With the possible exception of Germany since its unification in 1871, no modern nation has had a history as traumatic and controversial as Russia’s. The task of interpreting that history is made all the more challenging by the frequency with which Russia has been convulsed by different forces.
This course provides both facts and interpretations of Russia’s dramatic experience with Soviet communism.
Divided into three time periods, the lectures develop a conceptual understanding of the main events of modern Russian/Soviet history by focusing on the major turning point of each era:
- the Bolshevik Revolution
- Stalinism
- Gorbachev’s perestroika and glasnost.