André BRETON asks Ferdinand Alquié and mentions Jacques LACAN.

André Breton (1896.1966)

Signed autograph letter.

Two pages in-4° on AEAR letterhead

Trace of tape on the margins and fragility at the folds.

Paris. February 4, 1933.

“I ended up agreeing to take charge of the AEAR magazine in collaboration with Vaillant-Couturier”

André Breton has just accepted the direction of the AEAR and wishes for collaboration with the philosopher Ferdinand Alquié whom he had imagined contacting through his psychoanalyst friend Jacques Lacan. It is this same Alquié who, with his text published in May 1933 in the journal Le Surréalisme au service de la revolution denouncing the “wind of systematic cretinization blowing from the USSR”, will lead to the break between Breton and the French Communist Party .

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“My dear friend, I am deeply sensitive to the new mark of esteem and friendship that your letter brings me and I assure myself that, whatever fear I may have had temporarily, our paths will ultimately not be move away from each other. Only doubt and a melancholy that I believe we share are likely to give us the opposite illusion on certain days.

After much hesitation, I ended up agreeing to take on the direction of the AEAR [Association of Revolutionary Writers and Artists] magazine in collaboration with Vaillant-Couturier. I still don't really know what this will lead me to exactly. In all probability the first issue will appear at the end of March. Only then can we assess the merits or ills of this decision. Furthermore (and also as a result) it seems necessary to me to publish very soon Nos. ⁵ and 6 of “Surréal. ASDLR » [Surrealism in the service of the revolution] and to make it something as characteristic as possible. It seems to me that you could help me by sending me a text from you, theoretical or not, quite short if you wish because the collaborators are very numerous and the material resources increasingly slim, which you would consider particularly significant from a surrealist point of view. At the same time, I would be extremely happy if you managed to obtain similar collaboration from Ferdinand Alquié , on a subject of his choice. I have heard too much about him in ideal terms not to very much wish that he would grant it to me. I had thought about having Dr Jacques Lacan, who is one of our best mutual friends, ask him, but it seems infinitely preferable to me that it was you, my dear friend, who decided to do so. Will you please answer me on these two subjects? (It goes without saying that I would also receive with joy from him as from you any kind of critical notes of the order of those which usually appear in the review).

Naturally I am at a loss to indicate to you a journal likely to host an article by one of you on “Communicating Vases”. Imagine how much I regret it; These are obviously the only judgments that interest me (and not those of Mr. Gros or Mr. Lanoé!) But literary publications, and this is after all very fortunate, continue to be at loggerheads with me.

If the proposal I made to you above seems acceptable to you, would you please tell me what you plan to talk about, so that I can take it into account when composing the issues? Have you seen in today's "Journal" the portrait of these two charming young girls from Le Mans? See you soon, won't you? Did Alquié receive my book (copies get lost)? Believe in my very faithful affection. André Breton. 42 rue Fontaine Paris 9th. »

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The Association of Revolutionary Writers and Artists was created in March 1932. Under the tacit authority of the Communist Party, it was intended to develop the relationship between revolutionary engagement and national culture. The AEAR died out in 1939.