RUS 420 - Tolstoy’s War and Peace

As the Soviet writer Isaac Babel famously quipped, “If the world could write itself, it would write like Tolstoy.” In this course we devote the entire semester to Tolstoy’s masterpiece, War & Peace, which he adamantly refused to call a “novel” and which many readers experience as an intense immersion in “life itself.” Over the course of the semester, we will consider everything from historical and biographical context, to genre, translation, literary technique, the juicy plot, and the text’s enduring relevance against the backdrop of Russia’s war against Ukraine. Taught in English. No knowledge of Russian required.

Satisfies the Cultural Diversity requirement.
Satisfies a Russion Studies manor and minor requirement.
Satisfies an ENG seminar requirement.

Prerequisites & Notes
No knowledge of Russian required or expected.
Course is repeatable for credit given different topic/title.
Prior satisfaction of the Literary Studies, Creative Writing, and Rhetoric requirement is required.