The aim of this book is to offer a multi-faceted history of the French language in pre-revolutionary Russia, where French was widely used for many purposes by the eighteenth-and nineteenth-century elites. (By ‘French language’ we mean the exclusive standardized variety used by the upper classes, which came in the eighteenth century to be seen as the only correct form of expression, a variety synonymous with the French language itself.) This is a subject that has been rather little explored, at least until very recently, but we believe it has considerable importance. Study of it may afford insight into the social, political, cultural, and literary implications and effects of bilingualism in a speech community over a long period. The subject also has a bearing on some of the grand narratives of Russian thought and literature, particularly the prolonged debate about Russia’s relationship with the world beyond its western borders during the ages of empire-building and nation-building. At the same time, we hope that a fuller description of Franco-Russian bilingualism than has yet been provided will enlarge understanding of francophonie as a pan-European phenomenon. On the broadest plane, the subject has significance in an age of unprecedented global connectivity, for it invites us to look beyond the experience of a single nation and the social groups and individuals within it in order to discover how languages and the cultures and narratives associated with them have been shared across national boundaries.

Two principal threads run through our book; each could be the subject of a discrete enquiry, difficult as it might be to separate them at certain points. The first thread concerns language practice, that is to say, the functions of French in Russia and the settings and media in which it was used over a long period from the early eighteenth century. We analyze, for example, the use of French as a spoken and written language in various social milieus (the court and sites of aristocratic sociability, such as the salon, the ball, and the Masonic lodge) and in some official domains, especially diplomacy. We also examine its use as a literary language, both for amateur and more professionalized forms of writing, and as a propagandistic or polemical language for the promotion of a positive image of Russia beyond the country’s borders and for international debate about politics and grand questions of historical destiny.