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BRITTANY: DECLINE, CULTURAL REVIVAL AND LANGUAGE POLICY

100%

Dolowy N.

Sprawy Narodowościowe

2007

issue 30

145-164

Brittany was included in France in the 16th century. It was the time when the process of denationalization and cultural assimilation of its inhabitants started. Main method applied in the battle against the Bretons derived from the language policy with the main aim to eliminate the Breton language from being widely used in the region. That tendency considerably strengthened during the French Revolution. Speaking Breton was banned in schools and in public life as damaging the unity of the state. The Bretons became the object of jeering being often humiliated by the official authorities. As a result they developed negative identity which led to driving their language out and interrupting its intergenerational transmission and causing almost total death of it. Cultural revival of Brittany started in the 1970s and has been slowly changing people's attitude to tradition and culture. Many organizations and activists have been concentrating on saving the Breton language, not only as a symbol of cultural dissimilarity of inhabitants of this region, but also as immense cultural value. However, the attitude of France, that has always negated the existence of minorities on its own territory and regards French as the sole language of the Republic, makes the situation of an endangered language very difficult. Without recognition of people's right to use their mother language and enforcing its status as co-official language, all the operations led by non-government organizations within the region have little chance to succeed. Thus the situation of the Breton language, that has become one of the most endangered languages, is alarming.

A MEMORIAL BY CYPRIAN GODEBSKIOVER THE OCEAN, A SWAN SONG OF ACADEMIC RELIGIOUS SCULPTURE (Wotum Cypriana Godebskiego nad oceanem czyli labedzi spiew akademickiej rzezby religijnej)

75%

Pienkos A.

Sacrum et Decorum. Materiały i studia z historii sztuki sakralnej

2010

vol. 3

9-20

Cyprian Godebski is the author of numerous monuments and tombstones, among others in Austria, Belgium and Russia, but he worked primarily in France. His works can be found in Paris (the best known among them are the headstones of H. Berlioz and Th. Gautier), Monte Carlo and Brittany. Probably the biggest extant work by Godebski, little known in Poland, is the stone group Madone des naufragés [Our Lady of the Shipwrecked] on the Atlantic promontory Pointe du Raz in the westernmost region of Brittany. Godebski, who spent most of his life in France, was connected with numerous ties to this region. Apart from this group, the most visible of this relationship is the bronze monument to general A. Le Flo, Godebski's friend from St. Petersburg (the general was a French ambassador there) in the main square in Lesneven near Brest (1899). Our Lady of the Shipwrecked (1901), commissioned from Godebski by Count de Trobriand, was going to be a private memorial to local sailors, modelled on several similar ex-votos on the shores of Brittany. However, the republican departmental authorities did not issue a permit to erect a religious monument in a public place. The refusal of the authorities was connected with the approaching decision about the separation between Church and state in France. The conflict was particularly severe in Brittany, which was considered the stronghold of traditional Catholicism, but it was also the home country of the philosopher Ernest Renan, an Anti-Christ in the eyes of some right-wing circles. The conflict escalated in 1903, when the so-called sardine crisis hit very badly Breton fishermen and various political camps, including the Catholic Church, tried to use it to expand their influence. Finally Godebski's sculpture was erected thanks to the determination of the Bishop of Quimper, to whom it was presented by the artist as a votive sculpture in memory of his son's death in Tonkin. Our Lady of the Shipwrecked was created in 1901-1903 in Carrara. The ceremonial inauguration of the figure, accompanied by a Mass, took place on 3rd July 1904. It was attended by approximately 20 - 30 000 pilgrims and the bishop attending the celebration paid tribute to Godebski. Madone des naufragés follows ancient tradition of placing crosses and religious figures on mountain tops and coastal rocks. We can find a particularly large number of colossal religious figures in the French sculpture of the 19th century, especially from the period of the religious awakening supported by the government of the Second Empire. Our Lady of the Shipwrecked differs, however, from the huge statues of the Virgin Mary erected at that time in France through its strong realism and lack of obvious allusions to Romanesque, Gothic or Baroque depictions. In contrast to his predecessors, the creators of large, static allegories or saints' figures, Godebski portrayed almost a genre scene. However, what makes Our Lady of the Shipwrecked special, are the non-artistic factors described above. It was erected in the heat of the political and religious fight in France, when the secular Republic was on an anti-Church offensive, leading to fundamental legal decisions. Did the artistic concept of the sculpture, including the undoubtedly most interesting solution of the emotional tension between the sailor and the child Jesus was consciously adopted by Godebski because of this conflict? We do not know that. The creation of the sculpture was initiated by lay people, but finally it was executed under the patronage of the Church, and it eventually turned into a new place of worship of the Virgin Mary in Brittany.

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1 Sacrum et Decorum. Materiały i studia z historii sztuki sakralnej

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1 Pienkos A.

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BRITTANY: DECLINE, CULTURAL REVIVAL AND LANGUAGE POLICY

A MEMORIAL BY CYPRIAN GODEBSKIOVER THE OCEAN, A SWAN SONG OF ACADEMIC RELIGIOUS SCULPTURE (Wotum Cypriana Godebskiego nad oceanem czyli labedzi spiew akademickiej rzezby religijnej)