HIS250: History of Russia

Fall 2008

Essay Assignment #1

DUE OCTOBER 27, 2008

Turn your papers in ELECTRONICALLY to www.turnitin.com (see below) by 5:00 PM, October 27

Turn your papers in as a HARD COPY to your tutorial instructor at the start of your tutorial that week (i.e., on October 29 or 30).

If you miss either of these deadlines, your paper will be considered late, and penalized 3 points per day.

Develop a 4-5 page essay on the following topic.

How did conceptions of power and authority evolve from Kievan Rus’ through to Muscovy?

You might want to consider some of these subsidiary questions. How is leadership conceptualized during these periods? How does it manifest itself in the behavior of individual leaders? What uses for power do individuals have? How does the power of the autocracy affect the everyday life of average Russians? How do later writers, or outsiders see these developments?

This is essentially a small scale research paper, and you should use primary sources as evidence for your argument. Use the sources you’ve been assigned for tutorial readings, or other primary sources from this time. You can find a number of sources on line via the “links” section of my website (http://individual.utoronto.ca/aksmith), scrolling down to Russian History Links: before Peter the Great (before 1700).

Place a word count at the end of the paper (you can find that information easily in most word processing programs).

Number your pages.

Be sure you have a thesis statement. A hint: “the concept of leadership changed between Kievan Rus’ and Muscovy” is not a good thesis statement. A thesis statement should be more specific.

Do not even think of plagiarizing. You will fail the class. If you use outside sources other than those I suggest above (WHICH I DO NOT recommend), cite them in footnotes. For all citations from assigned readings, use parenthetical citations [(Monomakh, 97), for example].

In order to turn your papers in to www.turnitin.com, you must log in and join the class. If you haven’t used the site before, you’ll have to go to the above website and click on “new user.” Once you’ve set up your account, log in for this class.

The course ID: 2450183

The course name: HIS250: History of Russia

The course password: Smith250

I recommend doing this early, so that you don’t run into problems right before the paper is due.