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Tsar-Liberator's Legacy Evoked

The Union of Right Forces, or SPS, has spearheaded an initiative calling on President Vladimir Putin to officially mark the day Alexander II abolished serfdom 141 years ago. The anniversary falls on Sunday.

The 1861 order -- signed on Feb. 19, according to the old-style Julian calendar -- falls on March 3, according to the Gregorian calendar, which Russia adopted after the 1917 Revolution.

SPS has asked that one of the dates be marked on the calendar and observed with a formal ceremony on the Kremlin grounds.

SPS and a group of writers, politicians and others sent an open letter to Putin on Wednesday, saying, "The creation of such a memorial day is not just an attentive look into the past, but also reflects concern about Russia's future," Interfax reported.

Signatories included SPS leader Boris Nemtsov, historian Leonid Radzinsky, State Duma Deputy Alexander Fomin and NTV anchor Leonid Parfyonov.

The party has also called on the president to resurrect a Kremlin statue to Alexander II pulled down by the Bolshevik government in 1918.

Alexander, the "tsar-liberator," passed a series of watershed acts, including important judicial reform, and was assassinated in St. Petersburg by a revolutionary terrorist's bomb in 1881.

Alexander also eased up on censorship restrictions, prompting some commentators to draw inverse parallels to the Kremlin's current media policies. Others have said that while land used for agriculture is not privatized, serfs' descendants cannot be free.

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