Introduction
On April 3rd, 1878, a group of students was beaten up by the locals during a Moscow demonstration. Fyodor Dostoevsky, responding to their plea for sympathy, replied as nicely as he could that the public just didn’t see students as their friends. They saw them as foreign agents, the tools of pro-Western elites who didn’t understand the people — and worse, didn’t respect them.
Gentlemen, if you find anything in my words which contravenes your views, your best plan will be not to get angry with me about it. There is trouble enough without that. In our putrid society, nothing reigns but sheer deception. It can no longer hold together by its own strength. The people alone is strong and steadfast, but between society and the people there have reigned for the last ten years most terrible misunderstandings. When our sentimentalists freed the people from serfdom,* they believed, in full tide of emotion, that the people would instantly take to its bosom that European fraud which they call civilization.* But the people showed itself to be very independent, and now it is beginning to realize the insincerity of the upper stratum in our society. The events of the last couple of years have but strengthened it, and made many things clear to its eyes. Nevertheless, the people can distinguish between its enemies and its friends.
Précis
In 1878, Fyodor Dostoevsky told Moscow students that to heal Russia’s social divisions they would need to acknowledge that the Western European ‘civilisation’ they wanted to impose was an empty promise. Intellectuals had assumed the people would flock to it when serfdom was abolished, but the people had already seen through it ten years ago, and nothing had changed.
(59 / 60 words)
In 1878, Fyodor Dostoevsky told Moscow students that to heal Russia’s social divisions they would need to acknowledge that the Western European ‘civilisation’ they wanted to impose was an empty promise. Intellectuals had assumed the people would flock to it when serfdom was abolished, but the people had already seen through it ten years ago, and nothing had changed.
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Variations:
1.increase the length of this precis to exactly 65 words.
2.reduce the length of this precis to exactly 55 words.
3.introduce one of the following words into the precis: although, because, despite, just, not, or, otherwise, unless.
Word Games
Suggest answers to this question. See
if you can limit one answer to exactly
seven words.
Variations:
1.expand your answer to exactly fourteen words.
2.expand your answer further, to exactly twenty-one words.
3.include one of the following words in your answer: if, but, despite, because, (al)though, unless.
Express the ideas below in a single
sentence, using different words as much as possible.
Do not be satisfied with the first answer you
think of; think of several, and choose the best.
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