13 November 1893 stabbing

1893 anarchist stabbing in Paris Paris 13 November 1893 Ère des attentats Attentat 13 novembre 1893 Petit Journal supplément dimanche 2 12 1893.png Depiction of the 13 November stabbing in Le Petit Journal (2 December 1893) stabbing 0 1 Léon Léauthier 1 Anarchism 1 Guilty and deported to a penal colony dms inline,titleThe 13 November 1893 stabbing was an attack carried out in Paris by the anarchist Léon Léauthier against Mihailo Kr. Đorđević,As explained in his necrologue in Serbian in the Policijski Glasnik (Police Gazette): http://ubsm.bg.ac.rs/view.php?q=2124&e=f&p=0007&z=1&w=1280&h=884 a Serbian diplomat targeted because 'he looked bourgeois'. The attack, which took place in the middle of the Ère des attentats (1892–1894), was carried out by the anarchist in response to his dismissal from his job as a shoemaker and the misery in which he found himself. It was one of the first acts of indiscriminate terrorism in history, occurring only six days after the Liceu bombing and a few months before the Café Terminus bombing, making it a foundational event for modern terrorism. The victim ultimately survived his injuries, while Léauthier was sentenced to life imprisonment in a penal colony, where he was assassinated by the police in 1894. History Context thumb|Representation of an anarchist arrest during the Ère des attentats, Le Petit Journal (3 June 1893) In the 19th century, anarchism emerged and took shape in Europe before spreading.Jourdain 2013 13-15 Anarchists advocate a struggle against all forms of domination perceived as unjust including economic domination brought forth by capitalism.Jourdain 2013 13-15 They are particularly opposed to the State, seen as the organization that legitimizes these dominations through its police, army and propaganda.Ward 2004 26-33 In France, the already conflictual relations between anarchists and the French State, embodied by the Third Republic, entered a new period of intense tension: in 1891, the Fourmies shooting, where the army fired on demonstrators demanding an eight‑hour workday, and the Clichy affair, when anarchists were arrested, beaten and mistreated by the police, radicalized a number of anarchists in France.Merriman 2016 71-74 The fact that the anarchists arrested after the Clichy affair were tried with great severity – the prosecutor demanding the death penalty for the three and the judge handing down harsh prison sentences of three and five years – was an important catalyst for the advent of the Ère des attentats.Merriman 2016 71-74 The attacks followed one another as repression against the anarchists intensified, and a young Léon Léauthier, an anarchist militant since the age of sixteen,Bouhey 2009 276 found himself unemployed.Frémion 2011 25-26 He moved from Manosque to Paris, where he managed to get a job as a shoemaker—only to be dismissed at the end of September 1893.Frémion 2011 25-26 During this period, one of his anarchist companions, Plume (meaning 'Feather'), was arrested by the police.Frémion 2011 18 Preparation and stabbing After more than a month of unemployment, during which he managed to work as a shoemaker here and there to survive, he decided to take action.Frémion 2011 25-26 Léauthier sought to meet Sébastien Faure, whose conferences he had attended since childhood, during one of his speeches in early November 1893.Frémion 2011 25-26 However, he missed him and decided to write to him on 12 November 1893. In this letter, later used during his trial, he expressed his motives and the ideology underlying the attack he was about to carry out:Frémion 2011 25-26 I find myself either starving to death or committing suicide. Well, no! I will choose neither. The first, because the stores are overflowing with goods; and the second, because I refuse to take my own life to avoid the shame of being a coward and a fool. One could not be more idiotic and senseless to kill oneself rather than strike at those responsible.[...] I will take revenge however I can, not having the means to carry out a major act like the sublime companion Ravachol. My chosen weapon will be my tool of work, but what does it matter? It will still be a refinement to stab a bourgeois with the very tool that I used to produce what he consumes at my expense. [...] I would very much like to choose, among others, a magistrate [precisely... however] I know neither their faces nor their addresses, but I will not strike an innocent by attacking the first bourgeois I come across. The following evening, he went to dine at Bouillon Duval, located at 31 avenue de l'Opéra.Frémion 2011 10-19 There, he remained seated for about forty-five minutes after finishing his meal, staring blankly into space.Frémion 2011 10-19 Then, around 8:30 p.m., he stood up and stabbed a bourgeois in the chest as the man was leaving, knowing nothing about his identity. He drove the blade into his chest and fled, rushing into the street.Frémion 2011 10-19 The victim, a Serbian minister plenipotentiary (roughly: ambassador) to France named Mihailo Kr. Đorđević, in French press recorded as "Rista Georgevitch" (possibly because of the middle name "Kristivoje", Serb version of Christopher), pulled the dagger from his chest quickly and was astonished to have been attacked by Léauthier, whom he did not know, exclaiming:Frémion 2011 10-19 What is this? I don’t know him! This is too much! Quick, a doctor! A doctor! The Serbian diplomat collapsed shortly after but did not die; he ultimately survived the attack.Frémion 2011 10-19 Shortly after, Léauthier turned himself in at the police station of the 11th arrondissement of Paris.Frémion 2011 10-19 Aftermath After turning himself in, Léauthier was incarcerated and put on trial.Frémion 2011 100-121 The trial, which lasted a single day, resulted in his sentence to life imprisonment in a penal colony.Frémion 2011 100-121 He was transferred there over the course of 1894 before being assassinated by the colonial and prison administration on 21 or 22 October 1894, during the massacre of the anarchists in the penal colony.Frémion 2011 100-121 Analysis Birth of indiscriminate terrorism and modern terrorism This attack holds crucial importance in the history of terrorism. Alongside the Liceu bombing, which took place a few days earlier, and the Café Terminus bombing, it was one of the first instances of indiscriminate terrorism in history.Ferragu 2019 21-31 Gilles Ferragu described Léauthier's action as follows:Ferragu 2019 21-31 The first words of Rista Georgevitch, the Serbian minister in Paris, wounded on 13 November 1893 by the stabbing of an anarchist—Léauthier—express the diplomat's astonishment. Georgevitch was stabbed not for his official position but simply because he was a 'bourgeois'. [...] Léon Léauthier’s stabbing would thus be the first act of a new form of terrorism—new because it targeted the crowd, the masses, anonymously. This 13 November 1893 could mark the birth of modern terrorism in that it implicitly defines an objective enemy. Léauthier did not want to, or did not know how to, turn his act into a manifesto... A few months later, another anarchist, Émile Henry, would usher public opinion—now directly targeted—into the era of mass terrorism by declaring during his trial that he had 'struck at random'. References Bibliography Bouhey Vivien Les Anarchistes contre la République 2009 The Anarchists against the Republic Rennes Presses universitaires de Rennes (PUR) Ferragu Gilles L'écho des bombes : l'invention du terrorisme « à l'aveugle » (1893-1895) 2019 Ethnologie française 49 1 21–31 The echo of bombs: The invention of indiscriminate terrorism (1893–1895) https://shs.cairn.info/revue-ethnologie-francaise-2019-1-page-21?lang=fr 10.3917/ethn.191.0021 subscription Frémion Yves Léauthier l'anarchiste. De la propagande par le fait à la révolte des bagnards (1893-1894) 2011 Léauthier the anarchist. From propaganda by the deed to the convicts' revolt (1893-1894) Paris L'Échappée 9782915830477 Jourdain Edouard L'anarchisme 2013 La Découverte 978-2-7071-9091-8 Paris Anarchism Merriman John M. John M. Merriman The dynamite club: how a bombing in fin-de-siècle Paris ignited the age of modern terror The Dynamite Club 2016 Yale University Press 978-0-300-21792-6 Ward Colin Colin Ward Anarchism: A Very Short Introduction 2004 Oxford University Press (OUP) Anarchism Crime Europe History Category:19th-century anarchist terrorist incidents Category:1893 in France Category:1890s in Paris Category:Anarchism in France Category:Propaganda of the deed Category:November 1893 in Europe Category:Terrorist incidents in Paris Category:Terrorist incidents in the 1890s Category:Labor history of France Category:1893 in labor relations