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 Russian
state emerge in the south, i.e., present-day Ukraine?
- Why did Kievan Rus' fail
to last as an organized political entity?
Unit 3 Rise of Moscow and the Gathering
of the Lands
- How did the Mongols affect
the development of Russia?
- Why did the grand princes
of Moscow succeed in expanding and consolidating their
power?
Unit 4 Ivan IV and the Time of
Troubles
- What role did Boris Godunov
play in the Time of Troubles?
- How did Muscovite Russia
compare with other European states of the period?
Unit 5 The Petrine
Revolution
- Why did Peter the Great
seek to Europeanize Russia?
- Did Peter the Great meet
any resistance to his reform efforts?
Unit 6 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 7 Alexander I and
Napoleon
- What did Alexander I see as
the purpose of the Holy Alliance?
- How were the first and
second parts of the reign of Alexander I similar and/or
different?
Unit 8 Decembrists
- What did the Decembrists
hope to achieve through their uprising?
- Was the Decembrist Revolt a
revolution?
Unit 9 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 10 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
11 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 12 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 13 A Golden Age 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?
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
1900?
- Could Russia be considered
an advanced, modernized country by 1900?
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