Albert Soboul facts for kids

Albert Marius Soboul (born April 27, 1914 – died September 11, 1982) was a famous historian. He studied and wrote a lot about the French Revolution and the time of Napoleon. He was a professor at the Sorbonne in Paris. People around the world saw him as the top French expert on the French Revolution.

Early Life

Soboul was born in Ammi Moussa, which was then part of French Algeria, in 1914. His father was a textile worker who died in World War I that same year. Albert and his older sister, Gisèle, first lived in a small town in Ardèche, France. Later, they moved back to Algeria with their mother.

When their mother passed away in 1922, the children went to live with their aunt Marie in Nîmes, France.

School Days

Their aunt was a primary school teacher. She helped Soboul do very well in his studies at the lycée (a type of high school) in Nîmes from 1924 to 1931. He was especially inspired by his teacher, Jean Morini-Comby, who was also a historian of the French Revolution. Soboul loved history and philosophy, and this passion stayed with him his whole life.

After Nîmes, Soboul studied for a year at the University of Montpellier. Then, he moved to the Lycée Louis-le-Grand in Paris. He wrote his first history paper about a revolutionary leader named Saint-Just. He finished his history and geography degree in 1938.

Career

Soboul joined the military in 1938. He served in the horse-drawn artillery until 1940. He was already a member of the French Communist Party and stayed loyal to them even when Germany occupied France. He got a teaching job in Montpellier, but the Vichy government fired him in 1942. This was because he supported the French Resistance, which fought against the occupation. For the rest of the war, Soboul did historical research in Paris.

After the war, Soboul went back to teaching in Montpellier. Then he taught at other high schools in Paris. He became good friends with a well-known historian named Georges Lefebvre. Under Lefebvre's guidance, Soboul wrote his long doctoral paper (1,100 pages!) about the revolutionary group called the sans-culottes. This paper was titled The Parisian Sans-culottes in the Year II.

Later, Soboul became a professor at the University of Clermont-Ferrand. He was a very active academic and wrote many books. In 1967, he became the Chair of the History of the French Revolution at the Sorbonne. He also edited a history journal and gave many talks around the world. He became known as the "leading French authority on the Revolution."

His Ideas on History

In his writings, Soboul often talked about the idea of class struggle. This means he believed that conflicts between different social classes were a main reason for the French Revolution. He built on the ideas of earlier historians like François Victor Alphonse Aulard and Albert Mathiez. His work is known for being clear and based on very detailed research.

Soboul said his work was part of the "classical" and "scientific" way of studying history. He mentioned historians like Tocqueville, Jaurès, and Lefebvre. However, many people still see him as a key person in the Marxist way of looking at history.

Soboul believed that the Reign of Terror was a necessary response to dangers. These dangers came from other countries fighting France and from traitors inside France trying to stop the Revolution. In his view, leaders like Maximilien Robespierre and the sans-culottes were right to defend the Revolution from its enemies.

Since the 1990s, Soboul's ideas about the French Revolution have faced strong criticism. Some historians, like François Furet, disagree. They argue that outside threats were not the main reason for the Terror. Instead, they believe the extreme violence was part of the revolutionaries' strong beliefs. They felt it was necessary to kill opponents to reach their perfect society. Other historians, like Paul Hanson, have a middle view. They agree that foreign enemies were important. They see the Terror as something that happened because of many complex events and the foreign threat. Hanson thinks the Terror was not planned but became necessary due to the situation.

Soboul also stressed how important the sans-culottes were as a social group. He saw them as an early form of the working class (proletariat) who played a big role. This idea has also been strongly criticized. Some scholars say the sans-culottes were not a social class at all. One historian even pointed out that Soboul's idea of the sans-culottes has not been used by scholars for any other time in French history.

Legacy

Soboul passed away in Nîmes at his aunt Marie's home. The French Communist Party held a large funeral for him at the Père Lachaise Cemetery. He was buried near important party leaders and the Communards' Wall. This wall is where the last Communards were shot in May 1871.

A book about his life, Un historien en son temps: Albert Soboul (1914–1982) by Claude Mazauric, was published in France in 2004. Towards the end of his life, new historians with different ideas (called the revisionist school) started to challenge Soboul's views. However, his work is still seen as a very important part of studying history from the perspective of ordinary people.

He left his large collection of books about the Revolution to the Musée de la Révolution française (Museum of the French Revolution).

Published Works

Major Publications in English

• 1948: The Revolution of 1848 in France
• 1953: Classes and class struggles during the French revolution
• 1955: Robespierre and the popular movement of 1793-4
• 1958: The French rural community in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries
• 1964: The Parisian Sans-Culottes and the French Revolution, 1793-4
• 1972: The Sans-culottes: the Popular Movement and Revolutionary Government, 1793-1794
• 1974: From the Jacobin dictatorship to Napoleon
• 1975: The French Revolution, 1787-1799: From the Storming of the Bastille to Napoleon
• 1977: A Short History of the French Revolution, 1789-1799
• 1988: Understanding the French Revolution

French Publications

Soboul wrote many books and articles in French. He also updated older works and often worked with other historians on projects. After he died, his writings were used for several more publications:

• 1983: Problèmes paysans de la Révolution (1789-1848)
• 1984: La Révolution française
• 1986: Portraits de révolutionnaires
• 1989: Dictionnaire historique de la Révolution française
• 1990: La France napoléonienne
• 1995: La Maison rurale française

See Also

In Spanish: Albert Soboul para niños