INTRODUCTION TO RUSSIAN STUDIES:

The Silver Age, 1881-1927

Prof. Shoshana Keller TTh 1 - 2:15

Office: KJ 236 telephone: x4358 e-mail: skeller

Office hours: Monday 2 - 3:30

Thursday 10 - 11:30

A team-taught introduction to the civilization of Russia through an examination of its historical, cultural, artistic, and political development. The Silver Age was a period of explosive cultural change. Russian music, dance, literature, and fine arts in this period astonished the world, while Russian political and social experiments terrified it. We will study Russia at its most glorious and its most bloodthirsty, and try to understand how such creativity and destruction can co-exist. Writing Intensive: you will write four 4 - 5 page essays on assigned topics and one 10-page essay or research paper on a topic of your choice. There will be no exams.

Grade breakdown: Attendance and participation: 15%

Four essays: 15% each

Final paper: 25%

Required texts

Hans Rogger. Russia in the Age of Modernisation and Revolution, 1881-1917. London: Longman Group Limited, 1983.

Soloman Volkov. St. Petersburg: a cultural history. New York: The Free Press, 1995.

January 21 – 25: Introduction

Tuesday: Introduction to course

video: Le sacre du printemps as reconstructed by the Joffrey Ballet, 1991.

Thursday: Learn the Cyrillic alphabet [John Bartle]

Reading: Volkov, Preface and Chpt. 1. Alexander Pushkin, “The Bronze Horseman.” (AJT84>, “;,*>Z6 &F"*>48”) Hear Lora Paperno read the poem, at http://132.236.21.132/horseman/index.htm

Jan. 28 – February 1: Literature after the Great Reforms

T: The Great Reforms transform Russia

Th: The Cherry Orchard [J. Bartle]

WRITING ASSIGNMENT No. 1

Reading: Rogger, Chpts. 1 and 2. Anton Chekhov: The Cherry Orchard (Q,N@&: %4T>,&Z6 F"*) Elena Molokhovets, A Gift to Young Housewives (;@:@N@&,P: A@*"D@8 <@:@*Z< N@2b68"<) translated by Joyce Toomre. Pages 33-40, 47-51, plus sample recipes

February 4 – 8: Fine arts and music

T: Revolution in painting: the Wanderers (A,D,*&40>484)

Th: Tchaikovsky and the “Mighty Five” (Q"68@&F846 4 “;@(R"b 8JR8"”)

ASSIGNMENT DUE

Reading: Volkov, Chapter 2 “Pikovaia dama,” final scene “Boris Godunov,” [1874] coronation scene and Act II, scene 2 “the clock scene” “The Nutcracker,” Act II entertainments scene

Feb. 11 – 15 : Political and social experiments

T: Radicals on the left and right

Th: New society

WRITING ASSIGNMENT No. 2

Reading: Rogger, Chpts. 6 and 7. Primary writings by Figner, Pobedonostsev, Kanatchikov

(from James Cracraft, ed. Major Problems in the History of Imperial Russia)

Feb. 18 – 22: Revolution and its theories

T: The Russo-Japanese War and 1905

Th: Theories of revolution

Reading: Rogger, Chpts. 8 and 10. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The Communist Manifesto (1848). Lev D. Trotsky, excerpt from Results and Prospects (1906, Chpts. 4-8)

Feb. 25 – March 1: Art Avant-garde

T: Wild Art: Constructivism and Suprematism [Frank Sciacca]

ASSIGNMENT DUE

Th: Musical explosion: Igor’ Stravinsky (3(@D\ EHD"&4>F846) [Heather Buchman]

reading: Volkov, Chapter 3. Rogger, Chpt. 11

March 4 – 8: Russia in Paris

T: Diaghelev and the Ballets Russe [Catherine Kodat]

Th: Dance and the Devil

Reading: Volkov, Chpt. 4 Kristi Goberg, “‘The Shade of Lucifer’s Dark Wing’: Satanism in Silver Age Russia,” from Beatrice Glatzer Rosenthal, ed. The Occult in Russian and Soviet Culture. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1997, pp. 99-134

March 11 – 15: The Last Tsar

T: Nicky and Sunny in 1916-7

Th: What happened to the royal family?

WRITING ASSIGNMENT No. 3

Reading: Rogger, Chpts. 12 and 13. Romanov packet: Material from The Letters of the Tsaritsa to the Tsar (pp. 404-411); Radzinsky, The Last Tsar (pp. 357-373, + misc.); Steinberg and Khrustalov, The Fall of the Romanovs (pp. 297-366); William Maples, Dead Men Do Tell Tales (pp. 251-268, plus pictures)

MARCH 18 – 29 SPRING BREAK

April 1 – 5: Avant-garde opera

T: Maiakovskii, Malevich, and “Victory Over the Sun.” ASSIGNMENT DUE

Th: Slavic research at Hamilton - meet your library

Reading: Maiakovskii, Victory Over the Sun. Re-creation of 1913 performance, directed by Robert Benedetti, 1980. PG 3476.K767 P613 View Act I, group reading of Act II. Robert Benedetti, “Reconstructing Victory Over the Sun,” The Drama Review Vol. 28, No. 3(Fall 1984): pp. 17–31.

April 8 – 12: New Soviet film

T: Revolution in film: Vertov and Eisenstein

Th: Man with a Movie Camera; October; The Battleship Potemkin [excerpts]

Reading: Sergei Eisenstein, “The Montage of Attractions (1923)”; “The Montage of Film Attractions (1924)”; and Denise Youngblood, Movies for the Masses, Introduction and chapters 1 and 2.

April 15 – 19: Two steps forward, one step back

T: Proletkult

W: NEP

WRITING ASSIGNMENT No. 4

Reading: V. I. Lenin, Speech at the 10th Party Congress; Nikolai Bukharin and Evgenii Preobrazhenskii: The ABC of Communism [=. #JN"D4>, +. AD,@$D"0,>F846: !2$J8" 7@<<J>42<"], Chpt. 6 “The Soviet Power”; Chpt. 11 “Communism and Religion.” Richard Stites, Revolutionary Dreams: Utopian Vision and Experimental Life in the Russian Revolution Chpt. 3, “Revolutionary Iconoclasm.”

April 22 – 26: New Soviet People

T: Love, sex, and religion

Th: Socialism, technology and magic

ASSIGNMENT DUE

Reading: Stites, Chpt. 5, “Godless Religion.” Wendy Z. Goldman, “Working Class Women and the “Withering Away” of the Family,” in Russia in the Era of NEP, 1991. Paraskeva Ivanova, “Why I do Not Belong in the Party,” from Fitzpatrick and Slezkine, eds., In the Shadow of Revolution: Life Stories of Russian Women from 1917 to the Second World War. Princeton: Princeton UP, 2000, pp. 213-218. Excerpt from Mess-Mend by )04< )@::"D (Marietta Shaginian). Anthony Vanchu, “Technology as Esoteric Cosmology in Early Soviet Literature,” in Beatrice Glatzer Rosenthal, ed. The Occult in Russian and Soviet Culture. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1997, pp. 203-222.

April 29 – May 3: The workers’ paradise?

T: The death of St. Petersburg, the birth of Leningrad

Th: You are Gosplan [Sharon Rivera]

Reading: William J. Chase, Workers, society, and the Soviet state : labor and life in Moscow, 1918-1929. Chpt. 5, “Daily Life in Moscow, 1921-1929.”

May 6 – 10: Cultural Revolution

T: Elite vs ordinary culture

Th: End of experiments

Reading: Volkov, Chpt. 5 to p. 416. Stites, Chpt. 11, “War on the Dreamers.” J. V. Stalin, Foundations of Leninism, Chpts. 4-6.

FINAL PAPERS DUE WEDNESDAY, MAY 15 AT 5 PM