History 305

Devine

Fall 2006

 

Essay Assignment #1 (Option B)

 

This essay is due Friday 24 November by 11:59 pm.  You may email your essay to me as an attachment, turn it in to the History Department office (Sierra Tower 610) during business hours, or hand it to me in person.

 

I prefer you email me the paper since this is the best way to ensure that your paper does not get lost.  When emailing, send a copy to yourself on the “cc” line. If you receive the email, it’s likely I did as well. I will send you a confirmation email when I receive your paper, however, it is YOUR RESPONSIBILITY (and not the email server’s) that I get it.

(“But I sent it to you – didn’t you get it?” will not be a legitimate excuse for a late paper.) 

 

How Long? 

To meet the minimum standard, you must write a 1500-word essay. This translates to about four FULL pages. Five pages is a respectable length. Please do not go more than six full pages.

 

Format?

• Typed, double-spaced, 12-point font with one-inch margins all around.  Margins can be set by using the “File” menu in MS Word and choosing “Page set up.”

 

• Please number your pages (use the “Insert” menu on MS Word and choose “Page numbers…”)

 

• Give your essay a title that reflects what the paper is about. (Something more revealing than “Essay #1”) Clever titles will be duly noted.

 

How to cite?

 

If you are quoting directly from a source, cite the author and page number in parentheses within the body of the text, i.e. (Voinovich, 47). All direct quotes from sources MUST be in quotation marks and must be cited. Paraphrases of ideas drawn from sources MUST also be cited.

 

If you have any questions or are in any way unsure about what you are being asked to do, be sure to speak with me or one of the teaching assistants via email or in person.

 

Choose ONE (1) of the following five questions:

 

 

  1. If one grants that during the 1930s, the United States and the Soviet Union were fundamentally different societies, how are the differences between the two nations revealed in the kinds of films that each produced?

 

(In mulling over how to answer this question, you should begin by considering how the two countries differ – in their political and economic systems; in their ideological commitments; and in their attitudes about the role popular culture should play in society. Then you should consider how these differences shaped the filmmaking process.)

 

  1. Why do you think Hollywood produced pro-Soviet films like Mission to Moscow and The North Star during World War II?  At the time, such films received both high praise for their “contribution to the war effort” and sharp criticism for their intellectual dishonesty and whitewashing of the Stalinist regime.  Which side has the better argument?  Did these films serve a noble purpose by rallying support for the somewhat awkward U.S.-Soviet alliance against Hitler?  Or did they unnecessarily deceive the American public?

 

(In preparing your argument in support of one side or the other, you may want to read for yourself the primary documents I read out loud in class.  They are available HERE in their entirety. As part of the same web site, there is also a helpful article on the film Mission to Moscow available HERE.)

 

  1. Compose an essay in which you demonstrate why Vladimir Voinovich’s The Life and Extraordinary Adventures of Private Ivan Chonkin is an effective satire of the entire Soviet system and the effect this system had on life at nearly every level of society.  As part of your essay, indicate the specific moments in the novel when you think Voinovich’s satire is most devastating and explain why you’ve chosen these moments.

 

  1. Why did Soviet cultural policies become so repressive after World War II?  What caused this abrupt shift in attitude toward jazz, dance, film, and various other forms of popular culture?  How did the new policies play out, and what goals did the regime hope to achieve through such repression?  To what extent did it succeed in meeting these goals?

 

  1. During the 1950s, a “rebel subculture” emerged in both the United States and the Soviet Union.  What are the most striking similarities and differences between these two subcultures?  Which posed more of a challenge to the mainstream culture?