François Furet
François Furet ( born March 27, 1927 in Paris, † July 12, 1997 in Toulouse ) was a French historian.
Life
Furet was born on 27 March 1927 in Paris as the son of an upper middle class family, his father was a banker. His studies of literature and law, he had to interrupt 1950-1954 due to tuberculosis disease in years. 1954 graduated from Furet in excellent position, the Agrégation, the competition for the teaching certificate in secondary schools, in history and was first in the sequence from 1954 to 1955 teacher at the Gymnasium of Compiègne, then, in the years 1955-1956, at the grammar school of Fontainebleau. From 1956 he devoted himself at the Centre national de la recherche scientifique research on the French Revolution. From 1960 he was Professor ( Directeur d' Études ) at the EHESS, which he was president 1977-1985. After that, he headed the Institute Raymond Aron at the EHESS. From 1985 he was also Professor at the University of Chicago. He was honorary doctorates from the universities of Tel Aviv and Harvard and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical Society. He was a knight of the Legion of Honour. On 20 March 1997 he was elected to the Académie française. But he could not be formally accepted by his sudden death.
Furet's life as a political activist began in 1947 when he joined the French Communist Party ( PCF). He left them in 1959 and 1960 took on the establishment of the socialist left PSU part. After May 1968, he worked as an advisor to the Gaullist Education Minister Edgar Faure, but also wrote in France- Observateur, the predecessor journal Le Nouvel Observateur.
Furet died on July 12, 1997 in Toulouse surprising about the consequences of a sports accident.
Research on the French Revolution
One of the important works of Furet is the co-written with his brother Denis Richet history of the French Revolution. After several decades in which the period of the National Convention and those of Robespierre had been the focus of research interest, advanced Furet the horizon for the period after the fall of the Jacobins rule. ( The 9.Thermidor had historians like Aulard, Mathiez, Lefebvre and Soboul been regarded as the conclusion of the Revolution).
In opposition to Marxist revolution historians and especially to Albert Soboul Furet, the revolution claimed that an action of elites and not so much the "masses" was in 1793 " derailed ". The seizure of power of the masses during the period of the Jacobin Terror was interrupted and disturbed the peaceful social development of the reforms "from above" from 1789.
In his work Penser la Révolution française (1978 ) detailed Furet this argument, referring to the work of the late 1916, almost forgotten historian Augustin Cochin. Now Furet saw the roots of terror already in the storming of the Bastille in 1789. In his summary work La Révolution 1770-1880 Furet pointed to continuities between Ancien Régime and Revolution.
Awards
The Passing of an Illusion
Furet devoted his last and most successful book of the role of the communist idea in the 20th century, an idea which he had appended in younger years. The comprehensive, translated in 13 languages work consists mainly specifically at how the communist ideology intellectuals initially intrigued and then disappointed. It emphasizes specific aspects such as the French tradition of " holistic " affirmation of the French Revolution and with it the Jacobin terror until well into the middle class: These have also made the Soviet terror for many acceptable. Furet puts extensively with Karl Kautsky's view of the Bolshevik seizure of power apart and with the disappointment of left-wing idealists about Stalinism (Pierre Pascal, Boris Souvarine etc ). He also represents resolutely the concept of totalitarianism and refers to ideologues like Ernst Niekisch, which would have acted as a link between the right and left terror. Contrast Furets work deals hardly with the sociological observation that communist parties and organizations were decades attractive for parts of the industrial workforce.
Writings
- La Révolution Française, Hachette, Paris, 1999, ISBN 2-01-278950-1 German: The French Revolution, translated by Ulrich Friedrich Müller, Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1997, ISBN 3-596-27371-4