Marc Bloch

Biography

Resulting from a Jewish family Alsatian, Marc Bloch was the son of Gustave Bloch, professor of history ancient at the university of Lyon, itself wire of a principal. He makes brilliant secondary studies with Paris, with the Louis-the-Large Lycée then between with the National university in 1904. He is received with the aggregation history and from geography in 1908. He can leave the Parisian academic world since he follows 1908 to 1909 the courses of faculties of Berlin before being boarder with the Fondation Thiers (1909 - 1912).

Professor of college (Montpellier then Amiens) when the First World War bursts, it is mobilized like Sergent of infantry. Chief of Section, it finishes the conflict with the rank of Capitaine, in the intelligence services. Marc Bloch is quoted four times at the order of the army and receives the Military Cross.

In 1919 it marries Simone Vidal, girl of a polytechnician whose family, since the 18th century, was enracinée in Comtat venaissin and in Alsace, which gives him six children. The same year, it supports a thesis of doctorate reduced, with the already new matter, on the stamping from the rural populations of the Ile-de-France in the Middle Ages: Kings and Serfs (1920). Not very front, Bloch had been appointed professor with the faculty of Strasbourg, lately French, where its professorial qualities and its methodological rigor then represent a prestigious window for the French university. It joined there teachers of first order like Lucien Febvre, Andre Piganiol, with which it ties profitable bonds.

Bloch publishes in 1924 his masterly work, the Kings miracle-workers , where it tries out with audacity a method specialist in comparative literature borrowed from the Masters of linguistics (it speaks to him even ten languages). In 1931, its work more controlled, the original Characters of the French rural history , innovates once again because it at that time presents a not very current interdisciplinarity (botanical, demography, etc) for better including/understanding the evolution of the agrarian structures of the medieval and modern Occident. In 1928, Marc Bloch introduces his candidature for the Collège de France and proposes to teach a “compared history of the European companies”. Unfortunately this project fails. It will retentera its chance in 1934 - 1935, but with the same result.

Bloch takes part in 1929, with the “group of Strasbourg” of which Lucien Febvre, with the foundation of the Annales of economic and social history whose title is already in itself a rupture with “the history historisante”, triumphing in France from the school Positiviste. Bloch publishes there to the war of important articles but especially of brilliant notes of reading whose methodological impact was still felt after its death and until today.

Succeeding Henri To raise with the Sorbonne in 1936 (pulpit of economic history), the war surprises it with the plenitude of its career and its research. Mobilized, he very sees close the shipwreck of the III {{E}} République. Bloch will draw from this major event, which upset its life, a posthumous book, test of immediate history, the Strange defeat (published in 1946), which remains a lucid and penetrating testimony on the insufficiencies of the elite S which sink in May 1940. In spite of its age, it is 53 years old, a polyarthritis invalidating and an large family, it asked to fight, declaring itself “the oldest captain of the French Army”. Affected with the service of the gasolines, he refuses to follow the courses of the School of war, which prohibits all future promotion to him.

After the Countryside of France, excluded from the public office like Jewish by the Vichy government in October 1940, it there is restored for exceptional services by the minister Jerome Carcopino, former student of his father, and is named with the Faculty of Strasbourg folded up with Clermont-Ferrand. It continues its research under very difficult living conditions there and prey at worst concerns. Because of health of his wife, he asks and obtains a change with Montpellier in 1941.

It is in the house that it had with the hamlet of Ferns, commune of the Borough-with Hem (Creuse) that it wrote its testimony on the causes of the French defeat in 1940: the strange defeat .

It enters clandestinity at the end of 1942 when the Germans invade the free Zone. Taken refuge in the Hollow one, Bloch writes then, without documents and under difficult conditions, his Apologie for the history or trade for historian (published in 1949 by the care of Lucien Febvre), in whom it summarizes with brilliance the singular requirements of the trade of historian.

In 1943, after the invasion of the Southern zone which nowhere does not leave it in safety, it engages in the Résistance, of which it becomes one of the chiefs for the region of Lion within Franc-Tireur, then in the WALL (plain Mouvements of Resistance). It is stopped with Lyon the March 8th 1944 by the Gestapo, is tortured, and dies shot the June 16th. It would have collapsed while exclaiming: “France Lives! ” Thereafter, its ashes were brought back in the cemetery of the Borough-with Hem.

Marc Bloch, polemical than his elder Lucien Febvre, however joined this one by the rigor of its analyzes and its will to open the field of the history to the other scientific disciplines. Moreover, its contribution to L `medieval History, by the variety of its sources and the rigor of its analysis, remains still today largely used by the researchers.

Following the example his colleagues of the School of Annals, Marc Bloch suggests not using the written documents exclusively and resorting to other materials, Artistique S, Archéologique S, Numismatique S… More than any other person in charge of the Yearly , it directs towards the analysis of the made economic. Also in favor of a unicity of the Social sciences, he will seek a permanent recourse to the comparative method, will support multidisciplinarity and collective work at the Historien S.

Anecdotes

the university of social sciences of Strasbourg (Strasbourg II) bears its name since 1998.
research the Franco-German Center of in social sciences, known as Center Marc Bloch, was founded with Berlin, under its patronage, the December 9th 1992, on the initiative of the French governments and German.
In June 2006, several historians require, in the literary Figaro , his transfer to the the Pantheon.
the promotion of ENA of 1997 bears its name.
the general high school and technological of Bischheim bears its name, as well as the college of Bonnat ( Creuse).

My father, Marcel Fonfrède, 20 years at the time found themselves imprisoned in the same cell of condemned to died to Montluc. He remembers this Mr Marc Bloch who returned in the cell blue of blows, thing which my father did not dare to say to the son of Marc Bloch. Marc Bloch discussed discreetly with another Mister whom it seemed to know. With my young step yet father, it gave his course on the farming community of the Middle Ages, the culture in circle, etc they had found a bit of paper and had manufactured a mini play of failure which they hid. They played there during hours. in the cell they were 6, of which a tramp who left himself well there after Dachau, another odd nourished too well which seemed to be put there for espionner. My father always spoke about Marc Bloch while being intimidated and being honoured to have shared a few dramatic months, considering the difference in age, and the situation.

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