HST331 History of Russia

[3–0, 3 cr.]

This course may either chronicle the history of Russia from the first Rus until Vladimir Putin, or focus on a particular theme. Possible topics include the conversion of Slavs to Christianity in 988 and subsequent relations between the Russians and the Orthodox Church, the establishment of Moscow and the institution of the Czar, international relations and isolation, serfdom and the emancipation of the Serfs, important Czars such as Ivan IV (the Terrible), Peter the Great, Catherine II the Great and the Romanovs, the 1917 Revolution, Lenin and Stalin, and the rise and collapse of the Soviet Union. Students will be invited to engage with the great Russian thinkers and authors such as Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Solzhenitsyn and others.