Robert Brasillach
Encyclopedia
Robert Brasillach was a French
author and journalist. Brasillach is best known as the editor of Je suis partout
, a nationalist newspaper which came to advocate various fascist movements and supported Jacques Doriot
. After the liberation of France in 1944 he was executed
following a trial and Charles de Gaulle
's express refusal to grant him a pardon. Brasillach was executed for advocating collaborationism
. The execution remains a controversial subject because Brasillach was executed for "intellectual crimes", rather than military or political actions.
, he studied at the École Normale Supérieure
and then became a novelist and literary critic for the Action Française
of Charles Maurras
. After the 6 February 1934 crisis
in the Place de la Concorde
, Brasillach openly supported fascism. His politics are shared by several of his protagonists, notably the two male main characters in The Seven Colours (see below).
. This work remained the "most prominent aesthetic history of film for at least a decade", and a work that exerted considerable influence, via its impact on Sadoul (who nonetheless disliked the authors) until the 1970s. Unlike several other period authors and critics, Brasillach did not approach cinema through an overtly political lens, although the 1943 re-edition of his work did contain certain anti-Semitic comments not included in the original. Despite being fervent nationalists and personally believing that each nation and people had a unique cinema, the authors instead focused on international trends rather than local particularism. Brasillach frequented Henri Langlois
' Cercle du cinéma (Cinema Circle). His personal tastes are detailed in his major work on cinema and in numerous period articles. These tastes ranged from Russian cinema (Battleship Potemkin and Alexander Nevski) to classics such as Charlie Chaplin
, Georg Wilhelm Pabst
, René Clair
and Jean Renoir
and to certain Hollywood films, such as those of John Ford
, Frank Borzage
and King Vidor
. Brasillach was drawn to originality and explored foreign cinema, and was the first major critic in France to address Japanese cinema, namely Yasujiro Ozu
, Kenji Mizoguchi
and Heinosuke Gosho
. While in prison, he worked on a third edition of his work on cinema and started to adapt a work on Falstaff
which he hoped to film with Raimu
.
, a fascist
paper founded by dissidents from the Action Française and led by Pierre Gaxotte
. Brasillach was attracted to the fascistic Rexist movement in Belgium, and wrote an article and later a book about the leader of the movement, Leon Degrelle
. Brasillach admired what he perceived to be Degrelle's youth and charisma and Degrelle's insistence on being neither left nor right, supporting striking workers, encouraging love of the King, family and God and desiring to see the establishment of an anti-Communist and anti-Capitalist Christian-influenced corporate state. Degrelle went on to collaborate with the German occupation of Belgium and served in Waffen SS. Brasillach was also greatly impressed by José Antonio Primo de Rivera
and his Falangist
movement. By contrast, he described Mein Kampf
as a "masterpiece of cretinism" in which Hitler appeared to be "a sort of enraged teacher".
A soldier in 1940, Brassilach was captured by the Germans and held prisoner for several months after the fall of France. At his trial the prosecution alleged that his release was due to pro-German articles written while in captivity. He was freed in early 1941 and returned to his editorial duties at Je suis partout. He wrote in favor of the Vichy regime but later embraced a more wholehearted germanophile policy of collaboration and Nazi policies
and criticized the Vichy state. He joined a group of French authors and artists in a trip to meet with German counterparts in Weimar and in November 1942 he supported the German militarization of the unoccupied zone under the Vichy government because it "reunited France". He visited the site of the Katyn massacre
, toured the Eastern Front, visited French volunteers and wrote, on his return to France, that he had gone from embracing collaboration due to reason and rationality to being a collaborator for reasons of the heart ("De collaborationiste de raison, je suis devenu collaborationiste de coeur.") He called for the death of left-wing politicians and in the summer of 1944 signed the call for the summary execution of all members of the French Resistance
. He considered himself a "moderate" anti-Semite and was replaced as editor of Je suis partout
in 1943 by the even more extreme Pierre-Antoine Cousteau
. He went on to work for various journals, including Révolution nationale and le Petit Parisien. After the liberation of Paris
Brasillach hid in an attic, joking in his diary: "Jews have been living in cupboards for four years, why not imitate them?". He gave himself up on September 14 when he heard that his mother had been arrested. He spent the next five months in prison and continued his literary endeavours while incarcerated.
sentiments by repeatedly drawing the jurors' attention to the author's homosexuality
, noting, inter alia, that he had slept with the enemy and approved of Germany's "penetration" of France. In so doing the prosecution was making hay with Brasillach's own words, as he had suggested, as Liberation approached, that France had slept with Germany and would remember the experience fondly. Brasillach was sentenced to death. Brasillach responded to the outrage of some of his supporters then in attendance by saying "It's an honour!".
The sentence caused an uproar in French literary circles and even some of Brasillach's political opponents protested against it. Resistance member and author François Mauriac
, whom Brasillach had savaged in the press, circulated a petition to Charles De Gaulle
to commute the sentence. This petition was signed by many of the leading lights of the French literary world, including Paul Valéry
, Paul Claudel
, Albert Camus
, Jean Cocteau
, Colette
, Arthur Honegger
, Jean Anouilh
and Thierry Maulnier
. De Gaulle did not comply and Brasillach was executed by firing squad in Montrouge
. It has been argued that De Gaulle refused to spare Brasillach because the author had on numerous occasions called for Georges Mandel
's execution. De Gaulle admired Mandel, a prominent conservative politician (who happened to be Jewish), and who was murdered by the Milice
during the closing days of the Occupation. Brasillach called out "Long live France anyway!" ("Vive la France quand même!") immediately before his execution. He was buried in the cimetière de Charonne in the 20th Arrondissement of Paris
. His brother-in-law, Maurice Bardèche
, was later buried next to him.
His biographer Alice Kaplan
noted that his death made him the "James Dean of French fascism" and a martyr to the extreme right. François Truffaut
was both aware and appreciative of Brasillach, stating that Brasillach and Pierre Drieu La Rochelle
shared similar political beliefs and that "views that earn their advocates the death penalty are bound to be worthy of esteem."
Dominique Venner
's Nouvelle Revue d'Histoire has praised the author's intellectual oeuvre.
A group called Association des Amis de Robert Brasillach celebrates the author's work and legacy.
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
author and journalist. Brasillach is best known as the editor of Je suis partout
Je suis partout
Je suis partout was a French newspaper founded by Jean Fayard, first published on 29 November 1930. It was placed under the direction of Pierre Gaxotte until 1939...
, a nationalist newspaper which came to advocate various fascist movements and supported Jacques Doriot
Jacques Doriot
Jacques Doriot was a French politician prior to and during World War II. He began as a Communist but then turned Fascist.-Early life and politics:...
. After the liberation of France in 1944 he was executed
Capital punishment
Capital punishment, the death penalty, or execution is the sentence of death upon a person by the state as a punishment for an offence. Crimes that can result in a death penalty are known as capital crimes or capital offences. The term capital originates from the Latin capitalis, literally...
following a trial and Charles de Gaulle
Charles de Gaulle
Charles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle was a French general and statesman who led the Free French Forces during World War II. He later founded the French Fifth Republic in 1958 and served as its first President from 1959 to 1969....
's express refusal to grant him a pardon. Brasillach was executed for advocating collaborationism
Collaborationism
Collaborationism is cooperation with enemy forces against one's country. Legally, it may be considered as a form of treason. Collaborationism may be associated with criminal deeds in the service of the occupying power, which may include complicity with the occupying power in murder, persecutions,...
. The execution remains a controversial subject because Brasillach was executed for "intellectual crimes", rather than military or political actions.
Biography
Born in PerpignanPerpignan
-Sport:Perpignan is a rugby stronghold: their rugby union side, USA Perpignan, is a regular competitor in the Heineken Cup and seven times champion of the Top 14 , while their rugby league side plays in the engage Super League under the name Catalans Dragons.-Culture:Since 2004, every year in the...
, he studied at the École Normale Supérieure
École Normale Supérieure
The École normale supérieure is one of the most prestigious French grandes écoles...
and then became a novelist and literary critic for the Action Française
Action Française
The Action Française , founded in 1898, is a French Monarchist counter-revolutionary movement and periodical founded by Maurice Pujo and Henri Vaugeois and whose principal ideologist was Charles Maurras...
of Charles Maurras
Charles Maurras
Charles-Marie-Photius Maurras was a French author, poet, and critic. He was a leader and principal thinker of Action Française, a political movement that was monarchist, anti-parliamentarist, and counter-revolutionary. Maurras' ideas greatly influenced National Catholicism and "nationalisme...
. After the 6 February 1934 crisis
6 February 1934 crisis
The 6 February 1934 crisis refers to an anti-parliamentarist street demonstration in Paris organized by far-right leagues that culminated in a riot on the Place de la Concorde, near the seat of the French National Assembly...
in the Place de la Concorde
Place de la Concorde
The Place de la Concorde in area, it is the largest square in the French capital. It is located in the city's eighth arrondissement, at the eastern end of the Champs-Élysées.- History :...
, Brasillach openly supported fascism. His politics are shared by several of his protagonists, notably the two male main characters in The Seven Colours (see below).
Author
Brasillach wrote both fiction and non-fiction. While his fiction dealt with love, life and politics in his era, his non-fiction dealt with a great variety of themes, ranging from drama, great literary figures and contemporary world events. His work in the realm of cinema history (see below) was particularly influential.Cinema
Brasillach was fascinated by the cinema and co-wrote a detailed critical history of the media in 1935, Histoire du cinéma (re-edited in 1943), with his brother-in-law, Maurice BardècheMaurice Bardèche
Maurice Bardèche was a French essayist, literary and art critic, journalist, and one of the leading exponents of Neo-Fascism in post-World War II Europe...
. This work remained the "most prominent aesthetic history of film for at least a decade", and a work that exerted considerable influence, via its impact on Sadoul (who nonetheless disliked the authors) until the 1970s. Unlike several other period authors and critics, Brasillach did not approach cinema through an overtly political lens, although the 1943 re-edition of his work did contain certain anti-Semitic comments not included in the original. Despite being fervent nationalists and personally believing that each nation and people had a unique cinema, the authors instead focused on international trends rather than local particularism. Brasillach frequented Henri Langlois
Henri Langlois
Henri Langlois was a French film archivist and cinephile. A pioneer of film preservation, Langlois was an influential figure in the history of cinema...
' Cercle du cinéma (Cinema Circle). His personal tastes are detailed in his major work on cinema and in numerous period articles. These tastes ranged from Russian cinema (Battleship Potemkin and Alexander Nevski) to classics such as Charlie Chaplin
Charlie Chaplin
Sir Charles Spencer "Charlie" Chaplin, KBE was an English comic actor, film director and composer best known for his work during the silent film era. He became the most famous film star in the world before the end of World War I...
, Georg Wilhelm Pabst
Georg Wilhelm Pabst
-Biography:Pabst was born in Raudnitz, Bohemia, Austria-Hungary , the son of a railroad employee.Returning from the United States, he was in France when World War I began...
, René Clair
René Clair
René Clair born René-Lucien Chomette, was a French filmmaker.-Biography:He was born in Paris and grew up in the Les Halles quarter. He attended the Lycée Montaigne and the Lycée Louis-le-Grand. During World War I, he served as an ambulance driver. After the war, he started a career as a journalist...
and Jean Renoir
Jean Renoir
Jean Renoir was a French film director, screenwriter, actor, producer and author. As a film director and actor, he made more than forty films from the silent era to the end of the 1960s...
and to certain Hollywood films, such as those of John Ford
John Ford
John Ford was an American film director. He was famous for both his westerns such as Stagecoach, The Searchers, and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, and adaptations of such classic 20th-century American novels as The Grapes of Wrath...
, Frank Borzage
Frank Borzage
Frank Borzage was an American film director and actor.-Biography:Frank Borzage's father, Luigi Borzaga, was born in Ronzone, in 1859. As a stonemason, he sometimes worked in Switzerland; he met his future wife, Maria Ruegg , where she worked in a silk factory...
and King Vidor
King Vidor
King Wallis Vidor was an American film director, film producer, and screenwriter whose career spanned nearly seven decades...
. Brasillach was drawn to originality and explored foreign cinema, and was the first major critic in France to address Japanese cinema, namely Yasujiro Ozu
Yasujiro Ozu
was a prominent Japanese film director and script writer. He is known for his distinctive technical style, developed during the silent era. Marriage and family, especially the relationships between the generations, are among the most persistent themes in his body of work...
, Kenji Mizoguchi
Kenji Mizoguchi
Kenji Mizoguchi was a Japanese film director and screenwriter. His film Ugetsu won the Silver Lion at the Venice Film Festival, and appeared in the Sight & Sound Critics' Top Ten Poll in 1962 and 1972. Mizoguchi is renowned for his mastery of the long take and mise-en-scène...
and Heinosuke Gosho
Heinosuke Gosho
was a Japanese film director who directed Japan's first talkie, The Neighbor's Wife and Mine, in 1931. He once served as president of the Directors Guild of Japan.- Selected filmography :* Aiyoku no ki...
. While in prison, he worked on a third edition of his work on cinema and started to adapt a work on Falstaff
Falstaff
Sir John Falstaff is a fictional character who appears in three plays by William Shakespeare. In the two Henry IV plays, he is a companion to Prince Hal, the future King Henry V. A fat, vain, boastful, and cowardly knight, Falstaff leads the apparently wayward Prince Hal into trouble, and is...
which he hoped to film with Raimu
Raimu
Raimu was the stage name for the French actor Jules Auguste Muraire .-Biography:Born in Toulon in the Var département, he made his stage debut there in 1899. After coming to the attention of the then great music hall star Félix Mayol who was also from Toulon, in 1908 he was given a chance to work...
.
Politics and wartime activities
He became an editor of Je suis partoutJe suis partout
Je suis partout was a French newspaper founded by Jean Fayard, first published on 29 November 1930. It was placed under the direction of Pierre Gaxotte until 1939...
, a fascist
Fascism
Fascism is a radical authoritarian nationalist political ideology. Fascists seek to rejuvenate their nation based on commitment to the national community as an organic entity, in which individuals are bound together in national identity by suprapersonal connections of ancestry, culture, and blood...
paper founded by dissidents from the Action Française and led by Pierre Gaxotte
Pierre Gaxotte
-Biography:Gaxotte was born in Revigny-sur-Ornain, Meuse. He began his career as a history teacher at the Lycée Charlemagne and later worked as a columnist for Le Figaro...
. Brasillach was attracted to the fascistic Rexist movement in Belgium, and wrote an article and later a book about the leader of the movement, Leon Degrelle
Léon Degrelle
Léon Joseph Marie Ignace Degrelle was a Walloon Belgian politician, who founded Rexism and later joined the Waffen SS which were front-line troops in the fight against the Soviet Union...
. Brasillach admired what he perceived to be Degrelle's youth and charisma and Degrelle's insistence on being neither left nor right, supporting striking workers, encouraging love of the King, family and God and desiring to see the establishment of an anti-Communist and anti-Capitalist Christian-influenced corporate state. Degrelle went on to collaborate with the German occupation of Belgium and served in Waffen SS. Brasillach was also greatly impressed by José Antonio Primo de Rivera
José Antonio Primo de Rivera
José Antonio Primo de Rivera y Sáenz de Heredia, 1st Duke of Primo de Rivera, 3rd Marquis of Estella , was a Spanish lawyer, nobleman, politician, and founder of the Falange Española...
and his Falangist
Falange
The Spanish Phalanx of the Assemblies of the National Syndicalist Offensive , known simply as the Falange, is the name assigned to several political movements and parties dating from the 1930s, most particularly the original fascist movement in Spain. The word means phalanx formation in Spanish....
movement. By contrast, he described Mein Kampf
Mein Kampf
Mein Kampf is a book written by Nazi leader Adolf Hitler. It combines elements of autobiography with an exposition of Hitler's political ideology. Volume 1 of Mein Kampf was published in 1925 and Volume 2 in 1926...
as a "masterpiece of cretinism" in which Hitler appeared to be "a sort of enraged teacher".
A soldier in 1940, Brassilach was captured by the Germans and held prisoner for several months after the fall of France. At his trial the prosecution alleged that his release was due to pro-German articles written while in captivity. He was freed in early 1941 and returned to his editorial duties at Je suis partout. He wrote in favor of the Vichy regime but later embraced a more wholehearted germanophile policy of collaboration and Nazi policies
Nazism
Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...
and criticized the Vichy state. He joined a group of French authors and artists in a trip to meet with German counterparts in Weimar and in November 1942 he supported the German militarization of the unoccupied zone under the Vichy government because it "reunited France". He visited the site of the Katyn massacre
Katyn massacre
The Katyn massacre, also known as the Katyn Forest massacre , was a mass execution of Polish nationals carried out by the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs , the Soviet secret police, in April and May 1940. The massacre was prompted by Lavrentiy Beria's proposal to execute all members of...
, toured the Eastern Front, visited French volunteers and wrote, on his return to France, that he had gone from embracing collaboration due to reason and rationality to being a collaborator for reasons of the heart ("De collaborationiste de raison, je suis devenu collaborationiste de coeur.") He called for the death of left-wing politicians and in the summer of 1944 signed the call for the summary execution of all members of the French Resistance
French Resistance
The French Resistance is the name used to denote the collection of French resistance movements that fought against the Nazi German occupation of France and against the collaborationist Vichy régime during World War II...
. He considered himself a "moderate" anti-Semite and was replaced as editor of Je suis partout
Je suis partout
Je suis partout was a French newspaper founded by Jean Fayard, first published on 29 November 1930. It was placed under the direction of Pierre Gaxotte until 1939...
in 1943 by the even more extreme Pierre-Antoine Cousteau
Pierre-Antoine Cousteau
Pierre-Antoine Cousteau was a French far right polemicist and journalist. He was the brother of the famous explorer Jacques-Yves Cousteau.-Leftist activism:...
. He went on to work for various journals, including Révolution nationale and le Petit Parisien. After the liberation of Paris
Liberation of Paris
The Liberation of Paris took place during World War II from 19 August 1944 until the surrender of the occupying German garrison on August 25th. It could be regarded by some as the last battle in the Battle for Normandy, though that really ended with the crushing of the Wehrmacht forces between the...
Brasillach hid in an attic, joking in his diary: "Jews have been living in cupboards for four years, why not imitate them?". He gave himself up on September 14 when he heard that his mother had been arrested. He spent the next five months in prison and continued his literary endeavours while incarcerated.
Trial and execution
Brasillach was tried in Paris on 19 January 1945. His judge had served under Vichy. The prosecutor re-iterated Brasillach's vehement anti-semitism, linked his praise of Germany and denunciation of the Resistance to SS massacres in France and played upon homophobicHomophobia
Homophobia is a term used to refer to a range of negative attitudes and feelings towards lesbian, gay and in some cases bisexual, transgender people and behavior, although these are usually covered under other terms such as biphobia and transphobia. Definitions refer to irrational fear, with the...
sentiments by repeatedly drawing the jurors' attention to the author's homosexuality
Homosexuality
Homosexuality is romantic or sexual attraction or behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality refers to "an enduring pattern of or disposition to experience sexual, affectional, or romantic attractions" primarily or exclusively to people of the same...
, noting, inter alia, that he had slept with the enemy and approved of Germany's "penetration" of France. In so doing the prosecution was making hay with Brasillach's own words, as he had suggested, as Liberation approached, that France had slept with Germany and would remember the experience fondly. Brasillach was sentenced to death. Brasillach responded to the outrage of some of his supporters then in attendance by saying "It's an honour!".
The sentence caused an uproar in French literary circles and even some of Brasillach's political opponents protested against it. Resistance member and author François Mauriac
François Mauriac
François Mauriac was a French author; member of the Académie française ; laureate of the Nobel Prize in Literature . He was awarded the Grand Cross of the Légion d'honneur .-Biography:...
, whom Brasillach had savaged in the press, circulated a petition to Charles De Gaulle
Charles de Gaulle
Charles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle was a French general and statesman who led the Free French Forces during World War II. He later founded the French Fifth Republic in 1958 and served as its first President from 1959 to 1969....
to commute the sentence. This petition was signed by many of the leading lights of the French literary world, including Paul Valéry
Paul Valéry
Ambroise-Paul-Toussaint-Jules Valéry was a French poet, essayist, and philosopher. His interests were sufficiently broad that he can be classified as a polymath...
, Paul Claudel
Paul Claudel
Paul Claudel was a French poet, dramatist and diplomat, and the younger brother of the sculptor Camille Claudel. He was most famous for his verse dramas, which often convey his devout Catholicism.-Life:...
, Albert Camus
Albert Camus
Albert Camus was a French author, journalist, and key philosopher of the 20th century. In 1949, Camus founded the Group for International Liaisons within the Revolutionary Union Movement, which was opposed to some tendencies of the Surrealist movement of André Breton.Camus was awarded the 1957...
, Jean Cocteau
Jean Cocteau
Jean Maurice Eugène Clément Cocteau was a French poet, novelist, dramatist, designer, playwright, artist and filmmaker. His circle of associates, friends and lovers included Kenneth Anger, Pablo Picasso, Jean Hugo, Jean Marais, Henri Bernstein, Marlene Dietrich, Coco Chanel, Erik Satie, María...
, Colette
Colette
Colette was the surname of the French novelist and performer Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette . She is best known for her novel Gigi, upon which Lerner and Loewe based the stage and film musical comedies of the same title.-Early life and marriage:Colette was born to retired military officer Jules-Joseph...
, Arthur Honegger
Arthur Honegger
Arthur Honegger was a Swiss composer, who was born in France and lived a large part of his life in Paris. He was a member of Les six. His most frequently performed work is probably the orchestral work Pacific 231, which is interpreted as imitating the sound of a steam locomotive.-Biography:Born...
, Jean Anouilh
Jean Anouilh
Jean Marie Lucien Pierre Anouilh was a French dramatist whose career spanned five decades. Though his work ranged from high drama to absurdist farce, Anouilh is best known for his 1943 play Antigone, an adaptation of Sophocles' Classical drama, that was seen as an attack on Marshal Pétain's...
and Thierry Maulnier
Thierry Maulnier
Thierry Maulnier was a French journalist, essayist, dramatist, and literary critic.-Before 1940:...
. De Gaulle did not comply and Brasillach was executed by firing squad in Montrouge
Montrouge
Montrouge is a commune in the southern Parisian suburbs, located from the center of Paris, France. It is one of the most densely populated municipalities in Europe...
. It has been argued that De Gaulle refused to spare Brasillach because the author had on numerous occasions called for Georges Mandel
Georges Mandel
Georges Mandel was a French politician, journalist, and French Resistance leader.-Biography:Born Louis George Rothschild in Chatou, Yvelines, was the son of a tailor...
's execution. De Gaulle admired Mandel, a prominent conservative politician (who happened to be Jewish), and who was murdered by the Milice
Milice
The Milice française , generally called simply Milice, was a paramilitary force created on January 30, 1943 by the Vichy Regime, with German aid, to help fight the French Resistance. The Milice's formal leader was Prime Minister Pierre Laval, though its chief of operations, and actual leader, was...
during the closing days of the Occupation. Brasillach called out "Long live France anyway!" ("Vive la France quand même!") immediately before his execution. He was buried in the cimetière de Charonne in the 20th Arrondissement of Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
. His brother-in-law, Maurice Bardèche
Maurice Bardèche
Maurice Bardèche was a French essayist, literary and art critic, journalist, and one of the leading exponents of Neo-Fascism in post-World War II Europe...
, was later buried next to him.
Legacy
Brasillach sought to protect his own legacy as his life drew to a close. He composed several works while awaiting trial and execution, including a collection of verse and a letter to French youth of the future, explaining and justifying his actions (Lettre a un soldat de la classe de soixante (Lettre), see below). In Lettre he was unrepentant about his fascism, his anti-semitism or his wartime activity, although he insisted that he had no idea that French Jews were being sent to their deaths when they were deported.His biographer Alice Kaplan
Alice Kaplan
Alice Kaplan is the John M. Musser Professor of French at Yale University. Before her arrival at Yale, she was the Gilbert, Louis and Edward Lehrman Professor of Romance Studies and Professor of Literature and History at Duke University and founding director of the Center for French and Francophone...
noted that his death made him the "James Dean of French fascism" and a martyr to the extreme right. François Truffaut
François Truffaut
François Roland Truffaut was an influential film critic and filmmaker and one of the founders of the French New Wave. In a film career lasting over a quarter of a century, he remains an icon of the French film industry. He was also a screenwriter, producer, and actor working on over twenty-five...
was both aware and appreciative of Brasillach, stating that Brasillach and Pierre Drieu La Rochelle
Pierre Drieu La Rochelle
Pierre Eugène Drieu La Rochelle was a French writer of novels, short stories and political essays, who lived and died in Paris...
shared similar political beliefs and that "views that earn their advocates the death penalty are bound to be worthy of esteem."
Dominique Venner
Dominique Venner
Dominique Venner is an award-winning French historian, journalist and writer. Venner is a former militant of the ultra-right and later became a European nationalist before withdrawing from politics to focus on a career as a historian. He specializes in military and political history...
's Nouvelle Revue d'Histoire has praised the author's intellectual oeuvre.
A group called Association des Amis de Robert Brasillach celebrates the author's work and legacy.
Cultural references
- The Jean-Luc GodardJean-Luc GodardJean-Luc Godard is a French-Swiss film director, screenwriter and film critic. He is often identified with the 1960s French film movement, French Nouvelle Vague, or "New Wave"....
film Éloge de l'amour features the recitation of Brasillach's "Testament", written before his execution.
- French singer Jann Halexander (born in 1982 in Libreville, Gabon) attacked the author's legacy and celebrated his execution in a song entitled "Brasillach 1945".
- Brasillach is described in Jonathan LittellJonathan LittellJonathan Littell is a bilingual writer living in Barcelona. He grew up in France and United States and is a dual citizen of both countries. After acquiring his bachelor degree he worked for a humanitarian organisation for nine years, leaving his job in 2001 in order to concentrate on writing...
's novel Les Bienveillantes, where he is one of the fellow students of the main character Maximilian Aue.
Works
Below is a list of Brasillach's oeuvre (fiction, non-fiction and poetry), including posthumous works. Certain works have been briefly summarized.Novels
- 1932 Le Voleur d'étincelles (The Spark Thief/The Stealer of Sparks)
- 1934 L'Enfant de la nuit (Child of the Night)
- 1936 Le Marchand d'oiseaux (The Bird Merchant)
- 1937 Comme le temps passe (How The Time Passes By), nominated for Prix FeminaPrix FeminaThe Prix Femina is a French literary prize created in 1904 by 22 writers for the magazine La Vie heureuse . The prize is decided each year by an exclusively female jury, although the authors of the winning works do not have to be women...
1937 - 1939 Les Sept Couleurs (The Seven Colors), nominated for Prix GoncourtPrix GoncourtThe Prix Goncourt is a prize in French literature, given by the académie Goncourt to the author of "the best and most imaginative prose work of the year"...
1939.
- The book begins with the courtship of Patrice and Catherine, two students, in Paris in the 1920s. At one point the young couple meet two children, who are also called Patrice and Catherine and who claim to be a couple. His studies completed, Patrice leaves to work in Italy, where he becomes enamoured with Italian fascism. Catherine, desiring a more stable relationship, eventually marries a Communist she has met at the office where she works, Francois. Patrice leaves Italy and serves a five year stint in the Foreign Legion, where he befriends a young Nazi. After his time in the Legion, Patrice goes to work in Nazi Germany, where he finds Nazi ritual (e.g. Nuremberg rallies, the banners and marches) very engaging. Patrice learns from a friend from his Paris days that Francois has become a fascist, having turned from both Communism and the Third Republic following the 6 February 1934 crisis6 February 1934 crisisThe 6 February 1934 crisis refers to an anti-parliamentarist street demonstration in Paris organized by far-right leagues that culminated in a riot on the Place de la Concorde, near the seat of the French National Assembly...
in which the extreme right rioted against government "corruption" and perhaps planned to overthrow the state. Ten years after he last saw Catherine, Patrice returns to Paris to visit Catherine and she agrees to go away with him but asks for a few days to collect her thoughts. She decides to stay with Francois instead, but Francois misunderstands and believes she has left him. Francois leaves France without a word and joins the Nationalist cause in the Spanish Civil WarSpanish Civil WarThe Spanish Civil WarAlso known as The Crusade among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War among Carlists, and The Rebellion or Uprising among Republicans. was a major conflict fought in Spain from 17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939...
, where he has a brief encounter with the Nazi Patrice met in the Foreign Legion. Catherine stays faithful to Francois, although she meets a young Frenchman who fought for the Republicans in Spain and who turns out to be the young Patrice she had met while he was a child in the 1920s. Meanwhile, the elder Patrice marries a young German woman. The book ends with Catherine on her way to visit Francois in hospital in Spain after learning that he has been seriously wounded at the front.
- The title of the book stems from the seven styles in which it is written: a narrative of Patrice and Catherine's time together in the 1920s; letters exchanged between Patrice and Catherine while Patrice is in Italy; Patrice's journal entries while he is in Germany; a series of reflections or maxims, mainly on the process of aging and turning 30; dialogue, in the form of a play, between Francois and Catherine and Catherine and Patrice in the mid-1930s; a series of "documents" Francois has put together in a scrap book about the Spanish Civil War; and finally a "speech" ("discours"), in which Catherine describes her thoughts as she travels to meet Francois in hospital.
- The book is very sympathetic to fascism as a regenerating ideology. However, given his future as a collaborator, readers may be surprised that Communism and socialism are not attacked outright and that the "Patrice" character mentions several times that Nazism may not be as enduring as fascism and that Frenchmen may have to fight the Germans in the future. Also, it is of note that Catherine, who calls herself a "petite bourgeoise" and who exemplifies French rationalism (and perhaps represents France herself) as noted in the dialogue section, chooses Francois, the French/native fascist and turns away from Patrice, who has emersed himself in Italian and German ideology.
- 1941 Notre avant-guerre (Our pre-war)
- 1943 La Conquérante (The Conqueror; gender suggests a female conqueror)
- 1944 Poèmes (Poems)
- 1944 Poemes
Non-Fiction
- 1931 Présence de Virgile (The Presence of Virgil)
- 1932 Le Procès de Jeanne d'Arc (edited and introduced by Robert Brasillach) (The Trial of Joan of Arc)
- 1935 Portraits. Barrès, Proust, Maurras, Colette, Giraudoux, Morand, Cocteau, Malraux, etc., (Portraits)
- 1935 (re-edited in 1943) Histoire du Cinéma, two volumes (with Maurice BardècheMaurice BardècheMaurice Bardèche was a French essayist, literary and art critic, journalist, and one of the leading exponents of Neo-Fascism in post-World War II Europe...
) - 1936, Animateurs de théâtre (Theater Directors/Organizers)
- 1936 Léon Degrelle et l'avenir de « Rex » (Léon DegrelleLéon DegrelleLéon Joseph Marie Ignace Degrelle was a Walloon Belgian politician, who founded Rexism and later joined the Waffen SS which were front-line troops in the fight against the Soviet Union...
and the Future of Rexist PartyRexismRexism was a fascist political movement in the first half of the 20th century in Belgium.It was the ideology of the Rexist Party , officially called Rex, founded in 1930 by Léon Degrelle, a Walloon... - 1936 Les Cadets de l'Alcazar (with Henri MassisHenri MassisHenri Massis was a French essayist, literary critic and literary historian.- Works :* Comment Émile Zola composait ses romans, 1905. * Le Puits de Pyrrhon, 1907.* La Pensée de Maurice Barrès, 1909...
, see French Wikipedia) (The Cadets of the Alcazar); later renamed the Defenders of the Alcazar
- This short work chronicles the siege of the AlcazarSiege of the AlcázarThe Siege of the Alcázar was a highly symbolic Nationalist victory in Toledo in the opening stages of the Spanish Civil War. The Alcázar of Toledo was held by a variety of military forces in favor of the Nationalist uprising. Militias of the parties in the Popular Front began their siege on July 21...
in Toledo by Republican forces in 1936 during the Spanish Civil WarSpanish Civil WarThe Spanish Civil WarAlso known as The Crusade among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War among Carlists, and The Rebellion or Uprising among Republicans. was a major conflict fought in Spain from 17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939...
. While it lionises the defenders, Brasillach does not shy from mentioning the execution of the Republican prisoners in Toldeo's hospitals after the relief of the city and the Alcazar. The author also discounts certain elements of Nationalist propaganda concerning La Pasionaria, Communist Dolores IbárruriDolores IbárruriIsidora Dolores Ibárruri Gómez , known more famously as "La Pasionaria" was a Spanish Republican leader of the Spanish Civil War and communist politician of Basque origin...
. The work remains heavily pro-Nationalist, with FalangistFalangeThe Spanish Phalanx of the Assemblies of the National Syndicalist Offensive , known simply as the Falange, is the name assigned to several political movements and parties dating from the 1930s, most particularly the original fascist movement in Spain. The word means phalanx formation in Spanish....
and Carlist songs reprinted in its pages.- 1938 Pierre Corneille, a biography of the famous dramatist
- 1939 Histoire de la guerre d’Espagne (with Maurice Bardèche) (History of the Spanish Civil War)
- 1944 Les Quatre Jeudis (The Four Thursdays) A series of articles about literature, literary figures, trends, politics and society largely published in the press earlier in Brasillach's career (drawn from articles often originally printed on Thursdays).
Posthumous works
- 1945 Poèmes de Fresnes
- 1946 Lettre à un soldat de la classe 60 (Letter to a Soldier of the Class of 1960).
- In this 'letter', written while Brasillach was awaiting trial, the author expressed his thoughts and hopes to a future generation. He argued that he had few regrets about his social and political role in World War Two era France. He admitted that certain excesses had transpired under German occupation but contrasted the worst crimes against Frenchmen (e.g. Oradour-sur-GlaneOradour-sur-GlaneOradour-sur-Glane is a commune in the Haute-Vienne department in the Limousin region in west-central France.The original village was destroyed on 10 June 1944, when 642 of its inhabitants, including women and children, were massacred by a German Waffen-SS company...
) to the well documented atrocities committed by the French in their colonial empire, especially Indochina. He re-iterated his commitment to anti-semitism, although he insisted that he did not know of and entirely repudiated the holocaust despite having advocated the deportations of French Jewry. In the letter Brasillach insists that Franco-German relations would inevitably continue to improve and that the occupation had ultimately brought the two nations closer together. While these statements would have shocked many at the time, when one considers the rapid raprochement between the two nations post-war, the general idea of Franco-German unity he expressed in some way presages the development of Franco-German cooperation and the pivotal role of both nations in the European Community/Union although the causes of this rapprochement may not have been what he foresaw. Brasillach also re-iterated his commitment to fascism and argued that, whether it survived as an ideology or not, the generation of the class of 1960 would doubtless look back on and consider German fascism with a sense of awe. Brasillach also argued that he believed that the spirit of fascism should be mixed with the English sense of liberty and free expression, despite the apparent contradiction in terms.
- 1947 Chénier, La Pensée française (Chénier: French Thought)
- 1950 Anthologie de la poésie grecque (Anthology of Greek Poetry) ISBN 2-25301-517-2
- 1952 Lettres écrites en prison (Letters Written in Prison)
- 1953 Six heures à perdre (Six Hours to Kill)
- 1954 Bérénice (Berenice) (play, first run - 1957)
- 1955 Journal d'un homme occupé (Journal of an (Pre)Occupied Man)
- 1961 Poètes oubliés (Forgotten Poets)
- 1961 Dom Rémy
- 1962 Commentaire sur La Varende (Commentary on La Varende)
- 1963 En marge de Daphnis et Chloé (On the Edge of Daphnis and Chloé)
- 1963 Nouvelle prière sur l'Acropole (New Prayer on the Acropolis)
- 1967 Écrit à Fresnes (Written at Fresnes)
- 1968 Une génération dans l'orage (A Generation in the Storm)
- 1970 Vingt lettres de Robert Brasillach (Twenty Letters)
- 1971 Abel Bonnard biography
- 1974 Les Captifs incomplete novel
- 1984 Le Paris de Balzac (Balzac's Paris)
- 1985 Hugo et le snobisme révolutionnaire (Hugo and Revolutionary Snobbism)
- 1985 Montherlant entre les hommes et les femmes (Montherlant between Men and Women)
- 1992 Fulgur novel, compilation
- 1999 La Question juive, articles de Brasillach et Cousteau (The Jewish Question: Articles by Brasillach and Cousteau)
- 2002 Relectures Robert Brasillach (Re-reading Robert Brasillach)
Further reading
- Fascist Ego: A Political Biography of Robert Brasillach by William R. Tucker ISBN 0-520-02710-8
- The Ideological Hero in the Novels of Robert Brasillach, Roger Vailland & Andre Malraux by Peter D. Tame ISBN 0-8204-3126-5
- Translation of Notre Avant-Guerre/Before the War by Robert Brasillach, Peter Tame ISBN 0-7734-7158-8
External links
- Photograph
- Killed for His Words by Richard Corliss
- NOXIOUS WORDS, HEINOUS ACTS, THE POWER OF SPEECH by Kim Koster
- Robert Fulford's column about Marguerite Duras & Robert Brasillach from The National PostNational PostThe National Post is a Canadian English-language national newspaper based in Don Mills, a district of Toronto. The paper is owned by Postmedia Network Inc. and is published Mondays through Saturdays...