Гуманитарные и юридические исследования (Sep 2021)
MEMORY OF THE ANTIQUE PAST IN THE FRENCH COLONIAL DISCOURSE OF THE LAST THIRD XIX CENTURY: THE "MEMORY SITES" IN THE COLONIAL PROPAGANDE
Abstract
The article studies French colonial discourse in the last third of the XIX century. The ideologists of colonization rarely surrendered to abstract thoughts about the Empire, their arguments for the colonization of North Africa and Indochina could differ. The Roman past was present in North Africa and served as reference points for the French colonialists. We are interested in the colonial discourse associated with the actualization of the memory of the ancient past. The article explores the discourse associated with the actualization of the memory of the Roman past; reveals the symbols of the Roman past and sites of memory in North Africa, which helped the French colonial ideologists construct an imperial discourse and propagate the idea that the French are true followers of the Romans in Africa. We studied the texts of historians, publicists, who in their articles and travel notes referred to the experience of the Romans in the colonization of North Africa. Great attention is paid to the analysis of the works of the French historian and philologist Gaston Bouasier. The study revealed that the conquests in North Africa were told to the public as the continuation of the mission of the Romans. The ideologists of colonization emphasized the historical continuity between the Roman and French colonizations, between the tasks of the Romans and the French, focused on the racial closeness of the two peoples. Roman ruins in places of French colonization contributed, in the author's opinion, to the formation of the French idea of spatial proximity of France and North Africa. In the second half of the twentieth century, the French had a hard time with the loss of the North African territories in the course of decolonization.
