Maurice Barres
90 years ago, 4th of December 1923 at the age of 61 – Auguste-Maurice Barres had died in Paris, a novelist, an essayist, publicist and a nationalist politician; in his youth a radical ly egotistical individualist (“worship of Self”), who subsequently discovered that “self” is a tree that is rooted in a native soil- the nation, which means the possession of an ancient cemetery; an enemy of parliamentarism and an adherent of a plebiscite presidential republic (” a republican-revisionist”) anti-German revanchist, an anti-Semite and anti-Dreyfusard; first man in history to use (4VII 1892) the term “nationalism” in its stricte political sense (Tradition- Protection- Decentralisation) and in opposition to cosmopolitanism, as well as (1896) “nationally-socialist”; a Boulangists deputy from Nancy (1889-93) also on behalf of the Parisian Democratic Republican Alliance (1906-23); a founder and a leader of the League of the French Fatherland (1898-1914), a protector of Ch.Maurras and Action Française (although not a monarchist); a “catholic-atheist” defender of the Church, as a part of a national heritage , against the anti-clericalism of the Republic, and a champion of the cult of St. Joan of Arc; in 1914 proclaimed the “sacred union” of all of the French patriots (“spiritual families of France”) regardless of their political and religious beliefs; in 1919 alongside the socialist A. Millerand he took leadership of the National Bloc, which he created within the Parliament dominated by the veterans („Bleu horizon”) centre-right majority; as a supporter for the creation of a Great Rhineland , expressing the Celtic-Roman-Germanic “genius of the Rhine”, a critic of the neo-Jacobin ( nationalitarisme ) consequences of the Versailles Treaty provisions; from 1906 a member of the French Academy (4th seat) ; in a fictional “court case” held by the Dadaists (1921) sentenced to 20 years of hard labour for “a crime against the safety of the spirit” ; his “national funeral “procession was lead by: archbishop of Paris, cardinal L.-E.Dubois, president A. Millerand, prime-minister R.Poincareand Marshall F.Foch.
prof. Jacek Bartyzel
translated by Arek Jakubczyk
Kategoria: Reactionary Diary
