St Petersburg-Petrograd-Leningrad: Culture, Memory, Mythology

Imperial metropolis, capital of culture, literary obsession and crucible of history, St Petersburg-Petrograd-Leningrad occupies a unique place in the Russian national consciousness. Drawing on a wide variety of different kinds of sources - literature, cinema, photography, art, architecture, music, memoirs, travelogues, and maps - this module explores St Petersburg-Petrograd-Leningrad as a conflicting arena for the social construction of Russia's cultural identity from the 18th century to the present. This urban space serves as a unique case-study for a wide-ranging cross-disciplinary cultural-historical exploration of Russian modernity.

Primary texts studied include:

• Aleksandr Pushkin, The Bronze Horseman (1833)
• Nikolai Gogol, The Nose (1836)
• Andrei Belyi, Petersburg (1916)
• Sergei Eisenstein & Grigorii Aleksandrov, October (1928)
• Evgenii Zamiatin, The Flood (1929)
• Aleksandr Sokurov, Russian Ark (2002)
• Sergei Loznitsa, Blockade (2006)

General secondary reading includes:

• Arthur George & Elena George, St Petersburg: A History (Sutton, 2004)
• Julie A. Buckler, Mapping St Petersburg: Imperial Text and Cityshape (Princeton UP, 2005)
• Solomon Volkov, St Petersburg: A Cultural History (Free Press, 1996)
• Helena Goscilo & Stephen M. Norris, Preserving Petersburg: History, Memory, Nostalgia (Indiana UP, 2008)

Coordinator:  Dr Viktoria Ivleva

Further details of pre-requisites, co-requisites, aims, contact hours and assessment.