Università Roma Tre

Introduction: from Kevian Rus' to Ivan IV the Terrible; The First modernization of Russia: Peter the Great and the birth of an European power; The long Russian Nineteenth century from Napoleonic wars to Alexander II's reforms; Nicholas II, the last tzar and his empire: the contradiction of an impetuous and disorderly development; the World War One and the end of a world; the Russian revolutions; The rise of Lenin and the Bolshevik; The Bolshevik party his origins ad his success; The Russian civil wars and the origin of the Soviet state; The NEP; The rise of Stalin: Collectivization, industrialization and the birth of a new Soviet Russia; The Great Terror; the Comintern the foreign communist parties and the PCUS hegemony; The "double" Soviet foreign policy and the origin of the Second World War; The War; After the war: the birth of a super-power; Soviet Russia, western powers and the Cold War; Nikita Khrushchev and a very turning point in the soviet history: the XX Congress, The Brezhnev years: consolidation and stagnation; the impossible reform attempt: Gorbachev between Perestrojka and Glasnost'; the fall of the USSR and the birth of the Russian Federation; Yeltsin and the shady era; a new strong man? Vladimir Putin and the new Russia.

1) A. Graziosi, L'Unione Sovietica 1914-1991, Bologna, Il Mulino

2) G. P. Caselli, La Russia nuova. Economia e Storia da Gorbacev a Putin, Milano - Udine, Mimesis


for non-attending students:

Paul Bushkovitch, Breve storia della Russia. dalle origini a Putin, Torino, Einaudi. Also the english version