I'm going to go. He's

a-a-ra-s-s-s-s-a-s-s-a-s-a-s- Welcome to the Russian rulers podcast

episode 58 the ascension of the Great Liberator, Alexander II.

Last week, Nicholas I, brother of Alexander the First, and son of the ill-fated Emperor Paul dies, ashamed of Russia's showing

to date in the Crimean War.

Alexander and his mother, Alexandra, were at Nicholas's side when he died.

According to witnesses, the Tsar apologized to his son for the state of Russia that was left to the 37-year-old.

He then said to Alexander, quote,

Now I shall pray for Russia and you.

After Russia, I loved you above everything else in the world.

Serve Russia.

Then he died.

Alexander II was left with a mess.

Not only was Russia in an unwinnable war, the Western borders with Prussia and Austria were now tenuous,

but the real 800-pound gorilla in the corner was the governmental bureaucracy that was sucking the life out of the country.

No longer was the Tsar in control, the bureaucracy was.

And as Duffy and Ritchie put in their book, Zars, quote,

Before his death, Nicholas acknowledged as such when he commented that Russia was

governed more by Bureau chiefs than by its monarchs.

Alexander was smart enough to know that the war and the border situation were untenable

financially as well as militarily. He needed to extract himself from both

situations and he needed to do it quickly. The events that unfolded six months

...