Katia Mitova, Ph.D.
[email protected]
RUSSIA IN SHORT STORIES
Spring 2015, Thursday 10:00 AM – 1:15 PM
There are many doors to the many facets of Russian culture. In this course, we will open the
often-neglected door of the short story to explore themes such as love, friendship, jealousy, envy,
betrayal, urban and provincial mores, and socioeconomic and bureaucratic stratification as well
as the elusive concepts of Russian Soul and Russian Ennui. Each week we will discuss several
short stories by classical writers such as Pushkin, Gogol, Turgenev, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy,
Chekhov, Bunin, and Leonid Andreev as well as twentieth-century and contemporary writers,
including Tatyana Tolstaya, Lyudmila Petrushevskaya, and Mikhail Shishkin. Weekly reading
assignments: 50-70 pages.
For our first class please read the assigned stories by Pushkin and Lermontov.
BOOKS:
Russian Short Stories from Pushkin to Buida. Ed. Robert Chandler. Penguin Classics, 2006.
ISBN-13: 978-0140448467. (Abbreviated below as Pushkin to Buida.) Available in Kindle
Store.
50 Writers: An Anthology of 20th Century Russian Short Stories. Eds. Lipovetsky and Brougher.
Academic Studies Press, 2011. ISBN-13: 978-1936235223. (Abbreviated below as 50
Writers.) Available in Kindle Store.
Read Russia! An Anthology of New Voices. Ed. Elena Shubina. Download for free from
http://readrussia.org/anthology/read-russia-anthology.
Selection of stories available on Project Gutenberg (FREE)
Selection of stories available on Wikisource.org (FREE)
PRELIMINARY READING SCHEDULE:
CLASS 1: APRIL 2
ALEXANDER PUSHKIN (1799-1837)
“The Queen of Spades” (Pushkin to Buida, pp. 5-27)
“The Shot”: http://www.bartleby.com/195/8.html
MIKHAIL LERMONTOV (1814-1841)
“The Fatalist” (Pushkin to Buida, pp. 28-37)
CLASS 2: APRIL 9
NIKOLAI GOGOL (1809-1852)
“The Greatcoat” (Pushkin to Buida, pp. 38-66)
“The Nose”:
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/36238/36238-h/36238-h.htm#Page_67
VLADIMIR NABOKOV (1899-1977)
“Lake, Cloud, Tower” (50 Writers, pp. 320-327)
CLASS 3: APRIL 16
IVAN TURGENEV (1818-1883)
“The Knocking” (Pushkin to Buida, pp. 5-27)
“Mumu”:
https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/5741/pg5741.html
ALEKSEI REMIZOV (1887-1957)
“The Little Devil” (50 Writers, pp. 100-130)
ELENA GURO (1887-1913)
“Thus Life Passes” (50 Writers, pp. 131-144)
CLASS 4: APRIL 23
FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY (1821-1881)
“Bobok” (Pushkin to Buida, pp. 81-97)
“The Dream of a Ridiculous Man”:
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/40745/40745h/40745h.htm#THE_DREAM_OF_A_RIDICULOUS_MAN
“A Gentle Spirit”:
http://www2.hn.psu.edu/faculty/jmanis/dostoevs/gentlesp.pdf
VLADIMIR MAKANIN (b. 1937)
“One-Day War”:
http://readrussia.org/anthology/read-russia-anthology. (pp. 295-316)
“Surrealism in a Proletarian District” (50 Writers, pp. 585-603)
CLASS 5: APRIL 30
LEO TOLSTOY (1828-1910)
“Three Deaths”:
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Three_Deaths
“God Sees the Truth, but Waits” (Pushkin to Buida, pp. 98-107)
“Diary of a Lunatic:
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Diary_of_a_Lunatic
“Alyosha the Pot”:
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Alyosha_the_Pot
EVGENY ZAMYATIN (1884-1937)
“The Flood” (50 Writers, pp. 269-296)
CLASS 6: MAY 7
ANTON CHEKHOV (1860-1904)
“In the Cart” (Pushkin to Buida, pp. 138-147)
“A Classical Student”:
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/A_Classical_Student
“The Huntsman”:
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Huntsman
“Gooseberies”:
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Gooseberries
VARLAM SHALAMOV (1907-1982)
“Eulogy” (50 Writers, pp. 365-379)
“Through the Snow,” “Berries,” “The Snake Charmer,” and “Duck” (Pushkin to Buida, pp. 320327)
CLASS 7: MAY 14
IVAN BUNIN (1970-1953)
“The Gentleman from San Francisco” and “In Paris”
(Pushkin to Buida, pp. 160-178)
“In Paris” (Pushkin to Buida, pp. 179-188)
“Tanya” (50 Writers, pp. 333-350)
“Sunstroke”:
http://www.unz.org/Pub/GrahamStephen-1959-00871
VICTOR EROFEEV (1938-1990)
“Galoshes” (50 Writers, pp. 576-584)
CLASS 8: MAY 21
LEONID ANDREEV (1871-1919)
“Once Upon a Time” (50 Writers, pp. 43-63)
“The Crashed Flower,” “A Story Which Will Never Be Finished,” “On the Day of the
Crucifixion,” “The Serpent’s Story,” and “Love, Faith, and Hope”:
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/5779/5779-h/5779-h.htm
TATYANA TOLSTAYA (b. 1951)
“The Fakir” (50 Writers, pp. 555-575)
CLASS 9: MAY 29
ISAAC BABEL (1894-1944)
“My First Goose,” “The Death of Dolgushov,” and “Salt” (Pushkin to Buida, pp. 236-246)
“Gedali,” “The Rabbi,” and “The Rabbi’s Son” (50 Writers, pp. 185-192)
VIKTOR PELEVIN (b. 1962)
“A Short Story of Pain-Ball in Moscow” (50 Writers, pp. 676-693)
MIKSHAIL SHISHKIN (b. 1961)
“The Half-Belt Overcoat”:
http://readrussia.org/anthology/read-russia-anthology. (pp.105-118)
CLASS 10: JUNE 4
MIKHAIL ZOSHCHENKO (1895-1958)
All stories by Zoshchenko in Pushkin to Buida (pp. 247-257) and 50 Writers (pp. 165-184)
ANDREI PLATONOV (1899-1951)
“The Third Son” and “The Return” (Pushkin to Buida, pp. 268-272)
VASILY SHUKSHIN (1929-1974)
“Chidik” and “I Believe” (50 Writers, pp. 445-454)
“In the Autumn” (Pushkin to Buida, pp. 340-349)
LYUDMILA PETRUSHEVSKAYA (b. 1938)
“Never” (50 Writers, pp. 757-762)
Golden age vs Silver age
Pushkin – “The Shot” (duel/army); “The Blizzard” (love/Russian winter)
Gogol – “Overcoat” (governmental jobs/poverty/loneliness)
Turgenev
Tolstoy, Three Deaths
Leonid Andreev
= Chekhov – Lady with the Lap Dog (love affair); “About Love” (Love); “Man in aCase
(Alienation and Lneliness) The Hunter
Dostoevsky – the Gentle one
Gorky
Isaak Babel
Mikhail Bulgakov
Aleksandr Kuprin
Ivan Bunin – Sunstroke (love affair); Ida (love); The Scent of Apples (life in the country)
Isaak Babel
Tatyana Tolstaya
Lyudmila Petrushevskaya
Victor Pelevin
Mikhail Shishkin “Caligraphy Lesson” http://wordswithoutborders.org/article/calligraphy-lesson
Nabokov – Christmas