Choose from these words to fill the blanks below:

central, inefficient, move, backwardness, tax, intellectual, overcome, instruments, Kiew, rethought, Soviet, army, paradoxical, Marxist, Western, Russian, agriculture, restraining, 1861, religious, independent, morality, ethnically, weak, abolished, healthy, lightly, governmental, serfs, community, 1651, late, revolutionary, valuable, late, enserfment, attracted, worse, wars, Mongols, impoverishment, bourgeoise, industrialization, free, sold

•

the character of the Russian state from its establishment to the pre-                          revolutionary time

•

the great dividing line is         1861

•

the liberation of the           serfs

•

how did serfdom develop and what were the consequences of serfdom

•

serfdom is the essential social fact of               Russian history

•

which has significance very much going into             Soviet times

•

serfdom developed relatively         late

•

at a time when the serfdom conditions in Europe became lighter and ultimately diminished

•

two aspectes led up to it

•

1. the                             impoverishment of the peasantry

•

came about because the Russian lands were not particularly suitable for                       agriculture

•

the best Russian cultivatable lands are comparable to the           worse cultivatable lands in the United States

•

        Kiew was a collection of cities and towns, but Russia had nothing comparable

•

the consequence of this is that a surplus that elsewhere contributed to the creation of cities, did not develop in Russia

•

thus the                     bourgeoise as a restraining force to the aristocracy did not come into existence at all

•

significant in 16th and 17th century when Russia was engaged in a number of         wars

•

spread of epidemics

•

destruction

•

peasants were         free, able to move, etc.

•

had to borrow in order to survive and so         sold himself into serfdom as a result of the wars

•

policies of the state

•

the Russian prince would assemble an         army of the small land owners

•

he could only pay through giving them land

•

the land was not by itself very                 valuable

•

16th, 17th century

•

aristocrats, the richer landlords were in the position to compete for labor by offering better conditions to peasants

•

the state had an interest in the                     enserfment of the peasantry

•

to keep them ready and               healthy enough to serve in the army

•

forbidden to         move in certain years

•

        1651 all free movement of the peasants was suspended and they became tied to the land

•

2. character of the nobility

•

could never have the characteristic of the               Western nobility

•

they were                     ethnically diverse

•

some descendants of Kiew princes

•

some came from               Mongols

•

acquired power through service of the Czar as opposed to having ancient connections to the land

•

the Czar made sure that this would not happen by moving the central location of aristocrats from one place to another

•

consequentially, the aristocrats were not able to effectively oppose               central power

•

what developed instead was a bureaucracy

•

there perceived interest was that of the state rather than that social class

•

              Marxist criticism saying that this was a state that served the interests of the nobility was not really accurate

•

it was a very         weak state

•

sounds                       paradoxical, since it was an autocracy

•

autocracy means there is no                       restraining force on central power

•

weak state means that the                       instruments which the central power had to influence every aspect of the culture, were missing

•

Russia was               lightly governed

•

the sense of public service was never developed

•

a great weakness

•

the Soviet Revolution of 1917 attempted to                 overcome this weakness

•

Russian culture

•

it remained fundamentally a                   religious culture up to the time of Peter the Great

•

the beginning of a division

•

1. Russians who believed that Russia was an                       independent and separate nation than Western Europe

•

2. Russians who were                   attracted by what Europe had to offer

•

Peter the Great became acquainted with the West

•

are willing to recognize the concept of                         backwardness in their culture

•

to this day there is this fundamental division in Russian                         intellectual life

•

1861 Serfdom was                   abolished by the state

•

economic reasons

•

it was                       inefficient

•

serf had little interest in improving the land

•

the peasant commune remained in place

•

represented the Russian peoples' commitment to                   community

•

major force before and after liberation

•

a hindrance

•

countryside was overpopulated

•

resisted peasants from moving into the city, since it would lower       tax revenue

•

the beginning of                                   industrialization

•

spiritual reason

•

Russian rules including the nobility lost faith in the                 morality of keeping people serfs

•

1861 is the same year as the beginning of the American civil war

•

the nobility carried out                         governmental functions

•

once the authority of the nobel was abolished, everything had to be                   rethought

•

state entities such as city councils came into being

•

last decades of the 19th century, comparatively         late

•

a major change in many areas of life