Hartnett Lynne Ann. Understanding Russia: A Cultural History

Chantilly: The Great Courses, 2018. — 245 p.From the earliest recorded history of the Russian state in the 9th century, its own countrymen have sought to understand what it meant to be Russian, and to find a source of unity, stability, and legitimacy through shared identity, history, and culture. This lecture introduces some background information and themes that will shed light on that quest and be useful throughout the rest of the course.
This course on Russian cultural history embarks on an effort to better understand the empire of land and spirit arrayed from Europe to Asia and from the Baltics to the Pacific. To do so, it focuses on the country’s intellectuals—that is, its poets, novelists, artists, composers, leaders, clerics, and revolutionaries. The lectures will define—and sometimes redefine—a Russian identity through culture. This course’s quest stretches from Kremlin cathedrals to the palaces of St. Petersburg, from the chants of the Russian Orthodox Church to the soaring musical compositions of Peter Tchaikovsky, and from the folklore and fairytales of the medieval age to the romantic poetry of Alexander Pushkin and the realism of Leo Tolstoy. The course looks deeply into the recesses of the Russian mind, from holy medieval icons to the expressive 19th-century paintings of Ilya Repin, from the comedic plays of Anton Chekhov to grueling memoirs from the Soviet gulags, and from the ceremony and majesty of the Romanov autocracy to the Russian baths and daily rituals of the Russian village. Key figures in the course include the 16th-century Russian ruler Ivan the Terrible, the Russian Orthodox Church, and Peter the Great, among many others. The course also looks at Lenin and Stalin through the lens of their cults of personality and the imposition of a Soviet rather than historically Russian character on the people. In later lectures, the course enters the shared public spaces of the immediate post-Soviet period and the faceless flats constructed by Nikita Khrushchev. In sum, the course seeks to answer the same question asked by Russians throughout history: What does it mean to be Russian? The answer is multifaceted, fascinating, and continually changing.Introdution
Professor Biography
Course Scope
Lecture guides
A Russian Past, the Putin Future
Ivan the Terrible’s 500-Year Reign
The Russian Orthodox Church
Peter the Great and a European Empire
Russia’s Northern Window on Europe
Nobility, the Tsar, and the Peasant
The Authentic Russia: Popular Culture
Catherine the Great and the Enlightenment
Alexander Pushkin’s Russia
Alexander II, Nihilists, and Assassins
The Age of Realism in Russian Art
Russian Fin de Siècle and the Silver Age 104
Empire across Two Continents
The Rise and Fall of the Romanovs
Russian Radicals, War, and Revolution
The Roaring Twenties, Soviet Style
The Tyrant Is a Movie Buff: Stalinism
The Soviets’ Great Patriotic War
With Khrushchev, the Cultural Thaw
Soviet Byt: Shared Kitchen, Stove, and Bath
Intelligentsia, Dissidents, and Samizdat
Soviet Chaos and Russian Revenge
Supplementary material
Bibliography
Image Credits