The francophone press, in the ages of the Enlightenment and Romanticism, was a pan-European phenomenon. It helped to spread the influence of the French Enlightenment and disseminated information and cultural models all over Europe, including Russia (Volmer 2000: 12–13). It began to reach Russia as early as the reign of Peter the Great, and from the mid-eighteenth century a francophone press began to develop in Russia itself. Our aim in this chapter is to consider the role of this indigenous French-language press in the second half of the eighteenth century, when it came into being, and during the first half of the nineteenth, when it reached its peak. As we shall show, this press was limited in scope and its impact on the Russian cultural landscape was not very far-reaching. However, it was of considerable interest for the Russian authorities and the Russian cultural elite as a whole. It also illustrates certain aspects of the role of French as one of the means by which francophonie was spread in Russia and as a linguistic and cultural medium in Russian society.

We shall begin with a brief survey of the Russian francophone press, against the background of the development of the francophone press in other countries and the general development of the press in Russia. We shall then show the degree to which the appearance of this press reflects the growth of a French-speaking readership in Russia. Did the Russian francophone public write articles for and take part in editing this press and was it attracted by the opportunity to express its views in French? We shall then turn to the attitude of the Russian authorities towards the francophone press and show how they exploited it for their own purposes. Finally, we shall show to what extent the francophone press, benefiting from the status of French as the main international language of the time, became an intermediary in cultural transfer from Western Europe to Russia and a platform for discussion of Russian cultural life.