CULTURAL TREASURES OF THE SOVIET ERA Instructor Elena Sheygal-Placzek Email for questions and comments: [email protected]

Course description: Throughout the seven decades of the Soviet rule, the state exerted a tremendous pressure on the artist. And yet, in spite of severe censorship and repressions, Russian culture produced works of extraordinary genius like Pasternak’s Doctor Zhivago, Bulgakov’s Master and Margarita, Quiet Flows the Don by Sholokhov and Life and Fate by Grossman; the music of Shostakovich and Prokofiev; outstanding films and ballets. We will study the reflection of Soviet history in works of culture and explore the relationship between the artist and state power. Alongside the general overview we will take a closer look at some of the masterpieces and great personalities.

Classes will be held on Wednesdays 9-30a.m. to 11a.m., beginning September 23.

Weekly outline Week 1 Introduction: Characteristics of Soviet culture. Timeline of Soviet history. History through the lens of culture: reflection of periods, events and personalities in literature, popular and classical music, fine art and film. October Revolution and Civil war (1917 – 1921).

Week 2. History through the lens of culture: from the Civil war to WWII (1921 - 1945). The New Economic Policy. “The Great Break”. The Great Purge. Satire and Dystopia in Russian literature. The concept of Socialist Realism. The Great Patriotic war: muses at the war.

Week 3 History through the lens of culture: from the post-war period to pre- Perestroika (1945 - 1985). A new round of repressions (“Rootless cosmopolitans” and the Doctors’ Plot). Death of Stalin. The Khrushchev thaw (Concept of the “sixtiers”. Poetry boom. Bard song. Taganka theater. Manège exhibition). The Brezhnev stagnation (persecution of dissidents, underground art, intellectual cinema).

Week 4. The artist and state power. Stalin – “the best friend of Soviet composers, actors, writers, etc.”: S.Eisenstein, M.Bulgakov, B.Pasternak, M.Sholokhov.

Week 5. The artist and state power: Dmitry Shostakovich and his war of symphonies.

Week 6. Boris Pasternak: the way to the Nobel prize

Week 7. 1) B.Pasternak continued: comments on Doctor Zhivago 2) Soviet ballet – showcase of socialism ?

Week 8. Great swans of the Kremlin. Portrait of Maya Plisetskaya.

After each class, you will be offered a summary of the lecture and follow-up materials for reading or viewing.