G. Brocher Papers

Period  (1860) 1871-1927, 1931
Total size   0.4 m.
Consultation Not restricted

Biography

Brocher, Gustave: born in Delle, France 1850, died in Lausanne 1931; raised by his father in a Fourierist tradition, he studied theology however and became a priest; went to Russia as a private teacher; went to London in 1875, where he eventually joined the Vpered! group and became a socialist; in 1879 he turned anarchist under the influence of Paul Brousse; coeditor of Le Travail 1880-1881; active in the Socialist League and anarchist circles in London; moved to Lausanne in 1891 (though he returned for a while to London later); taught at the academy of Fiume from 1911 to 1914; contributed to many anarchist periodicals and publications (e.g. the Encyclopédie anarchiste') and, a militant freethinker from the 1880s on, to numerous secularist papers; editor of La Libre Pensé from 1918 until his death.

Brocher, Victorine: maiden name Malenfant, widow of Jean Rouchy; born in Paris 1838, died in Lausanne 1921; born into a family with a long revolutionary tradition, she became involved in republican and socialist activities in the 1850s; married in 1861 Jean Rouchy with whom she participated in the 1860s in Orleans and Paris in several socialist groups; with her husband active in the Paris Commune in 1871, she managed to escape first to Switzerland and later to London, while her husband was imprisoned and died in captivity; returned to Lyon and then to Paris in 1878, and became very active in anarchist circles; member of the group that published La Révolution Sociale; Parisian delegate to the London Congress of 1881 where she met Gustave Brocher, whom she married in 1887; published in 1911 her memoirs up to 1871 Souvenirs d'une morte vivante'.

Content

Letters from Paul Brousse 1877, 1880, Victor Dave 1904, 1912, Lucien Descaves 1908-1913, Emile Gautier 1885, 1908, Errico Malatesta 1880-1908, Louise Michel 1892, Paul Robin 1887-1910, Jules Vallès 1882 and others; manuscripts by Victorine Brocher-Rouchy 'Les prisonniers politiques à Landerneau' 1872 etc.; file on the former members of the Paris Commune in prison and the Société des Réfugiés de la Commune in Geneva 1872-1887; file consisting of correspondence, participant lists, statements, resolutions and other documents relating to the Congrès International Socialiste Révolutionnaire in London 1881.

NB. Originally part of the Nettlau collection.

Processing information

Inventory by Benjamin Guichard in 2011