Isabelle Blume ( Grégoire; 22 April 1892 – 12 March 1975) was a Belgian left wing politician and teacher. She was awarded the International Stalin Prize for Strengthening Peace Among Peoples (later renamed the

Lenin Peace Prize The International Lenin Peace Prize (russian: международная Ленинская премия мира, ''mezhdunarodnaya Leninskaya premiya mira)'' was a Soviet Union award named in honor of Vladimir Lenin. It was awarded by a pane ...

) in 1953. Her grandson is professor and Shoah historian, Alain Goldschlager.

Life

Isabelle Grégoire was born in

Baudour Baudour is a village of Wallonia and a district of the municipality of Saint-Ghislain, located in the Hainaut Province, province of Hainaut, Belgium. Notable inhabitants *Henri Delmotte and Michel Daerden were born in Baudour Gallery Image ...

Belgium Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to th ...

in 1892 and first qualified as a teacher in 1911 in Liège. She then studied theology in Geneva.Isabelle Blume
, ilhs.e-monsite.com, retrieved 7 April 2014 Her father had been a pastor and in 1913 she married a pastor named David Blume. Her husband became the Director General of the Belgian Public Libraries. They had three children. Blume was political being both opposed to fascism and a feminist and she joined the

Belgian Labour Party The Belgian Labour Party ( nl, Belgische Werkliedenpartij, BWP; french: Parti ouvrier belge, POB) was the first major socialist party in Belgium. Founded in 1885, the party was officially disbanded in 1940 and superseded by the Belgian Socialist P ...

in 1918.''The Great Soviet Encyclopedia'', 3rd edition (1970–1979) She was active on the question of women's suffrage and their rights in general. In 1936 she was elected to the Chamber of Representatives to represent Brussels. During the war she was active in London. In 1951 she attended the

World Peace Council The World Peace Council (WPC) is an international organization with the self-described goals of advocating for universal disarmament, sovereignty and independence and peaceful co-existence, and campaigns against imperialism, weapons of mass d ...

. She was awarded the International Stalin Prize for Strengthening Peace Among Peoples in 1953. She attended the Second World Congress of Champions of Peace and as result she was expelled from the

Belgian Socialist Party nl, Belgische Socialistische Partij , logo = Logo of the Belgian Socialist Party.png , caption = The fist and rose emblem used by the party from 1973. , leader1_title = President , leader1_name = Achille Van Acker (first)André Cools (last) ...

in 1961. She remained as an independent in parliament after leaving the socialists. In 1961 she joined the

Communist Party of Belgium french: Parti Communiste de Belgique , abbreviation = KPB-PCB , colorcode = , leader1_title = Historical leaders , leader1_name = Joseph JacquemotteJulien LahautLouis Van Geyt , founder = Julien Lahaut , founded = , dissolved = , merge ...

serving on their Central Committee in 1966. She was President from 1966 to 1969 and this role introduced her to leading world figures including

Indira Gandhi Indira Priyadarshini Gandhi (; Given name, ''née'' Nehru; 19 November 1917 – 31 October 1984) was an Indian politician and a central figure of the Indian National Congress. She was elected as third prime minister of India in 1966 ...

Mao Zedong Mao Zedong pronounced ; also romanised traditionally as Mao Tse-tung. (26 December 1893 – 9 September 1976), also known as Chairman Mao, was a Chinese communist revolutionary who was the founder of the People's Republic of China (PRC) ...

and

Ho Chi Minh (: ; born ; 19 May 1890 – 2 September 1969), commonly known as ('Uncle Hồ'), also known as ('President Hồ'), (' Old father of the people') and by other aliases, was a Vietnamese revolutionary and statesman. He served as Prime ...

. She died in 1975. She has three children including Jean Blume who is a journalist and politician. Her grandchildren include Alain Goldschlager a Canadian academic. Goldschlager was awarded the Knight of the Order of Academic Palms in 2014 for his support of the French language and he cites his grandfather David Blume who took a leading role in establishing libraries in Belgium, with inspiring his love of French.

References

External links

Isabelle Blume (1892–1975)
(José Gotovich) at ''CARCOB-Archives Communistes'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Blume, Isabelle 1892 births 1975 deaths 20th-century Belgian women politicians 20th-century Belgian politicians Belgian Socialist Party politicians Members of the Chamber of Representatives (Belgium) Stalin Peace Prize recipients Recipients of the Order of the Red Banner of Labour Anti-war activists European pacifists Belgian socialist feminists Belgian activists Belgian communists Belgian educators Belgian feminists Belgian women activists Belgian people in the United Kingdom during World War II World Peace Council