2021-01-29 Fri

Romain Rolland was a French novelist, dramatist, and essayist, an idealist. He was deeply involved with pacifism, the fight against fascism, the search for world peace, and the analysis of artistic genius. Rolland awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1915.

His most famous novel is the 10-volume novel sequence Jean-Christophe (1904–1912), which brings "together with his interests and ideals in the story of a German musical genius who makes France his second home and becomes a vehicle for Rolland's views on music, social matters and understanding between nations". His other novels are Colas Breugnon, Clerambault, Pierre et Luce and his second roman-fleuve, the 7-volume L'ame enchantee.

The art historian and mystic, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1915 "as a tribute to the lofty idealism of his literary production and to the sympathy and love of truth with which he has described different types of human beings".

He was a leading supporter of Josef Stalin in France and is also noted for his correspondence with and influence on Sigmund Freud. Depicted here is a stamp from the USSR which commemorates the 100th anniversary of Romain Rolland’s birth in 1866.

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