HIS 242
Unit 13:  Gorbachev
 
Source is www.lm.liverpool.k12.ny.us/cnycss2/workshops/germany/germanymaterials.html
Mikhail Gorbachev did bring about the tearing down of the Berlin Wall, a portion of which is pictured here, in 1989.
 
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What you must do in this unit What you can do in this unit
  • Read Gorbachev on 1989 by Katrina vanden Heuvel and Stephen Cohen from The Nation (16 November 2009).
Some videos that you can watch for this unit Extra Credit Options
  • For 50 points maximum extra credit, watch Malenkaia Vera (Little Vera) and, in a one-page paper, assess the accuracy of the film's portrayal of Soviet society in the 1980s.
  • For 50 points maximum extra credit, watch Moscow on the Hudson and, in a one-page paper, assess the accuracy of the film's portrayal of the Russian experience.
  • For 50 points maximum extra credit, read Andrei Amalrik, Will the Soviet Union Survive until 1984? (1971) and write a one-page paper in which you assess the accuracy of Amalrik's ideas.
  • For 50 points maximum extra credit, read Mikhail Gorbachev, Perestroika: New Thinking for Our Country and the World (1987) and write a one-page paper explaining the main points of Gorbachev's policy of perestroika.
  • For 50 points maximum extra credit, read Lech Walesa, The Struggle and the Triumph: An Autobiography (1992), not a Russian but an important political figure, and write a one-page paper explaining the success of the Solidarity Movement.
  • For 50 points maximum extra credit, read Alla Yaroshinskaya, Chernobyl: The Forbidden Truth (1995) and write a one-page paper explaining what went wrong at Chernobyl.
  • For 50 points maximum extra credit, read Anatolii Rybakov, Children of the Arbat (1987) and write a one-page paper about the author's portrayal of the legacy of Stalinism.

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