But the fictional story remains.Ī riveting narrative, with several characters and scenes indelible from memory, it proves painfully suspenseful despite our foreknowledge of the ending, losing none of its power to move readers as a story in itself while incidentally arguing against capital punishment. These curious details are now long-forgotten, buried under the historical dust of a hundred years. He definitely started World War One (which is not to say that he caused it). You can be sure that he would also have (mis)read Dostoyevsky’s Devils (1872). Thus did Ilić become the mainspring of the whole enterprise, drawing all his inspiration from Russian literature. Instead of condemning the young activists for their naïve and immoral conduct, he was won over by their idealism, selfless sincerity and courage. Of course, Ilić drew from Andreyev’s tale the opposite conclusion from nearly everyone else’s. Seven Hanged had provided the emotional and intellectual stimulus needed to propel him from revolutionary theory into practical action. It was Ilić who worked out where the assassins had to stand on the day, and Ilić who had welcomed Princip into his mother’s home for several weeks before the attack. This could hardly have been more appropriate – he wanted nothing less – since it was he who had picked up Andreyev’s popular story, translated it, written about it, and then closely followed its details in the real world. The ring-leader, Danilo Ilić, was hanged, in February 1915. He definitely started World War One (which is not to say that he caused it) In the story all five are hanged, together with the two non-political murderers. In both cases five of the accused politicals were sentenced to death by hanging, though there were significant differences in the numbers actually executed. The ages of the five central figures in his story were between nineteen and 28 the Sarajevo party had a similar age-range. Even today, more than a century on, this story will not fail to move new readers, giving many of them strong pause for thought, especially in those parts of the ‘civilised’ world where the barbarous and blundering practice of slaughtering our fellow-citizens is still carried out.Īndreyev’s ill-starred individuals accurately prefigured the real-life assassins of 1914. Somehow he managed to personalise the seven destinies, drawing down upon the condemned prisoners far more understanding and sympathy than blame – whatever they had done – and exposing the atrocity of judicial execution. In gaol they are joined by two condemned common criminals, and the story follows the behaviour and mental processes of all seven as they move towards inevitable death at the end of a rope. Andreyev’s ill-starred individuals accurately prefigured the real-life assassins of 1914
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