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Russian Foreign Policy from Alexander I to Vladimir Putin - HIS00074M

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  • Department: History
  • Credit value: 20 credits
  • Credit level: M
  • Academic year of delivery: 2024-25
    • See module specification for other years: 2022-23

Module summary

This course will look at Russian foreign policy over a period of 200 years from 1815 to 2015 . It will seek to establish the continuities and discontinuities in foreign policy between the Imperial, Soviet and Post-Soviet regimes. The course will be framed chronologically and thematically. We will seek to understand the drivers of foreign policy during this period. Among the themes to be studied will be geopolitics, ideology, Great Power Status and the need for security. By following these themes through two centuries we should see clearly what is constant and and what is ephemeral in Russian foreign policy.

Module will run

Occurrence Teaching period
A Semester 2 2024-25

Module aims

The aims of this module are to:

  • Develop skills of source analysis and interpretation
  • Assess a range of source material and relevant secondary works; and
  • Develop students’ powers of evidence-based historical argument, both orally and in writing.

Module learning outcomes

Students who complete this module successfully will:

  • Demonstrate a knowledge of a specialist historiographical literature;
  • Present findings in an analytical framework derived from a specialist field;
  • Solve a well-defined historiographical problem using insights drawn from secondary and, where appropriate, primary sources.
  • Set out written findings using a professional scholarly apparatus.

Module content

Students will attend a 1-hour briefing in week 1. Students will then attend a 2-hour seminar in weeks 2-4, 6-8 and 10-11. Weeks 5 & 9 are Reading and Writing (RAW) weeks during which there are no seminars, and during which students research and write a formative essay, consulting with the module tutor. Students prepare for eight seminars in all.

Seminar topics are subject to variation, but are likely to include the following:

  1. Russian Foreign Policy: Themes and Principles
  2. The Imperial Period (1) 1815 -1856 The search for stability – The Concert of Europe
  3. The Imperial Period (2) 1856-1914: Security Through Alliances
  4. The Soviet Period (1) 1917-1941: The World Revolution and the Soviet State
  5. The Soviet Period (2) 1941-1991 The Soviet Superpower
  6. Russia Foreign Policy in Transition
  7. Russian Foreign Policy Under Putin
  8. Russian Foreign Policy 1815-2022

Indicative assessment

Task % of module mark
Essay/coursework 100

Special assessment rules

None

Additional assessment information

Students submit a 2,000-word formative essay in week 9.
A 4,000-word summative essay will be due in the assessment period.

Indicative reassessment

Task % of module mark
Essay/coursework 100

Module feedback

Students will typically receive written feedback on their formative essay within 10 working days of submission.

Work will be returned to students in their seminars and may be supplemented by the tutor giving some oral feedback to the whole group. All students are encouraged, if they wish, to discuss the feedback on their formative essay during their tutor’s student hours—especially during week 11, before, that is, they finalise their plans for the Summative Essay.

For more information, see the Statement on Feedback.

For the summative assessment task, students will receive their provisional mark and written feedback within 25 working days of the submission deadline. The tutor will then be available during student hours for follow-up guidance if required. For more information, see the Statement of Assessment.

Indicative reading

For reading during the module, please refer to the module VLE site. Before the course starts, we encourage you to
look at the following items of preliminary reading:

  • Haslam, J. Russia’s Cold War: From the October Revolution to the Fall of the Wall. (New Haven: Yale University, Press 2011.)
  • Rieber, A.J. The Struggle for the Eurasian Borderlands: From the Rise of the Early Modern Empires to the End of the First World War. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014.)
  • Tsygankov, A. Russia and the West From Alexander to Putin: Honor in International Relations. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014.)


The information on this page is indicative of the module that is currently on offer. The University constantly explores ways to enhance and improve its degree programmes and therefore reserves the right to make variations to the content and method of delivery of modules, and to discontinue modules, if such action is reasonably considered to be necessary. In some instances it may be appropriate for the University to notify and consult with affected students about module changes in accordance with the University's policy on the Approval of Modifications to Existing Taught Programmes of Study.