The French Language in Russia wins the 2019 Marc Raeff Book Prize awarded by the Eighteenth Century Russian Studies Association!

The Marc Raeff Book Prize is awarded annually 'for a publication that is of exceptional merit and lasting significance for understanding Imperial Russia during the long eighteenth century'. The award of the 2019 prize is announced on the ECRSA website at www.ecrsa.org.

The French Language in Russia: A Social, Political, Cultural, and Literary History is the overarching outcome of the Arts & Humanities Research Council (AHRC)-funded project on 'The History of the French Language in Russia'. The book, published in the AUP series Languages and Culture in History, provides the fullest examination and discussion to date of the adoption of the French language by the elites of imperial Russia during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

Commended as “an exemplary study of the history of language” of “impeccable” scholarship by Peter Burke (Emmanuel College Cambridge), this interdisciplinary book, beyond its bearing on some of the grand narratives of Russian thought and literature, affords insight into the social, political, cultural, and literary implications and effects of bilingualism in a speech community over a long period.

Amsterdam University Press congratulate co-authors Derek Offord, Vladislav Rjéoutski, and Gesine Argent on their outstanding work and this important recognition of their achievements.