Who are the Russians? How have Russians imagined their world and themselves? Why is Russia’s one of the world’s great cultures?

Welcome to the enchanting—sometimes tragic and sometimes hilarious—world of Russian culture and civilization. This semester we will experience Russian culture through the lenses of space and place. We will investigate how Russia’s great thinkers, writers, artists, and composers have visualized their country and thought about homeland and foreign land, and imagined sacred space and profane space—sometimes as the best of all possible worlds and sometimes as one inviting new inventions of ideal community.

At the end of this course you will:

•  Understand the basic political, social, and cultural events in Russian history.

•  Know the geographies of Russia, St. Petersburg, Moscow, and Russian regions; and what Russians see and think when they consider these places on their “mental map.”

•  Map and “decode” the spaces and various “imagined communities” in art and literature.

•  Hone your research skills.

•  Probe the connection between spatial and utopian thinking.

•  Know the difference between these concepts: utopia, dystopia, counterutopia, metautopia, as well as idyll, eden, paradise.

•  Summarize the varieties of Russian social/spatial imagination.

•  Think critically about identity, space, and ideal community, examine your own thinking.

 

Expectations: you are responsible for attending and participating actively in all classes. Three unexcused absences will automatically result in a reduction of your course grade. You are responsible for doing all reading and homework for the day on which it is due, i.e. the date under which it is listed (unless otherwise noted). Work handed in late will receive a reduced grade. Your grade is based on 1000 total points:

150 points for well-prepared, productive participation in class discussion, which may include comments and questions posed on discussion site or through email. 

250 points: quizzes, short written homework, timelines, maps, class discussion projects

200 points: four papers of at least 500 words; please always include a list of “Works Cited” (for guidelines to organizing and writing these and the research paper, please see Appendix III, Collab)

200 points: two in-class tests (these tests will be based on assigned readings and pictures; the timelines you hand in based on Evtuhov et al.; and key points in the lectures [see lecture outlines]). There will be some extra credit opportunities here.

200 points: 6-7 pp. research project interpreting 2 primary sources and using 3 secondary sources (taken from Alderman Library book and on-line collections—not from Wikipedia or Google), correctly presented bibliography of Works Cited, and presentation at the end of the semester. For topic ideas please see the list on p. 10 of this syllabus. (125 points: first and second drafts culminating in a well-supported, persuasive argument that fundamentally engages both primary and secondary sources; 25 points: correct “Works Cited” list with primary and secondary sources; 25 points: effective presentation of your research project; 25 points for thoughtful questions, discussion and comments on others’ presentations.

Grades:  A = 900-1000 points is for excellent work; B = 800-899 points is for good work; C = 700-799 points for adequate work; D = 600-699 points for underachievement that requires improvement; F = 0-599 points for inadequate or no achievement, not handing in work; handing in work that is not your own (plagiarism, cheating, other academic misconduct).

Ground rules:  

• Please turn off your cell phone while you are in class.

• Please turn off all alarms.

• If you bring a computer to class, use it only for note-taking. Please refrain from all other computer activities, e.g. surfing the web, checking your email, skyping, etc.

• Please avoid bringing snacks.

Thanks for observing these rules!

 

Extra credit opportunities:

5 points each for attending campus events related to RUTR 2460, i.e. any Russian-related movies, concerts, public talks, etc. Please bring evidence that you were at the event (e.g. ticket) and a 50-word description of the event, your response, and one question you would like to ask the lecturer/performer. Some extra credit may be given on exams.

 

Further useful guidelines to success can be found on Collab:

Appendix I: Academic misconduct and avoiding plagiarism

Appendix II: Note-taking tips: The Cornell System

Appendix III: Guidelines for writing papers

Appendix IV: Template for making timelines

 

Course books:

1. Catherine Evtuhov and Richard Stites, A History of Russia: Peoples, Legends, Events, Forces since 1800 (Houghton Mifflin Company, 2003); ISBN-10: 0395660734

2. Aleksandr Bogdanov, Red Star, IU Press, 1984, ISBN-10: 0253203171

3. Evgeny Zamyatin, We, Eos, 2001, ISBN-10: 0380633132

4. Andrei Platonov, The Foundation Pit, NYRB Classics, 2009, ISBN-10: 1590173058

5. Valentin Rasputin, Farewell to Matyora, Northwestern Univ. Press, ISBN-10: 0810113295

Note on books purchased for RUTR 2460: since we will be working on the four novels chosen for RUTR 2460 only toward the middle and end of the course, the busiest part of the course, it is strongly recommended that you read and take thorough notes on at least two of them during September.

 

 

SYLLABUS 

NOTE: SEPT. 3 is LIBRARY DAY.

Wednesday, Aug. 29: Introduction: course overview; Russia and Russian identity in 2012.

Russian map (Collab); Russian geography: space and place; home and abroad; “we” and “they”

A definition of “culture”

The concept of the “cultural archive”

Assignment for Aug. 31: Choose a book on the bibliography (p. 8) to locate in Alderson Library on Monday, Sept. 3. Email me to let me know which you have chosen.

 

UNIT 1: History and the Russian Cultural Archive: Defining Space, Place, and the Russian Built Environment

Friday, Aug. 31: Where is Russia and who are Russians? The Russian map; the great Eurasian “highway”; nomads and settlers

First key settlements and buildings

 

Monday, Sept. 3: Labor Day (yes, we have class)

Library Day, meet at Alderman Library Electronic Classroom (straight ahead through the entrance hall, come to the first elevator, take a left). Bibliographical workshop with Mr. George Crafts, Slavic acquisitions librarian (gtc@virginia.edu): finding hard-copy and digital sources in the Virgo system.

In the Alderman stacks find the work you chose for August 31, write the complete bibliographic entry for it and a paragraph description of its theme and the kinds of documents it uses, and hand in the book and your description on Sept. 5.

 

Wednesday, Sept. 5: Religion: the basics of Eastern Orthodoxy

When did Russians actually become “Russians,” and what were they before that? Who wrote their history? The Orthodox calendar. The meaning of church architecture and icon painting.

Read two short pieces:

Chronicle entry on choosing a religion, emphasis on place, church, heaven on earth; Ilarion, “Sermon on Law and Grace” and the impending apocalypse (both of these writings are in the same Collab document).

Write and hand in your bibliographic entry and paragraph description. Hand in your library book.

 

Friday, Sept. 7: Space and time in Eastern Orthodox architecture and iconography

Write and hand in two short paragraphs on the main spatial imagery mentioned in each reading from Sept. 5.

 

Monday, Sept. 10:  The legend of the sunken city of Kitezh: how to live on the great Eurasian “highway,” survive the Mongol invasion (1237-1240), and preserve the lands of “Rus.”

Read summary of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s 1907 opera, “The Invisible City of Kitezh and the Maiden Fevronia” (1907) (Collab). Listen to musical excerpts. We will read the libretto later in the semester.

Research project: support group formation; go to catme.com and fill in the questionnaire. I will form study and research support groups of about 3 students each. As you work on your research project, meet with your group at least once every two weeks to check each other’s work and help each other with correct bibliographical form, clear writing style, and just to talk about your progress on your project.

 

Wednesday, Sept. 12:  The legend of Kitezh in the modern era

Konstantin Gorbatov, Kitezh (1913) (Collab)

Ilya Glazunov, Kitezh (1986) (Collab)

 

Friday, Sept. 14: Muscovy as the New Jerusalem: When East Slavdom became Russian Holy Ground

Terms: Muscovy, Holy Rus’

Read: Filofei, Letter to Prince Vasily III (Collab)

Valerie Kivelson, “’The Souls of the Righteous in a Bright Place’: Landscape and Orthodoxy…” (Collab)

 

Monday, Sept. 17: Muscovy as Empire or Holy Place?

Find Daniel Rowland, “Moscow-The Third Rome or the New Israel?” on JStor. Print it out, read, and bring to class introduction and conclusion pages. Write down and hand in the article’s main hypothesis/argument, main primary materials used, and main conclusion.

Find the map of Moscow (Collab): think about what characterizes its shape

Terms: Kremlin (kreml), Red Square, St. Basil’s Cathedral (Vasilii Blazhennyi)

 

Wednesday, Sept. 19: St. Petersburg as Enlightenment City: Peter the Great and his new “Paradise”

Model handout with timeline of 12 crucial dates, people, and events in Russian social, cultural, and political history, 988 to 1796 (988; 1237; 1380; 1480; 1533; 1613; 1667; 1703; 1712; 1762; 1773-74; 1790).

Study St. Petersburg map (Collab) and compare with the Moscow map (Collab)

Read Aleksandr Pushkin, “Bronze Horseman” (Collab).

To hand in: Write a list of passages that give evidence of Pushkin’s image(s) of St. Petersburg (100-150 words).

 

Friday, Sept. 21: Discussion of utopian vision vs. social realities: Radishchev, Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow, excerpts (Collab)

Sketch a rough map of northern Russia with the road between St. Petersburg and Moscow. 

To hand in: Write paper #1 summarizing the social realities and problems that Radishchev found on his trip and his solutions to these problems.

Read Evtuhov, Ch. 1, pp. 2-9; 10-14; 18-20.

 

 

UNIT 2: The Russian Intelligentsia, Westernizing and Slavophile Views of Russian space and the future (and their links to the four key images of Russian space in Russian cultural archive)

Monday, Sept. 24:  The cultural results of Westernization: Freemasonry, the Decembrists, Petr Chaadaev, and the Westernizers

Read Evtuhov, Ch. 2, pp. 21-22; 26-30; 33-36; Ch. 3, pp. 39-43; 44-47; 52-58.

Read Herzen, Letter to Michelet, “The Russian People and Socialism” (Collab)

G. V. Soroka, “Dam at Spasskoe” (Collab)

 

Wednesday, Sept. 26:  Discussion of Herzen, “The Russian People and Socialism.” What Russian community is being portrayed?  How? What might seem “westernizing” in this work?

Research project: hand in your choice of a research topic

 

Friday, Sept. 28: Slavophiles: conservative reaction to the Russian Enlightenment

Idylls:  Slavophile paintings of the country estate

Gogol, “Old World Landowners” (Collab)

Neo-Slavophile painting,  Myasoyedov, “The Busy Season” (Collab)

Read Evtuhov, Ch. 4, pp. 63-79.

 

Monday, Oct. 1: Discussion: Half the class will be Slavophiles, and half will be Westernizers: prepare to argue for your side and against the other side’s vision of the Russian people and Russia’s future.

Review for test Oct. 3.

Hand in paper #2: You are either the Slavophile Gogol or the Westernizer Herzen.  Write a 400-word review of your opponent’s work that will be published as an editorial in your favorite newspaper. From your ideological position (which you will need to summarize briefly), find something to agree with and something to attack. Do you agree with the rural order that is explicit or implicit in it? Does the other person have a clear image of the “people”? What is it? Is that image dignified? What is missing in your opponent’s work?

 

Wednesday, Oct. 3: Test #1 (on the basic concepts of the Russian cultural archive; the Russian intelligentsia; the Slavophiles and Westernizers; art and works read so far)

 

UNIT 3: Anticipating the Revolution: Populism and Marxism (how do these movements draw on the “cultural archive”?)

Friday, Oct. 5: The liberation of the serfs; Russian Populism, “going to the people,” the Wanderers in art

Nevrev, “Bargaining” (1866) (Collab)

Repin, “The Barge Haulers” (1870-1873) (Collab)

Stepanov, “The Cranes Are Flying” (1891) (Collab)

Read Evtuhov, Ch. 6, pp. 98; 101-108; 112-115;  Ch. 7, pp. 121-123, 126-134, 137-141.

 

Monday, Oct. 8: Reading Day

 

Wednesday, Oct. 10: Radicalization of the Enlightenment worldview, the St. Petersburg model, and rational egoism

Read Chernyshevsky, What Is To Be Done? (1863), excerpts (Collab). Think about how to map the space in the utopian dream of the heroine, Vera Pavlovna.

Hand in timeline of 6 crucial dates, people, and events in Russian social, cultural, and political history, 1796 to 1860 (1805-15; Dec. 14, 1825; 1833; 1836; 1840s; 1851)

Research project: hand in preliminary bibliography with your two primary sources and three secondary sources. Group review: please sign up with your group (if possible) for an appointment to talk to me about your projects.

 

Friday, Oct. 12: Chernyshevsky in the context of the Slavophiles and Westernizers

Read Evtuhov, Ch. 9, pp. 158-170; 173-175;  skim Ch. 10, pp. 179-186; 189-193.

 

Monday, Oct. 15: Marx and Russian Marxism (Plekhanov, Lenin) and the legacy of the Enlightenment and Westernization

Read Marx, The Communist Manifesto, available on line (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/). Why might Marx’s work have been of interest to radicals? Why does its message fit/ not fit the Russian social and cultural mindset (review the “cultural archive”)?

Start reading Bogdanov, Red Star (1909) (Part I)

Read Evtuhov, Ch. 11, pp. 199-202, 204-214; Ch. 12, pp. 215-219, 228-231; Ch. 13, pp. 246-249.

 

Wednesday, Oct. 17: Godbuilding and Proletkult

Read Bogdanov, Red Star (Part II)

 

Friday, Oct. 19: Discussion comparing and contrasting Marx’s spaces of the future, Lenin’s plan, and Bogdanov’s and Gastev’s ideal social spaces.

Finish reading Bogdanov, Red Star (Parts III-IV)

Read Gastev, “We Grow from Iron” (1914) (Collab)

 

UNIT 4: Moscow, Modernism, and Russian Cultural Nationalism

Monday, Oct. 22: The Rise of Russian Capitalism: New Patrons of the Arts, New Spaces, and the Creation of a Diverse High Culture

 

Wednesday, Oct. 24: Music and the exploration of sunken cities and new worlds

Read libretto from Rimsky-Korsakov’s opera, “The Invisible City of Kitezh” (Collab)

 

Friday, Oct. 26: Art moderne in Russian architecture

The Riabushinsky House, designed by Fedor Shekhtel, 1902 (Collab)

Read “The Legend of Sadko” (Collab)

 

UNIT 5: Anticipating the Revolution: The Avantgarde in Literature and the Arts (Moscow vs. St. Petersburg)

Monday, Oct. 29: Defining the Avantgarde: Suprematism: Malevich, El Lissitsky

Read Futurist manifesto (Collab)

Read Mayakovsky, “About me” (Collab)

Read Evtuhov, Ch. 15, pp. 276-286; 293-296.

 

Wednesday, Oct. 31: Constructivism: Tatlin, Stepanova, Popova, Rodchenko

Start reading Zamiatin, We (1920). Note:  as you read, consider the ways that Zamiatin’s novel engages the works we are studying in Units 3 and 4 of this course.

Hand in timeline of 8 crucial dates, people, and events in Russian social, cultural, and political history, 1861 to 1917 (Feb. 19, 1861; 1863; 1873-74; 1905; 1909; 1912; 1914; October 25, 1917).

 

Friday, Nov. 2: Discussion of Marxist and Avantgarde utopian visions in Bogdanov’s novel, Gastev’s poem, and avantgarde art.  What do they share, and what is different in each?

Continue reading Zamiatin, We.

 

 

UNIT 6: Living the Revolution, transfiguring life in the 1920s

Monday, Nov. 5: designing the new collectivist society

Built space, architecture, clothes design, and communal living

Popova, fabric design (1924) (Collab)

Stepanova, Proletarian clothing design (1924) (Collab)

Ginzburg, Ministry of Finance housing (1928-30) (Collab)

Continue reading Zamiatin, We.

 

Wednesday, Nov. 7 (October Revolution Day): Gender and family relations in the new society

Read Aleksandra Kollontai, declaration, article, and story (“Soon”) (Collab)

Read Evtuhov, Ch. 17, pp. 322-330. 332-337.

Finish Zamiatin, We

 

Friday, Nov. 9: Discussion of the vision of the new Russian society and state in Zamiatin, We

Hand in paper #3 on We as a response to aspects of the revolutionary utopian visions—either one of the Bolsheviks (Kollontai, Bogdanov, Gastev) or one or more works of the avantgarde (Malevich, Stepanova, Popova, etc.).  Be sure you find and quote evidence from the text of We to prove your point.

Start reading Platonov, The Foundation Pit (wr. 1929, published in USSR, 1987)

 

UNIT 7: The Stalin era: Living in the “workers’ paradise”

Monday, Nov. 12: The Stalinist “Cult of Personality”: Poster of Stalin the great architect (Collab).

Poster: Stalin as great leader of all nationalities (Collab).

Read Evtuhov, Ch. 19, pp. 355-370.

Read Platonov, The Foundation Pit

Research project: hand in the first draft of your research paper. Make an appointment to talk about it with me.

 

Wednesday, Nov. 14: Collectivization and Stalin’s reinvention of the commune

Poster: Collectivization (Collab).

Read Platonov, The Foundation Pit

Read Evtuhov, Ch. 20, pp. 371-380; 385-387.

Hand in timeline of 3 main dates: 1921-1927, 1928, 1930.

 

Friday, Nov. 16: TEST #2 (on Populism, Marxism, Godbuilding, avantgarde; modernist Moscow, modernist St. Petersburg, impact of the Russian cultural archive in modern era and modernism, gender and revolution, art and design for the everyday; key dates)

 

Monday, Nov. 19: Everyday life in Stalin’s Moscow: monumental architecture, communal apartment, work, police terror, censorship, self-censorship; youth groups, sports, music.

Stalinist wedding cake architecture: Moscow University (1953-54) (Collab).

Poster: Soviet youth (Collab).

Watch “Circus” (Clemons reserve) and take good notes on the spaces in this film and utopian themes.

Continue reading Platonov, The Foundation Pit

 

Monday, Nov. 26: The Moscow Metro: Palaces for the People

Metro, Lenin “icon” (Collab).

Metro, sports figure (Collab).

Questions and difficulties in Platonov, The Foundation Pit

Finish reading Platonov, The Foundation Pit

 

Wednesday, Nov. 28: Discussion of The Foundation Pit.

Hand in paper # 4: You are Stalin’s censor. Choose either The Foundation Pit or “Circus” (1937; on reserve VIDEO .VHS10367) and write a brief to the censorship committee, in which you take a stand for or against the work you are reviewing. Address two points:  1) why this work is/is not acceptable;  2) how to “edit” it so that it would become acceptable.

Start reading Rasputin, Farewell to Matyora

 

 

UNIT 8: Breaking Down the Stalinist Paradise: Neo-Nationalism and Neo-Slavophilism

Friday, Nov. 30: Underground literature and art, samizdat; the “village” writers

Glazunov, cityscapes (Collab)

Discussion of Farewell to Matyora

Finish Rasputin, Farewell to Matyora

Read Evtuhov, Ch. 23, pp. 423-431.

Extra credit opportunity: write down and bring to class three crucial passages from Farewell to Matyora that link to the Kitezh theme.

 

Unit 9: Mini-Conference, Course Evaluations, and Conclusions

Monday, Dec. 3: student conference

Wednesday, Dec. 5: student conference

Friday, Dec. 7: student conference

 

To finish our conference we will use the exam period, Monday, December 17, 9-12, Chemistry 305.

 

Bibliography (Choose your book for the secondary sources project from this list. Hint: it will be wise to choose something related to the topic for your final research project.)

Akerman, J. ed. The Imperial Map: Cartography and the Mastery of Empire. Chicago: U. Chicago, 2009.

Baehr, S. L. The Paradise Myth in Eighteenth-Century Russia: Utopian Patterns in Early Secular Russian Literature and Culture. 1991.

Booker, M. Keith. The Dystopian Impulse in Modern Literature: Fiction as Social Criticism. 1994.

Buck-Morss, Susan. Dreamworld and Catastrophe: The Passing of Mass Utopia in East and West. Cambridge: MIT, 2002. (Note: strong theoretical bent)

Clowes, Edith W. Russian Experimental Fiction: Resisting Ideology after Utopia Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1993.

Cooke, Brett. Human Nature in Utopia: Zamyatin’s We. 2002.

Ferns, Chris. Narrating Utopia: Ideology, Gender, Form in Utopian Literature. 1999.

Geller, Mikhail and Aleksandr Nekrich. Utopia in Power. New York: Summit Books, 1986.

Gottlieb, Erika. Dystopian Fiction East and West: Universe of Terror and Trial. 2001.

Heller, Leonid and Michel Niqueux. Histoire de l’utopie en Russe. Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1995.

Kivvelson, Valerie. Cartographies of Tsardom. Ithaca: Cornell, 2006.

Lawton, Anna and Herb Eagle. Words in Revolution: Russian Futurist Manifestoes, 1912-1928.

Mannheim, Karl. Ideology and Utopia (orig. German, 1929). New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1951.

Manuel, Frank and Fritzie. Utopian Thought in the Western World. Oxford: 1979.

Morson, G. S. Dostoevsky’s “Diary of a Writer” and the Traditions of Literary Utopia. 1981.

Paperno, Irina and Joan Delaney Grossman. Creating Life: The Aesthetic Utopia of Russian Modernism. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1994.

Peterson, Nadezhda. Fantasy and Utopia in the Contemporary Soviet Novel, 1976-1981. 1986.

Roosevelt, Priscilla. Life on the Russian Gentry Estate: A Social and Cultural History. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995.

Stites, Richard. Revolutionary Dreams: Utopian Vision and Experiemental Life in the Russian Revolution. Oxford: Oxford University Press,1989.

 

 

 

 

 

List of possible topics and works for the research project. Please let me know which one of them you have chosen. Only one student may work on each topic. If you have a topic you would like to investigate, please talk to me about it.

The Slavophile Gogol’s treatment of Peter’s legacy and Petersburg “enlightenment” in his play, The Inspector General

The space of the good society in Dostoevsky’s “The Dream of a Ridiculous Man”

Utopian themes of the 1870s artist group, the Wanderers

Holy Moscow in Pushkin’s play and Mussorgsky’s opera, Boris Godunov

Links between icon painting and modernist painting: choose either Mikhail Vrubel or Natalia Goncharova

The space of the gentry estate in works by Ivan Turgenev, either Repin or Sketches from a Hunter’s Notebook

The utopian vision of Maksim Gorky’s Godbuilding thought in A Confession

The spaces of the future imagined in Futurist manifestoes

Utopian themes in the art and life of an avantgarde artist: Lyubov Popova, El Lissitsky, Gustav Klutsis, Varvara Stepanova, Pavel Filonov. Was there a link between avantgarde utopian visions and Stalin’s workers’ paradise?

Urban space in two of Vladimir Mayakovsky’s early poems

Utopian themes in Stalin-era painting

Utopian discourse in Lev Trotsky’s Literature and Revolution

Stalinist-era painting that portrays ideal life in the workers’ paradise

Belomor: An Account of the Construction of the New Canal between the White Sea and the Baltic Sea (1935) and the Stalinist utopian experiment in reconstructing human nature

Analyze two Sergei Eisenstein movies, “October,” which is set in St. Petersburg/ Petrograd, and “Battleship Potemkin,” which is set in Odessa. How does each use the city spaces? Does the St. Petersburg setting relate at all to the Baroque/Enlightenment dream city designed by Peter the Great and developed by Catherine the Great? What is the message that we get of the city?

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s Cancer Ward and its social vision

Ilya Glazunov’s panorama, “Eternal Rus” (1991)—further explication

Treatment of Russian (or Soviet) space in popular Russian songs, either romances from the 19^th century, songs from the Stalin era, songs from the latter half of the 20^th century