April 24, 2023 at 12:00 pm on the Microsoft Teams platform will be held the next expert seminar with Dr. Renata Latała from University of Geneva entitled "Vichy. A 'broken' memory on an ambiguous past".
Abstract: The French cultural and political space is constantly torn by the traumatic past of Vichy. This memory is both omnipresent and conflicting: it emerges as a "syndrome of Vichy" (Henry Rousso). Whenever important issues arise in contemporary debates (society or nation, equality or hierarchy, state or individual), the memory of Vichy recurs. It is often used to delegitimise opponents of the Republic or to discredit political adversaries, regardless of the political camp to which they belong. The 2022 presidential campaign has demonstrated the topicality of this phenomenon. What is the specificity of this “lieu de mémoire”? Is it a French particularity?
This lecture traces the evolution of the “Vichy memory” in a historical perspective. The aim is to understand the reasons behind the French people's "difficult reconciliation" with their past and the persistence of competing myths that have prevented the forging of a lasting, accepted representation. Indeed, it was only in 1995 that Jacques Chirac officially acknowledged the Vichy regime's policy of collaboration with Nazi Germany and its many crimes. This historic speech marked an important turning point in the context of public memory. However, numerous elements of this ambiguous past are still vulnerable to a process of appropriation and instrumentalisation.
Dr. Renata Latała is a historian, holding a degree in Contemporary History and European Studies. She is a Senior Researcher with the History Department at the University of Geneva. Her research focuses on cultural exchanges and intellectual networks in the 19th and 20th centuries, as well as on the intellectual history of Catholicism. She is currently conducting a research on conceptual history and recently co-edited Towards Solidarity. The use and abuse of concepts of compassion, 2023. She was fellow from the Swiss National Science Foundation at the Lateran University (Rome) and at the Vatican Archives, and at the Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences (University of Geneva). Since 2022 she has also been conducting a project on public history: 1980. The Solidarity Moment. People's commitment, Witnesses’ memories, Historians' questions.
Link to the lecture by Dr R. Latala on MS Teams