#There's a french revolution side of tumblr

[lookimtryingmybest]

what do you mean that old books don't have fandoms like tv series do. What am i meant to do with this obsession now. Scream??? Cry???? Become a mushroom?????

[northwest-by-a-train]

New rule for Anglos: you are not allowed to talk about the French Revolution if you don't spend at least three minutes on the wikipedia article "War of the first coalition"

[enlitment]

Huge shout-out to my friend who lets me indulge my hyperfixations and somehow managed to track down a photo of my old high school history notes on the French revolution??

Some higlights!

Headline: The Impact of the French Revolution (on the Czech Lands) (which was part of the Austrian Empire back then, making it just a bit more spicy)

After the fall of the Bastille in 1780, the revolution gains traction, making Austrian authorities uneasy

Leopold II. (Austrian emperor) knows it is important to filter the news getting to Austria from France

The news about the revolution are apparently more censored in Czech-language newspaper than the German ones, since the Czechs were known to rebel against authorities (kind of a "don't want to give them any ideas" type of situation") -> this meant that Czechs who spoke German would have had better access to the news about the French Revolution

The French Revolution would have more support in the Czech intellectual circles, compared to the countryside

a first disinformation campaign was launched in the Austrian newspaper, focused on making the French Revolution look as bad as possible (designed to protect the "traditional regime = the right solution" narrative)

This was contrasted with the experiences of real French people brought to the Czech lands by French soldiers (e. g. during the Napoleonic Wars - the Battle of Austerlitz, arguably the most important battle on our territory)

it also says that the French army was apparently viewed largely positively by Czech people and that the soldiers generally behaved quite decently? (I guess there's a really low bar for a behaviour of a foreign army but still. This surprised me, definitely not something I remembered from my class!)

After the ideas of the French Revolution spread to our country, it influenced the intellectual climate and made people rethink the status quo under the Austrian rule

last point (in all caps for some reason lol): FIRST RECORDER TIME IN WHICH THE STATE USED A DISINFORMATION CAMPAIGN, trying to paint France in a bad light

you also get to witness my horrible handwriting I guess~

[nando161mando]

The French

[joons]

So I became a huge fan of the French Revolution a few hours ago and I'm particularly interested in Maximilien Robespierre. I've been speed-reading lots of articles and they all say different things. Some present him as an Evul Bloodthirsty Executioner Dictator, others present him as a misunderstood kitten. And whenever I find a headline that goes "He was a complex individual, click here for a nuanced take" when I click on it, it says "This post is deleted." 1/3

I’ve browsed your entire Robespierre tag (as well as your French Revolution tag). In a post a long time ago, you called him a “fretful adorable hopelessly self-righteous psychopath.” And more recently, you reblogged a post talking about how he wasn’t really a psychopath, but a scapegoat and not really to blame for the executions in France. So now you have me really curious! 2/3 I already have a list of books about him to check out, as well as a list of films. What I'm mainly interested in is your present personal opinions about him (particularly on a moral, good vs. evil scale) and how/if your perspective on him has changed over time. 3/3

I love this question, anon! "A few hours ago." [zooms through all the reading immediately]

I have been interested in the French Revolution since childhood and started reading more about Robespierre specifically at 17. My earliest sources were Thomas Carlyle's The French Revolution and Ruth Scurr's Fatal Purity, which are both entertaining but flawed. Carlyle, writing in the 19th century, really nails the fever high of the period, taking readers on a lurid, emotional journey through the events of the Revolution, but it's a history based on popular misconceptions that existed at the time and is not the best way to get to know the characters well (but it is brilliant literature). Fatal Purity is a Robespierre biography that comes very close to characterizing him as a "fretful psychopath," endearing at times but ultimately unhinged. Scurr is basically interested in how he rationalizes certain things to himself, but she tends to stay kind of shallow, like, "Well, he was just Like That," instead of going deeper into the time period and examining how Robespierre compared to his peers and how the revolutionaries adapted as circumstances changed. I've read many more books since and don't think Scurr is the final word on him, but even though she situates him as more of a "villain" figure, that book had a big emotional impact on me. I found his death absolutely haunting, and I immediately wanted to learn more about him.

I think you will find quite quickly that the French Revolution still generates heated emotions for a lot of people, and it's often true that you can pinpoint someone's exact political leanings and the time in which they are writing based on their depiction of Robespierre. A lot of this starts to make sense if you look into historiographies of the Revolution, how the story reshapes itself in the telling, how its central figures can become caricatures and symbols that are no longer regarded by their words and actions but by what we believe about them. They become portents, not people, and they bear the anxieties of whoever writes their story. Robespierre's image as a bloodthirsty, deranged, egotistical dictator was set by the people who drove him from power in a way that was quite bloodthirsty itself, and many of them were much more actively involved in constructing systems of violence and persecution in France than Robespierre ever was. However, there are also plenty of sources that are politically invested in downplaying or excusing the mobs and the massacres that were at least politely sanctioned by all revolutionary leaders. You can see the positive appraisals skyrocket after the Paris Commune's rise and fall - many budding Marxists wanted to look back with fresh eyes at the progressive ideals championed by the revolutionaries and even by the Terror, so while we owe a debt to many of those historians for sifting through the reactionary propaganda that way overstated Robespierre's culpability, they can be misleading too. A lot of the scholarship is fun to read because Robespierre always forces people to take sides, to speak in absolutes, because he would not hedge on what he believed - ever. And because he held the ideal of the Revolution above himself, because he defended it and was so strident about its moral necessity, because he was willing to be judged by the Revolution, then of course now he is going to be judged for it, even when his influence is entirely absent from the scenes of its most extreme violence.

All this to say I am not interested in the Revolution because I necessarily see my politics reflected in it; that is not what interests me about it. I love it because it was one of those rare moments in history where anything felt possible and no one knew what would happen next - and I love learning how the people living through it responded and resonated and reckoned with the world coming unglued under their feet. I stan Marie Antoinette, Robespierre, and Napoleon equally, all of whom could not be more different politically or personally, but they all show why this is my favorite historical period to explore.

Robespierre is just one man of many who got jostled into action and into prominence by the Revolution, a bright, ordinary lawyer with a heart for ordinary men, who went from advocating against the death penalty to inflexibly calling for the death of the King, not out of hypocrisy, or social pressure, or contrarianism, but by seeing no other way to proceed while staying true to his highest ideals. The Revolution is full of moments of supreme irony like this, where you can see people steeling themselves against the horrible thing that is coming next, suspicious of everyone else's motives, only for the thing never to materialize, or for them to be so accurate in their predictions that no one around them is ready to hear it. The events that preceded Robespierre's downfall were not of a man consolidating power but languishing in his bed and clutching at a way to again make sense of what France should be, first by envisioning a grand revival of patriotism (not logic or calculation, but a bid for the heart) and then - when he felt disillusioned and betrayed - by refusing to abandon his faith in his country. He could never doubt her, only the people who served her. That optimism drove his paranoia, his disappointment, and it drove him to the scaffold believing there was one more turn of destiny waiting for him. He is a fascinating person who could be exceedingly warm and terrifyingly cold, whose idealism was mixed with a clear-eyed practicality (but not with cruelty), who was often on the verge of nervous, sickly breakdowns but whose appearances at the Convention brought out his fierce tenacity and passionate moral vision. He had a sense of his own myth, aligning himself too closely with the soul of the country, but he also refused to be revered as any sort of hero or leader, preferring to spend time studying minute details and writing in his room. He saw himself as a servant of the greatest ideals, someone who could bring justice to those with none. Any way you look at it, whether he was always essentially pure-hearted and stymied by those who were more self-serving, or whether he lost his sense of justice and gave into a kind of manic paranoia, becoming subsumed by the contradictory demands of the Revolution's ever-evolving aims, perhaps sacrificing something essential and human in order to serve the hope of something better, it is still a tragic story. That is how I see him.

Some recommendations, if you don't have them on your list already:

Books

Twelve Who Ruled - R.R. Palmer (absolutely ESSENTIAL; there are few texts more measured or more informative, and it does a fantastic job of showing the spheres of responsibility of each member of the Committee of Public Safety); Robespierre: A Revolutionary Life - Peter McPhee (one of the latest English biographies, and very good at clearing up misconceptions without being overly romanticized or ideological).

Films

La Revolution Francaise (1989) - A detailed, accurate epic with great casting; Danton (1983) - I remember this being pretty good, but I watched it a long time ago while having the worst migraine of my life, so who knows; Napoleon (1927) - Visual feast! A classic.

Novels

A Place of Greater Safety - Hilary Mantel. I have my quibbles with some of the characterizations (mainly for Saint-Just), but I love her writing and I think she portrays the main three wonderfully. She also wrote this great essay about Robespierre I reread a lot. ("He was a man of spectacular absent-mindedness. He liked flowers. Sometimes he laughed till he cried. He caught Madame Tussaud when she slipped and fell downstairs on her sightseeing-trip to the Bastille. Discern a subject, not an object, and feelings creep in.")

[veshadi]

[anneofkeys]

Ya'll it finally happened, after months of being on the side of tumblr that makes fan art of the French Revolution, I have been blessed with tumblr giving me the side of tumblr with American Revolution fan art. This is a joy!

[kerlhau]

Je pense que ça pourrait faire un très chouette stickers ! J'aime dessiner Louis-Jean ♥

[frenchie-fallen-angel]

If anyone needs soundtrack for their life tonight, let me share mine 🔥🔥🔥

[tragic-ships-tournament]

HOLY SHIT TIME FOR THE SEMI FINALS

The quarter finals are wrapped up now, and now it's finally time to determine the winners of both brackets. As you know, both winners of the brackets will be facing head to head in the finals in a week long brutal brawl-

But we're not talking about that right now.

You know the drill, let's get to the highlights.

Today we had 4 eventful rounds, each with their own drama and notable things. Let's start with the easiest one.

Destiel VS Dorian and Basil was in fact, an incredibly clean sweep for Destiel. Oof, sorry Oscar Wilde stans. But we all know that this is Tumblr after all.

Cherik VS Chainshipping. Ah yes, classic Superhero yaoi VS classic horror yaoi. But surprisingly, classic horror yaoi took it!? Really!?!?! I was shocked too, oof.

Oh lord, Enjoltaire VS Madohomu. This was intense. Fierce pushback from both sides as the scores flipflopped the whole entire time. Everyone was pointing to this video by George Blagden, also known as GRANTAIRE IN THE LES MIS MOVIE- which was one of the foundational texts of Enjoltaire as a ship. Fun fact, said video recently hit 1,000,000 views. Go watch it to give it a million more. But alas, we said goodbye to the french revolution gays this round in favor of the timeloop gays.

Okay now, this is the one you've been waiting for. The real tragic event of this round. Janice and Melina VS Orphydice. This matchup alone warrants it's own post. Or maybe an hour long video essay. Saying it was crazy would be an understatement.

Fans from both sides came pouring in. Artists arrived and all offered their support for Orphydice, and gave doodles to those who did the same. But the real sensation here is the Layton fandom all banding together. An out-pour of support rushed in, each giving their reasons why their tragic yuri should win.

leading the charge was @layton-heritage-posts, stopping at no point to continuously reblog and divert the undecided to their cause. They even rbed on all their different sideblogs in an abuse of power (which i support btw, go get your bread)

And right there with them was @darklight-owl, who even made a discord server (which you should totally join btw) just to get a watch party of The Eternal Diva.

Even I found myself rooting for the Eternal Divas. I reblogged the post, saying that if they were to win I would watch the full movie myself. Spoiler alert I did not.

On the other side there was the return of @hercarisntyours, here to take revenge for what Janice and Melina did to Oplita in the first round, putting out propaganda left and right.

And in lieu of the tournament, the Hadestown socials confirmed a proshot being filmed on the West End with the original cast as their own form of propaganda! Just for the tournament! Not for any other reason! (Anaïs Mitchell if you're reading this I would make a great Orpheus pls)

The two sides fought valiantly over 3 long days.

But in the end, as the dust settled, there was only one winner. Taking the victory by 0.1%, was none other than Orphydice. Guess it's Janice and Melina's turn to look back.

...Annyyywaayyyyyy crazy matchups aside, let's get to our bracket! :D

Feast your eyes, reader. This right here is the final ass full bracket for the Tragic Ships Tournament. God, it's been a long long tournament. I'll save the sappy stuff for the semi final wrap up post, but now it's the final stretch to determine once and for all... What is the ultimate tragic ship?

Semi Finals will be posted February Third at 8:00 AM EST. Be there or be square.

[whencyclopedia]

African Americans in the American Revolution

On the eve of the American Revolution (1765-1789), the Thirteen Colonies had a population of roughly 2.1 million people. Around 500,000 of these were African Americans, of whom approximately 450,000 were enslaved. Comprising such a large percentage of the population, African Americans naturally played a vital role in the Revolution, on both the Patriot and Loyalist sides.

Black Patriots

On 5 March 1770, a mob of around 300 American Patriots accosted nine British soldiers on King Street in Boston, Massachusetts. Outraged by the British occupation of their city, as well as the recent murder of an 11-year-old boy, the crowd was filled with Bostonians from all walks of life; among them was Crispus Attucks, a mixed-race sailor commonly thought to have been of African and Native American descent. When the British soldiers fired into the crowd, Attucks was struck twice in the chest and was believed to have been the first to die in what became known as the Boston Massacre. He is regarded, therefore, as the first casualty of the American Revolution and has often been celebrated as a martyr for American liberty.

Five years later, in the early morning hours of 19 April 1775, a column of British soldiers was on its way to seize the colonial munitions stored at Concord, Massachusetts, when it was confronted by 77 Patriot militiamen on Lexington Green. Standing in this cluster of militia was Prince Estabrook, one of the few enslaved men to reside in Lexington, who had picked up a musket and joined his white neighbors in defending his home. In the ensuing Battles of Lexington and Concord, Estabrook was wounded in the shoulder but recovered in time to join the Continental Army two months later. He was selected to guard the army headquarters at Cambridge during the Battle of Bunker Hill (17 June 1775) and was freed from slavery at the end of the war.

Attucks and Estabrook were just two of the tens of thousands of Black Americans who supported the American Revolution. There was no single motivation for their doing so. Some, of course, were inspired by the rhetoric of white revolutionary leaders, who used words like 'slavery' to describe the condition of the Thirteen Colonies under Parliamentary rule and promised to forge a new society built on liberty and equality. These words obviously appealed to the enslaved population, many of whom were optimistic that, even if slavery was not entirely abolished, they might receive better opportunities in this new nation. Others enlisted in the Continental Army to secure their individual freedoms, as the Second Continental Congress had proclaimed that any enslaved man who fought the British would be granted his freedom at the end of his service. African Americans also enlisted to escape the day-to-day horrors of slavery, to collect the bounties and soldiers' pay offered by recruiters, or simply because they were drawn to the adventure of a soldier's life. Additionally, several Black Americans were forced to enlist by their Patriot masters, who preferred to send their slaves to fight instead of going themselves.

Of course, not all Black Patriots served in the Continental Army or Patriot militias. Some, like James Armistead Lafayette, were spies; posing as a runaway slave, Lafayette was able to infiltrate the British camp of Lord Charles Cornwallis and procure vital information that helped lead to the Patriot victory at the Siege of Yorktown. The French general Marquis de Lafayette was impressed with his service and helped procure his freedom after the war, leading James Lafayette to adopt the marquis' name.

Other Black Patriots showed their support for the movement with their words. Phillis Wheatley was an enslaved young woman who had been brought to Boston from Senegal, where she had been seized. She was purchased by the Wheatley family, who quickly recognized her literary talents and encouraged her to write poetry. By the early 1770s, Phillis Wheatley was already a celebrated poet. She began to write extensively on the virtues of the American Revolution, praising Patriot leaders like George Washington. Despite his status as a slaveholder, Washington was moved by Wheatley's work and invited her to meet him, stating that he would be honored "to see a person so favored by the muses" (Philbrick, 538).

Continue reading...

[icyfox62]

One of the wildest things about Tumblr and how people are reacting to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is knowing the obsession Tumblr has had with Les Mis, Karl Marx/communism, and/or the French Revolution (or at least the guillotine part of it).

Like, we saw what happened, right? In Les Mis, the students, though they had a cause many would deem as noble, were doomed to fail. They put blind faith that in a pipe dream that everyone would come to their sides because they were so sure that they were the majority. They didn’t even do their research or know the face of Javert, a local policeman, yet expected to win against an army.

Karl Marx created a system that makes it easier for fascists and tyrannical groups to hold power because it requires limited individualism and a level of trust that’s almost impossible on a large scale.

Or how during the French Revolution, the people started blaming the leaders of the revolution and killed them. Because they got accustomed to shedding blood at every slight instead of putting a form of government in that was actually going to try and do the work. The empty power vacuum made it super easy for people even more radical to take control.

How do you see realistic examples like these and still think things are going to end well? Please explain to me how do you get a free, no-risk trial run to a descent into chaos, know that it’s bad, and still put decide to go full steam ahead?

[theorahsart]

I’ve been happily dragged into the French Revolution, do you have any recommendations on where to start learning about this??? My brain doesn’t hold French names very well so I literally only know Robespierre and the dude that got killed in the bath

OH NO my enthusiasm has caught on, welcome to the insane drama that is French Revolution 😆

So if you're able to listen to podcasts, I feel like Grey History is a good place to start because it paints a really good picture of the situation, culture and feelings of the public leading up to the revolution.

It then delves in a straightforward timeline into the various events during the revolution and gives all the different points of view from each side (there's so many different 'sides' it's a lot like modern day politics where everyone is quite divided in their motivations).

So I feel like it's a good starting point before going into the many books, that in contrast tend to look at more individual moments without giving much overall context.

If you'd prefer reading books to listening, I'm reading currently 'Liberty or Death' by Peter McFee which also (so far, I haven't finished it) feels also like something that is painting a good overall picture in a straightforward timeline, and giving loads of cultural context that helps you understand various people's motivations and actions.

My favourite book in English that I've read so far is 'Twelve Who Ruled'- but it's very specific to the one 'reign of terror' year which is pretty far along in the first part of the revolution. But I think I would recc reading this anyway- you might not understand all the context but it's so riveting I think it helps you see why the topic and people involved are so fascinating.

As I'm not an academic/easily remembers facts kind of person, I really like that it so vividly painted a messy situation in a story telling kind of way, without being particularly biased to any side. Each politicians very different personality shines through, which is one element of Frev that makes it so interesting. It also does a great job of sharing in this story telling way, the overall culture at the time, psychology/sociology of the public and individuals, and various messy af situations that had to be dealt with.

It basically breaks down really well something horrific and complicated so that you understand how it came to be that way, and how people ended up making the decisions they made. Also, SO much drama in this one year, so many friendships broken down, so much back stabbing lol

Outside of that, I think actually the online community is really amazing and there's so many people on here translating stuff into English and answering questions to info that is normally scattered across several books/archival information, and then these amazing ppl just like bring it together in Tumblr posts. Looking through the Frev tag is a good way to piece together all the various details when you're just starting out.

[enlitment]

Dearest most virtuous Citoyens

(aka beloved Frevblr),

as the 20 Prairial — or 8th of June — is slowly approaching, as well as in the spirit of celebrating Pride, I thought it would be fun to do some kind of Festival of the Supreme Being blogging/celebration on Saturday.

I mean everyone knows that Tumblr absolutely blows up on March 15 during the Ides of March, and I was wondering whether something similar could be pulled off on the French Revolution side, albeit on a much smaller scale

I don't really have anything specific in mind (memes, a playlist, something like that?), so if you have any cool ideas on how to do it, feel free to reblog!

[hasdrubal-gisco]

here's a heads up for the next civilizational step - feudalism 2 ! you can already see it beginning to form. the centralization of states that dominated the 19th and 20th centuries (sidebar. considering switching to the french style when referencing centuries, in this case eg. XIXth and XXth - do we like ?) emerged at a time when the productive parts of the economy (laborers, natural resources, capital (real and money)) had a much tougher time moving around – not so much the case today. financial capital can move around relatively easily, increases in productivity and infrastructure have made it so that startup cost to for example build a new factory elsewhere are much lower than before, relatively speaking. people can move around much more easily (source: the tumblr dashboard, linkedin recruiters). we’ve already seen countries deliberately change their legislative systems in order to attract money and people from abroad – think city states and tax havens like singapore, dubai, monaco, belize. the national bank of lithuania (a country with a population of 3m) gave revolut (fintech company) a banking license which counts for the whole of the EU, so now there are something like 50m bank accounts registered in and insured by the national bank of lithuania. this kind of competitive advantage-seeking behavior will only continue (because as long as there are arbitrage opportunities, it will work). the easiest way for countries on the losing side of this trade to hedge their losses is to enforce a feudal serf-citizen status. a french passport will not mean a right to participate in the french political system, but rather an obligation to the state treasury. the US already does this – if you have a US passport, you have to disclose your income to the IRS even if you live and work elsewhere, and have that other country designated as your tax home; you have to annually disclose to the IRS all international bank accounts holding more than $10k (if you don’t, that’s okay. every bank you can think of (excl. in switzerland) voluntarily provides detailed info on every account held by US citizens – look up FBAR and the array of international agreements to support this). the UK has long struggled with people pulling out every penny and asset out of the UK economy because of high tax rates, and while there’s no chance france will pass a marginal 90% income tax rate over 400k EUR/y, the solution will simply be to put the money and declare income elsewhere – while still living and working in france. The only solution (from a state’s view) is the american model of you being a serf, and being subject to THEIR rules regardless of where you go

[marxistjughead]

there is apparently a side of tumblr who believes in génocide vendéen and i am not a "it didn't happen but they deserved it and we'll do it again" person because i don't think it's a very funny bit given how closely it resembles negationism but the term genocide should not be thrown around lightly on tumblr.com and is heatedly debated even in academic circles (source: i am in the trenches) and depends a lot on how you perceive revolutionary violence and what the french revolution brought in general. and like sure war crimes not great but do you want to have the very same politics as philippe de villiers? really? for realsies?