The man who wanted to put the Orient in a book
A key figure in Orientalism, Victor Chauvin compiled a bibliography of works on the Arab-Muslim world published in Europe in the 19th century. A work that opens the door to an important intellectual heritage.
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victor Chauvin left behind a considerable intellectual and heritage legacy. As an orientalist at the University of Liège from 1865 to 1913, he undertook the compilation of a Pharaonic bibliography, listing "Arabic or Arab-related writings published in Europe between 1810 and 1885". More than a bibliography, the twelve volumes that make it up offer summaries, annotations, commentaries and details of the various editions and translations for each work listed. With the famous collection of the Thousand and One Nights, the scholar from Liège takes his work to the extreme, proposing a pioneering narrative typology for the tales that make it up. The result is a voyage steeped in exoticism, where the quest for lost manuscripts inflames the circles closest to Louis XIV, and where Chauvin, a Cartesian positivist and insatiable bibliophile, takes knowledge of the Muslim world to a level hitherto unheard of in the West.
You'd have to go back to the end of the 19th century to see the candid silhouette of Victor Chauvin strolling through the corridors of the University of Liège. The Orientalist, a great scholar and bibliophile who was particularly demanding of himself and his students, did not shy away from popularization. In the academic hall, he overcame his great shyness to give masterly lectures accessible to all. These meetings were well attended. Orientalism was enjoying its heyday. Since the Renaissance, academics have been increasingly interested in the knowledge, law, history, religions, art and folklore of regions that were once shrouded in the shadow of a European-centric civilization. Outside academia, the East, fantasized through fairy tales and legends, is fascinating. At the crossroads of these worlds, and driven by an insatiable thirst for knowledge, Victor Chauvin quickly became an emblematic figure of Orientalism. His work was followed the world over, and he maintained a prolific correspondence with many of his peers and students. he was a meticulous man of integrity, who always sought the help or advice of his contemporaries to complete his projects," explains Frédéric Bauden, Professor and Director of the Service de langue arabe, études islamiques et histoire de l'art musulman at the Université de Liège." The way in which he involves other researchers to comment on his work or stimulate others, or participates in international congresses, leads to an emulation that could be likened to a veritable network. But the main reason for this international recognition remains the heart of his research, and more specifically, his Bibliographie des ouvrages arabes ou relatifs aux Arabes publiés dans l'Europe chrétienne de 1810 à 1885, in twelve volumes.
A multidisciplinary chair
Until the 1980s, orientalism at ULg was only part of a bachelor's degree course, and therefore supplementary to a first course. Victor Chauvin first studied law and worked as a lawyer, before turning in 1865 to learning Arabic and Hebrew with Pierre Burggraff, the first holder of the Chair of Orientalism at the University of Liège. this chair was created in 1837," explains Frédéric Bauden. But as early as the founding act of the University of Liège, drawn up twenty years earlier by William I, it was mentioned that the institution should provide for the teaching of oriental languages. It was created as the secular counterpart to the Catholic University of Louvain, and was to provide advice on the fundamental texts of the main religions. This included Islamic and Hebrew cultures." In 1872, Victor Chauvin inherited his mentor's chair, which he held until his death in 1913. During his 41-year career, he taught Arabic, of course, but not only Arabic. "In particular, he retained a predilection for his first love, and initiated a course on Muslim law In addition to this interest, he also has a passion for books. "He's a real bibliophile. He buys numerous contemporary and antique works, some dating back to the 16th century. Most are editions of texts or works published in Europe on the Arab-Muslim world. The collection includes thousands of works, and conceals some very valuable items, including the only surviving copy of an 18th-century Liège edition of the tale of "Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves" It was this bibliophily that led Victor Chauvin to embark on a bibliographic census, which he continued unfinished until the end of his life.
From passion to essential work
At the end of the 19th century, many scientists were won over by the sweet illusion that it was possible to constrain the understanding of the universe through science. The aim was to collect, catalog, systematize, compare observations and draw up systems. This was the era of positivism. Victor Chauvin proved to be a child of his time, and set about writing his voluminous bibliography. "In the 19th century, the publication of oriental texts was booming, both in the Arab world and in the West. Students and scholars alike, outside their own specialties, were unaware of what existed. They spend precious time compiling their own bibliographies. Victor Chauvin's ambition is to provide them with a tool that will enable them to make faster progress in their research." Initially, this contribution is intended to list all Arab or Arab-related works published in Christian Europe between 1810 and 1885. Why 1810? Simply because two German directories(Bibliotheca Arabica, by Friedrich Schnurrer in 1811, and Bibliotheca Orientalis, by Julius Theodor Zenker between 1846 and 1861) covered the subject up to that date. "Zenker's work covers the entire Orient. It includes India, China, Japan... Chauvin's intention was to continue Schnurrer's work The year 1885 was probably chosen to coincide with the start of the project.
However, Victor Chauvin's work soon took on new dimensions. The Orientalist extended his field of research to Muslim Europe, including the Ottoman Empire, and was unable to ignore the publications appearing between 1885 and the start of his census work. the scale of the task becomes unimaginable," comments Professor Bauden. Yet Victor Chauvin didn't stop there. He organized his bibliography by subject. The first volume opens with the major themes he intends to tackle in a precise order. He begins with sapiential literature. Proverbs first, then tales, literary plays and poetry, before moving on to Islamic religion, law, philosophy, medicine, Eastern Christian literature and so on. After that, he doesn't just list the titles. For each publication, he provides the various reprints, the chapters, their contents, information on these contents, on the authors..
Pioneering classification of the Arabian Nights
While each title receives its own meticulous treatment, Victor Chauvin pays particular attention to the Thousand and One Nights (see Le long périple des Mille et Une Nuits), devoting four of the twelve volumes to them. Far from a simple bibliography, the scholar uses narrative typology to study this famous collection. "It's quite a pioneering look. But that he should be so interested is hardly surprising. At the end of the 19th century, folklore studies were booming. Everything to do with the cultural productions of the people (stories, tales, popular songs and music...) was gaining favor in academic circles. Chauvin was part of this movement. Incidentally, he was very active in safeguarding Wallonia's folk heritage As for the rest, he mentions the various translations and editions, to which he adds the manuscripts, summarizing and commenting on the tales. He gives a title to tales that don't have one, and then observes similarities and correspondences between some of these tales and tales belonging to other heritages: Greek, Latin, Indian, Chinese... From these observations will come an Index of standard tales in which each tale can be classified. This Index will later be used to classify folk literature worldwide. For each tale, he then compares similar stories from other civilizations. For example, he makes the link between the tale of the enchanted horse, Don Quixote by Cervantes, and the Roumans de Cléomadès, by Adenet le Roi. " While Victor Chauvin's bibliography remains useful to anyone interested in 19th-century Arabic literature, his work on the Arabian Nights is a veritable bible. Those who study these tales cannot do without it
The hermeticity of the cigar box
Victor Chauvin died in 1913, leaving a project that was far from complete. In eleven volumes and a posthumous twelfth, the proof of which was corrected by one of his students, he had only been able to publish the bibliography listing sapiential literature, fairy tales, "serious" literature and the Koran. He was then preparing to continue with the prophetic tradition. A significant amount of manuscript data is still waiting to be deciphered in ULg's collections. In the digital age, the task might not seem so tedious. However, without a computer, data can only be compiled on index cards. and these are not yet the standardized cards we began to see in the 20th century," adds Frédéric Bauden. They are a mismatched collection of scraps of paper, torn and annotated newspaper margins, catalog inserts cut out and glued back together... In the end, there are estimated to be around a hundred thousand of them, classified by subject in cigar boxes. Unfortunately, they are unusable. Apart from the general subject to which they refer, these cards are placed in an order that escapes us. The handwriting is difficult to decipher, full of enigmatic notes and abbreviations peculiar to the author... It's virtually impossible for anyone other than Victor Chauvin to find his way around."
A considerable legacy
Although an unfinished sample of his ambitions, this bibliography remains an important intellectual legacy, to which must be added a considerable material heritage. The scholar bequeathed his collections to the University of Liège. The Chauvin collection is now housed in a separate room in the bookshop at Sart Tilman. In addition to his writings, correspondence and handwritten notes, it includes several thousand works acquired throughout his life. frédéric Bauden laments: "These collections are not always promoted enough . And yet, they are priceless. In particular, there's an Egyptian manuscript of the Arabian Nights, and Western editions of the tale, and so on. This manuscript made it possible to complete a thesis on the subject here at the University of Liège" Also in this collection is an anonymous notebook, seemingly innocuous, but which initiated a major turning point in Frédéric Bauden's career, migrating from Islamology to History. Chauvin bought this handwritten notebook at the beginning of the 20th century. He was unable to identify it, and attributed to it an origin dating back to the 18th century. "In the 1990s, while writing my thesis, I came across this notebook. A little later, quite by chance, I went to a conference in London. A number of publishers were present. One of them was selling a book whose cover was illustrated with a photograph of a handwritten page by Ahmad al-Maqrîzî, a 15th-century Egyptian historian. The similarities between the two handwritings led me to believe that they had been written by the same hand. I now realized that I had access to a manuscript of exceptional scientific value. Once identified, I was able to observe how Maqrîzî worked. The notebook was abundantly annotated with summaries of other sources, some preserved, some lost. For the preserved sources, a comparative study enabled me to analyze how he made his summaries, what he retained, what he left, and then how he reworked them in his own published writings. In other words, I was able to study the modus operandi of a medieval Egyptian historian. I owe this unique opportunity indirectly to Victor Chauvin
Orientalism, an evolving view from the West
Like any other discipline, Orientalism is not a fixed science, nor is it independent of its time. It responds to issues and visions, echoes thought and helps it to evolve. Victor Chauvin, with his Cartesian and positivist outlook, is an eloquent witness to this. It's interesting to observe how Orientalism was able to germinate and evolve according to diplomatic positions between the West and the East. From a worldly Orientalist fever, in search of the exotic and fueled by travelers' tales and fairy tales, we need to distinguish a scholarly Orientalism, whose origins lie elsewhere. the first orientalist questions were posed in the Middle Ages with an apologetic concern," explains Frédéric Bauden. In other words, the angle was religious, and the ambition was to study the Koran in order to challenge its sanctity. Then, still in the religious sphere, other writings were translated by monks. These included the writings of Arab scholars, as well as Greek and Latin books translated into Arabic and lost or banned in Europe. These translations contributed to the European Renaissance. Subsequently, the acceptance of the Koran as a holy book was to grow and extend to the discovery of a Muslim culture gradually deemed worthy of interest" This recognition of Arabic literary and scientific texts, such as medicine and philosophy, naturally led to the development of the study of oriental languages.
In the 17th century, Colbert, Louis XIV's minister at the time, launched a major campaign to collect manuscripts found in the Ottoman Empire. The aim was to better understand the civilization from the inside. "The problem was that oriental studies were organized by the state to serve a colonial purpose. This collusion between the logic of the state and the scientific movement leads us to think, in a reduced way, that Orientalists have a colonial motivation, or that at the very least, their research serves only to establish the intellectual, religious and political superiority of the West. This is not always true. The Orientalist Antoine Galland, for example, maintains a scientific distance from his subject and treats Muslim civilization with deep interest. He makes no attempt to establish a hierarchy between biblical and Koranic writings The 19th century saw a systematization of Oriental studies, rationalized, practiced with new methods, discussed and put to the test at international congresses. This was the era of Victor Chauvin. And this orientalism developed and endured throughout the twentieth century. positions in relation to the object evolved, " concludes Professor Bauden. But it was after the 2001 terrorist attacks that a change of perspective took place. Until then, Orientalism had been interested in Muslim civilization from a historical perspective. The aim was to unearth its scholarly, popular and religious heritage. Today, there's a desire, a need for knowledge of Islam and Muslim culture from a contemporary perspective"
Un texte rédigé par Philippe Lecrenier
Scientific references
(1) Bibliography of Arab or Arab-related works published in Christian Europe from 1810 to 1885, Liège, Impr. Vaillant-Carmanne, 1892-1918, 12 vol.
(2) The Egyptian review of The Thousand and One Nights, Library of the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters of the University of Liège, 1899, Leaflet VI, 124 p. (Anastatic reprint 1993).
Frédéric Bauden
Frédéric Bauden completed his orientalist studies at ULB in 1988. Spotted by Professor Martin for his dissertation on Indian numismatics of the Muslim period, he was hired by the University of Liège to catalog a collection of 450 Arabic manuscripts bequeathed to the University two years earlier. In 1990, he was awarded an FNRS grant to write a thesis on the critical edition and translation of a 13th-century text on the history of the Prophet's close relatives. Frédéric Bauden's initial ambition was to specialize in Islamic art, but he decided to pursue a career in science. In 1999, he became first assistant, before taking over from his predecessor Professor Martin in 2001.
Since then, he has headed the Service de langue arabe, études islamiques et histoire de l'art musulman at the Université de Liège. He teaches a range of subjects including Arabic language and literature, religion, history and art history. For several years, he has specialized in history and philology, focusing on the Mamluk period in Egypt and Syria (13th-16th centuries). He has also deepened his critical study of the Egyptian historian al-Maqrîzî, after identifying an autograph notebook dating from the mid-15th century in the collections of the University of Liège.
He is a member of the Commission Internationale de Diplomatique and takes part in a number of international projects in the fields of numismatics, epigraphy and diplomacy. He also helped found the School of Mamluk Studies.
