The French historian and politician Hélène Carrère d’Encausse, the first woman to lead the Académie française, a great expert on the history of tsarist and Soviet Russia, died today in Paris at the age of 94. Her children make it known, including the writer Emmanuel Carrere. “She died peacefully surrounded by her family,” the statement said. She was an MEP from 1994 to 1999, she was Perpetual Secretary of the Académie française since 1999.
Author of about thirty books, including the very successful Empire éclaté (1978), Hélène Carrère d’Encausse left a mark on her time not only for her talent as a historian and academic, but also for her tireless activity in numerous institutions,
Born in Paris on 6 July 1929 to a Georgian father and a mother of Russian-German origin, Hélène Zourabichvili became French in 1950 after having lived in a cosmopolitan and multilingual family environment.
After brilliant studies – she graduated from the Institut des Sciences Politiques and obtained a doctorate in literature – she became a professor of history at the Université Panthéon-Sorbonne and then at Science Po.
«Ardent and tireless, Hélène Carrère d’Encausse seemed (really) immortal, wrote former European Commissioner Pierre Moscovici on twitter – She left her mark on studies of the Soviet Union and Russia. You will be missed by the Académie française, which you have embodied for a long time ».