Napoleonist Syndrome

The Napoleonist Syndrome is a psychological complex, or character disorder, underlying the attachment shown by members of a combatant country to the enemy leader, Napoleon.

It may be extended to cover parallel switches of allegiance in more modern times.

Nineteenth-century examples

During the 1790s, there was considerable sympathy outside France with the ideals of the French Revolution; but a decade later, after Napoleon had come to sole power, active sympathisers were much reduced in numbers:[1] the collapse of Beethoven's Napoleonist Family romance, on hearing of Bonaparte's coronation as emperor, is a prime example of the change.[2] Those Napoleonists that remained, however, came from all sides of the political spectrum - ranging from Queen Caroline to Radicals like William Hazlitt - something that has prompted a psychological explanation of their underlying motivation.[3]

The common factor in that syndrome is taken to be an ambivalent relationship to the parent or parent of origins, leading to a rejection of national authority, and its projection abroad.[4] The argument is particularly convincing in the case of a group of Radicals including Leigh Hunt and William Godwin, as well as Hazlitt - all the sons of dissenting ministers, whose religious beliefs they had rejected but whose influence on them remained substantial nevertheless.[5] Their common revolt against their fathers led to a counter-identification with the heroic figure presented by Napoleon[6] - his Promethean challenge to the existing order[7] seeming to offer a stark contrast to the narrow authoritarianism represented both by their own fathers, and by the British Royal family.[8]

Neo-Napoleonists

A similar syndrome may underlie later figures who projected their ideals on a distant, but larger than life tyrant, as in the case of Stalin and such double-agents as Guy Burgess and Kim Philby.[9]

Literary analogues

See also

References

  1. ↑ Boyd Hilton, A Mad, Bad and Dangerous People? (Oxford 2008) p. 210
  2. ↑ M. Solomon, Beethoven Essays (Harvard 1988) p. 78-9
  3. ↑ E. Tangye Lean, The Napoleonists (1970) p. 377
  4. ↑ Boyd Hilton, A Mad, Bad and Dangerous People? (Oxford 2008) p. 210
  5. ↑ A. L. Rowse, History Today 21 (1971) p. 146
  6. ↑ L. Hudson, The Way Men Think (Essex 1993) p. 44
  7. ↑ J. Christopher Herold, The Age of Napoleon (NY 1965) p. 112-3 and p. 197
  8. ↑ J. A Howk, William Hazlitt (1977) p. 237
  9. ↑ E. Tangye Lean, The Napoleonists (1970) p. 344
  10. ↑ G. Steiner, Tolstoy or Dostoevsky (Penguin 1967) p. 29-30
  11. ↑ D. Magarshack, Intro, Crime and Punishment (Penguin 1976) p. 14
  12. ↑ D. Lessing, The Golden Notebook (Penguin 1973) p. 302-4
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