Understanding Russia: A Cultural History

Course Overview

Course No. 8374

Explore Russia’s rich cultural evolution from medieval tsardoms to modern superpower through 24 illuminating lectures.

This comprehensive course examines:

• Imperial rule from Ivan the Terrible to the Romanovs
• Orthodox Christianity’s enduring influence
• Revolutionary art and Soviet propaganda
• Everyday life under communism
• Post-Soviet identity under Putin

Video Lectures

01: A Russian Past, the Putin Future (31 min)

Introduce Russia’s geographic vastness and search for cultural identity from Rus’ origins.

02: Ivan the Terrible’s 500-Year Reign (31 min)

Analyze how Russia’s first tsar established autocratic traditions still referenced today.

03: The Russian Orthodox Church (32 min)

Trace church-state relations shaping religious art and national identity.

04: Peter the Great and European Empire (31 min)

Witness Westernization through calendar reforms and St. Petersburg’s founding.

05: Russia’s Northern Window on Europe (31 min)

Explore the Elizabethan Age’s cultural flowering in Russia’s European capital.

06: Nobility, the Tsar, and the Peasant (31 min)

Examine social fissures between aristocracy and serfs fueling revolution.

07: Authentic Russia: Popular Culture (30 min)

Discover folk traditions from banya baths to matryoshka nesting dolls.

08: Catherine the Great and Enlightenment (32 min)

Assess how Russia’s longest-ruling female leader modernized the empire.

09: Alexander Pushkin’s Russia (33 min)

Study the poet who defined Russian literature with Eugene Onegin.

10: Alexander II, Nihilists, Assassins (31 min)

Investigate the reforming tsar’s violent 1881 demise.

11: Age of Realism in Russian Art (32 min)

Meet composers like Rimsky-Korsakov and painters like Repin.

12: Russian Fin de Siècle (32 min)

Experience Chekhov’s plays, Fabergé eggs, and Ballets Russes innovations.

13: Empire across Two Continents (32 min)

Track expansion from Alaska to Siberia and Russification policies.

14: Rise and Fall of the Romanovs (32 min)

Follow the dynasty from 1613 triumph to 1917 execution.

15: Russian Radicals and Revolution (33 min)

Analyze WWI devastation and Lenin’s rise amid Nicholas II’s failures.

16: October 1917 Revolution (31 min)

Witness Bolshevik power seizure and institutionalized violence.

17: Lenin’s Cultural Invasion (33 min)

Explore propaganda tools from renaming streets to Lenin’s mausoleum.

18: Roaring Twenties, Soviet Style (33 min)

Discover avant-garde experiments in gender, religion and cinema.

19: Stalinism and Socialist Realism (31 min)

Contrast gulags with state-mandated artistic conformity.

20: Great Patriotic War Culture (31 min)

Study how poetry and film served the WWII effort against Germany.

21: Khrushchev’s Cultural Thaw (33 min)

Assess de-Stalinization’s limits through lingering anti-Semitism.

22: Soviet Byt: Communal Living (32 min)

Experience everyday life in shared kitchens and bathhouses.

23: Intelligentsia and Samizdat (32 min)

Meet dissidents like Solzhenitsyn who challenged state censorship.

24: Soviet Chaos to Putin’s Revenge (30 min)

Track perestroika’s collapse and post-1991 nationalist resurgence.