Russian Language & Literature 239 - MAJOR RUSSIAN WRITERS

Topics course. The course examines the riddle of Russia's identity and destiny as it appears in the distorting mirror of Gogol's Dead Souls and in Tolstoy's War and Peace. The underlying debate between the Westernizers and Slavophils will be illustrated by polemical writings of Chaadaev, Aksakov, Herzen and Dostoevsky. In the twentieth century the arguments are reshaped in the crucible of the Revolution, as exemplified in the Berdiaev's The Origins of Russian Communism and Trotsky's Literature and Revolution. Readings from the Soviet period will include literary texts by Solzhenitsyn and philosophical reflections by dissident thinkers from Russia and Eastern Europe.

Topic: Russia Between East and West.