The winner of the Lionel Groulx Prize, awarded by the Institut d’histoire de l’Amérique française (IHAF), the oldest institution of professional historians in French Canada, proposes to abandon the name of this prize. Catherine Larochelle, a professor in the history department at the University of Montreal, believes that “it’s just about time” to move on in the name of greater openness to history.
This year, the jury awarded his book The School of Racism. The Construction of Otherness in Quebec Schools (1830-1915). The book is published by the Presses de l’Université de Montréal (PUM).
At last weekend’s award ceremony, the historian explained in her acceptance speech that “the construction of the identity of French Canadians and English Canadians in Quebec took place in school through the learning of a racist mindset”. This school of racism, as she calls it, is in fact the one attended and nurtured by the cassock-clad historian Lionel Groulx (1878-1967).
Lending his name to the award, which recognizes a work worthy of high mention in the historian community, this historian remains in the landscape while helping to “promote the permanence of this racist thought in the Quebec school system guarantee”. believes the historian Larochelle.
“That historian wouldn’t have been particularly pleased that I was […] more rewarded for my intellectual and professional work than at home with my children. In 1949, he reminded high school graduates that the French Canadian had a duty to reproduce the nation by birth, since that nation could not count on immigration to stay alive. »
” Go on “
For Catherine Larochelle, it is time that the institute, which is honoring her work this year, showed how dynamic, modern and alive historical work is, with the consideration of changing the name of its prize. “It seems to me that it is about time that the award, which underlines this dynamism and excellence, changes its name. As practitioners of history, we know to be wary of commemorations and it’s time to leave canon alone. »
Along with Le Devoir, the historian recalls that the John A. Macdonald Prize in English Canada, awarded by the Canadian Historical Society, agreed in 2018 to change its name. The much-criticised name of the former prime minister does not top the grand prize awarded to a deserving historian.
“My message was for more openness in our discipline. The subject of my book naturally makes me want to talk about Lionel Groulx. I couldn’t say anything about him. There would be a lot to say. With the Aborigines, for example, we could not restore it in any way. »
This speech is not a thesis, she says. “I believe that in our discipline we have to go against our ideological foundations. It’s not a very varied discipline. And it threatens even less as it receives less financial support, as it unfortunately does at the moment. There is a democratic risk involved in our relationship to history. On the contrary, more and more people must feel affected by the story. It is in that spirit that I gave this speech. »
In his view, the IHAF has nothing to be ashamed of. “It’s just time to move on. My speech was well received at the institute convention. I received more congratulations for my speech than for the award itself! »
An “original” approach
In her book, the historian Catherine Larochelle is interested in the ideas of the other, the ideologies that support them, and the way in which they were passed on from school to the First World War. In addition to being affiliated with the University of Montreal’s history department, the historian is also a member of the editorial board of HistoireEngagée.ca magazine and the Center for the History of Social Regulations.
In their laudation for the winner, the jury stated that they “greatly appreciated the challenging character” of the work. “By deliberately avoiding revisiting the usual antithesis of the ‘two solitudes’, Larochelle offers a read of Quebec’s original history. »
The jury also emphasized the historian’s attention to student homework. This is a “particularly innovative approach, the analysis of which shows how racist ideas get stuck in the minds of school children”.
Catherine Larochelle, the jury continued, “shows us that racism in Quebec during the long 19th century is not the individual fault of poorly educated people, but the result of a school system whose job is to teach it. In this way, this book opens up fields for us that have been neglected by the history of French America, fields that we hope will soon be taken up by others.”