B2873 - HISTORY OF THE SOVIET UNION AND RUSSIA

Conoscenze e abilità da conseguire

The course aims at providing students with in-depth knowledge of Soviet and Russian history since 1917. Students are particularly expected to develop an in-depth knowledge and a critical overview of a set of crucial documents in Russian/Soviet diplomacy that will be analysed during the lectures. By the end of the course students will be able to: - describe the main stages of Soviet and Russian history; - contextualise specific events of Soviet and Russian history within broader social, political, economic frames; - critically analyse key primary sources and effectively present the major scholarly debates on the subject matter.

Contenuti

The history of Russia, the Soviet Union and the post-Soviet states in the 20^th century may seem to be molded in violence and radical changes, resulting in a material crisis and a new kind of imperialism. Yet this history is also one of great political and social projects, a form of modernization, a worldwide influence, and audacious and innovative – if unsuccessful to reach the ascribed purpose – nationality policies. The course will explore some of the main dimensions of Soviet and Russian history in the 20^th century.

The course is organized in lectures and seminars, as detailed below. The aim is to enhance the interaction between the Professor and students.

Lectures (16 hours) aim to introduce students to the core tenets of the discipline. Seminars (12 hours) aim to provide occasions for in-depth discussions of class materials and exercises. For the seminar section of the course, students will be divided in 2 groups. Students attend a total of 28 hours of classes.

Students are required to carefully read the assigned material before the class. Active participation through the discussion of existing scholarship and case studies is highly recommended.

Flexibility and changes on the structure of the course might take place due to emergency contingencies as well as suggestions from students.

A first section, common to all students, will explore the tension between the temptation to great power on the one hand (a statist tendency), and the projection outwards of an internationalist ideology on the other hand. It will familiarize students with the general chronology of Soviet (and post-Soviet Russian) foreign policy while also introducing them to the specificity of the Soviet universalist project (Marxist-Leninism, Komintern, Kominform, socialist camp). This section will quickly evoke the utopian beliefs and projects of the first decades (the interwar period) and then study in greater depth the more pragmatic policy of late-Stalinist USSR and afterwards, up to the early 21^st century.

A second section will function as a seminar sequence with the active participation of students, discussing selected historiographical essays regarding some of the most recent research in Soviet and Russian history. Students will have to choose and attend only one of the two alternative seminars, SEM.A and SEM.B: 

• SEMINAR A focusing on crime, justice and repression in the Soviet Union. How did the Tsarist autocrats and then the Marxist Bolsheviks see law and justice? how the state policy itself criminalized behaviors such as political non-alignment, work indiscipline, marginal activities; how the central place taken by the Gulag in Soviet society left deep imprint on the minds and the communities after its disappearance.

• SEMINAR B focusing on the complex relationship of Russia to Europe, both in terms of political values and representations of itself, and in terms of limits. Where Europe ends and Russia begins, if the latter doesn’t ‘belong’ to the former but pursues its own, specific path (the myth of a ‘Sonderweg’ à la russe can be followed from the ‘Moscow, Third Rome’ of the 16^th century to the latest historical considerations of the current president)?

[NB: in 2024/25, SEM B will explore a less known area of the Soviet Union, Central Asia. The case study of Tajikistan will offer the possibility of exploring the themes of Russian colonialism and Soviet ‘decolonization’, perception of otherness and backwardness versus Soviet drive to modernization, and eventually Soviet Tajikistan in the Cold War.]

The classes for this course will be held at the Bologna campus. ONLY Students enrolled from the MA MIREES can attend classes in presence in Bologna or online on MS Teams, but they must follow the MIREES rules of attendance (70% of the classes).

Testi/Bibliografia

Students are invited to get a first idea of the general topic of the first part of the course by reading Hopf, Ted. “Moscow’s Foreign Policy, 1945–2000: Identities, Institutions and Interests.” In The Cambridge History of Russia, 3: The Twentieth Century, edited by Ronald G. Suny, 662–705. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006.

For students who have not approached the history of Russia and the Soviet Union before, it is highly recommended to study Edele, Mark. The Soviet Union. A Short History. Hoboken: Wiley-Blackwell, 2019.

Readings, which relate to the specific topics of single lectures, will be uploaded on the web (platform Virtuale) before March 2024. See the calendar of the classes in the next section.

Section A (common to all students) for this part of the course the following book chapters are MANDATORY:

Pons, Silvio. The Global Revolution: A History of International Communism 1917-1991. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014 – Prologue, Introduction and chapters 4 to 6.

Sakwa, Richard. Russia against the Rest: The Post-Cold War Crisis of World Order. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017, chapter 1, « Cold War to Cold Peace ».

Both books are readable online (and downloadable) through your unibo credentials (AlmaRe)

Section B, SEMINAR 1 for this part of the course, the readings indicated below are MANDATORY

Section B, SEMINAR 2 for this part of the course, the readings indicated below are MANDATORY

Metodi didattici

The course is organized in lectures and seminars, along the "Y" system, as detailed in the following program. The aim is to combine the student health and safety with the best possible interaction with the Professor and among students.

Students are required to carefully read the assigned material before the class, especially in section B.

The classes will be spread from Wednesday 21 February to Wednesday May 22, but please pay attention to the precise schedule written below (some Wednesday and Fridays are off the table because of public holiday or because of the break for middle-term exams)

Section 1. Frontal lectures for all students

8 Lectures (2 hrs each) aim to introduce students to the core tenets of the discipline and the chronology of the region. This section relies mainly on frontal lectures with the use of PowerPoint presentations, though active participation of students in class – by asking questions, requiring additional bibliographical advice – is strongly encouraged.

Class 1: Introduction. The Bolsheviks, the World Revolution and the War

Wedn. 21 February 2024, 9-11.00 aula 4 palazzo Hercolani

readings strongly advised: Pons, The Global Revolution – Prologue, Introduction, chapter 1.

Class 2: From ‘socialism in one country’ to the Cold War

Frid. 23 February 2024, 9-11.00 aula 6 palazzo Hercolani

readings strongly advised: Pons, The Global Revolution – chapters 2 and 3.

Class 3: “Time of Empire”, 1945-53

Wedn. 28 February 2024, 9-11.00 aula 4 palazzo Hercolani

readings strongly advised: Pons, The Global Revolution – chapter 4.

Class 4: “Time of Decline”, 1953-68

Frid. 1 March 2024, 9-11.00 aula 6 palazzo Hercolani

readings strongly advised: Pons, The Global Revolution – chapter 5.

Class 5: “Time of Crisis”, 1968-85

Wedn. 6 March 2024, 9-11.00 aula 4 palazzo Hercolani

readings strongly advised: Pons, The Global Revolution – chapter 6 (pp.255-305)

Class 6: “Time of Crisis”, 1985-91

Frid. 8 March 2024, 9-11.00, aula 6 palazzo Hercolani

readings strongly advised: Pons, The Global Revolution – chapter 6 (pp.305-end) and Zubok, Vladislav M. A Failed Empire: The Soviet Union in the Cold War from Stalin to Gorbachev. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2007, chapter 10.

Class 7: The 1990s

Wedn. 13 March 2024, 9-11.00 aula 4 palazzo Hercolani

readings strongly advised: Sakwa, Richard. Russia against the Rest: The Post-Cold War Crisis of World Order. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017 – chapter 1, “Cold War to Cold Peace.”

Class 8: Putin’s policy

Frid. 15 March 2024, 9-11.00, aula 6 palazzo Hercolani

readings strongly advised: Sakwa, Richard. Russia against the Rest: The Post-Cold War Crisis of World Order. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017 – chapter 3, “Russian Grievances”

MID-TERM EXAMS: ORALS IN DiSCI, piazza San Giovanni in Monte, 2, Bologna the Wedn 27 March and / or Wedn. 3 April 2024.

 

Section 2 (Seminaries SEM.A and SEM.B)

Two Alternative Seminars of 6 lectures (2 hrs each) aim to provide occasions for in-depth discussions of specific topics. During those classes, the students are required to participate actively, by engaging in discussions among themselves and with the professor. To this end, they must have prepared the discussion on the concrete topic of the day by reading the texts assigned by the professor. For each class, at least two different book chapters / journal articles will be distributed among students.

Section 2, SEM.A (Law and Authority, Criminality and Repression)

class 9 : Law and Russian consciousness

Wedn. 10 April 2024, 9-11.00 aula 4 palazzo Hercolani

Borisova, Tatiana, and Jane Burbank. “Russia’s Legal Trajectories.” Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History 19, no. 3 (2018): 469–508.

Rendle, Matthew. “How Revolutionary Was Revolutionary Justice? Legal Culture in Russia across the Revolutionary Divide.” In Rethinking the Russian Revolution as Historical Divide, edited by Matthias Neumann and Andy Willimott, 46–66. New York; Abingdon: Routeledge, 2018.

class 10: The Gulag and its unclear boundaries

Wedn. 17 April 2024, 9-11.00 aula 4 palazzo Hercolani

Khlevniuk, Oleg. “The Gulag and the Non-Gulag as One Interrelated Whole.” Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History 16, no. 3 (2015): 479–98.

Alexopoulos, Golfo. “Destructive-Labor Camps: Rethinking Solzhenitsyn’s Play on Words.” Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History 16, no. 3 (2015): 499–526.

class 11: The Gulag, its lethality and its cost on society

Wedn. 24 April 2024, 9-11.00 aula 4 palazzo Hercolani

Gregory, Paul. “An Introduction to the Economics of the Gulag,” in The Economics of Forced Labor. The Soviet Gulag, ed. by Gregory, Paul R., and Valery Lazarev, 1-21. Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, 2003.

Barenberg, Alan, “Ch. 4. Vorkuta in Crisis Reform and Its Consequences,” in Gulag Town, Company Town. Forced Labor and Its Legacy in Vorkuta. New Haven; London: Yale University Press, 2014.

class 12: Exiting the Gulag

Wedn. 8 May 2024, 9-11.00 aula 4 palazzo Hercolani

Adler, Nanci. “Life in the ‘Big Zone’: The Fate of Returnees in the Aftermath of Stalinist Repression.” Europe-Asia Studies 51, no. 1 (2010): 5–19.

Blum, Alain, and Emilia Koustova. “One Page to Convince: Deporteesʼ Petitions in the USSR under Stalin and Beyond.” In Scrivere alle autorità. Suppliche, petizioni, appelli, richieste di deroga in età contemporanea, edited by Enrica Asquer and Lucia Ceci, 113–42. Roma: Viella, 2021.

class 13: Policing Economic Crime in late socialism

Wedn. 15 May 2024, 9-11.00 aula 4 palazzo Hercolani

Favarel-Garrigues, Gilles. Policing Economic Crime in Russia: From Soviet Planned Economy to Privatisation. Translated by Roger Leverdier. London: Hurst, 2011.

- introduction & chap.5

- chap.2 and 3

class 14: Putin’s Russia and the legal dualism

Wedn. 22 May 2024, 9-11.00 aula 4 palazzo Hercolani

Favarel-Garrigues, Gilles. “‘Vigilante Shows’ and Law Enforcement in Russia,” Europe-Asia Studies 73, no. 1 (2021): 221–42.

Lewis, David G. chapter 6 “Dualism, Exceptionality and the Rule of Law, ” in Russia’s New Authoritarianism: Putin and the Politics of Order. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2020.

****

Section 2, SEM.B (Russia and "the West")

Class 9: Russia's place and geopolitical identity - the longue durée overview

Frid. 5 April 2024, 9-11.00, aula 6 palazzo Hercolani

Alberto Masoero, “Russia between Europe and Asia,” in The Boundaries of Europe. From the Fall of the Ancient World to the Age of Decolonization, ed. Pietro Rossi (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2015), 192–208.

Class 10: origins and declinaisons of Russian nationalism as a mass movement

Frid. 19 April 2024, 9-11.00, aula 6 palazzo Hercolani

Hillis, Faith. "Ukrainophile Activism and Imperial Governance in Russia's Southwestern Borderlands." Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History 13, no. 2 (2012): 301-326. https://doi.org/10.1353/kri.2012.0019 .

Giovanni Savino, “A Reactionary Utopia? Russian Black Hundreds from Autocracy to Fascism,” in Entangled Far Rights: A Russian-European Intellectual Romance in the Twentieth Century, ed. Marlene Laruelle (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2018), 31–44.

Class 11: on the eve of the Second World War

Frid. 26 April 2024, 9-11.00, aula 6 palazzo Hercolani

Serhii Plokhy, «The call of blood: Government propaganda and public response to the Soviet entry into World War II», Cahiers du Monde russe 52, fasc. 2–3 (2011): 293–319.

Mariya M. Yarlykova e Xunda Yu, «Before and After the Fall of Communism: The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and Soviet Foreign Policy in 1939-1940 in Soviet and Post-Soviet Russian Textbooks», Problems of Post-Communism 70, fasc. 4 (2023): 439–52.

 

Class 12: the entangled memories of the Second Wold War

Frid. 3 May 2024, 9-11.00, aula 6 palazzo Hercolani

Introduction of Julie Fedor et al., eds., War and Memory in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017), 1-40.

Class 13: Putin’s politics of history, I

Frid. 10 May 2024, 9-11.00, aula 6 palazzo Hercolani

Olga Malinova, «Legitimizing Putin’s Regime: The Transformations of the Narrative of Russia’s Post-Soviet Transition», Communist and Post-Communist Studies 55, fasc. 1 (2022): 52–75.

Andrei Tsygankov, «Russia, Eurasia and the Meaning of Crimea», Europe-Asia Studies 74, fasc. 9 (2022): 1551–73, https://doi.org/10.1080/09668136.2022.2134307 .

Class 14: Putin’s politics of history, II

Frid. 17 May 2024, 9-11.00, aula 6 palazzo Hercolani

Igor Torbakov, «Deadly Illusions: The Ukraine War and Russian Historical Imagination», Russia Program Online Papers, fasc. 3 (maggio 2023): 1–16.

Alexei I. Miller, «Talking Politics: Vladimir Putin’s Narrative on Contemporary History (2019-2022)», Russia in Global Affairs 21, fasc. 2 (2023): 59–75.

Modalità di verifica e valutazione dell'apprendimento

ATTENDING STUDENTS

The exam is composed of two parts.

• The first part consists in active participation during the 8 classes and 6 seminars and a Mid-Term oral exam (2 open-ended questions on the Section 1). Participation is assessed in terms of attendance, active interaction reflecting the fulfillment of reading assignments and the student’s analytical & critical skills. This first part of the exam will count for 60% of the grade.

The mid-term oral exam will take place in presence, in Bologna, in late March-early April (at the moment the most probable dates are March 27 and April 3). Students who can not attend this exam must shift to the status of non-attending students.

• The second part consists in an critical synthesis (5000 words max) on an academic text agreed with the professor of Section 2-SEM.A or 2-SEM.B (40% of grade)

Those who do not pass the Mid-Term exam will be considered, for their marking, as "Non Attending Students".

 

NON-ATTENDING STUDENTS

The final result is made out of one oral exam with two to four open questions pertaining both to Section 1 and to the topics of Section 2-SEM.A or 2-SEM.B. Therefore non-attending students must also choose one of the 2 seminars and its reading list.

The first call for non-attending students' will be held in June, a second one will be organized in July, a third one in September.

 

SEE MORE DETAILS, WITH THE RECAPITULATORY LIST OF READINGS, ON THE "VIRTUALE" PAGE OF THE COURSE

 

GRADUATION SCALE (FOR ALL STUDENTS, ORAL EXAMS)

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.

Strumenti a supporto della didattica

The course will make use of ppt and audio-visuals whenever necessary.

It also relies on documents uploaded by the professor on Virtuale.

Orario di ricevimento

Consulta il sito web di Vanessa Voisin