New Lectures in History (300-0-20)
Topic
Life Under Communism
Instructors
Yohanan Petrovsky-Shtern
847/467-3399
Harris Hall - Room 317
YPS is the Crown Family Professor of Jewish Studies in History Department. He edited seven and authored seven books, including, together with Paul Robert Magocsi, Jews and Ukrainians: a millennium of coexistence (2018). In 2024, his contribution to the spread of knowledge about Ukraine in USA is acknowledged by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine.
Meeting Info
Kresge Cent. Hall 2-380 Kaplan: Mon, Wed 11:00AM - 12:20PM
Overview of class
This course takes students you back to the USSR. It explores the history and culture of the first socialist state from the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution through the 1991 "velvet" rebellion that resulted in the collapse of communism. This course looks at the communist polity through the perspective of its ordinary people. From kindergarten to their old age, these people on everyday basis encounter the rattling Soviet propaganda, party symbols and Orwellian discourses to which everybody was supposed to kowtow. While the majority was comfortable with such state of things, many discovered racism behind the internationalist slogans, xenophobia behind the mottos of the brotherhood of ethnicities, ultra-conservatism behind the leftist philosophy and chauvinism that replaced the officially acknowledged ethnic equality. What does this mean for our understanding of communism as praxis? Students will study the dichotomy of the official and the non-official that shaped everyday life of a Soviet individual, will ponder the ways the Soviet ordinary people negotiated levels of collaboration with the communist institutions, and will seek to answer major question: How it was possible to remain a person of integrity in the world of the officially imposed cynicism and hypocrisy.
Learning Objectives
To help students understand the difference between political ideology and socio-cultural reality, to attune students to the understanding of the evolution of communist power in the USSR from Lenin to Stalin to Brezhnev to Gorbachev, to expose students to the evidence of everyday life under communism in medicine, education, consumption, and underground culture, to invite students to the discussion of the collapse of communism.
Evaluation Method
Students' grades will be based on two response papers (critical reviews of the assigned readings/movies, 25 percent), active class participation (35 percent), and a final research paper or review essay based on a topic discussed with and approved by the instructor or TA (11 pages plus bibliography, 40 percent)
Class Notes
History Major Concentration(s): European, Asia/Middle East
History Minor Concentration(s): Europe
Class Attributes
Historical Studies Foundational Discipline
Historical Studies Distro Area
Enrollment Requirements
Enrollment Requirements: Only History majors and minors can currently enroll in this class.
Associated Classes
DIS - TBA: Fri 10:00AM - 10:50AM
DIS - TBA: Fri 11:00AM - 11:50AM
DIS - TBA: Fri 12:00PM - 12:50PM