Pierre Kaan

Pierre Kaan (French: [pjεʀ kɑ̃] 10 January 1903 – 18 May 1945) was a professor of philosophy, Marxist essayist, and prominent member of the French Resistance during World War II.

Activist, writer, teacher (1919–1939)

Pierre Kaan was born on 10 January 1903 in the 5th arrondissement of Paris. After a primary education often interrupted by health problems, Pierre Kaan entered in 1919 into khâgne, the preparatory classes for the entrance exams of École Normale Supérieure at the Lycée Louis-le-Grand. While at the Lycée Louis-le-Grand Kaan founded a literary review called la Gerbe du Quartier Latin, alongside fellow students Daniel Guérin, Georges Altman, and Paul Verdier. Pierre Kaan's attendance in the preparatory classes were interrupted when his parents sent him to Brittany to recover from recurring asthma attacks. Nevertheless, Pierre Kaan was awarded a diploma in philosophy by l'Academie de Paris in 1923, with a dissertation titled 'The sociological basis of Nietzsche's thought during his intellectualist period 1876–1882'.

Following a growing notoriety in French academic and Marxist circles in the early 1920s, Pierre Kaan was spotted by Boris Souvarine who placed him on the editing board of l'Humanité and shortly thereafter requested Kaan contribute as a writer and editor for the Bulletin Communiste.

During the 1920s Pierre Kaan contributed to a number of Jewish literary reviews. In 1925 Kaan began an editorial collaboration with Albert Cohen at the Revue Juive, a literary magazine founded by Cohen to review Jewish literature. And between 1927 and 1928, Pierre Kaan joined another literary review called Palestine, a Zionist literary review presided by Justin Godart, as its secretary.

Having passed the agrégation in philosophy in 1928, Pierre Kaan was named associate professor of literature and philosophy at a secondary school in Montargis.