Nothing was more important to Tolstoy than character development. For him, the purpose of life is to grow morally. The purpose of literature -- as all art -- is to aid that growth. Abstract philosophy and pedantic scholarship are therefore redundant. Indeed, even the psychological novel is a distraction. Moral truths are self-evident. They are…

Fyodor Dostoyevsky wrote masterpieces describing the exploitation and victimisation of the socially disadvantaged who were affected by industrialisation in the 19th century. In "The Brothers Karamazov," Pavel Fyodorovich Smerdyakov (hereafter, Smerdyakov) plays a critical role in various spheres of the story. His birth was the result of…

Based on oral and written testimony of pupils and teachers, this essay examines the lived educational experience of the school-age cohort of children in Stalin's Russia from 1931 to 1945. The state alone determined the structure and curricula of the nation's schools. However, Soviet youngsters, their parents, and teachers responded to the center's…

Practically no one will dispute that the future of Russia depends on the successfulness of the multifaceted modernization of Russian society, a task that cannot be confined solely to the socioeconomic sphere. The most fundamental task is that of changing the societal system of values and institutions. If Russia is to modernize successfully, the…

Version of a paper read at the University of Chicago on April 24, 1970. (DS)

Both the Russian novel "We" and the Anthony Burgess novel "A Clockwork Orange" offer frightening glimpses of a future society. But the contrast between these visions is striking. "We" is concerned with the misuse of technology, Burgess's book with the misuse of psychology. Both warn about the misuse of state power.…

This syllabus is an outline of a one semester course in Imperial Russia designed to emphasize the relationship between Russia's past and her present. Course content begins with the founding of the first Russian state and continues to the fall of the Romanovs in 1917. In addition, some topics are suggested for investigation of Russian history in…