Russian Language & Area Studies at St. Olaf

Author: Ashley Morse

  • Riding and Writing: Overcoming Distance in Medieval Europe

    St. Olaf of Norway (☩1030)

    When we read a text that is distant from us, whether in time, space, cultural or social context, how do we overcome that distance? As writers, whether our aim is to create a text that pleases or persuades, how do we work towards closing the distance between ourselves and our readers? These are the general questions that we will wrestle with this semester. We will approach them head-on through readings from a world that will be so distant for many of us that we might not know anything about it at all — medieval Eastern Europe. In so doing, we will find out how filthy vikings really were, how much bread a squirrel skin could buy in the tenth century, and finally what was an aurochs? In the end, we will gain a better understanding of how to approach texts produced by cultures and peoples that are profoundly distant from us and become better readers and writers in the process.

    Offered Spring 2026.

  • Mystics & Madmen: An Introduction to Russian Intellectual History

    Peter I incognito.
    Zaandam, 1697-8.

    In this course we will examine the rich intellectual history of the Russian Empire from its founding in 1721 to around 1850. In those years, few questions were more urgent to Russian thinkers than the place of Russia in the world. As the Russian Empire rose to prominence in the eighteenth century, the question only became more urgent — had Peter I’s Westernizing reforms put Russians on the right course or led them astray by alienating them from their cultural and spiritual heritage? We will explore this controversy through readings drawn from the debate between two opposing intellectual camps; the traditionalist Slavophiles and their reform-minded rivals, the Westernizers. In so doing, we will interrogate the dynamic relationship between religious thought and the state; art and power; and the individual and the nation in Imperial Russia.

    Offered Spring 2025.