Léopold Sédar Senghor (Joal, Senegal, October 9th 1906 - Verson, France, December 20th 2001) was a Poète, writer and Politician Senegalese. Symbol of the French co-operation in Africa for one or of the French neocolonialism for the others. It was the first president of Senegal (1960 - 1980). Senghor was also the first African to sit at the French Academy.

Biography

1906 - 1928: childhood sénégalaise

Léopold Sédar Senghor was born on October 9th, 1906 with Joal, coastal small town located at the south of Dakar, Senegal. His/her father, Basile Diogoye Senghor, were a commercial catholic pertaining to the middle-class sérère, a minority ethnos group in Senegal. Originating in Djilor, his/her mother, Gnilane Ndiémé Bakhou (- 1948), that Senghor calls in Élégies “Nyilane the soft one”, belongs to the ethnos group sérére and the line " tabor". It is the third wife of Basile Senghor. She had six children, including two boys. The first name sérére Sedar of Senghor means “that one cannot humiliate”. Its first name " Léopold" he was given by his/her father in remembering rich Léopold Angrand trading mulatto friends and specific employer of his father. Senghor began its studies in Senegal, initially in the Fathers of the Holy Spirit with Ngazobil, then in Dakar with the college-seminar and the public school. It is already impassioned of French literature. Once its baccalaureat out of pocket, it obtained a purse to continue its higher learning in France.

1928 - 1944: the wandering

Senghor arrives in France in 1928. That will mark the beginning of “sixteen years of wandering”, according to its dires. It will be first of all student with the Sorbonne but very quickly discouraged, it will continue in Hypokhâgne and Louis-the-Large Khâgne with where it prepares the entrance examination to the National university. It there côtoie Paul Guth, Henri Queffélec, Robert Verdier and Georges Pompidou with which it will bind friendship. It also meets there Aimé Césaire for the whole first time. After a failure with the entrance examination, it decides to prepare the aggregation Grammaire. For aggregation, it makes a request for naturalization. It obtains the aggregation of Grammaire in 1935, after a first not crowned attempt at success. Contrary to what is often said, Senghor was not first aggregate African. Actually, the first Senegalese received at Normale Sup east Omar Diop Cableway which was in particular one of the actors of the film Chinese the of Jean-Luc Godard.

It begins its career from teacher to the Lycée Descartes with Tours then with the Lycée Marcellin-Berthelot of Saint-Maur-of-Ditches, in the Paris region. In addition to its activities of teacher, it follows courses of Linguistique négro-African exempted by Lilias Homburger to the practical École of the high studies and those of Marcel Cohen, Marcel Mauss and of Paul Rivet with the Institut of ethnology of Paris.

In 1939, Senghor is enlisted as officer of the French Army in the 59e division of colonial infantry. One year later, it is stopped and made captive by the Germans with the Charity-on-Loire. It is interned in various camps then with the Face Stalag 230 of Poitiers, a prison camp reserved for the colonial troops. The Germans wanted to shoot it the very same day its imprisonment as well as the other black soldiers present. They will escape this massacre while exclaiming “Lives France, lives the Black Africa”. The Germans lower their weapons because a French officer their fact of understanding that a purely racist massacre would harm the honor of the Aryan race and the German army. On the whole, Senghor will spend two years in the prison camps, time that it will devote to the drafting of poems. In 1942, it is released, due to disease. It takes again its activities of teacher and takes part in the resistance within the framework of the university National front.

1945: the politician

1945 - 1960: in colonial France

The shortly after the war, it takes again the pulpit of linguistics to the National school of France of overseas which it will occupy until the independence of Senegal in 1960. During one of his voyages of research on Sérère poetry in Senegal, the local leader of the Socialists, Lamine Gueye proposes to him to be parliamentary candidate. Senghor accepts and is elected appointed Senegal-Mauritania district with the French National Assembly where the colonies have just obtained the right to be represented. He dissociated himself Rolls Guèye about the strike of the railwaymen of the Dakar-Niger line. This last vote against because the social movement paralyzed the colony whereas Senghor supports the movement, which was worth a great popularity to him. In 1946, Senghor Marie with Swept Ginette, the girl of Felix Swept, general governor of the French equatorial Africa with which it had two wire, Francis-Arphang (1947-) and Guy-Wali (1948-1984). It will devote the poem to him “Songs for Naëtt” included in the collection of “Night” poems under the title “Songs for Signares”.

Extremely of its success, it leaves year following section African of Section French of International worker (SFIO) which had supported financially mainly the social movement, and with Mamadou Dia the democratic Bloc founds Senegalese (1948), which gained the legislative elections of 1951. Lamine Guèye loses its seat.

Re-elected appointed in 1951 like independent of Overseas, he is Secretary of State to the presidency of the Council in the government Edgar Faure from March 1st, 1955 to February 1st, 1956, becomes mayor of Thiès in Senegal in November 1956 then minister adviser of the Gouvernement Michel Debré, from July 23rd, 1959 to May 19th, 1961. He was also member of the charged commission to work out the constitution of the Fifth Republic, general adviser of Senegal, member of the Large Council of Africa Occidentale French and member of the parliamentary Assemblée of the Council of Europe.

Meanwhile, he divorced his first wife in 1956 and remaria the following year Colette Hubert, a Frenchwoman originating in Normandy with which he had a son, Philippe-Maguilen (- 1981). He will devote collection “Letters of Wintering” to his second wife. Senghor makes appear in 1964 the first volume of a series of five volumes entitled Liberté . They are collections of speech, short speeches, tests and forewords.

1960 - 1980: in Senegal

Senghor is an enthusiastic defender of the federalism for the African States lately independent, a kind of " The Commonwealth with the française". January 13rd, 1957, a “African convention” is created. Convention claims the creation of two federations in French Africa. Senghor is wary of the balkanization of the AOF in eight small states. The federalism not obtaining the favor of the African countries, it decides to form, with Modibo Keïta, transitory the Fédération of Mali with old French Sudan (current the Mali). The federation of Mali is made up in January 1959 and gathers Senegal, French Sudan, the Dahomey (current the Bénin) and the the Upper Volta (current the Burkina Faso). One month after, Dahomey and the Upper Volta leave the federation refusing its ratification. The two federalists share the responsibilities. Senghor takes the presidency of the federal assembly. Modibo Keïta assumes the chairmanship of the government. The internal dissensions cause the bursting of the federation of Mali. August 20th, 1960, Senegal proclaims its independence and on September 22nd, Modibo Keïta proclaims the independence of French Sudan which becomes the République of Mali.

Elected official the September 5th 1960, Senghor chairs the any news République of Senegal. He is the author of the Senegalese national anthem, the red Lion. The Prime Minister, Mamadou Dia, is in charge of the installation of the long-term development plan of Senegal while Senghor is in load of the international relations. The two men enter quickly in conflict. In December 1962, Mamadou Dia is stopped and suspecté to have tried a coup d'etat. There will remain twelve years in prison. Following this event, Senghor founds a presidential regime. The Senghor March 22nd, 1967 escapes an attack. The culprit will be condemned to death.

He resigns of the presidency, before the term of its fifth mandate, in December 1980. Abdou Diouf replaces it with the head of the capacity. Under its presidency, Senegal founded the multi-party system (limited to three components: Socialist, Communist and liberal), as well as a powerful education system. Senghor is often recognized to be a democrat. Nevertheless, it repressed several student's movements violently.

Francophonie

It supported the creation of the Francophonie and was the vice-president of the High-Council of the Francophonie.

In 1982, it was one of the founders of Association France and Pays in the process of development whose objectives were to cause a conscientisation of the problems of development of the countries of the South, within the framework of a recasting of the civilizing data.

1983: the academician

He is elected with the French Academy the June 2nd 1983, with the 16 {{E}} armchair, where he succeeds the duke of Lévis-Mirepoix. He is first African to be sat at the French Academy, this one thus continuing his process of opening after the entry of Marguerite Yourcenar. The ceremony by which Senghor enters the circle of the academicians takes place on March 29th, 1984, in the presence of François Mitterrand.

2001: its funerals

In 1993, appears the last volume of the Liberté : Freedom 5: the dialog of the cultures .

It spent the last years of its existence near his wife, with Verson, in Normandy where it is deceased the December 20th 2001. Its funerals took place the December 29th 2001 with Dakar in the presence of Raymond Forni, president of the National Assembly and Charles Josselin, Secretary of State near the Foreign Minister, responsible for the Francophonie. Jacques Chirac and Lionel Jospin, respectively president of the French Republic and Prime Minister for the time did not go there. This lack of recognition caused a sharp polemic. The parallel was made with the Senegalese Tirailleurs which, after having contributed to the release of France, had to wait more than 40 years to have the right to perceive a pension equivalent (in term of purchasing power) to that their French counterparts. The academician Erik Orsenna wrote in Le Monde a point of view entitled: “I have shame”. In the literary and poetic circles, the absence of the first two French political officials to these funerals was even more severely judged. One could read: avoiding oneself seeing their skimped vision of the world confronted with the extent of the intellectual power of the African poet, from a purely ontological point of view, their absence even is a supreme homage paid to the cantor of the francophonie .

The armchair number 16 of the French Academy left vacant by the death of the Senegalese poet, it will be another former president, Valery Giscard d'Estaing who will replace it. As the tradition wants it, it will pay homage to its predecessor at the time of a speech of reception given the December 16th 2004. Confronted with the puzzle senghorien, it will decide to present the various facets of Senghor “Of the steady pupil, then of the uprooted student; of the poet of the anti-colonial and anti-slavery dispute, then of the cantor of the négritude; and finally of the poet alleviated by the Francization of part of its culture, with research remote, and undoubtedly ambiguous, of a world cultural interbreeding”.

Senghor received many decorations during its life, of which the Grand Cross of the Legion of honor, the Grand-croix of the national order of the Merit, Commandeur of Arts and the Letters, Commandeur of the academic Palms and Grand-croix about the Lion of Senegal. Its feats of arms will be worth the medal of the free-allied Recognition 1939-1945 and the to him Croix of combatant 1939-1945. It is Honorary doctor of thirty-seven universities. The international university of French language of Alexandria inaugurated in 1990 bears its name.

Poetry

Its poetry primarily Symbolist, founded on the song of the word spell-binding, is built on the hope to create a Civilization of Universal, federating the traditions across their differences. Senghor estimated that the language symbolic of poetry could constitute the bases of this project. In 1978, Senghor accepted the world price Cino Del Duca.

The poem With the call of the race of Sheba appeared in 1936 is inspired by the entry of the Italian troops with Addis-Abeba.

It also formed part of the first committees of the Société of the Poets and Artists of France (the SPAF) in the Années 1950 and 1960.

Négritude

Whereas it was student, it created in company of the inhabitant of Martinique Aimé Césaire and of the Guianese Leon Gontran Damas the review protestor the black Student in 1934. It is in these pages that it will express for the first time its design of the Négritude, concept introduced by Aimé Césaire, in a text entitled “Négrerie”. Césaire defines it as follows: “Négritude is the simple recognition because of being black, and the acceptance so of our destiny of Black, our history and our culture”. Senghor explains in these terms the concept of Négritude “Négritude, it is the whole of the cultural values of the black world, such that they are expressed in the life, the institutions and works of the Blacks. I say that it is a reality there: a node of realities” ( Freedom 1, Négritude and Humanisme, p. 9 ).

Policy

Although Socialist, Senghor kept away from the ideologies Marxist and anti-Western become popular in post-colonial Africa, supporting the maintenance of close links with France and the western world. Much sees there a decisive contribution in the political stability of the country - which remains one of the rare African nations to have never had coup d'etat and to have had always peaceful transfers of the capacity.

Works

Poems

  • Songs of shade, poems (the Threshold) 1945

  • black Hosts, poems (the Threshold) 1948
  • Ethiopiques (the Threshold) 1956
  • Night, poems (the Threshold) 1961
  • Letters of wintering, poems (the Threshold) 1973
  • major Elegies, poems (the Threshold) 1979
  • Guélowar or prince (the Threshold 1948)
  • Night of Sine
  • rush of gold

Tests

  • Anthology of the new negro and Malagasy poetry of French language, preceded by black Orphée by JP.Sartre 1948 (PUF)

  • Freedom 1: Négritude and Humanism, speech, conferences (the Threshold) 1964
  • Freedom 2: Nation and African Way of Socialism, speech, conferences (the Threshold) 1971
  • Freedom 3: Négritude and Civilization of Universal, speech, conferences (the Threshold) 1977
  • Freedom 4: Socialism and Planning, speech, conferences (the Threshold) 1983
  • Freedom 5: The dialog of the cultures (the Threshold) 1992
  • the Poetry of the action, dialogs (Stock) 1980
  • what I believe: Négritude, francity, and civilization of universal (Grasset) the 1988

Literature youth

  • Leuk-the-Hare Beautiful story (in collaboration) (Hatchet) 1953

Distinctions

  • Member of the French Academy,

  • Member corresponding of the Bavarian Academy,
  • foreign Member of the Academy of Science morals and political,
  • foreign Member of the Academy of Science, the humanities and arts of Bordeaux,
  • foreign Member of the Academy of Science of overseas,
  • foreign Member of the Black Academy off Arts and Letters,
  • foreign Member of the Academy Mallarmé,
  • foreign Member of the Academy of the kingdom of Morocco

Decorations

  • Grand Cross about the Lion of the Senegal

It is also titular very many foreign decorations.

Price, medals

  • Gold medal of the French language;

  • international Grand Prix of poetry of the Company of the poets and artists of France and French language (1963);
  • Gold medal of the poetic merit of the international prize Dag Hammarskjöld (1965);
  • Red and Green international Grand Prix literary (1966);
  • Price of the Peace of the German booksellers (1968);
  • Literary prize of the international Academy of arts and letters of Rome (1969);
  • international Grand Prix of poetry of Biennial of Knokke-le-Zoute (1970);
  • Price Guillaume Apollinaire (1974);
  • Prince in poetry (1977)
  • world Price Cino Del Duca (1978);
  • International prize of the book, (World community of the book, UNESCO, 1979);
  • Price for the whole of its work, decreed by the president Sadate (1980);
  • Gold medal of CISAC (international Confederation of the companies of authors and type-setters);
  • First world price Aasan;
  • Price Alfred de Vigny (1981);
  • Athénaï Price, in Athens (1985);
  • International prize of the gold Lion, Venice (1986);
  • Price Louise Michel, Paris (1986);
  • Price of the Mount-Saint-Michel, (1986);
  • Price Intercultura, Rome (1987)

Homages

  • Commemorative plaque, located in the town of Quebec, with the Quebec.

  • the college of Corbeny (Aisne) bears its name, in remembering near the one of his/her parents who had fought on the Chemin of the Ladies.

  • on November 10th, 2007 was inaugurated the new school Léopold Sédar Senghor (elementary) with Clamart, in the Hauts-de-Seine, in homage to, the academician man of letters of African origin and 1st president of Senegal, in the presence of the representative of the ambassador of Senegal in France.

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