A special pride
We are talking with a famous Ukrainian politician, public figure, patron and collector, Oleksandr Feldman about the role of private collectors in artefacts’ maintenance
— Mr. Feldman, thanks to the exhibitions and the publications, including in the Antikvar magazine, we found out about your wonderful collections of Cossacks relics, oriental ornaments, okimono, rare wines, collections of the pictures by Jewish painters, and, of course, antique weapons. How did it happen that weapons became one of the main directions of your collector’s activity?
— I think that many of our likings are directly connected with the impressions of the childhood. I don’t mean common boyish ‘war’ games or plastic guns – I was not interested in that… However, I could spend a lot of time looking at knives, which were in our home, admiring the glitter of steel, the patterns on haft, the curves of blade. At those moments, I did not thought of the knives as of weapons or household items. It was a work of art for me. It enraptured with its architectonics, solidity, finishing. With the lapse of time, I started to pay more attention to swords, sabres, dirks, which were used in the historical movies; I started to read special literature and visit museums with the exhibitions of antique cold weapon. This fascinated me very much… Gradually, my own collection started to appear. And the start happened 30 years ago.
Of course, there were no possibilities, which we have today, when it is possible to find any information in the Internet about an item, to look through auction catalogues, to compare prices, and even to buy online… Everything was much more difficult. However, the blade’s authenticity was and is still important for me when choosing an item. And if I am convinced of its authenticity, I will be also interested in its decoration and its “clothing…” The thing is that cold weapon reflects all stages of human history. That is why, I consider each sample of antique weapons a unique work of art and a part of cultural heritage created by various peoples, various civilizations.
The blade indicates the time of creation, the gunsmiths, who worked on it, and its purpose – for battle, protection or decoration. Knife, dagger, sword… They are not just weapons, they are the extension of clothes reflecting the essence of a person – his character, taste, status. In some countries, it is possible to define the place of origin of weapon’s owner, and his family. In this connections, it is especially interesting to know about various kinds of expensive decoration – ivory carving, golden and silver inlays, precious and semiprecious stones inlays, i. e. everything that distinguishes artistic objects created for high rank persons. Exactly this “high-status” weapon gives reasons to judge about the development of art in one country or another, about its culture as a whole.
The similar items make it possible to imagine the look of persons living in different eras, how they lived, what things they used during peaceful times and under conditions of war. It is always interesting to see a sabre or a dagger described in novels or memoirs, to hold a hunting knife belonging to a historical figure. When you have similar thing, you want to know about its owner as much as possible; it makes you search for the images of this person, and documents or memoirs connected with this person. As a result, you get the historical portrait supported by the artefact. In this case, I am talking about unique items. However, even such seemingly ordinary things as Swiss Army knives, which feature not only blade, but also screwdriver, scissors, bottle-opener, tin-opener, tweezers and many other tools, can tell a lot about the country, where it was invented and has been produced for over a century. Moreover, the Swiss army annually gets 50,000 multipurpose knives every year!
Every sample is interesting and unique. For example, woman’s dagger meant for self-defence. Or cold weapons combined with firearms… Any item is an excursus to the history, a whole layer of famous or forgotten names and events, a story about armourer’s workshops, materials, techniques and ways of decoration.
At all times, weapons were very expensive, and not everyone was able afford a unique thing. That is why, it often happened that these things were heritable and were stored as a precious family relic. Needless to say, any collector considers this kind of weapons a special pride. Especially, if its former owner is known.
— Do you mean custom engraved weapons?
— Yes, I do. It is clear that any sabre or dagger was someone’s property once, but not every weapon bears information about the owner’s personality. However, there are items with inscriptions and symbols indicating an owner. A person could order the weapon for personal use, could get it as a present or award from other persons. It is good if we are able to find out both the name of the owner and the name of a person who made this present, and the reason for this action. The bigger the names of people indicated on weapon are, the more valuable it is, and the stronger emotions it causes. It would be wonderful if there were an inscription “This is the sword of prince Sviatoslav” on a sword that has been recently found in Dnipro. However, unfortunately, such miracles happen rarely.
It is difficult to overestimate historical and cultural importance of custom engraved weapons, because they are not just anonymous, faceless things, they are the “witnesses,” or even “participants” of the events of the past we know about from the historical chronicles. These unique items maintain our real connection with the history, arouse the feeling of involvement in the destinies of certain people. If weapon was owned, for example, by a known historical figure, it is another one striking trait in the biography of this person. But if the name of an owner is not so famous to read about him in books and textbooks, then, of course, there appears the desire to find out, who that person was and what his historical mark is. I think that the biggest value of custom engraved weapons is in this incentive to study history.
— What items of custom engraved weapons are you proud of?
— The collection includes near twenty samples of custom engraved weapons with reliable legends. I could tell about them during many hours, so it will better to indicate only some of them. In particular, it is a hunting sword of Rudolph of Habsburg, the crown prince of Austria-Hungary; a sabre of French General Bailloud, the hero of the World War I; a sword of Count de Tanlay, the French high-ranking official of Napoléon III epoch; a sabre of Pierre Chabert, the general of Napoléon epoch. These items are in sight of weaponologists for a long time. That is why their history is know in details.
There is also a weapon, which has recently appeared in the collection. It was an object of special researches, but something is already known about it. For example, it is a sword of one of the sultans governing on Java Island in the end of 17th – the beginning of 18th century. The sword’s blade contains inscription made of gold with the name and the titles of the owner. This is not typical of the weapons of the Malay Archipelago peoples. Or, there is also a Turkish yataghan, the handle of which contains the engraving with the name of prince Dmitry Ukhtomsky, the Russian officer, the participant of the Crimean War of 1853-1856. He took part in the battles against Turks in the Caucasus, and the captured yataghan was presented to him by his comrade-in-arms.
Moreover, the collection includes also the range of very interesting items, which cannot be formally called the custom engraved weapons, because there are no relevant inscriptions or depictions on them. At the same time, there is a high probability that they belonged to the famous historical figures. Of course, we double-check this information. The bright example is a splendid sabre, which is deemed to be presented to the Russian emperor Nicholas II by the Turkish sultan. Although there are no doubts in the fact of donation, but the experts continue to argue about the time and the circumstances of this event. We have our own opinion about this.
— The readers will be able to learn about some of the rarity weapons of the Feldman Family Museum collection from this magazine. But we would like to know how these items appeared in your collection, and whether it was difficult to find them?
— The most part of the items was found at auctions or bought from the other collectors. Every purchase has its own story, emotions, thoughts, doubts and sleepless nights. It is clear that custom engraved weapon is a rarity, and its value is much higher than the value of other items. But the matter is not only in cost, but in the fact that similar things require special attitude. And I am not talking about the storing conditions now, which are, of course, provided and observed, but about their serious study and brining into scientific use. However, while the item is under the examination, we make no publishing about it and do not exhibit it.
As an example, I can indicate antique weapons created on the island states of the Malay Archipelago. Let’s take Indonesia situated there as an example. People treated weapons with special respect there, almost like the Christian world treats icons. However, it is incredibly difficult to define the name of the authors of these unique and very beautiful things. It is possible to define exactly only one thing – during the reign of which dynasty they were created. The study of similar objects requires time and strength, but even now, in this difficult situation, we are trying not to stop the scientific work. And I am talking not only about Asian or oriental weapons, but also rarities related to the past of our country.
— I think that your exhibition and published projects will visualize and actualize the history. It is important not only from the point of view of education, upbringing, creation of conditions for intercultural dialogue, but also for the propaganda of humanitarian values.
— Certainly. Everything we do is fundamentally directed at the attempt to develop goodness in people, as well as love to the native country, to arouse their interest in the history of their country and other peoples, to form the feeling of responsibility for preservation of cultural heritage and to understand that this is the priceless riches belonging to us and uniting us. In the developed countries, the notion of ‘riches’ is not associated only with money any more: people consider that forests, rivers, pictures in museums are the riches. This is completely another level, and we need to rise to it. I am sure that collectors, who make their collections accessible, open them for scientific study and make their contribution to this important process. I would like everything that belongs in Ukraine to private owners to be brought into the scientific use in order to become the real heritage of the country… And perhaps, the alerted, and sometimes even hostile attitude towards collectors fostered by Soviet authorities will disappear. I have also heard very unpleasant things in my address. However, the society started to think about private collectors not the way it was 20-30 years ago.
I am happy that I have opportunity to give valuable exhibits to Kharkiv, Lviv, Kyiv museums, to arrange exhibitions and to implement cultural projects, which the government is not able to do due to the absence of strength and means. And I hope that this will help to return people to the thought that collections are gathered not only to please own pride, but also for the preservation of cultural heritage of humanity, for the enrichment of the country’s museum fund, for its future prosperity.
Interview by Anna Sherman
