Introductory description

This undergraduate second-year option examines the history of Russia’s long 20th century, a period dominated by the Soviet ‘experiment’ to build a socialist utopia on the ashes of the Russian Empire. We will consider the roots of revolution in late 19th century Russia; attempts to build socialism after 1917; the lived experience of socialism under Stalin and his successors; and the decline, collapse and legacy of the USSR into the Putin era.

Module web page

Module aims

Outline syllabus

This is an indicative module outline only to give an indication of the sort of topics that may be covered. Actual sessions held may differ.

Term 1

1. Introduction: Russia in 1881
2. Frameworks of Russian Identity
3. Ideologies and Mass Movements
4. 1905 and its Aftermath
5. War and Revolution
6. Reading Week
7. October
8. Utopian Visions and Civil War
9. The New Economic Policy
10. The Great Breakthrough in Socialist Construction

Term 2

1. Stalinism as a Civilisation?
2. National Identity in the Soviet 'Empire'
3. The Purges
4. The Soviet Union at War
5. Late Stalinism and the Birth of the Cold War
6. Reading Week
7. Khrushchev and Destalinization
8. Cold War and the Relaunch of the Soviet Project
9. Developed Socialism
10. Gorbachev's Revolution

Term 3

1. Russia in the 1990s: A Decade of Chaos?
2. Putin's Russia
3. Revision

Learning outcomes

By the end of the module, students should be able to:

• Demonstrate a detailed knowledge of historical and theoretical interpretations of modern Russia.
• Communicate ideas and findings, adapting to a range of situations, audiences and degrees of complexity.
• Generate ideas through the analysis of a broad range of primary source material for the study of modern Russia, including electronic resources.
• Analyse and evaluate the contributions made by existing scholarship.
• Act with limited supervision and direction within defined guidelines, accepting responsibility for achieving deadlines.

Indicative reading list

• Applebaum, Anne, Gulag: A History of the Soviet Camps (Penguin, 2012).
• Brandenberger, David, National Bolshevism: Stalinist Mass Culture and the Formation of Modern Russian National Identity, 1931-1956. Cambridge, Mass., 2002.
• Fitzpatrick, Sheila, The Russian Revolution, 3rd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008.
• Fitzpatrick, Sheila, Alexander Rabinowitch, and Richard Stites, eds. Russia in the Era of NEP: Explorations in Soviet Society and Culture. Indiana University Press, 1991.
• Fürst, Juliane, ed., Late Stalinist Russia: Society Between Reconstruction and Reinvention. London: Routledge, 2008.
• Goscilo Helena, and Vlad Strukov, eds., Celebrity and Glamour in Contemporary Russia: Shocking Chic. London; New York, NY: Routledge, 2010.
• Harris, James, The Great Fear: Stalin’s Terror of the 1930s. Oxford, 2016.
• Hosking, Geoffrey, A History of the Soviet Union, 3rd edition. William Collins, 2017.
• Jones, Polly, ed., The Dilemmas of De-Stalinization: Negotiating Cultural and Social Change in the Khrushchev Era. London: Routledge, 2006.
• Kotkin, Stephen, Magnetic Mountain: Stalinism as a Civilisation. University of California Press, 1995.
• Lovell, Stephen, Destination in Doubt: Russia since 1989. London: Zed Books, 2006..
• Lovell, Stephen, The Shadow of War: Russia and the USSR, 1941 to the Present. Wiley-Blackwell, 2010.
• Raleigh, Donald J., Soviet Baby Boomers: An Oral History of Russia's Cold War Generation. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011.
• Read, Christopher, From Tsar to Soviets: The Russian People and Their Revolution, 1917-21. New York: Oxford University Press Inc, 1996.
• Smith, Kathleen E., Remembering Stalin’s Victims: Popular Memory and the End of the USSR. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2009.
• Steinberg, Mark, The Russian Revolution, 1905-1921. New York, NY: OUP Oxford, 2016.
• Stites, Richard, Revolutionary Dreams: Utopian Vision and Experimental Life in the Russian Revolution. Oxford: Oxford University Press USA, 1989.
• Suny, Ronald, The Soviet Experiment: Russia, the USSR, and the Successor States (New York: OUP USA, 2010).
• Suny, Ronald, and Terry Martin (eds.), A State of Nations: Empire and Nation-Making in the Age of Lenin and Stalin. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001.

View reading list on Talis Aspire

Subject specific skills

See learning outcomes.

Transferable skills

See learning outcomes.