‘Divan … the universe has no loyalty’ from 2009 is a traveling waiting room by Daniel Bozhkov that provides a place to sit with cushions and Newsweek magazines, and occasionally becomes a site for the gathering of storytellers. It follows the traces of a family jewel with an inscription in Ottoman Farsi that reads “… the universe is transient and has no loyalty.” The Austrian diplomat Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall, an ancestor of the artist’s family, commissioned this carnelian brooch in the early 1800s in Istanbul. The project looks into the Persian tradition of bibliomancy with the poetry of the highly respected poet Hafiz, still practiced in contemporary Iran, where many people know some of his poems by heart and use them to find answers to life’s questions.

Bibliomancy is the use of books in divination. Whenever one faces a difficulty or a fork in the road, or even if one has a general question, one holds that question in mind, and then asks the Oracle of Shiraz, Hafiz, for guidance. Traditionally, the first line upon which the eyes of the reader fall when opening the book give the answer to the direct question, and the rest of the Ghazal provides further clarification.

On July 30, 2009, people gathered to tell and hear stories with coincidental and unpredictable developments. The event culminated when the artist broke a hole through the adjacent wall, a participant came out of it, and started telling the story of what was happening at the moment, as it was developing in front of the eyes of the visitors.

It is true
I once got an ear that got sold to a fish.
Lean back: I will be glad to tell you all about
How it happened,
But first I must digress a bit . . .
—Hafiz of Shiraz

Susanna Bozhkov, My Great Aunt Gisele, 2009

My great aunt Gisele gave me this carnelian brooch about ten or eleven years ago. Being the only girl in her generation, a number of family jewels had collected in her jewellery box. She told me that our relative Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall had it made in Istanbul (then Constantinople) for his wife, when he was working in the Austro-Hungarian Empire’s diplomatic service at the end of the eighteenth century.

The engraving in Farsi reads: “The universe is transient and has no loyalty”, which I only recently learned thanks to my husband Daniel’s interest in these connections. I don’t suppose anyone in the family has known what it says for generations.

I grew up hearing about this Austrian great-great-great-great grandfather (or maybe he is only three ‘greats’ away) who was also known as “The Orientalist.” His story sounded like a romantic fairytale to my adolescent ears.

He was born Joseph Hammer and grew up in Graz, in the eastern part of present-day Austria. He studied Arabic, Persian (Farsi) and Ottoman Turkish in Vienna before being posted to the Middle East in his country’s diplomatic service. He spent eleven years in the East, traveling throughout the Ottoman Empire, on his job and for his own interests.

I’m not sure at what point in his life – before or after his years of foreign services – he became friendly with an aging and childless baroness who lived in a castle – Schloss Hainfeld – east of his hometown of Graz. She must have admired and adored him and his family, since she left him all her property – castle and estate – in 1835, on the condition that he added her name to his – hence the family name became Hammer-Purgstall.

The idea that you could be given a huge moated castle, and acres of farmland by a real fairy godmother, seemed too good to be true. The castle was built to an Italian design (I think I was told), which though very beautiful and open, with its two-storey arcaded walkways enclosing a large inner courtyard, was more suited to Italy’s climes than the cold winters of Austria. It included a chapel and a large library, where Hammer-Purgstall wrote and translated many of his books.

Unfortunately Hammer-Purgstall’s work has been a closed book to me since I never learned German. My immediate family was more interested in the romance languages and cultures of Western Europe, when I was growing up, so I was steered towards French, Spanish and Latin.

His translation of the Persian poet Hafiz’ collection of poems The Divan into German was a groundbreaking work. It introduced Goethe to Hafiz’ works and he went on to create his own West-Eastern Divan in response to the original.

Hammer-Purgstall himself came from the edge of the western world of his day, and created a bridge to the east, to the land and peoples of what was then considered “the enemy.” His translations have been praised and criticized by contemporary and more recent scholars, but inspite of his many faults he did more for oriental studies than most of his critics put together.

Since meeting and marrying Daniel, I feel that we are also very caught up in this business of borders and translation. His native Bulgaria is now an edge of the western world – though Turkey, Bulgaria’s former occupying power, is working hard to become part of Europe, too.

And now Daniel has started this project, called “Divan … the universe has no loyalty,” which draws together a number of historic and imagined border crossings, and invites a whole lot more.