Recent French historiography and the legacy of the revolutions of 1917

Today, more than two years after the start of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the weight of history seems very evident, both in terms of Russian political propaganda and in terms of the role that historiography occupies in the process of enfranchising the post-Soviet space. The legacy of Leninism appears, in particular, among the various turns in the history of imperial Russia, to be the one most targeted.Footnote1 In France, scholars have been re-exploring such legacies since the centenary of the October Revolution in 2017, examining a series of symbolic and public issues that made the centenary relevant to new research trends in contemporary history.