De la littérature prolétarienne à l’identitarisme campaniliste : Jean Tousseul, une trajectoire idéologique collective

Jean Tousseul occupies a crucial place in Francophone regionalist literature, embodying both the aspirations and contradictions of early twentieth-century Wallonia. His work combines pacifist and socialist ideals with an increasingly conservative attachment to regional identity. Moving from internationalist pacifism and labor activism toward a mythologized regionalism, Tousseul's trajectory mirrors the ideological polarizations of the interwar period. Drawing on Jacques Vandenbroucke's biographical study (2024), this paper re-examines Tousseul not as an isolated figure but as a symptom of a broader historical conjuncture in which proletarian consciousness coexisted with nationalist regression, as seen also in writers like Constant Malva and Pierre Hubermont. Our analysis distinguishes, for heuristic purposes, the political-ideological and literary trajectories of Tousseul, while demonstrating their inextricable interdependence. We interrogate the aesthetic and ideological underpinnings of his campaniliste (parochial) poetics, situating them within the socio-economic struggles, cultural nationalism, and ethical dilemmas of the 1920s-1940s. Far from a moralizing reassessment, this study seeks to understand how Tousseul's choices-often conditioned by material hardship-illuminate the tensions between regionalism, socialism, and reactionary thought that continue to resonate amid today's revival of exclusionary ideologies and labor precarity.