Through a Child’s Eyes: Russian Short Stories of the Second Half of the 20th Century

This course will explore short stories by Russian writers of the second half of the 20th century in which the world is presented through the eyes of a child. We will discuss the various functions of this narrative technique in the prose of authors with opposing aesthetic and ethical views on art. Among these authors are the "Sixtiers" (Vasily Aksyonov, Andrei Bitov, Fazil Iskander, Yuri Kazakov), the "Village Prose" writers (Viktor Astafyev, Vasily Shukshin, Valentin Rasputin), avant-garde writers (Viktor Golyavkin, Yuri Mamleev), and children's writers. Special attention will be given to women's prose, with an analysis of the short stories of the most prominent Russian female authors of the second half of the 20th century — Ludmila Petrushevskaya, Ludmila Ulitskaya, and Tatyana Tolstaya. Counts as a course in literature.