Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Note on Dates, Transliteration and Other Editorial Practices
- Abbreviations Used in the Text, Notes and References
- Dates of Reigns in Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Russia
- Dedication
- Introduction
- 1 French and Russian in Catherine's Russia
- 2 The Use of French by Catherine II in her Letters to Friedrich Melchior Grimm (1774–96)
- 3 Language Use Among the Russian Aristocracy: The Case of the Counts Stroganov
- 4 The Francophone Press in Russia: A Cultural Bridge and an Instrument of Propaganda
- 5 Russian Noblewomen's Francophone Travel Narratives (1777–1848): The Limits of the Use of French
- 6 Russian or French? Bilingualism in Aleksandr Radishchev's Letters from Exile (1790–1800)
- 7 Code-Switching in the Correspondence of the Vorontsov Family
- 8 French and Russian in Ego-Documents by Nikolai Karamzin
- 9 Pushkin's Letters in French
- 10 Instruction in Eighteenth-Century Coquetry: Learning about Fashion and Speaking its Language
- 11 The Role of French in the Formation of Professional Architectural Terminology in Eighteenth-Century Russia
- 12 The Coexistence of Russian and French in Russia in the First Third of the Nineteenth Century: Bilingualism with or without Diglossia?
- Conclusion
- Notes on Contributors
- Index
Preface
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 October 2017
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Note on Dates, Transliteration and Other Editorial Practices
- Abbreviations Used in the Text, Notes and References
- Dates of Reigns in Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Russia
- Dedication
- Introduction
- 1 French and Russian in Catherine's Russia
- 2 The Use of French by Catherine II in her Letters to Friedrich Melchior Grimm (1774–96)
- 3 Language Use Among the Russian Aristocracy: The Case of the Counts Stroganov
- 4 The Francophone Press in Russia: A Cultural Bridge and an Instrument of Propaganda
- 5 Russian Noblewomen's Francophone Travel Narratives (1777–1848): The Limits of the Use of French
- 6 Russian or French? Bilingualism in Aleksandr Radishchev's Letters from Exile (1790–1800)
- 7 Code-Switching in the Correspondence of the Vorontsov Family
- 8 French and Russian in Ego-Documents by Nikolai Karamzin
- 9 Pushkin's Letters in French
- 10 Instruction in Eighteenth-Century Coquetry: Learning about Fashion and Speaking its Language
- 11 The Role of French in the Formation of Professional Architectural Terminology in Eighteenth-Century Russia
- 12 The Coexistence of Russian and French in Russia in the First Third of the Nineteenth Century: Bilingualism with or without Diglossia?
- Conclusion
- Notes on Contributors
- Index
Summary
The two volumes we introduce here concern an aspect of the social, cultural and political history of language in Imperial Russia. They deal with the profound impact which the French language and the culture that it bore had on Russian high society and on the consciousness of the social and literary elite in the second half of the eighteenth century and the first half of the nineteenth, when French was an international language among such elites in the European world. The volumes explore the coexistence, competition and commingling of the two languages and the possible benefits and allegedly detrimental effects of Franco-Russian bilingualism.
The two volumes are closely tied together in approach as well as subject-matter. They are conceived as original contributions to the multidisciplinary study of language. They address, from a historical viewpoint, subjects of interest to sociolinguists (especially language use and language choice, bilingualism and multilingualism, code-switching and language attitudes). At the same time, much of their subject-matter (social and national identity, nationalism, linguistic and cultural borrowing) falls within the purview of social, political and cultural historians, or of Slavists (who have an interest in the relationship between Russian and Western culture and debate about it) or of students of the European Enlightenment, Neo-Classicism and Romanticism.
The volumes share a main title, French and Russian in Imperial Russia, and are conceived as complementary to one another, but their focus is different and each is intended to be capable of standing on its own. This volume, sub-titled Language Use among the Russian Elite, examines the functions of French in Russia in various spheres, domains and genres in the period in question and the interplay and intermixing of French and Russian. It also provides some examples of French lexical influence on Russian. It is concerned primarily with linguistic practice. The second volume, sub-titled Language Attitudes and Identity, investigates the effects of the use of French and analyses Russian perceptions of the phenomenon of elite bilingualism.
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- Information
- French and Russian in Imperial RussiaLanguage Use among the Russian Elite, pp. vii - xPublisher: Edinburgh University PressPrint publication year: 2015