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HISTORY AND LITERATURE OF IMPERIAL RUSSIA  David Brandenberger     This seminar is designed as an introduction to the interdisciplinary study of Russia from the age of Peter the Great to the turn of the 20th century. Each weekly segment explores a different problem in Russian cultural history with the use of several interconnected primary sources (historical and literary texts) and secondary source materials. While this seminar is not intended to be a complete survey of Russian history or literature, and cannot substitute for the basic courses offered in those disciplines, it aims to provide a thorough overview of the important scholarly issues concerning the 19th century as well as an introduction to the methods and techniques of interdisciplinary scholarship.   For every other reading assignment you will be asked to respond in writing. Different assignments will be made each week. Depending on the reading, these may include brief response papers, close analysis of texts or answers to a given list of questions. Writing assignments are intended to help focus your reading and sharpen your analytical skills. You will also write two essays this semester, the first being 5-7 pages in length and the second being 8-10 pages in length.     SCHEDULE OF READINGS   MEETING ONE: Introduction - The Debatable Legacy of Peter the Great   J. T. Alexander, "The Petrine Era and After, 1682-1740," 87-113 (cp) Karamzin's Memoir on Ancient and Modern Russia: a translation and analysis, 103-37 M. Raeff, "Introduction," in Peter the Great: Reformer or Revolutionary, vii-xv (cp) Duc du Simon, "His Personality and Habits," 9-10 (cp) F. Prokopovich, "Oration at the Funeral of Peter the Great," 76-8 (cp) V. Kliuchevskii, "Peter's Paradoxical Legacy," 84-7 (cp) S. F. Platonov, "Peter the Great: Not a Revolutionary Innovator," 88-90 (cp) P. Miliukov, "Timeless and Revolutionary Pace of Reforms," 95-101 (cp) M. Lomonosov, "Ode on the Day of the Ascension... of Elizabeth," 193-201(cp) "The Sovereign Wrestles with a Dragoon," 257-9 (cp)       MEETING TWO: The Gentry and the Superfluous Man   film: Onegin (M. Fiennes, 1999) A. Griboedov, Woe from Wit, 34-128 (cp) I. Turgenev, "Hamlet of the Shchigrovskii District," in Sketches from a Hunter's Album D. Ransel, "Pre-Reform Russia, 1801-1855," in Russia: a History, 143-69 A. Walicki, "Gentry Conservatives and Gentry Revolutionaries," 53-70 (cp)       MEETING THREE: The Enigmatic Peasant   Ivan Turgenev, "Khor and Kalinych," in Sketches from a Hunter's Album Olga Tian-Shanskaia, Village Life in late tsarist Russia, xi-xxx, 95-115, 151-56 E. Kingston Mann, "Introduction: Breaking the Silence," 1-19 (cp) R. Pipes, "The Peasantry," in Russia under the Old Regime, 141-70 (cp) M. Gor'kii, "On the Russian Peasantry,"(cp) F. I. Kuz'ma, "Oh those Yaroslavites, what fine folk!" in Entertaining Tsarist Russia, 135-141 (cp) *"Nicholas I's Manifesto on Peasant Unrest, May 2, 1826," in Imperial Russia: a Source Book, 197-98       MEETING FOUR: Salon - The Writer in "Society"   A. Pushkin, Egyptian Nights, all (cp) Pushkin, lyric poetry selections, 3pp. (cp) A. Nikitenko, Diary of a Russian Censor, xi-xxii, 20-30, 67-73, 120-31 (cp) L. Berstein, "Women on the Verge of a New Language: Russian Salon Hostesses in the first half of the 19th century," in Russian Women and Culture, all       MEETING FIVE: Nascent National Identity   N. Gogol, Dead Souls (Norton Edition), 248pp "Belinsky's Letter to Gogol, July 15, 1847," in Imperial Russia, 221-28 (cp) P. Chaadaev, "First Philosophical Letter," "Apology of a Madman," 31-51, 163-78 (cp) A. Walicki, "Chaadaev," "Belinsky and Different Variants of Westernism," 81-90, 135-151 (cp)       MEETING SIX: Myths and Meanings of St. Petersburg   N. Gogol, "The Overcoat," "Nose," and "Nevsky Prospect," all (cp) A. Pushkin, "The Bronze Horseman," 151-55 (cp) S. Monas, "St. Petersburg and Moscow as Cultural Symbols," 26-39 (cp) V. Krestovsky, "The Slums of St. Petersburg," in Entertaining Tsarist Russia, 121-29 *E. Dluhosch, "Translator's Note on the Founding and Development of St. Petersburg," xiii-xxix (cp) *D. Fanger, Dostoevsky and Romantic Realism, 104-35 (cp)       MEETING SEVEN: Retrieving and Reinventing the Past   N. Gogol, Taras Bulba, all N. Karamzin, Foreword to The History of the Russian State, 117-24 (cp) I. Kireevsky, "On the Nature of European Culture and its Relation to the Culture of Russia," 174-207 (cp) N. Danilevsky, "The Slav Role in World Civilization," 191-211 (cp) V. Soloviev, "Against the Slavophiles," 212-20 (cp) E. Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger, "The Invention of Tradition," all (cp) *A. Walicki, "The Slavophiles," 92-114 *"How the Russian Gave it Hot to the German," all (cp)       MEETING EIGHT: Emancipation and the Great Reforms   G. Freeze, "Reform and Counter Reform," in Russia: a History, 170-99 "The Emancipation Manifesto," in Imperial Russia: a Source Book, 270-74 I. Turgenev, Fathers and Sons, entire       MEETINGS NINE & TEN: Reading The Brothers Karamazov (bks. 1-7)       MEETING ELEVEN: Flashback - Avaakum and Russian Orthodoxy   The Archpriest Avvakum: The Life Written by Himself, 114pp. G. Michels, "The Solovetsky Uprising: Religion and Reform in North Russia," Russian Review vol. 51, no. 1 (1992): 1-15 *Walicki, "Ideologies of Reaction after the Reforms," 290-308       MEETING TWELVE: Readers and Writers in Imperial Russia   F. Dostoevsky, "Pushkin Speech," 959-80 (cp) M. Levitt, Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880, 1-17, 122-46 Idem, "Pushkin in 1899," in Cultural Mythologies of Russian Modernism, 183-203 (cp). J. Brooks, When Russia Learned to Read, 295-322 (cp) "The Slums of the Female Heart" and "The Diary of Maria Bashkirtseva," in Entertaining Tsarist Russia, 141-44, 244-50       MEETING THIRTEEN: Early Moderninsm in an Age of Revolution   Fedor Sologub, The Petty Demon, 274pp. Joan Neuberger, Hooliganism, selections R. Zelnik, "Revolutionary Russia, 1890-1914," in Russia: a History, 200-30 "Symbolism," in A Handbook of Russian Literature, edited by V. Terras, 2pp. *Balmont, "An Elementary Statement about Symbolist Poetry" (1900), 38-42 *Andrei Bely, "Petersburg: a selection from chapter 2, 'The Escape'," in An Anthology of Russian Literature, 451-4