Abstract

The question of traces, footprints, legacies crossed the conference «Empreintes étudiantes des années 1968 dans le monde», held in Paris in May 2018. One session of the conference was dedicated to the «oral archives» or «oral history». At the conference the present essay intertwined the campaign of collection of oral testimonies of the Cité des mémoires étudiantes and a research on the history of the Sorbonne in 1968 focusing on the contribution of oral testimony to the history of student protest. More than in two phases, that of «occupation with many faces» and that of ebb, movement and occupation are permanent and try to «walk on two legs»: «University Commune» and «politics». Before revisiting some «soviets» of the former («Sorbonne-Potemkin») and of the latter («Sorbonne-Aurora»), the reference to the Russian revolution of 1917 is re-examined.