Simone de Beauvoir was born in 1908 in Paris. Her father, Georges de Beauvoir, was a lawyer, a sybarite, an incorrigible philanderer and a convinced atheist. Frances, Simone's mother, is, on the contrary, a devout Catholic. She sent her two daughters to Catholic school. At the end of the First World War, the de Beauvoir family became impoverished. Father who invested his capital in stocks railways Russia, was now forced to work in a shoe factory. The carefree life was over: the servants were fired, and the family moved to a small apartment. Young Simone's only consolation was books. Her success in needlework, playing the piano and singing was more than mediocre. She had low grades in math due to poor handwriting.

Meeting with Jean-Paul

Simone was most attracted to philosophy; here she did better than anyone else. In those years, it was believed that philosophy was the key to truth.

At the age of 19, Simone wrote in her diary: “I am not ready to build my life according to anyone’s desires except my own.” She entered the Sorbonne at the Faculty of Philosophy. At that time, the faculty was set by an isolated trio of students who considered themselves the elite. Their names were Herbo, Nizan and Sartre.

De Beauvoir's blue eyes attracted Herbault's attention, and she was even honored with a conversation. And at the end of the semester, Simone received an invitation to study together for exams. The initiator of the idea was Sartre.

Gradually, the young people got closer and closer and even began to make dates with each other. Thus was born the most intellectual union of the 20th century.
Sartre decided that Simone would belong to him. "She was beautiful even when she wore her ugly hat. She had a surprising combination of male intelligence and female sensitivity."

Jean-Paul Sartre was born in 1905. When he met Simone, he was 23 years old and she was 20. During their first date, they went to see a film by Buster Keaton, whom Jean-Paul adored.

De Beauvoir later recalled: “It was as if I had met my double. When we parted, I knew that he would remain in my life forever.” He got first place in the exams, she got second. The difference in ratings was insignificant. But this order - first he, and then she - remained for life.

They went on vacation for ten days and, returning to Paris, became lovers. After his studies, Sartre was drafted into the army in the meteorological troops for a year and a half. Simone remained in Paris and continued to study. After finishing the army, Sartre received a position as a professor in Le Havre. There they were able to meet only during vacation. Even then, Sartre had five mistresses. But he called his relationship with de Beauvoir a “morganatic marriage,” while classifying himself as an aristocracy and Simon as a commoner. Although in reality it was the other way around. They entered into an agreement on complete “transparency of relations”: not to hide their love affairs.

In Paris, Simone and Jean-Paul received positions as teachers of philosophy. They stayed in different hotels, but saw each other every day. Sartre and de Beauvoir never spent the night under the same roof.

Paris in those years experienced a rapid flowering of the arts. Artists' cafes, clubs, and cinemas opened. Sartre loved going to the cinema, sitting in one of the cafes in Montparnasse with his artist friends and other representatives of bohemians who doted on him. Life was wonderful.

In 1934, Sartre met Olga Kozakevich, a blonde Russian aristocrat who became his constant mistress.

Simone also had an affair with Olga, who turned out to be abusing both of them. Olga insisted that she and Jean-Paul go on vacation, leaving Simone alone. When they returned, Sartre refused to tell Simone what happened between them. He proposed to Olga, but their family union did not take place, and Jean-Paul switched to Olga’s sister, Wanda. De Beauvoir knew everything, but was silent. She didn't want to lose Sartre. “He was the first man in my life,” Simone explained to her lover Nelson Algren.

Simone's novels

Pretending that she was indifferent to Jean-Paul's love stories, Simone entered into relationships with her students. With one of them, Bianca Lamblen, who later became a professor of philosophy, Simone went on vacation to the village, and then handed her over to Sartre, who, as it turned out, turned out to be a useless lover.

A dark period began in Europe. Started in Spain civil war. Sartre, De Beauvoir and their friends watched in horror as France refused to help the Republicans while Italian fascists and German Nazis helped General Franco seize power. Refugees from Germany began to arrive in France with terrible stories about the atrocities of the new regime.

When World War II began, Sartar was again mobilized into the meteorological forces. Simone remained in Paris and continued teaching. On June 21, 1940, Sartre was captured by the Germans, where, surprisingly, he continued to write. But Simone did not sit idly by. She wrote the novel "A Girl Invited to Visit." It told the story of a person who infiltrated the married life of two intellectuals and destroyed their union. Olga's love affair with Jean-Paul and Simone, which lasted several years, was not in vain.

When Sartre returned from captivity in 1943, Simone showed him her book to hear his opinion. Sartre was delighted and wrote a letter to the prestigious publishing house "Galimar". The book was published that same year. Simone de Beauvoir stopped teaching and took up writing. From that moment on, Sartre and de Beauvoir began to show each other everything they wrote.

Meanwhile, Sartre joined the ranks of the Resistance. He founded the Kombe newspaper, where he published pro-communist articles and began to promote his famous philosophical system - existentialism. Human existence, Jean-Paul Sartre argued, has no purpose. A person is free to carry out actions that give meaning to his existence. De Beauvoir shared his views.

In 1945, when the war ended, Sartre broke his agreement with Simone and left for New York. One. This is the first time this has happened.
In New York, Sartre met the pretty actress Dolores Vanetti Ehrenreich and fell in love with her. He did not return to Paris as planned, but remained in the United States. Simone was 37 years old at that time. Their intimate relationships with Sartre stopped a long time ago. She did not appear publicly with other men. “People expected me to be faithful to Sartre,” she wrote. “So I pretended that it was so.”

Algren proposes marriage

In 1947, Simone flew to the USA. Nelson Algren, writer, author of books about life ordinary people in the USA and residents of the Chicago slums - volunteered to show the French intellectual the city. Simone was 39, Nelson a year younger. They fell passionately in love with each other. He wanted to start a family with her. But Simone refused. She was ready to give up everything except the treacherous Sartre. The love story between Algren and de Beauvoir lasted 14 years, she wrote him passionate love letters, while she had an affair with another man, but nevertheless Simone remained devoted to Sartre.

Intellectual intimacy was of much greater value to her than sexual intimacy. In 1949, de Beauvoir published a new book. It was a biological, sociological, anthropological, political study, published in two volumes. Simone called it "The Second Sex". The book opened with a statement from the philosopher Søren Kierkegaard: “To be born a woman is what a misfortune! But it is 70 times greater misfortune when a woman does not realize it.”

De Beauvoir accused the male gender of always using women for their social and economic needs. “One is not born a woman, one becomes one,” wrote Simone. De Beauvoir denounced capitalist society for its exploitation of women. A woman is just a body that satisfies the sexual needs of a man. But at the same time, society becomes restless by creating forms of social protection for women that actually oppress her. Equality will be achieved, Simone argues, when women themselves understand their absolute equality with men.

The book caused a storm of positive responses. In the first week, 22,000 copies were sold in French. It sold millions of copies all over the world and was translated into dozens of languages. Simone was awarded the flattering title of "grandmother of feminism."

When it became known that de Beauvoir had lesbian relationships, a scandal erupted, because at that time this topic was taboo. Respected professors tore the book to shreds. The writer Albert Camus was furious; he claimed that de Beauvoir had turned the French man into an object of scorn and ridicule.

Catholic France was rocked by Simone's loud statement that she supports a woman's right to legal abortion.

After the book was published, Simone de Beauvoir began receiving invitations to give lectures.

In 1954, de Beauvoir published another book, “Tangerines,” where she revealed her story love relationship with Algren, who in the novel performed under the name Louis Brogan. Algren was outraged because he personal life became the property of millions. Simone wrote to him: “The novel does not reflect the history of our relationship. I tried to extract the quintessence from it by describing the love of a woman like me and a man like you.” De Beauvoir was awarded the prize of the Parisian Academy of the Goncourt brothers and with this money she bought the first small apartment in her life in Paris, the windows of which looked at the Montparnasse cemetery.

Simone's letters to Algren, published after her death, revealed one secret: Simone was haunted by a panicky fear that her love for him might be stronger than reason, and this would lead to her physical destruction. Sartre took her to Sweden to unwind, but even there Simone was tormented by fears. “I remember that on the back of my head there was a yellow eye that was pierced by a knitting needle,” Simone wrote. They corresponded for many years, the last time they saw each other was in 1960.

Desperate, Algren married his ex-wife a second time. He never forgave de Beauvoir. In his last interview, in 1981, a year after Sartre's death, Nelson spoke bitterly of her betrayal. “Yes, put everything on display already!” – he exclaimed in anger. And the correspondent had to leave Algren’s house. The next morning he was found dead. He died of a heart attack.

Claude and Simone

In 1952, Simone began an affair with Claude Lanzmann, who is today known as the author of the book "Catastrophe". Lanzmann was a correspondent for the newspaper New Times, which was edited by de Beauvoir and Sartre.
Claude was 27, she was 44. A communist, a revolutionary who put himself above others. But he treated Simone with respect; he never addressed her on a first-name basis. His charm and impudence charmed Simone. She wrote: “His closeness freed me from the burden of my age. Thanks to him, I regained the ability to rejoice, be surprised, be afraid, laugh, perceive the world around us".

Lanzmann was the only one who moved into her apartment, destroying the remnants of the traditional idealism instilled in her as a child. Their romance lasted seven years. But their intimate details life together were replicated by Simone.

Gap

De Beauvoir and Sartre met daily. They both got to see their theory gain recognition around the world. Sartre was awarded the Nobel Prize, but he pointedly refused it, saying that “the commission is busy distributing writers into categories.”

De Beauvoir was presented with the Jerusalem Prize, which she accepted.
During the years lived without mutual feelings, intimate relationships, without children, Simone could only console herself with intellectual closeness. But a new woman invaded their lives - Arletta Elkaim, a young Jewish woman from Algeria. At first, Simone wasn't worried. Elkaim seemed to her like one of the random lovers who passed through an endless series of lovers in Sartre’s life. But Jean-Paul began to avoid Simone. Previously, he went to work at her house, but now he has gone over to Arletta. He did not even allow de Beauvoir to read his new works under the pretext that they were not yet ready.

The two women hated each other. But Simone had not yet drained the bitter cup to the bottom. In 1965, Sartre decided to officially adopt Elkaim, but chose not to advertise it. After many years of painful life, de Beauvoir saw how before her eyes Sartre’s spiritual legacy passed to another woman. Then de Beauvoir adopted one of her friends, Sylvie le Bon, and bequeathed her work and money to her. Critics claimed that she was trying to imitate Sartre, while others hinted that Le Bon was actually Simone's mistress.

When Sartre fell ill in 1970, Simone was by his side. She selflessly looked after him, without interrupting her intellectual pursuits. Her story about old age, written subsequently, captured the changes that took place in her life. "I have crossed many lines in my life that seemed blurry to me. But the line delineating old age is hard as metal. A secret, distant world has suddenly approached me, and there is no turning back."

"There was peace, Jean-Paul"

Sartre's condition worsened. He started having seizures. De Beauvoir helped him, but Sartre's final betrayal was already lurking around the corner. Benny Levi, a friend of Elkaim, published a series of conversations with Sartre in which the philosopher renounced his atheism. This was too much for Simone. Elkaim published an article in Libération in which she claimed that Simone threatened to assemble a court of Sartre's students, where he would confirm his renunciation. In the end, Sartre published his last works without consulting de Beauvoir at all. Sartre died on April 15, 1980.

In the book "Adier" Simone described Sartre's illness, his physical and mental state, agony and the end. “He extended his hands to me and said: “Simone, my love, I love you so much, my Beaver.” They were last words Sartre. Simone was allowed to stay with him until five in the morning. She lay down next to him, pressed against the body of the man who had been the main love of her life. Returning home from the funeral, she got drunk. Friends found her lying on the carpet, unconscious. She was taken to the hospital, and it turned out she had severe pneumonia. But Simone came to her senses and continued writing. Her book "Adye" ends with the words: "His death separated us. My death will not unite us."

Simone lived in her apartment with windows facing the Montparnasse cemetery, where Sartre now rested. Since the day of his death, she has no longer met with the public. She didn't go to her favorite restaurants, where there was always a special table waiting for them...

Simone de Beauvoir died on April 14, 1986 in a Paris hospital. Exactly six years after the passing of Jean-Paul Sartre. No one came to visit her at the hospital; several people followed the coffin. Sartre died, Algren died, Lanzmann was in Los Angeles working on his book about the Holocaust. The hospital doctor said that not a single person called or inquired about her condition. “She was so abandoned by everyone that we even began to doubt whether she was really the famous Simone de Beauvoir.” A great intellectual who devoted herself to existentialism died completely alone.

After Simone de Beauvoir's death, her daughter Sylvie le Bon published her letters in two volumes. As it turned out, de Beauvoir did not write the whole truth about her life. Her letters caused a storm of indignation. An ardent feminist who advocated for equality between men and women wrote: “I will be smart, wash the dishes, sweep the floor, buy eggs and cookies, I will not touch your hair, cheeks, shoulders unless you allow me.” In another letter, she called herself “an obedient eastern wife” and “a beloved frog.” She called Algren her “favorite crocodile.”

Was it really de Beauvoir who wrote this? A feminist who spits on men?

The joint works of Sartre and de Beauvoir were now perceived differently. He was declared a charlatan who developed theories that inflated his ego. For everyone, she became a woman who suffered betrayal all her life. All her life, Simone hid what she urged others to expose. The great preacher of feminism of the 20th century turned out to be a modest and quiet Eastern wife.

The ideologist of the feminist movement Simone de Beauvoir was born on January 9, 1908 in Paris. Simone was the eldest daughter in an intelligent aristocratic family. Her ancient family belonged to the famous medieval French theologian Guillaume de Champeau. The father of the future writer, Georges Bertrand de Beauvoir, worked as a lawyer, her mother, Francoise de Beauvoir, was a wealthy heiress and a religious Catholic. Helen, Simone's sister, was 2 years younger than her.

Childhood and adolescence

The mother of the young de Beauvoir dreamed of only one fate for her daughter, that she would become the wife of at least a prince. Therefore, Françoise gave the little girl to be raised by the nuns at the Cours Desir school. But fate put everything in its place. Simone's father ruined the Beauvoir family by lending all their savings to the government of the Russian Empire at a high interest rate promised by Nicholas II. Unfortunately, the revolution of 1917 disrupted all plans and buried not only income, but also all family money.

Young Simone spent day and night in prayer, the girl “played” at being a great martyr, believing that her life was forever given to God. Meanwhile, the de Beauvoirs moved from the luxurious mansion to a small, cramped apartment. At the age of 15, Simone changed her attitude towards religion and became an ardent atheist. She understood that only education would help her get out of poverty. The father played a big role in this change and instilled in the girl a love of literature. The girl decided to become a writer, writing a personal diary replaced many hours of confession. She was a fan of the works of Maurice Barrès, Paul Claudel, and Paul Valéry.

In 1926, Simone de Beauvoir received a diploma from the University of Paris in general mathematics, literature and Latin language. But she did not stop there; in 1927 she was awarded a diploma in philosophy, and then in 1928 - a Bachelor of Arts. While studying, she met her lifelong partner. Having completed their studies, Simone de Beauvoir and Sartre entered into a mutual agreement, the main point of which was an agreement on intellectual fidelity, while love affairs on the side were not considered treason. They never became husband and wife. And then Jean-Paul went to work.

The beginning of creativity

Since 1931, Simone has been teaching. First in Marseille, then Rouen, and then in Paris at the Lycée Molière. Simone and Jean-Paul saw each other constantly, continuing their flirtation and mind games. It was in Paris that she was seen in disgraceful relationships with students.

Simone met student Olga Kazakevich, at that time Olga was 19 years old. Something happened in Simone's mind and she started flirting with her. As a result, a strange trio emerged that adhered to their idea of ​​​​freedom in everything. Jean-Paul made several attempts to seduce Olga, but she did not give in. And then her sister Wanda became Sartre's mistress.

The love adventures did not end there. Simone has a new hobby - student Bianca Lamblen, with whom Simone entered into sexual relations. Then there was Natalie Sorokina’s student. And after that, Jean-Paul’s student was Jacques-Laurent Bost, who after some time married Olga Kazakevich, and at the same time was Simone’s lover.

During the war in 1939, Simone de Beauvoir attempted to publish her collection of short stories, The Primacy of the Spirit, for the first time, but the publishing house rejected her manuscript. She fought vigorously against the occupation through writing. Due to a scandal involving an allegation of molestation from one of the mothers, the writer was removed from her teaching position in 1943. Simone loses her job, but her novel, which she completed 2 years ago, is immediately published. The novel is autobiographical and tells about a free trio with Olga Kazakevich.

In 1945, Simone wrote a novel about the resistance. In America, the book was recognized as a “textbook of existentialism.” In the same year, she founded the magazine “New Times”. Simone was not only the editor of the magazine, but also a critic, reading all the articles.

Post-war years

After the war, Simone de Beauvoir's fantasy novel was published, which brought her success. At that time, Simone had problems with Jean-Paul Sartre, who forgot about his girlfriend. Jean-Paul became infatuated with Dolores Vanetti and did not communicate with Simone. It was these circumstances that served as the basis for the writing of “All Men are Mortal,” where Simone put all her feelings on paper. And then she writes an essay that talks about women's problems. Simone de Beauvoir's book The Second Sex had a huge impact on the feminist movement.

After 2 years, Simone de Beauvoir meets Nelson Algren. A spark runs between them, and soon a relationship begins that lasts 14 years. Simone did not want to marry him and have children, but she began to understand all the delights of physical love.

In 1954, the famous novel by Simone de Beauvoir was published, which is considered the pinnacle of the author’s work. Simone received the Goncourt Prize for her novel. In 1958, her first book was published, “Memoirs of a Well-Brought-Up Girl,” which also brought her fame.

Death overtook Simone de Beauvoir in Paris on April 14, 1986. She was buried in the Montparnasse cemetery in the same place where Jean-Paul Sartre was buried in 1980.

Books by Simone de Beauvoir in Russian

Simone de Beauvoir ( full name Simone-Lucie-Ernestine-Marie Bertrand de Beauvoir) - French writer, representative of existential philosophy, ideologist of the feminist movement - born January 9, 1908 in Paris in a comfortable apartment on Boulevard Raspail.

The family belonged to an old aristocratic family, descended from Guillaume de Champeau, a medieval French theologian, rhetorician and logician, teacher of Abelard. Simone was the eldest daughter in the family of Georges Bertrand de Beauvoir, who worked as a legal secretary, and Françoise de Beauvoir, née Brasso, a devout Catholic who was the daughter of a wealthy banker from Verdun. Two years after Simone’s birth, a second daughter, Helen, appeared in the family.

At the age of five and a half, Simone’s parents sent her to the Cours Desir school, where, under the mentorship of nuns, girls from noble families were prepared for a virtuous life. Her parents, especially her mother, wanted to see Simone in the future as a respectable wife of some bourgeois, and perhaps even a prince. Her dreams were not allowed to come true, which was even more disappointing given the ruin of the family through the fault of the head of the family: Bertrand de Beauvoir invested in a loan from the government of the Russian Empire with a high income promised by Nicholas II, but the revolution of 1917 buried dreams of income, as well as directly the investments themselves. The strict bourgeois upbringing received from her mother is described in Simone’s book “Memoirs of a well-bred girl” (Mémoires d’une jeune fille rangée, 1958 ).

The ruin of the family, sad in essence, at the same time was for Simone a very real confirmation of the special fate that she imagined in childhood. Diligently indulging in prayers, the girl “played” at being a great martyr, believing that her life was forever given to God. However, diligent study at school, where she was one of the best students, could not correct the plight of the family, which was forced to change prestigious housing above the bohemian Rotunda restaurant to a cramped apartment in a dark building without an elevator on Ren Street.

The parents explained to their daughter that only education would help her get out of the difficult situation in which the family found itself. Religiosity gave way to doubts and then disappointment. By adolescence, another one appeared in the girl characteristic feature: Along with intelligence, she showed the ability to make uncompromising decisions. The step from great martyr to militant atheist, by Simone's standards, was a reasonable and reasonable step.

Her father instilled an interest in literature in her. By the age of fifteen, Simone had already decided to become a famous writer. She was fascinated by Maurice Barrès, Paul Claudel, Andre Gide, Paul Valéry, and keeping a detailed diary replaced confession.

Graduated from school in 1925; Studied mathematics at the Catholic Institute of Paris, philology at the Institute of Saint-Marie-de-Neilly. A year later she received a diploma from the University of Paris in literature and Latin. In 1927 received a diploma in philosophy (her final qualifying work was devoted to the philosophy of Leibniz) and became the ninth woman to graduate from the Sorbonne. During her teaching practice she met Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Claude Lévi-Strauss; I worked with them in the same school. Spring 1928 she received her B.A. At the Faculty of Arts she met Jean-Paul Sartre, Paul Nizan, Rene Maillot (the latter, playing on the consonance of her surname with English word beaver (beaver), gave her the nickname “Beaver”, which in a friendly circle stuck with Simone until the end of her life). She began to prepare for a competition in philosophy - an exam based on the results of which an all-French ranking of students is compiled - for which, in particular, she attended classes at the prestigious École Normale Supérieure. Jean-Paul Sartre took first place in the exam, Simone took second place, and at twenty-one she became the youngest person to pass this exam.

Acquaintance with Sartre grew into a relationship that lasted a lifetime. After graduation, de Beauvoir and Sartre had to decide whether they would stay together. However, they never became husband and wife. Instead, they entered into an agreement between themselves, according to which they became partners, maintaining intellectual fidelity to each other, while not considering love affairs on the side as treason.

In 1929-1931 Sartre served in the army. After the service, he was sent to work in Le Havre, while Simone in 1931 went to teach philosophy in Marseille. They decided to extend their contract and still did not want to commit each other, while continuing close communication. In 1932-1937 Simone worked in Rouen - she taught at the Lycée Corneille, and then at the Lycée Molière in Paris. She constantly saw Sartre, and both at that time led a serene life, full of mind games, flirting and love adventures.

Immersed in the world of literature and philosophy, Simone and Sartre held extreme revolutionary views, while being at the other pole from real participation in political life.

In 1939 she makes an attempt to publish her first book - a collection of short stories “The Primacy of the Spirit” (published in 1979 entitled “When the spirit rules” (Quand prime le spirituel)). However, the manuscript was rejected by the publishing house, which found the picture of morals shown by Beauvoir unconvincing. In the same year, with the beginning of the Strange War, Sartre was drafted into the army, and in June 1940 he is captured, where he spends nine months and is released due to poor health.

After Sartre returned to Paris, Simone took part with him in organizing the underground group “Socialism and Freedom,” which also included Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Jean-Toussaint Desanti, Jean Kanapa and others. However, the group soon disbands, and Sartre decides to fight the occupation through writing.

In 1943 Beauvoir is suspended from teaching, the reason for which was the statement of Natalie Sorokina's mother, accusing Simone of molesting her daughter. The suspension was lifted after the war. In 1943 Beauvoir publishes her first novel, “The Guest” (L’Invitée), which pursues the ideas of existentialism. This theme (freedom, responsibility, interpersonal relationships) is also present in her subsequent works. Beauvoir began work on “The Guest” in 1938, the book was finished in summer 1941 . However, the novel did not reflect the turbulent events of political life of that period.

In 1944 Jean Grenier introduces Simone to the concept of existentialism. She agrees to write an essay for a forthcoming collection reflecting contemporary ideological trends, and by 1944 writes "Pyrrhus et Cinéas". In it, Beauvoir “comes to the conclusion that every action is fraught with risk and the threat of defeat. A person’s duty to himself is to accept risks, but to reject even the thought of impending defeat.”

During the war, Simone writes a novel about the Resistance, “The Blood of Others” (Le Sang des autres). Recognized in America as a “textbook of existentialism,” the book represents Beauvoir’s position on the issues of human responsibility for one’s actions.

In 1945 Sartre, together with Michel Leiris, Boris Vian and others, founded the literary and political magazine “New Times”. Along with Simone, the editorial board includes Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Raymond Aron, and Jean Paulhan. Subsequently, Simone took an active part in the life of the magazine. Sartre's frequent absences from the United States forced her to write essays and notes for the magazine not only on her own behalf, but also on his behalf. She also remained his most important editor and critic: she read everything he wrote down to the line.

After the war, Simone works fruitfully. In 1945 in Modern Times her work “Literature and Metaphysics” (Littérature et métaphysique) was published, later included in the book “For the Morality of Ambiguity” (Pour une morale de l’ambiguïté, 1947 ), she publishes a science fiction novel “All Men Are Mortal” (Tous les hommes sont mortels, 1946 ). But professional successes are overshadowed by new problems in his personal life, associated, of course, with Sartre. In the USA, Jean-Paul is madly infatuated with Dolores Vanetti and almost forgets about Simone. Unable to influence him, she is forced to transform the feelings tormenting her into words on paper (“All men are mortal” was precisely the result of her suffering).

In 1947 Simone also goes to the USA with a course of lectures on literature. There she meets Nelson Algren. A romance begins between them that lasts fourteen years. Simone felt the warmth and joy of genuine physical love, but she refused to marry Algren and have children with him. The ties connecting her with Sartre remained unshakable. And although their paths after the war diverged in many ways, both in space and in philosophical views, Beauvoir never betrayed the idea of ​​​​a wonderful union of two intellectuals; on the contrary, she always tried to nourish it, no matter how illusory it became at times.

In 1958 published the first book of an autobiographical trilogy - “Memoirs of a well-bred girl” (Memoires d’une jeune fille rangée, 1958 ). In this book, the author talks about his life until adulthood. In the two subsequent parts of the autobiographical trilogy, “The Power of Maturity” (La Force de l"âge, 1960 ) and “The Power of Things” (La Force des choses, 1963 ), depicts her life as an associate and student of Sartre. Simone de Beauvoir's novels develop existentialist ideas. In the novel "The Tangerines" (Les Mandarins, 1954 ), which received the most prestigious literary prize in France - the Goncourt Prize, reflects the life events of writers from Sartre’s circle, and shows the ideological and political life of post-war France.

Childhood and education

Simone de Beauvoir (full name Simone Lucy Ernestine Marie Bertrand de Beauvoir) was born on January 9, 1908 in Paris in a comfortable apartment on Boulevard Raspail. The family belonged to an old aristocratic family, descended from Guillaume de Champeau, a medieval French theologian, rhetorician and logician, teacher of the famous Abelard. Simone was the eldest daughter in the family of Georges Bertrand de Beauvoir, who worked as a legal secretary, and Françoise de Beauvoir, née Brasso, a devout Catholic who was the daughter of a wealthy banker from Verdun. Two years after the birth of Simone, a second daughter appeared in the family - Helen. Helene de Beauvoir ).

At the age of five and a half, Simone’s parents sent her to the Cours Desir school, where, under the mentorship of nuns, girls from noble families were prepared for a virtuous life. Parents, primarily her mother, wanted to see Simone in the future as a respectable wife of some bourgeois, and, possibly, a prince. Her dreams were not allowed to come true, which was even more disappointing given the ruin of the family through the fault of the head of the family: Bertrand de Beauvoir invested in loans from the tsarist government for the high income promised by Nicholas II, but the revolution of 1917 buried dreams of income, as well as directly the investments themselves. The strict bourgeois upbringing received from her mother is described in Simone’s book “Memoirs of a well-bred girl” (Mémoires d’une jeune fille rangée, 1958).

The ruin of the family, sad in essence, at the same time was for Simone a very real confirmation of the special fate that she imagined in childhood. Diligently indulging in prayers, the girl “played” at being a great martyr, believing that her life was forever given to God. However, diligent study at school, where she was one of the best students, could not correct the plight of the family, which was forced to change prestigious housing above the bohemian Rotunda restaurant. La Rotonde ) to a cramped apartment in a dark building without an elevator on Ren Street, and prayers did not bring peace to the relationship between mother and father, who had lost confidence in the future.

The father was happy to see a “male” mind in Simon, which brightened up his long-standing disappointment that a girl was born and not a boy. Both Bertrand and Françoise exhorted that now only education would help Simone get out of the difficult situation in which the family found itself. Harsh reality left less time and desire for mystical revelations, and Simone’s sober mind demanded “sober” answers to emerging questions. Attempts to wait for an answer from God give way to disappointment; God does not show himself to Simone either in signs or revelations. By adolescence, another characteristic feature appeared in the girl: along with excellent intelligence, she became very noticeable in her ability to make uncompromising decisions that did not allow ambiguity. And since there were no answers from God, Simone changes course and determines that from now on she will seek answers using reason. The step from the great martyr to the militant atheist did not at all look like a leap from the frying pan into the fire; by Simone’s standards, it was really just a step, justified and understandable.

In 1925, Simone graduated from school and took exams in mathematics and philosophy for a bachelor's degree. She begins to study mathematics in depth at a Catholic institute, literature and language at the Saint-Marie Institute. A year later she receives a diploma from the University of Paris in general mathematics, literature and Latin. A year later, in 1927, she received a diploma in philosophy. During her teaching practice, she meets Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Claude Lévi-Strauss, with whom she works in the same school. In the spring of 1928, she received her Bachelor of Arts degree. At the Faculty of Arts he meets with Jean-Paul Sartre, Paul Nizan, Rene Mahut (eng. René Maheu ). Begins to prepare for the competition Agrégation ) in philosophy - an exam during which a national ranking of students is compiled - for which, in particular, he attends classes at the École Normale Supérieure. First place in the exam goes to Jean-Paul Sartre, second to Simone, and at twenty-one, she is the youngest person ever to pass this exam.

Acquaintance with Sartre develops into a relationship that will last a lifetime until her death.

After graduating from high school

After graduation, de Beauvoir and Sartre had to decide whether they would stay together. However, they never became husband and wife. Instead, they enter into an agreement with each other, according to which they become partners, maintaining intellectual fidelity to each other, while not considering love affairs on the side as treason.

In 1929-1931, Sartre served in the army. After the service, he was sent to work in Le Havre, and in 1931 Simone left to work as a teacher in Marseille. They decided to extend their contract and still did not want to commit each other, while continuing close communication. In 1932, Simone moved to Rouen to teach at the Lycée Corneille. Lycée Pierre-Corneille ), where he worked until 1937, after which he taught in Paris at the Lycée Molière (eng. Lycée Molière ). She constantly sees Sartre, and at this time both lead a serene life, full of intellectual games, flirting and love affairs.

There is an acquaintance with nineteen-year-old Olga Kazakevich, who was Simone's student in Rouen. Olga flirts with both Sartre and Simone. The couple, captivated by the idea of ​​freedom, decides to create a “trio”. Breaking tradition, Sartre spends one of his vacations entirely with Olga, leaving de Beauvoir in Paris. Despite Sartre's desperate attempts, Olga never became his mistress, but he managed to seduce her sister, Wanda. Simone also did not limit herself too much in adventures. Bianca Lamblin, her student at the time, later admitted to having a sexual relationship with the teacher. Another passion was the student Nathalie Sorokin, whom Simone then introduced to Sartre. The network of connections was completed by Jacques-Laurent Bost, already a student of Sartre. Having married Olga Kazakevich, he at the same time became Simone’s lover and maintained intensive correspondence with her for many years.

While playing, Simone and Sartre tried to hide from reality, or rather, they did everything possible to believe in themselves: boring, cruel, riddled with moral restrictions, terrible - reality has no power over them. They do everything possible to play to support the ideal image that attracted them both: a union of free creative individuals, not tied to any social classes, living outside of time, whose goal is the fullness of life. Immersed in the world of literature and philosophy, they adhere to extreme revolutionary ideas, while being at the other pole from real participation in political life.

However, reality destroyed the idealistic plans of de Beauvoir and Sartre. Pre-war political life in Europe did not show abstract revolutions, but the very real rise of Nazism in Germany and fascism in Italy. And in my personal life, attempts to maintain serenity were not always successful. The realization that, by and large, Sartre is not attached to her in any way and that intellectual kinship does not ensure the strength of the relationship frightens Simone. Fear of losing yourself loved one does not leave her, although she always tried not to detect him.

During the war

In 1939, she made an attempt to publish her first book - a collection of short stories “The Primacy of the Spirit” (published in 1979 under the title “When the Spirit Prevails” Quand prime le spirituel). However, the manuscript was rejected by the publishing house, which found the picture of morals shown by Beauvoir unconvincing. In the same year, with the beginning of the Strange War, Sartre was drafted into the army, and in June 1940 he was captured, where he spent nine months and was released due to poor health.

After Sartre returned to Paris, Simone took part with him in organizing the underground group “Socialism and Freedom”, which also included Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Jean-Toussaint Desanti, Jean Kanapa and others. However, the group soon disbands, and Sartre decides to fight the occupation through writing.

In 1943, Beauvoir was suspended from teaching, the reason for which was a statement by Natalie Sorokina's mother, accusing Simone of molesting her daughter. The suspension was lifted after the war. In 1943, Beauvoir published her first novel, “The Guest” (L’Invitée), which pursues the ideas of existentialism. This theme (freedom, responsibility, interpersonal relationships) is also present in her subsequent works. Beauvoir began working on The Host back in 1938, and the book was completed in the summer of 1941. However, the novel did not reflect the turbulent events of political life of that period. Simone is immersed in her “schizophrenic dreams,” and the theme of the book is the story of an intricate love relationship, the prototype of which was the relationship between Simone, Jean-Paul and the Kazakevich sisters. While creating the novel, Beauvoir tries to overcome her own jealousy of Olga, who tormented her, and tries to realize what love and communication are. The writer makes an attempt to get away from traditional female submissiveness and create a character who is able to freely express her feelings, regardless of social restrictions. However, this plan cannot be fully realized, freedom is possible only in the dreams of self-deception, and the woman is unable to restrain her possessive instincts towards her beloved man.

In 1944, Jean Grenier introduces Simone to the concept of existentialism. She agrees to write an essay for a forthcoming collection reflecting contemporary ideological trends, and by 1944 writes Pyrrhus et Cinéas. In it, Beauvoir “comes to the conclusion that every action is fraught with risk and the threat of defeat. A person’s duty to himself is to accept risks, but to reject even the thought of impending defeat.”

During the war, Simone writes a novel about the Resistance, “The Blood of Others” (“Le Sang des autres”). Recognized in America as a “textbook of existentialism,” the book represents Beauvoir’s position on the issues of human responsibility for one’s actions.

“I have always had a need to talk about myself... The first question that always arose in me was this: what does it mean to be a woman? I thought I would answer it right away. But it was worth taking a careful look at this problem, and I realized, first of all, that this world is made for men...” - this is how Simone de Beauvoir, a classic of feminist literature, wrote about herself.

"Pretty Pictures" (1966)

“Lovely Pictures” (1966) is the writer’s confession. The heroine of the story is a young woman. Working in an advertising agency taught her to imagine life as a series of pictures from glossy magazines: a comfortable house, well-mannered children, a husband - a fashionable architect, a lover - everything is like in advertising. But what lies behind these happy clichés? Is there a place for living feelings here?

Books in Russian

• Simone de Beauvoir. Tangerines = Les Mandarins / Transl. from fr. N. A. Svetovidova, article, note. N.I. Poltoratskaya. - M.: Ladomir, 2005. - 618 p. - (Literary monuments). - 2000 copies. - ISBN 5-86218-452-X
• Simone de Beauvoir. Memoirs of a well-bred girl = Memoires d "une jeune fille rangee / Translated from French M. Anninskaya, E. Leonova. - M.: Consent, 2004. - 496 pp. - 5000 copies - ISBN 5-86884-123-9
• Simone de Beauvoir. The force of circumstances = Le force des choses / Transl. from fr. N. Svetovidova. - M.: Fluid, 2008. - 496 p. - (Romance with life). - 2000 copies. - ISBN 978-5-98358-110-4

• Simone de Beauvoir A very easy death / Preface. L. Tokareva. M.: Republic, 1992.
  • Lovely pictures / Transl. from fr. L. Zonina
  • A very easy death / Transl. from fr. N. Stolyarova
  • Broken / Transl. from fr. B. Arzumanyan
  • Should the Marquis de Sade be burned? Essay / Transl. from English N. Krotovskaya and I. Moskvina-Tarkhanova
• Simone de Beauvoir Transatlantic novel. Letters to Nelson Ohlgren 1947-1964. / Per. from fr. I. Myagkova with the participation of A. Zverev, preface. S. Le Bon de Beauvoir. M.: Art, 2003.

Notes

Literature

• Poltoratskaya N. I. Simone de Beauvoir and Russia (based on the writer’s books of memoirs) // Obsessions: on the history of the “Russian idea” in French literature of the 20th century: materials of the Russian-French colloquium (St. Petersburg, July 2-3, 2001 g.)/ rep. ed. S. L. Fokin. M.: Nauka, 2005. P.114-127.
• Dolgov K. M. About the meeting with Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir // Questions of Philosophy. 2007. No. 2. pp. 151-160.
• Appignanesi, Lisa, 2005, Simone de Beauvoir, London: Haus, ISBN 1-904950-09-4
• Bair, Deirdre, 1990. Simone de Beauvoir: A Biography. New York: Summit Books, ISBN 0-671-60681-6
• Rowley, Hazel, 2005. Tête-a-Tête: Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre. New York: HarperCollins.
• Suzanne Lilar, 1969. Le Malentendu du Deuxième Sexe (with collaboration of Prof. Dreyfus). Paris, University Presses of France (Presses Universitaires de France).
• Fraser, M., 1999. Identity Without Selfhood: Simone de Beauvoir and Bisexuality, Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press.

Simone de Beauvoir

In the Shadow of Sartre

She deserved much more than to spend her life in the shadow of her husband, playing the role imposed by him. But, having made once and for all a choice between love and freedom in favor of the first, she defended the second so fiercely that the whole world believed her. A sophisticated intellectual and daring philosopher, a fighter for the rights of all the oppressed and a magnificent writer - she consciously preferred to play only second roles, but only when the great Sartre was in the first place. Her whole life was a great service - but to whom, philosophy or love?

She was born in Paris on January 9, 1908 in the family of the scion of an aristocratic family, Georges de Beauvoir, a successful lawyer and amateur actor, a gambling and amorous man. He chose his wife, Françoise Brasseur, because of her large dowry and prospects for inheritance - Françoise's father was a banker - but he went bankrupt without having time to pay the dowry due to his daughter. Nevertheless, Georges was very attached to his wife and, although he never received the desired son, he sincerely loved both daughters. They named their eldest daughter Simone-Lucy-Ernestine-Marie-Bertrand de Beauvoir - the first name was chosen by her father, who considered it truly chic, and the rest were given to the girl in honor of relatives and the Virgin Mary. However, soon the girl arbitrarily shortened this entire long series of names to the simple “Simone de Beauvoir.” She grew up as a spoiled child, constantly demanding attention to herself - but despite her childhood jealousy of her younger sister Helen, she remained Simone’s only friend for many years.

Françoise, a devout Catholic, raised Simone and her sister Hélène with strictness and religious fear: home teachers, prayers and lessons in good manners. At the age of six, Simone was sent to the Catholic school Cours Desir: here young girls were trained to be future wives and mothers - or novices of the monastery - and Simone, in her own words, for a long time could not decide on her choice. At school she met Elizabeth Le Coyne (in her memoirs Simone will call her under the name Zaza), who would become her closest and beloved friend. Elizabeth died when she was only fifteen: her tragic death literally destroyed the entire cozy world in which Simone felt herself. She cried all night - and by the morning she had forever lost her faith in God, acquiring in return the fear of death. It was the struggle with this fear that first gave her the idea to take up literature: “I wanted to make my existence real for others, conveying to them, in the most direct way, the taste of my life,” she admitted. In 1917, Georges de Beauvoir lost his entire considerable fortune, unsuccessfully investing it in the infamous loan to the Russian tsarist government. The family lost their income, and the sisters lost their dowry and hopes for a good marriage. Simone decided that she was obliged to master a profession that would allow her to earn her own living, and, seeing her only friends and answers to all her questions in books, she finally decided to become a writer. Simone decisively broke with her family, and with faith, and with bourgeois prejudices, which stated that the main purpose of a woman is to get married and have children. “I am not ready to build my life in accordance with anyone’s desires but my own,” she wrote. Simone wanted intellectual pursuits, freedom and, of course, love. “If I fall in love,” wrote Simone, “then for the rest of my life, I will then surrender myself entirely to the feeling, soul and body, lose my head and forget the past. I refuse to be content with the husks of feelings and pleasures that are not associated with this state.”

Simone de Beauvoir, 1914

After graduating from Cours Desir, she studied mathematics at the Catholic Institute and languages ​​and literature at the Sainte-Marie Institute, and later entered the famous Sorbonne, where she studied philosophy. At that time, according to her memoirs, she led a life diametrically opposite to the one that her parents imposed on her: she spent nights in bars, communicated with the dregs of society and was sincerely convinced that in this way she would learn real life. She was considered pretty, dressed provocatively and elegantly, and at the same time was known as one of the most brilliant students at the university. She demonstrated such an outstanding mind that the first intellectuals of the Sorbonne sought her acquaintance, and worked so hard that one of them, Rene Maillot (named Andre Herbault in her memoirs), the future famous philosopher and Director General of UNESCO, nicknamed her Castor, then there is Beaver: due to the consonance of her surname with the English name for beaver - beaver, in 1929 Mayo brought Simone to a student party, where he introduced him to his friend Jean-Paul Sartre.

Sartre, the owner of an amazingly ugly appearance and an even more amazing mind, instantly struck Simone both with his intellect and with his dissimilarity from everyone she saw around: he fundamentally rejected any rules and restrictions - something that Simone dreamed of and something that Simone never fully decided on . When they met, it turned out that the two separated halves found each other. Later it turned out that Sartre liked her immediately, but for a long time he did not dare to approach her, sending his friends to her instead. After just a few meetings in the company, Sartre discovered that Simone was the woman of his dreams: “She was beautiful, even when she put on her ugly hat. What was surprising about her was the combination of male intelligence and female sensitivity,” he wrote. And she, in turn, recalled: “Sartre exactly corresponded to the dreams of my fifteen years: he was my double, in whom I found all my tastes and passions.”

Simone de Beauvoir with her sister and mother

Soon they were inseparable and promised each other to spend the rest of their lives next to each other. However, both Simone and Sartre did not mean marriage at all: it seemed to them a bourgeois relic that binds free people. They also did not demand loyalty from each other - they were supposed to be united only by honesty, intellectual brotherhood and kinship of souls. They agreed not to have children who would limit their freedom and interfere with intellectual pursuits, not to have a common home, and to be each other’s first critics and comrades-in-arms. Their relationship was a strange mixture of physical attraction, spiritual intimacy and intellectual rivalry. In 1929, at the agregation, Simone - the youngest participant in the test in history and only the tenth woman who was able to withstand it - was second, while Sartre showed the first result. The commission, which for a long time could not decide who to put in first place, noted that Sartre, without a doubt, has outstanding intellectual abilities, but Simone has an undeniable gift as a philosopher. Sartre, who had barely received his diploma, was called up for urgent work. military service , but due to poor health and poor eyesight, he served at a meteorological station for a year and a half. Simone continued her studies by attending lectures at the Ecole Normale Superieure. They corresponded every day - as they did in all subsequent years, as soon as they separated. Sartre returned in 1931. He wanted to get a position somewhere in Japan, which he had long been interested in, but in March he was appointed to the post of teacher of philosophy at the Lyceum of Le Havre. Sartre was disappointed: he always hated the provinces and considered life there full of boredom, bourgeois melancholy and intellectual degradation. However, in Le Havre he suddenly began to enjoy enormous success, especially among female students: the new professor, although very ugly, spoke beautifully, captivating the audience with the flight of his thoughts and the boundless breadth of erudition and, to hide it, showed a clear interest in young beauties. Simone was calm. Although she, judging by her memoirs, was truly in love with Sartre (and retained this feeling throughout her life), she sincerely considered marital fidelity (and non-marital fidelity too) a ridiculous relic of the bourgeois morality that she had discarded. She knew for sure that only her was Sartre’s equal in spirit, and only she trusted her to edit his undeniably brilliant works. She herself received an appointment to Marseille. At first, Simone did not want to go so far from both Paris and Sartre - he even suggested marriage to her in order to demand an appointment to one city on this basis, but Simone resolutely - and even somewhat frightened - refused: official marriage instilled real horror in her. Only a year later she managed to move closer to Sartre, to the Lyceum of Rouen, where Simone became friends with the teacher of the same Lyceum, Colette Audry, and students Bianca Lamblen and Olga Kozakevich. Quite soon, she told Sartre that she had a relationship with them that was much more than friendly. He only asked to describe to him what she felt when she kissed them - either he wanted to compare sensations, or he was collecting material for another article... In October 1937, Sartre was transferred to the Lyceum Pastor in the town of Neuilly-sur-Seine, a fashionable suburb of Paris, and two years later Simone also received an appointment to Paris - she became a teacher at Lycee Camille See. She again shared with Sartre all the joy of creativity, the work of life and freedom without any obligations. Simone brought Olga Kozakevich with her, and very soon Olga became Sartre’s mistress: she, alien to any prejudices, slept with each of them in turn, then with both of them at the same time. “She claimed to break out of the captivity of the human lot, to which we too submitted not without shame,” Simone wrote about her. They say that Sartre was seriously carried away: he went with Olga - without Simone - on the summer holidays, and even allegedly proposed his hand in marriage to her. However, Olga was Simone's faithful student and refused the marriage. Sartre eventually moved on to her sister Wanda, and Olga married Sartre's student and Simone's former lover Jacques-Laurent Bost. A little later, another participant joined the company - the red-haired Jew Bianca Bienenfeld. This polygon with intricate connections, which participants often called simply “family,” existed for many decades and disintegrated only with the death of its members. Sartre, who seemed to be in love with all women at once, found inspiration, food for thought and new strength in such relationships. Many years later, Simone wrote: “Sartre loved female company, he found that women were not as funny as men; he had no intention of... forever abandoning their enchanting diversity. If the love between us was a natural phenomenon, then why shouldn’t we also have random connections?

Jean Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir at the Balzac memorial

Although Simone verbally advocated for freedom of relationships - largely imposed on her by Sartre - the appearance of Olga in their life, who was not only allowed into bed, but also took an active part in philosophical debates and even in editing Sartre’s works, greatly hurt her. She no longer felt that she and Sartre were “halves of a whole” - now there were three of them, and she could not come to terms with this. To understand herself, she began to write: in her first novel, “The Invited,” Simone quite openly and impartially set out the story of a girl invited to visit and breaking up the marriage of an intellectual couple: the characters included the Kozakevich sisters, Sartre and Simone herself, and the novel ended with a symbolic joint murder by spouses of their common mistress.

On the eve of the war, Sartre diligently created a constant holiday around himself - incessant practical jokes, parodies, tomfoolery and disguises. “We lived in idleness then,” Simone recalled. According to stories, Simone could begin to pretend to be a capricious aristocrat or an American millionaire, and Sartre sometimes imagined that he was possessed by the spirit of an elephant seal, after which he tried to depict his suffering with grimaces and screams. These escapades, according to Beauvoir, “protected us from the spirit of seriousness, which we refused to recognize as resolutely as Nietzsche did, and for the same reasons: fiction helped to deprive the world of oppressive heaviness, moving it into the realm of fantasy...” In 1938 Sartre published his most famous novel, Nausea. Sartre wrote this book - half autobiography, half philosophical treatise - while still in Le Havre, but it could not be published then. Now the story of the existential torment of the historian Antoine Roquentin has produced the effect of a bomb exploding. It sold out in huge numbers, won the title of “book of the year” and almost won the Prix Goncourt. Following “Nausea,” a collection of short stories “The Wall” and philosophical works “Imagination,” “Imaginary” and “Sketch for a Theory of Emotions” were published, which finally cemented Sartre’s great reputation as an original philosopher and brave writer.

Simone de Beauvoir with Bianca Lambpin

When World War II began, Sartre was again called up for military service - he was sent to the Vosges department, still to the meteorological station. All worries about the “family” fell on the shoulders of Simone, who was torn between the Kozakiewicz sisters, Sartre in the Vosges and Bost in the trenches. Finding himself far from her, Sartre seemed to rethink her place in his life. He wrote to her: “Darling, ten years of knowing you were the happiest years of my life. You are the most beautiful, the most intelligent and the most passionate. You are not only my whole life, you are my pride.” During the “Phantom War” - a period when there was practically no military action - Sartre had a lot of free time, which he spent manically writing notebook after notebook: soon in these notebooks one could find the outlines of his future philosophy - existentialism, " philosophy of existence." Simone strongly advised him to take up his own philosophical system - and he had long been accustomed to following her advice. In May 1940, the French defense line was broken; just a month and a half later, France capitulated. At the end of June, Sartre was captured; He was first held in Nancy, and then - along with twenty-five thousand prisoners - was transported to a prisoner of war camp in Trier, Germany, from where he was released in March 1941. Already in April, he returned to Paris and immediately founded the “Socialism and Freedom” movement, which, in addition to Sartre, included Simone de Beauvoir, Sartre’s friend, the philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty, the Kozakiewicz sisters, Bost and several other teachers and students of the Ecole Normale and the university Sorbonne - after a few months the group numbered about fifty people. The group intended to fight the Vichys, collaborationists and Nazis to the best of their ability: members of Socialism and Freedom met regularly in cafes or apartments, discussed plans for the development of post-war France and even drew up, under the leadership of Sartre, a draft of a future constitution, a copy of which was sent to General de Gaulle in England . They printed and distributed leaflets with anti-fascist appeals, and it was especially daring to hand a leaflet to a German soldier - after making sure that he did not understand French. Many members of the Resistance consider Sartre's group naive and "amateur", saying that they only ranted while others were putting their lives in danger - an opinion even some members of the group themselves agreed with. However, Sartre, who was never prone to violence even to save his own life, sincerely believed that he did everything he could. And his opinion, as always, was completely shared by Simone. By the end of 1941, the group - after the arrest of two members - ceased to exist: just at the time that an organized Resistance movement began to operate in France.

At the same time, Simone began to have troubles at the lyceum: the mother of one of her students accused her of immoral behavior - as if Simone had seduced underage girls: a monstrous accusation even by today's standards, but at that time it was simply unthinkable. And although all the teachers and students of the lyceum unanimously rushed to Simone’s defense, she was still forced to leave teaching in 1943. Simone got a job on the radio, where she hosted programs on the history of music, and finally decided to publish her novel “The Invited”: this novel, which told about self-determination, about difficult searches love and freedom in such complicated conditions as a “marriage for three”, very personal and at the same time deeply philosophical, did not receive the attention it deserved. Indeed, at the same time, Sartre’s most important work, “Being and Nothingness,” was published, where he outlined the foundations of his teaching - existentialism. “By existentialism we understand a doctrine that makes human life possible, and which, in addition, asserts that every truth and every action presupposes a certain environment and human subjectivity,” wrote Sartre, the only reality of being is man, who himself must fill your world with content. There is nothing predetermined or inherent in this person, since, as Sartre believed, “existence precedes essence.”

Jean Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir

The essence of a person is made up of his actions, it is the result of his choice, or rather, several choices throughout his life. “For the existentialist, man cannot be defined because he initially represents nothing. He becomes a man only later, and the kind of man he makes himself,” wrote Sartre. People are responsible for their actions and deeds only to themselves, because every action has a certain value - regardless of whether people are aware of it or not. Sartre considered the motivators of actions to be the will and the desire for freedom, and these motivators are stronger than social laws and “all kinds of prejudices”; Sartre’s work became a real bible for French intellectuals, and he himself became the spiritual leader of the country. Existentialism, a philosophy of action, associated in the minds of an entire generation with the Resistance movement, which attached great importance to freedom in all its manifestations, gave hope that this generation could build on the ruins of war new world, devoid of previous shortcomings and worthy of their expectations. Following Sartre, Simone also published her work: in a philosophical essay entitled “Pyrrhus and Cineas,” she discussed existentialist ethics - in many ways more accurately, more collectedly and much more clearly than Sartre did. Although many critics found that Simone had much more literary talent, and her philosophical system was more thoughtful and harmonious, she always denied her importance as a philosopher, deliberately emphasizing the role of Sartre: according to her, he was the real thinker, the generator of ideas. Simone considered herself only a writer, capable of conveying his ideas to people in an accessible form. Although existentialism in her understanding differed from Sartre’s, she did not want to split the ranks of their followers or offend Sartre himself: after all, she loved him, and love justified a lot for her. From the very beginning, she chose for herself the role of his follower and was not going to give it up, even for her own sake. Together with the greatest intellectuals of the time - Boris Vian, Raymond Aron, Maurice Merleau-Ponty and others - Simone and Sartre in 1945 founded the literary, philosophical and political magazine Les Temps modernes (that is, “Modern Times” - the name was borrowed from the Charlie Chaplin film ). That same year, Sartre went to the USA to give lectures - but, in violation of all their agreements, he did not take Simone with him. In New York, he immediately began an affair with former actress Dolores Vanetti and was so fascinated by her that he did not return to Paris for two years, where his faithful Simone was waiting for him. Finally, in 1947, she, at the invitation of several universities, also came to America, but instead of returning Sartre, she fell in love: her chosen one was the journalist and writer Nelson Algren, a year younger than her.

Simone de Beauvoir at Cafe de Flore, 1944

According to her memoirs, it was with him that Simone first truly learned the joys of carnal love - unfortunately, Sartre himself was not up to par in this matter: according to Bianca Bienenfeld, Sartre “brings little pleasure in making love. He doesn’t want your body—he just wants to win women.” Nelson immediately proposed marriage to her, but Simone again refused: she was truly in love with Nelson, but did not want to leave Sartre, to whom she felt obliged - this Nelson could neither understand nor forgive. Her relationship with Nelson, whom Simone called her “beloved husband,” lasted almost 15 years and resulted in more than three hundred letters published after her death. Surprisingly, in them Simone, who always tried to appear independent and free from all obligations, calls herself “an obedient eastern wife.” “I’ll be smart, wash the dishes, sweep the floor, buy eggs and cookies, I won’t touch your hair, cheeks, shoulders if you don’t let me,” she wrote. She sincerely loved Algren and all her life she wore the simple clothes he gave her. wedding ring, but never settled with him under the same roof. Some believe that her marriage to Nelson was not allowed by Sartre himself, who was afraid that the public disintegration of the “great union of two philosophers” could greatly harm both him personally and existentialism in general. “People expected me to be faithful to Sartre,” Simone wrote. “So I pretended that it was so.” She already understood what trap she had driven herself into by once agreeing to “mutually free love,” but she could no longer do anything: she was ready to defend her convictions to the end, and her love for Sartre was the main one of them.

Returning to Paris, Simone threw herself headlong into working on her main book. A two-volume book entitled “The Second Sex” was published in 1949 and produced the effect of a bomb exploding: in her work, Beauvoir explored in great detail the history of exploitation by one sex - the male - of the other sex, that is, women, and called on women to finally throw off the yoke of centuries-old slavery. The book opened with a statement from the philosopher Søren Kierkegaard: “To be born a woman is what a misfortune! But the misfortune is seventy times greater when a woman does not realize this.”

For this work, Simone de Beauvoir was declared the founder of feminism and anathematized by almost all men in the world: even Albert Camus, who was her close friend, argued that de Beauvoir turned the French man into an object of contempt and ridicule. Simone's discussions about women's right to abortion, lesbian sex and a woman's right to intellectual life caused a storm of controversy. Sartre was proud that it was he who suggested the idea of ​​this book to Beauvoir, and supported his friend in every possible way, demonstrating their free union as the first proof that Simone was right and the establishment of new relationships between a man and a woman. Since 1952, the romance between Simone and Nelson almost faded away - she replaced the American writer with a young one - he was only 27 years old - a journalist for the Temps modernes magazine, Claude Lanzmann, charming, talented and cynical. Simone wrote: “His closeness freed me from the burden of my age. Thanks to him, I regained the ability to rejoice, be surprised, be scared, laugh, and perceive the world around me.” Claude gave her the courage and strength to write a new novel, “Tangerines,” which was based on her correspondence with Nelson. Algren was furious - he was not going to expose his personal life to the whole world: “Damn it,” he said in an interview. – Love letters are too personal. I have been to brothels more than once, but even there the women keep the doors closed.” Simone justified herself, explaining to him in another letter: “The novel does not reflect the history of our relationship. I tried to extract the quintessence from them, describing the love of a woman like me and a man like you.” However, their relationship ended there.

Nelson Algren

For the novel, Simone received the Goncourt Prize, which once surpassed Sartre, and with the fee she bought herself an apartment near the Montparnasse cemetery. There, for the first time in her life, she invited a man to live: Lanzmann, much to Sartre’s displeasure, lived with Simone for almost seven years. For Sartre at this time, politics became his main lover - his unprecedented political activity became legendary. He was called the most politically active philosopher and the most philosophizing political figure. However, the policy was rather intended to create noise around him literary works, the most famous of which are the plays “Dirty Hands” and “The Devil and the Lord God”, the cycle “Roads of Freedom”, as well as the first volume of “Critique of Dialectical Reason”. Simone de Beauvoir recalled that Sartre worked so hard on the Critique that he was forced to constantly resort to artificial stimulants - not only coffee, whiskey and tobacco, but also drugs. According to him, with tranquilizers he “thought three times faster than without them,” but the pills greatly undermined his already poor health. The second volume of the Critique was never completed; The “Roads of Freedom” cycle also remained unfinished.

Claude Lanzmann, Jean Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir

But even absorbed in politics, Sartre remained true to himself. When he was already over fifty, he fell in love with a seventeen-year-old student, a Jew from Algeria, Arlette el-Kaim. One day she called him to discuss some aspects of Sartre’s “Being and Nothingness.” He invited her to visit, and from then on she began to appear in his house more and more often, and eventually settled there as Sartre’s mistress. Simone was furious: Arlette did not just sleep with Sartre - she did not let him see Simone, as well as Simone, arrogating to herself the right not only to his time, but also to his works. Now she, and not Simone, began to edit Sartre's articles, help him with correspondence and select books in the library. When Arlette was about to be deported, he even decided to marry her, but eventually changed his mind and adopted her instead in 1965.

This was a blow for Simone: they once agreed to share the world only with each other, not have children and be together, and now Sartre has a daughter who not only took him away from Simone, but will also inherit his money and ideas in the future and rights to his works. Beauvoir could not forgive this. In response, she adopted her student (and, as some believe, her mistress) Sylvia Le Bon, in whose name she made a will. But although this quarrel almost separated them in Paris, in front of the whole world they were still together. Sartre and Simone traveled constantly: they traveled half the world, from Canada to China, from Tunisia to Norway, meeting a wide variety of people - from Fidel Castro and Algerian peasants to Mao Zedong and Soviet schoolchildren. Simone continued to write: in the late 50s she began writing an autobiography (eventually amounting to four volumes), and in 1964 she published the novel A Very Easy Death, based on the diaries that Simone kept at the bedside of her dying mother. Although criticism mainly focused on how unethical and heartless it was to distract oneself from suffering for the sake of a book, Sartre himself called this work best book Simons. Since the late sixties, de Beauvoir devoted herself to the fight for women's rights: she demanded freedoms for them, seemingly obvious, but still inaccessible: to control their body, their soul, their property. In 1971, France was literally blown up by the so-called “Manifesto of 343,” published in the weekly Le Nouvel Observateur, in which 343 famous women admitted that they had had an abortion—at that time it was considered a criminal offense in France. The text of the manifesto was written by Simone de Beauvoir, her signature was among others. And although many still believe that half of those who signed never had an abortion, including Simone, this petition still did its job: three years later, abortions were allowed in France.

However, love again called her to serve: from the beginning of the seventies, Sartre’s health deteriorated sharply. He was almost blind due to advanced glaucoma, and he had heart and breathing problems due to years of alcohol and drug abuse. Simone, having abandoned all her affairs, was almost constantly by his side, caring for and helping him in his work. Sartre could no longer write, but continued to give numerous interviews and dictate to his secretary Bernard-Henri Lévy. In recent years, he has revised many of his previous beliefs - even, to Simone's fury, renounced atheism. He even questioned existentialism, his own creation. On his seventieth birthday, he was asked how he felt about being called an existentialist, and Sartre replied: “The word is idiotic. As you know, I didn’t choose it: they stuck it on me, and I accepted it. Now I don’t take it anymore.” Simone was horrified: the man to whom she had devoted herself entirely was abandoning his thoughts, his entire past life, of which she deservedly considered herself an important part. She even tried to declare him crazy, who didn’t know what he was saying, but she didn’t have time. Sartre died on April 15, 1980. Simone was with him until the last and even then: she lay next to the dead body for several hours, forgiving and saying goodbye. As she said, Sartre’s last words were addressed to her: “Simone, my love, I love you so much, my Beaver...” Sartre found his last refuge in the Montparnasse cemetery - ironically, that’s where the windows of Simone’s apartment looked...

After Sartre's death she felt empty. Coming from the funeral, she got so drunk that she fell asleep on the floor and caught a severe cold. In memory of Jean-Paul Sartre, she wrote one of her most powerful books, “Farewell,” an accurate and merciless account of the last years of Sartre’s life and her love. In her own words, the only Kinga that Sartre did not read before publication. “His death separates us,” she wrote. – Mine will not connect us again. It’s just wonderful that we were given the opportunity to live so much in complete harmony.” She outlived him by exactly six years, spending these years alone, almost never leaving the house. Simone de Beauvoir died on April 14, 1986 in a Paris hospital, where she lay completely alone: ​​no one visited her, no one asked about her. She didn’t need it - the only person whose opinion she was interested in was waiting for her at the Montparnasse cemetery...

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