1818 Alexander II was born

Two hundred years ago, on April 29, 1818, the Russian emperor Alexander II was born, who freed the peasants from serfdom, carried out other important reforms and was killed by revolutionary terrorists from Narodnaya Volya. In Mark Aldanov's novel "Origins" one of the characters says about him like this:

“Our Alexander Nikolaevich is not a bad person and, in any case, the best of the Russian tsars, but the point is not in his merits and demerits: now the question of the fate of Russia is being decided ... Russia is now within a hair's breadth of becoming politically the second England - England with a population three times as large and with a territory seventy times as large.

And the worst thing is that they will end not because of someone's evil will, but simply because of the monstrous frivolity of both sides: stupid dignitaries raging with fat and a handful of young people who want the good of Russia and are as ignorant as the dignitaries.