Denis de Rougemont

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Denis de Rougemont, photography by Erling Mandelmann

Denis de Rougemont (born September 8, 1906 in Couvet , Canton Neuchâtel , † December 6, 1985 in Geneva , Switzerland ) was a Swiss political philosopher and pioneer of European integration .

Life

Rougemont, son of a Reformed pastor and himself a "lifelong Calvinist ", settled in Paris in 1930 after studying the humanities at the universities of Neuchâtel , Vienna and Geneva , where he worked for a small publishing house until 1933 and was a co-founder of the Hic magazine et nunc , Esprit and L'ordre nouveau appeared. Because the publisher went bankrupt and his literary work was not enough to feed the family, he accepted a position as an extraordinary lecturer for French at the University of Frankfurt am Main in 1935/36 through the mediation of Karl Epting and Otto Abetz . During this time his Journal from Germany 1935–1936 was created . On returning to Paris, he worked as editor-in-chief for the magazine Les Nouveaux Cahiers of the French publishing house Éditions Gallimard . In 1939, shortly before the beginning of the Second World War, his main work, Die Liebe und das Abendland , appeared, where he literarily and philosophically analyzed the " amour courtois " of the Provencal minstrels as the basis for the contemporary European conception of love. The book was a great success and was reprinted several times and improved, with the seventh edition from 1972 being considered the final. After the outbreak of war he served as an officer in the Swiss army and was one of the founders of the Gotthard League, which called for resistance to the threat posed by National Socialist Germany and for a renewal of Switzerland. A complaint by the German envoy about an article against the occupation of Paris led to Rougemont's release and short-term house arrest in the summer of 1940, finally to his not entirely voluntary emigration to the United States, where Rougemont lived with his family until 1947. He taught temporarily at the École libre des Hautes Études under the umbrella of the New School for Social Research in New York City and worked for the United States Office of War Information .

After the Second World War, Rougemont lived in Ferney-Voltaire near Geneva and was one of the masterminds of European unification. In his writings he outlined the idea of ​​a federal Europe as an alternative to the centralized nation state. At the Hague European Congress in 1948, he drafted the final manifesto, which gave the impetus for the establishment of the Council of Europe . In 1950 he founded the “Center Européen de la Culture” (CEC) in Geneva, which he headed until his death. From 1952 to 1956, Rougemont was President of the Executive Committee of the “Congrès pour la Liberté de la Culture” in Paris. In 1963 he founded the IUEE - Institut universitaire d'études européennes - at the University of Geneva - which was merged into the GSI - Global Studies Institute - at which he taught until his death. From 1952 to 1982 he was President of the Association Européenne des Festivals de Musique (today: European Festivals Association ), which he initiated together with the conductor Igor Markevitch .

In addition to his work as director of the institute and advisor on European politics, Rougemont wrote ten books between 1948 and 1985 in order to spread his ideas about the future of Europe. L'Aventure Occidentale de l'Homme ( Das Wagnis Abendland , 1957) describes the principles of cohesion, in particular the philosophical and religious foundations of a European culture. In his work L'avenir est notre affaire ( The future is our business , 1977), he analyzes the political developments of the 20th century (growth religion, nation state, technical development). In order to counteract the dangers of the nation state and the concentration of economic power, he proposes concepts for citizen participation and self-administration. He is one of the founders of the “Europe of the Regions” concept.

Honors

In memory of him, an SBB train composition of the type SBB RABDe 500 013-8 (ICN) was named after him.

Works (selection)

Essays
  • Diary of an unemployed intellectual - Journal d'un intellectuel au chômage (1937). Translated from the French by RJ Humm. Hain, Frankfurt am Main 1991, ISBN 3-445-08552-8 .
  • Journal from Germany 1935–1936 - Journal d'Allemagne (1938). Translated from the French by Tobias Scheffel. Paul Zsolnay Verlag , Vienna 1998, ISBN 3-552-04906-1 .
  • Love and the Occident - L'amour et l'occident (1939, revised and expanded edition 1956). Translated from the French by Friedrich Scholz. Kiepenheuer & Witsch 1966. - First complete translation by Friedrich Scholz, with a postscript by the author. Diogenes, Zurich 1987, ISBN 3-257-21462-6 . - Translated by Friedrich Scholz and Irène Kuhn . Frietsch, Gaggenau 2007, ISBN 978-3-937592-16-9 .
  • The Devil's Share - La part du Diable (1942). Translated from the French by Josef Ziwutschka. Amandus-Verlag, Vienna 1949 (German EA). - Translated by Josef Ziwutschka and Elena Kapralik. Matthes & Seitz, Munich 1999, ISBN 3-88221-282-9 .
  • The Occident Adventure - L'Aventure occidentale de l'homme (1957). Translated from the French by Walter Lenz. Langen / Müller, Munich 1959.
  • The future is our business - L'avenir est notre affaire (1977). Translated from the French by Klaus Schomburg and Sylvia M. Schomburg-Scherff. Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 1980, ISBN 3-12-926681-X (numerous editions).
libretto
  • Nicolas de Flue . Légende dramatique (dramatic oratorio). Music (1938/39): Arthur Honegger .

literature

  • Bruno Ackermann: Denis de Rougemont . In: Andreas Kotte (Ed.): Theater Lexikon der Schweiz - Dictionnaire du théâtre en Suisse. Volume 3, Chronos, Zurich 2005, ISBN 3-0340-0715-9 , p. 1535 f. (French).
  • Hannah Arendt : Nightmare and Flight (1944), reprinted in this: Reflections on Literature and Culture. SUP, Stanford 2007, ISBN 978-0-8047-4499-7 , § 10, pp. 91-93.
  • Bruno Ackermann: Denis de Rougemont. Une intellectual biography. 2 vol., Geneva 1996.
  • Franz Knipping: Denis de Rougemont (1906–1985). In: Heinz Duchhardt , Malgorzata Morawiec, Wolfgang Schmale , Winfried Schulze (Hrsg.): Europa-Historiker. A biographical manual. Volume 3. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2007, pp. 157–175.
  • Giangiacomo Vale: Pólemos. La dialettica federalista in Denis de Rougemont. In: Ripensare il federalismo. Prospettive storico-filosofiche. A cura di S. Berardi e G. Vale, Nuova Cultura, Rome 2013, pp. 107-130.
  • Giangiacomo Vale: La croce, l'asse e la spira. Simbolismo dell'Occidente nell'opera di Denis de Rougemont. In: Metabase. VIII, No. 16, 2013, pp. 55-71.
  • Giangiacomo Vale: Una e diversa. L'Europa di Denis de Rougemont. Mimesis, Milan-Udine 2017.

Web links

Commons : Denis de Rougemont  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Franz Knipping: Denis de Rougemont (1906–1985) . In: Heinz Duchhardt, Malgorzata Morawiec, Wolfgang Schmale, Winfried Schulze (Hrsg.): Europa-Historiker. A biographical manual . Volume 3. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2007, pp. 157–175, here p. 163.
  2. ↑ Undine Ruge: The invention of the "Europe of the Regions". Critical history of ideas of a conservative concept. Campus Verlag, 2003, pp. 227-276.
personal data
SURNAME Rougemont, Denis de
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss philosopher
DATE OF BIRTH September 8, 1906
PLACE OF BIRTH Couvet , Canton of Neuchâtel
DATE OF DEATH December 6, 1985
Place of death Geneva