Very comprehensive course and very knowledgeable professor! I was inspired to take this course by trip to St. Petersburg last summer, and to its famous bookstore Dom Knigi. I had already started trying to find and read contemporary Russian works in translation when the pandemic created enough time to take a course. This course is great for students with some background in contemporary literary studies who have read the basic Russian classics in translation. The course provided an excellent overview of literary trends in relation to historical/political developments of the last 50 years in the USSR/Russian Federation. I was familiar with about half of the required reading before the course, but was delighted especially to make the acquaintance of Tatiana Tolstaya and Mikhail Shishkin. I also want to find as many of the new writers mentioned in the last few units as are available in translation. The new realists and the regional folklore-based writers sound especially fascinating. I'm left with two unanswered questions, though: why is Erofeev's work called a poem, and Sokolov's a novel? And what the heck is the meaning of the Okkervil River in Tolstaya's story? :)

Meaningful and inspiring. I liked the short lessons. All in all very interesting ! Though I might suggest that the transcription should be carefully checked. I guess it was somehow automatically done from the audio source : it sometimes totally obscures the meaning when reading and misses the point (difficult to get names or locations for those who are not acquainted with russian), but the positive aspect is that it forces you to really focus to listen to understand.

Very comprehensive in the scope of the contemporary field of Literature output past and present. I wish there was a bigger emphasis on modern political literature and its relation to the Contemporary field.

It is a really interesting course!

Thank you Mr Stepanov