La conception de la révolution d'un révolutionnaire allemand : Georg Forster. Rupture ou reconstruction ?

Abstract

Marita Gilli, The conception of the Revolution by a German revolutionary : Georg Forster. Rupture or reconstruction ? Beginning in 1790, Forster wrote a number of texts on the Revolution, the first after attending the Festival of the Champ de Mars in July 1790, and the last ones composed in exile in Paris after 1793. Though brief, this period reveals a perceptible evolution in his thought. From his first writings, he insists on the violent and destructive character of the Revolution that he compared to a natural phenomenon. Moreover, Forster considered already the role of the people as indispensable to all revolutions. Two years later, in direct contact with the events, he still emphasized the violent nature of the Revolution, and spoke of the « brutal force of the crowd ». But he then developed the idea of a constructive revolution, of a radical renewal of political life, of the creation of a State that enables man to perfect himself.