Course Description

Instructor: Elizabeth Deschenes, MA Clinical Psychology

Take a literary journey through 200 years of time, starting in the Russian Empire of Alexander Pushkin, progressing through the Russian Revolution, the Soviet Union and the current Russian Federation of Vladimir Putin. We will tour through the Golden and Silver Age of literature exploring stories, poems, songs and videos of authors/artists. Among the authors covered: Turgenev, Chekhov, Dostoyevsky and all of the Russian Nobel Prize winners in Literature: Pasternak, Solzhenitsyn and Brodsky. The goal is to explore and participate in the Russian spirit throughout loves, losses, war, peace, confusion and rebellion. All reading will be available online. Please come to class having read the essential Russian poem The Bronze Horseman (Pushkin).

Elizabeth is the founder/leader of the Great Conversations Book Club.