Russian, Soviet and post-Soviet literature from the 1900 to the present viewed in a socio-cultural and political context. The class is taught in English, on the basis of English translations; students with knowledge of Russian are encouraged to do at least some of the reading in the original.

“We were born to make fairy tales come true!” This line from a popular song of the 1930s captures the utopian dream of forging a new society in the wake of the Russian Revolution — a society that would be more spectacular, more extraordinary than the fairy tales of the past could have envisioned. The 1917 Revolution promised a radical restructuring of society, but the long twentieth century also witnessed war, violence, and massive upheavals. In this course, we will consider how writers and artists responded to these transformations in society, and how their works in turn attempted to shape social reality. Moving from pre-revolutionary works that anticipated the collapse of the old order to the avant-garde and modernist experimentation of the 1920s, from the rise of socialist realism in the 1930s to the post-Stalin Thaw period, and finally from late socialism to the collapse of the Soviet Union, we will trace moments of rupture and continuity with the cultural legacies of the past. How did the utopian ideals of revolutionary Russia generate new literary forms? How were gender roles and familial relations reimagined? What roles did laughter and satire have in this revolutionary society? What did everyday life look like in this society striving for utopia? How did writers bear witness to the violence and traumas of the Gulag? How were the scientific and technological innovations of Soviet society refracted in dystopian works of science fiction?

Repeat Rules

Course is not repeatable for credit.

Requirements class fulfills