An Inquiry into Cultural Semiotics: Germaine de Staël's Autobiographical Travel Accounts Cabak Rédei, Anna 2007 Link to publication Citation for published version (APA): Cabak Rédei, A. (2007). An Inquiry into Cultural Semiotics: Germaine de Staël's Autobiographical Travel Accounts. Lund University Div. of Semiotics Department of Art History and Musicology Box 117 SE-221 00 LUND. Total number of authors: 1 General rights Unless other specific re-use rights are stated the following general rights apply: Copyright and moral rights for the publications made accessible in the public portal are retained by the authors and/or other copyright owners and it is a condition of accessing publications that users recognise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights. • Users may download and print one copy of any publication from the public portal for the purpose of private study or research. • You may not further distribute the material or use it for any profit-making activity or commercial gain • You may freely distribute the URL identifying the publication in the public portal Read more about Creative commons licenses: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/ Take down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact us providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. LUND UNIVERSITY PO Box 117 221 00 Lund +46 46-222 00 00 AN INQUIRY INTO CULTURAL SEMIOTICS: G ERMAINE DE S TAËL’ S AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL TRAVEL ACCOUNTS Europe 1812. Map published with permission from The American Social History Project. Invasion of Russia, 1812. Map published with permission from The American Social History Project. Anna Cabak Rédei An Inquiry into Cultural Semiotics Germaine de Staël’s Autobiographical Travel Accounts Lund University Division of Semiotics at the Department of Art History and Musicology Lund 2007 Rédei, Anna Cabak An Inquiry into Cultural Semiotics: Germaine de Staël’s Autobiographical Travel Accounts. Lund University Division of Semiotics 2007 ISBN: 978–91–628–7109–3 © Anna Cabak Rédei, 2007. Graphic design: Anna Cabak Rédei Graphic production: KFS ab, Lund Printed with financial support from Crafoordska stiftelsen, Lund. Over hill, over dale, / Thorough bush, thorough brier, / Over park, over pale, / Thorough flood, thorough fire, / I do wander everywhere, / Swifter than the moonè’s sphere; / (Shakespeare, Fairy Land.) L’absence diminue les médiocres passions, et augmente les grandes, comme le vent éteint les bougies, et allume le feu. (La Rochefoucauld, Max. 276.) For my children C ONTENTS Acknowledgements............................................................................. i 1. Introduction ............................................................................ 1 2. Mme de Staël as a woman and writer .....................................10 A brief examination of Madame de Staël’s work .....................11 Madame de Staël, gender, and the public sphere ....................13 Corinne: the female artist........................................................21 Napoleon and Germaine: a story of exile ................................28 3. Cultural semiotics in perspective.............................................39 The study of text within semiotics ...........................................39 The Prague school and the focus on the receiver.....................43 The Tartu school theses..........................................................51 The canonical model and its revision ......................................53 Cultural semiotics and the study of history..............................59 Alter and Alius........................................................................62 Ego and Alter in we- and they-relations ..................................65 Text and Culture....................................................................68 Agent and act: or author and text ...........................................72 4. Dix années d’exil: Mme de Staël and Europe..............................76 Dix années d’exil: the journeys to Germany and Russia..........81 The writing of the first journey to Germany: general outlines..84 Weimar (14 December 1803 to 1 March 1804) .......................85 Mme de Staël, Goethe and Schiller.........................................87 Berlin (8 March to 19 April 1804) .........................................102 The encounter with Rahel Levin ..........................................105 Mme de Staël and German Romanticism: conclusion...........119 The second journey to Germany: Vienna 1807–8.................127 The grand tour 1812: travelling to Russia (via Habsburg) .....152 Poland, Mme de Staël and French politics ............................164 Journey through Galicia........................................................173 Visits to Princess Lubomirska................................................178 Travel through Russia or De la Russie..................................180 Mme de Staël’s correspondence with Alexander I: the glowing liberal meets the hesitant one................................................186 ‘Allons en Russie’..................................................................196 Kiev......................................................................................198 From Kiev to Moscow ..........................................................203 Moscow ................................................................................212 St. Petersburg .......................................................................218 The defeat of Moscow...........................................................234 The departure from St. Petersburg and the journey to Sweden through Finland....................................................................238 Summary and concluding remarks........................................241 5. Conclusions ..........................................................................249 Epilogue ...............................................................................268 6. References ............................................................................270 A CKNOWLEDGEMENTS During the years as a Ph.D. student, there have been many people who have supported me in various ways, and given me invaluable assistance. It would be impossible to thank all here by name, other than in this limited way. However, I owe a particular great debt of thanks to my advisors for being constant sources of inspiration, support and guidance throughout this work: Göran Sonesson, who has been the main dissertation supervisor, and Eva Österberg, who from the very beginning has been my assistant supervisor. Thanks are also due to my colleague Sara Lenninger for all the stimulating talks we have had during the years we have shared a room. Furthermore, I would like to thank the participants in the Seminar of Semiotics for being supportive regarding my work, and for being such a fine research forum. I have benefited a great deal from all those stimulating debates aiming at grasping the nature of signs, and in the end seeking to answer the question of what is to be human. I owe some specific thanks in this connection to Fred Andersson, Josef Borbas, Gunnar Sandin and Hans T. Sternudd. I have had the opportunity to present parts of my work at a number of seminars at Lund University and I am most grateful for all the comments that were given concerning my work, and the interest that was shown in it, at the seminars of: Art History (Department of Art History and Musicology), Biography (Centre for Gender Studies), and History (Department of History). I am also indebted to the National School for Historical Research for giving me the chance to take part in their activities, and in the same sense I would also like to express my gratitude to the Nordic Research School in Interdisciplinary Gender Studies. A special word of thanks to Jeff Bernard, Natalie Zemon Davis, Sara Edenheim, Lars Edgren, Linda Fagerström, Björn Fritz, Helen Fuchs, Maud Färnström, Tommy Gustafsson, Victoria Höög, Anna Jansdotter, Sara Jonsson, Bente Larsen, Max Liljefors, Anna Lena Lindberg, Nina Lykke, Cecilia Persson, Johanna Rosenqvist, Christina Sjöblad (and her seminar), Jan-Gunnar Sjölin, Kerstin Sundberg, Ann-Charlotte and Torsten Weimarck for reading and commenting or in other ways being of priceless assistance to me in i my work. Moreover, I would like to thank Lund University Library for always being so helpful. Finally, by thanking, tout court, Fiona Björling, Lars Steensland and Barbara Törnquist-Plewa at the Seminars of Slavic, and East and Central European Studies (Lund University, Centre for Languages and Literature), the wheel has come full circle. Lund, June 2007 Anna Cabak Rédei ii An Inquiry into Cultural Semiotics Germaine de Staël’s Autobiographical Travel Accounts The use of the term voice provides a constant reminder that even psychological processes carried out by an individual in isolation are viewed as involving processes of a communicative nature. […] In this connection both Vygotskij and Bakhtin believed that human communicative practices give rise to mental functioning in the individual. […] In this context, then, the term voice serves as a constant reminder that mental functioning in the individual originates in social, communicative processes.1 1. INTRODUCTION How is dialogue between people and cultures possible? What do we mean by dialogue? What type of communicative act is it? And when may we speak about a communicative act being non-dialogic? And finally,