This paper is suspended in 2024-25.
In the light of the war in Ukraine, how do we approach the examination of Russian culture, specifically of the contemporary period? What is the ethical way to study Putin鈥檚 Russia? And how can the knowledge of post-Soviet cultural history help us comprehend a region riven with contradictions and crises for the past thirty years? This paper covers the period from Gorbachev鈥檚 Perestroika to the collapse of the USSR and the tumultuous 1990s to the early Putin years to the annexation of Crimea and until the present. It posits that contemporary Russian culture has been shaped by the coexistence of two ostensibly opposing discourses, the official and the dissident, that have interacted throughout the late- and post-Soviet period in different and often contradictory ways. The paper covers different media, focusing particularly on cinema and literature, with excursions into drama, painting, and performance art. The paper is divided into four topics and two set texts. Each of the topics engages a broad array of sub-topics, including those of identity, nationalism, gender, sexuality, trauma, memory, and nostalgia.
SECTION A
Set Texts
Viktor Pelevin, Pokolenie 鈥濸鈥� (1999)
Vladimir Sorokin, Den鈥� Oprichnika (2006)
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SECTION B
Topics
Topic 1: Perestroika and the End of the Eternal State
Recommended primary sources:
Nina Andreeva, 鈥淣e mogu postupat鈥檚a printsipami鈥� (letter to Soviet Russia, 1988)
Liudmila Petrushevksaya, 鈥淪voi krug,鈥� 鈥淕igiena鈥澨�(1990)
Dmitry Prigov, 鈥淥brashchenia k Grazhdanam鈥� (1986)
Tengiz Abuladze, Pokaianie (film, 1986)
Vasilii Pichul, Malen鈥檏aia Vera (film, 1988)
Rashid Nugmanov, Igla (film, 1988)
Visual Arts: Sots-Art; Komar and Melamid
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Topic 2: The Roaring 90s: Trauma, Nostalgia, and Capitalism
Recommended primary sources:
Svetlana Alexievich, Vremia Secondhand (2013, selections) and the Nobel Lecture (2015)
Nikita Mikhalkov, Utomlennye solntsem听(film, 1994)
Aleksei Balabanov, Brat听(film, 1997)
Aleksandr Sokurov, Russkii kovcheg听(film, 2002)
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Topic 3: Before Crimea: Nationalism, Violence, and Dissent
Recommended primary sources:
Yelena Gremina, Mikhail Ugarov, 厂别苍迟颈补产谤鈥�.诲辞肠 (2005)
Vasilii Sigarev, Plastilin (2000)
Vladimir and Oleg Presnyakov, Terrorizm (2002)
Elena Fanailova, 鈥溾�� Oni opiat鈥� za svoi Afganistan鈥� (2003), 鈥淟ena i Liudi鈥� (2008)
Kirill Medvedev, 鈥淜onets Peremiria鈥� (2005)
Aleksei Balabanov, Gruz 200 (film, 2007)
Andrei Zvyagintsev, Leviafan (film, 2013)
Vasilii Sigarev, Strana Oz (film, 2015)
Performance art and actionism:听Voina, Pussy Riot, Petr Pavlensky
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Topic 4: From New Zastoi to the War in Ukraine
Lidia Yusupova, 鈥渮hizn鈥� M.V.I.鈥�, 鈥渂lizkim litsom blizkim litsom鈥� from听Prigovory (selections, 2020)
Roman Osminkin, 鈥渙monovets v balaklave鈥� (2015)
Galina Rymbu, 鈥淰RL (Velikaia Russkaia Literatura)鈥� (2020), 鈥渟on proshel, Lesbiiaa, nastalo vremia pechali鈥� (2020)
Dmitry Kuzmin, 鈥淣eskol鈥檏o Slov o Metro i o Gei鈥搃dentichnosti鈥� (2013)
Oksana Vasiakina, 鈥淰eter Iarosti鈥揚esni Iarosti鈥� (2019)
Kirill Serebrennikov, Uchenik (film, 2016) and Petrovy v Grippe (film, 2021)
Aleksei Fedorchenko, Angely Revolutsii (film, 2014)
Kantemir Balagov, Tesnota (film, 2017)
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For background, students who are planning to take SL15 are advised to look at:
- Yurchak, Aleksei. Everything Was Forever, until It Was No More: The Last Soviet Generation. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005.
- Borenstein, Eliot, and Mark Lipovetsky. Russian Postmodernist Fiction: Dialogue with Chaos. New York: Routledge, 2015.
- Brown, Deming. The Last Years of Soviet Russian Literature: Prose Fiction 1975鈥�1991. 澳门六合彩开奖记录: 澳门六合彩开奖记录 University Press, 1993.
- Borenstein, Eliot. Overkill: Sex and Violence in Contemporary Russian Popular Culture. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2008.
- Boym, Svetlana. The Future of Nostalgia. New York, NY: Basic Books, 2016.
- Oushakine, Serguei. 鈥淚n the State of Post-Soviet Aphasia: Symbolic Development in Contemporary Russia.鈥� Europe-Asia Studies 52, no. 6 (2000).
- Beumers, Birgit, and Mark Lipovetsky. Performing Violence: Literary and Theatrical Experiments of New Russian Drama. Bristol, UK: Intellect, 2009.
- Bozovic, Marijeta. 鈥淧erforming Poetry and Protest in the Age of Digital Reproduction.鈥� Essay. In Cultural Forms of Protest in Russia, edited by Birgit Beumers, Alexander Etkind, Olga Gurova, and Sanna Turoma. London: Routledge Taylor & Francis Group, 2018.
- Bassin, Mark, Christopher Ely, and Melissa Stockdale, eds. Space, Place, and Power in Modern Russia: Essays in the New Spatial History. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2018.
- Clowes, Edith W. Russia on the Edge: Imagined Geographies and Post-Soviet Identity. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2011.
- Etkind, Alexander. Warped Mourning Stories of the Undead in the Land of the Unburied. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2013.
- Jonson, Lena. Russia - Art Resistance and the Conservative-Authoritarian Zeitgeist. Routledge, 2017.
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The course comprises four elements: lectures, seminars, supervisions and reading.
- Lectures: there are sixteen lectures, eight in Michaelmas and eight in Lent.
- Seminars: there are four seminars in Easter term.
- Supervisions: there are ten supervisions: four in Michaelmas, four in Lent and two in Easter.
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Candidates for Part IB:
A 5-hour timed online examination.
The examination paper will be comprised of two sections: Section A will cover the Set Texts (3-4 questions, including an option of writing a commentary on a passage) and Section B will cover the Topics (8-10 questions). The students will have to answer one question from Section A and two questions from Section B.
For each answer you should write no more than 1,300 words.
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Candidates for Part II:
The examination will consist of TWO parts:
1) Lent term Coursework Essay
Answer ONE question from a list that will be released at the end of Lent term. The questions will correspond to two set texts on the syllabus.
You should write no more than 1,800 words.
Essays will be due for submission at the start of the Easter term (the precise date and time to be announced in due course.)
2) Easter Exam
A 3-hour timed online examination.
Answer TWO questions. The questions will correspond to Topics 1-4.
For each answer write no more than 1,500 words.
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For the SL15 exam sample please see the .
Dr Daria Ezerova |
