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This test consists of 15 multiple choice questions and 5 short answer questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What conspiracy against the Tsar did the censorship program discover?
(a) The Molotov anarchists.
(b) The Moscow threat.
(c) The Petrashevsky Circle.
(d) The Decembrists.

2. How was the period that followed the Tsar's acts known?
(a) A period of tolerance.
(b) A period of prosperity.
(c) A period of repression.
(d) A period of terror.

3. What effect did German Romanticism have on Russian students?
(a) It demanded a commitment to social and national causes.
(b) It made them resentful of the social distinctions they inherited with their culture.
(c) It made them dissolute and morally bankrupt.
(d) It made them hungry for violent rebellion and abrupt social change.

4. What popular idea did Herzen disagree with?
(a) Herzen disagreed with the notion of a pattern in historical events.
(b) Herzen disagreed with the notion of individual freedom.
(c) Herzen disagreed with the notion of state power as a justification for violence.
(d) Herzen disagreed with the notion that peasants deserve representation in government.

5. How does Berlin describe progressive Romanticism?
(a) Progressive Romantics believed that serfs would free themselves through violence.
(b) Progressive Romantics believed that progress was going to come from industry and social reforms.
(c) Progressive Romantics believed that society was inevitably moving forward.
(d) Progressive Romantics believed that intellectuals were responsible for the soul of the nation.

6. What do hedgehogs represent in the adage that "the fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing"?
(a) The concreteness of experience.
(b) Society.
(c) Abstractions.
(d) Political calculations.

7. How does Berlin describe Herzen's prose style?
(a) Elaborate.
(b) Leaden.
(c) Meticulous.
(d) Dazzling.

8. What writer supported the Tsar's acts?
(a) Alexander Pushkin.
(b) Fyodor Dostoevsky.
(c) Leo Tolstoy.
(d) Nikolai Gogol.

9. What policy of Peter the Great's had spawned the intelligentsia?
(a) Peter the Great invested heavily in bringing European intellectuals to Russia.
(b) Peter the Great sent the sons of aristocrats to Europe for education.
(c) Peter the Great instituted land reforms and made education more affordable to Russian peasants.
(d) Peter the Great acted as a patron of the arts and initiated a Renaissance in Russian arts and letters.

10. Who was Mikhail Bakunin's mentor?
(a) Pavel Annenkov.
(b) Fyodor Dostoevsky.
(c) Nicholas Stankevich.
(d) Vissarion Belinksy.

11. What does Berlin say Tolstoy felt guilty about?
(a) Being too separate from the lives of the peasants.
(b) Having too much insight as an artist.
(c) Having too much wealth as a landowner.
(d) Not having an overarching vision.

12. What did Tolstoy believe was the only way to access truth and reason?
(a) Spiritual transcendence.
(b) Transcendental experience.
(c) Human experience.
(d) Historical awareness.

13. How does Berlin describe conservative Romantics?
(a) Conservative Romantics believed that progress was a trap, and that the only way out would be to develop Russian nationalism.
(b) Conservative Romantics believed that the best progress was a return to traditional Russian values.
(c) Conservative Romantics believed that intellectuals could thrive without changing the aristocratic government.
(d) Conservative Romantics believed that mechanical reforms would not work without a deep understanding of the Russian soul

14. What had been the outcome of the European states' revolution?
(a) A new era of peace.
(b) Napoleonic wars.
(c) The revolution failed.
(d) The Thirty-Years' War.

15. What student of Stankevich's lectured on Western medieval history in Moscow?
(a) Granovsky.
(b) Bakunin.
(c) Turgenev.
(d) Herzen.

Short Answer Questions

1. Who wrote the memoir titled "The Birth of the Russian Intelligentsia"?

2. What idea captured the imagination of the Russian intelligentsia?

3. What features of European culture were missing in Russia in the 1830s and 40s?

4. What was the result of Russia's "moral quarantine"?

5. Where did the term "intelligentsia" come from?

(see the answer keys)

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