Francophile


A Francophile is a person who has a strong affinity or appreciation for the people, culture, language, history, or government of France. The term "Francophile" can be contrasted with Francophobe, someone who shows hatred or other forms of negative feelings towards all that is French.
A Francophile may enjoy French artists ; authors and poets, musicians, filmmakers, and cuisine. Francophilia often arises in former French colonies, where the elite spoke French and adopted many French habits. In other European countries such as Romania and Russia, French culture has also long been popular among the upper class. Historically, Francophilia has been associated with supporters of Enlightenment philosophy during and after the French Revolution, where democratic uprisings challenged the autocratic regimes of Europe, as well as liberalism and opposition to absolute monarchy and authoritarian governments in general.

Europe

Armenia

The Armenians of Cilicia welcomed the Frankish, or French, Crusaders of the Middle Ages as fellow Christians. There was much exchange, and the last dynasty to rule Armenian Cilicia, the Lusignans , was of French origin.
During the reign of Louis XIV, many Armenian manuscripts were taken into the National Library of France. Armenia and Armenian characters are featured in the works of Montesquieu, Voltaire, and Rousseau. The first instance of Armenian studies began with the creation of an Armenian department in the School of Oriental languages, at the initiative of Napoleon.
An important figure of Armenian Francophilia was that of Stepan Vosganian. Arguably the first Armenian "intellectual" and literary critic, Vosganian "represents the prototype of a long line of Armenian intellectuals nurtured in and identified with European, and particularly French, culture". Educated in Paris, he was a champion of liberalism and the positivist philosophy of Auguste Comte, and even took part in the French Revolution of 1848.
The French political classes were on the whole supportive of the Armenian national movement. The French–Armenian Agreement was a political and military accord to create the Armenian Legion in the French Army to fight on the Allied side of World War I, in return for promises of recognition of Armenian independence. The Armenian Legion engaged successfully in Anatolia and Palestine during World War I, particularly at the Battle of Arara and during the Franco-Turkish War.

Belgium

Francophilia or Rattachism is a revancist marginal political ideology in some parts of Belgium. Rattachism would mean the incorporation of French-speaking Belgium, Wallonia into Metropolitan France. This movement has existed in some form or another since the Belgian state itself came into existence in 1830. The Manifesto for Walloon culture of 1983, relaunched in 2003, and a series of discussions are the sole contemporary remnants.

Cyprus

The establishment of the Crusader Kingdom of Cyprus, in 1192, was the beginning of intense French influence on the island throughout the next three centuries. Touching almost every aspect of life, it would endure even after the end of Lusignan domination, and remains a strong component of Cypriot culture. In this wise the Republic of Cyprus became an associate member of the Francophonie in 2006.

Germany

In the 18th century, French was the language of German elites. A notable Francophile was King Frederick the Great of Prussia, or Frédéric as he preferred to call himself. Frederick spoke and wrote notably better French than he did German, and all of his books were written in French, a choice of language that was of considerable embarrassment to German nationalists in the 19th and 20th centuries when Frederick became the preeminent German national hero. One source noted: "Nor did Frederick have any time for German cultural chauvinism. As an ardent Francophile in matters literary and artistic, he took a low view of the German language, spoke it imperfectly himself, and once boasted that he had not read a book in German since his early youth. His preferences in music, art and architecture were overwhelmingly Italian and French". The French philosophe Voltaire when he visited Berlin to meet his admirer noted that everyone at the Prussian Court spoke the most exquisite French, and that German was only used when addressing servants and soldiers.

Another ardent German Francophile was King Ludwig II of Bavaria, a.k.a. "Mad King Ludwig". Ludwig felt a great deal of affinity for King Louis XIV of France, the "Sun King" and liked to call himself the "Moon King" to suggest a parallel between himself and his hero. Ludwig collected Louis XIV memorabilia, Linderhof Palace was modeled after the Palace of Trianon. An even more striking example of Ludwig's architectural Francophilia was the Palace of Herrenchiemsee, a copy of the Palace of Versailles.

Italy

The Norman conquest of southern Italy lasted from 999 to 1139.
has a long and deeply entrenched tradition of Francophilia beginning after the Enlightenment and Revolutionary periods. No doubt the most famous contemporary Romanian Francophile is Eugen Weber, a prodigious author and lecturer in Romania on French history. In his book "My France: politics, culture, myth", he writes: "Social relations, manners, attitudes that others had to learn from books, I lived in my early years. Romanian francophilia, Romanian francophony.... Many Romanians, in my day, dreamed of France; not many got there".
With the efforts to build Romania into a modern nation-state, with a national language and common national heritage, in the 19th century, the Romanian language was deliberately reoriented to its Latin heritage by a steady import of French neologisms suited to contemporary civilization and culture. "For ordinary Romanians, keen on the idea of the Latin roots of their language, 'Romance' meant 'French.'" An estimated 39% of Romanian vocabulary consists of borrowings from French, with an estimated 20% of "everyday" Romanian vocabulary.
Boia writes: "Once launched on the road of Westernization, the Romanian elite threw itself into the arms of France, the great Latin sister in the West. When we speak of the Western model, what is to be understood is first and foremost the French model, which comes far ahead of the other Western reference points." He quotes no less than the leading Romanian politician Dimitrie Drăghicescu, writing in 1907: "As the nations of Europe acquire their definitive borders and their social life becomes elaborated and crystallized within the precise limits of these borders, so their spiritual accomplishments will approach those of the French, and the immaterial substance of their souls will take on the luminous clarity, the smoothness and brilliance of the French mentality." Bucharest was rebuilt in the style of Paris in the 19th century, giving the city the nickname the "Paris of the East".
Other notable Romanian Francophiles include Georges Enesco, Constantin Brâncuși, Emil Cioran, Mircea Eliade, Eugène Ionesco and Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel.

Russia

18th and 19th century Russian Francophilia is familiar to many from Tolstoy's War and Peace and Anna Karenina, and his characters from the Russian aristocracy converse in French and give themselves French names. At the time, the language of diplomacy and higher education across much of Europe was French. Russia, recently "modernized", or "Westernized", by the rule of sovereigns from Peter the Great to Catherine the Great was no exception. The Russian elite, in the early 18th century, was educated in the French tradition and made a conscious effort to imitate the manners of France. Their descendants, a generation or two later, were no longer "imitating" French customs but grew up with them, and the strong impact of the French culture on Russian upper and even middle classes was evident, on a smaller scale than in the 18th century, until the Revolution of 1917.

Serbia

The oldest documented possible contact between the two sides was the marriage of Stephen Uroš I of Serbia and Helen of Anjou in the 13th century.
The first important contacts of French and Serbs came only in the 19th century, when the first French travel writers wrote about their travels to Serbia. At that time Karađorđe Petrović, the leader of the Serbian Revolution, sent a letter to Napoleon expressing his admiration. On the other hand, in the French parliament, Victor Hugo asked France to assist in protecting Serbia and the Serbian population from Ottoman crimes. Diplomatic relations with France were established on 18 January 1879. Rapid development of bilateral relations done that people in Serbia in "mighty France" seen great new friend that will protect them from the Ottomans and Habsburgs. Relations between Serbia and France would go upwards until the First World War, when the "common struggle" against a common enemy would reach its peak. Before the war, France would win sympathy of local population by building railways by opening of French schools and a consulate and a Bank. Several Serbian kings were at universities in Paris as well as a large part of the future diplomats. Serbs have built a sense of Francophilia because the activities moved them away from the Ottoman and Habsburg Empires. For Serbs until 1914, French have become major allies what were even a threat for traditional inclination towards Russia. The great humanitarian and military assistance that France sent to Serbia during First World War, assistance in the evacuation of children, civilians and military at the end, and the support of French newspaper headlines even today are deeply ingrained in the collective consciousness of large number of Serbs.
Notable Serbian Francophiles include Ilija Garašanin and Sava Šumanović.