3 h 23 minAudiobook14 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at cost
Audiobook edition · 3 h 23 minPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What happens inside a person when the date of death is known?
In Leonid Andreyev’s The Seven Who Were Hanged, a plot to kill a government minister brings five revolutionaries under sentence of death. Werner, Sergey Golovin, Musya, Tanya Kovalchuk and Vasily Kashirin face hanging alongside two ordinary criminals, Tsiganok and Yanson. They share a sentence, but neither a cause nor a single way of meeting what comes next.
Most of this short Russian novel unfolds in the days before execution. Action gives way to waiting. Werner turns to reflection; Kashirin struggles with open terror. Musya holds to loyalty, while Tanya cares for her fellow prisoners. Through their different responses, Andreyev explores conscience, fear and what society does when it kills in the name of order.
What you’ll discover
- Seven lives under sentence Meet prisoners whose shared fate brings their sharply different inner lives into view.
- The weight of waiting Enter days when little happens outside, yet the knowledge of death changes everything within.
- Loyalty beside terror Follow Musya’s devotion and Kashirin’s fear without reducing either person to a simple answer.
- Care under pressure Watch Tanya turn toward her fellow prisoners as each faces the approaching execution.
- A question of order Consider what a society does to human beings when it condemns them to death.
Who will love it
This book is for readers who love short, intense Russian fiction, close studies of a mind under pressure, and stories about courage, fear and pity in ordinary people.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- Knowing the hour creates its own terror
- Calm faces conceal different inner lives
- Yanson cannot understand his sentence
- Tsiganok hides terror beneath his bravado
- The sentence reaches beyond the prisoner
- Each mind seeks its own refuge
- Terror isolates while love reaches outward
- Ordinary life continues beside approaching death
- Compassion keeps each person in view
Who’s who
- WernerA cold, brilliant revolutionary who has never known fear, and who plays an imaginary chess game in his cell while he waits.
- MusyaThe youngest woman among the condemned, grave and proud, who wants only to prove she is no heroine and to face her end modestly.
- Sergey GolovinA strong, cheerful former officer who loves life, trusts in the word of honor, and does gymnastics in his cell to meet the end well.
- Vasily KashirinA young terrorist who laughs at death while free, then cannot bear the helplessness of the cell, and fights to hide his terror.
- Tanya KovalchukA warm, motherly woman who spends her last days worrying about her comrades and never about herself.
- Ivan YansonA dull, silent Estonian laborer who attacked his master and cannot understand why he should be hanged.
- Mikhail TsiganokA wild peasant murderer from Oryol who jokes, whistles and curses to hide his terror, and hates the thought of dying alone.
- The MinisterA stout, sickly official whose sleepless night of terror opens the story, because he has been told the exact hour of the attack.
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The Seven Who Were Hanged
by Leonid Andreyev · 1908
Five young terrorists, a farmhand and a horse thief face the coming dawn from their prison cells.
Medium levelUnder 2 hours to read2 languages
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In short
What would you feel if someone told you the exact hour of your death? A stout Russian minister learns that terrorists will attack him at one o'clock tomorrow afternoon.
The Seven Who Were Hanged at a glance
- Reading time
- About 1 h 55 min1 h 30 min fast, 2 h 15 min slow
- Length
- 27,300 words
- Library level
- Medium longer sentences, everyday words
- First published
- 1908by Leonid Andreyev
Reading time at 238 words a minute (fast 300, slow 200). How long the classics take to read · Updated
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A minister learns the hour of his death
The story opens with a man of great power. He is a stout minister with weak kidneys, and the police have found a plot against him. Terrorists with bombs and revolvers will wait outside his house at one o'clock tomorrow afternoon.
At first the minister smiles and praises the police. He moves for the night to a friend's palace. But once the lights go out, the quiet turns hostile, and fear rises through him like water. The words at one o'clock in the afternoon ring in his head like a hundred gramophones.
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- 15-minute summary
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Details
- First published
- 1908
- Language
- English
- Level
- Medium level
Cite this edition
Andreyev, Leonid. The Seven Who Were Hanged. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-seven-who-were-hanged.
Andreyev, L. (2026). The seven who were hanged. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-seven-who-were-hanged (Original work published 1908)
Andreyev, Leonid. The Seven Who Were Hanged. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-seven-who-were-hanged.
@book{andreyev2026seven,
author = {Andreyev, Leonid},
title = {The Seven Who Were Hanged},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-seven-who-were-hanged},
note = {First published 1908}
}
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What is The Seven Who Were Hanged about?
It follows seven condemned people, five young revolutionaries who plotted to kill a minister, a farmhand and a horse thief, as they wait in separate cells and ride to the place of execution. It studies what each feels as the hour nears.
Who are the seven in The Seven Who Were Hanged?
They are Sergey Golovin, Musya, Werner, Vasily Kashirin and Tanya Kovalchuk, who plotted the attack, plus Ivan Yanson, an Estonian laborer, and Mikhail Tsiganok, a horse thief and murderer from Oryol.
Why did Leonid Andreyev write The Seven Who Were Hanged?
In his preface he says he wanted to show the horror and injustice of capital punishment under any circumstances. He wrote it during the harsh years after the 1905 unrest, when many people were hanged in Russia.
The author
Leonid Andreyev
1871–1919 · Russian playwright and novelist
Leonid Andreyev (1871–1919) was a Russian writer and playwright. He was born in Oryol and studied law in Moscow, where he worked as a lawyer and journalist. He wrote short stories, novels and plays. The Seven Who Were Hanged appeared in 1908. He died in Finland in 1919.
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