COURSE INFORMATION

SGL Name: Olivia Kennison

Course Meeting Times/Dates: Wed 11:10–12:35 April 21-May 21

Contact information of SGL: olivia_kennison@brown.edu 

ZOOM Link for Course Meetings: https://brandeis.zoom.us/j/97049611402

COURSE DESCRIPTION

The decades before the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917 were full of turmoil in Russian society – not only in politics, but in the arts. This period (1890-1917) would later be named the Silver Age. A fascinating salon culture emerged in St. Petersburg and Moscow, where members of the arts such as Sergei Prokofiev and Anna Akhmatova crossed paths, collaborated, and influenced each other. In this class, we will explore the historical and cultural context, meet the major figures of the time, and then delve into the arts: ballet, opera, painting, poetry, and philosophy. We will study the poems of Blok, Tsvetaeva and Akhmatova, the paintings of Chagall, Vrubel, Kandinsky and Goncharova, and the music of Stravinsky, Prokofiev and Rimsky-Korsakov. Finally, we will discover how these cultural figures and movements responded to the revolution.

Recommended secondary reading: 

Rylkova, Galina. (2014). Archaeology of Anxiety : The Russian Silver Age and its Legacy (1st ed.). University of Pittsburgh Press.

Forrester, Sibelan E. S., Kelly, Martha M. F., & Grave, Ivan Platonovich. (2015). Russian Silver age poetry : texts and contexts (1st ed.). Academic Studies Press.

Pyman, Avril. (1994). A History of Russian Symbolism. Cambridge University Press.

Figes, O. (2002). Natasha’s dance : a cultural history of Russia (1st ed.). Metropolitan Books.

Lincoln, W. B. (1998). Between heaven and hell : the story of a thousand years of artistic life in Russia. Viking.

Hosking, G. A. (2011). Russia and the Russians : a history (2nd ed.). Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.

Kivelson, V. A., & Suny, R. G. (2017). Russia’s empires. Oxford University Press.

Slezkine, Y. (2017). The house of government : a saga of the Russian Revolution. Princeton University Press.