HIS 320 Russian History
Course Description | Textbooks and Materials | Russian History Links | APUS login
Description
The course covers the history of Russia and its people from the medieval period up to the present. While student projects can be on any aspect of Russian history from any period, the emphasis in the classroom will be on political and social history from the period of reforms in the mid 19th century up to the fall of the Soviet Union.
It will be taught in an eight-week, online format. In addition to writing a term paper and two analyses of primary sources from Russian history, students will participate regularly in online discussions of the readings. There will be 25-30 class units, 3-4 offered each week. Students must participate in a set number of them over the course of the term. For each of the units, students will read the appropriate chapters in the textbook and/or primary sources (primary sources or, in a few cases, scholarly articles) and discuss them in the online classroom. The special readings will be chosen to highlight important aspects of each period of history.
Upon successful completion of this course in Russian history, students will be able to:
- break down the chronology of Russian history from the middle ages up to the present and demonstrate an understanding of the major social, political and cultural attributes and developments of each period,
- identify, define and describe the most important institutions (political, social, religious, etc.), individuals (leaders, thinkers, etc.) and groups (classes, estates, parties, etc.) in Russian and Soviet history,
- compile relevant information on, analyze, and assess the present and future relevance of a particular problem of Russian history in a research project on a subject of particular interest to them,
- dissect important or particularly vivid primary sources, put them in the wider context of Russian history, and apply them to an understanding of the Russian historical experience of the period in which those sources were created
- demonstrate some familiarity with historiographical controversies or differences on several select issues in Russian history (for example the origins of the Russian state, historical role of the Russian Orthodox Church, the causes and nature of the Great Terror, etc.)
In addition to taking an active part in weekly discussions on the textbook and primary source readings, students will write two short analyses of primary sources from different periods of Russian history and write a term paper on the subject of their choice. There is also an essay-based exam at the end of the term.
Textbooks and Materials
The textbook for the class will be: Riasanovsky, Nicholas V.; Steinberg, Mark: A History of Russia, combined volume, Oxford University Press, 2004. ISBN: 0195153944.
We will also be reading an extensive collection of primary sources and scholarly articles. Many of them are already available online and will be linked directly to the classroom. Below you can find a growing list of links to resources on Russian history.
Russian History Links
General Resources / Primary Sources / Resources on Specific Themes
General Resources
- H-Russia's list of history links
- Bruce Hull, a colleague at UMUC Europe, has a collection of resources on Russian history . The focus is primarily on the Soviet period, but includes resources on pre-Soviet history.
- Nicholas J. Pappas, a professor of history at Sam Houston State University, has set up a great list of links on Russian history, including lots of primary source documents from every period of Russian history, from the early middle ages up to the post-Soviet period.
- The Modern History Sourcebook has numerous primary sources from pre- and postrevolutionary Russia.
- Readings in Russian History by Prof. Gerhard Rempel is a great collection of primary source documents and secondary readings on Russian history from the middle ages up to the 1990s.
- The History of the Soviet Union page at the School of History, UEA, College of Norwich, has links to Russian search engines, other collections of Russian history resources, as well as to primary and secondary sources. Some of the links are broken, however.
- Guide to Resources on Russian History at the Library for Slavic and Eastern European History (Urbana) is a guide to resources on Russian history. It is mostly about traditional print resources, however.
- See Kultura for excellent articles on current and historical issues in Russia: http://kultura-rus.de/index.html
Primary Sources
- Stalinka, the University of Pittsburgh's digital collection of Stalin images.
- Primary Sources on early Russian history collected by Daniel C. Waugh.
- Dr. Francis King's translation site, a growing collection of primary sources on Soviet-era Russian history in English.
- Documents in Russian History at Seton Hall University.
- kwhdev.net, a growing list of primary sources from the medieval, early modern and imperial eras.
- The Laws of Rus'
- Primary Sources on early Russian history collected by Daniel C. Waugh.
- Readings in Russian History by Prof. Gerhard Rempel is a great collection of primary source documents and secondary readings on Russian history from the middle ages up to the 1990s.
- Nicholas J. Pappas, a professor of history at Sam Houston State University, has set up a great list of links on Russian history, including lots of primary source documents from every period of Russian history, from the early middle ages up to the post-Soviet period.
- The Modern History Sourcebook has numerous primary sources from pre- and postrevolutionary Russia.
- Primary sources on early Russia and Ukraine at Daniel Waugh's page at the University of Washington.
- gramoty.ru is a Russian-only site which shows photographs, facsimiles and Russian translations of all Novgorod birch bark documents from the 11th to 15th centuries. It is part of the INTAS-Project "Birchbark Literacy from Medieval Rus: Contents and Contexts".
Specific Historical Topics or Persons
- Wehrmacht map of European Russia, 1943-1944, an interesting resource for the road and railway network of the country.
- For the Great Patriotic War and Chechnya, see the Russian Warrior. While lacking a scholarly aura, it does have some fun resources including photos, pictures of equipment, uniforms, insignia, etc. It also has an interactive section for getting in touch with people interested in all aspects of Russian military history.
- The Russo-Japanese-War Research Society has resources on that war. The page is based almost exclusively on Japanese source material, however, and has little information on the Russian side.
- The Leon Trotsky Internet Archive contains photos, a biography and just about everything Trotsky ever said or wrote. His texts are well organized by period and subject so you can easily find, for example, his ideas about the Red Army. It is part of the Marxist Internet Archive.
- The Marxist Internet Archive has an encyclopedia of Marxism and other resources on ideology and personalities, including the writings of many prominent authors.
- http://www.soviet-awards.com/ has all you want to know about Soviet military awards.
- http://rkkaww2.armchairgeneral.com/ is all about the military history of the Red Army in the Great Patriotic War. Lots of maps, orders of battle, "raw data", images, etc.
Present-Day Russia
- Johnson's Russia List is useful for information on present-day Russia. You can even subscribe to a daily e-mail update on Russia.
- See Kultura for excellent articles on current and historical issues in Russia: http://kultura-rus.de/index.html
