SL Nationalism: Literature and Nationalism in Poland, Russia and Ukraine
Course Convenor: Prof听Rory Finnin听(ref35@cam.ac.uk), Department of Slavonic Studies
Nationalism has been the most influential political force in the history of the modern world. In Poland, Russia and Ukraine, it owes its existence to literature. This module explores the role of literature in the imagining of an abstract community bound by feelings of 鈥渄eep, horizontal comradeship鈥� (Anderson). Bridging the disciplines of the social sciences and the humanities, it first considers theoretical works that posit, among other things, the profound influence of communicative processes on nations and nationalism 鈥� from Deutsch鈥檚 systems of social communication to Anderson鈥檚 print-capitalism 鈥� and then examines the particular role of literature and art in these processes. To what extent is nationalism, a political principle that makes empirical claims to sovereignty vested in 鈥榓 people鈥�, contingent on the imagined and the imaginary? What lies beneath the claim that 鈥榯here is no fine nationality without literature鈥� and 鈥榥o fine literature without nationality鈥� (Yeats)?听 The reading for this module will attend to such questions with a specific focus on the literature of Russia, Poland and Ukraine in the mid-nineteenth century. Close attention will be paid to the works of Aleksandr Pushkin and Fedor Tiutchev; Adam Mickiewicz and Juliusz S艂owacki; and Nikolai Gogol and Taras Shevchenko. The module will be open to students who have a good reading knowledge of Polish, Russian, and/or Ukrainian. There will normally be a maximum capacity of 14 for this module.
Before the term begins, please read:
- Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of听Nationalism. London ; New York: Verso, 1991.
- Deutsch, Karl. Nationalism and Social Communication. 海角社区, Mass.: M.I.T.听Press, 1966. [Chapters 3 and 4 only]
- Hroch, Miroslav. Social Preconditions of National Revival in Europe. New York:听Columbia University Press, 2000. [Part 1]
- Suny, R. G. et al. Intellectuals and the Articulation of the Nation. Ann Arbor:听University of Michigan Press, 1999. [pp. 1-78, 383-418]
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