Intellectual Collaborators in Post-War France. Stigma, survival and posterity

Since the 2010’s, prestigious French publishers have been releasing unpublished or reprinted works by writers who collaborated with the Nazis or followed Pétain (Céline, Maurras, Rebatet…). This trend, perceived as a “return of the collabos”, seems to run counter to the symbolic death of these writers during the Purge. How did these intellectuals survive from the end of the Occupation to the beginning of the 21st century?

Drawing on unpublished archives, this talk traces the biographical and bibliographical trajectories of over 200 intellectuals designated by their peers as Collaborators during the Purge. Far from being uniform, their postwar trajectories vary according to their condemnation, age, recognition in the world of Letters and their networks. The stigma of Collaboration can prove to be a constraint (impediment, call to order) or a resource (mutual support, subversive distinction). However, studying the social conditions of intellectual posterity reveals more continuities than ruptures in this trajectories.

Please note, this seminar will be delivered in French.

Tristan Rouquet has a PhD in political science from the University of Paris Nanterre. After a post-doctorate on the spoliation of Freemasons during the Occupation, he is now in charge of scientific support at the Résistance and Deportation Museum in Haute-Garonne. He has published ‘Le World Biographical Information System, retour sur la base de données biographique la plus complète du monde’, Les Etudes sociales, 2022 n° 175, p. 261-288, and his thesis on the post-war of the intellectuals collaborators will be published in 2025 by CNRS Editions.