OSHER 854 - Turgenev's "Fathers and Sons" and Russian Cultural History, 1825-2025

We will read Turgenev's novel "Fathers and Sons," which will include an examination of the Slavophile and Westernizer controversy, the "men of the 60s," and nihilism. Next we will discuss the historical events leading to the Russian Revolution and Lenin's view of Marxism/Communism, followed by an examination of the events of the Soviet Union from 1918 to its fall in 1991. Throughout, we will relate historical events to Vladimir Putin and his thought of a new Russian empire founded on the old Soviet state and pre-revolutionary religious Orthodoxy.