Translated material
Diversity of Unity
The exhibition "From China to Europe. Art of the Islamic World" opened in Kazan
The huge exhibition that opened in the Kazan branch of the Hermitage is exceptional not only in the quantity and quality of the exhibits presented, covering the pre- and post-Mongol history of Islam, but also in the composition of the participating museums. The Louvre Museum came to Kazan for the first time: a bold idea arose two years ago, when Mikhail Piotrovsky “pulled” the President-Director of the Louvre, Henri Loyrette, to a meeting of the Hermitage’s international advisory council, held in the capital of Tatarstan. After the official meeting, Loirette went out to the Volga, walked along the shore and, shocked, succumbed to the offer to bring his exhibits.“I absolutely trust the director of the Hermitage, a world-famous orientalist, who proposed a project with such a difficult concept - to show an anthology of the Islamic cultural tradition. And we treated the proposal with all responsibility. Almost all the things that we brought to Kazan have never left the territory France. I really liked the idea of a joint project (especially on such an important topic as Islam and the dialogue of cultures) with the Hermitage, because this is the only museum in the world that can be compared with the Louvre. The branch of the Hermitage in a city with a thousand-year history seemed to me the best place to implement it. this idea. Each of the works from our collection, which arrived in Kazan, brings its own shade to the palette of the Islamic worldview. They illustrate the place of Jewish and Christian communities within Muslim lands,” Loyrette told Vremya Novostey.
The famous Saint-Jos Shroud arrived in Kazan from Paris - a unique example of Samanid silk made in Khorasan before 961, a basin with the name of Hugh de Lusignan - the only Islamic metal product with the title and name of a non-Muslim ruler, an inlaid Syrian candlestick, in the decoration which used iconography with "evangelical influence".
The Islamic topic is equally relevant for both Russia and France, which is why the attitude towards it was especially close. The exhibition in Kazan is a “variation on the theme” of the spring Hermitage exhibition. Among the Hermitage exhibits that arrived on the Volga are a unique Bukhara tent, presented to Alexander the Third by the Bukhara emir, and an Indian gold tray decorated with precious stones and magnificent enamel, an embassy gift from the Persian Nadir Shah. The Hermitage sent more than three hundred exhibits representing various countries of the Muslim world to the Kazan Kremlin. There are even authentic architectural details of the unique Alhambra palace complex on display.
“The mysteries of Muslim art in the mirror of the Hermitage” - with this lecture at the Academy of Sciences of Tatarstan, Mikhail Piotrovsky preceded the opening of a huge exhibition in the Kazan branch of the museum. Orientalists gathered in the hall - archaeologists, theologians, specialists in international relations, ethnographers, religious philosophers and university teachers. When the “mysteries” were solved - in the lecture of Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences Piotrovsky there were many not only purely art-historical, but also geopolitical details little known even to a narrow circle of specialists, the time came for questions. They range from the fate of Iraqi shrines destroyed during the last war to the Islamic library that disappeared during Ivan the Terrible’s assault on Kazan. The discussion lasted almost as long as an hour-long lecture.
“An important drawback of modern views on Islam and Muslim culture, both external and internal, is the isolationist approach. Meanwhile, the integrity of Muslim culture is an indispensable basis for its integration into the global process of world civilization. Human civilization is united, although diverse,” - this is how Mikhail Piotrovsky, an expert on the Koran and Muslim philosophy, moved from a purely artistic context to an actual political one.
“There is a point of view that Muslim art is closed and isolated. Today’s exhibition convincingly shows the fallacy of this point of view, and I am very happy about it,” summed up the Chairman of the State Council of the Republic of Tatarstan Farid Mukhametshin, which finally clarified the already clear political implications.