“Présenter aux lecteurs français la littérature orale telle qu’elle sortait de la bouche des paysans”

The study of the language of publication of folklore offers a unique perspective on the sociolinguistic history of regional languages in 19th century France as well as on the wider cultural context of contemporary folklore collection. Regional languages had a subordinate sociolinguistic status vis-à-vis French, yet they had preserved a richer folklore heritage, which, during the golden age of folklore collection, was also considered to be a valuable part of French national cultural heritage. The fact that the folktales of regional languages were often published first or only in French translation reflects both the hegemonic position of French and the prevailing contemporary perception of folktales primarily as a universal human cultural inheritance rather than as the literary heritage of specific cultures; folktale publications were typically aimed at a wider national readership and the perceived universal content – tale types and motifs – was considered more important than the linguistic form and cultural context. However, the fact that folktale and above all folksong collections were also published in the original regional languages shows that there was a genuine choice of language of publication. The publication of folktales only in translation was controversial because the lack of original texts – as well as a lack of transparency concerning the collection process – potentially undermined the authenticity of the published folklore. The publication of folklore only in translation also resulted in the loss of an important part of the cultural heritage of the regional languages and its effective appropriation as French national and French language cultural heritage.

A life less ordinary: analysis of the uniquely preserved tattooed dermal remains of an individual from 19th century France

Abstract‘Anthropologies of the Body’ often view the human form as a sort of text, onto which meanings and experiences are inscribed during people’s lives, rendering the body effectively as an artefact of material culture. Such ‘inscription’ is generally metaphorical; however, in the case of tattooing, aspects of the way people wish to be perceived are quite literally inscribed upon the body. The current article presents analysis of an unusual ‘artefact’ in the form of the major anterior portion of the preserved, tattooed skin of an adult male. The skin’s provenance was previously unknown, as was the reason why he had been subject to such treatment after death. The current project has progressed towards resolving these issues using multiple approaches, including CT scanning, multispectral light sources, infrared reflectography and spectroscopic dating. The latter technique produced a date range of 1861 ±15 years for the wood on which the skin was mounted. Multispectral and infrared light examination made it possible to discern many of the tattooed motifs much more clearly. The images and text that were made visible suggested this man had been French and had probably spent time overseas, possibly in naval service. Towards the end of his life, he may have been imprisoned and the date ‘1883’ was decipherable. The current analysis allowed the investigators to glean far more information than was initially expected, providing a considerably richer personal narrative of this individual through the content of his tattoos than is usually possible in biological anthropology.

Normality: A collection of essays

This article introduces a collection of articles written in response to a recently published intellectual and cultural history of normality by Peter Cryle and Elizabeth Stephens. It points to the fact that this special issue considerably extends and enriches the topical range of the book. The articles that follow discuss, in order, schooling in France at the time of the Revolution, phrenology in Europe and the US from 1840 to 1940, relations between commercial practice and scientific craniometry in 19th-century Britain and France, psychology in late 19th-century France, case studies in sexology and psychoanalysis in Central Europe, and biotypology in Southern Europe and Latin America.

Islam in France and France in the Territory of Islam in the Late 18th — First Half of the 19th Century

In the first half of the 19th century France began an active colonial penetration into the region of the Middle East and North Africa, to the territories inhabited mainly by Muslims. Despite its rich colonial experience in the past and long-standing trade and diplomatic relations with the Ottoman Empire, France for the first time met Islam so closely and faced the necessity to govern the territories inhabited by a Muslim majority. This article provides an overview of the relationship between France and Islam at the end of the 18th and first half of the 19th centuries, analyzes the process of awakening interest in this religion among the French and examines the first political steps towards Islam, undertaken by the French authorities during this unstable period, which saw three revolutions in France.

Słowiańszczyzna w ideach rosyjskich jezuitów w dziewiętnastowiecznej Francji

Gdy sięgamy po historię rosyjskiej literatury i myśli społecznej w dziewiętnastym wieku, jawi się nam ona w postaci dwóch nurtów: okcydentalistycznego i słowianofilskiego. Rosyjscy katolicy, jak dotąd, byli uznawani za przedstawicieli pierwszego z nich z uwagi na ich pozytywny stosunek do Europy Zachodniej i jej religii. W centrum uwagi niniejszego artykułu znaleźli się czterej emigranci żyjący na stałe we Francji i należący do zakonu jezuitów – Iwan Gagarin, Iwan Martynow, Jewgienij Bałabin oraz Paweł Pierling. Postrzeganie przez nich kwestii Słowian i Słowiańszczyzny oraz jej problemów religijnych pozwala umiejscowić ich idee względem poglądów słowianofilów i okcydentalistów. Rosyjscy katolicy nie negują ani wpływów na Rosję innych kultur słowiańskich i szeroko pojętego prawosławia, ani dorobku kulturowego zachodniej Europy. Staroruska przeszłość jest powodem do dumy i przekonania o wartości narodowej kultury Rosji. Z kolei w przeciwieństwie do słowianofilów proponują oni Rosji zostanie potęgą katolicką i wypełnienie wielkiej misji cywilizacyjnej wobec Zachodu. Artykuł mówi o rosyjskim katolicyzmie jako o trzeciej drodze w rosyjskiej kulturze badanego okresu, która ma wiele punktów stycznych z obu wymienionymi nurtami, jednakże z żadnym z nich w pełni się nie pokrywa. Slavicity in the Ideas of Russian Jesuits in 19th Century France When analysing Russian literature and social thought of the nineteenth century, it can be easily observed that the works can manifest one of two tendencies prevalent in those times: Occidental or Slavophil one. Russian Catholics have been so far recognised as the representatives of the former because of their positive attitude towards Western Europe and its religion. The focus of this article is on the four immigrants permanently living in France, members of the Jesuit Order – Ivan Gagarin, Ivan Martynov, Yevgeniy Balabin and Paweł Pierling. Their perception of Slavic matters, the Slavs and their religious problems allows them to locate their ideas in relation to the views of Slavophiles and Occidentalists. Russian Catholics do not deny the influence of other Slavic cultures and broadly understood Orthodoxy on Russia, or the cultural heritage of Western Europe – the Old Russian past is a reason for pride and belief in the significant importance of Russia’s national culture. Contrary to the Slavophiles, they propose that Russia should become Catholic power to fulfil a great civilisational mission towards the West. The article discusses Russian Catholicism as the third trend in the Russian culture of the analysed period, which is closely related to the aforementioned tendencies but it does not fully overlap with any of them.

The ‘Unknown Arts’ of Ancient America: Challenging Classical Art Canons in 19th-Century France The Reception of Pre-Columbian Art before the Primitivist and Surrealist Avant-gardes

Pre-Columbian artefacts have been collected and exhibited in Europe since the 16th century. For a long time, they were considered exotic curiosities, ‘grotesque’ attempts at art by inferior peoples. This was a judgement stemming from a Eurocentric definition of art and, during the 19th century, indissociable from colonial and imperialist ideology. We present some views held in scholarly circles about pre-Columbian art in nineteenth-century France and focus on two artists, Jean Frédéric de Waldeck (1766-1875) and Emile Soldi (1846-1906), who drew from contemporary ethnographic and archaeological research, and pre-Columbian history to challenge the limits of academicism and the Beaux-Arts system.