Valentin Feldman (23 June 1909 – 27 July 1942) was a French philosopher and Marxist of Jewish-Russian origin. In 1942, he was murdered by the

Nazi Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in ...

s during the

Occupation of France The Military Administration in France (german: Militärverwaltung in Frankreich; french: Occupation de la France par l'Allemagne) was an interim occupation authority established by Nazi Germany during World War II to administer the occupied zo ...

. Born in

Saint Petersburg Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...

, he left the

USSR The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...

in 1922 at the end of the Civil War. He settled in Paris and studied at the

Lycée Henri IV In France, secondary education is in two stages: * ''Collèges'' () cater for the first four years of secondary education from the ages of 11 to 15. * ''Lycées'' () provide a three-year course of further secondary education for children between ...

and the

Sorbonne Sorbonne may refer to: * Sorbonne (building), historic building in Paris, which housed the University of Paris and is now shared among multiple universities. *the University of Paris (c. 1150 – 1970) *one of its components or linked institution, ...

University. A pupil of French philosopher

Victor Basch Basch Viktor Vilém, or Victor-Guillaume Basch (18 August 1863/1865, Budapest – 10 January 1944) was a French politician and professor of germanistics and philosophy at the Sorbonne descending from Hungary. He was engaged in the Zionist move ...

, he worked on

aesthetics Aesthetics, or esthetics, is a branch of philosophy that deals with the nature of beauty and taste, as well as the philosophy of art (its own area of philosophy that comes out of aesthetics). It examines aesthetic values, often expressed t ...

and wrote an essay, ''L'Esthétique française contemporaine'' (''French contemporan aesthetic''), Félix Alcan, 1936. Involved in public activities as a teacher of philosophy, he supported as an antifascist the

Front populaire The Popular Front (french: Front populaire) was an alliance of French left-wing movements, including the communist French Communist Party (PCF), the socialist French Section of the Workers' International (SFIO) and the progressive Radical-S ...

and the

Spanish Republic The Spanish Republic (), commonly known as the Second Spanish Republic (), was the form of government in Spain from 1931 to 1939. The Republic was proclaimed on 14 April 1931, after the deposition of King Alfonso XIII, and was dissolved on 1 A ...

during the

Spanish Civil War The Spanish Civil War ( es, Guerra Civil Española)) or The Revolution ( es, La Revolución, link=no) among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War ( es, Cuarta Guerra Carlista, link=no) among Carlists, and The Rebellion ( es, La Rebelión, link ...

. He joined the

French Communist Party The French Communist Party (french: Parti communiste français, ''PCF'' ; ) is a political party in France which advocates the principles of communism. The PCF is a member of the Party of the European Left, and its MEPs sit in the European Un ...

in 1937. Among his friends were

Jean-Paul Sartre Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre (, ; ; 21 June 1905 – 15 April 1980) was one of the key figures in the philosophy of existentialism (and phenomenology), a French playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and lit ...

, Simone de Beauvoir,

Gaston Bachelard Gaston Bachelard (; ; 27 June 1884 – 16 October 1962) was a French philosopher. He made contributions in the fields of poetics and the philosophy of science. To the latter, he introduced the concepts of ''epistemological obstacle'' and '' epis ...

and

Georges Politzer Georges Politzer (; 3 May 190323 May 1942) was a French philosopher and Marxist theoretician of Hungarian Jewish origin, affectionately referred to by some as the "red-headed philosopher" (''philosophe roux''). He was a native of Oradea, a ci ...

. In September 1939, he volunteered for the

French Army The French Army, officially known as the Land Army (french: Armée de Terre, ), is the land-based and largest component of the French Armed Forces. It is responsible to the Government of France, along with the other components of the Armed Force ...

despite suffering from a heart condition. Mobilized as a soldier in

Rethel Rethel () is a commune in the Ardennes department in northern France. It is a sub-prefecture and third-most important city and economic center in the department. It is situated on the river Aisne, near the northern border of Champagne and 37 ...

, he began to write his ''Journal de guerre'' in January 1940 in the middle of the

Phoney War The Phoney War (french: Drôle de guerre; german: Sitzkrieg) was an eight-month period at the start of World War II, during which there was only one limited military land operation on the Western Front, when French troops invaded Germa ...

. He survived several air attacks and bombardments during the Fall of France (May–June 1940). Under the

German Occupation German-occupied Europe refers to the sovereign countries of Europe which were wholly or partly occupied and civil-occupied (including puppet governments) by the military forces and the government of Nazi Germany at various times between 1939 an ...

he was a teacher in

Dieppe Dieppe (; Norman: ''Dgieppe'') is a coastal commune in the Seine-Maritime department in the Normandy region of northern France. Dieppe is a seaport on the English Channel at the mouth of the river Arques. A regular ferry service runs to N ...

but suffered from the first

law on the status of Jews __NOTOC__ The Law of 3 October 1940 on the status of Jews was a law enacted by Vichy France. It provided a legal definition of the expression ''Jewish race'', which was used during the Nazi occupation for the implementation of Vichy's ideologica ...

(October 1940). He was finally excluded from teaching in July 1941. By that time, he was already active in the

French Resistance The French Resistance (french: La Résistance) was a collection of organisations that fought the German occupation of France during World War II, Nazi occupation of France and the Collaborationism, collaborationist Vichy France, Vichy régim ...

. From 1940, he was liaison officer between Dieppe, Rouen and

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...

. After a year, he wrote the texts against the collaborationist

Vichy regime Vichy France (french: Régime de Vichy; 10 July 1940 – 9 August 1944), officially the French State ('), was the fascist French state headed by Marshal Philippe Pétain during World War II. Officially independent, but with half of its ter ...

and the Germans in the clandestine newspaper ''L'Avenir normand'' in Dieppe, and wrote several texts for the clandestine Parisian review '' La Pensée libre'', supervised by

, Jacques Decour and Jacques Solomon. Becoming part of the underground, he joined a group of communist Resistance in Rouen, where he participated in actions against the German occupiers. Arrested in February 1942 after the sabotage of a factory, he was imprisoned and tortured. Judged in Paris, he was condemned to death by a German military tribunal. He refused to sign his appeal for a reprieve. Feldman was executed by a firing squad on 27 July 1942. Addressing the German soldiers just before the salvo, he called out to them: "Imbeciles, it is for you that I die! " His last words inspired numerous French writers:

and

Louis Aragon Louis Aragon (, , 3 October 1897 – 24 December 1982) was a French poet who was one of the leading voices of the surrealist movement in France. He co-founded with André Breton and Philippe Soupault the surrealist review ''Littérature''. He ...

were among them.Jean-Paul Sartre, ''Cahiers pour une morale'', Gallimard, 1983, p. 212 ; Louis Aragon, ''L'Homme communiste'', Gallimard, 1946, p. 42. French-Swiss film-maker Jean-Luc Godard dedicated a short film to him, ''The Last Word'' (1988). Essays : * ''L'Esthétique française contemporaine'', Paris, Félix Alcan, 1936. (fr.) * ''Journal de guerre. 1940-1941'', Tours, Farrago, 2006. (fr.) Translations (from Russian to French) : * I.K. Luppol, ''Diderot. Ses idées philosophiques'', Paris, Éditions sociales internationales, 1936. (fr.) * Nicolas Ostrovski, ''Et l’acier fut trempé...'', préface de Romain Rolland, Paris, Éditions sociales internationales, 1937. (fr.)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Feldman, Valentin 20th-century French philosophers Executed philosophers Marxist theorists French people of Russian-Jewish descent Jewish philosophers Jewish socialists Philosophers of art French male writers 1909 births 1942 deaths Communist members of the French Resistance French Army personnel of World War II Resistance members killed by Nazi Germany People executed by Nazi Germany by firing squad