Jean Haudry

Jean Haudry
Jean Haudry
Born	28 May 1934; Le Perreux-sur-Marne, France
Died	23 May 2023 (aged 88)
Occupations	Indologist; Indo-Europeanist;

Jean Haudry (28 May 1934 – 23 May 2023) was a French linguist and Indo-Europeanist. Haudry was generally regarded as a distinguished linguist by other scholars,^[1]^[2] although he was also criticized for his political proximity with the far-right.^[1] Haudry's L'Indo-Européen, published in 1979, remains the reference introduction to the Proto-Indo-European language written in French.^[3]

Biography

Jean Haudry was born on 28 May 1934 in Le Perreux-sur-Marne in the eastern suburbs of Paris.^[4] He became agrégé in grammar studies at the École Normale Supérieure in 1959^[5] and earned a PhD in linguistics in 1975 after a thesis on Vedic Sanskrit grammatical cases.^[6]

Haudry was a member of the Institute of Formation of the Front National (FN) of Jean-Marie Le Pen.^[7] He also served in the Scientific Council of the FN until the late 1990s^[1] when he decided to follow Bruno Mégret and his splinter party Mouvement National Républicain.^[8]

In 1980, he co-founded with GRECE members Jean-Paul Allard [fr] and Jean Varenne the "Institute of Indo-European Studies" (IEIE) at the Jean Moulin University Lyon 3.^[9] Under his leadership between 1982 and 1998, the IEIE published the journal Études indo-européennes. He was a professor of Sanskrit and dean of the faculty of letters at the University Lyon 3 and a directeur d'études at the 4th section of the École Pratique des Hautes Études. He became professor emeritus in 2002.^[10]

Haudry practiced a version of modern paganism that put heavy emphasis on ethnicity. He described this paganism: "each [pagan] religion belongs specifically to the corresponding ethnic and linguistic community, which, far from seeking to convert foreigners, jealously guards the benefits of its religion for its members".^[11] In 1995, he participated in the founding of the nativist movement Terre et Peuple, along with Pierre Vial and Jean Mabire, and served as its vice president.^[12]^[13]

Soon after Haudry's retirement, the French Ministry of Education appointed a commission to investigate whether Haudry's institute was too closely associated with the far-right. The work of the commission was mooted when Haudry's successor, Jean-Paul Allard, dissolved the institute and reconstituted it as an association free from state supervision.^[14]

He was a director of the Association of French Friends of South African Communities.^[15]

Haudry died on 23 May 2023, five days before his 89th birthday.^[16]

Indo-European studies

Three-sky model

In his most important work on comparative mythology, La Religion cosmique des Indo-Européens (1987; "The Cosmic Religion of Indo-Europeans"), Haudry argued that Proto-Indo-European cosmogony featured three 'skies' (diurnal, nocturnal and liminal) each having its own set of deities and colours (white, red, and dark).^[17] The proposition is often mentioned in handbooks,^[17]^[18] although it has been criticized by some scholars as an "overinterpretation" of available data.^[19]^[20]

Three-sky cosmological model proposed by J. Haudry^[17]^[18]
Realm	Theme	Deities	Colour
Day	Celestial	"Daylight-sky god" (*Dyēus)	white
Dawn/twilight	Bridging	"Binder-god" (Kronos, Savitṛ, Saturnus)	red
Night	Night Spirits	"Night-sky god" (Ouranos)	dark

Thought, word, action

In Haudry's 2009 essay entitled The Triad: thought, word, action, in the Indo-European tradition, he stated that the formula "thought, word, action" had a wide distribution in all of the ancient literatures of Indo-European languages in antiquity.^[21]^[22]

According to Haudry, there is a connection between the triad of "thought, word, action" and fire or light. He said that the presence of "divine fires" is in several Indo-European mythologies, such as the figure of Loki in Norse mythology.^[22]^[23]

For Alberto De Antoni, this study, which is "very scholarly and elaborate from a linguistic point of view, with an extensive bibliography and a critical apparatus", allows Haudry, thanks to the multiplicity of sources within the Indo-European world and due to Haudry's "excellent linguistic expertise" to reconstitute the verbs and nouns of the triadic formula.^[24]

Arctic hypothesis

Haudry supported the Arctic hypothesis of the origin of Indo-Europeans.^[1] However, he believed that the Kurgan culture was probably the center of diffusion.^[25]

Works

Haudry, Jean (1979). L'indo-européen. Presses universitaires de France. ISBN 978-2-13-038370-3.
Haudry, Jean (1981). Les Indo-Européens. Presses universitaires de France. ISBN 978-2-13-038371-0.
Haudry, Jean (1987). La religion cosmique des Indo-Européens. Archè. ISBN 978-2-251-35352-4.
Haudry, Jean (2017). Le feu dans la tradition indo-européenne. Archè. ISBN 978-88-7252-343-8.

References

^ ^a ^b ^c ^d Lincoln 1999, p. 121: "An excellent linguist, Haudry is also a member of the 'Scientific Council' of the National Front of Jean-Marie Le Pen. In his various writings, Haudry has sustained the old Nazi thesis that placed tile Indo-European homeland in the Arctic (i.e., the whitest, most Nordic place on earth) while also championing counterrevolution, and denouncing the proclamation of the 'Droits de l'homme' (4 August 1789) as the origin of modern decadence.
^ Rocher, Rosane (1980). "Review of L'emploi des cas en védique: Introduction à l'étude des cas en indo-européen". Language. 56 (1): 192–194. doi:10.2307/412653. ISSN 0097-8507. JSTOR 412653. ... a clever if controversial book, the principal merit of which may ultimately lie in the rethinking and discussion which it is bound to stimulate.
^ Rey, Alain (2016). Dictionnaire historique de la langue française. Paris: Le Robert. ISBN 978-2-321-00726-5. OCLC 962378951.
^ Duchesne-Guillemin, Jacques (1979). Acta Iranica. Brill. p. 249. ISBN 978-90-04-05941-2.
^ "Les agrégés de l'enseignement secondaire. Répertoire 1809–1960". rhe.ish-lyon.cnrs.fr. Retrieved 10 March 2020.
^ Haudry, Jean (1975). L'emploi des cas en védique: introduction à l'étude des cas en indo-européen (Thèse Lettres Paris III thesis). France.
^ François 2005, p. 56.
^ "Localisme ou nationalisme?" (PDF).
^ Rousso 2004, p. 7.
^ Informations biographiques : Rapport de la Commission sur le racisme et le négationnisme à l'université Jean-Moulin Lyon III, par Henry Rousso, 2004, p. 57-60.
^ François, Stéphane (2 June 2023). "Jean Haudry et les études indo-européennes". Fragments sur les Temps Présents (in French). Retrieved 14 February 2024. chacune [des] religions [païennes] appartient en propre à la communauté ethnique et linguistique correspondante, qui, bien loin de chercher à convertir les étrangers, garde jalousement pour ses membres les bienfaits de sa religion.
^ François, Stéphane (2019). "Guillaume Faye and Archeofuturism". In Sedgwick, Mark (ed.). Key Thinkers of the Radical Right: Behind the New Threat to Liberal Democracy. Oxford University Press. p. 94. ISBN 978-0-19-087760-6.
^ François 2005, p. 132.
^ Lincoln 1999, p. 122.
^ François 2005, p. 133.
^ La tradizione indoeuropea: le radici del nostro avvenire (in Italian)
^ ^a ^b ^c Mallory & Adams 1997, pp. 131, 290.
^ ^a ^b Mallory & Adams 2006, p. 428.
^ Sergent 1990, p. 942.
^ Masson, Emilia (1989). "Jean Haudry. La religion cosmique des Indo-Européens (compte-rendu)". Revue de l'histoire des religions. 206 (2): 187.
^ Compte rendu de Jean Haudry, La triade pensée, parole, action, dans la tradition indo-européenne, Études indo-européennes, 5, Milan, Archè, 2009, 522 p.
^ ^a ^b Review of Haudry (J.), La triade pensée, parole, action, dans la tradition indo-européenne. – Milan : Archè, 2009. – 522 p. : bibliogr., index. – (Etudes Indo-Européennes ; 5). – ISBN : 978.88.7252.295.0., Bernard Sergent
^ Haudry, Jean (1988). "Loki, Naramsama, Nairyo. Sanha, le feu de la parole-qualifiante". Études Indo-européennes. pp. 99–130.
^ Review of "La triade pensée, parole, action, dans la tradition indo-européenne", "Athenaeum" 1–2 (2012), pp. 675–680, Alberto De Antoni
^ Jean Haudry, Les Indo-Européens, Paris, PUF, Que sais-je ?, 1981, p. 114-118

Bibliography

Duranton-Crabol, Anne-Marie (1988). Visages de la Nouvelle droite: le GRECE et son histoire. Presses de la Fondation nationale des sciences politiques. ISBN 978-2-7246-0561-7.
François, Stéphane (2008). Les néo-paganismes et la Nouvelle droite, 1980-2006: pour une autre approche. Archè. ISBN 978-88-7252-287-5. (adapted from François (2005). Les paganismes de la Nouvelle Droite (1980-2004) (PhD thesis). Université du Droit et de la Santé - Lille II.)
Lincoln, Bruce (1999). Theorizing Myth: Narrative, Ideology, and Scholarship. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0-226-48202-6.
Mallory, James P.; Adams, Douglas Q. (1997). Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-884964-98-5.
Mallory, James P.; Adams, Douglas Q. (2006). The Oxford Introduction to Proto-Indo-European and the Proto-Indo-European World. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-929668-2.
Rousso, Henry (2004). Rapport sur le racisme et le négationnisme à Lyon III (PDF) (Report). Archived from the original (PDF) on 18 October 2021. Retrieved 26 June 2020.
Sergent, Bernard (1982). "Penser — et mal penser — les Indo-Européens". Annales. Histoire, Sciences Sociales. 37 (4): 669–681. doi:10.3406/ahess.1982.282879. ISSN 0395-2649. S2CID 162244841.
Sergent, Bernard (1990). "La religion cosmique des Indo-Européens (note critique)". Annales. 45 (4): 941–949. doi:10.3406/ahess.1990.278879. S2CID 162017571.