Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Introduction
- 1 External Linguistic Politics and Policies in the German-speaking Countries of Central Europe in Early Modern Times and in the Nineteenth Century: With Some References to the Present Age
- 2 German Global Soft Power, 1700–1920
- 3 French as a Polemical Language for Russian Writers in the Age of Nicholas I
- 4 The External Cultural and Linguistic Policy of the Italian Government in the Mediterranean Region and the Issue of the National Association for Aid to Missionaries (1886–1905)
- 5 Expansion Du Français Et Des Manières Françaises en Europe Aux Dix-septième Et Dix-huitième Siècles: Résultat d’une Politique Royale Extérieure Ou Effet D’un Certain Prestige?
- 6 Literary Translation As a Foreign Language Policy Tool: The Case of Russia, Mid-eighteenth – Early Nineteenth Centuries
- 7 L’usage Diplomatique De La Langue Française, Instrument De La Puissance?
- 8 The Political Implications of the Idea of Génie De La Langue in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries
- Index
3 - French as a Polemical Language for Russian Writers in the Age of Nicholas I
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 December 2020
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Introduction
- 1 External Linguistic Politics and Policies in the German-speaking Countries of Central Europe in Early Modern Times and in the Nineteenth Century: With Some References to the Present Age
- 2 German Global Soft Power, 1700–1920
- 3 French as a Polemical Language for Russian Writers in the Age of Nicholas I
- 4 The External Cultural and Linguistic Policy of the Italian Government in the Mediterranean Region and the Issue of the National Association for Aid to Missionaries (1886–1905)
- 5 Expansion Du Français Et Des Manières Françaises en Europe Aux Dix-septième Et Dix-huitième Siècles: Résultat d’une Politique Royale Extérieure Ou Effet D’un Certain Prestige?
- 6 Literary Translation As a Foreign Language Policy Tool: The Case of Russia, Mid-eighteenth – Early Nineteenth Centuries
- 7 L’usage Diplomatique De La Langue Française, Instrument De La Puissance?
- 8 The Political Implications of the Idea of Génie De La Langue in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries
- Index
Summary
Abstract
This chapter examines one of the functions that French came to have in nineteenth-century Russia, where many members of the social and political elite were francophone – namely, its function as an international language in which Russians could participate in pan-European debate. It focuses on works written by Russians in French in response to the European revolutionary disturbances of 1848. The writers it considers were of several political persuasions: the poet and conservative nationalist Fedor Tiutchev; Nikolai Turgenev (a liberal opponent of autocracy); and the socialist political thinker Alexander Herzen. By using French, these writers aimed to inform western readers about a nation of which they were largely ignorant, and to which there was widespread hostility in the West during the repressive reign of Nicholas I. Most importantly, command of French enabled them to extend into the international arena the debate taking place within the Russian elite about Russia's historical destiny; to inscribe their nation in the European community; and to stake a claim for Russian leadership in that community.
Keywords: French language, Franco-Russian bilingualism, language and politics, Russian political thought, philosophy of history, Petr Chaadaev, Alexander Herzen, Fedor Tiutchev, Nikolai Turgenev
The use of the French language for many purposes in communities in which it was not the mother tongue was a virtually pan-European phenomenon in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The spread of French was assisted both by the richness and refinement of the social and literary culture that the language bore, from the age of Louis XIV in particular; and by the flight of francophone Protestant religious refugees, the Huguenots, to non- Catholic countries in northern Europe after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685. From the Netherlands to Prussia, Poland, and Sweden in the north of the continent, in the Bohemian Lands in Central Europe, and from Piedmont to the Romanian lands in the south, French commonly served as the language of courts, diplomats, nobilities, polite society, and men and women of letters. It was the language of an education designed to create the honnête homme (‘man of honour) and the vehicle for conversation in the sites of refined sociability, including the salon, the soirée, and the masonic lodge.
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- Linguistic and Cultural Foreign Policies of European States18th–20th Centuries, pp. 69 - 90Publisher: Amsterdam University PressPrint publication year: 2016
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