K FIN DE SIÈCLE RUSSIA, 1891-1917 Hubertus Jahn This special subject examines the late imperial period of Russian history from the perspective of the fin de siècle. Its goal is twofold: to rediscover the richness and complexity of the era; and to rethink the meaning of the revolutions of 1917. In the years around 1900, questions of both modernity and decay, civilisation and cultural standards were at the heart of intellectual discussions and public debates. They occupied people's minds and spurred artistic creativity at a time when the country as a whole experienced major economic and social changes. Topics for investigation will thus include the rise of mass movements and the revolution of 1905, but also consumer culture and the "sexual question," as it was called at the time. Special attention will be paid to the world of the Russian village, the life of factory workers, the decline of the nobility, the pitfalls of the modern urban landscape, popular utopian fantasies, and the momentous changes in literature and the arts. The documentary material for this course will be in English. In addition to more conventional sources (memoirs, decrees, petitions, strike resolutions, programmes of political parties, articles and tracts), they will include literature and a broad variety of audio-visual materials (popular song, film, architecture, posters, paintings, and other works of art), which are available as tape or CD recordings, on video cassettes, and as reproductions in books. Sources: Olga Semyonova Tian-Shanskaia, Village Life in Tsarist Russia, ed. David Ransel (Bloomington, 1993) [169pp.] Reginald E. Zelnik (ed.), A Radical Worker in Tsarist Russia. The Autobiography of Semën Ivanovich Kanatchikov (Stanford, 1986), pp. 1-135 [135pp.] E. A. Oliunina 'The Tailoring Trade in Moscow and the Villages of Moscow and Riazan Provinces: Material on the History of the Domestic Industry in Russia' in Victoria E. Bonnell (ed.), The Russian Worker. Life and Labor under the Tsarist Regime (Berkeley, 1983), pp. 154-183 [30pp.] Anton Chekhov, 'The Cherry Orchard' in Chekhov Plays (Penguin Classics, several editions) [68pp.] Elisaveta Lvova, 'From the Distant Past: Fragments from Childhood Memories' in Toby W. Clyman and Judith Vowles (eds.), Russia Through Women's Eyes. Autobiographies from Tsarist Russia (New Haven and London, 1996), pp. 281-310 [29pp.] Ekaterina Slanskaia, 'House Calls: A Day in the Practice of a Duma Woman Doctor in St. Petersburg' in Clyman and Vowles (eds.), Russia Through Women's Eyes, pp. 186-216 [30pp.] Vesevolod Krestovskii, 'The Slums of Petersburg: A Book about the Well-Fed and the Hungry' and the Moscow Sheet, 'Moscow Court Reporting' in James von Geldern and Louise McReynolds (eds.), Entertaining Tsarist Russia (Bloomington, 1998), pp. 121-128, 212-217 [14pp.] Andrey Biely [Andrei Belyi], St. Petersburg, trans. John Cournos (New York, 1959), prologue and ch. 1 [40pp.] 'Pobedonostsev's Criticism of Modern Society' in Basil Dmytryshyn (ed.), Imperial Russia. A Source Book, 1700-1917 (New York, 1967), pp. 265-283 [18pp.] 'Father Gapon's petition to Nicholas II, January 22, 1905' in Dmytryshyn (ed.), Imperial Russia, pp. 308-313 [5pp.] 'The October Manifesto, October 30, 1905' in Dmytryshyn (ed.), Imperial Russia, pp. 314-315