Ж. де Местр, Ж. де Сталь и Г. Ф. Фабер : о характере войны 1812 года

Abstract

J. de Maistre, G. de Staël and G. F. Faber About the Russian Campaign of 1812 The article proposes a comparative study of three different points of view concerning the nature of the Russian Campaign of 1812. We will examine the opinion of the ambassador of the Kingdom of Sardinia to the Russian Court, Joseph de Maistre, that of the French woman of letters, Germaine de Staël, and that of the government civil servant of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, G. F. Faber. In common, they have a European vision of the events in Russia. In their interpretation of the Russian Campaign as a popular [ narodnaja] war, they meet with the unrelevantness of the antithesis of the Century of Enlightement : “ barbarism – civilization” to explain a new reality, provoked by war. J. de Maistre considered a war against France as useless in so far as, according to him, the Restoration of the Bourbons was a domestic policy problem. Mme de Staël, on the contrary, thought that this war and, particularly, Alexander I’s personality, would allow a liberalization of European politics. For Faber, this popular war was the sign of the unchanging character of serfdom.