Tolstoy Now Writing "The Decembrists"

1903

NOVEL ON RUSSIAN HISTORY

Tolstoi Is Now Engaged Writing One To Be Called "The Decembrists."

St. Petersburg, March 16.—Tolstoi is about to realize the dream of his youth. He will bring out a historic romance called "The Decembrists."

The Decembrists were Russian officers, the flower of the nobility, who tried in December, 1825, to overthrow Nicholas I and put on the throne his elder brother, Constantine, who had renounced it, as a constitutional monarch. Tolstoi sketched the plan of the work before writing "War and Peace," and had even begun the story, but he found it hard to continue because he was so little known then and it was hard to get at the documents he needed to study. Now the great libraries of Russia will be open to him. "The Decembrists" will show the origin and causes of the movements.