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| Alexander III and his wife Dagmar | Formal portrait of Alexander III by Ivan Kramskoi | Nicholas II and his wife Alexandra | Formal portrait of Nicholas II by Il'ia Repin |
What you must do in this unit
- Read the textbook chapters 28, 29 and 30.
- Read the short account of the expulsion of the American citizen George Kennan from Russia.
- Check the remarks by Professor Blois and Professor Evans on Alexander III and Nicholas II.
- Study the Questions to Consider and the Key Terms for the Unit.
- Submit the Witte paragraph.
What you can do in this unit
- Read Petr Stolypin's "We Need a Great Russia" speech to the Russian Duma in 1907. This was an important policy proclamation in which he set forth his plan for revamping the Russian countryside. Log into Blackboard and look for the speech under course documents.
- To get an idea about life in Russia before 1917, have a look at the photographs at The Empire That Was Russia: The Prokudin-Gorskii Photographic Record Recreated and at Old Russia.
- Read a contemporary explanation of Russia's lack of any substantial industry
- Read chapter 25 and chapter 26 from Mary Platt Parmele (1843-1911) A Short History of Russia (1907, 4th edition). These are short chapters, and this is optional reading.
- In H. W. Williams, Russia of the Russians (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1915), consider reading any of these chapters: The Bureaucracy and the Constitution, The Press, Church and People, Peasants and Proprietors, Trade and Industry and In the Chief City [St. Petersburg]. Williams was a newspaper correspondent in Russia who married a politically-active Russian liberal woman. His book, though almost a century old, is well-written and very much reflective of pre-World War I sentiments. He made some very interesting observations about Russia in his book.
Some videos that you can watch for this unit
- Assassination and Death Pyotr Stolypin
- Nicholas II: Russia's Last Emperor, Part 1
- Re-interment of remains of Tsar Nicholas II family still under debate
- The Assassination of Grigorii Rasputin
- Rasputin Pt 1/3
- History of Russia (PARTS 1-5) - Rurik to Revolution (This has background on Russian history leading up to the revolution.)
- 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, take a look at the 1897 map of St. Petersburg. In a one-page paper, explain what you can discover about St. Petersburg at the time from looking at and analyzing this old map.
- For up to 25 points of extra credit, watch Dersu Uzala (1975). What does the movie tell us about earlier Russian society, in a one-page paper?
- For up to 25 points of extra credit, watch Fiddler on the Roof (1971) and explain in a one-page paper how Jews did /did not get along with Russians at the turn of the century?
- For up to 25 points of extra credit, read Edward Judge, Easter in Kishinev: Anatomy of a Pogrom (1992) and write a one-page paper, "What were the government's motives in instigating the pogroms?".
- For up to 25 points of extra credit, read Theodore H. von Laue, Sergei Witte and the Industrialization of Russia (1963) and write a one-page paper explaining the "Witte system" of economic modernization.
- For up to 25 points of extra credit, read Robert Massie, Nicholas and Alexandra (1967) and write a one-page paper explaining what went wrong in Russia under tsar Nicholas II.
- For up to 10 points of extra credit, read the "Letter of the Revolutionary Committee to Alexander III,"" written after the assassination of Alexander II, and write a long paragraph that answers the question, Do you think that this was a wise move, sending this letter, on the part of the Russian revolutionaries? (Check the tsar's Manifesto of April 29, 1881, a *.PDF file).
- For up to 10 points of extra credit, read some excerpts from Konstantin Pobedonostsev, Reflections of a Russian Statesman (*.PDF), and write a long paragraph that answers the question, What were some of the main tenets of Pobedonostsev's political philosophy?
- For up to 10 points of extra credit, read a newspaper account of the Kishinev pogrom and write a paragraph explaining the impact of the pogrom on Kishinev.
- For up to 10 points of extra credit, read the Franco-Russian Alliance Military Convention (1892), and write a long paragraph that answers the question, How did this convention fit into the pre-1914 diplomatic scene?
- For extra credit up to 5 points, we are always looking for photos from historical sites (graves, statues, churches, battlefields, buildings, waterfalls, mountains, etc) from around the world, particularly Russia, to use in our online courses. If you have anything that you wish to share, we would much appreciate it, and you will receive credit for your photo if we use it in one of our courses. Any photos that you send must have been taken by yourself. Please attach your photos to an email and send to Professor Evans at charles.t.evans@gmail.com. Don’t use the cevans@nvcc.edu email because of size limit restrictions on my inbox.
Unit Learning Objectives
- Upon successful completion of this unit, you will be able to (1) demonstrate knowledge of the key characteristics of Russian history in the reigns of Aleksandr III and Nikolai II.