HIST 115 - Russian Revolutions: Metropolis and Borderlands

Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)

This course offers an introduction to radical movements in the late Russian Empire and the early Soviet Union. We look not only at the groups who took power in Petrograd and Moscow in 1917 but beyond, to discover a broad array of causes and revolutionary processes in the non-Russian borderlands and across the empire. The course examines local dynamics, changing ideas about women, the roles ethnic identities play in resistance movements, and the shape of class conflict in non-Russian societies. We also consider how clichés, propaganda, and strategic silences are used to define and control this history. Topics include the assassination of the Tsar in 1881, Russian and non-Russian revolutionary parties, the Central Asian uprising of 1916, Russia’s cities in 1917, and some of the events and outcomes of the post-revolutionary war. Michaela Pohl.

Two 75-minute periods.

Course Format: CLS