RUS 293 - The Soviet Century (Topics in Russian Culture)

One hundred years after the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, which changed the course of the twentieth century, we will explore the cultural history of the Soviet Union, the world’s first socialist country. While the dates 1922-1991 circumscribe the lifespan of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the ramifications of the Soviet experience shape not only contemporary Russia but fourteen other countries: the former Soviet Republics of Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Estonia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan. In this course, we will look at the art and ideology that held these fifteen nations together. Moving beyond the clichéd view of the USSR as the Evil Empire, we will focus on the most pivotal moments in the emergence of the “country of workers and peasants” and trace its evolution from pariah nation in the 1920s into nuclear superpower following WWII. We will consider the theoretical writings of Karl Marx, Vladimir Lenin, and Leon Trotsky, avant-garde experimentation in the arts, and the doctrine of Socialist realism in an effort to understand the contradictions of Soviet life leading up to and during the Cold War. A particular attention will be paid to underground cultures that arose in response to the repression of free speech, to ethnic discrimination, and to the Gulag penal system.

All readings and discussion in English. No knowledge of Russian or Eastern European history is expected.

Satisfies the cultural diversity requirement.
Satisfies the Liberal Studies distribution requirement.