France and Russia: Compare and Contrast

Hello chaps,

If you'll forgive me, I'm not really sure in myself about how I'm going to structure this one, but I feel the need to write something.

Basically, I am noticing a lot of similarities between France and Russia, which I am pretty sure are not completely coincidental, due to the French aristocratic tradition in the 19th Century in Russia. French was the language of the aristocracy and as a result has a considerable linguistic and cultural impact. I have long made the point to anyone who asks me the question "What is Russian like?" that it is a lot more like French than people would otherwise imagine. I guess I'll start with a few linguistic similarities.

1. The word for "shop" in French is "magasin". The Russian is "магазин", which even if you cannot read cyrillic, looks pretty much identical, in terms of the ma-az-- letters. It is indeed identical, except the end syllable, which is pronounced "an" in French and "een" in Russian. 

This is perhaps too simplistic to be of any real interest, so we should delve a little deeper into the highbrow.

The word for "landscape" in art? Paysage/Пэйсаж. Choose your alphabet, the two sound the same - the Russians adopted it and transliterated it. The influence of the 19th Century was so profound that it exists in many manifestations today. It was a century of profound cultural significance, and we can compare the works of many great writers from both countries. The one I probably know most about, as I am certainly no expert on this, I jjust had to write an essay or two on it in my second year at university, is Guy de Maupassant and Chekhov. Both are renowned for their use of simple sketchy imagery, or what has been termed 'literary impressionism', and their portrayal of Life as Life is. 

I consider Tours to be a French St Petersburg in many ways. The strong pride of France in its famous people and cultural and literary heritage is displayed - as all, if not most of the roads and avenues are named after someone of note. Just like the Russians, or rather, just like the French. I lament the fact that we do not share this same cultural pride in the UK. A lot of our street names are names of places or old aristocratic families - Denmark Street? Cavendish place? With respect, the aristocracy were only known for their money and power, and arguably not specifically for any feats of intellect. Sure, they may have existed, but the landed gentry are labelled as landed gentry in history - and not intellectuals. I see no mention, except perhaps on post 1960s housing estates - artificially constructed after the war to cope with the housing deficit, of English writers. 

Indeed, there is a street in Bradley Stoke, Bristol (or it may be Stoke Gifford/Filton - they all merge into one, quite frankly), called Paul and Emma Way. Every time I drove past it (ancient history now) I wept a little bit. For those who don't know, this part of Bristol is a post 1980s housing development, in which live a lot of people who commute daily to Bristol and who have moved newly to Bristol from other places. I feel though, that a road must be deserving of its historic name - Dickens Way would not work if it was built in 2005 - one would accuse the town planners of running out of ideas, or if one reads certain newspapers, as being 'out of touch with the working class'. Or something like that. 

I therefore think it is a shame, but a necessary one, that we do not in the UK pay homage to our cultural traditions in the same way as the French and the Russians. We shall just have to cry internally a little more at places such as Paul and Emma way and seek a little comfort in the fact that such places do not tarnish the name of our great writers.