As part of the European Heritage Days the Société d'Études des Hautes-Alpes organizes a Study Day with the theme
«Hamlets and abandoned villages».
This event will take place
at the Cinémathèque de montagne on Friday, September 15 from 9 am.
Introduction.
In a letter to his friend Lucien Jacques, Jean Giono wrote in 1920: «If you ever come by my house
[…] I will show you a strange spectacle: a region of hills and plateaus where sleep seven to eight small villages absolutely deserted. The grass grows in the alleys, the roofs sink, the nettles fill the low windows. A great silence locks them […] all the inhabitants of these villages were eaten by Marseille.”
It was to recall, with a touch of nostalgia, the already old and worrying question of the depopulation of the Southern Alps, mountainous lands then mainly rural and confronted with deep technical and economic evolutions, in addition to difficult living conditions linked to poor terroirs and sometimes subject to natural risks
important. Thus, economic emigration, the evolution of transport, agriculture and livestock and the policy of reforestation of vast areas have sometimes led to the abandonment of villages and hamlets.
Several studies have addressed these issues in the past, highlighting the diversity of cases and the multiplicity of their causes and consequences, including demographic, landscape and heritage. If they were conducted most often on the scale of a country or a region, or even of a particular place, they never focused specifically on the department of Hautes-Alpes.
We cannot, in the limited time of a day of studies, claim to an exhaustive analysis of the phenomena of abandonment of villages and hamlets in our department.
The objective is rather to make pioneer work and to present, by thematic presentations, some of the main reasons for definitive abandonment in the Hautes-Alpes noted in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries (including
some are sometimes very far back in time), while other presentations will be devoted to illustrate them
by special cases taken in the department.
This focus on time and space will not, however, deprive us of looking beyond these limits in order to emphasize, with a few examples, the timeless and universal nature of the issue of abandoned villages and hamlets.
Program:
• 9h Welcome
• 9h30 Opening of the day
Yves Chiaramella, President of Société d'Etudes
• 9h45 Screening of the short film «Terres noires»
by Luc Moullet, 1961. Presentation Gilles Charensol
• 10h15 Deserted villages and hamlets: a new
research site? Anne-Marie Granet
• 10h35 Abandoned hamlets in the upper part
mountain Philippe Moustier
• 11:15 Restoring the Mountain and the Troubles
foresters, 1827-1914 Hervé Gasdon
• 11h35 Abandonment of isolated hamlets and farms
and concentration of habitat in the South:
Embrunais, Ubaye, in the 19th century
Samuel Schwalibog, Benoît Séjourné
• 12:05 Lunch Break
• 13h30 Deserted villages between the 12th and 16th centuries
centuries in the southwest of the Hautes-Alpes
Alexandre Vernin
• 13h50 “Five Wretched Families of Villoret”:
an impossible expulsion at the time of the Enlightenment
Christine Roux
• 14h10 Settlement, abandonment and rebirth of
villages of the former municipality of Faetto (Val
Gemanasca, Piedmont) Aline Pons, Ettore Peyronel
• 14h40 Chaudun, from origin to end of settlement
Jean-Paul Wirtz with readings of historical texts
by the Théâtre en liberté.
• 15h20 The village of La Cluse in Dévoluy Georges Guiol
• 15h50 Châtillon le Désert, history of a village
disappeared from Gapençais. Jean-Claude Bermond
• 16h10 Agniel in Bochaine: the strange fate of a
deserted commune Jean-Pierre Pellegrin
• 16:50 Conclusions and Perspectives, Roundtable
between stakeholders
• 17:30 Closing of the day
In addition, two outings to the places mentioned during the study day are offered to participants:
Châtillon le Désert
Guided tour by Jean-Claude Bermond of the Société d'Études.
Saturday 16th
September 2023
Appointment from 14h at the parking of the col des
Healing in Sigoyer, departure at 14:30. Registration required by email at contact@seha.fr or by phone at 04 92 51 76 07. (30 people maximum, priority to members of the Study Society).
Chaudun, from the beginning to the end of the settlement
Guided tour by Jean-Paul Wirtz.
Sunday, September 17, 2023
Appointment from 2pm at the Col de Gleize car park, scattered at 2:30pm. Registration required by email to contact@seha.fr or by phone at 04 92 51 76 07. (30 people maximum, priority to members of the Study Society).
Registration before Monday, September 11 by mail to Société d'Études des Hautes-Alpes, 23 rue Carnot 05000 GAP or by email at contact@seha.fr, specifying name, address, telephone, email, and list of accompanying persons. Payment by cheque or transfer to the following account: IBAN: FR 76 1130 6000 6248 1525 8873 128 BIC: AGRIFRPP813
The registration form can be downloaded at:
https://www.seha.fr/prochainement/15-septembre-journee-detudes-hameaux-et-villages-abandonnes/
Member of the company of Studies: 10 €
Not a member of the research company: 20 €
Will attend lunch: 30 €