Contextualizing State Building Practice Test

In the early modern period, Russia expanded territorially and developed new administrative and military structures. Peter the Great reorganized government through colleges, promoted Western-style military training, built St. Petersburg as a new capital, and imposed new taxes to support war against Sweden. Yet the state relied heavily on coerced labor and the service nobility, and serfdom deepened. Which statement best explains how these reforms fit into European patterns of state-building?

Nineteenth-century nationalism reshaped state-building by linking political legitimacy to a shared language, history, and culture. In both Italy and Germany, political leaders used diplomacy and war to unify fragmented territories while expanding administrative capacity over newly incorporated regions. Which event most directly illustrates state-building through national unification led by a dominant regional state?