Виктор Шёльшер: французский аболиционист и борец за свободу

19th century French abolitionist

Victor Schœlcher (viktɔʁ ʃœlʃɛʁ; 22 July 1804 – 25 December 1893) was a French abolitionist, writer, politician and journalist, best known for his leading role in the abolition of slavery in France in 1848, during the Second Republic.

Schœlcher was born in Paris on 22 July 1804. His father, Marc Schœlcher (1766–1832), from Fessenheim in Alsace, was the owner of a porcelain factory. His mother, Victoire Jacob (1767–1839), from Meaux in Seine et Marne, was a laundry maid in Paris at the time of their marriage. He was baptized in Saint Laurent Church on 9 September 1804. He enrolled in the Lycée Louis le Grand in 1818, but left one year later and began working at the family's porcelain factory in the rue du Faubourg Saint Denis. In his teenage years Schœlcher became an opponent of the Bourbon monarchy while frequenting the literary and political salons of Paris. which was at the time very strongly politicized, not to say openly revolutionary. He later moved to another Parisian lodge, La Clémente Amitié.

In homage to his fight against slavery, the commune of Case Navire (Martinique) took the name of Schœlcher in 1888. The commune of Fessenheim turned his family's house into the Victor Schœlcher museum. The Place Victor Schœlcher in Aix en Provence is named after him. A street created at the south eastern corner of the Montparnasse Cemetery in Paris was named Rue Schœlcher in 1894 and Rue Victor Schœlcher in 2000. Two ships of the French Navy have been named Victor Schœlcher – an auxiliary cruiser during World War II, and a Commandant Rivière class frigate in service from 1962 to 1988. On 20 May 2020, two statues of Schœlcher were destroyed in Martinique. French President Emmanuel Macron criticized the acts. Another statue was destroyed in March 2021; their destruction was supported by activists from the separatist "National Front for the Liberation of Martinique", and represents part of wider protests against "colonial memory". He was honored by the department of Réunion on a commemorative note of five thousand francs first issued in 1946.