Vladimir Safronkov: How to become a national hero
By Scott Humor As a story goes, back in the nineteenth-century, a Paris opera house decided to stage a play with insults towards Russia and its monarch, Alexander I. He sent his diplomat to talk to the theater administration and asked them not to stage this sort of Russophobic production; they refused, saying that the French were enjoying freedom of speech and could insult Russians all they wanted. Alexander I
