For these months, I have read some works on French Revolution.  Although I can hardly use the French language, Japanese is not an inconvenient language to access studies on French Revolution.  Let me show it:

      • Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France. 1790…..Translated into Japanese several times.
      • Thomas Carlyle, The French Revolution. 1837……Translated into Japanese  in 1947-1948.
      • Jules Michelet, Histoire de la Révolution française. 1847-1853……Translated in 1968．
      • Alexis de Tocqueville, L’Ancien régime et la Révolution. 1856……Translated several times until now.
      • Hippolyte Taine, Origines de la France contemporaine. 1875–1893……Partly translated in 1963.
      • Albert Mathiez, Les  Origines des cultes révolutionnaires. 1904……Translated in 2012.
      • Jean Jaurès, Histoire socialiste de la Révolution française. 1901-04……Translated in 1947-48.
      • Albert Mathiez, La Révolution française…….Translated in 1958.
      • Georges Lefebvre, La Révolution française et les paysans. 1932……Translated in 1956．
      • Daniel Mornel, Les origines interectualles de la Révolution française. 1933…...Translated in 1969-71.
      • Georges Lefebvre, Quatre-Vingt-Neuf. 1930……Translated in 1998.
      • Albertt Soboul, Les Sans-culottes paisiens en l’an II  1958……Translated in 1983.
      • George Rudé, The Crowd in the French Revolution. 1959……Translated in 1963.
      • Albert Soboul, Précis d’histoire de la Révolution française. 1962……Translated in 1982.
      • Mona Ozouf, La Fête révolutionnaire. 1976…… Partly translated in 1988.
      • François Furet,  Penser la Révolution française. 1978……Translated in 1989.
      • Robert Darnton, The Literary Underground of the Old Regime. 1982……Translated in 1994.
      • Lynn Hunt, Politics, Culture, and Class in the French Revolution. 1984 ……Translated in 1989.
      • Michel Vovell, La Mentalité révolutionnaire. 1985……Translated in 1992.
      • François Furet, Mona Ozuf eds, Dictionnaire critique de la Révolution française. 1988……Translated in 1995.
      • Drinda Outram, The Body and the French Revolution…… Translated in 1993.
      • Roger Chartier, Les Origines culturelles de la Révolution française. 1990…… Tranlated in 1994.
      • Michel Vovelle, La Révolution contre L’église. 1988……Translated in 1992.
      • Simon Shama, The Citizens. 1993……Translated in 1994
      • Tim Blanning, The French Revolution. 1998……Translated in 2005.

This is far from an exhaustive list of Japanese translations in the field, and I actually have read only some of them.  However, as not a proper historian,  I find interesting that the study field appears to be an exhibition of  a variety of historical interpretations.

In addition, it makes the situation more complicated that each historical interpretation of the Revolution has a certain interrelation with national or cultural identity of each nation and classe, as KUMAGAI Hideto shows the case of Germany in the 19th century in his recent book (*Note).

It is also the case for the Japanese situation; the French Revolution has been often  regarded as a symbol of positive modern values which the Japanese society should follow.  In recent decades, conscientious historians have relativized such an idealized vision, but at the same time it may be undeniable that the revision of historical recognition could  authorize  some kind of Japanese nationalism against the so-called modern Western cultures.

Note: KUMAGAI Hideto, The French Revolution as a Mirror: The Age of German Historicism in the 19th Century. 2015.  『フランス革命という鏡』白水社．(The English title is just a translation by the blog author.)

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