Russian and Eastern European History Comprehensive Exams
The Graduate Regulations of the History Department govern how all students take the comprehensive examinations and defend the dissertation prospectus. Students should consult those regulations, as well as the day-of-exam rules outlined on the form which they must submit in advance of the examination. As an addition to those general departmental rules, this document outlines the specific regulations of the Russian History field.
The Russian History faculty views the comprehensive examinations as a test of a student's general command of the historical literature in the field necessary for both classroom teaching and professional historical discourse and research. Normally, the exams will test a students' understanding of approximately 100 books (or book equivalents), to be determined by a student's consultation with individual faculty members.
Students may select as their major field either Russian History or Russian and East European History. Students who take the Russian option will prepare four examinations:
1. Muscovite and Imperial Russian History before 1796
2. Imperial Russian History, 1796-1917
3. Soviet and Post-Soviet History, 1917-Present
4. For the fourth examination, students have two choices: (a) a thematic topic within Russian/Soviet history (recent examples have been Russian women's history, Russian church history, Russian/Soviet Central Asia), or (b) a chronological focus within which the dissertation research falls (e.g., the 1930s, the Khrushchev years).
Students who take the Russian and East European History option will prepare four examinations. One will focus exclusively on East European History; the other three will be chosen from the four examinations prescribed above for the Russian option.
Students will take the examination over a two-week period (two exams per week). For each of these exams, they will receive questions to answer over the course of a twenty-four period, be we assume that the time students spend on writing each exam is limited to eight hours in that twenty-four hour period; the length of each exam's response is also limited to no more than ten double-spaced typed pages. Students may use whatever books, notes, and other aids they have prepared, and may take the exams at whatever time during the semester that they pre-arrange with the examining faculty. Students should sign an honor code statement before submitting their answers.
Faculty reading the exams will assign graduate grades to each of its parts. In the event a student receives a grade of L on one part of the comprehensives, he or she will receive a passing grade on the exam, providing the student demonstrates competency in the area during the oral defense of the dissertation prospectus. A student receiving a failing grade (F) on one part of the exam will be allowed to retake that part within six months. A student receiving grades of L or F on two or more parts of the exam will be assigned a grade of fail for the entire exam, and will be allowed to retake it no sooner than three months and no later than six months after having first sat for the exam.