Curriculum and Instruction Commons^™

Decoding The 1920s: Teaching Advanced Russian In A Literature Class, Nila Friedberg

World Languages and Literatures Faculty Publications and Presentations

Decoding the 1920s: A Reader for Advanced Learners of Russian was published by the Portland State University Open Access initiative in 2021. The 1920s is a major part of the Russian literary canon but is notoriously difficult for American students to read in the original, due both to its stylistic complexity and its hidden historical, political and cultural references. And yet, the period is crucial for understanding Russia – not only in the Soviet period, but also today. The 1920s and 1930s were the period when “The New Soviet Person” emerged, with its Soviet mentality. Recent attempts to glamorize the …