Troublemaker: F.A. van Jaarsveld – The Afrikaners’ historian

With his aggressive approach to polemics and historical orthodoxies, Professor Floors van Jaarsveld was not a typical academic historian.

For his infuriated contemporaries he was a provocative and disrespectful troublemaker. His critical approach to Afrikaner history came at some cost. For several years, he was kept out of an academic post, while in 1979 he was tarred and feathered by the extreme right-wing Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging.

His questioning whether divine intervention had secured the Voortrekkers their victory at Blood River had outraged Eugene Terre’ Blanche. Yet, Van Jaarsveld was more than just a troublemaker. He was a top-class historian on the turbulent history of the Afrikaner. Ultimately, his publications and contributions as a public intellectual played a profound role in altering the way many Afrikaners thought about their past and apartheid.

Author F.A. Mouton