Elisée Reclus Archives - The Libertarian Labyrinth

E. Armand, “Un Portrait / A Portrait” (1906)

April 18, 2020 Shawn P. Wilbur

Un Portrait J’ai cloué sur le mur un portrait de Reclus, Dans un cadre en carton, car je ne suis pas riche. Je garde ce portrait, non pas comme un fétiche, Mais comme un souvenir de celui qui n’est plus. J’aime, si vous saviez, son regard tendre et clair : Ce regard tout empreint d’une bonté profonde. — Consolante bonté, baume, à merveilleuse onde Qui passe, adoucissant le sort le plus amer. — Injuste qui tairait sa vaste connaissance… Mais qu’il m’est doux penser que jamais l’indulgence Ne déserta son cœur et qu’en toute saison Plus on était meurtri, lus, bas […]

Elisée Reclus, “Why Are We Anarchists?” (1899)

July 13, 2019 Shawn P. Wilbur

Pourquoi sommes-nous anarchistes ? Les quelques lignes qui suivent ne constituent pas un programme. Elles n’ont d’autre but que de justifier l’utilité qu’il y aurait d’élaborer un projet de programme qui serait soumis à l’étude, aux observations, aux critiques de tous les révolutionnaires communistes. Peut-être cependant renferment-elles une ou deux considérations qui pourraient trouver leur place dans le projet que je demande. Nous sommes révolutionnaires parce que nous voulons la justice et que partout nous voyons l’injustice régner autour de nous. C’est en sens inverse du travail que sont distribués les produits du travail. L’oisif a tous les droits, même […]

Elisée Reclus’ Great Globe

July 12, 2019 Shawn P. Wilbur

M. ELISÉE RECLUS, the well-known geographer, in a pamphlet recently printed at Brussels, has elaborated a startling and even sensational proposal for the construction of a huge globe, on a scale of one hundred thousandth the actual size.

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Elisée Reclus, “The Anarchist” (1902)

July 11, 2019 Shawn P. Wilbur

By definition, the anarchist is the free man, [1] the one who has no master. The ideas that he professes are indeed his own through reasoning. His will, springing from the understanding of things, focuses on a clearly defined aim; his acts are the direct realization of his individual intent. Alongside those who devoutly repeat the words of others or the traditional saying, who make their being bend and conform to the caprice of a powerful individual, or, what is still more grave, to the oscillations of the crowd, he alone is a man, he alone is conscious of his value in the face of all these spineless and inconsistent things that dare not live their own lives.

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Elisée Reclus, “The Development of Liberty in the World” (c. 1850)

September 2, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur

The Development of Liberty in the World An Unpublished Study Elisée Reclus I. In past centuries, peoples only fought for their passions or their immediate interests; it was without remorse, it was even with gladness that, in order to satisfy their ambition or greed, they exterminated entire nations and dragged behind them multitudes of slaves. Without any link of solidarity between them, men stole their selfish well-being from the well-being of their neighbors, and the world, given over to chance, was sometimes the prey of the stronger, sometimes that of the most skillful. However, from the beginnings of humanity, some […]

Elisée Reclus in the Era of Anarchy

September 1, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur

I’ve been splitting the formative period of the anarchist tradition into two eras: an Era of Anarchy, running roughly from 1840 to 1880, and then an Era of Anarchism, running on to around 1920, with the emergence of anarchism as a common keyword marking the division between them. The scheme is not without its weaknesses, but one of the striking facts in support of it is the very limited number of figures who identified as anarchists in both periods. There is almost no one who called for anarchy before Proudhon’s death in 1865 who was both alive and still in […]

Elisée Reclus, “An Anarchist on Anarchy” (1884)

August 29, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur

“It is a pity that such men as Elisée Reclus cannot be promptly shot.” – Providence Press To most Englishmen, the word Anarchy is so evil-sounding that ordinary readers of the Contemporary Review will probably turn from these pages with aversion, wondering how anybody could have the audacity to write them. With the crowd of commonplace chatterers we are already past praying for; no reproach is too bitter for us, no epithet too insulting. Public speakers on social and political subjects find that abuse of Anarchists is an unfailing passport to public favor. Every conceivable crime is laid to […]

Bakunin to Elisée Reclus, February 15, 1875

June 1, 2015 Shawn P. Wilbur

February 15, 1875 – Lugano My very dear friend, I thank you so much for your kind words. I have never doubted your friendship. That feeling has always been mutual and I judge yours by my own. Yes, you are right. For the moment, the revolution has gone back to bed, and we fall once again into a period of evolutions, one of subterranean, invisible and often even insensible revolutions. The evolution that takes place today is very dangerous, if not for humanity, at least for certain nations. – it is the last incarnation of a used-up class, enjoying its […]

Missing pieces

August 18, 2008 Shawn P. Wilbur

I’ve been working on a collection of short biographies of radical figures, sort of an introductory miscellany, and had been translating Elisée Reclus’ “John Brown” to include there. Gallica has a rough, but readable scan of what appears to be a pamphlet version of the text. Now that I’ve translated it, it also appears to be an incomplete version. Some text, probably at least a few lines, is pretty clearly missing. Brown’s capture, trial and death seem to have disappeared between one line and the next. This looks like an “original” error, rather than a recent scanning error. It’s still […]