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THE LAST SOVIET GENERATION Spring 2007 MW 2:15 David Brandenberger   The last Soviet generation is something of a riddle. Soviet citizens during the Cold War were indoctrinated from an early age to be patriots and believers in the revolutionary ethos of Marxist internationalism. Yet while most participated in the system willingly, they would also profess one thing in public and quite another in private. What do we make of this? Few thought of themselves as dissidents, and even fewer tried to undermine the system. But as their society stagnated in the late 1980s, most merely stood by and watched. Although the loss of superpower status and the ordeal of total economic collapse drove many to private despair and privation, surprisingly few members of this generation raised a hand, much less took to the streets, in order to defend the USSR. What moved this last Soviet generation? Where did its sense of public conformity and private independence come from? What can explain its “apoliticism” against a background of ubiquitous propaganda? What can explain its intense individualism within a society ostensibly organized along collectivist lines? Why are terms like loyalist, timeserver and dissident inadequate for describing members of this social cohort? Unsatisfied with simplistic terms and explanations, this course proposes to look for more nuanced ways to explain late Soviet mentalité. How did members of this group become such critical thinkers? What contributed to their worldview? Along the way, it investigates the dilemmas that stymie all communities in times of crisis: the conflict of individualism vs. collectivity, activism vs. reticence, dissatisfaction vs. resignation, idealism vs. realism and cynicism vs. pessimism. It also examines coping strategies that individuals and societies adopt in traumatic times, whether protest, passive resistance, dissembling or internalization. Supported in part by a curricular development grant underwritten by the 2005-2007 UR Quest Program, this course ultimately attempts to determine “what moved the last Soviet generation?” An inherently interdisciplinary investigation, this course synthesizes the study of cultural history with work in popular fiction, literary criticism and film. Units in the course are structured around an examination of late Soviet society as described by contemporaries and memoirists. Literary satire and nostalgia also play a major role in the course. A final element is supplied by western journalism and recent socio-anthropological investigations of what it meant to be Soviet between 1960 and 1991. Four components factor into the overall course evaluation: discussion (attendance is assumed); five 500 word response papers; a take-home midterm (due February 23) and a final paper (due May 4). Please don’t hesitate regarding mail communication and office hour meetings. READING SCHEDULE † denotes reading onlline on eReserves   Week 1: introduction Monday, January 15: why the last Soviet Generation? Wednesday, January 17: “stiliagi” & early counter culture Mark Edele, “Strange Young Men in Stalin’s Moscow: The Birth and Life of the Stiliagi, 1945-1953,” Jahrbuecher fuer Geschichte Osteuropas 50:1 (2002): 37–61† D. Belyaev, “Stilyaga,” in Mass Culture in Soviet Russia, 450-453†   Week 2: the intelligentsia Monday, January 22: the politics of information Hedrick Smith, “White TASS and Letters to the Editor,” “Intellectual Life: the Archipelago of Private Culture,” in The Russians, 344-374, 397-416† audio recording: Vladimir Vysotskii, “About Serezhka Fomin” audio recording: Bulat Okudzhava, “About Volodia Vysotskii” Wednesday, January 24: asserting independence Ludmilla Alexeyeva, The Thaw Generation, 56-105† J. Brodsky, “Less Than One,” “In a Room and a Half,” in Less Than One, 447-501†   Week 3: private lives/public lives Monday, January 29: getting by Smith, “Private Life,” in The Russians, 102-123† Nancy Ries, “Our Fairy-Tale Life,” in Russian Talk, 42-82 Tuesday, January 30: film screening The Irony of Fate (Ironiia sud’by, ili s legkim parom) (E. Riazanov, 1975), 186 min. Wednesday, January 31: mythologies of everyday life Ries, “Mystical Poverty” and “Conclusion,” in Russian Talk,126-188 clips from Tomorrow Is a Holiday (Zavtra prazdnik) (Sergei Bukovsky, 1987)   Week 4: women Monday, February 5: separate but equal? Smith, “Women: Liberated but not Emancipated,” in The Russians, 124-147 N. Baranskaya, A Week Like Any Other: Novellas and Stories, trans. P. Monks, 1-62† Tuesday, February 6: film screening Moscow Doesn't Believe in Tears (Moskva slezam ne verit) (O. Menshov, 1980), 142 min. Wednesday, February 7: gendering classless society David K. Willis, “Women: the Statusless Sex,” in Klass: How Russians Really Live, 155-182† Moscow Women: Thirteen Interviews, edited by Carla Hansson and Karin Liden, 3-25, 70-78†   Week 5: bureaucracy & the economies of shortage Monday, February 12: getting by Smith, “Consumers: The Art of Queuing,” in The Russians, 53-80 Alena Ledeneva, “The Soviet Order: A View from Within,” in Russia’s Economy of Favors, 73-138 Wednesday, February 14: getting ahead Ledeneva, “Blat as a Form of Exchange,” in Russia’s Economy of Favors, 139-174 James Millar, “The Little Deal: Brezhnev’s Contribution to Acquisitive Socialism,” in The Structure of Soviet History, 370-379   Week 6: Soviet patriotism Monday, February 19: the myth of the war Smith, “Patriotism: World War II was Only Yesterday,” in The Russians, 303-325 clips from Ballad of a Soldier (Ballad o soldate), dir. G. Chukhrai (Mosfil’m, 1959), 90 min. clips from The Cranes are Flying (Letat zhuravli), dir. M. Kalatozov (Mosfil’m, 1957), 97 min. clips from Fate of a Man (Sud’ba cheloveka), dir. S. Bondarchuk (Mosfil’m, 1959), 103 min. Tuesday, February 20: film screening Chapaev (Vasil’ev brothers, 1934), 90 min Wednesday, February 21: (anti)Soviet humor Alexei Yurchak, “The Cynical Reason of Late Socialism: Power, Pretense and the Anekdot,” Public Culture 9:2 (1997): 161-188† “General Political Humor,” in The Jokes of Oppression, ed. David Harris and Izrail Rabinovich, 182-205† handout of Chapaev jokes   Week 7: Russian nationalism Monday, February 26: Russian vs. Soviet John Dunlop, “Historical Background, 1953-1981,” “Voluntary Societies” and “Cultural Manifestations,” in Faces of Russian Nationalism, 29-92, 109-132† slides of canvases from I. Glazunov Wednesday, February 28: village prose Vasily Shukshin, “Snowball Berry Red,” in Contemporary Russian Prose, 57-126† clips from Snowball Berry Red (V. Shukshin, 1974)   Week 8: countercultures Monday, March 12: the arts Alison Hilton and Norton Dodge, “Preface,” “Introduction”; John E. Boldt, ‘Moscow: The Contemporary Art Scene”; Constantine Kuzminsky, “Two Decades of Unofficial Art in Leningrad,” in New Art from the Soviet Union, 1-34† slides by various artists Tuesday, March 13: film screening Black Square (Joseph Pasternak, 1988), 56 min. Wednesday, March 14: rock music Alexei Yurchak, “Gagarin and the Rave Kids,” in Consuming Russia: Popular Culture, Sex and Society since Gorbachev, 76-109† clips from “Education of Rita,” “All That Jazz” (BBC/Frontline, 1985)   Week 9: stagnation & moral crisis Monday, March 19: malaise John Bushnell, “The ‘New Soviet Man’ Turns Pessimist,” in The Structure of Soviet History, 360-369† Victor Pelevin, “Sleep,” in The Werewolf Problem in Central Russia, 59-79† Tuesday, March 20: film screening Little Vera (V. Pichul, 1988), 110 min Wednesday, March 21: sexual revolution Paul W. Goldschmidt, “Pornography in Russia,” in Consuming Russia, 318-338† Victor Erofeev, “Dirty Words,” The New Yorker, September 15. 2003, 42-48†   Week 10: vodka Monday, March 26: binge Venedikt Erofeev, Moscow to the End of the Line, first half Victor Erofeev, “The Russian God: Vodka Celebrates its Five-Hundredth Anniversary,” The New Yorker, December 16, 2002, 56-63† Tuesday, March 27: film screening Taxi Blues (Taksi bliuz, P. Lugin, 1990), 110 min. Wednesday, March 28: DTs (delirium tremens) Erofeev, Moscow to the End of the Line, second half clips from The Limit (Tatyana Skabard, 1986)   Week 11: the end of history Monday, April 2: Glasnost’ Hedrick Smith, “Stalinism: the Open Wound,” in The New Russians, 121-147† Nina Andreeva, “I Cannot Give Up my Principles,” in The Structure of Soviet History, 438-445† Tuesday, April 3: film screening Marshall Blucher: A Portrait Against the Backdrop of an Epoch (Vladimir Eisner, 1988), 70 min. Wedneday, April 4: depicting the past clips from I Was Stalin's Bodyguard, or an Experiment in Documentary Mythology (Ia sluzhil v okhrane Stalina, ili opyt dokumental’noi mifologii (S. Ananovich, 1990) Karen Dukess, “The Bolshevik Bodyguard,” The Moscow Times, 5 March 1993, 5   Week 12: narrating collapse Monday, April 9: antipropaganda Pelevin, Omon-Ra, entire slides of canvases by Komar and Melamid Tuesday, April 10: film screening Sidewiskers (Bakenbardy) (Iu. Mamin, 1990), 100 min. Wednesday, April 11: contradiction and debate Geoffrey Hosking, “The Collapse and Fall of the USSR,” in The First Socialist Society, 446-501† Hosking, “An Unanticipated Creation: The Russian Federation,” in Rulers and Victims, 374-403†   Week 13: constructing the last Soviet generation Monday, April 16: formalism’s hegemony Yurchak, Everything Was Forever Until it Was No More, 36-125 Wednesday, April 18: living “outside” Yurchak, Everything Was Forever Until it Was No More, 126-206   Week 14: deconstructing the last Soviet generation Monday, April 23: communist heteroglossia Yurchak, Everything Was Forever Until it Was No More, 207-298 Wednesday, April 25: who was the last Soviet generation?