Language:
English
Year of publication:
2009
Titel der Quelle:
Journal of Modern History
Angaben zur Quelle:
81,2 (2009) 294-346
Keywords:
Garnier, Théodore
;
Dreyfus, Alfred,
;
Union Nationale (political party)
;
Ligue antisémitique de France
;
Antisemitism History 1800-2000
;
Christianity and antisemitism History 1800-2000
;
Trials (Treason)
Abstract:
In France of the 1880s-90s, when the Republican government launched its anti-clerical campaign, political Catholics played a significant role in the construction of rising nationalism, both as an ideology and as a movement. Regarding the existing Republican government as "godless" and anti-national, hence controlled by Jews and Masons, they inserted a great deal of antisemitism into the nationalist ideology. Shows that political Catholics of the time shared the racist antisemitic ideas of their more secular nationalist allies, like the Ligue Antisémitique Française led by Drumont and Guérin. Focuses on the activities of the Union Nationale, led by Abbé Théodore Garnier. This leading political organization of Social Catholicism in the 1890s played a key role in bringing Catholics into the emerging nationalist coalition. Racial antisemitism was the main theme of the Union Nationale, and in this respect it was no different of the LAF. Its rhetoric included belief in Jewish conspiracy, calls for annihilation of the Jews in some way, etc. However, the Union Nationale opposed anti-Jewish violence in the 1890s, which resulted in the loss of many young members who, in the 1900s, preferred more radical organizations. The case of the Union Nationale shows that in the 1880s-90s political Catholics played a huge and active role in the rise of a distinctly modern antisemitic movement, and that the divide between secular and religious antisemitic movements is not as clear-cut as present historiography believes.
URL:
Locate this publication in Israeli libraries
Permalink
