Russian

The Russian program at Swarthmore College aims to give students the key to the nation that Winston Churchill in 1939 called “a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma.” Historically, the Russian people have made enormous contributions to world culture in music, literature, the arts, film, engineering and the sciences. With its sheer size and wealth of natural resources, today’s increasingly aggressive and powerful Russia is an important global player, for better or worse, making the study of Russia’s language and culture of continuing strategic importance.

It may surprise you to learn that Russian is the sixth most widely-spoken language in the world, with more than 275 million speakers. Russian serves as the lingua franca for much of Central Asia, and is still widely spoken in other former republics of the Soviet Union. Over 3 million persons claiming Russian heritage live in the United States. Today you can hear Russian spoken in a number of large American cities, including New York and right here in Northeast Philadelphia!

Students of Russian can take advantage of a rich environment for language study, including intensive introductory language courses, language tables, multimedia resources, and opportunities for study abroad. Our rigorous four-year language sequence is designed to bring students at minimum to an ACTFL- rated level of Advanced in all four modalities (reading, writing, listening, and speaking). This prepares our students for potential participation in the prestigious Flagship Program. One of only four such programs in the nation, this year-long post-graduation program is designed to bring students up to the ACTFL-rated Superior level proficiency, allowing them to fully function in the professional sphere. The Flagship Program is an extraordinary opportunity for Swarthmore students; you can find more information on the Flagship Program here.

Our content courses in literature and culture are taught in English and span the history of Russia, ranging from the medieval era through Russia’s Golden Age of the nineteenth century and on to the Soviet and Post-Soviet Era. We also offer interdisciplinary courses such as Nature and Industry in Russia and The Muslim in Russia. Students of Russian language can take a Russian-language attachment to any of our literature-in-translation courses and read selections of works in the original Russian. Additionally, courses from the History Department support our program.

The small size of the Russian section means a great deal of one-on-one attention for our students as well as flexibility in our offerings. So join us and be one of the few who have the key to the enigma that is Russia!

Featured Courses

Spring 2019

RUSS037
Crime or Punishment: Russian Narratives of Captivity and Incarceration

Tu/Th 2.40-3.55 p.m.

“The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons.” – Fyodor Dostoevsky. While the Gulag remains the most infamous aspect of the Soviet justice system, Russia has a long history of inhumane punishment on a terrifying scale. This course explores narratives of incarceration, punishment, and captivity from the 17th century to the present day. In discussing (non-)fiction, history, and theory, we will consider such topics as justice, violence and its artistic representations, totalitarianism, witness-bearing, and the possibility of transcendence in suffering. Readings include works by Pushkin, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Chekhov, Akhmatova, Nabokov, Solzhenitsyn, Pussy Riot, Foucault, Arendt, and Sontag, among others (many excerpts and shorter works for a variety of texts throughout the semester).

No knowledge of Russian required. Taught in translation, though students who know Russian can do some or all the reading in the original.
Eligible for PEAC or INTP credit
1 credit
For more information or the syllabus, please contact José Vergara (jvergar1@swarthmore.edu).

Upcoming Events

Russias Gay Propaganda Law and Violence against LGBTQ People: A Lecture and Discussion with Alexander Kondakov

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 5, 2018, 4:30 – 6PM, McCabe Library 100 Atrium

On the eve of the 2014 Sochi Olympics, Vladimir Putin announced that “being gay in Russia is not a crime.” He went on to defend a adopted "propaganda” law that forbid public discussion of homosexuality, led to arrests and significant fines, and legitimized homophobia on a national scale.

Activist-scholar Alexander Kondakov has made it his life’s mission to understand better and promote awareness of these issues in Russia and abroad. In his research, he studies court decisions on criminal sentences of violence against members of the Russian LGBTQ community and positions these developments within the legacy of anti-homosexual laws and movements in the Soviet era. By doing so, Kondakov shows a dramatic growth in violence after the bill’s adoption and traces what he calls the “violent affections” in the current Russian administration as it manages peoples’ animosity.

Alexander Kondakov is a researcher at the Finnish Centre for Russian and East European Studies at the University of Helsinki. He has previously held positions in the Department of Political Science and Sociology at the European University in St. Petersburg, the Center for Independent Social Research in St. Petersburg, and the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

For a decade, Kondakov’s work has been primarily focused on law and sexuality studies, more specifically on queer sexualities in Russia. He has published over two dozen articles in both English and Russian on topics including LGBTQ political strategies in Russia, queer urban spaces and coalitions, teaching queer theory in Russia, heteronormativity in Russian legal discourse, BDSM practices in Russia, and migration policies.

Funding provided by the 2018-2019 Sager Series and the William J. Cooper Foundation. Sponsored by Russian, History, Linguistics, Anthropology/Sociology, Religion, and the Swarthmore Project for Eastern European Relations.