© 2020 Stefan Dmytro Kosovych NOURISHING THE POLITICAL BODY: BANQUETS IN EARLY THIRD REPUBLIC FRANCE, 1878 – 1914 BY STEFAN DMYTRO KOSOVYCH DISSERTATION Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History in the Graduate College of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2020 Urbana, Illinois Doctoral Committee: Professor Emeritus Mark S. Micale, Chair and Director of Research Associate Professor Tamara Chaplin Professor Maria Todorova Professor Jean-Philippe R. Mathy ABSTRACT The most pressing issues of the day in France and in Europe – the place of workers in society, women’s rights, republicanism versus monarchy as the form of government, and expansion of the French empire – were advanced at banquets, ritualized gatherings over food and drink. Drawing on the key historical success of banquets as a means of political mobilization during the prelude to the Revolution of 1848, socialists/anarchists, royalists, imperialists, and feminists turned to the banquet to strengthen their political agendas during early Third Republic France. In Nourishing the Political Body: Banquets in Early Third Republic France, 1878 – 1914, I argue that banquets became a critical site for the construction of political and cultural power and identity by creating distinctive, tightly-knit communities that bolstered a diverse array of causes across the entire political landscape. Using police reports, government documents, accounts of banquet proceedings, newspaper articles, letters, and memoirs, my dissertation analyzes four prominent genres of banquets during late nineteenth and early twentieth-century France: commemorations of the Paris Commune, royalist, empire, and feminist. At these events, different political groups promoted specific agendas that were always ideological, oftentimes subversive, and even revolutionary. Commemorators of the Paris Commune and royalists utilized banquets to promote their revolutionary causes. Imperialists and feminists congregated in order to reinforce the French empire and to fight for women’s equality, respectively. Because banquets attracted typically between 500 and 1000 people across the socio-economic spectrum, they also constituted an early form of mass culture in France. Banquets provided a culturally powerful forum for various political movements and thus became an important instrument in the key process of democratization in early Third Republic France. ii In Memory of my Father, Ostap S. Kosovych “Our soul shall never perish, Freedom knows no dying.” Taras Shevchenko The Caucasus, 1845 iii ACKNOWLEGEMENTS At the end of this long road of working on my dissertation, I would like to personally thank my dissertation committee for reading and critically commenting on my Ph.D. Dissertation in all its various stages. Mark Micale, my Doktorvater, prioritized intellectual growth from the first day I met him. Mark has been tremendously supportive by encouraging me throughout all the phases of the Ph.D. program. I always felt better about whatever was concerning me after meeting with Mark. He was very instrumental during the process of choosing a dissertation topic and has provided insightful guidance and feedback throughout the entire writing process. Tamara Chaplin was especially influential during the initial stages of the dissertation as she helped me turn my questions into claims and develop a tentative thesis statement. Tamara rigorously read my dissertation and provided criticism that vastly improved the dissertation. In addition to Maria Todorova’s sharp commentary including suggesting a new structure for the rewriting of the introduction, she came up with a greatly useful characterization of banquets during my pre-defense. Jean-Philippe Mathy suggested key secondary sources, encouraged critical engagement of the sources, and provided key insight into the culture of Third Republic France. I would also like to thank the Department of History at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign for funding and providing an intellectually rigorous Ph.D. program. Specifically, many thanks to the following professors from the Department of History: Keith Hitchins, Antoinette Burton, Craig Koslofsky, Dana Rabin, Rana Hogarth, and Nils Jacobsen. The Department of History Staff has been truly supportive, most notably Tom Bedwell, Elaine Sampson, Stephanie Landess, and Shannon Jo Croft. Thank you to the Department of Religion for financial assistance and to Rick Layton for teaching mentorship. I would like to thank iv Michael Weissman of the Department of Physics for his guidance on the research paper that I wrote in his course. Brad Brown, Chair of the History Department at Bradley University, provided excellent guidance and mentorship on my teaching and dissertation. Thank you to the University of Illinois Library for the providing numerous books for my dissertation from their collection as well as through I-Share and Interlibrary Loan. I am indebted for the heartfelt guidance and mentorship of Gary DeFotis, my Bachelor’s thesis advisor in Chemistry at The College of William and Mary. Thank you very much to William Kinsella and Terry Alford at Northern Virginia Community College for instilling in me a love for history. My journey into French History began during my time as a student in the joint M.A. program at The Citadel and College of Charleston. Thank you to Joelle Neulander, my advisor, who encouraged my entry into French history and learning of the French language. Additionally, I would like to thank the following professors at The Citadel: Katherine Grenier, Kerry Taylor, Kathy Jellenik, Guy Toubiana, and Robert Emory (rest in peace). I am appreciative to William Olejniczak and Darryl Phillips of the College of Charleston. Thank you to Éric Berger and the faculty of Centre d’Etudes Tours Langues for the study abroad program in Tours, France and to the French School at Middlebury College’s full immersion summer course. I would like to thank my top students who have been an inspiration and a reminder of why I did the Ph.D. in History. Most of all, my deepest thanks to Laura LoVetere who was my student during the Fall 2013 semester and research assistant during Fall 2016. We met in Paris when I was on research and Laura was studying abroad, and she informed me of one of her feminist history professors who ended up being helpful in advising me on how to research feminist banquets. Laura’s abundance of energy and aptitude for finding sources in French v newspapers and distilling the key points in them was extremely helpful. I would also like to thank Anacecilia Luna, Decheng Fang, Morgan Folino, Vuk Budic, Daniela Pedraza Novak, Ben Changnon, Elmi Zwaan, Justin Bundang, Daniel Kim, and Marva Ishfaq Dar (University of Illinois) as well as Micah Mariz Perez and Jake Jones (Bradley University). Thank you so much to Vincent Robert (Université Paris I Panthéon Sorbonne) who wrote the influential monograph, Le temps des banquets : Politique et symbolique d’une génération (1818 – 1848). As Vincent Robert researched banquets during a previous era in France, he happily met with me and informed me of the secondary literature and provided me with sound advice for how to proceed with my research. I would also like to thank Dominique Kalifa, Éric Fournier, and Christelle Taraud (Université Paris I Panthéon Sorbonne); Sasha Topolovic (Archives nationales); Marc Lagana, Françoise Bazire, and Gilbert Farges (L’Association des Amies et Amis de la Commune de Paris 1871); Alban Bargain-Villéger (York University); Éric Lafon (Musée de l’histoire vivante); and Fréderic Cépède (L’Office universitaire de recherche socialiste). Thank you to my friends that I made in France throughout the dissertation research year as you made it such a wonderful experience. I stayed three times with my host family, Maryanick and Jacques Guilloux, in Tours, France. The first time was when I began to learn French in 2009, and the third occurred at the start of my dissertation research. Maryanick and Jacques always served delicious organic meals, which we ate while talking and laughing. Oksana Alves de Oliveira created a warm, welcoming apartment for me in the predominantly African neighborhood of Goutte d’Or in northern Paris. Going beyond ordinary roommate duties, Oksana included me in family gathering and invited me to hang out with her friends. Oksana displayed utmost patience while we spoke French, and we had some memorable vi conversations. Oksana’s sister Anaïs Alves de Oliveira provided me with a lot of information on restaurants, tourist sites, and things to do in her hometown of Angers prior to me going there for research. Hatsumu Tanaka and I met at the Centre d’Etudes Tours Langues where we were studying French. We both moved to Paris around the same time and explored the city together. Jonas Frajberg showed me underground Paris. Wissem Nehdi was an excellent guide to the Tunisian areas of Paris. Thank you to Aïsha Salmon, Eliza Smith, Edilson Brito, Kiki Lavenir, and Adina Tarau. I would also like to thank the restaurants Le Temps des Cerises (13e arrondissement) and Le Relais du Massif Central (11e arrondissement) for serving me delicious French meals during my research year. I would like to thank all of the soldiers of 1-94 Field Artillery and DIVARTY, 1st Armored Division, U.S. Army whom I served with from June 2003 to January 2007. My deepest thanks to Sergeant First Class Ben Davidson and Captain (now Colonel) Tom Wilson. To the three soldiers of 1-94 Field Artillery who did not return home with us from Iraq: Staff Sergeant Don Steven McMahan, Staff Sergeant James Gary West, and Specialist Dana Nathaniel Wilson. Thank you to my friends who supported me throughout the dissertation process. Josh Levy and I have encouraged each other’s progress by meeting once a week for the past four years to work on our dissertations. Thank you to Stefan Djordjevic, Tamaki Levy, Devin Smart, Megan White, Mohammed Azeem Sheikh, Phil Russ, Thaís Rezende Da Silva De Sant'ana, Dylan Thomas, Michael Brinks, Agata Chmiel, Anca Mandru, Thomas Day, Milo Shaoqing Wang, Seth Vermaaten, Hooman Latifi, Anja Sturm, Denimir Velchev (rest in peace), Ventseslava Velcheva, Klaus Recht, and Andrés Hildebrandt.