Year: 2015
Type: article
Abstract: Catherine II, who reigned from 1762 to 1796, conceived of Russia as a European power. 1 In this she followed Peter the Great (sole ruler from 1696 to 1725), with whom she implicitly linked herself in the inscription "To Peter I Catherine II" on the statue of Peter she commissioned from the French sculptor Falconet, which was unveiled in St. Petersburg in 1782.If the imperial Europeanizing project was to be fulfilled then it was essential that Russians should develop competence in foreign languages.This cluster of articles examines the rapid acquisition of such competence during the long eighteenth century, that is to say, from the age of Peter to the age of Alexander I (1801-25).The authors of the articles in the cluster outline who in Russia spoke or wrote which foreign languages, in what circumstances, with whom, and on what occasions, and they try to explain the reasons for this linguistic behavior.In thus examining the development of a multilingual environment in Russia we do not lose sight of the fact that the great majority of Russians remained monolingual (and largely uneducated and illiterate).We are examining the language practice of a minority.Yet the members of this minority, bilingual or often multilingual individuals, were Kulturträger who played a vital role in the portentous transformations that Russia underwent from the early eighteenth century.They were bearers of the civilization from which Russia's rulers and elites now wished to learn and borrow and against which those rulers and elites began to measure themselves, or at least they were intermediaries between that civilization and their own.Our overall aim in this introductory article is to provide a sufficiently dense and rich background to this collective study of the ways in which three modern European languages-German, French, and English-were used in eighteenth-century Russia.We begin with anWe gratefully acknowledge the support of the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) of the UK, which has funded the multidisciplinary project on "The History of the French Language in Russia" out of which this publication arises.We also thank the editors of Russian Review and the anonymous referees they have consulted for their many valuable suggestions.
Source: The Russian Review
DOI: 10.1111/russ.10752
Institutions: University of Bristol, Deutsches Historisches Institut Moskau
Language: English
Topic: Soviet and Russian History
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
Estimated APC paid: $2,475
Award: G8324446111
OpenAlex ID: W2032149153