A historical and analytical survey of Russian music from the seventeenth century to the present. Topics of discussion and analysis include the liturgical and folk traditions, nationalism and imperialism, Russian pianism, the relationship between composers and poets of the Russian Symbolist era, the World of Art movement and the Ballets Russes, Soviet film music, Soviet arts doctrine, popular music and outlaw music.

An introduction to the cinematic tradition of Russia and the former Soviet Union. This course will offer close, contextualized, and comparative analysis of major films from the 1920s to the present. We will examine the films in terms of their formal structures and their reception, and in light of the epochal social, political and cultural changes that took place in the region's last, turbulent century. Filmmakers to be studied include Eisenstein, Vertov, Tarkovsky, Shepitko, Parajanov, and others. All films will be offered with subtitles and no prior knowledge of East European cinema is required.

This seminar will focus on the legal, moral, religious, social, psychological, & political dimensions of crime, blame, shame, & punishment as discussed in major works of Russian literature considered against Western cultural background. The 1st part of the course will compare & contrast visions of justice in Eastern & Western Europe and emphases on divine versus human justice. The 2nd part will move to the psychology of the individual person, the criminal. Part three of the course will focus on the state institutions of criminal justice. Students will discuss from their perspectives both the literary & moral critiques of legal justice.

An examination of significant trends in Russian literature from the 2nd half of the 19th century to the Russian Revolution and a bit beyond. The course focuses on many masterpieces of 19th & 20th-century Russian literature. The works (mostly novels) are considered from a stylistic point of view and in the context of Russian historical and cultural developments. The course also focuses on questions of values and on the eternal "big questions" of life that are raised in the literature. Authors read include Turgenev, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Chekhov, Bely, Nabokov, and Kharms.

This interdisciplinary survey explores Soviet literature, art, and film after the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. Students will learn to analyze a rich body of works produced in the Soviet Union, including avant-garde poetry and movies, official and underground artists and writers, and Princeton's extensive collection of late-socialist posters. In the analysis, we will focus especially on the relationship between cultural production and the shifting political and ideological demands of the regime and on the role of writers and artists in society.

Exploration of the theme of madness in the works of Gogol, Tolstoy, Garshin, and Chekhov. Discussion of various meanings of madness: as romantic inspiration or confinement; as a reaction to a personal loss or a rebellion against the social system; as a search for the meaning of life or a fight against the world's evil; as craziness or holy foolishness. Readings, discussions, oral presentations, and written papers in Russian. Special emphasis is placed on active use of language and expansion of vocabulary. This course is envisioned as both a language and literature course.

"Nature is perhaps the most complex word in the language," writes Raymond Williams in his celebrated book Keywords. This course explores the many meanings of "nature" and attitudes towards the environment in East European literature. We will examine responses to political projects such as collectivization, industrialization, and resource extraction, and trace how ideas about progress competed with aspirations for conservation and agrarian living. Looking at works from Poland, Ukraine, Hungary, and the former Soviet Union, we will investigate how literary forms shape our understanding of ourselves in relation to the more-than-human world.

The Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard and the Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky both applied Christian thought to modern existential questions in startlingly similar ways. Both took a symphonic approach to truth: Kierkegaard by writing under a series of pseudonyms, and Dostoevsky by creating a "dialogic" universe in which radically opposing voices clash. Both writers were master humorists, deploying both earnestness and irony in confronting life's cursed questions. By reading them together, we will allow them to dialogically illuminate one another as we address fundamental questions of what it means to exist in freedom and subjectivity.

Responding to the widespread injustices and social inequalities of their day, Russian writers turned to their literary craft to wrestle with the essential question: "What is to be done?" We will join our authors and the characters they create as they debate competing ideologies, struggle with timeless human questions, imagine more equitable ways of organizing society, and explore the ethical and moral concerns at the root of pressing social and political issues. How do Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, and our other captivating writers confront the problems of their era and transform them into literary masterpieces that transcend time and place?

We start with Tolstoy's artistic stimuli and narrative strategies, exploring the author's provocative visions of war, gender, sex, art, social institutions, death, and religion. The emphasis is placed here on the role of the written word in Tolstoy's search for truth and power. The main part is a close reading of his masterwork "The War and Peace" (1863-68) - a quintessence of both his artistic method and philosophical insights. Each student will be assigned to keep a "hero's diary" and speak on behalf of one or two major heroes of the epic (including the Spirit of History).The roles will be distributed in accordance with the will of fate.

This course provides a survey of South Slavic and Balkan literatures and cultures, with a focus on canonical oral and literary narrative poetry, short stories, novels, memoirs, ethnographic writing, song, and film. Particular attention is paid to nationalism, oral composition, gender, ethnic identity, traditional culture, and performance. The course is designed to reflect students' individual areas of interest, so topics explored can/will be adjusted accordingly. The course offers new perspectives on the rich diversity of cultural expression in the South Slavic and Balkan world.

This seminar traces and examines the network of disparate stories that coalesce around the human-nonhuman-environment nexus in Russia and Eurasia. By employing the methodology of ecocriticism and the environmental humanities, we engage with energy, deep time, animal studies, food and agriculture, water and climate change, toxicity and the post-apocalyptic, to reveal the enmeshment of human life and activity with the physical environment, value systems, global logistics, and the distribution of knowledge. We revisit notions of narrative time, space, and agency in the Anthropocene. Readings in English.

The course serves as an introduction to Russian verse forms and genres. Considerable attention is given to translations into Russian (and conceivably out of Russian) to understand the qualities of Russian poetry that distinguish it from other European verse traditions (English, German, French, Italian). To some extent exemplary texts are chosen in conjunction with students' linguistic competencies and interests.

Analysis of works of one of Russia's most important contemporary writers. Focus on major novels, including "Pushkin House," the 1st Russian postmodernist novel. We explore his wide-ranging concerns, such as psychology; philosophy; science; other arts (including jazz & cinema); people's relationship to other biological species; integrity & societal and psychological obstacles to it. We examine him as a Petersburg writer. Focus also on his relationship to time, history, & other writers; his place in Russian & Soviet literature & culture.