Aus dem Nachlasse Mirza Schaffy's 1878

Curator: Here we have the opening of Friedrich von Bodenstedt’s “Aus dem Nachlasse Mirza Schaffy’s,” printed in 1878. It’s a wonderful example of Romantic era book design. Editor: It’s so...contained. A whisper of adventure in a very neat box. All those rules. It makes me wonder about the secret, rebellious heart behind the text itself. Curator: Precisely. The Romantic movement valued intense emotion and the exotic. Bodenstedt, while presenting a collection supposedly from the estate of Mirza Schaffy, an Azeri poet, was actually reflecting on cross-cultural dialogues. It’s a fabricated legacy within very German design. Editor: You see a bridge, I see a beautiful cage! Look at the red ink, popping like repressed passion! It’s gorgeous, of course, that decorative border keeping everything precise and contained, but even in the kerning and delicate frame, the red shouts something beyond what it is allowing itself to speak. Curator: That typography speaks volumes. The rigid structure is meant to convey order, but the ornamental choices and red title suggest the allure of the East. This aligns with Romantic notions of longing for an "authentic" otherness. The printing techniques themselves represent an increasing interest in accessibility to non-elite readerships, so this beautiful romantic view could be enjoyed across society. Editor: And what a tightly controlled expression of otherness! But it speaks to something deeply human, this simultaneous desire to explore and contain, to connect and yet categorize and judge, which, in its contradiction, hints at an honest desire that somehow got trapped on its way out of the body. The book’s appeal speaks volumes, and the more you want to experience those "Eastern" spaces, the more of this German control you digest at the same time! I get confused, excited, conflicted all at once looking at it, really. Curator: Indeed. By framing it in such a deliberately familiar manner, Bodenstedt perhaps aimed to assuage any anxiety surrounding such radically different perspectives. Editor: It’s like those architectural follies you'd see in Victorian estates, little stage sets of the foreign and exotic to play out a role, safe from anything too wild escaping from within the imagination. And if that tension alone isn't interesting enough, there's the mystery and uncertainty and potential within these two pages...so well done that I feel almost guilty consuming them! Curator: A most compelling tension embodied on the page. It makes you question every single intent from Bodenstedt. Editor: Definitely one for more deep dives!