HIST 5040-001 Dr. Olga Velikanova

Thu 6.30 – 9.20 pm, Spring

Office hours #237 WH, Thu 5-6pm or by appointment

HISTORYOGRAPHY of STALINISM

The graduate reading seminar will introduce the history of Stalin’s Russia (the 1920s –1950s). This course explores the phenomenon of Stalinism reflecting its preeminence in the Russian studies. Due to the opening of the Soviet archives, the period of the 1920s – 1950s was revised by the historians in the last decade. The course is based on the most recent publications including the revelations from the archives. The course embraces the major stages in the development of Stalinism – rise of Stalin, “the socialist offensive”, “great retreat”, great terror, late Stalinism, but also impact of Stalinism on post-Stalin politics and culture, and on modern Russia. Special emphasis is given to the major historiography schools – totalitarian and social, and the new interpretations and debates in the modern scholarship. We’ll study archival indexes, and different kinds of the historical sources: dairies, memoirs, official documents, interviews as well as different medias of historical narrative – monographs, collections of documents, films, literature. The goal of the course is to provide the knowledge of modern historiography of Stalinism, historical sources and major methodological trends.

Textbook

Evan Mawdsley, The Stalin Years. The Soviet Union 1929-1953. Manchester University Press 2003. Available at the book store.

Format

Each class will be focused on ~five readings related to pertinent theme. Each book or article will be presented by one of you in lecture format (15-20 minutes).Characterize the book and tell us how this book cover the topic of the class. You will also write a 1-2 page brief review(bullet-points format)to be distributed among all participants. (Handout How to write a review) You will also answer the questions in the following discussion. If you are not presenting, youstudy the required chapter from the textbook and online resourcesand should come prepared to actively listen and ask questions.Each student presents 4 books/articles making each worth 10% of your final grade. Presentations will culminate in the performance projectMockTrial of Stalinincluding both minutes and presentation. Roles: Stalin (Personal perspective), Judge,Attorney, Prosecutor and Secretary.

Final essay 12 pages will assess the historiography of that or another topic of Stalinism, for example, Alcoholpolitics in the USSR, or Historiography of: Terror,famines, Collectivization,Stalin’s Constitution of 1936, resistance to Stalinism,or commemoration of victims of Stalinism (online resources),orreview of Internet English language documental resources on Stalinism, or review of interviews with survivors of Great Terror available online. If you want feedback/assistance, provide One-page outline with the topic chosen and alist of 7-8 books/articlesbefore March 29(optional).

Evaluation

Class presentations and reviews 40%; Final essay 40%due April 26;participation in Mock Trial – 20% (each member of the team).

Let instructor know if you can read French or German. Choosing book/article for review – check the availability in the library. It’s your job to order the book through the interlibrary loan (One -two weeks to deliver) or find it online. Do your research in advance!

Students with special circumstances covered by the Americans with Disabilities Act should register with the Office of Disability Accommodation (ODA), Suite 318 A, University Union Building, telephone number 940.565.4323 and also inform the instructor of the class no later than the first week of classes.

Tentative Syllabus:

Week 1.Introduction.What is Stalinism?Concepts, Sources. Read any textbook to be aware of events of Soviet history in 1917-1953.

Week 2.Lecture: Major trends in Historiography of Stalinism. Read Introduction in Maudsley.Always read relevant Bibliographical essays.

Week 3. Stalin, Ch.1;Documents 1, 2.

Online resources:

PRESENTATIONS begin!

1. S. Montefiore, Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar

2. Oleg V. Khlevniuk,Master of the House: Stalin and His Inner Circle, 2008

3. Stalin and New History, 2007, ed. by S. Davies (Especially chapter - as a foreign policy maker.)

4. H. Kuromia, Stalin

Week 4. Economy of Shortages.

Ch. 2,Document on rationing, 1920:

  1. The Economic Transformation of the Soviet Union by Davies R., Harrison M., and Weatcroft, S. HC 335. T7362 1994
  1. Osokina E., Our Daily Bread, Socialist Distribution and the art of survival …HD9015.S652 O8813 2001
  1. Alexander Genis , Red Bread, Glas. New Russian Writing 2000, In the Library
  1. Paul Gregory. The Political Economy of Stalinism. Evidence from the Soviet Secret Archives.
  1. Furst, Juliane,(ed.)Late Stalinist Russia : society between reconstruction and reinvention

Week 5. Social dimensions of Stalinism. Peasants and Workers, Ch.3, Documents 3,4, 5,6

  1. Fitzpatrick, Sheila. Stalin's Peasants: Resistance and Survival in the Russian Villageafter Collectivization. New York : Oxford University Press, 1994

HD/1492/R9F58/1994

  1. Stephen Kotkin,(article) Magnetic Mountain: Stalinism as a Civilization, in: Hoffmann(ed), inHoffmann, Stalinism, and Chapter “Speaking Bolshevik” from the book Magnetic Mountain: Stalinism As a Civilization,Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995. in: Netlibrary
  1. D. Filtzer, Stalinism and the working class in the 1930s, in J. Channon (ed) Politics, Society and Stalinism.
  1. Social dimensions of Soviet industrialization / edited by William G. Rosenberg and Lewis H. Siegelbaum. Bloomington : Indiana University Press, c1993.HC335.3 .S63 1993 do not miss the article by Moshe Lewin
  1. Viola, Lynne. Peasant Rebels under Stalin: Collectivization and the Culture of

Peasant Resistance. New York : Oxford University Press, 1996.HD1492.5.S65 V56 1996

  1. Stalin as a military commander

Week 6. Stalinism in Memoirs and Dairies.

  1. Scott, John, Behind the Urals DK781.M3 S35 1989
  1. Intimacy and terror : Soviet diaries of the 1930's, New York : New Press, c1995.DK268.A1 S67 1995
  1. O.Figes, The Whisperers, 2008
  1. Nina Lugovskaya, “I want to live.” The Diary of a Young girl in Stalin’s Russia, Not in Library
  1. Kopelev, Lev. Ease My Sorrows: A Memoir. New York: Random House, 1983. PG 3482.7.P4Z4.7513
  1. Mandelshtam, N. Hope Abandonedincluding Chapter “A May Night,” in PG3476.M355 Z8313

Week 7. Mass culture. Beliefs, new cults.Video, AUDIO ( in Class) Ch.4;Document 9.

Posters

Socialist Realism

  1. Velikanova O., The Function of Lenin’s Image in Soviet Mass Consciousness in: Soviet Civilization between Past and Present, ed. by M.Bryld, 1998,p. 13-26DK266.4 .S677 1998
  2. J. von Geldern, R. Stites, eds., Mass Culture in Soviet Russia: Tales, Poems, Songs, Movies, Plays and Folklore, 1917-1953, Bloomington, 1995DK266.4 .M38 1995
  3. J.Brooks, Thank you , Comrade Stalin! Soviet Public Culture from Revolution to Cold War, 2000, especially Prologue and Ch 1;
  4. G. L. Freeze, The Stalinist Assault on the Parish, 1929-1941, in M. Hildermeier (ed) Stalinismus, AndMikhail V. Shkarovskii, The Russian Orthodox Church versus the State: The Josephite Movement, 1927-1940, Slavic Review, Vol. 54, No. 2 (Summer, 1995)
  5. The leader cult in communist dictatorships. Not in the library( in German and English)
  6. David L. Hoffmann,Cultivating the Masses. Modern State Practices and Soviet Socialism, 1914–1939. Cornell University Press. Soon in the library

Week 8. Movie Burnt by the Sun(in class discussion) Read Ch.5,6.

Social origin of Marusia? Of Kotov? Why Mitia joined OGPU? His function/purpose at that day in house of Kotov? Symbol of fireball?

Spring break March 19-25

Week 9. Concept of a New man. Debates on Stalinist Subjectivity. Document 8.

  1. Volkov, Concept of Kulturnost’ in Stalinism. New Directions
  2. Bulgakov,M., A Heart Of A Dog. Satire play.Online, library
  3. Syniavsky Soviet Civilization, All book and Chapter on New man. Not in the Library
  4. Hellbeck, Stalin-Era Autobiographical Texts, in Hoffmann, Stalinism, p. 181 forth. In the library.
  5. Hellbeck, Fashioning the Stalinist Soul,Diary of Podlubny, in Stalinism. New Directions in the library.

Week 10. Everyday Life. Housing. ReadS.Harris, In Search of “Ordinary” Russia, in : Kritika, Summer 2005 ( online) It’s a good model for review!

Online resources

Video: Bed and Sofa, by A. Room, 1926 ( in class discussion)

1.Sheila Fitzpatrick, Everyday Stalinism.Oxford Uni Press

2.A. Inkeles, R.A. Bauer, The Soviet Citizen: Daily Life in a Totalitarian Society, Cambridge, MA, 1959 914.7 In5s OR A. Inkeles, Everyday Life in the Soviet Union.

3. Phillips, Bolsheviks and the bottle: drink and worker culture in St. Petersburg, 1900-1929 in libraryORTreml, Alkohol in the USSR, 1982

4. Boym, Svetlana. Common Places: Mythologies of Everyday Life in Russia. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1994. DK/266/.4/B69/1994X

5. K. B. Eaton, Daily Life in the Soviet Union, 2004, especially Chapter Housing.OR

Paola MessanaSoviet Communal Living.An Oral History of the Kommunalka,2011? Palgrave Macmillan

6.Mathews Maervyn, Privilege in the SU. A study of Soviet elite Lifestyles under Communism. London, 1978 HN530.z(2)9 e 45

Week 11. Secret Police, Surveillance, Denunciations. New Historical Sources on Stalinism.

Read

1.P. Gregory. Terror by Quota: State Security from Lenin to Stalin (an Archival Study) 2008

2.P. Hagenloh: Stalin's Police: Public Order and Mass Repression in the USSR, 1926--1941, 2009

  1. S.Davies, Popular Opinion in Stalin’s Russia.Ch.1, 8HN530.Z9 P835 1997
  2. Holquist P., “Information is the Alfa and Omega of Our Work”: Bolshevik Surveillance“ in : R. Suny, The Structure of Soviet History, in the Library
  3. S. Fitzpatrick, “Signals from Below: Soviet Letters of Denunciation of the 1930s,” Journal of Modern History, 4 (1996);
  1. The War Against the Peasantry, 1927-1930: Collection of Documents,…by Lynne Viola, V. P. Danilov, Yale, 2005.

Week 12 . Terror Ch. 7. Documents 10- 12.

Read Index of archives documents on Terror online:

Bukovsky collection

Hoover collection

  1. Oleg Khlevniuk, The History of the Gulag , 2004
  1. Hoffmann Stalinism. Essential Readings.Chapters: Oleg Khlevniuk, “The Objectives of the Great Terror, 1937-1938,”, P. Holquist, “State Violence as Technique; The Logic of Violence in Soviet Totalitarianism” DK267 .S6946 2003

  1. The black book of communism : crimes, terror, repression / Stéphane Courtois ... [et al.] Cambridge, Mass. ; London : Harvard University Press, 1999. HX44 .L59 1999
  2. Anne Applebaum, GULAG.
  1. Robert W. Thurston.Life and terror in Stalin's Russia, 1934-1941DK267 .T52 1996

  1. Roger Markwick, “Stalinism at War,” Kritika, vol. 3, no. 3 (Summer 2002): 509-520.

Week 13. Terror (Continuation).

Read: Children of the Enemy

Documentary Hand of Stalin(In class discussion)Who are victims? Why were they arrested? How were they interrogated? Who are executioners? Justification of their mission?

  1. Oral History: Interview with Irene Sobel (a survivor) about life in labor camp, in exile, in collective farm in the 1940s. Chapters # 30-59//holocaust.umd.umich.edu/sobel/
  2. Gulag Voices: Oral Histories of Soviet Incarceration and Exile_ by Jehanne J. Gheith and Katherine R. Jolluck,
  1. Hiroaki Kuromiya. The voices of the dead : Stalin's great terror in the 1930s / In library
  1. Review of debate on number of victims of Stalinism and also article by Zemskov, Rittersporn, et al.

5.Steven A. Barnes Death and Redemption: The Gulag and the Shaping of Soviet Society. 2010

Week 14. High Stalinism. 1945- 1953. Problem of Resistance.Document 7.Legacy of Stalinism,Read Document 20. Conclusion in Maudsley.

1.Zubkova E., Russia after the war - online

2. Solzhenitsyn, A. One Day in the life of Ivan Denisovich..

3. L.Viola (ed) Contending with Stalinism, Soviet Power and Popular Resistance in the 1930s, Cornell, 2002.

4. J.J. RossmanThe Teikovo Cotton Workers' Strike of April 1932: Class, Gender ...Russian Review, 56, January 1997

5.Read the forum on resistance in: Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History, vol. 1, no. 1 (2000) online

6. A. Ledeneva: “Continuty and Change of Blat Pactices in Soviet and Post-Soviet Russia” 183-205 in : Ledeneva, S. Lovell and Andrei Rogachevskii (ed) Bribery and Blat in Russia: Negotiating Reciprocity from the Middle Ages to the 1990s (Basinstoke 2000)

Week 15. Mocking Trail on Stalin(Instructions in handout)

results in minutes and presentations: Roles: Stalin (Personal perspective), Judge,Attorney, Prosecutor, Secretary

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