Robert Randau

Robert Randau , actually Robert Arnaud (born February 16, 1873 in Mustapha, today Sidi M'Hamed , Algeria , † August 4, 1950 in Algiers ) was a French colonial official, ethnologist and writer .

Life

He was born as Robert Arnaud in Mustapha, now Sidi M'Hamed . His family has lived there since 1844, because his maternal grandfather Robert Arnaud Ducheyron de Beaumont du Pavillon had been transferred to the newly founded Spahi Corps . He is brought up very strictly by his father. His mother wants him to be a priest, but he refuses. He completed high school in a grammar school in Algiers, then he studied law, which he completed with a brilliant exam.

After completing his studies, he entered the École nationale de la France d'Outre-Mer in 1896 , which he quickly left. In the same year he was accepted as the best applicant at the Ecole coloniale . In 1898 he won the Mixed Community Assistants 'Competition and the Translators' Competition. He was appointed General of the Army and seconded to the Office of Local Affairs and Military Personnel, which he headed until 1913. In 1900 he married Renée Battandier, the daughter of the botanist Battandier, professor at the Mustapha Supérieur faculty.

He is entrusted with numerous tasks in Africa. From 1898 to 1899 he was a member of a commission for technology in French Sudan , where he supported the colonial officer Xavier Coppolani in Timbuktu and Araouane . He then accompanied Coppolani in Mauritania in the Tagant until he was murdered in Tidjikja in 1905 .

From 1905 to 1914 he was in Morocco , after which he worked in French West Africa . In 1909 he was inducted into the corps of colonial administrators for outstanding achievements in the expansion of French possessions in French West Africa.

In 1917 he made a tour of the Timbuktu region, where he became the deputy commander of the region. In 1919 he became the administrative inspector in French Sudan. From 1927 to 1928 he fulfilled the duties of deputy governor in Upper Volta .

Robert Randau dies on August 4, 1950 in his apartment at Boulevard St Saëns in Algiers as a result of a stroke.

Randau as "Algerianist"

Randau saw himself as an "Algerianist" and was one of the most important spokesmen for Algerianism. He did not invent the term, but he made it popular and ideologically filled it. For him there are only the Algerians in Algeria , and they are not the locals, but the colonists! The argument is that the locals do not form a homogeneous people (Arabs, Berbers, Tuareg and others), they have not formed a comprehensive state structure, but are oppressed by small regional princes who could only survive with the help of the Turkish sultan. The only thing they have in common that cannot be denied is religion. That is why they are all called "Muslims" and the policies that affect them are called "Muslim politics". The only ones who have a state are the settlers, and however heterogeneous their origins may be (French, Spanish, Portuguese, Greeks, etc.), they gradually grow together and develop a common identity - they are the Algerians. Your noblest task is to patiently bring French civilization closer to the indigenous, who vegetate timelessly, and to accept the best of them - after fulfilling tough, self-denying conditions - as citizens of the Algerian community.

Randau's dream was cruelly burst during the Algerian War 1954-62, but Randau never lived to see it again.

Writing activities

Randau traveled extensively throughout North Africa. He writes travel diaries in which he describes the landscapes and the way of life of the various ethnic groups very precisely. He illustrates the villages and mosques in sketches, but also the devices and cult objects of the natives. These diaries later form the basis from which he feeds his novels and essays.

His work includes 36 novels, volumes of poetry and numerous articles that have been published in various magazines or in the Echo d'Alger, for which he has been writing regularly since 1935.

In addition, he is a staunch fighter for a new kind of autonomy. He co-founded an "Association of Algerian Writers", which from 1921 onwards an Algerian literary prize annually. From 1924 to 1960 he edited the magazine Afrique Latine , which was later renamed Afrique . His book The Conquerors , published in 1911, is a fictional story of his last trip with Xavier Coppolani.

Randau is one of the most important contributors to the magazine La Grande France (1900-1914), which tries to arouse the interest of the Paris public for the spread of French civilization in the countries of the Maghreb and for the development of colonial literature in France.

He was on friendly terms with the painters Guérin and Benjamin Sarraillon, the illustrator of the book Cassard le Berbère, and with Jean Pomier. With him he exchanges letters in verse. Jean Pomier is the real father of the term "Algerianism". This term is then defined and explained by Robert Randau in his preface to the anthology of thirteen African poets. This foreword immediately hit the tone and form of a proper manifesto that conjures up tomorrow's Algeria to develop a “future Franco-Berber people with a French language and civilization”.

In 1933, together with Abd-el-Fikri, he published Les compagnons du jardin , in which an Areopagus relentlessly discusses all questions that affect Algerian society.

Honors

• La Médaille Coloniale (1919)
• La Légion d'Honneur (1920)
• Grand prix littéraire de l'Algérie (1930)
• Prix ​​de la Fondation de l'Académie Française (1940)

Publications

Novels

• Rabbin , roman de mœurs juives, avec Sadia Lévy, Havard fils, 1896
• Onze journées en force , nouvelles, avec Sadia Lévy, Alger, Adolphe Jourdan, 1902
• Les Colons , roman de la patrie algérienne, Sansot, 1907; réédition Albin Michel, coll. "L'Algérie heureuse", 1926, 1978
• Le Commandant et les Foulbé , roman de la grande brousse, Sansot, 1910
• Les Algérianistes , roman de la patrie algérienne, Sansot, 1911; réédition Albin Michel, coll. "L'Algérie heureuse", 1978
• Les Explorateurs , roman de la grande brousse, Sansot, 1911; réédition Albin Michel, coll. "L'Algérie heureuse", 1929
• Celui qui s'endurcit , Sansot, 1913
• L'Aventure sur le Niger , roman de la grande brousse, Sansot, 1913
• Les Terrasses de Tombouctou , illustrations by Louis Ferdinand Antoni, Éditions du livre mensuel, 1920; réédition 1933
• Fantaisies sur l'éternel , Editions du livre mensuel, 1920
• Cassard le berbère , Belles Lettres, 1921
• Le Chef des porte-plume , roman de la vie coloniale, Le Monde nouveau, 1922; réédition Albin Michel, coll. "L'Algérie heureuse", 1926
• À l'ombre de mon baobab , Le Monde nouveau, 1923
• La Ville de cuivre , roman d'aventures, Albin Michel, 1923
• Manuel du parfait explorateur , Baudinière, 1923
• L'Initiation de Reine Dermine , with Albert Lantoine and Jean Royère, Fasquelle, 1925
• Le Grand Patron , roman d'AOF, Albin Michel, 1925
• L'Homme-qui-rit-jaune , Albin Michel, 1926
• L'Œil du monde , Éditions du monde moderne, 1927
• Diko, frère de la côte , Albin Michel, 1929
• Les Meneurs d'homme , Albin Michel, 1931
• Les Compagnons du jardin , avec Abdelkader Fikri, Donat-Montchrétien, 1933
• Des Blancs dans la cité des Noirs , Albin Michel, 1935
• Lucifer et son hôte , Guiauchin, 1936
• Sur le pavé d'Alger , Alger, Fontana, 1937

Essays

• Un Corse d'Algérie chez les hommes bleus: Xavier Coppolani , le pacificateur , Alger, Imbert, 1939, 212 pages
• Robert Randau: The Invention of Mauritania - Xavier Coppolani 1866 - 1905 . with a foreword by Ulrich Rebstock . Ed .: Helmut Wüst. Edition Hamouda, Leipzig 2014, ISBN 978-3-940075-98-7 ( description of contents [accessed on August 6, 2019]).
• Louis Frèrejean, Mauritanie 1903–1911. Mémoires de randonnées et de guerre au pays des Beidanes, Karthala-CEHS, 1995.
• Le Professeur Martin, petit bourgeois d'Alger , Alger, Baconnier, 1938
• Isabelle Eberhardt , notes et souvenirs, Alger, Charlot, 1945; New edition 1989

poetry

• Les dires de celui qui passe , Alger, Adolphe Jourdan, 1899
• Autour des feux de la brousse , Alger, Adolphe Jourdan, 1900; New edition Sansot, 1922

Individual evidence

1. ^ Dictionnaire illustré des explorateurs français du XIX ^e siècle - Afrique, Numa Broc, Verlag CTHS 1988, page 5f
2. ↑ Biography of Benjamin Sarraillon in Les Cahiers d'Afrique du Nord No. 4