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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 converted Belinsky to the idealism of Fichte and Schelling?

2. Where was Belinsky born?

3. What was Belinsky's father like?

4. What qualities did the characters based on Belinsky possess?

5. Why was Belinsky expelled from university?

Short Essay Questions

1. How did Tolstoy's theories and values appear in his novels?

2. How are Herzen and Turgenev similar? How are they different?

3. What was Herzen's early activist career like?

4. How was Turgenev's work viewed at the end of his life?

5. What does the term "superfluous men" mean in Russian literature?

6. What was the stance of the "new men" toward Turgenev?

7. What balances did Belinsky strike in his social status and identity?

8. What qualities did the characters based on Belinsky have?

9. Who was Nikolay Chernychevsky and what was his role in Russian culture?

10. What Western thinkers influenced Populism?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

What cultural developments in Russia and what European philosophical and political ideas made the peasant commune an attractive basis for social organization to the populists?

Essay Topic 2

Where else in the modern world are people playing out this tension between progress on one hand and nationalism or localism, on the other? How does the Russian example--of revolutionaries trying to preserve Russian social structures in the face of industrial or modern reforms--relate to the modern example?

Essay Topic 3

Was writing enough for Russian writers, or did they have to be known for their actions as well? Whether it is Herzen's radical magazine or Tolstoy's radical innovations on his estate, it seems that literature itself could never be more than a part of a man's identity. Why was this? Were there writers who were successful by simply being writers?

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This section contains 698 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample