The Seven Who Were Hanged

[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 kinds of misunderstandings!  The truth of life stands aghast in silence, and its brazen falsehood is loudly shouting, uttering pressing, painful questions:  “With whom shall I sympathize?  Whom shall I trust?  Whom shall I love?”

In the story of “The Seven Who Were Hanged” I attempted to give a sincere and unprejudiced answer to some of these questions.

That I have treated ruling and slaughtering Russia with restraint and mildness may best be gathered from the fact that the Russian censor has permitted my book to circulate.  This is sufficient evidence when we recall how many books, brochures and newspapers have found eternal rest in the peaceful shade of the police stations, where they have risen to the patient sky in the smoke and flame of bonfires.

But I did not attempt to condemn the Government, the fame of whose wisdom and virtues has already spread far beyond the boundaries of our unfortunate fatherland.  Modest and bashful far beyond all measure of her virtues, Russia would sincerely wish to forego this honor, but unfortunately the free press of America and Europe has not spared her modesty, and has given a sufficiently clear picture of her glorious activities.  Perhaps I am wrong in this:  it is possible that many honest people in America believe in the purity of the Russian Government’s intentions—­but this question is of such importance that it requires a special treatment, for which it is necessary to have both time and calm of soul.  But there is no calm soul in Russia.

My task was to point out the horror and the iniquity of capital punishment under any circumstances.  The horror of capital punishment is great when it falls to the lot of courageous and honest people whose only guilt is their excess of love and the sense of righteousness-in such instances, conscience revolts.  But the rope is still more horrible when it forms the noose around the necks of weak and ignorant people.  And however strange it may appear, I look with a lesser grief and suffering upon the execution of the revolutionists, such as Werner and Musya, than upon the strangling of ignorant murderers, miserable in mind and heart, like Yanson and Tsiganok.  Even the last mad horror of inevitably approaching execution Werner can offset by his enlightened mind and his iron will, and Musya, by her purity and her innocence. * * *

But how are the weak and the sinful to face it if not in madness, with the most violent shock to the very foundation of their souls?  And these people, now that the Government has steadied its hands through its experience with the revolutionists, are being hanged throughout Russia-in some places one at a time, in others, ten at once.  Children at play come upon badly buried bodies, and the crowds which gather look with horror upon the peasants’ boots that are sticking out of the ground; prosecutors who have witnessed these executions are becoming insane and are taken away to hospitals-while the people are being hanged-being hanged.

I am deeply grateful to you for the task you have undertaken in translating this sad story.  Knowing the sensitiveness of the American people, who at one time sent across the ocean, steamers full of bread for famine-stricken Russia, I am convinced that in this case our people in their misery and bitterness will also find understanding and sympathy.  And if my truthful story about seven of the thousands who were hanged will help toward destroying at least one of the barriers which separate one nation from another, one human being from another, one soul from another soul, I shall consider myself happy.

Respectfully yours,
Leonid Andreyev.