Hélène Carrère d'Encausse — mep / academic with roots in the Russian Empire
Hélène Carrère d'Encausse was a French historian and politician who became the first female Permanent Secretary of the Académie française — the highest authority on the French language — a position she held from 1999 until her death in 2023. A leading expert on Russia and the Soviet Union, she predicted the USSR's collapse in 1978.
Tracing the roots — St. Pete / Georgia
Born Hélène Zourabichvili in Paris in 1929 to parents of Georgian and Russian noble descent, she grew up speaking Russian at home. Her family fled the Bolshevik revolution. She devoted her scholarly career to understanding Russia — the country her family had lost — and became France's greatest Kremlinologist.
Born Zourabichvili. Russian/Georgian nobility. She was a major political voice in the EU on Russia.
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St. Pete / Georgia. At the time, this region lay within the Russian Empire, which spanned from Poland to the Pacific.
A career defined by ambition
"Russia is not a country. It is a civilisation."