Semester: WS 2014/2015
Veranstaltungstyp: Hauptseminar
Vorlesungsverzeichnis Nr.: 33135a
Zeit: Mo 10.00-12.00
Dauer: 2 Semesterwochenstunden
Beginn: 06.10.2014
Raum: 017 WIOS
Beschreibung:
The aim of the seminar is to re-think the history of Russia/USSR and Germany from a relational, “entangled” perspective. Although the “enemy” approach dominated for many decades the German and the Russian historiographies, during the last decade the comparative as well the entanglement approaches contributed immensely toward understanding the complex relations between the two countries, whose histories interconnected in different ways and through different channels. The chronological frame of the seminar encompasses the two major war conflagrations, in which Russia and Germany fought on the different sides of the barricade, and which only recently was viewed as an integral analytical timeframe.
Based on documentary sources and new bibliographical account (Timothy Snyder, Michael David-Fox, Alexander Martin, Peter Holquist, Karl Schloegel, Michael Geyer, Oleg Budnitskii, etc.), the seminar participants will analyse the relations between the two countries, less in terms of ideological contradictions between Stalinism and Nazism, diplomatic relations and/or military confrontation, but more in terms of mutual influences and transfers that occurred in different spheres of life of the two societies in the time of war(s) and peace. While discovering little-known “episodes” of entangled histories, the students will depict blurring boundaries between the two societies and the interconnectedness maintained, besides diplomats and militaries, by intellectuals, artists, scientists and trade people. Understanding how the perception of the “other”, being closely related to personal experiences lived during the war(s) and two peaceful decades, projected into the “self” and, subsequently, into the society, is another focus of the seminar.
The participants will “travel” from Germany to Russia and back, while discussing such topics as the German involvement in the support of the Bolshevik coup d’etat, the presence of the Russian émigrés in German as well Bavarian society, perceptions related to the Russian Jews as “Ostjuden”, the support given by Russian émigré circles to the Nazis in the interwar period, as well mutual encounter of militaries and civilians during WWI and WWII.
Literatur:
Michael David-Fox, Peter Holquist, Alexander M. Martin (eds.), Fascination and Enmity. Russia and Germany as Entangled Histories, 1941-1945, Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2012; Johannes Baur, Die Russische Kolonie in Muenchen 1900-1945. Deutsche-Russische Beziehungen im 20. Jahrhundert, Harrassowitz Verlag, 1998; Michael Kellogg, The Russian Roots of Nazism. White Émigrés and the Making of National Socialism, 1917-1945, Kambridge University Press, 2009; Peter Holquist, Making War, Forging Revolution. Russia’s continuum of Crisis, 1914-1921, Harvard University Press, 2002; Michael David-Fox, Showcasing the Great Experiment. Cultural Diplomacy and the Western Visitors to the Soviet Union, 1921-1941, Oxford University Press, 2011; Karl Schloegel (Hsg.), Der große Exodus. Die russische Emigration und ihre Zentren 1917 - 1941. München 1994; Karl Schloegel, Berlin Ostbahnhof Europas. Russen und Deutsche in ihrem Jahrhundert. Berlin 1998; Frank Goebler, Russische Emigration im 20. Jahrhundert. Literatur, Sprache. Kultur, Otto Sagner Verlag, 2005;
Bemerkung:
The language of instruction/discussion will be English, although literature in German will be used. To the participants with knowledge of Russian some titles in Russian will be recommended.
Leistungsnachweis:
- Regular participation in the seminar.
- Reading of the mandatory as well recommended literature.
- An oral mid-term presentation on the subject of the final essay (12-15 min.).
- Final essay (15 p.).