DRAFT
SYLLABUS
Union College
Modern Languages and Literatures Department
MLT – 263
EuCiv/GenEd
Autumn 2002
Nationalism and Empire: Russian Music and Art of the Nineteenth Century
Tuesday and Thursday
Professor Kristin Bidoshi
The
development of a purely Russian style in music, art and literature occurred
only in the mid-nineteenth century.
Since Peter the Great’s Europeanization of the country (the founding of
St. Petersburg in 1703), everything Russian had been dismissed as barbarous and
culture had come to mean something essentially foreign. In this course, we will
discuss the philosophical tenets of Romanticism and nationalism as depicted in
Russian music and art of the mid-nineteenth century. We will concentrate on the interaction between music and art to
explore methods by which Russian artists and composers manipulated canvases and
scores to express issues of nationalism.
Students will read theoretical and critical texts on culture, identity,
nationalism and romanticism. It is thematically organized to explore such
topics as identity politics, ethnicity, and nationalism and empire. Class material will draw from documentary
films, and theoretical and critical texts on culture, identity, nationalism and
romanticism.
In
our study we will cover a wide variety of topics including:
·
Russian Romantic
Movement (in literature, art and music)
·
High vs. Low Culture
(the borrowing of folklore motifs)
·
Genre and the
Interaction of National Art and Music
·
Identity, Nation and
Empire
Readings
Course packet (Articles on
identity, nationalism and empire)
The New Russian
Nationalism (John B. Dunlop) 1985
Imperial Knowledge (Ewa Thompson) 2000
Course
Requirements and Evaluation
Students
will be expected to have completed the reading for each class as outlined below
and to actively contribute to class discussion. The five-page paper will be submitted first as a draft and then as a
final version. Detailed instructions on
the writing assignment will be provided.
The final grade for the course
will be determined based on the following:
1
Midterm Examination (in-class) 30%
1
Five-Page Paper 25%
1
Final Examination (in-class) 30%
Quizzes
and Class Participation 15%
Grading Scale
93-100 A
90-92
A-
88-89
B+
83-87
B
80-82
B-
78-79
C+
73-77
C
70-72
C-
68-69
D+
65-67
D
64 E
Nationalism and Empire: Russian Music and Art of the Nineteenth Century
Syllabus
Week One
Tuesday
Introduction
to course
Thursday What
is Nationalism?
Readings:
Hans Kohn “The Idea of Nationalism” and E.J. Hobsbawn “Nations and Nationalism
since 1780” (CP)
Tuesday Russian Nationalism: A Question of Ethnicity
Reading: Katherine Verdery "Ethnicity as
Culture: Some Russian-American
Contrasts" and Anthony Smith The Ethnic Origins of Nations (CP)
Thursday The
Great Empire
Reading: Thompson’s “Engendering Empire” Imperial
Knowledge (53-81)
Discussion of Pushkin/Glinka (Opera “Life of a Tsar”
as conspiracy of outsiders to overthrow Muscovite Russia)
Week Three
Tuesday The Artists
Reading: Valkenier, Elizabeth Kridl. The State and Society: The Peredvizhniki
and their tradition
Discussion: The Wanderers and interaction with
composers (Repin, Musorgsky)
Thursday Back
to the People: The Artists (cont.)
Reading: Finish Valkeiner’s State and Society
Week Four
Tuesday Film: Riches of the
Russian Empire
Thursday Folk
Images/”Low” Culture as Artistic Inspiration
Discussion: Vasnetsov’s “Alenushka, Bogatyri, Tsar Ivan
Vasil’evich”
Bilibin’s Tsar Sultan
Week Five
Tuesday Folk Images/ “Low” Culture (cont.)/
Child Propaganda
Discussion:
Vasnetsov’s illustrations to “Fifty Piglets” Children’s
Folksongs
Thursday Midterm
Exam
Week Six
Tuesday Film: Russia Under the Tsars: Music for a Nation
Thursday Music
and Nationalism
Reading: Victor I. Seroff “Musorgsky” in The Mighty
Five; the Cradle of Russian National Music (CP)
Discussion: Musorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition
(Musical Tribute to Hartmann’s Paintings)
Thursday Film:
Great Russian Composers: Modest Musorgsky
Draft of Paper Due
Week Seven
Tuesday The Mighty Five
Readings: Carroll Moulton, "The Mighty
Fistfull" (CP)
Discussion: Interaction of Music and Art
Thursday Russian
Ballet
Film
Clips: Great Russian Composers: Peter Tchaikovsky and
Footnotes: The
Nutcracker/The Sleeping Beauty
Discussion: National elements in Tchaikovsky’s
Nutcracker and Sleeping Beauty
Week Eight
Tuesday Russian Ballet (cont.)
Film: Moiseyev Ballet
("Partisans," "Polyanka," "Night on Bald Mountain”)
Thursday More
on Interaction between Russian National Art and Music
Discussion: Interaction of poetic images and epic spirit
in music and art
Week Nine
Tuesday Rhythms
of Russian Life: Visual Effects of
Musical Poem
Discussion:
Alexander Scriabin (music as spiritual expression) something on poem Prometheus,
and visual light- board he designed to accompany instruments: flashing colors intended to suggest or
augment the listener’s emotions and moods.
Thursday Constructing
Reality: Whose Russia is this? High vs. Low Culture
Discussion: Problems of National Identity
Paper Due
Week Ten
Tuesday Deconstructing Empire: Nationalism Today
Readings:
The
New Russian Nationalism
Discussion: “The Visionary Worlds of Babeck” A Chechen’s View of Empire
Thursday
Review
for final
Proposed Catalog Description
Kristin Bidoshi
Modern Languages and Literatures
MLT 263: Nationalism and Empire: Russian Music and Art of the Nineteenth Century (Spring, Bidoshi)
In this course we will discuss the philosophical
tenets of Romanticism and Nationalism as depicted in Russian music and art of
the mid-nineteenth century. We will
concentrate on the interaction between music and art to explore methods by
which Russian artists and composers manipulated canvases and scores to express
issues of Nationalism. It is thematically organized to explore such topics as
identity politics, ethnicity, and national and empire. Class material will draw from documentary
films, and theoretical and critical texts on culture, identity, nationalism and
romanticism. GenEd: EuCiv; WAC
List
of Readings:
Dunlop,
John. The New Russian Nationalism (1985).
Hobsbawn, E.J. Nations and Nationalism since 1780 Second Ed. (Cambridge: Camb Univ. Press, 1990).
Kohn,
Hans. The Idea of Nationalism
Second Ed. New York: Collier Macmillan, 1967).
Moulton,
Carroll. "The Mighty Fistfull" (216-226) in Music in Time: A Survey of Western Music.
Seroff,
Victor. The mighty five; the cradle of Russian national music Freeport, N.Y., Books for Libraries Press
[1970, c1948].
Thompson, Ewa. Imperial
Knowledge (2000).
Valkenier,
Elizabeth Kridl. Russian realist art
: the state and society : the Peredvizhniki and their tradition /New York :
Columbia University Press (1989).
Verdery,
Katherine. “Ethnicity as Culture: Some Soviet-American Contrasts,” Candian
Review of Studies in Nationalism 15, No. 1-2 (1988).
*Please note that this is not an exhaustive list. More items will be added as the course develops.