Few countries have experienced modernity as dramatically and impactfully as Russia. Disruptive, wide-ranging and often violent change is visible in Russia’s recent past both in its most salient events and in the periods between those events. Within the first half of the twentieth century alone, Russia experienced three major political uprisings, two World Wars, a devastating Civil War, breakneck industrialisation, collectivisation and famine, mass political purges and the onset of the Cold War including the threat of nuclear confrontation. In between these events, Russian society radically altered its social, racial and gender norms, inverted its systems of status and hierarchy and rewrote its macroeconomic model three or perhaps four times. Needless to say, the face Russia presented to the world, and the face the world presented to Russia, also changed enormously in this time. The Russian Federation of today is a vastly different state to the Russian Federation of 1991, let alone the Russian Empire of 1900.

The contemporary international scene cannot be understood without understanding Russia, and Russia cannot be understood without understanding its culture and its past, particularly at a time of heightened Russophobia and misunderstanding. This module is designed to help you understand where Russia and the post-Soviet space has been and where it might go in the future. You will be encouraged to dispense with some common misconceptions and Cold War verities relating to the post-Soviet space and its people, and to learn to see the world from Russia’s varied and multifaceted perspectives. Most of your time will be devoted to the study of contemporary Russia and its place in the world, with up-to-the-minute content addressed both day-to-day and in the module’s final weeks.

The participation grade encourages engaged and consistent learning. This builds up subject-knowledge as well as enhancing communication and analysis skills. You are expected to post a 500-word answer to the week’s set question. The participation grade is worked out on the number of these you do each week and how well you engage with the posts of others. [Learning Outcomes 1-4 are achieved in aggregate across the whole semester but individual weekly tasks might emphasise just one or two of the four LOs]].

1 x 2000 word Essay ONE will require students to distil complex information into a short, well-structured report-style document that can be absorbed by practitioners and policymakers as well as academics [LOs 1, 3, 4].

1 x 3000 word Essay TWO (60%) is a holistic academic essay requiring students to integrate analysis, knowledge and, critically, a full engagement with the scholarship on modern and contemporary Russia to make a coherent case in response to an analytical question concerning Russian history, foreign policy or security [LOs 1-4].

In this module, you should be doing five things in each week of the semester:

1. Review the relevant weekly lecture notes provided by the tutor
2. Read the relevant weekly essential reading in full, as outlined online. This is ordinarily a single book chapter or journal article, perhaps two, which can be found under the ‘Reading List’ tab.
3. Supplement this with wider reading relevant to the weekly topic. This should partly come from the relevant week’s folder in the ‘Learning Materials’ tab, and partly from your own independent literature search, an essential component of all postgraduate study. Primary sources here are also important
4. Contribute to the relevant weekly discussion on the Blackboard site, including making your own post and replying to the posts of others on the module.
5. Plan for, prepare for or write one of your three items of formal assessed work (that is: Essay ONE and Essay TWO).
Feedback will come in four primary forms: contributions from your tutor and your peers on the Blackboard discussion board, the Weekly Appraisal audio files, comments on any essay plans or questions you send to your tutor via email, and the formal feedback submitted in response to each of your pieces of assessment. Please take time to absorb feedback and act on its implications.

1. Demonstrate a comprehensive knowledge of modern and contemporary Russian history and/or an appreciation of how significant themes in the country’s recent past manifest themselves in its contemporary form.
Knowledge & Understanding

2. Understand major points of commonality and contention in the scholarship of modern Russia, and build and sustain original arguments which engage with these in a rigorous and nuanced manner.
Analysis

3. Empathise effectively with Russian historical and contemporary agents (citizens and decision-makers) at key moments in the twentieth and twenty-first century
Application

4. Communicate well-informed arguments about modern and contemporary Russia with precision and flare Communication

Blackboard and library access online, including KeyLinks

I. Bashiri, The History of the Civil War in Tajikistan (Academic Studies Press, 2020)
J. Connelly, From Peoples Into Nations: A History of Eastern Europe (Princeton UP, 2020)
J. Friedman, Shadow Cold War: The Sino-Soviet Competition for the Third World (UNC Press, 2015)
M. Galeotti, The Weaponisation of Everything: A Field Guide to the New Way of War (2022)
M. Galeotti, Armies of Russia's War in Ukraine (2019)
S. Keller, Russia and Central Asia: Coexistence, Conquest, Convergence (University of Toronto Press, 2019)
B. Lo, Russia and the New World Disorder (2015)
S. Lovell, The Shadow of War: Russia and the USSR, 1941 to the present (2010)
P. Pomerantsev, Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible: The Surreal Heart of the New Russia (2014)
R. Service, The Penguin History of Modern Russia: From Tsarism to the Twenty-first Century, 4th edition (2009)
R. G. Suny, The Soviet Experiment: Russia, the USSR and the Successor States, 2nd edition (2010)
T. R. Weeks, Across the Revolutionary Divide: Russia and the USSR, 1861-1945 (2011)
J. N. Westwood, Endurance and Endeavour: Russian History, 1812-2001, 5th edition, (2002)

Russia and its role on the international stage is hugely topical and deeply contentious at this moment. This module is specifically designed to help you understand this subject more deeply and think about appropriate policy responses from a non-Russian perspectives. Teaching and learning can be done partially in the Russian language for those of you looking to practice their academic Russian language skills.