Romain Rolland: Against grasping imperialism and inhuman pride, military caste and megalomania of pedants

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Anti-war essays, poems, short stories and literary excerpts

Romain Rolland: Selections on war

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Romain Rolland
From War Literature (1915)
Translated by C.K. Ogden

The intellectuals on both sides have been much in evidence since the beginning of the war; they have, indeed, brought so much violence and passion to bear upon it, that it might almost be called their war!

It seems to me, however, that attention has not been sufficiently drawn to the fact that, with a few exceptions, it is only the voice of the older generation that has been heard ? the voice of Academicians, and Professoren, of distinguished members of the press and the universities, of poets of established reputations, and the doyens of literature, art, and science.

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[T]he one German poet who has written the serenest and loftiest words, and preserved in the midst of this demoniacal war an attitude worthy of Goethe, is Hermann Hesse. He continues to live at Berne, and, sheltered there from the moral contagion, he has deliberately kept aloof from the combat. All will remember his noble article in the Neue Z?rcher Zeitung of November 3rd, ?O Freunde, nicht diese T?ne!? in which he implored the artists and thinkers of Europe ?to save what little peace? might yet be saved, and not to join with their pens in destroying the future of Europe. Since then he has written some beautiful poems, one of which, an Invocation to Peace, is inspired with deep feeling and classical simplicity, and will find its way to many an oppressed heart.

Jeder hat?s gehabt
Keiner hat?s gesch?tzt.
Jeden hat der s?sse Quell gelabt.
O wie klingt der Name Friede jetzt!

Klingt so fern und zag,
Klingt so tr?nenschwer,
Keiner weiss und kennt den Tag,
Jeder sehnt ihn vol Verlangen her?

(?Each one possessed it, but no one prized it. Like a cool spring it refreshed us all. What a sound the word Peace has for us now!

?Distant it sounds, and fearful, and heavy with tears. No one knows or can name the day for which all sigh with such longing.?)

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I reflected, as doubtless many of my French readers have also done, in reading through these German writings inspired by the war ? writings through which from time to time there passes a mighty breath of revolt and sorrow ? that our young writers are not writing ?literature.? Instead of books they give us deeds, and their letters. And in re-reading some of their letters I thought that ours had chosen the better part. It is not for me now to point out the position that this heroic correspondence will occupy, not only in our history but also in our literature. Into it the flower of our youth has put all its life, its faith and its genius: and for some of those letters I would give many of the finest lines of the noblest poems. Whatever be the result of this war, and the opinion as to its value later, it will be recognized that France has written on paper, mud-stained and often blotted with blood, some of its sublimest pages. Assuredly this war touches us more nearly than it does our adversaries, for who of us would have the heart to write a play or a novel whilst his country is in danger and his brothers dying?

But I will make no comparisons between the two nations. For the present the essential thing is to show that even in Germany there are certain finer minds who are fighting against the spirit which we hate ? the spirit of grasping imperialism and inhuman pride, of military caste and the megalomania of pedants. They are but a minority ? we have no illusions about that ? and we ought to redouble our efforts on that account to vanquish the common enemy. Why then should we trouble to make these generous but feeble voices heard? Because their merit is the greater for being so little heeded; because it is the duty of those who are fighting for justice to render justice in their turn to all those men, even when they dwell in a country in which the state represents the violation of right by Faustrecht, who are defending with us the spirit of liberty.

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Source: http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2013/03/16/rolland-romain-against-grasping-imperialism-and-inhuman-pride-military-caste-and-megalomania-of-pedants/

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