Contested Identities in Contingent Borderlands: Poland, Russia, Ukraine and Belarus, 1600-1900

Week 1 
(A). Russia, Poland, Ukraine and Belarus’, XVIth through early XXth centuries: What and how to compare? And what for? 
(B). Byzantine, Western and “oriental” civilisational traditions in history of Eastern Europe. 
Mandatory readings:
Evans R.J.W. The Polish-Lithuanian Monarchy in International Context //The Polish-Lithuanian Monarchy in European Context, c. 1500-1795. New York: Palgrave, 2001. P. 25-38 [ pdf ]
Poe M. The Russian Moment in World History. Princeton, 2003.P. XI-XV, 1-9, 38 - 70  [pdf ]
Obolensky D. Russia’s Byzantine Heritage // Readings in Russian Civilization. Vol.1. Russia before Peter the Great, 900-1700. Ed. by T. Riha. Chicago, 1964. P. 201-215  [pdf ]

Optional readings: - will be suggested during the course. 

Questions to guide your readings:
1. What should be understood under “civilisational tradition”? Is there a way to use this notion in a strict, “scientific” manner? How to apply this notion in our historical analysis of East and East-Central European past?
2. How do you comprehend and describe the peculiarities of “European”, “Byzantine” and “oriental” civilisational traditions? “European” and “western”: different or the same?  
3. What was peculiar to the political culture and institutions of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (Rzeczpospolita Obojga Narodow) in XVIth – XVIIIth centuries? Peculiar – in comparison to what? Were these institutions unique?
4. Was Poland (Rzeczpospolita Obojga Narodow), actually, an… empire (cf. Evans’ article, p. 34)? How much parallels between Poland and  the German Reich (Holy Roman Empire) of the XVIth – XVIIIth centuries, are justified (pp. 28-29, 34)? And the parallel between Poland and Habsburg Empire?
5. M. Poe’s point: Russia in Middle Ages and EMP (=Early Modern Period) was neither European, nor Asian… Do you agree? How would you argue? What historical  (facts based, empirical) arguments would you deploy?
6. What interesting/banal, useful/useless, convincing/false do you find in M. Poe’s reasonnings about Muscovite Russia place in the world history? What’s wrong, what’s true in his analysis?
7. What do you think about Poe’s arguments, concerning the role of Orthodoxy in the Russian history (pp. 39, 45,54,69 and, especially, p. 41)?
8. What do you think about Obolensky’s central thesis (Byzantine background of Russia’s civilisation)? How do you understand, what were the mechanisms of byzantine influences upon Russia? On the basis of what sort of evidence that problem might be studied?

Week 2

(A) Muscovite tsardom: were tsars’ subjects  kholopy or “citizens”?
Mandatory readings:
Joseph of Volokolamsk on obedience to secular rulers; S. von Herberstein on Muscovy, 1553; Richard Chancellor on Muscovy, 1553  // Vernadsky G.,  Fisher  R.T.,  eds.  A  source  Book  for  Russian History from Early Time to 1917.  Vol.  1-3. New-Haven, 1972, pp. 155, 156-157, 166-169.  [ pdf ]
A Kurbsky’s first epistle to Ivan IV and Ivan’s reply, in: Readings in Russian Civilization.  Vol.  1.  Ed.  by  T.  Riha.  Chicago, 1964, pp. 92-103 [ pdf ]
Kivelson V. Muscovite “Citizenship”: Rights without Freedom // The Journal of Modern  History 74 (September 2002), 465-489  [ pdf ]

Optional readings: - will be suggested during the course.

Questions to guide your readings:
1. What can be said about the type of the Russian ruler’s power on the basis of Herberstein’s account?
  2. How Muscovite prince’s authority and status were perceived in the Russian society, according to Herberstein? What was the role of religious background in vision of tsar’s power by the Russians, to believe Herberstein?
       3. In what  respects  Herberstein’s account is different from that of Chancellor? How much reliable are both? What will be believe in, what will we be doubtful about?
4.  More generally: westerners’ observations on Russian rulers: how much reliable? How to verify? 
5. How to interprete Joseph of Volokolamsk’ idea of disobedience to the ruler? 
6. How did Andrey Kurbsky and Ivan the Terrible understand tsar’s power and its limits? How did they both understand the relationships between upper layer of nobility (boyars) and the tsar?
7.   What role is played by religious argumentation in their ideas?
8. How would you explain the astonishingly mild attitude of the Russian élites towards Muslims (as well as Cheremis, Chiuvash, Votiaks), who entered Muscovite Tsardom (V. Kivelson’s article, p. 473-474)?
9. Is the parallel between Russia and England (V. Kivelson’s article, p. 476-477) justified?
10. How to comprehend the Muscovite understanding of freedom and slavery (V. Kivelson’s article, p. 484-486)
11. Notion of “subjecthood” (poddanstvo, V. Kivelson’s article): how much adequate?
12. WHY the Muscovite poltical culture was  different from the western early modern “citizenship”? 

(B)  Polish “gentry republic” and its king. What sort of  “citizenship”?
Mandatory readings:
The General Confederation of Warsaw, 1573; The Henrician Articles (Pacta Conventa), 1574 // Polish Democratic Thought from the Renaissance to the Great Emigration: Essays and Documents. Columbia University Press, 1990 (East European Monographs). P. 121-146 [ pdf ]
Olszewski H. The Power and the Downfall of the Polish Parliament // Changes in Two Baltic Countries. Poland and Sweden in the XVIIth Century. Poznan, 1990. P.113-124  [pdf ]
Wyczanski A. The Problem of Authority in 16th-century Poland: an essay in reinterpretation // A Republic of Nobles. Studies in Polish History to 1864. Ed. By J.K. Fedorowicz. Cambridge University Press, 1982. P. 91-108  [ pdf ] 
 
Optional readings: - will be suggested during the course.

Questions to guide your readings:

1. How would you formulate the research problems, which have been addressed in Wyczanski’s article? What sorts of difficulties we are facing dealing with the interpretation of king’s power in the 16th century Poland?

2. What hypothesis has been advanced by Wyczanski? How did he argue? 

3. How the act of General Confederation of Warsaw and the Henrician Articles (Pacta Conventa) documents may be treated as stuff for analysing political mentality and political culture (political discourses) of the Polish-Lithuanian nobility?

4. What were sejm’s functions in the Polish political and social system? How  was it expected to function? how did it really function?

5. What changes did occur in the sejm practices and in the Polish political culture at large in 1572-1700? Why did it happen?

6. Why the szlachta turned unable to pull the country out of the crisis in mid-XVIIth century?

7. How the Polish political institutions and political culture were related to the peculiarities of the Western type of development (western medieval civilization)?

8. In what respects the “nobility’s democracy” system and Polish political culture were different from the western “norms’? 

Week 3

(A) Russian noblemen in the XVIIth century: political role, social status, selfperception.
Mandatory readings:
Ivan Peresvetov's recommendations,  1547,  in:  A Source Book for Russian History. Vol. 1. Ed. by G. Vernadskii. London, 1972, p.161-164 [ pdf ]
Kivelson V. A. Muscovite Political Culture in Principle and Practice, 1600- 1648 // Kivelson V. Autocracy in the Provinces: the Muscovite  Gentry and Political Culture in the XVIIth century. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1996. P. 210-240  [ pdf ]
 
Optional readings: - will be suggested during the course.

Questions to guide your readings:
 1. How would you qualify Ivan Peresvetov’s political ideas? Does he justify the despotism and cruelty? 
 2. Is the idea of estates proper to Peresvetov? 
 3. How to interpret Peresvetov’s ideas in the context of development of the Russian state in the XVIth century?
 4. What sources did V. Kivelson use? Russian institute of “petitions”, Chancellery of petitions (Tchelobitnyj prikaz), the idea of having direct access to the tsar - how much unique all that was?
 5. How the myth of “tsardom” was  functioning in the Muscovite society? Was is a “democratic” myth? Were the related practices “democratic”? And how to comprehend and to explain that all people were allowed to send petitions to the tsar and the strict rule was that all petitions had to be considered and answered?
 6. How the idea of justice was understood by noblemen? Did the Russian noblemen hold to the idea of abstract law (which is above all, even above tsar’s authority)? What was peculiar in it? 
7. How to comprehend and to interpret the concept of the  “mercyful justice” as opposed to the “supreme law”?
8. How much the traditional legal culture was impeding the modernisation of the Russian state?

(B) Being nobleman in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, XVIIth century: political role, social status, selfperception
Mandatory readings:

Wyczanski A. The Problem of Authority in 16^th-century Poland: an essay in reinterpretation // A Republic of Nobles. Studies in Polish History to 1864. Ed. By J.K. Fedorowicz. Cambridge University Press, 1982. P. 91-108 [ pdf ]

A.M. Fredro’s Defense of the Liberum Veto, 1660 // Polish Democratic Thought from the Renaissance to the Great Emigration: Essays and Documents. Columbia University Press, 1990 (East European Monographs). P. 157-162.   [ pdf ]
Frost R. “Liberty without Licence?” The Failure of Polish Democratic  Thought in the 17th Century // Polish Democratic Thought from the Renaissance to the Great Emigration: Essays and Documents. Columbia University Press, 1990 (East European Monographs). P. 29-54. [ pdf ]

Optional readings: - will be suggested during the course.

Questions to guide your readings:
1. Why A. Fredro was defending the idea of liberum veto in 1660? What arguments did he provide? What sources/traditions did these arguments come from?
2. What was wrong with his idea of better citizens (p. 158 passim) and other seemingly sublime ideas? ? Are there any serious internal contradictions in his arguments? Were they realistic? rational? wise? fit to the challenges of his epoch? 
3. Fredro’s ideas look very abstract… How to assess (historically) and interpret such ideas in the context of the circumstances in the mid- XVIIth century? 
4. Opalinski’s and Fredro’s ideas in the context of Polish political practices and events of 1600-1660s: how to explain the interplay between political ideologies and  evolution of the Polish-Lithuanian State?
5. How the Polish political theories and ideas are related to the XVIIth century political thought in the West of Europe (Bodin, Hotman, Hobbes, Locke, Suarez, Bellarmino, Grotius et alii)… 
6. It seems, that the Polish theories were, grosso modo, in line with theories of monarchia mixta, jus resistendi, ideas of  ruler-society contract… But the effects were rather negative and very different from other European countries… How to explain it? What did turn wrong (what examples)?

Week 4
(A) Ad fontes! - Eastern and western medieval Christian mentalities in cultures of Poland and Russia.
Mandatory readings:
Benz E. The Eastern Orthodox Church: its Thought and Life. New-York, 1963, p. 1-19, 163-173 (The Orthodox Icon; Political Ideas of Orthodoxy)  [ pdf ]
Berezhnaya L. Sin, Fear, and Death in the Catholic and Orthodox Sermons in the 16th – 17th Century Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (An Attempt at Comparison) // Être catholique, être orthodoxe, être protestant. Confessions et identités culturelles en Europe médiévale et moderne. Études réunies et publiées par Marek Derwich et Mikhaïl V. Dmitriev. Wroclaw: LARHCOR, 2003. P. 253-284  [ pdf ]
Kaiser D.H. Quotidian Orthodoxy. Domestic Life in Early Modern Russia // Orthodox Russia. Belief and Practice under the Tsars.Ed. by V. A. Kivelson and R. H. Greene. The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2003, p.179-192  [ pdf ]

Optional readings: - will be suggested during the course.

Questions to guide your readings:
1. A sacred image in the “latin West” and an icon in the Byzantine-Slavic East: what did make a difference? 
2. What is strange in the Orthodox concept of icon? How was this concept linked to the central dogma of Christinianity – dogma of God’s Incarnation?
3. Eusabius of Caesarea’s conception of Christian Emperor: what were its main elements? What was his vision of patriarch and his power?
4. Byzantine Emperor and God: what relationship according the Byzantine understanding? Is there a link between Byzantine theology of emperorship and Byzantine orthodox teaching on icons? 
5. The symphonia theory: its meaning and content?
6. What are the tenets of St. Augustine’s theory of Christian Empire? What makes differences from the Byzantine Empire?
7. What was the fate of symphonia theory in the Orthodox world? Were there serious differences between Russia and Byzantium in that respect?
8. What were (or should have been) political implications of these theological divergences? Having a certain idea about Russian autocracy, would you suppose that there was a link between Byzantine theories and Russian political ideas and practices? Of what sort?
9. Attitudes to death in post-medieval, dechristianized and non-Christian societies: how relevant such a topic is? How to study it? 
10. Catholic and non-Catholic preaching on death in the East of Europe in the Early Modern Period:  what did L. Berezhnaya show? How did she proceed? On the basis of what sources?
11. What did D. Kaiser show? In what respects her analysis is convincing, in what –isn’t? How did he proceed? On the basis of what sources?

(B) Confessionalisation  (Konfessionalisierung) and social discipline (Sozialdisziplinierung) in the East of Europe from the anthropological perspective.
Mandatory readings:
Schilling H. Confessionalisation  and the Rise of Religious and Cultural Frontiers in Early Modern Europe // Frontiers of Faith. Religious Exchange and the Constitution of Religious Identities, 1400-1750. Ed. by E. Andor and I.G. Toth. Budapest: Central European University, 2001. P.21-36   [ pdf ]
Po-chia Hsia R. Social discipline // The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Reformation. Vol. 4. P. 70-76 [ pdf ]
Zguta, R. "Witchcraft Trials in Seventeenth-Century Russia." American Historical Review 82 (5 1977): 1187-1207. [ pdf ]
Ryan, W. F. "The Witchcraft Hysteria in Early Modern Europe: Was Russia an Exception?" The Slavonic and East European Review 76 (1, 1998): 49-84.  [ pdf ]

Optional readings: - will be suggested during the course.

Questions to guide your readings:
1. What is understood, in today’s scholarship, under the confessionalisation? 
2. Why did Schilling think that the confessionalisation is a specifically western phenomenon, and  did not take place in the Orthodox part of Europe? Is he right?
3. To what type of confessionalisation did the East-Central Europe belong? What consequences does this imply? 
4. How do you think, why the confessionalisation was linked to the rise of religious intolerance (p. 33-34, example of the southern France)?
5. What is Sozialdisziplinierung? What examples? 
   6. It seems, that no attempt at the social disciplinirization was made in the Orthodox countries before Peter the Great’s reforms… Why? In other words: were there any premises for Sozialdisziplinierung in the Eastern Christian  traditions? And what premises for social discipline can be supposed in the specifically western  Christian tradition? How the social discipline might be related to the confessionalisation? Were these two phenomena actually linked?
  7. How would you pose the problem: ”witchcraft and magic in the Early Modern culture from the East-West comparative prospective” – and  how would you conceive eventual comparative approaches to studies in this area? 
  8. What is different in Zguta’s and Ryan’s assessments of the attitudes to witches in Russia?
  9. W. Ryan is skeptical about serious divergences between Russia and the West in terms of witch hunting and attitudes to witches… Do you share his skepticism? Are there weak points in his arguments? 
 10. Thesis: there were no judges, universities, theorists and theologians in Russia, no Renaissance and Reformation -  and therefore the scale and character of witchcraft persecution were different from the West… What do you think about such thesis? Is it enough the explain the attitude to witchcraft in Russia (before the XVIIIth century, of course)?
      11. What links between theological traditions and attitudes to witches could have existed in the Orthodox and Western Christian cultures? How to find out whether such links actually existed?

Week 5

Accommodating ethnic and confessional differences in Poland, Ukraine, Belarus’ and Russia, XVIth – XVIIIth centuries: a comparison .

(A) Poland, Ukraine, Belarus’
Mandatory readings:
Articles for Which We  Need Guarantees… // Gudziak B. A. Crisis and Reform. The Kyivan Metropolinate, the Patriarchate of Constantinople, and the Genesis of the Union of Brest. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1998 (Harvard Series on Ukrainian Studies). Appendix 3.  P. 265-272 [ pdf ]
Plokhy S. The Cossacks and Religion in Early Modern Ukraine. Oxford University Press, 2001. P. 176-191 (“A War of Religion”)  [ pdf ]

Optional readings: - will be suggested during the course.

Questions to guide your readings:
1. What demands were addressed to Papacy by the Ruthenian clergy in 1595 (“Articles for Which We  Need Guarantees”…)? What was strange in them? What goals were set on by the Ruthenian bishops? Were their expectations realistic?
2. How the “32 articles” may be interpreted in terms of tolerance and intolerance? – Was this a sort of early ecumenism?
3. Why the “32 articles” were not accepted by the Roman See? 
4. Why the dramatic religious conflicts took place in the first half of the XVIIth century, in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth? About what these conflicts were?
5. What three stages of the evolution of movement’s self-justification in 1648-1649 does Plokhy distinguish ? (Plokhij, especially, pp. 184-185) How and by whom was the religious argument shaped?
6. Religious references in rebels’ declarations – was is a shield? A sham? A hypocrisy?
7. How to approach anthropologically the problem of religious violence et religious wars in early modern Europe?

(B) Russia (Russian Empire)
Mandatory readings:
Kappeler A. The Pre-modern Russian Multi-ethnic Empire // Kappeler A. The Russian Empire: A Multiethnic History. Longman, 2001. P. 114-125, 141-167, 395-399 (statitical tables)  [ pdf ]
Raeff M. Patterns of Russian Imperial Policy Toward the Nationalities // Raeff M. Political Ideas and  Institutions in Imperial Russia. Westview Press, 1994. P. 126-140 (formerly: Soviet Nationality Problems. Ed. by E. Allworth. New York: Columbia University Press, 1971. P. 22-42)  [ pdf ]

Optional readings: - will be suggested during the course.

Questions to guide your readings:
1. Western empires in the Early Modern and modern/contemporary periods: what does it mean? How would define what is an  empire of that epoch was? 
       2. Why did the Western empires emerge in the Early Modern Period? Was the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth….. an empire?
       3. What were main regions of the Russian empire in the XVIIIth – XIXth centuries? What were its major ethnic groups? What was the weight, place, status of Russian within this Empire? Within the élites of the Russian Empire?
       4. Inter-national, inter-ethnic, inter-confessional relations within the Russian Empire in the XVII –XIXth centuries: what was peculiar in them in comparison to the Western empires of the same period (Spanish, British, French, Habsburg)?
      5. How to term the type of Russian imperialism? How to explain the peculiarities of this imperialism? Is it enough to say, as Kappeler did, that it was a pre-modern Empire? Was it an imperialism like other “national imperialisms”?
      6. Was Russia a colonial empire? Why did the Russian Empire keep its pre-modern character even in the 18th –19th centuries?    Was it actually a pre-modern Empire?
      7. How to explain Russia’s expansion in 1550-1850 (Raeff’s article)? What were its purposes?

Week 6
(A) The Well-Ordered Police State and problem of modernization Russia, Poland, Belarus’ and Ukraine.

Mandatory readings:
Bushkovitch P. Cultural Change among the Russian Boyars, 1650-1680. New Sources and Old Problems //  Von Moskau and St. Petersburg. Das russische  Reich im 17. Jahrhundert. Hrsg von H.-J. Torke. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2000 (=FOG. Bd. 56). P. 91-112  [ pdf ]
Raeff M. The Role of the Well-Ordered Police State in the Development of Modernity in 17th and 18th-Century Europe: An Attempt at a Comparative approach // Raeff M. Political Ideas and Institutions in Imperial Russia. West View Press, 1994. P. 309-333  [pdf ] 

Optional readings: - will be suggested during the course.

Questions to guide your readings:
 
1. What sort of new sources were used by Bushkovitch in his study? What are advantageous in making use of these sources? How much relevant they are?
2. What do they make us learn about Russian boyars’ culture? Please, take a closer look at Golosov’s case (p. 94-96)
3. How all that is related to the problem of Russia’s transformation under Peter the Great?
4. What was understood under “police” and “well ordered police-State” in the epoch of Peter the Great?  
5. What were the main tenets of cameralist policy and “police” doctrine in the Early Modern Europe? 
6.  What place was taken by compulsion, intolerance, violence in the practice of the “well – ordered police states”?
7.  How do you feel, is there any link between religious intolerance, Sozialdisziplinierung (social discipline) and   the “well ordered police-State” idea?
8. What does make a difference between Russia and Poland in this respect?

(B) Society and state  in Poland, Belarus, Ukraine and Russia, 1500 - 1700: a comparison

Mandatory readings:
Pelensky J. Muscovite Russia and Poland-Lithuania, 1450-1600: State and Society - Some Comparisons in  Socio-Political Developments // State and Society in Europe from the 15th to the 18th century. Ed. by J. Pelenski. Warsaw, 1981. P. 83-106   [ pdf]
Crummey R.O. Seventeenth-Century Russia: Theories and Models // Von Moskau and St. Petersburg. Das russische  Reich im 17. Jahrhundert. Hrsg von H.-J. Torke. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2000 (=Forschungen zur Osteuropäische Geschichte. Bd. 56). P. 113-132   [ pdf ]
Wojcik Z. Poland and Russia in  the XVIIth Century: Problems of Internal Development // State and Society in Europe from the 15th to the 18th century. Ed. by J. Pelenski. Warsaw, 1981. P. 125-140  [ pdf ]

Optional readings: - will be suggested during the course.

Questions to guide your readings:
1. Provide, please, a critical assessment of Pelensky’s article, taking in consideration all what we learned in our previous classes, as well as all what you know on Russia and Poland in the XVI-XVIIth centuries. Are the questions raised in article adequate? What answer to the central question (different and common in state-society relations in Russia and Poland? “Nature” of Russia’s and Poland state institutions?) has been given? What arguments? Are they convincing? Is the logic of arguing strong? Etc.
2. What was different in Russia’s and Poland’s evolution in the second half of the XVIIth century (in economy, political sphere, social relations)? Why these differences? 
3. Why (according to Wojcik) Polish state and society were declining? What were manifestations of it? Why reforms failed?
   4. Wojcik’s final conclusion on differences and similarities in the evolution on Poland, Russia and Western Europe, - is it a persuasive conclusion?
 5. XVIIth century Russia was a backward and decidely non-westerm society… Russia was in crisis..Reforms were needed… What, in this case, does make a difference between “backward” Poland and “backward” Russia? Why reforms were needed by both? What sort of reforms??

Week 7:

(A) Being woman in Russia and in Poland in the XVIth – XVIIIth centuries: where was it worse?

Mandatory readings:

Pushkareva N. L.  Women in the Medieval Russian Family of the Tenth through Fifteenth Centuries // Russia’s Women. Accommomdation, Resistance, Transformation. Ed. by B.E. Clements et alii. Univ. of California Press, 1991. P. 29-43 [pdf ]

Thyrêt I. Women and the Orthodox Faith in Muscovite Russia. Spiritual Experience and Practice // Orthodox Russia. Belief and Practice under the Tsars.Ed. by V. A. Kivelson and R. H. Greene. The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2003. P159-175 [pdf ]

Optional readings: - will be suggested during the course.

 (B) Being Jew among Christians: Jews among  Ukrainians, Russians and Poles (1600-1800).

Mandatory readings:

Hannover N., Abyss of Despair, trans. by A.J. Mesch, New York, 1983 (second edition). P.  13-26,27-49, 110-128 [pdf ]

Pelensky J. The Cossack Insurrections in Jewish-Ukrainian Relations // Ukrainian-Jewish Relations in Historical Perspective. Ed. by P. J. Potichnyj and H. Aster. Edmonton: CIUS, 1988. P. 31-42 [pdf ]

Sysyn F. The Jewish Factor in the Khmelnytsky Uprising// Ukrainian-Jewish Relations in Historical Perspective. Ed. by P. J. Potichnyj and H. Aster. Edmonton, CIUS, 1988. P. 43-54 [pdf ]

Klier J.D. Russia gathers her Jews: the origins of the “Jewish question” in Russia. De Kalb, 1986. P. 3-52 (chapter 1, Poland-Lithuania: “Paradise for Jews”;chapter 2, Russia’s Ambigious Jewish Legacy). [pdf ]

Klier J.D. The Blood Libel in the Russian Orthodox Tradition (to be published in “Christian and Jews in the Orthodox societies of Eastern Europe) [pdf ]

Optional readings: - will be suggested during the course.

Week 8:

The «New Man» among Polish, Russian, Ukrainian élites, circa 1750-1800

(A) The «New Man» among Polish élites, circa 1750-1800

Mandatory readings:

Gierowski J.-A. The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the XVIIIth century. From Anarchy to Well-organised State. Krakow, 1996. P. 105-146 [pdf ]

Lukowski J. Liberty’s Folly. The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the 18th Century. London: Routledge, 1991, P. 38-61, 218-238 (chapter 3, Peasants; chapter 9, Progress and Problems: The Polish Enlightenment). [pdf ]

Stone D.Z. Democratic Thought in Eighteenth Century Poland // Polish Democratic Thought from the Renaissance to the Great Emigration: Essays and Documents. Columbia University Press, 1990 (East European Monographs). P. 55 -72 [pdf ]

Optional readings: - will be suggested during the course.

 (B) The «New Man» among Russian and Ukrainian élites, circa 1780-1820.

Mandatory readings:

Dixon S. The Modernisation of Russia, 1676 -1825, Cambridge, 1999. P. 1-7 (Modernisation theory and Russian  History) [pdf]

Raeff M. Transfiguration and Modernization. The Paradoxes of Social Disciplining, Paedagogical Leadership, and the Enlightnement in 18th Century Russia // Raeff M. Political Ideas and Institutions in Imperial Russia. West View Press. P. 334-347 [pdf]

Novikov N.I. [On Man’s High Estate]; On the Upbringing and Instruction of Children // Russian Intellectual History: Ed. by  M. Raeff  New Jersey: Humanities Press, 1986. P. 68 – 86. [pdf]

Optional readings: - will be suggested during the course.

Week 9:

Cultural aspects of Russia’s colonial expansion

(A) Perception of the indigene pagan population in Russia and in the West, XVIth – XIXth centuries.

Mandatory readings:

Yermak's Campaign in Siberia; Siberia under Russian Administration.  A Selection of documents from:  A Source  Book  for Russian History  from Early Time to 1917. Ed. by G. Vernadsky, R. Fisher et alii. Vol.1.  New-Hawen: Yale UP, 1972. P.  142, 152-153, 262- 269, 272-273 [pdf]

Slezkine Y. Arctic Mirrors. Russia and the Small Peoples of the North. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1994. P.  1-45 [pdf ]

Raeff M. Patterns of Russian Imperial Policy Toward the Nationalities // Raeff M. Political Ideas and Institutions in Imperial Russia. West View Press, P. 126-140 [pdf ]

Optional readings: - will be suggested during the course.

(B)  Perception of Muslims in Russia and in the West, XVIth – XIXth centuries.

Mandatory readings:

Khodarkovsky M. The Conversion of Non-Christians in Early Modern Russia // Of Religion and Empire. Missions, Conversion, and Tolerance in Tsarist Russia. Ed. by R. P. Geraci and M. Khodarkovsky. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2001. P. 115-144. [pdf ]

Kappeler, A. Czarist Policy toward the Muslims of the Russian Empire // Muslim Communities Reemerge: Historical Perspectives on Nationality, Politics, and Opposition in the Former Soviet Union and Yugoslavia. Edited by Andreas Kappeler, Gerhard Simon, Georg Brunner and Edward Allworth. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 1994. P141–156. [pdf ]

Optional readings: - will be suggested during the course.

Week 10:

Intelligentsia and Revolutionary movement in Russia and Ukraine,  1800 – 1900.

(A) Decembrists, Slavophiles, Westerners….

Mandatory readings:

Ulam A.B.   The Bolsheviks. The Intellectual and Political History of the Triumph of Communism in Russia.Harvard University Press, 1998. P. 21 - 54… (chapter 2, The Revolutionary Tradition, sections  on the  Decembrists and A. Herzen). [pdf ]

Lotman Ju. M. The Decembrist in Everyday Life: Everyday Behavior as a Historical-Psychological Category // Lotman Ju.M., Upsnskij B.A. The Semiotics of Russian Culture. Ed. By A. Shukman. Ann Arbor, 1984. P. 71-123 [pdf ]

Chaadaev P. Ya. First letter on the Philosophy of History // Russian Intellectual History: Ed. by  M. Raeff  New Jersey: Humanities Press, 1986. P. 160-173 [pdf]

Kireevsky, I.V. On the Nature of European Culture and Its relation to the Culture of Russia // Russian Intellectual History: Ed. by  M. Raeff  New Jersey: Humanities Press, 1986. P. 174-207. [pdf]

Herzen A. My Past and Thoughts. The Memoirs of Alexander Herzen. Trans. by C. Garnett, Introduction by I. Berlin. University of California Press, 1999. P. 284-305 (Our Friends; Our “Opponents”) [pdf ]

A. Herzen on Russia and Europe, 1857-1861 // A Source  Book  for Russian History  from Early Time to 1917. Ed. by G. Vernadsky, R. Fisher et alii. Vol.3.  New-Hawen: Yale UP, 1972. P. 634-636 [pdf ]

Optional readings: - will be suggested during the course.

(B) Intelligentsia, revolution, terror  in Russia and Ukraine (1860s –1914)

Mandatory readings:

Tchernyshevskiy’s, Pisarev’s, Nechaev’s, Lavrov’s texts //// A Source  Book  for Russian History  from Early Time to 1917. Ed. by G. Vernadsky, R. Fisher et alii. Vol.3.  New-Hawen: Yale UP, 1972. P. 636-642, 647-652 [pdf ]  

Berdyaev N.A. The Origin of Russian Communism. Trans. by  R.M. French. London, 1960. P. 37-75 (chapter 2, Russian Socialism and Nihilism; chapter 3, Russian Narodnichestvo and Anarchism). [pdf ]

Ulam A.B.  Ideologies   and   Illusions.   Revolutionary Thought from Herzen to Solshenitsyn. Cambridge, 1976. P. 9-48 (chapter 1, Bakunin, Herzen and Chernyshevsky) [pdf ]

Optional readings: - will be suggested during the course.

Week 11:

Russia’s painful modernization. 1860s -1914

(A) Industrialization,  Urbanization and rising Proletariat

(readings suggested by Ya. Hrytsak).

Mandatory readings:

Gershenkorn A. Economic backwardness in Historical Perspective. A Book of Essays. Cambridge MA, 1962. P. 5-30 [pdf ]

von Laue Th. Problems of Industrialization // Russia under the Last Tsar. Ed. by P. Stavrou. University of Minnesota UP, 1969. P. 117-153 [pdf ]

 Friedgut Th. Iuzovka and Revolution. Vol. 1. Life and Work in Russia’s Donbass, 1869-1924 (Princeton, NJ, 1989).P. 457-472 (Conclusion). [pdf ]

Wynn Ch. Workers, Strikes and Pogroms. The Donbass-Dnepr Bend in Late Imperial Russia, 1870-1905. Princeton UP 1992. P. 3-9, 15-36. [pdf ]

Optional readings: - will be suggested during the course.

(B) Peasants as losers?

(readings suggested by Ya. Hrytsak)

Mandatory readings:

Brooks J. When Russia Learned to Read. Literacy and Popular Literature, 1861-1917. Princeton Univ. Press, 1985. P. 214-245 (chapter 6, Nationalism and National Identity). [pdf ]

Dobrowolski, K. Peasant Traditional Culture // Peasants and Peasant Societies. Ed. by Th. Shanin, Baltimore, 1971 (Penguin Books). P. 277-298 [pdf ]

Eklof B. Peasants and Schools // The World of the Russian Peasant: Post-Emancipation Culture and Society. Ed. by Ben Eklof Ben and Stephen Frank. Boston: UNWIN HYMAN, 1990 P. 115-132. [pdf ]

Optional readings: - will be suggested during the course.

Week 12.

(A) “Russian Communism”: why? And what sort of “communism”?

Mandatory readings:

Bogdanov A. Red Star. The First Bolshevik Utopia. Ed. by  L. Graham and R. Stites. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1984. P. 1-16 (R. Stites’ introruction), 59-100 (part II, 1-7; part 3, 1-3) [pdf ]

Berdyaev N.A. The Origin of Russian Communism. Trans. by  R.M. French. London, 1960. P. 114-157 (chapter 6, Russian Communism and the Revolution) [pdf ]

Besançon A. The Intellectual Origins of Leninism. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1981. P. 94-112, 221-242 (chapter 6, The Intelligentsia; chapter 13, Political Leninism). [pdf ]

(B) Final colloquium.

Textbooks, reference books and atlases  that students may consult during the course:

Recommended  basic textbooks:

Davies N. God’s Playground: A History of Poland. Vol. 1-2. New York. 1982

Riasanovsky N.V. A History of Russia. New-York, 1993 (fifth ed.) - or any other ed.

Subtelny O. Ukraine. A History. Second edition. Toronto, 1994 (there is an Ukrainian translation).

Vacar N. P. Belorussia. The Making of  Nation. A Case Study. Cambridge, 1956

Other textbooks:

MacKenzie D., Curran M.W. A History of Russia, the Soviet Union and beyond. 4th ed. (or any other edition). Belmont, 1993

Magosci P. R. A History of Ukraine. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1996

Singleton F.B. Background to Eastern Europe. London: Pergamon Press, 1965

Spector I.   An  Introduction  to  Russian  History  and  Culture. 5th ed. American Book Company, 1969.

Walters E. G. The Other Europe. Eastern Europe to 1945. Syracuse: Syracuse Univ. Press, 1988

Atlases:

Milner-Gulland R., Dejevsky N. Atlas of Russia and the Soviet Union. Oxford, 1989

Magosci P.R. Ukraine: A Historical Atlas. 2nd ed. Toronto: 1987

Magocsi P.R. Historical Atlas of East Central Europe. Cartographic design by G. J. Matthews. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1993

Sellier A.,  Sellier J.  Atlas des peuples d'Europe Centrale.   P.,  1991

Welt der Slawen. Geschichte. Gesellschaft. Kultur. Hrsg. von J. Herrmann. Munchen: C.H. Beck Verlag, 1986

Kovalevsky P. Atlas historique et culturel de la Russie et du monde slave. Paris-Bruxelles: Elsevier, 1961