Background: As part of the Education and Social Justice Project, in June 2012 undergraduate student Masha Goncharova interviewed Vassilissa and Marie Kedroff, university students and members of the Sokoli (Russian “Scouts”) youth Orthodox organization in Paris. In this interview the Kedroffs discuss their experience growing up with dual French and Russian identities, the role of the Orthodox Church and youth organizations in shaping their Russian identity, and the future of the Russian émigré community in France.
Tell me about yourselves, how you grew up in France, and how you learned Russian.
Marie Kedroff: Our mother spoke to us in Russian, and our father spoke to us in French. We learned Russian in the Russian school here in Alexander Nevsky [Cathedral] when we were 5 years old.
How did you like Russian school when you were growing up?
Vassilissa Kedroff: It felt like home. We watched Russian movies and cartoons and read Russian books. For us, Russian school felt like home. When we went to French school, we knew we were going to school. So we just knew there was both Russian school and French school.
What did you like more, French or Russian school?
M. Kedroff: French school.
V. Kedroff: Both.
Where did you have more friends?
V. Kedroff: French.
When you were growing up, did you identify yourself as Russian or French?
V. Kedroff: I was never really sure, but I always knew I was Russian, and also that I was French, but never completely sure one way or the other.
M. Kedroff: Before going to school, I felt completely Russian. We went to Russian school, Russian church, and our family friends were other Russian émigrés. But when we started going to French school in our teens, we found French friends, and then I became a French girl, and now I feel French.
V. Kedroff: And we have quite a bit of friends who are at once French and Russian, and our parents all grew up together from the first wave of the Russian émigrés, and we bond with those friends a lot because we have such a close history.
When you went to Russian school, did you think the teachers would push the Russian culture or identity on you?
V. Kedroff: No, they really just taught us Russian history, grammar, etc. But they did not try to tell us that “we are all Russian” or that “we must love Russia” or anything like that. We just learned the history and language.
M. Kedroff: The Law of God class in our school was the most valuable in terms of teaching us that we are all Russian Orthodox, and that we should definitely preserve this aspect [of] ourselves.
If you traveled to Russia right now, do you think you'd feel yourself at home anywhere on the street, or just in the church?
M. Kedroff and V. Kedroff (in one voice): The church!
M. Kedroff: That's why I said I'm not Russian. I'm Russian pre-revolution, but today's Russians are something entirely different. In Russian school they tried to paint for us a pretty picture of Russia, pre-revolution, czarist Russia. We think and know that today it's not like that at all.
There are three main youth organizations in the émigré community. Yours, the Scouts, seems to stress Russian culture and language the most. What was your experience like in the Scouts?
M. Kedroff: We became Scouts at 6 years old. They teach us Russian. We sing songs in Russian, learn about our ancestors. We study the law of God.
V. Kedroff: But a big part of the Scouts is also learning how to be kind to others, how to live in the forest, how to build a tent, but through all those things we learn about teamwork and service to others. And it's all done in the Russian tradition of action and service—doing things.
How do Scouts help others?
V. Kedroff: Older generations help and teach younger generations. If someone doesn't understand something, or needs help, we learn how to help them.
What about the main other two youth organizations—Vitizei and ACER [Russian Students Action Organization]? Do you have friends in those organizations, and how do you feel about them?
V. Kedroff: We rarely meet kids from the other organizations. Of course we all know each other as part of the larger Russian Orthodox community. When we were little, everyone spoke in Russian, and we used to all meet more regularly. The small differences among the organizations matter a lot, I guess. In Scouts, everything is still in Russian. The activities the three groups do are practically the same—reading circles, movie groups, of course the summer camps. There are just different ways of approaching our language and culture with our Russian or French identities.
Do you think the Scouts foster a sense of social justice among the Russian Orthodox community in France?
M. Kedroff: It really depends. For me, it's the [Russian] Orthodox religion that matters most. My volunteer work, my family activity, and my church activity is most valuable to me because in all of those places our closest bond is our religion. But I was born here into the French culture. I love French literature and language as some of the most valuable parts of my life and education. In that respect, I would even value French literature above Russian, simply because I don't know today's Russian culture. So we in the Scouts, what we preserve is a small section of Russian culture that we inherited from our ancestors.
What role do you think Russian education has had in your life—your spiritual life?
M. Kedroff: It has really been a great plus for us. Today's Russian-speaking émigrés, even if we're the fourth generation, can meet each other and have this truly close and incredible connection of language and of our cultural history. But not only that, the Russian language is a good tool to get a better job. I'd like to be a Russo-French translator. In France, the preparatory exams [for] this are very difficult, and they've just accepted me into a translator’s school. So my goal is to work and get my master's [degree] and work for an organization like the UN or a European group, because the relationship between Europe and Russia is of course very interesting.
V. Kedroff: I think I'll probably try to become a translator like Marie, but I'm a year younger so I'm still deciding. With Russian, I know it's easier to go into international commerce, or into business or journalism, so the language is a big plus for me.
What do you think about your relatives who moved to Paris?
V. Kedroff: Our great-grandfather was a famous musician in Russia. He would play the piano. We have been told that when he moved to Paris, he had a really difficult time leaving Russia.
Why?
V. Kedroff: Because France was a completely different country with different traditions and customs. I think they quickly assimilated though, and the fact that they saved the Russian culture probably helped them integrate.
Have your Russian and French identities ever been put in tension with each other?
V. Kedroff: When we were at La Rosiere in the mountains, there were Ukrainian-Russian dancers who were giving a performance in the town. And my older sister Nastya and I didn't know where to sit afterwards—with the Russians or the French. We wanted to talk to both, but didn't know where to sit. We were so interested in hearing what the Russians were talking about, [but] we felt tied to speaking to the French too.
Do you ever consider going back to Russia?
M. Kedroff: I would maybe want to go for a year. Actually this is a requirement for my university translator’s degree. I absolutely don't know what life is like over there, so I'm not sure.
V. Kedroff: I would also want to go, maybe for a year. Of course I am interested, because all of our ancestors are from there. It's our heritage, after all.
Did you ever feel like you wanted to reject your Russian identities?
V. Kedroff: Not really. Even in French school everyone knew we were Russian. Sometimes in elementary school I would write my name in Russian and the teacher would ask why, but all of my friends knew.
M. Kedroff: When we were little our mom would only speak to us in Russian. But when we were entering school, we really got fed up with the language. We didn't feel like we were in France when we were at home. I remember with our mom we had a lot of challenges because she wouldn't let us speak in French.
V. Kedroff: I actually remember our sister Alexandra, she only learned French when she was 5 or 6 years old. We were pretty upset, because she didn't really understand that we lived in France. She thought because our household is entirely Russian, that so was she.
In your religious life, how do you feel living in Catholic France?
M. Kedroff: France is not Catholic anymore. There isn't really any feeling of religious encroachment from the Catholics. Most French are atheists. The fact that we're Orthodox doesn't bother us, and in fact we've often noted that our Orthodoxy is so much stronger and more passionate than the current state of the Catholic faith.
V. Kedroff: Many of my friends are baptized, but they don't believe in God. Catholics get baptized at birth, but they don't really believe or practice their religion. So our friends are non-believers, as are most in France, so it doesn't bother our Orthodoxy at all.
It seems that most aspects of your lives are split—even in the professional sphere, you have found room for Russian. But for the first question, you answered that you feel more French than Russian.
M. Kedroff: It depends on the context. My mom is completely Russian. My father, on the other hand, feels spiritually Russian—the way he thinks and acts is fundamentally Russian. But, linguistically and on an everyday level, he is French. Our sister also feels only spiritually Russian. Our aunts don't speak Russian—but they say that they still feel Russian in their thoughts and manners of acting, but they are French after all. Our larger family, ever since we moved here, in terms of Russian culture has lived like on a cloud—not in France. And the more generations that follow, the more they will feel themselves like French kids.
V. Kedroff: I'm actually really worried about the future when I have kids. I don't want to teach my kids mistakes, but I don't speak Russian grammatically well, and moreover I have a French accent! So I hope I'll marry a Russian so he can teach our kids proper Russian!
What do you think will happen to Russians in Paris in 10 years?
V. Kedroff: Well, if you even look at ACER, everyone speaks in French. I think that all those who speak in French already are just the start. The new Russians who come to France, I hope they teach their kids Russian, but it will probably be the same story. They will lose it after generations.
M. Kedroff: I think it depends on the marriages. If a Russian marries a French person, then they'll even sooner become French. But it's the Orthodox religion that keeps our community strong. So, our faith will always be here. But it'll be practiced in French.
Do the different Orthodox youth groups in Paris differ in their views towards the politics and society of Russia today?
M. Kedroff: There are many misunderstandings today. For instance, in ACER, which is the most Francophile of the organizations, they really criticize Russian politics. It's because their very French perspective is fundamentally Western. They think like a Westerner thinks about Russian culture. But what can we call Russia? What do we understand about the place now? It doesn't matter if you are in ACER or a Scout, our entire émigré community has a different understanding of what Russia is, because none of us really know what it's like. I have this idealized picture of Russian people and the beauty of the Russian land, but I know that this is just in my imagination from pictures in books before the revolution.
Why do you feel disconnected from Russian people who live in Russia today?
M. Kedroff: Those who lived in Russia when it became the USSR have a completely different feeling of life that we will never understand. Of course Russian politics and the dialogue between the West and Russia are really misunderstood. It's a bit of a paradoxical feeling. We all say how much we love Russia: that it's beautiful, it's our country and our homeland, and that we need to defend and protect it. ACER even gives money to programs that help the impoverished Russian people. But this feeling doesn't go beyond that. On the other hand we constantly criticize it, because the country is different; the politics are not what they should be; even the church is not real because it is so enmeshed in politics. So we try to have our own personal love of Russia, but it's not a contemporary one or one that actively would encourage us to go and live there.
V. Kedroff: Some of us see the cultural value and quality of the people who come from Russia and visit us. They are very smart and educated. But they tell us, and we also hear from newspapers, that there are bad people and bad events happening there. So who's to know? Some feel that communism really ruined everything good about the country, but others think that the people have still remained the same before or after communism; it's just the leadership that's making the country worse. So I don't think we should say that politics has ruined everything, because after all I think Russia still does have its good sides.