Russian & Eurasian Studies 211CA - Topics in Twentieth-Century Russian Literature: 'Russophone Worlds of Siberia and Central Asia'

In the 1920s, the Soviet Union laid claim to a landmass encompassing much of Eastern Europe, the circumpolar Arctic, and Central Asia. In engaging the populations that occupied this stretch of Eurasia, Soviet power observed a twofold approach: promoting ethnic minorities' and Indigenous peoples' national cultures, while simultaneously centering Russian as the shared tongue of an international socialist project. Our course will survey this project's complex, contradictory cultural artifacts -- both colonial and decolonial in their aims -- with a particular focus on modern Siberia and Central Asia. We will read, in English translation, novels, poems, and other texts by Russophone authors from Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, north/eastern Siberia, and other spaces.