These original courses are aimed to acquaint you with the most important aspects of Russian life including cultural, political, and economical phenomena in the past and present.
These courses will help you to understand the peculiarities of Russian national self consciousness as a special area of spiritual life of Russian society as a result of different spheres of concentration: History, Literature, Religion, Architecture, Painting Arts, Music, Theatre and Cinema and Folk Culture.
Courses are made on integral basis. You may choose more then one special course simultaneously. At the end of the program you have an opportunity to continue your study by applying other courses, which interest you.
* All these special courses can be included into the General Russian program.
1. HISTORY OF RUSSIA
This course focuses on major events of the latest millennium and its reflection on national consciousness and Russian culture from Kievskaya Rus to present days.
- Ancient history
- The middle ages
- Modern history
2. RUSSIA TODAY
This course covers many of the current issues of contemporary Russia, the path by which it is developing, its problems and relevant discussions.
- Politics
- Economics
- Culture
3. ECONOMICS, POLITICS AND GEOGRAPHY OF RUSSIA (1985 – 2008)
This course concentrates on the crisis moment of Russian History of the end of the 20-th century, reflecting the formation and development of a new society, politics and economics of a new type.
- Gorbachev M. S., Perestroika
- Disintegration of USSR
- Religions, demography
4. LANGUAGE OF MASS MEDIA: YESTERDAY AND TODAY
This course acquaints you with the major tendencies in the development of the language of the modern Russian press, which presents itself in a variety of genres and styles.
- New type of language
- Specific language
- Language democratization
- “Yellow press”
5. HISTORY OF RUSSIAN LITERATURE
The course shows the trends of Russian literature as an esthetic system with a special type of Russian mentality and “Russian civilization”.
- Efflux of Russian literature
- Traditions of Russian literature
- Golden age of Russian literature
- Contemporary Russian literature
6. RUSSIAN PROSE OF 20TH CENTURY
The aim of the course is to “discover” rules of rendering the reality in untraditional texts and realize stylistic peculiarities of each trend by analyzing untraditional literature.
- Avant-garde
- Surrealism
- Social art
- Modernism
- Postmodernism
- “New wave”
7. RUSSIAN FOLKLORE: TRADITIONS AND THE PRESENT
The aim of the course is to acquaint you with some traits of Russian modern life, which trace back to folklore motives and are connected with national archetypical concepts.
- Traditional family
- Relationships between man and woman
- Slavonic mythology
- Feasts
- Habits
- Fairy tales
8. RUSSIAN PAINTING
The idea of this course is to show how Russian painting developed from the 10th to 20th century: from icons to K. Malevich “Black Square”.
- Russian painting tradition
- Creation of icons
- Realist genre-painters
- Modern art
- Avant-garde
9. RUSSIAN DRAMA
The course covers history and traditions of Russian theater in Russian spiritual culture and theory of Russian drama art in context of the world theatrical performance.
- Theatre
- Drama genres
- Poetry, music and drama
10. MASTERPIECES OF RUSSIAN ARCHITECTURE
The course covers developmental trends of city growth with the reflection in architecture. How did cities arise from the very out set and the relationships between the center and the provinces.
- History of cities
- Great Russian architectures
- Architecture of churches
- Russian estate as a phenomenon of Russian life, culture and literature
11. HISTORY OF RUSSIAN CLASSICAL MUSIC
The course focuses on the development of the Russian music art in close connection with historical, social, and spiritual experience of the Russian nation.
- Musical traditions of 19th century
- Russian music of 20th century
- Russian modern music
12. RUSSIAN CINEMA
The course shows the main trends in the film industry, which reflect “eternal” problems of Russian society and inner world of a person. You will get acquainted with masterpieces of Soviet and Russian cinema and also hear natural Russian speech in various communicative situations.
- Traditions
- USSR cinematography
- Modern movies
- Tendency and perspectives