A-Infos (en) France, Monde Libertaire - History Pages No. 131: Marc Bloch, a Great Historian Even Without a Pantheon (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

While readers may not be avid admirers of great men, let alone patriots, 
it must be acknowledged that interments in the Pantheon can have one 
advantage: they can advance knowledge. From this perspective, the 
interment of the historian and resistance fighter Marc Bloch is 
particularly apt, to the point that it is impossible to mention them 
all, given their sheer number. As a reminder, between the two World 
Wars, Marc Bloch was a leading medieval historian. He and Lucien Febvre 
founded the then-innovative journal *Les Annales*, subtitled *Economic 
and Social History*. The journal, aiming to break down the barriers of 
history and give it a quantified and statistical dimension, allowed it 
to measure long-term ruptures.

Marc Bloch came from a secular and republican Jewish family from Alsace 
and Lyon. On his mother's side, the Ebsteins were Lyon merchants. On his 
father's side, the Blochs were... historians; his father taught ancient 
history at the Sorbonne. Born in Lyon in 1886, and settling in Paris in 
1904, the young Bloch followed in his father's footsteps, becoming a 
graduate of the École Normale Supérieure and then a history professor. 
The main difference was the period; for Marc, it was medieval history 
instead of ancient history. Like everyone of his generation, he was 
mobilized and served throughout the war as an intelligence captain. 
Appointed to the University of Strasbourg in 1919, he published the 
results of his research on medieval feudalism and then on the sacred 
dimension of the monarchy, using anthropology to show that the supposed 
healing power of sovereigns was the product of a process of belief. 
Bloch innovated and changed the methods of research. He continued with 
his study of rural France in the Middle Ages, which presented not a 
history from above, but rather a civilization, where the people were 
present.

After Strasbourg, he was appointed to the Sorbonne, having been denied a 
position at the Collège de France due to the latent antisemitism within 
the intellectual community. Bloch continued to passionately contribute 
to the journal *Les Annales* and to publish several major texts that 
were later reprinted.

In 1940, following the defeat in the Blitzkrieg, he wrote a text that 
would be published posthumously in 1946, *L'étrange défaite* (Strange 
Defeat), a reflection and historical perspective on the causes of the 
rapid collapse of French society in the face of Nazism. These fragments 
of this major work should be complemented by another, *Apologie pour le 
métier d'historien* (Apology for the Historian's Craft). In this 
collection, intended as a methodological manifesto, he emphasizes that 
this profession requires challenging one's own preconceptions, and that 
testimony primarily conveys an era and a vision rather than actual 
facts, which are often distorted by memory.

In recognition of his service during the First World War, Marc Bloch was 
authorized by the Minister of Education to continue teaching in the 
southern zone. He quickly joined the Resistance before going into 
semi-clandestine life. He then led the Franc-Tireur network and later 
the United Resistance Movements in Lyon. In early March 1944, the 
network was dismantled. Marc Bloch was arrested and summarily executed 
by the Gestapo on June 16.

His fascinating life is summarized in an engaging graphic novel. The 
style is classic in terms of drawing, but particularly effective in its 
educational value. Similarly, the depiction of the Nazi violence that 
led to his execution, as well as that of the twenty-eight other 
resistance fighters who suffered the same tragic fate, is remarkably 
realistic. Equally realistic is the starkness and absurdity of the 
violence of the First World War. His wartime writings, now republished, 
underscore this point. The war was an absurd cruelty where rumor often 
replaced reality and where political constructs took precedence over 
humanity. Furthermore, the graphic novel reproduces numerous texts by 
Bloch, highlighting his major contributions to medieval history and also 
demonstrating his passion for teaching and sharing knowledge.

Peter Schöttler's biography is remarkable. A few decades ago, this 
researcher published a controversial work on the Bourses du Travail 
(labor exchanges). This may also have led him to pay particular 
attention to Marc Bloch's writings. Thus, we discover that the young 
graduate of the École Normale Supérieure was passionate about the 
history of the working class. This would still be true thirty years 
later; in *L'étrange défaite* (Strange Defeat), we find an evocation 
imbued with admiration for the figure of Fernand Pelloutier. In the same 
vein, he subtly demonstrates that we must be wary of the patriotic and 
nationalist appropriations that can be made of Marc Bloch. The author 
was not a libertarian, of course, but on the other hand, he was far from 
being a conservative. A man of the left, a socialist in the early days 
of the Third Republic. But above all, he was first and foremost a 
historian who sought to understand, and especially asked his readers to 
immerse themselves in the period under study to grasp its true meaning, 
far removed from the mediocre analyses produced today, of which the 
Pantheon is ultimately the final stage. That being said, it is not a 
matter of making Bloch into something he was not. The man shaped by the 
institution was particularly attached to republican honors and 
functions. An analysis of his relationships with his peers, notably his 
colleague Lucien Febvre, co-founder of the journal Les Annales, shows 
that while they were complementary, a power struggle existed between the 
two men: Febvre possessed a strong sense of superiority and a distinct 
vision of history, while Bloch sought to restore the civilizational 
dimension, as evidenced by the republication of The Original 
Characteristics of Rural France. Bloch seeks out archaeological, 
linguistic, and geographical traces, and above all, gives considerable 
space to the anonymous masses of peasants.

The author also offers rich chapters on friendships, social 
interactions, and the teachings of Marc Bloch, who, it seems, was an 
excellent, old-fashioned teacher: explaining in order to make things 
understood.

A skillful and nuanced biography that beautifully captures this 
intellectual journey.

Which goes to show that sometimes, the Pantheon does serve a purpose, 
intellectually speaking, even if commercial motives weren't entirely 
absent...

Jean-David Morvan, Suzette Bloch, Laurent Bideau
Marc Bloch, the Fighting Historian
Tallandier 2026 104 pp. EUR23

The Strange Defeat
Marc Bloch
Gallimard 2026 296 pp. EUR22

In Praise of History, or the Historian's Craft
Marc Bloch
Colin, 2026, 410 pp. EUR23

War Writings
Marc Bloch
Colin, 2026, 314 pp. EUR22.90

The Original Characteristics of Rural History
Marc Bloch
Colin, 2026, 384 pp. EUR23.90

Peter Schöttlër
Marc Bloch: An Intellectual Biography
Gallimard, 2026, 560 pp. EUR27.50

https://monde-libertaire.net/?articlen=9055
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