A visit to the Panthéon in Paris brings Richard Utz face to face with the legacy of Marc Bloch, one of the most influential medieval historians of the twentieth century. Reflecting on Bloch’s life as a scholar, soldier and Resistance fighter, Utz considers what happens when the past is enlisted in the debates of the present.
By Richard Utz
Everyone involved in Medieval Studies knows and likes Marc Bloch. Or at least so it seems. I still remember an incident during the short-lived 2019 medievalist culture wars, when an out-of-context ironic statement I made for an article in the New York Times became a storm in a teacup on social media. I had in fact intended to show (later clarified in Medievalists.net) why many traditional medievalists reminded me of stereotypical medieval monks, hiding away in an idealized, apolitical past rather than actively engaging with how public audiences and political groups consume (and sometimes distort) medieval history. Some colleagues took the decontextualized quote to mean the exact opposite. One of them felt called upon, on Facebook, to make sure everyone knew that he was neither neutral or hidebound, but joyfully activist – and he went on to mention Marc Bloch as proof for past medievalists’ activism. The post got multiple “likes” and responses, with several colleagues confirming Bloch as a perfect prefiguration of their own professional identities and practices.
This August, as I was sauntering toward the Panthéon in Paris, these 2019 discussions welled up again. I could see from afar a building banner reminding visitors of Bloch’s recent induction among France’s most illustrious citizens, the first professional historian ever to receive this exceptional honor. Just to put things in perspective: The Panthéon also includes the likes of Voltaire, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Victor Hugo, Émile Zola, Marie Curie, Jean Jaurès, Simone Veil, René Cassin, Louis Braille and, also since 2026, the inimitable Joséphine Baker.
The Panthéon in Paris – photo by Richard Utz
After passing through the monumental neoclassical entrance and feeling dwarfed by the 83-meter-high dome, I descended into the crypt, with its lower ceilings and an atmosphere of solemnity and respect that hushes even the more loquacious tourists. Down there, close to Bloch’s symbolic casket (his actual remains stayed in his family cemetery), there was a modest exhibit honoring him, titled “Marc Bloch, the Spirit of History.”
The photographs, books, objects, letters, and descriptions were organized in several sections. The first one offered insight into his academic origins, his groundbreaking work as a professor of comparative medieval history, and his role as a co-founder of the Annales School, which revolutionized the discipline of history by interweaving it with sociology, economics, and human geography. Bloch and his collaborators (especially Lucien Febvre) counter-storied the exclusive focus on medieval elites practiced by traditional historians with innovative scholarship on socio-economic structures, collective mentalities, and the lives of ordinary people. Although this work intersected with materialist thought, they were not historical materialists or proponents of Marxist dogma.
In addition to revolutionizing history as a modern discipline, Bloch also recognized the need to extend the impact and relevance of history to those outside of the academy: I saw mention at the exhibit of “Apologie pour l’histoire: ou, métier d’historien,” published posthumously in 1949. The first English translation, by Peter Putnam, The Historian’s Craft (New York: Knopf), was published in 1953. The book begins with the deceptively elementary question, “TELL ME, Daddy, what is the use of history.” How many academic historians today would accept to work at the highest theoretical levels and ask and answer this applied question at the same time?
The other sections of the exhibit intersect and point to the major difference between the critical activism exercised by most of us primarily desk-bound academics on the one hand, and Bloch as a man of action on the other: his military service and martyrdom as a resistance fighter.
He volunteered to join the French army in World War I (at the age of 28) and World War II (as a 53-year-old university professor and father of six!), and the documents at the exhibit reveal a person imbued with deep patriotism and ready to risk death in the defense of a country he loved; a country and democratic republic he was ready to defend in spite of the antisemitism he experienced in it. As one of the exhibit quotes from a 1938 letter to Lucien Febvre explains: “My name is Bloch. … I am a Jew. … And in the eyes of the law, I do not feel any differently than a French citizen. We have been, dare I add, French citizens, ever since there have been French citizens and French soldiers, since the siege of Mainz [1792-93], which is hardly just yesterday.” After the defeat of the French army in 1940, Bloch joined the Resistance before being arrested, tortured, and executed by the Gestapo in 1944.
Marc Bloch in uniform in 1918
The photograph showing Marc Bloch as an arms-bearing patriot who reached the rank of captain will make those who happily invoke him as an activist forefather feel just a little uneasy. They would rather remember him only as a left-leaning historian and resistance fighter. Similarly, right-wing politicians have focused on Bloch’s patriotism, misappropriating it to justify their racist and anti-immigrant causes. In times of total political polarization, neither of these sides will be able to accept the paradoxical truth that Marc Bloch could live and embrace both, a universalist, left-leaning intellectualism and an ardent and quite traditional French patriotism. That’s deplorable, considering his search for and love of truth is perhaps the top characteristic of his biography, as a historian and citizen. The short inscription on his casket reads, under his name, “Dilexit veritatem.”
A few days after I exited the exhibit at the Panthéon, an op-ed by Emmanuel Deonna in Haaretz eloquently confirmed the thoughts that settled over me during my visit to the historian’s symbolic shrine:
This may be the most timely lesson to draw from Bloch today: not an answer to the questions of our moment, but a warning against the temptation to turn any figure from the past into a weapon of the present. To honor Marc Bloch faithfully might mean, above all, resisting that very temptation, especially when it comes dressed as tribute.
Richard Utz is Professor of Medievalism Studies at Georgia Tech
A visit to the Panthéon in Paris brings Richard Utz face to face with the legacy of Marc Bloch, one of the most influential medieval historians of the twentieth century. Reflecting on Bloch’s life as a scholar, soldier and Resistance fighter, Utz considers what happens when the past is enlisted in the debates of the present.
By Richard Utz
Everyone involved in Medieval Studies knows and likes Marc Bloch. Or at least so it seems. I still remember an incident during the short-lived 2019 medievalist culture wars, when an out-of-context ironic statement I made for an article in the New York Times became a storm in a teacup on social media. I had in fact intended to show (later clarified in Medievalists.net) why many traditional medievalists reminded me of stereotypical medieval monks, hiding away in an idealized, apolitical past rather than actively engaging with how public audiences and political groups consume (and sometimes distort) medieval history. Some colleagues took the decontextualized quote to mean the exact opposite. One of them felt called upon, on Facebook, to make sure everyone knew that he was neither neutral or hidebound, but joyfully activist – and he went on to mention Marc Bloch as proof for past medievalists’ activism. The post got multiple “likes” and responses, with several colleagues confirming Bloch as a perfect prefiguration of their own professional identities and practices.
This August, as I was sauntering toward the Panthéon in Paris, these 2019 discussions welled up again. I could see from afar a building banner reminding visitors of Bloch’s recent induction among France’s most illustrious citizens, the first professional historian ever to receive this exceptional honor. Just to put things in perspective: The Panthéon also includes the likes of Voltaire, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Victor Hugo, Émile Zola, Marie Curie, Jean Jaurès, Simone Veil, René Cassin, Louis Braille and, also since 2026, the inimitable Joséphine Baker.
After passing through the monumental neoclassical entrance and feeling dwarfed by the 83-meter-high dome, I descended into the crypt, with its lower ceilings and an atmosphere of solemnity and respect that hushes even the more loquacious tourists. Down there, close to Bloch’s symbolic casket (his actual remains stayed in his family cemetery), there was a modest exhibit honoring him, titled “Marc Bloch, the Spirit of History.”
The photographs, books, objects, letters, and descriptions were organized in several sections. The first one offered insight into his academic origins, his groundbreaking work as a professor of comparative medieval history, and his role as a co-founder of the Annales School, which revolutionized the discipline of history by interweaving it with sociology, economics, and human geography. Bloch and his collaborators (especially Lucien Febvre) counter-storied the exclusive focus on medieval elites practiced by traditional historians with innovative scholarship on socio-economic structures, collective mentalities, and the lives of ordinary people. Although this work intersected with materialist thought, they were not historical materialists or proponents of Marxist dogma.
In addition to revolutionizing history as a modern discipline, Bloch also recognized the need to extend the impact and relevance of history to those outside of the academy: I saw mention at the exhibit of “Apologie pour l’histoire: ou, métier d’historien,” published posthumously in 1949. The first English translation, by Peter Putnam, The Historian’s Craft (New York: Knopf), was published in 1953. The book begins with the deceptively elementary question, “TELL ME, Daddy, what is the use of history.” How many academic historians today would accept to work at the highest theoretical levels and ask and answer this applied question at the same time?
The other sections of the exhibit intersect and point to the major difference between the critical activism exercised by most of us primarily desk-bound academics on the one hand, and Bloch as a man of action on the other: his military service and martyrdom as a resistance fighter.
He volunteered to join the French army in World War I (at the age of 28) and World War II (as a 53-year-old university professor and father of six!), and the documents at the exhibit reveal a person imbued with deep patriotism and ready to risk death in the defense of a country he loved; a country and democratic republic he was ready to defend in spite of the antisemitism he experienced in it. As one of the exhibit quotes from a 1938 letter to Lucien Febvre explains: “My name is Bloch. … I am a Jew. … And in the eyes of the law, I do not feel any differently than a French citizen. We have been, dare I add, French citizens, ever since there have been French citizens and French soldiers, since the siege of Mainz [1792-93], which is hardly just yesterday.” After the defeat of the French army in 1940, Bloch joined the Resistance before being arrested, tortured, and executed by the Gestapo in 1944.
The photograph showing Marc Bloch as an arms-bearing patriot who reached the rank of captain will make those who happily invoke him as an activist forefather feel just a little uneasy. They would rather remember him only as a left-leaning historian and resistance fighter. Similarly, right-wing politicians have focused on Bloch’s patriotism, misappropriating it to justify their racist and anti-immigrant causes. In times of total political polarization, neither of these sides will be able to accept the paradoxical truth that Marc Bloch could live and embrace both, a universalist, left-leaning intellectualism and an ardent and quite traditional French patriotism. That’s deplorable, considering his search for and love of truth is perhaps the top characteristic of his biography, as a historian and citizen. The short inscription on his casket reads, under his name, “Dilexit veritatem.”
A few days after I exited the exhibit at the Panthéon, an op-ed by Emmanuel Deonna in Haaretz eloquently confirmed the thoughts that settled over me during my visit to the historian’s symbolic shrine:
This may be the most timely lesson to draw from Bloch today: not an answer to the questions of our moment, but a warning against the temptation to turn any figure from the past into a weapon of the present. To honor Marc Bloch faithfully might mean, above all, resisting that very temptation, especially when it comes dressed as tribute.
Richard Utz is Professor of Medievalism Studies at Georgia Tech
See also Marc Bloch’s Feudal Society: Why It Still Matters Today
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