Léon Savary

Léon Savary (Fleurier, 1895 – Boudry, 1968) was a Swiss French-speaking writer and journalist from Payerne, Vaud.

Biography

Savary was the son of a German russified aristocratic mother from the Baltic region (Von Paucker) and a father who was Protestant pastor from Vaud and was a converted to Roman Catholicism. After studying at the University of Fribourg, he worked from 1921 to 1923 for the Geneva newspaper la tribune de Genève, in Geneva, and correspondent in Bern (1935–1946) and Paris (1946–1956). He was Historian of the city of his own choice Fribourg. He wrote about twenty books, most of them are not published anymore.

With René de Weck and Gonzague de Reynold, he formed the troika of Fribourg writers of the early twentieth century.

He had a great knowledge of the Swiss political system and habits. In Letters with Suzanne (French: Lettres à Suzanne, Lausanne, Switzerland, 1949), he denounced "the occult influence of hitlerism on Swiss people during the second world war, which were not conscious of being under". About Swiss Politic in general, in the same book, covering the Federal Palace, he said, with his alert and sharp pen: "The Swiss do not desire great men, and in politics, they are afraid to have them. What they like is honesty and average aptitude to manage public affairs like a shop. They mistrust superiority and, let us frankly admit, they are horrified at genius. No geniuses, no saints, even talent is suspect. It is enough to say that a politician who showed signs of surpassing the low water mark would be promptly subject to public discredit"

After coming back from Paris in 1956, he spent the end of his life in the cities of Vevey and Bulle.

Works

• Le secret de Joachim Ascalles, 1923
• Manido chez les genevois,1927.
• Fribourg, Payot, Lausanne, 1929.OCLC 12515493
• Le Collège Saint-Michel, 1932.
• La chartreuse de La Valsainte, 1937.OCLC 34067593
• Le fardeau léger, 1938.
• Le cordon d'argent, 1940.
• La fin d'un mensonge, 1940.
• Le troupeau sans berger, 1942.
• En passant, la Tribune de Genève editions, 1942.
• Au seuil de la sacristie, 1942.OCLC 35332461
• Lettres à Suzanne, 1949.
• Le cendrier d'Erymanthe, 1953.OCLC 35332466
• Les anges gardiens, 1953.
• Le fonds des ressuscités, mémoirs, first volume, 1956.OCLC 29859521
• Voulez-vous être conseiller national?, 1958.OCLC 25045376
• Les balances faussées, mémoirs, second volume, 1966.
• La bibliothèque de Sauvives, 1970.OCLC 422068208
• L'âme de Genève, Slatkine, Geneva, 1978.OCLC 15696663
• œuvres maîtresses, five volumes, Slatkine, Geneva, 1978.OCLC 15696661

Awards

Léon Savary won the Schiller Prize in 1960.

Bibliography

• Maurice Zermatten: Léon Savary à l’occasion de son soixante-dixième anniversaire. Bienne, 1965. OCLC 14085529
• Charles Linsmayer: Literaturszene Schweiz. 157 Kurzportraits von Rousseau bis Gertrud Leutenegger. Unionsverlag, Zürich, 1989, ISBN 978-3-293-00152-7 (P. 212 ss)

External links

• Library of Congress authorities
• Documents from and on Léon Savary in the Dodis database of the Diplomatic Documents of Switzerland
• Publications by and about Léon Savary in the catalogue Helveticat of the Swiss National Library