‘La pauvre Belgique’:How a Debate over the Repression after the Second World War Informed a Biographical Tradition in Belgium

Belgium has often been called ‘La pauvre Belgique’, after the famous pamphlet by the French poet Charles Baudelaire. Its biographical tradition can indeed be called pauvre, poor. Although there is no dearth of attention for the national heroes of its past, such awareness was formerly divided among the country’s various political and language communities, or ‘pillars’. Until the 1980s, it was nearly unheard-of to encounter a critical biography of a Dutch-speaking figure that had been published from within the francophone community, and vice versa. This situation often led to mutual prejudice and misunderstandings between the two language communities. Especially when remembrance of the Second World War was at stake, the discussion often made use of clichés: all Flemish people, for example, were considered to have been collaborators by Walloon people, who saw themselves to be the moral victors of the war. The debate over the war is reflected in Belgian biography.Belgium has often been called ‘La pauvre Belgique’, after the famous pamphlet by the French poet Charles Baudelaire. Its biographical tradition can indeed be called pauvre, poor. Although there is no dearth of attention for the national heroes of its past, such awareness was formerly divided among the country’s various political and language communities, or ‘pillars’. Until the 1980s, it was nearly unheard-of to encounter a critical biography of a Dutch-speaking figure that had been published from within the francophone community, and vice versa. This situation often led to mutual prejudice and misunderstandings between the two language communities. Especially when remembrance of the Second World War was at stake, the discussion often made use of clichés: all Flemish people, for example, were considered to have been collaborators by Walloon people, who saw themselves to be the moral victors of the war. The debate over the war is reflected in Belgian biography