Our Notes & References

First edition of the most substantial Russian grammar in French at that time. A lovely copy in wrappers, complete with its large and attractive folding plate, and including a catalogue of Hamonière’s works, showing an extensive interest in European languages.

Scarce on the market: we could trace only two copies at auction, including one sold in 1964.

Hamonière’s Grammar takes place straight after two earlier Franco-Russian works by him, also published by Barrois fils: a Vocabulaire français et russe… (1815, also printed at the prestigious Imprimerie Royale) and Dialogues russes et français à l’usage des deux nations… (1816). Hamonière was well aware of the practical needs of his readers. In the introduction to this comprehensive opus, he asserts that it is the first useful and accessible Russian grammar in French, following two earlier works that “are far from being of great help to students” (our translation). These were Jean-Baptiste Charpentier’s “extrêmement incomplète” Éléments de la langue russe (Saint Petersburg, 1768), which was largely a translation of Mikhail Lomonsov’s Rossiiskaia grammatika (Saint Petersburg, 1755), and the Elemens raisonnés de la langue Russe (Paris, 1802) by Jean Baptiste Maudru, which he describes as “néologie grammaticale, peut-être très savant[e], mais tout-à-fait inintelligible”.

Beginning with the alphabet and pronunciation guidance, the textbook is organised into chapters dedicated to each part of speech; each chapter opens with an introduction outlining the relevant grammatical principles and functions. The section on nouns and their declensions is structured into subchapters based on noun endings and types, even including rules for forming feminine nouns from masculine ones. The chapter on adjectives follows a similar structure, incorporating comparative and contracted forms, as well as an entertaining variety of superlative and diminutive examples. It also features a separate section on adjectives related to nationalities, patronymics, and possessives, along with a substantial subchapter on numerals. Verbs are presented across all possible tenses, covering four types of conjugations with detailed examples. Prepositions are introduced with explanations of the cases they are used with and the verbs they accompany. The final chapters explore syntax, orthography, punctuation, and prosody, with the author making (not always successful) attempts to establish logical patterns for the shifting stress in Russian words.

A handful of examples has small errors, possibly because Hamonière misheard their use or simply guessed forms of a few uncommon words; some other words and expressions are colloquial or now antiquated, yet they vividly reflect the language that French-speaking visitors may have encountered not only in high society, but also on the streets in Saint Petersburg of the early 19th century.

The appendix includes an introduction to the Old Church Slavonic alphabet and numerals, accompanied by substantial examples of words and sentences; a variety of honorific titles and forms of address for various ranks and dignitaries, a brief discussion of the three main Russian dialects—Moscow, Northern, and Ukrainian—and a fine folding plate with the best examples of Russian calligraphic script.

A two-page catalogue of Hamonière’s publications can be found at the end. It shows that he also wrote, maybe more unusually, a French grammar for Russian speakers, but published in France rather than Russia. He must have a busy man at the turn of the ‘Resturation’, since he published a Grammaire anglaise (1817), a French-English conversation book and dictionary (1816), and conversation books in Spanish (1815) and Portuguese (1817). A few years later he also produced the similarly structured Grammaire espagnole (1818, 1821) and a Grammaire portugaise (1820).

Our Grammaire russe was republished by Théophile Barrois in 1844 without any significant changes to its content—or even its preface.