Unit information: Good-bye Lenin': Culture, Society and Dissent in the later Soviet Union (Level I Special Field) in 2009/10

Unit name	Good-bye Lenin': Culture, Society and Dissent in the later Soviet Union (Level I Special Field)
Unit code	HIST26022
Credit points	20
Level of study	I/5
Teaching block(s)	Teaching Block 2 (weeks 13 - 24)
Unit director	Dr. Furst
Open unit status	Not open
Pre-requisites	None
Co-requisites	None
School/department	Department of History (Historical Studies)
Faculty	Faculty of Arts

Description including Unit Aims

The reading public is obsessed with the bloodshed of the purges and the cruelties of Stalin. Yet there was much more to the Soviet Union than an omnipotent dictator. Society was never atomised, people never completely silenced. This course looks at the 'hidden' Soviet society - those who protested, those who refused to conform and those who in the end triumphed over the regime. From the Soviet Teddy Boys to the brave stance of Andrei Sakharov we will trace different forms of dissent and non-conformism and assess the impact they had on the Soviet system and Soviet society at large. This course will have a strong visual and primary text element. We will look at censored films, read memoirs and look at contemporary photographs in order to evaluate the Soviet Union, which the Kremlin wanted us to forget.

Teaching Information

10 x 2 hour seminars.

Assessment Information

1 x 2 hour exam

Reading and References

• Ludmilla Alexeyeva, The Thaw Generation (Boston, 1990)

• Juliane F�rst, Stalins Last Generation: Soviet Youth and the Arrival of Mature Socialism (Oxford, 2009)

• Artemy Troitsky, Back in the USSR (London, 1988)

• Mark Abel, Refusenik! : Trapped in the Soviet Union (London, 1982)

• Max Hayward, Russias Other Writers (New York, 1971)

• Polly Jones (ed.), Dilemmas of Destalinization (London, 2006)