It is striking how closely what is happening in the country today resembles the general mood in the upper reaches of power in the 1870s
The Russian publicist Prince Vladimir Petrovich Meshchersky, a Kammerherr (chamberlain) of Emperor Alexander II, wrote in 1870 to Grand Duke Alexander Alexandrovich and Maria Feodorovna:
All those who are not at court, all who work honestly for the good of the government and of Russia, who are selflessly devoted to the Sovereign and think of the interests of the country, this whole Russia, young, educated and self-sacrificing, has been declared an opposition party