When the US was gripped by fears about an alleged Communist subversion in the 1950s, academics and intellectuals soon became the target of persecution. Among them was an exceptionally gifted young couple: Chandler and Natalie Zemon Davis, two of the most gifted mathematicians and historians of our times.

Natalie had co-authored Operation Mind—a thoroughly researched, adamant critique of the threat of free speech and research. The text was published anonymously but Chandler had paid the bill when collecting the pamphlet from the printer, which made the Department of State target the young couple.

Chandler was called to give testimony in front of the House Committee of Un-American Activities and refused to answer questions about political affiliations on grounds of the First Amendment—freedom of speech. Challenging the constitutional legitimacy of the ‘red hunt,’ he was imprisoned. The couple’s passports were seized and travels to archives in France were no option for Natalie any longer. No American university was to offer Chandler a tenure-track position. After a decade, the family migrated to Canada.

Meanwhile, Natalie gave birth to their three children and wrote a PhD—tellingly, about the ways Protestant printers in Lyon could creatively work around the constraints of censorship! The characters of some of her most celebrated studies, like Martin Guerre or Leo Africanus, lived in disguise; others made a living at the margins of society. I got in touch to ask if she would be interested in taking this biographical incident as a starting point to write a short piece on the relationship between politics, activism, and what Marc Bloch and Lucien Febvre called “the historian’s craft” and “consciousness.”

Natalie’s critical autobiographical reflection on the historian’s experience of political persecution and its impact on life, work, and thinking has now been published in The Historical Journal, together with Operation Mind—the pamphlet that set the machinery of persecution into motion. The article is a shocking portrait of the omnipresent impact of this experience on the everyday life of historians, on the life of Natalie herself and that of colleagues, friends, and neighbours, and Natalie’s exclusion from the broader scholarly community.

But this article also reminds us of Natalie’s courage, the creativity of the historian’s critical independent mind, and its power to contest totalitarian tendencies and unquestioned authorities past and present. The historian’s critical independent thinking establishes an ethical ground for action, and historical thinking, research, and writing, we see, opens a space to express resilience and resistance.

What makes this text unique is Natalie’s critical autobiographical approach to positionality; her incisive mind, kindness, and close archival and textual scrutiny; her call for optimism in living through history and history-writing; and her insistence on the ethics of historical research. There is an empowering message for the future in her insistence on freedom of speech, scholarly and female solidarity, and the integrity of both research and researcher, as well as her call for hope.

Natalie Zemon Davis died on 21 October 2023. Historians all over the world have been deeply saddened by the news of losing one of the most inspiring and generous historians of the century. But her words live on. Her reflections on history writing under political persecution could be hardly more timely, hardly more powerful. To those historians facing persecution around the world today, this will be a text of hope. To others, it will be a reminder of the ethical grounds of our profession. Natalie reminds us of the power of wit, moral integrity, and intellectual creativity, and the possibility of alternative in even the fiercest times. Today, this publication is needed more than ever.

Image credits: Natalie Zemon Davis. Foto: Marit Hommedal/SCANPIX. Wikimedia Commons.