Nos ancêtres les Gaulois

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Nos ancêtres les Gaulois (German: Our ancestors, the Gauls ) is a term that was used in the 19th and 20th centuries to construct a tradition of France on the independent Gaul from 2000 years ago. In this way, especially in the school books of French history during the III. Republic strengthened the national feeling. The Gallic origins, both culturally and genetically, are still emphasized by politicians today.

First chapter Les Gaulois et les Romains in Histoire de France, cours élémentaire , published in 1913 under the direction of Ernest Lavisse

history

Since the early Middle Ages, the Frankish monarchy has emphasized a Trojan origin. The Gallic ancestry is particularly emphasized from the 17th century. This is reinforced by the revolutionaries of 1789 , who wanted to abolish the privileges of the aristocrats, which is why they increasingly insisted on the Frankish origin, which corresponded to the theory of the «ancêtres gaulois». It goes back to the idea of ​​a Gallic "nation" that is said to have formed during the Gallic War over 2000 years ago. The then Gaul , however, was composed of numerous tribes and did not form a political unit; the various tribes sometimes migrated far beyond what is now France ( hexagons ). This phenomenon has been discussed in historical studies as a great migration . The history of the French language shows - besides the influence of Latin - a longer development process. The West Germanic tribe of the Franks also exerted a strong influence from the 5th century onwards.

Shortening this development over several centuries, the historians who wanted to favor the ideas of the revolution replaced "the ancestors from Troyes with the Gallic ancestors and made Vercingétorix a celebrity".

This myth of origin is part of the "roman national" as it was described at the beginning of the 19th century by various historians ( Amédée Thierry , Henri Martin , Ernest Lavisse ) who wanted to determine an origin in France. This vision of the origins of France is called into question by the historiographical development at the end of the 20th century.

The expression «Nos ancêtres les gaulois» goes back to Ernest Lavisse when he taught:

  • Formerly our country was called Gaul and the inhabitants were called Gauls. (Elementary level, 1)
  • Two thousand years ago France was called Gaul. (Intermediate, 5)
  • We do not know exactly how many Gauls there were when the Romans arrived. It is estimated that there were 4 million. (Conclusion of the 1st book of the intermediate level)
  • The Romans who came at that time settled here in small numbers. The Franks were not very numerous either; Clovis had only a few thousand with him. So the basis of our population remained Gallic. The Gauls are our ancestors. (Intermediate, 26)
  • In the following years Gaul changed the name. It was called France. (Elementary course, 14)

The symbolic formula "Our ancestors, the Gauls" can be found in Lavisse's passage in the dictionary of pedagogy and primary education (begun in 1878 and published in 1887):

«There is a poetry in the distant period that must be transferred to young souls in order to strengthen a patriotic feeling. Let us make them love the Gauls, our ancestors, and also the forests of the Druids, Charles Martel in Poitiers, Roland in Ronceveaux, Godfrey of Bouillon in Jerusalem, Joan of Arc , Bayard , all our former heroes, even if they were from Legends are surrounded, because it is a misfortune that our legends are forgotten and there is nothing more to tell in the households and in all corners of France you only hear the degenerate and stupid stories that come from Paris. A country like France cannot live without poetry. "

Although the textbooks in mainland France and overseas were identical for a certain time, this teaching was adapted to the local population in the French colonies. This is what happened in 1949 with the history book by Bonnefin and M. Marchand entitled Que se passait-il en Algérie à l'époque où tel événement arrivait en France?

State of research

In today's French language there are fewer words with Gallic origin than those with old Franconian roots . It is found all the more often in the geographical names ( toponomics ): city names and historical landscapes often refer to the civitas of the Gauls , water names ( hydronyms ) in the Seine basin .

With the help of the DNA from fossils , from graves and from European and French contemporaries, the history of the population of Europe and France could be traced back to prehistory . So it was mainly a Gallic population that settled what is now France in the 1st millennium.

Satirical aspects

Nos ancêtres les Gaulois is also the title of a satirical comic novel by André Chamson published in 1958. Henri Salvador found the expression particularly funny from the mouth of one of his West Indian (Antilles) teachers and had told the anecdote in 1958 to Boris Vian , who immediately wrote the words for the chanson Faut rigoler .

See also

literature

New edition: Colette Beaune, Naissance de la nation France, Paris, Gallimard, collection “Folio. Histoire »(N. 56), 1993, 574 pages, paperback ISBN 2-07-032808-2
New edition: Jean-Louis Brunaux, Nos ancêtres les Gaulois , Paris, Éditions Points, collection “Points. Histoire », 2015, 327 pages, paperback ISBN 978-2-7578-5373-3 , ( archive )
  • André Burguière , L'historiographie des origines de la France: genèse d'un imaginaire national , Annales. Histoire, Sciences sociales , Paris, Armand Colin, N. 1 “Histoire croisée - Imaginaires nationaux - Face à la guerre”, 2003 (vol. 58), pp. 41–62 ( archive )
  • François Cavanna , Nos ancêtres les gaulois , Volume 1 in the collection “L'histoire De France redécouverte par Cavanna”, 1991, Albin Michel. ISBN 978-2-226-05603-0 . Iconography of the Gauls in 19th Century Academic Art
  • Claude-Gilbert Dubois , Celtes et Gaulois au XVIe siècle, le développement littéraire d'un mythe nationaliste: avec l'édition critique d'un traité inédit de Guillaume Postel: “De ce qui est premier pour reformer le monde” , Paris, Librairie philosophique J. Vrin , collection “De Pétrarque à Descartes” (N. 28), 1972, 205 p. ( archive )
  • Claude-Gilbert Dubois , “Nos ancêtres les Gaulois”: un élément de construction identitaire devenu stéréotype , in Florent Kohler (ed.): Stéréotypes culturels et constructions identitaires , Tours, Presses universitaires François Rabelais, collection “Série Études hispaniques” (N. XVIII), 2007, 234 pp. ISBN 978-2-86906-232-0 , archive , pp. 101-114.
  • Alexis Léonard, “Nos ancêtres les Gaulois”: la celtomanie en France , in Élodie Burle-Errecade et Valérie Naudet (eds.), F antasmagories du Moyen Âge. Entre médiéval et moyen-âgeux: [actes du colloque international, 7-9 June 2007, Université de Provence] , Aix-en-Provence, Presses universitaires de Provence, "Sénéfiance" collection (N. 56), 2010, 280 pp. ISBN 978-2-85399-733-1 , archive , pp. 183-190.
  • François Reynaert , Nos ancêtres les Gaulois et autres fadaises: l'histoire de France sans les clichés , Paris, Fayard, 2010, 525 pp. ISBN 978-2-213-65515-4
New edition: François Reynaert, Nos ancêtres les Gaulois et autres fadaises: l'histoire de France sans les clichés , Paris, Librairie générale française, collection “Le Livre de poche” (N. 32425), 2011, 687 pages, paperback ISBN 978 -2-253-16282-7

References and comments

  1. ↑ The expression refers to the city of Troyes (inhabitants in French Troyen ), in whose area the Gauls settled at that time.
  2. ^ Colette Beaune, Naissance de la nation France , Gallimard, January 1, 1985
  3. ^ A b Jean-Louis Brunaux, Nos ancêtres les Gaulois, Paris, Éditions du Seuil, coll. "L'univers historique", 2008, 299 pp. ISBN 978-2-02-094321-5
    New edition: Jean-Louis Brunaux, Nos ancêtres les Gaulois , Paris, Editions Points, coll. «Points. Histoire », 2015, 327 pages, paperback ISBN 978-2-7578-5373-3
  4. ↑ Indication in the French text: "les ancêtres troyens par les ancêtres gaulois et font de Vercingétorix une célébrité"
  5. ↑ The mystification of French history goes back to Jules Michelet , who was then taken over by Ernest Lavisse and came into public schools and households. Quoted from: Dominique Borne , Source histoire pour la France? , Éditions Gallimard, 2014, p. 87.
  6. ↑ Suzanne Citron, Le mythe national, l'histoire de France revisitée , Éditions de l'Atelier, 2008
  7. ↑ The cliché: "Nos ancêtres les Gaulois"
  8. ↑ (en) Iñigo Carles Lalueza-Fox, Modern humans' paleogenomics and the new evidences on the European prehistory, STAR: Science & Technology of Archaeological Research , Volume 1, March 31, 2015, ( doi: 10.1179 / 2054892315Y.0000000002 )
  9. ↑ Guido Brandt, Anna Szécsényi-Nagy, Christina Roth and Kurt Werner Alt, Human paleogenetics of Europe - the known knowns and the known unknowns , Journal of Human Evolution, Volume 79, February 1, 2015, pp. 73 - 92, ( PMID 25467114 , doi: 10.1016 / j.jhevol.2014.06.017 )
  10. ↑ Guido Brandt, Wolfgang Haak, Christina J. Adler and Christina Roth, Ancient DNA reveals key stages in the formation of Central European mitochondrial genetic diversity , Science (New York, NY), Volume 342, N. 6155, October 11, 2013, Pp. 257–26 ( PMID 24115443 , PMC 4039305 (free full text), doi: 10.1126 / science.1241844 )
  11. ↑ (en) Iosif Lazaridis, Nick Patterson, Alissa Mittnik and Gabriel Renaud, Ancient human genomes suggest three ancestral populations for present-day Europeans , Nature, Volume 513, N. 7518, September 18, 2014, pp. 409-413, ( PMID 25230663 , PMC 4170574 (free full text), doi: 10.1038 / nature13673 )
  12. ↑ Jean-Louis Brunaux, Nos ancêtres les Gaulois ... , L'Histoire , no 326, December 2007: Quote "C'est donc bien une population essentiellement gauloise qui peuplait au cours du Ier millénaire le pays qui allait devenir la France"
  13. ^ Philippe Boggio , Boris Vian , Paris, Flammarion, 1993, 418 pp. ISBN 2-08-066734-3 , p. 385