PAPER RU 1: 

Russian literature, history and culture before 1861

A page from a medieval букварь, a book for those learning to read and write

 

Portrait of Pushkin by Kiprenskii, 1827

This paper introduces the literature, history and culture of Russia from its beginnings to the age of Pushkin. The set texts are all available on this site as Word files, and can be downloaded by clicking on the appropriate link on the right. 

 

These files are not intended to replace the books we recommend in the reading list. The downloaded files will allow you to make your own notes on the text. 

Translations are provided to help you with reading the some of the more difficult Russian texts before 1800. Those marked MR are in Modern Russian; PR are in parallel Russian-English text.

 

Sections A and B allow you to adopt a comparative and thematic approach. Section C requires close reading of three Pushkin set texts.

Topics:

SECTION A: FROM RUS' TO ROSSIA

Section A outlines Russian history and culture from the earliest record to the middle of the 19th century. It has three subsections:  

(i) Kievan Rus' (9th - 13th centuries). This period is represented by excerpts from a chronicle and a sermon - texts which show how earliest writers interpreted their own past and their own place in the world.

Icon of St. Nicholas, Novgorod, 1294

(ii) Muscovy (14th to 17th centuries). Texts from this period, which include one of the earliest 'entertainments' in Russian literature, deal with the relationship between Russia and its rulers through texts which fictionalize history and historicize fiction. 

Vlad Tepes, hero of the Tale of Dracula

(iii) St. Petersburg (18th-mid-19th centuries) introduces you to texts which deal with Russia's present, past and future as a product of St. Petersburg, as a city and a tradition.

 

 

 

The Bronze Horseman - statue of Peter I in St. Petersburg

 

SECTION B: ASPECTS OF CULTURE AND SOCIETY

This section looks at two major themes in Russian literature from the perspective of the late eighteenth to the mid-nineteenth century. It discusses the literary treatment of two groups seen as 'distinctively Russian': the peasantry and the intelligentsia.

 

Portrait of a peasant girl by Argunov, 1784

You will look at some of the representations of these groups in fiction: this will allow you to consider how the literary representations varied over time and in the works of different writers. You will be able to discuss the ways in which these fictional images reflect or distort social realities.

C: LITERARY ANALYSIS

Section C provides for a close study of three Southern Poems by Pushkin as examples of the relationship between content, context and technique in the poet's  work.

 

Set texts:

SECTION A:

KIEV

      MUSCOVY

Шапка Мономаха: the crown used in the coronation of Russia Tsars from the time of Ivan IV

      St. PETERSBURG

SECTION B:

PEASANTS IN FACT AND FICTION

      INTELLIGENTSIA

      SECTION C:

 

 

 

Last Updated: 21 August  2008