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The Fondation Napoléon History Prizes and Research Grants 2012
This time of year is one of the busiest and most important for the Fondation Napoléon, as we award our history prizes and research grants to both established historians and those beginning their research on the period. On 12 December we will be holding an awards ceremony in partnership with the French cable channel, Histoire at the headquarters of the French national television station, TF1, in Paris, presided over by the Princess Napoleon.
This year, on the bicentenary of the Russian Campaign, Marie-Pierre Rey offers readers a new ‘biography' of this dramatic and fateful episode of European history, opening the subject up to critique from a social and human angle and focusing on the protagonists, both military and civil. Her knowledge of Russian sources has helped redress certain myths surrounding the campaign; indeed the First Empire prize was awarded to her in recognition of this revised history of the Russian campaign.
Yves Bruley takes us behind the scenes of one of the most important and mysterious ministries of the Second Empire, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. His analysis of the organisation of the ministry and its offices, the diplomatic staff and the way in which they operated allows a better understanding of the great diplomatic questions of Napoléon III's reign. This masterful study was awarded the Second Empire prize.
The third prize was this year awarded to a musical and historical work of great originality. Thanks to Olivier Feignier, director of this musical project and the internationally renowned pianist, Daniel Propper, the CD L'écho des batailles resounds with unjustly forgotten pieces by composers such as Steitbelt, Jadin, Dussek and Moscheles. The accompanying booklet explains the importance and originality of the recording.
The thesis subjects which have benefitted from this year's research grants are extremely varied and innovative; a crop of new approaches which the Fondation Napoléon is keen to encourage.
This year, one of the research grants is in memory of Madame Minou Amir-Aslani, following the wish of Mr Ardavan Amir-Aslani of honouring her support during 5 years of research.
The Fondation Napoléon congratulates all of this year's winners.
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FIRST EMPIRE PRIZE 2012
L'effroyable tragédie, une nouvelle histoire de la campagne de Russie, by Marie-Pierre Rey
The Russian campaign of 1812 was a terrible episode in European history. Less than twenty percent of the Grand Army returned to France after bloody fighting (45,000 killed on the Russian side and 28,000 deaths in the Grande Armée at the Battle of Borodino alone), typhus epidemics caused havoc, and a tragic retreat in the heart of winter decimated the once great army.
Marie-Pierre Rey is a leading expert in Russian history and the author of a notable biography of Alexander I (Flammarion, 2009), and here she offers a what you could call a "biography" of the Russian campaign, up close and personal with the protagonists, namely the French and Russian officers, soldiers and civilians.
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SECOND EMPIRE PRIZE 2012
Le Quai d'Orsay Impérial, by Yves Bruley
Upon his accession, Napoleon III revived the building site on the Quai d'Orsay, finally turning it into the offices of the French Foreign Ministry in the summer of 1853. Whilst the second emperor's foreign policy has been extensively studied, his diplomacy has been much less followed. This book is the first study of this rich and little-known story. The "Emperor's secrecy" and the debacle of 1870 have long been seen as proof of the Second Empire's failed diplomacy. Yves Bruley reverses this historical construction, establishing the true role of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs at a turning point in its history. The reader is placed at the heart of the Quai d'Orsay and observes diplomacy "inside", namely, how ministers worked with their cabinets and administration, how decisions were taken by Napoleon III, and how French diplomats acted throughout the world. Thousands of unpublished documents - letters, memoirs and others - reveal an unexpected side of the Quai d'Orsay. This was "classic" diplomacy, but one that was rapidly modernizing, with ambassadors sometimes puzzled by the Emperor (but party to his success) and with diplomats on a mission to establish the "moral authority" of France, a momentum which was to be stopped dead by the war of 1870.
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PRIZE FOR A MUSICAL AND HISTORICAL WORK 2012
L'écho des batailles, by Daniel Propper and Olivier Feinier
Piano music from the 1800s to 1815 has not attracted the attention its diversity rightfully deserves. This period is obviously more renowned for the battles that pitted Royalist against Republican and Republican against Imperialist, than for the flourishing musical life that accompanied it.
And yet the fifteen years at the beginning of the century marked a period when composers started to hear a new harmonic language. This was a time when the emergence of national consciousness promoted the use of instantly recognisable national airs and popular themes so as to characterize the antagonists in the 'battles' which raged in piano salons. Finally, it was an epoch which began to see the rise of "bravura variations" with which virtuoso pianists packed their soirées. The recording here reveals this diversity, still largely unknown. The disk comprises pieces carefully selected from amongst many works which have fallen into obscurity, and it must be listened to with the following thought in mind, namely, that the composers did not know that in fact they were heralding the music of the modern era.
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FONDATION NAPOLEON RESEARCH GRANTS 2012
As part of the Fondation Napoléon's ongoing commitment to encouraging and facilitating the study of the Napoleonic period, every year research grants are awarded to students beginning their PhD (or MPhil, with a view to going on to a PhD) on a First or Second Empire subject.
The First Empire research grants 2012 support research in the following areas:
-L'armée d'Italie: entre alliée et occupante sur le sol italien (1801-1814), by Giorgio Grimese
-La pensée juridique de Pierre-Louis Roederer (1754-1835), by Johan Menichetti
-La résistance conservatrice à l'individualisme juridique. Doctrine civiliste et initiatives législatives (1789-1830), by Marion Narran
The Second Empire research grants 2012 support research in the following area:
-Théophile Sylvestre (1823-1876), critique d'art, by Lyne Penet
The First and Second Empire research grants 2012 support research in the following areas:
-L'autorité de l'Etat en Lorraine au XIXème siècle (vers 1800- vers 1880). Caractères, exercice, contestation, by François-Xavier Martischang
-L'adaptation et le rejet du style «Premier Empire » dans l'orfèvrerie du XIXè siècle en Europe centrale et de l'Est, by Karolina Stefanski
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250 Years Ago
On December 5, 1812, Napoleon left the army to return to Paris and gave command to the king of Naples, Joachim Murat. The decree was delievered according to the Emperor's "two or three days later (his] departure." Murat, whose prowess were decisive in the Battle of Borodino in early September, had the difficult task of reorganising of the army and leading it to Vilna (Vilnius), according to Napoleon's orders. Harassed by the Cossacks, the Grand Army, fragile, wasn't be able to hold the city or to establish winter quarters. Murat eventually had to evacuate the city on 9 December and led his troops into Poland.
150 Years Ago
Le Moniteur of 3 December, 1862 reports the decision of the Bibliotheque Impériale to accept the bequest of the ‘magnificent collection' of the Duc of Luynes. The Duc's collection was renowned, and according to Le Moniteur, was second only to the great public collections of the day.
Honoré Théodoric d'Albert de Luynes was a member of the Academie des inscriptions et Belles Lettres and was an expert in Oriental Philology and ancient monetary systems, such as those used in Phoenicia and Cyprus; he was an avid collector of coins and medallions and these made up the larger part of his collection. It was on his many research trips that he amassed his impressive array of artifacts, which came from Greece, Cyprus and Turkey. The collection consisted, amongst other things, of 6,893 medallions, 188 pieces of gold jewelery, 85 Greek and Etruscan vases and an “admirable” marble torso of Venus, as well as a ‘superb' bronze Roman bust. The bequest was sent to be housed at the Cabinet des Medailles, where it can still be seen.
Wishing you an excellent "Napoleonic" week,
Peter Hicks and Andrew Miles
Historians and web editors
THE NAPOLEON.ORG BULLETIN, N0 648, 30 NOVEMBER - 6 DECEMBER, 2012
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© This Napoleon.org weekly bulletin is published by the Fondation Napoléon. Reproduction or all or part of this bulletin is forbidden, without prior agreement of the Fondation Napoléon
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The Fondation Napoléon History Prizes, the fruit of the generosity of the industrialist, Martial Lapeyre, are awarded by a jury composed of the following specialists:
• V.-A. Masséna, Prince d'Essling (President)
• Jean-Claude Lachnitt (Secretary general)
• Professor Jacques-Olivier Boudon
• Prince Gabriel de Broglie, Chancelier of the Institut, member of the Académie française
• Jean Favier, of the Institut
• Professor Bruno Foucart
• Jacques Jourquin
• Dr Jean-François Lemaire
• Anne Muratori-Philip
• Jean-Marie Rouart, of the Académie française
• Laurent Theis, historian and publisher
• Professor Jean Tulard, of the Institut
Click here for the previous winners.
Furthermore, the same jury awards at least six research grants worth 7,500 Euros to French or non-French students in the first year of their PhD (or MPhil intending to go on to PhD) on First or Second Empire subjects.
Click here for the previous research grant winners.
Where are they now? An update on the careers of some of our research grant winners (in French).
For further information regarding the Fondation Napoléon History Prizes and Research Grants, please contact us.
OPERATION ST HELENA
The Fondation Napoléon and the Souvenir Napoléonien , in association with the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, have announced an international fund-raising campaign to restore and save Napoleon I's residence on the island of St Helena. All the details regarding the campaign as well as donation forms and advice for donating from outside France, can be found on napoleon.org.
You can still donate online to the project via the Friends of the Fondation de France in the US here.
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Seen on the web (external links)
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