| Françoise Thom | |
| Birth Date: | 1951 |
| Birth Place: | Strasbourg, France |
| Occupation: | Historian |
| Parents: | René Thom |
| Alma Mater: | Paris-Sorbonne University |
| Thesis Title: | French: De l'URSS à la Russie (1929-2011). Politique intérieure, politique étrangère, les imbrications |
| Thesis Year: | 2011 |
| Academic Advisors: | Alain Besançon |
| Discipline: | Contemporary history |
| Sub Discipline: | Sovietology |
| Workplaces: | Paris-Sorbonne University |
Françoise Thom (born 1951) is a French historian and Sovietologist, honorary lecturer in contemporary history at Paris-Sorbonne University. A specialist in post-communist Russia, she is the author of works of political analysis on the country and its leaders.
Françoise Thom was born in Strasbourg, 1951.[1] Her parents are René Thom, a mathematician known for his theory of catastrophes and winner of the Fields Medal, and of Suzanne Helmlinger. Françoise has two siblings, Elizabeth and Christian.[2]
Thom has a degree in Russian.[3]
She lived for three years in the Soviet Union, then taught Russian in secondary schools in Ferney-Voltaire and Calais. She is a research associate at the Institut français de polémologie. In 1983, she defended a thesis entitled French: La Langue de bois soviétique : description, rôle et fonctionnement, directed by Alain Besançon at the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences.[4]
She was then appointed lecturer in contemporary history at Paris-Sorbonne University. In 2011, she presented a dissertation entitled French: De l'URSS à la Russie (1929-2011). Politique intérieure, politique étrangère, les imbrications, for which was the supervisor, at the Paris-Sorbonne University.[5]
She published her thesis in a book entitled, French: La Langue de bois, in 1987.[6] [7] She also published French: L'École des barbares, with Isabelle Stal, in 1985, French: Le Moment Gorbatchev (1989),[8] and French: Les Fins du communisme (1994).
In 1998, she co-authored, with Jean Foyer, Jacques Julliard, and Jean-Pierre Thiollet, the book, La Pensée unique - Le vrai procès. She collected, translated, prefaced and annotated the memoirs and analyses of Sergo Beria, son of Lavrentiy Beria, published in 1999 under the title French: Beria, mon père : au cœur du pouvoir stalinien.[9] In 2013, she finally published a biography of Beria, under the title French: Beria. le Janus du Kremlin.[10] In 2018, she published Comprendre le poutinisme (Understanding Putinism), in which she recalls Vladimir Putin's former membership in the KGB and studies the "propaganda of Russian power".
In April 2005, she married historian Georges Mamoulia.