Marco Fioravanti
Università degli studi di Tor Vergata (marco.fioravanti@uniroma2.it; Orcid: 0000- 0002-0020-3591).
Abstract: The text traces the construction and crisis of the memory of the French Revolution, taking as its starting point the ephemeral statue of Robespierre erected in Moscow in 1918. Through an analysis of Marx’s relationship with the Revolution, it shows how 1789, the Terror, and Napoleon served as ambivalent references in the formation of socialist thought. The essay then reconstructs the evolution of revolutionary historiography from the nineteenth to the twentieth century, focusing on figures such as Jaurès, Mathiez, and Soboul, and highlighting the tension between history and monumentalization. Particular attention is paid to Mathiez’s proposed parallel between Jacobinism and Bolshevism, and to the subsequent distancing from this analogy considering the Stalinist drift. The text concludes with a critical reflection on the 1989 Bicentennial and the rise of revisionist currents, which reverse the traditionally progressive meaning attributed to the Revolution.
Keywords: French Revolution; Historical memory; Jacobinism and Bolshevism; Revolutionary historiography; Historical revisionism