The Seven Who Were Hanged

The Seven who were Hanged

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Title: The Seven who were Hanged
Author: Leonid Andreyev
Release Date: October, 2004 [EBook #6722] [Yes, we are more than
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THE SEVEN WHO WERE HANGED
A STORY BY LEONID ANDREYEV

AUTHORIZED TRANSLATION FROM THE RUSSIAN BT
HERMAN BERNSTEIN.

DEDICATION
To Count Leo N. Tolstoy This Book is Dedicated, by Leonid Andreyev
The Translation of this Story Is Also Respectfully Inscribed to Count
Leo N. Tolstoy by Herman Bernstein

FOREWORD
Leonid Andreyev, who was born in Oryol, in 1871, is the most popular,
and next to Tolstoy, the most gifted writer in Russia to-day. Andreyev
has written many important stories and dramas, the best known among
which are "Red Laughter," "Life of Man," "To the Stars," "The Life of
Vasily Fiveisky," "Eliazar," "Black Masks," and "The Story of the

Seven Who Were Hanged."
In "Red Laughter" he depicted the horrors of war as few men had ever
before done it. He dipped his pen into the blood of Russia and wrote
the tragedy of the Manchurian war.
In his "Life of Man" Andreyev produced a great, imaginative
"morality" play which has been ranked by European critics with some
of the greatest dramatic masterpieces.
The story of "The Seven Who Were Hanged" is thus far his most
important achievement. The keen psychological insight and the
masterly simplicity with which Andreyev has penetrated and depicted
each of the tragedies of the seven who were hanged place him in the
same class as an artist with Russia's greatest masters of fiction,
Dostoyevsky, Turgenev and Tolstoy.
I consider myself fortunate to be able to present to the English-reading
public this remarkable work, which has already produced a profound
impression in Europe and which, I believe, is destined for a long time
to come to play an important part in opening the eyes of the world to
the horrors perpetrated in Russia and to the violence and iniquity of the
destruction of human life, whatever the error or the crime.
New York. HERMAN BERNSTEIN.

INTRODUCTION
[Translation of the Foregoing Letter in Russian]
I am very glad that "The Story of the Seven Who Were Hanged" will
be read in English. The misfortune of us all is that we know so little,
even nothing, about one another-neither about the soul, nor the life, the
sufferings, the habits, the inclinations, the aspirations of one another.
Literature, which I have the honor to serve, is dear to me just because
the noblest task it sets before itself is that of wiping out boundaries and
distances.

As in a hard shell, every human being is enclosed in a cover of body,
dress, and life. Who is man? We may only conjecture. What constitutes
his joy or his sorrow? We may guess only by his acts, which are
oft-times enigmatic; by his laughter and by his tears, which are often
entirely incomprehensible to us. And if we, Russians, who live so
closely together in constant misery, understand one another so poorly
that we mercilessly put to death those who should be pitied or even
rewarded, and reward those who should be punished by contempt and
anger -how much more difficult is it for you Americans, to understand
distant Russia? But then, it is just as difficult for us Russians to
understand distant America, of which we dream in our youth and over
which we ponder so deeply in our years of maturity.
The Jewish massacres and famine; a Parliament and executions; pillage
and the greatest heroism; "The Black Hundred," and Leo Tolstoy-what
a mixture of figures and conceptions, what a fruitful source for all