Eugène Jouve

Eugène Jouve (born March 15, 1813 in Lyon , † September 13, 1887 , ibid) was a French journalist and war correspondent.

biography

Jouve became well known in France in the 1850s for his correspondence, which appeared in the Courrier de Lyon (where he was also an editor). In particular, his war reporting from the Crimean War , which was also published in book form, made his name known. Over the summer of 1854, Jouve commuted south and north of the Wallachian-Ottoman Danube border and reported on the events there, such as the capture of Giurgiu by divisions of the Turkish army, some of which were commanded by British officers. In general, his reports are of great relevance to what is happening in Romania and Bulgaria today during the first year of the Crimean War, especially since his letters are often designed more as travel descriptions than actual war reports . A contemporary critic, Amédée Pichot (1795–1877), called Jouve's reports "a whole odyssey and an Iliad rolled into one" and attested that he described the events with a clarity that "had both historical and philosophical implications".

Other trips took Jouve to Mexico, Brazil and the USA. In the USA he visited the Niagara Falls twice .

In some of his contributions to the Courrier de Lyon , Jouve also appeared as an art and literary critic; others were devoted to local Lyons news and events.

Jouve's life and work have so far been poorly researched and hardly processed by modern research.

In the judgment of contemporaries

Maxime du Camp (1822–1894), himself a well-known travel writer - he had accompanied Gustave Flaubert on a trip to Egypt in 1851 - judged Jouve's reports from the Crimean War as follows:

«Eugène Jouve n'est point un voyageur enthousiaste, tant s'en faut. Il est mécontent de tout, des villes, paysages, palais et des maisons; rien ne trouve grâce devant lui, ni Smyrne, ni Constantinople. Il se moque de ceux qui se sont fait un Orient idéal, sans s'apercevoir que lui-même s'était bâti un Orient fantastique, et que sa mauvaise humeur vient de ce que la réalité détruit ses illusions. Il a rêvé sans doute pour les villes musulmanes des rues semblables à la rue de Rivoli, et il s'indigne, avec une ingénuité assez comique, contre les ruelles escortées de maisons de bois qu'il est contraint de traverser, et qu'il décrit avec force épithètes désobligeantes. Il n'appartient pas à la classe des voyageurs naïfs qui ressentent l'impression et la gardent précieusement en eux comme un bon souvenir. (...) En outre, c'est, à notre avis, prouver peu de jugement que de vouloir rencontrer sur la terre du vieil Orient des villes semblables à Lyon, à Paris, et même à cette Alger que nous avons rendue française. M. Eugène Jouve ne respecte rien. (...) Son livre est vif et rapide; il va vite, ne s'arrête à aucune rêverie, à aucune pensée un peu élevée; il court toujours au sarcasme et le rencontre parfois très-heureusement. C'est l'Orient vu un peu à rebors, de parti pris de trouver tout mauvais. Tout cela est un peu superficiel, peut-être mais c'est très-spirituel, et souvent très-amusant. »

“Mr. Eugène Jouve is not a traveler inspired by enthusiasm, quite the opposite. He is dissatisfied with everything: the cities, the landscapes, the palaces and the houses; nothing finds grace before him, neither Smyrna nor Constantinople. He makes fun of those who have constructed an ideal Orient for themselves without realizing that he himself has put together a fantastic Orient and that his lousy mood stems from the fact that reality nullifies his illusions. Without a doubt, he dreamed of meeting streets in the Muslim cities that resemble the Rue de Rivoli, and he is indignant, with a very funny-looking naivete, about the alleyways flanked by wooden houses, which he has to walk through with extremely derogatory descriptions. He does not belong to that class of simple-minded travelers who simply let their experiences sink in and then keep them as a good memory like a valuable possession. (…) Furthermore, in our opinion, it shows poor judgment if one expects to encounter cities on the soil of the ancient Orient that resemble Lyon, Paris or even Algiers (which we have now made French through and through). Nothing is sacred to Mr. Eugène Jouve. (…) His book is lively and jumps from one subject to the next; he rushes along quickly and does not dwell on any daydreaming, with no thought that is a little sublime; he always resorts to sarcasm and is sometimes very happy. We are presented with an Orient that is brushed against the grain a bit, described with the anticipation of finding everything bad. Maybe it's all a little superficial, but it's very witty and often very amusing. "

Fonts

• Voyage en America . 2 volumes. V. Mougin-Rusand, Lyon 1853–55
• Voyage de Marseille to Constantinople . V. Mougin-Rusand, Lyon 1854
• Lettres sur la guerre d'Orient . V. Mougin-Rusand, Lyon 1854 ( Gallica )
• Guerre d'Orient. Voyage à la suite des armées alliées en Turquie, en Valachie et en Crimée . 2 volumes. A. Delhomme, Paris 1855 ( Gallica: Volume I ) ( Gallica: Volume II )
  • Italian edition: Storia completa della guerra d'Oriente narrata da Eugenio Jouve con documenti officiali [!] Ed i trattati di pace . Filippo de Bonis, Livorno 1857 ( Google )
• Lettres sur l'Exposition universelle de 1855 . V. Mougin-Rusand, Lyon 1855 ( Gallica )

literature

• Leonid Boicu: Austria și Principatele Române în vremea războiului Crimeii (1853-1856) . Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, Bucharest 1972
• Gérard Fontaines: La culture de voyage à Lyon de 1820 à 1930 . PUL, Lyon 2003

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Amédée Pichot: Chronique litteraire et Bulletin bibliographique . In: Revue brittanique . tape 27 . Paris – Rotterdam – Madrid May 1855, p. 251-256, here p. 256 .
2. ^ Maxime Du Camp, Revue de Paris , Volume 25 (Paris 1855), pp. 458-460.