Romain Rolland

Life

Rolland was born in Clamecy, Nièvre to a family of notaries; he had both peasants and wealthy townspeople in his lineage. Writing introspectively in his Voyage intérieur (1942), he sees himself as a representative of an "antique species". He will cast these ancestors in a truculent bawdy tale Colas Breugnon (1919).

Related Topics:
Clamecy - Nièvre - 1942 - 1919

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Accepted to the École normale supérieure in 1886, he first studied philosophy, but his independence of spirit led him to abandon that so as not to submit to the dominant ideology. He received his degree in history in 1889 and spent two years in Rome, where his encounter with Malwida von Meysenburg -- who had been the friend of Nietzsche and of Wagner -- and his discovery of Italian masterpieces were decisive for the development of his thought. When he returned to France in 1895, he received his doctoral degree with his thesis The origins of modern lyric theatre and his doctoral dissertation, A History of Opera in Europe before Lully and Scarlatti.

Related Topics:
École normale supérieure - 1886 - Philosophy - 1889 - Rome - Malwida von Meysenburg - Nietzsche - Wagner - Italian - 1895

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A teacher, a pacifist, and a loner

He became a history teacher at Lycée Henri IV, then at the Lycée Louis le Grand, and the École française de Rome, then a professor of the History of Music at the Sorbonne, and History Professor at the École Normale Supérieure.

Related Topics:
Lycée Henri IV - Lycée Louis le Grand - École française de Rome - Sorbonne

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A demanding, yet timid, young man, he did not like teaching. Not that he was indifferent to the youth: Jean-Christophe, Olivier and their friends -- the heroes of his novels -- are young people. But with living youths, like adults, Rolland only maintained distant relationships. He was above all a writer. Assured that literature would provide him with a modest income, he resigned from the university in 1912.

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Romain Rolland was a lifelong pacifist. In 1924, his book on Gandhi contributed to the latter's reputation, and the two men met in 1931.

Related Topics:
1924 - Gandhi - 1931

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He moved to the shores of Lac Léman (Lake Geneva) to devote himself to writing. His life was interrupted by health problems, and by travels to art exhibitions. His voyage to Moscow (1935), on the invitation of Maxim Gorky, was an opportunity to meet Stalin, and he served unofficially as ambassador of the French artists to the Soviet Union.

Related Topics:
Lake Geneva - Moscow - 1935 - Maxim Gorky - Stalin - Soviet Union

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In 1937, he came back to live in Vézelay, which, in 1940, was occupied by the Germans. During the occupation, he isolated himself in complete solitude.

Related Topics:
1937 - Vézelay - 1940

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Never stopping his work, in 1940, he finished his memoirs. He also placed the finishing touches on his musical research on the life of Ludwig van Beethoven. Shortly before his death, he wrote Péguy (1944), in which he examines religion and socialism through the context of his memories. He died December 30, 1944 in Vézelay.

Related Topics:
1940 - Ludwig van Beethoven - Péguy - 1944 - Religion - Socialism - December 30 - Vézelay

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Quotations

"If there is one place on the face of the earth where all the dreams of living men have found a home from the very earliest days when man began the dream of existence, it is India....For more than 30 centuries, the tree of vision, with all its thousand branches and their millions of twigs, has sprung from this torrid land, the burning womb of the Gods. It renews itself tirelessly showing no signs of decay." http://www.ocvhs.com/publications/papersarticles/iklecture01.html, Life of Ramakrishna

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"The true Vedantic spirit does not start out with a system of preconceived ideas. It possesses absolute liberty and unrivalled courage among religions with regard to the facts to be observed and the diverse hypotheses it has laid down for their coordination. Never having been hampered by a priestly order, each man has been entirely free to search wherever he pleased for the spiritual explanation of the spectacle of the universe." http://www.hinduismtoday.com/archives/1996/3/1996-3-08.shtml, Life of Vivekananda

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