Cimetière du Père-Lachaise (continued): #50: Charles-Ange Laisant and Albert Laisant

'C. A. LAISANT

1841–1920

MATHÉMATICIEN

HOMME POLITIQUE

SOCIOLOGUE

–––––––

Charles LAISANT

1911–1952

son petit-fils

ANARCHO-PACIFISTE

SYNDICALISTE'

Charles-Ange Laisant was a politician (an extreme left-wing boulangiste) and a writer on politics (L'Anarchie bourgeoise (1887)), Pourquoi et comment je suis boulangiste (1887) and mathematics (Introduction à la méthode des quaternions (1881), Théorie et applications des équipollences (1887)). Influenced by his son Albert Laisant he became an anarchist in 1893 until his death. He was one of the signatories of Kropotkin's Manifeste des Seize in 1916.

'Albert LAISANT

1873–1928

ÉCRIVAIN - POËTE

JOURNALISTE

–––––––

JEANNE LAISANT

1885–1963

sa femme'

The only books by Albert Laisant that I can find are the booklet Le Néo-Malthusisme est-il moral ? (1910), which he co-wrote with Albert Naquet, and the children's story Magojana : le maître du secret (1927).

Cimetière du Père-Lachaise (continued): #49: Nestor Makhno

Nestor Makhno (1889–1934) was a Ukrainian anarchist who was jailed for life in 1910 for 'terrorist activities', but was freed after the February revolution, and founded the Ukrainian Revolutionary Insurrectional Army in 1921. He wrote his memoirs, a book about the Russian revolution in Ukraine, and various articles on meeting Lenin, work, and anti-Semitism.

Paris 2015: Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, Cimetière du Montparnasse #5

 

'FAMILLE
P. J. PROUDHON

––––––––
PIERRE JOSEPH
PROUDHON

BESANÇON, 15 JANVIER 1809
PARIS, 19 JANVIER 1865
––––––––
STÉPHANIE PROUDHON
PARIS, 14 SEPT. 1855
PARIS, 27 SEPT. 1875'

 

In an age of violent, brain-dead capitalist excesses, it is heartening to see that people have taken the trouble to pay their respects to the (none too easy to find) burial site of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, a very great figure in the history of anarchism, but in particular of the non-violent, or pacifist, variety.

NYC #23: Emma Goldman, Lower East Side

At 210 East 13th Street:

 

'EMMA GOLDMAN
(1869 - 1940)

 

ANARCHIST, ORATOR AND
ADVOCATE OF FREE SPEECH
AND FREE LOVE,
LIVED HERE FROM 1903-13
AND PUBLISHED
THE RADICAL MAGAZINE
"MOTHER EARTH".
SHE WAS DEPORTED TO THE
SOVIET UNION IN 1919.'

Cimetière parisien de Thiais, Val-de-Marne (94), Île-de-France #5: Han Ryner | Henri Ner

'HAN RYNER

HENRI NER

3 DÉCEMBRE 1861

5 JANVIER 1838'

The dates of Henri Ner (who preferred to be call himself Han Ryner) are in conflict here with Wikipédia, which claims he was born on 7 December and died on the 6 December, but these are minor matters of little importance.

Of much greater importance to me (as Ryner is a fascinating character) is the inscription lower down on the upright stone, which is difficult to read because of the weathering and the slight blurring of the image, but even more difficult to understand (for me at least) is the meaning of the inscription itself. What are the 'trois jours' he's referring to, and how does the inscription relate to the Greek (which I don't understand anything of anyway) below the French? I suspect that the French is a quotation from one of his many books, although I can find nothing online, and I've searched a number of his books. This is my reading of the French:

'HONORÉ[,] COMBIEN DURERONT

MES "TROIS JOURS" [?]

MAIS JE SUIS DE CEUX

QUI LIRONT CETTE INSCRIPTION [:]'

And then the Greek begins.

Ryner was a pacifist anarchist and a very prolific writer of novels, stories, essays, plays, and poetry. For Ryner, freedom is interior and he was much influenced by the ancient Greeks, particularly the Stoics. Two books give an idea of the range of his interests: Prostitués, études critiques sur les gens de lettres d'aujourd'hui (1904) (a critique of writers of the day) and L'Homme-fourmi (1901), about a man who turns into an ant. Some of his works were kinds of parables.

Benjamin Péret: Cimetière des Batignolles #3

Benjamin Péret was a much banned surrealist anarchist writer also known as Satyremont, Peralda and Peralta. Being thrown out of Brazil for 'communist agitation' was only one of the many events in his relatively short but very full life. He is buried not very far from the man he first met in 1920, and for whom he never lost his respect: André Breton.

 

 'BENJAMIN PÉRET

1899 – 1959

–––––––

JE NE MANGE PAS DE

CE PAIN-LÀ'

The collection of poems Je ne mange pas de ce pain-là  (1936) is Péret's expression of non-allegiance to bourgeois society.

Zo d'Axa: Cimetière de Montmartre #2

 

Alphonse Gallaud de la Pérouse, better known as Zo d'Axa (1864-1930), joined the chasseurs d'Afrique (a group of mounted soldiers) in 1882, but soon deserted after an affair with the wife of one of his superiors. He spent some time in Italy, where he worked as an art critic, and returned to France in 1889.

Axa was certainly a kind of anarchist, although like many anarchists he rejected the label. He founded the anarchist weekly L'en dehors in 1891, for which many people (and certainly not all anarchists) wrote, such as: Louise Michel, Jean Grave, Bernard Lazare, Octave Mirbeau, Saint-Pol-Roux, Tristan Bernard, Georges Darien, Lucien Descaves, Sébastien Faure, Félix Fénéon, Émile Henry, Camille Mauclair, Émile Verhaeren, Adolphe Tabarant, etc. Needless to say, it wasn't popular with the authorities. When the anarchist Ravachol and his friends were arrested and Axa set up a fund for the dependants of the detainees, he was jailed for a month.

Another paper Axa founded was La feuille, in which many anti-military and anti-capitalist articles appeared. During the elections of 1899 the paper proposed a donkey as the official candidate, and Axa paraded around Paris in a cart pulled by the donkey, drawing a huge crowd following him.

Axa wrote a great deal more, travelling around the world fighting for justice. His final years were spent on a barge in Marseilles. He became pessimistic, depressive, and killed himself.

 

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Marie Gallaud (1867–1945) was Axa's sister and very close to her brother. She a sculptor, writer and explorer (particularly of the Far East) and (illegally) visited Tibet dressed as a man and accompanied by a sherpa. She studied different forms of Buddhism and wrote Une vie de Bouddha (1929).

Rirette Maîtrejean, née Anna Estorges: Père Lachaise Columbarium #12

Rirette Maîtrejean (1887–1968) is yet another anarchist, and one who went through at least her earlier life with a series of partners (including Victor Serge) and a great number of (perhaps not always completely legal) activities. Spartacus Educational provides a decent enough introduction to her life, and the link to the article (in English) is below.

 

Maîtrejean wrote for a number of periodicals, but her lasting written monument is quite an early autobiography, written in 1913 but apparently published several times: Souvenirs d'anarchie : la vie quotidienne au temps de la bande à Bonnot à la veille de 1914.

 

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Rirette Maîtrejean

Maurice Joyeux and Suzy Chevet: Père Lachaise Columbarium #1

The Columbarium in Père Lachaise cemetery can reveal some fascinating things if you know where to look, although this place – especially the underground areas – can be as confusing as the divisions where the graves are. Anyway, this is the first of a number of Columbarium posts:

 

Maurice Joyeux (1910–91) is a prominent figure in the history of French anarchism. In 1957 he published a book called Le Consulat polonais, which fictionalises his attack on the Polish consulate, for which he was imprisoned for a year. Other minor spells in prison followed, and then in 1940 he received five years for refusing to go to war. He started a rebellion in the prison, escaped, was caught, and was freed in 1944: this is the subject of his second book, Mutinerie à Montluc (1971). Joyeux's writings from about 1969 seem to be almost entirely related to anarchist theory.

Radio libertaire, an organ of Fédération anarchiste, was founded in 1981 and made Joyeux its first guest.

Suzanne Chevet was an anarcho-syndicalist who was the editorial director of the anarchist paper La Rue, published by the libertarian group Louise Michel. Sent to Saint-Malo by the Vichy régime, she organised a series of escapes to Jersey until she was caught by the Gestapo, although she escaped, took on a false identity, and worked in offices of the Service du travail obligatoire until Liberation. In 1945 she met Joyaux, her partner. For many years she worked for the unionist organisation Force ouvrière. She died in Port Grimaud when a car hit her.

Armand Salacrou: Boulevard Durand (1960)

Armand Salacrou's dramatisation of the last years of Le Havre anarchist Jules Durand (1880–1926) had a particular poignancy for him, as he too is from Le Havre and although only ten years old at the time, lived opposite the prison when the unfortunate Durand affair broke out. Boulevard Durand is a powerful, heartfelt indictment of the frame-up of Durand by the authorities.

Durand was Secretary of the union of coal heavers on the docks in Le Havre in the summer of 1910 when a strike for better conditions was called. One evening there was a drunken argument in which a scab, Louis Dongé (whose name Salacrou changed to Capron in consideration for his daughters), was killed. Although the militantly teetotal Durand had nothing to do with this, his company bosses thought this an excellent opportunity to incriminate him, and after a farcical trial in which Durand was accused of complicity in the murder, three of the real killers were imprisoned but Durand sentenced to be beheaded in a public place in Rouen.

Durand had a nervous breakdown from which he never recovered. The photos on the cover of the book above graphically portray the damage: the one on the left shows a young, healthy-looking thirty-year-old with quite chubby cheeks, whereas the one on the right shows a sick-looking, haggard old man: only two years had elapsed between the taking of the photos.

Durand was declared innocent in 1918, although he died insane in Sotteville-lès-Rouen lunatic asylum. In 1956 boulevard Durand in Le Havre was named after him, hence the title of the book.

I was particularly struck by what Julia (Durand's partner) says in Salacrou's play:

'[O]n n'a pas le droit d'amener les hommes affamés à voler, et leur reprocher leur vol; de leur vender de l'alcool et les traiter d'ivrognes'. (My translation: 'No one has the right to force starving men to steal and then reproach them for theft. Nor to sell them alcohol and call them drunkards.')

This reminds me of Sasha's thoughts about her boss in Jean Rhys's novel Good Morning, Midnight: 'Let’s say that you have this mystical right to cut my legs off. But the right to ridicule me afterwards because I am a cripple – no, that I think you haven’t got.'

Ethel Mannin: Confessions and Impressions (1930)

A third of this book is autobiography. The daughter of a 'country girl' from a farm and a Cockney father, a postal worker of Irish ancestry, Ethel Mannin (1900 – 1984) was born near Lavender Hill in Clapham. Her first chapter contains such gems as 'The defiant snobbery of the plebian is as stupid as the arrogant snobbery of the patrician', and 'the affectation of the Lowbrow [is] as tiresome as the affectation of the Highbrow', calls herself a 'Philistine' and says that she started work as a shorthand typist at fifteen, and 'that is all there is to it'.

Political awareness came to Mannin at a young age, and her earliest memory is walking on Clapham Common with her father, who stopped to talk with a man for whom he had a great respect – the socialist MP John Burns: she thought socialism the right stance to take until she was eighteen.

Mannin spent a year in a private school where she thought the 'spinster' schoolteachers drew a sadistic sexual pleasure from disallowing their pupils to leave the room to go to the toilet, then sending them home for wetting the floor. She sees no hope either in state education, believing the teachings of A. S. Neill and Bertrand Russell (a future lover of hers) to be the path to a future without schools or marriage.

She worked for Charles Highham at fifteen, by the following year was writing adverts and running internal business magazines, and at seventeen was writing stories, poems and articles for one of Higham's monthlies that she produecd herself. By this time, she had had a strong, year-long, non-sexual friendship with an anarchist in his late twenties who gave her a more intellectual education than any organized schooling had done for her.

After a few inconsequential affairs she married and lived at Strawberry Hill for five years, during which she had a child and wrote four novels. But after spending a short time in the States Mannin realized that marriage wasn't for her. She bought the cottage of her dreams near Wimbledon Common and began to understand a few things: people are dead, civilization has distorted natural intelligence, they fill their lives with meaningless rubbish, they have sterilized their emotions by intellectualizing them: D. H. Lawrence and Aldous Huxley are strong influences.

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––

The remaining two thirds of the book are devoted to prominent people of the period that Mannin has met. Most of her portraits are complimentary, although she is particularly scathing about the drama critic Hannan Swaffer, whom she detests for a number of reasons, and calls him a puritan: a great insult in Mannin's world.

Understandably, her best words are reserved for the fellow anarchists A. S. Neill and Bertrand Russell, (whom she says has a 'first-class mind').

She dedicates the book to another 'first-class mind', an unnamed man she loved greatly but who killed himself shortly before publication.

Louise Michel in Levallois-Perret: Literary Île-de-France #13

Louise Michel (1830—1905) was born in Vroncourt-la-Côte in Haute-Marne, probably the product of the son of the governor of Vroncourt castle and a servant. She received a liberal education and read Voltaire and Rousseau. She studied in Chaumont (Haute-Marne) and qualified as a primary teacher in 1851.

Later, she wrote (mainly poems) under the pseudonym Enjolras, and would probably have preferred a profession as an author rather than a teacher if it had been possible.

She maintained a correspondence with Victor Hugo between 1850 and 1879, and there are several examples of this and her poetry in the Maison Victor Hugo in the Place des Vosges in Paris.

She is perhaps better known, though, as an anarchist, and for her part in the Commune de Paris. Between 1871 and 1873, she spent twenty months in the Auberive Abbey, which had been transformed into a prison. She was then deported to New Caledonia, for which she left on the Virginie with other communards, singing 'Le Temps des Cerises' as they left: 'Le temps des cerises' was written in 1866 with words by Jean-Baptiste Clément, a song that was to be strongly associated with the Commune de Paris. Yves Montand's interpretation of the song is here.

In New Caledonia, Michel created the paper Petites Affiches de la Nouvelle-Calédonie and published Légendes et chansons de gestes canaques. She moved to Nouméa, the capital, and began teaching.

She returned to France (arriving in Dieppe, where there is a plaque on quai Henri IV) and declared her continuing faith in the anarchist cause. In 1883 she led a demonstration against unemployment which led to looting and confrontation with the police. Instead of being imprisoned, she was sentenced to ten years high police surveillance, although she was released from this in 1886. However, the same year she was sentenced to four months imprisonment for giving a speech in favor of the miners of Decazeville.

She was arrested again in 1890 following a speech she gave in St-Étienne and following a meeting which led to violent demonstrations in Vienne. On being offered provisional release, she refused because her fellow male prisoners hadn't been given such an offer too. On smashing up everything in her cell, a doctor pronounced that she should be imprisoned as a 'mad woman', although the authorities — fearing a backlash — refused. By this time, Michel was sixty years old.

She took refuge in London, where for some years she led a libertarian school. She returned to France in 1895, where she was met at the Gare Saint-Lazare by a demonstration of sympathy.

Michel died of chronic bronchitis in Marseille, and thousands attended her funeral in Levallois-Perret.

Square Louise Michel, the huge space in front of the Sacré-Coeur, was originally named 'square Willett', but changed to its present name in 2004 because of Willett's anti-Semitic activities: he had collaborated in the anti-Semitic paper La Libre Parole illustré et been an anti-Semitic candidate in the 1889 legislative elections.

Louise's statue, depicting her in friendly teaching mode in a prominent position in Parc de la Planchette in Levallois-Perret. Michel also has a street and a métro station named after her here.

 'À la bonne Louise. E. Derré 1905'.

A cat snuggles into her dress.

85 rue Victor Hugo, linking the two names.

 'Louise MICHEL 1830—1905

a vécu dans cet immeuble en 1886.

Institutrice, féministe, écrivain,

Combattante de la Commune de Paris de 1871.

Victor HUGO lui dédia le poème Viro Major.

Inhumée au cimetière de Levallois.'

['... lived in this house in 1886.
School teacher of juniors, feminist, writer,
Fighter in the Paris Commune of 1871.
Victor HUGO dedicated the poem 'Viro Major' to her.
Buried in Levallois cemetery.']

And someone using the anarchist symbol mentions the missing word: 'et anarchiste'.

And in the town cemetery, a guy known for a certain tower in Paris is also buried here, but there's no métro station named after him as far as I know.

'LOUISE MICHEL

29 MAI 1830 — 9 JANVIER 1905

HÉROÏQUE COMBATTANTE DE LA COMMUNE DE PARIS'

'SALUT AU RÉVEIL DU PEUPLE
ET À CEUX QUI EN TOMBANT
ONT OUVERTS SI GRANDES
LES PORTES DE L'AVENIR.

LOUISE MICHEL'

My Louise Michel posts:
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Zavière Gauthier: La vierge rouge : Biographie de Louise Michel
Louise Michel in Levallois-Perret
Louise Michel in Marseille

Colin Ward (1924–2010)

The English anarchist writer Colin Ward died on 11 Febrary this year. He was the author of a large number of books on anarchism, and from 1947 to 1960 he was the editor of Freedom, from 1961 to 1970 the editor of Anarchy.

Dadaism, Lionel Britton, and Anarchism

May 2008 of course marks the fortieth anniversary of les événements, the often violent protests which spread across France in reaction against the consumer society, the perceived bankrupcy of capitalism, stultifying conformity, the segregation of the sexes, and numerous other things. The protests also spread to many other countries in the western world, picking up many other causes in their wake, and the media have – inevitably – eagerly sought opportunities to indulge in an inkfest of nostalgia and revisionism: many living journalists, French or not, are soixante–huitards in memory if nothing else. The latest hors–série issue of Le Magazine littéraire re-publishes several pages from the May 1968 issue, four of which are from an interview the magazine had with Daniel Cohn–Bendit, a German with no belief in nationalities who was a major spokesperson for the movement which began at Nanterre University (1).

In the interview, one of the questions put to Cohn–Bendit concerns the interest of contemporary student protesters in the surrealist movement of the 1920s. He says, 'The student movement is certainly not a revolution, but a rebellion. We are in agreement. About surrealism, especially about Dada. Because Dadaism was more radical and it is influencing a part of the movement' (2).

Of obvious note here is the association of revolt with Dadaism or surrealism, as is the fact that the anarchist Cohn–Bendit (who, unlike many anarchists, did call himself that) saw the link as a positive thing. I have already noted Lionel Britton's interest in surrealism, although I have not previously mentioned anything of Britton's anarchism: it is normal, and some might argue obligatory (of which more in a later post to this blog), that the literature of the working class align itself to left-wing causes; but with the exception of the Scottish working-class writer Lewis Grassic Gibbon (a.k.a. Leslie Mitchell for his 'English' novels) who is best known for his trilogy A Scots Quair, Lionel Britton is almost certainly the only other British working-class anarchist writer of this period (3).

Cohn–Bendit's ideas seem to have mellowed somewhat in the last forty years, although by no means as much as those of some politicians who once belonged to Britain's now almost non-existent left wing.

(1) 'Quand on critique radicalement on construit', Le Magazine littéraire, 18, May 1968, pp. 20–24; repr. Le Magazine littéraire collections, Hors–Série 13, pp. 42–45.

(2) pp. 44–45. (The translation from the French is by me.)

(3) Grassic Gibbon refers to 'Saint Bakunin', and sent his son to A. S. Neill's radical Summerhill School (which continues today, in spite of the many efforts which New Labour has made to close it).