To William Taubman, president of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies (AAASS)

Dear William Taubman,

I’ve just come to read your letter to Dmitrii Medvedev of July the 13th, the content of which I share in totality. As the president of the French association Liberté pour l’histoire, I really want to congratulate you for the precise and well measured terms that you use.

I think that it is a good thing that close relationships should be maintained between all historians in the world who are fully aware of the stakes that represents the freedom of intellectual inquiry. It is in the interest of everyone to gather our efforts in order to have it be respected.

This is why I’m particularly happy with your initiative, which, after the American Historical Association, bears witness to the Russian historians who conduct a difficult and courageous fight of the international solidarity that they so profoundly need.

We have put your letter on our Web site, where it completes a special issue about the memory battles in Russia and more generally on the values we all fight for.

I enclose to the present letter a copy of the one I have addressed on the 31th of July to Misses Arnita Jones, Executive Director of the AHA. Just as I said to her, In the name of “Liberté pour l’Histoire” as well as in my own name, I forcefully thank you for what you’ve already done and for what you may wish to keep doing in the future,

Pierre Nora,president of “Liberté pour l’Histoire”