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What was the function and role of Socialist Realism art in the Soviet Union under Stalin? How did the dominant artistic method acquire a broader socio-political significance? Understanding the workings of Socialist Realism will allow us to re-examine how the totalitarian society had functioned and what impact it had made on contemporary culture. We will learn to analyze painting, literary and cinematic works of Socialist Realism and identify its features in today's Russophone culture in order to understand why intellectuals first embraced the new art form and, then, became disillusioned with it. All readings will be in English.

Since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, scholars have debated the relationship between Russian culture and the imperialist politics of the Russian state, and correspondingly, how the Western audience should reinterpret Russian classical literature, particularly the texts that shaped the idea of "great Russian culture." In this course, we will analyze Leo Tolstoy's "War and Peace" and Fyodor Dostoevsky's "Crime and Punishment" through the lens of postcolonial theory, situating each novel within its intellectual context and within each writer's conception of "Russianness." In addition to the novels, we will read critical essays by Tolstoy and Dostoevsky and postcolonial criticism. No knowledge of Russian is required. Slavic majors must take the course as WIM.

A survey of Russian poetry from Lomonosov to Vladinmir Solov'ev. Close reading of lyrical poems. Prerequisite: 3rd Year Russian Language

Open to Russian majors or students working on special projects. May be repeated for credit. Prerequisite: consent of instructor.

In the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union, the institution of censorship was especially harsh and politically important. Permanent pressure caused the intense development of self-censorship among the loyal writers and the flourishing of roundabout artistic language. Studying the history of censorship in Russia helps us also understand authoritarian tendencies in Putin's Russia. During the course we will read the historical documents and literary texts to examine the conflicts between writers and censors and the development of symbolic orders in the different periods of Russian cultural history. Some of the discussion topics include censorship as a social institution and its influence on public space; relationship between the authors, censorship, and public; correlation between the aim of censorship (aspects of a given work that controllers consider "dangerous"), actual aesthetic and political "focus" of a text, and its innovative features; an official ban as a spur for the readers' attention.

Old Church Slavic (OCS) is the oldest Slavic written language, designed in the 9th c. for the purposes of translating/reading liturgical Biblical texts (Gospels, Lives of Saints, prayer books, etc.) from Greek. OCS is close to Proto-Slavic, the ancestor of all Slavic languages. Its development had a great impact on all Slavs, their language, culture and literature. The course will provide an introduction to the structure (phonology, morphology and syntax) of OCS, as well as its subtle and not so subtle transformations into Church Slavic. During the course, students will become familiar with the historical background of the OCS and the characteristics of the OCS textual corpus.

This seminar discusses the developments in Russian avant-garde art from the eve of 1917 revolution to the imposition of the doctrine of Socialist Realism. We will analyze experimental Futurist poetic language and techniques in the context of the polemics of various modernist movements and will compare them with the sweeping changes that took place in early XX century visual art and music in Western Europe. The secrets of modernist poetics will be revealed through close reading and analysis of eccentric, complex and difficult poems. The focus is on the work of three major poets: Boris Pasternak, Vladimir Mayakovsky, and Marina Tsvetaeva. The seminar will also address the theoretical debates and literary battles in pre-revolutionary and early Soviet periods, the role of the government in culture under socialism and the response of artists and poets to the state's pressure.

This course will introduce students to the masterpieces of modern and post-modern Ukrainian literature as evidence of belonging to the shared European cultural space and identity. Discussion of varied literary texts will reveal the changes in the literary tradition that have taken place throughout the 20th-21st centuries, from symbolism to postmodernism, including intellectual drama and philosophical theater, the avant-garde movement, neo-baroque, existentialism, surrealism, and neomodernism. Literary phenomena will be considered in the context of Soviet totalitarianism and the collapse of empires, as products of intercultural contacts and transnational pathways of collaboration. Using methods of literary anthropology, this course critically reexamines the role of literature in social life and in the formation of a modern cultural community united by the practices of writing, reading, and interpretation. The knowledge of Ukrainian is recommended, but not required.