RUSS 20420 SACRED TOPICS AND ACCURSED QUESTIONS: CULTURE AND THOUGHT IN IMPERIAL RUSSIA

Taught by Professor Vera Tolz

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tel.: 0161-2753140 (ext. 53140)

Office: W 409

NINETEETH CENTURY RUSSIAN CULTURE: AN INTRODUCTION

Credits: 20

Level: 2

Pre-requisite: None

Co-requisite: None

Taught during: both semesters

Contact hours:24

Timetable: Classes will be held on Tuesdays 11.00-12.00

Aims: This course unit will analyse the development of Russian culture in the nineteenth century through the study of several key themes as reflected in literature, intellectual debate, art and music. The themes include: the legacy of Peter the Great’s reforms; Russia between the East and the West; Russia and its empire; narod and narodnost; ‘Russian socialism’; and intelligentsia and the state. Key literary and artistic works will be examined in their historical and political context.

Learning outcomes: On successful completion of the course unit, students will have demonstrated

  • a knowledge of the developments of Russian culture in the nineteenth century
  • an ability to put these developments in a historical and political context of the time
  • skills to analyse literary texts
  • an understanding of an interdisciplinary approach to the study of Russia

Transferable skills: Assessed course work assignments and oral presentations, and the feedback students will get from the tutor and (in the case of oral presentations) from their peers, will help them to develop the skills to

  • present their written work in a coherent and well structured form
  • make effective use of relevant sources
  • give an effective oral presentation
  • work successfully as a team with other students

Teaching and learning method: The course is taught through a combination of lectures and seminars. Seminars will take the form of group discussions around questions to be supplied by the tutor in advance. Students will also be expected to give presentations.

Assessment: Two assessed essays, each of approximately 2000 words (50%); a two hour examination, in which two questions are to be answered, is taken in the May/June examination period (50%). Material from the essays may not be repeated in the exam.

Deadline for assessed course work: Essay 1, Tuesday, 12December 2006

Essay 2, Thursday, 2 May 2007

Students are encouraged to quote from Russian sources in assessed coursework.

Exceptions to word processed assignments:

none.

Two copies of each essay should be submitted to the SLLC reception desk (Arts Building Room S3.6). In exceptional circumstances the SLLC Special Circumstances Committee may grant a time extension. Otherwise penalties will apply, as detailed in the SLLC Programme Handbook.

Convened and taught by: Prof. Vera Tolz: ()

Reading list: Students are not expected to read everything which appears on this list. (The most useful texts for each topic are marked with *.) The library has a limited number of copies of each text, and students will find that not all of the texts on a particular subject are available at any one time. They will also find that the list is not exhaustive and that there are many more books in the library which are useful for this course. When preparing their essays and seminar presentations, students are advised not to limit their reading to general texts which provide an overview of Russian cultural developments, but should make use of the more detailed studies.

Syllabus

1: Introductory session: Explains thepurpose of the course, the organisation of lectures and seminars and the nature of the assessment.

2-3: The legacy of Peter the Great: Examines a variety of views on the effects of Peter’s reforms on the Russian intellectual tradition.

Text: Alexander Pushkin, The Bronze Horseman (a number of English-language translations are available in the library. It is also included in Nicholas Rzhevsky, ed., An Anthology of Russian Literature from Earliest Writings to Modern Fiction: Introduction to a Culture (Armonk, 1996)

Seminar Questions:

  1. ‘The Petrine reforms gave birth to ideas new in Russian ideological life’. (Ilya Serman) Discuss.
  1. What was the impact of Peter the Great’s reforms on Russia? Consider the arguments of the tsar’s supporters as well as those of his critics.
  2. How and why did the perception of Peter the Great change in the

course of the eighteenth century?

  1. Different interpretations of the representation of Peter the Great in Pushkin’s The Bronze Horseman will be discussed. With reference to the text, students will be invited to assess the strengths and weaknesses of these interpretations.

Nicholas Riasanovsky, The Image of Peter the Great in Russian History and Thought (New York, 1985)

Andrew Kahn, Pushkin’s The Bronze Horseman (London, 1998)

Lindsey Hughes, Russia in the Age of Peter the Great (New Haven, 1998)

Simon Dixon, The Modernisation of Russia, 1676-1825 (Cambridge, 1995)

James Cracraft, The Petrine Revolution in Russian Imagery (Chicago, 1997)

4-5: Russia between West and East: Provides an overview of debates about Russia’s relationship with Europe.

Texts: Peter Chaadaev, Letters on the Philosophy of History (First Letter); Ivan Kireevsky, On the Natureof European Culture and its Relation to the Culture of Russia.Both texts are published in Marc Raeff, Russian Intellectual History: An Anthology (Amherst, 1999); the 1966 edition can also be used. Chaadaev’s letter is also published in William Leatherbarrow and Derek Offord, eds., A Documentary History of Russian Thought (Ann Arbor, 1987)

Seminar Questions:

1. Why did Chaadaev’s ideas have such a profound impact on Russian intellectual tradition?

2. Why did Alexander Herzen have a reason to say about the Westernizers and the Slavophiles: ‘Like Janus, or like a two-headed eagle, we looked in different directions, while a single heart beat within us.’ (Alexander Herzen)

3. Following a discussion of how the ‘East’ was defined in the Russian intellectual and cultural tradition, students will be asked to assess the role of the ‘East’ in the construction of Russian identity.

*Liah Greenfeld, Nationalism: Five Roads to Modernity (Cambridge MA, 1992) (chapter on Russia)

*Mark Bassin, ’Asia’, in Nicholas Rzhevsky, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Modern Russian Culture (Cambridge, 1998), pp. 57-84

’The Russia Idea and the West’, in Russell Bova, ed., Russia and Western Civilization. Cultural and Historical Encounters (Armonk, 2003), 23-77.

Pierre R. Hart, ’The West’, in Nicholas Rzhevsky, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Modern Russian Culture (Cambridge, 1998), pp. 85-102

Nicholas Riasanovsky, ’Asia through Russian Eyes’, in Wayne Vucinich, ed., Russia and Asia (Stanford, 1972)

Nicholas Riasanovsky, Russian Identities (Oxford, 2005)

Nicholas Riasanovsky, Russia and the West in the Teachings of the Slavophiles (Cambridge MA, 1952)

Vera Tolz, Russia: Inventing the Nation (London, 2001) (chapters 3 and 4)

Iver B. Neumann, Russia and the Idea of Europe (London, 1996)

Lina Bernstein, ‘Women on the Verge of a New Language: Russian Salon Hostesses in the First Half of the Nineteenth Century,’ in Helena Goscilo and Beth Holmgren (eds.), Russia. Women. Culture (Bloomington, 1996), pp. 209-224.

Orlando Figes, Natasha's Dance - A cultural History of Russia (London, 2002)

6: Russia and its Empire: Analyses attitudes towards Russia’s imperial expansion and views on the relationship between ‘Russia proper’ and its borderlands.

Texts: selected poems by Pushkin and Lermontov; Lev Tolstoy,Hadji Murat.

Seminar questions:

1. Students will be invited to analyse various representation of the ‘Orient’ in the works by Pushkin, Lermontov and Tolstoy and to account for the changing perceptions of the ‘East’ in the intellectual and cultural tradition of the nineteenth century.

*Susan Layton, Russian Literature and Empire (Cambridge, 1994) (particularly, chapter 15)

*Geoffrey Hosking, Russia: People and Empire, 1552-1917 (London, 1997) (Introduction)

Vera Tolz, Russia: Inventing the Nation (London, 2001) (Chapters 5 and 6)

M. Greenleaf, Pushkin and Romantic Fashion: Fragment, Elegy, Orient, Irony (Stanford, 1994)

Katya Hokanson, ‘Literary Imperialism: Nardnost’ and Pushkin’s Invention of the Caucasus’, The Russian Review, 53, 3 (1994), pp. 336-52.

Laurence Kelly, Lermontov Tragedy in the Caucasus(London, 1977)

7-8: Narod and Narodnost: Discusses the perception of the narod as a symbol of Russian national identity by writers, painters and composers. The discussion will be placed in the context of the emergence of nationalism as a pan-European phenomenon.

Texts: selected poems by Pushkin, Lermontov, Nekrasov and Tyutchev; Vissarion Belinsky, Letter to N.V. Gogol;FedorDostoevsky, Pushkin (a sketch); paintings from Venitianov to the ‘Wanderers’; the music of Musorgsky. (Belinsky’s letter and Dostoevsky’s essay are published in Marc Raeff’s Anthology; Belinsky’s letter is also published in Leatherbarrow and Offord’s A Documentary History of Russian Thought)

Seminar questions:

  1. How far was the perception of the narod as a symbol of national identity by Russian intellectuals, literati and artists influenced by intellectual debates elsewhere in Europe?
  1. Students will be invited to analyse works by Russian writers, artists and musicians, searching for the meaning of Russian identity.

*Vera Tolz, Russia: Inventing the Nation (London, 2001) (see, in particular, pp. 85-93)

Geoffrey Hosking, Russia: People and Empire, 1552-1917 (London, 1997) (Introduction and chapter 7 ‘Literature as “Nation-Builder”’)

Hans Rogger, National Consciousness in Eighteenth Century Russia (Cambridge MA, 1960)

Catriona Kelly, ed., Construction of Russian Culture at the Age of Revolution, 1881-1940 (Oxford, 1998), (pp. 26-36 only: offer useful definitions of the terms narodnost, obshchestvennost and sobornost).

A.N. Sakharov, ‘The Main Phases and Distinctive Features of Russian Nationalism’, in Geoffrey Hosking and Robert Service, eds., Russian Nationalism Past and Present (London, 1998), pp. 7-18 (a basic overview from the medieval period to the present day)

Geofrey Hosking and Robert Service, Reinterpreting Russia (London, 1999) (see, in particular Maureen Perrie’s chapter)

Geoffrey Hosking, ‘Russian National Myth Repudiated’, in Geoffrey Hosking and George Shopflin, eds., Myths and Nationhood (London: 1997), pp. 198-210

Elizabeth Valkenier, Ilya Repin and the World of Russian Art (New York, 1990)

Elizabeth Valkenier, Russian Realistic Art (Ann Arbor, 1977)

Cathy A.Frierson, Peasant Icons. Representations of Rural People in Late Nineteenth Century Russia (New York, 1993)

Dmitrii Sarabianov, Russian Art (New York, 1990)

James H. Billington, The Face of Russia ( New York, 1998) (chapter 4 on the music of Musorgsky)

9: ‘Russian Socialism’: Assesses the relationship between socialism and nationalism in the Russian intellectual tradition.

Text: Alexander Herzen, The Russian People and Socialism (excerpts) (published in Leatherbarrow and Offord’s A Documentary History of Russian Thought)

Seminar questions:

  1. What was the political and cultural context in which Herzen’s ‘Russian socialism’ appeared?
  1. ‘Herzen was able to bring together the ideas of his predecessors, both the Slavophiles and the Westernizers, in the most successful way’. Discuss

*Aileen Kelly, Views from the Other Shore: Essays on Herzen, Chekhov and Bakhtin (New Haven, 1999)(on Herzen)

*Isaiah Berlin, Russian Thinkers (London, 1978) (on Herzen)

Edward Acton, Alexander Herzen and the Role of the Intellectual Revolutionary (Cambridge, 1979)

Martin Malia, Alexander Herzen and the Birth of Russian Socialism (New York, 1965)

Andrzej Walicki, ‘Russia’, in Ghita Ionescu and Ernest Gellner, eds., Populism. Its Meaning and National Characteristics (London, 1969)

Tim McDaniel, The Agony of the Russian Idea (Princeton, 1996) (Introduction, chapters 1 and 2)

10: Women and Russian culture: focuses on the role of women in nineteenth century literature and art and discusses societal restrictions which female writers and artists faced. Public debates about the role of women in literature and art will be analysed.

Seminar questions:

  1. Students will be invited to analyse poems and extracts from prose fiction by female writers.
  1. What are the origins of the major contribution made by female artists in the theories and practice of Russian avant-garde movements in the twentieth century?

*Joe Andrew, ‘”A Crocodile in Flannel or a Dancing Monkey”: the Image of the Russian Woman Writer, 1790-1850’, in Linda Edmondson (ed.), Gender in Russian History and Culture (Basingstoke, 1998), pp. 52-72.

*Helena Goscilo and Beth Holmgren (eds.), Russia, Women, Culture (Bloomington, 1996) (in particular, chapter 14)

Barbara Heldt, Terrible Perfection. Women and Russian Literature (Bloomington, 1987) (chapter 8)

Catriona Kelly, An Anthology of Russian Women’s Writings 1777-1992 (Oxford, 1994)

Catriona Kelly, A History of Russian Women’s Writing 1820-1992 (Oxfrod, 1994)

Wendy Rosslyn, Anna Bunina (1774-1829) and the Origins of Women's Poetry in Russia (Lampeter, 1997)

Marina Ledkovsky (et al. eds.), Dictionary of Russian Women Writers (Westport, 1994)

11: Intelligentsia and the State: Focuses on the role of the Russian intelligentsia and on whether it may be regarded as a unique phenomenon.

Text: Alexander Blok, The People and the Intelligentsia (published in Raeff’s Anthology)

Seminar Questions:

1. How can we define the Russian intelligentsia?

2. How justifiable is it to speak of the uniqueness of the Russian intelligentsia?

*

Aileen Kelly, Toward Another Shore. Russian Thinkers between Necessity and Chance(New Haven, 1998) (chapters 1 and 2)

*Richard Pipes, ed., The Russian Intelligentsia (New York, 1961) (chapters 1-4 only)

Isaiah Berlin, Russian Thinkers (London, 1978)

Ronald Hingley, Russian Writers and Society in the Nineteenth Century (London, 1977)

Vekhi-Landmarks: a Collection about the Russian Intelligentsia, trans. by Marshall S. Shatz and Judith E. Zimmerman (Armonk, 1994)

Nicholas Riasanovsky, A Parting of Ways: Government and the Educated Public in Russia, 1801-1855 (Oxford, 1976)

Marc Raeff, Origins of the Russian Intelligentsia (New York, 1966)

Edward Acton, Alexander Herzen and the Role of the Intellectual Revolutionary (Cambridge, 1979)

Abbott Gleason, Young Russia: The Genesis of Russian Radicalism in the 1860s (Chicago, 1983)

Andrzej Walicki, ‘Russia’, in Ghita Ionescu and Ernest Gellner, eds., Populism. Its Meaning and National Characteristics (London, 1969)

12: The twilight of Imperial Russia: Discusses perceptions of ‘the disappearance of “old Russia”’ and the anticipation of future change by Russian intellectuals at the turn of the twentieth century.

Text: Anton Chekhov, Cherry Orchard (several English-language translations are available in the library)

Seminar questions:

  1. Scholars have noted that political decline and the intellectual climate in Russia after the 1860s reforms ‘became unpropitious for creative expression’. Yet, this didn't necessarily affect the artsand culture of Russia, which enjoyed an efflorescence.The questions are howmuch were the two connected, related, or independent and how should we viewChekhov's works in this contradictory mix?
  1. ‘The new radical spirit [following the Great Reforms] reflected both the general materialistic and realistic character of the age and special Russian conditions’. (Riasanovsky). Discuss.
  1. What was the role of the women’s movement in late imperial Russia?

*Nicholas Riasanovsky, ‘Russian Culture from the “Great Reform” until the Revolution of 1917’ in his A History of Russia (New York and Oxford, 2000), pp. 435-52.

Von Laue, Theodore, ‘Imperial Russia at the Turn of the Century: The Cultural Slope and the Revolution from Without,’ in Reinhard Bendix, (ed.), State and Society. A Reader in Comparative Political Sociology (Berkley: University of California Press, 1968)

Aileen Kelly, Views from the Other Shore: Essays on Herzen, Chekhov and Bakhtin (New Haven, 1999) (on Chekhov)

Rosamund Bartlett, Chekhov: Scenes from a Life (London, 2004)

Henri Troyat, Daily Life in Russia under Last Tsar (London, 1961)

Linda Edmondson, ‘The Politics of Women’s Liberation in Late Imperial Russia’, in Sylvia Paletschek and Bianka Pietrow-Ennker (eds.), Women’s Emancipation Movements in the Nineteenth Century (Stanford, 2004), pp. 221-39

General Reading:

James H. Billington, The Face of Russia (New York, 1998) (chapters 3 and 4)

Nicholas Rzhevsky, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Modern Russian Culture (Cambridge, 1998)

Isaiah Berlin, Russian Thinkers (London, 1978)

Russell Bova (ed.), Russia and Western Civilization. Cultural and Historical Encounters (Armonk, 2003)

Catriona Kelly, Russian Literature: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford, 2001)

Catriona Kelly, A History of Russian Women’s Writing 1820-1992 (Oxfrod, 1994)

Andrzej Walicki, A History of Russian Thought from the Enlightenment to Marxism (Stanford, 1979)

Anthologies:

Nicholas Rzhevsky, ed., An Anthology of Russian Literature from Earliest Writings to Modern Fiction: Introduction to a Culture (Armonk, 1996)

Includes translations of Pushkin’s The Bronze Horseman, Gogol’s The Overcoat, Leskov’s Lefty and other shorter literary works.

Marc Raeff, Russian Intellectual History: An Anthology (Amherst, 1999)

A very useful source of translated texts of Russian intellectual history

William Leatherbarrow and Derek Offord, eds., A Documentary History of Russian Thought (Ann Arbor, 1987) (includes works by Chaadaev, Herzen and Belinsky to be analysed in this course)

Catriona Kelly, An Anthology of Russian Women’s Writings 1777-1992 (Oxford, 1994)

Essay Questions

  1. How far was the original Enlightenment image of Peter the Great challenged by major Russian thinkers in the nineteenth century? (Among other works, Pushkin’s image of Peter the Great should be considered.)
  1. What were the differences and similarities in the views of the Slavophiles and the Westernizers?
  1. ‘Women had already created a cultural identity for themselves as writers in the 1820s’. Discuss.
  1. ‘Even when Pushkin and Lermontov showed fascination with mountain tribesman, a feeling of European superiority never seemed to disappear from their description of the peoples of the Caucasus’. Discuss.
  1. How conscious were major cultural figures and intellectuals of the fact that ethnic Russians constituted just one among many different nationalities inRussia? (You should consider looking at the early Slavophile tradition, Pushkin’s and Lermontov’s poems, Dostoevsky’s ‘Pushkin’ and Tolstoy’s Hadji Murat.)
  1. ‘The interest in the peasantry among Russian cultural figures and intellectuals [in the nineteenth century] was marked by a peculiar intensity’. (James Billington). Discuss.
  1. What was the impact of Herzen’s ‘Russian socialism’ on the development of Russian intellectual tradition?
  1. What was the historical significance of the Russian intelligentsia in the long nineteenth century?

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