Sans-culottes(French sans-culottes) - the name of revolutionary-minded poor people in Paris during the Great French Revolution. The word comes from the expression sans culotte, that is, “without culottes”: in the 18th century, men from the rich classes wore culottes (short tight pants just below knees) with stockings, and the poor and artisans wore long trousers. The sans-culottes actively participated in the activities of revolutionary committees and Parisian sections and played a decisive role in the overthrow of the monarchy and the Girondins; they acted under the leadership of the “mad” Hébertists as active agents of revolutionary terror and radical economic and social measures. On July 14, 1789, the Parisian sans-culottes broke into the armory royal soldiers and stole about 30 thousand muskets there. Then, having distributed their weapons, the Parisians marched on the Bastille. A battle broke out, after which the prison garrison capitulated. The uprising spread throughout France. With the outbreak of the Revolutionary Wars in April 1792, the sans-culottes played a predominant role in the National Guard, stormed the Tuileries Palace in August and overthrew the monarchy. After the above events, sans-culottes dominated the organs of the revolutionary local government. In June 1793, they helped the Jacobins come to power and in September forced the Convention to unleash terror. With its beginning, many civil servants began to dress “a la sans-culotte”. The sans-culottes themselves demanded greater control over prices and incomes, accusing the government of excessive liberalism. In 1792-1795, any radical revolutionaries began to be figuratively called sans-culottes. In days 9-10 of Thermidor, in these troubled hours of confusion and disorientation ordinary people in sections confused by the mutually exclusive orders of the Convention and the Commune, the sans-culottes of Paris, driven by revolutionary instinct, came to the defense of the Revolutionary Government, Robespierre, Saint-Just. One can foresee objections: not all sans-culottes supported Robespierre and the Commune, some hesitated, some came out in support of the Convention. The sans-culottes supported the most radical revolutionary politicians - Hébert, then Robespierre and the Committee of Public Safety. After the fall of Robespierre, the sans-culottes lost political influence.

The revolution eliminated the conflict between the state and civil society and led to the rapid decentralization of power. True, liberal rational schemes - separation of powers (harmony of legislative, executive and judicial powers), balance between the capital and the periphery - were not designed for similar conditions of a gigantic crisis. The revolution gave birth to a democratic state, but in the course of its development it increasingly multiplied examples of the discrepancy between real practice and the theory of human rights. The principles of the “Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen” that she proclaimed turned out to be fundamentally utopian. Liberal structures in 1792 were supplanted by democratic and partly new authoritarian structures. The Girondin attempt to achieve a synthesis and create a liberal democracy failed. Small people created their own political organizations, their cells of power. The sans-culottes rejected liberalism in all its guises. The development of the revolution went from crisis to crisis; government structures and mechanisms were required to overcome them political activity a very special kind, created not for centuries, but only for a time of exceptional circumstances. The movement towards democracy was accompanied by a rejection of some of its foundations and, thus, was at the same time a movement towards dictatorship. Politics subordinated state life, although it was precisely for the sake of the autonomous, unhindered development of civil society that the revolution was largely carried out. After the uprising of May 31 - June 2, 1793, the Convention was no longer a full-fledged representative institution. The principles of direct democracy have replaced the principles of representative democracy. The people, represented by the sans-culottes movement, brought to power a political group that was most attentive to their needs; the Jacobins were democrats, but by force of circumstances they created a dictatorship. In order to establish democracy in the future, they began to eradicate democracy in the present. The incompatibility of revolutionary democracy and revolutionary dictatorship gave rise to the spiritual crisis of both Robespierre and the Jacobin republic. In the summer of 1794, the revolutionary minority - the Jacobins and sans-culottes - lost the ability to lead the country and the state.

The section is very easy to use. In the field provided, just enter the right word, and we will give you a list of its values. I would like to note that our site provides data from various sources - encyclopedic, explanatory, word-formation dictionaries. Here you can also see examples of the use of the word you entered.

Meaning of the word sans-culottes

sans-culottes in the crossword dictionary

Encyclopedic Dictionary, 1998

sans-culottes

SANCULOTTES (from the French sans - without and culotte - short pants) is a term from the times of the Great French Revolution. Aristocrats called representatives of the urban poor sans-culottes, who, unlike the nobles, wore long pants rather than short ones. During the years of the Jacobin dictatorship, sans-culottes were the self-name of revolutionaries.

Sans-culottes

(French sans-culottes, from sans ≈ without and culotte ≈ short pants), a term used during the French Revolution. Initially, S. aristocrats contemptuously referred to their political opponents as representatives of the urban poor, who wore long trousers made of coarse material (in contrast to the nobles and bourgeois, who wore short trousers with silk stockings); later (especially during the years of the Jacobin dictatorship) the term “S.” becomes the self-name of a patriot, revolutionary.

Lit.: Sobul A., Parisian sans-culottes during the Jacobin dictatorship, [trans. from French], M., 1966.

Wikipedia

Sans-culottes

Sans-culottes- the name of revolutionary-minded representatives of the “third estate” in Paris during the Great French Revolution, mainly bourgeois.

The word comes from the expression sans culotte, that is, “without culottes”: in the 18th century, noble men from the upper classes wore culottes (short, tight pants just below the knees) with stockings, while the poor and artisans wore long trousers.

On July 14, 1789, Parisian sans-culottes broke into the armory of the royal soldiers and seized about 30 thousand muskets there. Then, having distributed their weapons, the Parisians marched on the Bastille. A battle broke out, after which the prison garrison capitulated. The uprising spread throughout France.

With the outbreak of the Revolutionary Wars in April 1792, the sans-culottes played a predominant role in the National Guard, stormed the Tuileries Palace in August and overthrew the monarchy. After the above events, sans-culottes dominated the revolutionary local government.

In June 1793, they helped the Jacobins come to power and in September forced the Convention to unleash terror. With its beginning, many civil servants began to dress “a la sans-culotte”. The sans-culottes themselves demanded greater control over prices and incomes, accusing the government of excessive liberalism.

In 1792 - 1795, any radical revolutionaries began to be figuratively called sans-culottes.

The sans-culottes supported the most radical revolutionary politicians - Hébert, then Robespierre and the Committee of Public Safety.

After the fall of Robespierre, the sans-culottes lost political influence.

Examples of the use of the word sans-culottes in literature.

With wild screams sans-culottes hundreds of hands grab him, piteously begging for mercy, and drag him across the Place de Grève to the lamppost at the corner of the Rue Vannerie to hang him up.

Woe to the country that is being trampled sans-culottes, threateningly knocking with wooden shoes on the day of vengeance!

Maenads and sans-culottes they huddle in guardhouses, barracks of the Flanders, where cheerful lights burn, and if there is not enough space there, then in churches, public places, gatehouses - wherever poverty can take refuge.

Stunned, brilliant seniors stand biting their nails: these sans-culottes don't run like chickens!

Freedom equality Brotherhood - sans-culottes They will look for these things not in the money bag, but in another place.

Such a confusing upheaval of all trade relations sans-culottes they want to maintain their existence, since this is impossible in any other way.

Nevertheless, the Gironde insisted on the creation of a Commission of Twelve - a commission specifically appointed to investigate the disorders in the legislative sanctuary: let sans-culottes they say what they want, the rule of law must prevail.

The soldiers of Lafayette's army, like all soldiers, experience a vague feeling that they themselves sans-culottes in leather belts, that the victory on August 10 is their victory.

In many cases sans-culottes- the self-name of revolutionaries who supported the Jacobin dictatorship or opposed it from extreme left positions.

Jacobins and sans-culottes sought the same social transformation in the interests of the petty-bourgeois majority that the Legislative Assembly sought694.

In 1787, the activities of scientific and literary clubs were banned in France: the king considered that it was harmful for his subjects to think. However, already in 1789, with the beginning of the revolution, purely political clubs began to form: progressive minds were going to speculate on the topic “how can we organize France.” What kind of clubs were these? And who ended up becoming the main one? driving force Great Revolution?

Girondins

The club arose from a circle of lawyers from the Gironde, a department in southwestern France. Hence the name.

Admirers of Rousseau, the Girondins fiercely advocated the overthrow of the monarchy and even dreamed of “fanning a world fire”, liberating all of Europe from the oppressors. However, they feared the trial of the king, believing that terror would follow.

Among the Girondins there were plenty of eloquent speakers (lawyers, after all), but there was a lack of talented organizers. In 1793-94, most of them had to get acquainted with the “corrupt girl of the revolution” - the guillotine.

As one of the Girondins, Pierre Vergniaud, said, going to the scaffold, “The revolution, like Saturn, devours its children.”

Cordilleras

They called themselves the Society of Friends of Human and Civil Rights. But since these “friends” gathered in the monastery of the Franciscan Cordeliers, this monastic name soon stuck to them.

They cursed the enemies of the republic and defended the rights of the common people. At the meetings of the club there were also naked sans-culottes, and - which was an unheard-of innovation at that time - even women. The leaders among the Cordeliers were the magnificent orator Georges Danton and the journalist Camille Desmoulins.

After the king's attempt to emigrate, the Cordeliers led the republican movement; After the overthrow of the monarchy, they fought to the death with the Girondins - and soon merged with the Jacobins.

Jacobins

This club also bears a monastic name: the meeting point for the Jacobins was the Dominican monastery of St. James. They called themselves friends of freedom and equality. At meetings of the Convention, Jacobin deputies sat on the highest benches, under the very ceiling, or, as they said then, “on the Mountain” (la Montagne); hence another name for them - Montagnards, that is, mountaineers.

The club was quite heterogeneous: its right wing was led by Danton, the left by Marat, and the center by Robespierre. However, the club’s program was the same: the development of the revolution and the defense of its gains.

Having come to power in 1793, the Jacobins immediately established a revolutionary democratic dictatorship.

Feuillants

At one time they spun off from the Breton Club, that is, actually from the future Jacobins. The reason for the isolation of the Feuillants was their dissatisfaction with the radical views of comrades like Robespierre.

The leaders of the Feuillants - Lafayette, Barnave, the Lamet brothers - stood for a constitutional monarchy; their blue dream was a compromise between the big bourgeoisie and liberal-minded aristocrats. They called to finally stop the revolution and live in peace; It was on this basis that the Jacobins, after the overthrow of the king, closed down the Feuillants club, declaring them traitors and evil counters.

Swamp, aka Plain, aka Belly

Actually, it was not a club at all, but simply the overwhelming majority of the deputies of the Convention, who leaned either to the left or to the right, supported first one or the other, depending on the situation. Accordingly, the speakers had the task of winning over the Swamp so that it would vote properly.

Sans-culottes

This was the name given to the workhorses of the revolution - all radical representatives of the third estate. It was through their efforts that the Bastille and the Tuileries were stormed, and the monarchy was overthrown by their hands.

Unlike aristocrats, who sported short trousers or culottes, commoners wore comfortable long trousers; hence the name - sans-culottes.

After 1792, all radical revolutionaries began to be called this way - although, for example, Robespierre wore real culottes.

Chouans

Peasants speaking out for the king - sounds wild, doesn’t it? However, the Shuans were formed precisely from such people.

Why would peasants from the north-west of France come to the defense royal power and the Catholic Church? Everything is very simple: some did not like the Jacobin requisitions, others had heard enough of the propaganda of the sweet-voiced royalists, and others simply did not want to join the army and fight.

The Chouans behaved like real robbers, living by raiding - even after the Jacobins lost power. Only in 1803 were they finally defeated.