Ernest Denis (3 January 1849 – 4 January 1921) was a French historian.

Biography

Denis became known as a specialist in

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

and

Bohemia Bohemia ( ; ; ) is the westernmost and largest historical region of the Czech Republic. In a narrow, geographic sense, it roughly encompasses the territories of present-day Czechia that fall within the Elbe River's drainage basin, but historic ...

, and played a major role in the establishment of the Czechoslovak state in 1918. Along with

Louis Léger Louis Léger (15 January 1843 – 30 April 1923) was a French writer and pioneer in Slavic studies. He was honorary member of Bulgarian Literary Society (now Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, also member of Académie des inscriptions et belles-le ...

, he is considered to be one of the most highly regarded 20th-century historians of the

Slav The Slavs or Slavic people are groups of people who speak Slavic languages. Slavs are geographically distributed throughout the northern parts of Eurasia; they predominantly inhabit Central Europe, Eastern Europe, Southeastern Europe, and N ...

world in France. In 1916, Tomáš Garrique Masaryk and

Edvard Beneš Edvard Beneš (; 28 May 1884 – 3 September 1948) was a Czech politician and statesman who served as the president of Czechoslovakia from 1935 to 1938, and again from 1939 to 1948. During the first six years of his second stint, he led the Czec ...

founded the ''Comité national tchèque'' in Paris, and almost at the same time Louis Eisenmann, Louis Léger, and Ernest Denis founded the ''Comité national d'études'' , which also advocated for the independence of a Czech state. In 1918, the French government created Czechoslovak legions. On 28 October 1918, the Republic of Czechoslovakia was proclaimed in Prague.Finis Austriae
radio.cz, 24/10/2007, accessed 29 July 2021 Upon the death of Denis, the Czechoslovak state bought his house in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

in order to create an institute for

Slavic studies Slavic (American English) or Slavonic (British English) studies, also known as Slavistics, is the academic field of area studies concerned with Slavic peoples, Slavic peoples, languages, literature, history, and culture. Originally, a Slavist or ...

References

External links

* * 20th-century French historians 19th-century French politicians 1849 births 1921 deaths French male non-fiction writers Historians of the Czech lands 19th-century French historians {{France-historian-stub