92673 - Russia in Global History (1) (LM)

Learning outcomes

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.

Course contents

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. In particular, the students are introduced to the scholarship that worked toward re-situating Russian / Soviet history within a broader context, global circulations and interactions. The assumed exceptionality of Russian trajectory is reassessed against a global framework of imperial disintegrations, the emergence of the modern citizen, colonial violence, the emancipation of subaltern groups.

The course begins with bases on the history of late imperial Russia / Soviet contemporary history, integrating recent scholarship. The last third of the course focuses on a thematics that exemplifies how the contemporary era saw Russia, despite undeniable exceptional features, fully partake in global dynamics and challenges. In 2025/26, the thematics is the tension between nation and empire.

Readings/Bibliography

The mandatory readings for the exam are indicated in the section "Assessment methods" below.

In the present section are indicated mere recommendations for students who have not approached the history of Russia and/or the Soviet Union in their former curriculum. Those students are strongly invited to get an overview of contemporary history of the Russian empire and the USSR before the beginning of the classes.

For instance:

• highly readable, succinct, recent and accessible online through AlmaRe: Mark Edele, The Soviet Union. A Short History. Hoboken: Wiley-Blackwell, 2019.
• Sheila Fitzpatrick, The Shortest History of the Soviet Union, Columbia University Press, 2022
• 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 chapters on the 19th to 21st centuries of Valerie A. Kivelson and Ronald G. Suny, Russia’s Empires. New York; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017

Other general references include:

• Mark Edele, Debates on Stalinism, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2020.
• Silvio Pons, The Global Revolution : a History of International communism 1917-1991 (tr. Alan Cameron) Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014.
• Radchenko, Sergey. To Run The World: The Kremlin’s Cold War Bid for Global Power. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2024.

Teaching methods

The classes alternate some in-person lectures by the professor (or guest professors) and collective discussions around a primary source or an academic text studied by students in small groups. The professor will propose some methods to discuss to apply to these documents, be they primary or secondary sources. The students will therefore actively participate in class, improving their methodological skills in the historical interpretation of sources and critical appraisal of scholarship, and acquiring essential knowledge on modern and contemporary Russia.

The space "Virtuale" of the course offers access to the texts to be discussed in class and reviewed for the final exam, as well as the detailed calendar of the course, and other resources.

Assessment methods

The exam is an oral, with different modalities and program for attending and non-attending students.

ATTENDING STUDENTS

The mark for attending students is composed of two parts:

A. The first part is ascribed on the basis of the general participation during class, especially those dedicated to collective discussions, and on one preparation work in a small group that will be used as a basis of discussion. To be considered attending, students must enrol in such a group before the 6th class (a link to a google sheet will follow). The professor provides in due time explanations on the expected preparation.

B. An oral during which students will demonstrate their assimilation of key topics and language seen during the classes (one open question) and of the texts studied collectively (one open question), applying methods of source criticism studied in class.

The texts are:

1. David A. Rich, “Imperialism, Reform, and Strategy: Russian Military Statistics, 1840-1880.” Slavonic and East European Review  74, no. 4 (1996): 621–39.

2. Alexander Morrison, “Peasant Settlers and the ‘Civilizing Mission’ in Russian Turkestan, 1865-1917,” Journal of Imperial & Commonwealth History 43, no. 3 (2015): 387–417.

3. Shane O’Rourke, “From Region to Nation: The Don Cossacks 1870–1920,” in Russian Empire: Space, People, Power, 1700-1930, ed. Jane Burbank, Mark von Hagen, and Anatolyi Remnev (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2007), 218–38.

4. Andrea Graziosi, “The Kazakh Famine, the Holodomor, and the Soviet Famines of 1930–33: Starvation and National Un-Building in the Soviet Union,” in Genocide: The Power and Problems of a Concept, ed. Andrea Graziosi and Frank E. Sysyn (Montreal & Kingston; London; Ithaca: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2022), 126–44.

5. chapter 6 in Artemy M. Kalinovsky, Laboratory of Socialist Development: Cold War Politics and Decolonization in Soviet Tajikistan (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2018).

6. Mark Edele, Russia’s War Against Ukraine: The Whole Story(Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 2023). introduction, and ch 4 (titled “Russian since 1991_Failed Decolonisation”)

 

NON-ATTENDING STUDENTS

After the end of the classes, students take an oral exam with 2 to 4 questions aimed at verifying their critical study and assimilation of the mandatory literature:

*Radchenko, Sergey. To Run The World: The Kremlin’s Cold War Bid for Global Power. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2024, 768 pp.

The questions will test the student's ability in exposing with appropriate and precise language: the methodological or conceptual choices made by the author, the sources exploited, and naturally the content of the monograph.

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 (see the professor’s personal page).

There will be 6 calls for the final oral exam: one immediately after the end of the course (in priority for exchange students) in December; one in January; one in late May; one in late June; late October; late December.

Students with learning disorders and\or temporary or permanent disabilities: please, contact the office responsible (https://site.unibo.it/studenti-con-disabilita-e-dsa/en/for-students ) as soon as possible so that they can propose acceptable adjustments. The request for adaptation must be submitted in advance (15 days before the exam date) to the lecturer, who will assess the appropriateness of the adjustments, taking into account the teaching objectives.

 

GRADUATION SCALE (FOR ALL STUDENTS)

The final overall grade will be in the range 18-30: - 30 cum laude (outstanding, sure grasp of all the material and many interesting insights) - 28-30 (excellent, sure grasp of all the material and some interesting insights) - 26-27 (very good, competent grasp of all the material) - 24-25 (good, competent grasp of some the material) - 21-23 (satisfactory, partial grasp of the material) - 18-20 (pass, barely sufficient grasp of the material) - 17 or below (fail, insufficient grasp of the material).

Teaching tools

Besides the articles or chapters discussed during classes and the primary sources chosen for students’ presentations, the 'Virtuale' space of the course provides a set of maps, and the most essential instructor's thematical complements.

 

Students with learning disorders and\or temporary or permanent disabilities: please, contact the office responsible (https://site.unibo.it/studenti-con-disabilita-e-dsa/en/for-students ) as soon as possible so that they can propose acceptable adjustments. The request for adaptation must be submitted in advance (15 days before the exam date) to the lecturer, who will assess the appropriateness of the adjustments, taking into account the teaching objectives.

Office hours

See the website of Vanessa Voisin