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Course Description     Course Requisites     Schedule of Readings     Screenings    

Russian Studies

Schedule and Assignments

I. Before the Revolution

Death of the Old Culture

From ENTERTAINING TSARIST RUSSIA. Edited James von Geldern and Louise McReynolds (1998). On reserve: DK32.E6 1998.

  • M.D. Klefortov. Light-Fingered Sonya (1903).
  • The Bloody Talisman. Nat Pinkerton, King of Detectives (1915).
  • V. V. Ramazanov. Rasputin's Nighttime Orgies (1917).
  • Aleksandr Bogdanov. Red Star: The First Bolshevik Utopia (1908), pp. 59-81.

Supplemental

  • Silent Witnesses: Russian Films 1908-1919. Coord. Yuri Tsivian (1989). Introduction, pp. 10-43. PN1993.5.R9 S55 1989

Movie. February 5: A LIFE FOR A LIFE. Director Evgenii Bauer (1916). HUM402.

II. The Revolution and New Regime, 1917-1921

MASS CULTURE IN SOVIET RUSSIA, 1917-1953, ed. James von Geldern and Richard Stites (1995), pp. 3-120.

  • We Grow Out of Iron, Alexei Gastev (1918)
  • The Iron Messiah, Vladimir Kirillov (1918)
  • We, Mikhail Gerasimov (1919)
  • The War of Kings (1918)
  • Send Off, A Red Army Song. Demian Bedny (1918)
  • Solemn Oath On Induction into the Worker-Peasant Red Army (1918)
  • The Young Guard, Aleksandr Bezymensky (1918)
  • Letters from the Eastern Front, Larisa Reisner (1918)
  • For the Cause of the Red Soviets, Pavel Arsky (1919)
  • Toward a World Commune (1920)

Supplemental

III. The New Economic Policy, 1921-1927

MASS CULTURE IN SOVIET RUSSIA, 1917-1953, ed. James von Geldern and Richard Stites (1995), pp. 3-120.

  • Mess-Mend, Marietta Shaginian (1923). Summary at SOVLIT.COM
  • The Little Red Devils, P. Bliakhin (1923)
  • Buzzer-Fly, Kornei Chukovsky (1924)
  • The Lady Aristocrat, Mikhail Zoshchenko (1923)
  • Chapaev, Dmitry Furmanov (1923)
  • Evening of Books, Vitaly Zhemchuzhny (1924)
  • Blue Blouse Skit (1924)
  • Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, Vladimir Mayakovsky (1924)
  • Voyage of the 'Red Star' Pioneer Troop to Wonderland, Innokenty Zhukov (1924)
  • V. I. Ulianov (N. Lenin), A. I. Ulianova (1925)
  • Heard in Moscow, Radio-newspaper correspondence Report Nº 285 (1925)

Supplemental

Movies

February 12: EXTRAORDINARY ADVENTURES OF MR. WEST IN THE LAND OF THE BOLSHEVIKS (1924). Director Lev Kuleshov. HUM401

February 19: BED AND SOFA (1926). Director Abram Room. HUM401

February 26: THE BATTLESHIP POTEMKIN (1926). Director Sergei Eisenstein. HUM402

IV. The Cultural Revolution, 1928-1932

MASS CULTURE IN SOVIET RUSSIA, 1917-1953: A Reader, pp. 123-213.

  • How Lenin and the Tsar Divided Up the People, Orenburg Fairy-Tale
  • Diary of a Rabkor, Ivan Zhiga (1928)
  • Makhno's Band ("Gulyai-Pole"). Scenario (1930)
  • Swell the Harvest, Shock Brigade of Composers Poets (1930)
  • Rammed It Through, Fedor Panferov (1930)
  • Bread, Vladimir Kirshon (1930)
  • Pavlik Morozov, Mikhail Doroshin (1933)
  • The First Cruise, Shock Workers (1931)
  • How the Steel Was Tempered, Nikolai Ostrovsky (1932-1934)
  • The Story of the Great Plan, M. Ilin (1930)
  • "A Storm off Hope," Aleksei Garri (1928)
  • The Stalin White Sea-Baltic Canal (1934)
  • Mister Twister, Samuil Marshak (1933)

Movie. March 4: TURKSIB (1931). Director Viktor Turin. 57 min. HUM401

Supplemental

Katerina Clark. The Soviet Novel: History as Ritual. Chicago: University of Chicago Press,1981, pp. 159-188.

V. High Stalinism, 1932-1936

MASS CULTURE IN SOVIET RUSSIA, 1917-1953: A Reader, pp. 215-285

  • Grand-daddy Sebastian Went Godless, Gr. Bortnik (1934)
  • Nine Girls, Sergei Tretiakov (1935)
  • The Road to Life, Anton Makarenko (1932-1934)
  • The Stakhanov Movement Explained, Alexei Stakhanov (1936)
  • Chronicle of Komsomolsk-on-the-Amur, Iurii Zhukov and Roza Izmailova (1937)
  • Radio Speech of K. E. Tsiolkovsky (1935)
  • Valery Chkalov, B. Galin (1937)
  • Dinner at the Pole, I. T. Spirin (1938)
  • In Praise of Modesty, Mikhail Koltsov (1936)
  • Uncle Steeple, Sergei Mikhalkov (1935-1939)
  • Chapaev, the story-teller Korguev (1936)

Movie. March 11: CHAPAEV (1934). Vasiliev Brothers. HUM401.

VI. The Purges and Preparation for War

MASS CULTURE IN SOVIET RUSSIA, 1917-1953, pp. 287-330.

  • Tale of the Pole, Marfa Semenovna Kriukova (1937)
  • The Living Lenin, Konstantin Fedin (1939)
  • I Heard Lenin, Old Worker of the "Bolshevik" Factory (1939)
  • Goose Gets a Transfer, Lazar Lagin (1937)
  • Narkom Yezhov, Dzhambul Dzhabaev (1937)
  • We Dealt the Enemy a Cruel Counter-Blow, Demian Bedny (1937)
  • The Law of Millions, Alexander Bezymensky (1937)
  • Timur and his Squad, Arkady Gaidar (1938)
  • Legend of Voroshilov (1939)
  • History of the C. P. S. U. (Short Course) (1939)
  • The Chuvash Peasant And the Eagle (1937)

Movie. March 25: VOLGA-VOLGA (1937). Director, Grigori Alexandrov. 90 mins. HUM402.

Supplemental

Nicholass Timasheff, The Great Retreat: the Growth and Decline of Communism in Russia (1946), pp.151-191. DK266 .T5 1946

Jochen Hellbeck, Working, Struggling, Becoming: Stalin-Era Autobiographical Texts. Russian Review, Vol. 60, No. 3. (Jul., 2001), pp. 340-359.

VII. Russia at War

MASS CULTURE IN SOVIET RUSSIA, 1917-1953, pp. 333-410.

  • Wait For Me, Konstantin Simonov (1941)
  • Smolensk Roads, Konstantin Simonov (1941)
  • Scout Pashkov, Alexei Surkov (1941)
  • Tanya, Pavel Lidov (1942)
  • The Front, Alexander Korneichuk (1942)
  • Vasily Tyorkin, Alexander Tvardovsky (1942-1945)
  • Conversation with a Neighbor, Olga Berggolts (1941)
  • Good is Stronger than Evil, Vasily Grossman (1944)
  • Immortal, Alexander Fadeev (1943)
  • The Night before Battle, Alexander Dovzhenko (1944)
  • The Justification of Hate, Ilya Ehrenberg (1942)

Movie. April 1: SHE DEFENDS THE MOTHERLAND/ NO GREATER LOVE (1944). Director G. Gakkel. 74 mins. HUM401

VIII. The Postwar and Cold War Era

MASS CULTURE IN SOVIET RUSSIA, 1917-1953, pp. 410-end.

  • Cossacks of the Kuban, N. Pogodin (1949)
  • The Story of a Real Man, Boris Polevoi (1947)
  • Children's Verse, Sergei Mikhalkov (1946)
  • The Russian Question, Konstantin Simonov (1947)
  • The Man Who Did the Impossible, Gennadii Fish (1948)
  • Cavalier of the "Gold Star", Semyon Babaevsky (1948)
  • Stiliaga, D. Beliaev (1949)
  • Michurin's Dream, V. Lebedev (1950)
  • To Stalin from the Peoples of the World, Boris Polevoi (1950)
  • Pavlik Morozov, Stepan Shchipachov (1950)
  • In the Heart of Russia, Konstantin Paustovsky (1950)
  • Great Soviet Encyclopedia, "Aviation" (1953)

Supplemental

Vera Dunham. IN STALIN'S TIME: Middleclass Values in Soviet Fiction (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976), 3-23, 41-58. PG3095 D8

Movie. April 8: EAST SIDE STORY. HUM402

IX. The Thaw

Movie. April 15: THE CRANES ARE FLYING (1958). Director, Mikhail Kalatazov. 94 minutes. HUM401

X. The Brezhnev Period

New Spirit

The Creeping Rot

Nostalgia

Popular Fiction

Music Old and New

Supplemental

Roadside Picnic. Arkady Strugatsky and Boris Strugatsky (New York, Macmillan, 1972).

Movie. April 22: MOSCOW DOES NOT BELIEVE IN TEARS (1980). Director Vladimir Menshov. 150 mins. HUM402.

XI. Glasnost' and Perestroika

  • Artem Borovik, Hidden War: a Russian journalist's account of the Soviet War in Afghanistan (1987)
  • Nina Andreeva. I Cannot Waive Principles (13 March 1988).
  • Igor Shafarevich, "Russophobia," Nash sovremennik (1989).
  • Letters to the Editor of Ogonyok. Small Fires (New York: Summit, 1991).

Movie. April 29: LITTLE VERA (1987). Director Vasily Pichul. HUM401

Supplemental

Yngvar B. Steinholt, "You can't rid a song of its words: notes on the hegemony of lyrics in Russian rock songs," Popular Music (2003), 22: 89-108.


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