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Tag Archives: Exile

The War in Ukraine: la petite Russie

01 Friday Apr 2022

Posted by michelinewalker in Russia, Ukraine, Ukraine War

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Exile, Kyevan Rus', Massacre of Odessa, Mutiny on the Potemkin, resilience, The Dissolution of the USSR, The Grinbergs, The People, Tsar Nicholas II, Ukrainians as petits Russes

Vladimir Putin

—ooo—

The Exodus

Crises have led several generations of Russians to move away from Russia, and the war in Ukraine is yet another crisis. As soon as Vladimir Putin threatened to wage war in Ukraine, Russians left, and tens of thousands followed in their footsteps. It’s an exodus. Opponents of the war in Ukraine who have spoken publicly and have been imprisoned are also very likely to leave Russia after they are freed. Russia will lose some of its population. They will join Russians who settled abroad after the collapse of the USSR. Vladimir Putin, who seems to be Putin alone, tramples on the freedom of two people who have close ties, making the war even uglier. Earlier, after the 1905 Revolution and the Revolution of 1917, other countries welcomed Russians. Many went to France. Most Russian aristocrats spoke French. When I lived in France it suprised me that so many of the French I met had Russian ancestry. Their family left Russia at different points in the 19th and 20th centuries.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/russia-ukraine-war-leave-country-1.6387892

Ukraine was once called be called une petite Russie. Une petite Russie may be an area abroad where Ukrainians have chosen to live. There are numerous petites, including petites Cadies and petits Canadas, small Acadies and small Canadas. My father was brought up in a small town in the Eastern Townships where French-speaking Canadians lived in a p’tit Canada. These areas were called Canadas because English Canadians were les Anglais. But la petite Russie (Le Figaro) I am referring to is Ukraine. Ukraine is located on the shore of the Black Sea, which has been a coveted area. Russia is inland, a geographical drawback. It has compensated by being “toutes les Russies,” all the Russias, a country so large that it suggests conquests.

La petite Russie was located on the shore of the Black Sea and allowed Russia to have a navy. Russia’s port was the port of Arkhangelsk, located far to the North. Russia wants ports, which the annexation of Crimea in 2014 reflects. History repeats itself.

Russia Today (See Russia, Britannica)

Kievan Rus’, the Tsardom of Russia, and the Russian Empire

  • Kievan Rus’ until 1574
  • 1574-1721 Tsardom of Russia
    • Ivan IV (self-declared Tsar)
    • The House of Romanov (Michael of Russia, appointed Tsar…)
    • 1721-1917 the Russian Empire (Peter the Great…)

Kievan Rus’ (les Russes de Kiev) is a remnant from the past (Kiev is Kyiv). Kyevan or Kyivan Rus’ ceased to be in 1574 when Ivan IV, Ivan the Terrible, the Grand Prince of Moscow, declared himself Tsar of Russia or the Tsardom of Russia or Muscovy. The first tsar of Russia was Michael of Russia, Tsar of the House of Romanov after the Zemskiy Sobor of 1613 elected him to rule the Tsardom of Russia. He was the son of Feodor Nikitich Romanov. The Tsardom of Russia was a centralized state (Moskovy) that lasted until 1721, when Peter the Great founded the Russian Empire. Under Peter the Great, the Tsardom of Russia or Tsardom of Muscovy gradually ceased to be a centralized Russian state. Expansion began.

Ivan the Terrible and His Son Ivan. 1885 painting by Ilya Repin (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

1793: the Division of Ukraine

In fact, both Russians and Ukrainians are Slavs, a large number of people who speak Slavic languages and inhabit several countries. The modern nations of Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine all claim Kievan Rus’ as their cultural ancestors. (See Kievan Rus’, Wikipedia). But, eventually, Ukraine became a petite Russie as the former centralized Tsardom of Russia expanded into the Russian Empire. Ukraine was divided following a war waged in the 17th century between the Tsardom of Russia and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.

The east was controlled by Russia and the west fell under Polish control splitting Ukraine between the east, which was controlled by Russia, and the west, which fell under Polish control. splitting Ukraine between the east, which was controlled by Russia, and the west, which fell under Polish control. This divide existed until 1793, when the Russian Empire annexed western Ukraine, plunging the country into a century of “Russification.” For Russia, they claimed this was “reunification” of the Kyivan Rus’, but for Ukrainians, it was another subjugation. (See The Contentious History of Russia-Ukraine history) 

The Territory of Russia in      1500,      1600 and      1689 (See Russian Tsardom, Wikipedia)

The Mutiny of the Battleship Potemkin

I will tell a story that may exemplify the relationship between the petits Russes and the grands Russes. It is the story of the mutiny on Potemkin. Potemkin was a Russian battleship that sailed on the Black Sea after 1793, but perhaps earlier, when Ukraine had been annexed to Russia. The Russian Empire now had a port south of Moscow, but the petits Russes of Potemkin rebelled against the ship’s officers.

In early June 1905, Afanasy Matyushenko and Potemkin crewman Grigory Vakulenchuk joined with other disgruntled sailors in plotting a fleet-wide mutiny. Their audacious plan called for the rank and file to rise up and strike a concerted blow against the officers. After commandeering all the navy ships in the Black Sea, the conspirators would enlist the peasant class in a revolt that would sweep Czar Nicholas II from the Russian throne.
(See History)

Potemkin was commandeered under Afanasy Matyushenko, and Grigory Vakulenchuk after conscripted crewmen were served borscht crawling with maggots. Captain Evgeny Golikov ordered crewmen to eat the borscht, which some did, but the “hard-liners stubbornly held their ground.” (See History.) Golikov called his marines, but a few men went to a turret and grabbed weapons. Golikov killed Vakulenchuk, but the crewmen, numbering 763, commandeered the ship after 30 minutes. Golikov was hiding in a stateroom. He was shot and died as soon as he was found.

Potemkin headed for Odessa, and Matyushenko showed Vakulenchuk’s dead body. When Nicholas II heard of the mutiny, he ordered his military to quell the revolt. The following day the military started firing at people standing near the shore, and mounted Cossacks went down the Richelieu steps killing civilians with their sabres. It was a massacre: a thousand Odessans died.

Potemkin went to Romania and surrendered the ship in exchange for political asylum. Most mutineers went into exile. These were petits, Russes, Ukrainians. 

Conclusion

It is now as it was then. Petits Russes, Ukrainians, are fleeing their country. Could a modern-day “Tsar” want ports on the Black Sea, crushing peaceful Ukrainians? And will he then conquer other lands? Where does he go if he does not pull out of Ukraine? He has done considerable harm in Ukraine and many have suggested he is already a war criminal, which he seems to be.

Who would have thought that thirty years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the President of the Russian Federation would compel Ukrainians, humble Russians, the Grinbergs, and tens of thousands of other Russians to leave?

RELATED ARTICLES

  • The Art and Music of Russia (Page)
East-Slavic tribes and peoples, 8th–9th centuries (See Kievan Rus, Wikipedia)
The furthest extent of Kievan Rus’, 1054–1132. (See Ukraine, Wikipedia)

—ooo—

Love to everyone. 💕

Sergei Rachmaninoff, Prelude in C Sharp Minor
The Richelieu Steps, where some of the worse violence occurred during the Odessa riots and massacre. (Photo credit: History)

© Micheline Walker
1st April 2022
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Israel & the Growth of Nationalism

07 Saturday Jan 2017

Posted by michelinewalker in Exile, Israel, Palestine, The Middle East

≈ 12 Comments

Tags

Bar Kokhba revolt, Emperor Hadrian, Exile, Harry S. Truman, Jewish-Roman Wars, Mandatory Palestine, The Creation of Israel, The Middle East

1024px-arch_of_titus_menorah

Jewish-Roman Wars

Palestine

Philistines settled in Palestine in the 12th century BCE, which confirms that Palestine had long been a nation (see Palestine, Britannica). After the three Jewish-Roman Wars, fought between 66 CE and 136 CE, Palestine was renamed Syria Palaestina by Roman Emperor Hadrian (24 January 76 – 10 July 138) after he crushed the Bar Kokhba revolt of 132-136, thus named after Simon bar Kokhba (d. 135). The Bar Kokhba revolt is the third of three Jewish-Roman wars, but it is sometimes called the second, the Kitos War being omitted.

  • First Jewish–Roman War (66–73 CE) 
  • Kitos War (115–117 CE)
  • Bar Kokhba revolt (132-136 CE)

Emperor Hadrian renamed Jerusalem Aelia Capitolina, and Jews could no longer enter the city.

800px-thumbnail

Expulsion of the Jews during the Reign of Hadrian

Nationalism

The concept of nationalism was not new to the 19th century. Traits and circumstances shared by a number of individuals such as language, religion, foklore, location, not to mention climate, lead to nationhood. We owe the théorie des climats (the climate theory) to Montesquieu as well as Madame de Staël, the author of De l’Allemagne (1810-1813).  

The Growth of Nationalism

  • the Congress of Vienna, 1815
  • the attrition of the Ottoman Empire
  • balkanization

Although nationalism was not born in the 19th century, the 19th century is nevertheless associated with an unprecedented surge in nationalism.

The Congress of Vienna, held in 1815, but suspended when Napoleon returned from Elba, the Hundred Days, les Cent-Jours, was one of nationalism’s first 19th-century location. France returned land conquered by Napoleon and Prussia returned Alsace-Lorraine to France. However, nations represented at the Congress of Vienna, France, England, Prussia, and Russia, quite shamelessly rearranged Europe. During the 19th century, European countries conquered by the Ottomans, as of 1453, fought wars of independence leading to the attrition of the Ottoman Empire. Also to be taken into account is the balkanization of several states. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, fragmented countries in Eastern Europe were victims of genocidal ethnic cleansing. The term balkanization was coined at the end of World War I.

Zionism

Zionism also grew out of 19th-century nationalism. Its founder was Theodor Herzl (2 May 1860 – 3 July 1904). Zionists dreamed of a land of Israel which it lost beginning in the 8th century BCE. The exile was completed in 135 CE, when Roman Emperor Hadrian had the Bar Kokhba revolt crushed. Israeli nationalism seems to be developing into a state and faith nationalism.

The Balfour Declaration

At the time Jewish scientist Chaim Weizmann (27 November 1874  – 9 November 1952) was negotiating the Balfour Declaration (1917), he said the following:

“Mr. Balfour, supposing I was to offer you Paris instead of London, would you take it?” He sat up, looked at me, and answered: “But Dr. Weizmann, we have London.” “That is true,” I said, “but we had Jerusalem when London was a marsh.” He … said two things which I remember vividly. The first was: “Are there many Jews who think like you?” I answered: “I believe I speak the mind of millions of Jews whom you will never see and who cannot speak for themselves.”… To this he said: “If that is so you will one day be a force.”[1]

The Balfour Declaration, a letter dated 2 November 1917 from Foreign Secretary James Arthur Balfour to Walter Rothschild, 2nd Baron Rothschild, did not reflect Zionist objectives:

His Majesty’s government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country. (See Balfour Declaration, Wikipedia.)

Chaim Weizmann‘s statement is misleading. Yes, the Jews had Jerusalem a very long time ago, but they had lost their land and had been exiled. As noted above, this process had begun in the 8th century BCE and was complete as of 135 CE, when the Third Roman-Jewish War was fought under Roman Emperor Hadrian. Although several Jews remained in the newly created Syria Palaestina, most left. Assyrians, a Mesopotamian East Semitic-speaking kingdom and an independent state since the 25th BCE, converted to Christianity “[b]etween the mid-second century BC and late third century AD, a period which also saw Assyria become a major centre of Syriac Christianity and the birthplace of the Church of the East.” (See Assyria, Wikipedia.)

Assyrians, who or many of whom had converted to Christianity, were not exiled. However,  in the 7th century in particular (see Muhammad, Wikipedia), countries from Asia to the Iberian Peninsula were Arabised, a process that continued after Constantinople fell to the Seljuk Turks, in 1453. Ottomans were Muslims and conquered several countries in Eastern Europe that fought wars of independence in the 19th century.

201PH2207b

Philistine captives being led away after their failed invasion of Egypt from a relief (Wermer Forman Archive/Heritage-Images) 

Eschatological Connotations

As for Israel, its land of Israel and the dispersal of Jews, may find a correct description in the Encyclopædia Britannica:

Although the term refers to the physical dispersal of Jews throughout the world, it also carries religious, philosophical, political, and eschatological connotations, inasmuch as the Jews perceive a special relationship between the land of Israel and themselves. Interpretations of this relationship range from the messianic hope of traditional Judaism for the eventual “ingathering of the exiles” to the view of Reform Judaism that the dispersal of the Jews was providentially arranged by God to foster pure monotheism throughout the world.[2]

The people of Quebec can understand the relationship between a people and a land, the pays du Québec. Quebec is a province, not a country. It has a Parti Québécois, consisting of Quebec nationalists, but Quebec has now chosen interculturalism, a form of humanist nationhood rooted in Martha Nussbaum‘s Cultivating Humanity.  

Quebecers’ first homeland was its “literary homeland,” or patrie littéraire, a subject I have researched and pondered. One of my articles is online, in French. It is a reading of Antonine Maillet‘s Pélagie-la-Charrette.[3] Metaphors are taken from the Bible, mainly. I have lectured on this subject at the University of Stuttgart.

The Creation of Israel

In 1948, Palestine was a state. However, it had been part of the Ottoman Empire and was divided by the recently established League of Nations, whose blueprint was the Zykes-Picot Agreement of 1916. Mark Sykes, for Britain, and François Georges-Picot , for France, were protecting spheres of influence. Therefore, in 1920, Palestine was not free. From a possession of the Ottoman Empire, Palestine was transformed into a protectorate of Britain. As we have seen, in 1917, under the terms of the Balfour Declaration, Britain supported the creation of a homeland for Israel, but its Israel was in Palestine.

When Israel was created in 1948, statesmen may have hoped Israel would be in Palestine. That would have been the two-state solution, but partitioning Palestine made room for a State of Israel that would expand. The Jews had been the victims of various persecutions culminating in the Nazi Holocaust. The Holocaust then weighed heavily on a collective conscience, so it may have obscured safer resolutions. United States President Harry S. Truman  had befriended a Zionist and may not have foreseen that the partitioning of Palestine could lead to a lengthy conflict and considerable resistance on the part of Palestinians, not to mention decades of resentment on the part of Arabs.

Moreover, it may not have occurred to President Truman and other statesmen that the creation of Israel was an option rather than an imperative. There were options. Many Jews moved to the United States and to Canada. Moreover, after denazification, survivors of the Holocaust could return to their homes if they wished.  As for the creation of a land of Israel, the means were questionable. Given the objectives of Zionists, the establishment of a “land of Israel,” creating Israel, could not be mere ownership of a part of Palestine. After the diaspora and the Holocaust, the land of Israel had acquired mythical dimensions.

—ooo—

On 23 December 2016, 14 members of the United Nations Security Council voted in favour of condemning Israeli settlements and the 15th member, the United States, did not veto their decision. In his Remarks on the Middle East Peace, Secretary of State John Kerry quoted Israel’s permanent representative to the United Nations who stated that the United States had not acted according to “values that we share:”

Israel’s permanent representative to the United Nations, who does not support a two-state solution, said after the vote last week, quote, “It was to be expected that Israel’s greatest ally would act in accordance with the values that we share,” and veto this resolution. 

If the figures I published on 3 January 2017 are accurate, the financial support  given Israel is staggering and it may have fostered in Israeli a sense of entitlement allowing it to occupy territory that it wasn’t apportioned in 1948. There is practically nothing left of Palestine.

Truth be told, Israel started encroaching on neighbouring territory almost as soon as it was created, and it has yet to return the Sinai Peninsula, the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, the Golan Heights, and East Jerusalem which it conquered during the Six-Day War, in June 1967.

Conclusion

If the United States provides military aid amounting to more than 10 million dollars a day to Israel, Israel is truly privileged and the statement of its representative to the United Nations: “values we share,” is inappropriate. Israel can no longer settle beyond borders not allotted Israel in 1948. If it does, it will endanger its own safety as well as the safety of the United States. The United States stands to be attacked as it was on 11 September 2001 and its support of Israel may encourage terrorist attacks in Europe. It short, Israel cannot spill out of its borders.

Finally, how can the United States refuse to provide social programs for its citizens if the money it collects from taxpayers, the middle class mainly, is used to support a nation that will not respect Palestinians and consider peace.

The two-state solution cannot forever be kicked down the road, nor can time be wasted on agreements that are not implemented. We cannot rewrite the past, but the future is ours and, more importantly, it is our children’s.

Nationalism is fine, but it does not justify encroachment on a neighbour’s territory.

RELATED ARTICLES

  • Nationalism and Genocides
  • On the Collapse of the Ottoman Empire
  • The Zykes-Picot Agreement of 1916
  • The Remains of the Past

Sources and Resources

  • https://history.state.gov/milestones/1945-1952/creation-israel
  • Britannica
  • Wikipedia

____________________

[1] Weizmann, Trial and Error, p.111, as quoted in W. Lacquer, The History of Zionism, 2003, ISBN 978-1-86064-932-5. p.188 (See Balfour Declaration of 1917, Wikipedia).

[2] “Diaspora”. Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online.
Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2016. Web. 21 Aug. 2016 or
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Diaspora-Judaism

 [3] Micheline Bourbeau-Walker, « La Patrie littéraire: Errance et Résistance », Francophonies d’Amérique, Numéro 13, été 2002, pp. 47-65.

https://www.erudit.org/revue/fa/2002/v/n13/1005247ar.html?vue=resume
https://www.erudit.org/revue/fa/2002/v/n13/1005247ar.pdf

woman_nakba_dress_jug

Woman in Nakba Dress, fleeing Palestine

© Micheline Walker
7 January 2017
WordPress

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On Madame de Staël

12 Wednesday Mar 2014

Posted by michelinewalker in Literature, Salons, The Enlightenment, The French Revolution

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

Benjamin Constant, Coppet, Exile, Jacques Necker, Madame de Staël, Napoleon's fears, Salons, Suzanne Curchod

Le Château de Coppet
Le Château de Coppet, Madame de Staël’s residence on the shores of Lake Geneva (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

untitled

Madame de Staël, the daughter of Swiss-born Jacques Necker (30 September 1732 – 9 April 1804), Louis XVI’s Finance Minister, is a legendary figure. For one thing, Napoleon I was so afraid of her that he would not let her live in or near Paris. She was born in Paris, but, in 1784, her father had bought a lovely home in Switzerland, on the shores of Lake Geneva. When Germaine de Staël was exiled from France, by Napoleon Bonaparte, Napoleon I, she took refuge at Coppet.

Germaine de Staël

French-Swiss Anne Louise Germaine de Staël (22 April 1766 – 14 July 1817; aged 51), may well be the most prominent intellectual, and salonnière (salonist) of her era, an era that spans the French Revolution, Napoleon’s Empire (Napoléon I) and the beginning of the Bourbon restoration. After Napoleon’s defeat, France was a monarchy, but not an absolute monarchy. It had to be a Constitutional Monarchy, or a form of parliamentary Monarchy, as was the wish of the signatories of the Tennis Court Oath. Madame de Staël joined the National Assembly, constituted by members of the Third Estate, le tiers-état, from rich bourgeois to impoverished peasants still living on feudal seigneuries and paying taxes. The National Assembly (13, 1789 to July 9, 1789) was soon replaced by the Legislative Assembly, which takes us to 1792 and the National Convention. It lasted from 21 September 1792 to 26 October 1795, or 28 July 1794, when Robespierre and Saint-Just were guillotined. (See The French Revolution, Wikipedia.)  

Suzanne Curchod and Jacques Necker

Madame de Staël is the daughter of Suzanne Curchod (1737 – 6 May 1794), a salonnière whose salon could be compared favorably to the salon where Madame Geoffrin (26 June 1699 – 6 October 1777), the daughter of a banker who had entertained and dined distinguished guests on Monday and on Wednesday. Salonnières had “days.” Madame Geoffrin, the finest hostess of the Age of Enlightenment, attracted to her salon the leading intellectual, literary, artistic and political figures of the Age of Enlightenment, and, among them, Voltaire, a Freemason, encyclopédistes Denis Diderot and Jean le Rond d’Alembert and, to a significant degree, Jean-Jacques Rousseau (28 June 1712 – 2 July 1778), an encyclopédiste who challenged the reign of reason and is, therefore, a precursor, if not the founder, of Romanticism. Remember La Querelle des Bouffons.

Nearly a generation later, during the 1770s and 178Os, madame Necker’s salon du vendredi, the Friday salon, would attract exceptional figures, one of whom, Jean-François Marmontel, has been somewhat neglected by posterity. Marmontel was secretary-for-life (lifetime) of the Neuf Sœurs (The Nine Sisters), the leading Masonic Lodge of the Grand Orient of France. Moreover, from 1771 until 1793, Louis-Philippe II, Duke of Orleans (Philippe Égalité) was its Grand Master. France also had English-speaking lodges.

Madame Necker also entertained Swiss expatriates Madame Geoffrin and the Marquise du Deffand. When Madame Necker left Paris, in 1790, she missed her salon. Four years later, she died.

Suzanne Curchod Necker

Suzanne Curchod Necker

Jacques Necker, by Joseph Duplessis (Château de Versailles) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Jacques Necker, by Joseph Duplessis (Château de Versailles) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

As for Madame de Staël’s father, Swiss-born Jacques Necker (30 September 1732 – 9 April 1804), he was Louis XVI’s finance minister (1788–89, 1789–90). Jacques Necker had become extremely wealthy, richissime in fact, during the Seven Year’s War. He made savvy speculations, perhaps not altogether above-board, but speculations that earned him a fortune and put him in a position to lend money to the Crown, so to speack, In 1764, he married Suzanne Curchod (1739 – 1794) put him in a position to lend money to the “Crown,” so to speak. In 1764, he married Suzanne Curchod (1739 – 1794),the cultivated daughter of a Vaudois* pastor who was considering marrying historian Edward Gibbon. Suzanne Necker became a prominent salonnière or salonist.

*from the Swiss Canton (township) of Vaud

Jacques Necker, a Protestant, would not allow his beloved daughter Germaine to marry a Catholic. In 1786, Madame de Staël was therefore married to the Swedish ambassador in Paris, Baron Erik de Staël-Holstein. It was, of course, a marriage of convenience, ended formally in 1797, but Madame de Staël was now at court, meeting statesmen. Madame de Staël and Erik de Staël had four children, three of whom survived childhood: Auguste (b. 1790), who edited his mother’s complete works; Albert (b. 1792); and Albertine (b. 1796). Albertine married Victor de Broglie, 9th Prime Minister of France. Gustavine (b. 1887) died in 1789.

One of the children may have been fathered by Benjamin Constant (25 October 1767 – 8 December 1830), the author of Adolphe (1816) and, for some 14 years (1794 – 1809), Madame de Staël’s lover. He and Madame de Staël shared the same liberal views. Benjamin’s writings were influenced by Karl Wilhelm Friedrich von Schlegel and his brother August Wilhem Schlegel, who were leading “Romantics.” (See Romanticism, Wikipedia.)

Madame de Staël had a fifth child, Alphonse, born in 1812 when Germaine was 46. In all likelihood, he was fathered by Albert de Rocca who legitimated him as Louis- Alphonse Rocca. Albert was twenty-three years younger than madame de Staël’s. The couple married after Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo and lived in Paris. Although sources differ concerning the date on which the marriage took place, my best information is that Albert de Rocca and Germaine de Staël married on 10 October 1816. She had a seizure in early 1817 and died on July 14, 1817. Albert de Rocca suffered from tuberculosis. He died on 31 January 1818.

Madame de Staël & Napoleon

The coup d’état of 18 Brumaire (9 November 1799) had made Bonaparte the self-declared head of state, in France (see Napoleon, Wikipedia), a position he consolidated in 1804 by proclaiming himself and his Créole wife, Joséphine, Emperor and Empress of France, leaving no voice to the people. After the execution of Louis XVI, madame de Staël therefore switched to moderate Republicanism.

Having read her writings, I would suspect that, intellectually, Madame de Staël may have been Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord‘s equal, except that their roles differed. Madame de Staël was a political thinker, but Talleyrand, a shrewd politician, a survivor, and Napoleon’s éminence grise, to a point. However, although Napoleon Bonaparte    proved quite an adroit statesman, he was, first and foremost, an extraordinary general, which brought both his rise and his demise. Moreover, he had taken possession of France, not to mention Europe.

At any rate, a rather cowardly Napoleon had madame de Staël chased throughout Europe and banished her. Her refuge was the Château de Coppet, on Lake Léman (Lake Geneva), the property purchased by Jacques Necker, Madame de Staël’s doting father, in 1784. Germaine spent approximately ten years, at Coppet which she described as her Dix années d’exil (Ten Years of Exile). Scholar Mona Ozouf[i] speaks of Madame de Staël’s inquiétude (worriness). Who would catch her when she fell: “descendre sans appui” (to fall without support)? She did not moan, except privately, and in her Dix années d’exil (published posthumously, in 1821, as were other works), but isolation was a major burden to a conversationalist, hence the title of her book on her banishment: Dix années d’exil. Madame de Staël was a woman, a wife, and a mother who dared to write. (Ozouf, p. 121)

Madame de Staël (1766 - 1817),  Firmin Massot

Madame de Staël (1766 – 1817), Firmin Massot

Le Groupe de Coppet

However, unexpectedly, during the ten years (an approximate number) Madame de Staël spent at Coppet, Coppet, not Paris, was the appropriate destination for men of letters, intellectuals, writers and various  dignitaries.  Helen Phillio Jenkins[ii] quotes French novelist Stendhal, the pen name of Marie-Henri Beyle (23 January 1783 – 23 March, 1842. Stendhal is the author of Le Rouge et le Noir (1830) and many classics of 19th-century French literature. The Red and the Black is on my list of future posts. Stendhal describes a triumphant summer feast in 1816, Madame de Staël’s last summer.  

“There was here on the coast of Lake Geneva last autumn the most astonishing reunion. It was the states general of European opinion. The phenomenon rises even to political importance. There were here six hundred persons, the most distinguished of Europe. Men of intellect, of wealth, of the greatest titles–all came here to seek pleasure in the salon of the illustrious woman for whom France weeps today.” The Review Politique, 1880, says: “It was a parliament whence came forth political doctrines, a race [breed] of statesmen, a school of thinkers, which have filled with their combats, their triumphs or their defeats, more than half a century of our history.”[iii]

Romanticism

No, although she grieved, Germaine did not moan. She learned German and took an interest in German Romanticism. She met Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832) known as Goethe, and Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller (10 November 1759 – 9 May 1805), known as Friedrich Schiller. She is therefore associated with Sturm und Drang (late 1760s to early 1780s). 

However, Madame de Staël’s knowledge of Geneva-born Jean-Jacques Rousseau‘s  (28 June 1712 – 2 July 1778) works had fully prepared her to understand and to contribute to the development of European Romanticism. Madame de Staël had studied Rousseau and written about his works: 1) Letters on the Works and the Character of J.-J. Rousseau (1788). Although Madame de Staël had published two works before she was 21, she entered the world of letters when she started writing analytical works: political theory, literary theory, thoughts on various subjects, sociology avant la lettre:

  1. Lettres sur les ouvrages et le caractère de Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1788) ;
  2. De l’influence des passions sur le bonheur des individus et des nations (1796) ;
  3. De la littérature considérée dans ses rapports avec les institutions sociales (1800).

Jean-Jacques had rehabilitated sentiment, a subject debated from the day René Descartes published, in French, his Discours de la Méthode (1637). By and large, seminal ideas stem from intuition, but are then examined methodically. 

As for Madame de Staël, she wrote 2) A Treatise on the Influence of the Passions upon the Happiness of Individuals and of Nations, published in 1796. French-Swiss Benjamin Constant, the author of Adolphe (1816) and Madame de Staël’s lover, also studied sentiment.

Madame de Staël is also the author of 3) The Influence of Literature upon Society (1800). It’s a fascinating topic. However, Madame de Staël’s De l’Allemagne (Germany), written between 1810 and 1813, is her magnum opus. Yet, her novel entitled Delphine (1802), is also a classic. 

Conclusion

In this post, we have seen Germaine de Staël as an intellectual and a salonnière, but a salonnière who played an active role in the conversation and was a thinker. She was in fact, both hostess and guest, and her guests included such individuals as Lord Byron, the Duke of Wellington, Madame Récamier.

She was a novelist, Delphine (1802)and Corinne (1807), but, first and foremost a thinker. Philosopher Auguste Comte, the father of sociology, included her in his “Calender of Great Men.”

In literature, she helped create a new hero well-exemplified by Chateaubriand‘s René, a French Werther, Goethe’s Werther. Our new hero suffers from le mal du siècle and le vague des passions. He stands tall compared to the rest of humanity, but he lives in a garret, his genius unrecognized. Reason had not been crushed, but it had been carefully circumscribed.

Politically, moderation guided her thinking.  After the execution of Louis XVI, she was a moderate Republican. In fact, she was always a moderate.

And then comes Coppet, the unrivalled meeting-place of Europe’s intellectual elite. Whenever I think of Madame de Staël, she is in Coppet.

—ooo—

RELATED ARTICLE

  • Giovanni Battista Pergolesi, revisited

Sources:  

  • Descartes: The Discourse on Method, Project Gutenberg [EBook #59]EN
  • Benjamin Constant: Adolphe, Project Gutenberg [EBook #13861]EN
  • Staël Delphine (1802), Project Gutenberg  [EBook #7812]EN
  • Madame de Staël: Corinne, or Italy (1807)EN
  • De l’Allemagne (1810-1803) may be read online (a 1852 edition).FR
  • De l’Allemagne, edited by Henri Heine, is an online publication.FR
  • Madame de Staël: De l’Allemagne, translated by Heinrich Heine (Amazon)EN
  • Considerations on the Principal Events of the French Revolution (1818) (Amazon)EN
  • Paul Gautier: Chateaubriand et madame de Staël (Revue des Deux Mondes, Tome 17, 1903 Chateaubriand et madame de Staël d’après les lettres inédites de Chateaubriand (1903)FR
  • Paul Gautier: Madame de Staël et Napoléon (1904)
  • Édouard Hérriot (1872 – 1957): Madame Récamier et ses amis
  • Video:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2gmVKMvBV0  (Michel Winock sur Madame de Staël)FR
  • art:  Varvara Ivanovna Narishkine, by Vigée Le Brun, 1801

Please accept my apologies for the long absence.  I was not feeling well. Kind regards to all of you.

_________________________

[i] Mona Ozouf, Les Mots des femmes ; essai sur la singularité française (Paris : Fayard, 1995), p. 113.

[ii] Helen Philleo Jenkins, “Madame de Stael,” in Mary Kavanaugh Oldham, ed. The Congress of Women: Held in the Woman’s Buiding, World’s Columbia Exposition, Chicago, U. S. A. 1893 (Chicago: Monarch Book Company, 1894), pp. 686-690).

Johann Baptist Vanhal, (12 May 1739 – 20 August 1813)
Symphony in G minor, II Adagio

MADAME~1

© Micheline Walker

12 March 2014

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Madame de Staël as Corinne,
Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun
(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

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