-- With support from the Arts and Humanities Research Council of the UK and the Deutsches Historisches Institut Moskau --The French Language in Russia provides the fullest examination and discussion to date of the adoption of the French language by the elites of imperial Russia during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. It is interdisciplinary, approaching its subject from the angles of various kinds of history and historical sociolinguistics. Beyond its bearing on some of the grand narratives of Russian thought and literature, this book may afford more general insight into the social, political, cultural, and literary implications and effects of bilingualism in a speech community over a long period. It should also enlarge understanding of francophonie as a pan-European phenomenon. On the broadest plane, it has significance in an age of unprecedented global connectivity, for it invites us to look beyond the experience of a single nation and the social groups and individuals within it in order to discover how languages and the cultures and narratives associated with them have been shared across national boundaries.

Emeritus Professor Derek Offord, Senior Research Fellow, University of Bristol. Specialist in Russian cultural and intellectual history and the author or editor of books on early Russian liberalism, Russian travel-writing, the history of Russian thought, and the modern Russian language.Dr Vladislav Rjéoutski is Research Fellow at the German Historical Institute in Moscow. He is a specialist in eighteenth-century Russian and French social and cultural history and the history of education, and author or editor of many works on these subjects.Dr Gesine Argent is Centre Manager and Research Associate at the Princess Dashkova Russian Centre at the University of Edinburgh. Her research focuses on Russian language culture, language ideology, and language purism.

List of illustrationsPreface AcknowledgementsPresentation of dates, transliteration, and other editorial practicesAbbreviations used in the notesThe RomanovsIntroductionConventional assumptions about Franco-Russian bilingualismRussia and 'the West', and the two RussiasEmpire, nation, and languageSociolinguistic perspectivesMethodological considerationsLiterature as a primary sourceChapter 1: The historical contexts of Russian francophonieThe spread of French in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century EuropeThe westernization of Russia in the eighteenth centuryThe introduction of foreign languages into eighteenth-century RussiaThe golden age of the nobilityThe Napoleonic Wars and the Decembrist RevoltThe literary community and the intelligentsia in the age of Nicholas IChapter 2: Teaching and learning FrenchAn overview of French teaching in RussiaFrench versus GermanFrench versus LatinFrench (and English) versus RussianAcquiring social and cultural codes by learning FrenchChapter 3: French at courtThe discovery of sociabilityFrench as a sign of the status of the Russian courtFrench as a court language under Catherine IIFrench at the nineteenth-century courtFrench as a royal languageChapter 4: French in high societyThe place of French in the noble's linguistic repertoireFrench in the sites of noble sociabilityThe spirit of the grand monde and social relations in itFrancophonie and social identityFrench beyond the metropolitan aristocracyChapter 5: French in diplomacy and other official domainsThe Chancery of Foreign Affairs and language training for Russian diplomatsThe gradual rise of French in European and Russian treatiesTurning to French for the conduct of Russian diplomatic businessThe influx of French loanwords into Russian diplomatic parlanceLanguage use in internal communications about foreign affairsThe triumph of French in the diplomatic community and the limits to its useFrench and Russian in other official domainsFrench at the Academy of SciencesChapter 6: Writing FrenchTypes of text and language choice in themLanguage choice in nobles' personal correspondenceLanguage use in diaries, travel notes, memoirs, and albums Writing French to join EuropeCount Rostopchin's 'memoirs'Women's place in the literary landscapeEarly nineteenth-century women's prose fictionChapter 7: French for cultural propaganda and political polemics Transforming Russia's imageCultural propaganda in French in the age of CatherineRussian use of the Francophone press in the age of Catherine and beyondThe promotion and translation of Russian literatureChaadaev's first 'Philosophical Letter'Geopolitical polemics around 1848Polemical writings in French after the Crimean War Chapter 8: Language attitudesLanguage debate and its place in discourse about national identityThe development of Russian language consciousnessLinguistic Gallophobia in eighteenth-century comic dramaThe linguistic debate between Karamzin and ShishkovRostopchin's GallophobiaLiterary reflection on francophonie in the 1820s and 1830sA Slavophile view of Russian francophonie: Konstantin AksakovChapter 9: Perceptions of bilingualism in the classical Russian novelThe rise of the novel and the expression of nationhood in itIvan TurgenevLev Tolstoi: War and PeaceTolstoi: Anna KareninaFedor DostoevskiiConclusionThe functions of French in Imperial RussiaThe changing climate in which French was usedCultural borrowing and language use in grand narratives about Russian cultureBibliographyArchival sourcesPublished primary sourcesSecondary sourcesIndex