Аукцион Bidspirit | BRETON & CAMUS: BRETON ANDRE:

BRETON & CAMUS: BRETON ANDRE: (1896-1966) - ‘I have just pronounced the unforgettable name of Francisco Ferrer,    one of those who taught me justice when I was still a child’   BRETON & CAMUS: BRETON ANDRE: (1896-1966) French writer and poet, the co-founder, leader and principal theorist of surrealism & CAMUS ALBERT (1913-1960) French philosopher and author, Nobel Prize winner for Literature, 1957. A fine autograph statement signed ( 'Andre Breton' ) by Breton, one page, 8vo, n.p. (Paris), n.d. (February 1952), in French. On a page evidently neatly removed from an album Breton writes, in full, 'Je suis profondement emu que ce cahier me soit ouvert a l'instant ou, a la salle Wagram, le 22 Fevrier 1952, je viens de prononcer le nom inoubliable de Francisco Ferrer, l'un de ceux qui m'ont appris la justice quand j'etais encore enfant. Que sa fille, de moi tres honoree, trouve ici l'expression de ma sympathie elective' (Translation: 'I am deeply moved that this notebook is opened to me at the moment when, in the Wagram Hall, on 22 nd February 1952, I have just pronounced the unforgettable name of Francisco Ferrer, one of those who taught me justice when I was still a child. May his daughter, very honoured by me, find here the expression of my elective sympathy' ). Immediately beneath Breton's statement Albert Camus has signed his name, 'Courage! Albert Camus' , and the page also bears the signature of an unidentified female. Some very light, extremely minor age toning to the edges, VG   Francisco Ferrer (1859-1909) Spanish radical freethinker, anarchist and educationist whose execution, following a revolt in Barcelona, propelled him into martyrdom and grew an international movement of radicals and libertarians.   The present statement was signed for Sol Ferrer, one of the three daughters of Francisco Ferrer, and the author of several works dedicated to his memory, at a meeting of the League for the Rights of Man in Paris on 22 nd February 1952. The meeting was organised as a grand protest against the Franco regime's death sentence on eleven trade unionists from the CNT, the Spanish National Confederation of Labour. As well as Breton and Camus many other intellectuals were present at the event including Jean-Paul Sartre and Ignazio Silone. It was during this meeting that Camus launched an appeal which would be published in the journal Esprit in April 1952, stating, in part, 'For almost fifteen years now, actually, Francoism has been aiming at the same target: the face and breast of every free Spaniard….Once again we find ourselves confronting the intolerable scandal of Europe's conscience; once again, tirelessly, we shall denounce it…..It is time, it is high time, for the representatives of democracies to disown this farce and reject, publicly and definitively, the curious theory which consists in saying “We'll give arms to a dictator and he'll become a democrat” No! If you give him arms, he will follow his trade by shooting point-blank into the belly of freedom'.   Despite the large demonstration, five of the eleven trade unionists were shot dead on 14 th March 1952.