Napoleonist syndrome

During the 1790s, there was considerable sympathy outside France with the ideals of the French Revolution; but a decade later, after Napoleon had come to sole power, active sympathisers were much reduced in numbers:[1] the collapse of Beethoven's Napoleonist Family romance, on hearing of Bonaparte's coronation as emperor, is a prime example of the change.[2] Those Napoleonists that remained, however, came from all sides of the political spectrum - ranging from Queen Caroline to Radicals like William Hazlitt - something that has prompted a psychological explanation of their underlying motivation.[3]

The common factor in that syndrome is taken to be an ambivalent relationship to the parent or parent of origins, leading to a rejection of national authority, and its projection abroad.[4] The argument is particularly convincing in the case of a group of Radicals including Leigh Hunt and William Godwin, as well as Hazlitt - all the sons of dissenting ministers, whose religious beliefs they had rejected but whose influence on them remained substantial nevertheless.[5] Their common revolt against their fathers led to a counter-identification with the heroic figure presented by Napoleon[6] - his Promethean challenge to the existing order[7] seeming to offer a stark contrast to the narrow authoritarianism represented both by their own fathers, and by the British royal family.[8]

• Russian literature was pervaded by Napoleonism,[9] from Pushkin to Raskolnikov.[10]
• Doris Lessing in The Golden Notebook parodied the Western Communist idealisation (paternalisation) of Stalin: "...working for us! For the world!...in custody of the destinies of us all....with a fatherly twinkle in his eyes".[11]