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Reliving the Terror: Victims and Print Culture during the Thermidorian Reaction in France, 1794–1795
Author(s) -
FAIRFAXCHOLMELEY ALEX
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
history
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.12
H-Index - 15
eISSN - 1468-229X
pISSN - 0018-2648
DOI - 10.1111/1468-229x.12870
Subject(s) - denunciation , cognitive reframing , period (music) , terrorism , perspective (graphical) , history , media studies , political science , sociology , criminology , law , art , psychology , aesthetics , politics , visual arts , social psychology
This article analyses the Thermidorian Reaction in France (1794–5), a period when the country and its inhabitants were struggling to deal with the violent legacy of the Terror of the preceding eighteen months. Beginning with the immediate aftermath of the fall of Maximilien Robespierre on 9 Thermidor Year II/27 July 1794, it offers a fresh perspective on this troubled period by focusing on victims of the Terror (both the dead and the living). A lively print culture emerged in which both individual victims and affected communities sought to reframe their past experiences to their own benefit, in particular via campaigns of rehabilitation. They also engaged in acts of denunciation which provided another link back into the Terrorist past. Collectively, these printed outputs and the methods by which they were constructed provide a useful parallel to more well‐known developments on the national stage, where politicians were also grappling with the challenges left by the Terror.