HIST 262 - Revolutionary Russia and the Soviet Union, 1856-2000

From the nineteenth century through Perestroika, the long revolutionary experiment in the Russian Empire and Soviet Union was about creating an alternative to existing modes of production, exploitative social relations, and autocratic political structures. It was also about transforming the natural and built environments, and bringing “culture” (comprising everything from poetry and ballet to soap and changes of underwear), along with political consciousness, to a huge, largely agrarian country with an ethnically and religiously diverse population. Throughout this survey of modern Russian/Soviet history, we will continually pose the question of what - and when - was the Russian Revolution? Key concepts/approaches include: resistance; social mobility; individual subjectivity and the collective; ethnic diversity and imperial strategies; gendering revolutionary transformation; environmental transformations and consequences, and the Russian/Soviet experience in the context of European/Eurasian/global modernity. The course begins with the Great Reforms of the 1860s and 1870s following Russia’s loss in the Crimean War, and ends with reflections on Russia’s recent reclaiming of Crimea from Ukraine. Occasionally. (4 Credits)