HIST 320-000: The Soviet Union (Spring 2010)

Content:  This course will explore the birth, life, and death of the Soviet Union.  Topics such as the Revolution, NEP, Stalinism, The Great Patriotic War, the Cold War, Khrushchev's Thaw, Brezhnev's "Stagnation," Perestroika, and the collapse of the Soviet Union will be examined through a variety of sources and methodologies.  In addition to scholarly works, contemporary memoirs, literature and even jokes and popular music and cinema will be used to elucidate the history of one of the two super-powers of the last century. Some of the great classics of Russian literature will be used to elucidate the subject as well.  Students will conduct independent research to complete term papers on the subject of their choosing.  A final exam will also be included in the final grade.  The class will be a mixture of lecture and discussion that will hone the students' analytical skills, not simply their ability to remember names and dates.

Required Texts: Isaac Babel, Red Cavalry; Eugenia Ginzburg, Journey into the Whirlwind; Vasily Grossman, A Writer at War: A Soviet Journalist with the Red Army, 1941-1945; Stephen Kotkin, Armageddon Averted; Ronald Grigor Suny, The Soviet Experiment: Russia, The USSR, and the Successor States; Yury Trifonov, Another Life and The House on the Embankment; Vladislav Zubok, Zhivago's Children; The Last Russian Intelligentsia.

Grading: Course requirements include weekly learn-link responses,, the writing of a twelve-page research paper, and the completion of a final exam.  Students may chose from two options in taking this exam (an oral exam or written essay exam).  Paper topics will be chosen by students by the submission of a proposal and consultations with me at the mid-point of the semester.  If students chose a written final exam their grade will be 50% based on the final exam and 50% based on the research paper.  If they chose the oral exam the composition of the grade will be 75% research paper and 25% exam.