RSS1010

Soviet literature and culture

S M Vladiv-Glover

6 points
* 3 hours per week
* First semester
* Clayton

Objectives On completion of the subject, students should have become acquainted with the major historical, political and artistic trends in Soviet culture between 1917 and the 1960s and with the salient cultural and artistic texts of the period. They should be able to evaluate the society of the Soviet era against other social models and to see the connection between ideology and aesthetics on the textual level.

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