92673 - RUSSIA IN GLOBAL HISTORY (1) (LM)

Conoscenze e abilità da conseguire

At the end of the course students will have acquired an understanding of the historical role played by Russia at a global level, especially as a key region located at the intersection of the European and Asian worlds. Students will be able to critically engage the study of Russian political, economic, social and cultural history, being capable to adopt sound theoretical frameworks and to read a wide set of different relevant sources. At the end of the course, students will also be able to deploy their analytical skills in professional activities linked with the popularization and public use of historical knowledge.

Contenuti

The course explores several key themes and dynamics of Russian and Soviet history in the 19th and 20th centuries, resorting to insights brought by political, social, and cultural history. The students will be especially invited to discover the scholarship that worked toward re-situating Russian / Soviet history within a broader context, European or Eurasian.

Was political oppression and dictatorship the expression of an weak state? what were the relationships between brutal action on the social fabric, tradition, modernization, and messianism? Did the imperial nature of the Russian state — albeit deeply transformed by the Bolsheviks' nationality policy — preclude any project of liberal democracy?

A first module will question the place of the legal subject (imperial subject, then Soviet citizen) in the regime between the reforms of Alexander II and the decade following the collapse of the Soviet Union. It will revisit Wortman's concept of a Russian legal consciousness (developing especially through the 19th century) in the light of recent imperial and social studies on the "imperial rights regime" of late tsarist empire. A special focus will be made on the fate of the peasantry in regimes that consistently disregarded its rights, expectations or considered its culture as backward and reactionary.

A second module will continue the study of relations of power by turning to political violence and transformation in twentieth century Russia. The crucible of war, revolution, violence, and modernization will be examined in the light of the most recent scholarship, looking at diverse actors of this history, from bottom to top.

The last part of the course delves into the issue of “nation” in the Russian / Soviet twentieth century. The Russian empire, the Soviet Union, and even the smaller post-Soviet Russian Federation were multinational states, spread out across eleven time zones and more than 22 million square kilometres (8,65 million square miles). National awakening counted among the factors of collapse of the tsarism in 1917, and the subsequent Civil War was in part a fight of a center to retain its hold on the periphery. If Russian nationalism was still, in 1917, a concept much less clear than in European nation-states like France, there undoubtedly existed a Russian imperialism that found diverse forms depending on where it expressed itself: in "oriental", "Asiatic" expanses that needed to be dragged up from their cultural and economic 'backwardness', or in the more developed, but also rebellious, western parts of the country. The revolutionary break of 1917 redefined statehood as well as administrative and political rule over the former imperial territory, part of which was lost in the First World War. Yet the consolidating Soviet Union, in its Stalinist form, redeployed centralizing dynamics and imperialist tendencies while creating the first “Affirmative Action Empire” in world history (T. Martin). The issue of supranational identity (“rossiskii” — i.e., “Russian” in the political, but not ethnic sense — then Soviet) will also be examined continually through documents originating from state institutions, educated milieus (including scientists, writers, and artists) and “ordinary” subjects and citizens.

Testi/Bibliografia

For students who have not approached the history of Russia and/or the Soviet Union before, it is strongly recommended you read carefully one or two overviews, such as

• the highly readable, succinct and recent Mark Edele, The Soviet Union. A Short History. Hoboken: Wiley-Blackwell, 2019.
• the more detailed synthesis of Andrea Graziosi, L’Unione Sovietica, 1914-1991. Bologna: Il Mulino, 2020 (electronic version of the 2011 print) or finally
• the introduction and chapers on the 19th to 21st centuries of Valerie A. Kivelson and Ronald G. Suny, Russia’s Empires. New York; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017 or Serhii Plokhy, Lost Kingdom. The Quest for Empire and the Making of the Russian Nation. From 1470 to the Present. New York: Basic Books, 2017.

Other general references include:

• Ronald G. Suny, ed., The Cambridge History of Russia. Vol. III, “The Twentieth Century”, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006.

• Silvio Pons and Alan Cameron, The global revolution : a history of international communism 1917-1991. Oxford, England : Oxford University Press, 2014

Each module will allow the study of specialized scholarship and students will be required to read several academic texts (articles, book chapters available online or retrievable from the course 'Virtuale' space) for each of the three modules.

Attending students may also have to present a monograph during one of the classes.

Metodi didattici

ATTENDING STUDENTS MUST REGISTER ON THE COURSE VIRTUALE, READ INSTRUCTIONS,  AND IDEALLY SELECT A PRESENTATION (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Kpg8EMZodI7Oqr-RGsjCCoouL89Qsil_wBjMkVwr_eg/edit?usp=sharing)

BEFORE THE BEGINNING OF CLASSES ON NOV. 9

Classes begin on Wednesday 9 November, 11.00-13.00, and are held each Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday 11.00-13.00 in Aula Specola.

Classes will be based on in-person lectures by the professor but the broadest space will be made for students' questions and collective discussions. The students' presentations (see "assessments methods" below) also aim at fostering interactions during classes. To this end, ATTENDING STUDENTS MUST REGISTER IN ONE SLOT OF THE CALENDAR OF THE COURSE (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Kpg8EMZodI7Oqr-RGsjCCoouL89Qsil_wBjMkVwr_eg/edit?usp=sharing).

The students will therefore actively participate in class, improving their methodological skills in historical interpretation of sources and critical appraisal of scholarship, and acquiring essential knowledge on modern and contemporary Russia.

Primary sources or article/chapter scheduled for analysis must be read by all the attending students, not only by the one scheduled to present them. Therefore, the materials will be uploaded on the Virtuale of the course (if not available directly through AlmaRe).

Modalità di verifica e valutazione dell'apprendimento

ATTENDING STUDENTS

The mark for attending students will be composed of two parts:

(1) The first part will be given on the basis of an oral presentation, during class, of circa 25 min. In the first classes (sessions 2 to 8), it will be an analytical and critical presentation of a monograph. In the later classes, it can be a commentary on primary sources or a synthetic presentation on a specific topic. Titles, primary sources as well as topics must be agreed upon in consultation with the professor at minimum several days before the date of the presentation in class. For presentations of monographs in classes 2 to 8, students must discuss with the professors before the beginning of the course, or during the first week.

The grade assigned to the presentation will be based on both the methodology followed (depth of analysis — paraphrase is forbidden), the intelligibility of the presentation (structure and language skills), and the research made by the student to interpret the documents / article / monograph or to present the topic in a dynamic and up-to-date manner.

ATTENDING STUDENTS MUST REGISTER ON THE COURSE VIRTUALE, READ INSTRUCTIONS, AND IDEALLY SELECT A PRESENTATION (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Kpg8EMZodI7Oqr-RGsjCCoouL89Qsil_wBjMkVwr_eg/edit?usp=sharing) BEFORE THE BEGINNING OF CLASSES ON NOV. 9

(2) The second corresponds to a written paper (4.000 words max) on a topic related to the course, in consultation with the instructor, and based on the references listed in the reading list and evoked during classes, and on further specific bibliography selected by the student. The paper will be delivered on a date agreed with the instructor soon after the end of the course.

The grade assigned to the paper will be based on:

• the selection of the topic and its relevance to the course content
• the clarity in structure and aims
• the ability to identify relevant bibliography (min. 4 academic chapters/articles)
• the critical skills displayed in the presentation of the topic and the handling of the scholarship
• language proficiency

Students who attend at least 75% of the lessons are considered to be attending.

NON-ATTENDING STUDENTS

Students that do not attend classes will have to pass an oral exam, with questions aimed at verifying the student's knowledge of the relevant literature available for non-attending on the Virtuale of the course (section "Exam"). It is recommended but non mandatory that non-attending students also read the primary sources and scholarly works studied by the attending students and available in each class section of the course 'Virtuale' space.

From Jan. 2023 onwards, the program to study by non-attending students, whatever their year of inscription, is the program specified for the current year, so for 2022-23 look here: https://virtuale.unibo.it/mod/page/view.php?id=1085509

If any question or doubt persists about the content of this oral exam, the students are strongly invited to contact the instructor during scheduled reception hours, or to schedule a meeting by email.

The questions will be aimed at testing the student's ability in exposing with appropriate language:

• the main topics tackled by the books and articles,
• the methodological or conceptual choices made by the authors,
• the sources exploited,
• as well as their skills in making connections between different texts in order to build an argument.

Proper language and the ability to critically speak about the literature's content will lead to a good/excellent final grade

Acceptable language and the ability to summarize the literature's content will lead to a sufficient/fair grade.

Insufficient linguistic proficiency and fragmentary knowledge or understanding of the literature's content will lead to a failure in the exam.

Strumenti a supporto della didattica

Besides the articles or chapters discussed during classes and the primary sources chosen for students’ presentations, the 'Virtuale' space of the course will provide a set of maps, and the most essential instructor's powerpoint presentations for each class.

Attending students are invited to check the Virtuale before each class.

Orario di ricevimento

Consulta il sito web di Vanessa Voisin