Vocabulary, grammar and text exercises

1. Analyze the structure of the following words, denote parts of speech and translate the words.

navigator wildfire helpless

anxious unequal oldest

2. Make up pairs of the equivalents.

1. downtrodden 1. дворянин

2. proclaimed 2. тревожный

3. suffrage 3. осужденный

4. an uprising 4. освобожденный

5. anxious 5. мятеж

6. a mutiny 6. рабство

7. a nobleman 7. провозглашенный

8. condemned 8. посвященный

9. servitude 9. восстание

10. devoted 10. избирательное право

11. emancipated 11.угнетенный

3. Pick out a word from each line which is not suitable to others by meaning.

1. downtrodden, oppressed, free

2. servitude, slavery, capitalism

3. a war, a mutiny, an uprising

4. a verdict, a decision, a solution

5. a vessel, a train, a ship

6. a rebel, a revolutionary, a warrior

4. Read the following sentences, find predicates and define the tense-voice forms (choose out of three given).

1. The programme demands formulated by the Decembrists were consistent.

a) Past Indefinite Passive b) Past Continuous Active c) Past Indefinite Active

2. Artillery was brought into action.

a) Past Indefinite Passive b) Past Continuous Active c) Past Indefinite Active

3. The ropes had to be sprung up a second time.

a) Past Perfect Active b) Past Indefinite Active c) Past Perfect Passive

4. More than a thousand soldiers were made to run gauntlet.

a) Past Indefinite Passive b) Past Indefinite Active c) Past Continuous Active

5. A big dry-cargo vessel has been built.

a) Present Indefinite Active b) Present Indefinite Active c) Present Perfect Passive

5. Finish the sentences choosing the correct variant according to the content of the text.

1. … called the Decembrists “ young navigators of the coming storm.

a) Alexander Pushkin b) Alexander Hertzen c) Alexander I

2. The uprising of the Decembrists marked the beginning of …

a) the working class movement b) the Russian noblemen movement

c) the first period of the Russian liberation movement

3. The most revolutionary wing of the Decembrists’ movement was …

a) the Southern Society b) the Northern Society c) the Western Society

4. The Decembrists had to …

a) fight against the Emperor b) take armed action too early

c) take armed action sooner than they expected

5. … joined the Moskovsky Regiment of Life-Guard.

a) a naval unit b) the Grenadier Regiment

c) the Grenadier Regiment and a naval unit

6. The plan …

a) was a success b) ended in failure

7. The failure in a St. Petersburg ..

a) cause despair b) had its continuation c) ended in success in the whole

8. The Decembrists’ movement …

a) proved helpless b) had a great support among people

c) caused a peasant uprising

9. … were condemned to death by hanging.

a) all the Decembrists b) 7 Decembrists c) 5 Decembrists

6. Change the points of the plan according to the content of the text.

1. The reasons of the failure of the uprising.

2. The demands of the Decembrists.

3. Decembrists began the Russian liberation movement.

4. The events at Senate Square.

5. Proofs of the reverence of the memory of the Decembrists.

6. The execution of the Decembrists.

7. The reason of the beginning of the uprising.

7. Find in the text the passages where it is told about the events at Senate Square. Read it and translate.

VIII. Answer the following questions.

1. Why did Hertzen call the Decembrists “young navigators of the coming storm?

2. What were the demands of the Decembrists?

3. Why did they have to take armed actions sooner than they anticipated?

4. What units took part in the events at Senate Square?

5. How did tsarist loyal troops suppressed the uprising at Senate Square?

6. What happened later near Kiev?

7. Why both mutinies end in failure?

8. What happened to five leaders of the movement?

9. How were other participants punished?

10. How do the people revere the memory of the Decembrists?

IX. Render the text.

Text 1

THE SLAVS

THE ESSENTIAL BACKGROUND

The great family of Slav peoples, which occupies most of eastern and south-eastern Europe and the northern portion of the continent of Asia, is composed of East Slavs (Great Russians, Ukrainians, Byelorussians), West Slavs (Poles, Czechs, Lusatians, Slovaks) and South Slavs (Slovenes, Croats, Serbs, Bosnians, Montenegrins, Macedonians and Bulgars).

Divided today into numerous states the mass of approximately 250,000,000 Slavs is particularly dense and homogeneous from the Oder to the Ural River, and from the Adriatic to the Black Sea. To the west and the south the limits of the Slav territories have varied little since the tenth century; only to the eastward has there been any marked extension, beginning in the 16^th century, to reach the Pacific in the 17^th and Central Asia in the 19^th.

Do their history and the characteristic features of their civilization justify us in attempting a comprehensive study, devoted to the Slavs exclusively? Have they a common culture? Is there such a thing as “Slav solidarity”? Truth compels us to quote the following statement by the famous specialist in the Polish language, Baudoin de Courtenay, commenting on the appearance of a new Polish periodical entitles “Slav Civilization”: “There is at the present time no specifically Slav civilization, common to all the Slavs and to none of the other peoples; and in all probability there never has been and never will be.”

The geographical situation of the Slav peoples is sufficient to explain the fact that, in the course of a history which emerges with increasing clarity from the 10^th century onwards, they achieved some degree of political fusion here and there, and from time to time. Prior to the Turkish conquest, the Poles and Czechs, and the Poles, Ukrainians and Byelorussians, and the South Slavs, all experienced brief phases of solidarity in the form of ephemeral kingdoms.

The study of the Slavs nevertheless presents different civilizations and destinies which have grown divergently from a common source. This source, it should be noted, is little more than a convenient fiction with which to veil out ignorance of what was actually going on in the centuries immediately prior to the Christian era. The earliest stirrings of Slav history are visible between the 6^th and 9^th centuries A.D., on the eastern flank of Europe which already had a good deal of recorded history behind it; by that time the Slav peoples had acquired their respective individualities, and these were subsequently molded by circumstances in different and sometimes diametrically opposite ways.

Why then, in this Europe – or rather Eurasia – of which they were and are integral part, should we make a distinct entity out of the Slavs, whose origins are European; who have no anthropological homogeneity which would set them apart from their western neighbours; who do not constitute a race in any meaningful sense of the term; and who have been deeply involved in European history for the last ten centuries?

We must start by the rejecting the view which isolates the Eastern Slavs from Europe and invests them an Asiatic character. True, there was the Mongol conquest, but its influence on Russian society between the 13^th and 15^th centuries was very restricted. Again, there have been Turkish minorities in European Russia, but they were submerged by waves of Slav colonization. And in the 16^th and 17^th centuries there was the occupation of Siberia, a continent which had remained almost uninhabited until the arrival of the Russians. None of these factors justifies us in describing the Eastern Slavs as Asiatics. They came from central Europe in the first place and did not become any less European when they extended their civilization eastwards to the Pacific. (It should be noted in passing that the Ural River has never constituted a barrier; any attempt to make it the frontier of Europe is quite artificial). Even during the period when they were largely subjected to Mongol overlordship and out of touch with the West, their essentially European civilization, the heir to the traditions of both Kiev and Byzantine, remained essentially intact.

It was Byzantium which enabled the South Slavs to survive five centuries of Ottoman occupation. In that part of the Slav world the interpenetration of cultures, though extensive, was superficial. Conversion to Islam was widespread among the Slavs of Bosnia, but never became a vehicle of pan-Turkism. The Greek church and the Slav language together constituted a wall between the Turks and the Bulgars, who were strengthened by the presence of near-by Constantinopole.

The South Slavs, then, must also be accounted Europeans, or a southern type and temperament..

PHONETIC EXERCISES

1. Read the following words paying attention to the way of pronunciation of the stressed vowels.

/e/ comprehensive, ephemeral, destinies, diametrically /ai/, entity

//\/ cover, introduction, justify /ai/, subsequently

/ei/ relating, civilization /ai/, veil

/i:/ features, homogeneous, immediately

/i/ particularly /ju:/, sufficient, convenient, ignorance, visible, integral

/æ/ peculiarities /ju:/, solidarity, clarity, flank, individuality /ju:/

/au/ outline /ai/

/)/ volume /ju:/, occupy /ju:/ /ai/, approximately, common, opposite, origin

/):/ source

/ou/ composed, molded

/ai/ divided, entitled

/ E/ varied

/u:/ exclusively

/ :/ emerges, divergently /ai/, stirrings

/ju:/ fusion

/ai/ prior

/i/ era, experienced

2. Read the following proper names correctly.

Slav /sla:v/, Europe, East Slavs, Great Russians, Ukrainians /’ju:’kreininz/, Byelorussians /’bjelou’r/\∫nz/, West Slavs, Poles /poulz/, Czechs /teks/, Lusatians /lu:’zei∫nz/, Slovaks /’slouvks/, South Slavs, Slovens /’slouvi:nz/, Croats /krouts/, Serbs s:bz/, Bosnians /’b)snjnz/, Montenegrins /,m)nti’neigrinz/, Macedonians /,mæsi’dounjnz/, Bulgars /’b/\lgz/, the Ural River, the Adriatic /,eidri’ætik/, the Black Sea, the Pacific, Central Asia, Baudoin de Courternay, Eurasia, Asiatic, Turkish, Kiev, Byzantian, Ottoman /)tmn/, Islam /’izla:m/, Bosnia, Constantinopole, Mongol, the Oder River.