Alfred Rambaud

Alfred Rambaud (1842 - 1905) was a French historian who wrote political and military history. He  threw himself into the study of Russian history, staying in Russia in order to learn its language, institutions and customs. In 1874 he took part in the 3rd Archeological Congress that was held in Kiev, and wrote a report on it for the "Revue des Deux Mondes". On his return, he published La Russie épique, a study of the dumas, Ukrainian epic songs (1876), a short but excellent Histoire de la Russie depuis les origines jusqu'à l'année 1877 (1878; 5th ed., 1900), Français et Russes, Moscou et Sévastopol 1812–1854 (1876; 2nd ed., 1881), and finally the two important volumes on Russian diplomatic history in the Recueil des Instructions données aux ambassadeurs (vols. vii. and ix., 1890 and 1891). He was not improbably moved by considerations of foreign policy to publish his Russes et Prussiens, guerre de Sept Ans (1895), a popular work, though based on solid research. After teaching history in the Faculties of Arts at Caen (1871) and Nancy (1873), he was called to the Sorbonne (1883), where he was the first to occupy the chair of contemporary history