petty bourgeois--how old?

[R. M. Cleminson]

In 19th-c. Russian, the phrase "melkiy burzhua/burzhuy" would certainly not have been used in official language or as the name of a recognised class of Russian society: the word used in such circles and for such purposes was мещанство.

The French word seems to appear in Russian about the middle of the 19th century, and to be used at first to refer to a Western European social class or its moeurs, precisely as distinct from those existing in Russia, for example, in Dostoevskij's notebooks: "С Петровской реформой, с жизнью европейской мы приняли в себя буржуазию и отделились от народа, как и на Западе."  It seems to acquire its pejorative or politically loaded sense later, from Marxian usage.

In French, by contrast, the expression "petit bourgeois" was the normal designation for a member of the urban lower middle classes at least as early as the seventeenth century and did not express any moral or emotional attitude (except possibly aristocratic disdain).

----- Pôvodná správa -----
Od: "Jules Levin" <ameliede at EARTHLINK.NET>
Komu: SEELANGS at bama.ua.edu
Odoslané: štvrtok, 10. máj 2012 23:47:00
Predmet: [SEELANGS] petty bourgeois--how old?

How old is the phrase "melkiy burzhua/burzhuy"? 
If used in the 19th Century, would it have been used as an official class or category, or only in the 
rhetorical style of certain circles? 
Jules Levin 
Los Angeles 
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