The Cusackian Academy
The other day I started drawing up a list. It started out as a list of people you should know, but then it took on its own life in the realms of my imagination as an assemblage of notables whether of thought, word, or deed. There is, of course, an Académie française, so why not an Académie cusackienne?
Membership of this list does not necessitate approval or sanction. It is more that these are the stars that speckle the Cusackian sky and in some way shine down providing some form or another of illumination. Some I like, others I admire, others still I disapprove of but at least find amusing.
As you might expect, it’s rather French-heavy, with a disproportionate dash of Magyars as well. Needless to say, very few of these illustrious academicians are still amongst the living.
Readers doubtless would have multiple additions or subtractions to make.
Thomas Aquinas
Christopher Alexander
Raymond Aron
Robert Aron
Honoré de Balzac
Miklos Banffy
Bernard Iddings Bell
Hilaire Belloc
Benedict XVI
Folke Bernadotte
Frédéric Boily
Jorge Luis Borges
Edmund Burke
Roy Campbell
Albert Camus
Adrian Carton de Wiart
G.K. Chesterton
Lee Congdon
Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi
Maurice Cowling
Ralph Adams Cram
Régis Debray
Michel Debré
Maurice Druon
Fernand Dumont
Giuliano Ferrara
François Furet
Charles de Gaulle
Étienne Gilson
René Girard
Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue
Hergé
Hugo von Hoffmansthal
Washington Irving
Paul Jennings
Ryszard Kapuściński
Arthur Koestler
Aurel Kolnai
Charles de Koninck
Karl Kraus
Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn
Claes Lagergren
Patrick Leigh-Fermor
Joseph de Maistre
Curzio Malaparte
André Malraux
Pierre Manent
Sándor Márai
Charles Maurras
Fr Vincent McNabb OP
Pierre Mendès France
Nancy Mitford
Ferenc Molnar
Thomas Molnar
H.V. Morton
Frédéric Ozanam
Robert Paxton
Stanley G. Payne
Konstantin Pobedonostsev
John Rao
Jean Raspail
René Rémond
Gregor von Rezzori
Wilhelm Röpke
George Russell (Æ)
Claes Ryn
Saki
Nikos Salingaros
E.F. Schumacher
Roger Scruton
Victor Serge
Jan Christiaan Smuts
Timothy Snyder
Zeev Sternhell
Adalbert Stifter
Luigi Sturzo
Domokos Szent-Iványi
Luigi Taparelli d’Azeglio
Charles Taylor
Pal Teleki
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien
Giulio Tremonti
Tu Wei-ming
Sigrid Undset
Paul Valery
Georges Vanier
Louis Veuillot
Michael Wharton
Slavoj Žižek
Stefan Zweig
No Evelyn Waugh? I would have thought there was no more Cusackian figure than he.
“Rather French-heavy”?
Egads, it stinks of garlic.
“Readers doubtless would have multiple additions or subtractions to make.”
Yes:
Jules Barbey d’Aurevilly
Modris Eksteins
Northrop Frye
Johan Huizinga
Antonio Machado
José Antonio Maravall
Minh Dung Louis Nghiem
Giovanni Papini
Heinrich Pesch
Alberto Denti di Pirajno
Wolfgang Smith
Truly delighted to Count Miklós Bánffy as a Cusackian academician. Perhaps a future election to membership might include W.H.Auden?
I would suggest to add (in alphabetic order):
– Giovanni Agnelli
– Boris Biancheri
– Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill
– Giuseppe Cordero Lanza di Montezemolo
– Luca Cordero di Montezemolo
– Staffan de Mistura
– Earl Mountbatten of Burma
– Prince Philip Duke of Edinburgh
– Pius XII
– Sergio Romano
Good grief, Mr. Cusack. Your list may start off with the Angelic Doctor, but you may as well add “The Vatican II Fathers” to your list.
You’ve certainly got the ball rolling! Curious to know what half would you, without hesitating, drop? Think it would be illuminating – an even truer distillation of Cusackian heroes. Your call.
French heavy indeed! But Carton de Wiart? You must be joking, Sir! The man was a lunatic, beloved of Churchill he may have been (no recommendation in itself), but a menace to those he commanded. Not for nothing is he pilloried as Brigadier Richie-Calder in Evelyn Waugh’s “Sword of Honour” trilogy. If Carton de Wiart, then surely Auchinleck, and the literary Wavell have a higher claim on your admiration.
See above: “Membership of this list does not necessitate approval or sanction.”
I am impressed that you should have included Father Luigi Taparelli, a Jesuit: sed quam mutati ab illo!
May I add two names?
marquis Monaldo Leopardi, the real genius of the family, and the prince of Canosa, Antonio Capece Minutolo
Martin Mosebach!