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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What allowed the leader of the Populists to lead?
(a) He was born to an aristocratic father and a poor mother, so he understood both worlds.
(b) He was born after the period of repression, so he experienced a full spectrum of Russian literature and life.
(c) He was born in Europe, so he could see Russian culture without bias.
(d) He was born to a parish priest, so he understood poor people's concerns.

2. What did the character Bazarov represent?
(a) Anarchy and violence.
(b) Destructive criticism and nihilism.
(c) The traditional aristocrat.
(d) The coming Russian Revolution.

3. What idea caused Tolstoy agony?
(a) The Populist threat to the aristocracy.
(b) The peasants' plight.
(c) The industrialization of Russia.
(d) The decline of the rents on his estate.

4. What sentiment ultimately moved the Populists?
(a) Idealistic hope for social justice.
(b) Revulsion from capitalism.
(c) Lust for power.
(d) Longing for political stability.

5. What did Herzen believe was the "goal" of life?
(a) Social justice.
(b) Political equality for everyone.
(c) Life itself.
(d) Art.

6. What did Populists do in large scale in 1874?
(a) Declare independence from Russia.
(b) Publish a manifesto prophesying Communism.
(c) Begin a rebellion in Moscow.
(d) Study social organization in peasant communes.

7. What values did Herzen share with the group he was part of?
(a) Herzen and his circle exorcised their guilt at being landowners by drinking and gambling and generally dissipating themselves.
(b) Herzen and his circle wanted to escape from Russian life into aesthetics and decadent Western art.
(c) Herzen and his circle felt compelled to respond radically to Russia's stifling culture.
(d) Herzen and his circle believed that historical progress would sweep away the aristocracy.

8. What did Herzen understand that the revolutionaries did not understand?
(a) The power of the aristocracy.
(b) The cost of revolutionary change.
(c) The corrupting nature of power.
(d) The hellish nature of armed conflict.

9. Who changed the consensus about Tolstoy?
(a) Fet.
(b) Dobrolyubov.
(c) Mikhailovsky.
(d) Chernyshevsky.

10. What kind of position has Turgenev's legacy occupied in Russian society?
(a) Turgenev has been turned into a populist hero.
(b) Turgenev has been attacked by all sides of the political spectrum.
(c) Turgenev was turned into a martyr by the left.
(d) Turgenev has become a model gentleman farmer.

11. How did Herzen manifest the values he shared with his circle?
(a) Herzen moved to Europe to write.
(b) Herzen drank and gambled, and dabbled in tales that described his exploits.
(c) Herzen founded a revolutionary syndicate.
(d) Herzen wrote anti-Tsarist propaganda.

12. What group was Herzen part of in university?
(a) Herzen was one of Belinsky's proteges.
(b) Herzen was one of Turgenev's "superfluous men."
(c) Herzen was part of the Petrachevsky circle.
(d) Herzen belonged to a group of student radicals.

13. Which two thinkers influenced the Russian populists?
(a) Fourier and Mill.
(b) Locke and Rousseau.
(c) Darwin and Marx.
(d) Kant and Hume.

14. Whose failures did the leader of the Populists reject?
(a) Herzen's.
(b) Bakunin's.
(c) Gogol's.
(d) Dostoevsky's.

15. What qualities did the most important leader of the Russian Populists have that made him successful?
(a) A talent for collecting details and making concrete plans.
(b) An eloquent writing and speaking style.
(c) A magnetic almost messianic personality.
(d) A brilliant intellect.

Short Answer Questions

1. What quality redeemed the characters based on Belinsky?

2. Where did Belinsky receive encouragement?

3. What did Belinsky find in literature?

4. How was Fathers and Children received in Russia?

5. What balance did Belinsky strike in his career?

(see the answer keys)

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