The Legend of the Tsar and the Decembrist

On September 10, 1856, Major General Alexander Nikolaevich Muravyov was appointed as the governor of Nizhny Novgorod. The biography of the new head of the province was unusually striking. He was born in 1792; at nineteen, he took part in the Patriotic War and received an award for distinction for the Battle of Kulm. By age twenty-four, Muravyov already held the rank of colonel, but in 1816, having become fascinated with ideas brought from abroad, he unexpectedly left military service and, together with Nikita Muravyov, created the first secret society in Russia—the “Union of Welfare.” One step more—and he would have found himself among the Decembrists…