The Great Courses

Lecture 5: In 1825, a group of aristocrats attempted an uprising on a St. Petersburg square. Naively, given that they had no widespread support, they thought they could overthrow the tsarist regime and replace it with a republic. Among these would-be revolutionaries were many friends of Pushkin. After an interview with the new tsar, the poet managed to extricate himself from these associations. He then discovered the work of another great poet - William Shakespeare, whose works Pushkin read in French translation. He was particularly impressed by the plays written about the guilt-ridden Henry IV, and he decided to respond in Russian. The result was his tragedy Boris Godunov, concerning events surrounding Russia’s early-17th-century “Time of Troubles.” The tragedy involves a Russian tsar who made his way to the throne by means of a murder and suffered the pangs of conscience. Naturally, the play had considerable political resonance on the Russian scene, which had just witnessed an attempted regime change. The resonance of the play was made even more powerful two generations later, when one of the greatest Russian composers, Modest Mussorgsky, converted the tragedy into one of the world’s greatest operas, Boris Godunov. Suggested Reading and Listening: Modest Mussorgsky, Boris Godunov, an opera based on the play. Aleksandr Pushkin, Boris Godunov. Aleksandr Pushkin, The Poems, Prose, and Plays of Alexander Pushkin, edited by Avrahm Yarmolinsky. William Shakespeare, Richard II; Henry IV, Part One; Henry IV, Part Two; Henry V.

Lecture 3: We now take a great chronological leap from the 13th century to the last year of the 18th. In the midst of the splendiferous and powerful Russian Empire, with its ancient capital of Moscow and new capital of St. Petersburg, we see the career of a new genius, descended from an African brought to Russia by Peter the Great. This bright young fellow is brought up in a family whose members adore French literature. They read it to the boy on every possible occasion, and his extraordinary memory fixes it in place. They then enroll him in a remarkable school, the Lycée (again, a French name) with the brightest young aristocrats of Russia, under highly talented teachers. Neither his mischief nor his flair for writing deserted him after he left the Lycée, and he soon found himself banished from St. Petersburg and forced to spend time in the colorful area of Bessarabia, in the southwestern part of the Russian Empire. Suggested Reading: T. J. Binyon, Pushkin - A Biography.

Lecture 4: In Odessa, a thriving port city on the Black Sea, Pushkin managed to irritate the local governor, who soon sent him packing back to his parents’ country estates in the north of Russia. During this time, he began a long work that would become Russia’s greatest poem. He called it a “novel in verse”: Eugene Onegin. Inspired partly by Byron’s Don Juan, it dealt with many different literary themes and became an endless source of inspiration for writers and composers who came after Pushkin. Its central plot involves the title character, who is a strange combination of sensitivity, intelligence, and perversity. He recognizes the unusually high human value of the central female figure, Tatiana Larina, but rejects the love she offers when she is a young woman in the country. Later, when he sees her as a grande dame in St. Petersburg, it is his turn to experience rejection. The poem also deals with dueling and the death of the poet, perhaps a foreboding of the author’s fate Suggested Reading and Listening: Aleksandr Pushkin, Eugene Onegin, translation by James E. Falen. Aleksandr Pushkin, Eugene Onegin—A Novel in Verse, translation and commentary by Vladimir Nabokov. Petr I. Tchaikovsky, Eugene Onegin, an opera based on the poem.

Lecture 2: When Prince Vladimir’s agents and allies tried to spread the new Christian beliefs and ceremonies among the people - mostly illiterate, but by no means stupid peasants, there arose a genuine and stubborn conflict: the old pre-Christian legends and gods versus the new ideas of salvation and grace through Jesus Christ and his powerful preaching. The result, which lasted for centuries, was called dvoeverie (two faiths, side by side). The new faith was literarily represented by St. Cyril’s magnificent translations. The old faith persisted in oral folklore of an equally powerful expression. By the 13th century, the political situation changed substantially, with the invasion of Eastern peoples—the Tatars—under their famous leader Genghis Khan, whose military strategy and technology were very advanced for their time. One of Russia’s most precious literary productions, an epic poem called “The Tale of Prince Igor,” deals with Kiev’s initial defeat at the hands of the Polovetsians, precursors of the Tatars. Suggested Reading: Robert Mann, trans., The Song of Prince Igor. Serge A. Zenkovsky, ed., Medieval Russia’s Epics, Chronicles, and Tales.

36 lectures, 30 minutes/lecture Taught by Irwin Weil Northwestern University Ph.D., Harvard University Throughout the entire world, Russian culture - and most especially its 19th century literature - has acquired an enormous reputation. Like the heydays of other cultures - the Golden Age of Athens, the biblical period of the Hebrews, the Renaissance of the Italians, the Elizabethan period in England - the century of Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Pushkin, and other great Russian writers seems, to many readers, like a great moral and spiritual compass, pointing the way toward deeper and wider understanding of what some call “the Russian soul,” but many others would call the soul of every human being. How did this culture come about, within the context of a huge continental country, perched on the cusp between European and Asiatic civilizations, taking part in all of them yet not becoming completely subject to or involved in any of them? What were the origins of this culture? How did it grow and exert its influence, first on its neighbors, then on countries and civilizations far from its borders? What influences did it feel from without, and how did it adapt and shape these influences for Russian ends? What were its inner sources of strength and understanding that allowed it to touch - and sometimes to clash with - these other cultures and still come out with something distinctively Russian? What wider implications does this process have for the entire human race? These 36 half-hour lectures delve into this extraordinary body of work under the guidance of Professor Irwin Weil of Northwestern University, an award-winning teacher at Northwestern University and a legend among educators in the United States and Russia. Professor Weil introduces you to such masterpieces as Tolstoy's War and Peace, Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment, Pushkin's Eugene Onegin, Gogol's Dead Souls, Chekhov's The Seagull, Pasternak's Doctor Zhivago, and many other great novels, stories, plays, and poems by Russian authors. You will also investigate the origin of Russian literature itself, which traces to powerful epic poetry and beautiful renderings of the Bible into Slavic during the Middle Ages. The central core of the course covers the great golden age of Russian literature, a period in the 19th century when Russia's writers equaled or surpassed the achievements of the much older literary cultures of Western Europe. The age commenced with Pushkin, developed with the fantastic and grotesque tales of Gogol', and grew to full flower with Dostoevsky and Tolstoy - who at the time were considered in Europe to be lesser writers than their talented contemporary Turgenev. As the 20th century approached, Chekhov's exquisitely understated plays and stories symbolized the sunset of the golden age. Gorky straddled the next transformation, linking the turmoil preceding the Russian Revolution with the political oppression that affected all artists in the newly established Soviet Union from the 1920s on. You examine the brilliant revolutionary poet Maiakovsky; the novelist Sholokhov, who portrayed the revolution as a tragedy for the Cossack people; the satirist Zoshchenko, who used Soviet society as food for parody; and Pasternak, who produced beautiful poems and a single extraordinary novel. Your survey ends with Solzhenitsyn, who first exposed the reality of the Soviet forced labor camps and continued to speak prophetically until he reached what he considered enlightened new nationalism. Lecture 1: Russian literature had its national and spiritual origins in the territory around the ancient city of Kiev, which was the sometimes grudgingly accepted center of a number of settlements and city-states, a loose confederation called “Kievan Rus’.” From the 10th century A.D., its literature was deeply involved with both religion and politics. When Vladimir, prince of Kiev, in A.D. 988–989, sought a dynastic alliance by marrying the sister of the Byzantine emperor, he returned not only with a literate (and presumably beautiful) wife but also with many documents of the Eastern Orthodox Church. These documents, some of which we will examine, had been translated by a genius, St. Cyril, into the 9th-century language spoken by all Slavic peoples. This church literature bore a deeply religious feeling derived from the New Testament and rendered exquisitely by Cyril’s translations. The connections between Russian literature and politics and ideology started almost 1,000 years before the advent of the Soviet Union and its Marxist ideology. Suggested Reading: Samuel Hazard Cross and Olgerd P. Sherbowitz-Wetzor, eds., The Russian Primary Chronicle. Nicolas Riasanovsky, History of Russia.

Lecture 36: The Renaissance was succeeded by Mannerism, a style well illustrated by Parmigianino's distorted Madonna of the Long Neck. Some artists resisted the trend, notably Titian. Professor Kloss closes with a final look at three vastly different interpretations of The Last Supper: Castagno's version of 1447, Leonardo's of about 1498, and Tintoretto's startling vision of about 1594.

Lecture 35: The first of two summary lectures compares works from the Early and High Renaissance to judge the stylistic shift that occurred during the period. This shift is mirrored by political turmoil culminating in the sack of Rome by the troops of Emperor Charles V in 1527.

Lecture 34: Titian's influence has reverberated through the history of art from Rubens to Delacroix to Renoir. This lecture looks at eight of his masterpieces, including the famous Sacred and Profane Love, which is as enigmatic as it is beautiful.

Lecture 33: Titian probably completed the paintings left unfinished by Giorgione, who died of plague in 1510. This lecture explores the question of attribution by looking at several "problem pictures," including Sleeping Venus and Adoration of the Shepherds, which caused a famous quarrel in art dealing.

Lecture 32: Giorgione's masterful use of oils and softness of touch, together with his ambiguous subject matter, have made him one of the most admired artists of his age. He is best known for The Tempest, showing a soldier and a nude woman and child, flanking the opening into a lush, storm-menaced landscape.

Lecture 31: This lecture explores the serene style of Bellini in his later years, including Madonna and Child with the Magdalen and St. Catherine, the noble Doge Leonardo Loredan, the San Zaccaria Altarpiece, and the remarkable mythological painting The Feast of the Gods.

Lecture 30: One of the major influences on Bellini was Antonello da Messina. This lecture traces that influence through works such as Antonello's San Cassiano Altarpiece and Crucifixion, and Bellini's San Giobbe Altarpiece, Transfiguration, and St. Francis in Ecstasy.

Lecture 29: The first of three lectures on Giovanni Bellini, brother of Gentile, studies his Madonnas and his moving images of the Pietá, or Lamentation. Bellini was Andrea Mantegna's brother-in-law, and their versions of The Agony in the Garden are compositionally similar but stylistically and expressively diverse.

Lecture 28: Vittore Carpaccio and Gentile Bellini were painters devoted to Venice's beauties and virtues, which they displayed in works such as Lion of San Marco by Carpaccio and Miracle of the Cross at Ponte San Lorenzo by Bellini.

Lecture 27: The first of eight lectures on Venice surveys its setting and history. At the core of the city are the ducal palace and Basilica of San Marco, adorned with bronze horses and the enamel plaques for the Pala d'Oro, plunder from the sack of Constantinople in 1204 during the Fourth Crusade.

Lecture 26: The course moves to Northern Italy—to Padua and Mantua, where Andrea Mantegna was one of the most individualistic artists of the late 15th century. Among his works discussed are the frescoes in the Ovetari Chapel, the famous ceiling fresco of the Camera degli Sposi, and The Dead Christ.

Lecture 25: This lecture explores Urbino's palace-fortress, whose gem is the Studiolo, or small study, one of the most famous rooms of the Renaissance. Its beautiful cupboards are decorated with inlaid trompe-l'œil designs, some of which are illusionistic replicas of the books, instruments, and armor they once enclosed.

Lecture 24: Raphael was a master of grand narrative painting of religious, mythological, and secular themes. His greatest works in this genre are the monumental frescoes for the official papal stanzas, or rooms. These include the Disputa, School of Athens, and Expulsion of Heliodorus.

Lecture 23: The first of two lectures on Raphael studies his different interpretations of the Madonna and Child theme, for which he is best known. He was also a superb portraitist, as evidenced by his Julius II, Baldassare Castiglione, and Bindo Altoviti.

Lecture 22: Professor Kloss discusses the symbolic and theological story in the ceiling frescoes in the Sistine Chapel, and the unparalleled inventiveness that Michelangelo brought to the task of designing and painting more than 5,700 square feet of ceiling surface in four years.

Lecture 21: In the early 1500s, Michelangelo was engaged to paint a fresco of the Battle of Cascina in Florence. It was never completed, since he was summoned to Rome to design a massive papal tomb with sculptures that would become some of his greatest figures, including Moses and Dying Slave.

Lecture 20: The first of three lectures on Michelangelo covers the early career of an artist called "divine" long before his own death. This lecture features his sculptures of Bacchus, the Pietá, David, the Bruges Madonna, and the only finished example of his early forays into painting, the Doni Tondo.

Lecture 19: Professor Kloss sketches the history of Leonardo's The Last Supper, contrasting it with other representations of the subject. Despite its deteriorating state since Leonardo's lifetime, the painting has always overwhelmed viewers by its emotional power.

Lecture 18: Two lectures are devoted to Leonardo da Vinci, who had already achieved a mature style by his early twenties when he painted Ginevra de' Benci. Also featured are his unfinished Adoration of the Magi, the haunting Madonna of the Rocks, Mona Lisa, and the beautiful Lady with an Ermine.

Lecture 17: Filippino Lippi, son of Fra Filippo Lippi, completed the fresco cycle in the Brancacci Chapel left unfinished by Masaccio. Noted for his poetic softness and melancholy, his work took an expressionistic turn toward the end of his life.