88075 - WORKSHOP ON READING DIPLOMATIC DOCUMENTS

Learning outcomes

The students are expected to acquire an in-depth ability in analyzing, interpreting, and placing in their historical context the diplomatic documents that will be discussed during lab's hours. By the end of the seminar, the students are expected to develop a capacity of applying useful methodologies for critically assessing and comparing the structure, the relevance, and the main characteristics of a wide variety of documents, from international treaties to diplomatic reports, from memoirs to cultural interpretations of the everyday political life

Course contents

Dear Students, the workshop will be open the 22d of September, as  for the program and the syllabus, both will be ready for the days before  and will be introduced to you at the opening day.

The Subject is entitled:The WWII and the Soviet Union's Perspective

Aim of the subject is at analysing the role played by the Soviet Union in the WWII, in the military and political spheres, through the reading of original documents by the main political, diplomatic and military actors and their interpretations in between the Cold War and post-soviet decades up to the current time.

A selected bibliography will be offered to the you, as well as a selection of the documents to be introduced by the students themselves in a seminar modality.

Hopefully, classes will be in presence, otherwise under the instructions provided by the University's authorities.

Please do not esitate to contact me by email or on Teams, during my office hours, for any question or update about the program.

Readings/Bibliography

Selected Bibliography

Maurice Baumont, Les origines de la deuxième guerre mondiale, Payot, Paris, 1969 ;

Chris Bellamy, Absolute War. Soviet Russia in the Second World War, 2007;

Tim Bouverie, Appeasing Hitler: Chamberlain, Churchill and the Road to War, Penguin, 2019;

Diane Shaver Clemens, Yalta, Oxford Univeristy Press, 1970 ;
Winston Churchill, The Second World War, 1950;

James E. Davies, Mission to Moscow, 1946;

Norman Davies, Rising ’44. „The Battle for Warsaw“, Macmillan, London, 2003;

J. B. Duroselle, De Wilson à Roosevelt. La politique extérieure des Etats-Unis 1913-1945, Libraire Armand Colin, Paris, 1960 ;

Henrik Eberle – Matthias Uhl (eds.), Das Buch Hitler, Verlagsgruppe Luebe GmbH & Co.KG. Berghich Gladbac, 2005 ;

Philip W. Fabry, Der Hitler-Stalin Pakt 1939-1941, Fundus Verlag, Darmstadt,1962;

David Glantz, Red Storm over the Balkans. The Failed Soviet Invasion of Romania, Spring 1944; University Press of Kansas, 2007;

Tomasz Konicz, Aufstieg und Zerfall des Deutsches Europa, Unrast Verlag, 2015;

Catherine Merridale, Ivan’s War. Life and Death in the Red Army, 1939-1945, Picador, NY, 2006;

Giovanni Messe, La Guerra sul fronte russo. Il corpo di spedizione italiano in Russia (CSIR), Mursia, Milano, 1954.

Paola Brundu Olla, (a c.), Yalta un Mito che resiste, Edizioni dell’Ateneo-Roma, 1987,

Richard Overy, Russia’s War, IPB Film Distribution Ltd, 1997;

Constantine Pleshakov, Stalin’s Folly, Houghton Mifflin Company, 2005;

David Reynolds & Vladimir Pechatnov, The Kremlin Letters. Stalin’s Wartime Correspondence with Churchill and Roosevelt, Yale University Press, 2018;

Andrew Roberts, Masters and Commanders. The Military Geniuses Who Led the West to Vicotry in WWII, Penguin Books, London, 2008;

Geoffrey Roberts, Stalin’s Wars. From World War to Cold War, 1939,1953, Yale University Press, 2006;

Timothy Snyder, Bloodlands. Europe between Hitler and Stalin, 2010
Boris Sokolov, Myths and Legends of the Eastern Front. Reassessing the Great Patriotic War. Pen & Sword Military, UK, 2019

Dokumenty tegheranskoi I krymskoy konferentsii rukovoditelei trioch velikich dergiav, Editori Riuniti, Roma, 1965;

Ivan Majskij, Vospominanija sovetskogo posla – Vojna, 1968

Teaching methods

Seminar

Assessment methods

TBC

Teaching tools

Documents, documentaries and movies (clips). Specific readings

Office hours

See the website of Francesco Privitera