Seven Hanged: The book that started World War One
Make no mistake. 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.
Andreyev’s ill-starred individuals accurately prefigured the real-life assassins of 1914.
.. Of course, Ilić drew from Andreyev’s tale the opposite conclusion from nearly everyone else’s.
Instead of condemning the young activists for their naïve and immoral conduct, he was won over by their idealism, selfless sincerity and courage.
.. Thus did Ilić become the mainspring of the whole enterprise, drawing all his inspiration from Russian literature. You can be sure that he would also have (mis)read Dostoyevsky’s Devils (1872).
.. A 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.