BUCAREST OFFRE L’AVANTAGE D’UN APOSTOLAT INTELLECTUEL IMMÉDIAT ET FÉCOND: UN DECENIU DIN ISTORIA INSTITUTULUI FRANCEZ DE STUDII BIZANTINE (1937-1947)
“BUCAREST OFFRE L’AVANTAGE D’UN APOSTOLAT INTELLECTUEL IMMÉDIAT ET FÉCOND”: THE HISTORY OF A DECADE OF THE FRENCH INSTITUTE OF BYZANTINE STUDIES (1937-1947)

Summary/Abstract: After a prolific four decades having Istanbul as their home base (1895-1937), the intolerant climate that engulfed Turkey forced the small team of Échos d’Orient editors to leave “the second Rome” (Constantinople/Istanbul) and seek refuge elsewhere. After considering few other options, in May 1938 the French Institute of Byzantine Studies (Institut Français d’Études Byzantines) was inaugurated in the so-called le petit Paris, Bucharest. Although this institution spent only ten years in Romania (1937-1947), it left a deep imprint on the academic circles (Romanian Academy, University of Bucharest, Institute of Universal History, Institute of Balkan Studies and Research, Romanian Numismatic Society, to mention only few examples). Unfortunately, for the French scholars of the Assumptionist community, headquartered at Christian Tell 18B, the rise of the Communist regime came along with their arrest and subsequent forced departure to France (October-November 1947). This article is an attempt to trace their academic close links with Romanian intelligentsia, and also their cultural and political involvement during the World War II and afterwards as these were portrayed in published materials and several unedited documents from different private and special/institutional archives, from Bucharest, Paris and Rome.

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