“The time of external slavery and internal liberation” - it is impossible to define this era more accurately than Herzen... Nicholas was not the stupid and soulless despot that he is usually portrayed as. A distinctive feature of his character, which was not at all bad by nature, was his unshakable loyalty to the principles he had once and for all mastered... A doctrinaire by nature, he stubbornly bent life to his formulas, and when life slipped away from under his hands, he blamed it on human disobedience... and steadily followed the same path. He considered himself responsible for everything that was happening in the state, wanted to know everything and manage everything - to know every quarrel between the leader and the governor and to supervise the construction of every guardhouse in the district city - and was exhausted in fruitless efforts to embrace the immensity and bring life into symmetrical order... He not an evil person - he loves Russia and serves its good with amazing selflessness, but he does not know Russia, because he looks at it through the prism of his doctrine.