March is a bad month for Russian leaders (or: Happy Stalin’s Death Day!)

In a recent tweet, Odile Turcu reminded us that “Generally speaking, March is a bad month for Russian leaders”. She backed up her point with these names, which I’ve expanded upon:

• Tsar Nicholas I — Emperor of Russia, King of Poland and Grand Duke of Finland — who brought Russia into the Crimean War and whose domestic and foreign policies are considered disastrous, died on March 2, 1855.
• Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili (better known to the world as Joseph Stalin) — Chair of the Ministers of the Soviet Union and Supreme Commander of the Red Army — totalitarian and killer of millions by famine, died on March 5, 1953. Happy Stalin’s Death Day!
• Tsar Alexander II — Emperor of Russia, King of Congress Poland and Grand Duke of Finland — pacifist, emancipator of serfs, and generally less of a dick than many historical Russian leaders (a low bar, to be sure) — still was enough of a dick to his lower half blown off by a bomb by the “People’s Will” movement on March 13, 1881.
• Iván IV Vasilyevich (better know to the world as Ivan the Terrible) — grand prince of Moscow and the first to declare himself Tsar of all Russia — general rage-a-holic and purge-a-holic, a-hole behind the massacre of Novogrod and the burning of Moscow by Tatars, and the murder of his own son, died on March 28, 1584.
• Tsar Paul I — son of Catherine the Great and her husband Peter III (or perhaps by her side guy with a name so appropriate it’s almost Dickensian: Sergei Saltykov) — was killed by his own officers on March 24, 1801.

Once again: Happy Stalin’s Death Day!