HIST 302, Summer 2009
READING QUESTIONS: Derek Offord, Nineteenth-Century Russia
BRIEFLY answer the following on a separate piece of paper, as you read:
I.
Prefatory Material and Introduction
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II.
What does (OS) mean, following a date in Russian history?
What is the Russian alphabet called?
Offord’s book is concerned with what group of people who opposed the regime?
Name two of the three seas that border European Russia.
Name two countries that border European Russia.
Name the four nineteenth-century Russian tsars.
Chapter 1
1. Define “autocracy.”
2. From 1240 to 1480 Russia was occupied by whom?
3. For what is Peter I (the Great) known?
4. What institutions supported the tsar’s authority?
5. Were nobles required to serve the state in the nineteenth century?
6. How did tsars reward noble service?
7. Name two powers that noblemen exercised over their serfs.
8. What were the two types of serf obligations?
9. Name two of the most important consequences of serfdom for Russia.
10. What were the implications of Russia’s small middle class?
III.
Chapter 2
1. What were the cultural implications of the Tatar occupation of Russia?
2. What was the effect of Russia’s adoption of Eastern Orthodox Christianity?
3. Describe two of Peter the Great’s Westernizing reforms.
4. How did Peter the Great’s reforms affect later generations of Russians?
5. Define “intelligentsia.” What were its origins?
6. Who was Radishchev, and what did he write? How did he become a member of the
intelligentsia?
IV.
Chapter 3
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Characterize Russia’s national mood at the beginning of the nineteenth century.
Russian nationalism in the early nineteenth century was based on what event?
Would you characterize Nicholas Karamzin as liberal or conservative?
What change do Alexander I’s two advisors, Speransky and Arakcheev, represent?
What was the cause of the Decembrists’ disenchantment?
On what occasion did the Decembrist revolt take place?
Characterize the difference between Muraviov and Pestel’s political visions.
What was the most important outcome of the Decembrist revolt?
V.
Chapter 4
1. Characterize Nicholas I’s attitude toward culture.
2. What were the components of Official Nationality?
3. What is meant by “civic” novelists?
4. How did Chadaaev characterize Russian history and civilization in his Philosophical
Letter?
5. What Western conditions and/or ideas did Slavophilism oppose?
6. What was the peasant commune, and why did Slavophiles cherish it?
7. How did Westernizers view the reign of Peter the Great?
8. How would you distinguish “men of the forties’ from “men of the sixties”?
9. The Westernizer Botkin compared Russia to what other European country?
10. What medium did Belinsky use for his social commentary?
11. How did members of the Petrashevtsy differ from other intellectuals in terms of
class?
12. What novelist took part in the Petrashevtsy circle, and with what consequences?
13. What event in European history led to the “dismal seven years” of Nicolaevan
Russia?
VI.
Chapter 5
1. What were the causes of the Crimean War?
2. What were the major effects of the Crimean War for Russia?
3. List two areas of major reform under Alexander II.
4. The Bell was published in London by what Russian intellectual?
5. What is meant by “raznochintsy,” and with what era of Russian intellectuals is it
associated?
6. “Native soil” conservatism was associated with what values?
7. Why and how did glasnost’ affect nineteenth-century intellectual life?
8. Radicals (particularly nihilists) believed in the power of what?
9. What is meant by “didactic literature”?
10. Dobroliubov argued that the “superfluous man” should be replaced by what in literature?
11. What events in 1862 led to public dissatisfaction with radicalism?
12. What principle did Nechaev argue for in Catechism of a Revolutionary?
13. Of what crime was Nechaev later convicted?
VII.
Chapter 6
1. What form did intellectual and cultural activity take in the period 1868-1873?
2. What two strands of interest came together to create populism? Define the elements of
populism.
3. Briefly describe the point of view of Bervi’s The Condition of the Working Class in Russia.
4. What was Mikhailovsky’s “subjective method”?
5. What was the “repentant nobleman” and how did Lavrov justify this position?
6. Why did Lavrov encourage young people to go to the peasantry? What were they supposed to
do?
7. What was anarchism? How did Bakunin’s views differ from Lavrov’s?
8. How did Tkachov view the Russian peasantry? Who then would lead the revolution, in his
view?
9. Describe the “Going to the People” movement. How did the peasants receive them?
10. How was Land and Liberty different from previous populist movements?
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VIII.
How did Land and Liberty justify revolutionary violence?
How did The Black partition and The People’s Will differ?
What noticeable shift of mood and tactics occurred in the populist movement by the 1880s?
What was the significance of Alexander II’s assassination?
Chapter 7
1. How do you explain the atmosphere of despondency in the 1880s?
2. What was meant by “small deeds” activism?
3. Define Tolstoy’s post-crisis “ethical anarchism.”
4. How did Plekhanov assess the growth of capitalism in Russia? What did this mean for
populists?
5. What arguments could be made for and against the applicability of Marxism (Social
Democracy) to Russia?
6. What three groups of revolutionaries were active in the 1880s?
7. What were “self-education circles,” and what was their goal?
8. How did Nicholas II view reform upon his accession to the throne? Why did political activity
grow despite this attitude?
9. What were the zemstva, and how did they nurture liberalism?
10. How did the famine of 1891 reinvigorate populism?
11. What issues divided Marxists (Social Democrats) in the 1890s?
12. What did Lenin argue in What Is to Be Done?
IX.
Assessment
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What divided educated society and the autocracy in the nineteenth century?
How did the social composition of the intelligentsia change in the nineteenth century?
How does Offord assess the strengths and weaknesses of the nineteenth-century intelligentsia?
What issue divided Westernizers of the nineteenth century? What divided revolutionaries?
What is the “distinctive character” of Russian thought, to Offord?