Post AWVRV9PZ9mMnBayhXM by benjamingeer@zirk.us
 (DIR) More posts by benjamingeer@zirk.us
 (DIR) Post #AWVPbwTXS0cVBVwlJg by CitizenWald@historians.social
       2023-06-09T05:53:00Z
       
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       20 Prairial II/8 June 1794, old styleMaximilien Robespierre presides over the Festival of the Supreme Being, a new state religion combining theism, rationalism, & democracyImage 1 Engraving by P-G Berthault after Jean Duplessis-Bertaux (Tableaux historiques de la Révolution française 1794) focuses on the staid & static gathering at the buildings on the Champ de MarsImage 2 by G. Texier/Tessier shows the more dramatic allegorical staging of the artificial mountain on the Field of Reunion 1/n
       
 (DIR) Post #AWVQbdISr9VfepBQbA by CitizenWald@historians.social
       2023-06-09T06:04:09Z
       
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       The French Revolutionary Festival of the Supreme Being (20 Prairial II/8 June 1794, old style) was one of several civic rites mandated by the National Convention upon the report of the Committee of Public Safety.  National recognition of the deity served as a reminder of the moral duties of the community.The artist Jacques-Louis David was put in charge of the plan (Art. 14-15)2/n
       
 (DIR) Post #AWVRV9PZ9mMnBayhXM by benjamingeer@zirk.us
       2023-06-09T06:14:10Z
       
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       @CitizenWald I liked David Bell’s interpretation of this in The Cult of the Nation in France, that the revolutionaries were aware that the nation in whose name the revolution had been carried out didn’t exist, so they were searching for ways to create it, and this led them to create nationalism as a religion.
       
 (DIR) Post #AWVSNNWusdt6byH2ky by CitizenWald@historians.social
       2023-06-09T06:24:00Z
       
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       It takes a tender man to to be tough on counterrevolutionRobespierre presided over Festival of the Supreme Being, 8 June 1794, wearing a coat of iridescent blue, carrying a bouquet of wheat Illustration by Raffet for Lamartine's Histoire des Girondins, 1848.Robespierre considered the event a success & saw divine favor in the victory at Fleurus weeks later. Critics saw megalomaniacal striving to create a new papacy & felt that the military triumph obviated the need for further "Terror" 3/n
       
 (DIR) Post #AWVSbEOncqnWLY5Brc by CitizenWald@historians.social
       2023-06-09T06:26:30Z
       
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       @benjamingeer Yes, generally agree. The whole idea of a real nation (vs. regionalism) was fairly new: hence the flag (uniting the white of the Bourbon monarchy with the red and blue of Paris), the emphasis on the Republic One and Indivisible, etc. etc. (Among works of a few decades ago, Mona Ozouf wrote about French Revolutionary festivals, and even earlier, George Mosse wrote about rituals and organizations in the shaping of German nationalism)
       
 (DIR) Post #AWVYGXtOYOA0Rqug0u by benjamingeer@zirk.us
       2023-06-09T07:29:58Z
       
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       @CitizenWald And in Peasants into Frenchmen, Eugen Weber argues that most people in France didn’t see themselves as French, and that this changed very slowly, with widespread adoption of the French language from about 1880 and especially with WWI, in which many soldiers met others from outside their region for the first time and had to communicate with them in French. It’s unfortunate that this history has hardly made a dent in national myths, almost 50 years later.
       
 (DIR) Post #AWW689olZkl7uHv5l2 by ERBeckman@historians.social
       2023-06-09T13:49:26Z
       
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       @CitizenWald Drippy fit, as the kids say!