Poor, poor Louis… The French Revolution in the Syro-Lebanese chronicles

The article is devoted to the perception of the French Revolution of 1789–1799 by the Syrian-Lebanese contemporaries. In the spring of 1799, Syria was invaded by Republican troops under the command of Napoleon Bonaparte. One of the reasons for the failure of the campaign was the lack of active support for the French army from the local Christian population. The reasons for the cautious position of the Syro-Christians are revealed by analyzing the accounts written by the chroniclers Yusuf ‘Abboud, Nikula al-Turk, Hananiah al-Munayyir and Abdallah Trad. Receiving information about the events in France primarily from the Catholic clergy, the Christians of Syria and Lebanon saw the revolutionaries and the French people who had fallen under their influence as adherents of the ‘diabolical heresy’, who had succumbed to vices, killed their king and sought to spread harmful beliefs to other countries. The article shows how the residents of Syria interpreted the socio-political concepts of republican government, individual freedom and equality before the law, which were unfamiliar to them; how the people of the Middle East saw the course of the revolution in France and the beginning of the Republic’s wars with the coalition of European monarchies. Special attention is paid to the central event of the revolution, from the point of view of the Syrian Catholic chroniclers – the execution of the anointed of God, King Louis XVI. The author demonstrates the difference between the positions of chroniclers, depending on the degree of their personal acquaintance with French soldiers and officers, as well as who was the final addressee of their writings

French · French revolution · Middle Ages · Middle East · European Political History Analysis · Islamic Studies and History · Middle East Politics and Society