HISTORY OF RUSSIA

The course is foreseen for students at the 2nd year of the BA Degree Programme "Languages, Civilisation and the Science of Language", curriculum "international politics" (type of educational activity: "base").
The course will deal with the issue of social engineering in the late Tsarist and Soviet history. At the core of the analysis will stay the figure of the vagrant and of the beggar. The course will offer the possibility of enriching with an historical component the study of the languages and cultures especially of the Slavic regions. Furthermore, the course allows to observing in an interdisciplinary way the historical evolution of the cultural and political attitudes towards one specific and relevant socio-cultural issue, ie. social marginality. The Russian/Soviet experience will be put in an international comparative perspective.

The expected learning results are the following:

- to familiarize with and to be able to understand the main historical events and issues linked with the historical period under examination;
- to be able to apply this knowledge to a critical understanding of the present time in terms of continuities/changes and public use of history
- to become acquainted with the most recent historiographical debate around notions like "social engineering" and "social marignality"
- to refine your communication skills

A basic knowledge of modern history.

The course will deal with two main issues: a) social engineering, and b) history of social marginality. The course will begin dealing with the first topic by reading and discussing in class texts of theoretical and historiographical character, in order to look for an answer to the questions: what is “social engineering”? how has it been and is it now studied? Subsequently the course will offer some insights into the history of vagrancy and beggary in the late Tsarist and Soviet history, in order to detect elements of continuity or change among the cultural representations and the official policies toward these categories of “asocial” people. The reflection on the Russian/Soviet experience will always be put in an international comparative framework.

Compulsory readings:

group a)
Guido Franzinetti , “Sociopolitical Engineering”, in Paul Corner, Jie-Hyun Lim (eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Mass Dictatorship, London, Palgrave, 2016, pp. 23-34.
Leo Lucassen, “A Brave New World: The Left, Social Engineering, and Eugenics in Twentieth-Century Europe”, International Review of Social History, 55 (2010), pp. 265-296.
Christopher R. Browning and Lewis Siegelbaum, “Frameworks for social engineering: Stalinist schema of identification and the Nazi Volksgemeinschaft”, in Michael Geyer, Sheila Fitzpatrick (eds.), Beyond totalitarianism: Stalinism and Nazism compared, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2009, pp. 231-265.

group b)
Andrew A. Gentes, “Vagabondage and Siberia. Disciplinary Modernism in Tsarist Russia”, in: A. L. Beier and Paul Ocobock, Cast Out. Vagrancy and Homelessness in Global and Historical Perspective, Athens, Ohio U.P., 2008, pp. 185-208.
Adele Lindenmeyr, Poverty is not a Vice. Charity Society and the State in Imperial Russia, Princeton, 1996 (some pages).
Sheila Fitzpatrick, “Social parasites. How tramps, idle youth, and busy entrepreneurs impeded the Soviet march to communism”, in Cahiers du Monde russe, 47 (2006), 1-2, pp. 377-408.
Elena Zubkova, “The Excluded: Begging in the Postwar Soviet Union”, Annales HSS, 68 (2013), 2, pp. 259-288.

For those, who don´t attend classes:
“Vagrancy”, in Encyclopedia of Homelessness, London, Berkshire, 2004, pp. 583-587.
Nadir Özbek, “‘Beggars’ and ‘Vagrants’ in Ottoman State Policy and Public Discourse, 1876–1914”, Middle Eastern Studies, 45/5, 2009, pp. 783-801
Stefano Petrungaro, “Soup Kitchens and Yugoslav Poor Relief between the Two World Wars”, European Review of History, 2019 (forthcoming).
Sigrid Wadauer, “Establishing Distinctions: Unemployment versus Vagrancy in Austria from the Late Nineteenth Century to 1938”, International Review of Social History, 56 (2011), pp. 31-70, particularly pp. 31-42.

It is recommended to everyone, and particularly to students who do not attend classes, to consult the materials - ie. some ot the texts in the bibliography, as well as analytical and visual integrative materials, useful links etc. - published on the moodle platform (https://moodle.unive.it/ ).

The examination is made up of three parts.
1) The first part aims at verifying your knowledge of the theoretical and historiographical implications of some relevant notions examined during the lessons
2 The second part is about the late Tsarist and Soviet experience
3) The third part requires the knowledge of some elements of historical comparison

The examination’s goal is to verify the ability of the student to formulate critical judgements about the course topics, to what extent he/she has deepened his/her knowledge on them, and his/her communicative skills.

The course is structured through frontal lectures, along with the discussion of academic texts.

Italian

written

This subject deals with topics related to the macro-area "Poverty and inequalities" and contributes to the achievement of one or more goals of U. N. Agenda for Sustainable Development