Etienne Cabet

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Etienne Cabet

Étienne Cabet (born January 1, 1788 in Dijon , France , † November 8, 1856 in St. Louis , USA ) was a French publicist , politician and revolutionary . He also wrote under the pseudonyms Francis Adams and Th. Dufruit .

Live and act

After completing his law degree in 1812, Cabet was initially one of Napoleon's opponents , but took over the defense of his supporters when they were tried after the defeat of Waterloo . In this way he came into contact with the liberal opposition and soon became one of its leaders. During the July Revolution of 1830 he was one of the conspirators who overthrew Charles X and replaced him with the citizen king Louis Philippe .

Disappointed by the authoritarian behavior and the social coldness of the citizen king, Cabet became a socialist . In his writings he castigated conditions in France and promoted educational work among workers. He published the opposition newspaper Le Populaire , which was widely circulated but was banned in 1834. He was charged with lese majesty and after his conviction went into exile in London for five years .

There he came into contact with the philanthropist Robert Owen , whose ideas allowed him to develop the plan to implement socialist structures in France. After his return to France, he worked journalistically and politically for social renewal. In his novel Die Reise nach Ikarien (Original: Voyage en Icarie ), published under a pseudonym, he outlined the idea of ​​a utopian community that achieves a high income thanks to modern industry, but in which the means of production belong to the general public. Cabet's vision of complete nationalization, militarization, book and press censorship, as well as the personality cult around the deceased leader Icarus are reminiscent of the later practices of Stalinism . He tried to get closer to his goal by founding workers' education associations.

Because of his quick temper and his need for recognition, Cabet increasingly isolated himself. He supported the revolution in 1848, but was unable to assert himself with his social ideas, even among the workers. He called for emigration to the USA and founded his Icaria in 1848 with colonists in Nauvoo on the Mississippi River . Here, too, he increasingly came into conflict with the colonists. As president of his community of about 500 people, Cabet banned cosmetics, jewelry and colorful clothes. There were also conflicts over the use of the surpluses generated (often through donations). In 1855 there was a break with the Ikariern. Cabet died in St. Louis in 1856 and never lived to see the failure of his utopia. Gerhart Hauptmann referred to the Icarians in the USA as a utopian movement in his social drama Before Sunrise in 1889.

Works (selection)

  • Revolution de 1830 et situation presente (November 1833), Expliquees et eclairees par les revolutions de 1789, 1792, 1799 et 1804. Digitized
  • The communist creed. Digitized (incomplete)
  • Comment je suis communiste. 1840. Digitized
  • Voyage et aventures de Lord Villiam Carisdall en Icarie, traduits de l'anglais de Francis Adams. Hippolyte Souverain, Paris 1840. Digitized
  • Voyage en Icarie: roman philosophique et social. 1842. Digitized
  • Insurrection du vingt-trois juin, avec ses causes, son caractère et ses suites, expliquée par la marche et les fautes de la révolution du 24 février. Bureau du Populaire, Paris 1848. Digitized
  • Péril de la situation présente, 14 octobre 1831: compte à mes commettans. 1851. Digitized
  • Revolution de 1830 et situation presente (November 1833), Expliquees et eclairees par les revolutions de 1789, 1792, 1799 et 1804, Paris 1852. Digitized

Translations by August Hermann Ewerbeck

  • Étienne Cabet: Journey to Icaria . Aud translated to French by Dr. Wendel-Hippler . Bureau des Populaire, Paris 1847 (Newly edited by H. Lux, Magdeburg 1893) (Reprint: Karin Kramer Verlag, Berlin 1979 (Library of Utopias))
  • Étienne Cabet: How I am a communist and my communist creed. (Translated by) Dr. Wendel-Hippler. Twietmeyer, Leipzig / Paris 1847
  • Woman, her unhappy fate in contemporary society, her happiness in the German-Ikarian community , by Cabet. from the French by Dr. Hermann Ewerbeck (from Danzig). Edited by Carl Georg Allhusen, Kiel 1850.

literature

  • Joachim Höppner, Waltraud Seidel-Höppner: Etienne Cabet and his Ikarian colony. His way from left liberal to communist and his colony in representation and documents. P. Lang, Frankfurt am Main 2002, ISBN 3-631-38952-3 .
  • Manfred Hahn: archival studies of pre-Marxist socialism. Steiner, Stuttgart 1995, ISBN 3-515-06609-8 , p. 89 ff.
  • Dietrich-Eckhard Franz: Cabet, Étienne. In: Erhard Lange , Dietrich Alexander (Hrsg.): Philosophenlexikon. Dietz Verlag, Berlin 1982, pp. 136-138.
  • Edmund Silberner : La Correspondance Moses Hess -Louis Krolikowski 1850-1853. Avec 4 lettres de German Mäurer à Etienne Cabet . Feltrinelli, Milano 1960, pp. 582-620
  • Sylvester A. Piotrowski: Etienne Cabet and the Voyage en Icarie. A Study in the History of Social Thought. Diss. Washington 1935.
  • Etienne Cabet and icarian communism with a historical introduction by Heinrich Lux . Dietz, Stuttgart 1894 (International Library 18).
  • Jules Prudhommeaux: Icarie et son fondateur Etienne Cabet. Cornély, Paris 1907.
  • Uwe Timm , Icaria. Novel. Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne, ISBN 978-3-462-05048-6 .
Personal articles in older encyclopedias

Web links

Wikisource: Étienne Cabet  - Sources and full texts
Commons : Étienne Cabet  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Emil Weller: Lexicon pseudonymorum. Dictionary of pseudonyms. Leipzig 1856, pp. 1 and 43.
  2. ↑ Gerhart Hauptmann: Before sunrise. Social drama . Reclam, Stuttgart 2017, p. 52, 157 f .
  3. ↑ Ludwik Karol Królikowski (1799-1883?)
personal data
SURNAME Cabet, Etienne
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Francis Adams (pseudonym); Th. Dufruit (pseudonym)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French publicist, politician and revolutionary
DATE OF BIRTH January 1, 1788
PLACE OF BIRTH Dijon , France
DATE OF DEATH November 8, 1856
Place of death St. Louis , USA