Albert Camus - biography, information, personal life. Albert Camus - famous French writer and philosopher Albert Camus biography briefly

The French writer and philosopher, close to existentialism, received the common name during his lifetime “The Conscience of the West”

Albert Camus was born November 7, 1913 in a French Algerian family in Algeria, on the San Pol farm near the town of Mondovi. His father, a wine cellar keeper, was mortally wounded at the Battle of Marly in 1914, and after his death his family faced serious financial difficulties.

In 1918, Albert began attending primary school, from which he graduated with honors in 1923. Then he studied at the Algerian Lyceum. In 1932-1937, Albert Camus studied at the University of Algiers, where he studied philosophy.

In 1934 he married Simone Iye (divorced in 1939), an extravagant nineteen-year-old girl who turned out to be a morphine addict.

In 1935 he received a bachelor's degree and in May 1936 a master's degree in philosophy.

In 1936 he created the amateur “Theater of Labor” (French. Theater du Travail), renamed in 1937 the “Team Theater” (fr. Théâtre de l'Equipe). In particular, he organized the production of “The Brothers Karamazov” based on Dostoevsky, and played Ivan Karamazov. In 1936-1937 he traveled through France, Italy and other countries Central Europe. In 1937, the first collection of essays, “The Inside Out and the Face,” was published, and the following year the novel “Marriage” was published.

In 1936 he joined the Communist Party, from which he was expelled in 1937. In the same 1937 he published his first collection of essays, “The Inside Out and the Face.”

After the ban on Soir Republiken in January 1940, Camus and his future wife Francine Faure, a mathematician by training, moved to Oran, where they gave private lessons. Two months later we moved from Algeria to Paris.

In 1942, The Stranger was published, which brought popularity to the author, and in 1943, The Myth of Sisyphus. In 1943, he began publishing in the underground newspaper Komba, then became its editor. From the end of 1943 he began working at the Gallimard publishing house (he collaborated with it until the end of his life). During the war, he published “Letters to a German Friend” under a pseudonym (later published as a separate publication). In 1943 he met Sartre and participated in productions of his plays.

In 1944, Camus wrote the novel “The Plague,” in which fascism is the personification of violence and evil (it was published only in 1947).

50s are characterized by Camus’s conscious desire to remain independent, to avoid biases dictated solely by “party affiliation.” One of the consequences was disagreements with Jean Paul Sartre, a prominent representative of French existentialism. In 1951, an anarchist magazine published Albert Camus's book "The Rebellious Man", in which the author explores how a person struggles with the internal and external absurdity of his existence. The book was perceived as a rejection of socialist beliefs, a condemnation of totalitarianism and dictatorship, to which Camus also included communism. Diary entries indicate the writer’s regret about the strengthening of pro-Soviet sentiments in France, the political blindness of the left, who did not want to notice the crimes Soviet Union in Eastern European countries.

Albert Camus (French: Albert Camus). Born November 7, 1913 in Mondovi (now Drean), Algeria - died January 4, 1960 in Villeblevin (France). A French writer and philosopher close to existentialism, he was called the “Conscience of the West.” Winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1957.

Albert Camus is considered a representative of atheistic existentialism; his views are usually characterized as irreligious and atheistic. Critic of religion; During the preparation of “The Myth of Sisyphus,” Albert Camus expresses one of the key ideas of his philosophy: “If there is a sin against life, then it apparently lies not in not having hopes, but in relying on life in another world.” and shy away from the merciless greatness of this worldly life.” At the same time, the classification of supporters of atheistic (non-religious) existentialism as atheism is partly conditional, and Camus, along with disbelief in God and the recognition that God is dead, affirms the absurdity of life without God. Camus himself did not consider himself an atheist.

Albert Camus was born on November 7, 1913 into a French-Algerian family in Algeria, on the Saint-Paul farm near the town of Mondovi. His father, Lucien Camus, an Alsatian by birth, was a wine cellar supervisor for a wine company, served in the light infantry during the First World War, was mortally wounded in the Battle of the Marne in 1914 and died in the hospital. Mother Catherine Sante, Spanish by nationality, semi-deaf and illiterate, moved with Albert and his older brother Lucien to the Belcourt district of Algiers, where they lived in poverty under the leadership of a headstrong grandmother. To support her family, Kutrin worked first in a factory, then as a cleaner.

In 1918, Albert began attending primary school, from which he graduated with honors in 1923. Usually peers of his circle gave up their studies and went to work to help their families, but the teacher primary school Louis Germain was able to convince his relatives of the need for Albert to continue his education, prepared the gifted boy to enter the lyceum and secured a scholarship. Subsequently, Camus gratefully dedicated to his teacher Nobel speech. At the Lyceum, Albert became deeply acquainted with French culture and read a lot. He began to play football seriously, played for the youth team of the Racing Universitaire d'Alger club, and later claimed that sports and playing in a team influenced the formation of his attitude towards morality and duty. In 1930, Camus was diagnosed with tuberculosis, he was forced to interrupted his education and stopped playing sports forever (although he retained his love for football throughout his life), spent several months in a sanatorium, despite his recovery. for many years suffered from the consequences of his illness. Later, due to health reasons, he was denied postgraduate training, and for the same reason he was not drafted into the army.

In 1932-1937, Albert Camus studied at the University of Algiers (English)Russian, where he studied philosophy. While studying at the university, I also read a lot, started keeping diaries, and wrote essays. At this time I was influenced by. His friend was the teacher Jean Grenier, a writer and philosopher who had a significant influence on the young Albert Camus. Along the way, Camus was forced to work and changed several professions: a private teacher, a parts salesman, an assistant at a meteorological institute. In 1934 he married Simone Iye (divorced in 1939), an extravagant nineteen-year-old girl who turned out to be a morphine addict. In 1935 he received a bachelor's degree and in May 1936 a master's degree in philosophy with the work “Neoplatonism and Christian Thought” on the influence of Plotinus’ ideas on the theology of Aurelius Augustine. I started working on the story “Happy Death”. At the same time, Camus entered into the problems of existentialism: in 1935 he studied the works of S. Kierkegaard, L. Shestov, M. Heidegger, K. Jaspers; in 1936-1937 he became acquainted with the ideas of the “absurdity of life” by A. Malraux.

During my senior years at university, I became interested in socialist ideas. In the spring of 1935 he joined the French Communist Party, in solidarity with the 1934 uprising in Asturias. He was a member of the local cell of the French Communist Party for more than a year, until he was expelled for connections with the Algerian People's Party, accusing him of “Trotskyism.”

In 1936 he created the amateur “Theater of Labor” (French Théâtre du Travail), renamed in 1937 into the “Team Theater” (French Théâtre de l'Equipe). In particular, he organized the production of “The Brothers Karamazov” based on Dostoevsky, played Ivan Karamazov. In 1936-1937, he traveled through France, Italy and the countries of Central Europe. In 1937, the first collection of essays, “The Inside Out and the Face,” was published.

After graduating from university, Camus headed the Algerian House of Culture for some time, and in 1938 he was the editor of the magazine Coast, then of the left-wing opposition newspapers Alger Republiken and Soir Republiken. On the pages of these publications, Camus at that time advocated for socially oriented policies and improving the situation of the Arab population of Algeria. Both newspapers were closed by military censorship after the outbreak of World War II. During these years, Camus wrote mainly essays and journalistic materials. In 1938, the book “Marriage” was published. In January 1939, the first version of the play “Caligula” was written.

In Paris, Albert Camus is a technical editor at the newspaper Paris-Soir. In May 1940, the story “The Outsider” was completed. In December of the same year, the opposition-minded Camus was fired from Paris-Soir and, not wanting to live in an occupied country, he returned to Oran, where he taught French at a private school. In February 1941, The Myth of Sisyphus was completed.

Camus soon joined the ranks of the Resistance Movement and became a member of the underground organization Combat, again in Paris.

The Stranger was published in 1942, and The Myth of Sisyphus in 1943. In 1943, he began publishing in the underground newspaper Komba, then became its editor. From the end of 1943 he began working at the Gallimard publishing house (he collaborated with it until the end of his life). During the war, he published “Letters to a German Friend” under a pseudonym (later published as a separate publication). In 1943, he met Sartre and participated in productions of his plays (in particular, it was Camus who first uttered the phrase “Hell is others” from the stage).

After the end of the war, Camus continued to work at Combat and published his previously written works, which brought popularity to the writer. In 1947, his gradual break with the left movement and personally with Sartre began. He leaves Combe and becomes an independent journalist - he writes journalistic articles for various publications (later published in three collections called “Topical Notes”). At this time, he created the plays “State of Siege” and “The Righteous”.

He collaborates with anarchists and revolutionary syndicalists and publishes in their magazines and newspapers Libertaire, Monde Libertaire, Revolucion Proletarian, Solidariad Obrera (publication of the Spanish National Confederation of Labor) and others. Participates in the creation of the International Relations Group.

In 1951, “The Rebel Man” was published in the anarchist magazine Libertaire, where Camus explores the anatomy of human rebellion against the surrounding and internal absurdity of existence. Left-wing critics, including Sartre, considered this a rejection of the political struggle for socialism (which, according to Camus, leads to the establishment of authoritarian regimes like Stalin's). Camus’s support of the French community in Algeria after the Algerian War that began in 1954 caused even greater criticism from the radical left. For some time, Camus collaborated with UNESCO, but after Spain, led by Franco, became a member of this organization in 1952, he stopped his work there. Camus continues to closely monitor the political life of Europe; in his diaries, he regrets the growth of pro-Soviet sentiment in France and the willingness of the French left to turn a blind eye to the crimes of the communist authorities in Eastern Europe, their reluctance to see in the USSR-sponsored “Arab revival” an expansion not of socialism and justice, but of violence and authoritarianism.

He became increasingly fascinated by the theater; in 1954, he began staging plays based on his own dramatizations and was negotiating the opening of the Experimental Theater in Paris. In 1956, Camus wrote the story “The Fall,” and the following year a collection of short stories, “Exile and the Kingdom,” was published.

In 1957 he was awarded Nobel Prize in literature "for his enormous contribution to literature, highlighting the importance of human conscience." In his speech on the occasion of the award, characterizing his life position, he said that he was “too tightly chained to the galley of his time not to row with others, even believing that the galley stank of herring, that it had too many overseers and that, above all, the wrong course had been taken.”

On the afternoon of January 4, 1960, the car in which Albert Camus, together with the family of his friend Michel Gallimard, nephew of the publisher Gaston Gallimard, was returning from Provence to Paris, flew off the road and crashed into a plane tree near the town of Villebleuven, a hundred kilometers from Paris. Camus died instantly. Gallimard, who was driving, died in hospital two days later; his wife and daughter survived. Among the writer’s personal belongings, a manuscript of the unfinished story “The First Man” and an unused train ticket were found. Albert Camus was buried in the cemetery at Lourmarin in the Luberon region of southern France.

In 2011, the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera published a version according to which the car accident was staged by Soviet intelligence services as revenge on the writer for condemning the Soviet invasion of Hungary and supporting. Among the people aware of the planned murder, the newspaper named USSR Foreign Minister Shepilov. Michel Onfray, who was preparing the publication of a biography of Camus, rejected this version as an insinuation in the Izvestia newspaper.

In November 2009, French President Nicolas Sarkozy proposed transferring the writer's ashes to the Pantheon, but did not receive the consent of Albert Camus' relatives.

(1913 - 1960) in the 50s. was one of the “masters of thought” of the world intelligentsia. The first publications that opened the first period of creativity, two small books of short lyrical essays “The Inside Out and the Face” (1937) and “Marriages” (1939) were published in Algeria. In 1938, Camus wrote the play “Caligula.”

During this time he was an active member of the resistance. In those years, he published the essay “The Myth of Sisyphus” and the story “The Stranger” (1942), ending the first period of creativity.

Appeared in 1943 - 1944. “Letters to a German Friend” opens the second period of creativity, which lasted until the end of his life. The most significant works of this period are: the novel “The Plague” (1947); theatrical mystery “State of Siege” (1948); play “The Righteous” (1949); essay “The Rebel Man” (1951); story “The Fall” (1956); a collection of stories “Exile and the Kingdom” (1957) and others. Camus also published three books of “Topical Notes” during this period (1950, 1953, 1958). In 1957, Albert Camus was awarded the Nobel Prize. His novel “Happy Death” and “Notebooks” were published posthumously.

It is not easy to get an idea of the philosophy of Albert Camus, since the views expressed in his literary and philosophical works, “provide the opportunity for a wide variety of interpretations.” With all that, the nature of this philosophy, its problematics and orientation have allowed historians of philosophy to unanimously evaluate it as a type of existentialism. The worldview of A. Camus and his work reflected the peculiarities of the development of the European philosophical tradition.

Camus did not doubt the reality of the world; he was aware of the importance of movement in it. The world, in his opinion, is not organized rationally. He is hostile to man, and this hostility goes back to us through millennia. Everything we know about him is unreliable. The world constantly eludes us. In his idea of being, the philosopher proceeded from the fact that “being can reveal itself only in becoming, and becoming is nothing without being.” Existence is reflected in consciousness, but “as long as the mind remains silent in the motionless world of its hopes, everything mutually resonates and is ordered in the unity it so desires. But at the very first movement this whole world cracks and collapses: an infinite number of flickering fragments offer themselves to knowledge.” Camus views knowledge as a source of transformation of the world, but he warns against the unreasonable use of knowledge.

Philosopher agreed that science deepens our knowledge about the world and man, but he pointed out that this knowledge still remains imperfect. In his opinion, science still does not answer the most pressing question - the question of the purpose of existence and the meaning of all things. People are thrown into this world, into this story. They are mortal, and life appears to them as an absurdity in absurd world. What should a person do in such a world? Camus proposes in the essay “The Myth of Sisyphus” to concentrate and, with maximum clarity of mind, realize the fate that has fallen and courageously bear the burden of life, not resigning to difficulties and rebelling against them. At the same time, the question of the meaning of life becomes special meaning, the thinker calls it the most urgent. From the very beginning, a person must “decide whether life is or is not worth living.” To answer this “ ” means to solve a serious philosophical problem. According to Camus, “everything else…. secondary.” The desire to live, the philosopher believes, is dictated by a person’s attachment to the world; in it “there is something stronger than all the troubles of the world.” This attachment gives a person the opportunity to overcome the discord between him and life. The feeling of this discord gives rise to a feeling of the absurdity of the world. Man, being reasonable, strives to order, “to transform the world in accordance with his ideas about good and evil. The absurd connects a person with the world.”

He believed that living meant exploring the absurd, rebelling against it. “I extract from the absurd,” the philosopher wrote, “three consequences: my rebellion, my freedom and my passion. Through the work of the mind alone, I turn into a rule of life what was an invitation to death - and I reject suicide.”

According to A. Camus, a person has a choice: either live in his time, adapting to it, or try to rise above it, but you can also enter into a deal with him: “live in your century and believe in the eternal.” The latter does not appeal to the thinker. He believes that you can shield yourself from the absurd by immersing yourself in the eternal, saving yourself by escaping into the illusion of everyday life or following some idea. In other words, you can reduce the pressure of absurdity with the help of thinking.

Camus calls people who try to rise above the absurd conquerors. Camus found classic examples of human conquerors in the works of the French writer A. Malraux. According to Camus, the conqueror is godlike, “he knows his slavery and does not hide it,” his path to freedom is illuminated by knowledge. The conqueror is the ideal person for Camus, but to be such, in his opinion, is the lot of the few.

In an absurd world creativity is also absurd. According to Camus, “creativity is the most effective school of patience and clarity. It is also a stunning testimony to the only dignity of man: stubborn rebellion against one’s destiny, perseverance in fruitless efforts. Creativity requires daily effort, self-control, an accurate assessment of the boundaries of truth, it requires measure and strength. Creativity is a kind of asceticism (that is, detachment from the world, from its joys and blessings - S.N.). And all this is “for nothing”... But what may be important is not the great work of art itself, but the test that it requires from a person.” The creator is like a character ancient greek mythology Sisyphus, punished by the gods for disobedience by rolling a huge stone onto a high mountain, which every time rolls down from the top to the foot of the mountain. Sisyphus is doomed to eternal torment. And yet, the spectacle of a block of stone rolling down from a high mountain personifies the greatness of Sisyphus’s feat, and his endless torment serves as an eternal reproach to the unjust gods.

In the essay “ Rebellious man”, reflecting on his time as a time of the triumph of the absurd, Camus writes: “We live in an era of masterfully executed criminal plans.” The previous era, in his opinion, differs from the current one in that “previously, atrocity was lonely, like a cry, but now it is as universal as science. Prosecuted only yesterday, today the crime has become law.” The philosopher notes: “In new times, when evil intent dresses up in the garb of innocence, according to the terrible perversion characteristic of our era, it is innocence that is forced to justify itself.” At the same time, the boundary between false and true is blurred, and power dictates the rules. Under these conditions, people are divided “not into righteous and sinners, but into masters and slaves.” Camus believed that the spirit of nihilism dominates our world. Awareness of the imperfection of the world gives rise to rebellion, the goal of which is the transformation of life. The time of dominance of nihilism shapes a rebellious person.

According to Camus, rebellion is not an unnatural state, but a completely natural one. In his opinion, “in order to live, a person must rebel,” but this must be done without being distracted from the initially put forward noble goals. The thinker emphasizes that in the experience of the absurd, suffering has an individual character, but in a rebellious impulse it becomes collective. Moreover, “evil experienced by one person becomes a plague that infects everyone.”

In an imperfect world, rebellion is a means of preventing the decline of society and its ossification and withering. “I rebel, therefore we exist,” writes the philosopher. He views rebellion here as an indispensable attribute of human existence, uniting the individual with other people. The result of a rebellion is a new revolt. The oppressed, having turned into oppressors, by their behavior prepare a new revolt of those whom they turn into the oppressed.

According to Camus, “there is one law in this world - the law of force, and it is inspired by the will to power,” which can be realized through violence.

Reflecting on the possibilities of using violence in rebellion, Camus was not a supporter of nonviolence, since, in his opinion, “absolute nonviolence passively justifies slavery and its horrors.” But at the same time, he was not a supporter of excessive violence. The thinker believed that “these two concepts need self-restraint for the sake of their own fruitfulness.”

Camus differs from simple rebellion in metaphysical revolt, which is “the revolt of man against the entire universe.” Such rebellion is metaphysical because it challenges the ultimate goals of people and the universe. In an ordinary rebellion, the slave protests against oppression; “the metaphysical rebel rebels against the destiny prepared for him as a representative of the human race.” In metaphysical rebellion, the formula “I rebel, therefore we exist,” characteristic of ordinary rebellion, changes to the formula “I rebel, therefore we are alone.”

The logical consequence of metaphysical revolt is revolution. Moreover, the difference between a rebellion and a revolution is that “... a rebellion kills only people, while a revolution destroys both people and principles at the same time.” According to Camus, the history of mankind has known only riots, but there have been no revolutions yet. He believed that “if a true revolution had taken place just once, then history would no longer exist. There would be blissful unity and quiet death.”

The limit of metaphysical revolt, according to Camus, is the metaphysical revolution, during which the great inquisitors become the head of the world. The idea of the possibility of the appearance of the Grand Inquisitor was borrowed by A. Camus from the novel by F. M. Dostoevsky “The Brothers Karamazov”. The Grand Inquisitors establish the kingdom of heaven on earth. They can do what God cannot. The kingdom of heaven on earth as the embodiment of universal happiness is possible “not thanks to complete freedom of choice between good and evil, but thanks to power over the world and its unification.”

Developing this idea based on the analysis of the representations of F. Nietzsche on the nature of freedom, A. Camus comes to the conclusion that “the absolute power of law is not freedom, but not more freedom is absolute non-subjection to the law. Empowerment does not bring freedom, but lack of opportunity is slavery. But anarchy is also slavery. Freedom exists only in a world where both the possible and the impossible are clearly defined.” However, “today’s world, apparently, can only be a world of masters and slaves.” Camus was sure that “domination is a dead end. Since the master cannot in any way give up dominance and become a slave, it is the eternal fate of masters to live unsatisfied or be killed. The role of the master in history comes down only to reviving the slave consciousness, the only one that creates history.” According to the philosopher, “what is called history is only a series of long-term efforts undertaken to achieve true freedom.” In other words, “...history is the history of labor and rebellion” of people striving for freedom and justice, which, according to Camus, are connected. He believed that it was impossible to choose one without the other. The philosopher emphasizes: “If someone deprives you of bread, he thereby deprives you of freedom. But if your freedom is taken away, then be sure that your bread is also under threat, because it no longer depends on you and your struggle, but on the whim of the owner.”

He considers bourgeois freedom a fiction. According to Albert Camus, “freedom is the cause of the oppressed, and its traditional defenders have always been people from the oppressed people”.

Analyzing the prospects for human existence in history, Camus comes to a disappointing conclusion. In his opinion, in history a person has no choice but to “live in it... adapting to the topic of the day, that is, either lie or remain silent.”

In his ethical views, Camus proceeded from the fact that the realization of freedom must be based on realistic morality, since moral nihilism is destructive.

Formulating his moral position, Albert Camus wrote in “Notebooks”: “We must serve justice, because our existence is unfair, we must increase and cultivate happiness and joy, because our world is unhappy.”

The philosopher believed that wealth is not necessary to achieve happiness. He was against achieving individual happiness by bringing misfortune to others. According to Camus, “the greatest merit of man is to live in solitude and obscurity.”

The aesthetic in the philosopher’s work serves to express the ethical. For him, art is a means of discovering and describing the disturbing phenomena of life. From his point of view, it can serve to improve the health of society, since it is capable of interfering throughout life.

Man is an unstable creature. He is characterized by a feeling of fear, hopelessness and despair. At least, this opinion was expressed by adherents of existentialism. Albert Camus was close to this philosophical teaching. Biography and creative path French writer is the topic of this article.

Childhood

Camus was born in 1913. His father was a native of Alsace, and his mother was Spanish. Albert Camus had very painful memories of his childhood. The biography of this writer is closely connected with his life. However, for every poet or prose writer, their own experiences serve as a source of inspiration. But in order to understand the reason for the depressive mood that reigns in the books of the author, which will be discussed in this article, you should learn a little about the main events of his childhood and adolescence.

Camus's father was a poor man. He did heavy physical labor at a wine company. His family was on the verge of disaster. But when a significant battle took place near the Marne River, the life of the wife and children of Camus the Elder became completely hopeless. The point is that this historical event, although it was crowned with the defeat of the enemy German army, had tragic consequences for the fate of the future writer. Camus's father died during the Battle of the Marne.

Left without a breadwinner, the family found itself on the brink of poverty. This period was reflected in his early work Albert Camus. The books “Marriage” and “Inside and Out” are dedicated to a childhood spent in poverty. In addition, during these years, young Camus suffered from tuberculosis. Unbearable conditions and serious illness did not discourage the future writer from his desire for knowledge. After graduating from school, he entered the university to study philosophy.

Youth

The years of study at the University of Algiers had a huge impact on ideological position Camus. During this period, he became friends with the famous essayist Jean Grenier. It was during his student years that the first collection of stories was created, which was called “Islands.” For some time he was a member of the Communist Party of Albert Camus. His biography, however, is more connected with such names as Shestov, Kierkegaard and Heidegger. They belong to thinkers whose philosophy largely determined the main theme of Camus’s work.

Albert Camus was an extremely active person. His biography is rich. As a student, he played sports. Then, after graduating from university, he worked as a journalist and traveled a lot. The philosophy of Albert Camus was formed not only under the influence of contemporary thinkers. For some time he was interested in the works of Fyodor Dostoevsky. According to some reports, he even played in an amateur theater, where he had the opportunity to play the role of Ivan Karamazov. During the capture of Paris, at the beginning of the First World War, Camus was in the French capital. He was not taken to the front due to a serious illness. But even during this difficult period, quite active public and creative activity conducted by Albert Camus.

"Plague"

In 1941, the writer gave private lessons and took an active part in the activities of one of the underground Parisian organizations. At the beginning of the war its most famous work wrote Albert Camus. "The Plague" is a novel that was published in 1947. In it, the author reflected the events in Paris, occupied by German troops, in a complex symbolic form. Albert Camus was awarded the Nobel Prize for this novel. The wording is “For important role literary works, which confront people with the problems of our time with penetrating seriousness.”

The plague begins suddenly. City residents are leaving their homes. But not all. There are townspeople who believe that the epidemic is nothing more than punishment from above. And you shouldn't run. You should be imbued with humility. One of the heroes - the pastor - is an ardent supporter of this position. But the death of an innocent boy forces him to reconsider his point of view.

People are trying to escape. And the plague suddenly recedes. But even after the worst days are over, the hero is haunted by the thought that the plague may return again. The epidemic in the novel symbolizes fascism, which killed millions of residents of Western and Eastern Europe during the war.

In order to understand what the main philosophical idea this writer, you should read one of his novels. In order to feel the mood that reigned in the first years of the war among thinking people, it is worth getting acquainted with the novel “The Plague,” which Albert wrote in 1941 from this work - the sayings of an outstanding philosopher of the 20th century. One of them is “In the midst of disasters, you get used to the truth, namely, to silence.”

Worldview

At the center of the French writer’s work is consideration of the absurdity of human existence. The only way to fight it, according to Camus, is to recognize it. The highest embodiment of the absurd is the attempt to improve society through violence, namely fascism and Stalinism. In the works of Camus there is a pessimistic confidence that evil is completely impossible to defeat. Violence begets more violence. And rebellion against him cannot lead to anything good at all. It is precisely this position of the author that can be felt while reading the novel “The Plague”.

"Stranger"

At the beginning of the war, Albert Camus wrote many essays and stories. It’s worth saying briefly about the story “The Outsider.” This work is quite difficult to understand. But it is precisely this that reflects the author’s opinion regarding the absurdity of human existence.

The story “The Stranger” is a kind of manifesto that Albert Camus proclaimed in his early work. Quotes from this work can hardly say anything. In the book, a special role is played by the monologue of the hero, who is monstrously impartial to everything that happens around him. “The condemned person is obliged to morally participate in the execution” - this phrase is perhaps the key.

The hero of the story is a person who is in some sense inferior. His main feature is indifference. He is indifferent to everything: to the death of his mother, to the grief of others, to his own moral decline. And only before death does his pathological indifference to the world around him leave him. And it is at this moment that the hero understands that he cannot escape the indifference of the world around him. He is sentenced to death for committing murder. And everything he dreams of last minutes life is not to see indifference in the eyes of people who will watch his death.

"Fall"

This story was published three years before the writer's death. The works of Albert Camus, as usual, belong to the philosophical genre. "The Fall" is no exception. In the story, the author creates a portrait of a man who is artistic symbol modern European society. The hero's name is Jean-Baptiste, which translated from French means John the Baptist. However, Camus's character has little in common with the biblical one.

In “The Fall” the author uses a technique characteristic of the impressionists. The narration is conducted in the form of a stream of consciousness. The hero talks about his life to his interlocutor. At the same time, he talks about the sins he committed without a shadow of regret. Jean-Baptiste personifies the selfishness and poverty of the inner spiritual world of Europeans, the writer’s contemporaries. According to Camus, they are not interested in anything other than achieving their own pleasure. The narrator periodically distracts himself from his life story, expressing his point of view regarding one or another philosophical issue. As in others works of art Albert Camus, in the center of the plot of the story “The Fall”, is a man of an unusual psychological make-up, which allows the author to reveal in a new way the eternal problems of existence.

After the war

In the late forties, Camus became an independent journalist. Social activities He ceased to participate in any political organizations forever. During this time he created several dramatic works. The most famous of them are “The Righteous”, “State of Siege”.

The theme of the rebellious personality in the literature of the 20th century was quite relevant. A person’s disagreement and his reluctance to live according to the laws of society is a problem that worried many authors in the sixties and seventies of the last century. One of the founders of this literary direction was Albert Camus. His books, written back in the early fifties, are imbued with a feeling of disharmony and a sense of despair. “Rebel Man” is a work that the writer dedicated to the study of human protest against the absurdity of existence.

If in his student years Camus was actively interested in the socialist idea, then in adulthood he became an opponent of the radical left. In his articles, he repeatedly raised the topic of violence and authoritarianism of the Soviet regime.

Death

In 1960, the writer died tragically. His life was cut short on the road from Provence to Paris. As a result of the car accident, Camus died instantly. In 2011, a version was put forward according to which the writer’s death was not an accident. The accident was allegedly staged by members of the Soviet secret service. However, this version was later refuted by Michel Onfray, the author of the writer’s biography.

Albert Camus - French writer, philosopher, thinker, publicist, representative of atheistic existentialism, Nobel Prize winner in literature (1957), during his lifetime he was called “the conscience of the West.” He was born in the Algerian city of Mondovi on November 7, 1913. His father, a wine cellar keeper, was mortally wounded in the Battle of Marly in 1914, and after his death his family faced serious financial difficulties.

It is unknown whether Albert would have been able to receive an education if in 1923 a primary school teacher had not persuaded the mother and grandmother of his talented student to send him to the lyceum. In 1930, Camus fell ill with tuberculosis and had to give up active sports, and subsequently, due to his former illness, he was not allowed to undergo postgraduate training and was not drafted into the army. During 1932-1937. Albert Camus was educated at the University of Algiers (faculty of philosophy), graduating with a master's degree.

The years after my studies were filled active work– social, creative, theatrical. In 1935 he became a member of the French Communist Party, from which he left in 1937 because the politics of the Comintern became alien to him. In the same year, he actively comprehends existentialism and studies the works of its representatives. In 1936, Camus organized the traveling Theater of Labor, where he was a director and actor. Throughout 1936-1937. took trips to Central Europe, Italy, France. In 1936, a collection of lyrical essays entitled “The Inside Out and the Face” was published, and the following year the novel “Marriage” was published.

Since 1938, Camus has worked as an editor of periodicals. Since 1940, his biography has been connected with France and Paris. The enormous success of the story “The Outsider,” written in 1942, makes its author famous throughout the world. During the war years, Albert Camus was a member of the Resistance movement, a member of the underground organization Combat, and an employee of its press organ. It was this newspaper that published in 1943 the “Letters to a German Friend”, which also gained enormous fame, affirming the eternal moral values. In 1944, Camus wrote the novel “The Plague,” in which fascism is the personification of violence and evil (it was published only in 1947).

50s are characterized by Camus’s conscious desire to remain independent, to avoid biases dictated solely by “party affiliation.” One of the consequences was disagreements with Jean Paul Sartre, a prominent representative of French existentialism. In 1951, an anarchist magazine published Albert Camus's book "The Rebellious Man", in which the author explores how a person struggles with the internal and external absurdity of his existence. The book was perceived as a rejection of socialist beliefs, a condemnation of totalitarianism and dictatorship, to which Camus also included communism. Diary entries indicate the writer's regret about the strengthening of pro-Soviet sentiment in France and the political blindness of the left, who did not want to notice the crimes of the Soviet Union in the countries of Eastern Europe.

This period is characterized by growing interest in the theater. In 1954, Camus began staging his own works and made attempts to open an experimental theater in the capital. In 1957, he became a Nobel Prize laureate with the wording “for his enormous contribution to literature, highlighting the importance of human conscience.”

Albert Camus' life was interrupted on January 4, 1960 by a car accident in which he was involved with a friend's family. The great writer-philosopher was buried in the south of France, in the cemetery in Lourmarin. In the fall of 2009, French President Nicolas Sarkozy took the initiative to rebury Camus' ashes in the Pantheon, but his relatives did not support it. In the summer of 2011, one of the Italian newspapers voiced a version that Camus was a victim of Soviet secret services who set up a traffic accident, but it did not withstand the criticism of biographers.

Biography from Wikipedia

Albert Camus(French Albert Camus; November 7, 1913, Mondovi (now Drean), Algeria - January 4, 1960, Villeblevin, France) - French prose writer, philosopher, essayist, publicist close to existentialism. During his lifetime he received the common name “Conscience of the West”. Winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1957.

Life in Algeria

Albert Camus was born on November 7, 1913 into a French-Algerian family in Algeria, on the Saint-Paul farm near the town of Mondovi. His father, Lucien Camus, an Alsatian by birth, was a wine cellar supervisor for a wine company, served in the light infantry during the First World War, was mortally wounded in the Battle of the Marne in 1914 and died in the hospital. Mother Catherine Sante, Spanish by nationality, semi-deaf and illiterate, moved with Albert and his older brother Lucien to the Bellecour (Russian) French district. city of Algeria, lived in poverty under the leadership of a headstrong grandmother. To support her family, Kutrin worked first as a factory worker, then as a cleaner.

In 1918, Albert began attending primary school, from which he graduated with honors in 1923. Usually peers in his circle gave up their studies and went to work to help their families, but elementary school teacher Louis Germain was able to convince his relatives of the need for Albert to continue his education, prepared the gifted boy to enter the lyceum and secured a scholarship. Subsequently, Camus gratefully dedicated his Nobel speech to his teacher. At the Lyceum, Albert became deeply acquainted with French culture and read a lot. He began to play football seriously, played for the youth team of the Racing Universitaire d'Alger club, and later claimed that sports and playing in a team influenced the formation of his attitude towards morality and duty. In 1930, Camus was diagnosed with tuberculosis, he was forced to interrupt his education and stop playing sports forever (although he retained his love for football throughout his life), spent several months in a sanatorium. Despite his recovery, he suffered for many years from the consequences of his illness. Later, due to health reasons, he was denied postgraduate studies, for the same reason. reason he was not drafted into the army.

In 1932-1937, Albert Camus studied at the University of Algiers, where he studied philosophy. While studying at the university, I also read a lot, started keeping diaries, and wrote essays. At this time he was influenced by A. Gide, F. M. Dostoevsky, F. Nietzsche. His friend was the teacher Jean Grenier, a writer and philosopher who had a significant influence on the young Albert Camus. Along the way, Camus was forced to work and changed several professions: a private teacher, a parts salesman, an assistant at a meteorological institute. In 1934 he married Simone Iye (divorced in 1939), an extravagant nineteen-year-old girl who turned out to be a morphine addict. In 1935 he received a bachelor's degree and in May 1936 a master's degree in philosophy with the work “Neoplatonism and Christian Thought” on the influence of Plotinus’ ideas on the theology of Aurelius Augustine. I started working on the story “Happy Death”. At the same time, Camus entered into the problems of existentialism: in 1935 he studied the works of S. Kierkegaard, L. Shestov, M. Heidegger, K. Jaspers; in 1936-1937 he became acquainted with the ideas of the absurdity of human existence by A. Malraux.

War period

In Paris, Albert Camus is a technical editor at the Paris-Soir newspaper. In May 1940, the story “The Outsider” was completed. In December of the same year, the opposition-minded Camus was fired from Paris-Soir and, not wanting to live in an occupied country, he returned to Oran, where he taught French at a private school. In February 1941, The Myth of Sisyphus was completed.

Camus soon joined the ranks of the Resistance Movement and became a member of the underground organization Combat, again in Paris.

Post-war years

After the end of the war, Camus continued to work at Combat; the publishing house published his previously written works, which soon brought popularity to the writer. In 1947, his gradual break with the left movement and personally with Sartre began. He leaves Combe and becomes an independent journalist - he writes journalistic articles for various publications (later published in three collections called “Topical Notes”). At this time, he created the plays “State of Siege” and “The Righteous”.

In 1951, “The Rebel Man” was published in the anarchist magazine Libertaire, where Camus explores the anatomy of human rebellion against the surrounding and internal absurdity of existence. Left-wing critics, including Sartre, considered this a rejection of the political struggle for socialism (which, according to Camus, leads to the establishment of authoritarian regimes like Stalin's). Camus’s support of the French community in Algeria after the Algerian War that began in 1954 caused even greater criticism from the radical left. For some time, Camus collaborated with UNESCO, but after Spain, led by Franco, became a member of this organization in 1952, he stopped his work there. Camus continues to closely monitor the political life of Europe; in his diaries, he regrets the growth of pro-Soviet sentiment in France and the willingness of the French left to turn a blind eye to what he believed were the crimes of the communist authorities in Eastern Europe, their reluctance to see expansion in the USSR-sponsored “Arab Renaissance” not socialism and justice, but violence and authoritarianism.

In 1957, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature "for his enormous contribution to literature, highlighting the importance of human conscience." In his speech on the occasion of the award, characterizing his life position, he said that “too tightly chained to the galley of his time not to row with others, even believing that the galley stank of herring, that there were too many overseers on it and that, above all, the wrong course had been taken”.

Death and funeral

In 2011, the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera published a version according to which the car accident was staged by Soviet intelligence services as revenge on the writer for condemning the Soviet invasion of Hungary and supporting Boris Pasternak. Among the people aware of the planned murder, the newspaper named USSR Foreign Minister Shepilov. Michel Onfray, who was preparing the publication of a biography of Camus, rejected this version as an insinuation in the Izvestia newspaper.

In November 2009, French President Nicolas Sarkozy proposed transferring the writer's ashes to the Pantheon, but did not receive the consent of Albert Camus' relatives.

Philosophical views

Camus himself did not consider himself a philosopher, much less an existentialist. Nevertheless, the works of representatives of this philosophical movement had a great influence on Camus’s work. At the same time, his commitment to existentialist issues was also due to a serious illness (and therefore a constant feeling of the proximity of death), with which he lived since childhood.

Unlike the “rebel” Sartre and the religious existentialists (Jaspers), Camus believed that the only way to combat the absurd was to recognize its reality. In “The Myth of Sisyphus,” Camus writes that to understand the reasons that force a person to perform meaningless work, one must imagine Sisyphus descending from the mountain, finding satisfaction in the clear awareness of the futility and ineffectiveness of his own efforts; According to Camus, practically this attitude to life is realized in permanent rebellion. Many of Camus’s heroes come to a similar state of mind under the influence of circumstances (threat to life, death of loved ones, conflict with their own conscience, etc.), their further destinies are different.

The highest embodiment of the absurd, according to Camus, are various attempts to forcefully improve society - fascism, Stalinism, etc. Being a humanist and anti-authoritarian socialist, he believed that the fight against violence and injustice “with their own methods” can only give rise to even greater violence and injustice , but, rejecting an understanding of rebellion that does not recognize its positive aspects, in the essay “Rebel Man” he considers rebellion as a way of solidarity with other people and a philosophy of moderation that determines both agreement and disagreement with existing realities; paraphrasing the Cartesian maxim “I rebel, therefore we exist.” Camus identifies two forms of manifestation of rebellion: the first is expressed in revolutionary activities, the second one he prefers, in creativity. At the same time, he remained pessimistic in the belief that despite the positive role of rebellion in history, it was impossible to finally defeat evil.

Non-religious beliefs

Essays

Prose

Novels

The Plague (French: La Peste) (1947)
The First Man (French: Le premier homme) (unfinished, published posthumously in 1994)

Stories

The Outsider (French: L'Étranger) (1942)
The Fall (French: La Chute) (1956)
Happy Death (French: La Mort heureuse) (1938, published posthumously in 1971)

Stories

Exile and kingdom (French L "Exil et le royaume) (1957)
- Cheating wife(French: La Femme adultère)
- Renegade, or Troubled Spirit(French: Le Renégat ou un esprit confus)
- Silence(French Les Muets)
- Hospitality(French L "Hôte)
- Jonah, or the Artist at Work(French: Jonas ou l’artiste au travail)
- Growing stone(French: La Pierre qui pousse)

Dramaturgy

Misunderstanding(French: Le Malentendu) (1944)
Caligula (French: Caligula) (1945)
State of siege(French: L'État de siège) (1948)
Righteous(French Les Justes) (1949)
Requiem for a Nun(French: Requiem pour une nonne) (1956)
Demons(French: Les Possédés) (1959)

Essay

Revolt in Asturias (French: Révolte dans les Asturies) (1936)
Backside and face(French: L'Envers et l'Endroit) (1937)
Wind in Djemila(French: Le vent à Djémila) (1938)
wedding feast(French Noces) (1939)
The Myth of Sisyphus(French: Le Mythe de Sisyphe) (1942)
Rebellious man(French L'Homme révolté) (1951)
Summer(French L"Été) (1954)
Return to Tipasa(French: Retour à Tipaza) (1954)
Reflections on the death penalty(French: Réflexions sur la peine capitale) (1957), together with Arthur Koestler, Reflections on the guillotine(French: Réflexions sur la Guillotine)
Swedish speeches(French: Discours de Suède) (1958)

Other

Autobiographies and diaries

Topical notes 1944-1948(fr. Actuelles I, Chroniques 1944-1948) (1950)
Topical notes 1948-1953(French Actuelles II, Chroniques 1948-1953) (1953)
Topical notes 1939-1958(French: Chroniques algériennes, Actuelles III, 1939-1958) (1958)
Diaries, May 1935 - February 1942(fr. Carnets I, mai 1935 - février 1942) (published posthumously in 1962)
Diaries, January 1942 - March 1951(fr. Carnets II, janvier 1942 - mars 1951) (published posthumously in 1964)
Diaries, March 1951 - December 1959(fr. Carnets III, mars 1951 - décembre 1959) (published posthumously in 1989)
Travel diary(French: Journaux de voyage) (1946, 1949, published posthumously in 1978)

Correspondence

Correspondence between Albert Camus and Jean Grenier(French Correspondance Albert Camus, Jean Grenier, 1932-1960) (published posthumously in 1981)
Correspondence between Albert Camus and Rene Char(French Correspondance Albert Camus, René Char, 1949-1959) (published posthumously in 2007)
Albert Camus, Maria Casarès. Correspondance inédite (1944-1959). Avant-propos de Catherine Camus. Gallimard, 2017.

Editions in Russian

Camus A. Favorites: Collection / Comp. and preface S. Velikovsky. - M.: Raduga, 1988. - 464 p. (Masters of Modern Prose)
Camus A. Creativity and freedom. Articles, essays, notebooks/ Per. from French - M.: Raduga, 1990. - 608 p.
Camus A. The rebellious man. Philosophy. Policy. Art / Transl. from French - M.: Politizdat, 1990. - 416 pp., 200,000 copies.
Camus A. Actuelles / Translation from French. S. S. Avanesova // Intentionality and textuality: Philosophical thought of France of the 20th century. - Tomsk, 1998. - P. 194-202.