Real name and surname George Sand. George Sand: biography and books

SAND GEORGES

Real name - Amandine Lucy Aurora Dupin

(born in 1804 - died in 1876)

The reputation of George Sand was scandalous. She wore men's clothing, smoked cigars, and spoke in a low male voice. Her pseudonym itself was male. It is believed that this is how she fought for the freedom of women. She was not beautiful and considered herself a freak, proving that she did not have that grace which, as is well known, sometimes replaces beauty. Contemporaries described her as a woman of short stature, dense build, with a gloomy expression, large eyes, absent-minded gaze, yellow skin, premature wrinkles on the neck. Only hands they recognized as unconditionally beautiful.

V. Efroimson, who devoted many years to the search for the biological prerequisites for giftedness, noted the paradoxical fact that prominent women often have a clearly defined male characterology. These are Elizabeth I Tudor, Christina of Sweden, and the writer George Sand. The researcher puts forward as a possible explanation for giftedness the presence of a hormonal imbalance of the adrenal cortex and increased secretion of androgens (and not only in women themselves, but also in their mothers).

V. Efroimson notes that if the excess of androgens in the mother falls on the critical phases of intrauterine development of the nervous system, and especially the brain, then there is a "reorientation" of the psyche in the male direction. Such prenatal hormonal exposure leads to the fact that girls grow up to be "tomboys", pugnacious, preferring boyish games to dolls.

Finally, he hypothesizes that George Sand's masculine behavior and tendencies - like those of Queen Elizabeth I Tudor - were the result of Morris syndrome, a type of pseudo-hermaphroditism. This anomaly is very rare - about 1:65,000 among women. Pseudo-hermaphroditism, writes V. Efroimson, “...could give rise to the most severe mental trauma, but the emotional stability of such patients, their love of life, diverse activity, energy, physical and mental, are simply amazing. For example, in terms of physical strength, speed, dexterity, they are so superior to physiologically normal girls and women that girls and women with Morris syndrome are subject to exclusion from women's sports. With the rarity of the syndrome, it is found in almost 1% of outstanding athletes, that is, 600 times more often than one would expect if it did not stimulate exceptional physical and mental development. An analysis of many facts allowed V. Efroimson to suggest that the talented and brilliant George Sand was a representative of this rare type of woman.

George Sand was a contemporary and friend of both Dumas, Franz Liszt, Gustave Flaubert and Honore de Balzac. Her favor was sought by Alfred de Musset, Prosper Merimee, Frederic Chopin. They all highly appreciated her talent and what can be called charm. She was a child of her age, which became a century of trials for her native France.

Amandine Lucy Aurora Dupin was born in Paris on July 1, 1804. She was the great-granddaughter of the illustrious Marshal Moritz of Saxony. After the death of his beloved, he became friends with an actress, from whom he had a girl, who received the name Aurora. Subsequently, Aurora of Saxony (grandmother of George Sand), a young, beautiful and innocent girl, married the rich and depraved Earl of Hawthorne, who, fortunately for the young woman, was soon killed in a duel.

Then chance brought her to Dupin, an official from the Treasury. He was an amiable, elderly and somewhat old-fashioned gentleman, prone to clumsy gallantry. Despite his sixty years, he managed to win over a thirty-year-old beauty and enter into a marriage with her, which turned out to be very happy.

From this marriage, the son Moritz was born. During the turbulent days of the reign of Napoleon I, he fell in love with a woman of dubious behavior and secretly married her. Moritz, being an officer and receiving a meager salary, could not feed his wife and daughter, since he himself was dependent on his mother. Therefore, his daughter Aurora spent her childhood and youth on the estate of her grandmother Aurora-Marie Dupin in Nohant.

After the death of her father, she often had to witness scandals between her grandmother and mother. Aurora-Maria reproached the mother of the future writer with a low origin (she was either a dressmaker or a peasant woman), a frivolous relationship with the young Dupin before marriage. The girl took the side of her mother, and at night they often shed bitter tears together.

From the age of five, Aurora Dupin was taught French grammar, Latin, arithmetic, geography, history and botany. Madame Dupin vigilantly followed the mental and physical development of her granddaughter in the spirit of Rousseau's pedagogical ideas. The girl received further education in a monastery, as was customary in many aristocratic families.

Aurora spent about three years in the monastery. In January 1821, she lost her closest friend - Madame Dupin died, making her granddaughter the sole heiress of the Noan estate. A year later, Aurora met a young artillery lieutenant, Baron Casimir Dudevant, and agreed to become his wife. The marriage was doomed to fail.

The first years of marriage seemed happy. Aurora gave birth to a son Moritz and a daughter Solange, she wanted to devote herself completely to their upbringing. She sewed dresses for them, although she did not know how well, took care of the household and tried with all her might to make life in Nohant pleasant for her husband. Alas, she could not make ends meet, and this served as a source of constant reproaches and quarrels. Madame Dudevant took up translations, began to write a novel, which, due to many shortcomings, was thrown into the fireplace.

All this, of course, could not contribute to family happiness. Quarrels continued, and one fine day in 1831, the husband allowed his thirty-year-old wife to leave for Paris with Solange, where she settled in a room in the attic. To support herself and her child, she took up porcelain painting and sold her fragile work with varying degrees of success.

To get rid of the cost of expensive women's outfits, Aurora began to wear a men's suit, which was convenient for her because it made it possible to walk around the city in any weather. Wearing a long gray coat (fashionable at the time), a round felt hat and strong boots, she wandered the streets of Paris, happy with her freedom, which rewarded her for all hardships. She dined for one franc, washed and ironed the linen herself, took the girl for a walk.

When a husband came to Paris, he would certainly visit his wife and take her to the theater or some expensive restaurant. In the summer she returned to Nohant, chiefly to see her beloved son.

Her husband's stepmother also occasionally met her in Paris. Once she learned that Aurora intended to publish books, she was furious and demanded that Dudevant's name never appear on any cover. Aurora with a smile promised to fulfill her demand.

In Paris, Aurora Dudevant met Jules Sandeau. He was seven years younger than Aurora. He was a frail, fair-haired man of aristocratic appearance. Together with him, Aurora wrote her first novel, Rose and Blanche, and several short stories. But these were only the first steps on the difficult path of a writer; a great life in French literature was yet to come, and she had to go through it without Sando.

The triumphant entry into French literature was the novel "Indiana", published under the pseudonym George Sand (originally it was Jules Sand - a direct reference to the name of the former lover Jules Sando). The action of the novel begins in 1827 and ends at the end of 1831, when the July Revolution took place. The Bourbon dynasty, in the person of its last king, Charles X, has left the historical stage. The throne of France was occupied by Louis Philippe of Orleans, who during his eighteen-year reign did everything possible to protect the interests of the financial and industrial bourgeoisie. In "Indiana" the change of cabinets, the uprising in Paris and the flight of the king are mentioned, which gave the story a modern touch. At the same time, the plot is permeated with anti-monarchist motives, the author condemns the intervention of the French troops of Spain. This was new, as many Romantic writers in the 1830s were fascinated by the Middle Ages and did not address the topic of modernity at all.

The novel "Indiana" was greeted with approval and interest by both readers and critics. But, despite the recognition and growing popularity, contemporaries treated George Sand with hostility. They considered her frivolous (even easily accessible), fickle and heartless, they called her a lesbian or, at best, a bisexual, they pointed out that a deeply hidden maternal instinct was hidden in her, because Sand always chose men younger than herself.

In November 1832, George Sand published her new novel Valentine. In it, the writer demonstrates remarkable skill, painting nature, and looks like a soulful psychologist who knows how to recreate the images of people of various classes.

It would seem that everything was going well: financial security, reader success, recognition of criticism. But it was at this time, in 1832, that George Sand was going through a deep depression (the first of many that followed), almost ending in suicide.

The emotional unrest and despair that gripped the writer arose due to government repression, which struck the imagination of everyone who was not immersed only in personal experiences. In The Story of My Life, George Sand acknowledged that her pessimism, her gloomy mood were generated by the absence of the slightest prospects: “My horizon expanded when all sorrows, all needs, all despair, all the vices of a great social environment appeared before me, when focus on my own destiny, but turned to the whole world, in which I was only an atom - then my personal longing spread to everything that exists, and the fatal law of fate appeared to me so terrible that my mind was shaken. In general, it was a time of general disappointment and decline. The republic that was dreamed of in July brought about an atoning sacrifice at the convent of Saint-Merry. Cholera mowed down the people. Saint-Simonism, which carried away the imagination with a swift stream, was struck down by persecution and ingloriously perished. It was then, seized with deep despondency, that I wrote Lelia.

The basis of the plot of the novel is the story of a young woman, Lelia, who, after several years of marriage, breaks with a man unworthy of her and, withdrawing in her grief, rejects secular life. In love with her, Stenio, the young poet, like Lelia, is seized by the spirit of doubt, filled with indignation at the horrifying conditions of existence.

With the advent of Lelia, an image of a strong-willed woman appeared in French literature, rejecting love as a means of fleeting pleasure, a woman who overcomes many hardships before getting rid of the ailment of individualism, finding solace in useful activity. Lelia condemns the hypocrisy of high society, the dogmas of Catholicism.

According to George Sand, love, marriage, family can unite people, contribute to their true happiness; as long as the moral laws of society are in harmony with the natural inclinations of man. Controversy and noise arose around Lelia, readers saw this as a scandalous autobiography of the writer.

After reading Lelia, Alfred de Musset stated that he learned a lot about the author, although in essence he learned almost nothing about her. They met in the summer of 1833 at a reception hosted by the owner of the Revue des Deux Mondes magazine. At the table they were side by side, and this accidental proximity played a role not only in their fate, but also in French and world literature.

Musset was known as a Don Juan, a frivolous egoist, not devoid of sentimentality, an Epicurean. The aristocrat de Musset earned a reputation as the only man of the world among French romantics. The affair with Musset became one of the brightest pages in the life of the writer.

George Sand was six years older than Alfred. He was an insufferable prankster, drawing cartoons and writing funny rhymes in her scrapbook. They loved to play pranks. Once they gave a dinner, at which Musset was dressed in the costume of an eighteenth-century marquis, and George Sand in a dress of the same era, in tankins and flies. On another occasion, Musset dressed in the clothes of a Norman peasant woman and waited at the table. Nobody recognized him, and George Sand was delighted. Soon the lovers left for Italy.

According to her, Musset continued to lead the dissolute life in Venice that he had become accustomed to in Paris. However, his health deteriorated, doctors suspected inflammation of the brain or typhus. She fussed around the patient day and night, without undressing and hardly touching her food. And then a third character appeared on the scene - the twenty-six-year-old doctor Pietro Pagello.

The joint struggle for the life of the poet brought them so close that they guessed each other's thoughts. The disease was defeated, but for some reason the doctor did not leave the patient. Musset realized that he had become superfluous and left. Upon George Sand's return to France, they finally separated, but under the influence of Musset's former lover, he wrote the novel Confessions of a Son of the Century.

During her stay in Italy in 1834, being in another depression after the departure of Alfred de Musset, Sand wrote the psychological novel Jacques. It embodies the writer's dream of moral ideals, that love is a healing force that elevates a person, the creator of his happiness. But often love can be associated with betrayal and deceit. She thought about suicide again.

Evidence of this are the lines written in a letter to Pietro Pagello: “Since the day I fell in love with Alfred, every moment I play with death. In my desperation I have gone as far as the human soul can go. But as soon as I feel the strength to desire happiness and love, I will also have the strength to rise.

And in her diary an entry appears: “I can no longer suffer from all this. And all this in vain! I am thirty years old, I am still beautiful, at least I will be beautiful in fifteen days, if I can force myself to stop crying. There are men around me who are worth more than me, but who, nevertheless, accept me for who I am, without lies and coquetry, who generously forgive me my mistakes and give me their support. Oh, if only I could force myself to love one of them! My God, give me back my strength, my energy, as it was in Venice. Give me back this fierce love of life, which has always been for me an outlet in the moment of the most terrible despair. Make me fall in love again! Ah, does it please you to kill me, does it please you to drink my tears! I... I don't want to die! I want to love! I want to be young again. I want to live!"

George Sand also wrote several wonderful short stories and novellas. Like many French novelists of the 19th century, she relied on the rich traditions of national literature, taking into account the experience of her predecessors and contemporaries. And contemporaries are Balzac, to whom she gave the plot for the novel "Beatrice, or Forced Love", Stendhal, Hugo and Nodier, Merimee and Musset.

In one of the early stories "Melchior" (1832), the writer, outlining the life philosophy of a young sailor, described the hardships of life, the absurd prejudices of society. It embodies Sand's typical theme of an unhappy marriage with tragic consequences. French critics compared the story "Marquis" with the best short stories by Stendhal and Merimee, found in it a special gift of a writer who managed to create a brief psychological study on the theme of fate, life and art. There is no complex intrigue in the story. The story is told from the perspective of the old marquise. The world of her memories revives the former feeling of platonic love for the actor Lelio, who played the main roles in the classic tragedies of Corneille and Racine.

The famous novel "????" (1838) adjoins the cycle of Venetian stories by George Sand - "Mattea", "The Last Aldini", the novels "Leone Leoni" and "Uskok", created during the writer's stay in Italy. The main motives of this fantastic story are based on real facts. The Venetian Republic, captured by the troops of General Bonaparte, was transferred to Austria in 1797, which began to ruthlessly suppress the rights of the Venetians. The story tells about the ongoing struggle of patriots in Venice for the national revival of Italy. George Sand constantly showed deep respect for the courageous people of Italy, who aspired to create a single state. In later years, she devoted the novel Daniella to this topic.

In the thirties, George Sand met many prominent poets, scientists, and artists. She was greatly influenced by the ideas of the utopian socialist Pierre Leroux and the doctrine of Christian socialism by Abbé Lamennet. At that time, the theme of the French Revolution of the 18th century, which the writer embodied in her work, was widely reflected in literature. In the novel Maupra (1837), the action takes place in the pre-revolutionary period. The narrative is based on a psychological and moral moment, due to the author's belief in the ability to change, improve the natural features of human nature. The historical views of the author of the novel "Maupra" are very close to the views of Victor Hugo. The French Revolution of 1789-1794 was perceived by romantics as a natural embodiment of the idea of the development of human society, as its inexorable movement towards a future illuminated by the light of political freedom and moral ideal. George Sand was of the same opinion.

The writer seriously studied the history of the French Revolution of 1789-1794, and read a number of studies about this era. Judgments about the positive role of the revolution in the progressive movement of mankind, the improvement of morals are organically included in the novel "Mopra" and subsequent ones - "Spiridion", "Countess Rudolyptadt". In a letter to L. Desage, she speaks positively of Robespierre and sharply condemns his Girondin opponents: “The people in the revolution were represented by the Jacobins. Robespierre is the greatest man of the modern era: calm, incorruptible, prudent, inexorable in the struggle for the triumph of justice, virtuous ... Robespierre, the only representative of the people, the only friend of truth, the implacable enemy of tyranny, sincerely sought to ensure that the poor would cease to be poor, and the rich would cease to be rich ".

In 1837, George Sand became close to Frederic Chopin. Gentle, fragile, feminine, imbued with reverence for everything pure, ideal, sublime, he unexpectedly fell in love with a woman who smoked tobacco, wore a man's suit and openly carried on frivolous conversations. When she became close to Chopin, Mallorca became their place of residence.

The scene is different, but the situation is the same, and even the roles turned out to be the same and the same sad ending. In Venice, Musset, lulled by the closeness of George Sand, skillfully rhymed beautiful words; in Majorca, Frederic created his ballads and preludes. Thanks to the dog George Sand, the famous "Dog Waltz" was born. Everything was fine, but when the composer had the first signs of consumption, George Sand began to be weary of him. Beauty, freshness, health - yes, but how to love a sick, frail, capricious and irritable person? George Sand thought so. She herself admitted this, trying, of course, to soften the reason for her cruelty, referring to other motives.

Chopin became too attached to her and did not want a break. A famous woman, experienced in love affairs, tried all means, but in vain. Then she wrote a novel in which, under fictitious names, she portrayed herself and her lover, and endowed the hero (Chopin) with all conceivable and inconceivable weaknesses, and naturally portrayed herself as an ideal woman. It seemed that the end was inevitable, but Frederick hesitated. He still thought that he could return love. In 1847, ten years after their first meeting, the lovers parted.

A year after the separation, Frederic Chopin and George Sand met at the house of a mutual friend. Full of remorse, she approached her former lover and held out her hands to him. The composer's handsome face turned pale. He recoiled from Sand and silently left the room.

In 1839, George Sand lived in Paris on the Rue Pigalle. Her cozy apartment became a literary salon where Chopin and Delacroix, Heinrich Heine and Pierre Leroux, Pauline Viardot met. Adam Mickiewicz read his poems here.

In 1841, George Sand, together with Pierre Leroux and Louis Viardot, undertook the publication of the journal Independent Review. The magazine devoted one of its articles to young German philosophers living in Paris - Karl Marx and Arnold Ruge. It is known that Karl Marx completed his work "The Poverty of Philosophy" with the words of George Sand from the essay "Jan Zizka" and, as a sign of respect, presented his essay to the author of "Consuelo".

The Independent Review introduced French readers to the literature of other peoples. Articles in this journal were devoted to Koltsov, Herzen, Belinsky, Granovsky. On the pages of the Independent Review in 1841-1842, Sand's well-known novel Horas was published.

In "Horas" the characters belong to different strata of the population: workers, students, intellectuals, aristocrats. Their destinies are not any exception, they are generated by new trends, and these trends are reflected in the novel of the writer. George Sand, touching upon social problems, speaks of the norms of family life, draws types of new people, active, hardworking, sympathetic, alien to everything petty, insignificant, self-serving. Such, for example, are Laravinier and Barbès. The first is the fruit of the author's creative imagination; he died fighting on the barricades. The second is a historical person, the famous revolutionary Armand Barbès (at one time he was sentenced to death, but at the request of Victor Hugo the execution was replaced by eternal hard labor), who continued the work of Laravignère during the revolution of the forty-eighth year.

Over the next two years, George Sand energetically worked on the dilogy "Consuelo" and "Countess Rudolstadt", published in 1843-1844. She sought in this extensive narrative to give an answer to the important social, philosophical, and religious questions posed by modernity.

In the forties, the authority of George Sand increased so much that a number of magazines were ready to provide her with pages for articles. At that time, Karl Marx and Arnold Ruge undertook the publication of the German-French Yearbook. Together with publishers, F. Engels, G. Heine, M. Bakunin collaborated in it. The editors of the journal asked the author of Consuelo, in the name of the democratic interests of France and Germany, to agree to cooperate in their journal. In February 1844, a double issue of the German-French Yearbook was published, at which point the publication ceased, and, naturally, George Sand's articles were not published.

In the same period, a new novel by George Sand, The Miller from Anzhibo (1845), was published. It depicts provincial customs, the foundations of the French countryside, as they developed in the forties, at a time when noble estates were disappearing.

George Sand's next novel, Monsieur Antoine's Sin (1846), was a success not only in France, but also in Russia. The severity of conflicts, a number of realistic images, the fascination of the plot - all this attracted the attention of readers. At the same time, the novel provided abundant food for critics who ironically perceived the author's "socialist utopias".

After the victory on February 24, 1848, the people demanded the establishment of a republic in France; The Second Republic was soon proclaimed. In March, the Ministry of the Interior began to issue Bulletins of the Provisional Government. George Sand was appointed executive editor of this official organ of the government.

With special passion and literary skill, she writes various kinds of proclamations and appeals to the people, collaborates in the leading organs of the democratic press, and establishes the weekly newspaper Delo Naroda. Victor Hugo and Lamartine, Alexandre Dumas and Eugene Xu also took an active part in the social movement.

The defeat of the June uprising in 1848, George Sand took it very painfully: "I no longer believe in the existence of a republic that begins with the murder of its proletarians." In the extremely difficult situation that developed in France in the second half of 1848, the writer defended her democratic convictions. Then she published an open letter, where she strongly protested against the election of Louis Bonaparte as President of the Republic. But soon his election took place. In December 1851, Louis Bonaparte carried out a coup d'etat, and a year later he proclaimed himself emperor under the name of Napoleon III.

George Sand's friendship with Dumas son began in 1851, when he found Sand's letters to Chopin on the Polish border, bought them and returned them to her. Perhaps, and most likely it is, Sand would like their relationship to develop into something more than friendship. But Dumas, the son, was carried away by the Russian princess Naryshkina, his future wife, and Sand was satisfied with the role of mother, friend and adviser.

This forced role sometimes drove her crazy, causing depression and suicidal thoughts. Who knows what could have happened (perhaps even suicide), if not for the truly friendly disposition on the part of Dumas the son. He helped her turn the novel "Marquis de Vilmer" into a comedy - he inherited the gift of editing from his father.

After the December coup, George Sand finally withdrew into herself, settled in Nohant and only occasionally came to Paris. She still worked fruitfully, wrote several novels, essays, "The Story of My Life." Among Sand's last works are Good Gentlemen of the Bois Doré, Daniella, The Snowman (1859), Black City (1861), Nanon (1871).

In 1872 I. S. Turgenev visited Nohant. George Sand, wanting to express her admiration for the talent of the great writer, published an essay from peasant life, Pierre Bonin, which she dedicated to the author of The Hunter's Notes.

Deadly illness caught George Sand at work. She worked on the last novel "Albina", which was not destined to be completed. She died on June 8, 1876 and was buried in the family cemetery in Nohant Park.

Whether Morris syndrome contributed to the disclosure of George Sand's talent, whether it was a matter of physiology, but a talented and brilliant writer, a great lover of great people, a great worker lived her life, overcoming herself and circumstances, and left a bright mark in the history of France and world literature.

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The main dates of the life and work of George Sand 1804, July 1 - Maurice and Antoinette-Sophie-Victoria Dupin had a daughter, Amantina-Lucile-Aurora. 1808, June 12 - Birth of the younger brother Aurora Dupin, who died soon after. Maurice Dupin, father of Georges

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George Sand Real name - Amanda Aurora Lyon Dupin, married Dudevant (born in 1804 - died in 1876) Famous French writer, author of the novels Indiana (1832), Horace (1842), Consuelo "(1843) and many others, in which she created images of free, emancipated women.

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George Sand They wore mustaches and beards, - Thundering tragedian, novelist, poet ... But in general, the guys were women; After all, there is no more feminine soul than the French! They captivated the whole world with carelessness, They enchanted the world with grace, And with languid beauty they connected the rainy girl's sadness.

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SAND GEORGES Real name - Amandine Lucy Aurora Dupin (b. 1804 - d. 1876) George Sand's reputation was scandalous. She wore men's clothing, smoked cigars, and spoke in a low male voice. Her pseudonym itself was male. It is believed that this is how she fought for the freedom of women.

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George Sand (1804-1876) ... the feelings that bind us combine so much that they cannot be compared with anything. George Sand, whose real name is Amandine Aurora Lucile Dupin, was born into a wealthy French family that owns an estate in Nohant, near the Indre Valley. At nineteen

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Alfred de Musset by George Sand (1833) My dear Georges, I need to tell you something stupid and funny. I'm writing you foolishly, I don't know why, instead of telling you all this after returning from a walk. In the evening, I will fall into despair because of this. You will laugh at me

Finding out the reasons for the death of her brother, she met the Elector of Saxony, the future King of Poland Augustus the Strong and became his mistress. In 1696, she gave birth to a son, Moritz, the lovers broke up even before the birth of the child. Maria Aurora took up residence in Quedlinburg Abbey, establishing a popular society salon there.

In 1748, one of Moritz's mistresses, Marie de Verrières (real name Rento), gave birth to a daughter, Marie-Aurora (1748-1821). Since Marie de Verrières was not faithful to Moritz, the marshal did not include her and her daughter in his will. Marie Aurora turned to Moritz's niece Dauphine Marie Josephine for patronage. She was placed in the convent of Saint-Cyr and assigned an allowance of eight hundred livres. Maria Aurora was considered the daughter of unknown parents, her position scared off potential applicants for her hand. She again turned to the Dauphine so that she was allowed to be called "the illegitimate daughter of the Marshal of France, Count Moritz of Saxony and Marie Rento." Paternity was confirmed by an act of the Parliament of Paris. At 18, Marie Aurora married an infantry captain, Antoine de Horne. He received the post of commandant of the Alsatian town of Celeste. The couple arrived at de Horn's destination five months after the wedding, the next day the forty-four-year-old de Horn fell ill, and died three days later. Maria Aurora settled in a monastery, and later, due to lack of funds, she moved to the house of her mother and aunt. At the age of thirty, she married a second time to the representative of the chief tax-farmer in Berry, Louis-Claude Dupin de Franchuy, the former lover of her aunt Genevieve de Verrières. The house of the Dupin spouses was put on a grand scale, they spent a lot on charity, were interested in literature and music. Having been widowed in 1788, Marie-Aurora, together with her son Maurice, moved to Paris. In 1793, believing that life in the provinces was safer, Marie-Aurora bought the estate of Noan-Vic, located between Châteauroux and La Chatre. At first, Madame Dupin, who called herself a follower of Voltaire and Rousseau, sympathized with the revolution. Her attitude to events changed when the terror began, she even signed up for 75,000 livres in a fund to help emigrants. For her belonging to the nobility in December 1793, Madame Dupin was arrested and placed in the monastery of the English Augustines. She was released after the events of 9 Thermidor, and in October 1794 she left with her son for Noan.

Childhood and youth

Aurora Dupin

Maurice Dupin (1778-1808), despite his classical education and love of music, chose a military career. Starting as a soldier during the Directory, he received an officer's rank in the Italian campaign. In 1800, in Milan, he met Antoinette-Sophie-Victoria Delaborde (1773-1837), the mistress of his boss, the daughter of a bird-catcher, and a former dancer.

She was already over thirty years old when my father saw her for the first time, and among what a terrible society! My father was generous! He realized that this beautiful creature is still able to love ...

They registered their marriage at the city hall of the 2nd district of Paris on June 5, 1804, when Sophie Victoria was expecting their first common child - Maurice had an illegitimate son Hippolyte, Sophie Victoria had a daughter Caroline.

House of George Sand in Nohant

The teacher of Aurora and her half-brother Hippolyte was Jean-Francois Deschartres, manager of the estate, former mentor of Maurice Dupin. In addition to teaching reading, writing, arithmetic, and history, her grandmother, an excellent musician, taught her how to play the harpsichord and sing. The girl also took over the love of literature from her. No one was involved in the religious education of Aurora - Madame Dupin, "a woman of the last century, recognized only the abstract religion of philosophers."

Since men's clothes were more comfortable for riding, walking and hunting, Aurora got used to wearing them from childhood.

The girl saw her mother only occasionally, coming with her grandmother to Paris. But Madame Dupin, in an effort to minimize the influence of Sophie-Victoria, tried to shorten these visits. Aurora decided to run away from her grandmother, soon her intention was revealed, and Madame Dupin decided to send Aurora to a monastery. Upon arrival in Paris, Aurora met with Sophie-Victoria, and she approved of her grandmother's plans for the further education of her daughter. Aurora was struck by the coldness of her mother, who at that time was once again arranging her personal life. “Oh my mother! Why don't you love me, me, who loves you so much?" . Her mother was no longer a friend or adviser to her, later Aurora learned to do without Sophie Victoria, however, without completely breaking with her and maintaining purely outward respect.

In the Augustinian Catholic Monastery, where she entered on January 12, 1818, the girl became acquainted with religious literature and mystical moods seized her. “I perceived this complete merging with the deity as a miracle. I literally burned like Saint Teresa; I didn’t sleep, I didn’t eat, I walked without noticing the movements of my body ... ”She decided to become a nun and do the hardest work. However, her confessor, Abbot Premor, who believed that a person could fulfill his duty without leaving secular life, dissuaded Aurora from this intention.

Her grandmother survived the first blow and, fearing that Aurora might remain under the care of "her unworthy mother", she decided to marry the girl. Aurora left the monastery, which became for her "heaven on earth". Soon the grandmother decided that her granddaughter was still too young for family life. Aurora tried to reconcile her mother and grandmother, but was defeated. She invited her mother to stay with her, but Sophie Victoria did not agree to this. In 1820, Aurora returned with her grandmother to Nohant. A wealthy heiress, Aurora nevertheless was not considered an enviable match due to a string of illegitimate births in the family and the low birth of her mother.

As a result of the second blow, Madame Dupin was paralyzed, and Dechartre transferred to the girl all the rights to manage the estate. Dechartre, who was mayor of Nohant, also acted as an apothecary and surgeon, Aurora assisted him. At the same time, Aurora became interested in philosophical literature, studied Chateaubriand, Bossuet, Montesquieu, Aristotle, Pascal, but most of all she admired Rousseau, believing that only he has true Christianity, "which requires absolute equality and fraternity."

She took long rides on Colette's horse: "We had to live and ride together for fourteen years." Aurora was criticized by those around her for her way of life, the freedom she enjoyed was unthinkable at that time for a person of her sex and age, but she did not pay attention to it. In La Chatre, Aurora was friends with her peers, the sons of her father's friends: Duvernay, Fleury, Pape. With one of them - Stephane Ajasson de Grandsagne, a student who taught her anatomy, an affair began. But youthful love did not lead to anything: for Gransan's father, the count, she was the daughter of a commoner, but her grandmother would not have agreed to this marriage because of Stefan's poverty.

Aurora's grandmother died on December 26, 1821, having agreed, to the surprise of her believing granddaughter, to take unction and take communion before her death. “I am convinced that I am not committing any meanness or lies, agreeing to a ceremony that, at the hour of separation from loved ones, serves as a good example. May you have peace of mind, I know what I'm doing. Grandmother insisted that Aurora be present at her confession. With the last words, Madame Dupin turned to her granddaughter: "You are losing your best friend."

Marriage

According to the will of Madame Dupin, custody of the seventeen-year-old girl was transferred to Count Rene de Villeneuve, and Aurora herself was supposed to live in Chenonceau, in the family of the Count. However, the girl's mother insisted on leading her. The Villeneuves abstained from guardianship - they did not want to deal with an "adventurer" of low origin. Aurora obeyed her mother "out of a sense of duty" and justice - class prejudices were alien to her. Soon, a conflict arose between mother and daughter: Sophie-Victoria forced Aurora to marry a man to whom she had not the slightest inclination. Aurora was furious. Her mother threatened her with imprisonment in a monastery.

“You'll be better off here. We'll alert the community at your expense; here they will beware of your eloquence. Get ready for the thought that you will have to live in this cell until you come of age, that is, three and a half years. Do not try to appeal to the help of laws; no one will hear your complaints; and neither your defenders nor you yourself will ever know where you are ... ”But then - either they were ashamed of such a despotic act, or they were afraid of the retribution of the law, or they just wanted to scare me, - this plan was abandoned. .

Aurora realized that a lonely woman without protection is doomed to face difficulties at every turn. Due to nervous tension, she fell ill: "she began to have cramps in her stomach, which refused to eat." Sophie Victoria left her daughter alone for a while. In 1822, Aurora was visiting the family of her father's friend, Colonel Retier du Plessis. Through the du Plessis, she met Casimir Dudevant (1795-1871), the illegitimate son of the Baron Dudevant, owner of the Guillieri estate in Gascony. Suffering from loneliness, she "fell in love with him as the personification of masculinity." Casimir made an offer not through relatives, as was then customary, but personally to Aurora, and thus conquered her. She was sure that Casimir was not interested in her dowry, since he was the only heir to his father and his wife.

Despite his mother's doubts, in September, Aurora and Casimir got married in Paris and left for Nohant. Casimir replaced Deschartres as manager of Noan, and the couple began to lead the life of ordinary landowners. On June 30, 1823, Aurora gave birth to a son, Maurice, in Paris. The husband was not interested in books or music, he hunted, engaged in "local politics" and feasted with local noblemen like him. Soon, Aurora was seized by bouts of melancholy, which irritated her husband, who did not understand what was happening. For the romantically minded Aurora, who dreamed of "love in the spirit of Rousseau," the physiological side of marriage was a shock. But at the same time, she retained affection for Casimir - an honest man and an excellent father. She was able to regain some peace of mind by communicating with her mentors in the English Catholic monastery, where she moved with her son. But Maurice fell ill, and Aurora returned home.

There comes a time when you feel the need for love, exclusive love! It is necessary that everything that happens has to do with the object of love. I wanted you to have both charm and gifts for him alone. You didn't see it in me. My knowledge turned out to be unnecessary, because you did not share it with me.

Aurora felt unwell, her husband believed that all her illnesses exist only in her imagination. Quarrels between spouses became more frequent.

Solange Dudevant

At the end of 1825, the Dudevant couple made a trip to the Pyrenees. There, Aurora met Aurélien de Cez, a fellow prosecutor of the Court of Bordeaux. The affair with de Cez was platonic - Aurora felt happy and at the same time reproached herself for having changed her attitude towards her husband. In her "Confession", which she wrote to her husband on the advice of de Cez, Aurora explained in detail the reasons for her act, that her feelings did not resonate with Casimir, that she changed her life for him, but he did not appreciate it. Returning to Nohant, Aurora maintained a correspondence with de Cez. At the same time, she again meets with Stéphane Ajasson de Gransan and the youthful romance continues. On September 13, 1828, Aurora gives birth to a daughter, Solange (1828-1899), all Sand's biographers agree that Ajasson de Grandsagne was the girl's father. Soon the Dudevant couple actually separated. Casimir began to drink and made several love affairs with the Noan servants.

Aurora felt that it was time to change the situation: her new lover, Jules Sando, left for Paris, she wished to follow him. She left the estate to her husband in exchange for an annuity, on the condition that she would spend half a year in Paris, the other six months in Nohant, and maintain the appearance of a marriage.

The beginning of literary activity

Auguste Charpentier. Portrait of George Sand

Aurora arrived in Paris on January 4, 1831. A pension of three thousand francs was not enough to live on. Out of economy, she wore a men's suit, besides, he became a pass to the theater: the stalls were the only places that she and her friends could afford, ladies were not allowed.

To earn money, Aurora decided to write. In Paris, she brought a novel ("Aimé"), which she intended to show to de Keratri, a member of the Chamber of Deputies and a writer. He, however, advised her not to study literature. On the recommendation of her friend from La Chatre, Aurora turned to the journalist and writer Henri de Latouche, who had just led Le Figaro. The novel "Aime" did not impress him, but he offered Ms. Dudevant cooperation in the newspaper and introduced him to the Parisian literary world. A brief journalistic style was not her element, she was more successful in lengthy descriptions of nature and characters.

More decisively than ever, I choose the literary profession. Despite the troubles that sometimes happen in it, despite the days of laziness and fatigue that sometimes interrupt my work, despite my more than modest life in Paris, I feel that from now on my existence is meaningful.

At first, Aurora wrote with Sando: the novels "The Commissioner" (1830), "Rose and Blanche" (1831), which had great success with readers, came out with his signature, since Casimir Dudevant's stepmother did not want to see her name on book covers. In "Rose and Blanche" Aurora used her memories of the monastery, notes about a trip to the Pyrenees, the stories of her mother. Already on her own, Aurora began a new work, the novel "Indiana", the theme of which was the opposition of a woman looking for ideal love, a sensual and conceited man. Sando approved the novel, but refused to sign someone else's text. Aurora chose a male pseudonym: it became for her a symbol of deliverance from the slave position to which modern society doomed a woman. Keeping the surname Sand, she added the name Georges.

Latouche considered that in "Indiana" Aurora copied the style of Balzac, however, after reading the novel more carefully, he changed his mind. The success of Indiana, lauded by Balzac and Gustave Planche, allowed her to sign a contract with the Revue de Deux Monde and gain financial independence.

The beginning of Sand's friendship with Marie Dorval, a famous actress of the romantic era, dates back to that time.

To understand what power she (Dorval) has over me, one would have to know to what extent she is not like me ... She! God put a rare gift in her - the ability to express her feelings ... This woman, so beautiful, so simple, did not learn anything: she guesses everything ...<…>And when this fragile woman appears on the stage with her broken figure, with her careless gait, with a sad and penetrating look, then you know what I imagine? ... It seems to me that I see my soul ...

Sand was credited with a love affair with Dorval, but these rumors are not confirmed by anything. In 1833, the novel Lelia was published, which caused a scandal. The main character (in many ways this is a self-portrait), in pursuit of happiness that gives other women, but not her, physical love, passes from lover to lover. Later, regretting that she had betrayed herself, George Sand corrected the novel, removing confessions of impotence and giving it a greater moral and social coloring. Jules Janin in the Journal de Debas called the book "disgusting", the journalist Capo de Feuyid "demanded a 'flaming coal' to cleanse his lips of these base and shameless thoughts..." Gustave Planche published a positive review in the Revue de Deux Monde and challenged Capo de Feuyid to a duel. Sainte-Beuve wrote to Sand:

The general public, demanding in the reading room to be given a book, will refuse this novel. But on the other hand, he will be highly appreciated by those who see in him the most vivid expression of the eternal thoughts of mankind ... To be a woman who has not yet reached thirty years of age, whose appearance cannot even be understood when she managed to explore such bottomless depths; to carry this knowledge in oneself, a knowledge that would make our hair come out and our temples turn gray - to carry it with ease, ease, maintaining such restraint in expressions - this is what I admire in you first of all; really, madam, you are an extremely strong, rare nature ...

George Sand and Alfred de Musset

Alfred de Musset

In April 1835 he spoke for the defense at the trial of the Insurgents of Lyon. Sand followed him to Paris to attend the hearings and take care of Michel, who "spoiled himself not in the defense of the April defendants."

In January 1836, Sand filed a complaint against her husband with the court of La Chatre. After hearing the witnesses, the court entrusted the upbringing of the children to Madame Dudevant. Casimir Dudevant, afraid of losing his rent, did not defend himself and agreed to a sentence in absentia. However, disagreements soon arose during the division of property between the former spouses. Dudevant appealed the court's decision and set out his claims to his wife in a special memorandum. Michel was the defender of Sand in the divorce proceedings resumed in May 1836. His eloquence impressed the judges, but their opinions were divided. But the next day, Casimir Dudevant went to the world: he had to raise his son and received the Narbonne Hotel in Paris for use. Madame Dudevant was entrusted with her daughter, and Nohant remained behind her.

Sand broke up with Michel Sand in 1837 - he was married and had no intention of leaving his family.

Christian socialism

Prone, like George Sand, to mysticism, Franz Liszt introduced the writer to Lamennay. She immediately became an ardent supporter of his views and even went to some cooling of relations with Sainte-Beuve, who criticized the abbe for inconsistency. For Lamenne's founded newspaper Le Monde, Sand offered to write for free, giving herself the freedom to choose and cover topics. "Letters to Marcy," a correspondence in the form of a novel, included actual messages from Sand to the poor dowry Eliza Tourangin. When in the "Sixth Letter" Sand touched on gender equality in love, Lamenne was shocked, and after learning that the next one would be devoted to "the role of passion in a woman's life", he stopped publishing.

... he (Lamennay) does not want to be written about a divorce; he expects from her (Sand) those flowers that fall from her hands, that is, fairy tales and jokes. Marie d'Agout to Franz Liszt

However, the main reason for the breakup between Lamennay and Sand was that she was a faithful follower of the philosophy of Pierre Leroux. Most of Leroux's ideas were borrowed from Christianity, Leroux only did not allow the immortality of the individual. He also advocated equality of the sexes in love and the improvement of marriage as one of the conditions for the emancipation of women. According to Sand, Leroux, “the new Plato and Christ”, “saved” her, who found in his teaching “calmness, strength, faith, hope”. For fifteen years, Sand supported Leroux, including financially. Under the influence of Leroux, Sand wrote the novels Spiridion (co-authored with Leroux) and The Seven Strings of the Lyre. In 1848, after leaving the conservative edition of the Revue des Deux Mondes, she founded, together with Louis Viardot and Leroux, the newspaper Revue Independente. Sand published her novels Horace, Consuelo and Countess Rudolstadt in it. She supported poets from the proletarian milieu - Savignen Lapointe, Charles Magu, Charles Ponsy and promoted their work ("Dialogues on the Poetry of the Proletarians", 1842). In her new novels (The Wandering Apprentice, The Miller from Anzhibo), the virtue of the proletarians was opposed to the "egoism of the noble rich."

George Sand and Chopin

At the end of 1838, Sand began a relationship with Chopin, who by that time had parted ways with his fiancee Maria Vodzinskaya. Hoping that the climate of Mallorca will have a beneficial effect on Chopin's health, Sand decides to spend the winter there with him and the children. Her expectations were not justified: the rainy season began, Chopin had coughing fits. In February they returned to France. Sand recognizes himself as the head of the family. From now on, she tries to live only for children, Chopin and her work. To save winter they spent in Paris. The difference in characters, political preferences, jealousy for a long time could not prevent them from maintaining affection. Sand quickly realized that Chopin was dangerously ill and devotedly cared for his health. But no matter how his situation improved, Chopin's character and his illness did not allow him to be in a peaceful state for a long time.

This is a man of extraordinary sensitivity: the slightest touch to him is a wound, the slightest noise is a thunderclap; a man who recognizes only face-to-face conversation, who has gone into some kind of mysterious life and only occasionally manifests himself in some kind of irrepressible antics, charming and funny. Heinrich Heine

Some of her friends took pity on Sand, calling Chopin her "evil genius" and "cross". Fearing for his condition, she reduced their relationship to purely friendly, Chopin suffered from this state of affairs and attributed her behavior to other hobbies.

If any woman could inspire complete confidence in him, then it was me, and he never understood this ... I know that many people accuse me, some for wearing him down with the unbridledness of my feelings, others for that I bring him to despair with my foolishness. I think you know what's going on. And he, he complains to me that I am killing him with refusals, while I am sure that I would have killed him if I had done otherwise ... From a letter from George Sand to Albert Grzhimala, Chopin's friend.

Relations with Chopin are reflected in Sand's novel Lucrezia Floriani. Subsequently, she denied that she wrote off Lucrezia from herself, and Karol from Chopin. Chopin did not recognize or did not want to recognize himself in the image of a young man, a charming egoist, beloved by Lucrezia and who caused her premature death. In 1846, a conflict broke out between Chopin and Maurice, as a result of which the latter announced his desire to leave the house. Sand took the son's side:

It could not be, it should not have been, Chopin could not bear my interference in all this, although it was necessary and legal. He lowered his head and said that I fell out of love with him. What blasphemy after eight years of maternal selflessness! But the poor offended heart was unaware of its madness...

Chopin left in November 1846, at first he and Georges exchanged letters. Chopin was pushed to the final break by his daughter Sand. Solange, having quarreled with her mother, came to Paris and turned Chopin against her.

... she hates her mother, slanders her, blackens her most holy motives, defiles her home with terrible speeches! You like to hear it all and maybe even believe it. I will not enter into such a struggle, it terrifies me. I prefer to see you in a hostile camp than to defend myself against an adversary who is nourished by my breast and my milk. George Sand - Frederic Chopin.

The last time Sand and Chopin met by chance was in March 1848:

I thought that a few months of separation would heal the wound and restore peace to friendship, and justice to memories ... I shook his cold, trembling hand. I wanted to talk to him - he disappeared. Now I could tell him, in turn, that he stopped loving me.

With Solange, who married the sculptor Auguste Clézenger, the composer maintained friendly relations until his death.

Revolution and Second Empire

After the events of May 15, 1848, when a mob of demonstrators tried to take over the National Assembly, some newspapers blamed it for inciting a riot. There were rumors that she would be arrested. Sand remained in Paris for two more days to "be at hand with justice if it took it into her head to settle scores with me," and returned to Nohant.

After the December coup of 1851, she achieved an audience with Louis Napoleon and gave him a letter calling for an end to the persecution of political opponents. With the help of Napoleon-Joseph Sand, the fate of many republicans was mitigated. Since the proclamation of Louis Napoleon as emperor, she no longer saw him, turning to the Empress, Princess Mathilde or Prince Napoleon for help.

Last years

During the years of the Second Empire, anti-clerical sentiments appeared in Sand's work as a reaction to the policies of Louis Napoleon. Her novel Danielle (1857), which attacked the Catholic religion, caused a scandal, and the newspaper La Presse, in which it was published, was closed.

George Sand died from complications of intestinal obstruction on June 8 at her estate Nohant. Upon learning of her death, Hugo wrote: “I mourn the deceased, I salute the immortal!”

Compositions

Major novels

Indiana (Indiana, 1832)
Valentine (Valentine, 1832)
Melchior (Melchior, 1832)
Lelia (Lélia, 1833)
Cora (Cora, 1833)
Jacques (Jacques, 1834)
Metella (Métella, 1834)
Leone Leoni (1835)
Mauprat (Mauprat, 1837)
Mosaic Masters (Les Maîtres mozaistes, 1838)
Orco (L'Orco, 1838)
Uskok (L'Uscoque, 1838)
Spiridion (Spiridion, 1839)
Traveling apprentice (Le Compagnon du tour de France, 1841)
Horace (Horace, 1842)
Consuelo (Consuelo, 1843)
Countess Rudolstadt (La Comtesse de Rudolstadt, 1843)
Miller from Angibault (Le Meunier d'Angibault, 1845)
Damn swamp (La Mare au diable, 1846)
Sin of Monsieur Antoine (Le Péché de M. Antoine, 1847)
Lucrezia Floriani (1847)
Piccinino (Le Piccinino, 1847)
Little Fadette (La Petite Fadette, 1849)
Francois the Foundling (François le Champi, 1850)
Mont Reveche (1853)
History of my life (Histoire de ma vie, 1855)
The Fair Gentlemen of Bois-Doré (Ces beaux messieurs de Bois-Doré, 1858)
She and He (Elle et lui, 1859)
Snowman (L'Homme de neige, 1859)
Marquis de Villemer (1861)
Confession of a Young Girl (La Confession d'une jeune fille, 1865)
Pierre Tumbleweed (Pierre qui roule, 1870)
Nanon (1872)

Prose

Commissioner (Le Commissionnaire, 1830, with Jules Sandeau).
Rose and Blanche (1831, with Jules Sandeau)
Girl from Albano (La Fille d'Albano, 1831)
Aldo le Rimeur (1833)
Conspiracy in 1537 (Une conspiration en 1537, 1833)
Intimate diary (Journal intime, 1834)
Private Secretary (Le Secrétaire intime, 1834)
Marquise (La Marquise, 1834)
Garnier (Garnier, 1834)
Lavinia (Lavinia, 1834)
Andre (André, 1835)
Mattea (Mattea, 1835)
Simon (Simon, 1836)
The Last of Aldini (La Dernière Aldini, 1838)
Pauline from the Mississippi (Pauline. Les Mississipiens, 1840)
The Seven Strings of the Lyre (Les Sept Cordes de la lyre, 1840)
Mony Rubin (Mouny Roubin, 1842)
Georges de Guérin (1842)
Winter in Mallorca (Un hiver à Majorque, 1842)
Dialogues on the Poetry of the Proletarians (1842, article)
The Younger Sister (La Sœur cadette, 1843)
Koroglu (Kouroglou, 1843)
Karl (Carl, 1843)
Jan Zizka (1843)
Jeanne (1844)
Isidora (Isidora, 1846)
Teverino (Teverino, 1846)
Champagne Holidays (Les Noces de campagne, 1846)
Evenor and Lesippus. Love in the Golden Age (Evenor et Leucippe. Les Amours de l "Âge d'or, 1846)
The Castle of Solitude (Le Château des Désertes, 1851)
The story of a true dupe named Griboul (Histoire du véritable Gribouille, 1851)
La Fauvette du docteur (1853)
Goddaughter (La Filleule, 1853)
Country Musicians (Les Maîtres sonneurs, 1853)
Adrians (Adriani, 1854)
Around the table (Autour de la table, 1856)
Daniella (La Daniella, 1857)
The Devil in the Fields (Le Diable aux champs, 1857)
Rural walks (Promenades autour d'un village, 1857)
Jean de la Roche (1859)
Narcissus (Narcisse, 1859)
Green Ladies (Les Dames vertes, 1859)
Constance Verrier (1860)
Rural Evenings (La Ville noire, 1861)
Valverde (Valvèdre, 1861)
The Germand family (La Famille de Germandre, 1861)
Tamaris (Tamaris, 1862)
Mademoiselle La Quintinie (1863)
Antonia (Antonia, 1863)
Laura (Laura, 1865)
Monsieur Sylvestre (1866)
Flavia (Flavie, 1866)
Last Love (Le Dernier Amour, 1867)
Cadio (Cadio, 1868)
Mademoiselle Merquem (1868)
Beautiful Laurence (Le Beau Laurence, 1870)
Against All Odds (Malgré tout, 1870)
Caesarine Dietrich (1871)
Diary of a Wartime Traveler (Journal d'un voyageur pendant la guerre, 1871)
Francia (Francia. Un bienfait n'est jamais perdu, 1872)
Grandmother's Tales (Contes d'une grand'mère vol. 1, 1873)
My Sister Jeanne (Ma sœur Jeanne, 1874)
Flamand (Flamarande, 1875)
Two Brothers (Les Deux Frères, 1875)
Percemont Tower (La Tour de Percemont, 1876)
Grandma's Tales (Contes d'une grand'mère vol. 2, 1876)
Marianne (Marianne, 1876)
Rural Legends (Legendes rustiques, 1877)

Notes

George Sand. Story of my life. Quoted from: A. Morois. Lelia, or the life of George Sand. - M.: Pravda, 1990. p. 33
Hippolyte Shatiron (1798-1848). Subsequently, the owner of the castle of Montgivret near Nohant. He was married to Emilie de Villeneuve
George Sand. Story of my life. Quoted from: A. Morois. Lelia, or the life of George Sand. - M.: Pravda, 1990. p. 41
A. Morua. Lelia, or the life of George Sand. - M.: Pravda, 1990. p. 41
Cit. Quoted from: A. Morois. Lelia, or the life of George Sand. - M.: Pravda, 1990. p. 44
George Sand. Story of my life. Quoted from: A. Morois. Lelia, or the life of George Sand. - M.: Pravda, 1990. p. fifty
George Sand, Histoire de ma vie, I, p. 1007
A. Morua. Lelia, or the life of George Sand. - M.: Pravda, 1990. p. 61

Young Aurora studied at the English Catholic Institute-Monastery in Paris. After receiving her education, the girl returned to Nohant, at the age of 18 she married Baron Casimir Dudevant. In this marriage, two children were born, but the marriage did not work out, and the couple broke up after eight years of family life. In 1831, after a divorce, Aurora Dudevant settled in Paris. To feed herself and her children, she took up painting on porcelain and sold her works quite successfully, then took up literary work.

The literary activity of Aurora Dudevant began with a collaboration with the writer Jules Sando. Their novel Rose and Blanche was published in 1831 under the pseudonym Jules Sand and was a success. In 1832, Aurora Dudevant's first independent novel, Indiana, was published under the pseudonym George Sand. The novel raised the topic of women's equality, which she interpreted as a problem of human freedom. This was followed by the novels "Valentina" (1832), "Lelia" (1833), "André" (1835), "Simon" (1836), "Jacques" (1834), etc. From 1832 until the end of her life, Sand wrote annually a novel, and sometimes two or three, not counting stories, short stories and articles.

From the mid-1830s, George Sand was fond of the ideas of the Saint-Simonists (a current of social utopianism), the views of the left-wing republicans.

The dominant note of her novels was the idea of the injustice of social inequality. Peasants and workers of the city became the central figures of her novels (Horas, 1842; Comrade of Circular Travels in France, 1840; Monsieur Antoine's Sin, 1847; Jeanne, 1844; Miller from Anzhibo, 1845-1846) .

In the novels "Devil's Puddle" (1846), "Francois the Foundling" (1847-1848), "Little Fadette" (1848-1849), George Sand idealized the patriarchal village mores.

Her most notable work of those years was the novel Consuelo (1842-1843).

George Sand took part in the February Revolution of 1848, was close to the radical circles of the Republican Left, edited the Bulletin de la Republique (Bulletins de la republique). After the suppression of the revolutionary uprising in June 1848, Sand withdrew from social activities, writing novels in the spirit of the early romantic works The Snowman (1858), Jean de la Roche (1859) and others.

During the same period of her life, George Sand became interested in dramatic art and wrote a number of plays, of which Francois the Foundling (1849; based on the novel of the same name), Claudia (1851), Quiz's Wedding (1851) had the greatest success. and "Marquis de Wilmer" (1867).

Since the 1840s, George Sand has been popular in Russia. She was admired by Ivan Turgenev, Nikolai Nekrasov, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Vissarion Belinsky, Nikolai Chernyshevsky, Alexander Herzen.

In 1854-1858, her multi-volume History of My Life was published, which aroused great interest among readers. Her last significant works are "Grandmother's Tales" (1873), a series of "Memories and Impressions" (1873).

George Sand spent the last years of her life on her estate in Nohant. She died June 8, 1876.

The material was prepared on the basis of information from open sources

210 years ago, Amandine Aurora Lucille Dupin was born, who later became a famous writer under a pseudonym (albeit a male one!) - George Sand. For 40 years of literary activity, George Sand created about a hundred works,in the center of which most often is the fate of a woman, her struggle for individual freedom, for justice, for high love. Many of her novels, such as Indiana, Consuelo, and The Countess Rudolstadt, are still popular with modern readers.

George SandIt was born on July 1, 1804 in Paris, in a noble family. By the way, her father, Maurice Dupin, came from the family of the commander Moritz of Saxony. The father of the future writer was fond of literature and music. However, at the height of the Revolution of 1789, he joined the revolutionaries and together with them made several Napoleonic campaigns and died at a young age.

Mother, Sophia Victoria Antoinette Delaborde, was the daughter of a Parisian bird seller. During the Napoleonic campaign, George Sand was with her mother in Spain, and then came under the care of her grandmother, who raised her according to the ideas of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. In the village, the girl closely communicated with the peasants. Therefore, I learned early about social inequality. She was never left indifferent to the interests of the village poor, and she treated the village rich negatively. The girl studied in a convent. Reading has become a real passion for Aurora. In her grandmother's library, she read all the books from cover to cover. But she was especially interested in the writings of Rousseau. It was they who had an influence in the future on all her work. After the death of her grandmother, Aurora soon married Casimir Dudevant. Dudevant turned out to be a completely unsuitable life partner for such a dreamy and peculiar woman with an inquisitive mind. And in 1830 she broke up with him, went to Paris and began to lead there, on the one hand, a completely student, free, and on the other, a purely professional, working life of a writer.

Origin of the pseudonym

Her literary activity began with a collaboration with Jules Sando. The fruit of this "collective creativity" - the novel "Rose and Blanche", or "The Actress and the Nun" was published in 1831 under the pseudonym of Jules Sand and was a success. The publishers wished to immediately publish a new work of this author. Aurora in Nogan wrote her part, and Sando wrote only one title. The publishers demanded that the novel come out with the name of the same successful Sando, and Jules Sando did not want to put his name under someone else's work. To resolve the dispute, Sando was advised to write under her full name and surname from now on, and Aurora to take half of this surname and prefix it with the name Georges, common in Berry. So the well-known pseudonym George Sand was born. Preferring men's suits to women's, George Sand traveled to places in Paris where aristocrats, as a rule, did not get. For the upper classes of France in the 19th century, such behavior was considered unacceptable, so that she actually lost her status as a baroness.

Men George Sand

It is interesting to know what this unusual Frenchwoman looked like? Was George Sand beautiful? Some said yes, while others considered it disgusting. Contemporaries portrayed her as a woman of short stature, dense build, with a gloomy face, large eyes, yellow skin and premature wrinkles on her neck. True, everyone agreed that she had very beautiful hands. She constantly smoked cigars, and her movements were sharp and impetuous. But the men in love with her did not spare enthusiastic epithets to describe her. Men were attracted by her intellect and lust for life. Among the lovers of George Sand were the poet Alfred de Musset, the engraver Alexandre Damien Manso, the artist Charles Marshal, whom Sand called "my fat child", and Frederic Chopin.

George Sand spent the last years of her life on her estate, where she enjoyed universal respect and earned the nickname "the good lady of Noan". She died there on June 8, 1876.

Creativity George Sand

The work of the French writer George Sand became one of the most significant phenomena in European culture of the 19th century. George Sand was a creative, bright, freedom-loving and talented person. And many heroines of George Sand's works are similar to their creator.

Consuelo

The novel "Consuelo" is considered one of the best creations in the literary heritage of the famous French writer George Sand. The prototype of Consuelo was the French singer Pauline Viardot, and the most famous novel of the writer tells about the calling of a true artist, about the heavy burden of talent bestowed by fate, and sometimes the tragic choice between success, fame and personal happiness, the joy of family life...

Countess Rudolstadt

The continuation is the novel "Countess Rudolstadt". A new meeting with the dark-skinned Consuelo is a great opportunity to plunge into the atmosphere of a gallant era full of dangers and genuine passion, when people knew how to live in full force and die with a smile on their lips.

Indiana

The action of the novel takes place in the era of the Restoration, a time when everyone still remembers both the events of the revolution and the reign of Napoleon. The heroine of the novel suffers from the despotism of her husband, Colonel Delmare. Love for Raymond de Ramier fills her life with new meaning, but they are not destined to be together.

Valentine

The provincial Valentina, the young heiress of the count's title and an enviable fortune, becomes the bride of a handsome count, but she gives her heart to a simple poor young man. She cannot resist her feelings, however, a pure, noble soul and a sense of duty do not allow her to neglect the cynical and deceitful laws of society. What choice will the girl make and will it bring her happiness?

Lelia

The novel "Lelia" is a sincere confession of a woman, noble, beautiful, but cold as a statue, disappointed in love; in her agitated soul, one feeling survived - the need to believe in love, and, perhaps, in divine love. The young poet Stenio passionately loves Lelia and tries in vain to revive her. The tenderness and poetry of the characters, the enchanting beauty of style cannot leave anyone indifferent. The book, if not completely autobiographical in nature, then, in any case, reflects the personal feelings experienced by the author.

These and other works of the unsurpassed queen of French romanticism, George Sand, are waiting for their readers in the Central Library. A.S. Pushkin and in all municipal libraries of the city of Chelyabinsk.

Years of life: from 07/01/1804 to 06/08/1876

George Sand (real name - Amandine Aurore Lucile Dupin) - French writer. Known for her novels "Consuelo" and "Countess Rudolstadt".

A family

Aurora Dupin comes from a noble family through her father Maurice. Her great-grandmother was none other than Maria Aurora von Koenigsmarck, sister of Philipp von Koenigsmarck, who was killed on the orders of the Elector of Hanover. Mother was from a simple peasant family.

Maurice Dupin chose a military career. In 1800, in Milan, he met Antoinette-Sophie-Victoria Delaborde, the mistress of his boss, the bird-catcher's daughter, and a former dancer. Soon they registered a marriage, and after some time they had a daughter, whom they named Aurora Lucille Dupin. Because of the origin of the mother, the paternal aristocratic relatives did not like the girl.