Nikita Khrushchev attending Soviet Youth Day festivities, either 1958 or 1960.  Photo courtesy Thomas T. Hammond

• Read the textbook chapters 40 and 41
• Check the remarks by Professor Blois and Professor Evans on the Thaw
• Study the Questions to Consider and the Key Terms for the week
• Submit the Solzhenitsyn paper

• Post (or respond) your thoughts/ideas about this week's reading and assignment in the Blackboard online discussion forum. Do not post your assignment there.

• For 50 points maximum extra credit, watch Letyat zhuravli (Cranes are Flying) and explain the purpose of the film in a one-page paper.
  
• For 50 points maximum extra credit--maybe more--watch Sibiriada (Siberiade) and explain why your professor finds this film so fascinating in a one-page paper.
  
• For 50 points maximum extra credit, watch Moskva Slezam ne Verit (Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears) and assess the movie's portrayal of Russian society in the 1970s in a one-page paper.
  
• For 50 points maximum extra credit, read Vladimir Voinovich, Ivankiad and,  in a one-page paper, comment upon the author's portrayal of Soviet society under Brezhnev.
  
• For 50 points maximum extra credit, read Ilya Ehrenburg, The Thaw (1955) and write a one-page paper explaining what the "Thaw" was.
• For 50 points maximum extra credit, read Nikita Khrushchev (1894-1971), Khrushchev Remembers (1970) and also Khrushchev Remembers: The Last Testament (1974) and Khrushchev Remembers: The Glasnost Tapes (1990)--any of these--and assess the content and accuracy of what Khrushchev had to say in a one-page paper.
  
• For 50 points maximum extra credit, read Roy Medvedev, Let History Judge: The Origins and Consequences of Stalinism (1971)--a very important and interesting work--and write a one-page paper in which you explain Medvedev's analysis of Stalinism.
• For 50 points maximum extra credit, read Andrei Sakharov(1921-1989), My Country and the World (1975) and write a one-page paper in which you explain Sakharov's political ideas.
• For 50 points maximum extra credit, read Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Letter to Soviet Leaders (1974) and write a one-page paper assessing what Solzhenitsyn wrote in his letter.