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
6 - Russian or French? Bilingualism in Aleksandr Radishchev's Letters from Exile (1790–1800)
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 publication of the Journey from St Petersburg to Moscow (Puteshestvie iz Peterburga v Moskvu) in May 1790 infuriated Catherine II and prompted Radishchev's immediate arrest and detention. Behind an apparently benign travelogue after the manner of Sterne's Sentimental Journey, the aging empress had seen a pamphlet against her politics. Bad timing was the main cause of her anger, as the political evolution of contemporary France had made her intolerant of the expression of social and political criticism she had once admired in the works of her friends the French philosophes.
Radishchev was first sentenced to death, then the verdict was commuted to ten years of detention in the fort of Ilimsk, in Eastern Siberia. The writer left the Russian capital in chains on 8 September 1790, and after a sixteen-month journey to the point of his detention, spent five years in Ilimsk, before Catherine's death and the accession of Paul I, who set him free from his Siberian exile in 1797. Radishchev survived the harsh material and climatic conditions of his detention largely thanks to the support of his former superior and patron, Aleksandr Romanovich Vorontsov (1741–1805), who had served as president of the College of Commerce from 1773 to 1792. Vorontsov not only provided Radishchev with books and money, but also offered him the chance to stay in touch with the outside world, through the correspondence which he exchanged with him during his detention.
The fate of Vorontsov's letters to Radishchev is unknown. However, we do know Radishchev's letters to his patron. They form the larger part of the writer's surviving correspondence, published in the third volume of the Soviet Academy edition of Radishchev's works. Both French and Russian were used in these letters. The aim of the present chapter is therefore to examine the factors determining the choice of language in the letters. Before examining Radishchev's letters, though, I shall briefly consider when and how each language was used in Russian aristocratic correspondence more generally in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.
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- Information
- French and Russian in Imperial RussiaLanguage Use among the Russian Elite, pp. 120 - 131Publisher: Edinburgh University PressPrint publication year: 2015