Xavier de Maistre
Xavier de Maistre ( born October 10, 1763 in Chambery, † June 12, 1852 in St. Petersburg) from Savoy served for a long time in his life as an officer in the military, but was known as a French writer. When the younger brother of the philosopher and statesman Joseph de Maistre, Xavier was born into an aristocratic family at Chambéry. As a young man he served in the army of the Kingdom of Piedmont - Sardinia, later in the tsarist army in Russia. In 1790 he wrote his novel Voyage autour de ma chambre ( "Journey to my room ", published anonymously in 1795 in Lausanne ) during an arrest stay of 42 days in the city of Turin as a result of unauthorized duel.
Life
Xavier shared the political and counter - revolutionary views of his brother Joseph, and after 1792, the French revolutionary army had annexed Savoy, he resigned from the military service. As in 1796 Savoy to the French Republic and the army of Savoy connected was dissolved, sought refuge in de Maistre northern Italian principality of Piedmont to live in Turin. When the French also occupied Turin, Piedmont, he left to serve from 1800 in the Russian army under Alexander Vasilyevich Suvorov in his battles against the French troops. In 1812 he married a Russian aristocrat, Zagriatsky woman who was related to the family of the Empress. In the following years he was employed in various positions, such as Library Director and Director of the Museum of the Admiralty in St. Petersburg. At times, in military service he was wounded in the Caucasus.
As Suvorov patroness Empress Catherine II of Russia died in 1796, the military - strategic gifted and successful General Suvorov in 1800 fell out of favor during the subsequent Tsar Paul I and was resigned. The reason is considered a massacre of 20,000 Poles, when the general Warsaw had not been complied occupied and administration during the campaign service regulations. The existence of a rod to wage war had been abolished by the Emperor at the throne. Officers should not sit at a desk, but to fight. Although Tsar Paul I. Suvorov had a completely free hand granted and had instructed the council of war that Suvorov should receive no orders, but only recommendations and information that the monarch retaliated this way after Suvorov was no longer needed.
Xavier de Maistre left military service in 1817 with the rank of major general, to then work in St. Petersburg and Paris as a writer, portrait, miniature and landscape painter.
Literary work
His novel Voyage autour de ma chambre ( journey around my room ) ( 1794), was a parody - a distorting, exaggerating or mocking imitation. The trend of the great world and exploration of that era continued de Maistre the literary type of miniature travel as " thought walk " counter. The novel could tour d' horizon call while the traveler from the bed to the chair, and on to the desk, " traveling ", considered images, written reflections or staged dialogues of Greek physicians and philosophers. The objects of his arrest room are described, explored and develop into objects of fantasy. Central are dialogues between the body and soul of the author, in which differing views are discussed. The versions de Maistre were interpreted as responses to the limitations and impositions trivialities of everyday life. The novel can be seen as a first work of the so -called " Room Travel ", which are found especially in French literature since the end of the 18th century and the place of the wide world, the room, the garden, the desk or drawer, the tent or a library as thumbnails or gems " touring ".
His stay in Turin became the starting point of his second novel in the same style Expédition nocturne autour de ma Chambre ( " Nocturnal Expedition around my Room "), which was published only in 1825.
His other literary works include:
- Le lépreux de la Cité d' Aosta ( " The Leper of Aosta " ), 1811
- Les Prisonniers you Caucase ( " Prisoners of the Caucasus" ), 1825
- La jeune Siberienne ( " The young Sibirierin " ), 1825
In 1839, after the publication of the French edition of " The young Sibirierin " Maistre took long trips to Paris and Savoy. He was amazed by his fame in literary circles. Alphonse de Lamartine dedicated to him a poem called (returns 1826) to praise his genius. He also met Charles Augustin Sainte -Beuve, of which some entertaining reminiscences are passed down to de Maistre.
De Maistre said to have lived for some time in Naples, before he returned to St. Petersburg and died there in 1852.
Uses in other works
- The novel's title journey around my room is quoted in verse of Carlos Argentino Daneri, a literary figure in Jorge Luis Borges ' short story The Aleph.
- Elena Quiroga quotes from the novel Journey to my room.
- Journey around my room is addressed in the book The Art of Travel, Alain de Botton of the British writer (2002, ISBN 0-375-42082-7 ).
- The Poem Hai luli from Prisoners of the Caucasus were transferred by the French composer Pauline Viardot in a piece of music.
- Alphonse de Lamartine wrote the poem as Le Retour de Maistre came to Paris.
- Journey around my room inspired the Portuguese writer Almeida Garrett Viagens na Minha to the work Terra ( Travels in my home country).
- Xavier de Maistre and the journey to my room are mentioned by the figure Brás Cubas, as its main impetus to write his memoirs ( in the novella de Brás Cubas Memórias Póstumas the Brazilian writer Machado de Assis ).
- Journey around my room is quoted in DH Lawrence's Sons and Lovers work: " ... She wanted to learn, thinking did if She Could read, as Paul Said he Could read, Colomba ', or the ' Voyage autour de ma Chambre ', the world would have a different face for her and a deepened respect. " (Part 2, Chapter 7)