Character Problem: English-Speaking Russian In The 90s

[SFCTaleSpinner]

I've got a problem with part of a story that takes place in early/mid 1990s Russia. I have a character, a Russian girl of about 20, who needs to have a working grasp of spoken English, and I'm struggling with a plausible explanation for why she has this.

As I developed the story outline, she evolved from a character who had a British father. But as my story currently stands, that no longer seems feasible. After all, you would be hard pressed to find an English tourist wandering around Soviet Russia in the 1970s, at the height of the cold war.

Is it at all plausible that this girl might have taken English as a subject in school, as we Americans often take languages like Spanish and French in high school? Again, I suspect that this might not be plausible, as the Soviets worked very hard to keep 'western decadence' from infecting their society. Surely the greatest safeguard against cultural contamination would've been to deter their citizens from even learning the language of the west?

My character is a regular, rural Russian girl; not a sophisticated Moscovite training to be a diplomat (and no, not a secret KGB spy-in-training or CIA sleeper agent, or anything way-out like that). Is there any reasonable way I can give her a working grasp of spoken English? Or is this character just a lost cause?

 

[Bramblethorn]

https://www.rbth.com/education/333297-english-language-learning-problems

 

[PennameWombat]

Hmm. On another thread I posted about my friendship in the 1980s with a Russian-emigre, a twenty-something male who’d ‘escaped’ during the 1970s (mainly) Jewish exodus from the Soviet Union. He had accented but good English, but had issues with slang (and definite and indefinite articles, always an issue for native Russian speakers.) I had a second coworker whose family had similar background. He claimed although like my other acquaintance he’d also had English lessons in school as a boy in the Soviet Union, he’d really learned conversational English as an adolescent/teen watching American television after they’d arrived.

Both were from ‘middle class’ urban backgrounds. They actually had been exposed to English, but the reason they’d left were the families were borderline dissidents, but their parents apparently had some level of English ability (all were various sorts of academics, so while the State didn’t like too much exposure, the needs of scientific research and such meant that some level was unfortunately necessary.)

And. Note both per my acquaintances above, they did teach English in Soviet schools: English in the Soviet Union. Note further, this article mentions the BBC and the Beatles, items touched on below. More links to this are available, but you’ll need to do some research.

There were also various samizdat cells who would acquire books and literature and later recordings of Voice of America and western popular music and they’d distribute this in the underground. It was dangerous and you could find yourself submitting a sudden change of address notice for Siberia… but people did it. I guess the technical term for recordings is magnitizdat (see Wikipedia for this and samizdat movements).

So. One possibility is that your character’s parents were part of this underground and she was exposed to English writings and recordings as part of them participating in the underground. They could’ve even intentionally taught her English as part of their ‘resistance.’ This is less likely if you intend her to be from a truly remote part of the Soviet Union, so you might want to adjust how rural your “rural Russian” girl is.

In addition, they made sure she was enrolled in the ‘right’ classes where English was offered, to give her and them more cover in learning. Note that a key thrust of the linked article was that the English taught was not high level and wouldn’t necessarily get you to a ‘conversational’ level. But learning with her parents she became more fluent.

As part of this, she’d likely have an odd mindset. Her parents would’ve taught her a very healthy sense of paranoia[1] to survive. This would’ve evolved during perestroika and glasnost in the 1980s but she’d have still been quite leery of easily admitting how she’d learned English. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, her skills would’ve suddenly given her plenty of opportunities (mayhaps this is the focus of your story.) But she’d have (IMHO) had to fight her ingrained paranoia to take advantage of this.

So I think you can make your story work, but you might need to make some adjustments.

[1] The full joke is from the 1976 edition of the National Lampoon and their “Foreigners Around the World” article. The Russian section has three teens staring at two pairs of blue jeans on a clothesline and desperately trying to work out how to get some like that [note: blue jeans, denims, Levis, were certainly major status items at a certain point in the Soviet Union.] The punch lines.

“I want a big box of parents,” said the third kid.
“A big box of parents? Why do you want a big box of parents?”
“Because, I only have two parents and my sister turned both of them into the Secret Police and now she owns both of those pairs of blue jeans.”

 

[HordHolm]

Could you tun it around, and have the character she needs to interact with having a working knowledge of Russian?

Failing that, one aspect of Soviet (and Soviet satellite) socialist education was to promote the education of 'ordinary proletarian' people rather that those who were perceived as privileged. With that in mind it's possible that someone showing some talent for languages could have been diverted into a language focussed education. The Soviets, after all, needed translators and the like to act as tourist guides and helpers in business, never mind the requirements of the security services. And other industries also needed a certain number of English speakers, e.g. the airline industry and air traffic control, banking (they did have some, particularly international), and medicine (my Polish doctor mother-in-law learnt some basic English as part of her medical training back in the 1970s), plus foreign embassies also needed local staff (as they do to this day). All in all, I think there is enough leeway to make it credible.

 

[KeithD]

I've traveled (and lived in) the world. Since WWII, English has been the international language of commerce. Everywhere I've gone/lived English has been a heavily emphasized subject in schools and the use of English has been prevalent. There's no reason a Russian educated in the 1990s wouldn't have a good grasp of English through their schooling, especially if their preparation was in business or the sciences.

 

[TarnishedPenny]

Looking at a Canadian news magazine c. 1957, it shows Soviet schoolchildren studying foreign languages in Grades 7, 8 and 9. Despite the repressive nature of the state, there’s no reason to think foreign languages would not be studied and, as noted above, some fairly obvious ones for them being taught with official blessing. Now, three or four hours a week for just three years wouldn’t bring much but the basics, but that’s about what you were looking for, I think.

 

[DarkWhispers2U]

I've got a problem with part of a story that takes place in early/mid 1990s Russia. I have a character, a Russian girl of about 20, who needs to have a working grasp of spoken English, and I'm struggling with a plausible explanation for why she has this.

As I developed the story outline, she evolved from a character who had a British father. But as my story currently stands, that no longer seems feasible. After all, you would be hard pressed to find an English tourist wandering around Soviet Russia in the 1970s, at the height of the cold war.

Is it at all plausible that this girl might have taken English as a subject in school, as we Americans often take languages like Spanish and French in high school? Again, I suspect that this might not be plausible, as the Soviets worked very hard to keep 'western decadence' from infecting their society. Surely the greatest safeguard against cultural contamination would've been to deter their citizens from even learning the language of the west?

My character is a regular, rural Russian girl; not a sophisticated Moscovite training to be a diplomat (and no, not a secret KGB spy-in-training or CIA sleeper agent, or anything way-out like that). Is there any reasonable way I can give her a working grasp of spoken English? Or is this character just a lost cause?

For decades the people of the Soviet Union have had access to American music and programming. Most of my English and Second Language students from across the globe learned some English from cartoons, radio, etc.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

From around 1988 there was much more push to learn English in Eastern Europe, so if she'd been lucky with her high school , tried hard with radio, and known people with videos and soon satellite TV and then maybe had a year or two in college or with a job dealing with tourists and travellers, it's plausible enough. In 1992-4 I travelled round East Germany and other countries and they had at least one class in town who had learnt conversational-level English, though travel bureaus hadn't always managed to match up with the English speakers.

Russians I know of that age tended to learn at least some English, French or German.

 

[SFCTaleSpinner]

Thank you everyone! Apparently my concerns about the scarcity of English in 90s Russia were unfounded.

There were also various samizdat cells who would acquire books and literature and later recordings of Voice of America and western popular music and they’d distribute this in the underground. It was dangerous and you could find yourself submitting a sudden change of address notice for Siberia… but people did it. I guess the technical term for recordings is magnitizdat (see Wikipedia for this and samizdat movements).

Yes, I was familiar with this underground Soviet subculture and how heavily frowned-upon this was by the authorities. I guess this gave me some inaccurate preconceptions about how the Soviet authorities regarded the presence of English overall.