Russia/Eurasia Exam Prep

Question 1

What is the largest inland body of water?

Answer 1

The Caspian Sea

Question 2

What is the largest ethnic group in Russia and the Eurasian republics?

Answer 2

Slavic (Russia, Ukraine, Belarus)

Question 3

Where do most of the people in the region live?

Answer 3

Russia (150 million)

Question 4

What is the ‘lifeline’ of Eastern Europe?

Answer 4

The Danube River

Question 5

How is the transport of goods made difficult by the Siberian climate?

Answer 5

The harsh climate and terrain of Siberia make it difficult and very expensive to reach areas with abundant natural resources.

Question 6

How have people in Siberia learned to overcome problems posed by their climate?

Answer 6

Frozen rivers are used as highways to transport goods because of the permafrost in Siberia. High-rise buildings stand 6 feet off the ground on special pilings or posts.

Question 7

What three empires dominated the Balkan peninsula in the past 700 years?

Answer 7

1. Poland and Lithuania united and expanded over Ukraine.
2. The Turkish Ottoman Empire conquered southeastern Europe.
3. The Austrian Hapsburg emperors gained control of Hungary, Czech lands, and Slovakia in 1526.

Question 8

What is an autocracy?

Answer 8

A system of government by one person with absolute power

Question 9

What was the spark that ignited Europe into WWI?

Answer 9

A Serbian assassin killed the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne Archduke Franz Ferdinand on June 28, 1914.

Question 10

Name four reforms created by Alexander II.

Answer 10

1. Freed serfs (needed cheap labor for factory work)
2. Limited use of secret police
3. Eased restrictions on the press
4. Expanded education

Question 11

What was “Peace, Land and Bread”? Who coined the term?

Answer 11

Coined by Vladimir Lenin
Led the revolution after the fall of Czar Nicholas II
The saying was used as propaganda - appealed to peasants and demonstrations broke out everywhere in Russia in 1917. Lenin eventually took the government by force.

Question 12

What was the new name of Russia following the fall of the Czars?

Answer 12

Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR)

or the Soviet Union

Question 13

How did Stalin maintain his power during his rule?

Answer 13

Granted power to the secret police

Arrested opponents of communism in purges in the 1930s

Question 14

Why was the Comintern established?

Answer 14

To encourage Communist parties in other countries to overthrow their own government by legal or illegal means.

Question 15

What was the chief foreign policy goal of the US during the Truman administration?

Answer 15

Halting the spread of communism through ‘containment’, which resulted in the formation of NATO. The Truman Doctrine supported free peoples who were resisting attempted takeovers by outside forces.

Question 16

Who was the Soviet leader who initiated de-Stalinization?

Answer 16

Nikita Khrushchev - to reverse policies that Stalin used to stay in power

Question 17

What was “peaceful coexistence”?

Answer 17

A policy change a few years after the Cold War, where the Soviet Union would continue to compete with the West, but also avoid war (under Khrushchev’s leadership).

Question 18

Why and when was the Berlin Wall built?

Answer 18

1961 - built to keep people living in communist East Germany from fleeing to the democratic West.

Question 19

What is genocide?

Answer 19

The deliberate and systematic killing of a large group of people, especially those of a particular ethnic group

Question 20

What was the Warsaw Pact, and who was involved?

Answer 20

The Warsaw Pact was a USSR initiative that turned into a strengthening of allies between eight member nations: Soviet Union, Poland, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, and Albania.

Question 21

What was the Iron Curtain, and who was involved?

Answer 21

Churchill’s term to describe the Soviet-dominated east European nations. There was a boundary (physical and political) dividing east and west Europe, and states on either side developed political and economic allies that strengthened the separation.

Question 22

What was the Eastern Bloc and who was involved?

Answer 22

A term referring to the communist states of Eastern and Central Europe as well as Yugoslavia and Albania. These nations aligned with the Soviet goals of restricting emigration and strict government control was commonplace.

Question 23

What were the results of the Cuban Missile Crisis?

Answer 23

Establishment of “hot line” telephone that linked Washington and Moscow
Signing of treaties banning the testing of nuclear weapons in the atmosphere

Question 24

What were the results of the Chernobyl explosion in Ukraine? When was it?

Answer 24

1986 - immediate deaths of about 30 plant workers
About 7,000 cases of thyroid cancer due to radiation poisoning
13-30% of 190 metric tons of uranium dioxide fuel and fission products were released into the atmosphere

Question 25

Explain the changes to Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia after the fall of communism.

Answer 25

Czechoslovakia peacefully split into two nations: the Czech Republic and Slovakia in 1993. Yugoslavia, on the other hand, experienced some violence. Following the fall of communism, six major ethnic groups split the region into six smaller nations: Slovenia, Croatia, Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, and Montenegro.
Violence: Bosnian independence led to major conflicts between Muslims, Croats and Serbians (250,000 killed, 2 million forced from homes). Ethnic cleansing occurred when Serbs forced other ethnic groups out of the region (mass murder and terror).

Question 26

What is perestroika?

Answer 26

Mikhail Gorbachev’s economic restructuring that called for a change from a command system to a free market. Factory managers made product decisions, farmers made crop decisions, and independent business was allowed to operate with much less government insight. The belief was that individual freedoms would promote economic growth and remove stagnation.

Question 27

What is glasnost?

Answer 27

One of Gorbachev’s reforms, and it was a policy of “openness” tied to freedom of speech for citizens and the media. Political prisoners and dissidents were freed, but the policy also opened Gorbachev up to more public criticism.

Question 28

What different events were seen as signals of the breakup of the Soviet Union?

Answer 28

The fall of the Berlin Wall
Escalation of US war efforts
Tensions between ethnic minorities
Gorbachev’s new policies, perestroika and glasnost

Question 29

What is the CIS? What groups benefited from economic changes in the CIS?

Answer 29

Commonwealth of Independent States

Russia benefitted because many of the member nations bought natural gas and oil from Russia’s Siberian reserves.

Question 30

Who is Vladimir Putin and what has he done in Russia?

Answer 30

President of Russia
Credited with bringing political and economic stability back to Russia, although there are concerns about his ties to elite businessmen and his human rights record.

Question 31

What regional conflicts have erupted between Russia and their former areas of control following the fall of the Soviet Union?

Answer 31

Russia annexed Crimea, the small Ukrainian peninsula, in March of 2014. Hardly any action was taken against Russia’s offensive move.