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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. Who was the healer on the program "120 Minutes"?

2. What young Party leader in Southern Russia did Yakovlev help protect in the 1970s?

3. Who became the new KGB chief in 1988?

4. Who claimed to heal the Romanovs' son of hemophilia?

5. Who wrote the saga of Rome's decline and fall?

Short Essay Questions

1. What was "The Charity Society"?

2. How did one of Parkomenko's investigative reports cause a terrific scandal?

3. How did Yeltsin win his first battle inside the "horror house" of the Soviet system?

4. What did Sakharov try to tell Gorbachev one evening during the first Congress session?

5. Why during World War II did Aleksandr Yakovlev survive after being wounded?

6. Why did the publishers of the Novy Mir not know what to expect when Gorbachev suggested that the Soviet Writers' Union decide whether Solzhenitsyn should be published in the Soviet Union?

7. Describe Shcharansky's celebration of Hanukkah in Perm-35.

8. What did Volkogonov's team reveal in a draft of a history they were writing that appalled the hard-liners?

9. Who was the free man Remnick met on Sakhalin island?

10. What was the Baltic strategy to achieve independence?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

In 1989, healers were seen on television shows that were broadcast across the Soviet Union. Explain why the people turned to miracles and the supernatural and why the Party allowed and promoted this indulgence.

Essay Topic 2

Gorbachev and the Party had illusions about the future of the Soviet Union. Discuss these illusions and how events shattered Gorbachev's and the Party's illusions.

Essay Topic 3

In 1988, threats against the Jews resurfaced. Using examples from Lenin's Tomb, discuss why there was such an anti-Semitic feeling off and on during the history of the Soviet Union and how events in the empire influenced the renewed hatred for the Jews.

(see the answer keys)

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