{"title":"Il parlait assez bien français et plusieurs langues: Foreign Language Acquisition and the Diplomatic Self-Fashioning of Prince Boris Ivanovich Kurakin","authors":"Ernest Zitser","doi":"10.15826/qr.2023.4.844","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Using the example of Prince B. I. Kurakin (1676–1727), the Imperial Russian diplomat who served as extraordinary and plenipotentiary ambassador to France (1724–1727), this article seeks to contribute to the ongoing discussion about the possible reasons for the adoption of French as the language of international communication in general and eighteenth-century diplomacy in particular. It asks when the Moscow-born Gediminid prince learned to speak French and how this non-native speaker of the language became proficient enough to impress a finicky and fastidious interlocutor like Louis de Rouvroy, duc de Saint-Simon (1675–1755). The author suggests that the answer to these questions lies not in Russia or France, but in Poland and Italy; and not in the halls of formal educational institutions, but in the networks of personal connections that were sustained as much by face-to-face communication as by written correspondence. This brief biographical survey of the development of Prince Kurakin’s “linguistic personality” demonstrates the mediating role of modern, vernacular languages (Russian, Polish, Italian) in the transition from Latin to French as the lingua franca of international diplomacy. It also emphasizes the intimate connection between foreign language acquisition and diplomatic self-fashioning, showing how linguistic knowledge could be instrumentalized for both personal and professional advancement. In doing so, it illustrates the active role that individual brokers – especially, but not exclusively, aristocratic royal servitors with broad linguistic skills and extensive international connections, like Prince Kurakin and the duc de Saint-Simon – played in creating the very notion of an early modern “European” style of diplomacy based on the cultural dominance of the French language.","PeriodicalId":43664,"journal":{"name":"Quaestio Rossica","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2000,"publicationDate":"2023-12-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Quaestio Rossica","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.15826/qr.2023.4.844","RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"0","JCRName":"HUMANITIES, MULTIDISCIPLINARY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Using the example of Prince B. I. Kurakin (1676–1727), the Imperial Russian diplomat who served as extraordinary and plenipotentiary ambassador to France (1724–1727), this article seeks to contribute to the ongoing discussion about the possible reasons for the adoption of French as the language of international communication in general and eighteenth-century diplomacy in particular. It asks when the Moscow-born Gediminid prince learned to speak French and how this non-native speaker of the language became proficient enough to impress a finicky and fastidious interlocutor like Louis de Rouvroy, duc de Saint-Simon (1675–1755). The author suggests that the answer to these questions lies not in Russia or France, but in Poland and Italy; and not in the halls of formal educational institutions, but in the networks of personal connections that were sustained as much by face-to-face communication as by written correspondence. This brief biographical survey of the development of Prince Kurakin’s “linguistic personality” demonstrates the mediating role of modern, vernacular languages (Russian, Polish, Italian) in the transition from Latin to French as the lingua franca of international diplomacy. It also emphasizes the intimate connection between foreign language acquisition and diplomatic self-fashioning, showing how linguistic knowledge could be instrumentalized for both personal and professional advancement. In doing so, it illustrates the active role that individual brokers – especially, but not exclusively, aristocratic royal servitors with broad linguistic skills and extensive international connections, like Prince Kurakin and the duc de Saint-Simon – played in creating the very notion of an early modern “European” style of diplomacy based on the cultural dominance of the French language.
期刊介绍:
Quaestio Rossica is a peer-reviewed academic journal focusing on the study of Russia’s history, philology, and culture. The Journal aims to introduce new research approaches in the sphere of the Humanities and previously unknown sources, actualising traditional methods and creating new research concepts in the sphere of Russian studies. Except for academic articles, the Journal publishes reviews, historical surveys, discussions, and accounts of the past of the Humanities as a field.