‘From the soil we have come, to the soil we shall go and from the soil we want to live’: Language, Politics and Identity in the Grande Révolte of 1907

Abstract

During the summer of 1907, France experienced one of its largest social disturbances since the Revolution, as the winegrowers of the Languedoc-Roussillon led a mass protest movement that paralysed the region and challenged the state. Although the Grande Révolte evoked references to the Albigensian Crusade, and juxtaposed North and South, it never fully represented a moment of Occitan regionalist rising. The failure of the cultural organisation the Félibrige to fully engage with protesters led to a fissure between political and cultural expressions of Occitan identity that marked the movement thereafter. By combining linguistic anthropology and historical analysis, the authors are able to foreground a key aspect of national identity formation as it occurred in 1907. Considering the impact of the Grande Révolte on the identity and language of the Midi offers us an insight into the development of regionalism both within and beyond the borders of the French nation.

Abstract

Pendant l'été 1907, la France vécut de grands troubles sociaux auxquels l'État dut faire face, à savoir la Grande Révolte des vignerons du Languedoc-Roussillon qui glaça la région. Bien que la Grande Révolte ait évoqué des références à la Croisade des Albigeois et ait juxtaposé le Nord et le Sud, elle n'atteignit jamais le niveau d'un vrai soulèvement régionaliste occitan. Le manque de coopération entre l'organisation culturelle du Félibrige d'un côté et les manifestants de l'autre provoqua une fissure entre les expressions politiques et culturelles de l'identité occitane, qui désormais marquerait le mouvement. Les auteurs allient l'anthropologie linguistique et l'analyse historique afin de souligner un aspect principal de la création d'une identité nationale en 1907. Prendre en considération l'impact de la Grande Révolte sur l'identité et les langues du Midi nous donne un aperçu du développement du régionalisme en France et hors de France.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

^[1] The terms ‘Occitan’ and ‘Occitanism’ have been chosen here to refer respectively to the autochthonous Romance linguistic varieties spoken in the southern third of France, and any political and/or regionalist sentiment attached to the Midi. The glossonyms ‘Occitan’ and ‘Occitan (linguistic/language) varieties’ were chosen since other current terms were either too regionally specific (Provençal, Lengadocien, Auvernhat) or too broad (Patois). This follows the general practice of linguistics scholars who refer to the totality of typologically similar varieties as ‘Occitan’ and who reserve terms like ‘Provençal’ for more diatopically restricted varieties. Mistral's own term of lenga d'o was avoided, as this may again lead to an association with a narrower region than that of the whole Midi, i.e. Languedoc. ‘Occitanism’ was consequently preferred in order to reinforce the links between the linguistic and political-ideological regionalist arguments.

^[2] This opinion would be repeated in the later winegrowers' movement and Occitanist newspapers like Echo des Corbières and Lutte Occitane, published during a resurgence of regional political assertion and activism amongst winegrowers in the 1960s.

^[3] This narrative of 1907 is drawn from a collection of archival and newspaper sources where stated, and also more generally using Bechtel (1976), Fontvieille (1977), Napo (1971), and Sagnès, Pech, and Pech (1997).

^[4] For more on French regionalism during the Third Republic, see (amongst others): Thiesse (1990), Peer (1998), Lebovics (1992) and Storm (2010), for an insight into the cultural and intellectual construction of regional and minority identities in relation to the state; Wright (2003) and Zaretsky (2004), for examples of particular regionalist actors in the Third Republic and the means by which they constructed their appeal; Judge (2000), for a focus on the impact of state linguistic policy; and Berger (1972), for a strong case study of the Breton movement outlining these key themes.

^[5] Such as the addition of sugar to unfermented grape to increase the alcohol content, known as chaptalisation.

^[6] Rémy Pech posits that Jaurès was never serious about this proposal, but rather sought to promote the collectivist standpoint whilst standing back from the debate (Pech 2011).

^[7] Even the official statistics from the Ministère de l'Instruction Publique of 1863 (which would have had cause to exaggerate the vitality of French) reveal the départements of the Midi Viticole to be areas where ‘all or nearly all communes [were] non-French speaking’ (Weber 1977, 68).

^[8] These post-hoc accounts from academics constitute some of the very scant references available concerning oral communication in regional varieties in public speeches. The language varieties used in the Grande Révolte are arguably of greater importance than other public speeches made in the region during this period not only given the incendiary political nature of the content, but also owing to the unprecedented size of the crowds assembled.

^[9] The analysis took into account the 339 banners and placards recovered that contained more than merely the name of the commune in question. Seventeen per cent thus translates to 57 of these 339 banners.

^[10] Although again, Weber (1977, 77) points out that even the implementation of the Lois Jules Ferry did not entail a high level of French language competence in pupils schooled in French.

^[11] The Duke of Orléans was then the self-styled Philippe VIII, and supported by those Monarchists who wished to oversee a return to a French monarchy and the dissolution of the Republic.