Narratives of Collaboration in Post-War France, 1944 1974
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Durham E-Theses Narratives of Collaboration in Post-War France, 1944 1974 LAWRIE, RICHARD,MARSHALL,ALEXANDER How to cite: LAWRIE, RICHARD,MARSHALL,ALEXANDER (2013) Narratives of Collaboration in Post-War France, 1944 1974, Durham theses, Durham University. Available at Durham E-Theses Online: http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/7374/ Use policy The full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that: • a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in Durham E-Theses • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders. Please consult the full Durham E-Theses policy for further details. Academic Support Oce, Durham University, University Oce, Old Elvet, Durham DH1 3HP e-mail: [email protected] Tel: +44 0191 334 6107 http://etheses.dur.ac.uk 2 Narratives of Collaboration in Post-War France, 1944 – 1974 Richard Lawrie Thesis submitted for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy School of Modern Languages and Cultures University of Durham 2013 i Narratives of Collaboration on Post-War France, 1944−1974 ABSTRACT Arguing that literary narratives (whether fictional or autobiographical) can provide an important way in which the past is accessed and understood, this thesis uses such narratives to compare and contrast cultural representations of collaboration with the Gaullist political accounts described in Henry Rousso’s Le Syndrome de Vichy . Following the introduction, chapter one examines the perception and characteristics of collaboration, providing a broad analysis of collaboration and collaborators which frames later chapters. There follows a discussion of the generic boundaries between history, autobiography and fiction, showing that novels can contain many of the attributes conventionally ascribed to historical texts, as well as having a freedom of form which allows them to examine and relate subjects not allowed to historical accounts. Next, selected novels (by Marcel Aymé, Jean-Louis Bory, Marie Chaix, Céline, Jean-Louis Curtis, Jean Dutourd, Pascal Jardin, Patrick Modiano, Saint-Loup, and Michel Tournier) are analysed at length to examine how specific forms of collaboration have been understood, and how they subvert Rousso’s schema of repression or marginalisation of the phenomenon. Novels written in the immediate aftermath of the war actually gave a convincing representation of collaboration and the everyday wartime experience, contrasting with the ‘official’ story which sought to forget collaboration. Representations of intellectual and cultural collaboration show that, contrary to de Gaulle’s attempts to portray France as a nation of resisters, high- profile figures from these circles offered a more persuasive alternative to this view. This is also shown to be the case for depictions of military and paramilitary collaboration, which openly describe armed and violent collaboration, challenging and contrasting with the Gaullist representation of mass resistance supported by the civil population. Finally, familial memories are used to revaluate the mode rétro in light of earlier chapters. Although this phenomenon found innovative ways to view the war, it did not represent a wholly new, or more open, account, and was subject to its own repressions and distortions. ii Table of Contents Abstract p. i Table of Contents p. ii Abbreviations p. iii Introduction: p.1 Le Syndrome de Vichy and Literary Representations of Collaboration Chapter One: p. 39 The Perception and the Characteristics of Collaboration Chapter Two: p. 80 The Generic Boundaries between History, Autobiography and Fiction Chapter Three: p. 125 Collaboration in Daily Life Chapter Four: p. 173 Representations of Intellectual and Cultural Collaboration Chapter Five: p. 208 Representations of Military and Paramilitary Collaboration Chapter Six: p. 248 Collaboration and la mode rétro : Familial Memories of les années noires Conclusion: p. 290 Representations of Collaboration Bibliography p. 303 iii Abbreviations Abbreviations are used within footnotes for the principal novels consulted. ABB Jean Dutourd, Au Bon beurre (Paris: Gallimard, 1952). BdC Patrick Modiano, Les Boulevards de ceinture (Paris: Gallimard, 1983). CA Louis-Ferdinand Céline, D'un château l'autre (Paris, Gallimard, 1957). CdE Marcel Aymé, Le Chemin des écoliers (Paris: Gallimard, 1972). FdlN Jean-Louis Curtis, Les forêts de la nuit (Paris: J’ai Lu, 1979). GNA Pascal Jardin, La Guerre à neuf ans (Paris: Grasset, 1989). LH Saint-Loup, Les Hérétiques (Paris: Presses de la Cité, 1965). LLC Marie Chaix, Les Lauriers du Lac de Constance (Paris: Seuil, 1974). MV Jean-Louis Bory, Mon village à l’heure allemande (Paris: J’ai Lu, 1967). RdA Tournier, Michel, Le Roi des aulnes (Paris: Gallimard, 1970). RdN Patrick Modiano La Ronde de nuit (Paris: Gallimard, 1969). I acknowledge the financial support of the Arts and Humanities Research Council in the production of this thesis. 1 Introduction: Le Syndrome de Vichy and Literary Representations of Collaboration The primary purpose of this thesis is to examine how post-war French fictional literary narratives throughout the period 1944 to 1974 understood and represented collaboration between members of the French population and Germany during the Second World War. This examination will enable judgements to be made as to whether such fictional narratives mirror the account of official state-sponsored repression of collaboration memories given by Henry Rousso in his seminal 1987 Le Syndrome de Vichy de 1944 à nos jours .1 This understanding of remembrance of the war saw collective state memory dominated by a Gaullist view of the past, which only began to give way after the wide-ranging cultural and political changes that occurred in the aftermath of the May 1968 riots. As Rousso’s work has predominated, it has greatly influenced studies which examine how the war was remembered in France. 2 However, is it the case that novels complement current historians’ accounts, which offer a far more nuanced and realistic view of the war? If this is shown to be so, it will illustrate that novels during the period 1944 to 1974 differ in their accounts of the Occupation from those related by the dominant political groups, which in turn would suggest that French society as a whole was offered, and accepted, a far more accurate depiction of the Occupation than that presented by those in power during this period. 1 Henry Rousso, Le Syndrome de Vichy de 1944 à nos jours (Paris: Seuil, 2 nd ed. 1990). 2 For a recent major example of the influence of Rousso’s work on literary representations of the war, see Yan Hamel, La Bataille des mémoires: La Seconde Guerre mondiale et le roman français (Montréal: Presses de l'Université de Montréal, 2006), p. 12 and throughout. 2 To answer the question of whether accounts of collaboration differ from those of dominant political groups, shifts in social and moral attitudes to collaboration that such fictional narratives portray will be examined. In addition, examination of how such shifts are reflected through modifications in the representations of specific individual and group collaboration will also be made. To realize this, a number of considerations will be taken into account. How were these developments in social and moral attitudes represented, and to what extent did literary styles and techniques imitate or innovate on previous literary works which examined collaboration? Moreover, in light of this work, by questioning whether these developments mirror current views on the understanding and representation of collaboration that have been described by existing works on the subject, the thesis will also address two particular questions: firstly, is Henry Rousso’s metaphor of sickness and obsession, together with related ideas, relevant to the image of collaborators and collaboration contained in these fictional narratives? Or, do they instead provide a more historically accurate understanding of collaboration than the advocates of such metaphors would suggest - and if so, to what extent? Secondly, what conclusions can be drawn from aspects of collaboration that are not represented in fictional narratives during the period that study has identified as being important elements of collaboration? This examination will address which issues were considered taboo, and to what extent, as well as which subjects were neglected due to their mundane nature having made them seemingly uninteresting or unimportant topics. Prior to discussion of methodology, research context and sources, it is necessary to give initial consideration to the terms and concepts of collaboration and fictional 3 narratives, and to provide an introductory framework through which this thesis can be understood (before fuller discussion of these terms and concepts in later chapters). It is most important to define what is meant by collaboration as an historical concept. As this thesis examines how France’s wartime was understood in novels, which are drawn from a large corpus, collaboration is taken in its widest possible sense, encompassing both narrow and broad definitions, and allowing for wider conclusions to be reached. Collaboration therefore pertains to French people involved individually or jointly, willingly or unwillingly, in activities or projects which benefited the