Borderlands
World War II in Soviet
http://www.history.neu.edu/fac/burds/chstu301c.htm
CHSTU301/302/701
". . . the
overwhelming brunt of the Nazi occupation between 1941 and 1944,
as of the devastating Soviet reoccupation, was borne not by Russia but by the
Baltic States, by Belarus, by Poland, and above all by Ukraine."
--
Instructor
Professor Jeffrey Burds
Office: 269 Holmes Hall
Telephone: (617) 373-2079
j.burds@neu.edu
Course Description
This undergraduate History seminar is restricted to a maximum of 20 History majors. This limited course enrolment is designed to enhance the mentoring component in the course, and to facilitate teacher-student interaction throughout the semester.
This reading and discussion course is devoted to the study of World War II in Eastern Europe, 1939-1945. Drawing from a variety of original documents, films, and monographic studies of the era, we will evaluate the impact of World War II on Soviet Eastern Europe. The primary task is to train students in the techniques of historical inquiry, research, and writing. Required seminar readings during the first four weeks of the course will introduce all students to the basic history of the Second World War in the East. This will be supplemented by several weeks of readings on special themes: Ostpolitik: German Occupation Policy in Soviet territory, 1941-1945; Genocide and the Holocaust; Partisans and Collaborators; Nationalism; Ethnic Reprisals after Soviet Liberation of Occupied Zones; sexual violence during war; and the origins of the Cold War.
Each student will be expected to write and substantially revise at least once a 17-25 page study on a theme to be agreed upon with the instructor, based on 6-8 books of outside materials or their equivalent. I expect all papers to represent your best work: all papers should conform to the History Style Guide, and all written work should be checked closely for spelling and grammatical errors. This paper will consist either of a survey of historiography on a particular theme, or a research paper on some aspect of the Second World War in Eastern Europe -- origins, conflict, legacy. Themes are open, though all paper topics must be approved by the instructor. A list of sample themes and a bibliography of potential readings is available below.
Final grades will be calculated with attention to the following formula:
• Active and considered class participation is encouraged: 30 percent
• Your presentation should be informative, concise, and to the point: 10 percent
• Your semester paper should be well-written, well-argued, and informative: 40 percent
• The average of your best quiz scores: 10 percent
• Journals
based on all ten hours of the documentary film:
Presentation/paper themes will be set in meetings with Professor Burds during the first three weeks of classes.
Attendance is required; frequent absences or repeated failure to take an active part in the class discussions will result in lower grades.
Books
The following titles (marked with an asterisk) have been ordered at the University Book Store:
*Christopher
Browning, Ordinary Men: Reserve Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in
*Richard
Overy,
*Jan
T. Gross, Neighbors: The Destruction of the Jewish Community in
*Waldemar Lotnik, Nine Lives: Ethnic Conflict in the Polish-Ukrainian Borderlands (London: Serif, 1999).
Quizzes
To encourage students to keep up with the reading, we
will offer at least four "surprise quizzes" during the semester,
generally corresponding with the major readings in the course. Students are
obligated to take all four quizzes. Any student who fails to pass any quiz (or
who is absent on the day of a quiz) will be required to write a three-to-five
page take-home paper on the quiz question, due at the beginning of the next
class. No student who does not have a passing grade on all quizzes (or
makeup papers) will pass this course. The point? Keep
up with the reading in this course.
Middler-Year Writing Requirement
Any History Major in CHSTU301 may use the course to fulfill the University's Middler Year Writing Requirement. Such students must enroll
in CHSTU302 Historical Writing.
Bibliography An extensive list of useful readings and materials
for choosing paper themes.
Check out
summaries of the latest research in Soviet Military Studies
[Frank Cass Publishing]
Check out the Journal of Slavic Military Studies [David M. Glantz, ed.]
Check out the U.S. Army Homepage, with extensive on-line monographs concnering all aspects of the Soviet military, World War II, Soviet partisans, etc.
Connect to the National Archives
Connect to the British Public Record Office [Press for Catalogue Search]
Russian Military History Site with thousands of full-text books: Voennaia Literatura
For 83 Detailed Maps of the Eastern Front Action
SPASI!
A Russian woman and child under attack by Nazi bayonets: "Save
us!" This was one of the most memorable images of the Soviet home front in
World War II
Week 1 Introduction
(January 7)
Monday, 7 January. Introduction. Come & See, Part One.
Wednesday, 9 January. Come & See, Part Two. Memory Discussion.
READ: Piotr Wrobel, "Double Memory: Poles and Jews after the Holocaust," East European Politics and Societies Volume 11, Number 3 (Fall 1997), 560-574.
Week 2 Operation Barbarossa and the German Invasion of Soviet
Monday, 14 January.
Russia's War
is an extraordinary ten-hour documentary history of the Soviet-German war,
1941-1945. Prepared after the dissolution of the
Wednesday, 16 January.
READ: Richard Overy,
Week 3 After
Monday,
21 January. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. No Class
Meeting.
One-page topic statements due.
Wednesday, 23 January.
READ: Richard Overy,
Photo credit: Raising the Hammer and
Sickle over the Reichstag,
Week 4 (January 28)
Monday, 28 January.
Three-page bibliographies due.
Wednesday, 30 January. Discussion of entire text of Overy's Russia's War.
READ: Richard
Overy,
Documents
MAP:
Soviet Military Intelligence Analysis of the Concentration of German Forces on
the Eve of War
MAP: Disposition of Soviet & German Forces on the Soviet western borders on the eve of invasion
Handout: Map1, Operation Barbarossa
Data on Soviet/German/British/US Wartime Production
Map3 of
the
Handout: Stalin's Toast to Victory (May 24,
l945)
Clips from the Soviet celebration of victory on
Week 5 Ostpolitik:
The German Occupation Zone (February 4)
Monday, 4 February.
Wednesday, 6 February. Discussion:
READ: Jan
T. Gross, Neighbors: The Destruction of the Jewish Community in
OPTIONAL
HISTORICAL
CONTROVERSY: The Reaction to "Neighbors" in
Yedwabne: [Jewish Shtetl] History
& Memorial Book
Voices on the Jedwabne Tragedy
Anna Bikont, "Scene
fron Jedwabne,"
Yad Vashem
Studies (2002) A Polish Jew's discussion of the controversy
Alexander
B. Rossino, "Polish
'Neighbors' and German Invaders: Contextualizing Anti-Jewish Violence in the Bialystok District during the Opening Weeks of Operation Barbarossa," Polin:
Studies in Polish Jewry, Volume 16 (2003).
Week 6 Holocaust &
Genocide: The Politics of Ethnic Cleansing (February 11)
Monday,11 February.
Wednesday, 13 February. Discussion:
Christopher
Browning, Ordinary Men: Reserve Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in
Related Materials
Follow the German
Army's brutality in the East at War of Annihilation:
War Crimes of the Wehrmacht, 1941-1944
Judith Levin and Daniel Uziel, Ordinary Men, Extraordinary Photos, Yad Vashem Studies, 2002. Studies German soldiers' photo albums as a source about the mentalité of perpetrators of atrocities
Visit the
Visit the Gallery of Holocaust Images prepared for an on-line Teacher's Guide to the Holocaust.
Visit an on-line Photographic Exhibition of the Holocaust.
Week 7 (February 18)
Monday, 18 February. Presidents' Day, No Class Meeting
Wednesday, 20 February.
Week 8 Partisans (February 25)
Monday, 25 February.
Wednesday, 27 February. Discussion.
READ: Colonel I. G. Starinov, Over the Abyss:
My Life in Soviet Special Operations (New York: Ivy Books [Ballantine Books], 1995), pp. 161-366.
Spring Break March 1-9
Week 9 "War within
the War": World War II as a Civil War (10 March)
Monday, 10 March.
Wednesday, 12 March. Discussion.
READ: Waldemar Lotnik, Nine Lives: Ethnic Conflict in the Polish-Ukrainian Borderlands (London: Serif, 1999), pp. 7-206.
Of Related Interest on Postwar Ethnic Violence
Zygmunt Klukowski, Red Shadow:
a physician's memoir of the Soviet occupation of
J. Otto
Pohl, Ethnic Cleansing in the
Timothy Snyder, "The Causes of Ukrainian-Polish Ethnic Cleansing, 1943," Past and Present Volume 178 (May 2003).
Timothy
Snyder, The Reconstruction of Nations(New Have:
Visit the WEBsite of Poland's Institute of National Remembrance, the Commission for the Prosecution of Crimes Against the Polish Nation
Week 10 Sexual Violence in
War (17 March)
Monday, 17 March.
Wednesday, 19 March. Discussion.
READ: Jeffrey
Burds, “Sexual
Violence in Europe in World War II,” forthcoming.
Related
Marlene Epp, "The Memory of Violence: Soviet and East European Mennonite Refugees and Rape in the Second World War" Journal of Women's History, 9 (1), Spring 1997.
Wendy Jo Gertjejanssen, "Victims, Heroes, Survivors: Sexual
Violence on the Eastern Front during World War II," Ph.D. Dissertation,
Norman Naimark, "Soviet Soldiers,
German Women and the Problem of Rape." The Russians in
Agate Nesaule, A Woman in Amber: Healing the Trauma of War and Exile (New York: Penguin Books, 1995).
Alaine Polcz, A
Wartime Memoir:
Marta
Hillers (aka “Anonymous”), A Woman in
Week 11 Aftermath: Origins
of the Cold War (24 March)
Monday, 24 March.
Wednesday, 26 March. Discussion. [Russia's War journals due via email attachment]
Alfred J. Rieber, "Civil Wars in the Soviet Union," Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History Vol. 4, No. 1 (Winter 2003): 129–62.
All final papers must be submitted by 27
March in 269 Holmes Hall, and via MYNEU.
All papers must have a title page,
bibliography, and footnotes formatted according to the History Style Guide.
All pages must be numbered, and papers must be proofread: checking for spelling
and grammatical errors.
Week 12 Final Presentations
& Discussions (31 March)
Monday, 31 March. Group 1 Presentations.
Wednesday, 2 April. Group 2 Presentations.
Week 13 Final Presentations
& Discussions
Monday, 7 April. Group 3 Presentations.
Wednesday, 9 April. Group 4 Presentations.
Week 14 Final Presentations
& Discussions
Monday, 14 April. Group 5 Presentations.
Wednesday, 16 April. Group 6 Presentations (if needed)
A final version
of your revised papers, plus comments and earlier drafts, should be submitted
to the instructor in hard copy only by April 22.