Inventing the Refugee Crisis: Huguenots and the Rise of Refugee Identity

Abstract Refugee and forced migration studies scholars largely ignore the early modern period when they discuss modern refugee crises, thus overlooking the transhistorical, cultural origins of refugee identity formation. Following Louis XIV’s Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, around 200,000 Huguenots fled France for the wider diaspora. Often depicted as republicans, if not anarchists, bent on the destruction of Christianity and the French sacral monarchy, Huguenots sought refuge for their own safety and in the process reimagined themselves first as religious refugees and then as political ones. As religious refugees, Huguenots like the theologian Pierre Jurieu donned the mantle of the Ancient Israelites, as a means to maintain their community against French purgation of the Calvinist sect. As political refugees, Huguenots like Rabaut Saint-Étienne developed several strategies at courting the favor of the Bourbon monarchy, many of which challenged the French sacral state to imagine itself in secular terms. In developing a political refugee identity, these Huguenots created the empathetic, cultural refugee, which could transcend religious affiliation in favor of promoting a national identity.