Astolphe de Custine

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Astolphe de Custine

Astolphe Louis Léonor, Marquis de Custine (born March 18, 1790 in Niderviller , Lorraine, † September 25, 1857 in Paris ) was a French travel writer .

Life

Astolphe was the second child of Armand de Custine and Delphine de Sabran and a grandson of General Adam-Philippe de Custine, who was executed in 1793 . He entered the diplomatic service and took part in the Congress of Vienna at Talleyrand's side . In 1821 he married Léontine de Saint-Simon de Courtomer. He toured England , Scotland , Switzerland and Calabria from 1811-22 , went to Spain in 1835 and in the summer of 1839 to Russia . This trip lasted from the beginning of July to the end of September. He stayed in St. Petersburg for a long time and traveled from there via Moscow to Yaroslavl, Kostroma, Nizhny Novgorod, Vladimir and then back to Moscow and St. Petersburg. De Custine died in September 1857.

His long travels provided him with the material for his writings, he also wrote successful short stories and novels and the verse drama: Béatrix Cenci (1833). His Lettres à Varnhagen d'Ense et Rahel Varnhagen d'Ense appeared in Brussels in 1870.

In his travelogue La Russie en 1839 , de Custine characterized Russia as an expansionist and despotic power that threatens liberal culture and non-Orthodox Christianity. For the research for his book, de Custine was in contact with Polish exiles in the highest circles of Russian society. Six editions of the book appeared in France within a short time. German, Danish and English translations were also in circulation. In Russia the book was banned until 1917. In 1985 it was published in excerpts as Russian Shadow .

Works

Fiction
  • Beatrice Cenci. Tragédie en cinq actes en vers . Fourier, Paris 1833
  • Le monde comme il est. Novel . Édition Renduel, 2 vols., Paris 1835
Letters, diaries
  • Phyllis P. Kohler (Ed.): Journey for our time. The journals of the Marquis de Custine . Prior Books, London 1987, ISBN 0-86043-391-9
  • Lettres de Marquis A. de Custine à Varnhagen et Rahel Varnhagen d'Ense . Accompagnées de plusieurs lettres de la Comtesse Delphine de Custine et de Rahel Varnhagen d'Ense . Edited by Ludmilla Assing . Bruxelles, C. Muquardt, Henry Merzbach 1870, ND: Édition Slatkine, Paris, Geneva 1979 (Collection ressources 52), ISBN 2-05-000119-3
  • Correspondence with Hermann von Pückler-Muskau in ders .: Correspondence and diaries. Edited by Ludmilla Assing-Grimelli. Vol. 8, Wedekind & Schwieger, Berlin 1876, ND Herbert Lang, Bern 1971, p. 452 ff.
Non-fiction
  • Mémoires et voyages or lettres écrites à diverse époques pendant des courses en Suisse, en Calabre, en Angleterre et en Ecosse . 2 vols., Bourin, Paris 1992, ISBN 2-87686-142-9
  • La Russie en 1839 . 4 vols., Librairie d'Amyot, Paris 1843, digitized vols. 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 on Gallica
    • Russia in 1839 (“La Russie en 1839”). Berger, Leipzig 1843 (translated by August Diezmann)
    • Russian shadow. Prophetic letters from 1839 (“La Russie en 1839”). Greno, Nördlingen 1985, ISBN 3-921568-43-9 ( The Other Library ; Vol. 12; abbreviated edition of the previous title)

literature

  • Irena Grudzinska Gross: The Scar of Revolution. Custine, Tocqueville , and the Romantic Imagination . University Press, Berkeley, Calif. 1991, ISBN 0-520-07351-7
  • George F. Kennan : The Marquis de Custine and His Russia in 1839 . Hutchinson, London 1972, ISBN 0-09-109830-0
  • Francine-Dominique Liechtenhan : Astolphe de Custine voyageur et philosophe . Champion, Paris 1990, ISBN 2-05-101094-3
  • Albert M. de Luppé: Astolphe de Custine . Édition du Rocher, Monaco 1957
  • Anka Muhlstein: Astolphe de Custine. The Last French Aristocrat ("Astolphe de Custine, le dernier marquis"). Duckworth, London 2001, ISBN 0-7156-3055-5
  • Christian Sigrist : The Marquis de Custine's image of Russia. From criticism of civilization to hostility to Russia . Lang, Frankfurt / M. 1990, ISBN 3-631-40576-6 (Sociology and Anthropology; 6)
  • Julien-Frédéric Tarn: Le Marquis de Custine ou les Malheurs de l'exactitude . Fayard, Paris 1985, ISBN 2-213-01548-1

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Orlando Figes: Crimean War Berlin, 2014, pp. 146–149.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Custine, Astolphe de
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Custine, Astolphe Louis Léonor Marquis de (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French travel writer
DATE OF BIRTH March 18, 1790
PLACE OF BIRTH Niderviller
DATE OF DEATH September 25, 1857
Place of death Paris