Course Syllabus

Jump to Today


Russian/MEMS 391
Russian 551

Art, Culture, and Literature in Old Russia

Fall Term, 2022 Tuesday, Thursday 4.00-5.30
2155 NQ

Michael Makin (mlmakin@umich.edu)

DSC_6209.jpg

Mosaic of the Virgin Mary Orans (Eleventh Century), St Sophia’s Cathedral, Kyiv
Photograph – Michael Makin


This course provides an introduction to the culture of the Eastern Slavs from the ninth century until the seventeenth, and looks briefly at the employment of elements of that culture in Russia and Ukraine from the nineteenth century until the present day.  It requires no special historical or linguistic knowledge and is intended to be of interest to anyone curious about medieval and early-modern culture.  While the primary emphasis will be on Old-Russian literature, the course will also examine art, architecture, folklore, and other cultural forms.

            The course will help students to develop the analytical skills required for the examination of medieval and early-modern cultures (including basic tools of textual criticism and instrumentation to read symbolic languages very different from ours) and  to develop an understanding of cultural premises also radically different from those on which post-Enlightenment Europe has relied.  The course will look at the East Slavs of Rus’ and Muscovy in comparison with the peoples around them and will also look at how post-Petrine Russia has turned again and again to “Old Russia” and, indeed, has, in some areas, shown remarkable continuity with that Old Russian past.   Students will also develop skills in analytical writing, treating both very specific, materials-based topics and broader, conceptual issues.

            This course will, after the first class, generally use a “flipped” format.  Course lectures will be recorded and made available via Canvas.  Students will be expected to have completed the core readings for each week and to have watched the relevant lectures before class meetings, which will consist primarily of discussions of the material and of the lectures.  Students in the undergraduate sections (Russian and MEMS 391) will be expected to watch approximately 45 minutes of recorded lecture for every class and then participate in 45 minutes of discussion in class; the remaining 45 minutes of nominal class time will be devoted to the the graduate section (551), although undergraduates are very welcome to participate – in that graduate section we will discuss more scholarship on the assigned materials and look in more detail at the assigned materials.  Students in 551 will be expected to work as much as possible with the assigned primary materials in the original language and to read extra scholarly work, some of it in Russian, for the graduate discussions. 

Written assignments for undergraduates in the course are: three short papers (1,500 words each), and a final, longer paper (2,500-3,000 words).  The short papers are each worth 20% of the total grade, the final paper is worth 30%, while class participation is worth 10%.  Graduate students are expected to give two class presentations during the semester and write a total of approximately 8,000 words of finished, scholarly prose over the semester.  They may design their own writing assignments, for example -- a single, long research-based paper; a series of shorter discussion papers; a series of philological analyses; or work on other projects of their choice.  In all cases they should do so in consultation with the instructor

            Three books (supplemented by abundant materials posted to the Canvas course site) have been ordered for the course and are required purchases:

  • Serge Zenkovsky, Medieval Russia's Epics Chronicle and Tales, rev. ed. (Meridian Books, 1992; ISBN: 0452010861).
  • Carolyn Johnston Pouncy, tr., The Domostroi(Cornell UP, 1995; ISBN: 0801496896).
  • Archpriest Avvakum: The Life written by Himself, tr. K Brostrom (Michigan Slavic Translations, 1977).

In addition to the reading assignments, the following films are assigned:

 We will also look at parts of the following television series:

 The University has a subscription to Kanopy: (you may need to create a personal login to view the film): https://www.kanopy.com/en/umich

 Obraz.png

 

             An example of vyaz’ decorative script
“Образ сретения Господа Бога спаса нашего Иисуса Христа”
[Icon of the Presentation of the Lord God, our Saviour Jesus Christ]


SCHEDULE OF CLASSES:

 

AUGUST

 

T 30     Introduction to course.  What are we studying?  What are the conceptual issues raised by the material we will examine?

 

SEPTEMBER

Kievan Rus’

Th  1    Introduction to Kievan Rus’; introduction to the assigned materials.

 

T    6    The Primary Chronicle, historical passages, The Novgorod and Galician chronicles, The Testament of Vladimir Monomakh (Zenkovsky, 43-84, 92-100; Canvas)

Th 8    The Primary Chronicle, etc, conc.

T  13    Ilarion, Sermon on Law and Grace, (Zenkovsky, 85-91; Canvas).

Th 15  Cyril of Turov (Zenkovsky, 90-92; Canvas)

 

T    20  Lives of Sts Boris and Gleb (Multiple versions – one in Zenkovsky, 101-105, others on Canvas).

Th  22  The Kiev Monastery of the Caves, the Kiev Paterikon (Zenkovsky, 105-116; 134-152).

 

T    27  Life of St Feodosei (Zenkovsky, 116-34; Canvas)

Th 29   Pilgrimage – Abbot Daniil in Jerusalem (Canvas).

 

OCTOBER

 

Sun 2   First Paper Due

 

T    4   Daniil the Prisoner (Zenkovsky, 249-55; Canvas)

Th  6   Sacred art and architecture; the Novgorod Codex  Liturgical music.  (Canvas)

     

 

T    11  Russkaya Pravda – Russian Law (Materials on Canvas); “Ordinary” communications, ordinary literacy – the story of birch-bark writing (Canvas).

Th  13  The Igor’ Tale, (Zenkovsky, 167-192; Canvas).

 

T    18 STUDY BREAK

Th  20  Battle on the River Kalka; Orison of the Downfall of Russia; Tale of the Destruction of Ryazan’ by Baty;  Life of Alexander Nevskii  (Zenkovsky, 193-235)
Church building.  Iconography (Canvas).  Film: Alexander Nevskii.

The Tatar Yoke and the Rise of Muscovy

 

T    25  The Rise of Muscovy: Zadonshchina, Muscovite art and architecture.

 Th  27  The “Second South Slavonic Influence”.  Epifanii Premudrii, The Life of St Sergius of Radonezh, The Life of St Stepan of Perm’ (Zenkovsky, 259-289,

 

 NOVEMBER

T    1    Peter and Fevronia, Holy Fools (Zenkovsky, 290-310). Film: Andrei Rublev (Kanopy)“

Th  3    Tale of the White Cowl”; Afanasii Nikitin, Journey Across Three Seas (Zenkovsky, 323-53).  TV series -- Sofiya

 

T      8     Ivan IV – Culture and Change (scholarly materials online); Ivan IV,  Correspondence with Ivan Kurbskii (Zenkovsky, 366-76; Canvas). Films: Ivan the Terrible, Pts I and II

 

Seventeenth-century Culture

 

Th  10  Domostroi  -- everyday life in Muscovy (Pouncey, The Domostroi).

 

Su 13 Second Paper Due

 

T    15  Emergent Secular Literature. Beyond the elite: Tale of Woe and Misfortune, "The Tale of Savva Grudtsyn", "Frol Skobeev, the Rogue”, Tales of Possession. “Shemyaka’s Judgement” (Zenkovsky, 449-486; Canvas)

Th 17) Emergent Secular Literature.  The elite.  Simeon Polotsky and others (Zenkovsky, 501-19).  More Transformation: The Life of Yuliana Lazarevsky (Zenkovsky, 391-98

 

Su  21 Third Paper Due

 

T    22  The Schism (Canvas; Life of the Archpriest Avvakum, Written by Himself).

 

Th  24 THANKSGIVING BREAK

 

T  29    The Schism, conc.

 

Old-Russian Culture and Modern Russia

 

DECEMBER

 

Old-Russian Culture and Modern Russia

 

DECEMBER

 

Th  1    Medievalism in Architecture and in nineteenth-century Literature (Anderson on architecture; Leskov, “Pamphalon the Entertainer)

 

Su 4     Third Paper Due

 

T    6    Medievalism and Modernism (Remizov re-writing Savva and Solominia); modern hagiography (Matrona of Moscow)
 

Th. 8    Medievalism in culture today: Sorokin, Day of the Oprichnik (exgtract); Vodolazkin, Laurus (extract); Griffin on the battle for Vladimir I;  Lungin,  Tsar’.

 

Th  15  Final Paper Due (391, 551).

 

Michael Makin
3016 MLB
Tel. 647-2142
E-mail: mlmakin@umich.edu
Office: 3016 MLB

Office Hours: Tues 12-1, Thurs 10-11, in person or online; or by appointment
Sign up through the advising link on the Slavic Dept web site:

https://myadvising.lsa.umich.edu/appointments/offices/SLAVIC

 

Kulikovo.jpg



Shchusev’s Memorial Church at Kulikovo Field (1913-1918)
Photograph – Michael Makin

Download Syllabus here: 391-551 Syllabus FT 22.docx

Course Summary:

Course Summary
Date Details Due