Scribomania : On the wife, on the archive ; Carl Schmitt and the secrets of his handwriting

Abstract

In this text I explore the possibility of writing about the archives. My intention is to show, on the example of Carl Schmitt, perhaps the last, great documentalist of the 20th century, the conditions of an impossible archives economy. By taking inventory of Schmitt’s documents (often they refer to his second wife, Dušanka Todorović) and reconstructing of his preparation to write, I would like to emphasize the unique importance of the archives as a space for happiness and always new inspiration for a new departure or a completely new text. In other words, the figure of the ‘archive’ reveals the imminent impossibility of classifying certain elements, and that therefore every additional (re)construction of these elements is structured as autobiography or as biography (Schmitt’s biography), or as the archives themselves – pure fiction.