Emsav

The Emsav , substantive derived from the Breton verb to rise , indicates in Brittany the abstract whole of the economic, cultural or political organizations and of the ideologies which imply directly or indirectly the existence of a positive concept of Breton nation , within the meaning of conscience shared to belong at a community historical, geographical, economic and cultural . It is not a question of a structured organization and does not imply in itself any interaction or of measure of agreement between its components.

Emsav is also the name of a political review in Breton language in the years 1960-70.

Prehistory of the feeling of membership

Before the Revolution (and there remain important traces of this attitude) the Breton ones feel their farm initially, then of their parish, finally of their country (or kanton , they is wholesale the zone of influence of a market), incidentally of their évêché. Brittany or France is abstract concepts and distances which materialize only for some at the time of the passage of a duke or a king.

If Charlemagne forever which been able to subject Brittany it is undoubtedly more because of this Anomie before the hour but of the hypothetical power of some Breton kinglets. The duchy of Brittany falls under a European feudalism where the people do not know, and does not recognize, which his direct Master and where the play of alliances is regional only by the chances of the geography. In fact during all this time the feeling that there is a Breton identity is more the fact of their neighbors than of Breton themselves.

If the first Breton political party, the Breton Club, is also the first political party of France and one of the very first parties of Europe, the attitude of its deputies (in particular at the time of the Nuit of August 4th 1789), and that of the population of the north and the west of the peninsula in spite of the charisma of a Georges Cadoudal, show that there is not yet a true Community feeling at the end of the 18th century. However it should be noted that at the time of the Night of August 4th, the Breton deputies meet to decide what to make on the question of the modification of the Treaty of union to abolish provincial freedoms. They decide to be declared inefficient and ask that the States of Brittany, the provincial assembly, rule on the question (the States will never have the right to meet)

First Emsav: birth of the Breton movement until 1914

The Breton movement was born in first half of the 19th century during a large wave which touched all romantic Europe (the Printemps of the People , 1848). It is characterized by: the regionalism, anchoring on the right, fidelity with the monarchist spirit, importance of the traditions. An idea dominates: to maintain the traditions to preserve the Breton people of irreligion and the novel ideas.

The three large pillars of this Breton regionalism being born are:

collection of the songs and popular tales Breton (while being inspired in particular by the German or Finnish examples; cf the brothers Grimm, the Kalevala ). The figure symbolic system and initiator of this work of collection of the popular traditions are the marquis Theodore Hersart of Villemarqué and its Barzaz Breiz . This work knew a very great echo, making discover the Breton oral literature in all Europe.
the standardization of the written Breton language, in particular by Jean-François Gonidec (dictionary and grammar in 1821), regarded as the father of Breton modern.
the creation of a true Breton historiography, starting from 1896 with Arthur of Borderie, regarded as the father of the history of Brittany.

1805: Foundation of the Celtic Academy by Napoleon i, the first association studying the Breton language and the culture. The president is Theophilus Malo Corret of the Tower of Auvergne.

1823: Creation of the first Breton literary review, the Armorican College , in which Emile Souvestre takes part.

1829: The Breton Association, illegal movement, is opposed to Charles X.

1838: Publication of the Barzaz Breiz of Theodore Hersart of Villemarqué, international literary success.

1839: First edition of the rear Buhez Feels , work into Breton which describes the life of the saints of the Catholic church. This book quickly becomes the book in the majority of the farms of Breton-speaking Brittany. It was regularly read, often the evening with taken care.

1865: Creation of Feiz ha Breiz (Faith and Brittany), weekly magazine into Breton which has appeared almost continuously for this time.

1870: Charles de Gaulle (Barz Bro It hall), uncle of the general future , claims with the government the regional language teaching. Foundation of the Celtic Re-examined .

1871: The business of the Camp of Conlie raises a considerable emotion in Brittany and spreads in the population the impression that the Breton ones are regarded in France as an enemy interior . This tragedy has a big role in the constitution of a national feeling of Victimization.

1898: creation of the Breton regionalistic Union, first true regionalistic party, of preserving tendency, which claims the Breton decentralization and the teaching of the history and the language. In margin of this political movement, the Gorsedd of Brittany is created. In 1899, the Association of Blue of Brittany makes scission of the URB. In 1900, the Socialist Fédération of Brittany east creates with Nantes by Charles Brunellière. In 1904, Lionel Radiguet diffuses 100 000 specimens of the national Constitution for a Breton Republic , which it wrote.

Appeared in 1909 and 1911, two works of the Count de Lantivy-Trédion synthesize the claims of the Breton movement. The author evokes a reconstitution of Brittany there, his financial autonomy and administrative, etc the defenders of the project go until imagining a “strike of the tax”.

1905: creation of the Bleun Brug, in the continuity of Feiz ha Breiz, by the Abbot Perrot to defend the Breton faith and traditions.

1911: creation of the Breton nationalist Left and the Breton Regionalistic Federation, following a scission of the Breton regionalistic Union. The Breton nationalist Party is the first Breton nationalist party, created by Camille the Draper of Erm. At that time, this party will gather the essence of the Breton political movement.

1912: Emile Masson written Antée or the Breton ones and socialism: for a Breton socialism , then lance the following year a bilingual socialist monthly magazine: Brug .

Second Emsav (1914-1945)

The First World War is a true cut. Brittany is bled with white, more half of the men between 20 and 40 years died, the impression to have been systematically in first line is very sharp and revives the Victimization.

A new generation, more active, has ambitious objectives, turned towards the future:

It is invested in particular in the field of the language. Its leader is Roparz Hemon, and his newspaper of reference Gwalarn , founded in 1925. The Breton literature opens with the whole world by many translations, restoration and widening of the literary topics (Jakez Riou, Youenn Drezen, etc): creation of a modern literature in Breton language. The Breton language is renovated and brought up to date by the drafting of many dictionaries and grammars.
importance of the artistic movement, with in particular the Seiz Breur which gathers several tens of artists, craftsmen of art, creators who want to give a new breath to artistic creation in Brittany.
Parallel to cultural success this activism is felt also in the political arena.
a bunch which is made known under the name of Gwenn-ha-Of the makes jump in 1932 the monument commemorating the Union of Brittany to France, then makes some other attacks symbolic systems.

1918: creation of the Union of Breton youth (Unvaniez Yaouankiz Breiz) to take care of the conservation of the Breton traditions and to develop the friendship enters the Celtic people. The newspaper Breiz Atao created in of 1919 becomes the body about it.

1920: a petition initiated by 124 associations and claiming a regionalization collects 360 000 signatures.

1933: Foundation of the cultural movement “Ar Falz” by Yann Sohier to sensitize the public teachers with the Breton language teaching.

1934: 346 Breton communes adopt the wish “Ar Brezhoneg er Skol” (the Breton one at the school), in favor of the teaching of the Breton one.

Over this period, Morvan Lebesque, actor of the time in his book Comment can one will affirm be Breton? that the militants of these years remember meetings of village improvised on the footboard of some Ford old woman, in front of audiences which had to be surprised, to gather with the door of the bar or the mass and which, the round eyes, considered the " separatists " about like Martians, sometimes hesitating to launch gibes or stones to them. Sometimes one called the priest, the gendarmes, the local drunkard went there from his number; outragées mothers reproached to the speakers " to do that in front of enfants" and there was advantage not to hold the meeting too much close to a river .

The Second world war

From 1939 the majority of the Breton organizations, undermined by the divergences between engagements of their members even generally burst disappear.

1940: The general Karl-Heinrich von Stülpnagel (ordering the troops of occupation in France) defines his position on the Breton question: support for the culture and the language Breton, refusal of the support for the Breton separatists.

A daily newspaper covering the five Breton departments appears until 1944, a subsidized radio also emits into Breton until 1944. The teaching of the history and the language Breton are authorized during the occupation. All these initiatives are stopped as of the release.

The behaviors of the ones and others are the object of a selective Amnésie of war which always nourishes polemics more than sixty years afterwards.

See the detailed article : Breton nationalism and the Second world war

Third Emsav since 1945

In 1945, the Breton movement sets out again of zero. Nearly 2000 Breton militants are stopped and “Interned administrative”. They are slackened at the end of a few weeks without lawsuit, no load not having been able to be retained against them. The majority of them, traumatized by this detention, give up any activity within a Breton movement.

One from now on will study thoroughly three times, cultural, economic and policy of the rebuilding of Emsav.

End of the year 40 and the Fifties: culture

At the end of the Years 1940, the political militancy being condemned by the French authorities, the engagement of the Breton militants is done on the ground of the cultural activity:

music: the installation of rear Bodadeg Sonerion of Polig Montjarret (1943) which gathers the traditional musicians, in particular of Cornemuse, is used as a basis for creation of the first bagadoù at the end of the Forties. There is a real rise in the Fifties, mark of the Breton cultural revival. Jorj Cochevelou and its son Alan Stivell makes reappear the Celtic Harpe. The festival of the bagpipes is created in 1959 in Brest and becomes in 1972 the Festival interceltic of Lorient.
dance: with these bagadoù Celtic circles are often dependant, which are groups of traditional dances and safeguard of the traditional costumes.
esotericism, Celtic symbolism and the movement druidic, with Morvan Marchal, Rafig Tullou, Georges Pinault, etc

It is by this skew that will be maintained and transmitted a feeling national Breton to a new generation during the Forties and Fifties. Many Breton militants of the later years (Alan Stivell, Pierre Denis, Donatien Laurent, Gwenc' hlan Scouëzec, etc) come from this musical movement.

In parallel, the Breton militants continue work started pre-war period in the field of the language and the literature and create many Breton-speaking reviews, of which the literary review Al Liamm , continuatrice of the literary ambition of Gwalarn .

Pierre-Jakez Hélias, Pierre Trépos, and Charles Gall recreate radio programs, then of television starting from 1964, into Breton popular. Initially of a few weekly minutes, they carry out a true “war of attrition” against the ORTF to obtain lengthening minute per minute of the duration of these emissions.

One finds also movements and reviews of Christian inspiration around the abbots Loiez Ar Floc' H, Marsel Klerg, and Armand Calvez. The federation Kendalc' H (which ambitionne to gather all the Breton cultural organizations, as of its creation it represents more 20 000 militants) is created in 1951 like that of the rear Kuzul Brezhoneg, federation created in 1958 (it gathers Breton associations militant for the Orthographe unified of Breton the).

At Paris, in suburbs, the Breton diaspora sets up circles where in particular the militants find themselves who were condemned to national unworthiness for collaboration, Ker Vreizh with Montparnasse, the Breton Mission , the Breton City of Keranna with Yerres in Seine-et-Marne. In years 50-60, Jean-Jacques Goarnic combat for the recognition of the Breton first names.

The Fifties and Sixties: Economy

Starting from the beginning of the Years 1950, the economy is touched by the regional idea:

1951: creation of the Study committee and connection of the Breton interests (CELIB) by Joseph Martray and Rene Pleven. The CELIB will be at the origin of the economic impulse which will make leave Brittany its agricultural underdevelopment and industrialist by constituting a semi-official authority of coordination of the local government agencies on the scale of historical Brittany (5 departments), from a point of view decentralist. In 1955 the CELIB becomes a Regional committee of Expansion (To code).

A whole generation of farmers resulting from the Christian agricultural Jeunesse is organized at the local and regional level. A series of very hard strikes in 1960 to obtain the conditions of the modernization of agriculture culminates by the “catch” by 2000 farmers of the sub-prefecture of Morlaix the June 8th 1961. The imprisonment of the leaders starts a wave of demonstrations which sets ablaze all Brittany until June 22nd. A “Breton agricultural model” is set up gradually.

1962: The CELIB adopts a law-program for Brittany prepared by Michel Phlipponneau. The State refuses to begin on a multiannual level of investments. 1092 Breton municipal councils support to it law-program. Brittany urges the battle of the railway tariffs to disenclose the regional economy, forcing the State to yield.

Starting from the end of the Years 1960: the return of the policy

Indirectly, CELIB thus legitimates the rebirth of a Breton political activism, and as from the Sixties, one observes the return of Breton parties in the political arena. The creation of the areas of program in 1961, which will be transformed into districts of regional action in 1964, then in Région S in 1972, makes it possible the political parties to gain a regional legitimacy.

1957: Creation of the Movement for the Organization of Brittany (MOB), first political party created since the Second world war.

1963: Scission of the left of the MOB to create UDB (Breton democratic Union). The CAB (Committee of Action for Brittany) gathers CFDT, CFTC, PCF, the SFIO, the PSU, the FEN, the SNI.

But all that remains very marginal during the Sixties, in spite of rise without precedent of the mobilizations with regional dimension within the worlds workman and peasant.

In the Sixties the macaroon BZH flowers on the cars. It is quickly prohibited (Ortoli decree of August 7th, 1967). Several motorists are the subject of continuations but as a whole the police force closes the eyes.

1966 the FAS (Face of release of Brittany) asserts its first attack. The Plan Breton truck driver of 1968 is regarded as a consequence of these actions since one will name a long time in Brittany highways of FAS the the two expressways which serve the peninsula. Into 1972 the “lawsuit of FAS” in front of the Cour of state security is transformed into “lawsuit of French colonization in Brittany”; 2000 people come to support FAS with the palate of Reciprocity in Paris.

The same year, Alan Stivell starts to sing, which will cause a true Cultural revolution at the beginning of the following decade.

1967: Top of the balcony of the town hall of Montreal, the General de Gaulle lance sound Lives free Quebec who will be appreciated with his right value by the important Breton community of Quebec and largely relayed in Brittany with the explanations necessary: he involuntarily rehabilitates the Breton political movements of which the hardest members claim only rights and freedoms Quebec, member of the Canadian Confédération, has already.

Decade of the Years 1970

Years 1970 transfer to reappear a national conscience, or all at least regional in Brittany.

- The " revolution culturelle" in music

Rise without precedent of the Breton music, on the initiative of Alan Stivell. Innumerable musicians and singers will encase the step to him, of which Gilles Servat and the Tri Yann, as well in the concerts as in the Festoù-noz (Breton festival, with traditional music and dances). These festoù-noz, often “of support” for a cause “of left”, becomes the appointment of a whole generation, and gradually of all the generations.

- Multiplication of the social conflicts which take a marked Breton character:

Geography of the networks of solidarity which are created at the time of the social conflicts which take a Breton dimension;
Rhetoric built and developed during the social conflict which denounces the oppression of Brittany by Paris, the interior Colonialisme whose Brittany is victim which takes the form: of an oppression political (by the Centralism), economic and social (by the Capitalism) and cultural (by the Jacobinism, i.e. the French Nationalism);
Creation of Skoazell Vreizh in 1969 to help the families of the imprisoned militants.
cultural Foyer of Carry out Kamm in 1970

- Creation of a national or regional conscience Breton of left by the social conflicts:

1972 : the most important year for the birth of this rhetoric, with a succession of social conflicts of great width: French Joint and Strike of milk.
Conflicts ecologists, in particular against the establishment of nuclear plants (1974 - 1981) or to denounce the oil slick of the Amoco Cadiz (1978)

- New Breton parties

Multiplication of the Breton parties, almost all located on the left even at the extreme left, following the example Breton Communist party, of orientation Mao-guévariste, or Breton self-management socialist Face (1974). Creation of Sav Breizh with Erwan Valerie and Yann Choucq, of the Breton mole with Jean-Yves Guiomar and Alain Guyader. The UDB, separatist, remains the most important Breton party. Strollad Ar Vro is a movement catch-all, in the line of the old MOB.

- The Autogestion, which is of all the social conflicts in France, is declined in Brittany in its political point of view, autonomy:

PSU is particularly represented (Yves Foll, mayor of Saint Brieuc, is a long time the only elected official of this party),
the conference Brittany and self-management brings closer PSU, PC, CFDT and of many Breton movements of all tendencies,
1973: Strollad Ar Vro introduces 32 candidates to legislative March; the UDB into present five.
in 1979 the Plane Breton Alter, a document of 40 pages worked out by scientists members of the PSU, constitutes an alternative already ecologist and objectively separatist to the Five-year plan of the ministry for the economy and has an important repercussion at the militants of all left.

Clandestine activism of “armed propaganda”

In the Seventies, a clandestine activism of “armed propaganda appears”: Face of release of Brittany - Republican army Breton. These groups practice a violence symbolic system, via actions against the symbols of the oppression of Brittany: against the French State, capitalism. After a first wave of attacks to beginning of the year 70, a relative lull follows the amnesty granted in 1981 by François Mitterrand.

In the Nineties, one assists with a resumption of the attacks asserted by a Breton revolutionary Armée whose bonds and filiation with the FAS of the Seventies do not appear clearly. Bonds with the organization Basque ETA are updated at the time of the Affaire of Plévin. The April 19th 2000, the death of Laurence Turbec, employee of McDonald of Quévert, killed by a bomb, is unanimously condemned (e.g. Brittany, it is the life Cultural Conseil of Brittany). It is the first time that Breton terrorism is shown to have caused the death of an innocent person (so far only two person who plants bombs had been killed by their machine in 1976 and 1985). In 2004 a withdrawal of case will be returned in favor of all the militants continued for this attack always not elucidated.

Topicality of the Breton idea

“Breton political mobility” comprises groups separatists, such UDB, the Breton Fédération legitimist, nationalists like the Breton Parti, like various federalistic groups proclaiming , even anarchistic circles , like Treger Disuj, belonging to the Coordination Brittany Indépendante and libertarian.

UDB remains the party the most important separatist by far. He asserts approximately 750 members. He attracts only approximately 2 to 5% of the votes when he only presents himself. For a few years he has preferred to present himself in partnership with the Greens or the Socialist party: approximately 80 elected local officials on lists of unions of plural left or in alliance with the left antilibérale; and especially since 2004,3 regional advisers of which a vice-president (more one related - Christian Troadec) thanks to an alliance with the Greens then the Socialist party. The mayors of Carhaix and Plescop are regarded as close relations of its position
a nationalist party, centered on the gathering beyond cleavage right-hand side-left, in a logic rather comparable with that of the Modem, appeared it there have a few years and assert approximately 450 members: it is the “Breton Parti”. It counts today a few tens of elected officials (who joined it after his creation) within the structure Askol. Present at two elections in 2004 and one in 2005, it obtained between 1,5 and 3% (for a first candidature)
the royalists: reappeared in the Eighties, a movement legitimist, the Breton Federation legitimist (FBL), gathers the major part of the Breton monarchists in several circles. Faithful to the spirit which animated the combat of the large defenders of Breton autonomy within the framework of French monarchy (the Marquis of Rouërie, Georges Cadoudal, etc), the FBL is affirmed in its Breton specificity.
with the Extreme left: Emgann, of which some of the militants are implied in the Affaire of Plévin.
with the Extreme right-hand side: the Adsav (creates in 2000): Breton nationalist party of Padrig Montauzier.
During the Nineties: emergence and disappearance of the trade union studied Dazont which is the first trade union studied in Brittany in the middle of the decade. Creation of a Breton trade union: Sindikad Labourerien Breizh (SLB), which takes the continuation of the Dazont trade union and obtains to in January 2006 three elected officials with the Université of High Brittany Rennes II.
Certains elected officials of French parties has very marked regionalistic positions, following the example Jean-Yves Cozan, of Patrick Mareschal, socialist president of the general advice of the Loire Atlantique and founder of Brittany Réunie, or of Christian Troadec, at the origin of the Appel of Carhaix.

Field of education

1977 : creation of the first school Diwan teaching the Breton one by immersion. Development of the network since 30 years. Today: about thirty schools (including 4 colleges and a college) and close to 3 000 pupils. But always enormously of problems: finances, irritating red tapes. Not official recognition by the French Republic.
1984 : the Socialist government creates a bilingual die in the public education, which is a real success.
1990 : even thing for catholic teaching.
Today, (2007) approximately 11 750 children are provided education for into Breton, that is to say 1,5 % of the whole of the children of Brittany.

In 2002, the history of Brittany as a cartoon of Reynald To dry and Rene Honzec reaches 400.000 past specimens.

Public life and cultural movement

In the current trends, one can evoke a certain institutionalization:

the Breton flag, compared to national unworthiness in the Fifties, prohibited in the Sixties, on the face of the hardest social struggles in the Seventies, fleet today on much of town halls, of which those of all the big cities.
arts (in particular music and dance) have been a success growing for 50 years. The musical sector is most dynamic with hundreds of various groups, thousands of players of traditional music or Breton inspiration which remain very popular. There exists more than one hundred of bagadoù everywhere in Brittany and one notes the organization of very many groups of Fest-noz. The album Again of Alan Stivell again propels the Breton and Celtic music in the general public, at the same time as it shows that it is with the musical avant-garde. Creations such as the Heritage of the Celts of daN Ar Braz, or the success of the festivals of Celtic music, as the that of Lorient underline the creativity and the opening of the Breton music. The Breton dances are also very popular: every week each fest-noz gathers generally more than 500 people.
Field of the public life: in the Eighties a combat for indication in Breton language (rear Stourm Brezhoneg) (1984) (smearing of panels), even partially in area Gallèse (not speaking Breton but the Gallo) leads to the installation of bilingual road panels in Finistere, Coasts of Armor, and since 2005 in Morbihan.
Of many local radios emits into Breton.
the State signs a cultural Charte with various local institutions in 1977. A whole of institutions are created, including, in 1981, the Cultural Institut of Brittany rear /Skol-Uhel Vro, common body of the district council of Brittany and the general advice of the Loire Atlantique (which will leave in 1999, the Office of the Breton Language rear /Ofis Brezhoneg, which is the official body of standardization of the Breton language). The Advisory committee with the Breton identity of the town hall of Rennes east creates in 1996. Launching of the Day of the Breton language in 2004.

But the Breton language remains not recognized within the framework of the French Republic. Until in the Fifties, it is prohibited at the school, and devalued. One counted in the Fifties, more than one million Breton-speaking daily newspapers. It remains about it today less: 250000. Their exact number is prone to polemic because of the absence of definition and the absence of census. Calling upon its indivisible character, the French Republic refuses the introduction of Breton into the public life (the Loi Toubon of 1994 still hardens this refusal), and refuses for example the ratification of the European Charte of the regional or minority languages.

Economic domain

Regrouping of many owners within the Institute of Locarn to defend the interests of the small and medium-size companies in Brittany.
These same leaders create the label “Produit in Brittany”, created by Jean-Jacques Goasdoué, which wants to be a quality control mark to defend the image of Brittany abroad. It is based in particular on an economic patriotism of Breton and meets a certain success.
In 2004 an national operator of mobile telephony creates an offer directed towards the regional customers, Breizh Mobile.
In 2004, creation of the Breizh Cola.
Creation of TV Breizh in 2001: the 1st completely Breton television, but where, because of the constraints imposed by SCUMS, the Breton language remains very minority (hardly more hours than on public television France 3 West)

Feeling of membership

Survey for the general advice of Finistere:

You personally, feel you to very strongly belong…

Survey SCUMS of September 2000:

You initially feel to belong yourselves to…

Souhaitez you that the department of Loire-Atlantique is attached to Brittany?

in Brittany 63%; in Loire-Atlantique 71%

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