Eugène Hubert

After the war, academic activities resume on January 21, 2019. Rector Eugène Hubert pays tribute to the members of the university community who died in the war. Classes resume with some 3,000 students.

Born in Saint-Josse-ten-Noode on May 8, 1853, Eugène Hubert studied at the University of Louvain, graduating with a doctorate in Philosophy and Letters in 1873. He completed this decade in secondary education, at the Collège communal de Louvain, the Athénée de Bruxelles, and then at the Athénée de Liège in 1880, a city he would never leave.

His interest in history led him to study the modern history of the ^18th century, in particular the reforms of Joseph II and the reign of Empress Maria Theresa of Austria. Hubert enrolled as an auditor in Paul Fredericq's course on Belgian internal political history at the University of Liège. He attended his practical seminar, and Fredericq became his teacher. It was under his guidance that Eugène Hubert earned a special doctorate in historical sciences in 1882, on the condition of Protestants in Belgium from Charles V to Joseph II.

In 1883, Paul Fredericq moved to the University of Ghent, and Eugène Hubert succeeded him at Liège, with courses in National History, including practical work, and Contemporary History. In 1886, Eugène Hubert was appointed full professor. The following year, he also accepted a teaching post at the Ecole Normale des Humanités for the Encyclopédie de l'Histoire and Exercices pédagogiques courses. In 1890, following the vast renovation of higher education curricula initiated by the legislator, he was given responsibility for the Diplomatic History of Europe in the ^19th century course at the University of Liège.

He taught for some forty years, until his emeritus in 1923, a period during which many generations of students were influenced by his vision of Belgian national historiography, but also by his expertise in the treatment of archival sources, in the spirit of the robust positivist school. Eugène Hubert spent a good part of his life scouring Europe's major archival repositories in Brussels, The Hague, Leiden, Berlin, Paris, Vienna and Luxembourg, an experience he drew on in his published research, with a pronounced personal taste for diplomatic correspondence.

A full member of the Académie royale de Belgique in 1913, and an effective member of the Commission royale d'histoire in 1919, his reputation is guaranteed by an impressive career and tireless work recognized by his peers. He was also a member of many historiographical networks of his time. His crowning achievement came in 1921, when he was awarded the quinquennial National History Prize for his body of work.

He was chosen as Rector in 1918, a very difficult period after the Armistice, when academic activities had to be relaunched and the many dead of the Great War had to be honored. The solemn reopening of classes on January 21, 1919, over which he presided, was one of the most intense collective moments in the history of the University of Liège.

It was time for a rebirth. In 1920, he set up the administrative commission for the University of Liège's patrimony, which led to the institution's financial recovery, and he initiated the creation of a Students' House, symbolizing the new place that students now occupied in the university community.

The integrity and hard work of a man like Eugène Hubert attracted the attention of the King and the government, and he agreed to become Minister of Science and Arts, for a brief period from December 1921 to October 1922. He then resumed his professorship and completed his career with his emeritus in 1923.

He then had a few years of life left, which he put to good use writing, holding the pen right up to the end, until February^1, 1931.