Bilingualism in the Russian Expatriate Communities. Baron Sergei Korff at the Universities of Finland, Estonia and the USA

Abstract

Bilingualism in the Russian Expatriate Communities. Baron Sergei Korff at the Universities of Finland, Estonia and the USA Eugene Petrov St Petersburg State University Individuals who are characterised as bilingual usually speak two languages equally well and choose the language depending mainly of the communication situation. Diglossia refers to a situation where different languages are used in a different social context or social class, and this more likely characterises an entire community. This article discusses how bilingualism and a liberal world view guaranteed success to one of the best Russian administrative law specialists, Baron Sergei Korff (1876–1924), as an emigrant in the USA, on the example of his academic biography. Korff’s fate was in many ways typical to Russian expatriate researchers, but his success occurred quicker than that of many others. At the beginning of the 20th century many European universities preferred to educate their own students to be the next generation of the academia. It was easier for newcomers to find a place in the more open American universities; however, speaking the language was an unavoidable precondition. There are three clearly differentiable stages in the life story of Korff: the periods of St. Petersburg (1876–1905), Helsinki (1905– 1919) and New York (1919–1924), but the reality was more complicated. After studies at the St. Petersburg law school, Baron Korff worked at the University of Helsinki in 1905–1911. His federal views developed during that time and the works cited to this day were published (e.g., Federalism, 1908). In 1911, he completed his PhD in constitutional law (topic: Russian administrative law) at the University of Tartu / University of Jurjev, however, this did not secure him an academic position. Korff became the director of the Slavonic library of the University of Helsinki. He had to hold lectures in many private institutions of higher education in 1914–1916 (women’s courses, commerce courses and lectures at the commerce academy) and, from time to time, he would make an appearance with lecture courses in America. In 1917, he quickly became politically renowned as the assistant to the governor-general of Finland. Up until 1919, Korff participated actively in the Russian emigrant activities in Europe but seeing that the Bolshevik’s secured their power, he immigrated to the USA in 1919. After that, since 1919, he already worked as an emigrant at the universities of Georgetown and Columbia in the USA, where he laid much of the foundations for the Russian studies in the USA. Baron Korff’s wife was American, and the reasons for his thriving and quick success as an emigrant in the USA were mostly his fluent language skills and the vast knowledge about both the European and American academy.