HU Credits: 2

Degree/Cycle: 2nd degree (Master)

Responsible Department: German, Russian & East European Studies

Semester: 2nd Semester

Teaching Languages: Hebrew

Campus: Mt. Scopus

Course/Module Coordinator: Dr. Nina Rudnik, Dr. Olga Levitan

Coordinator Email: nina.rudnik@mail.huji.ac.il; levitanolga6@gmail.com

Coordinator Office Hours: Monday, 15:30 - 16:30

Teaching Staff:
Dr. Nina Rudnick
Dr. Olga Levitan

Course/Module description:
Moscow and St. Petersburg are the twin capitals of the Russian state and the former Russian empire. This fact figured and continues to figure significantly in the shaping of the character of these cities that defines their culture, history, politics, the design of the urban space, architecture, art, literature, theatre, film, and more. Throughout the years, the two Russian capitals became two poles around which all of the main cultural activity of the country took place. In this inter-disciplinary course we will discuss issues concerning this intellectual cultural space, such as foundation and destruction, center and periphery, village and city, religion and state, freedom and oppression, the individual and the masses, and others, as they have been presented in artistic masterpieces of literature, theatre and other art forms. The course will offer a discussion of urban content and components as they appear in Russian literature and art. The discussion will facilitate a renewed look at the turbulent and mysterious life of the cities and the works of art, related to them. During the course, we will refer to the cultural problems that contributed to the emergence of the unique artistic energies associated with these two cities.

Course/Module aims:
• to investigate the relationship between these two capital cities via a discussion of urban mythology, the city as a symbolic space, performativity and literature;
• to enable students to engage with a selection of masterpieces and learn about historical, literary, and artistic processes in Russian culture through studying the space of the two capital cities;
• to become familiar with main trends in the inter-disciplinary research concerning the study of the space.

Learning outcomes - On successful completion of this module, students should be able to:
• discuss the Moscow-St. Petersburg space as a confluence of the arts
• understand the inter-disciplinary nature of this space as a mythological, historic, and cultural phenomenon
• understand the central processes in the history of literature and theatre in Russia, through an analysis of the symbolic space of the two capital cities

Attendance requirements(%):
80%

Teaching arrangement and method of instruction: Frontal lectures, discussions, presentations

Course/Module Content:
Urban mythology: chaos, inextricable pathways, the absence and demons

Lesson 1. Motifs of chaos in Alexander Pushkin’s works (The Bronze Horseman and The Queen of Spades). The opera The Queen of Spades by Pyotr Tchaikovsky, directed by Vsevolod Meyerhold
Lesson 2. Nevsky Avenue according to Gogol: Petersburg stories. The Nose by Dmitri Shostakovich.
Lesson 3. “The Demons” by Fyodor Dostoyevsky on the stage of the Moscow Art Theatre
Lesson 4. The Devil in Moscow: from Mikhail Bulgakov to Venedikt Yerofeyev

The city as a symbolic space

Lesson 5-6. Issues of foundation, destruction and resurrection in the Moscow-Petersburg paradigm: from Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky to the Soviet period
Lesson 7. Petersburg by Andrei Bely and Michael Chekhov

Home, salon, theatre

Lesson 8. The Russian Ark: home and salon in Russian culture (from Alexander Pushkin to Alexander Sokurov)
Lesson 9. The theatre of the Empire and public urban space: the works of Nikolai Gogol and Alexander Ostrovsky on the stages of the two capital cities
Lesson 10. Home and theatre in the Modernism period: Viacheslav Ivanov and Vsevolod Meyerhold (A Puppet Show by Alexander Blok)
Lesson 11. From a dialogue in a restaurant to a new theatre: The Moscow Art Theatre as an urban inter-disciplinary mechanism (The Three Sisters by Anton Chekhov, The Dybbuk by Shlomo Ansky, The Witch by Abraham Goldfaden)

Urban performance: from the theater to the street

Lesson 12. Boris Godunov and the issue of Moscow: the versions of Alexander Pushkin, Modest Mussorgsky, Vsevolod Meyerhold, and Yuri Lyubimov
Lessons 13-14. From classical ballet to place-dependent performances (Sleeping Beauty by Pyotr Tchaikovsky, Petrushka by Igor Stravinsky, The Storming of the Winter Palace by Nikolai Yevreinov and Yuri Annenkov, and more)

Required Reading:
א. מקורות
פושקין, אלכסנדר ס. פרש הנחושת פושקין, אלכסנדר סרגיביץ’. פולטבה, השבוי הקווקזי,פרש הנחושת, גבריליאדה. מרוסית: יואב נץ. תל-אביב: גוונים, תשע"ד 2013.
פושקין, אלכסנדר ס. מלכת פיק פושקין, אלכסנדר סרגיביץ’. הכושי של פטר הגדול. מלכת פיק. תרגם: מ. ז. ולפובסקי . (תל-אביב) : (משרד הביטחון. ההוצאה לאור), (תשל"ד).
גוגול ניקולאי ו. סיפורים פטרבורגיים. מרוסית: נילי מירסקי. תל אביב: הספרייה החדשה, הקיבוץ המאוחד / ספרי סימן קריאה, 1992.
גוגול, ניקולאי ו. רביזור: קומדיה בחמש מערכות. תרגום: אברהם שלונסקי. תל אביב: ספריית פועלים,
דוסטוייבסקי, פיודור מיכאילוביץ'. שדים: רומן בשלושה חלקים; תרגם מרוסית: גרשון חזנוב; תרגום הפרק 'אצל טיכון' ועריכת התרגום: דינה מרקון; עריכה מדעית ואחרית דבר: דימיטרי סגל. ירושלים: כרמל, תשס"ג, 2003 (קטעים).
אנדרי ביילי. פטרבורג; תרגם מרוסית: צבי ארד. תל-אביב: זמורה - ביתן, 1992 (קטעים).
אוסטרובסקי, אלכסנדר נ. היער. תרגום:עזה צבי. רמת-גן: מרכז ישראלי לדרמה ליד "בית צבי", בית-הספר לאמנות הבמה והקולנוע, 1988.
צ'כוב, אנטון פ. שלוש אחיות. תרגום: בוזגלו, שמעון. תל-אביב: אור עם, 2010.
Blok, A., & Westphalen, Timothy C. Aleksandr Blok's Trilogy of Lyric Dramas: A Puppet Show, The King on the Square and The Unknown Woman (Russian Theatre Archive; v. 22. lat).
בולגקוב, מיכאיל א. האמן ומרגריטה. תרגם מרוסית והוסיף אחרית דבר והערות: פטר קריקסונוב. תל-אביב : ידיעות אחרונות - ספרי חמד, 1999.
ירופייב, ונדיקט. מוסקבה - פטושקי ; תירגמה מרוסית והוסיפה הערות נילי מירסקי. תל אביב: עם עובד, תשנ"ד 1994(קטעים).
Russian Ark, by A. Sokurov.
ב. לימודי התרבות הרוסית ולימודים אורבניים
Lotman, Jurij M., Uspenskij, Boris A. “Echoes of the Notion “Moscow as the Third Rome” in Peter the Great’s Ideology”. In: Jurij M. Lotman, Boris A. Uspenskij. The Semiotics of Russian Culture. Ed. Ann Shukman. Ann Arbor: Dept. of Slavic Languages and Literatures, University of Michigan, 1984, p. 53 – 67.
Antsiferov, Nikolai P. “The Spirit of St. Petersburg” (excerpt). Translated by John Bartle In: From Petersburg to Bloomington. Eds. John Bartle, Michael Finke, Vadim Liaponov. Bloomington. Indiana: Slavica Publishers, 2012, pp. 179-196.
Riasonovsky, Nicholas. “St. Petersburg and Moscow as Cultural Symbols” in Art and Culture in Nineteenth Century Russia. Ed. Theofanis G. Stavron. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1983.
ג. לימודי הספרות הרוסית
Wachtel, Michael. “Pushkin's Long Poems and the Epic Impulse”. In: The Cambridge Companion to Pushkin. Ed. Andrew Kahn. Cambridge University Press, 2006, pp. 82 – 89.
Scollins, Kathleen. “Cursing at the Whirlwind: the Old Testament landscape of The Bronze Horseman”. In: Pushkin Review. 16-17 (Annual 2013), pp. 205 – 31.
Pushkin review [e-journal] Bloomington. E-Location: FindIt@HUJI
Rosen, Nathan. “The Magic Cards in The Queen of Spades”. In: The Slavic and East European Journal, Vol. 19, No. 3 (Autumn, 1975), pp. 255-275.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/306284?seq&eq;1#page_scan_tab_contents
Fanger, Donald. “Gogol: the Apotheosis of the Grotesque”. In: Fanger, Donald. Dostoevsky and Romantic Realism. A Study of Dostoevsky in Relation to Balzac, Dickens, and Gogol. Chicago & London: the University of Chicago Press, 1967, pp. 101 – 126.
Bocharov, Sergej. “Around the Nose”. In: Essays on Gogol: Logos and the Russian Word / ed. by Priscilla Meyer and Susanne Fusso. Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, 1994, pp. 19 – 39.
Holquist, Michael. Dostoevsky and the Novel. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1977.
סגל, דימיטרי. ספינת השוטים. בספר: שדים : רומא בשלושה חלקים. עי' 575 – 610.
Ivanov, Viacheslav.. Freedom and the Tragic Life: a Study in Dostoevsky; foreword by Sir Maurice Bowra. New York: The Noonday Press, 1960.
Milne, Lesli. Mikhail Bulgakov: a Critical Biography. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990.
Bethea, David M. History as Hippodrome: The Apocalyptic Horse and Rider in The Master and Margarita. In: The Master and Margarita: A Critical Companion, edited by Laura D. Weeks, pp. 122-42. Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, 1996. http://www.masterandmargarita.eu/estore/pdf/emen011_bethea.pdf
Milne, Lesli. Mikhail Bulgakov: a Critical Biography. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990.
ד. לימודי תאטרון
Adler, Lois. “Alexis Granovsky and the Jewish State Theatre of Moscow”. The Drama Review: TDR, Vol. 24, No. 3, Jewish Theatre Issue (Sep., 1980), pp. 27-42 (JSTOR)
Bowlt, John E. Moscow and St. Petersburg 1900-1920: Art, Life and Culture of the Russian Silver Age. New York: Vendome Press, 2008.
Gasparov, Boris. Five Operas and Symphony. Word and Music in Russian Culture. Yale University Press, 2005.
Deak, František. “Russian Mass Spectacles”. The Drama Review: TDR, Vol. 19, No. 2, Political Theatre Issue (Jun., 1975), pp. 7-22.
Dragasevic, Dolja. Meyerhold, Director of Opera. Cultural Change and Artistic Genres. Goldsmith College, 2005. https://research.gold.ac.uk/10907/1/PHI_Dragasevic.pdf
Klebanov, Michael. “The Culture of Experiment in Russian Theatrical Modernism: The OBERIU Theatre Art and the Biomechanics of Vsevolod Meyerhold” in Russian Avant-Garde and Radical Modernism: An introductory Reader. Ed. Ioffe, Dennis S. and White, Frederick H. Academic Studies Press, 2012.
Rudnitsky, Konstantin. Meyerhold the Director. Ardis, 1981.
Smelianskii, Anatoly. Is Comrade Bukgakov Dead?: Mikhail Bulgakov at The Moscow Art Theatre. Methuen, 1993.
Worral, Nick. The Moscow Art Theatre. London: Routledge, 1996.

Additional Reading Material:
Simmel, Georg . “The Metropolis and Mental Life.” In: The Sociology of Georg Simmel, adapted by D. Weinstein from Kurt Wolff (Trans.). New York: Free Press, 1950, pp.409-424. http://www.altruists.org/static/files/The%20Metropolis%20and%20Mental%20Life%20(Georg%20Simmel).htm
Weber, Max. The City, translated and edited by Don Martindal. London: Heinemann, 1960.
Benjamin, Walter. Moscow Diary. Harvard, Harvard University Press Publ., 1986.
Benjamin, Walter. Moscow. Benjamin W. Selected Writings. Vol. 2. 1927-1940. Harvard, Harvard Univ. Press Publ., 1999, p. 22-46.
Boym, Svetlana. Common Places: Mythologies of Everyday Life in Russia. Cambridge, Harvard University Press Publ., 1995.
Clark K. Moscow, the Fourth Rome: Stalinism, Cosmopolitanism and the Evolution of Soviet Culture, 1931¬1941. Cambridge, Harvard University Press Publ., 2011.
Seits, Irina S. Invisible Avant-Garde and Absent Revolution: Walter Benjamin’s New Optics for Moscow Urban Space of the 1920s // Actual Problems of Theory and History of Art: Collection of articles. Vol. 8. Ed. S. V. Mal’tseva, E. Iu. Staniukovich-Denisova, A. V. Zakharova. — St. Petersburg: St. Petersburg Univ. Press, 2018, pp. 575–582.
Buckler, Julie A. Mapping St. Petersburg : Imperial Text and Cityshape. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005.

Lincoln, William Bruce. Sunlight at Midnight: St. Petersburg and the Rise of Modern Russia. Boulder, CO: Basic Books, 2002.
Kelly, Catriona. St. Petersburg: Shadows of the Past. Yale University Press, 2014.
Petersburg / Petersburg: Novel and City, 1900-1921. Ed. Olga Matich. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2010.
Taruskin, Richard. Defining Russia Musically: Historical and Hermeneutical Essays. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press, 2nd. Ed. 2001.
Benedetti, Jean. The Moscow Art Theatre Letters. New York: Routledge, 1991.
Pitches, Jonathan. Vsevolod Meyerhold (Routledge performance practitioners). London, New York. Routledge, 2003.
Russell, Robert, & Barratt, Andrew. Russian theatre in the age of Modernism. London: Macmillan, 1990.

Course/Module evaluation:
End of year written/oral examination 0 %
Presentation 20 %
Participation in Tutorials 10 %
Project work 70 %
Assignments 0 %
Reports 0 %
Research project 0 %
Quizzes 0 %
Other 0 %

Additional information: