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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What has the consensus been about Leo Tolstoy?
(a) That he was a brilliant novelist but a bad thinker.
(b) That he was really a cleric, more than a novelist.
(c) That he was ahead of his time as a thinker.
(d) That he was more of a philosopher than a novelist.

2. What ideas did Tolstoy believe in?
(a) Tolstoy advocated for a strict aristocracy to keep the unruly impulses of the masses under control.
(b) Tolstoy rejected original sin and idealized the innocence of children.
(c) Tolstoy believed in Russians' innate racial cohesion.
(d) Tolstoy proposed the right of Russia to govern Eastern Europe.

3. What native influence affected the Russian Populists?
(a) Serfdom.
(b) The gloom of Russian philosophy.
(c) Russian Orthodox traditions.
(d) Russian agricultural practices.

4. What was Belinsky's father like?
(a) Belinsky's father was a gentleman farmer.
(b) Belinsky's father was a bureaucrat in the agriculture ministry.
(c) Belinsky's father was an engraver.
(d) Belinsky's father was a retired naval doctor who drank.

5. According to Berlin, why is there not a good biography of Alexander Herzen?
(a) Because Herzen destroyed all of his papers.
(b) Because Herzen's autobiography is so remarkable.
(c) Because Herzen's papers were all lost in a fire.
(d) Because Herzen's biographers were censored by the government.

6. What was Herzen anxious to avoid becoming?
(a) A political prisoner.
(b) An over-educated dilettante.
(c) A bureaucrat.
(d) A husband.

7. What balance did Herzen strike in his philosophy?
(a) A balance between political engagement and artistic remove.
(b) A balance between living naturally and making art.
(c) A balance between revolutionary activities and aristocratic manners.
(d) A balance between social justice and intellectual skepticism.

8. Who was the thinker Tolstoy agreed with most?
(a) Rousseau.
(b) Mazzini.
(c) Pestalozzi.
(d) Marcus Aurelius.

9. When did Russian Populism begin to decline?
(a) After the opening of the Trans-Siberia railroad in 1889.
(b) After the abolition of serfdom in 1861.
(c) After the death of the Tsar in 1881.
(d) After the conviction of the Petrachevsky Circle.

10. Who were Herzen's parents?
(a) Herzen's father was a gentleman; his mother was his mistress.
(b) Herzen's father was a painter; his mother was a writer.
(c) Herzen's father was a musician; his mother was an actress.
(d) Herzen's father was a journalist; his mother was a homemaker.

11. What view of Turgenev does Berlin say is misleading?
(a) The idea of Turgenev as a prophet of the Russian Revolution.
(b) The idea of Turgenev as a literary writer drawn reluctantly into politics.
(c) The idea of Turgenev as a revolutionary under cover of a writer.
(d) The idea of Turgenev as an aristocrat in peasant's clothing.

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

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

14. How did Herzen apply the philosophy of the philosopher whose work he followed?
(a) Herzen found beauty in nature, and tried to escape from a corrupt society.
(b) Herzen applied theories methodically and pragmatically to social problems.
(c) Herzen concluded that no one grand theory could solve society's problems.
(d) Herzen wasted his time on drinking and gambling as a rebellion against a rational society.

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

Short Answer Questions

1. How was Belinsky described by the writers he influenced?

2. How were Tolstoy's early stories received?

3. Where was Herzen educated?

4. Which principles did Belinsky never abandon?

5. How did Turgenev differ from Tolstoy and Dostoevsky?

(see the answer keys)

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