Robert Demoulin (1911–2008) was a professor of contemporary Belgian history at the

University of Liège The University of Liège (), or ULiège, is a major public university of the French Community of Belgium founded in 1817 and based in Liège, Wallonia, Belgium. Its official language is French (language), French. History The university was foun ...

Life

Demoulin was born in Huy on 8 May 1911. He attended a state secondary school in Huy, and then the University of Liège, where he studied history.Vincent Genin, "Demoulin, Robert", in ''

Nouvelle Biographie Nationale Nouvelle is a French word, the feminine form of "new". It may refer to: ;Places * Nouvelle, Quebec, a municipality in Quebec, Canada * Nouvelle-Église, a commune in the Pas-de-Calais department, France * Port-la-Nouvelle, a commune in the Aude dep ...

''
vol. 13
(Brussels, 2016), pp. 100-102. He graduated Ph.D. in 1932, with a thesis on the

Belgian Revolution The Belgian Revolution (, ) was a conflict which led to the secession of the southern provinces (mainly the former Southern Netherlands) from the United Kingdom of the Netherlands and the establishment of an independent Kingdom of Belgium. The ...

of 1830. In the mid-1930s he prospected in archives in Paris, London and The Hague, attending Charles Webster's seminar at the

London School of Economics and Political Science The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), established in 1895, is a public university, public research university in London, England, and a member institutions of the University of London, member institution of the University ...

, and

François Simiand François Joseph Charles Simiand (18 April 1873 – 13 April 1935) was a French sociologist and economist best known as a participant in the Année Sociologique. As a member of the French Historical School of economics, Simiand predicated a r ...

's lectures at the

Collège de France The (), formerly known as the or as the ''Collège impérial'' founded in 1530 by François I, is a higher education and research establishment () in France. It is located in Paris near La Sorbonne. The has been considered to be France's most ...

. In 1938 he succeeded Herman Vander Linden lecturing on Belgian and contemporary history in Liège. He was called up as a lieutenant in the reserves in 1940, and spent much of the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

as a

prisoner of war A prisoner of war (POW) is a person held captive by a belligerent power during or immediately after an armed conflict. The earliest recorded usage of the phrase "prisoner of war" dates back to 1610. Belligerents hold prisoners of war for a ...

in Germany, organising courses and lectures for fellow prisoners. In absentia he was appointed

full professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an academic rank at universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a 'person who professes'. Professors ...

in Liège in 1943. He married the classical philologist Marielle Marique, and the couple had four children after the war. He resumed his academic duties in Liège in 1945. In 1946–1947 he travelled in the United States as a guest of the

Rockefeller Foundation The Rockefeller Foundation is an American private foundation and philanthropic medical research and arts funding organization based at 420 Fifth Avenue, New York City. The foundation was created by Standard Oil magnate John D. Rockefeller (" ...

, visiting the universities of

Yale Yale University is a private Ivy League research university in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701, Yale is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, and one of the nine colonial colleges ch ...

Harvard Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher lear ...

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and Columbia. He was particularly impressed by the interdisciplinarity of the

Yale Institute of International Studies The Yale Institute of International Studies was a research institute that was part of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. It was founded in 1935 and was led by directors Nicholas J. Spykman and later Frederick S. Dunn, under whom there ...

. In his seminars at the University of Liège, he became a pioneer in the use of press reports as historical source material. In 1955 he was a co-founder of the Centre interuniversitaire d'histoire contemporaine (CIHC), and in 1969 took part in founding the '' Revue belge d'histoire contemporaine''. He retired from teaching in 1981, but continued to publish. He died in Liège on 27 March 2008.

Publications

* ''Les Journées de septembre 1830 à Bruxelles et en province'' (Liège and Paris, 1934). *"La correspondance des consuls anglais en Belgique pendant la Révolution de 1830", ''Bulletin de la Commission royale d'histoire'', vol. 98 (1934), pp. 417–534. * ''Guillaume I et la transformation économique des provinces belges, 1815–1830'' (Liège and Paris, 1938). * ''La Révolution de 1830'' (Brussels, 1950). * "Unification politique, essor économique (1794-1914)", in ''Histoire de la Wallonie'', edited by

Léopold Genicot Léopold Genicot (Forville, Namur, 18 March 1914 - Ottignies, Louvain-la-Neuve, 11 May 1995) was a Belgian historian and medievalist and an activist for the Walloon Movement. He established a centre for the study of rural history and an influential ...

(Toulouse, 1973), pp. 313–412.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Demoulin, Robert 1911 births 2008 deaths 20th-century Belgian historians University of Liège alumni Academic staff of the University of Liège