Alex-Ceslas Rzewuski

Alex-Ceslas Rzewuski (born March 12, 1893 in Kars , Ottoman Empire , † September 13, 1983 in Venice ) was a Polish-French aristocrat, Roman Catholic clergyman, Dominican , painter and graphic artist.

Life

Youth in Russia

Rzewuski was the son of the Russian Katerina Lubarsky-Fluki (1862-1909) and the Polish general Adam Rzewuski (1847-1932). He was a great-nephew of Balzac . Rzewuski grew up in Kars, Chotyn , Pyatigorsk , Vladikavkaz and Saint Petersburg . At the age of 16 (after the death of his mother) he made his first luxury trip to Italy and France to meet relatives of the Polish nobility. Many more will follow. After studying law, he took courses in a drawing academy in Saint Petersburg. When the First World War broke out, he was entrusted with the management of a medical train. As a result of an ecstatic experience, he converted from the Russian Orthodox to the Roman Catholic faith at the end of 1916 . In 1917 he served in Kiev as an interpreter for the French General Georges Tabouis (1867–1957).

Artist in Paris

In the spring of 1919 he fled with the family by train to Trieste and from there alone to Capri and Rome. In June 1919 he settled permanently in Paris, frequented high society among nobles, rich, celebrities and artists and made a name for himself as a well-paid portrait draftsman (drypoint), costume artist and illustrator. Elsa Maxwell , Felix Felixowitsch Jussupow , Nicolas Nabokov , his aunt Catherine Radziwill , Misia Sert , Ganna Walska , Liane de Pougy , Jeanne Lanvin and many other celebrities were among his circle of friends.

Monk in Saint-Maximin-la-Sainte-Baume

In 1926 he got into a life crisis and was introduced to Jacques Maritain by Józef Czapski , who referred him to Vladimir Ghika . He achieved his conversion. In search of the contemplative way of life that was appropriate for him, he met the Benedictines of Solesmes , but decided on the Dominicans of the Saint-Maximin-la-Sainte-Baume monastery . Under adventurous circumstances, he used the publicly announced trip to the United States to flee to the monastery at night. There he was dressed on February 1, 1927 and took the religious name Marie-Ceslas. His novice master was Hyacinthe Lacomme (1859-1945). He made his solemn profession on February 2, 1931. He was ordained a priest on July 22, 1932 in the presence of Ghika and Maritain. A friendship with Raymond Léopold Bruckberger (1907–1998) arose in Saint-Maximin-la-Sainte-Baume.

Dominicans in Friborg in Switzerland

In 1933 he was appointed spiritual director of the Dominican International Seminary in Friborg (Switzerland) . At the same time he was responsible for the spiritual care of the Dominican convent Estavayer-le-Lac . In Freiburg he became friends with Jean de Menasce and the later Cardinal Charles Journet . In 1939 he achieved the conversion of Julien Green . By the death of his sister Ada and his brother-in-law Adam Lubomirski in Rowno and the resulting duty of care for his niece Ada (1928-2018) he was prevented from converting to the Carthusian monastery , which he knew from Montrieux and La Valsainte and which he had in mind Embodied the ideal of contemplation better than the Dominicans.

Dominicans in Toulouse, La Sainte Baume and Prouille

From 1946 to 1951 Rzewuski was a novice master in Toulouse , but suffered from the gap he felt between himself and the younger generation. Dismissed in 1951, he was transferred to the La-Sainte-Baume grotto as one of three spiritual supervisors , where he made André Chouraqui a friend. From 1955 he was the priest of the Dominican Sisters in Prouille . Thanks to an anonymous patroness, he comfortably expanded his hermitage and had the basilica restored. From 1956 he was promoted to papal delegate for the southern French Federation of Dominican Sisters (8 monasteries) and in 1958 to apostolic visitor (until 1970). As such, he made numerous trips to large parts of the world. In 1964 he took part in a session of the council . From 1970 he felt at Prouille as elder . In 1976 his extensive memoirs appeared. He died during a stay in Venice at the age of 90. His grave is on the Isola di San Michele .

Works

• À travers l'invisible cristal. Confessions d'un dominicain . Plon, Paris 1976 (preface by Gaston Palewski and Raymond Léon Bruckberger).
  • (Italian) Confessioni di un domenicano. The festival of the ruggenti anni Venti al silenzio del chiostro . Rusconi, Milan 1984. Bompiani, Milan 2001.
• (Ed.) Liane de Pougy: Mes cahiers bleus . Plon, Paris 1977.
• L'Instant. Testament d'un dominicain . Plon, Paris 1980.
• La double tragédie de Misia Sert . Cerf, Paris 2006.

literature

• Valentino Brosio: Tre ritratti segreti. Annie Vivanti, Filippo De Pisis, Alex Ceslas Rzewuski OP Fògola Editore, Turin 1983.
• David Gaillardon (* 1968): La beauté et la grâce. Itinéraire d'un aristocrate européen, Alex Rzewuski . Biography. Lacurne, Paris 2019 (main source for this article).

Web links

• Information on Alex-Ceslas Rzewuski in the database of the Bibliothèque nationale de France .
• Literature by and about Alex-Ceslas Rzewuski in the SUDOC catalog (Association of French University Libraries )