The Just Ones (Les Justes)
Author's IntroductionIn February 1905, in Moscow, a group of terrorists who were part of the revolutionary socialist party organized an attempt on the life of the Grand Duke Serge, uncle of the Tsar. This attempt, and the unusual circumstances leading up to and following it, are the subject of The Just. No matter how extraordinary some of the situations in this play may seem, they are the truth. This is not to say that The Just is a historical play. But all the characters did actually exist, and behaved as I have written. I only tried to make realistic the things which really happened.
I kept the real name of the hero, Kaliayev. I didn't do this from lack of imagination, but out of respect and admiration for those men and women who, in the most contemptible of efforts, were still not able to get rid of their own hearts. Progress has been made since then, it is true, and the hate which weighed down those exceptional souls into intolerable suffering has now become a comfortable system. But that is even more reason to bring back these great ghosts and the story of their justified revolt, their difficult brotherhood, and the unmeasurable efforts they made to put themselves in tune with murder -- and thus to show where their true faith lay.
-- Albert Camus, 1949
O love! O life! Not life but love in death.
Romeo and Juliet, Act IV, Scene 5
Dramatis Personae
- Dora Doublebov
- Boris "Boria" Annenkov
- Stepan Fedorov
- Alexis Voinov
- Ivan "Yanek" Kaliayev
- The guard
- Foka
- Skouratov
- The Grand Duchess
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