The ‘apogee’ of penetration of French into Russian noble society appears to have been reached before the defeat of Napoleon at Moscow in 1812. After this point, a knowledge of Russian became obligatory for members of the Russian aristocracy in order to ‘prove’ their patriotic credentials. The establishment of a normative literary standard in the Russian language in the 19th century also done by many intellectuals helped to preserve the place of the Russian language in the upper echelons of society.
By the start of the 20th century, the ill-fated Russian blue blood of the early 19th century who could barely string a sentence together in Russian appears to have become a thing of the past. Nevertheless, and despite the oft remarked fact that large sections of Tolstoy’s novel War and Peace (Война и мир) were written initially in French. Films such as David Lean’s adaptation of Pasternak’s novel Dr. Zhivago (1965), purposely elicit the use of French language and culture in ‘good’ society in pre-revolutionary days as a distinctive marker of those times. The scene where at the posh restaurant, despite being the daughter of a hard-up seamstress, Lara can order confidently from the menu in French “Jambon farci en croûte” to be pass for someone from a higher level of society.
Although I can’t provide empirical evidence to support what I am about to say, my impression is that the presence of, and fluency in, modern foreign languages in the Russian middle classes and upwards occurred roughly in the following order of fluency,French then German and English.
Amongst these three, French was undoubtedly the most established, and a requirement for entrance into aristocratic circles. It was the modern language that had the most influence on, and supplied the greatest number of loan-words to the Russian language. It was also the ‘default’ language with which to address non-Russian-speaking foreigners.
I think the presence of English is also definitely ‘there’ in aristocratic circles in pre-revolutionary Russia, although definitely not as well established as French, but clearly assisted by the then-prestige of the British Empire and the gradual rise of the United States as a super power.
It’s honestly compelling to imagine, provided the absence of the revolutions that destroyed the old Russian aristocracy, that English might have replaced French as the foreign language ‘of choice’ at the outset stage of the 20th century in Russia.
