HIST 3004 - Modern Russia

3 hours

Prerequisites: Must be a History major or minor or have permission of instructor. The course will introduce students to the history of modern Russia since the late seventeenth century up to the present. We will begin the course with the stories of the westernization of Russia by Peter the Great and the “enlightened absolutism” of Catherine the Great. The course will also address the Russian War of 1812 and the reforms of Alexander II. The course will emphasize the importance of the ideologies of nationalism and socialism in the 19th and 20th century. The discussion of the Great War, the Russian Revolutions of 1917, the NEP, Stalinism, and the Great Patriotic War will be in the core of the course. The course will conclude with the discussion of the “thaw” by Nikita Khrushchev, the Cuban missile crisis, the epoch of “stagnation,” Gorbachev’s Perestroika and the presidency of Vladimir Putin and Dmitriy Medvedev. The course is designed to increase significantly the student’s knowledge of Russian and Soviet history and to introduce students to some aspects of Russian culture.