View a FREE sample

This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

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

2. How was Herzen seen by the revolutionaries of the 1860s and 1870s?

3. How widely was Belinsky read?

4. Who advocated Russian Populism?

5. When did Russian Populism begin to decline?

Short Essay Questions

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

2. What talent did Turgenev share with English poet John Keats?

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

4. How did Hegel's ideas influence Herzen?

5. What signs indicate the importance of Belinsky in Russian culture?

6. What course of action did Tolstoy advocate for intellectuals?

7. What was the critical consensus on Tolstoy, and how does Berlin revise it?

8. Where did Alexander Herzen come from?

9. What Western thinkers influenced Populism?

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

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

What cultural institutions or customs were Russian writers trying to defend when they were resisting European ideas of progress and Enlightenment? How did authors define the unique "Russian soul?"

Essay Topic 2

What is the state of radicalism in Western thought today? Where radicalism playing out, the way French and German radicalism is was playing out in Russia starting in the 1830s? Make a case for a current conflict as evidence of a modern cultural clash/reform/transformation.

Essay Topic 3

Were literature and philosophy separable from politics in 19th-century Russian literature, or were they simply the meditative and artistic versions of political activity? What was it about the cultural moment of 19th-century Russia that turned philosophy and literature into political questions?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 727 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample