20th-Century Personality Cults

2023/2024

Academic Year

ENG

Instruction in English

6

ECTS credits

Delivered by:

Department of History

Type:

Elective course

When:

2 year, 1, 2 module

Instructor

Reznik, Alexander

Course Syllabus

Abstract

The objective of the course is to introduce the issue of the personality cults of political leaders, on the basis of the materials of the 20th century . The cult of personality is a global phenomenon that allows one to look at the particularities of the political development of different societies in terms of their inter-connectedness, inter-contextuality, similarity and distinction. The course will examine the practices of sacralization of widely known leaders such as Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin, Mussolini, Hitler and Mao Zedong, as well as less famous ones such as Alexander Kerensky, Nelson Mandela and Evita Perón. The concept of the ;modern cult of personality, introduced by Jan Plamper, will be the object of the discussion in the class. By analysing both sources (narrative and visual) and current historiography, participants will be able to address the question of the multiplicity of the historical contexts of contemporary cults of personality.

Learning Objectives

• Learn contemporary approaches to the modern personality cults
• Able to analyse the regional political cults in the global context

Expected Learning Outcomes

• Able to analyse the regional political cults in the global context
• Know and able to apply contemporary research approaches to the personality cults

Course Contents

• Introduction
• Bismarck and Garibaldi’s personality cults.
• Revolutionary Russia and the cults of leaders
• The cults of leaders in the European totalitarian states
• Revolutionary China and the cult of Mao Zedong
• Eastern european cults of leaders
• The cults of Evita Perón, Hafiz al-Asad, and Mustafa Kemal Atatürk
• The cult of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk
• Final discussion

Assessment Elements

• Seminar Participation
• final essay
  Term paper (3 000 - 5000 words).

Interim Assessment

• 2023/2024 2nd module
  0.25 * Seminar Participation + 0.25 * Seminar Participation + 0.5 * final essay

Bibliography

Recommended Core Bibliography

• Anson Rabinbach, & Sander L. Gilman. (2013). The Third Reich Sourcebook. University of California Press.
• Boris I. Kolonitskii. (2020). Images of A.F. Kerensky and the Political Struggle in 1917 (based on the newspapers of A.A. Suvorin) Authors. Historia Provinciae: Журнал Региональной Истории, 4(3), 834–883. https://doi.org/10.23859/2587-8344-2020-4-3-5
• Brunk, S., & Fallaw, B. (2006). Heroes and Hero Cults in Latin America: Vol. 1st ed. University of Texas Press.
• Ibrahim, V, & Wunsch, M (eds.) 2012, Political Leadership, Nations and Charisma, Taylor & Francis Group, Florence. Available from: ProQuest Ebook Central. [11 July 2021]. https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/hselibrary-ebooks/reader.action?docID=956995&ppg=113
• Kirill Postoutenko, & Darin Stephanov. (2020). Ruler Personality Cults From Empires to Nation-States and Beyond : Symbolic Patterns and Interactional Dynamics. Routledge.
• Ssorin, C. N. (2006). On heterochrony: birthday gifts to Stalin, 1949. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 12(2), 355–375. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9655.2006.00295.x
• Tumarkin, N. (1983). Political Ritual and the Cult of Lenin. Human Rights Quarterly, 5(2), 203–206. https://doi.org/10.2307/762257

Recommended Additional Bibliography

• B. Apor, J. Behrends, P. Jones, & E. Rees. (2004). The Leader Cult in Communist Dictatorships : Stalin and the Eastern Bloc. Palgrave Macmillan.
• Ivanovich Kolonitskii, B. (2018). The Genealogy of the “Leader of the People”: Images of Leaders and the Political Language of the Russian Revolution of 1917. Russian History, 45(2/3), 149–177. https://doi.org/10.1163/18763316-04502002
• Leese, D. (2006). Performative politics and petrified image : the Mao cult during China’s cultural revolution /.

Authors

• REZNIK ALEKSANDR VALEREVICH