Russia: A History Quiz

Question: Who had the ability to heal the son of the Russian emperor Nicholas II, which made him an influential favourite at court?

Answer: Grigori Rasputin was a Siberian peasant and mystic whose ability to improve the condition of Aleksey Nikolayevich, the hemophiliac heir to the Russian throne, made him an influential favourite at the court of Emperor Nicholas II and Empress Alexandra.

Question: What Russian city was the site of a multiyear siege during World War II?

Answer: The multiyear Siege of Leningrad is sometimes referred to as the “900-day siege,” though it actually lasted 872 days. This siege of what is today St. Petersburg by German and Finnish armed forces during World War II began September 8, 1941, and ended January 27, 1944.

Question: Who founded the Soviet Union’s Red Army?

Answer: Leon Trotsky was commissar of foreign affairs and of war in the Soviet Union from 1917 to 1924. He faced the formidable task of building a new Red Army out of the old Russian army and of preparing to defend the communist government against civil war and foreign intervention.

Question: Who was the first popularly elected leader of Russia?

Answer: Boris Yeltsin became president of Russia in 1990 by parliamentary vote. In 1991 he became the first popularly elected leader in the country's history.

Question: With which revolution in Russia is Bloody Sunday associated?

Answer: A massacre of peaceful demonstrators in the square before the Winter Palace, St. Petersburg, on January 9 (January 22, New Style), 1905, came to be known as Bloody Sunday. More than 100 marchers were killed and several hundred more were wounded. It marked the beginning of the violent phase of the Russian Revolution of 1905.

Question: Which American writer was buried with Bolshevik leaders beside the Kremlin wall in Moscow?

Answer: John Reed was an American poet-adventurer whose short life as a revolutionary writer and activist made him the hero of a generation of radical intellectuals. Indicted for treason in the United States, he escaped to the Soviet Union and died of typhus; he was subsequently buried with Bolshevik leaders beside the Kremlin wall in Moscow.