Pushkin: Paradoxes of Freedom

3 Credits · Level: Graduate, Undergraduate

Alexander Pushkin (1799-1837) is widely known as the founding father of Russian literature. Since Pushkin was first and foremost a poet, and therefore almost impossible to translate, he is much less known outside of Russia. This course gives you a chance to find out for yourself why Russians have called Pushkin “the Sun of Russian Poetry” and “our everything.” We will read and analyze a selection of lyrics, two narrative poems (verse tales: The Gypsies and The Bronze Horseman), one or two of Little Tragedies (verse drama), and one or two of The Tales of Belkin (stories in prose). We will consider Pushkin’s work in the context of European Romanticsm and Realism. This is an upper-level Russian course, taught primarily in Russian. It is open to fourth-year students of Russian and to all those capable of reading and discussing the book in Russian. This class satisfies a Russian Major elective requirement, the HALC (Humanities: Arts, Literature, and Culture) requirement, and the Diversity (Global) requirement.