Lettres des Jeux olympiques

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Lettres des Jeux olympiques
EditorJuven
AuthorCharles Maurras
CountryFrance
LanguageFrench
GenrePolitique
Publication date
1901

Lettres des Jeux olympiques (Letters from the Olympic Games) is a correspondence between the French journalist and politician Charles Maurras and Gustave Janicot, editor-in-chief of La Gazette de France written between April 8 and May 3, 1896. The letters are then collected on 1901 in the book Anthinéa.

Presentation

Context

From April 6 to 15, 1896, the first modern Olympic Games took place in Athens, at the initiative of Pierre de Coubertin.[1] From April 8 to May 3, 1896, La Gazette de France commissions the young journalist Charles Maurras to cover the event. The letters were published in the newspaper from April 15 to 22, 1896.[1]

Composition

The Lettres des Jeux olympiques contain six missives. The first is written from the Ionian Sea, the other five from Athens.[2]

Analysis

While the Olympic Games have already started, Charles Maurras sends a first letter to Paris which he writes on the ship he boarded from Marseille. The letter entitled “Our Sea” is a tribute to the Mediterranean Sea, cradle of Greco-Roman civilization.[1]

Fascinated by the azure blue of the Mediterranean, his heart beats faster as he approaches the epicenter of the classical world; the wind that blew around the boat could have no other name than Zephyr. Finally, the Peloponnese stood out on the horizon: “Dear friends of France, if you only knew how fraternal this is to us! » Thus ended this first letter dated April 15.

— Wolf Lepenies

As soon as he arrived at the Games, Charles Maurras put the success of the German athletes into perspective: "It was because they had no French competitors in front of them." Maurras is not so interested in sport, which he considers "too Anglo-Saxon for his taste".[2] Maurras feared the Games would be hijacked into a "sporting cosmopolitanism"[3] but his fears fade when he notices "the enthusiasm of the Greek people for the shepherd Spiridon Louïs, winner in the marathon event, as well as the good-natured and noisy patriotism of the Yankees".[4]

Consequences

Maurras returns deeply shaken by his trip to Greece from which he draws several lessons reported in Anthinéa and

Austro-Hungarian Empire, the United Reich, Italy and Spain.[5] Based on these examples, he comes away convinced that the monarchical regime makes the nations that adopt it stronger.[6]

Charles Maurras publishes his letters in his work Anthinéa in 1901[7].

References

  1. ^
    ISBN 978-2-7351-2807-5
    . Retrieved 2022-10-27.
  2. ^ a b Besson 2012.
  3. ISSN 1636-3671
    .
  4. ISSN 1266-7862
    . Retrieved 2022-10-27.
  5. ^ a b c d Jean-Christophe Buisson (2020). Charles Maurras ou la contre-révolution permanente. Paris: Perrin. pp. 237–255. Retrieved 27 October 2022.
  6. ^ Bertrand Renouvin, Maurras, le fondateur, No. 1, vol. 11, p. 77-81.
  7. ISSN 1155-3219
    . Retrieved 2022-10-27.

Bibliography

Externals links

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