What you must do in this unit
- Read the textbook chapter 40.
- Check the remarks by Professor Blois and Professor Evans on Gorbachev.
- Study the Questions to Consider and the Key Terms for the Unit.
- Submit the Gorbachev paragraph.
What you can do in this unit
- Read Gorbachev on 1989 by Katrina vanden Heuvel and Stephen Cohen from The Nation (16 November 2009).
Some videos that you can watch for this unit
- Mikhail Gorbachev
- Gorbachev reflects on course of modern Russia
- Gorbachev (biography)
- Mikhail Gorbachev turns 80
- Gorbachev Resigns: December 25, 1991
- Nov. 10, 1989: Celebration at the Berlin Wall
- Mikhail Gorbachev On 20th Anniversary Of Fall Of Berlin Wall
- Gorbachev: The Great Dissident, Programme One, Part 1
- For extra credit please suggest to your instructor a relevant video for this unit of the course. Send the title of the video, the URL and a brief explanation of why you find the video interesting and applicable to the material that is being studied in this unit.
Extra Credit Options
- For up to 25 points of extra credit, watch Malenkaia Vera (Little Vera) and, in a one-page paper, assess the accuracy of the film's portrayal of Soviet society in the 1980s.
- For up to 25 points of extra credit, watch Moscow on the Hudson and, in a one-page paper, assess the accuracy of the film's portrayal of the Russian experience.
- For up to 25 points of extra credit, read Andrei Amalrik, Will the Soviet Union Survive until 1984? (1971) and write a one-page paper in which you assess the accuracy of Amalrik's ideas.
- For up to 25 points of extra credit, read Mikhail Gorbachev, Perestroika: New Thinking for Our Country and the World (1987) and write a one-page paper explaining the main points of Gorbachev's policy of perestroika.
- For up to 25 points of extra credit, read Lech Walesa, The Struggle and the Triumph: An Autobiography (1992), not a Russian but an important political figure, and write a one-page paper explaining the success of the Solidarity Movement.
- For up to 25 points of extra credit, read Alla Yaroshinskaya, Chernobyl: The Forbidden Truth (1995) and write a one-page paper explaining what went wrong at Chernobyl.
- For up to 25 points of extra credit, read Anatolii Rybakov, Children of the Arbat (1987) and write a one-page paper about the author's portrayal of the legacy of Stalinism.
Unit Learning Objectives
- Upon successful completion of this unit, you will be able to (1) explain the importance of Gorbachev in Russian history, (2) summarize his ideas of гласность (glasnost') and перестройка (perestroika) and (3) analyze a historical primary source.