Thierry Maulnier
Encyclopedia
Thierry Maulnier was a French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 journalist, essayist, dramatist, and literary critic.

Before 1940

A graduate of the École Normale Supérieure
École Normale Supérieure
The École normale supérieure is one of the most prestigious French grandes écoles...

 in the same class as Roger Vailland
Roger Vailland
Roger Vailland was a French novelist, essayist, and screenwriter.Vailland's novels include Drôle de jeu , Les mauvais coups , Un jeune homme seul , 325 000 francs , and La loi , winner of the Prix Goncourt...

, Robert Brasillach
Robert Brasillach
Robert Brasillach was a French author and journalist. Brasillach is best known as the editor of Je suis partout, a nationalist newspaper which came to advocate various fascist movements and supported Jacques Doriot...

, and Maurice Bardèche
Maurice Bardèche
Maurice Bardèche was a French essayist, literary and art critic, journalist, and one of the leading exponents of Neo-Fascism in post-World War II Europe...

. While still a student, Maulnier became active in the integralist
Integralism
Integralism, or Integral nationalism, is an ideology according to which a nation is an organic unity. Integralism defends social differentiation and hierarchy with co-operation between social classes, transcending conflict between social and economic groups...

 Action Française
Action Française
The Action Française , founded in 1898, is a French Monarchist counter-revolutionary movement and periodical founded by Maurice Pujo and Henri Vaugeois and whose principal ideologist was Charles Maurras...

, and published in Charles Maurras
Charles Maurras
Charles-Marie-Photius Maurras was a French author, poet, and critic. He was a leader and principal thinker of Action Française, a political movement that was monarchist, anti-parliamentarist, and counter-revolutionary. Maurras' ideas greatly influenced National Catholicism and "nationalisme...

' newspaper (L'Action française). He made a career in journalism and took part to the movement of the Non-conformists of the 1930s
Non-conformists of the 1930s
The Non-Conformists of the 1930s refers to a nebula of groups and individuals during the inter-war period in France which was looking for new solutions to face the political, economical and social crisis. The name was coined in 1969 by the historian Jean-Louis Loubet del Bayle to describe a...

, inspired by the personalist
Personalism
Personalism is a philosophical school of thought searching to describe the uniqueness of a human person in the world of nature, specifically in relation to animals...

 generation of young intellectual
Intellectual
An intellectual is a person who uses intelligence and critical or analytical reasoning in either a professional or a personal capacity.- Terminology and endeavours :"Intellectual" can denote four types of persons:...

s who shared some of the ideals of the Action Française, holding right-wing beliefs as an answer to a "crisis of civilization" and materialism
Materialism
In philosophy, the theory of materialism holds that the only thing that exists is matter; that all things are composed of material and all phenomena are the result of material interactions. In other words, matter is the only substance...

. Thierry Maulnier associated with youth periodicals such as Réaction, La Revue du Siècle, and La Revue française; he also wrote his first volume, La crise est dans l'homme ("Crisis Is in Man").

In 1934, he authored, with Pierre Maxence, the manifesto
Manifesto
A manifesto is a public declaration of principles and intentions, often political in nature. Manifestos relating to religious belief are generally referred to as creeds. Manifestos may also be life stance-related.-Etymology:...

 Demain la France ("Tomorrow, France"). Maxence and Maulnier also founded the weekly L'Insurgé in 1936 lasting only a few months, the magazine circulated nationalist
Nationalism
Nationalism is a political ideology that involves a strong identification of a group of individuals with a political entity defined in national terms, i.e. a nation. In the 'modernist' image of the nation, it is nationalism that creates national identity. There are various definitions for what...

 tenets, reviewed in Maulnier's 1938 essay Au-delà du nationalisme ("Beyond Nationalism"). At the same time, he joined Jean de Fabrègues in the creation of a more analytical paper, Combat, one which would be published until France's defeat in World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

.

World War II and after

A regular contributor to L'Action française since 1938, Maulnier continued to publish after Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...

's occupation of France
Military history of France during World War II
The military history of France during World War II covers the period from 1939 until 1940, which witnessed French military participation under the French Third Republic , and the period from 1940 until 1945, which was marked by mainland and overseas military administration and influence struggles...

 (from 1940); he also started writing for Le Figaro
Le Figaro
Le Figaro is a French daily newspaper founded in 1826 and published in Paris. It is one of three French newspapers of record, with Le Monde and Libération, and is the oldest newspaper in France. It is also the second-largest national newspaper in France after Le Parisien and before Le Monde, but...

. He ceased writing for the paper after the start of Operation Torch
Operation Torch
Operation Torch was the British-American invasion of French North Africa in World War II during the North African Campaign, started on 8 November 1942....

 in 1942, and remained a journalist for Le Figaro from 1945 until his death.

With the beginning of the Fourth Republic
French Fourth Republic
The French Fourth Republic was the republican government of France between 1946 and 1958, governed by the fourth republican constitution. It was in many ways a revival of the Third Republic, which was in place before World War II, and suffered many of the same problems...

, Thierry Maulnier no longer engaged in politics. He wrote plays (La Course des rois - 1947; Le Profanateur - 1950, La Ville au fond de la mer - 1953, Le Soir du conquérant - 1970) and essays (Violence et conscience - 1945, La Face de méduse du communisme - 1952, L'Europe a fait le monde - 1966, Le Sens des mots - 1976, Les Vaches sacrées - 1977), but also commented on social themes (with Maulnier as a staunch Pro-European
Pro-European
Pro-European is a subjective term applied to a person who supports the idea of European unification and generally supports further 'deepening' of European integration, specifically in the context of political argument over the current and future status of the EU and its policies.-The Pro-European...

).

In 1964, he was elected to the Académie française
Académie française
L'Académie française , also called the French Academy, is the pre-eminent French learned body on matters pertaining to the French language. The Académie was officially established in 1635 by Cardinal Richelieu, the chief minister to King Louis XIII. Suppressed in 1793 during the French Revolution,...

 in place of the defunct Henry Bordeaux
Henry Bordeaux
Henri Bordeaux was a French writer and lawyer.Bordeaux came from a family of lawyers of Savoy. His grandfather was a magistrate and his father served on the Chambéry bar. During his early life, he relocated between Savoy and Paris and the tensions between provincial and city life influenced his...

. In 1986 he was awarded the Prix mondial Cino Del Duca
Prix mondial Cino Del Duca
The Prix mondial Cino Del Duca is an international literary award.-Origins and operations:It was established in 1969 in France by Simone Del Duca to continue the work of her husband, publishing magnate Cino Del Duca .Designed to recognize and reward an author whose work constitutes, in a...

.
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