The Fall of Paris as the End of Modernism:  Eschatology, War and Ilya Ehrenbourg in a Succession of Cultural Mirrors

The article analyzes Ilya Ehrenbourg’s novel “The Fall of Paris&8j1; (1942) against the background of synchronic and diachronic cultural contexts. The author pays special attention to the mythologization of Paris from the middle of the 19^th century and to the ideological consequences of the country’s defeat in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. The work reconstructs the system of Ehrenbourg’s “eschatological journalism&8j1; during the First World War and shows the connection of the writer’s novel with the cultural background of France “between two wars&8j1;. The novelist’s polemical dialogue with Jean Giraudoux on the Franco-German value-cultural collisions is demonstrated. It is concluded that for Ehrenbourg, as for a number of his Western brethren and recent researchers, the fall of Paris in 1940 was a sign of the end of the entire traditional West of Modern Times, and more specifically, the era of Modernism.

Keywords

Literature and War, Modernism, Lament for a City

Received

22.01.2024

Publication date

29.01.2024

Number of characters

33127

Cite

GOST	Polonsky V. “The Fall of Paris” as “the End of Modernism”: Eschatology, War and Ilya Ehrenbourg in a Succession of Cultural Mirrors // Izvestiia Rossiiskoi akademii nauk. Seriia literatury i iazyka – 2024. – V. 82. – Issue 5 C. 5-14 [Electronic resource]. URL: https://izv-oifn.ru/S160578800028322-0-1 (circulation date: 20.05.2024). DOI: 10.31857/S160578800028322-0
MLA	Polonsky, Vadim V "“The Fall of Paris” as “the End of Modernism”: Eschatology, War and Ilya Ehrenbourg in a Succession of Cultural Mirrors." Izvestiia Rossiiskoi akademii nauk. Seriia literatury i iazyka 82.5 (2024):5-14. DOI: 10.31857/S160578800028322-0
APA	Polonsky V. (2024). “The Fall of Paris” as “the End of Modernism”: Eschatology, War and Ilya Ehrenbourg in a Succession of Cultural Mirrors. Izvestiia Rossiiskoi akademii nauk. Seriia literatury i iazyka 82(5), pp.5-14 DOI: 10.31857/S160578800028322-0

100 rub.

When subscribing to an article or issue, the user can download PDF, evaluate the publication or contact the author. Need to register.

Number of purchasers: 0, views: 54

Readers community rating: votes 0

1. Olar, A. Kult Razuma i kult Verkhvnogo Suschestva vo vremya Frantsuzskoj revolutsii [The Cult of Reason and the Cult of the Supreme Being during the French Revolution]. Transl. by E.S. Kots and A.N. Karasik. Moscow, Seyatel Publ., 1925. 235 pp. (In Russ.)

2. Gogol, N.V. Rim [Rome]. Gogol, N.V. Polnoye sobraniye sochineniy v 14 t. [Complete Works: In 14 Vols.]. Vol. 3. Moscow, Leningrad, Academy of Sciences of the USSR Publ., 1938. S. 215–259. (In Russ.)

3. Meyer, E. da Costa. Dividing Paris: urban renewal and social inequality, 1852–1870. Princeton, Oxford, Princeton University Press, 2022. 416 p.

4. Jordan, D.P. Transforming Paris: the life and labors of Baron Haussmann. New York, London, Toronto [etc.], Free press, 1995. XXII, 455 p.

5. Cariani, G. Une France russophile? Découverte, réception, impact. La diffusion de la culture russe en France de 1881 à 1914. Thèse de Doctorat en Histoire. Strasbourg, Institut d'Histoire contemporaine UFR des Sciences Historiques, Université des Sciences Humaines de Strasbourg, 1998. (In French)

6. Gaillard, M. Paris: les expositions universelles de 1855 à 1937. Paris, Les Presses Franciliennes, 2003. 184 p. (In French)

7. Ehrenburg, I. Sobraniye sochineniy v 8 t. [Collected Works in 8 Vols.]. Мoscow, Khudozhestvennaya literatura Publ., 1990–2000. (In Russ.)

8. Berar, Ye. Burnaya zhizn Ilji Erenburga [Stormy life of Ilya Ehrenburg.]. Moscow, Novoye literaturnoye obozreniye Publ., 2009. 272 p. (In Russ.)

9. Marcou, L. Ilya Ehrenbourg: un homme dans son siècle. Paris, Plon, 1992. 378 p. (In French)

10. Polonskiy, V.V. Osnovnyye vektory poetiko-ideologicheskikh transformatsiy v russkoy literature i publitsistike epokhi Pervoy mirovoy voyny [General Ways of Poetical and Ideological Transformations in Russian Literature and Publicism of the First World War]. Vestnik Nizhegorodskogo universiteta imeni N.I. Lobachevskogo [Bulletin of Lobachevsky University of Nizhniy Novgorod], 2014, No. 2 (2), pp. 13–19. (In Russ.)

11. Polonskiy, V.V. “Uyut na lobnom meste”: Pervaya mirovaya voyna v poetiko-ideologicheskikh otrazheniyakh literatury russkogo modernizma [“A cosiness on Lobnoye Mestoˮ: World War I in Poetiс and Ideological Reflections of Literature of the Russian Modernism]. Politika i poetika: russkaya literatura v istoriko-kulturnom kontekste Pervoy mirovoy voyny [Politics and Poetics: Russian Literature in the Historical and Cultural Context of the First World War. Publications, Research and Materials]. Moscow, Institute of World Literature of RAS Publ., 2014, pp. 703–712. (In Russ.)

12. Ehrenburg, I. Lik voyny [The Face of War]. Ed. 2nd. Berlin, Helikon Publ., 1923. 186 p. (In Russ.)

13. Hinterhäuser, H. Fin de siècle: Gestalten und Mythen. München, W. Fink, 1977. 233 S. [In German]

14. Rodin, A. Les Cathedrales de France. Paris, Librairie Armand Colin, 1914. CIX, 164 p. (In French)

15. Zhirodu, Zh. Pyesy [Plays]. Moscow, Iskusstvo Publ., 1981. 648 p. (In Russ.)

16. Ehrenburg, I. Stikhotvoreniya i poemy [Verses and Poems]. St. Petersburg, Akademicheskiy proyekt Publ., 2000. 816 p. (In Russ.).

17. Zweig, S. Vcherashniy mir [Yesterday’s World]. Moscow, Raduga Publ., 1991. 544 p. (In Russ.)

18. Utopias: Russian Modernist Texts, 1905–1940. Ed. by Catriona Kelly. London, Penguin, 1999. XXX, 378 p.

19. Livak, L. In Search of Russian Modernism. Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2018. IX, 375 p.

20. Akhmatova, А. Sobraniye sochineniy v 6 t. [Collected Works in 6 Vols.]. Moscow, Ellis Lak Publ., 1998–2002. (In Russ.)

21. Ivanov, Vyacheslav. Stikhotvoreniya. Poemy. Tragediya. V 2 kn. [Verses. Poems. Tragedy. In 2 Books]. St. Petersburg, Akademicheskiy proyekt Publ., 1995. (In Russ.)