This course provides an introduction to the culture of the Eastern Slavs from the ninth century until the seventeenth and also looks at the continued employment of elements drawn from that culture in post-enlightenment Russia. It requires no special historical or linguistic knowledge and is intended to be of interest to anyone curious about medieval and early-modern culture. While the primary emphasis will be on Old Russian literature, the course will also examine art, architecture, folklore, and other cultural forms. The course will help students to develop the analytical skills required for the examination of medieval and early-modern cultures (including basic tools of textual criticism and instrumentation to read symbolic languages very different from ours) and to develop an understanding of cultural premises radically different from those on which post-Enlightenment Europe has relied. The course will look at the East Slavs of Rus’ and Muscovy in comparison with the peoples around them and will also look at how post-Petrine Russia has turned again and again to “Old Russia” and, indeed, has, in some areas, shown remarkable continuity with that Old Russian past. Students will also develop skills in analytical writing, in treating both very specific, materials-based topics and broader, conceptual issues. All assigned materials will be available in English.

Course Requirements:

Three short papers (1,500 words each), and a final, longer paper (2,500-3,000 words).

Intended Audience:

Students interested in pre-modern Eastern Europe.

Class Format:

The class will be taught primarily in “flipped” format, with lectures recorded and made available ahead of class meetings. Class meetings will then be devoted to discussion of the materials explored in the lectures. Students taking this class as 391 should expect to spend about 45 minutes watching each recorded lecture and then 45 minutes of class time in discussion; the second half of each class meeting will be devoted to work for the graduate section (591), which undergraduates are also very welcome to attend. All class discussions will be recorded and made available for review via Lecture Capture.