본문 바로가기
  • Home

From Duel to Duo: French-German Accord on History ooks and the Problem of the First World War

  • Korean Review of French History
  • Abbr : KRFH
  • 2007, (17), pp.193~229
  • Publisher : KOREAN SOCIETY FOR FRENCH HISTORY
  • Research Area : Humanities > History

Lee Yong Jae 1

1전북대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

This article present un analysis of the achievements made by french and german teachers in teaching of history and revision of school textbooks. The interpretation of ‘the causes’ and ‘the responsabilities’ of the First World War occupies a major place in history courses to be commonly shared by two nations. In postwar times, a number of french and german textbooks are filled with hostile quotations and descriptions to a so-called ‘national enemy’. The French owed the war responsibilities to the German, and vice versa. A certain time of franco-german rapprochement came out between late 1920s and early 1930s. In France, a famous Textbooks collection, the ‘Malet-Isaac’ and its author Jules Isaac played an important part in the revision of historical textbooks. The ‘Malet-Isaac’, from its edition of 1928, became delivered from old historiography imbued with patriotic feelings, and presented an appearance of pacifism. In 1951, franco-german delegation of teachers succeeded in making an Accord for textbooks revision, its previous Accord of 1935 having failed in fulfillment with the advent of Nazism and the outbreak of Second World War. The pages devoted to the First World War included not only a description of the war, but also its origins and consequences. Presentation entails more than simple battle accounts, trying instead to explain the mechanisms that triggered war, the specificity of the way it was conducted. It is owing to this efforts made by french and german teachers and historians that french and german textbooks published in 1960s begin to calmly discuss the thorny issue of war responsibilities by referring to controversial historical research.

Citation status

* References for papers published after 2023 are currently being built.

This paper was written with support from the National Research Foundation of Korea.