RU4130 Issues in Russian Cultural Memory

Further information on which modules are specific to your programme.

Module description

This module investigates contemporary Russian culture and society by examining its relationship with the Soviet past, the institutions of memory that mediate this relationship and the cultural practices that inform it. Students will be introduced to a number of critical ideas in memory scholarship, including 'sites of memory' [lieux de mémoire], institutions of memory, the falsification of memory, collective amnesia, aphasia, and others. While the module focuses on issues in Russian cultural memory, particularly memory of the post-Stalin and perestroika eras, the theory and criticism studied ranges more widely, including French and British theorists and practitioners. In seminars, students will engage with memoirs, diaries, oral testimony, films, documentaries, and online archives to explore the narrative and aesthetic consequences of the historicising impulse in contemporary Russian culture.