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17.57

20th Century Ukraine and Russia: Entangled Histories and Identity Politics

3-0-9 units. HASS-S; CI-H · Undergraduate

See description under subject 21H.245[J] . Enrollment limited.

Spring 2016 · Soviet and Post-Soviet Politics and Society, 1917 to the Present

Topics

Introduction to the Course, and Russia Today
The Dual Government
The Cosmonaut Who Couldn’t Stop Smiling—Yuri Gagarin
Gorbeshev’s Political Revolution
Centralization Under Putin
Medvedev, Anti-Putin Protests, and Putin 3.0
Russia’s Wars in Crimea, Ukraine and Syria

Readings

Fitzpatrick, Sheila. The Russian Revolution . 3rd edition. Oxford University Press, 2008. ISBN: 9780199237678. [Preview with Google Books ] ↗
Required
Jenks, Andrew L. The Cosmonaut Who Couldn’t Stop Smiling: The Life and Legend of Yuri Gagarin . Northern Illinois University Press, 2013. ISBN: 9780875806990.
Required
Ledeneva, Alena V. How Russia Really Works: The Informal Purchases That Shaped Post-Soviet Politics and Business . Cornell University Press, 2006. ISBN: 9780801473524. [Preview with Google Books ] ↗
Required
Sakwa, Richard, ed. The Rise and Fall of the Soviet Union, 1917–1991 (Routledge Sources in History) . Routledge, 1999. ISBN: 9780415122900.
Required
Weinberg, Robert, and Laurie Bernstein. Revolutionary Russia: A History in Documents (Pages from History) . Oxford University Press, 2010. ISBN: 9780195337945.
Required
Wood, Elizabeth A., William E. Pomeranz, et al. Roots of Russia’s War in Ukraine . Woodrow Wilson Center Press / Columbia University Press, 2015. ISBN: 9780231704533. [Preview with Google Books ] ↗
Required

Prerequisites & course information

Same subject as 21G.086[J] , 21H.245[J] Prereq: None U (Fall) 3-0-9 units. HASS-S; CI-H

Sources

Course catalogue ↗2026–2027
MIT OpenCourseWare ↗Spring 2016
MIT OCW syllabus ↗
MIT OCW calendar ↗
Historical MIT OpenCourseWare offering. Named reading entries and schedule topics are automatically extracted from the linked source pages.