Abstract EN:

Three lines of research present themselves in order to trace the formation of a picture of Bohemia in French literature between the Middle Ages and the XIXth Century : the first focuses on the French language, and the emergence of a field of semantic denotations referring to the name of the country and its inhabitants; the second looks at French accounts of the actual Kingdom of Bohemia, its history and its geography; the third involves the creation of a picture of Bohemia in French literature, notably through travelogues, articles, novels and historical writings. These texts have been studied with a double purpose in mind: to determine the interest which their authors, and subsequently the French public at large, may or may not have accorded to Bohemia, and to define the impact which such readings may have had on the popular imagination of France ; thus introducing new elements for a better understanding of an entity, both cultural and geographic, which had long been confused with Germany. This thesis aims to present a summary of the testimonies of Bohemia and its history in French literature, and thereby to contribute both to comparative literature and to exchanges between Western and Central Europe (in this case, France and Bohemia).