Contextualizing the Politics of Memory and the End of Ideology in the Nineties: Reflections on the Commemoration of May 1968, the Papon Trial, and the Debate over Le Livre noir du communisme

TitleContextualizing the Politics of Memory and the End of Ideology in the Nineties: Reflections on the Commemoration of May 1968, the Papon Trial, and the Debate over Le Livre noir du communisme
Publication TypeJournal Article
Year of Publication2001
AuthorsRichard J. Golsan
JournalL'Esprit Créateur
Volume41
Issue1
Pagination21-33
ISSN1931-0234
Abstract

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: Notes 1. For the best account of the Papon trial and the issues at stake, see Eric Conan, Le Procès Papon. Un Journal d'audience (Paris: Gallimard, 1998). See also my The Papon Affair: History and Justice on Trial (New York: Routledge, 2000) for a variety of perspectives on the trial and its aftermath. 2. Laurent Joffrin, Mai 68. Histoire des événements (Paris: Seuil, coll. Points, 1998), 8. 3. Julia Kristeva, Contre la dépression nationale (Paris: Textuel, 1998), 53. 4. Peter Starr, Logics of Failed Revolt: French Theory after May '68 (Stanford: Stanford UP, 1995). See especially Starr's excellent Introduction, where the theoretical implications of the different "logics of failed revolt" are articulated and linked to the historical and intellectual circumstances surrounding May '68. 5. Some two years after the conclusion of the trial, Bergès published a book with Papon in which the latter offered yet again his version of events. 6. For a discussion of the 1961 events and their role in the trial, see my "Memory's bombes à retardement: Maurice Papon, Crimes against humanity, and 17 October 1961," Journal of European Studies 28 (1998): 153-72. For the most recent reassessment of 17 October 1961 in which new archival evidence is examined, see Jean-Paul Brunet, Police contre FLN. Le drame du 17 octobre 1961 (Paris: Flammarion, 1999). 7. "Le Tribunal de l'Histoire a jugé Vichy depuis longtemps," interview with Henry Rousso, Le Monde, 7 avril 1998. 8. This episode is described in Malia's Preface to The Black Book of Communism (Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1999), xi. 9. See Nathan Bracher, "'La Mémoire vive et convulsive': The Papon Trial and France's Passion for History," The French Review 73:2 (December 1999): 316. 10. Stéphane Courtois, "Comprendre la tragédie communiste," Le Monde, 20 décembre 1998. 11. For this information, see Pierre Rigoulot and Ilios Yannakakis, Un Pavé dans l'histoire. Le débat français sur 'Le Livre noir du communisme' (Paris: Robert Laffont, 1998), 7. 12. See Daniel Singer, "Exploiting a Tragedy, or Le Rouge en Noir," The Nation, 13 December 1999: 62-65. 13. Jacques Julliard, L'Année des fantômes. Journal 1997 (Paris: Grasset, 1998), 341. Julliard's discussion of the Black Book is on pages 341-43. 14. Robert O. Paxton in "Symposium on Mitterrand's Past," French Politics and Society 13:1 (Winter 1995): 19. 15. Courtois justified the move by arguing rightly that Nuremberg applied only to the crimes of the Axis powers and not to the crimes of communist regimes. But by the same token crimes against humanity in French law are only intended to cover domestic crimes. 16. For background on the twists and turns of the crimes against humanity law in France viewed from a legal perspective, see Leila Sadat Wexler, "The Interpretation of the Nuremberg Principles by the French Court of Cassation: From Touvier to Barbie and back again," Columbia Journal of Transnational Law 32:1 (1994): 289-380. 17. Christian Guéry, "Une interrogation après le procès Touvier: le crime contre l'humanité existe-t-il?" Le Genre Humain 28 (1994): 119-38. 18. See Claude Lefort, "Le XXe siècle: la croyance et l'incroyance," Esprit 209 (1995): 19-24. 19. François Furet, Le Passé d'une illusion. Essai sur l'idée communiste au XXe siècle (Paris: Robert Laffont/Calmann Lévy, 1995). The American translation, The Passing of an Illusion: The Idea of Communism in the Twentieth Century (Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1999), was done by Furet's widow Deborah Furet. All quotations are from the American edition. 20. Ernst Nolte, "The Past that will not Pass. A Speech that could be written but not delivered," in Forever in the Shadow of Hitler? trans. James Knowlton and Truett Cates (Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press International, 1993), 18-23. Following the publication of Le Passé d'une illusion, Furet and Nolte exchanged a series of letters on the subject of the comparison of nazism and communism, which were originally published in Commentaire. They were later published in book form as Fascisme et communisme (Paris: Pion, 1998) and...

URLhttp://muse.jhu.edu/journals/lesprit_createur/v041/41.1.golsan.html
DOI10.1353/esp.2010.0103
Short TitleContextualizing the Politics of Memory and the End of Ideology in the Nineties
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