Course Catalogue

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This is a mixed methods course, examining the evolution of the multi-ethnic Soviet Union from 1917 to the 1990s after the collapse of the Soviet Union through oral histories and explorations of ordinary lives or histories 'from below' to learn about the lived experience of nationalities in the USSR.

Students will explain to each other the perspectives of those nationalities, choosing from short-lived states that formed during the Russian Civil War, the experience of the collapse of the USSR, and the breakaway unrecognised states that emerged in the chaos of the 1990s.

Students will decide whether a 'Soviet' identity ever emerged, and chart how Soviet leaders from Lenin to Gorbachev grappled with the 'national question' through the official but vague 'Soviet nationalities policy' - whether to suppress or encourage the development of individual nationalities and how to do either alongside the project to create a supranational Soviet identity.

Seminar: two hours per week, for 10 weeks 

Mandatory: Grade D3 in CEES 2A and CEES 2B

CEES4099

None

■ Participation Grade (10%) (ILOs 3&4)

■ Oral Presentation (20%) (ILO 1) (ILO 1 assessments: presentation and write-up are linked)

■ Write-Up Essay from Presentation (Report), 1,500 words (30%) (ILO 1)

■ Essay, 2,000 words (40%) (ILOs 2&3)

Adjustments and/or alternative modes of assessment will be available for students with disabilities that impact attendance and/or public speaking.

This course aims to familiarise students with major and minor Soviet nationalities, allowing you to choose to investigate what interests you about the lives and testimony of different nationalities that lived in the USSR, particularly through oral histories and explorations of ordinary lives to learn about the lived experience of nationalities. Soviet Disunion aims to compare and contrast the multi-ethnic and geographic complexity of the Soviet space between competing Russo/Moscow-centric & 'peripheral' perceptions. In studying nationalities issues in the USSR, the course aims to equip students with the fundamentals of the concepts of ethnicity, colonisation, Russification, and the Russian terms 'indigenisation', 'merger', 'drawing together' within the context of the Soviet legacy. This course aims to open new avenues to learn about the role that nationalism played in both moulding the Soviet Union and how it led to its fracturing and collapse along national lines. The aim is to achieve this by creating fresh perspectives through exploring the work of the new post-1990 generation of younger scholars, particularly women, and non-Russian and non-Western historians. This course also aims to provide students with the historical context necessary to understand the ethnic dimensions of contemporary conflicts in the former Soviet Union including Russia's relationships and conflicts with its post-Soviet neighbours

By the end of this course students will be able to:

ILO 1. Design a group presentation and individual write-up based on in-class case studies on the multiethnic Soviet Union that uses historical analysis and builds communication skills

ILO 2. Critique competing Russo-centric and 'peripheral' perceptions of the USSR, particularly the processes by which this was governed through the official 'Soviet nationalities policy'

ILO 3. Distinguish between the differing lived experiences of nationalities within the Soviet Union's ethno-territorial hierarchy by analysing (oral) primary sources to compare the multi-ethnic complexity of the USSR and specialising in 1-2 Soviet nationalities' experiences

ILO 4. Contrast the socio-political role of nationality in multi-ethnic states

Students must submit at least 75% by weight of the components (including examinations) of the course's summative assessment.