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This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

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

2. What Keats-like gift did Turgenev have?
(a) Turgenev had a gift for writing in Italian.
(b) Turgenev had a gift for making himself popular with peasants.
(c) Turgenev had a gift for short evocative verse.
(d) Turgenev had a gift for "negative capability."

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

4. What was Tolstoy's experience of European ideas?
(a) From his reading of European thinkers, Tolstoy saw the flaws in Russian society.
(b) Tolstoy's friendship with European writers showed him the inevitability of revolutionary change.
(c) Tolstoy's travels throughout Europe showed him the superior forms of social organization.
(d) After traveling to Europe, Tolstoy became contemptuous of European "expertise."

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

Short Answer Questions

1. What did Turgenev try to do with the novel he published five years after Fathers and Children?

2. What ideas did Tolstoy believe in?

3. Where did Tolstoy find the source of his philosophy?

4. Who advocated Russian Populism?

5. What has the consensus been about Leo Tolstoy?

Short Essay Questions

1. Where did Alexander Herzen come from?

2. What was Tolstoy's social life like after graduating from university?

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

4. What was Tolstoy's education like?

5. According to Berlin, why was Turgenev attacked from both left and right?

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

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

8. Why did Turgenev and Botkin despise Chernychevsky?

9. What was Herzen's relationship with his friends?

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

(see the answer keys)

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