When and why it was indecent to speak Russian in Russia: Gallomania of the nobility

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

In the Russian language there are a lot of words of French origin. And over a long period of time, the offspring of the Russian nobility learned the French language before Russian. Gallomania enveloped the upper strata of European society during the Enlightenment. French acquired the status of a language of international communication up to private correspondence. In Russia, the French flair covered all spheres of life by the 18th century, and entire generations of the Russian elite were raised by French emigrants. Gallomania at some point reached the point where speaking Russian became bad manners.

Education in the French manner

The 18th century spread around the world with the era of French heyday. Versailles dazzled, beckoned and subjugated the whole of Europe. Lyon dictated fashion, Walter ruled over minds, and champagne became a prerequisite for a noble feast. The Great French Revolution filled Russia with foreign fugitives. The French emigrants were greeted in Russia with open arms, seeing in their faces the luminaries and cultural mentors. True, Catherine the Great acted prudently, putting the question bluntly: either an anti-revolutionary oath, or "to leave."

Not everyone agreed to a compromise, but the French who decided to swear allegiance peacefully scattered across the Russian landowners' estates to teach the younger generation. The home library of a Russian nobleman quickly filled with the works of French writers. It will not be superfluous to remember that Sasha Pushkin composed his first poem in childhood, and it sounded in French. And Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace, according to literary experts, is half written in French.

Captured Napoleonic and the strengthening of the Gaulish language

With the outbreak of the Napoleonic wars, Russian nationalism began to emerge. Society rebelled against the dominance of the enemy's language in its own culture. During the battles of 1812, Russian officers were forbidden to use French in everyday life, since the stray partisans could easily mistake a foreign dialect for an enemy. Sometimes, French-speaking Russian soldiers were mistaken for the enemy and the peasants. Looking ahead, it is worth noting that the widespread introduction of foreign vocabulary led to the fact that at the trial in 1826, some Decembrists defended themselves in French, having poor command of their native language.

But there was also a downside to the pro-French question. The Napoleonic Wars continued to replenish the Russian homes of aristocrats with another army of tutors and mentors. If under Catherine the number of French refugees did not exceed one and a half thousand persons, now it was about a hundred thousand captured soldiers. Some even went to serve in the name of the Russian sovereign, but most still preferred teaching. The nobles continued to communicate for the most part in French, which retained the image of a courtly language, associated with nobility and a lofty worldview. Returning to the Russian classic and the founder of the new literary language, it should be noted that about 90% of letters addressed to women were written by Alexander Pushkin in French.

The language of lovely ladies and the manners of gentlemen

French was especially warmly used by Russian ladies from high society. It was considered an unheard of and plebeian affair to express oneself in one's native language among educated aristocrats. Only men allowed themselves to communicate with each other in Russian, but at the sight of a lady they automatically switched to a foreign language.

At the end of the 18th century, the writer Alexander Sumarokov openly fought against everything French in Russia, sneering at the stupid imitation of someone else's culture and language. "The Russian language seems to be brainless: do you eat the soup, or do you taste the soup?" - asked the champion of native traditions. He seriously suggested getting rid of the French “frock coat”, “fan” and “delicate” and replace them with the long-known “top dress”, “fan” and “gentle”. His intentions were taken up by Fonvizin, Griboyedov, Krylov. However, high society at that time was so fascinated by Paris that they took such calls exclusively with humor. The common people played a separate role in the return of the original Russian language. The peasants protested, tearing down signs in the language of an adversary, destroying shops stylized as French, and invented curses from fashionable words (ball skier - from “Cher ami”).

Easing gallomania and new trends

The French influence on the foreign economic relations of the Russian Empire was overwhelming until 1917. At the beginning of the 20th century, the share of Parisian capital in the total mass of all foreign investments in Russia was maximum - 31% (against the background of the English capital - 24%, German - 20%). But nevertheless, a noticeable retreat of Gallomania was outlined much earlier - with the defeat of Napoleon. And yet, despite the sharp decline in the popularity of the French language, gallicisms did not disappear from Russian speech outright. In noble circles, the use of a foreign language continued for more than a decade.

As soon as the emphasis on the political arena shifted in the 19th century, and Great Britain became the new world leader, cultural and linguistic trends also changed. With the accession to the throne of Nicholas I, not everyone used French phrases that were familiar even yesterday, and the Russian language came to the imperial court again. In the middle of the century, the usual thing, when any Russian officer, dressed in a particular dress, could remain unnoticed in the disposition of the Napoleonic guard and impersonate a French army man as much as he wanted, became only a memory from the pages of war novels. The era of enthusiastic enthusiasm for all French is over, and many gallicisms that have firmly entered Russian speech have gradually sunk into oblivion. But even today we pronounce dozens of words that are familiar to us ("poster", "press", "charm", "cavalier"), without even thinking about their true French origin.

After that, on the contrary, there was a fashion for Russian. Including on Russian names that are very common today, but only seem to be traditional.