Time Schedule:
Galya Diment
RUSS 323
Seattle Campus
Explores literature as a facet in modern Russian culture before Perstroika, paying attention to émigré authors; including the visual arts and music. Art, architecture, and music also treated. Periods covered include symbolism, revolution, post-revolution, Stalinist, the "thaw," and contemporary. Offered: Sp.
Class description
The highlights of 20th century literature, film, art, and culture.
ALL READINGS AND DISCUSSIONS ARE IN ENGLISH!! NO KNOWLEDGE OF RUSSIAN REQUIRED!!!
Required Books:
Babel, Isaac, Collected Stories (Penguin) Brown, Clarence, The Portable Twentieth-Century Russian Reader (Penguin) Bulgakov, Mikhail, Master and Margarita (Vintage) Ilf, Ilya, and Petrov, Evgeny, The Twelve Chairs (Northwestern) Nabokov, Vladimir, Mary (Vintage) Zamyatin, Evgeny, We (Modern Library)
Preliminary Syllabus:
WEEK ONE: INTRODUCTION. Late Tolstoy and Chekhov. Bunin and Gorky. Early Russian Film (1910-17) WEEK TWO: Babel and Olesha. Soviet Constructivists. WEEK THREE: Zamyatin. Zoshchenko. Early Soviet Film WEEK FOUR: IN EMIGRATION: Nabokov. Ballets Russes WEEK FIVE: Nabokov, Teffi, and Platonov.
MIDTERM
WEEK SIX: Ilf and Petrov. “Soviet Hollywood" WEEK SEVEN AND EIGHT: Bulgakov. Shostakovich and Prokofiev. WEEK NINE: STALIN PERIOD. VICTIMS AND HEROES: Mandelstam, Akhmatova, Shalamov, Solzhenitsyn. Stalin Architecture. WEEK TEN: POST-STALIN REASSESSMENTS: Sinyavsky, Vladimov and Voinovich. Popular Music.
FINAL
Student learning goals
General method of instruction
Lectures, discussions, presentations
Recommended preparation
NO PREREQUISITES. NO RUSSIAN REQUIRED.
Class assignments and grading
READING AND WRITING
Class Participation 20%; Midterm 30%; Final 50%
