W 3:30-6:20 MHRA 3208
(www.uncg.edu/~jwjones/russia)
Instructor: Jeff Jones jwjones@uncg.edu
Office: 2139
MHRA Office Phone/Voice Mail: 334-4068
Office Hours: M
11-11:50; T 1-2:15; F 9-9:50 and by appointment
This course will examine the
historiography of the Soviet period from the Stalin era to the end of the Soviet
Union. The class is divided into two
parts: 1) The Stalin era; 2) The Post-Stalin period.
We will focus on the Stalinist 1930s; World War II and postwar
reconstruction; the Khrushchev and Brezhnev eras; the Soviet-Afghan War and
collapse of the USSR.
Student Learning Outcomes
Upon successful completion of
this course students will be able to …
Ø
Comprehend that
history is not just the memorization of dates and facts, but rather the interpretation of the past.
Ø
Analyze historical duration, succession, and change in terms of human
agency and larger systems or structures.
Ø
Use evidence-based reasoning to interpret the past coherently while
developing and presenting an original argument, orally and in
writing.
Ø
Analyze the key
terms, facts, and events in Soviet history and thereby exhibit an informed
historical perspective.
Ø
Critically
appraise varying historical arguments and clearly express their own
interpretations.
Ø
Critically read
and distinguish between different types of historical sources and “read between
the lines” of differing points of view.
Ø
Use historical thinking to contextualize and analyze primary and
secondary sources representing different points of view.
Undergraduate Students: Graduate Students:
Participation 30% Participation 30%
1-2 Book Reviews 30%
2-3
Book Reviews 30%
Final Essay 40% Final
Essay 40%
·
Additional material identified below
·
We will also see four
films in class: “Burnt by the Sun”; “Thief”; “Forgotten Melody for a Flute”; and
“Cargo 200”
Course Web Page
The
course web page is at www.uncg.edu/~jwjones/russia It includes a bibliography, the syllabus
with active links to course readings (also on Bb), and other features relevant
to the course. Grades will be posted on Blackboard
and students are encouraged to keep up with their participation grade and their
overall course grade.
Student
involvement and participation in the course is very important and will take a variety of forms, including oral
reports (5-10 minute summaries of students’ final essays as described
below), as well as discussing readings and films on a regular basis. The participation grade also consists of Worksheets
(worth 5 points each) to the
readings designated below.
Attendance Policy
Because this class meets only
once a week attendance is obviously very
important and students are expected to attend all classes. Students
with more than 2 unexcused absences or 4 total absences will fail the course;
if you have to miss class, let me know beforehand (and/or provide adequate
documentation afterward) to have it counted as an excused absence.
Oral Report on the Final
Essay:
The
oral reports on the final essay, which comprise 10% of the overall participation
and course grade, will be 5-7 minutes in length with an additional 3-5 minutes
for discussion. Students are encouraged to visit the Speaking Center
for help. The
University Speaking Center provides
online services as well as one-on-one tutoring and instructional workshop
services designed to help students further develop their oral communication
confidence and competence. Assistance is
offered in the preparation and delivery of speeches and presentations, and
development of knowledge and skill in interpersonal, group, or team
communication. The Oral Report on the Final Essay will be
graded according to the following criteria:
1) Description
of topic. Tell us briefly what your final essay/oral
report will focus on and why you chose this topic.
2) Analysis. The heart of your talk should be a clear
summation of what you see as the main points/conclusions regarding your topic
with examples from the readings.
3) Clarity
of communication. Convey your points
clearly and succinctly.
A = excellent performance on all three criteria.
D = below average overall performance.
Undergraduate students will write
a review of one or two of
the three monographs assigned for the class (Snyder or Dobson and Yurchak). The specific titles to be reviewed will be
determined in class and the due dates are listed below. Those who choose to review the book by Snyder
will write just that one review but it will be twice the length (explained
below). The others will review both
Dobson and Yurchak. You are encouraged
to identify reviews of the books in major scholarly journals (i.e. The American Historical Review, Slavic
Review, or the Russian Review,
although other scholarly journals are also acceptable) as a starting point. If
you review the title by Snyder, your
review should be double-spaced, 12-pt. font, and ~1500 words (5-6 pages) in
length. If
you review the titles by Dobson and Yurchak, each review should be double-spaced, 12-pt. font, and ~750 words (3
pages) in length.
Briefly summarize the main points of
the author’s thesis and assess the strengths and weaknesses of the book’s
argument. Consider the following questions: What is the author’s thesis? What sources/evidence does the author rely
on? Where does the book fit with historiographical
trends in the field? How convincing is
the author’s interpretation and the book’s overall argument? Graduate students will write one additional review on a book
of their choosing (due no later than Wednesday, November 19).
The
Final Essay is a historiographical essay addressing an issue raised in the
literature. Students can choose any
relevant topic that interests them. The
essay should show a command of the literature on the chosen topic by assessing
the strengths and weaknesses of varying points of view. Essays should be double-spaced, 12-pt. font,
8-10 pages (undergrads)/12-15 pages (graduate students) in length. Possible topics include (but are not limited to) the following:
Ø A Comparison of Different
Biographies of Stalin/Trotsky/Bukharin/Gorbachev, etc.
Ø The Collectivization of
Agriculture
Ø The Debate over the
Ukrainian Famine (1932-33)
Ø The Assassination of Sergei
Kirov
Ø The Origins and Causes of
the purges of the late 1930s
Ø Religion in the Soviet Union
Ø Art/Literature/Film in the
Stalin/Soviet period
Ø Propaganda/Iconography/the
Stalin Cult
Ø The Role or Position of
Women in the Soviet Union
Ø Anti-Semitism in the USSR
Ø The Soviet Educational
System
Ø The Leningrad Blockade
Ø Stalin’s Role in World War
II
Ø Postwar Reconstruction
Ø The Postwar Period/Late
Stalinism
Ø The “Thaw”/Khrushchev Period
Ø The Soviet space/rocket
program
Ø The Brezhnev Period
Ø The Gorbachev Reforms
Ø The Collapse of the USSR
Students
are required to turn in a Bibliography of readings for the Final Essay
on October 1. The 1st draft of the final
essay is due October 29; the final
draft is due Friday,
December 5.
Wednesday, August 20. Introduction: Themes in
Russian History & the Russian Revolution; in-class viewing of “Red Flag—1917”
BEGIN
READING Synder, Bloodlands, Preface-Chapter
5
·
Reading for August 27: 1-4) Four reviews of Robert
Conquest’s Harvest of Sorrow (1986) by a) George Liber; b) John Armstrong; c) L. A. Kosiński; d) Gordon Smith; 5) “The 1932 Harvest and the
Famine of 1933” by Mark B. Tauger; 6) Letters: Robert Conquest; Mark B.
Tauger; 7) “Should This Pulitzer be
Pulled?” by
Douglas McCollam; 8) “Introduction” and “Popular Resistance in the
Stalinist 1930s” by Lynne Viola; 9) “A Worker’s Strike in Stalin’s Russia” by Jeffrey Rossman; 10) “A Peasant Rebellion in Stalin’s Russia” by Tracy McDonald; Worksheet 1 due in class
Wednesday, August 27. Collectivization, Famine, & Resistance in the
Stalinist Period: Discussion of the
Reading; in-class viewing of “Red Flag—1917” (cont’d)
·
Reading for September 3: 1-2) “Students in the First Five-Year Plan” and “Memoirs of an Engineer” by Valentina Bogdan; 3) “A Family Chronicle” by Inna
Shikheeva-Gaister;
4) “Everyday Stalinism:
Ordinary Life in Extraordinary Times” by Sheila Fitzpatrick;
5) “Did Stalin Kill Kirov and Does it Matter?” by Matt Lenoe; 6) “The Assassination of Kirov” (from Let History Judge) by Roy Medvedev; 7-8)
Two reviews of Robert Conquest’s Stalin and the Kirov Murder (1990) by
a) Peter B. Kaufman; b) J. Arch Getty; 9-10) Two Reviews of Amy
Knight’s Who Killed Kirov? The Kremlin’s
Greatest Mystery by a) Robert Thurston; b) Sarah Davies; 11) “The Politics of Repression
Revisited”
by J. Arch Getty;
12)
“Another Kind of Fear: The Kirov Murder and the End of
Bread Rationing in Leningrad” by
Lesley Rimmel; 13) “Interview with Grover Furr”
Wednesday, September 3. In-class viewing of the first half of “Burnt by the
Sun” & Discussion: Did Stalin have
Kirov Assassinated?
Wednesday, September 10. In-class viewing of the second half of “Burnt by the
Sun” & Discussion of Bloodlands
by Snyder (Preface-Chapter 5)
OPTIONAL Readings: Darkness at Noon and/or Kate Brown, Biography of No
Place
CONTINUE READING Snynder, Bloodlands, Chapter 6-Conclusion; Book Review due September 24
·
Reading for September
17: Excerpt from Through the Burning Steppe by Elena Kozhina; Stalin as Time’s
“Man of the Year” for 1939 and 1942
Wednesday, September 17. The Soviet Union in WWII
·
Reading for
September 24: 1) “Russia after the War: Hopes, Illusions, and
Disappointments” by Elena Zubkova; 2-3) “Introduction: ‘Everything
here will have to change’” and “‘Every Family Has Its
Freak’: Perceptions of Collaboration in Occupied Soviet Russia, 1943-1948” by Jeffrey W. Jones; 4) Jones-Kuromiya
Correspondence in Slavic Review; 5) “Prisoners of the Soviet
Self?—Political Youth Opposition in Late Stalinism” by Juliane Fürst; Worksheet 2 due in class
Wednesday, September 24. The Soviet Union in WWII (cont’d) &
Postwar Reconstruction (Review of Snyder,
Bloodlands due in class)
·
Reading for October 1:
Excerpt from Khrushchev’s 1956 Secret Speech;
Khrushchev as Time’s
“Man of the Year” for 1957
Wednesday, October 1. Khrushchev’s “Secret” Speech: in-class viewing & discussion of “The Thief”; Bibliography for the Final Essay due in
class
·
Reading for October
8: “Bloody Saturday: Novocherkassk, 1962”; “Bloody Saturday in the Soviet Union” by Samuel H.
Baron, Parts: A, B and C; Chapter 9: “Fiasco in Riazan Oblast” in Khrushchev:
The Years in Power by Roy and Zhores Medvedev
Wednesday, October 8. Strike in Novocherkassk and Fiasco in Riazan
·
Reading for
October 15: Excerpt from Not By Bread
Alone by Vladimir Dudintsev; and
excerpt from One Day in
the Life of Ivan Denisovich by
Alexander Solzhenitsyn
Wednesday, October 15. The Thaw Years (Review of Dobson, Khrushchev’s Cold Summer due in class)
BEGIN READING Yurchak, Everything
Was Forever; review due Wednesday, November 5
Wednesday, October 22. The Gorbachev Reforms: in-class viewing of
“Forgotten Melody for a Flute”
·
Reading for
October 29: Documents on the
Soviet-Afghan War: 1) March 17-18, 1979;
2) December 31, 1979; 3) January 17, 1980; 4) January 28, 1980; 5) November 13, 1986
Wednesday, October 29. The Soviet-Afghan War and In-class Viewing of
“Cargo 200”; 1st Draft of
Final Essays Due in Class
·
Reading for
November 5: Gorbachev as Time’s “Man of the Year” 1987 & 1989; “Gorbachev: From High Hopes to the Bitter End” by Theodore von Laue
Wednesday, November 12. Student Oral Reports
Wednesday, November 19. Student Oral Reports. Graduate
Student 3rd Book Review due
Friday, December 5 3:30-6:30: Student Oral Reports; Final Essays Due