Cult of the Leader

3 Credits · Level: Undergraduate

This seminar explores political cults of personality in imperial, Soviet, and post-Soviet Russia. We shall specifically examine the leadership cults of Tsar Nicholas, Aleksandr Kerensky, Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin, and Vladimir Putin, in addition to thinking about leadership cults comparatively in a global context. What is a personality cult? How are they produced? Who orchestrates their mass production? How successful have they been in mobilizing the masses? We shall grapple with these questions, among others, while examining a range of primary sources, including newspaper articles, speeches, official histories, novels, songs, poems, paintings, posters, and feature films.