#it's an absurdly long word document that probably ought to be a folder or something

[queenlucythevaliant]

Ooooh I would love to hear about your hypothetical curriculum for St. Petersburg!

In my mind, there are two other parallel versions of me that chose other fields of study. There's one who chose theology, and there's one who chose Russian lit.

So five-ish years ago, I read St. Petersburg: A Cultural History by Solomon Volkov. I absolutely adored it. As I read, I kept a running list of all the literature, music, and art that I wanted to look up and experience once I had finished the book. This turned into a sort of self-taught class on the literature of St. Petersburg, which continues to be one of my greatest fascinations. I read voraciously, listened to little but Petersburg opera for months (hit me up for Russian opera recs!), and when I read other Russian cultural histories, I kept similar lists and read even more. I've still got quite a lot of Russian classics on my to be read list, but this technique gave me a wonderful start, which led me in turn to create this hypothetical lit curriculum. I would love nothing more than to somehow share Petersburg's beautiful body of poetry, prose, and essay with others.

Note: this is probably a bit more than would fit in a standard undergrad semester, but I've already made substantial cuts from the original lists and can't bring myself to pare it down anymore. Suspend your disbelief, etc.

The Petersburg Mythos

Alexander Pushkin: The Bronze Horseman and The Queen of Spades

Mikhail Lomonosov: Masquerade

Nikolai Gogol: The Nevsky Prospect and The Overcoat

Fyodor Dostoyevsky: White Nights and Crime and Punishment. Maybe also The Adolescent if there's time; if not, I would at least include one particular excerpt from it.

Ivan Turgenev: Home of the Gentry

Leo Tolstoy: Anna Karenina

Yevgeny Zamyatin: “Moscow-Petersburg”

Essay: Using “Moscow-Petersburg” as a framework, examine the projected mythos of St. Petersburg in contrast to that of another major city in Europe, Asia, America, or even in fiction.

The Silver Age

Alexandre Benois: “Picturesque Petersburg”

Andrei Bely: Petersburg

Boris Pasternak: “February” “A Wedding” “My Sister, Life” “Hamlet”

Alexander Blok: “The Dances of Death” “The City Sleeps” “The Stranger”

Nikolay Gumilyov: “The Lost Tram” “The Sixth Sense”

Anna Akhmatova: "The Prayer"

Marina Tsvetayeva: “To Akhmatova”

Essay: While the influence of Golden Age literature on the Silver Age is clear, many have noted an air of dread and anticipation preceding the Bolshevik Revolution in their work is well. Was St. Petersburg of the Silver Age more past- or future-oriented? Defend your answer.

The Martyr City

Anna Akhmatova: Untitled poem on Gumilyov’s arrest

Osip Mandelstam: “Leningrad,” “Petropolis,” Untitled “Help me, O Lord…”

Yevgeny Zamyatin: The Cave

Konstantin Vaginov: The Goat Song

Yuri Tynyanov: The Death of Vazir-Mukhtar

Anna Akhmatova: “Requiem” and “Poem Without a Hero”

Mikhail Zoshchenko: Nervous People

Choose an emotional response to the suffering of the early Soviet Era, such as grief, alienation, fear, or hope, and analyze its presence in the literature of early to mid-century Leningrad.

Expatriates, Non-Russians, and the End of the Soviet Era

Vladimir Nabokov: Speak, Memory

Alexander Kushner: selections from We Cannot Choose Times…

Andy Croft: Epilogue to “Fellow Travellers”

Olga Berggolts: Untitled “We pronounced the simplest, poorest words…”

Vladamir Kornilov: “Freedom”

Essay: How does the writing of those who are alienated from St. Petersburg’s identity in some way differ from those who are immersed in it? (In order to answer this question, you will need to decide: What is St. Petersburg’s identity?)