French Revolution Research Articles

Extending translation, connecting viewpoints and scaling policies and agency: three challenges for translation historians of the French Revolution

ABSTRACT This contribution deals with a number of challenges faced by translation historians of the French Revolution. First, the challenge of extending the translation category by including a range of transfer modalities that gravitate around translation. Second, the challenge of finding a balance between two historians’ viewpoints: those who want to know what the Revolution has meant for translation and those who want to know what translation has meant for the Revolution. Third, the challenge of relating the different scales of translators’ activities taking simultaneously or successively place in local, national and transnational settings.

The Lucerne Lion Monument of Bertel Thorvaldsen and ‘A Song of Liberty’ Poem of William Blake

The Purpose of the Study: Lucerne City, a canton of Switzerland, shelters the famous Lion Monument (the Lucerne Lion) which represents Swiss Guards’ who lost their lives while defending the Monarchy during The French Revolution. On the other hand, William Blake, who lived during the French Revolution period and wrote poems on the revolution, wrote the lines ‘Empire is no more! And now the lion and wolf shall cease’ in his poem ‘A Song of Liberty’. The main idea of this article is to expose the intuitive connection between the Lucerne Lion and the lion metaphor in William Blake’s verse. Method: The reference works of this article have consisted of art history, history, and literature. Historical information and visual materials, which are related to the topic of the article, were obtained from local researchers of Lucerne and official web pages of various facilities and museums in Switzerland, France, Italy, and Norway. Results: It is deduced that the Metaphorical expression of the lion theme in both the sculpture and the poem in the article by illuminating visual and written sources. Within this direction of these facts, an intertextuality is evaluated between the Lion Monument and the A Song of Liberty poem. Conclusion: The historical steps during the consisting of this sculpture express the collective formation stages of a monument from the perspective of art history. Individuals and mass facts have carried today the Lucerne Lion, an artifact of this collective memory. The Song of Liberty poem written by Willam Blake against the monarchy in the French Revolution matches the metaphoric content of Lucerne Lion. In the direction of these detections, these two works were reviewed in the historical, visual, and text contexts, thus the intuitional connection was exposed between them.

Radical translation at the ‘Break of Day’: Thomas Paine in a Celtic language

ABSTRACT This article presents the first detailed analysis of the ways in which border-crossing author and balladeer John Jones (pseudonym ‘Jac Glan-y-Gors’) remodelled a range of Thomas Paine’s writings into Welsh republican pamphlets by translating key passages, interpolating culturally relevant indigenous material, and consolidating Paine’s anti-monarchical core vocabulary. In doing so, the article provides a blueprint for examining the operation of intellectual networks who transferred ideas and cultural artefacts to smaller or non-hegemonic cultures and the process of embedding them. Jones’s work is analysed against the history of an early modern Welsh ‘translation culture’ that enabled a substantial expansion of radical translation activity, in tandem with the democratisation of the English press in the wake of the French Revolution of 1789, transferring Enlightenment and revolutionary artefacts, formats and ideas to Wales and the Welsh language. Using publishing networks that linked metropolitan London to rural Wales, an indigenous Welsh intelligentsia combined English models with indigenous cultural forms to produce a radical print culture in their own language. Jones’s republican pamphlets, the only substantial reception of Paine’s writings in Welsh, are read in the context of these processes.

The Concept of Legal Egalitarianism in Heterogeneous and Culturally Homogeneous Societies

The article is devoted to the analysis of the concepts of legal egalitarianism and formal equality both in European legal orders and in legal orders of non-European cultural code in historical retrospect and modern times. The author traces the origin, emergence and development of the concept of formal equality and the accompanying philosophical and legal egalitarian doctrine that has gained dominant positions in the legal orders of European and other countries of the world after the French Revolution of 1789. The author examined historical material and scientific positions of various scientists — sociology, cultural science, social anthropology, political science, history and legal theory. The author reflects on the possibility and effectiveness of the uncontested existence and application of egalitarian legal doctrine in the context of complex heterogeneous multicultural societies. At the same time, the author questions the views on the essence of formal equality as a philosophical and legal concept and principle of law that exist in modern theoretical and legal studies.

A Balkan “Archaeology” and the Crisis of Modernity. Afterword by Dejan Djokić

In this posthumously published essay, Traian Stoiano­vich traces reasons for the crisis of modernity in the Balkans, from the Late Antiquity to the modern era. Stoianovich approaches the subject from the perspectives of both a micro historian and a transnational and global historian, always in dialogue with other disciplines. He looks at how the development of premodern Bal­kan nations and their medieval states was impacted by imperial conquests (Roman, Byzantine, Ottoman). He points out at both ruptures and continuities while analysing Balkan societies during the Ottoman era. The question of socioeconomic backwardness is given due consideration. Contrary to popular perceptions, the ideas of Enlightenment reached the Balkans and had an impact on the region, which tried to copy outside models. Following the Protestant Reformation and especially the French Revolution, two models of modernity emerged in Europe: Europe I of liber­ties (privileges) and Europe II of liberty. Stoianovich argues that among Orthodox Christians in the Balkans advocates of moderni­ty tended to favour Europe II.

Income Inequality: A Journey of 200 Years of Economic Thought

The phrase "the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer" encapsulates a phenomenon that has long plagued societies worldwide. Most recently, Riddell et al. (2024) showed that, since 2020, the five richest men in the world have doubled their fortunes. At the same time, almost five billion people have seen their wealth fall. It further argued that corporations and its monopoly power are responsible for driving this unrelenting income inequality. This trend is confirmed by Chen et al. (2019) through an investigation into nearly 1 million firms covering 27 countries. Between 2000 - 2015, there has been a notable increase in corporate market power, especially in advanced economies. However, there is no easy solution because inequality is deeply rooted in numerous historical, political, and socioeconomic factors. Therefore, it is imperative to look beyond numbers to understand inequality better. In "Visions of Inequality: From the French Revolution to the End of the Cold War," veteran economist Branko Milanovic takes readers on a journey through the 200-year evolution of economic thought on income inequality. He achieved it by drawing from a diverse source, including original writings, correspondence, and biographical accounts of luminaries in the economics discipline.

Formation of national cultural myths about Europe in “Letters of a Russian Traveler” by N. Karamzin

The article is devoted to the formation mechanism of national cultural myths about Europe in “Letters of a Russian Traveler” by N. Karamzin. Using the example of four countries, visited by the Russian traveler (Germany, Switzerland, France and England), we explore the main models for creation of national cultural myths. The example of Germany shows the importance of the traveler’s empirical experience in the absence of literary cultural mythology concerning this country. The experience of Switzerland allows the traveler to project his own personal experience on the myth already established in literature, describing Switzerland as the Arcadia of modern times, the country where the “golden age” reigns. The national cultural mythology of France allows the traveler to compare the 18th-century myth of Francocentric Europe, when France performed the role of cultural hegemon, with the historical realities of the French Revolution, which gradually turn France into an outsider country in the eyes of other European monarchies. N. Karamzin’s world image of England is the most complex version of the national cultural myth. On the one hand, the Russian traveler compares the realities of genuine English life with the image of foggy Albion and its inhabitants, which he formed under the influence of reading English novels in the context of the Enlightenment bibliophilic cultural myth. On the other hand, his analysis of the main national features of the English people allows the traveler to think about identifying himself as a Russian person, to compare the English world image with the Russian one, stating the existence of a number of differences between them.

Republican hegemony as perpetual peace? Sieyès’s theory of international politics and the intellectual origins of Kant’s “federation of peoples”

ABSTRACT Although Emmanuel-Joseph Sieyès remains amongst the most studied thinkers of the French Revolution, his views on international politics remain largely unexplored, despite his significant role in shaping the foreign policy of the French republic after 1794. This article provides a new account of Sieyès as an international political thinker and actor, drawing on published and archival materials to reconstruct Sieyès' diplomatic programme and its intellectual roots. In so doing, it challenges both the notion that Sieyès was a committed practitioner of an unideological realopolitik and the common assertion that Sieyès was a follower of Immanuel Kant's famous project for perpetual peace. Instead, this article shows that Sieyès charted a distinct course, based on a plan for the ‘republicanisation’ of Europe and its reorganisation into a league of militarily and economically linked states under French hegemony, oriented towards the preservation of republicanism in a hostile world. On this basis it re-evaluates the relationship between Sieyès' and Kant's conceptions of a confederation of republican states, presenting a new account of Kant's Perpetual Peace as a curtailment of his earlier cosmopolitan and pacifist idealism in response to the international situation of the 1790s and the foreign policy pursued by Sieyès and his allies.

Масонство в предреволюционной Франции (1773–1789 годы)

The article examines the events of the Masonic history of pre-revolutionary France. The author focuses on the formation of national structures of French Freemasonry. The participation of the ruling dynasty in the process of transformation of the “English” lodges into the structures of the Grand Orient of France is noted. The efforts of Masonic leaders on the eve of the French revolution are characterized.

Edmund Burke, his readers and admirers in 18th century Russia. Part one

The interest in the legacy of Edmund Burke (1730–1797), the celebrated British orator, statesman, philosopher, and publicist, has remained largely outside the scope of specialised research in Russia. It is evident that Burke’s incisive critiques of the French Revolution, coupled with his staunch advocacy for English liberties, parliamentary democracy, and constitutional monarchy, rendered him a controversial figure within both the “liberating” and “conservative” schools of Russian social thought. The objective of this article is to address the existing gap in the literature by collating, elucidating, and analysing the facts that bear testimony to the perception of Burke’s personality and major writings, specifically “A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful” (1757) and “Reflections on the Revolution in France” (1790), by his Russian contemporaries.

Edgar Zilsel ‘The Social Roots of Romantic Ideology’ (1933). A translation and commentary

Edgar Zilsel (1891-1944) was an associate of the Vienna Circle and an Austro-Marxist. He is remembered for the so-called ‘Zilsel Thesis’, a historical reconstruction of the social and economic preconditions for the emergence of modern experimental science written in exile in the USA. His earlier work in Vienna on the cult of genius has recently been revisited by a number of scholars. The aim of this translation is to make one of his writings on this subject available to an Anglophone audience. Here he develops a genealogy of irrationalist ideology—one opposed to the rationalism of urban and commercial culture and to science—whose roots he traces to the German Romantic Movement. He offers a novel account of the interaction between Romantic writers, artists, and philosophers and wider currents of counter-revolutionary thought that emerged as a reaction to the French Revolution. The commentary seeks to contextualize the work as a critical, if indirect, contemporary engagement with fascism and points to its contemporary relevance.

Freedom of Association in France: A Freedom in Danger?

Abstract Freedom of association has been an important fundamental right in France since a landmark ruling by the Constitutional Court in 1971. In that decision, the Court not only ruled that freedom of association was a constitutional right that was not explicitly mentioned in the Constitution, but also that the Constitutional Court could overrule an Act of Parliament if it was incompatible with such a fundamental constitutional right. That kind of ‘Marbury v Madison’ decision was a small revolution in France. In 1971, it was the first time that a piece of legislation was annulled by the Constitutional Court because it was incompatible with a fundamental right when Parliament wanted to change the system of declaration of associations into a system of authorisation. Nevertheless, since 2017, there has never been such a high number of dissolutions of associations. Moreover, since the statute against separatism in August 2021, there has been a new ground to dissolve associations that “provoke armed demonstrations or acts of violence against persons or property.” The change in the law in 2021 has led to a marked increase in the number of dissolutions, which might lead one to believe that freedom of association is under threat in France.

Unfulfilled Dreams? The Financial Situation of Workers in Paris and the Department of Loir-et-Cher between 1789 and 1795

The convening of the Estates General in France in 1789 raised high hopes in French society for change. The economic demands written down in the ledgers of complaints, such as the abolition of the guild system, the unification of taxes and their more equitable distribution, the abolition of customs duties and fees within the kingdom, can be categorized as inclusive economic institutions. Their introduction in France during the Revolution was expected to translate into an improvement in the financial conditions of the population. The purpose of this article is to present the changing financial situation of workers in Paris and the department of Loir-et-Cher between 1789 and 1795 in the context of the aforementioned institutions. Data from a survey of prices and wages conducted at the behest of the Committee of Public Safety, Paris police reports of 1795 and depreciation tables were used to show the change in the financial position of working families during the French Revolution. Demands from the ledgers of complaints against the Estates General of 1789 were used to determine the title workers' "dreams." Assessing the change in the financial situation of workers required calculations that took into account, among other things, the size of the average working family's demand for foodstuffs or the change in France regarding the number of working days per year after the elimination of the old holidays and the introduction of the republican calendar. During the period under review, the financial situation of workers in the Loir-et-Cher department worsened due to high inflation – turning at times into hyperinflation – despite the implementation of most of the demands of the ledgers of complaints by the revolutionary authorities. In the case of Paris, the assessment is not so clear-cut. Thanks to the rationing of bread and meat in the capital, and their sale at a discounted price by the authorities, the living conditions of working families in 1795 were better or comparable to those at the beginning of the revolution. The article sheds new light on the changing financial situation of workers in Paris and the department of Loir-et-Cher in the context of the implementation of workers' demands recorded during the revolution in the ledgers of complaints to the Estates General of 1789, thus filling a gap in historiography.

Politics of the French empire in the east Adriatic coast (1809–1814)

The article processes the period of the French Empire’s rule on the east Adriatic coast between 1809 and 1814. Based on the relevant literature and historical sources, the article points to events that followed Campo Formio's peace in 1797 until the destruction of French rule in 1814. Special focus is placed on the activities of the new rulers, based on the ideas of the French revolutions, which sought to transform the area of east Adriatic and integrate it into the state system of the French empire, with the goal of creating a united political, administrative, militaristic, economic and cultural-educational area. In that context, in the article, the main question being examined is the formation of the Illyrian provinces, which were intended to be a separate province of the French empire, which was supposed to unite different national and religious communities that spoke the same language. With a comprehensive analysis of political and social changes, an attempt is made to point to a pioneer attempt to transform a patriarchal and traditional community, through the implementation of modern models of public administration, healthcare, and education.

Fraternity in French Republic: nature and application

Among the number of constitutional principles on which the French Republic is based, one can single out a special one that cannot be found in other European countries - fraternity. The question of the essence of this principle became relevant after one of the decisions of the Constitutional Council of France, namely the decision of 2018. It was with this decision that the Council gave constitutional value to the above-mentioned principle. The evolution of the fraternity dates back to the French Revolution of 1789, a series of Constitutions, particularly those of 1791 and 1793, to the Fourth and Fifth Republics. Being related to the principle of the welfare state, the principle of fraternity means a bond between society without elements of discrimination. It is noted that the essence of the principle of fraternity, on the one hand, is that fraternity can exist only between free and equal people, on the other hand, freedom and equality cannot exist in a society where fraternity is ignored. That is, the republican motto is a component of sovereignty, that is, an element specific to the national regulatory system, a condition for the legitimacy of power; it is the ideal which the French ascribe to constitutional powers; a kind of higher constitutionalism, not to mention supra­constitutionality. The modern understanding of this principle, formulated and explained in the decision of the Constitutional Council, should be equated with the values of tolerance, respect for human dignity, etc. More precisely, it is the freedom to help others, for humanitarian purposes, regardless of the regularity of his stay on the national territory. At the same time, the legislator must ensure coordination between the principle of fraternity and the protection of public law and order. It was concluded that the principle of fraternity is universal, because it applies to all citizens and foreigners, even with illegal status. It is indicated that among the fundamental constitutional principles contained in the texts of the Constitutions of most democratic states, in France, in addition to the principles of democracy, the rule of law, the social state, etc., the principle of fraternity applies. This is a unique principle that has been mentioned since the revolution of 1789, is characteristic of the identity of the legal system of the French Republic and will be the object of this study. Thus, along with the principles of equality and freedom, Article 2 of the French Constitution of 1958 contains the principle of fraternity. This is the so-called trilogic motto, each of its components complementing each other.

Celebrating the French Republic in the Courier de l'Egypte

In this article, I examine how French revolutionary ideas and ideals were performed in occupied Egypt. At the level of display, the ancient sites were very visibly united under the French tricolor flag, which was a highly symbolic, essentially ritualistic act. They occupied a significant place during celebrations of the foundation of the republic. It was Napoléon's wish that the “époque mémorable” that established the republic would be celebrated in Egypt with great pomp. These celebrations each year occurred in a “time out of time” both for the French and the Egyptians: they had a claim to demonstrate how history was “correctly,” that is, rationally, to be perceived and understood, and how the future was to be progressively and politically imagined. The accounts of the festivals speak to an exceptional interaction and exchange that transformed time, space, and the historical narrative in Egypt and assigned roles to the French and the Egyptians, hence enhancing the performative aspect of the expedition. I draw on the terminology and theoretical frameworks offered by scholars of performance such as Alessandro Falassi, Richard Schechner, and Richard Bauman. I understand the French Revolution in the larger chronological and spatial context as a narrative event, and accounts of the celebrations as narrated events. The French ultimately aimed at influencing the way the Egyptians would give meaning to what was happening; at fixing the meaning of the French presence in Egypt; and at rearranging the structure of social, cultural, and political relations and perceptions.

Enlightenment: Defining the Goals of Modernity

Modernity is seen as a historical process that started with the Renaissance and took shape with the French Revolution. Modernity, which passed through historical turning points such as Renaissance, Reformation and Enlightenment, gained its own character in these periods. In this study, the Enlightenment period and its ideas, which are accepted as one of the most important periods of modernity and the modern world, are discussed. During the Enlightenment period, it was emphasized that the human mind should be purified from traditions and other old-fashioned features. It is no coincidence that one of the first concepts that comes to mind when modernity is mentioned is the rational mind. The fact that reason is the central and determining element and character of modern human life, modern institutions and society is related to the Enlightenment period. In this article, the Age of Enlightenment is discussed within the framework of its basic characteristics, the features it brought to modernity and its relationship with religion. In the article, the foregrounding of reason and the spread of rationalization to all areas of modernity are evaluated as an achievement of the Enlightenment period. This study, which was carried out with the literature review method of the qualitative research method, one of the research methods of social sciences, evaluated the Enlightenment as a turning point in which the goals of modernity were determined.

Review of Branko Milanovic’s Visions of Inequality: From the French Revolution to the End of the Cold War. Cambridge (Mass.), Harvard University Press, 2023, 368 pp.

Review of Branko Milanovic’s Visions of Inequality: From the French Revolution to the End of the Cold War. Cambridge (Mass.), Harvard University Press, 2023, 368 pp.

‘What they owe to their children’: Edmund Burke on parental love and liberty

ABSTRACT This is the first article to investigate the role of parental affection in Edmund Burke’s political thought. It challenges the widely held view that Burke defended patriarchal authority in reaction to egalitarian ideas of the family advanced by the French Revolution. Burke, himself a devoted father, believed that civil liberty depended upon parental rights and responsibilities. Long before the revolution began, he warned against a contemporary fascination with Spartan ideas of parental indifference in the Annual Register – ideas that the National Assembly in France appeared, in his view, to be implementing in their reforms to family law. From Burke’s perspective, the revolutionaries in France were interfering in the relationships between parents and their children in order to make way for an all-encompassing devotion to the state. Burke warned that by undermining parental love and duty, the revolutionaries in France were not only instituting a new tyrannical regime but also destroying the very foundation of humanity.

De l’universalisme culturel dans l’histoire philosophique de Hegel au dialogue des cultures

Abstract. This article aims to examine the depths of Hegel's philosophy of history with the aim of seeing how his conception of the universal is deployed there. With the metaphor of the sun and that of the child, he shows us how the global spirit is gradually formed, from sunrise to sunset, from childhood to adulthood. At the end of the day or at the age of maturity, the true nature of the mind is revealed, that is to say fundamentally free and ethical. This moment which emerged with the French Revolution only completed a process which began in China, India and Persia, before spreading to Greece and Rome to reach maturity with the Germanic world. These are the ideas of freedom, equality and fraternity that have become concrete and must therefore be universalized. This will justify from the 16th century (discoveries and invention) the European desire to conquer the world. In other words, the idea of progress in Hegel, just as in Marx, does not contradict cultural universalism. Moreover, colonization sought to universalize a civilization not without difficulty since cultural relativism stood as a bulwark against the standardization of the world by valuing the specificities of each people. This fight for the recognition of cultural diversity, through the rejection that can result from it, has at times constituted a real threat against the unity of humankind. The solution seems to be found with dialogue between peoples and allows the flourishing of human rights all around the planet with the circulation of information, travel, the development of commercial exchanges, mixed marriages, etc. Mots-clés : Hegel, histoire philosophique, universalisme culturel, relativisme culturel, dialogue des cultures. Keywords: Hegel, philosophical history, cultural universalism, cultural relativism, dialogue of cultures.