Victor hugo and the european future: chances of Christianity in eastern and western Europe

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VICTOR HUGO AND THE EUROPEAN FUTURE: CHANCES OF CHRISTIANITY IN EASTERN AND WESTERN EUROPE

BOSTJAN M.Т.

(University of Ljubljana, Slovenia)

The present study addresses the problem of European identity as it is nowadays revealed through the promotion of the multiculturalism. In-deed, the romantic visions of the Old Continent as Victor Hugo and George Gordon - Lord Byron uttered (cf. the epic poem of Mazeppa) opposes the “modern” vision of the problem. Eastern Europeans appear to be more sensitive to the topic of identity than their western counterparts. That presents a great political opportunity for the Ukraine.

Key words: Mazeppa, Victor Hugo, Lord Byron, romanticism, Europe, identity, multiculturalism, East - West relations.

Дослідження присвячене проблемі європейської ідентичності та її сучасному виявленні через розповсюдження ідей мультикультуралізму. Справді, романтизоване бачення старого континенту, змальоване Віктором Гюго та лордом Джорджем Гордоном Байроном (пор. епічну поему про Мазепу) вступає у протиріччя з «сучасним» баченням проблеми. Мешканці Східної Європи виявляються більш чутливими до теми ідентичності, аніж їхні західні сучасники. Така ситуація свідчить про велике політичне майбутнє України.

Ключові слова: Мазепа, Віктор Гюго, Лорд Байрон, романтизм,Європа, ідентичність, мультикультуралізм, стосунки між Сходом та Заходом.

european multiculturalism modern promotion

The spirit of modernity has evolved in 17^th, 18^th and 19^th centuries: man was then transformed into what he is today. The 17^th century saw the birth of the Cartesian-minded man. The 18^th century gave European culture an encyclopedic, Enlightenment dimension. The 19^th century liberated the thinking subject through romanticism: the emotions carried him into all dimensions that fantasy was offering. The 19^th century signified romanticism, which also meant the birth of a nation: the liberation of the oppressed nations from under the yoke of the conquerors.

Victor Hugo is one of the greatest spirits of the 19^th century. The 19^th century - together with romanticism - was especially sensitive to one of the most valuable components of the human condition, to freedom. Victor Hugo was remarkable among European romantics in combining the cult of freedom, poetry and politics in one single person, in a single poetic language. Politics must be understood here as an extreme exposition of freedom and individuality.

One of the most obvious witnesses to such an internal spiritual disposition is the poem of Mazeppa. It is dedicated to Louis Boulanger, who immortalized Hetman Mazeppa [Boulanger 1827] at the very moment when begins Hugo's poem. Boulanger's artwork is magnificent: “Une grande force se degage de cette peinture qui sait traduire le souffle du texte de Lord Byron avec une grande justesse: le jeu d'un fort clair-obscur jouant entre la paleur du corps du jeune page et l'obscurite environnante, pour decrire la scene «au point du jour»; les couleurs vives, la touche largement brossee, avec vigueur, pour traduire la violence generale de la scene, en particulier la terreur du cheval, pret a partir au galop dans sa course effrenee; le contraste entre la scene principale du supplice et la petite scene au-dessus, avec le comte et sa cour qui semblent se parodier eux-memes, suggere la victoire annoncee du heros”.

In 19^th century, Mazeppa has been turned into one of the greatest heroes of modern times. Lord Byron and Victor Hugo contributed to the making of this hero. In his epic, Lord Byron recreated the Ukrainian legend [George 1960, p. 341]. He did it in a way that still gets all the attention today. He put the lyrical poem in the frame so that Mazeppa's story stands out so much more.

Literary history has dealt with it in different ways: that Mazeppa is one of Byron's figures belonging to the early part of his oeuvre, which is not as monumentally produced as the later ones. Contemporary criticism also relies on it, which sheds light on the elements of post-colonialism or postmodern structuralism. They are all in strong relation to the interpreters, who in every way strive to declare Byron's artwork. That it's less valuable compared to the epic about Don Juan, where Byron's satirical components come to the fore. This denies Byron's poem a fundamental romantic intention: it came from the realization of the fate of love for a woman on the one hand and love for a country on the other. Thirty years older than Therese, the man represents the rigid political and social structure with which the romanticism - ante quam - was fundamentally hindered. We must thus understand Byron's poem about Mazeppa in terms of romantic liberation for individuals and nations, and not otherwise.

Byron was the first to speak of Mazeppa, not the only one. Next was Victor Hugo, who dedicated one of his most iconic poems to Mazeppa: it combines romantic inspiration with the individual will to freedom. Hugo saw Mazeppa as superhuman, in two fundamental meanings. In its physical endurance, Mazeppa is a man who is able to push the suffering of the body to the extreme edge on which even the strongest man would collapse. The Ukrainian hero gets off his horse's back only when the animal is so brainy that he can't take a step anymore. When the crooks and other predatory birds are already seen after Mazeppa, thinking that the moment of death is already ahead of the storms, the hero rejects them and announces that the birds will feed on the carcasses of his enemies. This concludes the first part of the poem and the second, the most important one: the political mission of the young founder of the dynasty, Victor Hugo, substantiates it with an excess of poetic power, precisely in the way that romanticism spoke: the myth of the poet as a carrier of the Atlas pillar is also known to Slovenes: He gave birth to our greatest genius of poetry, France Preseren [Preseren 1965, p. 45]. The same theme is found in Charles Baudelaire's New Romantic Poem, Albatross [Baudelaire 1985, p. 25].

Victor Hugo's poem, however, is not only lyrical, but above all an epic work of art. Victor Hugo was, as a romantic, a poet whose attention was drawn to innumerable details. He paints a realistic picture of Mazeppa's torment by placing it in the context of metaphors and illustrations that depict the forces that can be consumed by humans in the steppe. Storms, snakes, storms, fog: forces beyond the reach of man, all this manages an unfortunate man who is mercilessly tethered to a horse. But one that the Ukrainian race will once make him king seems immune to such pressure “Ainsi, lorsqu'un mortel, sur qui son dieu s'etale, S'est vu lier vivant sur ta croupe fatale, Genie, ardent coursier, En vain il lutte, helas! tu bondis, tu l'emportes Hors du monde reel, dont tu brises les portes Avec tes pieds d'acier!

Qui peut savoir, hormis les demons et les anges, Ce qu'il souffre a te suivre, et quels eclairs etranges A ses yeux reluiront, Comme il sera brule d'ardentes etincelles, Helas! et dans la nuit combien de froides ailes Viendront battre son front?

Il crie epouvante, tu poursuis implacable. Pale, epuise, beant, sous ton vol qui l 'accable Il ploie avec effroi; Chaque pas que tu fais semble creuser sa tombe. Enfm le terme arrive... il court, il vole, il tombe, Et se releve roi!” [Hugo 2006, p. 130]

Victor Hugo saw the world from a mythical perspective: but these were state-forming myths: among the French Romantics, he was one of the few (unlike Alfred de Musset) who believed in myths and recreated them with the intention to turn into reality. The thought of Victor Hugo, drawn in romanticism, measures the double liberation of man, the erotic and the national. The idea of Victor Hugo is a universal man, liberated in his national, erotic and homeland vision.

Thus, one of the greatest novels of the 19^th century, Notre-Dame de Paris, was created. This one has a special symbolism. Victor Hugo began writing Notre-Dame de Paris [Hugo 2009] in 1829, largely to make his contemporaries more aware of the value of Gothic architecture, which was neglected and often destroyed to be replaced by new buildings or defaced by the replacement of parts of buildings in a newer style. A few years earlier, Hugo had already published a paper entitled [Hugo 2018] (War to the Demolishers) specifically targeted at saving Paris' medieval architecture. Romanticism actualized the myths and gave them their place in time.

2019 is an ideal time for reflection on the Europe in the long-term future, together with the chances of Christianity in Central and Western Europe. On May the 1st we celebrate the 15^th anniversary since Western Europe joined the East and formed a homogenous political space. That was the end of the last repercussions of the Cold War, among which was primarily the persecution of Christianity and people who thought differently. At least we could have thought so.

But at the beginning of the Easter this year, something happened that wreaked havoc on the consciousness of the European people. The deepest fear of Victor Hugo has seen the outrageous actualisation. Fire destroyed the object of his novel, the largest basilica of Christianity (next to St. Peter in Rome), Notre-Dame. Let's leave aside a dilemma whether this is a case of an accident or a deliberate act: an arson. The fact is that the central French media for the year 2017 and for the 2018 (E.g.: La Croix and Le Figaro} counted more than 1,050 desecrations and profanations of Christian objects for every year. Within this time, also occurred one priest's murder, during the Mass. It was the most outrageous sacrilegious act we remember.

Notre-Dame is not the only church dedicated to Holly Mary, but one of the more recognizable. The most beautiful product of Gothic architecture in the former first daughter of the universal Catholic Church, in France, is the cathedral in Chartres. There are some further cathedrals dedicated to the Holly Mary in France: we mention that of Rouen and a lot of others. The idea of Europe was Christian - and it should still be today. Holly Mary is the patron of the old continent, as evidences the emblem of twelve stars on the European flag. It consists of a circle of twelve five- pointed yellow stars on a blue (azure) field.

The idea of Holly Mary as a patron saint of Europe has been vividly disputed: but in fact, it is the only logical solution. And what more is: Arsene Heitz, the painter who submitted the designs for the flag, emphasized the fact of religious inspiration. The circle of stars was based on the iconographic tradition of portraying the Blessed Virgin Mary as the Woman of the Apocalypse wearing a twelve-star crown. Heitz also associated the date the flag was adopted, December 8, 1955, with the Catholic Feast of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Today we can still admire the same iconography, for example, at the Cathedral in Strasbourg (the so-called statue of the Blessed Virgin).

The greatest artists of France used to write poems and novels in the honor of basilicas (and their patron saints), which became part of the world's cultural heritage. In today's Europe there are no geniuses such as Victor Hugo, Charles Peguy, Karl Huysmans. Victor Hugo, the greatest French poet, was at the same time one of the most outstanding intellectuals who promoted the proEuropean ideas. In the French Parliament stands a statue in the full size of his human figure. Behind the statue is a fragment of the speech Hugo had at the peace congress in Paris on August 21^st, 1849.

Victor Hugo, in rhetorically enthusiastic speech, utters the ideals of European integration and European individuality, based on unity in diversity and - last but not least - in God. “Un jour viendra ou la France, vous Russie, vous Italie, vous Angleterre, vous Allemagne, vous toutes, nations du continent, sans perdre vos qualites distinctes et votre glorieuse individualite, vous vous fondrez etroitement dans une unite superieure, et vous constituerez la fraternite europeenne, absolument comme la Normandie, la Bretagne, la Bourgogne, la Lorraine, l'Alsace, toutes nos provinces, se sont fondues dans la France. Un jour viendra ou il n'y aura plus d'autres champs de bataille que les marches s'ouvrant au commerce et les esprits s'ouvrant aux idees. - La loi du monde n'est pas et ne peut pas etre distincte de la loi de Dieu””.

When Europe reunited on 1 May 2004, we expected it to be completely transformed into a new quality that would be, in-deed, the old one. It would combine centuries of its identity and in political terms approached the architectural firmness embodied by medieval cathedrals and the thought that lies behind them.

These buildings have lasted for centuries. As has lasted the alliance between Christian ethics and moral on one side and the political power on the other. Let's remember again the Victor Hugo's idea: “The law of the world is not and cannot be distinct from the law of God”.

An example of such harmony can be admired in the crown of St. Stephen. As is the case with all European Christian crowns, it also symbolizes the halo and thus means that the wearer rules in the name of God. For the Kingdom of Hungary, Mary was portrayed not only as a patron (patroness) but also as a regina. This treaty is supposed to strengthen the crown with the help of God thus reinforcing the power of the future kings.

It is beyond reasonable doubt: When Europe reunited in 2004 no one thought that the European nations should re-enter the medieval time and its rituals. People just hoped that the ideas which did well in the past would be reused. We hoped that the formula of Victor Hugo, who was a genius poet and a mastermind of European rhetoric would quickly overwhelm the entire community of nations and provide them with the most long-term foundation: unity in diversity. That the European fraternity will finally thrive and prosper. But in the last fifteen years, unfortunately, the opposite happened. Western Europe tried to persuade their eastern counterparts first, and then force them to abandon the Christianity as the historical foundation of the old continent. The first outlines of the new dictatorship could be perceived already in the 1992 Maastricht's Treaty. Karol Wojtyla reacted instantly and warned, in 1993, against the danger of mere consumerism, obliterating religious and cultural values of the eastern part of the old Continent.

The biggest - and the most spontaneous opponent of Christianity in Europe is the introduction of multiculturalism. As the term itself says, it is about replacing the original substrate - Europe based on Christianity and connected with universal unity - with the elements of foreign cultures. Multiculturalists have become the decisive political factor in the institutions of the European Union. They would always rely on the following assumptions when introducing in the concrete life of the European community the multicultural ideology.

First they would claim that “The European Union is facing unprecedented demographic changes (an aging population, low birth rates, changing family structures, etc)”. They would claim further on that it is of great importance on both EU and national level to implement policies to manage demographic changes, among them receiving and integrating migrants into Europe.

They would base their «analysis» on an argumentation whose major problem is that is logically false. They would say that historically Europe would always been a “Mixture of Latin, Slavic, Germanic, Uralic, Celtic, Hellenic, Illyrian, Thracian and other cultures influenced by the importation of Jewish, Christian, Muslim and other belief systems; although the continent was supposedly unified by the super-position of Imperial Roman Christianity, it is accepted that geographic and cultural differences continued from antiquity into the modern age”” [Ibid.].

The terms used in the quotation show themselves how far from the objective state of reality such a hypothesis is. There is no correlation between solving the demographic issue and the opening of borders to mass migrations: a phenomenon than can be observed from 2015 onwards. Most of the newly arrived migrants do not integrate into European society. They continue to form a ghetto, thus contributing to the economic, social and religious destabilization of Europe. The most outrageous result of the failed integration is - all in all, in the final analysis, - the perpetration of terrorist attacks that have become a part of the everyday life in Western Europe.

In this connection, we recall Victor Hugo and his vision of Europe: in the rhetorical apostrophe in which he embraces all peoples, he specially evokes the Russians. By that he means the peoples of the periphery of the Russian Empire. It is incomprehensible why the European authorities, when they tend to invite new inhabitants do not turn to the European East: the nations, which are implicitly mentioned by Victor Hugo, fulfill two basic criteria of belonging to European continent: they are Europeans and (Orthodox or Catholic) Christians. Many people from these countries are already working in Europe: Ukrainians, for example, work in Italy, in great numbers. We don't here of them anything because they integrate without problems. The reason is: they are Christians and Europeans, a priori.

Even the historical analysis on which the European authorities rely, concerning the idea of migration is false. Europe has never been: “A mixture of Latin, Slavic, Germanic, Uralic, Celtic, Hellenic, Illyrian, Thracian and other cultures influenced by the importation of Jewish, Christian, Muslim and other belief M'.s7e///\”|Ibid.|. Europe was a community of emerging nations through the Middle Ages, whose lingua franca and common denominator were Christianity and the Latin culture. Christianity is based on Judaism, which was also an integral part of European civilization. Between the 16th and 19th centuries there was a differentiation within the common religious and national paradigm, but the European civilization remained the same: Latin only slowly stepped backwards in favor of national languages. Europe has never existed as an unregulated mix of national and religious elements. Christianity (and Judaism) were not imported elements, but they “imported” and transformed - in the time of the European beginnings - the nations that Romans called “Barbarians”.

We recall here the case of the Slovenes, one of Europeans smaller nations. Abandoning the polytheist Slavic paganism which did not imply any higher forms of culture, like writings, Slovenian people made a decisive step to the Christianity. At the dawn of early Middle-Ages the priests of the Irish Mission who were fluent in Slovene wrote the first Slavic text in the Latin alphabet, the Monumenta frisingesia [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freising_manuscripts, retrived November 17, 2019].

The problem of promoting multiculturalism for the needs of the entire European Union lies in the fact that its spread is similar to the spread of a new totalitarian ideology, as we learned in the 20^th century. Multiculturalism - like so many terminations that end on -ism - presupposes the exclusion of everything that is contrary to it. The Nazism and Communism - if we use this common denominator - had the same opponent as today's multiculturalism. This is an old Europe, based on Christian traditions - as a universal religion.

That is why today's invasion of multiculturalism in the methods it uses is strikingly identical to the totalitarian ideologies of the 20^th century. In the October Revolution, Lenin announced the global reciprocity of workers and peasants: this idea was later put into practice by the movement of the Non-Aligned, inspired by the Titoist Yugoslavia: the Soviet Union did so with equal passion: world communism promoted a "new man" who would not no longer tied to family, not to nation, not to class, not to personal individuality. What emerged from this, we saw well with the collapse of totalitarianism in the early 1990s. But today the most failed ideas of communism are experiencing a renaissance in the context of the least expected gremia. Yet, as in communism, everything is a denial of elemental reality. The politicians of the European People's Party started using a language that fifty years ago would not have been ashamed by the members of the Soviet politburo. But what they say is believed as much as the Soviet apparatchiks believed in the goodwill of the Kremlin leaders. Eastern Europe, which knew the dictatorship of communist totalitarianism, is here significantly more resistant than Western Europe. The torchbearers of the resistance are Hungary and Poland.

The role of Ukraine is extremely important. Ukraine must enter the European Union. There are two important reasons for this, internal and external. The internal is that Ukraine would overcome its civilization deficit imposed by the Soviet Union, today still in place by the Russian military and political oppression. Within the EU, Ukraine will make progress in terms of GDP, ecology, population health care, and as a result, this will be reflected in the higher life expectancy and higher birth rates. The external reason, however, is that Ukraine will significantly strengthen the central and eastern European bloc in the EU, thereby helping the EU restoring the democratic balance of normality. For this very reason, the main factors destabilizing today's EU, Germany and France also oppose Ukrainian membership. But nothing is impossible. The collapse of the SU was an impossible think, but it happened. If anyone had claimed in December 1990 that the SU would be gone in a year, we would have considered a fool. Entering Ukraine is a less impossible thing: that is why it will happen. Only political will is needed, first in Kiev. Victor Hugo did not write Mazeppa in vain.

Since all totalitarian ideologies - and the bureaucratic state in which the EU has converted is something of this species - had the same goal: to destroy the old man, this is the old European, and to break the backbone of his spiritual homeland, Christianity, it is clear how fateful time we are witnessing today. Western Europe will not survive; the Eastern will. It was the same in the Roman Empire.

References

1. Baudelaire C. «L'Albatros». Les Fleurs du mal. Paris: Baudouin, 1985.

2. Boulanger L. Le Supplice de Mazeppa. Rouen: Musee des Beaux-arts. Rouen, 1827.

3. Gordon G. Lord Byron. «Mazeppa». The Poetical Works of Lord Byron. London: Oxford University press, 1960.

4. Hugo V. «Mazeppa». Les Orientales (Pesmi o jutrovem), bilingual edition. Ljubljana: Kud Logos, 2006.

5. Hugo V. Guerre aux Demolisseurs. Milano: Silvana Editoriale, 2018.

6. Hugo V. Notre-Dame de Paris. Paris: Classiques Larousse, 2009.

7. Preseren F. «On the last day the heavens all alight». The Parnassus of a small nation. Ljubljana: DZS, 1965.

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