HISTORY OF THE RUSSIAN CULTURE

The course falls into the learning area "Literatures and cultures" and is entitled “RUSSIAN HISTORY AND SOCIETY THROUGH FILM". It introduces students to the Russian and Soviet film tradition and the history of the Soviet film industry from the silent to the sound period, including the cinema of glasnost and the post-Soviet era. At the centre of the module is the role of the cinema in the construction of Soviet and post-Soviet historical narrative and shaping of Russian historical imagination.

1. Knowledge and understanding
● This course aims to enable students to gain a general knowledge of the history and significance of Russian/Soviet and Post-Soviet cinema.
● To develop analytical skills, such as analytical thinking, information gathering, and identifying and resolving problems.
● To develop a knowledge of the progress of cinematic techniques from client cinema to the contemporary cinematic forms and the theories developed to explain, enrich and guide the development of these techniques.
● To gain an awareness of the importance of the institutional and political context in which Soviet cinema developed.
● To develop cultural awareness, critical analysis, creative thinking and intellectual independence.

2. Ability to apply knowledge and understanding
● Students will acquire the historical and cultural background that is essential to understand the formation of the history of Russian and Soviet film and of post-Soviet cinema.
● They will demonstrate a basic understanding of the history of Russian and Soviet film and of its role in Russian culture and compare Western and Russian cinema.
● They will gain an awareness of the importance of the institutional and political context in which Soviet cinema developed in the 20th and 21st centuries.
● Students will be able to critically analyse and apply film theory, theory of montage and camera-work. They will also learn how to demonstrate a basic knowledge of key features of cultural and historical analysis of film in target language.
● Students will learn how to use a basic special Russian vocabulary for discussing cinema, how to build a structured and reasoned argument to support ideas about it and evaluate film material, both orally and in writing in Russian.
● Students will be able to interpret historical and cultural contexts of the films.

3. Judgment capacity
● Students will be able to gather, process and evaluate critically information from a variety of paper, audio-visual and electronic sources in the process of preparation for the exam.
● Students will develop a conceptual approach to the cinema.
● Students will develop skills for independent research and the ability to analyse critical texts.

4. Communication skills
● Students will develop key communication skills: effective listening, writing, speaking; verbal and written communication skills as well as oral presentation skills in Russian.
● Students will develop ability to communicate clearly and effectively in oral and written forms (oral presentations) in target language.
● Students will learn how to share and negotiate ideas in a group.

5. Learning skills
● Students will develop skills for independent research and the ability to analyse films, works of leading film-directors, and film genres in their cultural and historical contexts.
● Students will develop conceptual approach to the materials they will be working with and will learn how to provide at the exam substantial proof for the ideas that were developed as a result of their individual research.
● Development of awareness of and engagement with a range of debates and critical (secondary) works on the subject.
● Development of independent film analyses and interpretation.

The knowledge of the basic historic and cultural evolution of Russia. Russian language at B1/B2 level is required. The students of the EAPLL Master's Degree Programme who study other languages (Serbo-Croatian, Czech, Modern Greek...) and do not speak Russian or hold a lower level than the required one are asked to contact the lecturer in time in order to understand if they can attend the exam or to fix an alternative programme.

Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 has significantly changed the course of Russian cultural history. Breaking with the past, rejecting most traditional models, the young Soviet culture “searched” for the new non-traditional forms of self-expression. As the newest art form, film became one of the most popular media of the new Soviet culture. Vladimir Lenin called it “the most important tool of contemporary political propaganda.” Due to the very early politization of the Soviet culture, the film industry became the clearest reflection and record keeper of major political twists in Soviet history as well as everyday life. In this course an attempt will be made to follow the major developments in Russia/Soviet Union through the eyes of the movie producers who acted as allies as well as critics of the Soviet government (for which their productions were abounded). The focus of the course will be on the examination of major episodes of Russian/Soviet past and their impact on present cultural development in Russia through Russian cinema. Films that are selected for the discussions present major segments of cultural history in Russia.

The bibliography will be given on the moodle page of the course. The reading of both primary and secondary sources will be determined by the examination topics chosen by the students.

Filmography:
"The Battleship Potemkin" (Sergei Eisenstein, 1925)
"Mother" (Vsevolod Pudovkin, 1926)
"October" (Sergei Eisenstein, 1927)
"The End of St.Petersburg" (Vsevolod Pudovkin, 1927)
"Man with a Movie-Camera" (Dziga Vertov, 1929)
"Bed and Sofa" (Abram Room, 1927)
"Earth" (Aleksander Dovzhenko, 1930)
"Happiness" (Alexander Medvedkin, 1934)
"Circus" (1936) and "Volga-Volga" (Grigori Alexandrov, 1938)
"Ivan the Terrible" (Sergei Eisenstein, 1944, 1946)
"Andrei Rublev". Parts I & II (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1966)
"Repentance" (Tengiz Abuladze, 1986)
"Burnt by the Sun" (Nikita Mikhalkov, 1995)
"Russian Ark" (Alexander Sokurov, 2002)

The oral exam (in Russian) will be as follows: all students will receive a list of three questions that were discussed during the course in lectures and seminars. The questions will cover the topics covered during the classes. From this list, each student will choose one topic and prepare it for the exam. Each exam will last up to 30 minutes.

Lectures and seminars by the professor.

The course of "History of the Russian Culture 2" is borrowed by "History of the Russian Culture", so we suggest to attend the two exams in two different years. Students who, for some valid reason, have to attend both the exams in the first year should explain their situation to the lecturer: they will attend "History of the Russian Culture 2" with the programme of "History of the Russian Culture" of the previous year.

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