Nicholas the Stick

Leo Tolstoy's suppressed essay attacking corporal punishment under Nicholas I (whose popular nickname "Palkin," from "palka," a stick or cane, gives the essay its title); shown to the Tsar by Pobedonostsev, Lyubimov, and others hostile to Tolstoy in order to discredit him further after "The Kreutzer Sonata" had already found favor, according to the secondhand anecdote Chekhov relays via Professor Storozhenko. The essay's showing is reported to have provoked the Tsar's anger and the order to summon Tolstoy before Prince Dolgorukov.