“Where the World changes its outlines,
a need arises for a true word.
I hope my verse and poetry are
a contribution to the continuation of the Russian
cultural tradition, for those
who still believe that a word can be a deed,
that the Russian language
deserves not only careful treatment,
but true power!”
Vladimir Mann is a collector of Eastern art and a poet, a member of the Russian Union of Writers, a laureate and holder of the Pushkin and Yesenin prizes, as well as other prestigious awards for his contribution to the development of national literature.
The poet's work is an exploration of the fate of the creator, of the metaphysics of history, and of that deep inner choice which determines a human life.
A central place in his bibliography is held by the poem “The Florentine”
(The Florentine). It contains a complex, dualistic image:
On the one hand, the legendary light-yellow diamond of 137 carats, which for centuries belonged to the greatest European dynasties, the Medici and the Habsburgs, and whose keeper is the hero of the poem;
on the other, the hero himself, a man in a state of de facto exile, where the tragedy of arbitrary persecution leads to the loss of his homeland, regarded in the modern world as Exilium.
In the context of the 21st century, Vladimir Mann analyses the relation of this phenomenon to the historical institution of Exilium and, besides the poem, writes essays at the intersection of the philosophy of law and legal doctrine, for its further interdisciplinary discussion.
The main direction of Vladimir Mann's work remains poetry, and he perceives world culture as a living continuum in which literature, music, painting and poetry carry on an uninterrupted dialogue across the ages.
Thus, in the Universal Age of Poetry, a long-standing practice of collecting Eastern art is born,
Japanese art, in which a special place is held by traditional Japanese ceramics, bearing a sacred meaning: clay as the primal substance, the dust of the earth from which, according to the most ancient cosmogonic accounts, man himself was created.
In working with this earthly flesh, the masters of the East extol the beauty of imperfection, the value of flaws and the nobility of the marks left by time. A fired vessel becomes a witness to a unique history and is directly in tune with the poetic world.
And today the poetry of Vladimir Mann and his collection Japanese art are meant to unite those who seek in art a true transforming power, able to heal the fractures of fate and to overcome the stillness of oblivion.
More than 140 works of Japanese heritage from the 19th to the 21st century – porcelain and ceramics from historic manufactories, art glass, traditional decorative and applied arts, and painting – are nothing other than the creation of Vladimir Mann, given with love in the Universal Age of Poetry.
An excerpt from the poem “The Florentine” — on the Russian page →