The Tricentenary of a Revolutionary

In addition to being the Chinese Year of the Dragon as well as a Presidential election year for both France and the United States, 2012 is also the year when the three-hundredth anniversary of the birth of the Genevan-born philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau is being celebrated hereabouts.  Festivities to commemorate Rousseau began in Geneva last week and will continue throughout the rest of the year, not merely being limited to the commemoration of his birth.

This is quite a remarkable change from earlier centennial years, 1912 being the most recent example, when many Genevans still viewed Rousseau with embarrassment if not actual outrage, partly because his writing mirrored uncomfortable social, economic and political truths and partly because there was still a certain amount of pre-WWI social squeamishness and decorum in Switzerland at the time.  Between Rousseau and Geneva there existed a love-hate relationship that moved definitively into a "hate" phase in 1762 after publication of two of his best-known and most influential works:  Du Contrat social (The Social Contract) and Emile ou de l'Education (Emile or About Education).

Both works were published in France where Rousseau was living at the time.  In those pre-French Revolution days, both were rapidly condemned by the French civil and religious authorities.  Condemnation has almost always been an effective way to gain avid readership, especially if the condemned works contain unpleasant social truths that disgruntle or threaten a privileged few.  This was the case with Rousseau's writings.  In fact, these 18th-century condemnations were so powerful that Rousseau and his writings were added to the Catholic Church's Index Librorum Prohibitorum (Index of Prohibited Books) where they remained until 1966, when the Index was abolished by Pope Paul VI.

During my undergraduate World Literature courses, which took place at a Catholic college before 1966, our instructor skipped Rousseau, along with another well-known local writer of "obscene" works: Voltaire.  Before 1966, Catholics were not allowed to read books that were listed in the Index.  Although I can't recall whether the penalty for doing so was mortal sin or excommunication, it was a Big One.  Rousseau's works, among others, were subjected to deliberate censorship.  For my part, this particular censorship has been remedied many times over since that time, I am happy to say.  Ironically, I now find myself geographically in a literary 18th-century "hotbed" of "obscenity" and find the situation fascinating.  What is particularly interesting is that many of these works are as powerful and as meaningful today as they were in the 18th century, as demonstrated by the Arab Spring movements of 2011 and the ongoing global "Occupy" movements.  These ideas are timeless and that is why authorities, especially repressive authorities, found - and still find - them frightening.

Censorship can also make life very unpleasant for those authors whose works are condemned and that was the case for Rousseau.  Believing it prudent to flee from France in the circumstances, he took refuge in Geneva.  But it took Genevan authorities a mere ten days after the French to censor Rousseau's works and to burn several of his books publicly before the City Hall.  The authorities also threatened to arrest Rousseau if he remained on Genevan territory, so he fled first to Neuchatel, then to an island on Lake Bienne, under Prussian control at the time.  Totally disillusioned by his home town's rejection, Rousseau renounced his Genevan citizenship in 1765.  He lived as an exile from then on, finally dying in France in 1778.  In 1794, his ashes were transferred to the Pantheon in Paris and he is recognized as one whose ideas inspired the French Revolution.

Rousseau was born in Geneva on 28 June 1712 and spent his early youth in the Saint-Gervais Quarter, not far from where HWMBO and I first lived when we moved to Switzerland.  As an adolescent, he was taken under the wing of a remarkable woman, Mme de Warens, who lived in nearby Annecy and was several years his senior.  She guided much of his education and also became his lover later on.  According to Rousseau, she was the great love of his life.  After moving to Paris in 1742, Rousseau frequented several French philosophers and even wrote articles that appeared in Diderot's Encyclopédie (also featured in the Index). 


I believe that Rousseau would be gratified by the many events that will take place in Geneva in 2012 to celebrate his three-hundredth anniversary.  Certainly he would be impressed by the budget consecrated to them: CHF 3.2 million - more that he earned in his entire life.