Michael Speransky: Statesman of Imperial Russia 1772-1839

"An auracy tempered by assassination", clever foreigners used to say about the Russian empire in the 18th and 19th centuries. With this bon mot the average curiosity about the Tsars' government was satisfied and there seemed to be no need to look further into the matter. There was, on the surface of things, some justification for such a definition: many rulers had suffered violent death and little did the auracy abate between 1725 and 1905. The impression created by travelers, by historians...