Ivan Vladimirovitch Chtcheglov (Russian: Ива́н Влади́мирович Щегло́в; 16 January 1933 – 21 April 1998) was a French philosopher, political activist, and poet of Russian origin, best known as the ideologist of Unitary Urbanism and the author of the "Formulary for a New Urbanism", published under the pseudonym Gilles Ivain in 1953.
Biography
Family background
Ivan was the son of Vladimir Chtcheglov, a revolutionary sentenced to two years imprisonment following the
1905 Revolution
The Russian Revolution of 1905, also known as the First Russian Revolution, was a revolution in the Russian Empire which began on 22 January 1905 and led to the establishment of a constitutional monarchy under the Russian Constitution of 1906, t ...
. After his release, Vladimir left the
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was an empire that spanned most of northern Eurasia from its establishment in November 1721 until the proclamation of the Russian Republic in September 1917. At its height in the late 19th century, it covered about , roughl ...
with his wife Hélene Zavadsky. After originally staying in Belgium for three years, the couple moved to Paris in 1910, where Vladimir continued work as a taxi driver. He was active in the
CGT and involved in the 1911 drivers strike.
Activities
Ivan wrote ''Formulaire pour un urbanisme nouveau'' (Formulary for a New Urbanism) in 1953, at age nineteen under the name Gilles Ivain, which was an inspiration to the
Lettrist International and
Situationist International
The Situationist International (SI) was an international organization of social revolutionaries made up of avant-garde artists, intellectuals, and political theorists. It was prominent in Europe from its formation in 1957 to its dissolution ...
. The following quotation from the text was used as the inspiration for the famous Manchester nightclub, the
Haçienda:
"And you, forgotten, your memories ravaged by all the consternations of two hemispheres, stranded in the Red Cellars of Pali-Kao, without music and without geography, no longer setting out for the hacienda where the roots think of the child and ''where the wine is finished off with fables from an old almanac''. That’s all over. You’ll never see the hacienda. It doesn’t exist.
''The hacienda must be built''."
He and his friend Henry de Béarn planned to blow up the
Eiffel Tower
The Eiffel Tower ( ; ) is a wrought-iron lattice tower on the Champ de Mars in Paris, France. It is named after the engineer Gustave Eiffel, whose company designed and built the tower from 1887 to 1889.
Locally nicknamed "''La dame de fe ...
with some dynamite they had stolen from a nearby building site, because "its reflected light shone into their shared attic room and kept them awake at night."
[HUSSEY, A. (2002) The Game of War: The Life and Death of Guy Debord, London, Pimlico. p.51] He was arrested at ''Les Cinq Billards'' on Rue Mouffetard
[HUSSEY, A. (2002) The Game of War: The Life and Death of Guy Debord, London, Pimlico. p.94] in Paris and committed to a
mental hospital by his wife, where he was subdued with
insulin
Insulin (, from Latin ''insula'', 'island') is a peptide hormone produced by beta cells of the pancreatic islets encoded in humans by the insulin (''INS)'' gene. It is the main Anabolism, anabolic hormone of the body. It regulates the metabol ...
and
shock therapy, and remained for 5 years. He died in 1998.
Further reading
*
References
External links
''Formulary for a New Urbanism''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Chtcheglov, Ivan
1933 births
1998 deaths
Writers from Paris
French political philosophers
Psychogeographers
French people of Russian descent
20th-century French poets
French male poets
French male non-fiction writers
20th-century French male writers