Joseph Ernest Renan was a French expert of Semitic languages and civilizations , philosopher, historian, and writer, devoted to his native province of Brittany. He is best known for his influential historical works on early Christianity, and his political theories, especially concerning nationalism and national identity. Renan is credited as being among the first scholars to advance the Khazar theory, which held that Ashkenazi Jews were descendants of the Khazars, Turkic peoples who had adopted Jewish religion and migrated to Western Europe following the collapse of their khanate.
“Getting its history wrong is part of being a nation”
Attributed
Source: translated by Eric Hobsbawm on p. 12 of Nations and Nationalism Since 1780: Programme, Myth, Reality (Cambridge University Press, 1992) from French original ("L'oubli et je dirai même l'erreur historique, sont un facteur essentiel de la formation d'une nation et c'est ainsi que le progrès des études historiques est souvent pour la nationalité un danger"), page 7-8 of Qu’est-ce qu’une nation ?
Source: Vie de Jésus (The Life of Jesus) (1863), Ch. 7.
Letter to his elder sister Henriette (1841).
Saint Sulpice and the Hidden God.
Ernest Renan: a Critical Biography (1964)
Source: Vie de Jésus (The Life of Jesus) (1863), Ch. 5.
“I can die when I wish to: that is my elixir of life.”
The Republic.
Ernest Renan: a Critical Biography (1964)
Source: Vie de Jésus (The Life of Jesus) (1863), Ch. 17.
Oeuvres Complètes, vol. 3. L’Avenir de la Science (1890).
Source: Vie de Jésus (The Life of Jesus) (1863), Ch. 5.
Source: Vie de Jésus (The Life of Jesus) (1863), Ch. 5.
