Option 1: Using the readings and class lectures, list and explain some of the positive and negative aspects of early Russia's copious cultural acquisitions from Byzantine culture. Primary Russian Chronicles, saints' lives, bylinas, tales claim to relate historical facts and events. While we have often found those texts inadequate as objective historical narratives, we think they reflect Russian political and/or religious ideologies, the ways in which Russian authors have given meaning to certain historical events, or have imagined the Russian people.
Option 2: Choose a favorite text from either the course handouts, materials, or a textbook. Offer a few ideas of your own about what kind of story that text is telling us about a particular aspect of Russian culture and what the function or the purpose of that story/text might be. As a point of comparison, you may consider whether American culture has any similar stories/myths/legends/texts on the same theme.