Russ 225: <a href="/keyword/russian-lit/" >russian lit</a> erature After 1917 Literature of the Fantastic &amp; Absurd University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Fall 2001 MW 3-4:20, 1136 Foreign Languages Building Instructor: Lilya Kaganovsky Office: 3029 FLB Telephone: [phone] E-mail: [e-mail] Office hours: T 10:30-1:30 I. COURSE DESCRIPTION Oh, the ephemeral! Oh, that most helpless and shameful of times in the life of my people, the time from dawn until the liquor stores open up! How many unnecessary gray hairs has it caused us homeless and grieving brunets! Let s go, Venichka, let s go. (Venedikt Erofeev, Moscow to the End of the Line) This course spans the literature and culture of twentieth-century Russia, beginning slightly before the 1917 Russian Revolution and ending roughly after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1992. The focus of the class is on the literature of the fantastic and absurd, moving from the lunatic ravings of the avant-garde to the utopian daydreams of the socialist realists to the dissipated visions of the postSoviet post-modernists. The readings will be broken up and supplemented by art, film, and poetry that will help us to see the literature of the 20th century in its broader context. The class format will be lecture/discussion, with emphasis placed on student participation. Though we will not be watching any of the films in full, all of the films will be on reserve in the Undergraduate Library Media Center. 1 Formal requirements for the course are: Two papers, five-to-seven pages in length: one must be a close reading a short story; one, a close reading of a novel (25% each). One final, eight-to-ten page paper focusing on an issue raised by the course and covering at least three but no more than five texts (40%). Attendance and participation in class discussion (10%). II. BOOKS, READING ASSIGNMENTS, AND FILMS Requried Texts (Univeristy Bookstore): Isaac Babel, Collected Stories Mikhail Bulgakov, The Master and Margarita Fyodor Gladkov, Cement Venedikt Erofeev, Moscow to the End of the Line Yury Olesha, Envy Viktor Pelevin, Omon Ra Liudmila Petrushevskaia, The Time: Night Platonov, Andrei. Foundation Pit Tolstaya, Tatiana. On Golden Porch A Reader containing short stories and theoretical texts (Notes-n-Quotes) Films on reserve (Undergraduate Library Media Center): Grigorii Aleksandrov, Circus (1936), Volga-Volga (1938) Mikhail Chiaureli, The Oath (1946), The Fall of Berlin (1949) Sergei Eisenstein, October [Ten Days that Shook the World] (1927), General Line [Old and New] (1929), Ivan the Terrible (1944, 1946-58) Vladimir Menshov, Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears (1979) Tengiz Obuladze, Repentance (1987) Yakov Protazanov, Aelita: Queen of Mars (1924) Ivan Pyr ev, Tractor Drivers (1939), The Cossacks from Kuban (1949) Dziga Vertov, Man with the Movie Camera (1929) 2 III. CLASS SCHEDULE, READINGS, AND ASSIGNMENTS W 8/22 Introduction: A Slap in the Face of Public Taste or <a href="/keyword/russian-lit/" >russian lit</a> erature in the 20th Century The Teens: Revolution &amp; Civil War M 8/27 Shklovsky: Art as Device (1917), Blok: The Twelve (1918), Pilnak: from The Naked Year (1921), Reed: from Ten Days That Shook the World (1919), A Member of the Audience: Storming the Winter Palace (1920) In class: Eisenstein: October or Ten Days That Shook the World (1927) The Eccentric Manifesto (1922), Gan: Constructivism (1922), Zamiatin: The Cave (1922), Vertov: The Cine-Eyes. A Revolution (1923), Mayakovsky: For the Voice (1923) No Class Trotsky: from Literature and Revolution (1923) and Vodka, the Church and the Cinema (1923) In class: Malevich et al., Protozanov: Aelita: Queen of Mars (1924) Babel: Red Cavalry (1926), pg. 91-163 Red Cavalry, pg. 163-233 W 8/29 M 9/3 W 9/5 M 9/10 W 9/12 The Roaring Twenties M 9/17 W 9/19 M 9/24 W 9/26 M 10/1 W 10/3 Gladkov: Cement (1925), autobiographical note; pg. 1-102; Kollontai: Make Way for the Winged Eros (1923) Cement, pg. 102-198 In class: Eisenstein: General Line or Old and New (1929) Cement, pg. 199-311; Clark: from Soviet Novel: History as Ritual Olesha: Envy (1927), Part I; Marx: The Fetishism of the Commodity and Its Secret (1867), Freud: Fetishism (1927) Envy, Part II In class: Vertov: Man with the Movie Camera (1929) Platonov: Foundation Pit The Thirties: Ordinary Stalinism M 10/8 W 10/10 Foundation Pit Zhdanov: from Speech at the First All-Union Congress of Soviet Writers (1934), Extracts: First Congress of Soviet Writers, Sinyavsky: On Socialist Realism ; Groys: from The Total Art of Stalinism, Film-Makers Letter to Stalin 3 (1934), Stalin: Congratulations to Soviet Cinema on its Fifteenth Anniversary (1935) In class: Tractor Musicals, Socialist Realist Art M 10/15 W 10/17 M 10/22 W 10/24 Bulgakov: The Master &amp; Margarita (1929-40), pg. 3-125; Cassiday: Marble Columns and Jupiter Lights in the Shakhty Affair The Master &amp; ...