Simone de Beauvoir (full name Simone-Lucy-Ernestine-Marie Bertrand de Beauvoir) - French writer, representative of existential philosophy, ideologist of the feminist movement - was born January 9, 1908 in Paris in comfortable apartments on the Boulevard Raspail.
The family belonged to an old aristocratic family descended from Guillaume de Champeau, a medieval French theologian, rhetorician and logician, Abelard's teacher. Simone was the eldest daughter of Georges Bertrand de Beauvoir, who worked as a legal secretary, and Françoise de Beauvoir, née Brasso, a devout Catholic who was the daughter of a wealthy banker from Verdun. Two years after the birth of Simone, a second daughter, Helen, appeared in the family.
At the age of five and a half, her parents sent Simone to the Cour Desir school, where, under the guidance of nuns, girls from noble families were prepared for a virtuous life. Parents, primarily mother, wanted to see Simone in the future as a respectable wife of some bourgeois, and possibly a prince. Her dreams were not allowed to come true, which was even more disappointing given the ruin of the family due to the fault of the head of the family: Bertrand de Beauvoir invested in a loan from the government of the Russian Empire at a high income promised by Nicholas II, but the 1917 revolution buried dreams of income, like the investments themselves. The strict bourgeois upbringing received from her mother is described in Simone's book "Memoires d'une jeune fille rangée" (Mémoires d'une jeune fille rangée, 1958 ).
The ruin of the family, sad in essence, at the same time was for Simone a very real confirmation of the special fate that she imagined in childhood. Fervently indulging in prayers, the girl "played" the great martyr, believing that her life was forever given to God. However, diligent study at the school where she went to the best students could not fix the plight of the family, which was forced to change prestigious housing above the bohemian Rotunda restaurant to a cramped apartment in a dark building without an elevator on the Rue Ren.
The parents explained to their daughter that only education would help her get out of the plight in which the family found itself. Religiosity gave way to doubt, and then to disappointment. By adolescence, another characteristic feature appeared in the girl: along with intelligence, she showed the ability to make uncompromising decisions. The step from a great martyr to a militant atheist by Simone's standards was a reasonable and reasonable step.
Her interest in literature was instilled in her by her father. By the age of fifteen, Simone had already decided to become a famous writer. She was fascinated by Maurice Barres, Paul Claudel, Andre Gide, Paul Valery, and keeping a detailed diary replaced confession.
Graduated from school in 1925; studied mathematics at the Catholic Institute of Paris, philology at the Saint-Marie-de-Neuilly Institute. A year later, she received a diploma from the University of Paris in literature and Latin. In 1927 received a diploma in philosophy (her final qualifying work was devoted to the philosophy of Leibniz) and became the ninth woman to graduate from the Sorbonne. In teaching practice, she met Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Claude Levi-Strauss; I worked with them at the same school. Spring 1928 she received her Bachelor of Arts degree. At the Faculty of Arts, she met with Jean-Paul Sartre, Paul Nizan, Rene Maillot (the latter, playing on the consonance of her last name with the English word beaver (beaver), gave her the nickname "Beaver", which in a friendly circle stuck to Simone until the end of her life). She began to prepare for the competition in philosophy - an exam, according to the results of which a general French rating of students is compiled - for which, in particular, she attended classes at the prestigious Higher Normal School. Jean-Paul Sartre won first place in the exam, Simone second, and at twenty-one she became the youngest person to pass this exam.
Acquaintance with Sartre grew into a relationship that lasted a lifetime. After graduation, de Beauvoir and Sartre had to decide if they would stay together. However, they never became husband and wife. Instead, they entered into an agreement between themselves, according to which they became partners, keeping each other intellectually faithful, while not considering treason for love affairs on the side.
In 1929-1931 Sartre served in the army. After the service, he was sent to work in Le Havre, while Simon in 1931 went to teach philosophy in Marseille. They decided to extend their contract and still did not want to bind each other with obligations, while continuing to communicate closely. In 1932-1937 Simone worked in Rouen - taught at the Lycée Corneille, and then - at the Parisian Lycée Molière. She constantly saw Sartre, and both led a serene life at that time, full of intellectual games, flirting and love affairs.
Immersed in the world of literature and philosophy, Simone and Sartre held extreme revolutionary views, while being at the other extreme from real participation in political life.
In 1939 she makes an attempt to print her first book - a collection of stories "The Supremacy of the Spirit" (published in 1979 titled "When the Spirit Rules" (Quand prime le spirituel)). However, the manuscript was rejected by the publisher, who found Beauvoir's picture of manners unconvincing. In the same year, Sartre, with the beginning of the Strange War, was taken into the army, and in June 1940 he is captured, where he spends nine months and is released due to poor health.
After Sartre returned to Paris, Simone took part with him in organizing the underground group "Socialism and Freedom", which also included Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Jean-Toussaint Desanti, Jean Canapa and others. However, the group soon disbands, and Sartre decides to fight the occupation through writing.
In 1943 Beauvoir is suspended from teaching, the reason for which was the statement of the mother of Natalie Sorokina, who accuses Simone of molesting her daughter. The suspension was lifted after the war. In 1943 Beauvoir publishes his first novel, The Guest (L'Invitée), which promotes the ideas of existentialism. This theme (freedom, responsibility, interpersonal relationships) is also present in her subsequent works. Beauvoir began work on The Guest in 1938 the book was finished summer 1941 . However, the novel did not reflect the turbulent events of the political life of that period.
In 1944 Jean Grenier introduces Simone to the concept of existentialism. She agrees to write an essay for an upcoming collection reflecting contemporary ideological trends, and by 1944 writes "Pyrrhus and Cineas" (Pyrrhus et Cineas). In it, Beauvoir “comes to the conclusion that every action is fraught with risk and the threat of defeat. Man's duty to himself is to accept the risk, but to reject even the thought of a coming defeat.
During the war years, Simone writes a novel about the Resistance, "The Blood of Others" (Le Sang des autres). Recognized in America as a "textbook of existentialism," the book represents Beauvoir's position on the responsibility of man for his actions.
In 1945 Sartre, together with Michel Leiris, Boris Vian and others, founded the literary and political journal New Times. The editorial board, along with Simone, includes Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Raymond Aron, Jean Paulan. In the future, Simone took an active part in the life of the magazine. Sartre's frequent absences in the United States forced her to write essays and notes for the magazine not only on her own behalf, but also on his behalf. She also remained his most important editor and critic: she read everything he wrote to the line.
After the war, Simona works fruitfully. In 1945 in Modern Times, her work “Literature and Metaphysics” (Littérature et métaphysique), later included in the book “For the Morality of Ambiguity” (Pour une morale de l’ambiguïté, 1947 ), she publishes a fantasy novel "All men are mortal" (Tous les hommes sont mortels, 1946 ). But professional success is overshadowed by new problems in his personal life, connected, of course, with Sartre. In the USA, Jean-Paul is madly infatuated with Dolores Vanetti and almost forgets about Simone. Unable to influence him, she is forced to transform her tormenting feelings into words on paper (“All people are mortal” was just the result of her suffering).
In 1947 Simone also travels to the US with a course of lectures on literature. There she meets Nelson Algren. Between them begins a romance that lasted fourteen years. Simone felt the warmth and joy of genuine physical love, but she refused to marry Algren and have children with him. The bonds that bound her to Sartre remained unshakable. And although their paths after the war largely diverged, both in space and in philosophical views, Beauvoir never betrayed the idea of \u200b\u200bthe wonderful union of two intellectuals, on the contrary, she always tried to feed it, no matter how illusory at times it became.
In 1958 published the first book of an autobiographical trilogy - Memoires d'une jeune fille rangée, 1958 ). In this book, the author talks about his life up to adulthood. In the next two parts of the autobiographical trilogy, "The Power of Maturity" (La Force de l "âge, 1960 ) and "The Power of Things" (La Force des choses, 1963 ), depicts her life as an associate and student of Sartre. Simone de Beauvoir's novels develop existentialist ideas. In the novel "Tangerines" (Les Mandarins, 1954 ), which received the most prestigious French literary prize - Goncourt, reflects the life events of writers from Sartre's entourage, shows the ideological and political life of post-war France.
A married couple of famous French writers professed the principles of "free love". While the husband's intimate relationship went far beyond the usual outrageousness, the wife had no choice but to become a "classic of feminism" and, secretly from her followers, suffer from the torment of jealousy.
A real sensation in the circles of the intelligentsia of Europe and America was made by Simone de Beauvoir's book "The Second Sex", which is a very controversial and biting controversy about the position of women in the modern world. She became a true symbol of the sexual revolution of the 1960s. One of the central ideas of the book was the call: "A woman must live for herself." The author wrote: “Not many works are so similar to Sisyphean labor as the work of a housewife; day after day she washes the dishes, wipes the dust, mends the linen, but the next day the dishes will again be dirty, the rooms dusty, the linen torn. The housewife...does not create anything, she only preserves what exists unchanged. Because of this, she gets the impression that all her activities do not bring concrete Good ... ” Naturally, biologically, women are not programmed for the household to the same extent as for childbearing. However, children tie them to the house, which then becomes their “prison” and remains so in the future, no matter how hard women try to decorate and equip it ...
The philosophical writings of Simone de Beauvoir note a balanced objectivity, insight, outlook, a good style, an enlightening beginning, but not everyone in society liked her, she was scolded by both Marxists and Catholics. They believed that her "purely feminine" rebellion was not a justification for the need for emancipation, but evidence of unbridled pride and a torn soul. The calm harmonious state of Simone, as she admitted, was destroyed more than once throughout her life, and the writer subjected her fate to ruthless analysis both in works of art and in scientific research.
The husband of the "founder of feminism" French philosopher and writer Jean Paul Sartre has always been in the focus of European criticism. They argued about him, refuted him, agreed with him, admired and resented him so that in the end his political views overshadowed his work, and his personal life acquired the character of a real show. The constant interest of the public was caused by the numerous love affairs of the philosopher, his shocking statements about sexual freedom, marital relations, problems of childbearing, and so on, to which Sartre even tried to give a philosophical justification.
Loneliness, fear of death, freedom - these are the themes that were the main ones in his philosophy, which bore the mysterious name "existentialism" (from the Latin "existential", which means "existence"). The widespread popularity of existentialism in the post-war years was due to the fact that this philosophy attached great importance to freedom. Since, according to Sartre, to be free means to be oneself, since "man is doomed to be free." At the same time, freedom appears as a heavy burden, but a person must bear this burden "if he is a person." He can give up his freedom, stop being himself, become "like everyone else", but only at the cost of giving up himself as a person.
The writer himself disposed of this freedom in a very peculiar way, openly demonstrating to society a complete disregard for any moral restrictions, having reached such manifestations both in behavior and in intimate life that clearly exceeded the boundaries of ordinary outrageousness. And this individualism of Sartre was as attractive as his philosophical views and his artistic creativity.
The family of Jean Paul Sartre belonged to the French petty bourgeoisie. His father, Jean-Baptiste Sartre, a naval engineer, died of a tropical fever caught in Indochina when his son was less than a year old. Mother, Anne Marie - Albert Schweitzer's cousin, came from a family of famous Alsatian scientists. Maternal grandfather Charles Schweitzer, professor, Germanic philologist and founder of the Institute of Modern Language, in whose house Jean Paul spent his childhood, adored his grandson. He admired his tricks and gradually prepared him for literary activity, instilling in him a love of reading books.
Later, Sartre wrote: "I began my life on June 21, 1905, as, in all likelihood, I will end it - among books." The grandfather's upbringing thus naturally led to the teaching profession. But the boy himself dreamed of more, believing that he was entrusted with some important mission. True, reality did not give many reasons for such dreams. Starting to communicate with his peers, Jean Paul suddenly discovered that he was small in stature, physically much weaker than his friends and not always ready to stand up for himself. This discovery shocked him. However, a loving grandfather was nearby: “He saved me, without wanting it himself, and thereby pushed me to the path of a new self-deception, which turned my life upside down.”
This "self-deception", or rather, an escape from reality, was writing. Jean Paul began to write novels in a chivalrous spirit, drawing plots from books and films. Relatives, admiring the first literary experiences of the 8-year-old novelist, began to predict his writing career, and his grandfather decided to send him to the Montaigne Lyceum: “One morning he took me to the director and painted my virtues. “He has only one drawback,” said the grandfather. "He's too mature for his age." The director did not argue... After the very first dictation, grandfather was urgently summoned to the lyceum authorities. He returned beside himself with rage, took out from his briefcase an unfortunate sheet of paper covered with scrawls and blots, and threw it on the table… “Markofi grows in agarodi.” At the sight of the agarod, my mother was overwhelmed with uncontrollable laughter. He stuck in her throat under the menacing look of her grandfather. At first, my grandfather suspected me of negligence and scolded me, but then he announced that I was underestimated!
The real study of the young talent began with the Henry IV Lyceum and continued in 1924 at the privileged educational institution Ecole Normale Superier. Having chosen philosophy as the subject of his studies, Jean Paul quickly gained prestige among teachers and fellow students. A circle of talented youth formed around him, carried away by the idea of Sartre to create a new direction in the philosophical understanding of being. It was then that Jean Paul noticed the capable, beautiful, and most importantly, smart student Simone de Beauvoir, who, unlike the other girls, was proud and independent. Through his friend Paul Nizan, Sartre confessed his love to Simone, and then a closer acquaintance took place. After some time, it turned into a mutual feeling, especially after Jean Paul outlined to his chosen one not quite ordinary views on marriage, friendship and intimate relationships.
The practical young man's words fell on fertile ground. The fact is that Simone was an extraordinary person. Her father, the famous Parisian lawyer Jean de Beauvoir, passionately dreamed of a son and for a long time could not come to terms with the idea that on January 9, 1908, his wife Francoise had a daughter. Apparently, in an effort to prove her "fullness", Simone already in her childhood acquired character traits that were not characteristic of girls: she behaved quite independently, despised the weak, never cried, did not concede to boys in fights, and at the age of 13 she finally decided that she would not have children and become a famous writer. Be that as it may, observing the family life of her parents and their friends, the smart Simone early came to the conclusion that the family kills love, turning life into a measured series of banalities: bedroom, dining room, work. At the age of 19, she announced to her relatives: "I do not want my life to be subject to anyone else's desire, except my own."
Why did she pay attention to Sartre? After all, outwardly he could not be called a representative, and even more attractive young man: short, narrow in the shoulders, sparse hair, an asymmetrical face, a noticeable squint, and in addition to everything - a very solid abdomen. True, as a speaker he had no equal. His passionate speeches were enthusiastically listened to by many admirers and admirers, among whom, of course, was Simone.
Finally, there was a long-awaited declaration of love and a completely extraordinary marriage proposal. Jean Paul told his fiancee that he adhered to anti-philistine principles. Therefore, their relationship should be built on a completely different basis, that is, on a kind of family contract: “Marrying and living under the same roof as husband and wife is bourgeois vulgarity and stupidity. Children also bind and kill love, and besides, fussing with them is a senseless fuss and a waste of time. On the other hand, they undertake to always be there, to consider themselves belonging to each other and to drop everything if one of them needs help. In addition, they are required to have no secrets and tell each other about everything, as in confession. And, finally, most importantly, lovers should give each other complete sexual freedom.
From such a "marriage agreement" Simone was indescribably delighted: her relationship with Sartre would be unique, and this is exactly what she dreamed of. True, then she did not really delve into the meaning of the phrase "complete sexual freedom", but, apparently, she decided that this concept was closely connected with the philosophical ideas of her lover.
However, there was a person who did not share Simone's enthusiasm - her father. Moreover, he was beside himself with anger. Not only has her daughter chosen the profession of a philosopher, which is completely “indecent” for their circle, she is also going to marry a man of radical convictions, almost a Marxist, who undermines the moral foundations of society. But Simone always liked to tease her parents, she believed that this was how a woman's independence should be manifested. And besides, among her friends, where Jean Paul dominated, such things as property, money, social manners and bourgeois good manners were especially despised.
After graduation, the newlyweds had to leave, because there were no vacancies in Paris. She went to Marseille, he went to Le Havre to teach philosophy. They had to meet two or three times a month, but they wrote letters to a friend almost every day.
Far from her husband, Simone was clearly bored and did not know what to do with the notorious "freedom". She had few hours at the Lyceum, her colleagues seemed stupid and uninteresting to her, and Sartre was far away. Therefore, having received another letter, where he announced that he intended to leave for Germany, she decided to go to him. And when she appeared in a tiny room in a seedy Berlin hotel, her husband, instead of greeting, happily announced that he "had a little romance." Since introducing his wife to the heroines of "small romances" was part of the condition of their contract, Sartre first described his new girlfriend in detail, and then introduced her to Simone.
Beautiful, languid Marie Girard was the wife of one of the local French students. She attracted the young teacher with her daydreaming and some unusual look "above objects and people." When meeting, the red-haired beauty only glanced at her friend's wife and advised her to teach Sartre how to make love, "otherwise he is very boring in bed." Simone could hardly contain herself, so as not to seem offended. And after this meeting, the husband enthusiastically told his friends that their once-bonded union with his wife had stood the test of time: they are still like-minded people looking for their own path in creativity.
Indeed, their creative path was developing successfully. In 1938, Sartre's novel "Nausea" was published, which made him a famous writer, and Simone worked hard on the novel "The Guest". The shortly published collection of short stories by Jean Paul "The Wall" was awarded the following praise in the press: "Fairy tales are terrible, cruel, disturbing, shameless, pathological, erotic ... Masterpieces of the cruel genre." Such an assessment of the author was incredibly flattering.
Soon the couple settled in Paris. Their nightly haunt was the famous Three Musketeers Cafe on Maine Avenue. Dozens of admirers of Jean Paul flocked here to listen to his speeches and argue. True, the fashionable writer and philosopher had a rather strange look: a dirty shirt, a rumpled hat, worn-out shoes, and sometimes of a different color. Simone's appearance has hardly changed, except that it has become even more ascetic: a false braid on smoothly combed black hair, unpretentious plaid skirts, strict fitted jackets. Among the cheeky Parisian bohemia, she looked somewhat unusual, but did not attach any importance to this.
For some time now, spouses began to appear everywhere along with some pretty girl. Everyone around knew that this was another young mistress of Sartre and his feminist wife, who did not disdain lesbian sex. In the mid 1930s. this role was played by Olga Kozakevich, the daughter of Russian emigrants, who was still a student of Simone in Rouen. In society, Olga behaved rather cheekily: defiantly sat on Sartre's knees, suddenly began to hug him and kiss him passionately, she could make a small scandal. This, however, did not irritate Jean Paul at all, on the contrary, it even impressed him in some way.
Olga Kozakevich was replaced by her sister Wanda, then came Camilla Anderson, then Bianca Bienenfeld... female. Despising herself for her weakness, Simone, nevertheless, was painfully jealous of her husband and hated his often changing mistresses. Having had enough of students, Sartre became interested in exotic oriental beauties, whom he found in no one knows where. Out of jealousy, de Beauvoir began to drink, often appeared tipsy in the audience, but at the same time, even to her closest friends, she continued to repeat that she was “absolutely happy with her husband” and that they had “an ideal marriage of a new type.”
During the Second World War, Jean Paul, due to a visual defect, did not get into the army, but served as a meteorologist in the rear. After the capture of France by the Nazis, he spent some time in a concentration camp for prisoners of war, but in the spring of 1941 he was released, and he returned to literary and teaching activities. The main works of this time were the play “Behind the Locked Door” and the voluminous work “Being and Nothingness”, the success of which allowed Sartre to leave teaching and devote himself entirely to philosophizing.
It is believed that during this period the couple took part in the resistance movement. However, all of Sartre's "active participation" in the fight against fascism comes down to a few months of the existence of the "Socialism and Freedom" group, which he organized upon his return from captivity and which disintegrated in the autumn of 1941, after which the philosopher thought not so much about the Resistance, but about his own. writing career. But Simone forever had a guilt complex due to the fact that she did not know the feeling of hunger, did not freeze and did not experience deprivation. In moral terms, the lack of such an experience oppressed her much more than a conscious refusal to have children. In the end, the children were replaced by numerous books, where she tried to understand herself and, for example, what children are as a form of procreation of the human race.
The "ideal marriage" of Sartre and de Beauvoir in Paris was the talk of the town. They lived apart, on different floors of a run-down hotel on the Rue de Selle, categorically refusing to own any property whatsoever. In the morning, before classes, they invariably drank morning coffee together, at seven o'clock in the evening, despite the weather and circumstances, they met and walked around the city, talking about philosophy or about their literary works. We usually dined at the Three Musketeers, where we stayed until late at night.
But then an event occurred that came as a surprise to everyone: Simone fell in love, which she immediately confessed to Sartre. He was quite surprised, although, it seemed, he should not have been surprised at his wife's romance, because the right to "sexual freedom", according to the contract, they both had. She was 39 at the time, he was in his 50s. We must pay tribute to Sartre - no matter how unexpected this news seemed to him, he, having pulled himself together, reacted to it with philosophical calmness.
In January 1947, Simone de Beauvoir visited the United States at the invitation of several American universities. While on her way to Chicago, she, on the advice of a friend, met the young writer Nelson Algren. He took her around the city, showed the Chicago "bottom", the slums and dens, the Polish quarter where he grew up, and in the evening of the next day she left for Los Angeles ...
Two months later, she wrote to a new acquaintance: “Now I will always be with you - on the dull streets of Chicago, on the elevated train, in your room. I will be with you as a devoted wife with a beloved husband. We will not have an awakening because this is not a dream: this is a wonderful reality, and everything is just beginning. I feel you near, and wherever I go now, you will follow me - not only your eyes, but you are all, entirely. I love you, that's all I can say. You hug me, I cuddle up to you and kiss you, as I kissed you recently.
Since that time, endless flights across the Atlantic began and short meetings with a new lover. Nelson lived in his own comfortable house with mowed lawns and a melodious bell at the door. He brought Simone coffee in bed, forced him to eat right and regularly, gave cooking lessons, gave her negligees and lacy underwear. Such “little things in everyday life” and intimate accessories made a great impression on the “convinced feminist”. And although it was "philistine", she felt happy.
In Paris, however, she had to lead a very different life. Published in 1949, de Beauvoir's The Second Sex became a feminist classic. Less than a week after its publication, Simone became the most famous and popular writer in France. Sartre was pleased: the idea for the book belonged to him.
At that moment, Nelson Algren arrived in Paris and posed a dilemma for his mistress - he or Sartre. After long, painful doubts, Simone made her choice. She stayed with her husband because she could not "betray the common ideals." But it also meant the loss of the only hope for a new love and liberation. Once they came up with this saving formula together, but over the years it has become an axiom. Each of the spouses achieved their goal. Simone wrote dozens of books, Jean Paul was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1964 "for his work, rich in ideas, imbued with the spirit of freedom and the search for truth, which had a huge impact on our time." Referring to the fact that he "does not want to be turned into a public institution", and fearing that the status of a Nobel laureate would only interfere with his radical political activities, Sartre refused the prize.
In 1965, when the writer was already sixty, and his union with his wife was 36 years old, he inflicted the last mental trauma on her by adopting his 17-year-old Algerian mistress Arlette el-Kaim. She was threatened with deportation from the country, and Sartre did not want to part with her. To Simone's indignation, this, in her words, shameless girl dared not let her into her husband's house. The old womanizer could not do without female society: “The main reason why I surround myself with women is that I prefer their company to male company. Men usually bore me." And yet he still needed a devoted wife, who remained the only person who understood his ideas even better than himself.
In the second half of the 1960s. he was more involved in politics than literature. With a zeal worthy of a better use, Jean Paul sought to restore the "good name of socialism." He traveled widely, actively opposed class and national oppression, defended the rights of ultra-left groups, and participated in student riots in Paris. Strongly condemning the American military intervention in Vietnam, Sartre took an active part in the anti-war commission organized by Bertrand Russell, which accused the United States of war crimes. He warmly supported the Chinese reforms, the Cuban revolution, but later became disillusioned with the policies of these countries.
After the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, Sartre supported various left-wing extremist groups, was the editor of the Maoist magazine Delo Naroda, criticized the communist parties for "opportunism", and became one of the founders and editor-in-chief of the radical left-wing newspaper Liberation. In 1974, his book "Rebellion is a just cause" was published.
In the last years of his life, Sartre was almost blind due to glaucoma. He could no longer write, but he did not depart from active life: he gave numerous interviews, discussed political events with friends, listened to music, asked his wife to read aloud to him. True, at the same time he became addicted to alcohol, which young fans supplied him with, which, of course, could not but annoy Simone.
When Sartre passed away on April 15, 1980, there was no official funeral ceremony. Shortly before his death, the writer himself asked for this, disgusted by the pathos of ceremonial obituaries and epitaphs. The closest ones followed the coffin. However, as the funeral procession moved through the city, 50,000 Parisians spontaneously joined in. The newspaper Le Monde wrote: "Not a single French intellectual of the 20th century, not a single Nobel Prize winner, has had such a deep, lasting and comprehensive influence on social thought as Sartre."
Simone de Beauvoir survived her unfaithful but beloved friend for six years and died almost on the same day as him, on April 14. United by incomprehensible ties in the earthly world, they are buried side by side - in a joint grave at the Montparnasse cemetery in Paris. Their unusual married life turned out to be long, and the path to their ideals was tortuous and often confusing. But after all, they never thought about the simplicity and clarity of their paths, either in creativity or in love.
The final resting place of writers is now less visited than the graves of chansonniers and pop musicians. However, there are signs of love and gratitude here - on the tombstone of Sartre and de Beauvoir there are always red carnations and pebbles, similar to pebbles picked up on the seashore.
In 1933 Simone de Beauvoir visits Jean-Paul Sartre, working at that time in Berlin and “... stays with him forever, for almost 50 years, until his death in 1980. Their family life bore little resemblance to an ordinary marriage and caused a lot of talk, gossip, and imitations. Marriage was civil, free. Fundamentally. Because the concepts of free will, freedom of choice, autonomy, self-realization of the individual and its true existence became fundamental not only in the original philosophical doctrine - the doctrine of atheistic, or humanistic, existentialism - which they developed together, but also in their personal lives.
Both proceeded from the realities of the 20th century with its social catastrophes - revolutions, world wars, fascism of all kinds and shades - and both believed that these realities could not be assessed otherwise than as a "world of absurdity", where there is neither Meaning nor God. Only the person himself can fill it with content. He and his existence are the only authenticity of being. And in human nature, as well as in human existence, there is nothing predetermined, predetermined - there is no "essence". "Existence precedes essence" - this is the main thesis in the doctrine of Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir. The essence of a person is made up of his actions, it is the result of all the choices he makes in life, his ability to implement his “project” - his own pre-established goals and means, to “transcendence” - the construction of goals and meanings. And the motivators of his actions are the will, the desire for freedom. These motives are stronger than all laws, moral rules and prejudices. They should also determine the family structure, relationships in love. Sartre explained the essence of his understanding of love and marriage in this way: “I love you because I, of my own free will, have bound myself to love you and do not want to change my word; I love you for the sake of fidelity to myself... Freedom comes to existence within this reality. Our objective essence presupposes the existence of another. And vice versa, it is the freedom of another that serves as a justification for our essence.
Freedom, autonomy, equality in self-realization - the principles of the union that linked Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir. Not the easiest and not generally accepted. But Sartre and Simone managed to translate them into everyday habits. They cemented their marriage stronger than official papers, stronger than a common home. By the way, he didn't exist. Simone de Beauvoir could not afford to live the life of a housewife, she had a favorite profession that left no time for household chores. They lived in separate houses, met at the appointed time for dinner, rest, receiving friends, traveled together and spent holidays.
The completeness and richness of the relationship explained their unwillingness to have children. Marriage rested on common interests, a common cause, a common culture, mutual trust and respect. From time to time in the life of one or another there was someone third, a new hobby came. This was openly admitted, sometimes even parted. But loyalty to the once made choice also won over these gaps. Ultimately, their ideologically justified marriage turned out to be a happy one. Both found in him what they were looking for.
Simone de Beauvoir became Sartre's muse and companion. He admitted that he met in her a woman equal to himself in essence. She saved him from the neglect of the other sex, which at first sat in him, saved him from the ridiculous male pride, which in fact turns into a broken life. With Simone, he understood the value and fullness of equal relations between a man and a woman. For Simone de Beauvoir, Sartre proved to be the ideal companion. He not only did not bind her hand and foot with the fetters of everyday life, did not suppress the intellect of a genius, but helped to get rid of the loneliness from which she suffered so much in her youth, helped to believe in herself and creatively take place. And finally, the "privilege" of marriage with Sartre led her to the plot of the book "The Second Sex". Her own family life has become for her something like a looking-glass - a wonderful, but overturned, reverse reflection of ordinary marital everyday life. She allowed Simone to realize more fully all the monstrous injustice of the ordinary female fate - this "viscous existence" in which there is neither freedom nor self-fulfillment.
Aivazova S., Simone de Beauvoir: the ethics of true existence - a preface to the book: Simone de Beauvoir, Second Sex, Volumes 1 and 2, M., "Progress"; St. Petersburg "Aletheia", 1997, p. 6-7.
Today in Russia, when a woman feels her own “I” more and more deeply, not at all being carried away by the problems of feminism, but simply touching on issues more significant and global than the spheres of life and sex that bothered her, she involuntarily faces what she felt and carried through her life Simone de Beauvoir. "Ideas come into the world together with people", many people would like to step into eternity, but most often people belong only to their time. Simone de Beauvoir will be dear to future generations for what she was looking for, although she did not find a stable relationship between the female class and the worldview of the intellectual.
Simone de Beauvoir's book "The Second Sex", written already half a century ago, although it dissolves in many new problems associated with the second millennium, however, in some respects does not cease to be relevant, as it gives a woman an accurate idea of herself, both biological, historical and religious person. No matter what they say about de Beauvoir today, no matter how they “wash” her in the press and sermons, she looked reality in the eye and, by the example of her own life, proved the likelihood of a new nature of the relationship between men and women.
Written in the late forties, the book "The Second Sex" has not ceased to be significant today, despite the women's riots of the thirties, the promotion of noble collective farmers, the glorification of certain personalities of the Soviet period (war veterans, astronauts and members of governments). Individual cases are not the rule. The appearance in the 60s of some fantastic works of fiction on the themes of the Amazons of our day, written mainly by men, only by the nature of their authors' noticeable fear before the onset of the female class confirm the correctness of these judgments.
Now let us recall the fate of the writer herself. The civil wife of the famous French existentialist philosopher, Simone de Beauvoir was born into a prosperous and by no means poor family of a lawyer and a zealous Catholic. Her childhood, as she later admitted, was happy and cloudless. After graduating from the Faculty of Philosophy and writing a work "for the rank", Simone de Beauvoir has been teaching philosophy in Marseille for all the thirties. In the early forties, she begins an affair with the philosophy teacher Jean-Paul Sartre, who became her lifelong friend. As a writer, she takes part with him in the resistance movement. Their participation in these events is ambiguous, and is still disputed by some peers, because they did not endure the hardships that befell those who fought in the Resistance with weapons in their hands. But Simone de Beauvoir forever had a guilt complex due to the fact that she did not know the feeling of hunger, was not cold and did not feel thirsty. In moral terms, the lack of such an experience oppressed her much more than a conscious refusal to have children. In the end, the children were replaced by numerous books, where she tried to understand herself and, for example,
An example of what children are as a form of continuation of the human race. "I have always had a need to talk about myself ... The first question that I always had was this: what does it mean to be a woman?" I thought I would answer it right away. But as soon as I carefully looked at this problem, I realized, first of all, that this world was made for men; my childhood was filled with legends and myths composed by men, but I reacted to them in a completely different way than boys and youths. I was so excited by them that I forgot to listen to my own voice, my own confession ... ".
Simone de Beauvoir writes a lot, but, taking up a pen, she always strives to create only a significant, programmatic work, be it a novel, an essay or an autobiographical story. She reflects on the fact that, unlike many living beings, only a person realizes that his life is finite, that he is mortal. And during this short life, complete freedom is not available to people, they always face the problem of responsibility in communicating "with others." And the greatest difficulties arise in communication between the sexes. Simone de Beauvoir sees the possibility of agreement between them not in the sphere of sex and orientation to the privileged status of a man, but in a joint search for the meaning of life.
At the end of the 20th century, de Beauvoir's books devoted to the "third age" began to be remembered, where she managed to convey the magnificence of life, the anxiety and longing of mature years, the scandalous collision of her own consciousness with the process of dying, disappearing into oblivion.
They also remembered the books in which she talks about her "Roman holidays" with Sartre, about the topics of their conversations and conversations, about what worried them throughout their lives, about the fantastic success of Sartre, about his influence on the youth and minds of his contemporaries.
Simone de Beauvoir herself did not have the ambition of her husband, but she certainly basked in the rays of his glory, let's say with a French touch - "renome", until she earned her own fame with her distinctly expressed "feminism". The philosophical writings of Simone de Beauvoir note a balanced objectivity, insight, outlook, a good style, an enlightening beginning, but not everyone in society liked her, she was scolded by both Marxists and Catholics. They believed that her "purely feminine" rebellion was not a justification for the need for emancipation, but evidence of unbridled pride and humiliation.
shitty soul. The calm harmonious state of Simone de Beauvoir, as she admitted, was destroyed more than once throughout her life, and the writer subjected her fate to ruthless analysis both in works of art and in scientific research.
"My heroine is me," she quotes Maria Bashkirtseva. Indeed, most of her novels are autobiographical. So, for example, in her first novel, The Guest, about the life of a couple whose harmonious harmony is destroyed by a young creature intruding into their lives, she describes her relationship with Jean Paul Sartre. It is no secret that the great philosopher was constantly surrounded by young admirers.
For her, the writer's work is also a way of self-knowledge: "A man acts and thus knows himself. A woman, living locked up and doing work that does not have significant results, cannot determine either her place in the world or her strength. She ascribes to herself the highest meaning precisely because no important object of activity is available to it ...
The desire to live a woman's life, to have a husband, a home, children, to experience the spell of love is not always easy to reconcile with the desire to achieve the intended goal.
Did she succeed in this reconciliation herself? Probably not. But she consciously chose her path. And all her life she tried to prove that a strong relationship is possible between a man and a woman, not due to their biological essence. That is why she refused to have children. That is why she was always close to Sartre even when their mutual passion faded and each of them had their own personal life. Their amazing civil union was legendary. It was believed that none of them wanted more. Every public appearance of a famous philosopher was expected by journalists, who always know more than others, like a sensation: with whom will he appear today? But Sartre persistently demonstrated his loyalty to Simone de Beauvoir.
Was she beautiful? I think no. If you can say that about a Frenchwoman. And she was a real Frenchwoman. She loved beautiful and fashionable clothes and had excellent taste. In the photographs of the period of a romantic relationship with Sartre, a self-confident, charming woman looks at us. But later she had to listen to so many nasty things and accusations against her that, they say, she had a complex of an ugly woman. The independence of her thinking and bright public
cations in defense of women's emancipation contributed to the creation of the image of a feminist alien to earthly joys. Simone did not deny these accusations.
But ten years after her death in 1997, the book "Transatlantic Love" was published - a collection of letters from Simone de Beauvoir to the American writer Nelson Algren, in which we see another, unofficial, non-fighting side of the writer's life. She wrote hundreds of messages to her beloved man - evidence of her passionate and jealous human love. For the sake of meeting her beloved, this, by no means a celestial, flew across the ocean on rather frail “steel birds” in the fifties, discovered at first cities like Chicago and Los Angeles that did not attract her, read literature that she did not like from afar, started unnecessary acquaintance. Often she could not fall asleep without writing another letter to Nelson, without at least saying a word of love to him in writing. Unlike all her books published earlier, "Transatlantic Love" reveals to us the writer as a completely earthly woman who dreams of a family, of a beloved who meets her on the threshold of the house, giving her the most ordinary warmth and comfort. "... I even sleep, waiting for you," she writes. Letters like this were written daily by Simone de Beauvoir from 1947 to 1964. In letters, they often addressed each other: "my husband", "my wife". However, she was not destined to marry Nelson, as they dreamed about it. The reason must be sought in the very enduring legend of Sartre and de Beauvoir, in the writer's deep connection with France, and in Nelson's personal life. The Atlantic Ocean firmly connected, but also seriously separated the two artists, creators of their own life, their own biography. We don't know everything yet. After all, the truth often does not match the legends. It should take more than a decade...
Sartre and de Beauvoir are buried in a joint grave in the Montparnasse cemetery. The graves of writers are now less visited than the graves of chansonniers and pop musicians. However, the French put signs of love and gratitude on them - flowers and stones. On the grave of Sartre and de Beauvoir are red carnations and pebbles, similar to pebbles picked up on the seashore.
She was different, unlike her contemporaries. Free, free, winged like a bird. François Mitterrand called her “an exceptional personality”, Jacques Chirac called her “an entire era”. Since the middle of the 20th century, all of Europe has been fascinated by her philosophical ideas. And in America, the reading public immediately sold out a million copies of her fundamental, without exaggeration, work called The Second Sex. In it, Simone consistently and convincingly told how, over the course of thousands of years, a woman became the “booty and property” of a man. The fact that the learned lady herself was never anyone's prey, much less property, did not prevent a deep insight into the essence of this eternal topic.
The immutable qualities of the original personality - adventurism, willfulness, the desire to challenge public opinion - were in Simon, apparently from birth. Otherwise, why would a pious girl, brought up in a respectable religious family, suddenly renounce marriage and children, proclaim herself absolutely free from all existing “prejudices” on this topic, begin to write defiant novels, preach the ideas of women’s independence and speak frankly about atheism, rebellion and revolutionary change? Mademoiselle de Beauvoir never concealed her eccentricity and spoke about it openly, including on the pages of her “memoirs”, noting that from childhood she was inclined to consider herself unique. She explained that her "superiority over other people" came from the fact that she never missed anything in her life - and in the future her "creativity greatly benefited from such an advantage." And Simone very early made a conclusion for herself, which became one of the fundamental ones in her subsequent “philosophy of existence”: living at twenty does not mean preparing for your fortieth birthday. And yet - life, following Simone, is an attitude to the world, making his choice of attitude to the world, the individual determines himself.
comprehend realityYour own choice - to feel the fullness of life, to comprehend reality in a variety of manifestations, to experience them and comprehend - an inquisitive nature, Simone de Beauvoir, made as a teenager. First, she tries to realize her plan in religion, prayers, sincere faith in God, then the feeling of this fullness will come to her for daily intellectual work, later - for literary creativity.
Simone de Beauvoir was born at the beginning of 1908, on January 9, in Paris. Although for her the beginning of the year will subsequently not be the first day of January, but September 1st. Her father, Georges de Beauvoir, was a lawyer, a good family man, but at the same time an enthusiastic and gambling man. At the beginning of the First World War, he gave his fortune under loans to the tsarist government of Russia and lost it. Simone's mother, Françoise, a religious and strict woman, raised her two daughters in the same way as they then raised children in wealthy aristocratic families. The girls were sent to the Cour Desir College, where the main subject was the Holy Scriptures. (Simone was then in her sixth year.) Education in this educational institution meant the formation of pious girls from young students, convinced of the faith of expectant mothers. Subsequently, Simone recalled how, having crouched at the feet of the blond God, she was thrilled with delight, tears flowed down her cheeks and she fell into the arms of angels ...
But with the loss of her fortune, the habitual way of her family has undergone major changes. Parents were forced to move to a small apartment, do without servants, lead a more modest lifestyle - find themselves in an unusual environment. And the sisters, accordingly, lost their dowry, and with it - the chances of a good marriage. Understanding this, Simone decided at all costs to master some profession in order to earn her own living, and began to study with a vengeance, while remaining a pious young lady who takes communion three times a week. But one day, at the age of 14, an event happened to her that largely influenced her future fate: according to Simone, she was undeservedly reproached and offended by a word by her spiritual mentor, Abbé Martin. While he was talking, “his stupid hand pressed on the back of my head, made me lower my head, turn my face to the ground, until my death, it will force me ... to crawl on the ground,” recalled Simone. This feeling was enough for her to change her way of life, but even in new circumstances she continued to think that the loss of faith was the greatest misfortune. Being in a depressed state, posing many questions about the essence of life, Simone came to books in which she searched and found many answers, sometimes such: religion is a means of curbing a person.
Books gradually filled the spiritual void around her and became a new religion that led her to the philosophy department of the Sorbonne. In the discovery of the book world and new names in it: Cocteau, Claudel, Gide and other writers and poets, Simone was helped in many ways by her cousin Jacques ... He also told her about the life of Paris at night, about entertainment in bars and restaurants. And her rich imagination immediately interpreted his stories as adventures, which she lacked so much to feel the same fullness of life. And she also wanted to be at home less - communication with her parents tired her daughter, especially traditional dinners with relatives and conversations known to her to the smallest detail at such dinners.
When, during the summer holidays of 1926, these relations escalated to the limit, she went on a trip to Paris at night, taking her younger sister with her.
What didn't your parents like about her? It seemed to them that she had “fallen out” of normal life, that her studies had made her detached from reality, that she was going across everything and everyone. Why was Simone conflicted? Because it seemed to her that they were trying to teach her all the time, but at the same time, for some reason, no one ever noticed her growing up, becoming, academic success. Simone's age-related maximalism reached its climax, and now, under the pretext of participating in public brigades, she ran away from home in the evenings and roamed the racks of night bars, studying the mores of the public present there. Having seen enough of everything, Simone summed up that she saw another life, the existence of which she had no idea. But "sexual taboos turned out to be" so tenacious for her that she could not even think about debauchery. In this sense, the “fullness of life” did not interest her yet. About herself at the age of seventeen, she writes that she was an extremist, "wanted to get everything or nothing." “If I fall in love,” Simone wrote, “then for the rest of my life, then I will surrender myself to the feeling all over, soul and body, lose my head and forget the past. I refuse to be satisfied with the husks of feelings and pleasures that are not connected with this state.
MeetingOn the eve of the epochal year of 1929 - the meeting with Jean Paul Sartre - Simone de Beauvoir was already unlike other intellectuals. She was in her 21st year, and he was in his 24th. He noticed her himself, but for some reason first sent his friend to her. When the whole company began to prepare for the final exams, Sartre realized that he had met the most suitable life partner, in which he was surprised by the “combination of male intelligence and female sensitivity.” And she, in turn, subsequently wrote: “Sartre exactly corresponded to the dreams of my fifteen years: it was my double, in which I found all my tastes and passions ...” She admitted that “as if she had met her double” and “knew that he will remain in her life forever. From now on, after successfully passing the exams, where Sartre got the first, and Simone - the second place (the chairman of the examination committee explained that Sartre had unique intellectual abilities, but Simone was a born philosopher), she, together with him, began to overthrow the aesthetic and social values \u200b\u200bof modern society, following the original philosophical doctrine - humanistic existentialism. He saw the social catastrophes of the 20th century as a "world of absurdity" in which there is no place for either meaning or God. The only reality of this being is a person who himself must fill his world with content. And in him, in this man, there is nothing predetermined, laid down, because, as Sartre and De Beauvoir believed, "existence precedes essence." And the essence of a person is made up of his actions, it is the result of his choice, more precisely, several choices in a lifetime. Philosophers called the will and striving for freedom the stimuli of actions, and these stimuli are stronger than social laws and "all sorts of prejudices."
Upon graduation, Sartre was drafted into the army for a year and a half. And Simone remained in Paris, continued to study. After the army, he received a professorship at Le Havre and began to enjoy special attention from the students: a great original, a skilled rhetorician, a man of extensive knowledge, he was the ruler of their thoughts. But Simon was not embarrassed by his hobbies on the side, as is commonly believed and as she, however, wrote herself. Their union was generally special, unlike the usual unions. Young people called their relationship a morganatic marriage and said that they were in this state in two guises: sometimes they played poor and contented bourgeois, sometimes they presented themselves as American billionaires and behaved accordingly, imitating the manners of the rich and parodying them. Sartre, in turn, noted that, in addition to such joint reincarnations, Simone “bifurcated” on her own, “turning” either into Castor (Beaver, she received this nickname from friends during her student years), or into a capricious Mademoiselle de Beauvoir. And when suddenly reality became boring to him, both of them explained this by the fact that the soul of a sea elephant, the eternal sufferer, moved into Sartre for a short time, after which the philosopher began to grimace in every possible way, imitating elephant anxiety.
They had no children, no common life, no obligations, trying to prove to themselves that this is the only way to feel radical freedom. In their youth, they amused themselves with all kinds of games and eccentricities. “We lived then in idleness,” recalled Simone. Jokes, parodies, mutual praise had, she continued, their purpose: “they protected us from the spirit of seriousness, which we refused to recognize as decisively as Nietzsche did, and for the same reasons: fiction helped to deprive the world of oppressive gravity by moving it into the realm of fantasy…
Judging by the recollections of Simone, she really was madly in love and infinitely happy from the consciousness of the one who was next to her. She in every possible way noticed the extraordinary nature of her chosen one, said that his tenacious, ingenuous attention grasped “things alive”, in all the richness of their manifestation, that he inspired her with the same timidity that was inspired later only by some crazy people who saw intricacies in a rose petal intrigue. And how can you not become delighted when next to you is a person whose thoughts alone fascinate? “The paradox of reason lies in the fact that a person - the creator of necessity - cannot rise above it to the level of being, like those soothsayers who are able to predict the future to others, but not to themselves. That is why I guess sadness and boredom at the basis of human existence as a creation of nature, ”Sartre wrote in a Parisian newspaper in the late 1920s.
In general, the Sartrean “aesthetics of negation” of this period turned out to be very consonant with Simone’s thoughts, and his social portrait was then seen by her as follows: “He was an anarchist to a much greater extent than a revolutionary, he considered society in the form in which it existed worthy of hatred and was quite pleased that he hated him, what he called the "aesthetics of negation" was in good agreement with the existence of fools and scoundrels and even needed it: after all, if there was nothing to smash and crush, then literature would be worth little.
Crab fight
“The original writer, while he is alive, is always scandalous,” Simone remarked. Consequently, it is also necessary to expose the vices of bourgeois society in a scandalous way, a scandal is generally a catalyst for the knowledge of society, just as a person's internal conflict leads to the knowledge of his hidden qualities. Both Simone and Sartre were great supporters of the study of various extreme human states, including mental ones. Simone admitted that they were always attracted to neuroses and psychoses, that they showed purified models of behavior and passions of people who are called normal. It is known that not only Simone and Sartre had a craving for such observations, many writers, poets, philosophers drew the necessary “material” from such observations, studies of the human soul.
Madmen attracted Simone and Sartre with their multifaceted, complex and at the same time surprisingly accurate revelations of the existing reality, with which madmen, as a rule, are at enmity. This looking-glass of the human soul excited philosophers, moved them to analyze the psyche, actions, and states of man. In addition, at the beginning of the 20th century, psychologists and psychiatrists came to grips with the issues of human psychopathology. And of course, Simone and Sartre read and studied the works of K. Jaspers, Z. Freud, A. Adler. Sartre also tried to compose his own methods of cognition of personality. Simone, as she could, helped him in this. But the philosopher is literally mired in this abyss. He also tried to experience anomalies in the perception of the real world on himself, causing “shifts” of reality by injecting mescaline, a hallucinogenic drug, after which Sartre began to have nightmarish visions in the form of a battle with crabs and octopuses ... At the end of the drug, they disappeared.
In addition to madmen, philosophers were fond of friendship with all kinds of outcasts, like the author of The Diary of a Thief, Jean Genet, or Boris Vian, a scandalous writer who overthrew the morality of bourgeois society. It is surprising that such rebels, sometimes with very dubious biographies and occupations, attracted Simone and Sartre much more than, for example, individuals who achieved technical achievements in those years, such as flying into the stratosphere.
Red tape
Paris in the 20-30s of the XX century was, as you know, the epicenter of the arts, fashion and, of course, philosophy, which was then assigned the role of "the key to the truth." Here Jean Paul and Simone continued their teaching activities, having received the positions of teachers of philosophy. It is worth saying that during this period, and in the future, they never lived under the same roof, they deliberately settled in different hotels, but met daily. Communicated with artists, came to their cafes and workshops, spent time in cinemas...
Five years after the formation of this intellectual union, a constant mistress appeared in the life of Simone and Jean Paul - the Russian aristocrat Olga Kozakevich. She seemed to tease this couple, showing passion for her, then for him. And then one day, Jean Paul, contrary to established traditions, not to be separated from Simone, spent the entire vacation with Olga, leaving his beloved intellectual in Paris. Remembering Kozakevich, Simona said that with all her behavior she was against conventions, prohibitions, social taboos. “She claimed to escape from the captivity of the human lot, to which we also submitted not without shame.” “She indulged in pleasure without measure, she happened to dance until she fainted. They say that Sartre offered the "rebel" Kozakevich a hand and a heart, while continuing to experience the most genuine feelings for Simone ... After the refusal, Jean Paul, of course, did not grieve - he spread to her sister, Wanda. And Simone pretended that nothing special was happening, although who, except Sartre, could feel what de Beauvoir really experienced at such moments. In general, this piquant topic has been discussed more than once, while it is constantly noted that Simone herself was even more frank in her connections on the side. As if she went on vacation with one or another student, and then introduced them to Sartre. Allegedly one of those was Bianca Lamblen, who later became a famous philosopher.
timelessness
At the end of the 30s of the XX century, the way of life of Simone and Sartre changed, and not so much the image itself, but their attitude to what was happening in the world - the events of those years left their mark on their worldview. The Spanish Civil War, the defeat of the Republicans, the activity of the Italian fascists ... The rise of Nazism in Germany.
With the outbreak of World War II, Sartre was mobilized, and in June 1940 he was captured by the Germans. Simone at that time taught in Paris and studied literature. She wrote the novel "The Girl Is Invited to Visit", where the main character - the guest - broke the life of one married couple. But in general, recalling the literary life of the 1940-1943s, de Beauvoir noted that the artistic word was then in decline. An event for her was only the story of A. Saint-Exupery "Military Pilot" (1941).
Sartre returned from captivity in 1943 and immediately launched an active work: he published Simone's book in a good publishing house, persuaded her to take up literary work, joined the Resistance, founded the Komba newspaper, in which he published pro-communist articles and, of course, popularized his philosophy - humanistic existentialism. At the same time, Simone and Sartre became close to A. Camus, whom the philosopher met at a rehearsal of the play "Flies". Their friendship acquired new acquaintances, and at the end of the war, a fairly large circle of intellectuals organized around Sartre, Simone and Camus. Spiritually uplifting time contributed to new ideas, new policies. The latter entered then firmly into their lives. Simone recalled how Gaullists, communists, Marxists fraternized in 1945 ... As Camus concluded on this occasion: “Politics is no longer inseparable from individuals. It is a direct appeal of a person to other people.
In 1945 Sartre left for New York. He didn't take Simon. For many years of their creative union, he took such a step for the first time. There he fell in love with actress Dolores Vanetti Ehrenreich and stayed in the United States, where Simone also flew after some time.
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In 1947, Simone de Beauvoir had another landmark meeting in the USA. Nelson Algren, an American writer, invited a French woman to accompany her around Chicago. (She flew to the USA at the invitation of several American universities and stayed there from January to May.) And another great feeling came to Simone at the age of 39. Their romance lasted 14 years, as Nelson, who later suffered from love and separation, wrote, she exhausted him over the years, rejecting the proposal to create a family and marriage at the very beginning.
“My dear Nelson. How is it that you, the proud one, know that my feelings for you are unchanged? Who told you this? I'm afraid they haven't really changed. Oh, what torments of love and joy, what pleasure I experienced when I read your letter ... ”- Simone wrote on December 15, 1948 in one of 304 letters to her lover, whom she called her “beloved husband.” These letters were subsequently published by Simone's adopted daughter Sylvia le Bon de Beauvoir. It is not by chance that this correspondence is called the “Transatlantic Romance” - it contains all solid feelings, and next to them are considerations about everything that is happening around: “Darling, dear. Here I am again in Algiers, under the window there is a huge garden of palm trees, I see a lot of pink and purple flowers, houses, pine trees, and behind them - ships and the sea, pale blue ... We saw with what helpfulness the United States wants to "help" us »to organize an army capable of defeating the USSR? Tell them that they overdid it and we did not appreciate their efforts. The idea that the French should take part in the war is rather strange. Stalin is hated to the same extent as Wall Street, what to do? .. "
Glory
In 1949, Simone published a book that blew up public opinion. First, The Second Sex saw the light in France, and then in almost all Western countries. The very idea of this socio-biological, anthropological work was suggested to the writer by Sartre, who had incredible intuition towards her. And this feeling did not disappoint him. His companion coped with the task brilliantly, she began with an analysis of the myths of different peoples, in which ideas about the role and purpose of a woman were established and reflected, and then, following the chronology, she analyzed numerous works on this “eternal question”, trying to understand why the accepted by all difference: a man is a full-fledged person, the subject of history, a woman is a dubious creature, the object of his power. In a special way, Simone highlights the work of Poulain de la Bar "On the equality of both sexes." She accepts the author's point of view that the unequal position of men and women in society is the result of the subordination of women to brute male power, but by no means the destiny of nature. In general, in feminist literature, the book "The Second Sex" occupies a special niche, several generations of women, despite the understandable reaction of the church fathers, considered it a kind of Bible. But the most important thing is that until now this research is the most fundamental in its field. And then, in 1949, it appeared just in time. In Russia, The Second Sex was published only after almost half a century since the publication of the book in France. But what about this book? Even if the "Memoirs of a well-bred maiden" in the press was also refused. In her book Ultimately, Simone de Beauvoir notes how Tvardovsky himself could not decide to publish Sartre's Lay (1964), for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize, which he, as you know, refused.
Of course, the book "The Second Sex" caused a flurry of responses, among which were extremely negative ones. A. Camus went on a rampage, saying that De Beauvoir had made a French man a target for contempt and ridicule. The Catholic Church was especially indignant, and she had good reason for that.
And yet, after 1949, Simona became very popular, she was invited to give lectures, make presentations in different cities and countries. In 1954, her fame warmed up again. The published novel "Tangerines", describing the history of her love relationship with Nelson Algren, seemed to readers very frank. Simone was awarded the Prix Goncourt, and Algren himself was indignant: he did not expect that his feelings would become public property. Simone did her best to reassure him, explaining that this work was by no means a mirror of their relationship, that she only extracted the quintessence from these relationships, describing the love of a woman who looked like Simone and a man who looked like Nelson.
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In my Parisian apartment. 1976 Photo by JACQUES PAVLOVSKY/SYGMA/CORBIS/RPG |
specialcor
Perhaps a new hobby helped Simone to decide on such a plot: in 1952, she fell in love with Claude Lanzmann, a correspondent for the New Times newspaper, in which Sartre and Beauvoir worked as editors.
The new chosen one was young - 27 years old, fresh, pleasant, smart, gallant, infinitely courteous and ambitious to a good extent. Not to fall in love with such a Simon just could not. She frankly recalled later how his closeness freed her from the burden of age. Although 44 years - is this the age for existential philosophy? Surprisingly, Simone's feelings were so deep that she invited the chosen one to her apartment, which she had never offered to anyone before - and he moved. They were together for seven long and happy years.
Arletta
Simone's new infatuation in no way lessened her attention to Sartre: they saw each other every day, although he also had his own special love story at that time under the name of Arlette Elkaim, a young and pretty Jewish girl from Algeria. And here, it seems, Simone's self-control finally failed: she felt how much Sartre was carried away. So much so that he even started avoiding his best friend. The last straw was that Jean Paul decided to adopt Elkaim. In response, de Beauvoir adopted one of her friends, or students, Sylvia le Bon (mentioned above), who became the heiress of De Beauvoir's work. But despite certain disagreements in their personal lives, Simone and Sartre continued to be at the epicenter of socio-political events. They were also keenly interested in Soviet reality.
In 1955, during a short stay in the USSR, Simone watched Mayakovsky's play The Bedbug, noting that the theme of the play was very close for her and Sartre: it was impossible to accept the vices and extremes of modern philistinism. But one should not think that both philosophers accepted the “new world” of the Land of the Soviets unconditionally: both of them had acquaintances in France with Soviet immigrants, dissidents and had no illusions about the Soviet regime. And yet, "the transformation of the Soviet man into a man of labor" was interesting to them.
In 1956, the uncompromising Sartre, in an interview with Express magazine, spoke out with a frank condemnation of Soviet aggression in Hungary, saying that he completely cut off relations with friends from the USSR. And in 1961, Sartre and Beauvoir received an invitation to visit Moscow from the Writers' Union and accepted it: cultural life in different countries has always interested them. It is noteworthy that after this visit, relations between the USSR and France became noticeably warmer. Simone got the following curious impression from this trip: “In the USSR, a person creates himself, and even if this does not happen without difficulty, even if there are heavy blows, retreats, mistakes, everything that happens around him, everything that happens to him , filled with weighty meaning.
In 1970, Sartre fell seriously ill, and Simone devotedly took care of him. April 15, 1980 he died. Subsequently, in the book "Adieu" Beauvoir will write: "His death separated us. My death will unite us." She outlived her master and friend by six years, having spent these years alone: with the death of Sartre, an amazing for everyone gushing energy gradually began to leave her. The horizon disappeared, the goals disappeared. And once, with all her being, Simone expressed an unconditional Kantian optimism for her: you must, therefore, you can.
Sartre rested in the Montparnasse cemetery, where, by a strange coincidence, the windows of her small apartment overlooked. She was gone in the spring. April 14, 1986 She died in one of the hospitals in Paris, whose staff could not believe that Simone de Beauvoir herself was living her last days within their walls: she left alone, no one came to her and asked about her well-being. And who dared to suggest that Simone could grow old and leave? She became a legend during her lifetime, and legends, as you know, are eternal ...
