Icarians

Icaria (French: Icarie ) is the name of an island state in the utopian novel Voyage en Icarie ( Travels in Icaria ) of the early socialists Étienne Cabet. The forming against this background motion referred to himself as Ikarier. The attempt, the utopia in America put into practice, was named Icaria.

The utopian novel

The book of Cabet oriented in content to the ideas of Robert Owen, to which the author personally had contact. Added to this were the writings and ideas of Filippo Buonarroti and François Noël Babeuf, but also Utopia by Thomas More. Voyage en Icarie first appeared in 1840 in France and lived until 1848 five editions. Among the workers there was widespread.

The book tells the fictional story of an English lord, who reached on a trip the island Icaria. There had recently been through a revolution to transition to a democratic communism. The state is a well-organized workers' state, whose first priority is the complete equality and community of goods.

The movement of the Ikarier

The novel was a tremendous success and Cabet was the center of a political movement that was based on the novel ideas. In 1847 he had about 400,000 followers in France. Their goal was to implement the utopia into reality. Collections were organized for this purpose. Since Cabet assumed that the transition to communism could vonstattengehen only voluntary, the Ikarier should create patterns towns to convince more and more people through the practice of their ideal of community of property. In consultation with Robert Owen, Cabet chose Texas as the site of its first Ikariersiedlung. Already from Europe land was acquired. In 1848, Cabet published its call " Allons en Icarie! " Through the creation of the Second Republic after the February Revolution, it seemed at times that even social changes would be made in France. Therefore, the call turned out to be hardly effective. One of the first group of settlers were joined by only 69 people. The settlement founded by those in Texas failed for various reasons and many settlers died of cholera. Then they returned to New Orleans, where now also Cabet had arrived with another about 300 settlers.

The failure of utopia

The settlers bought in 1849 the Mormons who moved to Utah, an almost urban settlement by the name of Nauvoo on the Mississippi River in Illinois from. In addition to residential homes there also existed a mill and a distillery. In about the first seven years of the experiment seemed to succeed and there were schools and theaters have been built. In letters German Ikarier from the years 1848-1864, which are preserved in the Hamburg State Library, is reported from living in the colony. Thus passed in the settlement, probably at no time included more than 500 residents, quite advanced facilities such as kindergarten, infirmary, laundry, pharmacy, etc., while similar in the rural area of Illinois was probably ' the exception. A Sunday university, which was dedicated to cultural and scientific topics, allowing a cultural life in the colony.

After a few years there was a dispute between the settlers and Cabet on the use of existing scarce resources. Cabet, who is described as very egotistical and domineering, thinking always in larger or universal dimensions, such as, among others, the creation of an Icarian U.S. state, while the settlers were concerned about the economic maintenance of their colony. In addition, Cabet had developed into a dictatorial leader who intervened into the private life of the settlers. In addition, the settlement was dependent on the financial support from France, which dried up more and more after 1848, so that the debt increased.

In 1856 it was because of dissatisfaction with the dictatorial tendencies of Cabet for cleavage. When in 1853 a new line was formed, Cabet did not accept this and demanded the dissolution of the community. Instead, he was excluded. Then he left the village with his supporters and died a short time later in St. Louis.

Although the colonists possessed agriculture and modern establishments such as a sawmill, a steam mill and a small flotilla of fishing, there were 1857 bankruptcy. By 1895, there were about various attempts to build community by ikarischem patterns that ultimately failed.