 2013 - 2014 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| 0662-1179-01 | History of Late Imperial Russia: Politics, Society, Culture | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| FACULTY OF HUMANITIES | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Course description
This course will concentrate on Russia’s attempts to modernize. It deals with the period from Russia’s military collapse during the Crimea War until the collapse of the state during the 1917 revolutions. We will be reading relevant documents, literary texts and some works by historians in order to understand how Alexander the II’s attempt to reform the state ended up with three revolutions (one in 1905 and two in 1917), the last two of which succeeded. In that context we will also discuss different social forces (peasants, workers, intelligentsia, business people, nobility, as well as women and various national minorities) and their evolving expectations. We will discuss the various oppositional and revolutionary political organizations and parties attempting to represent these forces. Finally we will talk about the reasons for the revolutions and for their success in destroying the state.