HIS 241
Questions to Consider while reading the textbook and studying a unit's material

The Questions to Consider will be part of the midterm and final exams in the course. You should study these questions using your textbook, but you are also encouraged to use any other sources, such as Wikipedia. A good answer to a question to consider should be about a long paragraph. Check out an example.

Unit 1 Introduction and Themes in Russian history

• What are the main geographical features of Russia?

Unit 2 Origins of Rus'

• Why did the first state emerge in the south, i.e., present-day Ukraine?
• Why did Kyivan Rus' fail to last as an organized political entity?

Unit 3 The Mongol Invasion

• How did the Mongols affect the development of Russia?
• Why did "Russian" society shift to the northeast after the breakup of Kyivan Rus'?

Unit 4 Rise of Moscow and the Gathering of the Lands

• Why did the grand princes of Moscow succeed in expanding and consolidating their power?
• What role did the Russian Orthodox Church play in the expansion of tsarist power?

Unit 5 Ivan IV and the Time of Troubles

• Why was Boris Godunov an important figure in the Time of Troubles?
• How did Muscovite Russia compare with other European states of the period?

Unit 6 The Petrine Revolution

• Why did Peter the Great seek to Europeanize Russia?
• What elements in Russia opposed Peter the Great’s reform efforts?

Unit 7 Catherine the Great

• Did the Legislative Commission have any real impact on the reform of Russian government and law?
• How did the European Enlightenment affect Russia?

Unit 8 Alexander I and Napoleon

• What reforms did the Unofficial Committee enact?
• How were the first and second parts of the reign of Alexander I similar and/or different?

Unit 9 Decembrists

• What did the Decembrists hope to achieve through their uprising?
• Was the Decembrist Revolt a revolution?

Unit 10 Nicholas I and Official Nationality

• How did the ideology of Official Nationality fit the Russia of Nicholas I?
• How much did Russia change (or stay the same) during the reign of Nicholas I?

Unit 11 A Marvelous Decade

• What were the main points of Petr Chaadaev's critique of Russia?
• Compare and contrast the main ideas of the Slavophiles and Westernizers.

Unit 12 Alexander II and the Great Reforms

• Why did Alexander II undertake the Great Reforms?
• What role did Russia play in the Balkans during the reign of Alexander II?

Unit 13 The Revolutionary Movement

• Why did the populist movement that emerged in the 1860s turn ever more radical and revolutionary as it developed?
• Why did an opposition movement arise in Russia while the government was embarking on a reform program?

Unit 14 Reaction and Modernization under Alexander III and Nicholas II

• What were some of the characteristic features of Russia's industrialization of the 1890s?
• How did Russian industrialization affect Russia's social structure and economic base?

Unit 15 Whither Russia in the Twentieth Century?

• Could Russia be considered an advanced, modernized country by 1900?

Unit 16 Golden and Silver Ages of Russian Culture

• What accounts for the explosion of Russian creative artistic achievement in the second half of the nineteenth century?
• What, if anything, was particularly "Russian" in the works of Turgenev, Tolstoi and Dostoevskii?