Solace of Lovers. Trost der Liebenden. Helena Perena

       ON “SOLACE OF LOVERS”

      In any attempt – in the spirit of a “lover” – to approach a deeper cultural understanding in connection with Iran, one does well to bear in mind that the concept of the nation, especially in the European tradition, is less than helpful. Iran must rather be seen as a continent, offering an immense diversity of landscapes, temperatures, people, nationalities and even religions, but also striking aspects of a common cultural “conjoinedness”. Within this interpretation of the concept, this “continent” is based above all on a common culture of language and a deep love and reverence for its most creative aspects in the form of literature, a literature that connects the Iranian Arab on the Persian Gulf with the bazaar trader in the Iranian capital Tehran. As a matter of course they are familiar with the most prominent poets writing in Farsi, the language of Iran, which reaches far beyond the country’s present borders and is the medium of the history of spiritual and physical travel between the Far East and the Middle East. Marco Polo (1254–1324), for example, spoke Farsi and was therefore able to provide Europe in the High Middle Ages with astonishing insights into the Far East. Whether he did so on the basis of first-hand observation or well-told stories is not so important, since Iranian life is always connected in all its diverse aspects with the broadening use of the Iranian language.

      Perhaps more so than any other language, the literature of Iran is intensively concerned with human relationships, including relationships between individuals, with nature and with different aspects of the divine. Again and again it is love that provides the drive, the process and also the goals for the wonderful use of language. This language as art also guides the visual arts. For centuries, the pictorial element has been a connecting experience shaped by calligraphy, which is seen as an art form in its own right, by splendid ornamentation and by illustrations as a narrative accompaniment. Notwithstanding the truly monumental aspects – a visit to the royal city of Isfahan, for example, has astonished travellers for centuries –, this is an artistic tradition in which there is a consistent link to the individual, to personal encounters, to the intimate moment, which refuses to be overwhelmed. Like so much else from Europe, Iran would have to wait until the 19^th century to understand the concept of the picture as a self-contained commodity.

      Significantly enough, the following lines by the poet Saadi (ca. 1213–ca. 1291/1292) from his “Rose Garden” are to be found in the lobby of the UN building in New York (translation by M. Aryanpoor):

      “Human beings are members of a whole,

      In creation of one essence and soul.

      If one member is afflicted with pain,

      Other members uneasy will remain.

      If you have no sympathy