Good short primary text(s) for reflections on the end of Soviet Union / culture?

[Valentino, Russell]

Nicole,

Take a look at the IWP writers' samples for the past few years. Here's
the background:

Every fall between 30 and 40 writers from around the world descend on
Iowa 
City for 10-week residencies at the International Writing Program. While
here they write, translate, do public readings, and create a kind of
writers UN. The program's been around since 1967 and has a long list of
distinguished alumni.

One very nice thing about the program for people who aren't nearby is
that all the writers' bios and bibliographies, as well as samples of
their works, are available on line at the International Writing
Program's website, which is here: http://www.uiowa.edu/~iwp/index.html.

I just looked for the past couple of years to see who's there: Lev
Usyskin, Mikhail Butov, Kseniya Golubovich, Natalya Vorozhbit,
Yekaterina Sadur, Aleksandr Ulanov, Sabit Madaliev, Maxim Kurochkin, and
more. The samples are fairly short and accessible. They often offer
perspectives on post-Soviet transitions.

Good luck with the dreaded week 15.

Russell Valentino


-----Original Message-----
From: SEELANGS: Slavic & East European Languages and Literatures list
[mailto:SEELANGS at BAMA.UA.EDU] On Behalf Of Nicole Monnier
Sent: Wednesday, April 25, 2007 12:37 PM
To: SEELANGS at BAMA.UA.EDU
Subject: [SEELANGS] Good short primary text(s) for reflections on the
end of Soviet Union / culture?

Dear SEELANGStsy,

I've gotten all the way to the last week but one of my 20th century
Russian
& Soviet culture course and haven't the FOGGIEST idea what I should
assign
as a final, primary text reading (or readings) on the end of it all /
the
beginning of it all. We've just done Gorby and are watching Mikhalkov's
egregious (but useful) "Anna from 6 to 18", but I still need something
else
to force my children (mostly uninterested business majors!) to read for
the
last week of the course.

Throughout the course, I've assigned everything from songs, poems, short
stories, manifestoes (artistic / political / whatever), Party
"documents",
images, letters to the editor, essays - which is to say I'm open to any
sort
of "document" as long as it can be considered a "primary" one (that is,
not
scholarly articles).

Not only would I be eternally grateful for good suggestions, but I'll go
so
far as to offer the bribe of a cup of coffee at the next big conference
to
anyone who can supply me with an 11th-hour (or more precisely, week 15!)
text to post hastily upon my electronic reserve page at week's end!

Nicole

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