Author Description

The Decembrists (Декабристы) is an unfinished novel by Tolstoy. Its hero, released from exile in Siberia after 1856, was to have been a participant in the failed Decembrist Uprising of 1825. It was intended as a sequel to War and Peace. It was the second part of a planned trilogy, the third part of which was to be set in 1856. The story contrasts the physical and moral vitality of the returning Decembrist exiles with the decrepitude and artificiality of their contemporaries who remained in Moscow's "club society." Pierre and Natasha Labazov of the Decembrists share characteristics with Pierre and Natasha Bezukov of War and Peace. They are clearly their prototypes. Pierre is absent-minded and idealistic, while Natasha is calm and efficient. The early chapters deal with their arrival in Moscow and their reintegration into society. At the end of a winter's night in 1856, one of the "criminals of 1825" returned "to Moscow, to the heart of Russia... after thirty-five years of exile and a month and a half of travel," accompanied by his wife and their son and daughter, born and raised in the harsh winters of Siberia. This critical reader's edition presents a modern translation of the original manuscript, crafted for the modern reader with clean, contemporary language and simplified sentence structures that clarify his complex Russian phrasing and specific antiquated references. Supplementary material enriches the text with autobiographical, historical, and linguistic context, including an afterword by the translator on Tolstoy’s personal history, impact, and intellectual legacy, an index of the philosophical concepts he employs—emphasizing Existentialism and influence by Schopenhauer—a comprehensive chronological list of his published writings, and a detailed timeline of his life, highlighting the personal relationships that shaped his philosophy.