Historiography of The French Revolution - I
Summary
TLDRIn this lecture series, Dr. Shankar Kumar explores the historiography of the French Revolution, focusing on how its narrative has evolved over two centuries. He discusses the 1889 and 1989 centenary celebrations, highlighting shifts in historical interpretation influenced by political and ideological contexts. The lecture touches on figures like Edmund Burke and Thomas Paine, and the impact of Marxist thought on revolution historiography, setting the stage for a deeper dive in the next installment.
Takeaways
- 📚 Historiography is the study of how history is written, and today’s focus is on the historiography of the French Revolution.
- ⚔️ The French Revolution, which began in 1789, is considered a landmark event in history, influencing modern political ideologies and is still debated after 200 years.
- 🗓️ The lecture examines the centennial celebrations of the Revolution in 1889 and the bicentennial in 1989 to show how perspectives on the event have evolved over time.
- 🏛️ In 1989, President Mitterrand declared the French Revolution 'over,' but counter-revolutionary sentiments still persisted, showing that the debate over the Revolution’s legacy remains open.
- ⚖️ The French Revolution is tied to modern ideals of democracy, human rights, and freedom, but critics, like Margaret Thatcher, emphasized the darker aspects like the Reign of Terror.
- 🎓 During the 1889 centenary, the focus was on the marriage of republicanism and positivism, as France under the Third Republic celebrated the revolution’s contribution to political progress.
- 🧐 Historians from different ideological backgrounds—traditionalists, radicals, and Marxists—have interpreted the Revolution differently, reflecting the changing political climates.
- 📜 The early thinkers like Edmund Burke (traditionalist) and Thomas Paine (radical) presented polarized views on the Revolution, laying the foundation for ongoing historiographical debates.
- 🔨 Marxist interpretations of the French Revolution dominated in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, emphasizing class struggle and the role of the bourgeoisie.
- 🧠 The evolution of French revolutionary historiography has been influenced by who holds academic chairs in history, with Marxist scholars dominating much of the 20th-century interpretation.
Q & A
What is the main theme of the lecture series?
-The main theme of the lecture series is the historiography of the French Revolution, focusing on how the event has been written about and interpreted over time.
What is historiography?
-Historiography is the study of the methods and practices of writing history, including the analysis of historical interpretations and the changing fashion of history writing.
Why is the French Revolution considered an iconic event?
-The French Revolution is considered iconic because it is seen as a harbinger of modernity in political terms and has been written about extensively for over 200 years.
What are the two centenary celebrations discussed in the script?
-The two centenary celebrations discussed are those of 1889 and 1989, marking 100 and 200 years after the French Revolution, respectively.
What was the political climate like in France during the 1989 bicentenary celebration?
-In 1989, President Mithran declared the revolution as being over, and the celebration was marked by a counter-revolutionary commemoration, indicating ongoing social and political tensions.
How did the British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher respond to the French Revolution bicentenary celebrations?
-Margaret Thatcher countered the French claims to the paternity of human rights by reminding the world of the Reign of Terror and questioning the celebration's focus on human rights.
What is the significance of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of Citizens in the context of the French Revolution?
-The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of Citizens was a foundational document of the revolution, emphasizing principles of liberty, equality, and fraternity, and it was highlighted during the bicentenary celebrations.
What was the role of Condorcet and Hegel in the early writings about the French Revolution?
-Condorcet and Hegel were among the first generation of writers who responded to the revolution, representing two polarities of opinion about the event.
How did the French Republic's political instability reflect in the historiography of the French Revolution?
-The French Republic's political instability, with its shifts between dictatorship, monarchy, and republicanism, contributed to a fractured historiography of the revolution.
What was the impact of the creation of a new chair in history at the Sorbonne University on the historiography of the French Revolution?
-The creation of a new chair in history at the Sorbonne University, with Alfred Rambaud elected to it, symbolized the Marxist grip over one particular version of the revolution and influenced the historiography for years to come.
What is the importance of Georges Lefebvre and Albert Sobol in the historiography of the French Revolution?
-Georges Lefebvre and Albert Sobol were key figures who carried the Marxist interpretation of the French Revolution in the first half of the 20th century, significantly influencing the understanding of the event.
Outlines
📜 Introduction to Historiography of the French Revolution
The lecture series on modern European history, specifically focusing on the historiography of the French Revolution, is introduced by Professor Shankar Kumar from Hindu College, University of Delhi. He explains that historiography is the study of how history is written and interpreted over time. The French Revolution, starting in 1789, is considered an iconic event that has been written about extensively for over two centuries. The lecture aims to track the changing perceptions and significance of the event over time, particularly focusing on the centenary and bicentenary celebrations in 1889 and 1989, respectively. These celebrations provide a snapshot of how the revolution's memory and interpretation have evolved.
🏛️ Centenary and Bicentenary Celebrations: Shifting Perspectives
The lecture discusses the centenary and bicentenary celebrations of the French Revolution, highlighting how these commemorations reflect the changing interpretations of the event. In 1989, President Mithran declared the revolution 'over,' yet the bicentenary was followed by counter-revolutionary commemorations, indicating ongoing debates. The traditionalists and monarchists, who were against the revolution in 1789, continued to challenge its progressive aspects even in 1989. The lecture explores how the revolution's commemoration in Paris as the birthplace of modern democracy and human rights was challenged by figures like British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who questioned France's claim to these ideals, citing the Reign of Terror as a counterexample.
🎭 The Evolution of Revolutionary Heroes and Narratives
This section delves into how different figures from the French Revolution have been portrayed as heroes or villains over time, depending on the political climate and historiographical trends. In 1889, Danton was celebrated as a hero, but by 1989, it was Condorcet who was projected as the main character, representing a moderate revolutionary. The lecture discusses how the French government in 1989 sought to associate itself with the revolution's ideals, particularly the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizens, despite the radicalism and Reign of Terror that followed the initial revolutionary period. The lecture also touches on the critique of including Russia in the 1989 celebrations, given its human rights record.
🏛️ The Influence of Political Regimes on Historical Interpretation
The lecture examines how the political regimes of the time influenced the interpretation of the French Revolution. It discusses the establishment of the Third Republic in France and how its creation was linked to a particular, positivist interpretation of the revolution. The celebration of the revolution in 1889 was fervent and symbolized the marriage between republicanism and positivism. The lecture also mentions the creation of a new chair in history at the Sorbonne University, which was a move to solidify the Marxist interpretation of the revolution. This interpretation, which focused on the role of the peasantry and the bourgeois revolution, was dominant until the mid-20th century when it began to be critiqued.
📚 Marxist Interpretation and its Critics in Historiography
This part of the lecture focuses on the influence of Marxist scholars like Georges Lefebvre and Albert Soboul, who carried the torch of Marxist interpretation of the French Revolution in the first half of the 20th century. The lecture sets the stage for the next part of the discussion, where Professor Kumar promises to elaborate on the broader historiographical understanding of the revolution. He uses the centenary and bicentenary celebrations as a lens to explore the changing trends in historical writing and the factors that influence these interpretations.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Historiography
💡French Revolution
💡Modernity
💡Bicentenary
💡Counter-revolutionary
💡Ideological Circumstances
💡Reign of Terror
💡Positivism
💡Marxism
💡Third Republic
Highlights
Lecture series on modern European history, focusing on the historiography of the French Revolution.
Historiography is about the changing fashion of history writing, distinct from history itself.
The French Revolution is an iconic event, considered a harbinger of modernity in political terms.
The lecture discusses the bicentenary commemoration of the revolution in 1989.
Transcripts
[Music]
good afternoon viewers
welcome to this series of lectures on
european history modern european history
rather i'm shankar kumar i teach history
at hindu college here in university of
delhi
and
the theme that we would be taking up for
discussion today happens to be the
historiography of the french revolution
this is
divided into two parts and presently we
are discussing the first part of it
as you all
know
or probably i'll have to
explain little bit
historiography is little different from
history proper historiography
essentially is about the changing
fashion of history writing about
something and here the theme in question
is of course the french revolution of
course we know
that it happened in 1789 it began in
1789 in france
and we are more than 200 years
separated from the event now
and this happens to be an iconic event
ever since it unfolded so there have
been several writers who have written
about this event the criticality of this
event this is also written
in history as the harbinger of modernity
in political sense of the term
and
therefore it has a rich history of being
written about for more than 200 years
and that's what we'll be tracking today
you'd understand
as a student of history that the
significance of an event is not embedded
in the event itself the more we
go away from the event in terms of time
space we realize
in fact the unfolding of events
subsequent to the french revolution
made it all the more iconic or there
would be some critics who would say that
you know it it it is
it is nothing of that sort and we will
discover today
how it played out over its history of
more than more than 200 years of being
written about and that's why i want to
begin with bicentenary commemoration of
the revolution in 1989 as the entry
point to discuss this out so this part
would be the first part of the our
discussion would essentially be about uh
the two
uh centenary celebrations that is 1889
and 1989 and how
we will discover by
taking the snapshot of these two
points that is hundred years of the
revolution and 200 years of the
revolution and how
it was a changed uh situation over here
and that itself is a pointer to the fact
that uh the history writing about uh
french revolution has undergone a lot of
change what are the factors behind it
what kind of ideological uh you know
circumstances were there what kind of
justification the existing regime the
existing political regime at that point
of time that is 1889 in 1989 we're
trying to uh derive from from
commemoration of this event
and of course there are shared memories
and
new perspectives in the discipline of
history
that historians use to to analyze it in
a different way so all these things
converge
all through
you know more than 200 years of this
event and they have given a different
flavor
of historiography around the french
revolution that's what we are going to
track today so
in
17
sorry in
1989 that is by centenary celebration of
the event in paris uh
president mithran had
actually declared the revolution as
being over
so
uh the as you can see on your slide the
revolution having been declared over in
france but the revolutionary
commemoration was followed by a
counter-revolutionary commemoration so
the radical aspect of change the
progressive aspect of change of the
revolution was not the entire picture of
the revolution and as you would say that
the
counter-revolutionary or the
you'd say
the traditionalists the monarchists
those who were anti-change at that point
of time in 1789
that
that adherence
to their spirit of you know
participating in the revolution or
countering it
continues till date
and as
late as
1989 you find that
the
bicentenary commemoration is immediately
followed by a counter-revolutionary
commemoration so it's not closed it's
it's it's uh one thing to declare it
over declare and declare it as being
over by the political regime but
the social sensibilities were still live
and there is no closure to to this and
therefore the present state of history
writing around the revolution uh happens
to be a hodgepodge of uh quite a few
perspectives and sensibilities and
ideologies and we will discover that
so paris uh at this instance in
1989
which is 200 years after the revolution
was celebrated as the birthplace of
modern principles of democracy and human
rights and human aspirations to freedom
and dignity this is the official claim
that
the
french
president wanted to lay claim to uh
through the bicentennial celebrations of
course the traditional
the traditional
you can say
enemy of
of france that is england
would not take it lightly and we will
see that
these claims are being punctured these
claims are being pricked by the prime
minister of england at that point of
time margaret thatcher
so what
the french regime does
in 1989 is
it it time and again
cites the exalted ideals in the
declaration of the rights of man and
citizens which was the first document uh
that the revolutionaries produced
those who were those who had begun the
revolution they had produced as part of
the third state
getting transformed into the national
assembly and this was a very modern
document
although
the revolution was not only about it
we will see that or we already know that
beyond this
the the radicalism
which which hardly adhered to the
principles of or the burjwa principles
contained in the declaration of the
rights of man
that was uh that was something that uh
immediately followed uh
you know 1789 so it is uh followed by
the the
the ill ill-fated uh reign of terror
which is which is more
about dictatorship which is more about
totalitarian kind of regime which which
killed the citizens in the name of not
being patriotic enough the entire
battery of french revolutionary
leadership is exterminated glittened
on some flimsy ground or the other
and france was at war with the
neighboring states austria in particular
and
that was a pretext uh good enough for
uh the radical revolutionaries the
jacobins uh sanskolotis and so forth to
uh to um you know pick up any leader or
person who who was
not loyal enough and loyal within courts
so
those
about principles of freedom equality
and so forth fraternity and so forth
were just thrown out of the window for
those two years of the reign of terror
yet
uh in the bicentennial celebrations it
is the
ideals of the declaration of this rights
of men and citizens that
that assumes uh significance and
prominence
so there is a deliberate projection of
this phase of the revolution and that is
what happens
with every event
that is sought to be celebrated uh by
the subsequent regimes because they have
to derive legitimacy for their own uh
you know rule and their own
circumstances at that point of time so
the traditional protagonists and proxies
of the revolution
who who were participants in the great
debate over the revolutions character
and purpose like say danton and robert
speare were to be set aside in 1989
rather
it was kandorse who was projected as the
hero in 1989 we will see that when it
came to
1889 uh it was it was danton who was the
hero but in 1989 it is kandorse who is
supposed to be the the main character
who is projected as the main character
how he is projected he's projected as a
seventh his projector is a philosopher
reformer
as a moderate revolutionary who was the
victim of the revolution that he failed
to protect and control so it is this
milder version of the
radicalism of the revolution that is
sought to be grafted
on public memory through this by
centenary celebration of course
it must be serving the uh the then
nature and image of the government in
france uh in uh 1989. margaret thatcher
as i told you the british prime minister
at that point of time of course
countered it uh
she countered the claim the french claim
to the paternity of the rights of man
she reminded the world of the reign of
terror that
the celebration was just not
talking about right but that also is
very much part of the uh collective
memory of the revolution so she is time
and again equating 1789 this 1793 which
is the middle of the reign of terror and
and says that uh
what do we what do we understand of this
revolution what is it that it has break
with to humanity is it human rights
because
reign of terror was was all about
violation of the human rights and please
remember in the bicentennial celebration
it is the uh russia russia had or usar
had uh participated in the parade that
was uh organized
and
obviously the recent participation in
1989 celebration was critiqued in terms
of human rights issue and a question was
posed if it was any longer possible to
see the 1917 uh revolution in russia as
the authentic future of 1789. so
difficult questions uh with relation to
the exalted claims uh in
1989 is is posed
to to the uh people who are actually
pushing or organizing the celebrations
uh so
what do we find is that while the
tensions and contradictions of the
commemoration
had uh their own cultural and political
dynamic
they were no less nourished by the
tension and contradictions of the
historical interpretation it therefore
that is 1989 by central news celebration
it therefore reopened a very passionate
historiographical debate over the
revolution and this is something that
continues till date and uh
edmund burke thomas spain edmund burke
versus thomas paine that characterized
the initial part of the writings around
the french revolution edmund burke
representing the
uh the traditional
uh uh you know
point of view and thomas spain uh the
the radical point of view and they were
almost the participant of the observers
so they are writing at the time when the
revolution is unfolding and at that
point of time only
these these observers are are writing
about it uh similarly bernawi and
damastra so
they also represented
two polarity of opinions condorcet and
hegel so they are some of the
early writers almost the first
generation writers who were who had seen
the
event unfold who had seen the revolution
unfold by their own eyes
and
they are they constitute the first batch
of
writers or thinkers
who had responded to the need to accord
some kind of historical identity and
significance of a phenomenon
that has seemed from its very beginning
to demand
and yet defy historical comprehension so
you have a very very uh
polar opposite uh you know reactions to
to the event right from the beginning of
the event right right uh in the 1790s
people are writing about it in a
different way some are for example the
romanticists like william wordsworth uh
beethoven and so forth they are very
they they are welcoming
the the start of the revolution
with open arms
and and almost celebrating it as a you
know beginning of liberty and uh you
know realization of humanity and so
forth and very soon when uh the
when the reign of terror sets in or when
napoleon assumes dictatorial tendencies
they they get disenchanted with it and
that's that's something that represents
the first batch of writers and thinkers
who
shared their opinion uh about the
revolution so
even if we track the 19th century
history of france we find that thrice it
had to declare itself a republic
repeatedly
the french republic was relapsing into
dictatorship and monarchy back to
dictatorship back to monarchy back to
republicanism and so forth it is only
around 1870s that the third republic was
formed and
you know
it gave for example the the first five
years of the revolution itself gave
france three different constitutions
apart from the bill of rights and uh
citizens so
this is this is a very fractured kind of
opinion that we get to see now in 1889
which was the centenary celebration of
of uh
the french revolution in france that had
inaugurated we just spoke of 1989 so i'm
you know going back 100 years and when
we see 1889 uh as another
stopover to to understand the flavor of
historiography around the revolution we
find that it inaugurated a new age in
revolutionary historiography dedicated
to the marriage between republicanism
and positivism that underlay the very
creation of the third republic as i said
that it is the existing political
regime that seeks justification through
a particular version of the revolution
which somehow in the public memory
looms very large so everyone tries to
leverage that memory and
you know tweak that memory in a
particular way that ends up uh
justifying the regime that they are
serving so uh
this particular
1889 fervor with which the revolution
was celebrated or centenary celebrations
were carried out that symbolized in uh
that is symbolized in the creation of a
new chair in history remember by this
time history had become a discipline uh
empiricism and positivism did under
underpin historical writing as a
discipline
which was a borrow from natural sciences
and every uh every realm of social probe
or
you know subjects that dealt with human
domain or politics or society they
wanted to appear as scientific as
possible they wanted to ape almost the
methodological rigor of sciences if not
possible at least appear to be such and
history is no exception to that and
marxism is a byproduct of that right
marxism also takes a lot of pride in
proclaiming itself as the science or a
scientific inquiry
of past and so forth so that is very
much uh very much evident and we find
that
a new chair in history of the french
revolution at the sabone university
of which alfonso lard was elected
on that chair in 1899 that symbolized
the the marxist grip
over
over one particular version of the event
and that's why over the last 30 years
and even beyond we find that a series of
writers some his students
as we would discover lafabe sybol and so
forth
they represent a succession of marxist
scholars who have
you know who have given it the color of
abuja revolution or have talked about
the role of peasantry and so forth so
they they gave a particular
interpretation
interpretation uh to the revolution and
uh that survived uh well uh till around
the middle of uh or
i would say till around the first three
quarters of the 20th century it is only
subsequently that we
we find some kind of a robust critique
of
the marxist interpretation also so we
find that it is the creation of the
universities and chairs and who holds
that chair
uh would uh in ultimate analysis would
be the one who would uh exercise some
kind of a
monopoly over the mainstream version of
the revolution and that's that's what
happened to a french revolution and in
any case uh the first
quarter or the last quarter of the 19th
century in the first quarter of the 20th
century the world over
is is
is
representative
is is representative of uh
marxist grip in terms of analysis and
that's
that's what is is very much visible in
the interpretation and historiography of
the french revolution also we will talk
about uh
georges lafabre and
albert sobol who carried the
flag of marxist interpretation of the
french revolution in the first 50 years
of
the 20th century in the next series of
discussion or in the next
part of the discussion that i am having
with you so wait for the part 2 where we
would elaborate on this so i will begin
from this point and take it further to
give a
broader
uh you know outline of the the uh
historiographical uh understanding of
the revolution
so uh this uh particular uh segment of
the lecture was about the two centenary
celebrations the centenary celebration
by centennial celebrations of uh the
french revolution that is uh 17 1889 and
1989 and we used these two slices of
time
and circumstances to get a flavor
of the changing fashion of history
writing and other tangents that were
contingent at the as these two points
of time in uh
in the memory of the revolution
thank you
[Music]
you
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