East European History I

0 or 3 Credits · Level: Undergraduate

A survey of the history of the Slavic, Hungarian, Romanian, Greek, and Jewish peoples, whose cultures developed on the borderlands between Catholic Christendom, Byzantine Orthodoxy, and the Islamic civilization of the Ottoman Empire. Over the course of the semester, students will become familiar with the major events, figures, trends, and ideas in the history of East Central Europe prior to the Congress of Vienna (1815), while gaining experience in the methods and practice of the historical discipline. Topics will include: the Christianization of East European “barbarians,” the formation of ethnically diverse societies, Jewish migration and settlement, the Hussite Reformation, the life and times of Vlad III Tepes (“Dracula”), religious tolerance and reform, gender relations and sexuality, and the influence of the Enlightenment and Romanticism.