Elise Reclus is a famous French scientist. He is a member of the Paris Geographical Society, who has made a significant contribution to the development of this science. Interestingly, throughout most of his life he was a staunch vegetarian and adhered to anarchist views.
Wanderlust
Elise Reclus was born in 1830. He was born in the French town of Sainte-Foy-la-Grand. He was fascinated by geography in his early youth, then he decided to make a detailed description of the geography of the planet Earth.
From these considerations, he begins to actively visit all countries of the world. Then he goes to remote corners of Africa, America and Asia. He went on his first travels as a child. He always had a craving for new knowledge, impressions did not allow him to stay in one place for a long time.
The future scientist sought to learn the history of mankind and the geography of the earth in practice. To do this, he traveled a lot around the world, and then in his office he worked on geographical guides that were published by the famous Ashet publishing house.
Earth andpeople
The most famous and significant work of Eliza Reclus is called "Earth and people". He published 18 volumes of this truly epoch-making work. The researcher took twenty years to do this. Starting to write in 1873, he finished only in 1893. A huge volume of about 900 pages was published annually. It contained many drawings, maps and drawings that gave a comprehensive idea of a particular area.
Jacques Elise Reclus independently collected all the materials in his continuous travels. Compilation of the final text took all his free time, demanding from him the maximum return in order to achieve the final result.
The history of the Earth is presented by Jean Elise Reclus as a body of knowledge about its climate, geography, population statistics, ethnography, nature and people. He was also always interested in what ordinary people do.
At the same time, his biographers have always noted that for all the significance of his figure, Jean-Jacques Elise Reclus has always been completely dependent on his wife. She gave him only a few cents a day for pocket money, knowing that he would do anything for science. Because of this, many could abuse his trust and kindness.
Contribution to science
Elise Reclus's contribution to geography was highly appreciated by his contemporaries, until now many scientists bow before his fundamental research called "Earth and People".
This is one of the first books that gave a complete and exhaustive description of the globe. Previously similarworks did not exist.
First trip
Elise Reclus set off on his first journey in 1842, when he was only 12 years old. He walked to the school, which was located in the German city of Neuwied, while he himself lived in the French department of the Gironde.
In 1851, Elise Reclus returned to his parents, again on foot. In Strasbourg, he met with his brother. They had a hard time, sleeping out in the open, often malnourished, on their way to Orthez, where their parents settled with their six youngest children.
Already in Orthez, they found out that Napoleon III came to power in the country. It was then that the anarchist views of Eliza Reclus first appeared, a brief biography of which is in this article. He began to call on those around him to oppose the monarchy, called on the people to protest, and even received an order to arrest him.
The brothers had to flee to England. It was in this country that he finally formed the idea to write a book about the whole Earth. He went to America first.
New World
To get to the US, Reclus got a job as a cook on a ship that was leaving from Liverpool. Having crossed the ocean, he landed in New Orleans. A countryman who had lived in America for several years helped him get a job as a French teacher. Then he managed to get a job as a tutor with a planter in Louisiana.
It was in Louisiana that Reclus began to devote his free time to swimming on the Mississippi River, visited Chicago andother American cities. As a result, he wrote several essays published in local magazines. The most famous of them was called "Mississippi and its banks".
In Louisiana, the Frenchman worked for a year, going from there to New Orleans. Boarded a ship to visit the countries of Central and South America. He visited Guiana, Colombia, conquered the Andes.
People's life
Reclus's research work has always been distinguished by the fact that he was interested not only in pictures of tropical nature, but also studied people's lives. In Colombia, he visited small villages, where he got acquainted with the life and customs of the indigenous Indians. For them, he was almost the first white man they saw.
It is noteworthy that Reclus sincerely loved the Indians, always feeling completely safe among them. In total, he spent about two years in South America. He returned to Europe only after Napoleon III announced an amnesty for all political emigrants. Reclus legally arrived in his homeland.
Return to France
Reclus settled in Paris, he began to live with the family of his brother, who returned a little earlier. Soon the hero of our article received an enviable order. The well-known publishing house "Ashet" asked him to compile a guide to European countries. To collect material, he went to Switzerland, Spain, Germany, Italy, visited all the largest countries on the continent.
In his reference book, the scientist included so many new, interesting andunusual facts that he began to compete with the famous German Baedeker guide, which had previously been very popular. In parallel, Reclus began to collaborate with geographical journals, his work began to pay attention in the scientific world, and soon the Paris Geographical Society accepted him into their ranks.
The landmark in the biography of Eliza Reclus was 1868, when he published the first volume of his studies en titled "Earth".
War with Prussia
Scientific research had to be interrupted due to the outbreak of war between Prussia and France. Reclus volunteered for the National Guard.
He often made sorties to the front line, once he was even arrested and sent to Brest for a court-martial. Being imprisoned, the hero of our article did not waste time, continuing to write down his impressions of the world around him, which later became the basis of his scientific works.
He spent six months in prison, after which he was sent to Versailles, where in 1871 he was sentenced to life exile on the island of New Caledonia. European scientists reacted with indignation to this decision, demanding that the French government immediately cancel the verdict. In England, a committee was even convened in defense of Reclus, which included Carpenter and Darwin.
The French government eventually succumbed, replacing exile with a ten-year exile from the country. In 1872 he was brought to Switzerland.
Life in Switzerland
Reclus settled in Zurich, soonmoved to Lugano, where he began work on the multi-volume work "Earth and People". The first five volumes were devoted to the description of European countries, another five - to Asian states. The eleventh volume included Australia and numerous Pacific islands. The French geographer devoted four more volumes to Africa, and four to America.
As part of these studies, he visited the Balkan Peninsula, again went to Italy, as well as to Hungary and Austria, visited North Africa. Returning to Lake Geneva, he began to devote all his free time to work on the "Universal Geography". For twelve years he published one volume each year.
Having conceived this project, Reclus wanted to visit all the countries of the world in person, but then he realized that this was beyond the power of one person. But he always tried to write based on fresh impressions. For example, never once, and without going to Russia, the geographer instructed the anarchist Pyotr Alekseevich Kropotkin to compile a detailed geography of our country.
In 1889, for the second time in his life, he went to North Africa to complete the sixteenth volume of his work, which he devoted entirely to the United States of America. In six months, he traveled to all major cities in Canada and the United States.
In 1890, Reclus returned to France, settling near Paris. In 1892, on a trip to South America, he completed the nineteenth volume. By that time, he was already 62 years old.
By 1905, Reclus was able to claim that he had completed the main work of his life.
The French geographer died in 1905 among friends and family. It is noteworthy that his last words were: "The revolution is coming! The revolution is approaching …". Here he showed himself as a true anarchist, who remained true to his convictions throughout his life.
Reclus was 75 years old. Belgium became his last refuge.
