GEOGRAPHY 308 MIDTERM I STUDY GUIDE
15 multiple choice, 15 matching or ranking, 30 map section = 60 total x 2.5 = 150 points
Drawing from readings, lectures, videos and the Countries chart.
INTRODUCTION
Ethnic breakup of USSR, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia into new countries
Majority religious groups (on Chart)
Majority language group or family (on Chart)
Geographic implications of end of Cold War
Economic geographic transition
Decolonization of Russian Empire
Country names/capitals from Chart: http://www.uwec.edu/grossmzc/GEOG308chart.html
PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF USSR
Temperature patterns/Why Russia is cold
Precipitation patterns
Banding of vegetation, forest, soils, agriculture, land use
Relationship to population settlement and ethnic patterns
Major zones on map: mixed forest, steppe, forest-steppe,
semi-arid/desert, Mediterranean, taiga/boreal forest, tundra
Patterns of coal/metals/oil distribution
Major ranges in West, North, South
Major rivers in West, North, South
Major lakes/seas in West, North, South
PRE-SOVIET ERA
Major Slavic and/or Orthodox ethnic groups
Causes for Russian expansion
Comparisons to U.S. westward expansion
Physical and social reasons for Russian underdevelopment
Eastern Orthodoxy
Proto-Slavs
Kievan Rus; relationship to Byzantine Empire
Mongol invasion/Golden Horde occupation
Muscovy growth/Homeland
Imperial era under Romanov Czars/Czarinas
Conquest of Tatars, Siberia into Boreal Riverine zone
Expansion of Russian ethnic group
Western conquests and leaning to West under Peter and Catherine
St. Petersburg
Main powers/barriers in West / Napoleonic wars
Main powers/barriers in South / Crimean war / Great Game in Afghanistan
Main powers/barriers in East / Russo-Japanese war
Russian feudal serfdom
Russification/Cyrillic use
Conflicts between Modernizers and Slavophiles
Main locations of industrialization
Three empires partitioning Poland
Shatterbelts in Balkans, Caucasus
Role of Ottoman, Austro-Hungarian empires in SE Europe
SOVIET ERA
Classic Marxism vs. Russian Marxism
Role of peasantry under Leninism, Stalinism
Internationalist faction vs. pro-war faction before WWI
Major powers in WWI
Major powers in Russian Civil War
Petrograd/Leningrad
Meaning of Soviet
Two stages of 1917 revolution
Socialism in One Country
Lenin on Nationalism of the Oppressor/Russian nationalism
Self-determination of new countries after WWI
Stalinism
Command economy/State socialism
Lenin and Stalin on nationalism
Formation of SSRs
Formation of Autonomous SSRs
Divide-and-rule ethnic strategy
Soviet pact with Germany, 1939 annexations
German invasion; factors in Soviet victory
Russian nationalism in WWII
Annexations after WWII
Kaliningrad enclave
Bessarabia/Moldavia
Soviet occupation in Eastern Europe/ Warsaw Pact
Independent Communist states
Shifting border changes in Poland, Ukraine, etc.
Iron Curtain
Berlin Airlift
Berlin Wall
Marshall Plan
North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)
Hungarian Revolution
Khrushchev policies
Virgin Lands in N. Kazakhstan, S. Siberia
Brezhnev policies/Brezhnev Doctrine
Prague Spring/invasion of Czechoslovakia
Afghanistan invasion
Polish Solidarity
Euromissiles
POST-SOVIET ERA
Political or economic reform first?
Gorbachev policies
Glasnost benefits and drawbacks
Perestroika benefits and drawbacks
Place names changes: De-Sovietization, Indigenization, Transliteration
Cyrillic changing to Roman in some SSRs
Reasons for defeat in Afghanistan
Goulash Communism
Better-off first to revolt / Pull of EU
Role of television in transition
Sequence of transition in Eastern Europe; Poland, Hungary, GDR, Czech.
Velvet Revolution/Divorce
Romanian Revolution
Possible paths for new regimes
Baltic independence declarations
SSR name changes, sovereignty declarations
Yeltsin vision of Russian identity
Communist coup and aftermath
Commonweath of Independent States
Shock therapy economics
Winners’ and losers’ regions
Post-Communists in Eastern Europe
Unreformed Communists and nationalists in Russia
Putin policies
War in Chechnya
GEOPOLITICS
Western propaganda about USSR/ Red Bloc
Eastern propaganda about West
Cold War flashpoints
Cold War competition in Third World
Domino Theory
Heartland Theory/Mackinder
Pivot Area/Rimland
Containment Theory/Kennan
Totalitarian or authoritarian dictatorships
Sino-Soviet (China) conflict
China Card
Détente with U.S.
Overextension beyond Slavic Orthodox boundaries
Clash of Civilizations theory/Huntington
Atlanticists vs Eurasianists
NATO expansion – countries, implications
EU expansion – countries, implications
Blue Curtain
Orthodox minorities in West
Catholic minorities in East
Effects of Yugoslav wars on Russia
Effects of Sept. 11
Caspian Basin oil/gas pipelines
New U.S. bases encircling Russia
Effects of Iraq Crisis
Effects of Asian economic growth
Star Wars/National Missile Defense
Ukraine election—effects of historic boundaries, relations with Russia
ENVIRONMENT
Reasons for weak Soviet environmental movement
Positive developments since fall of USSR
Negative developments since fall of USSR
Chernobyl nuclear disaster/fallout
Political effects of Chernobyl
Kalmykia
Donbass and Kuzbass coal basins
Kola Peninsula
Desertification
Salinization
Aral Sea
Reindeer contamination
Aural gold mine cyanide spill
Clear-cutting in Siberia
Caspian Sea sturgeon and seals
Kyshtym nuclear disaster
Sverdlovsk anthrax disaster
Non-point pollution
Black Triangle
Gabcikovo dams in Slovakia
Pancevo chemical plant in Serbia
Semey (Semipalatinsk) nuclear tests
Soviet nuclear submarines
Lake Baikal
Environmental Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs)
ETHNICITY/LANGUAGE will be covered on 2nd Midterm
MAP SECTION
You will match letters A-E to each country on the blank map, using the description below but not
the country name. Use the map on pp 2-3 of Goldman to locate countries. Chechnya (just north of
Georgia) and Russian Kaliningrad enclave (between Poland and Lithuania) are not on the map.
Former Soviet republics or regions:
Latvia
Lithuania
Estonia
Russia
Kaliningrad
Ukraine
Belarus
Moldova
Georgia
Azerbaijan
Armenia
Chechnya
Turkmenistan
Kazakhstan
Tajikistan
Uzbekistan
Kyrgyzstan
Capital in Riga, annexed three times by Russians
First republic to declare independence from USSR
Speaks Finno-Ugric language; watched Finnish TV
Still the largest country on Earth
Russian enclave; part of German East Prussia before WWII
Site of Chernobyl nuclear disaster in 1986.
Historically close to Russians; capital in Minsk
Speaks Romantic language like Romanian.
Orthodox and Caucasian; capital in Tbilisi
Turkic Muslim oil-rich state that lost Nagorno-Karabakh.
Orthodox but not Slavic; capital in Yerevan
Caucasus Muslim people who historically have resisted Russian rule.
Karakum Canal and Desert; capital in Ashgabat
Large ethnic Russian minority in northern “Virgin Lands” steppe
Speaks Iranian-type language; capital in Dushanbe.
Cotton fields dried up Aral Sea; capital in Tashkent
Tien Shan Mountains; capital in Bishkek.
Other former Warsaw Pact member states:
Poland
Czech Republic
Slovakia
Hungary
Romania
Bulgaria
Albania
Mongolia
Solidarity Union on strike 1980, won election 1989
Soviets crush Prague Spring in 1968
Separated from Prague’s rule in Velvet Divorce in 1993
Revolution briefly ousted Soviets in 1956
Execution of dictator in 1989
Only Slavic Orthodox member of Warsaw Pact outside USSR
Originally part of Warsaw Pact, but broke with Soviets to back China.
Empire conquered early Russians; now Buddhist country
Former Yugoslav republics:
Macedonia
Croatia
Slovenia
Bosnia-Hercegovina
Serbia-Montenegro
Orthodox and Slavic, formerly part of Ottoman Empire, capital in Skopje
Large Catholic republic that was borderland of Austro-Hungarian Empire
Tiny Catholic republic first to leave Yugoslavia
Slavic Muslims are the largest group
Changed its name from Yugoslavia in 2003