The student who completes the course successfully will be able to demonstrate a solid knowledge of the main processes and events that have taken place in the history of Russia, in the Soviet Union and in the contemporary Russian Federation starting from the period of Alexander II and his "Great Reforms" until Putin’s second Presidency. He or she will be able to look critically at the main issues of the czarist Empire, the Bolshevik revolution and the Stalin period, the Soviet Union’s role during the Cold War and, last but not least, will have demonstrated the ability to define the social and political dynamics of the Russian Federation after 1991.