MONASH UNIVERSITY FACULTY HANDBOOKS

Arts Undergraduate Handbook 1996

Authorised by Academic Registrar, April 1996

RSS1010

Soviet literature and culture

S M Vladiv-Glover

Synopsis An introduction, from a contemporary post-Soviet perspective, to Soviet culture and society, using selected literary texts, films and slides. Issues studied include the rehabilitation of the arts of the twenties and thirties, the new position of the writer on the contemporary cultural scene and the re-evaluation of the Soviet past. The texts represent a combination of the repressed Stalinist literature and the post-Stalinist `thaws' (`village prose,' `young prose', the `semiotic novel').

Assessment Written (3500 words): 70% + Examination (1.5 hours): 30%

Prescribed texts

• Bitov A Pushkin House tr. S Brownsberger, Farrow, Strauss and Giroux, 1987
• Bulgakov M Master and Margarita Fontana
• Platonov The pit Ardis, 1973
• Rasputin V Money for Maria
• Rybakov A The children of the Arbat Hutchinson, 1988
• Whitney T (ed.) The new writing in Russia Michigan, 1964

Recommended texts

• Deutscher I Stalin: Political biography rev. edn, Penguin, 1966
• Hosking G Beyond socialist realism: Soviet fiction since Ivan Denisovich Granada, 1980
• Mackenzie D and Curran M W A history of the Soviet Union Dorsey, 1986
• Shub D Lenin: A biography Penguin
• Svirski G A History of post-war Soviet writing: The literature of moral opposition Ardis, 1981
• Talbott S (ed. and tr.) Khrushchev remembers Deutsch, 1971
• Volkov S Testimony: The memoirs of Shostakovich Hamish Hamilton, 1979
• Voslensky M Nomenklatura: Anatomy of the Soviet ruling class Bodley Head, 1984