Today we celebrate the 80th anniversary of Victory in Europe Day when the Allies accepted Germany’s surrender on the 8th of May 1945. Was this date and its anniversary significant in French publications issued at the end of the war? Other key moments of the end of the conflict feature prominently in Cambridge University Library’s Chadwyck-Healey Liberation collection (1944-46), such as the Normandy landings on 6 June 1944, or the Liberation of Paris, (from 19 to 25 August 1944), which was a key theme of the 2014 exhibition. We have previously written about the songs of the Liberation. This post will investigate a few publications which engage with the significance of the 8th of May 1945 and its early celebrations.
One of the first related publications is Victoire : Les Journées des 7-8 mai 1945 et la fête de Jeanne d’Arc à Lyon, by André Gamet (Liberation.a.52), published not long after the events. This photographic brochure is printed in large format though on low quality paper. The Editions de la plus grande France also published Lyon sous la botte in December 1944 (Liberation.a.160) and Lyon souviens-toi : mémorial des années 40-45», in 1945 (Liberation.b.396). Victoire provides a mainly photographic account of the events held from the 7th of May, with the news of the German capitulation and its dissemination through the newspapers, to the 8th of May with public gatherings and celebrations well into the night, then the military parades of allied forces (including British, American and Soviet forces), French infantry and Moroccan troops organised on the 9th of May, up to the Homage to Joan of Arc organised on Sunday the 13th of May, with more parades of the French army and youth groups. In this publication, the spontaneous celebrations seem clearly taken over by more organised military and religious processions witnessing the advent of a new order.
On the first anniversary of VE day Dans le maquis de la presse by Louis Libois (Namur: Les Éditions Mosanes) was published, “Achevé d’imprimer le 8 mai 1946, jour anniversaire de la victoire”, with illustrations by Jean Le Grand (Liberation.b.220). The volume is dedicated to Victor Valair, contributor of the Namur clandestine resistant newspaper L’échasseur (1940-44), who died during the Allied bombing of the city on 18 August 1944. The book contains a “selection of clandestine texts published during the occupation of Belgium, providing an impressive series of lived events and joyful or painful stories of the resistance”. The copy held in Cambridge University Library commemorates not only the first but also the 25th anniversary of VE day, as it is inscribed by the author: “A Monsieur Arthur Gérard, Président Interfédéral des Invalides, Combattants et assimilés de la Province de Namur, ce respectueux et amical hommage de l’auteur à l’occasion des 25 années d’existence de la section provinciale Namuroise de la Presse Clandestine Belge dont il est le président honoraire et l’un des fondateurs. Le 4 mai 1974”. The same page bears a stamp from the Namur presidency of the National Union of the [Belgian] Clandestine Press.
The last book we would like to highlight is a play by Jean Lescure, Les chemins de la victoire, performed at the Palais de Chaillot, in Paris, in 1947: “ouvrage composé à l’occasion du deuxième anniversaire de la Victoire”, produced in collaboration with André Lem, Jean Lullien, and Albert Vidalie, and with poems by Louis Aragon, Gaston Criel, Robert Desnos, Paul Eluard, Pierre Emmanuel , Guy Lavaud, Jean Lescure, Loys Masson, and Pierre Louis Picard (Liberation.c.2517). Jean Lescure was a writer and resistant, co-director of the Lettres françaises and member of the Comité national des écrivains. The Cambridge University Library copy is the eleventh of 20 copies on “vélin pur fil” and contains an enigmatic dedication by the author: “Ex. de Tonton Bou-bou pour lui indiquer quelques chemins hors de l’autisme. Avec affection et bon voyage, 8 mai 1947, Jean Lescure”.
Happy VE Day anniversary!
Irene Fabry-Tehranchi
Languages across Borders 