Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures

SLA201. Slavic and East European Civilizations. Spring 2024

Class meets on Wednesdays from 1:00 PM to 3:00 PM in Carr Hall 403.

• Week 1. Christmas and Calendars
• Revised Julian Calendar
• Calendar reform
• A brief History of the Calendar and Time Keeping
• Problems with the Gregorian Calendar today


• Week 2.
• Ihor Ševcenko. “The Christianization of Kyivan Rus'.” The Polish Review, Vol. 5, No. 4 (Autumn 1960): 29–35. or reprint here.
• Francis Dvornik, “The Moravian Empire and Its Greek Apostles SS. Constantine-Cyril and Methodius” in his The Slavs: Their Early History and Civilization, Boston: American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1959, pp. 80–102. Robarts
• Ihor Ševcenko. “Byzantium and the Slavs.” Harvard Ukrainian Studies, Vol. 8, No. 3/4 (December 1984): 289–303
• Ihor Ševcenko. “Religious Missions Seen from Byzantium.” Harvard Ukrainian Studies 12/13 (1988): 7–27.
• Francis Dvornik. The Slavs in European History and Civilization. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1962. Robarts
• Samuel Hazzard Cross. Slavic Civilization Through the Ages. New York: Russell & Russell, 1963. Robarts
• Sergey Ivanov. “Religious Missions.” In J. Shepard (Ed.), The Cambridge History of the Byzantine Empire c.500–1492 (pp. 305-332). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009.


• Week 3.
• PVL
• Pateryk of the Kyivan Caves The entire Pateryk is available here.
• Tale of Igor's Campaign or alternate translation, here
• Ilarion. Sermon on Law and Grace


• Week 4. Bronze Horsemen. Monuments and Their Significance
• Petersburg. Peter the Great (Bronze Horseman)
• Svetlana Evdokimova, “Sculptured History: Images of Imperial Power in the Literature and Culture of St.Petersburg (From Falconet to Shemiakin)” The Russian Review, Vol. 65, No. 2 (Apr., 2006), pp. 208-229, or here.
• Kyiv. Bohdan Khmelnytskyi Monument
• Serhiy Bilenky, “What Language Did the Monuments Speak?”, Imperial Urbanism In the Borderlands: Kyiv, 1800-1905, Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 2017. pp. 335–55. http://go.utlib.ca/cat/11795607 or here
• Prague. St. Wenceslas
• Cynthia Paces, “Chapter 3. Generational Approaches to National Monuments”, Prague Panoramas: National Memory and Sacred Space in the Twentieth Century, Pttsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2009. pp. 56–73.
• Google images of the St. Wenceslas monument.


• Week 5. Churches
• Kyiv. St. Sophia Cathedral
• Poppe, Andrzej. 1981. “The Building of the Church of St Sophia in Kiev.” Journal of Medieval History, March 1981, Vol. 7 (1): 15-66. Too complicated, you can ignore this.
• 3D Model
• Mosaics
• Video1, video2
• Mykhailo Hrushevsky on Church Art and Architecture in Kyivan Rus'.
• Cathedral Floorplans (architectural terms)
• Domes (architecture basics)
• For comparison, 3D Model of Hagia Sophia in Istanbul
• Moscow. (Saint Basil's Cathedral) Cathedral of the Intercession of the Most Holy Theotokos on the Moat
• Description (Wikipedia)
• 3D Model
• Icons (text mostly in Russian)
• Alexandra A. Sitnikova and Vladimir I. Zhukovsky, “Visualization of the Concept of State in the Architecture of the Moscow Cathedral of the Intercession on the Moat (1555–1561)”
• Video
• St. Mary's Basilica, Krakow
• Jan Samek. “St. Mary's Church in Cracow”
• Kraków – St Mary's Church
• 3D Model
• Floor plan
• Video1, video2
• Brickwork (Terminology!)
• Arthur Burkhard, “Veit Stoss, German Sculptor” Speculum Vol. 10, No. 1 (Jan., 1935), pp. 31-41
• Praque. (St. Vitus Cathedral) Metropolitan Cathedral of Saints Vitus, Wenceslaus, and Adalbert
• Petr Uličný. “The Choirs of St Vitus's Cathedral in Prague: A Marriage of Liturgy, Coronation, Royal Necropolis and Piety” or here
• 3D Model
• Video
• Vaults (architecture basics)
• Arches (architecture basics)


• Week 6. Alexander Pushkin
• Poltava


• Week 7. Adam Mickiewicz
• Forefather's Eve, Pt 3


• Week 8. Taras Shevchenko
• Haidamaks


• Week 9. Jews
• Sholom Aleichem
• Tevje Strikes it Rich
• Chava
• Isaac Babel
• Crossing the River Zbruch
• Gedali
• The Rabbi
• How Things Were Done in Odesa
• Marc Chagall


• Week 10. Galicia
• Norman Davies. "Galicia: Kingdom of the Naked and Starving (1773–1918)" Excerpt from Norman Davies, Vanished Kingdoms: The History of Half-Forgotten Europe, New York: Penguin Books, 2011, pp. 449–81.
• Readings from Myth of Galicia, catalog of the exhibit at the Vienna Museum
• Larry Wolf. The Idea of Galicia: History and Fantasy in Habsburg Political Culture. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2010. Robarts: DK4600 .G344 W65 2010X http://go.utlib.ca/cat/7116282.
• Readings from Myth of Galicia, catalog of the exhibit at the Vienna Museum
• Martin Pollack, "The Myth of Galicia", Video. The Eleventh Annual Volodymyr Dylynsky Memorial Lecture, St. Vladimir Institute, Toronto, Canada, 9 March 2016.
• Map of the Kingdom of Galicia, 1914


• Week 11.
• Matejko
• Judyta Dąbrowska. Jan Matejko — the Painter of Polish History
• Ewa Micke-Broniarek. “Jan Matejko”
• Mikołaj Gliński. “Was Matejko A Painter?”
• Thomas Prymak. “Paintings and Politics in the Vatican Museum”
• Danuta Batorska. “The Political censorship of Jan Matejko”
• A Collection of Paintings (video)
• Paintings


• Repin
• Richard Pipes. Russia's Itinerant Painters, particulalry the section on Repin, pp. 381–91, excerpted here.
• Louis E. Lord. “A Russian Painter of the Nineteenth Century, Elyas Repin”
• Thomas Prymak. “A Painter from Ukraine: Ilya Repin” or here


• History Painting Wiki


• Week 12.
• Mykola Khvylovyi
• My Self (Romantica)
• Danilo Kiš
• “The Sow That Eats Her Farrow”
• “The Mechanical Lions”
• Varlam Shalamov. From Kolyma Tales
• “Through the Snow”
• “On Tick”
• “Carpenters”
• “Shock Therapy”
• “Major Pugachov's Last Battle”