Ramon Fernandez
Ramón María Gabriel Adeodato Fernández (March 18, 1894-August 3, 1944) was a French writer, journalist and critic. Between the wars he was a militant Communist but later became a collaborator.
Biography
Family
Ramón María Gabriel Fernández Gabrié was the son of Ramón Fernández de Arteaga, a diplomat at the Mexican embassy in Paris, who died accidentally in 1905.[1] His mother was Jeanne Gabrié, daughter of the poet Alfred Gabrié from Toulon[2].
He obtained French citizenship in 1919 and married Liliane Chomette (1901-1985).
He is the father of the writer Dominique Fernandez, whose book Ramon concerns his father's life. The book explores how "one of the most brilliant intellectuals of his time could have been a socialist at 31 (1925), literary critic for a leftist journal at 38 (1932), Communist at 40 (1934), fascist at 43 (1937) and finally a collaborator at 46 (1940)"[2]
Having begun a relationship with the pianist Youra Guller, Fernandez divorced his wife in 1939. Ramon Fernandez then remarried with Betty Bouwens (granddaughter of the architect William Bouwens van der Boijen). During the war, he lived with her and renting to Marguerite Duras an apartment on the rue Saint-Benoît, where collaborators and résistants crossed paths. Ramon Fernandez and his wife are depicted in Duras' novel L'Amant .
Career
Fernandez was known in the 1930s for his novel Le Pari which won the prix Femina in 1932. However, his is principally known as an essayist, having published numerous essays on Proust, Balzac, Molière and other writers for literary and cultural journals.
He was initially considered to be an important socialist writer. In 1934, he was politically situated between the Communist Party (parti communiste) and the French Section of the Workers' International (SFIO), supporting Marxism but not Communism[3].
However, during the Popular Front period, he became abandoned the Left, and joined the French Popular Party in 1937, following the same path as Jacques Doriot. He then became an active member of the Party's cultural activities. He interviewed Doriot in a German uniform just before Doriot's departure for the Russian Front.
During the Occupation, he worked for the collaborationist newspaper La Gerbe, edited by Alphonse de Châteaubriant as well as the Nouvelle revue française, which had become collaborationist under the editorship Pierre Drieu la Rochelle. Following the FPP, Ramon Fernandez welcomed French collaboration with Nazi Germany, believing that "without Germany, Europe would be Bolshevik". In 1941, he was part of a group of seven French writers, with Jacques Chardonne, Marcel Jouhandeau, Pierre Drieu la Rochelle, Robert Brasillach, André Fraigneau and Abel Bonnard who met Joseph Goebbels at Weimar. . The trip was organized by Gerhard Heller[4]. Upon their return to France, the writers published hommages to Goebbels in their respective literary journals.In July 1943, the German authorities suggested to Gaston Gallimard that he make Ramon Fernandez as editor of Nouvelle revue française, following the resignation of Pierre Drieu la Rochelle.
These activities did not prevent him from visiting writers with different political views during the Occupation of Paris, such as Marguerite Duras who became a friend[5]. He also gave a eulogy to Henri Bergson which led to Fernandez' rupture with Céline.
On August 2, 1944, shortly before the Liberation of Paris, he died of a heart attack. According to Marguerite Duras, the heart attack was caused by cancer. Other biographies give different reasons for his death such as a suicide or drunkeness. His funeral took place in Saint-Germain-des-Prés, with honors in a still-Occupied Paris in the presence of many fellow Collaborators [6]. His early death likely allowed him to avoid punishment for his politics following the Libération, unlike his second wife whose head was shaved in 1945.
Catégorie:Article à référence nécessaire
Works
Novels
- Le Pari, Paris, Gallimard, 1932 ISBN 2070223744
- Les Violents, Paris, Gallimard, 1935 ISBN 2070223752
- Philippe Sauveur, Paris, Grasset et Fasquelle, 2012 ISBN 978-2-246-79694-7
Notes and references
- ^ Liste de collaborationnistes [archive] publié dans la Bête immonde par le Parti communiste.
- ^ a b Dominique Fernandez (2009). "9-10". Ramon. Éditions Grasset. ISBN 9782246739494. Retrieved 4 avril 2022.
{{cite book}}: Check date values in:|access-date=(help). - ^ Intervention dans le mensuel Esprit publié le 1 7 1934 à propos de sa tentation pour le communisme.
- ^ "Sur les traces de la NRF, d'Albert Camus et de Gerhard Heller – À Paris sous l'Occupation". terresdecrivains.com. 28 septembre 2005. Retrieved 15 décembre 2012.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|access-date=and|date=(help). - ^ Laure Adler, Marguerite Duras, éd. Gallimard, 1998, p. 143-147.
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
reponsewas invoked but never defined (see the help page).
Bibliography
- Pascal Ory, Les Collaborateurs 1940-1945, Seuil, Paris, 1976 (sur l’itinéraire de René Château et sur celui de Ramon Fernandez)
- François Sentein, Minutes, 4 vol., Le Promeneur, 2000-2003 (Ramon Fernandez is often mentioned in this autobiography about the Occupation).
- Simon Epstein, Un paradoxe français<span typeof="mw:DisplaySpace" id="mwAag"> </span>: Antiracistes dans la Collaboration, antisémites dans la Résistance, Albin Michel, 2008, p. 239-240
- Dominique Fernandez, Ramon, Grasset, Paris, 2009 ISBN 9782246739418