Victor Brombert, the Henry Putnam University Professor of Romance and Comparative Literatures, and an authority on French literature of the 19th and 20th centuries, died peacefully in his sleep at home in Princeton on Nov. 26. He was 101.
Born in 1923 in Berlin to Russian-Jewish parents who had fled Russia, Brombert was raised and educated in Paris, only to flee again with his family from Nazi-occupied France in 1941, this time to the U.S. He joined the U.S. Army after Pearl Harbor and, because he spoke Russian, German and French, was assigned to the intelligence group known as the Ritchie Boys — interrogating prisoners of war and taking part in the second day of the D-Day landing in Normandy with Patton’s 2nd Armored Division, and in the liberation of Paris and the Battle of the Bulge.
After the war, he attended Yale on the GI Bill, earning his bachelor’s degree in 1948 and his Ph.D. in 1953. He taught at Yale for 25 years and then joined the Princeton faculty in 1975, transferring to emeritus status in 1999. His fields of specialization were French literature of the 19th and 20th centuries, the history of ideas, problems in literary criticism and comparative studies in narrative.
Brombert was revered among his colleagues and students as much for his incisive and expansive scholarship as for his worldly charisma and compelling lectures — and his ability to burst into operatic song. His experiences in the war only served to intensify his belief in the power of literature to unite people and illuminate the greater good of humanity.
“Though Victor Brombert retired a quarter century ago, his personality and legacy still very much continue to shape who we are today — as well as who we aspire to be,” said Göran Blix, professor of French and Italian and department chair.
His wide-ranging scholarly interests helped forge interdisciplinary connections — and an even wider circle of decades-long friendships — with faculty across the humanities, from philosophy and Hellenic studies to creative writing. Brombert chaired the Humanities Council from 1989 to 1994, and from 1983 to 1994, he directed the Council’s Gauss Seminars in Criticism, which invites eminent scholars from around the world to explore topics in the humanities.
Brombert wrote 16 books, including acclaimed works on Stendhal, Flaubert, Balzac, Hugo and Baudelaire, and contributed to many other volumes. He continued to write throughout a productive and gratifying retirement, the subject of his 2018 New Yorker essay, “The Permanent Sabbatical.”
In 2023, at age 100, he published “The Pensive Citadel,” a collection of essays on his life as a literary scholar, named one of The New Yorker’s Best Books of 2023. During a packed campus event hosted by the Humanities Council that November, Princeton colleagues celebrated Brombert’s 100th birthday, as well as the publication of the book.
Brombert is survived by Beth, his wife of more than 74 years, and by their son, Marc, and daughter, Lauren.
Read his full obituary on the University homepage.
Watch the video from his 100th birthday celebration on the Humanities Council website.
