The team
Derek Offord - Principal Investigator
Derek Offord, Emeritus Professor of Russian Intellectual History, has published books and articles on a wide range of topics related to eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Russian history, thought, and literature.
In this project he is particularly interested in exploring how the use of French in Russia influenced the development of Russian national identity and how francophonie has been represented in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Russian literature and thought. You can read his full profile on the Department of Russian website.
Vladislav Rjéoutski – Post-doctoral Research Assistant
Vladislav is a specialist in eighteenth-century Russian and French cultural history and the history of education. He worked on this project from 2011 to the middle of the academic year 2013-2014, taking the lead in the study of matters relating to education, diplomacy, and translation.
From 2014 he has been a Research Fellow at the German Historical Institute in Moscow. You can read his full profile here.
Gesine Argent - Post-doctoral Research Assistant
Gesine Argent defended her PhD on media attitudes towards anglicisms in post-Soviet Russian at the University of Edinburgh, where she was a member of the Russian in Context research group, part of the Centre for Russian, Central and East European Studies.
In this project, Dr Argent is particularly concerned with metadiscourse – talk and debates about language and its (supposed and/or desired) role and characteristics. She will study reactions towards French language use and influence in Russia over time and in different genres. You can read her full profile on the Department of Russian website.
Jessica Tipton - PhD Student
Jessica Tipton completed her undergraduate studies in Russian with French at the University of Bristol and received an MA from the School of Slavonic and East European Studies at University College, London. She also has Postgraduate Diplomas in Performance from the St Petersburg Conservatoire of Music and the Royal Academy of Music
As part of this project she is working on a doctoral thesis about how the French language was used in Russian aristocratic and musical circles. Her email address is Jessica.Tipton@bristol.ac.uk.