Leader: Ross Garner, Humanities Teacher, John Adams Academies
During the 19th and 20th centuries, three figures dominated Russian literature: Leo Tolstoy, Fyodor Dostoevsky, and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. Tolstoy and Dostoevsky were contemporaries, writing during the early modern era as Russia transitioned out of its Tsarist political system and began implementing democratic and later socialist and marxist models. These two authors witnessed and warned against the changes in Russian culture that planted the seeds of discontent and led to the Bolshevik Revolution and rise of communism under Lenin and Stalin.
Unfortunately Tolstoy and Dostoevsky’s insights proved prophetic for their nation’s future, which Solzhenitsyn lived out, first as a firm believer in the communist vision, and then as its most articulate critic. Taken together, these three great Russian authors bear witness to the rise and fall of one of the most ruthless tyrannies of the modern era–a tyranny, they warn, that is an ever present and potential threat which lies in the hearts of ordinary people.
While all three are known for their massive literary works of thousands of pages, we will be reading their short stories or excerpts from their non-fiction.
June 11 - June 27
Tuesdays and Thursdays
8:00 am - 10:00 am (AZ)
10:00 am - 12:00 pm (Central)
11:00 am - 1:00 pm (Eastern)
View the Syllabus
FREE for Great Hearts employees: use voucher code ghemployee (case sensitive) at checkout.
