History can be made anywhere. Surprises can be around the corner! As recently as last July, a historian I’m very fond of momentarily disappeared from the screen during a video conference, only to reappear with a red and white cracked box explaining that what’s inside was for me! Now that’s fantastic! You go round all the archive centres in France and bam, from Belgium, you receive a piece of correspondence from the Great War in person! It’s so exciting and intriguing!
I’ve already mentioned it in a few earlier episodes, but it’s always good to be reminded: we all have documents that can contribute to the construction of the history of today and of tomorrow. Whether we come from a family of notables or a working-class family. The difference is that you must be aware of it and know what to do with it.
This cardboard box comes from Belgium. Not knowing what to do with it, the donor had the idea of handing over these over a hundred-year-old documents to a historian at the University of Louvain-la-Neuve. Amongst colleagues, they knew who to entrust them to… A specialist of the First World War: Laurence van Ypersele. And then, quite naturally, it arrived to me. Well, you travelled all the way to Brussels to pick up the box! Yes, just after Marie Leyder had defended her thesis in Geneva on nurses and wartime godmothers on the Yser front during the First World War… Lucky you! It sat on my drawer for a long time, waiting… Preoccupied with other things, I didn’t feel ready to dive into this new collection straight away. It’s worth pointing out that for once you have the luxury of taking your time! You’re not tied to archives schedules and Laurence didn’t force you to hand all this in two months later… Indeed! It’s quite relaxing! As I was able to do with Ysabeau when I first started out and with Jules later on two occasions as a PhD student, I also wanted to do it with someone else. I wanted to share it. It was Manon, your sidekick in that famous year of your 3rd degree at Caen University, who answered the call. Mazette!
Manon and Gazengel, helped by Benziglout, analyze letters kept in a cardboard box.
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Gazengel – C²DH, what else?
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Gazengel – Homepage
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Gazengel – Passion for comics