The legend of the flying carpet was real...
My first introduction to Azerbaijan was in a book I read in 1971 when I
was 19 years old and searching for larger meaning in life. I had grown
up in the sleepy suburbs of Philadelphia and had become convinced while
still a teenager that I needed to travel, see the world and learn a lot
about how the rest of the world lives and thinks.
The book I
read, Meetings with Remarkable Men, was written by an early 20th century
mystic philosopher and world traveller, George Gurdjieff. He was born
and raised in the Caucasus and, on the first pages of his first chapter,
he mentioned a country I had never heard of, but was about to hear a
lot about: Azerbaijan. I remember as if it were yesterday feeling that
the name, so odd to my ears, just jumped off the page. In other writings
this same author mentioned his abiding interest and expertise in the
oriental carpets of the regions, from the Caucasus, Turkey, Persian and
Central Asia, where he claimed to have spent years in search of
specialized esoteric wisdom.
My first encounter with the
carpets from Azerbaijan was filled with astonishment. I had not
experienced such a wealth of feeling from a physical object. I didn’t
know it was possible to feel transported, merely by gazing at a woven
pattern of design and colour. Mr. Gurdjieff claimed that there existed
in the world art that was of another level than the one we are
accustomed to, art that was able to transport us to another way of
feeling in this world, and the old carpets from the orient were
sometimes able to do that. I felt like I was witnessing the source of
the ancient legend of the flying carpet. Immersing oneself in the
geometric shapes, elusive in meaning yet filled to the brim with energy,
it seemed indeed that the legend of the flying carpet was real.
After some years passed, my curiosity grew about the naming of these
magnificent works of folk art. I also felt a definite preference, an
affinity for the carpets from the Caucasus known as Kuba [from the Quba
region – ed.] and Shirvan.
When looking at a map of the carpet
weaving regions, I saw that Kuba and Shirvan were located in that
country called Azerbaijan. I remembered the name Azerbaijan from the
book I had read, and wondered why the carpet dealers and an- tique
auction houses, as well as the scholarly books and museum displays that
followed the dealers’ nomenclature, referred to these particular
oriental carpets as Caucasian, when in fact it was clear they came from
Azerbaijan.
Provenance – the single most important featureThe Caucasus, a large region sandwiched between Russia, Iran and Turkey,
includes numerous countries and ethnic groupings: Lezghi, Avar, Kumukh,
Tat, Lak, Abkhaz, Osset, Chechen, Georgian, Armenian, Azerbaijani and
so on. When the Persian Empire ruled the Caucasus, they referred to the
peoples who spoke Turkic languages, such as the Azerbaijanis, as Turks,
and when the Russian Empire took over the Caucasus, they referred to all
non-Slavic peoples everywhere in the Russian Empire as Tatars.
Azerbaijanis are not Tatars and, although they do speak Azerbaijani, a
Turkic dialect, they are not identical to the Turks of Anatolia or the
Turks of Central Asia, so it would be normal to call them by the name of
the land they have lived on for so many centuries, Azerbaijan.
Now, Azerbaijan is divided into a northern part, the Republic of
Azerbaijan, with some 8 million Azerbaijanis along with other minority
ethnic groups, and a southern part, also known as Azerbaijan, but within
the Islamic Republic of Iran, with some 16 to 30 million Azerbaijanis,
depending on who is counting.
The carpets woven by Azerbaijanis
in both Northern and Southern Azerbaijan are geometric, in contrast to
the flowery designs of typical urban Persian carpets. What is unique
about the carpets woven by Azerbaijanis is the high level of energy that
the designs and colours trigger in the attentive observer. Not all
Azerbaijani carpets are equally powerful in this regard. Many are merely
beautiful, charming and pleasing as weavings, but many have a real
charge to them, as if the carpets are in possession of some mystical
energy that electrifies the human imagination.
Indeed, who were the weavers of these intriguing and enchanting carpets?
It turns out that most were young Azerbaijani girls preparing their
dowries, with their mothers and grandmothers assisting them and teaching
them the ways. The vast majority of weavers were illiterate villagers.
This defies all one’s suppositions about people and art. The antique
carpets from Azerbaijan were often so sophisticated that they rivalled
the works of western abstract artists, yet the creators were unschooled
by our modern, educated standards. How is this possible?
Personally, I think it is the music. Azerbaijani weavers, like all
weavers, sing while they create, and Azerbaijani music, like other music
of the region, is mesmerizing. In Azerbaijan, the musicians and singers
have evolved a form of eastern music that is unsurpassed in its
primordial power to transport the listener to other realms. Undoubtedly,
this must have shaped the weavers’ taste in design. They attempted to
achieve the best in flying carpets and, when they succeeded, they
created a class of folk art unmatched in the world of textiles.
Still, the misnaming bothered me. If Kurdish weavers wove a carpet, no
matter which country they lived in, be it Turkey, Syria, Iraq,
Azerbaijan, or Iran, it was always called a Kurdish carpet. If Baluchi
weavers wove a carpet, no matter which country they lived in, be it
Iran, Afghanistan or Pakistan, it was called a Baluchi carpet. In all
the world of antiques, a world in which provenance - the place and
people of origin - is the single most important feature to know about,
only the carpets of Azerbaijan do not get correct attribution. And this
occurred primarily because the Persians called the Azerbaijanis Turks
while the Russians called them Tatars. Not only is this an injustice to
the people who created these beauties, it is an injustice to the rest of
us who love oriental carpets and who should know the true origins of
the objects of our admiration, respect and even affection.
Change afoot?
It is true that many carpets woven in the Caucasus were woven by
members of ethnic groups other than the Azerbaijanis. It is also true
that the vast majority of the carpets originating from the Caucasus were
woven by Azerbaijanis, and where the origins are unambiguous, this
should be recorded in the naming of the carpet. There is one major
antique auc- tion house -
http://www.rippon-boswell-wiesbaden.de/content/auc- tion_popup.php?lot=22234
that has been naming some of the carpets of Azerbaijan as Azerbaijani,
but not all. Many of them remain with the imprecise term Caucasian, even
when unambiguously of Azerbaijani origin.
I can think of no
legitimate reason why anyone would object to a correction of the
historical record on the taxonomy of this important category of oriental
carpets. Azerbaijan, the source of so many of the world’s best examples
of magic flying carpets, deserves the credit for this accomplishment,
and the world should know the truth about where these revered carpets
come from, and who wove them.
The campaign begins
On 7 May 2011, I drove from my home in Cherry Hill, NJ to Washington
DC, to give a talk on carpets in the carpet showroom of David Zahirpour.
David, a third-generation dealer in an- tique oriental carpets and
textiles and originally from Iran, emigrated first to Israel before
eventually settling in the DC area. The event was organized by the
DC-based Karabakh Foundation, and the opening remarks were made by Diana
C. Altman, the Foundation’s Executive Director, and Adil Baguirov,
member of its Board of Directors and co-founder. The topic was
Azerbaijani carpets and the names they go by other than Azerbaijani. Our
host for the evening, David Zahirpour, gave the attendees a quick tour
of his oriental carpet gallery.
The first speaker was Dr.
Rovshan Ibrahimov, visiting professor of international relations from
Qafqaz University in Baku, Azerbaijan. He displayed a slide show of the
techniques and methods of traditional carpet weaving from Azerbaijan.
About 30 carpet lovers attended our programme. Both of us spoke to the
idea of adding the name Azerbaijan to the vocabulary used in describing
Oriental carpets. The programme represented a first step towards
achieving better recognition of Azerbaijan carpets which, for various
twists of history, are not generally attributed to Azerbaijan. To the
best of our knowledge, this was the first public discussion about
correcting the historical record by affixing the name of Azerbaijan to
all carpets made by Azerbaijani people living in both the Republic of
Azerbaijan and in the Islamic Republic of Iran. I also used a slide
show, of 19th century carpets from a private collection, and a map that
is published in every Sotheby’s auction catalogue featuring antique
oriental carpets. Their map of the classic, oriental carpet weaving
areas clearly indicates Azerbaijan as the area where most of the
so-called Caucasian and many of the so-called Persian carpets
originated.
On 4 June, the action was once again in Washington
DC and also organized by the Karabakh Foundation. This time the host was
the presti- gious Textile Museum and there were indoor and outdoor
exhibits; the weather was perfect. There was a large stage under canvas
and people were sitting on chairs or lounging on the grass, listening to
a dazzling performance by the great Azerbaijani kamancha player Imamyar
Hasanov, who mesmerized his audience with a brilliant solo performance,
a mixture of mugham and tesnif - metrefree modal improvisations and
metrical traditional jan’s historic and continuing role as one of the
world’s major carpet production centres. This was the second public
demonstration and talk on the subject of what to call these world class
textiles. According to Richard Rothstein, who has a showroom and
warehouse of antiques and a large collection of some of the finest
oriental carpets in Mt.
Laurel NJ, the vast majority of the socalled
Caucasian carpets and perhaps up to half of the so-called Persian
carpets are in reality Azerbaijani carpets. He derives his statistics
from a book on Azerbaijani carpets by famed Azerbaijani carpet expert
Latif Kerimov, and from personal experience handling and viewing
thousands of oriental carpets. (See my interview with Richard in Visions
of Azerbaijan March-April 2011). Our plans for the future are to
organize more lecture demonstrations about Azerbaijani carpets at every
suitable venue, to enlighten everyone who loves oriental carpets that
Azerbaijan is the country songs of Azerbaijan. After his solo, a
costumed troupe of international dancers presented tradi- tional dances
of the Caucasus. Finally, Diana Altman took the stage and delivered a
brief speech about the Karabakh Foundation and its goals of promoting
Azerbaijani culture in the USA.
Diana later expanded on the
Foundation’s aims for its Azerbaijani Rug Initiative (ARI), which is a
five-art programme to assemble a community of carpet experts and
aficionados; promote the appreciation of Azerbaijani carpets within the
general public; work to achieve accurate nomenclature in the public
record; launch an initiative to ensure that purveyors and providers of
carpets give proper provenance and to promote Azerbai jan’s historic and
continuing role as one of the world’s major carpet production centres.
This was the second public demonstration and talk on the subject of
what to call these world class textiles. According to Richard Rothstein,
who has a showroom and warehouse of antiques and a large collection of
some of the finest oriental carpets in Mt. Laurel NJ, the vast majority
of the socalled Caucasian carpets and perhaps up to half of the
so-called Persian carpets are in reality Azerbaijani carpets. He derives
his statistics from a book on Azerbaijani carpets by famed Azerbaijani
carpet expert Latif Kerimov, and from personal experience handling and
viewing thousands of oriental carpets. (See my interview with Richard in
Visions of Azerbaijan March-April 2011).
Our plans for the
future are to organize more lecture demonstrations about Azerbaijani
carpets at every suitable venue, to enlighten everyone who loves
oriental carpets that Azerbaijan is the country of origin for so many of
the finest examples, and to persuade the dealers, the auction houses,
the scholars who write books on oriental carpets and the world’s museums
to correctly identify and label those carpets woven by the people of
the lands called Azerbaijan in both the Caucasus and Iran.
By Jeffrey Werbock/Visions of Azerbaijan/