The famous Romantic playwright Griboyedov (1795-1829) was Russia’s ambassador to Qajar Persia, where he and all the embassy staff were massacred by a murderous Persian mob. Of that incident, Alecsei Burdew, reminded of Lagrange’s comment on the beheading of Lavoisier, said of that Persian mob, “In its harpy-like frenzy, it destroyed that brilliant, comedic, poetic dramatist, Russia could not produce another like in two centuries or more.”