Time Schedule:
Galya Diment
RUSS 430
Seattle Campus
Major Russian writers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Among authors read are Pushkin, Gogol, Lermontov, Turgenev, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Chekhov, Babel, Ilf and Petrov, Olesha. Content varies.
Class description
Ivan Bunin (1870-1953) was a remarkably innovative, exciting, and subtle writer whose worth is still not uniformly recognized. We will read his short stories, for which he is best known, his longer fiction, and his autobiographical writings. The class will be conducted in English but those who can (and graduate students) , are encouraged (required) to read the materials in the original.
Bunin about himself:
I was born in Voronezh in 1870; my childhood and youth were spent almost Entirely in the country on my father's estates. During my adolescence the death of my little sister caused a violent religious crisis, but it left no permanent scars on my soul. I had a passion for painting, which, I think, shows in my writings. I wrote both poetry and prose fairly early and my works were also published from an early date.
Ever since I began to publish, my books have been both in prose and poetry, original writings as well as translations (from the English). If one divides my work by genre, one would find volumes of original poetry, two volumes of translations, and ten volumes of prose.
My works were soon recognized by the critics. They were subsequently honoured on several occasions, receiving in particular the Pushkin Prize, the highest prize awarded by the Russian Academy of Sciences.
On receiving the Nobel Prize in 1933: On November ninth, very far from here in a poor country house in an old Provencal town, I received the telephone call that informed me of the choice of the Swedish Academy. I would not be honest if I told you, as one does in such cases, that it was the profoundest emotional moment of my life. A great philosopher has said that even the most vehement feelings of joy hardly count in comparison with those which provoke sorrow. I do not wish to strike a note of sadness at this dinner, which I shall forever remember, but let me say nonetheless that in the course of the past fifteen years my sorrows have far exceeded my joys. And not all of those sorrows have been personal - far from it. But I can certainly say that in my entire literary life no other event has given me so much legitimate satisfaction as that little technical miracle, the telephone call from Stockholm to Grasse. The prize established by your great countryman, Alfred Nobel, is still the highest reward that can crown the work of a writer. Ambitious like most men and all writers, I was extremely proud to receive that reward at the hands of the most competent and impartial of juries, and be assured, gentlemen of the Academy, I was also extremely grateful.
Student learning goals
General method of instruction
Lectures and Discussion. There will be an additional once-a-week Russian section for those reading the materials in Russian and wanting to discuss them in Russian as well.
Recommended preparation
Here is a list of the required books which you can start reading during the summer:
1. Selected Stories: The Gentleman from San Francisco and Other Stories (Penguin); Sunstroke: Selected Stories of Ivan Bunin (Ivan R. Dee); The Dreams of Chang (Fredonia Books; Reprint); Shadowed Paths (University Press of the Pacific); Wolves and Other Love Stories (Capra Press).
2. Longer Fiction Works: The Life of Arseniev: Youth (Northwestern University Press).
3. Autobiographical Writings: Cursed Days: A Diary of Revolution (Ivan R. Dee); Ivan Bunin: Russian Requem 1885-1920: A Portrait from Letters, Diaries, and Fiction (Ivan R. Dee); Ivan Bunin: From the Other Shore, 1920-1933: A Portrait from Letters, Diaries, and Fiction (Ivan R. Dee); Ivan Bunin: The Twilight of Emigre Russia: 1934-1953: A Portrait from Letters, Diaries, and Fiction (Ivan R. Dee)
4. Literary Criticism: The Liberation of Tolstoy: A Tale of Two Writers (Northwestern University Press).
Class assignments and grading
Reading, analyzing the text, writing.
Class Participation (30%), A Take-Home Midterm (30%), and a final 10-page paper (40%).
Russ 543 All primary readings in Russian; 15-20pp research paper at the end.
