Potemkin. Brikner A.

It is difficult to find a person in Russian history, whose assessments of which would be so different. When Grigory Potemkin died, many rejoiced. Catherine II sincerely grieves and repeated that she had lost her best friend. And to that and to another, he himself gave an occasion. In the character of Potemkin, virtues and vices, brilliant advantages and moral disadvantages coexisted. He was a wonderful statesman and lazy Sibarite, the initiator of great projects and a selfish adventurer, he deeply believed in God and sinned with his nieces. It combines courage and boasting, sophistication and swagger, cynicism and kindness, mind and extravagance. But be that as it may, he annexed Crimea, created the Black Sea Fleet, founded Yekaterinoslav, Kherson, Sevastopol, Nikolaev, carried out reforms in the army and became, like no other, the personification of the heroic Russian of the XVIII century.

Alexander Brikner (1834–1896) - Russian historian of German descent, professor of the university, author of the best to this day of Potemkin's biography.