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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. How does Berlin describe the state of Russian culture in the mid-1800s?

2. According to Berlin, what did Tolstoy have the greatest faith in?

3. What was the name of the committee in charge of government censorship?

4. How does Berlin describe Bakunin?

5. What advantages did Hegel's theories have for Bakunin?

Short Essay Questions

1. Describe the difference between progressive and reactionary Romanticism.

2. What do foxes and hedgehogs represent in Archilochus' adage, and how does Berlin apply the distinction to Russian thinkers?

3. Which Russian intellectuals did Pavel Annenkov describe in his memoirs?

4. What was Russia's cultural situation in the 1830s and 40s?

5. In what ways does Berlin see Tolstoy's experience as representative of Russian culture?

6. What conspiracy group did the Second of April Committee unveil, and what was the result of the trial?

7. What did Nicholas Stankevich find attractive in Hegel's theories?

8. Who was Joseph de Maistre and what ideas did Tolstoy share with him?

9. What did "intelligentsia" mean in Russia, where the term was coined?

10. What was the effect of the "moral quarantine" of Western ideas in Russia?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

What cultural factors made the Russian populists so popular at first and then so ineffective? Why were populist leaders so out of touch that when populists went to the communes in 1874, the peasants rebuffed them whose organization they idealized?

Essay Topic 2

How did authors resist the pitfalls of political engagement? Choose three authors or critics and describe their strategies for refusing to engage with the political tensions of their day.

Essay Topic 3

What are the strengths of the kind of biography Berlin is practicing here? What are the limitations? What does Berlin show effectively? What questions remain unaddressed, or unresolved?

(see the answer keys)

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