The Supernatural in Russian Literature, Music, and Painting

The goal of the course is threefold: to familiarize the students with brilliant and thrilling works of art which represent various periods of Russian culture; to examine the artistic features of “fantastic” works and to explore their ideological implications. With attention to relevant scholarship, we will pose questions about the role of the storyteller and about horror and the fantastic. We will also ponder gender and class, controversy over sense and sensation, the spiritual significance and major changes in attitudes toward the supernatural which tell us about the “dark side” of the Russian literary imagination and about the historical and political conflicts which have haunted Russian minds in previous centuries. Works under discussion will include tales by Pushkin, Gogol, Lermontov, Dostoevsky, Leskov, Turgenev, Briusov, and other writers, musical works by Tchaikovsky and Mussorgsky, paintings by Ivanov and Vrubel’. Writing assignments include three short essays (3-4 pages each) and a final paper (7 pages)