermitage
TERRA INCOGNITA
Christine Martens on Central Asian textiles 38 CHILDREN’S PAGE
Polina Fomina on the whirling dervishes of Turkey 42 Anastasia Zlatopolskaya 80 on shadow theatre in Istanbul The hat as status symbol in Anatolia 44
Maryam Rezvan on Islamic talismans 46 Cover: Glazed earthenware tile, Ottoman Empire, AH 1118 (AD 1706). Courtesy the Benaki Museum, Athens. RETROSPECTIVE This page, from top: Loggia, Palazzo Ducale, St. Marks, Venice. Bibi Seshanbe ceremony, Bukhara, Uzbekistan pho- Mikhail Piotrovsky tographed by Christine Martens. Zaha Hadid photographed and Efim Rezvan in conversation 48 by Steve Double. The St. Petersburg mosque photographed by Mikhail Borisov. Adam Cvijanovic, Love Poem (10 Efim Rezvan on the SOYCE expedition to Yemen 50 minutes after the end of gravity), detail, 2005, Flashe and housepaint on Tyvek, 426.7 x 228.6 cm. Courtesy the Saatchi Gallery, London. ¥02 08/10/07 12:19 Page 2
CONTRIBUTORS
Mikhail Piotrovsky Polina Fomina GUEST EDITORS is the Director of the Hermitage is a journalist and anthropologist working Museum; member of the Russian in television and author Efim A. Rezvan Deputy Director of the Peter Academy of Science; full member of the of a weekly column in Vecherneye the Great Museum of Russian Academy of Arts; Deputy Vremya. Anthropology and Ethnography Chairman of the President’s Council for (Kunstkamera), member of the Art and Culture; Professor at St. Maryam Rezvan Russian Academy of Sciences; Petersburg State University; and is an oriental scholar and researcher at Editor-in-Chief of ‘Manuscripta Chairman of the union of Russian the Peter the Great Museum of Orientalia’, International Journal Museums. Anthropology and Ethnography for Oriental Manuscript (Kunstkamera), managing editor of Research; Professor at the Ada Adamova Manuscripta Orientalia. Oriental Faculty and Faculty of is an art historian and Head Researcher Philosophy, St. Petersburg State of the Oriental Department of the Yuri Zinin University. He is the author of Hermitage Museum. Keeper of the is a journalist and orientalist with RIA dozens of research works published in Russian, English, Arabic, Iranian collection and author of numer- Novosti and was the chief representative French, German, Italian, Persian, Finnish, Uzbek and Japanese. ous books and articles on Persian paint- of the news agency in Algeria, Iraq, ing, she has organised several exhibitions Tunesia, Israel and the UAE. on the art of Iran. Oleg Grabar Professor Emeritus at the Vika Smirnova Institute for Advanced Study in Elena Tsareva is a film critic and cultural the School of Historical Studies is a scientific researcher at the Peter the researcher who is a frequent Princeton. His research has had Great Museum of Anthropology and contributor to Teatralny Peterburg and a profound and far-reaching Ethnography (Kunstkamera). She is a spe- Iskusstvo Kino. influence on the study of Islamic cialist in early textiles and organiser of art and architecture. His exten- seminars. Christopher Gordon sive archaeological expeditions is an independent curator and journalist and research trips have covered Louis Werner who has worked with major museums the vast expanse of the Islamic is a freelance writer and documentary and galleries internationally. world in Africa, the Middle East, filmmaker living and working in New and Muslim Asia. York. Jaakko Rustanius is an artist, writer and curator based in Sergey Kozin Helsinki. Nasser D. Khalili Associate Research Professor, is a translator and Biblical researcher, and and Member of the Governing Editor-in-chief of Germenevtika publish- Maria Korostoleva Body at the School of Oriental ing house. is head of programs and exhibitions at and African Studies at London the Akhmatova Museum in St. Petersburg University. He is a scholar, col- Anastasia Grib as well as an independent curator and lector and benefactor of inter- is an orientalist, critic, journalist and play- critic. national standing and has wright and creator of an Internet project assembled, under the auspices dedicated to Muslim calligraphy. Matt Brown of the Khalili Family Trust, a is a journalist and editor. Former arts number of impressive art col- Alexander Rappaport editor of The St. Petersburg Times lections in a broad range of is a well-known philosopher and special- and now its deputy editor, Matt fields including the world’s most ist in the history of architecture. He cur- frequently appears on the international important colletion of Islamic Art. rently divides his time between the media to discuss Russian United Kingdom, Russia and Latvia. life and culture. Author of the book 99 Letters on Art, in Stefano Carboni Art historian and Oriental which he examines the material of others Tatiana Fyodorova scholar, Curator and without being bound by the strict dis- is a photographer, member of Administrator in Charge of the course of art history, he offers new intel- Kunstkamera expeditions and has Metropolitan Museum’s lectual approaches and viewpoints. exhibited her work in Finland, Department of Islamic Art Greece and Russia. Mikhail Borisov is the Chief Editor of Pod Klyuch maga- John Varoli zine, an itinerant photographer and foot- is the arts correspondent in Russia for ball fan. Bloomberg News and the Art Newspaper. Born and raised just outside Andreas Tölke of New York City, he has lived in Russia is a Berlin-based independent writer in since 1992. the fields of art, architecture, and design. Robert Irwin He is a contributor to such publications Dmiitry Ozerkov is a writer and scholar who has taught Arabic and Middle Eastern history at Oxford, as Elle Décor, Madame, Marie Claire is Curator of Contemporary Art and the Cambridge and London universities. Irwin is the author of numerous specialised Maison, and Welt am Sonntag among 20/21 project at the Hermitage Museum studies of Middle Eastern politics, art and mysticism as well as novels including The others. and has published on such diverse topics Arabian Nightmare. as Freud, Miró, the Russian avant-garde, Christine Martens and Spanish art of the 70th century. Slavoj Zizek is a NY-based independent researcher is a Slovenian sociologist, postmodern philosopher and cultural critic. He is profes- and has contributed to Hali magazine and Anastasia Zlatopolskaya sor at the Institute for Sociology, Ljubljana and at the European Graduate School in other publications. As a 2008 Fulbright is a photo-correspondednt working in Saas-Fee, Switzerland. Over the last 20 years Zizek has participated in more than Scholar she is documenting the relation- Istanbul and has made films and 350 international philosophical, psychoanalytical and cultural-criticism symposiums ship between textiles and the Islamic oral exhibitions about Russian around the world and is the author of numerous publications. tradition in Central Asia. immigration in Turkey. ¥04 08/10/07 11:26 Page 4
ISLAM IS ALWAYS WITH US
In today’s Europe Islam is usually assumed to be an alien and inimical Editorial Board Mikhail Piotrovsky (chairman), power which threat- Derk Sauer, Geraldine Norman, Michael Maltzoff (founder) Guest editors Stefano Carboni, Oleg Grabar, Nasser D. Khalili, Efim Rezvan ens western civilisa- Executive Editor of the English version Christopher Gordon tion. This image is, in Editor Joseph Pugh the main, due to Translator Alexey Moskin Managing Editor of the Russian version Anastasia Grib Western paranoia. Assistant Editor Zoya Necheporenko Islam has long been a Photographers Anastasia Zlatopolskaya, Tatyana Fedorova part of Mediterranean Designer Nadezhda Timofeeva civilisation and today Proofreader Olga Abramovich Hermitage magazine typefaces is an important part of Ilya Ruderman, exclusively for Hermitage Magazine 2006 the daily life of many Special thanks to Nurhan Atasoy countries in Europe Thanks and acknowledgements Jane Lombard, Richard E. Doughty, Geraldine Norman, Liubov Kudryavseva, Annabel Fallon, Valerie Engler, Rod Macneil, and in America. In Russia, Islam was and is the religion and Mohameden Ahmed Salem, Laetitia Sadier, Timo Vartiainen, Milla Unkilla, Nicolas the way of life of significant parts of its population (Siberia, Iljine, Tobin Auber, Stefania Patrini, Sawaya & Moroni spa, Roger Howie, Davide Volga, the Northern Caucuses). The ‘exotic’ element of Giordano, Zaha Hadid Architects, Musei Civici Veneziani, Tatyana Fedorova, Dmitry Ozerkov, Elena Getmanskaya, Oxana Tokranova, Mikhail Borisov Islam lends diversity to our culture but there are, in fact, fewer fundamental differences than with Buddhism or Founding Company The State Hermitage Museum Confucianism The task of a universal museum such as the Publishing Company OOO ‘Neva Media’ Hermitage is to help different cultures to understand each CEO Derk Sauer General Director Tatiana Turikova other. Mass culture also helps in this respect. Production Manager Alla Kalinovskaya Commercial Director Elina Kunikeeva Everyday Islamic culture - talismans, spells, amulets on Advertising Manager Yana Ermakova Marketing and public relations Maria Berntseva walls in houses and on car windows - exist on the periph- Financial Manager Anna Kuzmina ery of true culture, at the limits of real alchemy, and we Hermitage is part of Independent Media Sanoma Magazines can believe in it because it is alive and humane, it is sincere www.hermitagemagazine.com and naïve. And it can stand up to Western pop-culture www.hermitagemagazine.ru Published quarterly. Circulation 25, 000. Printing Cvetprint Ltd. because it does not adapt. It will either die or actively "ÉÓÒÛ‰‡ÒÚ‚ÂÌÌ˚È ùÏËÚ‡Ê": ҂ˉÂÚÂθÒÚ‚Ó èà ‹îë77-25064 ‚˚‰‡ÌÓ 20.07.2006 θÌÓÈ ÒÎÛÊ·ÓÈ ÔÓ Ì‡‰ÁÓÛ Á‡ Òӷβ‰ÂÌËÂÏ Á‡ÍÓÌÓ‰‡ÚÂθÒÚ‚‡ resist. It can offer to the world, and already does, an alter- ‚ ÒÙ χÒÒÓ‚˚ı ÍÓÏÏÛÌË͇ˆËÈ Ë Óı‡Ì ÍÛθÚÛÌÓ„Ó Ì‡ÒΉËfl. native to sushi and McDonald’s; the culture of coffee, àÁ‰‡eÚÒfl ˜ÂÚ˚ ‡Á‡ ‚ „Ó‰. "The State Hermitage". Federal srevice on Supervision of Observance of the Legislation in the Sphere of waterpipes and traditional bathhouses - hammams. The Mass Communications and Safeguarding of the Cultural Heritage, registartion PI N FS-77-25064 of July 20, 2006. music world is full of popular Turkish and Arabic music Address: 4 St. Isaac's Sq., St. Petersburg, Russia 190000 and Iranian films are already part of the treasure house of Tel./fax+7(812)325 6080 International mailing address: P.O. Box 8, SF-53501, Lappeenranta, Finland world cinema. E-mail: [email protected] Copyright 2006. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission is strictly prohibited. Every effort has been made to contact All of this is combined with the drift towards the increas- copyright holders. The publishers apologize for any omissions, which they will be pleased to rectify at the earliest opportunity. ing role of religion in public life and policy around the The views expressed in this magazine are those of the authors world. There is as yet no solution for our recent problems and do not necessarily represent the views of the editors. Copyright: Cover © The Benaki Museum, Athens, pg. 5 © The Marinksky Theatre Archive; pg. 7 © Sasha Belenky; but there are old traditions, including the Russian ‘recipe’. p. 8 left © Michael Rakowitz, right © George Baselitz; pp. 9-13 © State Hermitage; pp. 14-15 © Russian Museum of Ethnography; pg. 16 © Nour Foundation; pg. 17 © Simon Butcher; pp. 20-22 © Lorraine Chittock/Saudi Aramco In its essence this recognizes that we have always lived, World/PADIA except † Mohameden Ahmed Salem; pg. 26 left © A. Zlatopolskaya, right © Helen Irwin; pg. 27 State Hermitage; pg. 28 © T. Fedorova; pg. 29 Institute of Oriental Manuscripts; pp. 30-33 © Mikhail Borisov; pg. 34 © Sawaya & Moroni spa; pg. 35 © Steve Double/TCS; pp. 36-37 © Zaha Hadid Architects; pp. 38-41 © and will continue to live, closely together. We are fated to Christine Martens; pp. 42-42 © A. Zlatopolskaya; pp. 44-45 © Christine Martens; pg. 46 top © Nasser D, Khalili Collection; pp. 50-51 © T. Fedorova; pp. 52-55 © A. Zlatopolskaya; pp. 56-57 © Arthouse.ru; pg. 58 © Abbas understand each other and it is possible. The museum and Kiarostami; pg. 59 © E. and V. Vorobyev; pg. 60 © Vagrius Publishing, Moscow; pp. 62-63 © museum collections; pg. 64 top L. Kulakova, bottom State Hermitage; pp. 66-68 © the artists; pg. 72 © Lwowski Collection; pg. 73 left Pierre Berge, right Fondation Alberto et Annette Giacometti, Paris © Adagp, Paris; pg, 73 courtesy Maureen Paley its magazine strive to answer this challenge. © the artist; pg. 76 © Estate of Alexander Calder / ARS, New York; pg. 78-79 State Hermitage; pg. 80 © A. Zlatopolskaya 08-09 05/10/07 14:32 Page 8
COMMENT GOD LOVES BEAUTY Mikhail PIOTROVSKY on the culture of Islam
There are many different points of view concerning the art and culture of With the passage of time, and thanks in part to conquests and natural cul- Islam, and many areas for discussion. Today, just as in all other periods, tural exchange, artistic language has become the same both for Muslims and problems of misunderstanding remain. An educated European has less of non-Muslims. The tastes of the people are defined not by nationality but by an idea about Islamic art than they do about Japanese, Chinese or Indian art. the social strata they occupy. In the Eastern Department of the Hermitage col- There are many different kinds of misunderstandings, including linguistic lection there are many things which demonstrate such similarities. In the first ones, which obscure the similarities between cultures and accentuate the place we have the magnificent carpets of Persian, Caucasian, and Central differences. Asian origin. These are, without a doubt, the most important component of Muslim culture yet, at the same time, they are also an integral part of European It is for this reason that I would like to offer some suggestions towards a culture. Carpets occupy a central place in European painting, and sometimes correction of terminology in artistic language. What do we truly know about are even named after painters, such as the ‘Lotto’ or ‘Holbein’ carpets. Islam and what do we say when we talk about it? First of all, we have to become Treasures were often brought from the familiar with the orthography and stop East and, having been transformed by this writing Allah [as in the Russian tradi- journey, entered the European aesthetic tion] with a lower case ‘a’. I participat- quite naturally. These objects characterize ed in the composition of the book the second category. To be mentioned ‘Myths of the Peoples of the World’ and here is the famous goblet in the Hermitage at that time there was a heated discus- collection in the shape of a horn, made in sion with the publisher over the way in the Northern European style which was which the name of God - Allah - should bought by Peter the Great. Another exam- be written. Alas, the publisher won the ple is the famous Egyptian lamp made of argument, despite the fact that the peo- crystal with figurative ornaments in the ple responsible for this publication were Mannerist style. The history of this lamp is the most qualified to decide these issues instructive. It came to the Hermitage with at that time. In articles about the Bible, all of its embellishments and remained the words God and Yahweh begin with like this for a long time. In the 1920s- a capital letter, but Allah starts with a 1930s, when Eastern studies became of small one, even though Allah is the great interest and the Eastern Department same God as that of the Christians and the Jews. And let’s not forget that the was developed, the lamp was taken out of its setting to be exhibited and Islamic faith descends from Abraham. Such mistakes can be found even now, admired before ultimately being restored to the state in which it arrived at the though thankfully less and less frequently. museum.
The second important idea which is immediately associated with Islam There is also a whole series of objects which were made for people of other is that it demands ‘complete obedience to God’. This must be revised so faiths, mostly for Christians living in the East, that use the artistic language of that it is understood rather as being humble before the creator. Thus the Islam. The Hermitage has a remarkable Nestorian plate from 18th century. It is accent falls in a different place. These nuances are very important as they Nestorian only in name, in truth it was made in Syria, and is decorated with the change our perception. images of saints. Like the horn-shaped goblet, which bears what are most probably the images of the four Evangelists on The language it, they are the works of one and the same culture. ARTISTIC LANGUAGE of Islam is less understandable The third category of objects is those which were made Further, there are the issues connected with artistic language. for Europeans when Eastern models were adopted by Western craftsmen who One can often hear it said that there is no Islamic art, but only than that of Zen did not know Eastern artistic language and did not differenti- art made by people who profess the Islamic faith. There is some ate its symbolism. The best example is the imitation of Kufic truth in this, but Islamic culture is to a great extent defined by writing. The pattern of Kufic writings lost its original sacred religion and creates the atmosphere in which certain religious opinions must meaning and retained only an ornamental function, imitating a text. In the operate. But not everything in the Muslim world is inspired by Islam. And Hermitage there is the famous Fortuni vase whose manufacture is debated; although there is a large proportion of art which places religious ideas in the was it made by Christians or Muslims? Surely it is of Muslim production, language of images, it is incorrect to state that this is simply a reflection of reli- because the Kufic writing is easily comprehensible. Even so, today it remains gious dogma, just as surely as it is inaccurate to say that freedom of expres- in the gallery of European Medieval art surrounded by Spanish ceramics emu- sion and anti-Islamic tendencies exist within Muslim culture. lating the same traditions and the same artistic language.
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In the context of artistic language, some linguistic topics beauty is a hint of the magnificent life that awaits in paradise. need to be examined. And a change of terminology is also nec- Beauty is that which Luxury, splendour, and order in the earthly are a direct reflec- essary. The notion that ‘Islamic art forbids the depiction of liv- is well organized. tion of the paradise which the devout will enter after life. ing creatures’ I offer to replace with the more precise term of “aniconism”. The commandment ‘Thou shalt not make for In Islamic art there are two sides. The first is the mathe- yourself an idol’ manifests differently in the various cultures matical, the algebraic, which is in dialogue with the stars, descending from Abraham. In the West, as well as in Russia, there is the view improves trade, and is useful in calculating loans. The second is that which that irate Muslims do not allow the depiction of living creatures. And this is a was adopted by Renaissance culture. It is the joy of life which the Greeks perfect example of the level of misunderstanding! This stricture was in fact enjoyed but which vanished in Medieval Europe. Semitic and, all the more, a Judeo-Christian cultural tendency connected with the main tenets of a monotheistic religion. One need only recall Byzantium, THE ROLE OF ISLAM where for a period spanning two hundred years, icons were systematically IN THE CONTEMPORARY WORLD destroyed. It is very difficult to draw a line that can separate the mutual influ- ence of Christianity and Islam on each other. John of Damascus1, the famous We must begin to appreciate the role of Islam in contemporary society. In defender of icons, gives a very clear explanation of this theological situation. the 20th century Islam permeates all spheres of life, and now we are wit- If God could be incarnated in man (Christ), an icon must have the right to ness to an eruption of fundamentalism which also has to be expressed in exist, and so ‘aniconism’ can be no reason for dispute. Only if the incarnation some language. The intensification of religious fervour is obvious the of God is not recognized does an icon become an idol. These fundamental world over, but in the Muslim East it is especially evident. And a decision questions arise concurrently in both Islam and Christianity and presume a true must be made as to what degree the Muslim state is obliged to be secular dialogue of cultures. Muslims are not savages! and to what degree religion must be separate from the state. The problem of the role of religion in the world today must be solved both by Russia and In the Muslim tradition, an idol is an image which prevents one from pray- America. France believes that it has solved these questions already ing and being devout. But if it is just an image on a floor, for example, and it is although they are still facing conflicts there. not one of the God or the Prophet, it can’t tempt you and therefore is not a sin. The masses have always been the foundation for fanaticism and funda- ORNAMENT AS THE LANGUAGE mentalism. People are revolutionary by nature, but their revolutionary dispo- OF THE 21ST CENTURY sition can be softened if an acceptable culture supersedes the enticements from Western culture. But for now we can’t say that fundamentalism prevails in Now let’s turn to ornamentation in Eastern art. If we exchange “ornamenta- Islamic culture. Fanaticism arrived from the periphery as a result of countries tion” for the term “abstraction” in Eastern art, the idea takes on an entirely dif- which became Islamic later in their history. This tendency towards the fanat- ferent meaning. The art of Muslims can’t be called infinitely repetitive, an art ic is secondary, and Muslim countries must remember the true precepts of of ornamentation, or an applied genre, it is a complex set of styles which have Islam. Step by step in world culture and policy Arabs are beginning to assume mystical, hidden meaning. an active role again. I think that now we are seeing the revelation of a major tendency, and the fate of world civilization depends on it. There are three types of abstract art which are characteristic of Islam. The first is calligraphy which is full of mystical symbolism which reach- 1 2 John of Damascus - the famous orthodox theologian. Served at Damascus caliph es its apex in hurufism . One need only read the ‘The Black Book’ of court, later joined to the Mar Saba monastery southeast of Jerusalem where he Orkhan Pamuk... The second type is decorative, arabesque. Symbolically died. Author of ‘Apologetic Treatises against those Decrying the Holy Images’. it mirrors the endless flow of creation, and is a reminder that Allah is con- 2 Hurufism (Hurufiyya) - mystical esoteric sect in Islam. Appeared in Iran in the end tinuously creating life. The arabesque is a kind of meditation for contem- XIV century. Based on mystical interpretation of Arabic letters. plating Allah... The third type is geometrical. It is based on strict mathe- matical principals and emulates cosmic harmony.
Concerning the term ‘applied art,’ which is often used in theoretical writing, in truth Muslim art is first and foremost a model of a beautiful world. It can be sensed in any object, it can be held in the hands. It is a beautiful world which can be touched, and which allegorically represents the heavenly kingdom.
In the Muslim legend about Muhammad there is the famous hadis in which the Prophet says: ‘Allah is beautiful and loves beauty’. This statement is directly related to the aesthetic. Muhammad was asked if it was a sin to Various types of art clearly reflect the essence of Islam; that dress with care, if it was pride. The Prophet replied with this phrase, explain- decoration, or anything beautiful echoes the magnificence of ing that pride is when you demean others. I cited this quote when talking about Allah and speaks of eternal life in paradise. the role of order and organization in Islamic culture. Beauty is that which is well organized, art which is functional and considered. From another aspect
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COLLECTIONS
NIZAMI’S KHAMSA Ada ADAMOVA
Of all the works of poetry written in Persian, the most famous and beloved is the ‘Khamse’ of Nizami (1141-1203), the greatest lyric poet of the East. ‘Khamsa’ includes the philosophic and didactic poem ‘The Storehouse of Mysteries’, three romantic poems ‘Khusraw and Shirin’, ‘Layla and Majnun’, ‘The Seven Beauties’ and the poem ‘Eskandarname,’ a fanciful biography of Alexander the Great.
One of the most important and celebrated illustrated manuscripts of ‘Khamsa’ is kept at the Hermitage. Copied by calligrapher Mahmud in 1431 in the city of Herat on the orders of sultan Shahrukh, son of Timur, the manuscript is a masterpiece of great artistic and historical value. It was created at the 15th century high point of Herat’s dinstinguished history of maunscript and minature production, a time when the city was unequalled in the region as an artistic centre.
Shahrukh and his son and vizier Baysunqur were renowned both as connoisseurs and as important patrons of manuscript pro- duction. The most notable calligraphers, artists and other specialists were brought from across the Timurid state to work in special court workshops. There they created illustrated manuscripts as well as other unsurpassed masterpieces of book art and miniature painting.
Notes and seals on the pages of the Hermitage manuscript indi- cate the vagaries of its fate over the last five centuries - from the time when it was made in 1431 in the court workshop of Shahrukhuntil up to 1924, when the Hermitage received it from the former museum of Baron von Stieglitz. A note on the first page of Miniatures from 'Layla and Majnun' the manuscript explains that it was bought in 1651 in the city of Hyderabad for the sultan Muhammad Qutb Shah from the son of Muhammad Ali, goldsmith, for 300 tomans. Large seals of The three romantic poems in ‘Khamsa’ are very Muhammad Qutb Shah, the ruler of Golkonda in South India, with different from one another in mood, exploring the date AH 1020 (1611-1612) and one of his son and successor Abdallah with the date AH 1037 (1628) testify that the manuscript different aspects of love, brilliantly reflected belonged to the Qutb Shah’s library until the conquest of Golkonda in the miniatures. by the Great Mughal Empire in 1687.
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Other seals and annotations bear witness to the many changes in ownership this ‘Khamsa’ underwent following its removal from Qutb Shah’s library. It can be assumed that the manuscript appeared in Iran following Nadir Shah’s 1739 raids of plunder in India. According to the documents, the Stieglitz museum bought the manuscript in 1917 from an Iranian. Most likely, the owners of this illustrated copy were aware that they were in possession of a real masterpiece and so it came to the museum in very good condition. 38 miniatures illustrating the manuscript, though corrupted with later corrections and additions, reflect all the peculiarities of the first half of 15th century painting, which was the golden era of the classical style of the Persian miniature.
The text in the ‘Khamsa’ of 1431 covers 502 pages with Nastalik script in three columns, and lines in the side column placed diagonally. These oblique lines are creatively significant, making the manuscript unique. The placement of the text determined the system of dec- oration, and in many cases affected the composition of the miniatures. In this manuscript a remarkable unity of text, ornaments and miniatures is achieved.
All the pages of this small manuscript are decorated with headpieces, cornerpieces and cartouches, filled with gilded and brightly coloured ornaments. The decorations are executed with such skill and finesse, inextricably linked to the general composition of every page, and so rhythmically connected with the text that every pair of pages in the manuscript utterly charms the reader.
For each poem, exceedingly beautiful illustrations interpret the mood and reflect the depth and nobility of the feelings described in the text. The illustrations are a ‘Shirin gazes at the portrait of Khusraw’ visual fulfilment of Nizami’s poetry which is infused, like all medieval Persian poetry, with Sufic belief about the search for God and mystical love that draws man ‘Heaven hath no other prayer niche but love, heavenward. The miniatures are imbued with the fan- tastic, depicting an abstract world detached from the Without love the world is worthless. earthly where harmony and beauty rule and the protag- onists of the poems live out their lives. Resplendent Become a slave to love, this is the course, colours in the most sophisticated and beautiful combi- nations, and the purity of line that shapes the rhythm of This is the path for all pious people.’ the pictures, together transmit the resonant emotional content of each scene. - Nizami, from Khusraw and Shirin.
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KHUSRAW AND SHIRIN ‘Khusraw and Shirin’ relates the story of the love between the Sassanid prince Khusraw Parvez and princess Shirin. The poem is full of dramatic events which are alternated with scenes of feasts and various entertainments. The miniatures depict thin, graceful figures among rocks and flowering lawns where Shirin gazes at a portrait of Khusraw. By order of prince Khusraw the artist Shapur goes to Armenia where the beautiful Shirin lives. The artist leaves a portrait of Khusraw on the meadow where Shirin often walks with her friends. On finding it, Shirin falls in love with the young man depicted in the portrait.
The scene of Khusraw observing Shirin bathing is one of the most beloved and frequently encountered in Nizami’s manuscripts. Khusraw, on his way to Armenia, sees the charming scene of a beauty in the stream and a black horse bound to a tree. In lines surrounding the miniature the beauty of Shirin is praised, which is likened to the beauty of the moon, a rose and an almond. In this minia- ture the artist adheres to the traditional composition of the scene while enriching its detail to achieve complex colour relationships and emotional effects. Shirin sits in the stream dressed only in a waistcloth and brushes her hair while her horse grazes beside her, her clothes lying under a tree. Near the top of the image Khusraw is seen partly concealed behind a hill. LAYLA AND MAJNUN
‘Layla and Majnun’, the tragic story of an unhappy love affair, differs from the other poems of the ‘Khamsa’ in its greater lyricism and its depiction of the finest nuances of the main characters’ feelings. The miniatures illustrating the poem accordingly surpass the others with their delicate colouring based on com- binations of the most tender green and lilac tones with a golden yellow, giving an impression of transparency. In this poem the action takes place in the Arabian desert among Bedouin tribes, which is reflected in the images. The miniatures for ‘Layla and Majnun’ are as psychologically expressive as they can be within the conventions of eastern miniature painting. The emotional impact is achieved mainly through drawing and colour.
The artist is surprisingly precise in depicting the content and the mood of the verses in the miniature of Layla in the palm wood. The text describes the won- derful palm wood where Layla comes alone one spring day. Verses inscribed in the frame of the miniature tell how Layla sits alone under the cypress tree and sheds a few tears over her love, like a nightingale in spring. Then the story relates that in response to her tears Layla heard the sound of Majnun singing a ghazel somewhere in the distance.
Majnun in the desert among wild animals is another of the most popular scenes in the Eastern miniature tradition. The artist who illustrated the Hermitage manuscript followed the tradition of depicting Majnun seated among animals and petting a gazelle whose eyes, as is related many times in the poem, remind him of Layla. In the next lines it is narrated that the lions, deer, wolves and foxes all revered Majnun and that he was as a king among them. Traditionally, the animals are illustrated in pairs to emphasize Majnun’s loneliness. The solitary tree blos- soming in the background against a golden sky also speaks of his isolation.
top: 'Khusraw observes Shirin bathing'. bottom: 'Majnun in the desert among the wild animals'. right: Miniatures from 'The Seven Beauties'. 10-13 05/10/07 14:38 Page 13
THE SEVEN BEAUTIES
‘The Seven Beauties’ recounts the tale of Bahram Gur, one of the shahs of the Sassanid dynasty. It tells of his love for seven princesses, daughters of the rulers of seven kingdoms. The poem describes the journey of a soul towards God and depicts the passage through the seven spiritual stages of Sufism. The story is about the marriage of Bahram Gur to the daughters of the padishahs of seven countries. The architect Shide builds palaces for the princesses in colours which correspond to the colours of the seven planets.
The Hermitage ‘Khamsa’ includes miniatures of all the seven palaces which are visited by Bahram Gur with domes of different colours, which are the most beautiful in the manu- script. Just as Nizami finds unique words to describe the repeated actions of the shah (each morning he dresses in clothes of the same colour as the palace he is going to visit, travels there and feasts the whole day in the company of a princess, and when evening comes he asks her to tell him a story), so has the artist created pictures which follow a similar composition whilst differing in detail. His inventiveness in the ornamental elaboration of every interior and in the use of colour sympathies is astounding.
The interiors are in the main handled in keeping with the methods developed in the previous era. The horizontal and ver- tical plains - the carpet on which characters sit and the wall decorated with paintings and mosaics - are shown front-on, visually reproducing each other and differing only in ornamen- tation. The chosen method of text placement, with its use of oblique lines in one of the columns, suggests a side wall mak- ing the symbolic depiction of interior space more convincing. At the same time, a wonderful combination of miniature, text and ornaments is achieved on each page.
The miniature of Bahram Gur in the black palace is placed under an ornamental headpiece and between lines relating that on Saturday (the day of Saturn) Bahram Gur dressed in black and went to the black palace of the Indian princess (the face and hands of the princess have been repainted, and on Bahram’s face there are some added notes).
Over the miniature illustrating the chapter about Bahram’s Sunday visit to the Byzantine princess, the lines report that Bahram Gur put on a golden dress and golden crown. The picture depicts the crown. Further on, the line ‘When night has come...’ is illustrated with a sleeping maid and burning candles.
On Friday (the day of Venus) Bahram-Gur visits the palace of the Iranian princess which has a white dome, the colour of purity, in an image which symbolizes the harmony of love and the bliss of enlightenment.
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CARPETS AND TEXTILES IN THE NASSER D. KHALILI COLLECTION OF ISLAMIC ART
The Khalili Collection contains over 250 textiles and carpets from across the Islamic world, representing a geographical area stretching from North Africa to the Pacific, and spanning a period from the 7th to the 20th centuries.
Among the many important pieces in the Collection are rare examples of Abbasid and Fatimid textiles, a number of outstanding court carpets from Safavid Iran, Ottoman Turkey and Mughal India, and an exceptional group of works related to the Ka’bah at Mecca.
Of particular importance among the carpets in the Collection is an exceptionally well-pre- served medallion carpet from Safavid Iran, dating from the 16th century. It is thought that this out- standing carpet was made at Kashan, in the same workshop as the celebrated Ardabil carpets, now in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
Among the early textilesis a deep blue woollen tunic, dating from the 8th or 9th century AD, from Upper Egypt. The collar, shoulders and nape are decorated in tapestry-weave, with panels and roundels containing horses, human figures and fantastic beasts, and hasp-shaped elements similar to those found in the illumination of early Qur’ans. However both the cut of this garment and the technique of its manufacture are firmly rooted in those of Roman and Coptic Egypt.
The Collection also contains a number of pieces which relate to the Ka’bah at Mecca. An example is an embroidered satin panel from the hizam, the inscribed band (composed of eight such panels) which encircles the upper part of the kiswah. It is embroidered with gold and silver thread, and strips of finely drawn flat gold and silver wire over a padding of yellow cotton thread. Made in Cairo during the 19th century, it would have been on the south side of the Ka’bah, and is inscribed with verses 95-97 from sura Al ‘Imran (III, ‘The family of ‘Imran’).
The carpets and textiles in the Khalili Collection will be published in a forthcoming volume, Textiles, Carpets and Costumes: The Nasser D. Khalili Collection of Islamic Art Volume XIV.
top: Panel from the hizam of the Ka'bah. Egypt, Cairo, 19th century AD, black and gold-coloured satin, embroidered with gold and silver thread with strips of finely drawn flat gold and silver wire over padding of yellow cotton thread, 590 x 90 cm
centre: Woolen tunic. Upper Egypt, 8th or 9th century AD, dark blue wool with areas of ornament in woollen tapestry weave. 223 x 108 cm
left: Carpet with star medallions. Ushak, western Anatolia, late 15th or early 16th century AD, wool pile, 430 x 196 cm
16 Hermitage 8 / collections 16-17 05/10/07 14:44 Page 17
PORTRAIT OF A COLLECTION A CONVERSATION WITH PROFESSOR NASSER D. KHALILI Nasser D. Khalili photographed by Simon Butcher The Khalili Family Trust maintains one of the already been published. The cost of publishing, which is close to £8 million, most important private collections of Islamic art has been entirely financed by the Khalili Family Trust. When it is complete the publication will be the most extensive by a single collector to date. in the world. Founded by Professor Nasser D. Your collection is legendary and it is still growing. How many Khalili in 1970, it is known for its ambitious pub- objects have you assembled? The total amount of objects is in the region of 25,000 pieces, out of which lishing and exhibition projects, peerless academic 20,000 are Islamic. Our Islamic collection represents 6 countries. It covers the research and exquisite catalogues. With more entire history of Islam from the beginning (7th century) until the present... And obviously I’m still collecting. Without collecting my life is like a fire than 25,000 objects divided between four distinct without a flame. collections, each the largest of its kind in the What is the most valuable item in your collection? This is always difficult. The object that everybody talks about is the ‘Jami’ al- world, the Trust’s mission is to foster mutual Tawarikh,’ (The History of the World or Compendium of Chronicles) by understanding between cultures. Rashid al-Din, dated 1314. This exceptional work is acknowledged to be the finest illuminated Muslim manuscript in the world. In 1980 it was purchased Professor Khalili, could you please tell our readers about the history of at Sotheby’s for $2 million and I bought it later for $12 million. Today, as your collection. When, for example, did you start collecting? reported recently in the International Herald Tribune, it is worth ten to fifteen I started collecting stamps when I was seven years old, so in a way you could times the amount it was purchased for. say I have been a collector all my life. My determination to achieve stems How does the Qur’an feature in your collection? from a dispute I had at school with one of my teachers who maintained I had From an academic point of view it is accepted that our remarkably compre- no future prospects, and so to prove him wrong I decided to write a book. With hensive collection of Qur’ans is the largest and finest in the world. It includes only four hours sleep a night I worked for a year on a biography of 225 world a Qur’an written by Zinat al-Nisa’, the daughter of the Awrangzeb, who was geniuses which was published when I was thirteen and a half, and is still in the son of Shah Jahan, the Mughal emperor who built the Taj Mahal. It is the print today. only royal Qur’an that we know was written by a woman. I started really collecting in 1969, two years after I left Iran. I began to col- How do you see the situation with Islamic art today? Is this market grow- lect Islamic art because, having been born in a Muslim country, it was what ing? I was familiar with. I didn’t collect Islamic art because it was Islamic, Today it would be impossible to assemble such a collection even with an infi- I simply collected it because it is beautiful art. After three or four years of nite amount of time and money. It is becoming more and more difficult to buy collecting I began to extend my interest to other fields. The Khalili Collection major Islamic objects. of Japanese Art contains some 2,000 pieces from the Meiji period (1868- Do you have plans for a museum in London or elsewhere? 1912) and is acknowledged to be the largest and finest in the world. In 2006, There is a plan for a museum, but the location has not been decided. When a selection of around 200 objects was exhibited at the Van Gogh Museum, our plans come to fruition we will probably have two museums rather than Amsterdam, complemented by paintings by Van Gogh, which reflected the one, one for the Islamic collection, and the second for the other four collec- influence that the art of Meiji Japan had on this great master. Van Gogh com- tions. A museum is a great commitment, so the plan is for a specially mented in a letter to his brother Theo dated 15 July 1888, ‘In a way all my designed building rather than to convert an existing one. However, my first work is founded on Japanese art...’. priority is to finish cataloguing the collection. In the early 1970s I branched out into Spanish damascene metalwork (1850- You have devoted your life to Islamic art. What is the driving force 1900) and Swedish textile art (1700-1900). I also began collecting enamels behind this? and have now assembled an unprecedented collection of numerous examples Muslim art has contributed a great deal to humanity and Western culture from countries around the world including Russia, China, Japan, France, and to daily life. Through worldwide exhibitions, publications and lec- Middle East, Sweden, and Switzerland, to name but a few, and covering a tures, I aim to show people how beautiful the culture of Islam is so that period from 1700 to 2000. It will be published in 2008. Each of these collec- Islamic artists will be as recognized and celebrated as such major tions is the most comprehensive in its field. Western artists as Picasso and Monet. Religion and politics have their You are also known for publishing magnificent catalogues... own language but the language of art is universal and there has never In the past 25 years the Khalili Family Trust has published over 40 volumes. been a greater need for this universality. It is my belief that the real The total project consists of 50 volumes, each containing 250 to 350 pages. weapon of mass destruction is ignorance and this is one of the greatest The Islamic Collection will comprise 31 volumes in total, 17 of which have problems in today’s world.
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ART AND MONEY INVESTING IN THE ART OF ISLAM Sergey SKATERSCHIKOV
The ever increasing expansion of the world of finely composed Arabic characters and a bright Middle-eastern art market is heating up with the appearance palette. Carpets, ceramics, manuscripts and engraved metal are also fast developing areas in Islamic art. The artists who create these works make of new investors looking for alternative available thousands of interesting objects which attract the attention not ways to exploit their capital. By exploring only of collectors cognisant of the Islamic strictures but a wide range of the opportunities to be found in the art mar- art lovers. The extensive variety of Islamic artists is presented, for exam- ple, on the Internet at sites like Wikipedia. At the same time, there is no ket for themselves they are looking for new consensus in the Islamic world concerning which of these artists corre- niche areas in which to invest. The phenome- spond to the canons of Islamic art, because there aren’t any generally nal growth of the Russian and Chinese art accepted standards in this area yet. Although it is certain that with the widening of the demand for Islamic art and the appearance of opinion markets has for a long time been a symbol of makers from the ranks of enlightened, cosmopolitan collectors the overall price expansion. Today the atten- such standards will certainly be formulated. And with the appearance of its arbiters of taste, this segment will adopt more and more tion of professionals in the world art market strictly defined borders. is turning, little by little, towards Islamic Art. Among the most famous names in the field of Islamic art are The Islamic world has for a long time been recognized as an area where Maqbool Fida Husain (who is often called the ‘Indian Picasso’ and who special rules apply. Dozens of financial institutions around the world has achieved a record price of $774,803 for a single work) and Tueb have already come to terms with the peculiarities of banking in Islamic Mehta (with another record setting price of $1.584 million). The abso- countries, which demands the use of interest-free credit in place of the lute world record for a work made by an Islamic artist was achieved by usual Western terms. The mechanisms of interest-free credit (but with the sale of ‘The Building for King Dasaratha’s Sacrifice,’ painted in larger commissions and sometimes significantly greater collateral 1594 by the legendary Nur Muhammad (Mughal India) and sold at auc- requirements with allowances for the active management of these assets) tion seven years ago for £1,763,750. Higher prices for Islamic art have is used by such banks as a way to avoid what are seen as sinful and usu- only ever been attained with the sale of some medieval relics like the rious money-lending practices under Islam. bronze fountain in the form of a hind from the Moorish period in Spain (mid-10th century, £3.6 million), and a decorated glass vase from the The art market itself has some special rules for dealing with the Mamluk Dynasty (2nd half of the 13th century, £3.3 million) Islamic sector. Many Islamic countries place restrictions on particular genres of art. And, as with any limitations, this situation gives rise to The market for contemporary Islamic art is one of the fastest many new and inventive strategies of art production, which allow the growing areas within the overall world art market. Muslim artists to express themselves while remaining in harmony with In the table below can be seen the rating of the 50 top sales of Islamic their own culture and ideology. Thus the art market in London today has art (including Muslim artists from India) complied by Skate’s Art an insatiable demand for calligraphic works by the dozens of artists who Investor Service based on auction results (in USD) create unique works of art from the suras of the Qur’an through the use from January 1985 to 15 September 2007.
Sergey Skaterschikov is the Founder and Chairman of Skate Press. A graduate in American Studies from Moscow State University he received the “Best Young Businessman of the Year in Central Europe” award from the Wall Street Journal. With Skate Press and the Art Investment newsletter, Skaterschikov and his team of experts provide individual and institu- tional investors around the world with reliable and unbiased information and research to sup- port art investment decisions. Unlike art dealers and auction houses, Skate Press does not derive any income from buying or selling art and is focused entirely on enabling collectors to make well-informed art investment decisions by providing a rational method of assessing the performance of artworks and artists on the open market.
18 Hermitage 8 / art and money 18-19 05/10/07 14:45 Page 19
No ARTIST TITLE YEAR MEDIA SAL DATE HAMMER PRICE PRICE INC.COMISSION
1 Nur Muhammad The Building for King 1594 Oct -00 2 250 862 2 560 965 (Mughal India) Dasaratha’s Sacrifice 2 Tyeb Mehta Mahisasura 1997 - acrylic on canvas 21-Sep-05 1,400,000 1,584,000 3 Syed Haider Raza Tapovan 1972 - acrylic on canvas 29-Mar-06 1,300,000 1,472,000 4 Syed Haider Raza La terre 1985 - oil on canvas 21-May-07 1,234,057 1,422,144 5 Tyeb Mehta Untitled 1993 - acrylic on canvas 19-Sep-06 1,100,000 1,248,000 6 Tyeb Mehta Falling figure with bird 1988 - oil on canvas 29-Mar-06 1,100,000 1,248,000 7 Tyeb Mehta Untitled 1987 - oil on canvas 22-Mar-07 1,000,000 1,160,000 8 Tyeb Mehta Untitled (Figures with bull head) 1984 - oil on canvas 20-Sep-06 1,000,000 1,136,000 9 Jagdish Swaminathan Untitled oil on canvas 29-Mar-06 700,000 800,000 10 Rameshwar Broota Captives oil on canvas 22-Mar-07 660,000 779,200 11 Syed Haider Raza Tarangh 1975 - acrylic on canvas 30-Mar-06 650,000 744,000 12 Akbar Padamsee Cityscape 1959 - oil on board 29-Mar-06 625,000 716,000 13 Tyeb Mehta Blue torso 1973 - oil on canvas 30-Mar-06 550,000 632,000 14 Maqbul Fida Husain Sita Hanuman 1979 - acrylic on canvas 30-Mar-06 500,000 576,000 15 Maqbul Fida Husain Untitled 1960 - oil on canvas 30-Mar-06 480,000 553,600 16 Ram Kumar Falling bird 1968 - oil on canvas 29-Mar-06 470,000 542,400 17 Jagdish Swaminathan Untitled (in 3 parts) 1988 - oil on canvas 20-Sep-06 450,000 520,000 18 Akbar Padamsee Untitled 1967 - oil on canvas 23-May-06 449,503 519,443 19 Syed Haider Raza Village en Provence 1957 - oil on canvas 22-Mar-07 414,286 504,000 20 Maqbul Fida Husain Trial 1969 - oil on canvas 21-Sep-05 420,000 486,400 21 Maqbul Fida Husain Untitled oil on canvas 19-Sep-06 420,000 486,400 22 Syed Haider Raza Untitled 1982 - acrylic on canvas 21-Mar-07 392,857 480,000 23 Akbar Padamsee Mirror image (diptych) 2005 - oil on canvas 22-Mar-07 392,857 480,000 24 Maqbul Fida Husain Horses and blue nude 1979 - acrylic on canvas 29-Mar-06 400,000 464,000 25 Ram Kumar Untitled (Benares) 1964 - oil on canvas 30-Mar-06 390,000 452,800 26 Ram Kumar Untitled 1958 - oil on canvas 19-Sep-06 390,000 452,800 27 Tyeb Mehta Trussed bull 1967 - oil on canvas 23-May-06 374,439 435,371 28 Maqbul Fida Husain Untitled 1969 - oil on canvas 22-Mar-07 350,000 432,000 29 C. Raja Raja Varma Vasantasena oil on canvas 21-Mar-07 339,286 420,000 30 Akbar Padamsee Mirror image 2004 - oil on canvas 21-Sep-05 360,000 419,200 31 Syed Haider Raza La terre 1980 - acrylic on canvas 20-Sep-06 350,000 408,000 32 Arpita Singh Bhishma 1997 - acrylic on canvas 20-Sep-06 350,000 408,000 33 Maqbul Fida Husain Untitled oil on canvas 22-Mar-07 328,571 408,000 34 Akbar Padamsee Untitled - Metascape 1978 - oil on canvas 21-May-07 324,054 402,941 35 Ram Kumar Untitled oil on canvas 20-Sep-05 340,000 396,800 36 Jagdish Swaminathan Udghosh from bird, 1974 - oil on canvas 23-May-06 336,907 393,335 mountain and tree series 37 Ram Kumar Untitled (Benares) 1981 - oil on canvas 21-Sep-05 330,000 385,600 38 Syed Haider Raza Les toits de la Rue St. Jacques 1950 - 1959 oil on canvas 20-Sep-06 320,000 374,400 39 Maqbul Fida Husain Untitled 1960 - 1969 oil on canvas 30-Mar-06 320,000 374,400 40 Syed Haider Raza Untitled 1958 - oil on canvas 22-Mar-07 285,714 360,000 41 Syed Haider Raza Bhoomi 1990 - acrylic on canvas 20-Sep-06 300,000 352,000 42 Jagdish Swaminathan Perception 1972 - oil on canvas 19-Sep-06 300,000 352,000 43 Arpita Singh The ritual 1989 - oil on canvas 22-Mar-07 264,286 336,000 44 Syed Haider Raza Earth 1999 - acrylic on canvas 23-May-06 280,609 330,282 45 Akbar Padamsee Untitled (Nude) 1966 - oil on canvas 20-Sep-06 280,000 329,600 46 Jagdish Swaminathan Untitled 1971 - oil on canvas 21-Mar-07 242,857 312,000 47 Ravinder Reddy Lakshmi Devi 2003 - polyester-resin fiberglass 21-Mar-07 242,857 312,000 48 Jagdish Swaminathan Untitled (from Bird, 1985 - oil on canvas 21-May-07 239,403 308,131 tree and mountain series) 49 Tyeb Mehta Untitled - Nude 1961 - oil on canvas 21-May-07 239,403 308,131 50 Jagdish Swaminathan Untitled 1974 - oil on canvas 20-Sep-06 260,000 307,200 Source: Skate’s Art Investors’ Service, www.skatepress.com
19 Hermitage 8 / art and money ¥20-22 08/10/07 11:02 Page 20
THE WRITTEN WORD
†
All photographs Lorraine Chittock/Courtesy Saudi Aramco World/PADIA Except † photograph by Mohameden Ahmed Salem SAND AND BOOKS Louis WERNER The sands of the Sahara, where in only a matter of days the ravages of wind, sun, and heat can wipe away any evidence of human presence, is replete with that one sign of man not so easily erased- the written word. From east to west, across that unyielding belt of dune and steppe, the desert holds a rich treasure trove of Islamic manuscripts, most in Arabic, some in Ottoman Turkish, and a few rarities in Songhai, Hausa, and Tifinagh, the written language of the Tuareg.
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These crumbling and faded parchment and paper pages are held dear by gold, incense, and ebony, in the last two hundred years they have fallen into their owners, whether they live in what were once the Sahara’s great the backwater of recently decolonized nation states. Says Ismail Diadé mercantile cities- Timbuktu and Gao in Mali, Chinguetti and Wadane in Haï dara, director of the Fondo Kati in Timbuktu and the 11th generation Mauritania, Agadez and Tahoua in Niger - or in the smaller stops along heir to his family’s library keeping tradition, ‘I know from my research that caravan routes, such as Timimoun village in the Touat oasis, deep in the great cities seldom get a second chance. Yet here we have a second chance heart of Algeria’s Grand Erg Occidental. Such was the importance of these because we held on to our past.’ desert routes for the spread of manuscripts that they have become known collectively as the African Ink Road. Leo Africanus, who wrote the first accurate geography of the Sahara, visited Timbuktu in the year 1512 and noted that the sale of books was Islamic manuscripts and the need to preserve them are finally receiving more profitable than any other trade good. At the height of the Mali the attention they deserve, both for historical value and for regional pride, and Empire, thousands of scholars from throughout the Islamic world gathered possibly for the economic revival that this ancient literary tradition may one around the city’s Sankoré mosque, many having followed home the day underwrite. “Desert library tourism”, fueled by publicity in European and Emperor Mansa Musa, whose visit to Cairo in 1324 became legendary for American news media, is already bringing many Western visitors to the far his profligate gift-giving of gold. reaches of the Sahara just to look at books. Yet Timbuktu was not the Sahara’s only place for manuscripts and those Such boosts to the local economy also pose a downside, however- that of who read them. This was especially true after the year 1591, when a Spanish- manuscript thievery, smuggling, and inadvertent mishandling. Auction led Moroccan army conquered Timbuktu, then in the hands of the Songhai houses in London and New York sell many of undocumented, and suspected Empire, and put to flight its scholars and their books. The Mauritanian town illegal, provenance. Even well-intentioned tourists cause problems by asking of Wadane, for instance, takes its name from the dual form of the word wadi, librarians to show them their collection, thus exposing brittle and worm-eaten or valley - it being said that there are two valleys there, one of palm trees, the pages unnecessarily to additional environmental stress. other of scholars. In Tahoua in Niger, villagers bury their manuscripts in clay jars as if caches of gold or grain, to be unearthed only in times of need. International projects have been underway in many desert libraries for some years, financed by such groups as the World Bank, France’s And then there is the story of a single manuscript now in a Timbuktu Bibliothéque National, and the London-based Al Furqan Islamic Heritage collection, the Book of Healing by the 11th century Andalusian scholar Foundation, which help local conservation organizations such as Timbuktu’s Qadi Iyad. Its provenance is known from an addendum on its title page. It Ahmed Baba Institute, Mauritania’s Projet Sauvegarde du Patrimoine had been purchased in the Algerian oasis of Touat in 1468 by a man named Culturel, and Algeria’s Projet Manumed. Ziyad al Quti while emigrating from Toledo, Spain, then in Christian hands, to Bilad al-sudan, or the “Land of the Blacks” in sub-Saharan The South African government has made the most notable bilateral con- Africa, for 100 grams of gold. tribution to these efforts, financing the construction of a state-of-the-art manuscript conservation laboratory and digitization centre for the Ahmed Yet Touat is still a place to find manuscripts - some 12,000 volumes are Baba Institute, named for one of the city’s leading scholars, an exact contem- said to be kept in 29 private libraries there. In the oasis village of Timimoun, porary of William Shakespeare. Says Sidi Mohamed Ould Youbba, the schoolteacher Ahmed Abdelkabir cares for his dozen manuscripts, every one Institute’s deputy director, ‘he wrote more books than Shakespeare, and the a precious family possession, which he and his brother catalogued some years only reason he is not as well known was that Europeans could not find ago. ‘To possess a book is to possess knowledge, and thus power,’ he says, Timbuktu, even though they searched for centuries.’ almost superstitiously, yet it is belief in the nearly supernatural power of the written word that has convinced even Indeed, tourists today are a far semi-literate owners to care for what cry from the first 19th century they can barely read. Western travellers to seek out Timbuktu, which was not then even One can only wonder if Ziyad had definitely known to exist, motivated bought his manuscript from Ahmed by a 10,000 franc reward offered by Abdelkabir’s forefather. Ziyad him- the Société de Géographie in 1824 to self was the grandfather of Mahmoud the first European to reach the city. Kati, Timbuktu’s great 16th century That honor belongs to René Caillié scholar and chronicler, whose private who arrived in 1828, following in the manucript library, once largely dis- footsteps of other explorers not lucky persed, has been slowly reconstituted enough to return with their lives. into the Fondo Kati and now contains 3,000 volumes. While Timbuktu and other sub- Saharan trade nodes were once fabled Colophons on some fine and city-states of wealth and civilization important manuscripts contain labour dealing in valuable export goods like contracts for their local copying.
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In the case of a 28 volume dictionary, the Muhkam of the Andalusian scholar reeds into finely shaped pens, and scavenging paper from any possible Ibn Sidah (died 1066), a full time scribe in Timbuktu, charged with copying source, such as shipwrecks off the Banc d’Arguin along Mauritania’s 142 lines per day, was paid 4 1/4 grams of gold per volume, and his verifier, northern coast, has now become a simple matter of typing onto an or specialized copy editor, was paid half that amount for closely checking 171 electronic keyboard and storing text in a hard drive. lines of text per day. Ould Ahmed Salem has determined that the Legrayda script is The copying and recompilation of manuscripts is closely associated almost identical to the Andalusi style of Moorish Spain that over the last with the desert institution of seminar education called mahadra, meaning half millenium slowly evolved into what is known as maghribi “place of assemby”, which comes from the same Arabic root as the words calligraphy in North Africa. ‘Look at a 12th century Andalusi “civilization” and “non-nomadic”. The itinerant mahadra teacher would manuscript,” he says, “and you will be hard pressed to distinguish it gather pupils around him for short courses in poetry, theology, grammar, or from a work copied in Mauritania even five hundred years later.’ jurisprudence, requiring them to recopy relevant texts in their own hand. In this way, the number of manuscripts was multiplied and spread from old H.T. Norris has translated a Mauritanian rihla, or travelogue, by owner to new owner. Ahmad Ould T’wayr al-Janna, Son of the Little Bird of Paradise, that highlights just how important book collecting was and still is to many Because mahadra pupils were themselves often advanced students, desert denizens. Ahmad had traveled from his hometown in Wadane to they would add their own learned commentaries or marginal notes in a Mecca and back between 1824 and 1834, and, with most of his adventures different script or ink color, and thus these Arabic manuscripts behind him, he stopped last in Morocco where he found favor with the ressemble the medieval palimpsests of Europe, in which layer upon layer sultan and was given a book-buying stipend. of historical writing could be discerned. But because this form of desert education has now largely ceased, so has the recopying of manuscripts But the learned men of Fez grumbled when Ahmad outbid them on the in the laborious old fashioned method. market, and the sultan had to intervene for him to complete his purchases. As he wrote, ‘when the sultan was told of the quantity of books I had bought, he A Mauritanian named Mohamaden Ould Ahmed Salem has studied his was amazed, and said, God has granted you a miracle.’ And that was not all country’s old calligraphic styles, and has lately been working with font of the sultan’s largesse for the sake of scholarship - he then hired for Ahmad designers to update them for the computer. Ould Ahmed Salem has digitally a thirty camel caravan to haul his books home. adapted Mauritania’s four basic scripts - legrayda, meaning “lobed”, named for its rounded edges suitable for fast and compact copying; mushafi, an orna- A single Arabic manuscript, one written in both black and red ink in mental variety for title pages and first lines; mashriqi, similar to the elegant different calligraphic styles, with perhaps a bit of gold leaf infilling the page thuluth script of the Arab East; and sudani, a bold and angular student style headings, is a thing of beauty no matter where it might be displayed. But to written with wide nibs - into a format suitable for the 21st Century. see a collection of such works in an ancient mud plastered room in Timbuktu, with light filtering through high windows and the whispered prayers audible What was once a painstaking process of of mixing carbonized sheep from the mosque next door, is to better understand how important the written wool and pot soot, gum arabic, and sugar water to make ink, cutting word has been in the history of Saharan civilization.
22 Hermitage 8 / the written word ¥24 08/10/07 12:09 Page 24 < SLAVOJ ZIZEK< IN CONVERSATION WITH SERGEY KOZIN
‘I want to avoid all the extremes: on the one hand, the religion of Islam as potentially proto-fascist, antidemocratic, whatever you want; and on the other hand, the false celebration of Islam, even by some leftists, as somehow more revolutionary, more resistant to capitalism, etc.’
Kozin: How would you define Islam? Or, more precisely, how do you see it bring back memories of 9/11. Where do you put this event, historically? > >
from> your philosophical perspective? Zizek: I think that, contrary to what people think, 9/11 marked the end of > Zizek: My hypothesis is that every religion has a kind of unadmitted secret American hegemony. I think that the 1990s were the dream of American means that are necessary but not publicly acknowledged. It is a kind of a hegemony - the new global civilization, liberal capitalism under American Freudian reading, not in the simple sense of reducing religion to some psy- hegemony, and so on. It is clear that this dream is over. Partially because of chological trauma, but in the sense of looking for the hidden story which has historical reasons, partially because of the stupidity of American politics, but to be there but is not admitted. I think that if you approach it in this way, you the United States is in decline. It is clear that we are moving towards a multi- discover that in contrast to its well-known anti-feminist stance something very centric universe with China, United States, Latin America, Europe, Russia... mysterious is going on; that the role of woman is crucial to the very constitu- the period is interesting and dangerous because we do not yet have the rules, tion of Islam... It is clear that if you look at the so-called fundamentalist cri- the formula for new world order, we are looking for it. And this for me is the tique, what most horrifies them is the sexual freedom of women in the West. ultimate meaning of 9/11 that we don’t yet have the formula. But you can read this as a reaction to the excessive role of women in the ori- Kozin: Does this transpire in art in any way? > gin of Islam itself. When we look at the mythical narrative of Islam, at Zizek:> I don’t know much about visual arts, but if I look at the cinema - you Abraham and his two wives, we see this reliance on a single mother, as one may disagree with me, but for me the sign of hope in popular culture is that would call it today. We find that Islam is a non-patriarchal religion, in the pre- gradually the hegemony of Hollywood is breaking up, but not as we were cise sense that both Judaism and Christianity are family religions with God as used to before with some modest art-house films, but even on its own terrain. the Father. The motif in Islam is that the original believer is an orphan and For example, do you know these Chinese films, ‘The Hero’, ‘House of the God is never called Father. I think that this accounts, in part, for the political- Flying Daggers’, and so on? My God, the Chinese are making today better ly explosive consequences of Islam: it is a community which has to be creat- historical action films which until now were the specialty of Hollywood. And ed from zero; you don’t have any original family tradition to rely on. And so, there are other countries breaking this monopoly of Hollywood on popular based on this specific femininity and political content written into the very culture. I think this is actually a good sign: how the American colonization core of Islam, I try to account for some of its features today and also to offer and total domination over popular culture is breaking... You have also best- an image which I think is ambiguous - ambiguous in the sense that, on the one selling authors from Germany, Spain, Argentina, Brazil, Iceland (a nation of hand, one can see why it is easy to twist it into fundamentalism (like the oppo- only 300,000 people!), Sweden... I find this, from my own social perspective, sition to modern freedoms, anti-feminism and so on), and on the other hand, even more interesting than what is happening in the so-called high arts. you can say that it has, maybe much more than other religions, a potentially This is very fascinating. radical political dimension (constituting a new community, or whatever). Kozin: Do you have any comment on Islam and art then? > Kozin: How do women fit into this, could you elaborate? Zizek:> Of course, we all know the story about the prohibition to paint God in > Zizek:> My point is... Our standard racist myth in the West is that we are too both the Jewish religion and Islam... but what interests me in Islam is that, as rational, too patriarchal, too masculine, and that we should look to the East far as I know, on the one hand because of this iconoclastic tendency, you to re-establish the balance, to find the missing feminine component... This is have a predisposition to more abstract decorative art. On the one hand, pro- not so much the real East but our Western mythical image of it - our gods are hibition, of course, may oppress art. But paradoxically, I think, one can imag- male, while the East is feminine, more passive, more sensitive and so on. So ine how this is opening-up a new dimension of perhaps rejoining modernity, the idea is then, that Islam is the disturbing factor here, that Islam is some- abstract art and so on. I can well imagine a surprising revolution when Islam, how in-between: it is a kind of intruder which prevents perfect communica- which is usually perceived as the most oppressive against modern art, tion, I would almost say that world civilization is an idealized sexual rela- explodes into extremely modern art. Look at Iranian cinema, Kiarostami and tionship between East and West, femininity and masculinity. So the idea is so on. He is not, as some Western media portray him, a Western liberal try- not so much a feminist goal to rediscover some pre-patriarchal feminine god- ing to survive artistically under the Islamic regime. It is clear that dess and so on. I think that there is no emancipatory potential in this. All these Kiarostami’s films are Islamic in some sense, and he is aware of it. Again, it maternal religions are even more oppressive for real women. My premise is is the same paradox. What appears to be an obstacle (the religious tradition) that if you scratch the surface and look at the image of the woman that Islam can also be the thing to engender very interesting phenomena, maybe even tries to control, you find a woman who has excessive knowledge, excessive revolutionary, such as in modern art. Nobody knows what will happen, but potential... it is a much more interesting image of woman than of man. one must see a potential in Islam. Kozin: To some, references to explosion and political consequences may For the full text, visit www.hermitagemagazine.com
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ARABIAN NIGHTMARE ROBERT IRWIN’S SCHEHERAZADE
Celebrated author and scholar Robert Irwin speaks with Anastasia Grib about his inspirations and the role of women in Islamic literature and art.
women in my novel ‘The Arabian Nightmare,’ but rather the women in Dostoevsky’s novels, among them Nastasia Filippovna and Grushenka. Perhaps also the initiatory prostitute in Hermann Hesse’s novel, Steppen- wolf. I also went out with an exotic looking girl very like Zuleyka back in the 1960s... GRIB: Are there any traditional female characters in Islamic literature? IRWIN: Female characters do not feature much in pre-modern Arabic literature - except in the tales of the Arabian Nights and similar works of popular literature. Many of the Nights tales feature adulterous women. In these stories I think it is the cunning of women that is celebrated, rather than their adultery being castigated. An awful lot of Nights tales are about people being wily. The other type of woman to feature frequently is the conjured up to gratify male fantasies, rather than being precursors of femi- nism. GRIB: How has the image of Scheherazade changed since the Middle Ages? IRWIN: Setting aside how Scheherazade actually features in the medieval story collection, it is of course true that she has become a symbol of creativity in the hands of writers like Tawfiq al-Hakim, Jabra Ibrahim Jabra and Naguib Mahfouz, and of feminism in the hands of writers like Fadwa Malti-Douglas and Fatima Mernissi. The Arabic novel and short story have a relatively short history and traditionally the Arab literary elite have pre- ferred poetry and prose non-fiction to story telling. In modern times Scheherazade has been enlisted by Arab writers as a kind of liberator to validate the powers of imagination and fantasy. GRIB: Are there any contemporary “Scheherazades” that come to mind? IRWIN: If I had to name a contemporary Scheherazade I would suggest A.S. Byatt and particularly her novella, ‘The Djinn in the Nightingale’s ANASTASIA GRIB: How do you view Scheherazade? Eye’ (1994) which, though it works well as fiction, also has important ROBERT IRWIN: There is a modern trend to see Scheherazade as a things to say about feminism and storytelling. For the same sort of reasons story-telling therapist who in some sense redeems the bloodthirsty misog- I would suggest the novels of the late Angela Carter. ynist Shahriyar. This meets modern needs for a feminine symbol of cre- GRIB: Is there any strong ideal for the woman in Muslim tradition and so- ativity and healing. But it is false to the original texts which embrace a ciety - the Prophet’s wife Aisha, Fatima or Scheherazade, or Leila? And much stranger and nastier ethic. First, she does not create stories. As she who could possibly have been a prototype for Scheherazade? makes explicit, she narrates stories already in existence. So we should IRWIN: Strong women have not featured all that much in Middle Eastern credit her with an excellent memory rather than a fertile imagination. In history. Aisha has been widely regarded as a stirrer up of sedition (fitna). this aspect she resembles Tawaddud, the learned slave girl in one of the sto- One of the rare independent female rulers Shajar al Durr ruled very briefly ries of the Arabian Nights. Secondly, she does not heal Shahriyar. Rather in thirteenth-century Cairo, before her enemies besieged her in the Red he forgives her for the supposed sins of her entire sex. Thus the frame story Tower. She spent her last hours grinding her jewels to dust so that no of the ‘Arabian Nights’ is bleakly misogynist. woman after her could wear them. In the end she was fed to the dogs. GRIB: But isn’t she the inspiration for your novel? I suppose one would have to go to Roxelana in 16th Turkey to find a IRWIN: I think that it is not so much Scheherazade who was behind the satisfactory role model.
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eunuch, all the characters in the novel are women. The novel has been turned into a short black-and- white film which I like very much. GRIB: How do you view the aesthetics of the harem? IRWIN: The harem in Western art and literature seems to me pre-eminently an image of idleness and boredom. It is this, rather than sexuality, that seems to me to be primary in 19th century Orien- talist paintings of the harem. GRIB: Why did you choose Cairo as the setting for your novel? What’s so special about this city for you? IRWIN: ‘The Arabian Nightmare’ really says more about Oxford and London and their hippy populations in the psychedelic 60s, than it does about medieval Cairo. I chose to set my novel in Cairo, because through my studies in Mamluk history I had become extremely familiar with the layout of the medieval city. Also 19th century engravings of the city worked powerfully on my imagination. Above all I needed a city with a labyrinthine street layout to match the labyrinthine structure of the story I was going to tell. But the real origins of the story were in Tunis, where at a time I was studying Arabic at the Institut Bour- guiba, I would regularly fall asleep in the after- noons to awaken in my hotel room and find that I was not alone, but that there was something malev- olent close by. I would try to pray, but my lips would not open. I was completely paralysed. Then I would awaken from this nightmare only to find that I was still paralysed and the malevolent thing was still with me. Then I would awaken again and this time if I was lucky, it would be a real awaken- ing and I would be alone in the hotel room. Such was the genesis of The Arabian Nightmare. GRIB: Did you draw on other sources? IRWIN: I was also strongly influenced by - or let us rather say I stole from - a film of Potocki’s 19th century Polish literary farrago ‘The Saragossa Anon., Woman with Scarf, Iran, Mid-19th century, Oil on canvas, 145 x 85 cm. The State Hermitage Museum, source: D.K. Petrov, 1928 Manuscript.’ Since I could not find an English version of Potocki’s novel, I decided to write my own GRIB: And what about Fatima? Is she the Nightmare? variant version. Also the science fiction novels of Philip K. Dick (many of IRWIN: In The Arabian Nightmare, Fatima the Deathly, entirely negative which feature domineering women) were an influence. and disintegrating, is nightmarish, but she is not the Nightmare. The Night- GRIB: And what about the narrator? mare is a nightly experience of excruciating suffering, which is neverthe- IRWIN: The narrator of ‘The Arabian Nightmare’ is not a woman, but an less totally forgotten in the morning. ape. The ape, who is me, mimics and pastiches the Arabian Nights. The GRIB: Have you ever written about the harem? Ape tells stories, which are lies and he never knows when to stop. IRWIN: The harem and the women who ruled it is the subject of my novel GRIB: Are you working on anything at the moment? Have you forsaken ‘Prayer Cushions of the Flesh’. Indeed the inspiration (if that is the word) literature to return to more scholarly pursuits? for it, came as I was walking through the Topkapi harem in Istanbul and IRWIN: I am currently working on a novel about the early German cin- suddenly had an intense sense of what it must have been like to have been ema, featuring an ageing film actress as its protagonist. I am also work- a concubine shut up in such a place. The novel, which is weird and playful, ing on a novella about modern mathematics. Also a book on the camel. is a black comedy about a man who believes that he is master of his harem Also a study of artistic Orientalism, (featuring among others Pushkin, whereas he is in danger of becoming its victim. Apart from him and one Rimsky-Korsakov and Vereschagin).
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THE SECRET OF THE UTHMAN QUR’AN Efim REZVAN Beginning in the late 15th century, one of the most important Qur’an manuscripts in the world was preserved in the memorial complex of the ‘Ishqiyya Sufi brotherhood in the small village of Katta-Langar, some 100 km to the south of Samarkand. There it was venerated as one of the world’s oldest Qur’ans, and given the name ‘The Uthman Qur’an’.
Tradition gives Uthman a special role. It was on his orders In 1869 a manuscript from the Uthman Edition found its that followers of the prophet Mohammed produced the first The manuscript is way from Central Asia to St. Petersburg where it was canonical version of the Qur’an. Until that time, the sacred dated to the last stored in the collection of the National Library. In 1905 50 words had been preserved orally, and the variety of quarter of the 8th copies of this manuscript were published with the larger accounts was considered to be confusing the faithful. century when the sys- part of the edition being given to Russia’s eastern neigh- Copies of the new, canonical version, known as the Uthman tem of the rules of bours. In 1918, by special order of Lenin, the manuscript Edition, were sent to the main centres of Islam and all ear- was returned to the Muslim community. Today this pre- Arabic grammar was lier writings were burned to avoid conflicting interpreta- cious relic is kept by the Spiritual Administration for being formulated. Its tions. The caliph kept a copy for himself. In 656 a group of Muslims in Uzbekistan. text serves as an aid conspirators invaded his home and found him reading this to the development copy, and the blood of the murdered caliph fell upon its A second manuscript in the form of a monumental parch- of memory. pages. This is the legend of the Uthman Qur’an. ment folio was bought to Russia in 1937 by I. Krachkovsky. One of Russia’s first Arabic scholars, There are, in fact, four manuscripts believed to be stained Krachkovsky soon realised that the manuscript had once with the blood of Caliph Uthman, the third leader of the Muslims after belonged to Iriney (Selim) Nauphal, a diplomat of Lebanese origin who Mohammed. They are kept in various parts of the Islamic world, from had ended his career in the service of Russia. The woman who offered Istanbul, and Tashkent to Cairo, and are revered by Muslims in much the the manuscript for sale was Nauphal’s granddaughter. Krachkovsky rec- same way the Turin Shroud is by Catholics. ognized the importance of the manuscript as a part of one of the oldest
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In St. Petersburg, Katta-Langar, Bukhara and Tashkent 97 large format parchments with Qur’anic text written in the ancient Hijaz hand are carefully preserved. The pages copies of the Qur’an but, because of the political situation at the time, have a history that can be traced back 12 centuries which the manuscript was shelved away. is closely interwoven with the fate of numerous dynasties and states, cities and people, with Islamic civilization from In the 1970s the situation changed dramatically. Sensational discoveries its beginning to the moment of the collapse of commu- were made in Mashhad, Cairo, Damascus, Kairawan and especially in nism of the former republics of the USSR. Sana’ (Yemen) where 40,000 fragments of the Qur’an were discovered during the restoration of the main mosque there. German and French scientists working on these finds provided the field with vital new tech- niques. As a result, the Krachkovsky manuscript could be dated to at least the 8th century. Evidence suggests it was made following the tra- ditions of Western Arabia and Syria. It is logical to assume that Nauphal must have brought it from Lebanon, which had historically maintained close relations with Syria.
In 1998, an unexpected discovery in a mausoleum 100 kilometres south of Samarkand uncovered 12 manuscript pages identical to those kept in St. Petersburg. Another page was discovered in Tashkent at the Institute of Eastern Studies, with two more coming to light in libraries in Bukhara. The conclusion was made that our Qur’an had arrived in Russia from Central Asia.
In December 1999, with the help of French and Uzbek colleagues, I was able to visit Katta-Langar where the Petersburg Qur’an was kept from the 15th century. Not far from this village is a settlement where the peo- ple speak Arabic. Following discussions with the locals it was discov- ered that their distant relatives were sent to this area from Syria on the orders of Timur. So it is with near certainty that the manuscript was brought by them and given to the local Sufi sheikh. For centuries locals venerated it as the true Uthman Qur’an.
It was not only Nauphal who had bought pages from this manuscript but also the son of the last Emir of Bukhara and a justice of the Bukharian Supreme Court. Both of these buyers were great collectors of manuscripts and kept detailed catalogues of their libraries. Both noted that the pages in their possession were part of the famous Uthman Qur’an. It is certain that both men were aware that a manuscript was taken to St. Petersburg in 1869 but that they believed that the Petersburg Qur’an was not one of the Uthman Qur’ans.
In 1920 the last Emir of Bukhara immigrated to Afghanistan and on his way through Katta-Langar tried to take the holy manuscript with him. It is only thanks to the keepers that the book remained in Uzbekistan. In 1941 there were 143 pages of the manuscript known to exist. In 1983 that number had dwindled to 63. Following a decision by the communist party in Uzbekistan to finally do away with the last vestiges of religious culture, the manuscript was confiscated and 10 years later only 12 pages were returned.
Today it can be said with certainty that the Petersburg manuscript is the The scientific research and facsimile publication of the text oldest Uthman Qur’an. Though, in truth, it is not so important which was made in Petersburg. The leader of the project was manuscript is the true sacred object because they are all worthy of admi- Dr. Efim Rezvan, renowned specialist in Qur’anic research, ration as direct examples of the process of the recording of this most deputy of the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography holy text made 14 centuries ago. Analysis of the manuscript led us to (Kunstkamera) and Editor-in-chief of the international refute popular claims by western scientists that state that the complete scientific journal Manuscripta Orientalia. Rezvan’s book text of the Qur’an appeared no earlier than the 9th century. The exis- ‘The Qur’an and its World’ has received an award from tence of the Petersburg manuscript itself stands as a testament to the ear- UNESCO as an important contribution to the culture of liest history of the sacred book. peace and non-violence and dialogue between civilizations.
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ARCHITECTURE Photo: Mikhail Borisov
THE DREAMER’S MOSQUE Alexander RAPPAPORT
The botanical pantophagy of St. Petersburg, in a certain sense, extends Let’s return to the Petrogradskaya side of the Neva in St. Petersburg, clos- beyond the borders of the purely stylistic and an imperial spirit of toler- er to the mosque. When I lived there I paid less attention to the things which ance, with time, became more influential than the dominance of any one surrounded me. It is only now, being far from the places of my childhood and style. This open-minded attitude influenced even the most remote areas youth, that am I able to look at them in detail. Despite being a mosque, glit- of the county, where it was manifested in the spread of classicism. The tering with ultramarine glazes, and therefore associated with southern coun- capital, however, was open to the influence of other cultures, faiths and tries, the building is in fact a perfect example of northern Art Nouveau. ethnicities, a particular example of this being the city’s mosque, Northern Art Nouveau exchanged the bright whites, yellows and greens and designed by Nikolai Vasiliev. plaster facades of classicism for grey stone, so expressively used in the mosque. It is true that bricks had been used in Petersburg Art Nouveau just as The architect Vasiliev, relatively young but already famous, worked effectively, as can be seen in some of the buildings around the mosque on alongside Alexander von Gogen on building the mosque in the first Bolshaya Meschanskaya. The use of stone in the mosque, though, is entirely decade of the 20th century. It is hard to imagine what role young appropriate - the broken grey granite cladding confirms its status as an impor- Vasiliev played in this project, although Evgeny Edel insisted that the tant public edifice. The neighbouring building of Kshesinskaya Palace, with project was entirely Vasiliev’s. all its whimsy, is as different in scale as the house of Lidval which can be seen from the entrance of the mosque. What is certain is that Vasiliev left Russia for the US in 1918. Edel relates that in America Vasiliev actively participated in architectural competitions Opposite the mosque on the other side of Kamennoostrovsky Prospect which he invariably won due to his exceptional talent. He was so successful there is another important example of northern Art Nouveau: the monument that a group of American architects reputedly offered him a million dollars if to the battleship Stereguschy, now hidden by mature trees. At the time it was he would only stop participating in competitions. built the monument was probably part of the visual dialogue of these master- pieces. To this list of important edifices must be added the house on Is this fact or fiction? The story appears to be anecdotal but here are Kronverksky Prospect, where Gorky lived as well as the monument to Gorky, the facts. Vasiliev died in 1948. One would think that such a brilliant, which is now considered, with its Nietzschean moustache and romantic wide- talented architect would have a celebrated place in the history of brimmed hat, to complement the surrounding northern Art Nouveau. So, in American architecture. However, one of the most prominent experts of place of the gardens and vegetable patches which in earlier times had covered European and American architecture of the period, Henry Russell this side of the river another kind of garden, or even forest, with northern Hitchcock, makes no mention of him in his ‘Architecture: 19th and 20th architectural plants began to grow. The exoticism of these architectural speci- Centuries’. It is, in fact, impossible to find any references to Vasiliev mens sustains the spirit of a museum or genetic restoration that was personi- from later than 1918. His mysterious disappearance may offer some sup- fied in the zoological and botanical gardens of the city. In other words, the port to Edel’s anecdote. What if, like Rimbaud (who gave up poetry at utopian essence of the endlessly expanding dream, which is indicative of the the height of his powers), Vasiliev accepted the offer of a million dollars entire city, was retained here. and exchanged the difficult and bothersome business of architecture for the peaceful and secluded life of a dreamer? It is likely that the atmos- St. Petersburg, like many American cities, never had a fortified wall or phere of the American business world, events at the time in Russia, and moat to protect it. Walls were considered, according to the plans by Leblond, the movement of architecture towards Functionalism could have con- but remained on the drawing board. The Peter and Paul Fortress never pro- flicted with the young Vasiliev’s vision, leading to disappointment rather tected the city from invasions, only the threat from revolutionary youth at the than enthusiasm. But this is just speculation. dawn of the 20th century. The only unyielding and, according to Akhmatova,
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‘world-class’ fence is placed around the Summer Garden. It does not deter and I would say that Gibbert’s cathedral at Liverpool is the most signif- those who are outside, but rather entices them to enter and is a rare combina- icant failure in church design. Rare exceptions are only to be found with tion of granite impregnability and cast iron filigree. A garden city - Northern the Scandinavian architects who designed churches based not on archi- Paradise! Palmyra!, Russian Venice! - not so much built as planted with care tectural formulas but on their openness to the landscape. and, like the zoological garden, designed for the peaceful coexistence of the most exotic creatures, if at the cost of their freedom. In much the same way, mosques do not fare much better than church- es and Functionalism lends them a technical perfection that contrasts In a sense, you could compare these examples of northern Art Nouveau sharply with both their cosmic and earthly intention. The universalism of with weeds sprung up in a planned Palladian garden. In this architectural gar- modern technology and the universalism of the traditional worldview den, though, alongside the refined Italian borders, there also grew severe gran- haven’t found a point of convergence, which is why I don’t expect anything ite Egyptian sphinxes, Trezzini’s baroque and Thomon and Vallin de la remarkable from a new mosque. Mothe’s French utopianism. The architectural cosmopolis accepted in its northern precincts the Buddhist temple and the largest mosque at this latitude The last modern architectural project which I think is a successful take on as just another part of the family thanks to the city’s existing cultural ecology. northern Art Nouveau is the design for the second stage of the Mariinsky by Later, during the time of Stalin, the same thing occurred on Michurina Street American architect Eric Owen Moss. I still can’t understand why the jury in and with the apartment house for political prisoners. charge of selecting the winner chose the banal design by Dominique Perrault. Were I to decide, I would give the project for a new mosque to Moss, who is The most exotic element of the mosque in the context of the archi- probably the closest to being a spiritual successor of Vasiliev. But the previ- tecture of St. Petersburg is its dual minarets. In cityscapes, the vertical ous reception of his work in Northern Palmyra doesn’t offer much hope. So, features of bell towers and chimneys usually stand alone. Two similar to conclude this small discourse on the architecture of the St. Petersburg minarets offer a new idea, something like the double note of jazz disso- mosque and of Vasiliev, which then became a discussion about the architec- nance mentioned by Brodsky. tural dreams of this remarkable city, I can only end with this, ...
Today, the imperial might of Russia is history, and the future of religious and stylistic variety is again in question. Recently, though, there has been talk of building a new mosque in St. Petersburg. The question is, what form will it take? Before answering this question it could be instructive to look at what is now happening around the mosque. Photo: Mikhail Borisov Little by little, this area is returning to its former grandeur with new con- struction in the surrounding streets. Constructivism and Stalin’s monumen- talism were incorporated into the location’s stylistic system without damaging the conceptual unity, and so now new High-Tech and Postmodern building are, for the most part, being reasonably well integrated.
The mosque and its art Nouveau neighbours continue to sustain the atmosphere of the area. Neither the humiliations of Stalin’s empire style nor those of international functionalism have succeeded in robbing them of their vitality.
International functionalism, though, has succeeded in conquering the world to a degree no empire ever could. This post-imperial hegemony was born, not of any political or religious centre, but from the virtual centres of bourgeois and technocratic rationality which outlasted the empire styles of both Stalin and Hitler. The explicit image system of industrial design was stronger than the utopian dreams of power and, like radiation, permeated all aspects of design, transforming the character of the dream. These new dreams possess a paradoxical independence from sunlight, weather and climate as if their images were everlasting. It is also a paradox that these styles, to a much greater degree than the styles of the past, are vulnerable to the effects of time. They seem to age before one’s very eyes, leaving previous styles including Art Nouveau looking younger and stronger.
Functionalism has become almost irreconcilable with the images of eternity found in religious architecture. Le Corbusier, in his chapel at Ronchamp, was forced to turn away from Functionalism to Art Nouveau
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MOSQUE ON THE NEVA Photographed by Mikhail BORISOV The Mosque of the Emir of Bukhara stands a short way from the banks of the Neva looking out on the Peter and Paul Fortress and across the river to the Hermitage. Despite this important location few people outside the confession have ventured inside to experience the sublime beauty of one of St. Petersburg’s most remarkable sacred spaces. 30-33 05/10/07 15:21 Page 33 34-37 05/10/07 15:23 Page 2
ZAHA HADID .. ARCHITECTURE’S QUEEN Andreas TOLKE 34-37 05/10/07 15:24 Page 3
In the male dominated world of architec- ture, Iraqi-born Zaha Hadid stands out as the only woman to be world famous for her stunningly original designs. For many years her proposals won accolades, but were deemed too controversial to build. Now the world is seeing Hadid’s plans made concrete with projects in countless cities worldwide including Leipzig, Cincinnati, Singapore and Copenhagen. She’s been awarded architecture’s premier honour, the Pritzker Prize, and won the competition to design the new headquar- ters of the Architecture Centre in her adopted hometown London. In 2006, Hadid was honoured with a retrospective at the Guggenheim museum in New York and is currently the subject of an exten- sive exhibition at the Design Museum in London. Zaha Hadid photographed by Steve Double Andreas Tölke: How difficult is it for you to explain your concept of easier for women to get in to than private businesses like banks, for example. architecture to building owners, investors and technicians? Men go golfing or deep-sea fishing together, that’s where deals are made. It’s Zaha Hadid: It used to be difficult. They used to think what is she actual- a world that I as a woman will never be able to enter. It’s a man’s world, a sort ly talking about? Now people understand, so they don’t ask me anymore. of fraternity. Even when I am so respected or accepted, I will never be accept- It’s not really about understanding, but ed there. That goes for the majority of pri- about their perception of me as a person. vate clients. A public building has a differ- Very strange. Before I could have said, ent dynamic. I’m treated totally different “That’s grey” and they would have then. It doesn’t matter if I’m a man or a argued with me about it. Now when I say, woman. Today anyway, ten years ago it “The card is grey,” then it’s “grey.” would have been another matter. Tölke: At which point in your career did Tölke: Even so, it took a long time before people start taking you seriously? you built your first building... Hadid: I’ve never been taken seriously. Hadid: That wasn’t my choice. For a Now maybe I’m just being taken a little long time no one gave me a commission, bit more seriously. so I couldn’t build. I could be wrong, but Tölke: You won the ‘Nobel Prize’ for if I had been able to build my first design architecture, the ‘Pritzker Prize’; was that straight away, I probably wouldn’t have the turning point, when the public started attained the same high level of complexi- to appreciate your work? ty that I have today. Hadid: To be honest, the recognition Tölke: You also work in interior design, began before the Pritzker Prize, already designing furniture. They look like four or five years ago. But of course since miniatures of your architecture... the prize, I’m established now. Hadid: That’s true. The idea is to create Tölke: Why do you think you’re the landscapes with furniture and show that only woman to have ever received the an interior can flow and be occupied. Pritzker Prize? Organising a furniture landscape is like Hadid: I don’t know, there must be organising a building in an urban context. something wrong with the system. It is Tölke: You integrate your houses into the just very difficult for women. countryside. How important are the sur- Tölke: Architecture is a man’s world... roundings to you? Hadid: Not just architecture. All clients Hadid: Everything originates out of con- are men. But still, cultural institutions are text, especially in my early work and 34-37 05/10/07 15:25 Page 4
page 35 bottom: Bergisel Ski Jump, Innsbruck, Austria. Photo: Steve Double
left and opposite: Performing Arts Centre, Abu Dhabi, UAE. Courtesy Zaha Hadid Architects
page 37 bottom: Nuragic and Contemporary Art Museum, Cagliari, Italy. Courtesy Zaha Hadid Architects
page 34: VORTEXX Moulded fiberglass, thermo shaped acrylic, car paint and high pressure LEDs Zaha Hadid / Patrick Schumacher 2005 Photo courtesy Sawaya & Moroni spa, Milan, Italy
what I’m working on now. It doesn’t necessarily need to correlate to the work with large partners or do limited editions. At the moment it’s all a surroundings, but it’s a product of the direct situation. That’s how the ideas bit mixed up. for the scheme of the building are created. The original idea always comes Tölke: How do you live? Is it how we imagine an architect lives, very clean from the situation. and minimal? Tölke: What influence does painting have on your work? Hadid: At the moment not at all. I’m in the process of moving, my new apart- Hadid: I’ve always liked painting, but it hasn’t really influenced me. Maybe ment isn’t finished yet and the old one is a total chaos, but most is packed in the beginning, Malevich’s “Suprematism”, but not painting in general. I already. In my new apartment I have cupboards everywhere, that means I’m like the monochrome paintings of Malevich, Picasso or Mondrian; they play going to be very, very tidy. There won’t be anything left to see. The opposite with different colour layers that shine through. I like this technique very much. of the way it is now. My apartment also had water damage, so everything had Tölke: Can art and architecture be identical? to be moved to a dry area. Not a state anyone wishes to be in. Hadid: No. Tölke: Do you still have ties in your homeland, Iraq? Tölke: Why not? Hadid: I have to say something. Of course I followed the war on television, Hadid: Architecture is much more complex. the bombardment and the destruction. It doesn’t matter if you’re Iraqi or not, Tölke: Then you’re not an artist? it’s horrible in any instance. What completely shocks me now is when I see Hadid: No. pictures of Baghdad, I don’t recognise anything. No streets, no areas, every- Tölke: What kind of feelings do you have when you go through a finished thing is destroyed. project for the first time? Tölke: Do you still feel like an Iraqi? Hadid: It’s always difficult for me. I always notice the mistakes first, some- Hadid: I have very strong feelings for the country and the people. I recently thing that’s wrong or doesn’t function. On the other hand, it’s always a sur- saw an Iraqi play on television just by chance, and it really moved me. It was prise, something can happen that you didn’t foresee, and that can be very nice. the first time in years that I had heard Iraqi music; it has an energy of its own. Tölke: Which unrealised project do you regret the most? It’s the same when I hear Lebanese music. I studied in Beirut until 1977, and Hadid: There are a few, but especially ‘The Peak’ in Hong Kong. Of the lat- the energy captures me as soon as I enter the city. It is the ultimate for tourists. est two, the Düsseldorf Harbour Project, that was just at the beginning stage. The Lebanese are the masters of hospitality and service. The idea was a dynamic organisation. The other is the Opera House in Cardiff. Tölke: How do you feel when you see the violent development from Islam? There are many unrealised, beautiful projects, but hardly any were as devel- Hadid: A very difficult situation. Okay, I view it as an outsider just like you. oped as these were. For the Düsseldorf project we worked two or three years Something has happened between the Islamic-Arabs and the Western world. on it and the Cardiff one, a year. Very intensively. There has been a very strong development away from each other. If we talk Tölke: Are you an expensive architect? After all you do develop brand about the people I knew in the Middle East, none of them were militant. They new techniques. drank beer, went to the beach and wore bikinis. That’s all changed. Hadid: Of course we’re not building sheds, so I can’t sell my work for the Tölke: Why do you think the situation has escalated? price of a tin can. I think the complexity of the work deserves a higher price. Hadid: I think it’s a reaction to the Western world. For centuries, the Arabs But it’s not exorbitantly more. Of course you can get a table for 20 Euros, but have been ignored and not been taken seriously. Their problems weren’t it’s not the same as a table for 100 Euros. solved and this is a reaction to that. Thirty to forty years ago world politics was Tölke: Will your furniture designs always be a sideline next to architecture? about Socialism and Communism. But the people that others wanted to save Hadid: No, furniture is an exciting venture. In the future we should only were just imprisoned and not freed. These “saviours” were active in the
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Middle East, but no one took the Arab’s identity in to account. Tölke: But it wasn’t just the left-wing supporters that tried to gain influence over the Middle East? Hadid: Even those that were Western ideologists back then didn’t save anyone in the Middle East. Nowadays you have to say it had just the opposite effect, because Arabs only experienced that the West fought against them. Once, it didn’t make any difference whether you spoke to Christian or Muslim Arabs. Back then at least. The upbringing was an Arab upbringing, not Christian or Islamic. It’s about finding your own identity, an Arab identity. Tölke: How about your own development as an Arab? Hadid:I went to a Christian school in Baghdad. At that time, Jews, Christians and Muslims all lived together. The Jews were the first to go and then the Christians. I think this is very sad, since the Middle East is the cradle of important religion, and that Iraq nevertheless managed for a short time to have these religions living together peaceably. NEW CULTURAL Islam was and is an integral part of the world, it isn’t a strange little ghetto made up of a few madmen. DEVELOPMENT PROJECT Tölke: How is the situation in the UK? Hadid: Unfortunately, more and more extremists are coming. The liberals simply don’t FOR ABU DHABI have a lobby anymore, and the more violent incidents that occur, the less likely will the One of the newest projects with which Zaha Hadid is liberals find an ear for balanced politics. I’ve lived over thirty years in England and no now involved is Guggenheim Museum director Thomas one has ever asked me if I’m Muslim, Christian or whatever I am. Then a journalist Krens’ monumental plan for Abu Dhabi’s Tourism wrote a long article about me and decided I was Jewish. And to be honest, I couldn’t care Development and Investment Company (TDIC). Part of less. The only stupid thing was why does someone have to mention something that’s not the 25 billion dollar development of Saadiyat Island, it true? Two days ago a journalist asked me: “Are you Jewish?” No I’m not. Since I’m from hopes to transform the capital of the UAE into the Iraq, he assumed I was Muslim. Which I’m not, but I’ve also never been asked about this. Tölke: When you are in the United Arab Emirates and work in Abu Dhabi how much world’s top cultural tourism destination. Envisaged as the do you have to change to adapt? greatest concentration of contemporary cultural 1 Hadid: In Iraq I never saw anyone with a burqa or headscarf. Now veiled women are resources in the world , the overall project will cover always on television. It’s becoming noticeably more conservative. Also this is a reaction 27 square kilometres and involve a dream team of the to the West, but I can’t explain why it’s happening. Emotionally, I can understand it. But world’s most innovative architects. Along with Hadid, when I’m there I wear the clothes that I wear here. buildings will be designed by Jean Nouvel, Tadao Ando Tölke: Could you imagine living there again? and long time Guggenheim collaborator Frank Gehry. All Hadid: Yes, but I can’t imagine at this time living in Baghdad. A person lives the architects have in the past completed major museum where their family and friends are. Beirut is really fantastic, but my friends are in spaces and will now turn their various talents to creating London or America. In Beirut you can live very comfortably and the weather is what will surely be one of the most extraordinary collec- great year round. tions of buildings in the middle east. Hadid’s concept is a 62-metre high performing arts space covering 200,000 square meters, which will house five theatres with acom- bined seating capacity for 6,300. Nouvel is planning a ‘microcity’ of buildings as an outpost of the Louvre Museum under a 24,000 square meter dome, and Ghery is building the Guggenheim’s own 30,000 square meter structure. Tadao Ando, the Japanese minimalist, is weigh- ing in with a maritime museum inspired by a billowing sail. The plans for the island also include a national museum and a biennial exhibition park made up of 19 pavilions designed by other architects including NY-based Egyptian Hani Rashid, along the banks of canals that will bring Venice to mind in miniature. Art schools and an art col- lege are also planned. Scheduled for completion in 2018, Saadiyat Island will be developed in three phases and fea- ture six highly individual districts that will also include hotels, marinas, golf courses, civic and leisure facilities, and housing.
1 Thomas Krens in conversation with Zvika Krieger, Newsweek International, 2007
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TERRA INCOGNITA
Today both religious life and craft traditions are resurfacing with a new inten- sity, and the region faces a great economic and political challenge to construct new national, cultural and religious identities. While the governments of the secular states of Central Asia attempt to foster an official Islam to compete with extremist alternatives, it is the ancient oral traditions, with their rich legends rooted in pre-Islamic beliefs, that have flourished since independence in 1991. Woven and embroidered textiles, integral elements of ‘everyday Islam,’ repre- sent deep-seated cultural and religious values. In their many uses - as robes, hats, carpets, covers and amulets - they help to mark the rites of passage from birth until death in beautiful, moving ways. Because they contain mystical ele- ments of Zoroastrianism, shamanism, and Sufism, these rituals are at odds with the state sanctioned Islam, although they are considered to be Islamic by the majority of the local Muslim population.
One ritual, based on a legend that relates to the origins of silk weaving, revolves around the mythical figure Bibi Seshanbe, the honorable Madame Tuesday. Devoted only to women, and derived from the powerful Zoroastrian goddess Anahita, she is the protector of fertility and water sources. Especially watchful of young girls, she often sends birds to help them. Women commemorate the Cinderella-like story in which an evil step- mother asks her child to weave lengths of fabric by morning. Realizing the impossibility of the task, Bibi Seshanbe sends a cow to chew the cocoons, TRADITION spewing out silken threads for the child to weave. In return, she asks that women hold a celebration in her honor.
AND Female mullahs, known as oyi-mullah or bibi khalife in Bukhara, otin-oyi in Uzbek or halpa in the region of Khorezm, are spiritual guides and intermediaries who have preserved these stories and continue the rituals.2 TRANSFORMATION They occupy positions of honor and influence within their communities and come from all walks of life and all economic and social spheres. This is in Christine MARTENS strong contrast to Islamic communities outside Central Asia where an ele- vated status for women does not exist in the religious arena. Their knowl- Until the mid-19th century, textiles were the edge is passed down from mother to daughter, as well as to others within the community. Viewed as healers and shamans as well as specialists in con- most important item of trade throughout the ducting ceremonies accompanying life-cycle traditions, they are considered Islamic world. Their creation and use to have the ability to solve problems, usually of a domestic nature, such as characterized all cultural and religious traditions infertility, illness, and poverty. but nowhere as compellingly as in Central Asia. One of the strictly female rituals that honors Bibi Seshanbe, is known as For centuries they were inextricably linked to Osh-i-Bibi Seshanbe or Osh-i-Bibiyon. It is conducted by the oyi-mullah while candles representing the sacred fire, a Zoroastrian influence, burn for religious practice through guild rules that the duration of the ceremony. The oyi-mullah sits in the center of the far side governed the prayers, rituals and behavior, as of the room and relates the Bibi story in both Tajik and Uzbek as well as the well as the manufacture, of each craftsman. Ikat tale of Bibi Mushkul Kusho (Remover of difficulties), who turns away mis- fortune with religious prayers in Arabic. In Tajikistan, it is Bibi Shorshanbe, weaving, a complex method of patterning warp the honorable Madame Wednesday, who is honored in this way. A special threads through resist dyeing, stood at the fore- milk pudding (o’moch) and flat bread fried in oil are served in addition to an abundance of fruits and variety of foodstuffs depending on the wealth of the front of this extraordinary history, particularly in family. The floor is covered with a new, white cloth - a sign of purity - often the legendary cities of Bukhara, Samarkand and placed atop a variety of silken embroideries adorned with blessings and Margilan in present day Uzbekistan.1 During the images of the Kaba.
Soviet period, these craft traditions all but faded Part of the ritual includes the cleaning of raisins - separating the stems from the landscape while formalized religion, from the fruit. The stems are collected on small pieces of white cotton folk traditions, shrine culture, and ancestor destined to be thrown into a swiftly moving stream or other body of water, in order to rid the participants of all debris and negativity. worship took place clandestinely.
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Alternately they are boiled in water to make Dr. Golib Korbanou, Doctor of a tea for a bride as an immunization against Historical Sciences at Bukhara University, hardship. The raisins are then mixed with researches the ancient risalas or guild rules nuts and grains which are distributed to par- that governed the lives, work and behavior ticipants and neighbours at the conclusion of of all Central Asian artisans. At the age of the ceremony. It is believed that the eating twelve, youths were apprenticed to an usta of these foods representing fertility, pros- (master), where they learned the skills of the perity and health will bring blessings and craft and Islamic law as well. He has trans- grace to the mistress of the house, members lated, for example, a hand written Tajik of her family and the community. At the risala for the textile tradition from the col- completion of the prayers, the participant lection of the Bukhara State Museum. The who initiated the ceremony touches the risala, which dates from the turn of the 20th white cloth and flour to her face, an action century, begins: connecting her more profoundly to fertility and its origins in the earth. When the ritual is at an end, the supplicant folds the table cover so that This is your guidebook for this life and the next. Read it daily and if you are unable to each point of the square touches the center, places it on her head and, read it, ask and listen to another read it. If you are able to read it, it is a sin not to have slowly bowing, backs out of the room facing the fire. Money, food or read it. cloth is left as a token of gratitude for the oyi-mullah. This is the tradi- It ends with the following: tion of Bukhara and the Ferghana Valley with many regional variations If someone hurts the master, we need to cut his or her hands off. and is likened to a pilgrimage (ziorat) but within the domestic domain.3 If one does not pay the master on time, he will be regarded suspiciously in the community. The shrine of Bahauddin Naqshbandi, a Sufi saint of the fourteenth If one says bad things about the craft, it is a great sin. century, offers another kind of pilgrimage. He is thought by many to be the In the workshop, all should be friendly and support each other. patron saint of weavers, although his exact affiliation is unclear. His com- If you follow the risala, good things will happen. plex at the outskirts of Bukhara acts as a meeting place for those with dif- This was passed on from Adam to Muhammad and developed by Bahauddin ficulties as well as for those giving thanks. As families gather for meals Naqshbandi. All directions are given to us from them. cooked in communal kitchens and celebrate the day, women circle his tomb Each master as he begins his work must say the name of god and at completion, must and pass under an old gnarled tree with the hopes of good fortune and fer- give praise to God, Muhammad and the teachers who taught them.5 tility. A mullah sits under a white canopy, receiving offers of bread and coins in exchange for blessings.
The actual relationship of Naqshbandi to the mythology sur- rounding silk and the process of ikat is unclear. The Tajik saying, howev- er, Dilba yoru, dastba kor (heart to God, hands to work), attributed to Naqshbandi, indicates a strong con- nection to the crafts in general. Yusuf Sharipov, a devotee of Bahauddin Naqshbandi and guide to the small museum of relics at the complex states: ‘Some say he was a potter and drew on ceramics, some say a blacksmith. Some say he designed the patterns of the weavers, hence his name Naqshbandi (one who draws the patterns)’. A poem by the 15th century Uzbek poet, Alisher Navoi, alludes to Bahauddin, who believed in God so strongly that the name of God was drawn in patterns on his heart, and his heart beat with the name of God.4
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Although men were once the chief dyers and weavers, entire families now run workshops in their homes. In the Ferghana Valley city of Margilan, the Mirzaahmedov family continues the ancient traditions employing thirty-seven different stages in the ikat process. In April, the government distributes 20 grams of silkworm eggs to each participating family of the region in a container the size of a matchbox. From these eggs, emerge the worms that feed ravenously on the leaves of the mulberry trees kept by each family. After about six weeks branches are brought into the home, filling three rooms and obliging the family to move into the courtyard. The silkworms spin their cocoons on these branches, eventually producing up to eighty kilograms of cocoons. The cocoons are then collected and sorted accord- and blue. Most of the dyes are aniline, from India, Iran, Afghanistan, China, ing to quality, with the best set aside for use the following year. Russia and the Ukraine with walnut, madder, indigo and onion-skins the nat- ural dyes commonly in use. A variety of surface finishes are the hallmark of After harvesting, the cocoons are put in boiling water to soften for certain ikat fabrics. Watery moiré patterns originally achieved by beating the several minutes, before extracting the filaments, which are wound into silk on a domed surface with a wooden hammer are imitated today with skeins, and then onto round bobbins to make a thicker thread before machines that produce steam and pressure as the silk fabric is pressed between steaming, washing and dying. large embossed industrial rollers. Egg white and glues, no longer in use, were applied to achieve a high gloss. Because of the complexity of the process, there are specialists for each of the many phases. The design is first marked on the brilliant white silk warp A pivotal figure in Ferghana Valley ikat production was Turghunboy with a stick dipped in charcoal, indicating the areas that must be tightly bound Mirzaahmedov, a third generation weaver born in 1940, who worked with strips of plastic and string by the abrbandchi (abr: cloud, band: tying) to clandestinely despite Soviet prohibitions. Other craftsmen did the same, resist the dye. After one color is dyed, the warp is unwrapped and retied in with small groups of dyers, designers and weavers banding together to preparation for the next color - the order of dyeing being yellow, red, green work co-operatively. In 1983, however, he and seventy-five others were imprisoned in Karshi for five years because of their private weaving activities. Upon his release he worked for the Yodgorlik Silk factory in Margilan where, according to his son Rasuljon, he contribut- ed two hundred atlas ikat designs to the meager five existing patterns that were being used at the time. He continued his practice in the rooms of his expan- sive home and lush garden until his death in 2006. Unlike other weavers of the region, Turghunboy kept notebooks of color drawings depicting his ikat patterns and their titles, as well as yarn calculations. An uncommon practice, this archive provides an invaluable visual record of designs produced over the last fifty years, a legacy which helps both the community at large and his own family to continue the tradition.
In the past, ikats were made primarily for the nobil- ity although fragments found their way into objects of everyday life. They were seen in the coats of the aris- tocracy, lining reception tents, decorating walls, cover- ing pillows and bedding in bridal trousseaus and given as prized and valued gifts to high officials and visiting heads of state. Rasuljon Mirzahmehdov, the thirty-four year old son of Turghunboy, is bringing this art to inter- national prominence once again, as he revives the
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Thus, despite Soviet prohibitions and cur- rent religious tensions, the ancient art, once again a sought-after luxury, has returned to a significant place of glory - sustained and preserved by the richness of a long and inspiring oral tradition.
1 Fitgibbon, Kate and Andy Hale IKAT Splendid Silks of Central Asia, Laurence King Publishing, 1997, P. 40 2 Fathi, H., (in press) Female Mullahs, healers and leaders of Central Asian Islam: gendering the old and new religious roles in Post-Communist societies. NEW GAMES IN CENTRAL ASIA, GREAT AND SMALL, Canfield, L. and Rasuly-Paleczek, G. (editors) M.E. Sharpe publishers. The etymology of these Turkish-Iranian words refers to the status of the women living at court. These women of high-ranking Turkish-Iranian dynasties belonged to a privileged class within the emirate of Bukhara and the two khanates of Kokand and Khiva :where they had access to a full religious education. Otin or âtûn and bibi were honorific titles that referred to educated ladies of the court. Oyi or âyî which means «Mother» in Turkish languages of ancient traditions whilst preserving the tradition- Central Asia, was given to women of nobility in the Ferghana Valley. 3 personal conversation with Dr. Mahsuma Niazova - Curator of Historical al methods. After learning embroidery, weaving and design, first with his Exhibitions, Bukhara State Museum, Department of History of the Bukhara father and then with Ferghana Valley masters Toshtemirov Nabi and Karimov Oasis, 2002 4 Muhammad, he was quickly recognized as a talented craftsman and natural personal conversation with Mullah Razokov Gafurjon - Imam Khatib, Kalon Mosque and Qozi of the Bukhara Region of Uzbekistan, 2003 leader by UNESCO, and now heads their large-scale training projects in both 5 personal conversation with Dr. Golib Korbanov - Director of Historical Sciences, Khorezm and Boyson. Mirzaahmedov also has a presence on the world stage, Bukhara University, 2002 producing adras (cotton and silk ikat), baghmal (silk velvet ikat) and atlas ikat (satin ikat) for the New York based fashion designer Oscar de la Renta.
page 38: Participant in the Bibi Seshanbe ceremony reciting blessings from Arabic text. Margilan page 39 top: Bibi Seshanbe ceremony. Bukhara page 39 bottom: Bibi Seshanbe/Bibi Mushkul Kusho ceremony. Samarkand page 40 top: Binding warp to resist dye. Margilan, Uzbekistan page 40 bottom: Turghunboy Mirzaahmedov winding bobbins on the veranda of his home. Margilan this page top: Woman's coat, silk ikat velvet. Ferghana, 1st half of the 19th century. From the Ceitnkaya Collection, Istanbul above: Rasuljon Mirzahmehdov seated in the showroom of his home where ikat fabrics are displayed and stored. Margilan far left: Oscar de la Renta, Dress, silk velvet ikat, 2007 - photo: Dan Lecca left: Oscar de la Renta, Skirt, silk velvet ikat, 2005 - photo: Dan Lecca
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Jalalu’ddin Rumi was a prolific 13th century mystic poet whose writings include some 70,000 lines of verse. Having written more than the Iliad and the Odyssey put together - and twice that of Dante’s ‘Divine Comedy’ - he is one of the leading intellects of Sufism, Islam’s most important philosophical school. This year the world celebrates the 800th anniversary of the poet’s birth, and UNESCO has proclaimed 2007 the International Year of Rumi. RUMI AND THE WHIRLING DERVISHES Polina FOMINA
Most authorities state that Rumi was born in 1207 in Balkh (in present-day shadow of Mevlana1 disappeared... He saw something which had until then Afghanistan), and died in 1273 in Konya (now Turkey). Alternative been unseen and heard things unheard by others. And everything became accounts locate his birthplace in what is now Tajikistan. Birthplace aside, the same for him, both high and low. He called Shams and told him: most encyclopaedias refer to him as ‘the great Tajik and Persian poet’. “Listen, my padishah, to your dervish. Everything your slave has, every- Rumi’s father was an important theologian, lawyer and Sufi mystic in his thing he can reach with his hands, from this moment forward belongs to his own right. Fleeing the Mongol hordes of Genghis Khan, he took his fami- master. From now on this house is yours!’” ly and pupils to live in the Turkish Sultanate, from where his son got the name ‘Rumi’. It means ‘from Roman Anatolia.’ The philosophers’ friendship was mysterious and secretive. For six months after their first meeting, the infatuated pupil and teacher did not leave After his father’s death, Jalalu’ddin began to teach at the madrasah. each other’s side, barely even leaving the scholar’s house. Ingrid Schaar, in her Being only 24, he was too young to preach in a mosque, and so left for ‘Rumi and Shams’ describes this early, intense period, ‘All conventional social Syria. There he spent several years at what was one of the great centres of differences disappeared. Rumi spent several months together with Shams in Islamic scholarship, deeply immersing himself in Islamic theology. mystical union (sohbet) without seeing other people and ignoring his duties as Returning to Konya, Rumi became the head of the madrasah there and lived father, husband, teacher, head of the school, and courtier, dedicating himself as a respected scholar. He was initially uninterested in poetry, but this all entirely to mutual spiritual exchange and meditation...Without this meeting changed when he met the dervish Shams-e Tabrizi. This mendicant friar millions of people, from Central Asia in the north to Arabia in the south, from unleashed passions in him he had never known existed. Rumi recognized Indonesia in the east to Northern Africa in the west, would today feel in a dif- him as his spiritual teacher and dedicated himself to study with him. ferent way. For the intellectual, this day has the same significance as the day Socrates met Plato, or Schiller, Goethe...’ Russian scholar Radi Fish writes, At the time of this awakening, Rumi was 37 years old and his teacher ‘On this day Jalal ad-Din Rumi, one of the world’s greatest poets, was born.’ was in his 60s. Legend has it that they met in the streets of Konya. Rumi’s son, Sultan Valad, described the meeting, saying how, ‘Unexpectedly Legend has it that, following the murder of Shams at the hands of Shamsiddin appeared and joined him, and in the radiance of his light, the Rumi’s pupils, the poet went in disbelief to Damascus to search for his
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teacher and friend. Distraught with grief, Rumi was walking through the market when, on hearing the sound of goldsmiths’ hammers, he immediate- ly began to dance. The owner of the workshop so liked Rumi’s dancing that he ordered his workers to continue hammering despite the damage it was causing to their work. What remained of their efforts was given to Rumi as a reward for his danc- ing. He returned to his pupils and taught them the whirling dance in which he was the Sun and they the planets. Thus the Sufi order of Mevlavi was founded, known in the West as the “whirling dervishes.”
Rumi taught that communion with God was only possible if a man first of all felt love. For this, the full participation of the body was essential. Through its structure and the memory of its parts, the body is connected to the movement of the stars, planets love. Dervishes begin to turn slowly and, after finding their and galaxies, and a hidden power is awakened when it Lost in the dance, balance, extend their arms little by little, finally fully stretch- spins. The dance of the dervishes of the Mevlavi order is Rumi searched the ing them out like wings. In this wild whirling ‘around the certainly beautiful to watch, and it has rightly become one infinite sky and axis of the heart’ reality itself melts away. of contemporary Turkey’s foremost tourist attractions, but amongst the bright it is based on the wisdom of centuries. Dressed in white Rumi signed most of the poems of the ‘Diwan-e’ with stars for his friend. robes with tall conical hats on their heads, dervishes leave the name of Shams-e Tabrizi, in honour of his beloved behind the impurity of this world and transcend its restric- friend. Hussam-e Chelebi, another pupil of the great tions, appealing directly to its Creator. teacher and a friend of Rumi, inspired the creation of the mystical and didactical poem ‘Masnavi’, the famous ‘Rhyming Couplets Every element of the ritual carries a symbolic meaning. The right palm of Profound Spiritual Meaning’. It is a collection of fables gathered from of the dervish, for example, is turned toward the heavens ready to receive different sources that interpret the ayat of the Qur’an. It is also called a blessing. The left is turned towards the earth, the dervish acting as a ‘The Qur’an in Persian’ and has been studied in Islamic schools since the human conductor of God’s love and grace. This ritual movement is called 18th century. the Sema and it is the source of the dancers’ greatest inspiration and ecsta- sy. Rumi himself said that the Sema is a rest for the souls of those who seek 1 One of the names of Rumi
All photographs by Anastasia Zlatopolskaya Rumi is recognized as the world’s great- est mystic-poet and is one of the most widely read Islamic authors after Muhammad. His poems have been recorded countless times and are rec- ommended as a treatment for depression. Every year his adopted hometown of Konya holds a festival of whirling dervishes, which is attended by thousands of people.
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THE HAT AS INDICATOR OF POSITION AND SOCIAL STATUS IN ANATOLIA Christine MARTENS For centuries, dress had been the most significant indicator of class in the Ottoman Empire, with the hat, in particular, indicating honour, position, and status. Men of every rank wore the turban, in its many manifestations, until it was replaced by the fez during the rule of Mahmud II in 1829, when reforms in the realm of traditional costume were insti- tuted and the ceremonial behaviour of the court radically altered. The fez was subsequently outlawed by Ataturk in 1920 as the country moved even more strongly toward European standards.
The only head covering worn today that still holds symbolic meaning is that of the dervishes, who throughout history have clung to their traditional forms. The conical, honey coloured felt head covering still in use by dervish- es as part of the costume traditionally worn when performing the whirling ceremony or Sema, is the sikke. Said to originate some 200 years before Rumi in Baghdad, it was only with the dervishes that the profound spiritual content of the dance developed. In spinning, the dervishes are relinquishing the earthly life to be born in mystical union with God.
Mevlana Jalalu’ddin Rumi, the great mystic, scholar, philosopher and poet of the 13th century, lived and died in the Seljuk city of Konya in central Anatolia. Around him flourished the Mevlevi Sufi order of dervishes. The Mevlana Museum located in the centre of Konya, was a Mevlevi derga (dervish lodge with attached tomb) until 1925, when Kemal Ataturk forbad all ritual practice and closed all Sufi lodges. Here one finds a collection of artefacts connected to the early history of the Mevlevi order, in addition to the sarcophagi of Rumi, his family and disciples. Each tomb can be identified by symbolic representations of turban forms wound around a felt base, symbolizing the position of the particular dervish in the hierarchy of the Mevlevi order, as well as his relation- ship to the line of the Prophet and/or to the line of Rumi.
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The sikke, traditionally made of the fleece of a young camel in the first year, represents the tombstone of man. The sheikh, an elder Sufi who has been authorized by the order to teach, initiate and guide aspiring murids & dervishes, wears a special turban wrapping around his sikke called destar. It is made of a length of tubular cotton that is between five and ten centimetres wide and between eight and ten meters long and can be filled with cotton batting when a dimensional effect is desired. Some say that the loose end of the destar touches the heart. When dervishes travelled long distances by foot, the destar was used as a shroud, should its owner die while travelling.
Colour also plays a role. If a dervish is born into the family of Mevlana, he has the title of celebiler and the colour of his destar is green. Halifeler are dervishes who are rela- tives of the prophet Mohammed. The title of Postnicin is bestowed upon a dervish by the family of Mevlana and iden- tifies him as a representative of Mevlana. His destar covers the base of the sikke completely, with no rim of felt showing at the base. Halifeler and Postnicin are permitted to wear very dark purple.1 Rumi wore white, but after the death of his great mystical friend and teacher Shams-I-Tabrizi, he exchanged it for a turban of dark purple, almost black, the duhani, that he would wear for the rest of his life.2 GRAVESTONES
According to Hans-Peter Laqueur, the custom of utilizing the sikke as an duty’, which consisted of eighteen different jobs ranging from cleaning ornament crowning the gravestone became widespread in the Ottoman to finding wood for the fire, as well as studying art and architecture; the Empire since the headdress, which varied with rank even within a single intensive training for a dervish. A woman’s grave with an inscribed order, could also indicate the position of the deceased within his lodge sikke identified her as a member of the Mevlevi family. or religious grouping. In the 18th century, however, the use of the hat as an indication of rank was also used on secular graves, where various CALLIGRAPHY forms of the turban indicated positions within the government or mili- tary.4 The colour of the destar was originally painted on the gravestones According to Annemarie Schimmel, most Turkish calligraphers were but with exposure to the elements has worn away. Dr. Naci Bakirci, the members of Sufi orders, as the Sufis always emphasized the importance second General Director of the Museums of Konya, explained that there of the Arabic letters and their mystical qualities. Popular also with the is no clear-cut formula for classification, other than reading the accom- Mevlevis and Bektashis were blessings written to honour their sages. panying old Turkish carved inscriptions that appeared on the stone itself. These calligraphic blessings in the shape of a sikke, praising Mevlana, One exception was the unadorned sikke, the simple conical felt hat of the are especially prevalent. Hazrati Mevlana (praise and honour to dervish. When appearing on a tomb, it signified that the deceased had Mevlana) can be seen on illuminated manuscripts as well as pendants not yet completed the initiatory and preparatory ‘1001 days of kitchen throughout Anatolia.5
page 44 top: Sheikh of the Mevlevi community, Konya, Turkey 1 Only the sheikh wears a special turban-like binding around his sikke called Conversation with Dr. Naci Bakirci, Konya 2003 a destar. If the dervish is born into the family of Mevlana, the destar is 2 Atasoy, Nurhan “Dervish Dress and Ritual: the Mevlevi Tradition” green. The Dervish Lodge, Architecture, Art and Sufism in Ottoman Turkey, left: Cuneydi destar, velvet covered sarcophagi of the Khorasan soldiers Raymond Lifschitz, ed., University of California Press, Berkeley, (13th century), Mevlana Museum, Konya California 1992, p.254 3 La Queur, Hans-Peter, “Dervish Gravestones”, The Dervish Lodge, far left top: Seker-aviz kafesi destar on tombstone, Istanbul far left bottom: Unadorned sikke on tombstone, Istanbul Architecture, Art and Sufism in Ottoman Turkey, Raymond Lifschitz, ed., University of California Press, Berkeley, California 1992, p..291, 292 top right: The calligraphy reads "Hazrati Mevlana" (All praise to Mevlana). 4 Mevlana means teacher, referring to Mevlana Jalalu‚ddin Rumi, the great Schimmel, Annemarie “Calligraphy and Sufism in Ottoman Turkey” the All photographs by Christine Martens mystic, scholar, philosopher and poet of the 13th century. From the dervish Lodge, Architecture, Art and Sufism in ottoman Turkey, Mevlana Museum, Konya, Turkey pp. 242, 245
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ISLAMIC TALISMANS, AMULETS AND PHILTRES Maryam REZVAN Magic in medieval consciousness played much the same function as science does today. It helped to form people’s understanding of the natural world, and therefore also their efforts to predict and control it. As part of such a worldview, amulets were believed to grant the wearer special insights. The deep universal mysteries, which have fascinated the human mind in all ages, were made accessible by these simple objects.
Talismans, amulets and charms of every description are used throughout inscriptions on funeral talismans. Judaic amulets incorporated texts from the Islamic world, and examples can be found today in many museums the Bible and the Psalter. Belief in talismans and amulets with verses of and manuscript collections. Islamic talismans usually include extracts the Qur’an inscribed on them was widespread in the Islamic world. For from the Qur’an inscribed on various materials; from paper and leather non-Arabic speaking Muslims in particular, any Arabic writing was con- to ceramics and precious metals. These texts range from fragments of sidered sacred, an attribution which was extended to whatever object separate verses to the entire Qur’an written out in extraordinarily small happened to carry the writing. Stylisations of Arabic writing can be script. Sometimes texts are even placed under the bezel of a ring. found on jewellery whose protective function was completely supplant- Amulets with sacred texts are said to cure both body and soul since the ed by the aesthetic. wearing of them is, in itself, believed to be pleasing to God. There were many texts describing the rules for the creation of talis- The most common Arabic term for talisman is tamima. It is thought mans, but such complex theoretical systems were rarely put into use. In that this word was first applied to unusual looking stones hung around practice, amulet makers used more straightforward and almost identical children’s necks to protect them from the evil eye, bad luck or disease. patterns. The list of materials upon which Qur’anic texts were inscribed Traditional Islam forbade this practice because the object’s power was is very long. It includes stones (agate, onyx, cornelian, schist), clay, iron, not thought to have come from God. Later, tamima came to be a gener- silver, copper, thin lead sheets, mother of pearl, various fabrics includ- ic term for any kind of amulet. Formal religious approval was secured by ing cloth from Kashmir and Yemen, military banners, animals parts (the placing the names of Allah or verses from the Qur’an (ayat) on the skin of unborn gazelles, camel bones, sheep shoulder-blades and neck- amulet. Most commonly, different variations of ‘To Allah I appeal’ were bones), plants (olives, figs, dates) and even food (halva, candies, bread). used. This sura alone was considered to assist with every life experience, In addition to various inks, many other liquids were used to write from providing an easy birth and a painless and peaceful death to ensur- inscriptions such as rose water, saffron extract, honey, grape and mint ing the journey on to bliss in heaven. It provided cures for all illnesses, juices, fat, rain and spring water. The use of protective writing was not such as fevers, swellings, aches, blindness and insanity.1 limited to amulets but also appeared on those things which surrounded people in their everyday life and professional activities - mirrors, jew- The use of sacred texts for talismans dates back to Ancient Egypt ellery, clothes, medical instruments, locks, crockery, scissors, and even where citations from the ‘Book of the Dead’ were an integral part of beehives. Jasper Hermsen © Photo:
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Tumars and bazubands are cases for amulets in which quotes from A similar transformation the Qur’an or prayers are kept. A traditional feature of adornment found occurred with talismanic across Central Asia, their use illustrates Islam’s influence on people’s tables, which contain consciousness, as well as their daily life. Taking a variety of different meaningfully orga- forms, they are usually magnificently decorated with authentic or styl- nized letters, num- ized Arabic script. Believed to help in matters of childbirth and fertility, bers, magic such amulets are worn primarily by women, especially those who are squares, the pregnant and nursing, and by children. Tumars are also one of the essen- names of suras, tial components of any wedding dress because brides are considered to the names of be especially vulnerable to evil forces. The effectiveness of tumars is Allah and mem- apparently determined not only by the texts they carry but also by their composition. Some examples are filled with mastic or plaster and covered with gold or silver leaf, whilst others are flat ornamented tablets. bers of his Esteemed perhaps above all others, family, and the five-fingered hand widely known as descriptions of his ‘The Hand of Fatimah’, is a common physical and moral qualities. Originally, amulet across the Islamic world. The it is likely that all this information was hand is usually made of silver, though put on small sheets of paper or fabric to be other substances may also be used. folded and placed into special cases. It was Shiites believe that the five fingers rep- often enough to simply look at these talis- resent Muhammad, his daughter Fatima, her mans on certain days of the year, or perhaps husband Ali, and their sons Hassan and Husayn. after prayer. Later, however, in order to improve Others interpret them as representing the five pil- the effectiveness of their protective power, these tables lars of Islam. The palm of the hand is divided into began to be worn on clothing. Thus in the 15th century, sections, each of which is associated with certain talismanic shirts appeared as another kind of protection letters and numbers. It is believed that a person’s again the various dark forces arrayed against humanity.
Maartje Jaquet character and disposition can be revealed with © the help of these codes. The letters of one’s 1 Donaldson, “The Koran as Magic” The Muslim World,
Photo: name and their numeric equivalents are noted Vol. 27, p. 258). down and deciphered by referring to special tables.
Magical texts can be used in other ways. The ink in which they are written, for example, can be rinsed away with water and then drunk. Talismans of this sort are called phylakteria, or philtre, a word taken from the Greek. Drinking water which has washed away the words of the Qur’an is believed to cure any disease, ease the delivery of children, help one avoid temptation, and bring prosperity. With time, verses from the Qur’an began to be applied directly to the drinking vessels them- selves. Liquid placed in these cups would become blessed simply by being in contact with the sacred words, and the vessels could then be used indefinitely. This in turn led to the appearance of special types of medical cups. In early examples, words are often accompanied by vari- ous images and, in addition to verses from the Qur’an, the names of God, prayers, letters of the alphabet and magic squares were also used. Sometimes the purpose of a particular cup was written on its side, mak- ing them a valuable source of information about the history of diseases and the fears of the time.
page 46 top: Hand of Fatimah'. Photo by Nerissa Atkinson Courtesy the Nasser D. Khalili Collection, London
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RETROSPECTIVE ACCADEMIC CLASSICS Anastasia Grib spoke with Mikhail Piotrovsky, director of the Hermitage Museum, and Efim Rezvan, Deputy Director of the Kunstkamera - two of Russia’s leading scholars in Arabic studies. THE SINGULARITY OF ST. PETERSBURG ORIENTAL STUDIES
Russian academic Oriental studies have from the beginning been closely Dr. Piotrovsky: By the way, Krachkovsky, as a member of the Orthodox connected with St. Petersburg. The first Russian collections of Church was the greatest specialist of Arabic Christian literature. The manuscripts and early printed books in eastern languages were assembled study of the Christian East is a unique feature of the Russian school. in the Kunstkamera. In founding the Academy of Science, Peter the Great Orthodox tendencies were very strong thanks to a connection with the paid great attention to Oriental studies, allowing us to consider Peter the Palestinian Society. founder of Russian Oriental studies. It was he who assembled the first All three traditions are maintained to this day. The missionary existed collection of eastern manuscripts from Mongolia, China, Tibet and the throughout the soviet period but became anti-religious. The practical, Islamic world. In 1724 this collection became a part of the academy Moscow approach turned towards the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and St. library and 100 years later the Asiatic Museum was created as a part of Petersburg became the preserve of the academic with its main focus on the academy with a department dedicated to the East. Until the beginning manuscripts of the Soviet period, the Asiatic Museum was the only centre of academ- Dr. Rezvan: From the beginning we had a deliberate programme of col- ic oriental studies. lecting by the state. The ministry of foreign affairs sent instructions to the embassies to buy manuscripts which were then placed in the institute. We In 1929 the Soviet government formalized Oriental studies. The fol- have Russian spies to thank for this. If you look closely, Russia demand- lowing year, as part of the Department of Public Sciences of the ed, even in its earliest times, not only horses and gold and treasure as Academy, a group of oriental scholars was organised in Leningrad. The reparations but manuscripts as well. Institute of Oriental Studies was founded the same year. By the way, there are 80 specialists in Persian language and culture in St. Petersburg now, which is half of all the specialists in the world. A group of scholars was also formed in Moscow in 1943 made up of Dr. Piotrovsky: Exactly! It is only in St. Petersburg that Persian evacuees from the besieged Leningrad. In 1950, the institute was relocat- Miniatures are studied scientifically. And if only five people in the entire ed to Moscow leaving only the Department of Oriental Manuscripts in world are able to read papyruses, three of them are from here. Leningrad which became the Leningrad branch of the Institute of Oriental Dr. Rezvan: It is strange but even soviet censure wasn’t able to kill off Studies. From this point onwards, the main focus of the branch has been real scholarship. The scientists learned how to exist without conflict. the study of the philology, history, philosophy, religion, law, and Dr. Piotrovsky: Scholarship survived because during difficult times they manuscripts of the ancient and medieval east. The sphere of interest of the created a system of succession. The word Islam wasn’t spoken but Moscow institute is the modern states of Asia, North Africa and the Islamic texts were published and the Qur’an was studied. Pacific. The history of the Academy in St. Petersburg means it is focused Dr. Rezvan: An amazing fact is that during the Siege (of Leningrad) the on classic academism. 850th anniversary of Nizami, the greatest mystic poet, was celebrated. Dr. Piotrovsky: That was the other side. When national consciousness Anastasia Grib: I would like to ask you about Oriental studies in Russia was artificially created Nizami was recognised as a great poet. His in so far as they concern Islam, with a particular focus on Arabistics. mysticism was replaced with human love. The true meanings of his texts Mikhail Piotrovsky: It is possible to discern three distinct traditions in were lost but the works of Navoiy and Nizami became a part of the school Russian orientalism. The first is the missionary, or theological. Its main curriculum. aim is to prove that Islam is not a religion but a deism. This tradition is Grib: Are Russian Oriental scholars known elsewhere in the world? very tenacious and militant. It differs from European Ecumenism in that it Dr. Rezvan: It is a paradox. Russian contributions to Oriental studies are holds that there can be no dialogue with the Muslim world. The followers not considered in the west. Last year a book by the well-known English of scientific oriental studies have never accepted this point of view. author and Oriental scholar Robert Irwin ‘For Lust of Knowing: The The second tradition is a practical one. Boguslavsky, Zavadovsky, and Orientalists and Their Enemies’ was published where he writes that Osenkovsky who concerned themselves only with practical matters and Russia is a perfect example of Imperialism and imperial Orientalism. did not concern themselves with the scientific. Minorsky is a perfect Further, when he writes about the Bolshevik period, he once again brings example of a practical oriental scholar. He was involved with defining the up the idea of state directives and imperial policy. It is disappointing that Russian borders with Persia and Turkey and through this activity became they don’t know the other side of Oriental studies in the West and that a scholar. they think that our science ended at the time of Krachkovsky. The third tradition is the classic Petersburg school. It is connected with Dr. Piotrovsky: Irwin is correct in saying that Russian Oriental Studies collections and manuscripts. The process of the formation of a scholar is are closer than others to the state if one considers the relation between built upon the mastery of a single, complex manuscript which needs to be Empire and Oriental studies. In Russia, Orientalists studied themselves studied exhaustively. So this tradition is entirely centred on the text. because of the multinational aspect of our country and the fact that the Efim Rezvan: The principal which characterises the Academy of Russian Empire included Muslim lands. It is true that we are little-read science is that it looks slightly downward on the east. So it was in the west. For them, what is more important is that which can be con- unnecessary to visit the countries being studied or even to know the tained within certain formats. Russian Oriental Studies, being outside spoken language. Although in reality, some did know and did go. For their frame of reference, is unknown. And thank God, we can write about example, Krachkovsky. this phenomenon!
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Yemen, surrounded by sea and deserts and filled with treasures and miracles, was known in antiquity as Arabia Felix - “Happy Arabia.” It was an important part of the Biblical world, and not just because everywhere - in the temples and private homes of the Mediterranean, in Egypt, in Mesopotamia, in India - Yemenese incense and myrrh were burnt for the gods. There was the Queen of Sheba, amazed by the faith, wisdom and wealth of King Solomon, Jesus’ sermon which calls the Southern Empress to witness, the vivid story in the Qur’an about the collapse of a powerful nation, the tale of the hoopoe and the appeal of the Queen of Sheba... YEMEN: COUNTRY OF INCENSE Efim REZVAN
Ideas about ancient Southern Arabic civi- We were very lization are firmly embedded in our cul- lucky. We saw the ture. At the same time, however, Southern rain in Sana’a and Arabia is undoubtedly the least studied hoopoe soaring area of the Biblical world. Russia has in- disputably made important contributions above the ruins of to the study of Yemen and its ancient civ- the Arsh Bilqis ilization; its cultural history, archaeology Temple, the and ethnography. These contributions are astounding town of chiefly the results of the interdisciplinary Haid al-Jazil Soviet-Yemen expedition of the Academy perched above the of Sciences of the USSR, or SOYCE. The abyss, and the expedition, which celebrates its 25th an- ‘Manhattan of the niversary this year, was organized and led Desert,’ the famous for seven years (1983-1989) by Pyotr Shibam. Afanasyevich Gryaznevich, one of the most important Russian Arabic scholars and a specialist on Islam.
From the very beginning, the expedition was conceived as one of the Academy’s most important projects in the humanities. Thanks to the work of its members, important evidence was discovered of the contin- uous settlement of these territories through all stages of human history, and it was proven that in the south of Arabia all stages of the Stone Age were represented, from the early Palaeolithic through to the Neolithic. A study was made of the features of the civilization which became the connecting link between the main centres of antiquity, a key intermedi- ary in the exchange of innovations in technology and religious culture, and an important link in the sea route from the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean.
Here the houses here are built using the same centuries- old methods, to the same plan. That is why even new houses have an archaeological memory. One walks along the streets as if among stage sets.
All photographs Tatyana Fedorova 50-51 05/10/07 15:45 Page 51
In April, 2007 the ‘Ijma- Concord’ film crew tra- On the Arabian versed 2,500 km of the coun- Peninsula ancient try, visiting the main sites fantasy is in harmo- connected with the work of ny with modern SOYCE and brought back reality. It seems that over 15 hours of video one travels back in footage and more than 3,000 time simply by photographs. breathing the air.
The Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography (Kunstkamera), where the ethno- graphic collections of SOYCE are kept and most of the participants of the expedition work, has put together an exhibition called, ‘The Land of Incense. Yemen: Images of Traditional Culture’. The exhibition attempts to represent the world of the Yemenites living in cities and villages across the country which has held onto its original traditions. Yemenites follow patriarchical customs, and most of the population live in harmony with the culture and with the world. Perhaps this is why Pier Paolo Pasolini was able to film his ‘A Thousand and One Nights’ here without having to build any sets.
‘Land of Incense’ is part of the exhibition cycle ‘The Exhibitions Are Not Over’ which displays images and symbols of traditional cultures. A special feature of the project is its comprehensiveness, simultaneously displaying items of traditional culture alongside photographs and videos, Qana’ah was the final point of the trans-Arabian Incense route. Here the caravans precisely illustrating their real life use. The exhibition is ded- arrived with incense for kings, priests and the fashionable women of Egypt and icated to the anniversary of the tragic death of my teacher Babylon, for temples and private homes in Athens and Rome, and for the physicians Dr. Gryaznevich. He used this fairy tale country to help of the Mediterranean. Purple fabrics, copper, wine and beautiful vases were brought inspire me and many of my colleagues, so beginning our from Greece. And visitors left this land with stories of Felix Arabia, where pleasant life-long love affair with Arabia. aromas are encountered everywhere, incense trees are used as firewood, and people dedicate their life to sweet idleness.
One valley follows another, and then suddenly one of the greatest views in the world appears. At Haid al-Jazil palaces and towers climb the unreachable heights and appear gargantuan against the sky. 52-55 05/10/07 15:48 Page 52
PLACE THE CULTURE OF CLEANLINESS Yuri ZININ
An intriguing sign reading ‘salon of recumbence’ brought me to a halt. It was written on the façade of an easily missed house in one of the streets of Algiers, just near an ancient wooden door with bronze rivets. No sooner had I paused than a smiling doorkeeper whisked open this aged portal. He hugged me as if I was a long lost relative and launched into an inventory of the many virtues of his Moorish bath house, or hammam in Arabic, tempting me to peek inside... 52-55 05/10/07 15:49 Page 53
And so it was that I found myself passing through a narrow corridor into a small room. It was covered with carpets and scattered with a number of low couches. The attendant directed my attention to a short, bare-chested man in wide-legged trousers, introducing him as a tough tayib.
My tayib handed me a pair of black shorts, which must be worn for mod- esty’s sake in all public baths, and led me through a small shower area to the steam room. All photographs Anastasia Zlatopolskaya
A shaft of golden daylight fell onto the marble floor, filtered through a narrow trellised window high up near the domed ceiling. All was enveloped in a hazy semi-darkness and I was able to make out taps for hot and cold water and tin scoops the size of tankards. As my eyes adjusted, several other patrons in shorts could be seen seated or half lying on the floor in absolute silence.
The tayib bid me lie down on the warm marble floor, which was heated from below, and the warmth spread quickly throughout my body. The atten- dant himself settled next to me and began to rub a reddish paste from a small jar into my skin. As he went on to explain, it was special clay from the sacred Moroccan city of Fez and would help to open my pores.
And it was true, almost immediately the sweat began to pour from my body, as the tayib began further manipulations. He started by rubbing my fin- gers and toes, then with strong and skilled movements warmed up every bone in my body to the top of my head. The energetic Algerian twisted my joints and almost pulled my neck out of its socket with a loud cracking sound. My body, to my great astonishment, became incredibly supple, obediently sub- mitting to the professional stretching.
Next, a rough black sponge appeared in his hands. As if with an emery board, he scrubbed away the uppermost layer of my skin leaving me smooth and soft. My red-hot skin was so clean and polished that I barely needed any soap. With a tap on the shoulder, he In the 7th Century the first wave of invasions, first of sent me off to take a shower. After rinsing with cool water Syria and then of Egypt, brought Arabian Muslims in con- I realized that this part of my Moorish bath experience Hammam (from the tact with Greek and Roman baths. They immediately fell had come to an end and returned to the dressing room. root meaning ‘heat’ in under their spell. Arabic) is an integral The attendant there led me to a couch where I lay part of the everyday Well known for their ability to quickly embrace foreign cus- down. He threw a sheet over my shoulders and brought a life of all Arabs from toms, Arabs adapted the bathing tradition to their own way of small glass of aromatic mint tea. Sipping the hot drink I the Persian Gulf to life. Hammam entered the religious customs of society, well began to feel the full effect of the experience. Unlike a Morocco. suited to the Islamic demand for ritual purity and hygiene. Russian banya or Finnish sauna, in the hammam the real sweating happens not in the hot steam room, but in a cool While the Romans built spectacular thermae for large one. Here even the smallest pores of a hot and relaxed body opened to amounts of bathers, Arabs preferred small, unpretentious establishments release their sweat. distributed across the town, some of them being annexes of Mosques. The heating system retained the Roman tradition of heating the floors, The attendant was barely able to keep up with changing my wet sheets as the stone benches, and the lower part of the walls. my body, released of all dirt, sunk into a state of utter relaxation or kaif, which in Arabic means delight. The authorities encouraged the building of public bathhouses and it is believed that Mohammad himself talked about the use of hot baths, pointing TRADITIONS OF ARABIC BATHHOUSES out that they increase fertility, an important plus for the followers of the new religion in the first period of Islam. Before Islam, Arabs didn’t have bathhouses because of a lack of fuel in the deserts and plains where they lived. The usual way to clean oneself The owners of baths were even exempt from paying taxes in the early was in cold, or sometimes warm, natural springs. Islamic period. Their establishments gradually became centres for social gath-
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ering which were open from described by Urqhuart also the early morning to late at began to appear in Germany, night. The cost of visiting a Australia, England and the US. hammam was moderate. For example, one of the caliphs Public opinion was divided from ‘Thousand and One as to the merit of the new craze Nights’ ordered that the cost of and discussions about the use of the baths be ‘such that any hammams took place every- visitor could afford to pay’. A where. Some thought that they visit to the baths became a provided a panacea for all ritual cure and means of disease and illness including revitalization. colds, asthma and rheumatism. Others were less enthusiastic, The eminent medieval calling Urqhuart a charlatan. Arabic doctor, philosopher and poet, Abu Ali Ibn Sina’, Russia also followed the known in Europe as Avicenna, fashion and between 1850 and was a great admirer of ham- 1852, by order of emperor mam. His advice is recorded in Nicolas I, Italian architect Russian medical manuscripts Ippolito Monighetti built a of the 14th century. He considered that moderate use of the Turkish bath as a unique monument to commemorate baths would help to relieve nervous disorders and insomnia. He Hammam suited the victory in the Turkish campaigns of 1828-29. Located at also prescribed visiting a hammam as a cure for paralysis, tenets of Islam, above Tsarskoe Selo, the bathhouse resembles a mosque with a spasms and many other infirmities. all its demand for tall, thin minaret. The interior was decorated in the ritual purity and Moorish style and richly furnished. To construct the A visit to the hammam was popular after returning from a hygiene. bathhouse white marble architectural elements from the long trip, following release from prison, or even before buying bath of the sultan’s wife at Rumelia - the European part of new clothes. The proverb ‘Those who go to hammam forty the Ottoman Empire - were used. Some of the stone blocks Wednesdays in a row will have luck at once’ comes from this period. have lines of poetry carved in them.
The building of hammams by private citizens was considered as alms and MOORISH BATH HOUSES: A WOMAN’S VIEW Arabic author Yusef Abdel Hadi wrote that anyone who committed a sin would be forgiven if he repented sincerely and built a bathhouse. There were The ‘Salon of recumbence’ that I visited in Algiers, as is the case with many an exceptional number of hammams built in Islamic Spain. 10th century other Moorish bathhouses, is not segregated into separate areas for men and Cordoba alone a boasted a staggering 3711 of them. women. Here, once the men have had their turn, at around about midday, the women’s hours begin. In the 19th century, European travellers visiting the Ottoman Empire called this type of establishment ‘Turkish’ baths. Several French orientalist On leaving the hammam I saw a group of women in traditional white artists including Eugene Delacroix, Jean Leon Gérôme and Eugène Fromentin capes - haikas - near the door, waiting their turn. For them hammam is not gave free rein to their romantic imagination in works depicting eastern simply a way to get clean but a place for social contacts in a society where the bathhouses. In these paintings dark-skinned slaves were seen to be undressing spheres of contact between men and women are strictly divided. white servants, while groups of beautiful maidens lounging near the pools and other exotic symbols of the East were clearly and lovingly depicted. For women who spent all their time inside their homes, bound to the hearth from ancient times, hammam was a kind of release and a window to the The fashion for Turkish baths began to spread throughout Europe and outside world. America and in the mid-19th century Englishman David Urqhuart, who spent a great deal of time in Greece and Andalusia, wrote ‘The Pillars of Hercules’ Ladies traditionally visited hammams in company, with those who were in which he glorified the use of hammams. The author assured readers that if married only allowed to visit with the permission of husbands or heads of the hammams were to be built in London, it would transform the lives of families. This permission was rarely, though, withheld; it was considered such thousands of British workers. According to his assertion, such establishments an important ritual that, according to some, if a husband stood in the way of a would also be powerful weapons against drunkenness, immorality and other wife’s visits to the hammam with her friends, she could demand a divorce. public vices. Women gathered in bathhouses to exchange the latest news, to discuss This enthusiast’s call to cleanliness found a response among the British. various problems, and to gossip. Here they washed and showed off their new One of those who heeded the summons was Dr. Richard Barter, who built clothes and cosmetics to each other. There is also the popular belief that 10 Turkish baths in Ireland. In the 1860s, hammams based on technology frequent visits to the hammam can help cure barren women.
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Women also went to the baths in large parties before important FROM HAMMAM TO THALASSOTHERAPY religious holidays. Typically there was a matchmaker in the company, a sharp-tongued woman with knowledge of marriage prospects in the local Today is a very difficult time for the traditional public bathhouse because of community. She had a good eye for young girls who were soon to reach the rise of modern conveniences within the home. Hammams continue their marriageable age, and in the bathhouse was able to take stock of the traditional functions in provincial towns and villages for the most part, while physical merits of brides-to-be. It was a good occasion for both mothers in the larger cities attendance has declined dramatically. and matchmakers to become acquainted with and to discuss the opportunities for future family life. In Dubai, for example, you would be hard pressed to find a public hammam. And while there are plenty of fitness-clubs and massage parlours Following such meetings, and depending on the fee a bride’s family with saunas to suit any taste, these days one can only have a massage and agreed to pay, the matchmaker would broadcast the beauty and other wash in private. A Moroccan masseur who worked in Dubai informed me merits of the potential fiancé. Thus the hammam was not just place for that there is now not a single traditional hammam surviving. cleansing but the setting for events which would often play a big role in woman’s fate. Not for nothing did the hero of Alphonse Daudet’s novel The explosion of tourism in Northern Africa, and especially in Tunisia, has ‘Tartarin de Tarascon’ go to the bathhouse in search of his Algerian lead to the construction of dozens of new luxury hotels in the Spanish Moorish ladylove. style with well-appointed interior courtyards and loquacious fountains. Many of them have hammams with latticed windows, marble and rich mosaics, so In Algeria, a visit to the hammam can quite often be part of the that the visitor feels as if they are within the quarters of a medieval ruler. marriage ritual. According to tradition, the new wife goes to the bathhouse with her relatives and friends either 14 or 40 days after the THE NAME OF THE CITY HAMMAMET wedding. There she sits on a bench in the middle of the steam room while an attendant circles her, filling all the corners of the room with ORIGINATES FROM THE WORD HAMMAM incense and chanting special charms against evil spirits, who she asks to be kind to the bride and not to harm her in her new life. The town of Hammamet on the Tunisian cost of the Mediterranean has been renowned since ancient times as a place for the local nobility to rest. According to Arabic legends, the djinns who inhabit wells and caves find Roman aristocrats who lived in Carthage came here to spend time in the themselves very comfortable in the humid twilight of hammams. Those who marble thermae of the town famous for its healing climate. do not wish to meet a djinn and his friends are advised not to visit the bathhouse between the last two prayers of the day, because this is the time In spring 1943 relentless fighting between Rommel’s African Corps and they take their bath. Allied troops, brought many injured soldiers to the local hospital. The doctors working there noticed that their patients’ wounds healed much more rapidly But what is the faithful one to do if by chance he meets djinn in the than in other places. steamy twilight? Islamic faqihs advise that he first of all say the sacred word “Bismillahir,” followed by the name of Allah to frighten away the Specialists later discovered that this was due to the influence of the local evil spirit. This will hopefully dispel the djinn immediately. Should this microclimate and the algae found in the seawater. Tunisians seized upon this not work, it is recommended that the man end his visit immediately so idea and built several thalassotherapy centres in Hammamet. But they are still as not to fall victim of foul deeds. To this day, protective signs can still of secondary importance and any meaningful cure still begins with the be found on doors of hammams. rejuvenating and restorative visit to the traditional hammam. 56-57 05/10/07 15:52 Page 56
FILM CINEMA TO OPEN THE EYES Vika SMIRNOVA
In the 1990s European film critics started to pay Wind Will Carry Us’, the character that is throughout referred to as “the more attention to world cinema. They found that engineer” turns out to be a photographer who has come to photograph a funeral. The hero of ‘Close Up’, who steals into a stranger’s house pass- it was no longer possible to speak of ‘national’ ing himself off as the famous film director Makhmalbaf, is in fact a fraud cinema, at least as the term has been widely desperate to feel a part of the glamorous world of cinema. understood. It was true that films retained ele- Much in Kiarostami’s work is left unsaid, unnamed, the enigmatic images ments of the local culture; the films of the East, rooted in Zoroastrian symbolism, ancient codes or secret signs. The symbols for example, contained references to folk tradi- are in effect empty, they simply offer an invitation to share in the experience tions and, more generally, registered a particular- of the film. Such a cinema might be considered a simple initiation into the spectacle, a unique principal of story exposition. ly ‘eastern’ aesthetic. What was strikingly clear, though, was that the era of directors working The French philosopher Jean-Luc Nancy observed that Kiarostami’s cin- ema has a pedagogical significance. Kiarostami began as a teacher and, wholly within one national culture was over. because he knows that cinema changes one’s view of reality, he does not make a division between art and life. This sentiment is most clearly felt in ‘A Taste ABBAS KIAROSTAMI of Cherry’, the director’s most unpredictable film which was awarded the Palme d’Or at Cannes in 1997.
‘I believe in a cinema which The film’s central character, Badii, wants to kill himself. We are not told offers more possibilities and the reasons for it, just as we never find out if he succeeds. Kiarostami skips the more time to its viewer - a details, and his aim is not to tell a story but to involve us in thoughts about life half-made cinema, an unfinished and death, and perhaps to keep us from suicide. cinema that is completed by the creative spirit of the view- The 50 year-old man travels through the mountainous suburbs of er, so that all of a sudden we Teheran searching for someone to bury him. During a single day he have a hundred films’. meets three people: a young Kurdish soldier, an Afghani seminarian and a Turkish taxidermist, and offers all of them money for help in realizing his plan. Upon hearing his request, the soldier runs away. The student Abbas Kiarostami makes films which merge the simple with the refined, the tries to change his mind with quotations from the Qur’an. It is only the old fashioned with the contemporary, and which break with narrative with the taxidermist, an old man who, after long conversation and many exhorta- same ease and fearlessness as Goddard and Antonioni did. Those who expect tions, finally agrees because he needs the money to pay for an operation an oriental exoticism in his films are surprised by his western technique, and for a sick child. They agree that the man will come to the slope of a cer- those who are familiar with geo-politics are astonished to find a remarkable tain hill at sunrise, will call out twice, throw some stones on him to be tranquillity combined with Islamic values and humanistic spirit. European certain that Badii isn’t simply asleep, and, if there is no reply, will fill audiences also recognise Kiarostami’s reluctance to present the truth, his pref- the grave and take the money left in the jeep parked nearby. At night we erence for the perusal of the image. see Badii lying in the prepared grave. We hear the sound of a thunder- storm, rain falling on the earth and a dog barking. The hero closes his Many find Kiarostami too ascetic and are disappointed by his con- eyes, and the screen goes black. crete building yards, deserts and old jeeps. He has an intentional con- tempt for effects, especially when compared with the studied aesthetic The next episode is shot with video. In the frame is Kiarostami with his frescos of Hamdamov or the overpowering opulence of Makhmalbaf. In crew filming a group of soldiers running. The camera rests on some blos- Kiarostami’s films one simply finds everything necessary to make them soming trees swaying in the breeze, then on Badii who lights a cigarette and easy to understand and comfortable to watch. His actors, as a rule, are moves off down the hill, and then onto the soldiers relaxing to the strains not professional. His favourite images include open windows and doors, of Louis Armstrong. or a tree in the desert, seen vanishing into the distance through the rear window of a car. A death imaginary or real, a lurch from cinematographic illusion to the illusion of life itself, these final minutes are what make the film a Driven by passion and impatience, his heroes travel miles of roads in genuine masterpiece. Nancy identifies this feeling as ‘a fracture passing order to see something. Their quarry is never revealed, but rather hinted through all Kiarostami’s movies’. It is the ambiguous place between life at for a brief moment before disappearing at the end of story. In ‘The and death, old and new, tradition and modernity, between Iran and the
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rest of the world. It is about the mystery of a changing state; the change from certainty to its absence, from existence to death, from pregnancy to birth. In ‘A Taste of Cherry’ the main symbols of such changes are the dark screen and the grave - a calm piece of ancient ground surrounded by an ugly building yard of noisy bulldozers and cranes. MOHSEN MAKHMALBAF
Mohsen Makhmalbaf is perhaps a more populist director than his compatriot Kiarostami. His refine- ment and aestheticism, his penchant in the hope of saving his sick mother. In ‘A Moment of Innocence’ for rich, still-lifes and motionless Makhmalbaf revisits his revolutionary youth, including the scene of the dis- textures invite comparisons with the arming of the police patrol. The policeman from his past turned up unex- tradition established by Soviet mas- pectedly for the screen test and was given a role. We see two young actors ters like Dovzhenko and Parajanov. reproduce two versions of the scene, but after several rehearsals neither version wins. The actor playing the policeman falls in love with a girl and Like Kiarostami, the films of gives her some flowers. Life interrupts the film plot and cancels the past.
Photo: Sam Klebanov Makhmalbaf have the power of initiation; they are suffused with a The film ‘Bread and Flowers’ reveals one of Makhmalbaf’s funda- faith in art, in that ‘it is a lot easier mental ideas about the primal honesty of art, its ability to open eyes and ‘The people of the East have to disarm a policeman with bare surprise. This is why, despite the elegance of Makhmalbaf’s style, his a deeply poetic temperament hands than to defeat ignorance films are far removed from European formalism. For him there is no pure and are jacks-of-all-trades. with culture’. Though before say- art, and there can be no talk of pure cinema. An Iranian changes professions ing these words, Makhmalbaf did- fifty times during his lifetime. n’t shrink from political activism. Even in such highly stylised films as ‘Gabbeh’ and ‘Persian Carpets’, In the West a man can spend When he was 17, he was wounded where every shot opens with the ceremoniousness of a museum display, all his life studying a single when he attacked a policeman and art is not fetishised. On the contrary, it is reduced to a form of palimpsest, kind of art, and then others spent 5 years in prison. Later, dis- an endless weaving and reweaving. Cobalt and ochre, persimmon and will continue his work. illusioned by active politics, he pomegranate, pregnancy and birth, wedding and funeral - all are threads That is why I think that people became a dissident writer, writing interwoven just as in the making of a carpet. The perfect work of art turns in the West live the perfect several scripts and directing out to be an allegory of eternal incompleteness. The legend about a girl life, and in the East they the 1985 film ‘Boycott’, his first who is constantly forced to postpone her marriage ceremony is a live a universal life’ significant movie about political metaphor for life’s refusal to give away fate’s secrets. prisoners. The feminist undercurrents of ‘Gabbeh’ ultimately yield to the Makhmalbaf has made more than 20 feature-length films. Of all the inter- ancient mystery of patriarchy. Something inexplicable holds these national prizes won by Iranian directors, he won half. Despite this, neither his women, who patiently bear the family burden. It reduces them with its status as a living classic nor his international success has influenced his cre- demands of obedience and forces them to endure, to weave carpets, to ative temperament. give birth to and care for children, and to refuse the call of love. This mystery does not depend on logic. It is like the figure of the horseman Makhmalbaf still makes movies dedicated to vital social themes. ‘Time with the voice of a wolf that pursues the tribe for ages and waits hope- of Love’, for example, officially forbidden in Iran, is about adultery. ‘The lessly for his bride Gabbeh. He always appears in the distance but never Cyclist’ is about a bike-marathon, in which an Afghan refugee participates comes closer than the horizon.
Stills from Mohsen Makhmalbaf's 'Sex & Philisophy' (2005) top, and 'Kandahar' (2001)below. Courtesy Arthouse.Ru 58 05/10/07 15:54 Page 58
REVIEWS
MOMENT, METAPHOR AND MEMORY Christopher GORDON falling rain, or as an abstract element of the landscape in a series of images the filmmaker has collected on long, solitary walks in winter to search for film sets, sometimes covering thousands of miles in the Iranian landscape.
Abbas Kiarostami has always been drawn to images which stand outside of time while distilling its essence. Thanks to a major exhi- bition of photographs and a retrospective of Kiarostami’s films organized by the Museum of Modern Art and P.S.1 in New York, All of the photographs on view in ‘Abbas Kiarostami, Image Maker’ and seen most recently at the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific convey a sense of isolation as well as an awareness of the magical, and Film Archive, fans of the director have had a wonderful opportuni- the spectre of the wanderer - the neorealist as mystic - permeate the ty to revisit the films for which he is so justly acclaimed, and a images. In photographs that extend and enhance the same intensity of chance to discover another side of the artist that is little known. vision as the films but in a more inherently introspective manner, each image is like a small epiphany in which Kiarostami reduces an experi- One of the world’s most critically acclaimed film directors, ence to an expression of moment, memory and metaphor. Kiarostami Kiarostami is perhaps best known for his Palme d’Or winning has said that he regards photography as a purer medium than film, since Ta’am-e gilas’ (Taste of Cherry, 1997) in which a man drives around it is relieved of the burden of narrative or entertainment. And while the the outskirts of Tehran in his car looking for someone to assist him films always make a place for reflection, in fact require it, they likewise in his planned suicide. A frequently near-wordless odyssey that remain in constant motion offering up 24 different frames per second offers up life’s most important questions for consideration, it uses using all the elements of filmic language to cut from image to image, an economical language of forms that locates its universal concerns scene to scene - or to leave viewers with their own thoughts in near within the confines of an automobile. total darkness. The photographs, on the other hand, allow a certain autonomy in the direction of attention permitting viewers to move Like the films, Kiarostami’s photography also features images that between different worlds at their own pace and in their own order. frequently revolve around the car, which the artist has described as his “best friend”, for its function as his office, a comfortable space, Offering the possibility of an extended level of engagement with any and a location for contemplation. Using a metaphor found in given picture that borders on the transcendent, Kiarostami’s photog- Persian poetry as well as Japanese haiku, the road is often glimpsed raphy shares an intimate, interior vision of landscape and an under- - either through the windscreen of his beloved car, blurred by the standing of time as the medium we all inhabit that is equalled only by that of Tarkovsky in its acute observation and sensitivity. His work acts as a compelling reminder that all art is essentially created as an offer- ing not only to humankind but to the cosmos, to the moment, to his- tory, and to the invisible.
Abbas Kiarostami: Image Maker. University of California, Berkeley Art Museum. July 8 - September 23, 2007
top left: Abbas Kiarostami, from Snow White, 2006 left: Abbas Kiarostami, from Roads and Trees, 2006 top right: Abbas Kiarostami, from Rain, 2006 All images collection of the Iranian Art Foundation, New York. Courtesy University of California, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive.
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CONTEMPORARY STORYTELLING Jaakko RUSTANIUS The exhibition ‘Time of the Storytellers’ at the Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art in Helsinki presents four- teen artists from Arme- nia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Russia and Uzbekistan. Concentra- Uniquely St. Petersburg ting on current topics in post- Soviet contemporary art in Uniquely Renaissance Eastern Europe and Central Asia, it continues a theme begun by the Kiasma show ‘Faster Than History’ in 2004 by artists from the countries in the Baltic region. Many of the works in the exhibition, assembled by Moscow cura- tor Viktor Misiano, follow the styles and techniques that can be seen in contemporary art spaces the world over.
Possibly the most visually arresting work in the show is the installa- tion of photographs (Blue Period, 2002-2005) by Elena Vorobyeva and Viktor Vorobyev (KAZ) that present an endless cavalcade of all things kok, a colour of turquoise blue with which, it seems, the locals have painted over all the formerly communist-red surfaces of their country. Kok is truly a beautiful colour. But one cannot help thinking that as nice as it might be to show one’s colours with pride, how might we get on with those people who prefer a slightly different hue?
Hamlet Hovsepian’s (ARM) short film works, on the other hand, are extremely subdued. They depict, for example, a person thinking (Thinker I, 1975-76). What does thinking look like? Well, not much like anything in this case. There’s a yawn or two by the main charac- ter, but that’s about it. One wonders if the films are really about any- thing at all, or if they just are, without a meaning or a purpose. Nevertheless, the videos are intense and engaging in a warmly absurd and personal kind of way.
Continuing the exploration of the personal, Olga Chernysheva (RUS) weighs in with the video installation ‘Windows’ (2007) featuring dozens of small LCD-screens set on three walls of a small room, glowing in the dark like the windows of a house in the middle of the night. The references to the Hitchcock classic Rear Window, the handbook of every peeping instinct, are apparent. But the intimate touch of the work also brings to mind the fragile lives depicted in the memoirs of Stalin-era dissidents. advertising
Of all the works in the show, the ones by Erbossyn Meldibekov (KAZ) are perhaps the most serious, compact and accomplished. They are also spiced with a pinch of black humour. In the sculpture called ‘Gattamelata in Hide of Genghis Khan’ the great horseman has been blown away by the winds of history: all that is left of the cavalryman’s former glory are the stiff ankles of his stallion and a rusty cannon ball. Renaissance St. Petersburg Baltic Hotel top: Elena Vorobyeva & Viktor Vorobyev 4 Pochtamtskaya Street Blue Period, 2002-2005, installation with C-prints. 190 000, St. Petersburg, Russia Courtesy Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma, Helsinki. Tel: +7 812 380 40 00 59 Hermitage 8 / review Fax: +7 812 380 40 01 www.renaissancehotels.com/LEDBR 60 05/10/07 15:56 Page 60
PASS TO PARADISE Maria KOROSTELEVA
Iljin, Director of Corporate Development for Europe and the Middle East at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, who assembled the team of experts and submitted his collection for histori- cal psychoanalysis. The title of the book was suggested by former Russian deputy minister of culture Pavel Khoroshilov, who offered a pseudo-provocative name which brings to mind the original function of the leaflets which were “passes” for those who wanted to surrender as prisoners or serve in the enemy’s army.
During the war, one could be executed simply for possessing such items, which is why it comes as no surprise that very few of them still exist and Iljin himself had to seek them out one by one in Russia, the Ukraine and Israel. A Russian living in Germany, Mr. Iljin is acutely aware of both sides of the matter, for the first time presenting artifacts from the propaganda divisions of the Wehrmacht and the Red Army side by side. As a result, the cynicism of the material, which becomes overwhelming when seen togeth- er, is balanced with very detailed commentaries written from an explicitly anti-fascist position. This publication is ideal material for future researchers, for whom the growing distance in time will diminish the fear associated with the subject and the taboos which often hinder rational discussion. And everyone who picks up this book should bear in mind the warning words of Dr. Klaus Kirchner, a German collector of propaganda leaflets, with which his website of the same material begins: ‘The leaflets offered here are weapons of warfare used by governments. Some of these official documents may be regarded as offensive. I do not give approval to the sentiments they present but all have to be shown and preserved because they are part of our common historic record.’
An important new book from Vagrius Publishing offers a glimpse into the dark past by providing a valuable and fas- cinating look at the ways in which the Germans and Russians portrayed the enemy in propaganda. ‘Pass to Paradise: Super-weapon of the Last World War’ (Moscow, 2007, 232 p.) brings together Nazi and Soviet propaganda leaflets and posters from several collections to provide a visual catalogue of psychological warfare between the two countries. A portion of the material pre- sented in the book is from the Memorial Museum of German Anti-Fascists, opened on the initiative of the GDR in 1985 in a former camp for high-ranking Soviet military prisoners at Krasnogorsk, with the remainder being found in the Russian State Archive of Social and Political History and the private collection of Nic Iljin. Historians Lev Belousov and Alexander Vatlin have classi- fied these fascinating records by type and presented them in chronological order, providing detailed descriptions of every item. The inspiration for the project came from Nic
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SPOTLIGHT
following Mehmet II’s request to have a ‘good painter’ at his court. The Ottoman sultan’s taste for portraiture in the late 15th century was only the beginning of an interest for this unusual form of paint- ing in the Islamic world at the Turkish court, as proved, for example, by a series of sixteen paintings depicting all the rulers of the Ottoman House during the second half of the 16th century (fig. 2). The cycle, today in Munich but certainly commissioned by a school close to Veronese by or for the Ottoman court, possibly as a gift of the Serenissima to the sultan, includes the portraits — most of them fan- ciful because their likeness was obviously unknown to the Venetian Loggia, Palazzo Ducale, St. Marks, Venice painters - of the Ottoman rulers from the founder of the dynasty Uthman (late 13th century) to Murad III (r. 1574-95) who was the SERENISSIMA ARABESQUE: current sultan at the time of production of this series. Venice is world famous for its artistic glass production, so this medi- VENICE AND ISLAM um plays an important part in the exhibition. Little known, and there- Dr. Stefano CARBONI fore explained in the exhibition, is the fact that the Venetian produc- tion of enameled and sometimes gilded beakers made for a European The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Institute du market at the end of the 13th century depended entirely on a tech- Monde Arabe in Paris have co-organized the first two venues of a nical, technological, and artistic transfer of information that came major international exhibition that explores the close historical, cul- from the Islamic world, in particular from Syria and Egypt under the tural, and especially artistic relationships between Venice and the Mamluks. Islamic artistic glass was by far the predominant force — Islamic neighbouring countries. Thanks to the initiative of the Musei and the most traded — in the medieval world from the 8th through Civici Veneziani ‘Venice and the Islamic World, 828-1797’ is now on the 14th centuries, after which the Venetian glassmakers learnt many view in its most natural venue, the Doge’s Palace in Venice, where of its secrets and took over in the course of the 15th century. the location alone - the Sala dello Scrutinio overlooking Saint Mark’s Mamluk enameled and gilded glass represents one of the undisputed Piazzetta with its large paintings telling the story of the Serenissima’s high points in the production of artistic glass worldwide (fig. 3). Once conquests also in the Eastern Mediterranean - makes a particularly Venice assumed the leading role in the glass business and trade and poignant and visually arresting installation. at the same the industry declined in the Near East, we can witness a reversed trend: It is Venice that exports its glass products to Cairo, The organization of the works on display, which include virtually all Istanbul, and many other Islamic cities. A great example of this west- mediums, develops from an introductory area where the three most east trade is the so-called cesendello, a cylindrical hanging lamp often important reasons for such a close relationship with the Islamic world decorated with enamels and gold that was very much in demand are explained through several objects: Continuous trade, intelligent at the Ottoman court, to the point that a specific order from diplomacy, and a pragmatic approach to religious issues. The display 1579 includes six hundred of these lamps together with an accompa- cases, which help creating the spatial division within the large Sala nying drawing. dello Scrutinio, follow a loose chronological itinerary that tells in particular the story of Venice’s links with the Mamluks of Egypt and The exhibition is so rich in content that it is impossible to mention Syria (13th- early 16th centuries); with the Safavids of Iran (16th-17th all the most significant works of art in the brief space of this note. centuries); and, most of all, with the Ottomans of Two objects, however, are so exceptional that they Turkey and Eastern Europe (15th-19th centuries). could fill the exhibition space by themselves. One is the Cattedra di San Pietro (fig. 4), a marble chair usu- A special area is devoted to late 15th and early 16th ally installed in the Church of San Pietro di Castello, the century Venetian painting under Giovanni and Gentile first seat of the Venetian patriarch. A pious legend wants Bellini and their pupils Giovanni Mansueti and Vittore it to be the very chair where Saint Peter, the first patri- Carpaccio, starting with the famous portrait of the arch, sat in Antioch but its backrest is in reality an 11th- ottoman sultan Mehmet the Conqueror made by 12th century tombstone inscribed in Arabic kufic Gentile during his two-year long visit at the court in script with verses from the Qur’an. Apart from its Istanbul. Gentile is also the artist who created the symbolic significance, this tombstone represents portrait of doge Giovanni Mocenigo (r. 1478-85) one of the earliest examples of Islamic art found in dressed in a white coat against a gold background Venice today. The second work is also the largest and wearing the corno dogale (the ‘doge’s horned and most spectacular in the exhibition: A hat’), which is tailored with a Venetian fabric inspired ‘Mameluke’ carpet woven in Cairo in the mid-16th by Ottoman patterns (fig. 1). Doge Mocenigo was the century, 9.70 meters long and 3.75 meters wide. Venetian ruler who, with acute diplomatic intelligence, sent Recently discovered, it belongs to the Arciconfraternita of Gentile as a sort of cultural and artistic attaché to Istanbul the Scuola Grande di San Rocco, one of the wealthiest
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Venetian confraternities throughout the centuries, which ordered it to cover a long and narrow table in the Sala dell’Albergo of the Scuola Grande, the famous room paint- ed by Jacopo Tintoretto on the second floor of the building. The table, built to accommodate the carpet, is still in the room and one can easily picture in one’s mind its spectacu- lar medallion patterns displayed on the side of the table in front of the viewer.
With its multiple artistic and cultural layers and its broad chronological and geographical range, ‘Venice and the Islamic World’ will hopefully contribute to a better understanding not only of Islamic art but also of the continuous and overall constructive relationship between Venice, a great European western power, and the Muslim world. 'Venice and Islam 828 - 1797' is on view at the Palazzo Ducale, Venice, through November 25th.
fig. 1 (top left): Gentile Bellini (Venice, 1429 - 1507) Portrait of doge Giovanni Mocenigo Venice, 1478-1479 or 1481-1485. Tempera on wood panel Museo Correr, Venice
fig. 2 (left): Veronese artist or School of Paolo Veronese [attr.] Orkhan II, Mahomet I, Murad III, Bayazid II Venice, end of 16th cent. Oil on canvas Bayerische Staatgemäldesammlungen, Munich
fig. 3 (opposite page): Mosque Lamp Cairo, c.1329-1335 Blown glass, with enamelling and gilding. Previously in the mosque or madrasah of Emir Qawsun. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
fig. 4 (above):The Throne of St. Peter Eastern Mediterreanean. Stele with Arabic inscription (9th-11th cent.). Piece assembled some time later. Marble and Sandstone Church of San Pietro di Castello, Venice
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PREVIEW
THE TENT OF THE EMIR OF BUKHARA From the storage rooms of the Hermitage
The magnificent Bukhara tent was present- ed to emperor Alexander III by the Emir of Bukhara on January 4th 1893. It consists of 15 separate vertical sections with poles sewn into the panels. The ends of these poles are covered with leather and have loops made of coloured threads and wood- en ‘buttons’ used to connect the different parts of the tent to the ceiling. Each part of the wall is decorated with traditional orna- ments and in the centre of each wall can be found insets which imitate windows. Made using different techniques they include silk cross-stitch embroidery and a motif of four bouquets embroidered with silver and golden threads on dark crimson velvet. Two real tracery windows have holes cut from white and pink silk. From the interior of the tent the windows are covered with blue and green silk which was probably bought in Russia. In the 1880s the silk trade between Central Asia and Russia was extensive. Reconstruction by L. Y. Kulakova Svetlana ADAKSINA
The tent of the Emir of Bukhara has a unique design, being a complete, portable palace with several rooms, storage areas, courtyards and corridors.
The Bukhara tent will be the chief item at the Hermitage exhibition of Islamic art due to open February 14th 2008. Never before pre- sented in its completely assembled state, it will be installed in the Nicolas Hall of the Hermitage. Visitors will have a rare opportunity to see inside, and the rooms within will contain displays of luxurious oriental robes, jewellery and other objects made by Central Asian craftsmen of the same period.
Entitled ‘In the Palaces and in the Tents. The Islamic World from Europe to China’ the exhibition is dedicated to examining the links between Islamic culture and its European and Chinese neighbours. One of the main goals of the exhibition is to show the art of Islam in all its variety as represented in the Hermitage collections. A special section will be devoted to contacts between the Islamic world and Russia, including a display of diplomatic gifts and military trophies. Anton PRITULA ©ÉÓÒÛ‰‡ÒÚ‚ÂÌÌ˚È ùÏËÚ‡Ê
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HERMITAGE 20\21 Dmitry OZERKOV which will be precious and significant tomorrow. So it is quite logical that when collecting contemporary art a philosophy is ‘In Russia, the old has the status of high, and the new - low. needed as well as principals to assess the quality of the artwork, Write any rubbish in Old Russian script and it will be taken from which follows a definition of which art is good and poten- as a spiritual text, state the most interesting idea with tially significant and which is less so. In Russia during the 1960s contemporary language and you will be cursed.’ and 70s everything was clear: communist ideology dictated - Marat Gelman which artworks were important for the period on its journey from one phase of development to the next. ‘Bourgeois’ art was Disgusting and incomprehensible are the two most common epi- therefore worthless, while ‘non-bourgeois’ art was given the thets awaiting works of contemporary art wherever they are opportunity to travel into the future as a part of the museum. seen. The forbidden fruit of the 21st century, the average view- er often reacts to it with a mixture of fear and hidden curiosity, Today there is no unambiguously bad art just as clearly as there by turns attracted and repulsed. Art critics, along with everyone is no unequivocally good art. The lack of any unmistakable crite- else, have long regarded it with a mixture of indulgence and con- rions of valuation and selection brought the state museums to a descension; inertly refusing to consider modern artists for inclu- halt. And while over the past fifteen years many artists have sion in the same museum collections as old masters and classic donated work to the Hermitage - among them such outstanding Modernists. The paradox is that in today’s world, any art muse- names as Louise Bourgeois, Ilya Kabakov, Robert Raushenberg, um wishing to appear confident can only do so if it collects and and Fernando Botero - very few people understand what con- exhibits contemporary art and the Hermitage is no exception. temporary art is, and so there has never been a clear and accu- rate understanding of how great these artists actually are. In The most difficult question that arises is what art to show today part, this is due to one of the most significant problems facing and which principals to follow when exhibiting it. Throughout its many Russian museums today; the lack of a common position long history the Hermitage has always collected contemporary from which to coordinate collection and exhibition practices in art: Catherine the Great bought works by Hakkert and the field of contemporary art. We shut our eyes to the lack of Reynolds; Nicolas I ordered portraits from Franz Kruger; and focus and strategy, and the next day wake to find that we have the rulers of the Soviet period collected the work of artists from lived through a dark and tenuous transitional époque. other Socialist countries. In each period they were not simply contemporary artists, but names representative of mythologies Today the Hermitage is actively developing the strategies that that seemed to be relevant and progressive; that could be said will be used to build and maintain 20th and 21st century collec- to have a future. tions. The place of a sweeping ideology should be taken by phi- losophy, because the only honest approach in the absence of any The aim of a museum is not the wholesale preservation and real method is to initiate a philosophical debate about what must exhibition of everything which is made during a specific period, be collected and exhibited, and why. At the beginning of the but rather the discovery and protection of those few works year Dr. Piotrovsky established Hermitage 20\21 to address pre-
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cisely these concerns. This autumn, the Hermitage will present Expressionism (Dana Schutz), Pop-art (Mark Grotjhan), Feminist the group’s first project - ‘USA Today’ - an exhibition of work art (Wangechi Mutu), Installations (Yon Pylypchuk), and by young American artists from London’s Saatchi Gallery. Photorealism (Florian Maier-Aichen). At the dawn of the 21st century, the Hermitage is presenting an exhibition of 21 of the The Saatchi Gallery was chosen as a partner for the inaugural future stars of the third millennium, offering visitors the chance exhibitions because it consistently collects and exhibits the most to participate in a dialogue about art and thereby the creation of relevant and challenging contemporary art according to a well- a new canon. defined strategy. It is one of the world’s most significant galleries ‘USA Today’, The State Hermitage Museum, General Staff Building, of young art, and, by exhibiting work from extraordinarily tal- October 24th 2007 - January 13th 2008 ented and relatively unknown young artists, it is responsible for establishing the careers of the future luminaries of world art. page 66: Adam Cvijanovic, Love Poem (10 minutes after the end of gravity), Like a patchwork quilt of the 50 American states, ‘USA today’ is 2005, Flashe and housepaint on Tyvek, 426.7 x 228.6 cm. the most recent project from the Saatchi Gallery and brings above left: Aleksandra Mir, Cold War, 2005, felt tip pen on paper, together a group of artists living and working in the USA that 305 x 483 cm. represents the multifaceted array of contemporary styles and above right: Jon Pylypchuk, Hopefully I will live through this with a little tendencies. dignity, 2005, mixed media, Dimensions variable. page 68 top left: Huma Bhabha, Untitled. 2006, clay, wire, plastic, paint, The first version of ‘USA Today’ was shown in 2006 at the Royal 114.3 x 243.8 x 152.4 cm. Academy in London. The Hermitage and the Saatchi Gallery will page 68 bottom left: Stephen G. Rhodes, Ssspecific Object, 2006, rubber, together present a new selection, version 2.0, including new 213.36 x 91.44 x 76.2 cm. works exhibited for the first time. The 21 artists, whose names are known today only by a select few, pay homage to All images courtesy the Saatchi Gallery, London.
SAATCHI’S CHOICE – USA TODAY AT THE HERMITAGE Matt BROWN
British art collector Charles Saatchi is one of the The new exhibition project will be inaugurated in world’s most important supporters of emerging tal- From “The Iron October with ‘USA Today’, a collection of works by ent. On the eve of the upcoming ‘USA Today’ exhi- Curtain” to 40 young American artists working with post 9/11 bition at the Hermitage, which is drawn from his “The War themes. Norman Rosenthal, exhibitions secretary at collection, the reclusive collector took a moment to on Terror” London’s Royal Academy, where a different version tell the magazine his thoughts on new art and about of USA Today was shown last year, wrote that the future projects. exhibition reflects young America’s reaction to the transition from “The Iron Curtain” to “The War on Terror” and When the Hermitage held an Andy Warhol exhibition in 2000, its ‘horrendous and divisive consequences.’ it marked a turning point for the great museum that culminated earlier this year with the creation of Hermitage 20/21, a pro- ‘In this selection of the work of young American artists, each gram to show major private and public collections of recent and confronts not only their own fundamental questions, but also contemporary art in the General Staff Building. global poverty, inequality and population migration, not to men-
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tion the gigantic environmental problems that confront the ‘I hope the show as a world as a whole,’ Rosenthal wrote. ‘Gay politics, women’s pol- whole gives an idea of itics, Islamic politics and black politics all have their echo here.’ how American artists are thinking,’ Saatchi It is a bold vision and one that belongs to Charles Saatchi, the said. ‘American art of influential British art collector from whose collection ‘USA this decade has a very Today’ is drawn. Saatchi, an enigmatic figure whose voracious different tone and appetite for new art is the perfect fit for the Hermitage’s ambi- approach to American tious journey from the 20th to the 21st centuries, restricts his art of the last 20 years.’
personal exposure to the media and the public, preferring his Courtesy the Saatchi Gallery, London often sensational exhibitions to speak for him and his taste. Many of the artists are unknown to Russian Saatchi’s eager appreciation of new art caught the public eye audiences and will be with his patronage of the Young British Artists or YBA group in showing their work in the 1990s. Saatchi’s support for and promotion of British artists Russia for the first took on international notoriety with ‘Sensation, an exhibition‘ time, something that from the Saatchi collection that opened at the Royal Academy in gives Saatchi particular November 1997. satisfaction.
In more recent years, Saatchi has turned his atten- ‘The artists involved are thrilled to be showing at tion to a range of themes. A cycle of ongoing exhi- the Hermitage and hope that a Russian audience will bitions called ‘The Triumph of Painting’ showcases ’American art is be interested in very current U.S. art,’ he said. painting in all its forms, eschewing installations, fundamental to all sculpture and other media. Saatchi’s discovery of a culture of the last Previous exhibitions of American art at the wealth of new artistic talent in China has lead to 50 years...’ Hermitage have proved a great success with Russian ‘The Revolution Continues: New Chinese Art’. And audiences, and Saatchi says he thinks he knows why. Saatchi’s love affair with American artists, initiated with purchases of work by Jeff Koons and others at the begin- ‘Because American art is fundamental to all culture of the last 50 ning of his collecting career, continues with ‘USA Today’. years and has a very wide appeal and fascination,’ he said.
Speaking to Hermitage Magazine, Charles Saatchi said that USA Saatchi’s collaboration with the Hermitage is among a host of pro- Today continues a thread of contemporary American art that jects that he has been occupied with in recent months. Early in 2008, began at the Hermitage with the Warhol exhibition seven years work will be completed on his new gallery being converted from the ago and followed with shows by other modern American mas- Duke of York’s HQ building near London’s King’s Road. Another ters such as Louise Bourgeois, Cy Twombly, Robert project is Saatchi’s website: not just simply window dressing for his Mapplethorpe and Willem de Kooning. gallery or collection, but an interactive portal for new artists from around the world to contact each other and buyers, by registering themselves and displaying their work online.
The web site features sophisticated translation software with world languages - including Russian - to enable artists and collectors to use it to cross barriers. However, the web site has yet to catch on in great numbers among Russia’s cutting-edge artists. Saatchi said he hopes that will change.
‘We have very little work from Russian artists or students on the site and hope that more will use us as a showcase for their work around the world,’ he said.
Indeed, despite his reputation as a ravenous consumer of new art from all over the world, Saatchi admits that he has never bought any Russian art.
‘I know very little about Russian art or its market but I am sure there will be some exciting contemporary artists that will be emerging,’ Saatchi said, adding that he hopes the new website, which he says he monitors closely, could be his introduction to young Russian artists. Asked what he thinks of new Russian art, Charles Saatchi is as frank as ever: ‘Ask me in a year after Russian artists have had a chance to load their work on the site.’
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near Dresden in 1938. At the end of th secon world war, this archive was brought to Leningrad by the Soviet Army with the score eventually ending up in Yerevan. It was returned to Hamburg in 1999.
Significant for being the first European opera on a Russian theme, it was written by Matheson while he was Secretary to the British Ambassador in Hamburg. He was personally involved in much of the negotia- tions concerning changes in the balance of power in the Baltic following Peter I’s victo- ry over Charles XII at Poltava and Hamburg’s desire to neutralise a new threat from Denmark by promoting a new “entente” between Russia and Sweden. These alliances are reflected in the opera, which bears very little relation to events from the time of Godunov himself in the early 17th century.
Presenting a virtually unknown baroque ver- sion of ‘Boris Goudenow’ in today’s Russia is a serious challenge. The figure of Boris is associated in Russian historical and social consciousness with the Time of Troubles, and the false Dmitry’s claims to the throne; and in Russian cultural consciousness, with Pushkin’s play and Mussorgsky’s opera, works which have together created a much-trea- sured cultural icon. The staging of
BORIS GODUNOV REDISCOVERED
The Hermitage Theatre is to host the Russian premier of ‘Boris Goudenow, or the Throne Acquired Through Cunning’, an opera by German composer Johann Mattheson (1681-1764), as part of this year’s 10th International Early Music Festival. The theatre building is the oldest structure in the Hermitage and the theatre itself was commissioned by Catherine II and built between 1783- 1785 by architect Giacomo Quarenghi. Noted for the harmony and balance of its architectural forms and as a beautiful example of late 18th century Russian Classicism, it is the perfect venue for the staging of an historically important opera which has had a long and interesting journey to the Russian stage.
Composed in Hamburg in 1710, ‘Boris Goudenow’ was never per- formed during the composer’s lifetime and the manuscript of the opera remained in Hamburg for over 200 years, until it was trans- ferred as part of the Hamburg rare manuscripts archive to a castle
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Photographs from the premiere of ‘Boris Goudenow’ at the St Pauli Theatre Hamburg, 2007
Mattheson’s ‘Boris’ marks a radical new departure in Russian the- Dietrich. The opera premiered in Hamburg this August and will atre and is a challenge to both historical perceptions and contem- also be seen in Moscow following the Russian premier in St. porary theatrical expectations. The Soviet Union’s theatrical and Petersburg on October 26th. musical life was focused entirely on academic performance of 19th and 20th century repertoire - mainly Russian. This remains true of Founded in St. Petersburg in 1998, the International Early Music Russia today. The rapid development of authentic performance festival is the principal promoter of pre-19th century music in and early music, and the spectacular baroque opera productions the Russian Federation which takes place every September in St which have resulted from this in the West, have so far complete- Petersburg, Moscow, Nizhny Novgorod and other cities across ly by-passed Russian audiences. Russia. Festival concerts present the musical legacy of the Middle-Ages, Renaissance, Baroque and Classical eras. Single- Bringing together Russian and European musicians and dancers, handedly responsible for the revival of early music in post-Soviet the production has as its musical director Andrey Reshetin and Russia, the festival has presented some of the most important The Catherine the Great Orchestra, with staging and choreogra- names in the world of early music including Jordi Savall, Gerard phy by Klaus Abromeit and costume and set design by Stefan Lesne, and Emma Kirkby.
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