Abstract

In the French historiography, the formation of the concept of nation and its significance can be roughly divided into the following stages. In the Middle Ages, it's mainly a mixture of Trojan legend, the Bible and the Germanic dynastic history. After the French Revolution, the French historians began to explore how to understand the diverse ethnic groups in different stages of French history, such as Gallic, Roman, Germanic peoples and so on, mixed with class and ethnic theory. But It eventually formed an inclusive French identity in which included various ethnic elements such as Gaul, Rome and Germanic, and later became known as the “Jacobin” doctrine of identity. After World War II, France had generally adhered to Jacobinism, but there was a new phenomenon called “the divergence between history and memory” appeared. In French historiography, it looks like the formation of the concept of nation and the filling of its meaning are constructed, made and imagined by intellectuals, especially by French historians, but with more deep analysis, it is ultimately caused by the changes of social reality.

Keyword:French; Historiography; Identity; Collective Memory; Historical Materialism;

Published on Hebei Academic Journal, Issue 3, 2022.