Russian for interior, French for exterior. C'est pas compliqué. Quand on sort on met son français. Quand on rentre à la maison, on l'enlève. Now you can start to remove the image in the ascensor. Drink s'il ya des voisins. S'il ya des voisins on attend. Bonjour. Bonjour. Source floor? Bon appetite.
Polina Panassenko, Tenir sa langue
Russian inside, French outside. It's not complicated. When you go out, you put on your French. When you come home, you take it off. You can even start undressing in the elevator. Unless there are neighbors. If there are neighbors, you wait. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Which floor? Enjoy your meal.
The adult Pauline wants to reclaim her birth name, Polina, in court. Naturalization as assimilation in the sense of French universalism is no longer a given in a diverse society. In Pauline/Polina's case, this wasn't the first political name change, as the Jewish family from Ukraine had to accept the Russification of their name while fleeing. The ancestor who gave the family its name was originally named Pessah. The parents themselves were afraid that Pauline would face discrimination with her foreign name, Polina.
Vous savez bien, madame, that si votre nom a été francisé, c'est pour faciliter votre integration dans la société française.
Bien sûr que je le sais. C'est écrit sur demarches.interieur.gouv. « Afin de faciliter votre integration, you can demand the francization of your nom de famille et/ou de vos prénoms. » Here are the examples:
Ahmed becomes Alain.
Polina Panassenko, Tenir sa langue
Giovanni becomes Charles.
Antonia becomes Adrienne.
Kouassi becomes Paul.
You know perfectly well, Madame, that your name was Frenchified to make it easier for you to integrate into French society.
Of course I know that. It says so on demarches.interieur.gouv. "To facilitate your integration, you can apply to have your family name and/or given names Frenchified." There are even examples:
Ahmed becomes Alain.
Giovanni becomes Charles.
Antonia becomes Adrienne.
Kouassi becomes Paul.
To tell a story of life between two languages from a child's perspective – this inherently poetic experience is offered to us by Polina Panassenko in her autofictional text. Tenir sa langueThe cultural situation of In Between This is not a postcolonial one like Bhabha's, but one of European multilingualism, more precisely a Russian-French one.
When I realized that my mother was froid, there was a sensation in the bouche. Ça me gratte. La langue, la gorge, le palais. Ça me démange, comme la croûte du genou écorché. J'ai la bouche astringente. This is the base of the interior of the gorge. Une envie de la gratter au-dedans. In an animated design that fits in the jungle, we have a gray and large grater with a palm tree. C'est ça que je voudrais faire. Je tousse un peu, je grogne. Je pousse quelques sons aspirés, gutturaux. Quelque chose se passe. Ça fait du bien. Ça soulage. Is it a tropical place in Russia that is coincé pendant from the motherboard or is it French that is installed and met with the expulsor? Ma sœur se réveille, se relève d'un coup. Qu'est-ce que tu as? Qu'est-ce qui t'arrive? Pourquoi tu respires like this? J'ai la langue qui me gratte.
Polina Panassenko, Tenir sa langue
When I wake up, the wall is cold and I have a strange sensation in my mouth. It's scratchy. My tongue, my throat, my palate. It itches like the scab of a scraped knee. My mouth is astringent. It's coming from below, from inside my throat. A desire to scratch it from the inside. In a cartoon set in the jungle, I saw a big, gray bear scratching himself with a palm tree. I'd like to do that, too. I cough a little, I grunt. I let out a few aspirated, guttural sounds. Something is happening. It feels good. It brings relief. Is it too much Russian that got stuck during maternal nuptials, or is it French that's taking root and starting to expel it? My sister wakes up and jumps to her feet. What's wrong with you? What's wrong with you? Why are you breathing like that? My tongue itches.
Marine Landrot writes in Télérama"Not that she rejects the French language; quite the contrary, the quality of her writing proves it. The story she tells of her journey as a fighter shines with her sense of humor and ellipsis. For a long time, she had to obey the order to keep her mouth shut, as the title suggests. Silence about Russian, which one is supposed to forget. Silence about French, which must be perfected. Today, she reaffirms her language, as one reaffirms one's rank: dignified, inventive, self-assured." 1
Sophie Joubert's beautiful and meticulous critique emphasizes that the friction between the two languages in the experience of exile acquires a unique aesthetic appeal: "The narrative, framed by the opening and closing of McDonald's in Moscow—a thirty-year period—reflects, through the eyes of a child and then a young woman, the strangeness of emigration, the back and forth between Russian and French. 'I love the ambivalence of the famous millimeter of air above the ground that Marina Tsvetaeva spoke of in connection with poetry. That is what fiction brings me; after a while, I no longer know what is real and what I have invented.'" 2
The magic of reacquiring a language in kindergarten and of childhood bilingualism unfolds in the scenes in a touching and impressive way. In her review, Christine Marcandier emphasizes that such a style of ambiguity, a force field between two homelands, also represents a new awareness: “In Polina’s childhood, she doesn’t learn social codes as in the traditional Bildungsroman, but languages. When her family moves to Saint-Étienne, she has to go to kindergarten without speaking a word of French. She listens, tries to reproduce what she hears phonetically, and has to admit to herself that ‘sava’ in French is not the same as in Russian.” Owl This means — “I don’t know why you have to say ‘owl’ here to exchange messages.” The little girl moves through a thick, dark, disorienting world, into which the narrator immerses us with sentences peppered with phonetic neologisms and Russian words. But gradually, islands of meaning emerge, the territory becomes clearer, perhaps another homeland, that of irony, the true figure of the in-between. 3
My mother also has my Russian commesurable to the dernier on the coucous migrant. Ma langue est son nid. Ma bouche, la cavité qui l'abrite. Plusieurs fois par semaine, ma mère m'amène de new mots, verifie l'état de ceux qui sont déjà là, s'assure qu'on n'en perd pas en route. The global population equilibrium survey. Le flux migratoire: les entrées and sorties des mots russes et français. Gardienne d'un vaste territoire dont les frontières sont en pourparlers. Russian. Français. Russian. Français. Sentinelle de la langue, elle veille au poste-frontière. Pas de melange. Elle traque les fugitifs français hébergés par mon russe. Ils passent dos Courbé, tête dans les épaules, se glissent sous la barrière. It's installed with the Russians, but it's also very copulent, just like it's more attractive. En général, ils se piègent eux-mêmes. Il suffit que je convoque un mot russe et qu'un français accoure en meme temps que lui. Vu! My sailing and decoration are similar to the crevettes surgelées d'Ochane-Santr'Dieu. On ne dit pas garovatsia. One says parkovatsia ou garer la voiture. Next time that garovatsia arrive je lui dis non, pousse-toi, laisse passer parkovatsia.
My mother guards my Russian like the last egg of a wandering cuckoo. My tongue is her nest. My mouth is the cavity that houses it. Several times a week, my mother brings me new words, checks the condition of those I already have, and makes sure we don't lose any along the way. She monitors the balance of the entire population. The migration flow: the comings and goings of Russian and French words. Guardian of a vast territory whose borders are being negotiated. Russian. French. Russian. French. As guardian of language, she watches over the border post. No mixing. She tracks down French refugees being sheltered by my Russian. They walk with bent backs, heads tucked into their shoulders, slipping under the fence. They settle down with the Russians, sometimes even copulating, until my mother catches them. Mostly, they set a trap for themselves. It's enough for me to say a Russian word, and a Frenchman comes running at the same time. All clear! My mother grabs them and peels them like the frozen prawns from Ochane-Santr'Dieu. One doesn't say garovatsiaIt is said parkovatsia or garer la voiture, park the car. If garovatsia Next time, I'll say no, get out of the way, let it happen. parkovatsia .
This article is written in German and can be found at https://rentree.de. Automatic translations into English and French are available. English, French.
Notes- "Non pas qu'elle rejette la langue française, bien au contraire, la qualité de son écriture en est la preuve. Le récit qu'elle offre de son parcours de combattante brille par son senses de l'humour et de l'ellipse. Longtemps elle dut obéir à l'injonction de tenir sa langue, Convoquée in the title. Silence sur le russe, à oublier. Silence sur le français, à perfectionner, elle tient sa langue comme on tient son rang, digne, inventive, assured.”>>>
- "Borné par l'ouverture et la fermeture du McDonald's de Moscou, a parenthèse de trente ans, le récit restitue à travers les yeux d'une enfant puis d'une young femme l'étrangeté de l'émigration, les allers et returns between le russe et le français. «J'aime L'ambivalence du fameux millimètre d'air au-dessus du sol dont parlait Marina Tsvetaïeva à propos de la poésie. C'est ce que m'apporte la fiction, au bout d'un moment je ne sais plus ce qui est réel ou ce que j'ai inventé.”” Sophie Joubert, “Laisser pousser les mauvaises herbes”, Humanity, August 26, 2022.>>>
- "The education of Polina is in the celle of an apprentissage, non pas des codes sociaux comme dans the roman de formation traditionnel mais des langues. Quand sa famille s'installe à Saint-Étienne, il lui faut aller à la materneltchik sans parler un mot de français. Elle écoute, tente de reproduire phonétiquement ce qu'elle entend, doit admettre que « sava » en français ne signifie pas hibou comme en russe — « Je ne sais pas pourquoi ici il faut dire « hibou » pour se donner des nouvelles » La petite fille évolue dans un monde épais, obscur, sans repères, dans lequel la narratrice nous Plonge with ses phrases émaillées de néologismes phonétiques et de mots russes. Pourtant peu à peu des îlots de sens se dessinent, le territoire s'éclaircit, une autre patrie peut-être, celle de l'ironie, figure même de l'entre-deux." Christine Marcandier, “Polina Panassenko: avoir enfin voix au chapitre (Tenir sa langue)" Diacriticism, August 23, 2022.>>>
