History of Russia from the Earliest Times to the Present:
Russia and Empire
Cristofer Scarboro
Gergory Hall 446G
Office Hours:12:00-2:00 Tuesdays
Email: cscarbor@uiuc.edu
Phone: (w) 333-9891; (h) 367-3361
Course Description:
This course is intended to be a broad interpretive introduction of Russian history from the Mongol invasions (1237-40) until the collapse and aftermath of the state socialist system in the Soviet Union (1991-present). The course has three broadly defined goals. The first, accomplished through textbook readings, lectures and discussions, is to outline the major events in the development of the Russian state. The second accomplished through class discussions and readings of primary and secondary works, is to explore the interaction between state and subject during this development—this is to be accomplished through a close investigation of the role of empire in the Russian context. How were the Russian and Soviet empire’s prescriptions for order internalized by the Russian and non-Russian subjects? Was the spectacle of order a tragedy or a farce or something of both? How did subjects domesticate the imperial social order and its regulated identities to their own ends? How did they conceive of themselves and their place in the wider world?
As a general education course, History 219 also seeks to meet a third and more general goal: to introduce students to the study of history as a discipline. To that end we will explore basic elements of historical practice: how to define a problem for historical study; how to find relevant evidence upon which to base your findings; how to write up this research into an informed, judicious and convincing representation of the past.
To sum up, the goal of this class is that by the end of the course the students will have a basic understanding of the relationship between state and subject in the Russian imperial space and a sense of what it means to be a historian.
Course Format:
This course is constructed in a lecture-discussion format. Generally Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, I will present a lecture to the class. Tuesdays and Thursdays will be set aside for discussion specifically (though students are invited and encouraged to treat lectures as an invitation to conversation as well). You should have completed the readings according to the schedule below.
Class Participation:
This class will ask you to actively take part in a larger conversation of historical issues within the class. I expect this class to allow us to delve deeply into the historical topics of each week’s readings. To that end, you need to make sure that you arrive to class on time, ready to discuss the weekly readings, having carefully read and thought over the material. You must take an active role in the class discussions.
You will also be responsible for leading one week of class discussion. The first week of class you will chose one of the weekly topics and readings to plan to lead the class discussion on that topic. This will require you to read the material particularly carefully, briefly introduce the material to the class and steer the class discussion. As part of preparing the discussion, you will e-mail a series of 8-10 questions to the other class members two days before our class meeting.
In a class of this nature it goes without saying that a classroom environment in which everyone feels comfortable is essential. You should treat your fellow classmates with respect, listen carefully to their comments and respond to them in a polite manner.
Course Readings:
All of the books are on reserve at the Undergraduate Library. We will be reading much material from the recommended readings, which will also be helpful for your papers.
Required:
Russia: A History, 2nd ed., Gregory Freeze, ed., New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.
Course Packet of readings for History 219 available at Notes n’ Quotes
Recommended:
Reinterpreting Russian History: Readings 860-1860s, compiled and edited by Daniel H. Kaiser and Gary Marker, Oxford University Press, 1994.
Russia’s Orient: Imperial Borderlands and Peoples, 1700-1917, Daniel R. Brower and Edward J. Lazzerini, eds., Bloomington: Indiana University Press, c1997.
Riasanovsky, Nicholas, A History of Russia, 6th Ed., New York: Oxford University Press, 2000.
Stites, Richard, Revolutionary Dreams: Utopian Vision and Experimental Life in the Russian Revolution, New York: Oxford University Press, 1989.
Mass Culture in Soviet Russia: Tales, Poems, Songs, Movies, Plays and Folklore, 1917-1953, Jmaes von Geldern and Richard Stites, eds., Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1995.
Medieval Russia’s Epics, Chronicles and Tales, edited translated and with and introduction by Serge A. Zenkovsky, New York: Dutton, 1974.
Steinberg, Mark D., Voices of Revolution, 1917, documents translated by Marian Schwartz, compiled by Mark D. Steinberg, Zinaida Peregudova and LIubov Tiutiunnik, New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001.
About Course Written Work and Exams:
Students will complete the following assignments during the term. All assignments must be completed in order to pass the course. Due dates are listed below and in the lecture schedule.
1) Two Short Papers of five pages, each addressing a question of empire and Russia. The fist paper will focus on the question of empire in 19th century Russia and the second will focus on empire and the Soviet experience.
2) An In-Class Midterm Examination on reading and lecture material, conducted in class on Wednesday, July 14th. Half of the exam will consist of identifications drawn from reading and lecture material; the other half will involve evaluating a historical opinion on the basis of course materials. Detailed instructions for the exam will be handed out in class the week before.
3) A Take-Home Final Examination to be turned in no later than August 7th (5:00 p.m.)
Grading and Evaluation:
Grades will be determined according to the following formula:
1) Two short essays: 45% (1st=20%; 2nd=25%)
2) In-Class Midterm Examination: 15%
3) Take-Home Final: 20%
4) Class Participation: 20% (including attendance, participation in classroom and leading class discussion one week)
Schedule for Class Meetings, Readings and Assignments:
Monday June 14th: Course Introduction
Section One: Of Muscovy and Mongols
Tuesday, June 15th
**Lecture: “What is History? What is Russia? Why Empire as a Theme?”
**Readings: R. O. Crummey, “Land and People,” from The Formation of Muscovy (London: Longman), 1-28.
Wednesday, June16th:
**Lecture: “Russia and the Mongol Empire—Antipathies, Silences, Exchanges”
**Readings: Freeze, 2-17
**Recommended Readings: A. M. Sakharov, “The Mongol Yoke and Socioeconomic Change,” and Sakharov, “The Mongols and Cultural Change, in Kaiser and Marker, 124-127 and 137-140, Zenkovsky, “The Battle of Kalka,” “Orison on the Downfall of Russia,” and “Of the Destruction of Riazan,”193-207.
Thursday June 17th:
**Discussion: “The Building of the Muscovite Stae and Society—How was the Grand Principality Made?”
**Readings: “Prince Kurbsky-Ivan IV Correspondence/Apocrypha,” in Znekovky, 366-376; Even Levin, “Sexuality in Muscovy,” “O Foreigner Describes the Oprichnina of Ivan the Terrible,” Nancy Sheilds Kollmann, “The Façade of Autocracy,” and Robert O. Crummey, “Ivan IV: Reformer or Tyrant?” in Kaiser and Marker, 151-161 and 218-222.
Friday June 18th:
**Lecture: “The Time of Troubles and the End of Medieval Russia”
**Readings: Freeze, 55-63
**Recommended Readings: “Historical Works from the Time of Troubles,” in Zenkovsky, 379-391.
Section Two: Empire
Monday, June 21st:
**Lecture: Enter Peter”
**Readings: Freeze, 87-113.
Tuesday, June 22nd:
**Discussion: “‘Father of the Fatherland:’ Peter the Great and the Russian Imperial State”
**Readings: “Peter the Great” from Kliuchevsky, Course Packet
**Recommended Readings: “The Table of Ranks of All Grades: Military, Administrative and Court,” “Manifesto Freeing the Nobility from Compulsory Service,” Helju Bennet, “Russia’s System of Ranks and Orders,” and Gregory Freeze, “The Soslovie (Estate) Paradigm and Russian Social History,” in Kaiser and Marker 226-242.
Wednesday June 23rd:
**Lecture: “Creating Empire”
**Readings: Michael Khodarkovsky, “Ignoble Savages and Unfaithful Subjects: Constructing Non-Christian Identities in Early Modern Russia,” in Brower and Lazzerini, eds., Russia’s Orient, 9-27.
Thursday, June 24th:
**Discussion: “Imagining the Empire”
** Readings: Yuri Slezkine, “Naturalists vs. Nations: 18th Century Scholars Confront Ethnic Diversity,” in Brower and Lazerini, 27-57.
Friday, June 25th:
**Lecture: “Catherine the Great”
**Readings: Freeze, 114-142.
Monday, June 28th:
**Discussion: “Enlightened Autocracy”
**Readings: “The Statute on Provincial Administration,” “The Charter to the Nobility,” Mark Raeff, “The Well-Ordered Police State,” and Isabel de Madariaga, “Catherine the Great, an Enlightened Autocrat,” in Kaiser and Marker, 242-255.
Tuesday, June 29th:
**Lecture: “Russia Thinkers”
**Readings: Berlin, “The Hedgehog and the Fox,” from Russian Thinkers, in the course packet.
Wednesday, June 30th:
**Discussion: “The Decembrist Revolt”
**Readings: Documents from the Decembrist Movement (from Raeff, ed. Decembrist Movement), and Belinsky, “Letter to Gogol” in the course packet.
Thursday, July 1st:
**Lecture: “Autocracy in the 19th Century: Alexander I and Nicholas I”
**Readings: Freeze, 143-170
Friday, July 2nd ***No Class***
Monday, July 5th ***No Class***
Section Three: Hopes and Dislocations
Tuesday July 6th: First Paper Due in My Office by 5:00
**Lecture: “The Great Reforms”
*Readings: Freeze, 170-200.
Wednesday July 7th:
**Discussion: “The Great Reforms”
**Readings: A. Nikitenko, Up from Serfdom (selections) in course packet and “The Great Reforms in Kaiser and Marker, 428-436.
Thursday, July 8th:
**Lecture: “Vision and Uncertainty: Alexander III and Nicholas II”
**Readings: Nicholas V. Riasanovsky, “The Reign of Alexander III, 1881-1894 and the First Part of the Reign of Nicholas II, 1894-1905,” Riasanovsky, History of Russia, 6th ed. (Oxforrd, 2000). 391-404.
Friday, July 9th:
**Lecture: “Civil Society in Late Imperial Russia”
**Readings: Samuel D. Kassow, James L. West and Edith Clowes, “The Problem of the Middle in Late Imperial Russian Society,” in Between Ysar and People: Educated Society and the Quest for Public Identity in Late Imperial Russia, (Princeton, 1991), 5-14.
Monday, July 12th:
**Discussion: “Cultures in Flux”
**Readings: Mark D. Steinberg and Stephen P. Frank, “Introduction” and Joan Neuberger, “Culture Besieged: Hooliganism and Futurism,” in Cultures in Flux: Lower Class Values, Practices and Resistance in late Imperial Russia, (Princeton, 1994), 3-10 and 185-203.
Tuesday, July 13th: ***No Class***
Wednesday, July 14th: Midterm In-Class Examination
Thursday, July 15th:
**Lecture: “The City: Solaces and Discontents”
**Readings: Freeze, 200-231.
Section Four: New Empire
Friday, July 16th:
**Discussion: “Setting the Stage for Revolution”
**Readings: Stites, Revolutionary Dreams, 14-57.
Monday, July 19th:
**Lecture: “February, October and Civil War”
**Readings: Freeze, 231-263.
Tuesday, July 20th:
**Discussion: “Voices of the Revolution
**Readings: Selections from Mark D. Steinberg, Voices of Revolution, (Yale, 2001).
Wednesday 21st:
**Lecture: “NEP”
**Readings: Freeze, 263-291.
Thursday, July 22nd:
**Discussion: “Everyday Life in Extraordinary Times”
**Readings: “The Purges and Preparation for War,” from Mass Culture in Soviet Russia 1912-1953, ed. by James Von Geldern and Richard Stites.
Friday, July 23rd:
**Lecture: “Stalinism as Civilization”
**Readings: Freeze, 291-319.
Monday, July 26th:
**Discussion: “Stalinism as Civilization, Continued”
**Readings: Sheila Fitzpatrick, “Introduction,” in Everyday Stalinism (Oxford, 1999) 1-13 and Steven Kotkin, “Introduction,” in Magnetic Mountain, (University of California Press, 1995), 1-25.
Tuesday July 27th:
**Lecture: “The Search for Normalcy in the 1960s and 1970s”
**Readings: Freeze, 347-383, Nikita Khrushchev, “The Secret Speech at the 20th Party Congress,” in A Documentary History of Communism, vol. 1: Communism in Russia, University Press of New England, 1984), 321-327.
Wednesday, July 28th:
**Discussion: “Soviet Consumption”
**Readings: Steven Lovell, “Soviet Exurbia: Dachas in Postwar Russia,” Susan Reid, “Khrushchev’s Children’s Paradise: The Pioneer Palace, Moscow, 1958-1962,” Katerina Gerasimova, “Public Privacy in the Soviet Communal Apartment,” in Socialist Spaces: Sites of Everyday Life in the Eastern Bloc, Susan Reid and David Crowley, eds. (Berg, 2002) 105-123, 141-181 and 207-231.
Thursday, July 29th:
**Lecture: “Soviet Ethnicities”
**Readings: Yuri Slezkine, “The USSR as a Communal Apartment, or How a Socialist State Promoted Ethnic Particularism,” in Slavic Review, vol. 53, no. 2 (Summer, 1994) 414-452.
Friday, July 30th:
**Lecture: “Glasnost and Perestroika”
**Readings: Freeze, 383-422.
Monday, August 2nd: ***No Class—Second Paper Due in my Office by 5:00***
Tuesday, August 3rd:
**Discussion: “Perils of Perestroika”
**Readings: “Personalities” from Perils of Perestroika: Viewpoints from the Soviet Press, 1989-1991, Isaac Tarasulo, ed., (S.R. Books, 1992)
Wednesday, August 4th:
**Lecture: “Wither Russia? What Can Historians Tell Us?”
**Readings: Freeze, 422-457
*****Take-Home Final Due August 7th, 5:00 p.m.*****