What is Voltaire famous for? Philosopher Voltaire: life and philosophy
Biography
Voltaire is one of the greatest French enlightenment philosophers of the 18th century: poet, prose writer, satirist, tragedian, historian, publicist.
The son of the official François Marie Arouet, Voltaire studied at a Jesuit college “Latin and all sorts of nonsense”, was destined by his father to become a lawyer, but preferred literature to law; began his literary career in the palaces of aristocrats as a poet-freeloader; for satirical poems addressed to the regent and his daughter, he ended up in the Bastille (where he was later sent a second time, this time for other people’s poems).
He was beaten by a nobleman from the de Rogan family, whom he ridiculed, wanted to challenge him to a duel, but due to the intrigue of the offender, he again found himself in prison, was released on the condition of traveling abroad; An interesting fact is that in his youth two astrologers predicted Voltaire to be only 33 earth years old. And it was this failed duel that could have made the prediction a reality, but chance decided differently. Voltaire wrote about this at the age of 63: “I have deceived astrologers out of spite for thirty years, for which I humbly ask you to forgive me.”
Later he left for England, where he lived for three years (1726-1729), studying its political system, science, philosophy and literature.
Returning to France, Voltaire published his English impressions under the title “Philosophical Letters”; the book was confiscated (1734), the publisher paid with the Bastille, and Voltaire fled to Lorraine, where he found shelter with the Marquise du Châtelet (with whom he lived for 15 years). Accused of making a mockery of religion (in the poem "The Man of the World"), Voltaire fled again, this time to the Netherlands.
In 1746, Voltaire was appointed court poet and historiographer, but, having aroused the discontent of the Marquise de Pompadour, he broke with the court. Always suspected of political unreliability, not feeling safe in France, Voltaire followed (1751) the invitation of the Prussian king Frederick II, with whom he had been in correspondence for a long time (since 1736), and settled in Berlin (Potsdam), but, causing the king’s dissatisfaction with unseemly financial speculation, as well as a quarrel with the president of the Academy Maupertuis (caricatured by Voltaire in the Diatribe of Doctor Acacius), was forced to leave Prussia and settled in Switzerland (1753). Here he bought an estate near Geneva, renaming it “Otradnoye” (Délices), then acquired two more estates: Tournai and - on the border with France - Fernet (1758), where he lived almost until his death. A man now rich and completely independent, a capitalist who lent money to aristocrats, a landowner and at the same time the owner of a weaving and watchmaking workshop, Voltaire - the “Fernay patriarch” - could now freely and fearlessly represent in his own person “public opinion”, the omnipotent opinion against old, outdated socio-political order.
Ferney became a place of pilgrimage for the new intelligentsia; Such “enlightened” monarchs as Catherine II, Frederick II, who resumed correspondence with him, and Gustav III of Sweden were proud of their friendship with Voltaire. In 1774, Louis XV was replaced by Louis XVI, and in 1778 Voltaire, an eighty-three-year-old man, returned to Paris, where he was given an enthusiastic welcome. He bought himself a mansion on Richelieu Street and actively worked on a new tragedy, Agathocles. The production of his last play, Irene, turned into his apotheosis. Appointed director of the Academy, Voltaire began, despite his advanced age, to revise the academic dictionary.
Severe pain, the origin of which was initially unclear, forced Voltaire to take large doses of opium. In early May, after an exacerbation of the disease, Doctor of Medicine Tronchin made a disappointing diagnosis: prostate cancer. Voltaire was still strong, sometimes he even joked, but often the joke was interrupted by a grimace of pain.
The next medical consultation, held on May 25, predicted a quick death. Every day brought more and more suffering to the patient. Sometimes even opium did not help.
Voltaire's nephew Abbot Mignot, trying to reconcile his uncle with Catholic Church, invited Abbot Gautier and the parish curate of the Church of St. Sulpicia Tersaka. The visit took place on the afternoon of May 30. According to legend, when asked by the clergy to “renounce Satan and come to the Lord,” Voltaire replied: “Why make new enemies before dying?” His last words were "For God's sake, let me die in peace."
In 1791, the Convention decided to transfer Voltaire's remains to the Pantheon and rename the "Quaie des Theatines" to "Voltaire Quai". The transfer of Voltaire's remains to the Pantheon turned into a grandiose revolutionary demonstration. In 1814, during the Restoration, there was a rumor that Voltaire's remains were allegedly stolen from the Pantheon, which was not true. Currently, Voltaire's ashes are still in the Pantheon.
Philosophy
Being a supporter of empiricism English philosopher Locke, whose teachings he propagated in his “philosophical letters,” Voltaire was at the same time an opponent of French materialist philosophy, in particular Baron Holbach, against whom his “Letter of Memmius to Cicero” was directed; on the question of the spirit, Voltaire vacillated between denial and affirmation of the immortality of the soul; on the question of free will, he indecisively moved from indeterminism to determinism. Voltaire published his most important philosophical articles in the Encyclopedia and then published them as a separate book, first under the title “Pocket Philosophical Dictionary” (French Dictionnaire philosophique portatif, 1764). In this work, Voltaire showed himself as a fighter against idealism and religion, relying on scientific achievements of its time. In numerous articles he criticizes religious ideas christian church, religious morality, denounces crimes committed by the Christian Church.
Voltaire, as a representative of the school of natural law, recognizes the existence of inalienable natural rights for each individual: freedom, property, security, equality[clarify].
Along with natural laws, the philosopher identifies positive laws, the necessity of which he explains by the fact that “people are evil.” Positive laws are designed to guarantee the natural rights of man. Many positive laws seemed to the philosopher to be unjust, embodying only human ignorance.
Criticism of religion
A tireless and merciless enemy of the church and clerics, whom he persecuted with arguments of logic and arrows of sarcasm, a writer whose slogan was “écrasez l'infâme” (“destroy the vile”, often translated as “crush the vermin”), Voltaire attacked both Judaism and on Christianity (for example, in “Dinner at Citizen Boulainvilliers”), however, expressing his respect for the person of Christ (both in the indicated work and in the treatise “God and People”); for the purpose of anti-church propaganda, Voltaire published the “Testament of Jean Meslier,” a socialist priest of the 17th century who did not spare words to debunk clericalism.
Fighting in word and deed (intercession for the victims of religious fanaticism - Calas and Servetus) against the domination and oppression of religious superstitions and prejudices, against clerical fanaticism, Voltaire tirelessly preached the ideas of religious “tolerance” (tolérence) - a term that in the 18th century meant contempt for Christianity and unbridled advertising of anti-Catholicism - both in his journalistic pamphlets (Treatise on Tolerance, 1763) and in his artistic works (the image of Henry IV, who put an end to the religious strife between Catholics and Protestants; the image of the emperor in the tragedy “Gebras”). A special place in Voltaire’s views was occupied by his attitude towards Christianity in general. Voltaire considered Christian myth-making to be a deception.
In 1722, Voltaire wrote the anti-clerical poem “For and Against.” In this poem, he argues that the Christian religion, which prescribes loving a merciful God, actually paints him as a cruel tyrant, “whom we should hate.” Thus, Voltaire proclaims a decisive break with Christian beliefs:
In this unworthy image I do not recognize the God whom I should honor... I am not a Christian.
Criticism of atheism. Voltaire's Deism
Fighting against the church, clergy and “revealed” religions, Voltaire was at the same time an enemy of atheism; Voltaire dedicated a special pamphlet to criticism of atheism (“Homélie sur l’athéisme”). A deist in the spirit of the English bourgeois freethinkers of the 18th century, Voltaire tried with all kinds of arguments to prove the existence of a deity who created the universe, in the affairs of which, however, he did not interfere, using evidence: “cosmological” (“Against Atheism”), “teleological” (“Le philosophe ignorant”) and “moral” (article “God” in the Encyclopedia).
“But in the 60-70s. Voltaire is imbued with skeptical sentiments":
But where is the eternal geometer? In one place or everywhere without taking up space? I don't know anything about this. Did he create a world out of his substance? I don't know anything about this. Is it indefinite, characterized by neither quantity nor quality? I don't know anything about this.
“Voltaire moves away from the position of creationism and says that “nature is eternal.” “Voltaire’s contemporaries talked about one episode. When Voltaire was asked if there was a God, he first asked to close the door tightly and then said: “There is no God, but my lackey and wife should not know this, since I do not want my lackey to stab me to death, and my wife to disobey me.” "
In the “Edifying Sermons”, as well as in philosophical stories, the argument of “usefulness” is repeatedly encountered, that is, such an idea of God in which he acts as a social and moral regulating principle. In this sense, faith in him turns out to be necessary, since only it, according to Voltaire, is capable of keeping the human race from self-destruction and mutual extermination.
Let us, my brethren, at least see how useful such a faith is, and how interested we are in having it impressed upon all hearts.
These principles are necessary for the preservation of the human race. Deprive people of the idea of a punishing and rewarding god - and here Sulla and Marius bathe with pleasure in the blood of their fellow citizens; Augustus, Antony and Lepidus surpass Sulla in cruelty, Nero coldly orders the murder of his own mother.
Denying medieval church-monastic asceticism in the name of the human right to happiness, which is rooted in rational egoism (“Discours sur l’homme”), for a long time sharing the optimism of the English bourgeoisie of the 18th century, which transformed the world in its own image and likeness and affirmed through the lips of the poet Pope: “Whatever is, is right” (“everything is good that is”), after the earthquake in Lisbon, which destroyed a third of the city, Voltaire somewhat reduced his optimism, declaring in a poem about the Lisbon disaster: “now not everything is good, but everything will be fine” .
Social and philosophical views
According to social views, Voltaire is a supporter of inequality. Society should be divided into “educated and rich” and those who, “having nothing,” are “obliged to work for them” or “amuse” them. Therefore, there is no need to educate workers: “if the people start to reason, everything will perish” (from Voltaire’s letters). When printing Meslier’s “Testament,” Voltaire threw out all of his sharp criticism of private property, considering it “outrageous.” This explains Voltaire’s negative attitude towards Rousseau, although there was a personal element in their relationship.
A convinced and passionate opponent of absolutism, he remained until the end of his life a monarchist, a supporter of the idea of enlightened absolutism, a monarchy based on the “educated part” of society, on the intelligentsia, on “philosophers.” An enlightened monarch is his political ideal, which Voltaire embodied in a number of images: in the person of Henry IV (in the poem “Henriad”), the “sensitive” philosopher-king Teucer (in the tragedy “Laws of Minos”), who sets as his task “to enlighten people, to soften morals of his subjects, to civilize a wild country,” and King Don Pedro (in the tragedy of the same name), who tragically dies in the fight against the feudal lords in the name of the principle expressed by Teucer in the words: “A kingdom is a great family with a father at its head. Whoever has a different idea about the monarch is guilty before humanity.”
Voltaire, like Rousseau, sometimes tended to defend the idea of the "primitive state" in plays such as "The Scythians" or "The Laws of Minos", but his "primitive society" (Scythians and Sidonians) has nothing in common with Rousseau's depiction of the paradise of small property owners -farmers, but embodies a society of enemies of political despotism and religious intolerance.
In his satirical poem “The Virgin of Orleans” he ridicules knights and courtiers, but in the poem “The Battle of Fontenoy” (1745) Voltaire glorifies the old French nobility, in plays such as “The Right of the Seigneur” and especially “Nanina”, he draws with passion liberal-leaning landowners, even ready to marry a peasant woman. For a long time, Voltaire could not come to terms with the invasion of the stage by persons of non-noble status, “ordinary people” (French hommes du commun), because this meant “devaluing the tragedy” (avilir le cothurne).
Connected by his political, religious-philosophical and social views still quite firmly with the “old order,” Voltaire, especially with his literary sympathies, firmly rooted himself in the aristocratic 18th century of Louis XIV, to whom he dedicated his best historical work, “Siècle de Louis XIV.”
Shortly before his death, on April 7, 1778, Voltaire joined the Paris Masonic lodge of the Grand Orient of France - the Nine Sisters. At the same time, he was accompanied to the box by Benjamin Franklin (at that time the American ambassador to France).
Literary creativity
Dramaturgy
Continuing to cultivate the aristocratic genres of poetry - messages, gallant lyrics, odes, etc., Voltaire in the field of dramatic poetry was the last major representative of classical tragedy - wrote 28; among them the most important: “Oedipus” (1718), “Brutus” (1730), “Zaire” (1732), “Caesar” (1735), “Alzira” (1736), “Mahomet” (1741), “Merope” ( 1743), “Semiramis” (1748), “Rome Saved” (1752), “The Chinese Orphan” (1755), “Tancred” (1760).
However, in the context of the extinction of aristocratic culture, classical tragedy was inevitably transformed. Into her former rationalistic coldness, notes of sensitivity burst into ever greater abundance (“Zaire”), her former sculptural clarity was replaced by romantic picturesqueness (“Tancred”). The repertoire of ancient figures was increasingly invaded by exotic characters - medieval knights, Chinese, Scythians, Hebrians and the like.
For a long time, not wanting to put up with the rise of the new drama - as a “hybrid” form, Voltaire ended up defending the method of mixing the tragic and comic (in the preface to “The Spendthrift” and “Socrates”), considering this mixture, however, legitimate trait only of “high comedy” and rejecting as a “non-fiction genre” the “tearful drama”, where there are only “tears”. For a long time opposing the invasion of the stage by plebeian heroes, Voltaire, under the pressure of bourgeois drama, gave up this position as well, opening wide the doors of drama “for all classes and all ranks” (preface to “The Tartan Woman”, with references to English examples) and formulating (in “Discourse on Hebras”) essentially a program of democratic theater; “To make it easier to instill in people the valor necessary for society, the author chose heroes from the lower class. He was not afraid to bring on stage a gardener, a young girl helping her father with rural work, or a simple soldier. Such heroes, who stand closer to nature than others and speak simple language, will make a stronger impression and achieve their goals more quickly than princes in love and princesses tormented by passion. Enough theaters thundered with tragic adventures, possible only among monarchs and completely useless for other people.” The type of such bourgeois plays includes “The Right of the Seigneur”, “Nanina”, “The Spendthrift”, etc.
Poetry
If, as a playwright, Voltaire moved from orthodox classical tragedy through its sentimentalization, romanticization and exoticism to the drama of the New Age under the pressure of the growing movement of the “third estate,” then his evolution as an epic writer is similar. Voltaire began in the style of a classical epic (“Henriad”, 1728; originally “The League or the Great Henry”), which, however, like classical tragedy, was transformed under his hand: instead of a fictional hero, a real one was taken, instead of fantastic wars - actually former, instead of gods - allegorical images - concepts: love, jealousy, fanaticism (from “Essai sur la poésie épique”).
Continuing the style of the heroic epic in the “Poem of the Battle of Fontenoy,” glorifying the victory of Louis XV, Voltaire then in “The Virgin of Orleans” (La Pucelle d’Orléans), caustically and obscenely ridiculing the whole medieval world feudal-clerical France, reduces the heroic poem to a heroic farce and moves gradually, under the influence of Pope, from the heroic poem to the didactic poem, to “discourse in verse” (discours en vers), to the presentation in the form of a poem of his moral and social philosophy (“ Letter on Newton's Philosophy", "Discourse in Poems about Man", "Natural Law", "Poem on the Lisbon Disaster").
Philosophical prose
From here there was a natural transition to prose, to a philosophical novel (“The Vision of Babuk”, “The Simple-minded”, “Zadig, or Fate”, “Micromegas”, “Candide, or Optimism”, “The Princess of Babylon”, “Scarmentado” and others, 1740 -1760s), where, on the core of adventure, travel, and exoticism, Voltaire develops a subtle dialectic of the relationship between chance and predetermination (“Zadig or Fate”), the simultaneous baseness and greatness of man (“The Vision of Babuk”), the absurdity of both pure optimism and and pure pessimism (“Candide”), and about the only wisdom, which consists in the conviction of Candide, who has known all the vicissitudes, that a person is called to “cultivate his garden” or, as the Simple One begins to understand in a similar way from the story of the same name, to mind his own business and try to correct the world without loud words, but a noble example.
As for all the “enlighteners” of the 18th century, fiction was not an end in itself for Voltaire, but only a means of promoting his ideas, a means of protest against autocracy, against churchmen and clericalism, an opportunity to preach religious tolerance, civil freedom, etc. In accordance with this attitude, his work is highly rational and journalistic. All the forces of the “old order” rose furiously against this, as one of his enemies dubbed him, “Prometheus”, overthrowing the power of earthly and heavenly gods; Freron was especially zealous, whom Voltaire branded with his laughter in a number of pamphlets and brought out in the play “The Tartan” under the transparent name of the informer Frelon.
Human rights activities
In 1762, Voltaire began a campaign to overturn the sentence of Protestant Jean Calas, who was executed for the murder of his son. As a result, Jean Kalas was found innocent and the rest of those convicted in this case were acquitted. French historian Marion Sigaut argues that Voltaire used the Kalas Affair to demonstrate his hatred of the Church, and not at all to defend the rights of the executed Kalas (who was acquitted due to procedural errors): Marion Sigaut, Voltaire – Une imposture au service des puissants, Paris, Kontre-Kulture, 2014.
Attitude towards Jews
In his " Philosophical Dictionary“Voltaire wrote: “... you will find in them (the Jews) only an ignorant and barbaric people, who have long combined the most disgusting greed with the most despicable superstitions and with the most irresistible hatred of all the peoples who tolerate them and at the same time enrich them... However they should not be burned." Louis de Bonald wrote: “When I say that philosophers are kind to the Jews, the chapter must be excluded from their number philosophical school XVIII century Voltaire, who throughout his life demonstrated a decisive hostility towards this people...”
Followers of Voltaire. Voltairianism
Voltaire was often forced to publish his works anonymously, renounce them when rumor declared him to be the author, print them abroad, and smuggle them into France. In the struggle against the dying old order, Voltaire could, on the other hand, rely on a huge influential audience both in France and abroad, ranging from “enlightened monarchs” to broad cadres of the new bourgeois intelligentsia, right up to Russia, to which he devoted his “History of Peter” and partly “Charles XII”, being in correspondence with Catherine II and with Sumarokov, and where his name was christened, although without sufficient reason, a social movement known as Voltairianism.
The cult of Voltaire reached its apogee in France during the Great Revolution, and in 1792, during the performance of his tragedy The Death of Caesar, the Jacobins decorated the head of his bust with a red Phrygian cap. If in the 19th century, in general, this cult began to decline, then the name and glory of Voltaire were always revived in eras of revolutions: at the turn of the 19th century - in Italy, where the troops of General Bonaparte brought the principle of a declaration of human and civil rights, partly in England, where the fighter against Of the Holy Alliance, Byron glorified Voltaire in the octaves of Childe Harold, then on the eve of the March revolution in Germany, where Heine resurrected his image. At the turn of the 20th century, the Voltairean tradition, in a unique refraction, flared up once again in the “philosophical” novels of Anatole France.
Voltaire Library
After Voltaire's death (1778), Russian Empress Catherine II expressed a desire to acquire the writer's library and instructed her agent in Paris to discuss this proposal with Voltaire's heirs. It was specifically stipulated that Catherine’s letters to Voltaire should also be included in the subject of the transaction. The heiress (Voltaire's niece, Denis's widow) willingly agreed, the transaction amount was a large sum at that time of 50,000 ecus, or 30,000 rubles in gold. The library was delivered to St. Petersburg on a special ship in the fall of 1779; it consisted of 6 thousand 814 books and 37 volumes with manuscripts. The empress did not receive her letters back; they were purchased and soon published by Beaumarchais, but Catherine agreed in advance with him that before publication she would be given the opportunity to remove individual fragments of the letters.
Initially, Voltaire's library was located in the Hermitage. Under Nicholas I, access to it was closed; only A.S. Pushkin, by special order of the Tsar, was admitted there during his work on “The History of Peter”. In 1861, by order of Alexander II, Voltaire's library was transferred to the Imperial Public Library (now the Russian National Library in St. Petersburg).
There are many notes by Voltaire in the books, which constitutes a separate object of study. Employees of the Russian National Library have prepared for publication the seven-volume “Corpus of Voltaire’s Reading Notes”, of which the first 5 volumes have been published.
Bibliography
Collected works in 50 volumes. - R. 1877-1882.
Voltaire's correspondence, ibid., vols. 33-50.
Yazykov D. Voltaire in Russian literature. 1879.
Novels and stories, translation by N. Dmitriev. - St. Petersburg, 1870.
Voltaire. Aesthetics. M., 1974
Voltaire M.-F. Candide. - Pantheon, 1908 (abbreviated as “Ogonyok”, 1926).
Voltaire M.-F. Princess of Babylon. Publishing house "World Literature", 1919.
Voltaire M.-F. The Maid of Orleans, in 2 vols., with notes and articles, 1927.
Voltaire. Aesthetics. Articles. Letters. - M.: Art, 1974.
Ivanov I. I. The political role of the French theater in the 18th century. - M., 1895. on the Runiverse website
Voltaire. Philosophy. M., 1988
Voltaire. God and people. 2 volumes, M., 1961
Hal Hellman. Great Controversies in Science. Ten of the Most Fascinating Disputes - Chapter 4. Voltaire vs. Needham: The Origin Controversy = Great Feuds in Science: Ten of the Liveliest Disputes Ever. - M.: “Dialectics”, 2007. - P. 320. - ISBN 0-471-35066-4.
Desnoiresterres G. Voltaire et la société du XVIII siècle, 8 vv. - P., 1867-1877.
Morley J. Voltaire. - London, 1878 (Russian translation. - M., 1889).
Bengesco G. Voltaire. Bibliographie de ses œuvres. 4vv. - P., 1889-1891.
Champion G. Voltaire. - P., 1892.
Strauss D. F. Voltaire. - Lpz., 1895 (Russian translation. - M., 1900).
Crousle L. La vie et les œuvres de Voltaire. 2 vv. - P., 1899.
Lanson G. Voltaire. - P., 1906.
Brandes. Voltaire. 2 vv. - P., 1923.
Maugras G. Querelles des philosophes Voltaire et Rousseau. - P., 1886.
Brunetière F. Les époques du théâtre français. - P., 1892.
Lion H. Les tragedies et les théories dramatiques de Voltaire. - P., 1896.
Griswald. Voltaire als Historiker. - 1898.
Ducros L. Les encyclopedistes. - P., 1900 (there is a Russian translation).
Robert L. Voltaire et l'intolérance réligieuse. - P., 1904.
Pellissier G. Voltaire philosophe. - P., 1908.
Philosophical works
"Zadig" (Zadig ou la Destinée, 1747)
"Micromegas" (Micromégas, 1752)
“Candide” (Candide, ou l’Optimisme, 1759)
“Treatise on Tolerance” (Traité sur la tolérance, 1763)
“What Ladies Like” (Ce qui plaît aux dames, 1764)
"Philosophical Dictionary" (Dictionnaire philosophiques, 1764)
"The Simple One" (L'Ingénu, 1767)
“The Babylonian Princess” (La Princesse de Babylon, 1768
Film adaptations of works
1960 Candide, or Optimism in the 20th century
1994 Simple-minded
Translators of Voltaire into Russian
Adamovich, Georgy Viktorovich
Gumilyov, Nikolai Stepanovich
Ivanov, Georgy Vladimirovich
Lozinsky, Mikhail Leonidovich
Sheinman, Cecile Yakovlevna
Fonvizin, Denis Ivanovich
A large number of portraits of the philosopher were left by his friend, the Swiss artist Jean Hubert; a significant part of them were acquired by Catherine II and are kept in the Hermitage. The philosopher's hobby was chess. His constant opponent for 17 years was the Jesuit Father Adam, who lived in the philosopher’s house in Fern. Their chess game was captured from life by Jean Hubert in the painting “Voltaire Playing Chess with Father Adam,” kept in the Hermitage.
From the 80s of the 18th century until the 20th century, the clergy of the Russian Orthodox Church fought against the ideas and books of French materialist philosophers who exposed the essence of religion. In particular, the ecclesiastical department published literature in which it criticized Voltaire’s ideas and sought the confiscation and burning of his works. In 1868, Russian spiritual censorship destroyed Voltaire’s book “Philosophy of History,” in which spiritual censors found “mockery of the truths and a refutation of the Holy Scriptures.”
In 1890, Voltaire’s “Satirical and Philosophical Dialogues” were destroyed, and in 1893, his poetic works, in which “anti-religious tendencies” were found. The asteroid (5676) Voltaire, discovered by astronomer Lyudmila Karachkina at the Crimean Astrophysical Observatory on September 9, 1986, is named in honor of Voltaire.
Voltaire is one of the outstanding figures of the Enlightenment. Writer, philosopher, publicist, who is considered national pride in France. His real name is François-Marie Arouet.
The future writer was born in 1694. His mother died early, so his father, a famous Parisian notary, was in charge of raising his son. He sent the boy to a Jesuit college, where he studied from 1704. to 1711
When the young man finished this educational institution, his father assigned him to a law office. But the young man was more attracted to literature. He wrote his first play at the age of eighteen, and when he turned twenty, he gained fame as the king of ridicule.
In 1717 for one of his satirical poems he was sent to the Bastille. While in prison, he completed a number of works that he had started working on earlier, and created several poems.
Thanks to the petitions of friends in 1718. was released. In the same year, the tragedy “Oedipus” was successfully staged on stage, making him famous. The regent even granted him a pension.
Voltaire feels a creative surge. His works of various genres appear one after another. The writer experiments, often combining the tragic and the comic.
In 1726 Voltaire again ends up behind bars, and then leaves for England. He returns to his homeland only after 3 years. Under the influence of impressions received in England, he writes the treatise “Philosophical Letters”. It was published in 1732. In 1734 At the request of the French Parliament, the book was publicly burned. The author has to hide in Lorraine, and then in the Netherlands.
In 1745 the writer returns to Paris. The king gives him the title of chamberlain and appoints him as court historiographer. In addition, he was elected a member of the French Academy.
In 1751 accepts the invitation of Frederick II and leaves for Berlin. In 1753 settles in Geneva. In 1758 buys the Ferney estate, located on the border of Switzerland and France. There he lived almost until old age and wrote the philosophical stories “Candide, or Optimism” and “The Simpleton,” as well as many other works. His estate turned into a kind of place of pilgrimage for the progressive intelligentsia.
Voltaire died in Paris in 1778.
Biography 2
It is difficult to find an area of humanitarian creativity in which Voltaire’s razor-sharp mind would not be noted. Playwright, poet, thinker, publicist, satirist, educator, philosopher, historian - there are countless incarnations of this outstanding person. His work still arouses the interest of the reader.
Early years
Voltaire's homeland is France. On November 21, 1694, one of the brightest minds of mankind saw the light of day for the first time in the city of Paris. At birth, he received the name Francois - Marie Arouet, which he abandoned in favor of the pseudonym Voltaire.
The philosopher's parents were ordinary people from the middle class. Father was a notary. The mother came from the family of a court official, lived a short life, and died in 1701.
François-Marie was sent to study at the Lyceum Louis the Great, then a Jesuit college. The father dreamed of guiding the boy in his footsteps into the legal field. In 1711, after graduating from college, Voltaire continued his studies at the Paris School of Law. At the age of eighteen, he gave up law and began writing literature.
The beginning of the persecution
He begins with caustic satire, for which he becomes a frequent guest within the walls of the Bastille. In 1717, he ended up there for almost a year, where he wrote the tragedy “Oedipus” and the poem “Henriad”.
In exchange for freedom, Voltaire has to flee France to England. Three years later he returns to his homeland and publishes the book “Philosophical Thoughts.” After which he immediately fell into disgrace again and fled to Rouen, to Lorraine.
Philosopher's Muse
In Rouen, Voltaire meets a woman with whom he will spend his best years in all respects. One evening, Marquise Emilie du Châtelet saves him from a gang of robbers, scaring them away with her appearance on horseback.
She was a very educated and wealthy lady. Emilia specially came for the philosopher, about whom she had heard a lot, in order to give him peace and happiness in her castle of Sirey.
In this quiet haven the philosopher created his best works. Paradise life lasted fifteen years, until the death of the marquise.
Europe
By 1945, Voltaire had already gained worldwide fame. However, relations with the French monarch did not work out. Having a hard time experiencing the departure of his beloved woman, he accepts the invitation of Frederick II to move to Berlin. The philosopher displeased the Prussian king with his wit and financial fraud, which he suddenly became carried away with.
1948 - moved to Switzerland, purchased an estate. Here Voltaire arranged his royal court, where numerous guests from different countries flocked. He actively corresponds with the monarchs of Denmark, Poland, Sweden, and Russia. During this period he wrote many philosophical stories.
Return to Paris
In his ninth decade, the thinker returned to Paris. Soon he is diagnosed with cancer. On May 30, 1778, Voltaire the philosopher passed away. He was buried in Champagne, and in 1791 his remains were reburied in Paris, in the tomb of famous people.
Prophetic Oleg is the great Russian prince who finally united the Slavic tribes. Almost nothing is known about Oleg’s origins. There are only a few theories based on chronicle reports.
In 1552, the future Russian Tsar Boris Fedorovich Godunov was born into the family of a Vyazma landowner. After the death of his father, his uncle Dmitry took charge of his fate, who contributed to Boris’s enrollment in 1570 as a guardsman.
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Known by his pen name "Voltaire", Francois-Marie Arouet is one of the most prominent representatives of the French Enlightenment.
Since his youth, he has written many poems, letters, satirical and dramatic works, novels, historical and philosophical treatises, subsequently translated into almost all European languages.
Gifted with a flexible intellect, Voltaire enriches his native French language with the amazingly rich and simple style that he created. Poet, playwright, essayist, novelist, storyteller, historian and philosopher and one of the founders of libertarianism and liberalism.
Biography of Voltaire
Francois was born on November 21, 1694 in the family of a simple Parisian official. When he was still a child, he was interested in literature and history. He read all the books that were in the house and literally bombarded the adults with his, sometimes not childish, questions about everything in the world.
For some time the boy studied at the Jesuit college “Latin and other nonsense”, where his parents assigned him. But, without finishing, he left it because he preferred literature to jurisprudence. The young man begins to create his first literary works in the palace of one of the aristocrats.
Interestingly, even as a child, astrologers predicted his death at 33 years old. At this time a duel was supposed to take place, but, fortunately, it did not happen. At the age of 63, the famous philosopher wrote: “I deceived astrology for 30 years, for which I apologize.”
He leaves France in 1726 and goes to England. There he studies the basics of politics and various branches of science.
Gabrielle Emilie Le Tonnelier de Breteuil, Marquise Du Châtelet (1706-1749) - French mathematician and physicist. Voltaire's wife.
Returning to Paris, the philosopher published Philosophical Letters. The publication was confiscated and the publisher was imprisoned in the Bastille. Voltaire fled to Lorraine, where he met the Marquise du Châtelet, their marriage lasted about 15 years.
In 1746, Voltaire occupied the position of poet and historian at court, but he had a quarrel with the all-powerful Marquise de Soon he left for Prussia, and from there to Switzerland, where he bought a mansion in Ferney.
Social and philosophical views of Voltaire
Convinced that literature is called upon to serve social progress, Voltaire turns his thoughts and works into philosophical works against social injustice. From a brilliant writer and philosopher, he became one of the harshest critics of absolutism and an outspoken enemy of the Church.
After the publication of the book “Louis XIV” (1751), the writer leads the fight against authoritarian power. Further significant essays were published, also “Essay on the Customs and Spirit of Nations” (1756) and “Philosophical Dictionary”, which explains in detail the belief in the superiority of reason over all other human emotions and passions.
Creating various pseudonyms, he wrote hundreds of anonymous pamphlets in which he criticized the Church and Christian ideology.
The famous thinker achieves European fame thanks to his philosophical and literary works. In them, he reveals his life credo - the need to overcome the gap between an alienated society and an oppressed individual.
He firmly believes in an inner sense of universal justice, which should be enshrined in the laws governing every human society. According to Voltaire, social life requires a “social order” that protects the interests of each individual.
Francois-Marie Arouet. (Voltaire) Years of life 1694-1778
Morality should reveal the principles of fruitful cohabitation. Voltaire teaches that every person must take his destiny into his own hands, improve his position on the path of science. Make your life an art.
In 1778, the 83-year-old thinker returned to. Severe pain due to cancer forced the philosopher to take opium. On May 30, Voltaire passed away. The ashes of the great Frenchman are in the Pantheon.
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Voltaire: briefly about the philosopher and philosophy
François Marie Arouet (known as Voltaire) was born on November 21, 1694 in Paris. He is rightfully considered one of the most important philosophers of the Enlightenment. His writings were so varied that it is difficult to call him a philosopher in the classical sense. In addition to philosophical texts, plays, novels, historical notes, poems, essays and scientific texts also came from his pen.
Voltaire was born into a modest middle-class family: his mother came from a noble family, his father was a notary and head of the county tax office. When Voltaire was seven years old, his mother died. The boy became very close to his godfather, the Marquis de Chateauneuf, a freethinker who greatly influenced his life and taught the young Voltaire literature, deism and the rejection of superstition.
In 1704-1711 Voltaire studied at the Louis the Great College in Paris, where he received a classical education and showed an ability to study languages (he had already learned Greek and Latin, and later also spoke fluent English, Spanish and Italian). By the time he completed his studies, Voltaire had already decided that he wanted to become a writer. His father predicted a career as a lawyer for him, believing that writers do not bring benefit to society. Voltaire lied to his father that he worked as a notary's assistant, and he himself composed satirical works. Eventually the deception was discovered, and his father sent him to law school. But Voltaire did not give up his favorite pastime, and soon his name became widely known in intellectual circles.
Voltaire's difficult relationship with the French authorities
Voltaire more than once created satirical works, the object of which was the French nobility and even royalty. As a result, he repeatedly found himself behind bars and in exile. In 1717, young Voltaire was imprisoned in the famous Bastille for 11 months for satirical poems addressed to the regent King Louis XV. During his imprisonment, he wrote his first play, Oedipus, which brought him real success. In 1718 he took the pseudonym "Voltaire", and this is often considered the formal turning point after which nothing connects Voltaire with his past.
Voltaire was forced to spend 1726-1729 in exile in England after ridiculing a French nobleman. In England, he became acquainted with the ideas of John Locke and Isaac Newton, and studied the system of the British constitutional monarchy, which allowed freedom of religion and freedom of speech. Returning to France, Voltaire published his English impressions under the title “Philosophical Letters” in 1733. The book was received with hostility by the French authorities and the church, and Voltaire again had to quickly leave Paris.
For the next 15 years, Voltaire lived in exile in northeastern France, finding shelter with his mistress and comrade-in-arms, the Marquise du Châtelet. He continued to write about science, history, literature, and philosophy (especially metaphysics, focusing on questions of the existence of God and the truth of biblical texts). Voltaire not only advocated for religious freedom and the separation of church and state: he completely rejected religion.
After the death of the Marquise du Châtelet in 1749, Voltaire, at the invitation of the Prussian king Frederick II, settled in Potsdam. However, in 1753 he fell out of favor due to a quarrel with the president of the Berlin Academy of Sciences. For some time, Voltaire moved from city to city, but finally settled near the Swiss border (it was there that he created his famous work “Candide”).
In 1778, at the age of 83, Voltaire returned to Paris, where he was greeted as a true hero. He died on May 30 of the same year.
Voltaire's philosophical views
Voltaire was influenced by the ideas of John Locke and skeptical empiricism, which were actively developing in England at that time. Voltaire was not only a famous critic of religion. It was he who determined the transition from the work of Descartes: he mocked religion and humanistic forms of optimism.
Voltaire remained a staunch supporter of religious freedom. He was not an atheist (he considered himself a deist), but opposed the organized form of religion and Catholicism. He considered the Bible to be a metaphorical reference book on moral issues, created by man and already outdated. He was convinced that the existence of God is not a matter of faith (hence, has nothing to do with the faith of an individual), but a matter of reason. Voltaire’s words are widely known: “If God did not exist, he would have to be invented.”
Policy
According to Voltaire, the ideal form of government is a constitutional monarchy, which he saw in England. He did not believe in democracy, calling it “the idiocy of the masses,” and was convinced that with the help of philosophers, an enlightened monarch could increase the wealth and power of France (which, according to Voltaire, also coincided with the interests of the monarch himself).
Hedonism
Voltaire's views on freedom and, in fact, his entire philosophy are based on hedonistic morality. This is often reflected in his poetry, which represents moral freedom derived from sexual freedom. In Voltaire's works, morality is equated with a positive assessment of personal pleasure. His ideas about ethics are based on maximizing pleasure and avoiding pain. His hedonistic point of view carried over into his criticism of religion: he often criticized the teachings of the Catholic Church regarding its moral principles of sexual restrictions, priestly celibacy and renunciation of carnal pleasures.
Skepticism
Unlike other philosophers, such as Descartes (whose work Voltaire had an extremely negative attitude towards), Voltaire based all of his philosophical positions on skepticism. He called philosophers such as Descartes “philosophizing romantics.” He saw no value in creating systematic approach for a coherent explanation of phenomena and things. According to Voltaire, this is not philosophy at all. He argued that the role of the philosopher is to recognize that sometimes the absence of an explanation is the most philosophical explanation. The philosopher must free people from dogmatic principles and irrational laws.
Voltaire relied on skepticism as a tool to defend his views on freedom. In his opinion, there is no sacred power that cannot be criticized. Voltaire's works are always full of hostility - towards the monarchy, religion and society. Throughout his career, he used wit and satire to undermine existing philosophical foundations. For example, in his most famous work, Candide, he parodies the religious optimism of the philosopher Gottfried Leibniz.
Metaphysics
Voltaire argued that science, thanks to the significant achievements of Sir Isaac Newton (Voltaire was his great admirer), was moving away from metaphysics. He believed that metaphysics should be completely excluded from science.
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fr. Voltaire; birth name Francois Marie Arouet fr. François Marie Arouet; anagram “Arouet le j(eune)” - “ Arue Jr."(Latin spelling - AROVETLI)
one of the greatest French enlightenment philosophers of the 18th century: poet, prose writer, satirist, tragedian, historian, publicist
short biography
Named at birth Marie Francois Arouet, - a great French writer, poet, playwright, philosopher-educator of the 18th century, historian, publicist - was born in Paris on November 21, 1694. In 1704, his notary father sent him to study at the Jesuit College of Louis the Great, where he studied until 171 . The boy was an excellent student, but his passion for free-thinking literature and voiced doubts about Christian tenets, demonstrated already at such a young age, almost led to his expulsion. After graduating from college, Marie Francois, through the efforts of his father, ended up in a law office, but work in the literary field seemed more attractive to him.
Dreaming of recognition, young Marie Francois took part in a competition organized by the Academy, writing “Ode on the Vow of Louis XIII,” but considered himself hurt when the victory went to the protégé of an influential academician. His satirical poem “The Quagmire,” which ridiculed the Academy, was rewritten, it turned out to be very popular, and Marie Francois had to hide from trouble with friends. Since then, his literary activity has repeatedly become the cause of persecution by those in power and provoked events that played an important role in his biography. Thus, for satirical poems addressed to the Duke of Orleans in 1717, he ended up in the Bastille for almost a year. Influential acquaintances helped him return to freedom, and already in 1718, the tragedy “Oedipus” was staged for the first time on the stage of the “Comédie Française,” which was awarded the status of the first classical French tragedy of the 18th century. She glorified the 24-year-old author and his creative pseudonym: from 1718 he became known as Voltaire.
Due to a conflict at the end of 1725 with a famous nobleman, whom Voltaire had the imprudence to ridicule, he again found himself in the Bastille, and he was released from prison on the condition that he go abroad. Thus, in the spring of 1726, Voltaire found himself in England, where he was received as a prominent figure in literature, and he, in turn, paid great attention to the study of the social structure of the country, its historical, philosophical, and cultural heritage. Following his stay in England, from where he returned three years later, in 1733 he published “Philosophical Letters,” which drew very bold and unflattering parallels for France. The book was sentenced to burning, and the disgraced author managed to escape from arrest by flight, after which he did not risk showing up in the capital for a very long time.
For almost two decades, Voltaire lived near the border of Lorraine in the castle of Cyr, which belonged to the Marquise du Châtelet, a very educated woman who was fond of science and introduced her lover to it. This period of biography was decisive for Voltaire’s emergence as an outstanding writer and thinker.
In 1736, a long-term correspondence began between him and the Crown Prince of Prussia, which contributed to increasing the prestige of both the future ruler and Voltaire himself. In addition, in 1740 the prince became King Frederick II, and the French authorities took advantage of the trusting relationship by asking the writer to clarify some aspects of the new monarch's foreign policy towards their country. Voltaire successfully completed the mission entrusted to him, which contributed to the increase in his authority, which gradually increased not only in his homeland, but throughout the continent. In 1745, he was appointed to the post of royal historiographer and court poet, and he became a member of the French Academy. However, his good relations with the court did not last long.
In the summer of 1750 Voltaire arrived in Potsdam, accepting the invitation of Frederick II. Having at first hoped for a freer order, the thinker then felt a cooling towards his responsibility for editing the monarch’s works in French. His dubious financial transactions and conflict with the President of the Academy contributed to the deterioration of relations. As a result, in 1753 he left Germany to move to Switzerland for a total of a quarter of a century, where he acquired several estates.
In his declining years, Voltaire was a very rich man, owned lands, watchmaking and weaving workshops, substantial capital, lent money to aristocrats, so financial independence was supplemented by the opportunity to freely, without fear of reprisals, act as a herald of public opinion that criticized the existing system. And yet, the main occupation has always remained creativity, denouncing wars and persecution of dissidents, defending political and religious freedoms.
The 84-year-old Voltaire did not give up his creative activity even when in February 1778, succumbing to persuasion, he returned to Paris. Fellow townspeople gave him an enthusiastic welcome. The performance of his last play, “Irene,” was a real triumph. In his role as director of the Academy, Voltaire began to revise the academic dictionary, but died in May of the same year.
His creative - literary, historical, philosophical - legacy amounted to 50 volumes (Molan edition). The influence that the Ferney sage, as Voltaire was called, had on the minds of his contemporaries, including very high-ranking ones, for example, Catherine II or Gustav III, is difficult to overestimate. The 18th century and in our time are sometimes called by his name, despite the fact that the century gave the world many prominent figures of the Enlightenment.
Biography from Wikipedia
The son of an official, François Marie Arouet, studied at a Jesuit college “Latin and all sorts of nonsense,” but preferred literature to law; began his literary career in the palaces of aristocrats as a poet-freeloader; for satirical poems addressed to the regent and his daughter, he ended up in the Bastille (where he was later sent a second time, this time for other people’s poems).
He was beaten by a nobleman from the de Rogan family, whom he ridiculed, wanted to challenge him to a duel, but due to the intrigue of the offender, he again found himself in prison, was released on the condition of traveling abroad; An interesting fact is that in his youth two astrologers predicted Voltaire to be only 33 earth years old. And it was this failed duel that could have made the prediction a reality, but chance decided differently. Voltaire wrote about this at the age of 63: “I have deceived astrologers out of spite for thirty years, for which I humbly ask you to forgive me.”
Later he left for England, where he lived for three years (1726-1729), studying its political system, science, philosophy and literature.
Returning to France, Voltaire published his English impressions under the title “Philosophical Letters”; the book was confiscated (1734), the publisher paid with the Bastille, and Voltaire fled to Lorraine, where he found shelter with the Marquise du Châtelet (with whom he lived for 15 years). Accused of making a mockery of religion (in the poem "The Man of the World"), Voltaire fled again, this time to the Netherlands.
In 1746, Voltaire was appointed court poet and historiographer, but, having aroused the discontent of the Marquise de Pompadour, he broke with the court. Always suspected of political unreliability, not feeling safe in France, Voltaire followed (1751) the invitation of the Prussian king Frederick II, with whom he had been in correspondence for a long time (since 1736), and settled in Berlin (Potsdam), but, causing the king’s dissatisfaction with unseemly financial speculation, as well as a quarrel with the president of the Academy Maupertuis (caricatured by Voltaire in the Diatribe of Doctor Acacius), was forced to leave Prussia and settled in Switzerland (1753). Here he bought an estate near Geneva, renaming it “Otradnoye” (Délices), then acquired two more estates: Tournai and - on the border with France - Fernet (1758), where he lived almost until his death. A man now rich and completely independent, a capitalist who lent money to aristocrats, a landowner and at the same time the owner of a weaving and watchmaking workshop, Voltaire - the “Fernay patriarch” - could now freely and fearlessly represent in his own person “public opinion”, the omnipotent opinion against old, outdated socio-political order.
Ferney became a place of pilgrimage for the new intelligentsia; Such “enlightened” monarchs as Catherine II, Frederick II, who resumed correspondence with him, and Gustav III of Sweden were proud of their friendship with Voltaire. In 1774, Louis XV was replaced by Louis XVI, and in 1778 Voltaire, an eighty-three-year-old man, returned to Paris, where he was given an enthusiastic welcome. He bought himself a mansion on Richelieu Street and actively worked on a new tragedy, Agathocles. The production of his last play, Irene, turned into his apotheosis. Appointed director of the Academy, Voltaire began, despite his advanced age, to revise the academic dictionary.
Severe pain, the origin of which was initially unclear, forced Voltaire to take large doses of opium. In early May, after an exacerbation of the disease, Doctor of Medicine Tronchin made a disappointing diagnosis: prostate cancer. Voltaire was still strong, sometimes he even joked, but often the joke was interrupted by a grimace of pain.
The next medical consultation, held on May 25, predicted a quick death. Every day brought more and more suffering to the patient. Sometimes even opium did not help.
Voltaire's nephew Abbot Mignot, trying to reconcile his uncle with the Catholic Church, invited Abbot Gautier and the parish curate of the Church of St. Sulpicia Tersaka. The visit took place on the afternoon of May 30. According to legend, when asked by the clergy to “renounce Satan and come to the Lord,” Voltaire replied: “Why make new enemies before dying?” His last words were "For God's sake, let me die in peace." After opening the body, the brain was placed in a jar of alcohol, and the heart in a lead box. The body was secretly removed and buried in Celliers Cathedral, thirty leagues from Paris. The brain was kept by the pharmacist in the city of Mituar and was passed down by inheritance. The heart was kept by his adopted daughter, the Marquise de Villette, and was passed on through generations. On the casket where the heart was kept, it was engraved: “His spirit hovers everywhere, but his heart rests here.”
In 1791, the Convention decided to transfer Voltaire's remains to the Pantheon and rename the "Quaie des Theatines" to "Voltaire Quai". The transfer of Voltaire's remains to the Pantheon turned into a grandiose revolutionary demonstration. In 1814, during the Restoration, there was a rumor that Voltaire's remains were allegedly stolen from the Pantheon, which was not true. Currently, Voltaire's ashes are still in the Pantheon.
Philosophy
Being a supporter of the empiricism of the English philosopher Locke, whose teachings he propagated in his “philosophical letters,” Voltaire was at the same time an opponent of French materialist philosophy, in particular Baron Holbach, against whom his “Letter of Memmius to Cicero” was directed; on the question of the spirit, Voltaire vacillated between denial and affirmation of the immortality of the soul; on the question of free will, he indecisively moved from indeterminism to determinism. Voltaire published his most important philosophical articles in the Encyclopedia and then published them as a separate book, first under the title “Pocket Philosophical Dictionary” (French Dictionnaire philosophique portatif, 1764). In this work, Voltaire showed himself as a fighter against idealism and religion, relying on the scientific achievements of his time. In numerous articles, he criticizes the religious ideas of the Christian Church, religious morality, and denounces crimes committed by the Christian Church.
Voltaire, as a representative of the school of natural law, recognizes the existence of inalienable natural rights for each individual: freedom, property, security, equality.
Along with natural laws, the philosopher identifies positive laws, the necessity of which he explains by the fact that “people are evil.” Positive laws are designed to guarantee the natural rights of man. Many positive laws seemed to the philosopher to be unjust, embodying only human ignorance.
Criticism of religion
A tireless and merciless enemy of the church and clerics, whom he persecuted with arguments of logic and arrows of sarcasm, a writer whose slogan was “écrasez l'infâme” (“destroy the vile”, often translated as “crush the vermin”), Voltaire attacked both Judaism and on Christianity (for example, in “Dinner at Citizen Boulainvilliers”), however, expressing his respect for the person of Christ (both in the indicated work and in the treatise “God and People”); for the purpose of anti-church propaganda, Voltaire published the “Testament of Jean Meslier,” a socialist priest of the 17th century who did not spare words to debunk clericalism.
Fighting in word and deed (intercession for the victims of religious fanaticism - Calas and Servetus) against the domination and oppression of religious superstitions and prejudices, against clerical fanaticism, Voltaire tirelessly preached the ideas of religious “tolerance” (tolérence) - a term that in the 18th century meant contempt for Christianity and unbridled advertising of anti-Catholicism - both in his journalistic pamphlets (Treatise on Tolerance, 1763) and in his artistic works (the image of Henry IV, who put an end to the religious strife between Catholics and Protestants; the image of the emperor in the tragedy “Gebras”). A special place in Voltaire’s views was occupied by his attitude towards Christianity in general. Voltaire considered Christian myth-making to be a deception.
In 1722, Voltaire wrote the anti-clerical poem “For and Against.” In this poem, he argues that the Christian religion, which prescribes loving a merciful God, actually paints him as a cruel tyrant, “whom we should hate.” Thus, Voltaire proclaims a decisive break with Christian beliefs:
In this unworthy image I do not recognize the God whom I should honor... I am not a Christian...
Criticism of atheism. Voltaire's Deism
Fighting against the church, clergy and “revealed” religions, Voltaire was at the same time an enemy of atheism; Voltaire dedicated a special pamphlet to criticism of atheism (“Homélie sur l’athéisme”). A deist in the spirit of the English bourgeois freethinkers of the 18th century, Voltaire tried with all kinds of arguments to prove the existence of a deity who created the universe, in the affairs of which, however, he did not interfere, using evidence: “cosmological” (“Against Atheism”), “teleological” (“Le philosophe ignorant”) and “moral” (article “God” in the Encyclopedia).
“But in the 60-70s. Voltaire is imbued with skeptical sentiments":
But where is the eternal geometer? In one place or everywhere without taking up space? I don't know anything about this. Did he create a world out of his substance? I don't know anything about this. Is it indefinite, characterized by neither quantity nor quality? I don't know anything about this.
“Voltaire moves away from the position of creationism and says that “nature is eternal.” “Voltaire’s contemporaries talked about one episode. When Voltaire was asked if there was a God, he first asked to close the door tightly and then said: “There is no God, but my lackey and wife should not know this, since I do not want my lackey to stab me to death, and my wife to disobey me.” "
In the “Edifying Sermons”, as well as in philosophical stories, the argument of “usefulness” is repeatedly encountered, that is, such an idea of God in which he acts as a social and moral regulating principle. In this sense, faith in him turns out to be necessary, since only it, according to Voltaire, is capable of keeping the human race from self-destruction and mutual extermination.
Let us, my brethren, at least see how useful such a faith is, and how interested we are in having it impressed upon all hearts.
These principles are necessary for the preservation of the human race. Deprive people of the idea of a punishing and rewarding god - and here Sulla and Marius bathe with pleasure in the blood of their fellow citizens; Augustus, Antony and Lepidus surpass Sulla in cruelty, Nero coldly orders the murder of his own mother.
Denying medieval church-monastic asceticism in the name of the human right to happiness, which is rooted in reasonable egoism (“Discours sur l’homme”), for a long time sharing the optimism of the English bourgeoisie of the 18th century, which transformed the world in its own image and likeness and affirmed through the lips of the poet Pope: “Whatever is, is right” (“everything is good that is”), after the earthquake in Lisbon, which destroyed a third of the city, Voltaire somewhat reduced his optimism, declaring in a poem about the Lisbon disaster: “now not everything is good, but everything will be fine” .
Social and philosophical views
According to social views, Voltaire is a supporter of inequality. Society should be divided into “educated and rich” and those who, “having nothing,” are “obliged to work for them” or “amuse” them. Therefore, there is no need to educate workers: “if the people start to reason, everything will perish” (from Voltaire’s letters). When printing Meslier’s “Testament,” Voltaire threw out all of his sharp criticism of private property, considering it “outrageous.” This explains Voltaire’s negative attitude towards, although there was a personal element in their relationship.
A convinced and passionate opponent of absolutism, he remained until the end of his life a monarchist, a supporter of the idea of enlightened absolutism, a monarchy based on the “educated part” of society, on the intelligentsia, on “philosophers.” An enlightened monarch is his political ideal, which Voltaire embodied in a number of images: in the person of Henry IV (in the poem “Henriad”), the “sensitive” philosopher-king Teucer (in the tragedy “Laws of Minos”), who sets as his task “to enlighten people, to soften morals of his subjects, to civilize a wild country,” and King Don Pedro (in the tragedy of the same name), who tragically dies in the fight against the feudal lords in the name of the principle expressed by Teucer in the words: “A kingdom is a great family with a father at its head. Whoever has a different idea about the monarch is guilty before humanity.”
Voltaire, like Rousseau, sometimes tended to defend the idea of the "primitive state" in plays such as "The Scythians" or "The Laws of Minos", but his "primitive society" (Scythians and Sidonians) has nothing in common with Rousseau's depiction of the paradise of small property owners -farmers, but embodies a society of enemies of political despotism and religious intolerance.
In his satirical poem “The Virgin of Orleans” he ridicules knights and courtiers, but in the poem “The Battle of Fontenoy” (1745) Voltaire glorifies the old French nobility, in plays such as “The Right of the Seigneur” and especially “Nanina”, he draws with passion liberal-leaning landowners, even ready to marry a peasant woman. For a long time, Voltaire could not come to terms with the invasion of the stage by persons of non-noble status, “ordinary people” (French hommes du commun), because this meant “devaluing the tragedy” (avilir le cothurne).
Connected by his political, religious-philosophical and social views still quite firmly with the “old order,” Voltaire, especially with his literary sympathies, firmly rooted himself in the aristocratic 18th century of Louis XIV, to whom he dedicated his best historical work, “Siècle de Louis XIV.”
Shortly before his death, on April 7, 1778, Voltaire joined the Paris Masonic lodge of the Grand Orient of France - the Nine Sisters. At the same time, he was accompanied to the box by Benjamin Franklin (at that time the American ambassador to France).
Literary creativity
Dramaturgy
Continuing to cultivate the aristocratic genres of poetry - messages, gallant lyrics, odes, etc., Voltaire in the field of dramatic poetry was the last major representative of classical tragedy - wrote 28; among them the most important: “Oedipus” (1718), “Brutus” (1730), “Zaire” (1732), “Caesar” (1735), “Alzira” (1736), “Mahomet” (1741), “Merope” ( 1743), “Semiramis” (1748), “Rome Saved” (1752), “The Chinese Orphan” (1755), “Tancred” (1760).
However, in the context of the extinction of aristocratic culture, classical tragedy was inevitably transformed. Into her former rationalistic coldness, notes of sensitivity burst into ever greater abundance (“Zaire”), her former sculptural clarity was replaced by romantic picturesqueness (“Tancred”). The repertoire of ancient figures was increasingly invaded by exotic characters - medieval knights, Chinese, Scythians, Hebrians and the like.
For a long time, not wanting to put up with the rise of the new drama - as a “hybrid” form, Voltaire ended up defending the method of mixing the tragic and comic (in the preface to “The Spendthrift” and “Socrates”), considering this mixture, however, legitimate trait only of “high comedy” and rejecting as a “non-fiction genre” the “tearful drama”, where there are only “tears”. For a long time opposing the invasion of the stage by plebeian heroes, Voltaire, under the pressure of bourgeois drama, gave up this position as well, opening wide the doors of drama “for all classes and all ranks” (preface to “The Tartan Woman”, with references to English examples) and formulating (in “Discourse on Hebras”) essentially a program of democratic theater; “To make it easier to instill in people the valor necessary for society, the author chose heroes from the lower class. He was not afraid to bring on stage a gardener, a young girl helping her father with rural work, or a simple soldier. Such heroes, who stand closer to nature than others and speak simple language, will make a stronger impression and achieve their goals more quickly than princes in love and princesses tormented by passion. Enough theaters thundered with tragic adventures, possible only among monarchs and completely useless for other people.” The type of such bourgeois plays includes “The Right of the Seigneur”, “Nanina”, “The Spendthrift”, etc.
Poetry
If, as a playwright, Voltaire moved from orthodox classical tragedy through its sentimentalization, romanticization and exoticism to the drama of the New Age under the pressure of the growing movement of the “third estate,” then his evolution as an epic writer is similar. Voltaire began in the style of a classical epic (“Henriad”, 1728; originally “The League or the Great Henry”), which, however, like classical tragedy, was transformed under his hand: instead of a fictional hero, a real one was taken, instead of fantastic wars - actually former, instead of gods - allegorical images - concepts: love, jealousy, fanaticism (from “Essai sur la poésie épique”).
Continuing the style of the heroic epic in the "Poem of the Battle of Fontenoy", glorifying the victory of Louis XV, Voltaire then in "The Virgin of Orleans" (La Pucelle d'Orléans), caustically and obscenely ridiculing the entire medieval world of feudal-clerical France, reduces the heroic poem to the heroic farce and moves gradually, under the influence of Pope, from a heroic poem to a didactic poem, to “discourse in verse” (discours en vers), to the presentation in the form of a poem of his moral and social philosophy (“Letter on the Philosophy of Newton”, “Discourse in Verse” about man", "Natural Law", "Poem about the Lisbon disaster").
Philosophical prose
From here there was a natural transition to prose, to the philosophical novel (“The Vision of the Babuk”, “The Simple-minded”, “Zadig” or Fate, “Mikromegas”, “Candide, or Optimism”, “The Princess of Babylon”, “Scarmentado” and others, 1740- 1760s), where, at the core of adventure, travel, and exoticism, Voltaire develops a subtle dialectic of the relationship between chance and predetermination (“Zadig”), the simultaneous baseness and greatness of man (“Vision of Babuk”), the absurdity of both pure optimism and pure pessimism (“Candide”), and about the only wisdom, which consists in the conviction of Candide, who has known all the vicissitudes, that a person is called to “cultivate his garden” or, as the Simple One from the story of the same name begins to understand in a similar way, to mind his own business and try to correct the world not with loud words, but a noble example.
As for all “enlighteners” of the 18th century, fiction was not an end in itself for Voltaire, but only a means of promoting his ideas, a means of protest against autocracy, against churchmen and clericalism, an opportunity to preach religious tolerance, civil freedom, etc. In accordance with this attitude, his work is highly rational and journalistic. All the forces of the “old order” rose furiously against this, as one of his enemies dubbed him, “Prometheus”, overthrowing the power of earthly and heavenly gods; Freron was especially zealous, whom Voltaire branded with his laughter in a number of pamphlets and brought out in the play “The Tartan” under the transparent name of the informer Frelon.
Human rights activities
In 1762, Voltaire began a campaign to overturn the sentence of Protestant Jean Calas, who was executed for the murder of his son. As a result, Jean Kalas was found innocent and the rest of those convicted in this case were acquitted. French historian Marion Seago claims that Voltaire used the Calas Case to demonstrate his hatred of the Church, and not at all to protect the rights of the executed Calas (who was acquitted due to procedural errors).
Attitude towards Jews
In his “Philosophical Dictionary” Voltaire wrote: “... you will find in them (the Jews) only an ignorant and barbaric people, who have long combined the most disgusting greed with the most despicable superstitions and with the most invincible hatred of all peoples who tolerate them and at the same time they enrich... Nevertheless, they should not be burned.” Louis de Bonald wrote: “When I say that philosophers are kind to Jews, one must exclude from their number the head of the 18th century philosophical school Voltaire, who throughout his life demonstrated a decisive hostility towards this people...”
Followers of Voltaire. Voltairianism
Voltaire was often forced to publish his works anonymously, renounce them when rumor declared him to be the author, print them abroad, and smuggle them into France. In the struggle against the dying old order, Voltaire could, on the other hand, rely on a huge influential audience both in France and abroad, ranging from “enlightened monarchs” to broad cadres of the new bourgeois intelligentsia, right up to Russia, to which he devoted his “History of Peter” and partly “Charles XII”, being in correspondence with Catherine II and with Sumarokov, and where his name was christened, although without sufficient reason, a social movement known as Voltairianism.
The cult of Voltaire reached its apogee in France during the Great Revolution, and in 1792, during the performance of his tragedy The Death of Caesar, the Jacobins decorated the head of his bust with a red Phrygian cap. If in the 19th century, in general, this cult began to decline, then the name and glory of Voltaire were always revived in eras of revolutions: at the turn of the 19th century - in Italy, where the troops of General Bonaparte brought the principle of a declaration of human and civil rights, partly in England, where the fighter against The Holy Alliance, Byron, glorified Voltaire in the octaves of “Childe Harold”, then - on the eve of the March revolution in Germany, where Heine resurrected his image. At the turn of the 20th century, the Voltairean tradition, in a unique refraction, flared up once again in the “philosophical” novels of Anatole France.
Voltaire Library
After Voltaire's death (1778), Russian Empress Catherine II expressed a desire to acquire the writer's library and instructed her agent in Paris to discuss this proposal with Voltaire's heirs. It was specifically stipulated that Catherine’s letters to Voltaire should also be included in the subject of the transaction. The heiress (Voltaire's niece, Denis's widow) willingly agreed, the transaction amount was a large sum at that time of 50,000 ecus, or 30,000 rubles in gold. The library was delivered to St. Petersburg on a special ship in the fall of 1779; it consisted of 6 thousand 814 books and 37 volumes with manuscripts. The empress did not receive her letters back; they were purchased and soon published by Beaumarchais, but Catherine agreed in advance with him that before publication she would be given the opportunity to remove individual fragments of the letters.
Initially, Voltaire's library was located in the Hermitage. Under Nicholas I, access to it was closed; only A.S. Pushkin, by special order of the Tsar, was admitted there during his work on “The History of Peter”. In 1861, by order of Alexander II, Voltaire's library was transferred to the Imperial Public Library (now the Russian National Library in St. Petersburg).
There are many notes by Voltaire in the books, which constitutes a separate object of study. Employees of the Russian National Library have prepared for publication the seven-volume “Corpus of Voltaire’s Reading Notes”, of which the first 5 volumes have been published.
Bibliography
- Collected works in 50 volumes. - R. 1877-1882.
- Voltaire's correspondence, ibid., vols. 33-50.
- Yazykov D. Voltaire in Russian literature. 1879.
- Novels and stories, translation by N. Dmitriev. - St. Petersburg, 1870.
- Voltaire M.-F. Candide. - Pantheon, 1908 (abbreviated as “Ogonyok”, 1926).
- Voltaire M.-F. Princess of Babylon. Publishing house "World Literature", 1919.
- Voltaire M.-F. The Maid of Orleans, in 2 vols., with notes and articles, 1927.
- Voltaire. Aesthetics. Articles. Letters. Preface and Reasoning, 1974.
- Ivanov I. I. The political role of the French theater in the 18th century. - M., 1895. on the Runiverse website
- Voltaire. Philosophy. M., 1988
- Voltaire. God and people. 2 volumes, M., 1961
- Hal Hellman. Great Controversies in Science. Ten of the Most Fascinating Disputes - Chapter 4. Voltaire vs. Needham: The Origin Controversy = Great Feuds in Science: Ten of the Liveliest Disputes Ever. - M.: “Dialectics”, 2007. - P. 320.
- Desnoiresterres G. Voltaire et la société du XVIII siècle, 8 vv. - P., 1867-1877.
- Morley J. Voltaire. - London, 1878 (Russian translation. - M., 1889).
- Bengesco G. Voltaire. Bibliographie de ses œuvres. 4vv. - P., 1889-1891.
- Champion G. Voltaire. - P., 1892.
- Strauss D. F. Voltaire. - Lpz., 1895 (Russian translation. - M., 1900).
- Crousle L. La vie et les œuvres de Voltaire. 2 vv. - P., 1899.
- Lanson G. Voltaire. - P., 1906.
- Brandes. Voltaire. 2 vv. - P., 1923.
- Maugras G. Querelles des philosophes Voltaire et Rousseau. - P., 1886.
- Brunetière F. Les époques du théâtre français. - P., 1892.
- Lion H. Les tragedies et les théories dramatiques de Voltaire. - P., 1896.
- Griswald. Voltaire als Historiker. - 1898.
- Ducros L. Les encyclopedistes. - P., 1900 (there is a Russian translation).
- Robert L. Voltaire et l'intolérance réligieuse. - P., 1904.
- Pellissier G. Voltaire philosophe. - P., 1908.
Philosophical works
- "Zadig" ( Zadig ou la Destinée, 1747)
- "Micromegas" ( Micromegas, 1752)
- "Candide" ( Candide, ou l'Optimisme, 1759)
- "Treatise on Tolerance" ( Traité sur la tolerance, 1763)
- "What Ladies Like" ( Ce qui plaît aux dames, 1764)
- "Philosophical Dictionary" ( Dictionnaire philosophiques, 1764)
- "Simple" ( L'Ingénu, 1767)
- "Babylonian Princess" ( La Princesse de Babylon, 1768)
Film adaptations of works
- 1960 Candide, or Optimism in the 20th century
- 1994 Simple-minded
Translators of Voltaire into Russian
- Adamovich, Georgy Viktorovich
- Gumilyov, Nikolai Stepanovich
- Ivanov, Georgy Vladimirovich
- Lozinsky, Mikhail Leonidovich
- Sheinman, Cecile Yakovlevna
- Fonvizin, Denis Ivanovich