HNRS 80

Cossacks and Narratives about Them

• Historical Analysis

Seminar, four hours. Designed for College Honors students. Examination of two Cossack societies: Ukrainian (Zaporozhian) Cossacks and Russian (Don) Cossacks. Both emerged in 15th and 16th centuries as warrior societies along contact zone between Slavic world and Muslin Tatar and Turkic world. Their frontier status and liminal culture proved to be mythogenic, and Cossacks figure prominently in imagination of cultures they impacted over centuries, especially in folklore, literature, film, and opera. Study of Cossacks through these media to understand not just Cossack society but ways in which Cossacks have been viewed through paradigms of Polish, Russian, Ukrainian, Jewish, Ottoman, and west European cultures. P/NP or letter grading.