27280 - Seminars (1) (G.A)

Learning outcomes

At the end of the seminar students will be able to interpret issues related to specific historical phenomena in a diachronic and transversal perspective, thought the elaboration and synthesis of the data coming from the analysis of written records and material sources and from the collective debate originated from the contact with other people. They will be able to formulate autonomously and in an organized way a research path or an intellectual work, using the specific acquired tools with methodological rigour, precision and accuracy.

Course contents

The cycle of seminars offers an introduction into the history of dissent in an authoritarian regime, the Soviet Union and post-Soviet Russia, while contributing to familiarize students with the methodology of source criticism in contexts of mass culture.

Dissent refers to an attitude, that of distancing oneself from a dominant discourse and contesting rules imposed by a political power (usually an oppressive one). This cycle of seminars will focus on Soviet dissent (from the mid-1960s to 1991): its origins, goals, forms and ideological orientations, but also its practices, networks, and forms of sociability.

The seminars will explore the entanglements between cultural non-conformism / artistic freedom (embodied by Pasternak, Brodsky, Daniel, and others) and:

- on the one hand, the movement for defense of human rights, organized around Andrei Sakharov, V. Turchin, Roy Medvedev, Sergei Kovalev,

- and on the other hand a much broader popular resistance (kramola, in Vladimir Kozlov's words.)

Finally, it will question the later fate of Soviet dissent: did the various branches of the movement mutate into political parties? civil organizations? what kind of ideas have they been promoting since the 1990s?

Readings/Bibliography

A short and handy introduction to the topic can be found on the following webpage, and the subsections of the website "Free voices in USSR": https://vocilibereurss.fupress.net/voci-libere-nel-contesto-sovietico/ 

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

• relevant chapters in Andrea Graziosi, L’Unione Sovietica, 1914-1991, Bologna, Il Mulino, 2020 (electronic version of the 2011 print)
  
• Carolina De Stefano, Storia del potere russo. Dagli zar a Putin, Brescia, Morcelliana, 2022.
  

 

 Other references and digital resources are indicated below, at the bottom of this page.

It is essential that students regularly consult the course's virtual space to find tools, glossary, texts and other very important indications to follow the course

Teaching methods

The seminars will consist mainly of discussions among students and with the professor based on preliminary readings, and sometimes preparations on a primary source. The students will be required to read carefully, before each seminar, the text ascribed for the coming class (retrievable on the 'Virtuale' space of the cycle).

It is essential that students regularly consult the course's virtual space to find tools, glossary, texts and other very important indications to follow the course

They will be encouraged to do some basic research on the author(s) of the text, the topics evoked, and the historical context.

The primary sources to study belong to various categories of texts:

- the works of the 'dissenters' themselves (samizdat books and journals, petitions, etc.)

- the works of dissenters linked to the repression of others - White Book by A. Ginzburg (on the Siniavski-Daniil trial)

- law enforcement agency documentation

One to three seminars out of 15 will be devoted to a guest lecture, consisting of a presentation by the guest lecturer, and a discussion with the students.

Assessment methods

TO GET THE CREDITS OF THE CYCLE OF SEMINARS IT IS NECESSARY TO ATTEND AT LEAST 24 HOURS OUT OF 30 (12 CLASSES OUT OF 15) There is NO exam for non-attending.

As well, il is necessary to register here before March 20 so that the professor knows you plan to take the exam of the course: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/10QckUp49heirn01zMPR8zaFJBymqAaMDOOu69vahwzo/edit?usp=share_link.

Proficiency will be assessed on the basis of a written paper (max 4000-5000 words) on a course topic, agreed with the professor and based on the references cited in the reading list and evoked during the lectures, and on an additional specific bibliography chosen by the student.

The paper must follow the advice and instructions presented during class: this is the reason why attendance is mandatory. Advice and instruction discussed in class will not be repeated in written form.
The paper must be sent by email to the professor at least 3 days before the call for exam to which the student enrolled. During that exam, the professor will discuss with the student the methods, bibliography and conclusions reached in the student's essay.

The evaluation of the latter will be based on:

- the choice of topic and its correlation with the course content

- the ability to identify the relevant bibliography

- the clarity in structure and objectives

- the critical skills shown in the presentation of the topic.

Teaching tools

During lectures and discussions, the lecturer will make extensive use of PowerPoint presentations.

 

 

More targeted readings (indicative list)

*Monographs

M. Clementi, Storia del dissenso sovietico (1953-1993), Roma, Odradek, 2007.

V. Parisi, Il lettore eccedente : edizioni periodiche del samizdat sovietico, 1956-1990, Bologna, Il mulino, 2013.

S. Rapetti (a cura di), Dalla censura e dal samizdat alla libertà di stampa. URSS 1917-1990. Catalogo della mostra a cura di Boris Belenkin ed Elena Strukova con altri saggi, GoWare; Memorial Italia, 2016.

M. Zalambani, Censura, istituzioni e politica letteraria in URSS (1964-1985), Firenze, Firenze University Press, 2009.

*Articles / chapters

S. A. Bellezza, "Dissenso e proteste nella diaspora Ucraina in America settentrionale dopo il 1968", C. Diddi, V. Nosilia, M. Piacentini (a cura di) , L’altro sessantotto: politica e cultura nell’Europa centro-orientale e orientale, Salerno, Edizioni culturali internazionali, 2019, pp. 189–203.

C. Pieralli, "La lirica nella ‘zona’: poesia femminile nei GULag staliniani e nelle carceri", G. Moracci, A. Alberi (a cura di) , Linee di confine. Separazioni e processi di integrazione nello spazio culturale slavo, Firenze, Firenze University Press, 2013, pp. 221–246.

C. Pieralli, "Poesia del Gulag o della zona? Problemi e prospeive di analisi per una descrizione del corpus poeico dei prigionieri poliici in URSS", C. Pieralli, C. Delaunay, E. Priadko (a cura di) , Russia, Oriente slavo e Occidente europeo Fratture e integrazioni nella storia e nella civiltà letteraria, Firenze, Firenze University Press, 2017, pp. 281–310.

K. Szulecki, "Nuove idee di pace in un’Europa divisa: l’impatto transnazionale delle iniziative di pace dei dissidenti cecoslovacchi e polacchi nei tardi anni Ottanta", V. Lomellini, A. Varsori (a cura di), Dal Sessantotto al crollo del Muro : i movimenti di protesta in Europa a cavallo tra i due blocchi, Milano, Angeli, 2014, pp. 211–234.

 

in inglese:

Jay Bergman, Meeting the Demands of Reason: The Life and Thought of Andrei Sakharov (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2009).

Miriam Dobson, “The Post-Stalin Era. De-Stalinization, Daily Life, and Dissent,” Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History 12, no. 4 (2011): 905–24.

Emma Gilligan, Defending Human Rights in Russia. Sergei Kovalyov, Dissident and Human Rights Commissioner, 1969–2003 (London; New York: RouteledgeCurzon, 2004.

Jochen Hellbeck, “Speaking Out. Languages of Affirmation and Dissent,” in The Resistance Debate in Russian and Soviet History, ed. Michael David-Fox, Peter Holquist, and Marshall Poe (Bloomington: Slavica Publishers, 2003), 103–37.

Robert Hornsby, Protest, Reform and Repression in Khrushchev’s Soviet Union (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013).

Robert Horvath, The Legacy of Soviet Dissent. Dissidents, Democratisation and Radical Nationalism in Russia(Abingdon; New York: RouteledgeCurzon, 2005)

Ann Komaromi, Uncensored : Samizdat Novels and the Quest for Autonomy in Soviet Dissidence (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 2015).

Ann Komaromi, Soviet Samizdat: Imagining a New Society(Ithaca; London: Northern Illinois University Press, 2022).

Vladimir A. Kozlov, Mass Uprisings in the USSR. Protest and Rebellion in the Post-Stalin Years (Armonk; London: M. E. Sharpe, 2002).

Vladimir A. Kozlov, Sheila Fitzpatrick, and Sergei V. Mironenko, eds., Sedition. Everyday Resistance in the Soviet Union under Khrushchev and Brezhnev (New Haven; London: Yale University Press, 2011).

Roger D. Markwick, Rewriting History in Soviet Russia: The Politics of Revisionist Historiography, 1956-1974(Houndmills: Palgrave, 2001).

Barbara Martin, Dissident Histories in the Soviet Union : From De-Stalinization to Perestroika (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2019).

Valentina Parisi, “Dissidents Reloaded? Anti-Putin Activists and the Soviet Legacy,” in Cultural Forms of Protest in Russia, ed. Birgit Beumers et al. (London; New York: Routeledge, 2018), 33–47.

Kacper Szulecki, Dissidents in Communist Central Europe: Human Rights and the Emergence of New Transnational Actors (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019).

Josephine Von Zitzewitz, The Culture of Samizdat : Literature and Underground Networks in the Late Soviet Union (London: Bloomsbury academic, 2022).

 

The following websites are very useful to explore further the topic and to find informations and ideas for the final essay to write for the exam.

Analytical websites:

- https://vocilibereurss.fupress.net/en/

Marco Sabbatini e Claudia Pieralli (2021). Result of their research project 'Voci libere in URSS. Letteratura, pensiero, arti indipendenti in Unione Sovietica e gli echi in Occidente (1953-1991)'

- https://www.culturedeldissenso.com [https://www.culturedeldissenso.com/]

Claudia Pieralli e Teresa Spignoli (2019). Result of their research project 'Alle due sponde della cortina di ferro: le culture del dissenso e la definizione dell’identità europea nel secondo Novecento tra Italia, Francia e URSS (1956-1991)'

 

Primary sources:

- The full original text, in Russian, of the Chronicle of Current Events (Khronika Tekuščikh Sobytij)

http://www.memo.ru/history/diss/chr/index.html_

 

- Excerpts of Sergej Kovalev's memoirs, in Russian.

http://www.memo.ru/history/diss/ig/docs/igdocs.html

 

- The "Project for the Study of Dissidence and Samizdat” includes the Database of Soviet Samizdat Periodicals, Electronic Editions of selected Samizdat Journals, Illustrated Timelines of Dissident Movements, and Interviews with Activists. The Electronic Archive builds on the research that went into the Database of Soviet Samizdat Periodicals. It represents a number of collaborations with institutions and scholars in the field, and features an editorial board for peer review. The Project aims to make rare materials more widely available and to provoke questions about the trajectories of groups and individuals within the varied field of Soviet dissidence and nonconformist culture.

Primary sources are reproduced in the original languages, while analytical texts and commentaries are in English.

https://samizdatcollections.library.utoronto.ca/

 

- The KGB Dossier on Andrei Sakharov, published and translated from the Russian by Joshua Rubenstein and Alexander Gribanov, Yale University Press, 2005 (in English) 

http://yupnet.org/annals/sakharov/about_the_project.htm

 

- Forschungsstelle Osteuropa – FSO

https://www.forschungsstelle.uni-bremen.de/en/9/20111208113007/Samizdat_Periodicals.html

 

- Fond “Iofe”, an organization created in 2000 by V.V. Iofe, Saint Petersburg (RF)
https://iofe.center/elarch

 

-“Tamizdat project”, New York (USA)
Coordinator: Y. Klots
http://tamizdatproject.org/en

 

- Project “Tra memoria e utopia: il samizdat come simbolo della cultura europea. Storia, confini, prospettive”
Dipartimento di Lingue e Letterature Anglo-Germaniche e Slave, Università di Padova (2009-2011)
http://www.maldura.unipd.it/samizdat/

 

- Digital archive “Vtoraja literatura”, ImWerden, Munchen (Germany) Coordinator: A. Nikitin-Perenskij
https://vtoraya-literatura.com/

- Samizdat Veka, in Russian. Coordinator: I. Achmet’ev: https://rvb.ru/np/

- Fonds of the Library of the Sakharov Center (Moscow):
https://library.sakharov-center.ru/vse-fondy/488/books.html

Office hours

See the website of Vanessa Voisin