Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall: Borderliner Between the Orient and the Occident
Scientific-historic Exhibition with a Topical Context at Hainfeld Castle
Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall left Graz to see the world and became one of the great travellers at the turn of the 18th to 19th century. One of the three main regionale08 exhibitions is dedicated to this orientalist, translator, and diplomat. At Hainfeld Castle near Feldbach, within the DIWAN Academy, the cultural festival presents the life's work of this great orientalist and scholar of culture. The starting point of this biographical and geographical expedition is Hammer-Purgstall's intellectual power room - until this day, his personal library at Hainfeld Castle has been kept almost intact.
The aim of the exhibition is to give the artistic formats of reginale08 a scientific-historic foundation. In parallel to the journey through Hammer-Purgstall's life, whose fame mainly stems from his translation of poems by the Persian poet Hafez's and who for example influenced Goethe with them, we want to illustrate the continuity of certain topics: today, just as then, we are confronted with areas of conflict between the Orient and the Occident, between home and abroad, translating between cultures, and Austria's specific role between the East and the West.