“We’re of mixed blood” ” “Historians’ lesson

May 9 is Europe Day, marking the celebrations of the extraordinary initiative of Robert Schuman, the French Minister for Foreign Affairs who in 1950 made a declaration that was to change the course of the history of the continent. Compiled by a group of experts coordinated by Jean Monnet, the Declaration suggested a concrete way – initially conceived from a purely economic angle, referred to coal and steel – to wipe out warfare in Europe and bring peace to the world as a whole. It opens with the following words: “World peace cannot be safeguarded without the making of creative efforts proportionate to the dangers which threaten it”. “The contribution which an organized and living Europe can bring to civilization is indispensable to the maintenance of peaceful relations”. Nowadays the process that led to the compiling of the Declaration by Schuman, Adenauer, De Gasperi and other political leaders is renowned and recognized. Nonetheless, its detractors attack the European Union, which is its direct product. Less famous and unremembered is a treatise written in 1950 by two eminent historians, addressed to youths. In the first semester of 1950, Lucien Febvre, founder with Marc Bloch of the École des Annales, and his pupil François Crouzet, expert in the history of Great Britain, wrote an essay to show students that the history of France, and that of the entire world, is nothing more than a set of relations with other peoples and civilizations. “A civilization worthy of this name can only be the product of contacts and mutual influence. Those who advocate isolation are advocating routine, sterility, misery. The wisdom of a people is not to be confined in their Country and erect insurmountable walls. Rather, it consists in nurturing their own distinctiveness through the distinctiveness of their neighbours”. The treatise by the two historians is part of an initiative promoted by UNESCO, a commitment taken by Febvre since its creation in 1945. Since 1947 he actively took part in the project to terminate war through education and through the revision of history handbooks on the grounds that the whole of humanity shares a common heritage. Suspected of extreme-leftist affiliations by the Brits, who feared their Commonwealth would be called into question, the project was nonetheless ‘dismissed’. A few days prior to the Schuman Declaration, April 21 1950, Febvre defended himself against those who accused him of holding exclusively Eurocentric positions. In his opinion, it was necessary “to attract the attention of all men and women of good will on the crucial role played in human civilization by cultures such as Islam, India, the Far East, not to mention more isolated societies whose development was thwarted by conquests”. But that cause went lost. Febvre’s detractors were successful: the beautiful document without a title which he had written with François Crouzet to illustrate – starting with the example of France – his concept of nations’ mutual enrichment, didn’t meet the interest of any publisher. It was forgotten in a box in the corner of a corridor along with other documents until Denis Crouzet, a historian himself, brought it to light in 2010 after his father’s death, and published it with his wife in 2012, accompanied by a long postscript titled: “We’re of mixed blood”. Considering the present climate, and mindful of the spirit that initiated Robert Schuman’s Declaration, this initiative is more than welcome.