Romain Rolland: biography, personal life, photos of the writer and books

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

Romain Rolland's books are like a whole era. His contribution to the struggle for the happiness and peace of mankind is invaluable. Rolland was loved and considered a true friend by the working people of many countries, for whom he became a "people's writer".

Childhood and students

Romain Rolland (photo above) was born in the small town of Clamcy in southern France in January 1866. His father was a notary, like all the men in the family. Rolland's grandfather took part in the storming of the Bastille, and his love of life became the basis of the image of one of the best heroes created by the writer, Col Brugnion.

In his hometown, Rolland graduated from college, then continued his studies in Paris, was a teacher at the Sorbonne. In one of his philosophical treatises, he wrote that the main thing for him is a life lived for the benefit of people, and the search for truth. Rolland corresponded with Leo Tolstoy, and this strengthened his search for the origins of art.

Romain loved music, which his mother taught him from an early age, he graduated from the prestigious Ecole Normale school, where he studied history. After graduating, he went to Rome on a scholarship in 1889 to study history. Inspired by Shakespeare's plays, he began to write historical dramas aboutevents of the Italian Renaissance. Back in Paris, he wrote plays and did research.

French Revolution Cycle

In 1892 he married the daughter of a famous philologist. In 1893, Rolland defended his dissertation on music at the Sorbonne, after which he taught at the department of music. The life of Romain Rolland for the next 17 years is lecturing, literature studies and the first works.

Rolland was greatly alarmed by the state of art, seeing that the bourgeoisie had reached a dead end, and he made courageous innovation his task. In those days, France was close to civil war - in such a conflict, the first works of the writer originate.

Literary activity began with the play "Wolves", published in 1898. A year later, the play "The Triumph of Reason" was staged. In 1900, the writer wrote the drama "Danton", which was shown to the public the same year.

Another drama that occupies an important place in Rolland's revolutionary cycle is "The Fourteenth of July", written in 1901. In it, the writer showed the power and awakening of the insurgent people. The historical events that Rolland wanted to reproduce were clearly visible already in the first dramas. In them, a large place is given to the people, the power and strength of which the writer felt with his whole being, but the people remained a mystery to him.

People's Theater

Romain Rolland hatched the idea of the People's Theater and, along with dramas, wrote articles on this topic. They areincluded in the book "People's Theatre", published in 1903. His creative ideas are being strangled by the bourgeois society that has fallen upon the writer.

Abandoning plans to create the People's Theatre, Rolland takes on the novel "Jean-Christophe", wanting to embody in it what he failed to do in theatrical endeavors. Afterwards, he will say that Jean-Christophe avenged him at this vanity fair.

At the beginning of the century there was a turn in the writer's work. Rolland no longer turns to history, but is looking for a hero. In the preface to Beethoven's Life, published in 1903, Romain Rolland writes: "Let us be breathed in by the hero's breath." He tries to emphasize in the appearance of the famous musician the features that appeal to him. That is why Beethoven's biography received a peculiar shade in his interpretation, which does not always correspond to the historical truth.

Jean-Christophe

In 1904, Rolland starts writing the novel "Jean-Christophe", which he conceived back in the 90s. It was completed in 1912. All stages of the hero's life, full of incessant searches, which brought him troubles and victories, pass before the reader from birth to his lonely death.

The first four books, which tell about the childhood and youth of the hero, reflect Germany and Switzerland of those years. The writer tries in every possible way to show that only a real genius can come out of the people. Irreconcilable and not accustomed to retreat, Christophe faced the bourgeois public. He had to leave his homeland and flee from Germany. He comes to Paris and expects to find what he needs. Butall his dreams crumble to dust.

From the fifth to the tenth book tells about the life of the hero in France. They cover the sphere of culture and art, which so excited the author of the book, and he exposed and exposed the true essence of bourgeois democracy. In the writer's diary back in 1896 there is an entry about the original idea of the novel: "This will be the poem of my life." In a way, it is.

Heroic Lives

In 1906, Romain Rolland writes "The Life of Michelangelo" and at the same time works on the fourth book of Christophe. The internal similarity of these two works is clearly visible. In the same way, there is a parallel between the ninth book and the Life of Tolstoy, which was published in 1911.

Kindness, heroism, spiritual loneliness, purity of heart - what attracted Rolland to the Russian writer became Christoph's feelings. On "Life of Tolstoy" the cycle "Heroic Lives" conceived by Romain about the life of Garibaldi, F. Millet, T. Payne, Schiller, Mazzini stopped and remained unwritten.

Cola Breugnon

The next masterpiece was Romain Rolland's Colas Breugnon, published in 1914. The writer recreated the historical past here, and the reader clearly feels his admiration for French culture, tender and ardent love for his native land. The novel is set in Rolland Clumcey's hometown. The novel presents a record of the life of the protagonist - a wood carver, talented, witty, with a rarelove of life.

Years of struggle

During the war, the strengths and weaknesses of Rolland's work are exposed. He clearly sees the criminality of the war and treats both warring parties equally. Feelings of painful discord are seen in collections of anti-war articles written by the writer from 1914 to 1919.

The writer calls the time between the two wars "the years of struggle". At this time, a bold and frank confession "Farewell to the Past", published in 1931, was written. Here he honestly opened his inner searches in life and work, sincerely admitted his mistakes. In 1919 - 1920, the "History of a Freethinking Man", "Clerambault", the stories "Pierre and Luce" and "Liliuli" were published.

The writer continued during these years a series of dramas about the French Revolution. In 1924 and 1926, the plays by Romain Rolland "The Game of Love and Death" and "Palm Sunday" were published. In 1928, he wrote the drama "Leonidas", according to critics, the most "unsuccessful and ahistorical".

Enchanted Soul

In 1922, the writer begins the cycle "The Enchanted Soul". Rolland has been writing this huge work for eight years. Much has Christophe and the heroine of this novel in common, and therefore the work is perceived as something familiar for a long time. Annette is looking for "her place in the tragedy of mankind" and thinks she has found it. But she is far from the goal, and the heroine cannot use the energy hidden in her for the benefit of the people. Annette is alone. Her support is only in herherself, in her spiritual purity.

As events unfold, the denunciation of bourgeois society takes more and more place in the novel. The conclusion to which the heroine of the novel comes is to "break, destroy" this order of death. Annette understands that her camp has been found and social duty is worth nothing next to motherhood and love, eternal and unshakable.

The mother's son Mark will continue the work of the mother, in which the heroine has invested all the best that she could give him. He occupies most of the last parts of the epic. The young man, fashioned from "good material", becomes a member of the anti-fascist movement and is looking for a way to the people. In Mark, the author gives the image of an intellectual who is occupied with ideological searches. And before the eyes of readers appears the human personality in all its manifestations - joy and sorrow, triumph and disappointment, love and hate.

Written in the 30s, the novel "The Enchanted Soul" does not lose its relevance today. Saturated with politics and philosophy, it remains a story about a man with all his passions. This is a great novel, in which the author raises vital questions, it clearly shows the call to fight for the happiness of mankind.

New world

In 1934, Rolland marries a second time. Maria Kudasheva became his life partner. They return from Switzerland to France, and the writer joins the ranks of the fighters against Nazism. Romain stigmatizes every manifestation of fascism, and following The Enchanted Soul in 1935, two remarkable collections of journalistic speeches were published.writer: "Peace through revolution" and "Fifteen years of struggle".

They contain a biography of Romain Rolland, his political and creative development, searches, entry into the anti-fascist movement, transition "to the side of the USSR". Just like in "Farewell to the Past", there is a lot of self-criticism, a story about his way to the goal through obstacles - he walked, fell, dodged to the side, but stubbornly continued to go until he reached a new world.

In these two books, the name of M. Gorky is mentioned many times, whom the writer considered his comrade in arms. They have corresponded since 1920. In 1935, Rolland came to the USSR and, despite his illness, sought to learn as much as possible about the Soviet Union. Returning from the country of the Soviets, the seventy-year-old Rolland told everyone that he had noticeably increased strength.

Shortly before the war, in 1939, Romain Rolland publishes the play "Robespierre", which completed the cycle dedicated to the French Revolution. The theme of the people runs throughout the drama. The seriously ill writer spent four years of the Nazi occupation in Wesel. Rolland's last public performance was a reception in honor of the anniversary of the revolution at the Soviet embassy in 1944. He died in December of that year.

Reader reviews

About Romain Rolland they write that he is distinguished by an encyclopedic nature rare for those years - he is well versed in music and painting, in history and philosophy. He also understands human psychology quite well and realistically shows why a person does this, what drives him and what is happening in him.head where it all began.

The literary heritage of the writer is extremely diverse: essays, novels, plays, memoirs, biographies of artists. And in each work he naturally and vividly shows a person's life: childhood, years of growing up. From his inquisitive mind, the feelings and experiences inherent in many will not hide.

It would seem that it is difficult to depict the world of a child through the eyes of an adult, but Rolland does it incredibly vividly and talentedly. He delights with his smooth and effortless style. The works are read in one breath, like a song, thoroughly saturated with music, whether it is a description of nature or domestic life, a person's feelings or his appearance. The author's apt remarks are striking in their simplicity and at the same time depth, each of his books can be literally disassembled into quotes. Romain Rolland, through the mouth of his characters, expresses his opinion to the reader about everything: about music and religion, politics and emigration, journalism and questions of honor, about old people and children. There is life in his books.