Pierre Vidal-Naquet
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Pierre Vidal-Naquet | |
| Born | July 23, 1930 Paris, France |
|---|---|
| Died | July 29, 2006 (aged 76) Nice, France |
| Nationality |  France |
| Fields | Ancient history |
Pierre Emmanuel Vidal-Naquet (July 23, 1930 – July 29, 2006) was a French historian who began teaching at the École des hautes études en sciences sociales (EHESS) in 1969.
Vidal-Naquet was a specialist in the study of Ancient Greece, but was also interested in contemporary history, particularly the Algerian War (1954-62), during which he opposed the use of torture by the French Army, as well as Jewish history. Having participated with Michel Foucault and Jean-Marie Domenach in the founding of the Groupe d'information sur les prisons (GIP), one of the first French new social movements, he criticized historical revisionism. Vidal-Naquet, who never abandoned his fascination with Antiquity, was also a supporter of Middle East peace efforts.
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[edit] Biography
Vidal-Naquet’s family belonged to the Sephardic Jewish community living in the Comtat Venaissin (Carpentras, Avignon), and he was raised in a Republican and secular environment. His father Lucien was a “Dreyfusard” lawyer, who quickly entered the Resistance in order to avoid exile. In June 1940, the family escaped to Marseille. Arrested by the Gestapo on May 15, 1944, Vidal-Naquet’s father was deported, along with his wife, in June 1944. They were sent to Auschwitz, where they died. At 14 years old, Pierre Vidal-Naquet then hid in his grandmother’s house in the Drôme. There, he read a lot, including the Iliad, and came to know his cousin, the philosopher Jacques Brunschwig. He later learnt that the Nazis had made “his father dance,” something he would never forget.
After his studies at the lycée Carnot in Paris, he specialized in the history of Ancient Greece, as well as in contemporary subjects such as the Algerian War (1954-1962) or the Holocaust. He read Marc Bloch’s Strange Defeat, a book attempting to explain the causes of the defeat during the 1940 Battle of France, which is one of the origins of his vocation as a historian. He discovered surrealism (André Breton, René Char and also Antonin Artaud), and founded a review at 18 years old, along with Pierre Nora, Imprudence. The 1949 Rajk trial definitively took out his will to adhere to the French Communist Party (PCF).
Pierre Vidal-Naquet first taught history at Orléans’s high school (1955), before going to Caen’s university (1956-60) and then Lille (1961-62). Reading Dumézil and Lévi-Strauss, he would become a member of the “Paris School”, originally composed of Jean-Pierre Vernant, Nicole Loraux, Marcel Detienne and himself. Their work would renew approaches to the study of Ancient Greece.
He then worked at the CNRS (1962-64) and was named maître de conférences at the University of Lyon (1964-66). He was then named professor at the École pratique des hautes études, which became the EHESS.
Detienne co-authored several books with Jean-Pierre Vernant, with whom he was friends. However, although Vernant was a “comrade” of the PCF, Vidal-Naquet never belonged to any political party, with the exception of the Unified Socialist Party (PSU), which he considered a “simple discussion circle.”[1]
Pierre Vidal-Naquet was married and the father of three children. He was also officer of the Légion d'honneur and, in Greece, commander of the Phenix Order.
[edit] Activism
Pierre Vidal-Naquet defined himself as an “activist historian”, and while pursuing his studies never ceased engaging in political struggles and taking part in political committees, etc. A member of the Comité Audin, along with Jérôme Lindon (editor of the Minuit publishing house), he was one of the best known opponents of the use of torture by the French Army during the Algerian War (1954-62). Along with Jean-Paul Sartre and 119, he signed the Manifesto of the 121, a call for civil disobedience against the Algerian war. Anti-colonialist, Vidal-Naquet was opposed to Guy Mollet’s SFIO (French Section of the Second International) reformist party because of Mollet’s support of the First Indochina War and Algerian War.
He was also opposed to the Regime of the Colonels (1967-74) in Greece. He supported peace efforts in the Middle East as well as the Europalestine group. He thus declared: “I consider Sharon as a criminal.”[2]
With Michel Foucault and Jean-Marie Domenach, on February 8, 1971 he signed the manifesto of the Groupe d’informations sur les prisons, designed to return speech to prisoners, rather than speaking in their name.
Vidal-Naquet was also one of the first scholars to deconstruct historical revisionism, notably in The Assassins of Memory and Reflexions on Genocide. He was also opposed to the February 23, 2005 French law on colonialism voted by the conservative UMP, but which was finally repealed by president Jacques Chirac in the beginnings of 2006. Vidal-Naquet also criticized the 1990 Gayssot Act which prohibits revisionist discourse, claiming that the law shouldn’t interfere in historical matters.[3] Vidal-Naquet’s arguments against legislation relating to historical studies is not, however, a door opened to revisionist speech. He once declared that he would rather name revisionists “negationists”, and that he wouldn’t engage with them for “simple and scientific reasons. An astronomer doesn’t debate with an astrologer. I wouldn’t discuss with someone who supports the idea that the moon is made of Roquefort … it is impossible.” [4]
[edit] References
- ^ “Le Dernier des dreyfusards”, article on Vidal-Naquet in Le Figaro, September 6, 2004
- ^ “Le Dernier des dreyfusards”, article on Vidal-Naquet in Le Figaro, September 6, 2004
- ^ Interview with Vidal-Naquet on the Human Rights League (LDH) website (French)
- ^ “Au service du racisme”, in L'Humanité, June 7, 1990
[edit] Bibliography
[edit] On ancient Greece
- La Grèce ancienne - Du mythe à la raison, with Jean-Pierre Vernant, Le Seuil, coll. Points, 1990
- La Grèce ancienne - L’espace et le temps, with Jean-Pierre Vernant, Le Seuil, coll. Points, 1991
- La Grèce ancienne - Rites de passage et transgressions, with Jean-Pierre Vernant, Le Seuil, coll. Points, 1992
- Mythe et tragédie en Grèce ancienne, with Jean-Pierre Vernant, La Découverte, 2000
- Les Grecs, les historiens et la démocratie, La Découverte, 2000
- Œdipe et ses mythes, with Jean-Pierre Vernant, Complexe, 2001
- La démocratie grecque vue d'ailleurs, Flammarion, coll. Champs, 2001
- Le chasseur noir - Formes de pensées et formes de société dans le monde grec, Francois Maspero, Paris 1981
- Le miroir brisé : tragédie athénienne et politique, Les Belles Lettres, 2002 (new edition)
- Travail et esclavage en Grèce ancienne, with Jean-Pierre Vernant, Complexe, 2002
- Le monde d’Homère, Perrin, 2002
- Fragments sur l’art antique, Agnès Viénot, 2002
- L’Atlantide. Petite histoire d’un mythe platonicien, Les Belles Lettres, 2005 ; ISBN 2-251-38071-X.
[edit] On Algeria
- L’Affaire Audin, 1957-1978, éditions de Minuit, 1989 [nouvelle édition augmentée]
- La torture dans la République : essai d’histoire et de politique contemporaine, 1954-1962, Minuit, 1998 (Torture: Cancer in Democracy, out of print)
- Les crimes de l’armée française Algérie 1954-1962, La Découverte, 2001 (Préface inédite de l’auteur)
- La Raison d’État. Textes publiés par le Comité Audin, La Découverte, 2002 (nouvelle édition du livre publié en 1962 aux éditions de Minuit)
[edit] On Jewish history and revisionism
- The Assassins of Memory and Other Essays available here in English & French, articles on Robert Faurisson, Noam Chomsky and revisionism (French: Les Assassins de la mémoire, Le Seuil, 1995)
- Les Juifs, la mémoire et le présent, Le Seuil, 1995
- La solution finale dans l'histoire, with Arno Mayer, La Découverte, 2002
[edit] Other works
- Le trait empoisonné, La Découverte, 1993 (about Jean Moulin)
- Mémoires t.1 - La brisure et l’attente, 1930-1955, Le Seuil, 1998
- Mémoires t.2 - Le trouble et la lumière, 1955-1998, Le Seuil, 1998
[edit] External links
- Pierre Vidal-Naquet.net
- Anti-revisionist website, texts by Vidal-Naquet both in English and in French
- Obituary (in English) or in French from L'Humanité
- Obituary from Le Figaro (July 30, 2006) (French)
- Obituary from Libération (July 31, 2006) (French)
- Obituary by Julian Jackson, The Guardian, August 10, 2006
- Paul Berman, “Denying the Deniers”, New York Times Magazine, December 31, 2006
- Biography and bibliography (French)
- NY Review of Books, a few manifestos and petitions signed by Vidal-Naquet over the years
- “Guerre d'Algérie, Pierre Vidal-Naquet: le 'regard anthropologique'”, in L'Humanité, September 12, 2001 ((French))
- “La Vérité de l'indicatif”, entretien avec Vidal-Naquet, published in Vacarme n°17, Autumn 2001 (French)
- Pierre Vidal-Naquet : « l’encouragement direct de Papon », in L'Humanité, October 17, 1997 (on Maurice Papon and the Paris massacre of 1961)
- “Le gouffre impérialiste”, by Vidal-Naquet, in L'Humanité, March 4, 2003
- « La calomnie… j’ai vu les plus honnêtes gens en être accablés », in L'Humanité, October 7, 1993 (a refutation of calomnious claims by journalist Thierry Wolton that Jean Moulin was a spy for the Soviet Union)
