RUSS 374 - Russian Modernism

This course explores the rich legacy of modernist literature in Russia as a dynamic field of aesthetic innovation, social experimentation, and historical reflection across the long twentieth century. We will approach Russian modernism as an evolving organism, with both a prehistory and an afterlife. We will review the roots of the modernist movement in the late work of nineteenth-century realists (Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Chekhov) and trace the departure from that tradition in the aestheticism and politicisation of Russian Symbolists (Sologub, Bely). Next, we will focus on the stylistic innovations of Acmeists (Akhmatova, Mandelstam) and Futurists (Khlebnikov, Pasternak) as twin responses to the contradictions of fin-de-siècle utopianism culminating in the October Revolution. We will also consider the paradox of avant-garde literature in a post-revolutionary era through the Oberiu group and Andrei Platonov. Special attention will be given to the fates of Russian modernism in interwar émigré culture (Nabokov, Tsvetaeva). Finally, we will survey the repercussions of modernist experimentation in the writings of late and post-Soviet authors. Conducted in English. An additional weekly session will be scheduled for students taking the course for Russian credit.

Unit(s): 1
Group Distribution Requirement(s): Distribution Group I
Prerequisite(s): For Russian credit: RUSS 212 equivalent.
Instructional Method: Conference
Grading Mode: Letter grading (A-F)
Cross-listing(s): LIT 374
Group Distribution Learning Outcome(s):

Understand how arguments can be made, visions presented, or feelings or ideas conveyed through language or other modes of expression (symbols, movement, images, sounds, etc.).
Analyze and interpret texts, whether literary or philosophical, in English or a non-English language, or works of the visual or performing arts.
Evaluate arguments made in or about texts (whether literary or philosophical, in English or a non-English language, or works of the visual or performing arts).