A Cossack Takes the Cross: Prince Menshikov’s Crusade
Journal: Palgrave Macmillan UK eBooks
Year: 2015

On 11 April 1854, Admiral Prince Aleksandr Sergeevich Menshikov, commander of Russian armed forces in the Crimea, made an unexpected appearance on the Paris stage. He did so not in the flesh, but as a character in a new play entitled Constantinople written by Alphonse Arnault and Louis Judicis for the Théâtre Impérial du Cirque. The honour of being thus immortalized was a dubious one, as Menshikov was portrayed as the villain of the piece and the very personification of the Russian aggression th