Watch The Decembrists

On the morning of 14 December 1825, members of Russia's top noble families assembled armed troops in Senate Square, St. Petersburg in an attempt to start a revolution against the Tsar. By nightfall, however, after unsuccessful negotiations and several rounds of artillery fire, it was all over. The organizers of the revolt, later called the Decembrists, were arrested and accused of high treason. Five of them were sentenced to death by hanging, the others condemned to penal servitude. Although the plot was a complete failure, it was to have an important and lasting effect on social and economic life in Russia for at least the next fifty years. The story of the Decembrists is full of contradictions and has never been fully unraveled since then. There were professional military men and experienced combat officers among the conspirators, but their actions lacked planning and organization, with everything happening spontaneously and illogically. Instead of killing Nicholas I, as had been planned, the rebels ended up killing instead, for some unaccountable reason, General Miloradovich, the hero of the Napoleonic Wars. And this was only a small part of the "ifs" and "buts" which came to the surface in this complex and involved story. THE DECEMBRISTS is a new two-part docudrama from the creators of the multi-award-winning series, THE ROMANOVS. Together with a team of eminent historians, the producers have pieced together all the events that took place on 14 December 1825 from the beginning to the development and conclusion of the uprising, showing the parts played by the main participants and organizers. A chronologically assembled chain of historical events offers viewers the chance to conduct their own investigation into the case and work out what really happened on that fateful night in Senate Square almost two centuries ago.