Georges Dumézil

Georges Dumézil , born with Paris the March 4th 1898, died with Paris the October 11th 1986, is a philologist and academician French like aggregate of history. Its work on the company S and the Religion S Indo-European born, which divides the historians still today, opened new prospects with many researchers in social sciences.

By comparing the old Myth S of many Indo-European people, in the text (he knew approximately thirty languages), he showed that they obeyed identical narrative structures, that these myths translated a vision of the company cut out into three functions: the function of crowned and the legal one; the warlike function; the function of production. These three functions are found as well in the Mythologie, in accounts founders of the ancient Rome, as in social institutions: Caste S Indians, social organization of Old Mode in Clergy, Nobility and Third state.

Biography

Ascent

His/her Pierre grandfather was craftsman wet cooper in Bayon (the Gironde): he sent to the college his son Jean Anatole Dumézil, who impassioned himself for the foreign languages and Latin, and became Général. Jean Dumézil transmitted his passion for Latin to his son, who could read the Énéide in the text at nine years, also learning the old Greek and German.

Primary and secondary schooling

Georges Dumézil studies in different Lycée S, according to his father with the liking of his various assignments. He carries out his Khâgne with the Louis-the-Large Lycée, with Paris. It is at this time that it makes the meeting of the large philologist Michel Bréal (it dies in 1915), which had translated the work of Franz Bopp, founder of the compared Grammaire and works of vocabulary of the Indo-European Langues. This one recommends it to its successor Antoine Meillet, another large linguist, and gives him its dictionary Sanskrit - French. Before being received with the National university in 1916, Dumézil learns Arabic and the Sanskrit.

While leaving the college, he thus knows six languages, including four old languages.

University life

Its studies are stopped by its mobilization as an officer of Artillerie, of March 1917 at February 1919. In October, it is aggregate of letters. He teaches a few months with Beauvais then, in January 1921, share like French reader at the university of Warsaw. In 1922, it returns to France to begin its theses of Histoire of the religions and compared Mythologie, under the crook of Antoine Meillet.

In April 1924, it supports its two theses. The first, entitled the feast of immortality. Study of Indo-European compared mythology , relates to the comparison between the ambrosia and an Indian mythological drink to the name and the similar characteristics, the amrtâ . It is however not limited to compare two religions: it integrates elements of many Indo-European mythologies there. One then reproaches him for taking too many freedoms with the facts to tell more a beautiful story; it is besides the reproach which one always makes with his work. In its thesis, in the absence of drink of immortality in Scandinavia, it promotes the Bière with this row, which is recognized (by itself) like an error. The second is entitled the crime of the Lemnian ones. Rites and legends of the Aegean world .

In 1925, it leaves in Turkey and teaches there the history of the religions to the Université of Istanbul, created by Atatürk. It there learns Turkish, travels in the the Caucasus and in Russia, and discovers in particular the language and mythology Ossète S, only Caucasian language of the Indo-European family. He also studied the language of the Oubykh, Caucasian people overcome by the Russians between 1860 and 1870, and taken refuge in the West of Turkey, as well as the Tcherkesse and the Abkhazian . The funds of works which it reports of these voyages is one of most important of caucasology in Occident (see inter-University Bibliothèque of the Eastern languages).

In 1931, it obtains a station of French reader to the Université of Uppsala, in Sweden. It there perfect its knowledge of Scandinavian mythology, and benefits from it to learn a new language. It leaves this station in 1933 and obtains, thanks to the protection of the indianist Sylvain Lévi, a station of in charge of conferences in religious sciences. It is then named “directing of comparative study of the religions of the Indo-European people”, in Ve section of the practical École of the high studies. It also follows courses of Sinologie given by Marcel Granet, writes nationalist articles under a pseudonym, and attends Marcel Mauss. In 1938, it works out its theory of the three functions.

In 1941, it is expelled of teaching for Franc-maçon nery; it profits then from the protection of principal the Dabosville Father Saint Martin's day of Pontoise which takes it as teacher in Latin and Greek. There will be as raises Jean-Marc Varaut, future tenor of the bar of Paris. It reinstates the university the following year after the intervention of Jerome Carcopino. He teaches with the Collège de France, of 1949 with 1968, with the pulpit of Indo-European civilizations (pulpit created in its honor). He takes his retirement then but, during three years, he continues to give conferences to the United States, at the universities of Princeton, Chicago and Los Angeles. It is also at this time that he undertakes a work of compilation of his work. It thus publishes three volumes of Mythe and epopee in 1968, 1971 and 1973. In 1970, it is elected with the Académie of the inscriptions and the humanities. It enters to the French Academy in 1978.

Of 1952 with 1972, it frequently travels in the Caucasus to study the languages and mythologies there.

Work of compared mythology: the theory of the trifonctionnality

As of its thesis, it found its field of research: the compared Mythology. With the departure, thorough in this direction by Antoine Meillet, who wanted to see it resuming the study of the Indo-European religion where it had been abandoned for several decades, he was abandoned of his pars philologists which reproached him, for the ones, for including too much mythology in literary studies and, for the others, to fold the facts with his theory.

Its discovery of the culture ossète (last surviving branch of the Alains, descendants themselves of the Scythian ), made him take again this way of research. Indeed, those were projected in the mythical people of the Nartes . This mythical world of Nartes is very close to the Indo-European mythical worlds (the monsters and the dragons are similar there). Moreover, these people of the Nartes are divided explicitly into three families:

  • those which are strong by the intelligence ( zund ), the Alægatæ ;
  • those which are strong by courage and valiancy with the combat, the Æxsærtægkatæ ;
  • those which are rich of their cattle: the Boratæ .

It publishes in 1930 an article, the Indo-Iranian Prehistory of the castes , where it brings closer division in three categories of the company in India to that found in old Iran. One can notice besides that the current Iran is the only Moslem country equipped with a clergy.

In 1938, the bringing together reasoned between Brahman S Indians and Roman Flamines (see its book Flamines-Brahmans ) enables him to analyze the function of the sovereign in the Indo-European companies. It joint bringings together already made between Indian and Iranian companies old of the observation made on the flamines, college of Roman priests . The major flamines ensured the worship of the three gods Jupiter, Mars and Quirinus, whose characters correspond to the three functions of command and of crowned, of warlike force and fruitfulness. The function sovereignty breaks up, it, in of two slopes according to its terms:

  • one is formal, of sacerdotal origin, is also expressed in a legal dimension and is enracinée in this world;
  • the other aspect of sovereignty is founded on the power, and enracinée in the other world.

By pushing its reasoning, he discovers the gold key which leads it to expose, in his easiest book of access, Jupiter, Mars, Quirinus (1941), the theory of the three functions (sovereignty and religion, war, production), tripartition which is found in the vocabulary, the social organization and the legendary corpus of all the Indo-European people: one at the medieval company, for example, divided into oratores (those which request, clergy), bellatores (those which fight, the nobility) and laboratores (those which work, the third state), or the Indian company, divided into Brahmanes (priests, teachers and professors), Kshatriyas (king, princes, administrators and soldiers), plus the productive caste, subdividing itself in Vaisyas (craftsmen, tradesmen, business men, farmers and shepherds) and Sudras (servants). In this company, the prolongations are more important still: in the great Indian poem epic Mahabharata , each hero acts according to the diagram trifonctionnel, according to the character and of the place of the god of which he is the representative.

Dumézil shows then that the official story of the origins of Rome is a setting in scene of this same structuring Idéologie. Consequently, it would be vain to seek to disentangle Légende and Histoire in connection with Romulus and of its successors.

Legacy with the Social sciences

The trifonctionnality dumézilienne, if it had a very important impact on the Indo-European studies, remains the object of controversies: some regard it as a Mythe moreover added to the other myths, a " métamythe" to some extent.

Its work methods nevertheless influenced the whole of a discipline considerably, the study of the ancient religions: it changed the manner of studying them, by creating the comparative study of mythologies, also by showing that the divinities did not exist for themselves, and that it was necessary to make carry studies on the pairs or the groups of gods (such as they were celebrated in the mythical accounts). All its analyzes relate to the structure of the myths and the accounts, and never bring closer to the isolated facts.

He is thus the creator of a new discipline, he had to grope, work out a methodology: thus it was until disavowing the integrality of its work former to 1938 (its adversaries sometimes continue to criticize it).

The method Dumézil made followers, in particular the historian Georges Duby, who highlighted the continuity of the three functions at the Moyen-âge in the three orders or the imaginary one of feudalism (1978) and the knight, the woman and the priest (1981). The philosopher Michel Foucault, who profited from the patronage of Dumézil, took as a starting point his research in his first work.

A certain number of academics defend Dumézil or take again its topics of predilection, among which the Swedish indianist Stig Wikander (1908-1983), the specialist in the Celtic world Christian-J. Guyonvarc' H, the French indianist Louis Renou, the Dutch linguist and mythologist Jan De Vries (1890-1964), the French linguist Emile Benveniste and, more recently, the historian Bernard Sergent, author of fundamental works ( the Indo-Europeans , Homosexualité and initiation among Indo-European people etc), which look further into particular aspects of the work of Dumézil. There is not however a “school dumézilienne”, since Dumézil forever be the reader of a doctorand.

The indianists Jean Naudou, Nick J. Allen, of Oxford, and Daniel Dubuisson admit the utility of the trifonctionnelles theses in their field, just like Émilia Masson in his, the Hittites.

Michel Poitevin underlined the philosophical interest of the work of Dumézil, which encourages to reflect on the structures symbolic systems of the human spirit.

Polemic on its political ideas

From the years 1960 and especially during the years 1980, of the historians like Arnaldo Momigliano and Carlo Ginzburg showed Dumézil of affinities with the Extreme-right-hand side, to even testify to a certain sensitivity to the ideas Nazis.

For them, Dumézil is suspect because of its topic of predilection, the Indo-Europeans. Why be interested, as from the years 1930, with people to which holding of the Aryan ideology wanted to identify the " race" Germanic?

Today, partly thanks to the arguments of Didier Éribon, one knows that Dumézil did not have anything a Nazi and that he was vigorously opposed to any form of Antisémitisme. In addition, its studies on the Indo-Europeans, who do not let anything predict his political opinions, go back to one period former to the popularization of this topic by the Nazis, since its first article on the subject goes back to 1930.

Lastly, the followers of the political theories and the racists most extreme never needed Dumézil: they always sought to recover the theses on the Indo-Europeans, and this since first discovered on this subject at the end of the XIXe century.

Dumézil had also maintained the relations with nationalist writers, such as Charles Maurras, Pierre Gaxotte, or Drieu La Rochelle in the years 1920, and collaborated in the nationalist newspaper the Day in the years 1930.

List languages known by Georges Dumézil

Georges Dumézil is initially a linguist; he learned, with each one of his voyages, several languages:

Works

  • the feast of immortality - Study of Indo-European compared mythology , its thesis received in 1924, published in the Yearly of the Museum Guimet ;

  • the Crime of Lemnian - Rites and legends of the Aegean world , 1924, its complementary thesis;
  • the problem of the Centaurs - Study of Indo-European compared mythology , 1929, published in the Yearly of the Museum Guimet ;
  • Ouranos-Varuna - Test of Indo-European compared mythology , 1932, published in the Maisonneuve editions;
  • Legends on Nartes - Followed by five mythological notes , 1930, published by the Institute of Slavic studies;
  • Flamen-Brahman , 1935;
All the bibliography which has just been enumerated constitutes the stammerings of compared mythology, and was then disavowed like erroneous by Dumézil.

  • Myths and gods of German - Test of comparative interpretation (1939) published in PUF;

  • Mithra-Varuna - Test on two Indo-European representations of Sovereignty , where it analyzes the duality of the Indo-European sovereign function, by comparing couples of gods representing this function (Mithra and Varuna, Thor and Odin, Dius Fidius and Jupiter Summanus ), appeared in 1940 with PUF;
  • Jupiter Mars Quirinus, composed of:
    • Test on the Indo-European design of the company and the origins of Rome , 1941;
    • Birth of Rome , 1944;
    • Birth of archangel-Test on the formation of the religion zoroastrienne , 1945;
    • Explanation of Indian and Latin texts, 1948 all published in the editions Gallimard;
  • Roman myths, composed of 4 volumes:
    • Horace and Curiaces, 1942;
    • Servius and Fortune - Test on the social function of praise and blame and on the Indo-European elements of the Roman taxable quota , 1943;
    • Tarpeia - Five tests of Indo-European compared philology , 1947, all published in the editions Gallimard;
  • Loki , 1948, published in the GP Maisonneuve;
  • the Indo-European heritage in Rome , 1949, published by Gallimard;
  • the third sovereign - Test on the Indo-Iranian god Aryaman and on the formation of the mythical history of Ireland , 1949, published in the GP Maisonneuve;
  • Indo-European gods , 1952, published in PUF;
  • Ritual Indo-European with Rome , 1954, published by Klincksieck;
  • Latin Goddesses and myths vedic , 1956, published in the Latomus collection;
  • Aspects of the warlike function in the Indo-Europeans , 1956;
  • Tales and legends of Oubykhs , 1957;
  • Tales lazes , 1957, published by the institute of ethnology;
  • the tripartite ideology of the Indo-Europeans , 1958, published in the Latomus collection;
  • Studies oubykhs , 1959, published in the Maisonneuve editions;
  • gods of German, test on the formation of the Scandinavian religion , 1959, published in PUF;
  • Anatolian Documents on the languages and the traditions of the Caucasus , 1960 - 1967, published;
  • the book of the heroes, legends ossètes on Nartes , 1965, published in the editions Gallimard;
  • the antiquated Roman religion, with an appendix on the religion of the Etruscans , 1966, published in the editions Payot;
  • Myth and epopee its major work:
    • the ideology of the three functions in the epopees of the Indo-European people 1968;
    • Standard epic Indo-European: a hero, a wizard, a king 1971;
    • Roman Stories , 1973, all published in the editions Gallimard;
  • Roman Ideas , 1969, published in the editions Gallimard;
  • Heur and misfortune of the warrior, aspects of the warlike function in the Indo-Europeans , 1969, published in PUF;
  • Of the myth to the novel, the Saga of Hadingus and other tests , 1970, published in PUF;
  • Roman Festivals of summer and autumn, follow-up of Ten Roman Questions , 1975, published in the editions Gallimard;
  • the verb oubykh, descriptive and comparative studies , 1975, published by the Academy of the inscriptions and the humanities;
  • sovereign gods of the Indo-Europeans , 1977, published in the editions Gallimard;
  • Romance of Scythie and surrounding , 1978, published in the editions Payot;
  • Indo-European Marriages, followed by Fifteen Roman Questions , 1979, published with the editions Payot;
  • sound Apollo and other tests , 1982, published in the editions Gallimard;
  • the coloured Courtesan and lords and other tests - 25 drafts of mythology , 1983, published in the Gallimard editions.
  • the black moyne in gray inside nostradamic Game preserve, sotie , 1984, published in the editions Gallimard;
  • the lapse of memory of the man and honor of the gods , 1985, published in the editions Gallimard;
  • Discussions with Didier Eribon, with the editions Gallimard, coll Folio, 1987.
  • the Novel of the twins - Drafts of mythology , posthumous edition by Joel Grisward, 1995, published in the editions Gallimard.

Distinctions and decorations

French Academy

Georges Dumézil was elected with the French Academy, the October 26th 1978, in the armchair 40, succeeding Jacques Chastenet, was died the February 7th 1978. Its official reception took place the June 14th 1979. After its disappearance, the October 11th 1986, it was replaced, the June 16th 1988, by Pierre-Jean Rémy.

Other distinctions

Decorations

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