Offord, Derek; Ryazanova-Clarke, Lara; Rjéoutski, Vladislav and Argent, Gesine (eds) French and Russian in Imperial Russia. Volume 1: Language Use Among the Russian Elite Offord, Derek; Ryazanova-Clarke, Lara; Rjéoutski, Vladislav and Argent, Gesine (eds) French and Russian in Imperial Russia. Volume 2: Language Attitudes and Identity (review)

Abstract

REVIEWS 511 ~ xto spodivaitcja (K) ‘that put their trust [in him]’ (p. 178), spasennje (M) ~ spasennja (K) ‘salvation’ (p. 178), peščera (M) ~ pečera (K) ‘cave’ (p. 185), čystyj (M) ~ ščyryj (K) ‘righteous’ (p. 185), čudesa (M) ~ dyva (K) ‘wondrous works’ (p. 186); some long-naturalized (regional) Polonisms are also changed with ‘more’ vernacular forms of the type kotryj (M) ~ jakyj (K) ‘which’ (p. 180) and papir (M) ~ bomaha (K) ‘[the volume of the] book’ (p. 183); one can also add here a northern Ukrainian form typical of the previous literary tradition — pljundrovaty (M) next to modern pljundruvaty (K) ‘to plunder’ (p. 188). No doubt, the translation of Moračevs’kyj is a true trove of data reflecting the vagaries of the formation of new standard Ukrainian, including its high style. Yet this process would have appeared more nuanced had the authors of the introduction placed the creation of the Ukrainian Psalter in the wider context of similar translations made not only before Moračevs’kyj but also after him. In this regard, one should mention Pantelejmon Kuliš whose first paraphrases of Psalms 1 and 13 appeared in 1868, and Oleksandr Navroc’kyj and Volodymyr Aleksandrov who paraphrased the Psalter, under the influence of Kuliš, in the 1880s. Needless to say, publication of their works in the future would complement the edition of the pioneering translation made by Moračevs’kyj in 1865 and prepared for publication by Hnatenko 150 years later. Department of Modern Languages and Cultures Andrii Danylenko Pace University Offord, Derek; Ryazanova-Clarke, Lara; Rjéoutski, Vladislav and Argent, Gesine (eds). French and Russian in Imperial Russia. Volume 1: Language Use Among the Russian Elite. Russian Language and Society. Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh, 2015. xviii + 270 pp. Figures. Tables. Notes. Bibliographies. Index. £75.00. Offord, Derek; Ryazanova-Clarke, Lara; Rjéoutski, Vladislav and Argent, Gesine (eds). French and Russian in Imperial Russia. Volume 2: Language Attitudes and Identity. Russian Language and Society. Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh, 2015. xviii + 266 pp. Illustrations. Notes. Bibliographies. Index. £75.00. In January 1868, suffering from a periodic inflammation of the eye, P. A. Valuev, soon to be deposed as Alexander II’s Minister of Internal Affairs, was obliged to dictate his diary to his wife. Whereas he habitually recorded his thoughts in Russian, she preferred to write in French. Depressed by developments in St Petersburg and pessimistic about the state of Russian morals, the aloof Europeanized statesman was prompted to reflect, not for the first time, that it was ‘not natural’ that French should have become ‘more or less’ the SEER, 94, 3, july 2016 512 most influential language in Russian society: ‘Le chinois nous conviendrait beaucoup mieux.’ What motivated individual language choices in imperial Russia? And what can such choices tell us about the formation, consolidation and fragmentation of personal, social and national identities? Though isolated attempts have been made to answer such questions in the past, the subject has never been tackled in the concerted way represented by these two selfstanding but complementary volumes. Remarkably, the effort has finally been made neither in Russia nor in France, but in Britain, where a conference on ‘Enlightened Russian’, organized by Lara Ryazanova-Clarke at the University of Edinburgh in 2012, provided one of the sources for these books. The other was the Arts and Humanities Research Council project on ‘The History of the French Language in Russia’, led by Derek Offord at the University of Bristol with the collaboration of the remaining two editors. Though he generously acknowledges the extent to which this was a collective enterprise, Offord was clearly its guiding mind. Not the least of his contributions has been to translate more than a third of the twenty-four essays that comprise these two richly rewarding volumes. Written by an international cast of authors, ranging from doctoral candidates to senior scholars, the essays probe an impressively wide variety of published and unpublished materials. Beginning with a general consideration of the use of French and Russian in Catherine II’s Russia (Derek Offord, Gesine Argent and Vladislav Rjéoutski), the first volume goes on to discuss the empress’s letters to Grimm (Georges Dulac), language use by the Stroganovs...