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52
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Paul ELUARD. Hugo as seen by Russian authors.
See original version (French)
52
-
Paul ELUARD. Hugo as seen by Russian authors.
See original version (French)
Estimate
€800 - €1,000
Voluntary lot
Description
Paul ELUARD.
Hugo as seen by Russian authors.
(February 1952).
Autograph handwritten notes for speeches on Victor HUGO and corrected typed speeches, entitled Hugo, poète vulgaire and Victor Hugo. [February 1952].
4 pages (handwritten) in-4 (21 x 26.8 cm) and 6 pp. and 3 half-pages (typed) (21 x 31 cm), with erasures and corrections.
Nice set of notes and fragments of speeches for the celebrations in Moscow marking the 150th anniversary of Hugo's birth in February-March 1952.
These notes deal with Hugo as seen by Russians: Pushkin, who loved Hernani; Herzen, who asked him to speak about the Polish uprising of 1863; Dostoyevsky, who felt that Les Misérables was superior to Crime and Punishment; the ban on the Russian ambassador to Paris, "by order of the Tzar", attending Hugo's funeral, etc.
Most of these points are contained in the speeches given on 25 and 26 February 1952 at the Gorky Institute and the Salle des Colonnes, and on 1 March at the boys' school N 607 (Œuvres complètes, Pléiade, II, 920).
Accompanied by a typescript bearing the title Victor Hugo in blue pen. Annotated (upper margin) and corrected. The fragment, whose pages are numbered 2 and 3 (upper right-hand corner), is extensively crossed out and corrected.
These notes accompany the corrected typed speech entitled Hugo, poète vulgaire. The speech was given at the Gorky Institute, and includes a paragraph that was not retained: "Hugo sang of heaven and earth, the summit and the abyss, the past and the future, the animal and the human. He sang of love of country and freedom. He sang, better than anyone, of the wretched, the humble, with sparkling words that are usually reserved for those who make the law in order to profit from it. Of course his love of nature and man, and his emotion, and all his imagination were vulgar, because he was only a collective being called Hugo. On the other hand, those who speak only for themselves call him a 'person'. Hugo's dreams are the dreams of the men of his time, but his reality is that of the conscience of tomorrow; it sublimates and combats the 19th century, but it does so in order to elevate the 20th.
Eugène Grindel, known as Paul Eluard (1895-1952), French poet from the Paris suburbs, Dadaist. By questioning the world through absurdity, humour and nonsense, Paul Eluard became one of the pillars of Surrealism, paving the way for artistic action that was politically committed to the Communist Party.
See original version (French)
Auto-translation. Refer to original language for legal validity.
Pictures credits: Contact the Auction House
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