Denis Richet

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Denis Richet (born December 22, 1927 in Paris , † September 15, 1989 ibid) was a French historian.

Life

As a high school student, Richet attended the Parisian Lycée Janson de Sailly , where he met his future friend, colleague and brother-in-law François Furet . After leaving school, both of them studied at the Paris Sorbonne . Richet began his scientific career in the sixth section of the École pratique des hautes études, founded in 1947 . Here he worked a. a. with Pierre Vilar , Fernand Braudel and Ernest Labrousse . Richet later taught as a professor in Tours and at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales , which emerged in 1975 from the former 6th section of the École pratique des hautes études .

Research on the French Revolution

Richet's most important work is the history of the French Revolution, written together with his brother-in-law Furet and first published in 1965 . In contrast to revolutionary historians such as François-Alphonse Aulard , Albert Mathiez and Albert Soboul , Furet and Richet did not equate the end of the revolution with the overthrow of Jacobin rule , but also included the rise of Napoleon Bonaparte in the history of the revolution. One of the main theses of the work is that it was not just a revolution, but that several revolutions took place in parallel. From 1789 onwards, a peaceful social development of the reforms "from above" began as an action by the elites who had seized power during the Derailed the period of Jacobin Terror. In spite of the joint work, Furet and Richet partly represented opposing approaches: Richet spoke out in favor of a socio-cultural interpretation rather than a spiritual and intellectual framework of the revolution and rejected Furet's anti-communism.

Throughout his life, the history of the French Revolution remained a focus of Richard's research and teaching. Another focus was on the history of the Fronde at the time of the Wars of Religion and the Counter Reformation . 1973 Richet gave the collection of essays La France Moderne. L'Esprit des Institutions out. In 1991, another collection of essays by Pierre Goubert was posthumously published by Richard under the title Da la Réforme à la Révolution. Étude sur la France modern published.

Fonts

  • (with François Furet): The French Revolution . Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1993, ISBN 3-596-27371-4 .

literature

  • Robert Descimon: Notre ami Denis Richet (1927-1989) . In: Les Cahiers du Center de Recherches Historiques, 4 (1989).
  • Erich Pelzer: François Furet and Denis Richet. The revolution is ended . In: ders. (Ed.): Revolution and Klio. The main works on the French Revolution . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2004, ISBN 3-525-36258-7 , pp. 208-232.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Life data according to the authority data entry of the Bibliothèque nationale de France and Erich Pelzer: François Furet and Denis Richet. The revolution is ended . P. 216
  2. ↑ According to a biographical sketch of Richet with the title Pourquoi j'aime l'histoire? Essai d'autobiographie intellectuelle , which follows the afterword to his collection of essays, Da la Réforme à la Révolution, published posthumously in 1991 . Étude sur la France modern is attached (pp. 543–551), cf. Pelzer, Furet and Richet, p. 216 f.
personal data
SURNAME Richet, Denis
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French historian
DATE OF BIRTH December 22, 1927
PLACE OF BIRTH Paris
DATE OF DEATH September 15, 1989
Place of death Paris