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Élisée Reclus

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Élisée Reclus
Born(1830-03-15)15 March 1830
Sainte-Foy-la-Grande, Gironde, France
Died4 July 1905(1905-07-04) (aged 75)
Torhout, Belgium
Alma materUniversity of Berlin
Occupation(s)Geographer, anarchist revolutionary, and writer
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Jacques Élisée Reclus (French: [ʁəkly]; 15 March 1830 – 4 July 1905) was a French geographer, writer and anarchist. He produced his 19-volume masterwork, La Nouvelle Géographie universelle, la terre et les hommes ("Universal Geography"), over a period of nearly 20 years (1875–1894). In 1892 he was awarded the Gold Medal of the Paris Geographical Society for this work, despite having been banished from France because of his political activism.

Biography

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Early life and education

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Reclus was born at Sainte-Foy-la-Grande (Gironde) on March 15th, 1830.[1] His family were part of the Protestant minority in France.[2] His father, Jacques Reclus, was a Protestant pastor in Montcaret and taught at Sainte-Foy's Protestant college; Reclus' god-father was the Protestant pastor Jacques Drillholle.[3][4] Reclus' mother, Marguerite Zéline Trigant, was a teacher and founded a school at Orthez.[5] Reclus spent his early years at the home of his maternal grandparents in Laroche, until he rejoined his family in 1838 at Castétarbe.[6]

Reclus was the second son in a family of fourteen children. Several of his brothers, including fellow geographers Onésime and Élie, went on to be either as men of letters, politicians or members of the learned professions.[7]

Reclus began his education in Rhenish Prussia, and continued higher studies at the Protestant college of Montauban, after he had studied for a baccalaureate at Sainte-Foy.[8] While studying at Sainte-Foy, Reclus and his brothers lived with their aunt.[9] Reclus felt dissatisfied with his studies at Montauban, moving four kilometers away to study independently in a house with his brothers and their friend Édouard Grimard [fr].[10] Reclus moved to Berlin in 1851 and completed his studies at the University of Berlin, where he followed a long course of geography under Carl Ritter and also studied political economy and the history of diseases.[11][12]

Adult life and career

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Withdrawing from France due to the political events of December 1851, he spent the next six years (1852–1857) traveling and working in Great Britain, the United States, Central America, and Colombia.[7] Arriving in Louisiana in 1853, Reclus worked for about two and a half years as a tutor to the children of cousin Septime and Félicité Fortier at their plantation Félicité, located about 80 kilometres (50 miles) upriver from New Orleans. He recounted his passage through the Mississippi River Delta and impressions of antebellum New Orleans and the state in Fragment d'un voyage à la Nouvelle-Orléans, published in 1855.[13]

On his return to Paris, Reclus contributed to the Revue des deux mondes, the Tour du monde and other periodicals, a large number of articles embodying the results of his geographical work. Among other works of this period was the short book Histoire d'un ruisseau, in which he traced the development of a great river from source to mouth. During 1867 and 1868, he published La Terre; description des phénomènes de la vie du globe in two volumes.[7]

Reclus reading Le Cri du Peuple in the garden of his home in Brussels, c. 1894–1905

During the Siege of Paris (1870–1871), Reclus shared in the aerostatic operations conducted by Félix Nadar, and also served in the National Guard. As a member of the Association Nationale des Travailleurs, he published a hostile manifesto against the government of Versailles in support of the Paris Commune of 1871 in the Cri du Peuple.[7]

Continuing to serve in the National Guard, which was then in open revolt, Reclus was taken prisoner on 5 April into Fort Quélern. On 16 November he was sentenced to deportation for life. Because of intervention by supporters from England, the sentence was commuted in January 1872 to perpetual banishment from France.[7]

After a short visit to Italy, Reclus settled at Clarens, Switzerland, where he resumed his literary labours and produced Histoire d'une montagne, a companion to Histoire d'un ruisseau. There he wrote nearly the whole of his work, La Nouvelle Géographie universelle, la terre et les hommes, "an examination of every continent and country in terms of the effects that geographic features like rivers and mountains had on human populations—and vice versa."[14] This compilation was profusely illustrated with maps, plans, and engravings. It was awarded the gold medal of the Paris Geographical Society in 1892. An English edition was published simultaneously, also in 19 volumes, the first four translated by E. G. Ravenstein, the rest by A. H. Keane. Reclus's writings were accurate and explained topics clearly, making them useful literary and scientific sources.[7]

According to Kirkpatrick Sale:[14]

His geographical work, thoroughly researched and unflinchingly scientific, laid out a picture of human-nature interaction that we today would call bioregionalism. It showed, with more detail than anyone but a dedicated geographer could possibly absorb, how the ecology of a place determined the kinds of lives and livelihoods its denizens would have and thus how people could properly live in self-regarding and self-determined bioregions without the interference of large and centralized governments that always try to homogenize diverse geographical areas.

In 1882, Reclus initiated the Anti-Marriage Movement. In accordance with these beliefs and the practice of union libre ("free unions"), which was common among working-class French in the mid-to-late 1800s,[15] Reclus allowed his two daughters to "marry" their male partners without any civil or religious ceremonies, an action causing embarrassment to many of his well-wishers.[7] Reclus had himself entered a free union in 1872, after the death of his first wife. In 1882 he also wrote Unions Libres, a pamphlet which detailed his anarchist and feminist objections to marriage.[16] The French government initiated prosecution from the High Court of Lyon, arrested him and Peter Kropotkin as the International Association's organizers, and sentenced the latter to five years' imprisonment. Reclus escaped punishment as he remained in Switzerland.[17]

In a 1913 piece, Kropotkin, in admiration of Reclus, said that if anyone asked about the conflicts of the Middle East, that "I should merely open the volume of Elisée Reclus's Geographie Universelle L'Asie, Russe..."[18]

In 1890, Reclus hosted Luigi Galleani at Lake Geneva in Switzerland, in the Reclus brothers' country house which at that time operated as a safe haven for disidents fleeing persecution.[19] Reclus offered Galleani a role in writing his Universal Geography, with Galleani going on to contribute to statistics about Guetemala to volume XVII which addressed Central America.[20] Reclus later assisted Galleani in fleeing Italy to Egypt when he faced persecution from the Italian state.[21][22]

Élisée Reclus

In 1894, Reclus was appointed chair of comparative geography at the Free University of Brussels, and moved with his family to Belgium. His brother Élie Reclus was at the university already, teaching religion.[17] Élisée Reclus continued to write, contributing several important articles and essays to French, German and English scientific journals. He was awarded the 1894 Patron's Medal of the Royal Geographical Society.[23]

In 1905, shortly before his death, Reclus completed L'Homme et la terre, in which he rounded out his previous works by considering humanity's development relative to its geographical environment.[24][25]

Death

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Reclus died on July 4th, 1905. He spent his final days in the countryside at Thourout, to the west of Brussels, staying with his friend Florence de Brouckère.[26] Before he died, he completed the preface of the Russian edition of L'Homme et la Terre.[27] His daughter read him the news of the sailors' revolt on the Potemkin, and he smiled before dying peacefully.[28] Reclus was buried at a cemetery in Ixelles with his brother Élie, who had died in February 1904.[29] Per Reclus' request, there was no funeral procession.[30]

Kropotkin wrote an obituary for Reclus, which was published in The Geographic Journal in September, 1905.[31] Kropotkin summarised:

"He knew how to die poor after having written wonderful books. And he knew how, having attained the high summits of fame, never to rule anybody and to remain the equal of his humblest collaborator and of every one he met with. He certainly was one of the finest specimens of civilized mankind, a man free in the purest sense of the word."[32]

Naturism

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Reclus had strong views on naturism and the benefits of nudity. He argued that living naked was more hygienic than wearing clothes; he believed that it was healthier for skin to be fully exposed to light and air so that it could resume its "natural vitality and activity" and become more flexible and firm at the same time. He also argued that from an aesthetic point of view, nudity was better: naked people were more beautiful. His principal objection to clothing was, however, a moral one; he felt that a fixation with clothing caused excessive focus on what was covered.[33][24]: 485 

Personal life

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On 11 March 1858, he was initiated in the regular Scottish Rite Masonic Lodge Les Émules d'Hiram, affiliated to the Grand Orient of France. His brother was just initiated and took part in his masonic baptism.[34][35][36] He remained at the initial degrees of the Masonic spiritual path.

Reclus was a friend of Italian Anarchist Errico Malatesta.[37][38]

Reclus married and had a family, including two daughters.[39]

Legacy

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Reclus was admired by many prominent 19th century thinkers, including Alfred Russel Wallace,[40] George Perkins Marsh, Patrick Geddes,[41] Henry Stephens Salt,[42] and Octave Mirbeau.[43] James Joyce was influenced by Léon Metchnikoff's book La civilisation et les grands fleuves historiques, to which Reclus contributed a foreword.[44]

Reclus advocated nature conservation and opposed meat-eating and cruelty to animals. He was a vegetarian.[45] As a result, his ideas are seen by some historians and writers as anticipating the modern social ecology and animal rights movements.[46]

The high school in Sainte-Foy-la-Grande is named for him.[47]

Selected works

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Books

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L'Homme et la terre (The Earth and Its Inhabitants"), 6 volumes:

  • L'Homme et la terre (1905), e-text online, Internet Archive
  • Élisée Reclus (1876–1894), A.H. Keane (ed.), The Earth and its Inhabitants, London: Virtue & Co.
  • Elisée Reclus (1890). The Earth and Its Inhabitants. D. Appleton and Company.
  • Élisée Reclus (1883–1893), The Earth and its Inhabitants, New York: D. Appleton, OCLC 6631001
  • The earth and its inhabitants. The universal geography, ed. by E.G. Ravenstein (A.H. Keane). (J.S. Virtue, 1878)
  • The earth and its inhabitants, Asia, Volume 1 (D. Appleton and Company, 1891)
  • The Earth and Its Inhabitants ...: Asiatic Russia: Caucasia, Aralo-Caspian basin, Siberia (D. Appleton and Company, 1891)
  • The Earth and Its Inhabitants ...: South-western Asia (D. Appleton and Company, 1891)

Anthology

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  • Du sentiment de la nature dans les sociétés modernes et autres textes, Éditions Premières Pierres, 2002 – ISBN 9782913534049

Articles

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  • The Progress of Mankind (Contemporary Review, 1896)
  • Attila de Gerando (Revue Géographie, 1898)
  • A Great Globe (Geograph. Journal, 1898)
  • L'Extrême-Orient (Bulletin de la Société royale de géographie d'Anvers, 1898), a study of the political geography of the Far East and its possible changes
  • Elisée Reclus (1867). La Guerre du Paraguay. (Revue des Deux Mondes). ISBN 9781465509598. a report made for Parisian newspapers about the Paraguayan War, sympathetic towards the Paraguayan side.
  • La Perse (Bulletin de la Société neuchâteloise, 1899)
  • La Phénicie et les Phéniciens (ibid., 1900)
  • La Chine et la diplomatie européenne (L'Humanité nouvelle series, 1900)
  • L'Enseignement de la géographie (Institut de géographie de Bruxelles, No 5, 1901)
  • On Vegetarianism (Humane Review, 1901)

See also

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References

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  1. ^ Fleming, Marie. 1988. The Geography of Freedom. Black Rose Books. p.27
  2. ^ Fleming, Marie. 1988. The Geography of Freedom. Black Rose Books. p.12
  3. ^ Fleming, Marie. 1988. The Geography of Freedom. Black Rose Books. p.27
  4. ^ Fleming, Marie. 1988. The Geography of Freedom. Black Rose Books. p.200
  5. ^ Fleming, Marie. 1988. The Geography of Freedom. Black Rose Books. p.29
  6. ^ Fleming, Marie. 1988. The Geography of Freedom. Black Rose Books. pp.28-29
  7. ^ a b c d e f g Chisholm 1911, p. 957.
  8. ^ Fleming, Marie. 1988. The Geography of Freedom. Black Rose Books. pp.30-31
  9. ^ Fleming, Marie. 1988. The Geography of Freedom. Black Rose Books. p.31
  10. ^ Fleming, Marie. 1988. The Geography of Freedom. Black Rose Books. pp.32-33
  11. ^ Chisholm & 191 1, p. 957.
  12. ^ Fleming, Marie. 1988. The Geography of Freedom. Black Rose Books. p.33
  13. ^ Clark, John. "Putting Freedom on the Map: The Life and Work of Élisée Reclus (Introduction and translation of Fragment)". Mesechabe. 11 (Winter 1993): 14–17. Retrieved 15 May 2008.
  14. ^ a b Sale, Kirkpatrick (1 July 2010) "Are Anarchists Revolting?" Archived 12 December 2010 at the Wayback Machine, The American Conservative, 1 July 2010
  15. ^ McPhee, Peter (2004). A Social History of France 1780-1914 (Second ed.). Palgrave Macmillan. p. 195.
  16. ^ Ferretti, Federico. "Anarchist geographers and feminism in late 19th century France: the contributions of Elisée and Elie Reclus". Feminist Historical Geographi. 44: 68–88.
  17. ^ a b Ingeborg Landuyt and Geert Lernout, "Joyce's Sources: Les Grands Fleuves Historiques", originally published in Joyce Studies, Annual 6 (1995): 99–138
  18. ^ Peter Kropotkin (1913). "The Coming War". The Nineteenth Century: A monthly Review.
  19. ^ Senta, A. (2019). Luigi Galleani: The Most Dangerous Anarchist in America. AK Press.
  20. ^ Senta, A. (2019). Luigi Galleani: The Most Dangerous Anarchist in America. AK Press.
  21. ^ Avrich 1988, pp. 167–168; Bencivenni 2011, p. 16.
  22. ^ Avrich 1988, pp. 167–168; Bencivenni 2011, p. 16; Shone 2013, pp. 193–194.
  23. ^ "List of Past Gold Medal Winners" (PDF). Royal Geographical Society. Archived from the original (PDF) on 27 September 2011. Retrieved 24 August 2015.
  24. ^ a b Reclus, Élisée (1905). L'Homme et la terre. Vol. Tome VI. Paris: Paris, Librairie universelle.
  25. ^ Chisholm 1911, p. 958.
  26. ^ Fleming, Marie. 1988. The Geography of Freedom. Black Rose Books. p.198
  27. ^ Fleming, Marie. 1988. The Geography of Freedom. Black Rose Books. p.198
  28. ^ Fleming, Marie. 1988. The Geography of Freedom. Black Rose Books. p.198
  29. ^ Fleming, Marie. 1988. The Geography of Freedom. Black Rose Books. p.198
  30. ^ Fleming, Marie. 1988. The Geography of Freedom. Black Rose Books. p.198
  31. ^ https://www.jstor.org/stable/1776326
  32. ^ https://www.jstor.org/stable/1776326
  33. ^ Reclus, Elisée (2004). Clark, John P.; Martin, Camille (eds.). Anarchy, Geography, Modernity: The Radical Social Thought of Elisée Reclus. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books. pp. 107–. ISBN 978-0-7391-0805-5.
  34. ^ Léo Campion, Le drapeau noir, l'équerre et le compas: les Maillons libertaires de la Chaîne d'Union, full text
  35. ^ Revue belge de géographie, volumes 110 à 112, 1986, page 10
  36. ^ Jean-Paul Bord, Raffaele Cattedra, Ronald Creagh, Jean-Marie Miossec, Georges Roques, Elisée Reclus - Paul Vidal de la Blache : Le géographe, la cité et le monde, hier et aujourd'hui, L'Harmattan, 2009, page 13.
  37. ^ https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/luigi-fabbri-life-of-malatesta
  38. ^ https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/dsa-libertarian-socialist-caucus-errico-malatesta-a-brief-biography
  39. ^ Fleming, Marie. 1988. The Geography of Freedom. Black Rose Books.
  40. ^ Wallace, A. R. (1905). My Life: A Record of Events and Opinions. Chapman and Hall. OCLC 473067997.
  41. ^ Livingstone, David N. (1993). The Geographical Tradition: Episodes in the History of a Contested Enterprise. Wiley-Blackwell. ISBN 0-631-18535-6. OCLC 25787010.
  42. ^ "Are we to apply the name "crank" to that great thinker and beautiful writer, Elisee Reclus? One of the finest essays ever written in praise of vegetarianism is an article which he contributed to the Humane Review when I was editing it in 1901."Salt, Henry Stephens (1930). Company I have kept. George Allen & Unwin. p. 162. OCLC 2113916.
  43. ^ "...the scales were finally tipped...by Mirbeau's contact with the works of Kropotkin, Reclus and Tolstoy....They were the compound catalyst which caused Mirbeau's own ideas to crystallise, and they constituted a trilogy of enduring influences."Reg Carr, Anarchism in France: The Case of Octave Mirbeau Manchester University Press, 1977.
  44. ^ La Civilisation et les grands fleuves historiques. Hachette. 1889.
  45. ^ "History of Vegetarianism – Élisée Reclus (1830 – 1905)". ivu.org. International Vegetarian Union. Retrieved 23 January 2010.
  46. ^ Marshall, Peter (1993). "Élisée Reclus: The Geographer of Liberty". Demanding the Impossible: A History of Anarchism. London: Fontana. ISBN 0-00-686245-4. OCLC 490216031.
  47. ^ https://www.education.gouv.fr/annuaire/33220/sainte-foy-la-grande/lycee/0330115w/lycee-elisee-reclus.html

Further reading

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