Name ______Date______Class______
Russia: Land of the Tsars (Part I)
Russia: Land of the Tsars is a four-part series about the leaders of Russia from the Vikings in 862 to the Revolution in 1918. It discusses aspects of Russian history including expansion of the monarchy, the origins of the Russian Orthodox Church, armed conflicts, the changing political climate, opposition to the Tsars, and the gradual modernization of Russian society.
Objectives: Students will explore and analyze the history of the Russian rulers and the impact of their policies on the Russian people. They will examine complex political intrigues, the development of a nation, the process and consequences of introducing new political ideas, and the role of opposition movements in historical change.
Discussion Questions
1. Who said Russia is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma?
2. Russia is a nation of many ______.
3. ______warriors sailed down the rivers of Russia to trade in Asia.
4. Russia means “land of the ______”, what the native people called the Vikings.
5. What essential physical feature held Russia together?
6. Vladimir became the Grand Prince of ______?
7. Grand Prince Vladimir sought a religion to unite Russia, what did he choose?
8. Who were Boris and Gleb? What happened to them?
9. What was the Golden Horde? How long did they rule Russia?
10. The Mongol Horde laid siege to the city of ______in 1240 and burned it.
11. The Mongol warriors who ruled Russia were called ______by the Russians.
12. What was the first Russian civilization known as?
13. ______was a great city built around the fortress known as the Kremlin.
14. In 1380, Prince Dimitri led the Russians against the Mongols on the banks of the River
______.
15. Czar is Russian for ______.
16. Who were the Boyars?
17. In the Late 1400s, Ivan III drove out the ______.
18. Ivan the IV formally adopted the term ______at his coronation in January, 1547.
19. What did Ivan IV do to be named “Ivan the Terrible”?
20. Who were the Oprichniki? What role did they play in Ivan’s terror?
21. The ______attacked and burned Moscow to the ground, killing over 60,000 people.
22. How did Ivan’s son die?
Name ______Date______Class______
Russia: Land of the Tsars (Part II)
Russia: Land of the Tsars is a four-part series about the leaders of Russia from the Vikings in 862 to the Revolution in 1918. It discusses aspects of Russian history including expansion of the monarchy, the origins of the Russian Orthodox Church, armed conflicts, the changing political climate, opposition to the Tsars, and the gradual modernization of Russian society.
Objectives: Students will explore and analyze the history of the Russian rulers and the impact of their policies on the Russian people. They will examine complex political intrigues, the development of a nation, the process and consequences of introducing new political ideas, and the role of opposition movements in historical change.
Discussion Questions
1. Describe the “Time of Troubles”
2. What did the Russians do to the Polish pretender to the crown?
3. What is serfdom?
4. What did being a serf mean to a farmer?
5. Which Tsar instituted serfdom, and why?
6. Who is Sofia?
7. What was Sofia’s role during Peter’s early reign with his brother, Ivan V?
8. How did Sofia communicate with Peter when he was on the throne?
9. Who were the Streltsy?
10. What did Peter do with Sofia?
11. Why do you think Pyotr Alexeyevich Romanov was called Peter the Great?
12. What did he do that was so unusual for his time?
13. How did he try to westernize Russia?
14. What ideas did he introduce to Russia?
15. Peter had a passion for ships. What were the obstacles blocking his maritime ambitions?
16. What did Peter do in the West?
17. What did Peter do to the boyars and the Streltsy when he returned?
Name ______Date______Class______
Russia: Land of the Tsars (Part III)
Russia: Land of the Tsars is a four-part series about the leaders of Russia from the Vikings in 862 to the Revolution in 1918. It discusses aspects of Russian history including expansion of the monarchy, the origins of the Russian Orthodox Church, armed conflicts, the changing political climate, opposition to the Tsars, and the gradual modernization of Russian society.
Objectives: Students will explore and analyze the history of the Russian rulers and the impact of their policies on the Russian people. They will examine complex political intrigues, the development of a nation, the process and consequences of introducing new political ideas, and the role of opposition movements in historical change.
Discussion Questions
1. When Elizabeth seized power, what happened to the baby Tsar?
2. Who was Frederick the Great?
3. How did Catherine the Great come to power?
4. What kinds of ideas did she encourage?
5. In 1773, a peasant revolt took place in the ______River Basin.
6. Catherine the Great was obsessed with taking the Black Sea coast from the
______Empire.
7. The assassination of King ______XVI of ______worried Catherine and
caused her to doubt the ideals of the Enlightenment.
8. Grigory Potemkin, a favorite of Catherine’s, guided the assault on the
______and was later named a Prince of the Russian Empire.
9. How long was Catherine the Great’s reign?
10. Catherine’s grandson ______took the throne from his father Paul in a palace coup.
11. In 1807 ______forced Alexander I to sign a treaty of friendship with France.
12. Alexander I declared an alliance with England in 1811 and as a result Napoleon marched
on ______with the largest army in European history.
13. The Battle of ______took place outside of Moscow on September 7th, 1812. It was the single bloodiest battle of the Napoleonic wars with over 75,000 soldiers killed.
14. Napoleon Bonaparte lost over ______men in the war.
15. Alexander’s successor, Nicholas I, put down a revolt by the ______rebels
Name ______Date ______Class______
Russia: Land of the Tsars (Part IV)
Russia: Land of the Tsars is a four-part series about the leaders of Russia from the Vikings in 862 to the Revolution in 1918. It discusses aspects of Russian history including expansion of the monarchy, the origins of the Russian Orthodox Church, armed conflicts, the changing political climate, opposition to the Tsars, and the gradual modernization of Russian society.
Objectives Students will explore and analyze the history of the Russian rulers and the impact of their policies on the Russian people. They will examine complex political intrigues, the development of a nation, the process and consequences of introducing new political ideas, and the role of opposition movements in historical change.
Discussion Questions: (remember Tsar and Czar are the same thing)
1. What did Nicholas I do with the Decembrists?
2. Who was Russia’s great poet and national hero? How did he die?
3. The ______war showed that Russia was not as powerful as people thought.
4. How did Nicholas I die?
5. What kinds of reforms did Alexander II institute?
6. When did Alexander II sign the Emancipation Manifesto and free the serfs?
7. For freeing the serfs Alexander II was called the Czar-______.
8. Russia went to war with ______in 1904.
9. Tsar Nicholas II’s heir, Alexei, suffered from what disease?
10. Hundreds of protestors were killed by the WinterPalace guards on
Bloody______.
11. Nicholas II signed the ______Manifesto, which granted the people basic civil rights.
12. A mesmerizing Siberian mystic named ______was brought in to help Alexei.
13. Russia lost over ______million men during World War I.
14. The ______Uprisings of 1917 ultimately led to full scale revolution.
15. Tsar Nicholas II was forced to ______, or give up his throne, in March of 1917.
16. Vladimir Lenin’s ______stormed the Duma in October of 1917 leading to a bloody civil war.
17. Who was the last of the Romanov Czars? What happened to him and his family?