RUS 270 - 20th-Century Russian Literature: Modernism to Postmodernism (in translation)

The twentieth century was tumultuous globally, and nowhere more dramatically so than in Russia, which witnessed revolutions, wars, and multiple changes of political regime. Alongside these socio-political shifts came aesthetic changes; from 1900 to the new millennium, Russian culture saw, broadly speaking, shifts from realism, to symbolism, to socialist realism, to post-modernism. This course samples major Russian, émigré, Soviet and post-Soviet writers, paying attention to the way they responded to, and even contributed to, historical events. Importantly, given Russia’s current war against Ukraine, we will also engage questions of Russian empire and colonization, reading works not just by Russian authors, but by writers who write in Russian but come from Belarus, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan.

Texts and discussion in English, with the option for those with advanced Russian to read in the original.

Satisfies the cultural diversity requirement
Satisfies the Literary Studies, Creative Writing, and Rhetoric requirement
Counts as an elective in the English major and minor
Satisfies a requirement in the Global Literary Theory interdisciplinary minor.
Satisfies a requirement toward the Russian minor
Satisfies a requirement toward the major in Russian Studies
Satisfies a requirement toward the major in Russian Language & Literature

Prerequisites & Notes
No knowledge of Russian required or expected.
Course is repeatable for credit given different topic/title.