On 10 September 2019, the exhibition “Life in Mediaeval Khorasan. A Geniza from the National Library of Israel” was formally opened in the Twelve-Column Hall of the New Hermitage. It has been organized by the State Hermitage in conjunction with the National Library of Israel.
The display is devoted primarily to what is known as the Afghan Geniza, a collection of unique documents from the town of Bāmiyān that was acquired a few years ago by the National Library of Israel. Created in the 11th–13th centuries, they bear witness to the fact that in that period the historical geographical region of Khorasan, where Bāmiyān was located, was inhabited by people who spoke a variety of languages and followed several different religions. There were Persian-speaking Jews, Persian- and Turkic-speaking Muslims and probably even Christians and Zoroastrians. The greater portion of the texts, nevertheless, are connected with the life of the Jewish community in Khorasan and therefore their discovery is recognized as one of the most important finds of ancient Jewish manuscripts since the time of the unearthing of the Dead Sea Scrolls (1947–56).
The exhibition was opened by Mikhail Piotrovsky, General Director of the State Hermitage, and David Blumberg, chairman of the National Library of Israel board of directors.
Mikhail Piotrovsky said:
“This is an exemplary exhibition, the way all museum exhibitions ought to be. It is full of mysticism. The very word ‘Khorasan’ is mystic, as is the word ‘geniza’. They are filled with a host of meanings. The display is deeply scholarly, because one truly needs to go deep into the matter and to have super-class scholars in order to select and present in an exhibition these astonishing manuscripts in many languages the we can see here. The exhibition is an expression of the great mission of the museum – to present artefacts filled with new meanings. It is a brilliant embodiment of ideas and of a cultural dialogue, a dialogue of cultures in the highly interesting period of the 11th to 13th centuries in eastern Khorasan. It is also an example of another very important mission of the museum – saving artefacts of world cultural heritage. All the items come from Bāmiyān. You have all seen photographs of the demolished statues of Buddha [two gigantic statues of Buddha in the Bāmiyān valley destroyed by the Taliban in 2001]and you can all imagine what would have happened with the exhibits on display if they had not been saved by museums, if they had not come into the National Library of Israel, and today they were not being shown in the Hermitage, while many cultural monuments are disappearing in the most diverse parts of the world. The exhibition is a superb example of scholarly collaboration between scholars, museum workers, researchers and restorers. I am very grateful to everyone who has allowed us to demonstrate to the world once again how museums create bridges between peoples.”
David Blumberg stated:
“We worked for a long time preparing this exhibition and now it is a great pleasure for us to be presenting treasures from the National Library of Israel for the first time in Russia, at an exhibition in the Hermitage where they can be seen by people from all corners of the world. The stocks of the National Library of Israel are the collective memory of the Jewish people and the nation of Israel. The exhibition not only demonstrates treasures from our library, but also stresses the dynamic character of the development of cultural relations between different countries. We will exert every effort to continue to provide access to knowledge.”
Also present at the opening ceremony were Olga Slov, Consul General of Israel in St Petersburg, Jacob Fisch, CEO of the National Library of Israel Campaign (New York), and Natalia Kozlova, head of the State Hermitage’s Department of the East.
The exhibition has been organized by the State Hermitage in conjunction with the National Library of Israel.
The exhibition curator is Anton Dmitriyevich Pritula, Candidate of Philological Sciences, Leading Researcher in the State Hermitage’s Department of the East.
The display was prepared by the State Hermitage’s Department of the East with the participation of Israeli colleagues Aviad Stollman, Yoel Finkelman, Ofir Haim and Denis Shorr.
