Ideology and the Nineteenth-Century Russian Novel

Politically Correct:

Ideology and the Nineteenth-Century Russian Novel

Il’ia Repin: Study for “Arrest of a Propagandist” (1879)

Russian 272

Wellesley College

Spring 2003

T. P. Hodge, Associate Professor

Russian Department, Founders Hall 416

Office hours: TF12:30-3:00, & by appointment;

after 7 May, by appointment only ()

Office phone: 781-283-3563; home phone: 781-239-1584 (before 8:00 p.m.!)

Required texts (available at College Bookstore; also on 3-hour reserve at Clapp Library):

A. I. Hérzen: Who Is to Blame? Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1984.

I. S. Turgénev: Fathers and Sons (Norton Critical edn.). New York: W. W. Norton, 1996.

I. S. Turgénev: On the Eve. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1950.

I. S. Turgénev: Rudin. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1975.

I. A. Goncharóv: Oblomov. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1954.

N. G. Chernyshévsky: What Is to Be Done? Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1989.

F. M. Dostoévskii: Notes from Underground (Norton Critical edn.), 2nd edn. New York: W. W. Norton, 2000.

Isaiah Berlin: Russian Thinkers. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1978.

A Chrestomathy of Russian Ideological Fiction and Criticism

• Bound copy of course reader may be purchased from Nina Kochergin, FND 416 (make $20 check out to Russian Department, Wellesley College)
• Online version of this course reader may be accessed as an e-reserve via FirstClass

Recommended text: Joseph Frank: Through the Russian Prism: Essays on Literature and Culture. Princeton University Press: Princeton, 1990.

Texts for oral reports (on 3-hour reserve at Clapp Library or the Music Library):

Billington, James H. The Icon and the Axe: An Interpretive History of Russian Culture. New

York: Knopf, 1966.

Galya Diment: Goncharov’s Oblomov: A Critical Companion (Northwestern/AATSEEL Critical

Companions to Russian Literature, vol. 8). Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1998.

Ehre, Milton. Oblomov and His Creator: The Life and Art of Ivan Goncharov. Princeton:

Princeton University Press, 1973.

Gillespie, Michael Allen. Nihilism before Nietzsche. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995.

Katz, Michael R. Dreams and the Unconscious in Nineteenth-Century Russian Fiction. Hanover,

NH: University Press of New England, 1984.

Kelly, Aileen M. Toward Another Shore: Russian Thinkers Between Necessity and Chance. New

Haven: Yale University Press, 1998.

Kelly, Aileen M. Views from the Other Shore: Essays on Herzen, Chekhov, and Bakhtin. New

Haven: Yale University Press, 1999.

Lampert, E. Sons Against Fathers: Studies in Russian Radicalism and Revolution. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1965.

Malia, Martin. Alexander Herzen and the Birth of Russian Socialism, 1812-1855. Cambridge,

MA: Harvard University Press, 1961.

Mathewson, R. W. The Positive Hero in Russian Literature, 2nd edn. Stanford: Stanford

University Press, 1975.

Paperno, Irina. Chernyshevsky and the Age of Realism: A Study in the Semiotics of Behavior.

Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1988.

Pomper, Philip. The Russian Revolutionary Intelligentsia. Arlington Heights: Harlan Davidson,

1970.

Rzhevsky, Nicholas. Russian Literature and Ideology: Herzen, Dostoevsky, Leontiev, Tolstoy,

Fadeev. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1983.

Terras, Victor. Belinskij and Russian Literary Criticism. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1974.

Todd III, William Mills. Literature and Society in Imperial Russia, 1800-1914. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1978.

Taruskin, Richard. Opera and Drama as Preached and Practiced in the 1860s. Ann Arbor: UMI

Research Press, 1981.

Walicki, Andrzej. The Slavophile Controversy: History of a Conservative Utopia in Nineteenth-

Century Russian Thought. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1975.

Walicki, Andrzej. A History of Russian Thought From the Enlightenment to Marxism. Stanford:

Stanford University Press, 1979.

Course requirements:

1)Conscientious participation in class discussions and daily reading of e-mail

2)One short (approx. 10 min.) oral presentation, with a partner, on a work of criticism (see Schedule below)

3)One stint as discussion leader on the topic suggested for a particular day after 7 February (see Schedule below)

4)Careful perusal of the handout entitled “Common Mistakes to Avoid in Formal Writing”

5)Two essays (2000 words each; due 14 March and 29 April) of analysis, criticism, interpretation or history of the literature and criticism we read

6)Take-home final examination (2 ½ hours); exam will be handed out in class on 29 April

Grading:

Course grades will be determined according to the following criteria, weighted as indicated:

25%First essay

25%Second essay

25%Oral report and discussion leadership

25%Final examination

SCHEDULE:

WEEK 1

28 Jan.Introduction

31 Jan.Read Chaadaev’s “First Letter on the Philosophy of History” (Chrestomathy)

Read Berlin’s “The Birth of the Russian Intelligentsia” (Berlin, pp. 114-35)

Discussion: Roots of the Russian revolutionary intelligentsia

WEEK 2

4 Feb.Read Herzen’s “Young Moscow” (Chrestomathy)

Read Berlin’s “German Romanticism in Petersburg and Moscow” (Berlin, pp. 136-49)

Read Hegel excerpt provided by Prof. de Warren

Guest lecture: Prof. Nicolas de Warren (Philosophy Department) on Hegel

Discussion: German philosophy and a typology of the Moscow intelligentsia

7 Feb.Read Berlin’s “Alexander Herzen” (Berlin, pp. 186-209)

Read Michael Katz’s Introduction to Who Is to Blame? (pp. 15-39)

Read Herzen’s Who Is to Blame? (pp. 45-122)

Discussion: Herzen as liberal-revolutionary; genesis and ideological orientation of Herzen’s novel

WEEK 3

11 Feb.Read Herzen’s Who Is to Blame? (pp. 123-202)

Read Joseph Frank on Malia on Herzen (Frank, Russian Prism, pp. 219-24)

Oral report on Malia (chapters 10-11, pp. 218-77)

Discussion: Philosophical and literary underpinnings of Herzen’s novel

14 Feb. HODGE LECTURING AT SMITHSONIAN — NO CLASS 

WEEK 4

18 Feb. MONDAY SCHEDULE — NO CLASS 

21 Feb.Read Herzen’s Who Is to Blame? (pp. 203-89)

Read Belinskii: “A View on Russian Literature in 1847: Part 2,” especially pp. 436-49 (Chrestomathy)

Oral report on Rzhevsky (chapter on Herzen)

Discussion: Resolution of the radical hero’s fate and Belinskii’s reaction

WEEK 5

25 Feb.Read Belinskii’s “Letter to Gogol” (Chrestomathy)

Read Berlin’s “Vissarion Belinsky” (Berlin, pp. 150-85)

Discussion: Belinskii’s influence on the role of Russian writer and critic

28 Feb.Read Turgenev’s “Khor and Kalinych” (Chrestomathy)

Recall Belinskii’s comments in “A View on Russian Literature in 1847: Part 2” (Chrestomathy, pp. 473-4)

Read Turgenev’s “Diary of a Superfluous Man” (Chrestomathy)

Read Berlin’s “Fathers and Children: Turgenev and the Liberal Predicament” (Berlin, pp. 261-276)

Discussion: Turgenev’s liberalism and the genesis of the superfluous man

WEEK 6

4 Mar.Read Turgenev’s On the Eve (pp. 21-129)

Read Turgenev’s “Hamlet and Don Quixote” (Chrestomathy)

Oral report on Billington’s conception of Russia under Nicholas I (Billington, pp. 307-58)

Discussion: On the nature of the eve

7 Mar.Read Turgenev’s On the Eve (pp. 130-231)

Read Dobroliubov’s “When Will the Day Come?” (Chrestomathy)

Oral report on Dobroliubov’s life and work (in Lampert)

Discussion: Dobroliubov’s critical yearning

OPTIONAL FIRST DRAFT OF FIRST ESSAY DUE BY CLASS TIME

WEEK 7

10 Mar.Prof. Jehanne Gheith (Slavic Department, Duke University) will deliver a public lecture at 4:15 p.m. in the Library Lecture Room on representations of women characters and women writersin nineteenth-century Russian literature. Prof. Gheith is an internationally acknowledged expert on Russian women’s fiction. Attendance is mandatory. Besides, you’ll love Prof. Gheith.

11 Mar. Read Turgenev’s Fathers and Sons (pp. 3-55)

Read Berlin’s “Fathers and Children: Turgenev and the Liberal Predicament” (Berlin, pp. 276-305)

Oral report on Kelly’s analysis of Turgenev’s nihilism (Kelly, Toward Another Shore, pp. 91-118)

Discussion: What is nihilism?

14 Mar.Read Turgenev’s Fathers and Sons (pp. 55-110)

Discussion: What is Turgenev’s ideology?

FIRST ESSAY DUE BY CLASS TIME

17-21 Mar. SPRING BREAK — NO CLASSES 

Read Oblomov and What Is to Be Done?

WEEK 8

25 Mar.Read Turgenev’s Fathers and Sons (pp. 110-57)

Read Pisarev’s “Bazarov” (Fathers and Sons edn., pp. 185-206)

Oral report on Brown’s “Pisarev and the Transformation of Two Russian Novels” (Todd, pp. 151-70)

Discussion: What does Pisarev’s nihilism tell us?

28 Mar.Read Goncharov’s Oblomov (pp. 13-152)

Oral report on Goncharov’s life and ideas (Ehre, pp. 3-97)

Discussion: Oblomov and the aesthetics of indolence

WEEK 9

1 Apr.Read Goncharov’s Oblomov (pp. 153-282)

Oral report on Rufus Mathewson’s Positive Hero

Read Frank on Mathewson (Frank, Russian Prism, pp. 75-82)

Discussion: Is Oblomov a positive hero?

4 Apr.Read Goncharov’s Oblomov (pp. 283-485)

Discussion: The Weltanschauung of Stolz and Oblomov

WEEK 10

8 Apr.Dobroliubov: What is Oblomovshchina? (Chrestomathy)

Oral report on Diment’s analysis of Goncharov’s writerly technique

Discussion: What in the world is Oblomovshchina?

11 Apr.Read Katz and Wagner’s Introduction to What Is to Be Done? (pp. 1-36)

Read Chernyshevskii’s What Is to Be Done? (pp. 39-139)

Read Frank on Katz’s translation (Russian Prism, pp. 213-18)

Discussion: Is Chernyshevskii’s question different from Herzen’s?

WEEK 11

15 Apr.Read Chernyshevskii’s What Is to Be Done? (pp. 139-236)

Oral report on Katz’s Dreams and the Unconscious

Discussion: What are Vera Pavlovna’s dreams?

18 Apr.Read Chernyshevskii’s What Is to Be Done? (pp. 236-386)

Oral report on Gillespie, Nihilism before Nietzsche (chapter 5)

Discussion: Is Chernyshevskii a nihilist?

WEEK 12

22 Apr.Read Chernyshevskii’s What Is to Be Done? (pp. 386-445)

Oral report on Chernyshevskii’s The Aesthetic Relation of Art to Reality (Chrestomathy)

Discussion: What is Chernyshevskii’s aesthetics?

OPTIONAL FIRST DRAFT OF SECOND ESSAY DUE BY CLASS TIME

25 Apr.Read Dostoevskii’s Notes from Underground (pp. 3-28)

Oral report on Rzhevsky (chapter on Dostoevsky)

Discussion: Is Chernyshevskii to blame? What is to be done with Dostoevskii?

WEEK 13

29 Apr.Read Dostoevskii’s Notes from Underground (pp. 29-89)

Read Frank on Notes from Underground (Notes from Underground edn., pp. 202-37)

Discussion: The annihilation of Nihilism

SECOND ESSAY DUE BY CLASS TIME

19 MayRUSSIAN 272 TAKE-HOME FINAL EXAMINATION DUE in Hodge’s box in the Russian Dept. (FND 416) by 4:30 p.m.

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