Albert Soboul
| Albert Soboul | |
|---|---|
| Born |
April 27, 1914 Ammi Moussa, French Algeria |
| Died | September 11, 1982 (aged 68) Nîmes, France |
| Resting place | Père Lachaise Cemetery |
| Citizenship | French |
| Alma mater | La Sorbonne |
| Subject | French Revolution, Napoleon |
Albert Marius Soboul (April 27, 1914 – September 11, 1982) was a historian of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic periods. A professor at the Sorbonne, he was Chair of the History of the French Revolution and author of numerous influential works of history and historical interpretation. In his lifetime he was internationally recognized as the foremost French authority on the Revolutionary era. However, since the 1990s his Marxist interpretation has been largely abandoned by most historians.
Albert Marius Soboul was born in Ammi Moussa, French Algeria, in the spring of 1914. His father, a textile worker, died later that same year at the front in World War I. He and his older sister Gisèle grew up first in a rural community in Ardèche in southern France before moving with their mother back to Algeria. When she too died in 1922, the children were sent to be raised by their aunt Marie in Nîmes.
The children's aunt was a primary school teacher, and under her care Soboul blossomed in his education at the lycée of Nîmes (1924–1931). He was uniquely inspired by the educator Jean Morini-Comby, who was himself a published historian of the Revolution. Soboul excelled in his studies and developed a lifelong passion for history and philosophy.
After Nîmes, Soboul studied for a year at the university of Montpellier, then transferred to the Lycée Louis-le-Grand in Paris. He published his first work of history, an examination of the ideas of the revolutionary leader Saint-Just, originally attributed to a pseudonym, "Pierre Derocles". Soboul completed his agrégation in history and geography in 1938.
Called up for military service that same year, he served in the horse-drawn artillery before being demobilized in 1940. He had already become a member of the French Communist Party and remained committed to them even under the German occupation. He received a teaching position at the lycée of Montpellier, but was dismissed by the Vichy regime in 1942 for supporting resistance activities. Soboul spent the rest of the war years doing historical research under the direction of Georges Henri Rivière for the Musée national des Arts et Traditions Populaires in Paris.
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