Francezi în Banat bănăţeni în Franţa

Smaranda Vultur follows refugees from Banat who made homes in France. They fled near the end of World War II. They were citizens of Romania and Yugoslavia. Their route crossed what is now Austria. Others saw them as ethnic Germans or Swabians when they left. They spoke forms of German, as well as French. Their languages also included Serbian, Hungarian and Romanian.

Vultur sets their memories beside accounts from those who stayed. She places their lives in Europe's East-West split. Soviet rule held sway over states on one side. Western states had democratic rule on the other. The split also brought deep gaps in wealth. Vultur looks back to Habsburg settlement in the eighteenth century. French speakers came to Banat from Lorraine and Alsace. Others came from Luxembourg and elsewhere.

This is a microhistory: a close study of a small group. It joins the study of past lives and human cultures. It is for readers drawn to why people move. It also speaks to those drawn to memory and identity. Vultur asks how memory shapes our sense of who we are. She asks how that sense shapes memory in turn.

She uses people's own accounts, pictures and written records. She asks how these come to stand for shared ideas. She studies how they become tales of a group's roots. She also looks at how they become legends and myths. She asks how people use words to frame their accounts. Her way of doing research grows as she gathers sources. It keeps taking shape as she studies them.

This edition has pictures and an afterword by Benjamin Landais.