A portrait of Catherine the Great, Russia’s longest-ruling female leader, 1762–1796. (Portrait by Aleksey Antropov. Source: The Tver Regional Picture Gallery. This image is in the public domain.)
Instructor(s)
Prof. Elizabeth A. Wood
MIT Course Number
21H.244J / 21G.085J
As Taught In
Fall 2019
Level
Undergraduate
Course Description
Course Features
Course Description
This course analyzes Russia's social, cultural, and political heritage in the 18th and 19th centuries, up to and including the Russian Revolution of 1917. It compares reforming and revolutionary impulses in the context of serfdom, the rise of the intelligentsia, and debates over capitalism, while focusing on historical and literary texts, especially the intersections between the two.