Introduction to Russian Cultural history

 Learning about each other  Introducing the course  Interpreting Russian Culture: some examples

 What are your expectations from the course?  What is your experience of Russian culture?  What interests you most about Russian culture?

Introducing the course

 Surveys the key stages in Russian cultural history (pre- modern period, Imperial and Soviet/post-Soviet)  Studies the main sources of Russian culture and identity  Focuses on self-perception and presentation and its underlying contradictions.  Understaning and challenging the persistent myths about Russian culture

Assessment  Students are expected to read 1-2 general books about Russian history and culture (in Estonian or English), make notes during classes and participate in discussions. A number of cultural and historical documents will be discussed in class. Exam questions will be based on the material covered in during the class.

Lecture programm  PREMODERN RUSSIA  Week 1 Introduction and theoretical background  Week 2 Byzantine Empire and Slavs. The problem of intellectual silence.  Week 3 ‘Holy’ or pagan Russia?:The categories of medieval Russian culture.  Week 4 “Old ways vs new ways” The religious schism of the 17 th century and the Old Believers

IMPERIAL RUSSIA  Week 5 18th century cultural changes. Russia and the West  Week 6 Narod and narodnost’: romantic nationalism of the 19 th century; the making of Russian national mythology  Week 7 Imperial cultures (colonialism and the multicultural aspects of the Russian Empire)  Week 8 Russian Modernism and its discontents

SOVIET AND POSTSOVIET RUSSIA  Week 9 Revolutionary culture. The New Soviet Man and Woman; avant-garde art and the everyday  Week 10 Culture and terror (Stalinism and its cultural worlds)  Week 11 Return of memory after the Gulag  Week 12 Culture of Stagnation and the Last Soviet Generation  Week 13 Market and freedom: cultural transformation after the end of communism  Week 14 Icons and jeeps: constructing Russian National Identity in present-day Russia

Study format  Lectures: introducing material, case-studies for discussion  In the class: reading,  asking questions;  group discussion  At home: reading; thinking;  Field-trips; films;  Mid-term and end-of-term tests

Resources  Juri Lotman, Vestlusi Vene kultuurist, 1 ja 2 (2003, 2006)  Orlando Figes, Nataša tants: Venemaa kultuurilugu (Tallinn, 2003)  David Vseviov ja Vladimir Sergejev, Venemaa: lähedane ja kauge (2002, 2007).  George Fedotov, The Russian Religious Mind vols  Orlando Figes, Sosistajad: Eraelu Staliini Venemaal (2010)  Primary Sources:

“Fieldtrips” and other activities  Ilya Repin Exhibition 9/02/ /08/2013 (separate excursion with Linda Lainvoo)   public lectures 13/03 18:00   Excursion to the church of Transfiguration (2nd half March)   Excursion to St Nicholas’ church  Tallinna Linna Muuseum or Peter I’ house   Film screening. The film will have subtitles; (choice: Andrey Rublev; Be aware of the automobile; Norshtein „A hedgehog in the fog“)   Making notes, presenting the notes in class

Classic cultural history  ignores the economic, political and social structure of society  it is based on the postulate of cultural unity or consensus (Zeitgeist)  the notion of tradition; what was received was the same as what was given (a cultural heritage or legacy).  The idea of Culture as high culture  a canon of “great works”, great authors

New Cultural History  Cultures, not culture  Culture as comprising artefacts, goods, technical processes, ideas, habits and values (Malinowski);  Culture as the symbolic dimensions of social action (Geertz)  Tradition versus reception.  culture shapes social reality (collective imagination, construction)

Russian Cultural History  Cultural history as religious philosophy and theology: A. Losev, G. Fedotov, G. Florovsky. Platonism. Spiritual roots of Russian culture  establishing main paradigms (Moscow vs.St Petersburg, Westernizers vs Slavophiles) James Billington  Post-1992 „Russians were not waiting for Foucault. They had Bakhtin and Lotman“. (Engelstein)

Tartu-Moscow school of semiotics:  Semiotic mechanisms are the basis of culture.  1) preservation of signs and texts (cultural memory),  2) circulation and transformation (intercultural and intracultural communication)  3) generation of new signs and new information (possibility of innovations and creativity).  For TMS text is central.  Text is superior to language because 1) it has elements that are not reducible to language 2) it has the meaning which the language does not 3) text is polylinguistic.

Contribution of TMS to Russian cultural history  Semiotics (poetics) of everyday behavior  Attention to ‘marginal’ cultural phenomena (card play, dueling, eating, smell)  Language (oral speech - written language, foreign- Russian)  Lotman: culture and everyday behavior of the Russian nobility  Uspensky: exchange of pagan and Christian elements in Russian culture  Zhivov: language and culture of the 18th century  Pliukhanova: symbols of Moscovite Russia

Varieties of Russian Cultural History in Anglo-American world  Eric Naiman Sex in Public: The incarnation of early Soviet Ideology  Boris Groys, The total art of Stalinism: avant-garde, aesthetic dictatorship and beyond  Catriona Kelly Children’s world: Growing up in Russia  Stephen Lovell, Summerfolk: a history of Russian dacha

Psychological models  Rancour-Laferriere: moral masochism and the cult of suffering define the Russian soul  Bogdanov: Russian pathographic texts (suffering, illnesses, dying and death)  Nancy Ries: pessimism as a cultural mode; the conversational genre of litany 

Ethno-linguistic model  the key concepts that cannot be translated directly, these key ideas expressed through the language produce a worldview of a Russian person  Untranslatable concepts: dusha” (soul), “sud’ba” (destiny, fate), “toska”  Vezhbitska: cultural scripts  Pravda-istina (truth), obshchenie (communication)

Russia’s Cultural heroes  “Bogatyri” (medieval epic heroes): Alesha Popovich, Ilya Muromets, Dobrynia Nikitich  Guardians of the borders; defenders of the Rus’: moral superiority, physical strength; composure; patriotism;  the enemies (Mongols, Bandits, dragons)  Corrupt and weak authorities: prince Vladimir; Viktor Vasnetsov ( ), Three Bogatyrs (1898)

The medieval epic in contemporary Russia  Animation series “Bogatyri” by the animation studio “Melnitsa”:  a celebration of Russian heritage  Massively popular;  Humour, the use of Hollywood narrative and visual techniques;  Promotion of patriotism

Ivan the Fool (Ivan-durak)  Moral implications: no personal responsibility; passivity; expectation of everything from God or fate; (Trubetskoi)  Philosophical implications: nothing depends on reason, education, the will and efforts;  Connection between Ivan-durak and Jurodivyi

Brat -2. Who has power?  related related  =related (better quality but shorter) =related

What is Power? Danila: Tell me, the American, who has power? The one who has money? My brother too tells me that is the money. You have lot’s of money, and so what? I think that power is in truth (pravda). Who has truth, he has power. You have cheated someone and made a fortune, and so what? Have you become stronger? No, you have not. Because you have no truth. But the one who you have tricked, he has truth. Therefore he is stronger. Do you agree?... Dmitry Gromov, give me the money!

Cultural scripts  key concepts have certain specificity that resists direct translation to other languages (“Dusha” (soul), “Sud’ba” (destiny, fate), “toska” (longing, melancholy).  Ewa Verzbitska: high truth (istina), there is also a concept for human truth (Pravda).  Pravda does not need to be supported by evidence, it is a moral category.  “God is not in power but in truth” (Ascribed to St. Alexander Nevskii)

The play of cultural scripts Tell me, Mikhail Prokhorov, who has power? The one who has money? You have made a fortune, and so what? But I think [power is in truth, the one who is right is strong.] You have cheated someone and made a fortune, and so what? Have you become stronger? No, you have not. Because you have no truth! But the one who you have tricked, he has truth.