Vandalism

History

The term appears in 1793 to be popularized the January 10th 1794 by Henri Gregoire, constitutional bishop of Blois, in his report/ratio addressed to the Convention, where it uses the word to indicate the destroying attitude of part of the Republican army . The Gregoire Abbot wants to protect the artistic inheritance from the Old Mode in order to make some profit the people. He writes in his Mémoires : “I created the word to kill the thing”.

The vandalism term comes from the Vandales, horde Germanic which, in 445, had put Rome at bag, before being illustrated in other plunderings. When the Gregoire abbot forges the term, he wants to denounce the destruction of the national monuments carried out without understanding by the revolutionists. There existed already the term of Iconoclasme, created by the Byzantines to describe the breakers of images or religious statues, term employed to speak, for example, of the Protestant iconoclasts of XVe century, but the word had the double disadvantage to be a little too erudite and to be associated with the religious images. The destruction of the buildings and furniture at the time of the revolution further goes than simple the iconoclasme.

The importance of the phenomenon in France appears in the strength with which, as of 1795, the fight against vandalism obtains means. Alexandre Lenoir is in charge of the creation of a museum of the historic buildings, an inventory of the castles started with Louis XVI is completed in 1795. The romantic ones very sensitive to the value of the ruins of passed and Hugo, being based on the report/ratio of one of the general inspectors of the historic buildings, Louis Vitet, writes Guerre with the demolition contracters in 1832. In 1837, Guizot creates a commission of the historic buildings. Prosper Mérimée, which succeeds Vitet with the Historic buildings, continues this work of rescue. The inscription of the sites threatened with the Historic buildings makes it possible to save them; it is the case of the church Our-lady of the Charity-on-Loire. In many cases a restoration proves to be necessary. Towards 1830 begins a vast movement of restoration of the inheritance in which Purple-the-Duke is illustrated.

See also: Historic building (France)

But the good will is not always enough, and work of restoration of the monuments is not inevitably undertaken in the rules of Article This leads the count of Montalembert to define a new category of vandals: there were the destructors, there are from now on the restorers. Louis Réau will call them the benevolent vandals .

The idea of protection of the inheritance makes its way in all Europe. In Great Britain, there was learned society, for example the , creates in 1707, or the , which went back to 1780, but these organizations were worried especially study and description of the monuments and vestiges of the past. When in 1849 creates for itself the it has as an additional objective to save the old monuments of the depredations of time and the men. In 1850, the emperor François-Joseph sign a decree for the creation of a commission of study and protection of the historic buildings.

As mentalities evolve/move, the word vandalism grows rich and is moderated. A law of 1906 prohibiting the export of classified pertaining to worship objects watch a certain nationalist drift of the term. Multiplication of the privately held companies and local associations from which the objective is to protect a local inheritance perhaps ignored Parisian authorities and testify to the sensitizing of the spirits on the whole of the territory to the threats which weigh on the monuments of the past.

The war damagees, in particular the air raids which affect single monuments are classified like vandalism; certain forms of destruction which went from oneself for reasons of law and order (demolition of an old monument to build new, for example the building site of Haussmann in Paris) become forms of vandalism to the eyes of the public opinion. Industrial buildings enter to the inheritance and must consequently be protected. The law becomes constraining for the promoters or the persons in charge of town and country planning, with an obligation of preventive archaeological excavations in France. In the United Kingdom, an governmental organization, , founded in 1971, requests assistances of the government to organize these preventive excavations. In certain countries, in particular in the United States, it is not until work of the archeologists-enthnologues who do not escape the reproaches from vandalism, for example in the controversy on the Homme of Kennewick.

While extending, the concept of vandalism also ceases relating to only the rich countries. There exists a vandalism of the time, which the restoration mitigates, but also a vandalism of misery, when countries cannot be allowed to maintain in the state their historic buildings or must sacrifice them to requirements of development. One of the releases of this awakening is the decision of the president Nasser to make build a new stopping on the Nile threatening the temple of Ramsès II with Abou Simbel and the sanctuary of Isis with Philae. As of 1972, UNESCO proposes a Convention for the protection of the world heritage, cultural and natural, which must be used to guarantee the protection of sites considered as Patrimoine of humanity , by registering them in the Liste of the world heritage. The international public opinion is mobilized in front of what she regards as an unbearable threat of vandalism. Abou Simbel is saved.

But the word vandalism did not finish widening its ground of application. In 1901, creates for itself a Company for the protection of the landscapes and the esthetics of France. With the development of ecology and environmental protection, the term comes from there to also indicate the degradation of the natural sites by pollution or wild town planning. The natural sites from now on them also are classified and as far as possible protected from the vandals in all kinds which threaten them.

Through being used as term of opprobrium, the word vandalism ends up losing the direction of an attack against the inheritance not to more indicate but the blind destruction or malfaisante. Jean-Pierre Changeux speaks about ecological vandalism , Jacques Testart qualifies the GMO of liberal vandalism . The vandal is that which attacks the things even stripped of financial asset, which destroys urban furniture, burns the cars, covers the walls of graffiti, sends viruses on Internet, inserts impertinent comments in the articles of Wikipédia.

Various types of vandalism

The various authors (Montalembert, Réau, Fleury and Leproux for example) distinguish various types of vandalism according to the motivations of the authors. These distinctions enable them to classify retroactively in the vandalism category of the acts which them time would have qualified differently. In the Glass casings, for example, Cicéron thus describes the acts of its adversary:

I will speak about the fact that Verrès calls its taste; his/her friends, his disease, his mania; sicilians, his armed robbery: me, I cannot of which expression be useful myself.

However it is exactly what Louis Réau will call, two thousand years later, the removal of treasures . Thus Louis Réau draws up it the catalog and the inventory of the following examples:

the intolérance

The acts of vandalism are often made within the framework of wars, wars of religion or political storms. One attacks the most visible symbols of the enemy group:

warlike Vandalism of the invaders known as cruel of the Roman empire, the Vikings at the 8th century.
religious Vandalism: Christians towards the pagan idols, of the Protestants against the catholic monuments and symbols (and today of the Talibans against the Buddhist statues in Afghanistan). The religions monotheists which prohibit the images shelter prompt fanatics to destroy all that appears an attack with their dogma to them.
Vandalism in favor: through all the history, the destruction of the monuments set up by a preceding government often constituted the symbol of the transition from being able.

But even without the alibi of the violence of times, there remain forms of intolerance such as the

Vandalisme prude: it happens that the change of manners make unacceptable of works considered to be pornographic. It is the case of hammered sculptures or unobtrusive medieval manuscripts. It is also the case of the last Jugement of Michel-Angel whose naked ones are repaired on order of the pope.

the ignorance or lack of reflection

superstitious Vandalism: while attacking the images of the people or the things, one believes to attack with the thing or the person. Vasari in its Vies of the famous painters announces the mutilations undergone by a fresco of Andrea del Castagno representing Christ to the column: This image is such as if it had not been smeared and damaged because of the ignorance of those which wanted to be avenged for the Jews, it would be surely one of most beautiful works of Andréa .
sentimental Vandalism: one destroys monuments because of the painful memories which stick to it.
niaiseux Vandalism: puerile degradations of buildings, certain profanations of places in charge of memory by désœuvrés or éméchés teenagers.
Vandalism being unaware of: the first archaeological excavations (Pompéi for example), led in spite of the good sense by amateurs full with good will.
pathological Vandalism: destruction of Artémision of Éphèse by Érostrate.

cupidity

the destruction of the cities in time of war often double setting with bag of their richnesses. It was in the same way under the revolution, where the admirable inheritance of the Flemish or French tapestries were destroyed to recover money or gold wire of them. The plunderers of tombs are another example of these avid vandals.

flight of works of art resold on a parallel market. At the time of the second war of Iraq, the museum of Baghdad is immediately delivered to the vandals.

vandalism imperialist

the Removal of treasures , according to Louis Réau, of the name of Lord Elgin which brought back in Great Britain low-reliefs of the Parthenon. Napoleon illustrated himself in the plundering of Egypt and Italy. The idea is that certain treasures of the Antique art were more in safety in countries like France and Great Britain: alien vandalism against endogenous vandalism. But this practice goes back to antiquity. In the of Signis , Cicéron pays of Ségestains which In a war that they supported on their behalf against the Carthaginians, their city was taken and destroyed. All that could be used with the embellishment as Carthage was carried by the winners.

Finally one can also speak about a friendly vandalism , like that of the American bombardments on France to prepare the unloading in 1944, which destroyed the old city of Brest and its roads, for example.

A contemporary author, Dario Gamboni, distinguishes him to it vandalism for vandalism, political vandalism, and the vandalism of the critics like principal reasons for vandalism with.

More delicate to classify because being the subject of controversies between opponents and supporters (who see an act of civil resistance there), but undoubtedly belonging to the political category is vandalism protester: in France, operations of mowing of GMO, or the disassembling of restaurant fast-food are regarded as acts of vandalism and are punished by the law.

Consequences of vandalism

In addition to the loss of monuments and irreplaceable richnesses, vandalism induces a truncated vision of the history when whole pieces of a culture disappear because of vandalism from mass. The history of vandalism is then used to draw up an inventory of disappeared works so that the historians can hold of it account in their one time reconstitution.

Vandalism today

The recent cases of vandalism include the destruction of monuments in Soviet Union after its bursting (political vandalism); destruction of the Buddhas of Bâmiyân in Afghanistan by the Taliban (religious vandalism); destruction of the Othoman bridge of Mostar by the Croats (political vandalism).

See also: List of the world heritage in danger

Literature and inheritance

Walter Scott, The Antiquary , 1816
Prosper Mérimée, Venus of It, 1837

See too

Internal bonds

External bonds

Article on the vandalism of the images
preventive archeology in France
Denunciation of the vandalism of the Armenian inheritance
Lists of defense associations of the French inheritance

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