Our program enables students to obtain such an education. In times of instability, many students are trying to find new ways to talk about contemporary issues and are looking for ways to renew a language tainted by propaganda and militarism. Our program enables students to develop skills in critical language awareness and creative expression in their native language. The program allows them to exercise rights that most students in Russia are currently deprived of: freedom of speech and freedom of expression.
Studying in the Master's Program makes it possible to research and creatively understand topics related to LGBTQ+, feminism, anti-colonialism, anti-militarism, and other social, political and historical phenomena, the conversation about which is limited by censorship in the Russian Federation. Thus, the program creates a space of academic and creative freedom for students and teachers.
The program aims to integrate students into the global literary space. By building academic and cultural bridges between organizations and countries, it promotes peace, human unity, and artistic creation.
General information
Duration of the program: two years (four semesters)
Academic load: from 60 credits
The Master's Program consists of workshops, compulsory courses, and elective courses. The number of credits for courses may vary, as the Master's Program includes annual, semester, and mini-courses. Therefore, when enrolling in courses, students should pay attention to how much a given course is worth and remember that they need to get at least 60 credits to complete the program.
The core of the program is creative workshops. Training in each workshop lasts four semesters and is worth 20 credits.
The program includes four workshops:
- Poetry (Tatyana Volskaya),
- Fiction for adults and children, genre fiction, literary criticism, and essays (Tatyana Sotnikova (Anna Berseneva) and Vladimir Sotnikov),
- Non-fiction (Natalia Gromova),
- Literary criticism (Evgeny Ermoolin).
The program includes four compulsory courses, taught annually as part of its core curriculum. We recommend that all Master’s students take the course "Publishing" and the first semester of the course "Theory of Literature and Challenges of Modernity," as they lay the foundation for an understanding of modern literature and the literary process. The course "Contemporary Russian Fiction" is recommended and addressed to students who are fiction writers; the course "Poetry of Experiment" is intended for poetry students. Thus, from the four compulsory courses presented, students can take any number of courses, but to successfully complete the Master's Program, they need to earn 15 credits in compulsory courses. It is not forbidden to take more courses from the compulsory ones, in which case some of them are counted as elective courses. Compulsory courses are taught every year, so students have the opportunity to take courses in the first or second year of study.
Required courses:
- Contemporary Russian Fiction (1990s–2020s). Authors and Trends – Tatyana Sotnikova (two semesters, 10 credits),
- Poetry of Experiment – Anna Aksenova (5 credits)
- Publishing – Vladimir Kharitonov (5 credits),
- Literary Theory and Challenges of Modernity – Anonymous Professor (Module 1 and 2 are compulsory and are worth 5 credits; modules 3 and 4 are optional courses and are worth 5 credits).
The goal of the compulsory courses is to provide students with the knowledge and skills necessary for literary work, to broaden their vision of literature, and to teach them to critically understand contemporary reality.
As part of the program, students must also take a number of elective courses. The purpose of the elective courses is to enrich students' understanding of contemporary literary processes, cultural and social reality, and to develop specific skills necessary for literary work. Elective courses are taught at least once during the program.
Elective courses:
- Nelly Shulman – Genre: detective, horror, fantasy, historical novel (5 credits)
- Anonymous Professor – Study of the reader: history, methods, problems (5 credits)
- Asya Stein – The Writer as a Researcher (5 credits)
- Anonymous Professor – Dramatic Writing. How to write for film and theatre today: an introduction to contemporary drama (5 credits)
- Sergey Lebedenko – Author's Voice in Contemporary Fiction (5 credits)
- Victor Dimitriev – Autobiographical Poetics of the Russian Diaspora (5 credits)
- Grigory Pantielev – The Art of Understanding Music (5 credits)
- Mikhail Kaluzhsky – Russian Theatre Censorship: History and Modernity (5 credits)
- Hasan Huseynov, Mikhail Epstein – The History of Creative Human-AI Interaction from Homer to Nick Bostrom (5 credits)
- Anonymous Professor – The Invisible Co-Author: How AI is Changing Creative Writing (5 credits)
- Oleg Lekmanov — Through the Eyes of a Child: Stories by Russian, Soviet, and Post-Soviet Writers of the 20th Century (5 credits)
- Anonymous Professor – Intellectual Resistance to Official Ideology in the First Years of the War (5 credits)
- Sergey Davydov – Stories of Power: The Practice of Posttraumatic Drama (1 credit)
- Evgeniy Stashkov – Experimental Drama: A Practical Course (5 credits)
- Elena Kostyuchenko – Laboratory of the Lasting Catastrophe (5 credits)
- Tatyana Sirotinina – Theory and Practice of Text Illustration (5 credits)
The workshops, compulsory and elective courses are taught by academic experts in literature, leading specialists in various creative fields, and accomplished writers who have proven themselves as experienced teachers.
Some courses are available exclusively to those who have enrolled in the entire program, while for others (primarily courses previously taught at the Free University), professors will recruit mixed groups. Thus, admission to the program will give the master's student the right to enroll in such a course without additional competition at the Free University and will count credits for its completion.
Admission to the program
Applicants choose the creative workshop in which they want to study and send their motivation letter, portfolio, and text in the chosen genre (depending on the workshop). Then the admission is carried out in two stages. At the first stage, the motivation letter and portfolio are considered. At the second stage, the head of the workshop conducts an individual interview.
Applicants must confirm that they have completed higher education (bachelor's or specialist's degree; the field of study does not matter).
The program is considered successfully completed if the student has earned 60 credits. This includes completion of a number of compulsory courses (15 credits) and elective courses (25 credits). The Master's Program also requires successful completion of two years of workshop study (20 credits) and the submission of a completed literary work as a Master's thesis.
The program collaborates with a number of publishing houses and magazines, which are expected to publish the best works of graduates (based on the recommendation of professors leading creative workshops).
The program includes presentations by invited lecturers and experts—writers, critics, and publishers.
Training in the program is free of charge.